Sunday, 27 February 2011
Monday, 21 February 2011
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Just flicking the channels?
Saturday, 19 February 2011
Belated Happy Thanksgiving!
Rob's not to be left out! Must be one of the Half-Term catch up jobs!
Cooking has never looked this fun!
He makes the sun to shine
My sister has been at it again.
Never has biology 'note taking' been so fun.
Well, at least until it turned midnight and she had to speed up the process!! [can you spot that moment? ;)]
Here is photosynthesis (I think):
I don't understand a word, but I love it! Nice one!
Friday, 18 February 2011
The punishment fits the crime
What the story of the Tower of Babel tells us is that there was originally only one pagan, anti-God religion in the world. At the Tower of Babel, God acted to diversify paganism. All the heathen religions in the world have the same basic ideas, but each is slightly different from the rest. One group worships Thor and his kin, another Zeus and his family, another Jupiter and his cohorts. One nation favours Baal, another Chemosh, another Molech, and another Amon-Ra. One group of revolutionary socialists follows Marx-and-Lenin, another follows Marx-and-Mao, another Marx-and-Castro, and another Marx-and-Ho Chi Minh. Still others follow Adolf Hitler. From the Christian point of view there are not many differences between these pagan religions. Each pagan nation has its own "gods", and wars are fought over them.
p58 Primeval Saints: Studies in the Patriarchs of Genesis
Thursday, 17 February 2011
O how I love your Bible Overview!
A Bible overview is a way in to reading the Bible, not a way round. It is like a series of signposts to help us reach the city centre rather than a bypass make it unnecessary for us to go to the city centre at all.xiii Remaking a Broken World -Christopher Ash
Here are two Bible reading plans to download/print off:
Go West!
Renegade Hebrews joined with Nimrod in building the false tower and the false city. The false town was the citadel, the false worship center that was to reach up to the heavens. associated with the renegade Hebrews' tower was the false "lip" or religion of these people. The false city was the culture that was being built around the tower. Associated with Nimrod's city was the language of these people.
God had told both Adam and Noah (Genesis 9:1) to spread out and fill the earth. In rebellion, Nimrod and his cohorts did not want to take dominion. They did not want to build the city of God not gather around his power of true worship, growing slowly and gradually by faith. Rather, like Cain before them, they wanted an instant city, gathered around false religion, built on power and might.p55-56 Primeval Saints: Studies in the Patriarchs of Genesis
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
No use Crying
76!
Over the weekend, there was some debate as to how many trombones led the big parade. It was in fact 76!
Seventy-six trombones led the big parade
With a hundred and ten cornets close at hand.
They were followed by rows and rows of the finest virtuosos,
the cream of ev'ry famous band.
Seventy-six trombones caught the morning sun
With a hundred and ten cornets right behind
There were more than a thousand reeds
Springing up like weeds
There were horns of ev'ry shape and kind.
There were copper bottom tympani in horse platoons
Thundering, thundering all along the way.
Double bell euphoniums and big bassoons,
Each bassoon having it's big, fat say!
There were fifty mounted cannon in the battery
Thundering, thundering louder than before
Clarinets of ev'ry size
And trumpeters who'd improvise
A full octave higher than the score!
Nimrod and Babel
Nimrod was Ham's grandson, though by Cush rather than Canaan. Perhaps the Canaanites were already too slavish to do the kinds of " mighty" works Nimrod did. Nimrod founded two cities that grew into two of the mightiest empires of the ancient world: Babylon and Nineveh (Assyria). Genesis 10: 8 - 12 tells us that he built Babylon first and then moved to the Assyria. The story of the Tower of Babel explains his move.
Cush was the father of Nimrod, who grew to be a mighty warrior on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; that is why it is said, "Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the LORD." The first centres of his kingdom were Babylon, Erech, Akkad and Calneh, in Shinar. Genesis 10:8-10
As we begin the story of the Tower of Babel we read, "now the whole earth used the same language and the same words" (Genesis 11:1). This common translation does not bring out the meaning of the Hebrew, for the word translated language in the verse actually means lip. The phrase "same words" refers to language, but the phrase "same lip" - literally "one lip" - refers to religion*.
