Brits Abroad

I have been enjoying Graeme Swann's video diaries from Down Under on what I am hoping will be a very good Ashes tour. For some dangerous reason I am almost quietly confident about it all. But I have been there before! 

'Unaccustomed as I am to public lying ...'

Most people would deplore the criminal who perjures himself in court, but we have become accustomed to politicians, business men, journalists and sportsmen who lie to cover their poor judgement, insider deals, bent informers or drug taking. A society can never be healthy or secure when lies form part of its unwritten code in politics, economics, the media - or religion. p246 The Ten Commandments for Today

Why bother with expository preaching?

Untitled from The Proclamation Trust on Vimeo.

The myth of absolutely free speech

The dream of absolute free speech is a myth and a delusion. No society has ever granted it. We do not recognise the right of a man to shout 'fire!' in a crowded theatre, not to call for the execution of the President, nor to publish totally false and malicious statements with respect to a man. Speech must be responsible to be free, and there is a social necessity for freedom of responsible speech. (p577 The Institutes of Biblical law: A Chalcedon study with three appendices by Gary North)

Handling one another with care

Q. 77. What is required in the ninth commandment?
A. The ninth commandment requires the maintaining and promoting of truth between man and man, and of our own and our neighbor’s good name, especially in witness-bearing.

Q. 78. What is forbidden in the ninth commandment?
A. The ninth commandment forbids whatsoever is prejudicial to truth, or injurious to our own, or our neighbor’s, good name. 

[Westminster Shorter Catechism]

WWJD?

They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach.  22 The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.  23 Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out,  24 "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are--the Holy One of God!"  25 "Be quiet!" said Jesus sternly. "Come out of him!"  26 The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.  27 The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, "What is this? A new teaching--and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him."  28 News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.  29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew.  30 Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her.  31 So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them.  32 That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed.  33 The whole town gathered at the door,  34 and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.  35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.  Mark 1:21-35  

Mark...is describing a typical Sabbath day in the life of our Lord. He provides us with a concrete description of Jesus' Sabbath life so that we can meditate upon it and take it as a pattern for our own observance of the Lord's Day. The delightful thing is that Mark gives us a vision for the entire day, beginning with corporate worship and extending to works of mercy and necessity as well as fellowship. (p70 The Taste of Sabbath: How to Delight in God's Rest)

Dr Who?

...the past is not subject to the kinds of controls and observation that science requires. Interpreting the past involves guesswork to a far greater degree than observational science, and thus there is far more room for presupposition and assumptions to play a role. (p126 Creation in Six Days: A Defense of the Traditional Reading of Genesis One)

Lying is a failure to honour

... the eighth through tenth commandments all deal in some way with property law. One may even summarize the 'second table of the law' by saying that the fifth commandment requires respect for others, which means that we may not unjustly take life (sixth commandment), a spouse (seventh), or property (eighth through tenth). DOCTRINE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE (Theology of Lordship) p831

take your time

From here, ten ways we might steal at work:-

• making personal copies
• using the company's fax machine for personal use
• taking longer coffee or smoke breaks. Do you take 15, 20 or 25 when you're supposed to take only 10 minutes?
• getting and making personal phone calls at work.
• running personal errands on company time. You know, running by the bank to deposit your check when you were on your way to the post office for your boss, or even worse, stopping at the dress shop to browse, while running errands for the office...tsk, tsk...
• making long distance phone calls, or using your company's cell phone for personal calls, tons of them.
• usurping company time for personal things such as....napping or daydreaming, doodling, painting your fingernails, reapplying makeup, snacking, balancing your checkbood, cleaning out your purse, listening to the ball game or watching tv, reading your romance novel, gabbing and gossiping.
• taking pens, paperclips, manila folders, rolls of tape, staples or stapler, ruler, stamps, whiteout, envelopes or paper for home and personal use.
• surfing the web, playing pc games such as solitare, looking at porn...uhoh!
• taking a longer lunch break.
• getting to work late and leaving early but logging in and out on time. Ten minutes late, leaving 15 minutes early every day or so...just think about how those minutes add up! 20 minutes a day times five working days, almost two hours a week, after one year you will have gotten paid for 96 hours that you did NOT work! Now that's stealing!

Cradle to Grave

When is 53% extraordinary?

The share of our economy taken up by the government (ie the public sector) is now 53 per cent; in Communist China the figure is 25 per cent. Even at the peak of the Soviet Union the figure was only 70 per cent. At the height of Britain’s economic power in the Victorian era, the figure was 10 per cent. James Delingpole

I don't know where the information comes from to back these figures up. Are they right? 