Now the idea of speaking one language or another is not absolutely excluded from this word lip (see Isaiah 19:18), but in the context of Genesis 11, there is clearly a difference between the "one lip [confession, ideology]" and the "one words [vocabulary]" of verse one. What happened at the Tower of Babel was not first and foremost a division of languages, but rather a division of religious belief, as we shall see more fully below.Primeval Saints: Studies in the Patriarchs of Genesis
*Zephaniah 3:9; Psalm 81:5; Job 27:4; 33:3; Psalm 12:2-4; 16:4; 40:9; 45:2; 51:15; Isaiah 6:5; 6:7; Malachi 2:6-7
by James Jordan
Yet it doesn't add up
(at the start of Numbers) Israel has strong leadership, a divinely revealed code by which to live, a new sense of national identity and purpose and God's promise to make them successful. Israel knows the basic character of their God. They know what leads their Lord to punish them and have learned how to secure forgiveness. The potential for greatness is well within their grasp. (p153 Old Testament Theology - Paul House)
Monday, 14 February 2011
Thursday, 10 February 2011
How the conversation didn't go
We gain a little insight into the terrible slippage going on in the woman's mind if we conjure up what she should have said. Perhaps something like this: "Are you out of your skull? Look around! This is Eden; this is paradise! God knows exactly what he is doing. He made everything; he even made me. My husband loves me and I love him - and we are both intoxicated with the joy and holiness of our beloved Maker. My very being resonates with the desire to reflect something of his spectacular glory back to him. How could I possibly question his wisdom and love? He knows, in a way I never can, exactly what is best - and I trust him absolutely. And you want me to doubt him or question the purity of his motives and character? How idiotic is that? Besides, what possible good can come of creature defying his Creator and Sovereign? Are you out of your skull?"The God Who is There: Finding Your Place in God's Story
, p31-32.
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
The extraordinary local church
The thesis of this little book is that the ordinary local Christian church contains within itself the seeds, or the DNA, of a remade world. That will seem a very surprising thesis to those who think the local church is a complete irrelevance to the real world; and it will be greeted with ironic smiles by those whose experience of local churches is one of strife and tension. But I believe it to be true.
I want to persuade us to commit ourselves wholeheartedly to belonging to, and serving God is in the fellowship of, a local chruch; and that this may prove to be the most significant thing we do with our lives. I want to convince us that the local church is at the heart of the Bible story, that it is close to the hearts of the purposes of God, and that it is how broken world will be remade.Remaking a Broken World
pxi
Nothing I do is my fault
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| Click to view |
In preparation for our HouseGroup tomorrow I am reading ch 1 of Remaking a Broken World (Christopher Ash) again. And Christopher Ash 'quotes' this Calvin and Hobbes Cartoon as he illustrates the way that Adam and Eve paint themselves as victims in Genesis 3.
edgehill 2011 commercials: vote now!
So the Superbowl XLV had some great commercials.
But making these cost a couple of million, needed amazing CGI special effects, involved highly paid actors and took weeks or even months to make!
At the recent edgehill reunion we had a budget of £5, 3 props we HAD to use and 2 hours to dream up, script, cast and then film an advert for edgehill 2011: space odyssey.
Judge for yourselves how successful we have been (click here) & join in VOTING for the best one! Voting closes on 22nd February!
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
The greatest of men
If we knew nothing about Jesus except what was spoken of Him by His opponents, He would still appear as the most lovable of beings ever to have to walk of this earth. The Pharisees say to Him, 'Master, we know that Thou art true and teachest the way of God in truth' (Matthew 22:16). Pilate declares to the angry crowds: 'I am innocent of the blood of this just person' (Matthew 27:24). The man who passed the sentence of death upon Jesus knew Him to be a 'just person'.
Judas cried: 'I have betrayed innocent blood' (Matthew 27:4). Jesus was innocent even in the mind of the man who betrayed Him.
The crowds who stood at the foot of the cross mocked Him shouting: 'He saved others; Himself He cannot save' (Matthew 27:4). Even in their mockery they had to acknowledge that He had in fact 'saved others'! In their reviling they uttered one of the greatest truths of the story of salvation. (Soviet Saints - Richard Wurmbrand, p8)
Monday, 7 February 2011
The Tide is Rising
Preparations are speeding up for this half-term's Seaside Rock!
3 mornings of seaside fun (in Tipton!).
3 mornings of seaing (sea what I've done there?) who Jesus is through the eyes of Peter.
Sea-riously good news.
Sea you there?
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