But if they are anything close to being right then it is extraordinary:

a) that this is the case and b) that this isn't seen by most people as extraordinary (and extraordinarily bad at that!). 

Run rabbit, run, run, run

Photoshop gives the evolutionary edge to anything!

I once watched a stoat hunt down and kill a rabbit - just the kind of 'selective pressure' that should (according to Darwinian principles) cause the emergence of a tribe of super-rabbits that could outrun stoats. No problem with that. But natural selection is never going to endow cabbages with a turn of speed sufficient to outrun their rabbit  predators, because cabbages can't move in the first place.

Natural selection can only work by preserving or 'selecting' fortuitous improvements in some functional aspect of the organism.  

...complex biological systems cannot evolve step-by-step as taught by new-Darwinianism, because until they have become functioning systems they serve no purpose and natural selection cannot operate upon them. In asking how a irreducible complex system could arise, we're not asking how rapid-rabbits might evolve from also-rans but how a cabbage might grow legs.

 p75-76 Who Made God? Searching For a Theory of Everything

You will not steal

Patron Saint of Thieves

The thing that is forbidden in this commandment, is meddling with another man's property. 

The causes of theft: 
1. Internal Causes
a. Unbelief: 'Can God spread a table for me? says the unbeliever. No, he cannot. Therefore he is resolved he will spread a table for himself, but it shall be at other men's cost, and both first and second course shall be served in with stolen goods.' 
b. Covetousness (e.g. Joshua 7:21) 

2. External Causes
a. Satan 'The devil is the great master-thief, he robbed us of our coat of innocence, and he persuades men to take up his trade.'

The kinds of theft: 
1. Stealing from God 
2. Stealing from others 
a. the highway thief (who takes by stealth or force from a 'neighbour')
b. the house-thief (who filches out of his 'master's' belongings)
c. the thief that shrouds himself under law (the unjust accountant or lawyer etc.)
d. the church-thief (Ezekiel 34:2, 8)
e. the shop-thief (who steals in the course of business) 
f. the usurer
g. the trustee
h. the borrower 
i. the receiver of stolen goods 

[What makes this sin especially grievous? 
1. To steal when there is no need (to be a rich thief)
2. To steal church goods 
3. To commit theft against the checks of conscience
4. To rob the vulnerable (Exodus 22:23) or poor (2 Samuel 12:5)]

Unoriginal sin

3. Stealing from ourselves 
a. by stinginess 
b. by foolishly wasting our opportunities and wealth (Luke 15)
c. by laziness
d. by becoming responsible for the debts of others 

Uses of this commandment: 
-> 'Property must be respected; God has set this eighth commandment as a hedge about a man's estate, and this hedge cannot be broken without sin. If all things be common, there can be no theft, and so this commandment would be in vain.' 
-> to rebuke those who live by theft instead of living by faith (2 Thessalonians 3:12; Luke 19:8) 
-> for all so that we would take heed of this heinous sin of thieving ... seeing it for what it  is and not excusing it THAT we would not sin. 
How do we avoid stealing? 
1. Live in a calling (Ephesians 4:28)
2. Be content with what God has given you (Hebrews 13:5) 
Thomas Watson '10 Commandments'

Stealing - 1st Base

What is stealing?
In a narrow sense:
1. Property theft (Exodus 22:4, 7)
2. kidnapping or manstealing (Exodus 21:16; Deuteronomy 24:7; 1 Timothy 1:10)
3. Swindling (Jeremiah 22;13-17; Amos 8:4-6; Habakkuk 2:9-10)  
4. Stealing from widows and orphans (Matthew 23:14) 
5. Defrauding employees (James 5:8)
6. Land theft (Isaiah 5:8)
7. Unjust weights (Leviticus 19:35-36; Deuteronomy 25:15)
8. Misleading someone for economic gain (Proverbs 20:14)

In a broader sense:
1. Stealing affection (2 Samuel 15:6)
2. False prophets, who steal God's word from the people and proclaim their own words as God's (Jeremiah 23:30)
3. False religious leaders as thieves and robbers (John 10:1)
4. Merchandising in the temple (Matthew 21:13)
5. Robbing God of tithes and offerings (Malachi 3:8; cf. Joshua 7:11)

p798 DOCTRINE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE (Theology of Lordship)