When I am afraid

wake up for England!

my favourite advert at the moment! 

Fun in the Sun

one day at a time

I only dread one day at a time. 

I got this quote from p27 of this book: Running Scared: Fear, Worry and the God of Rest


God willing, I will be preaching on 'worry' this coming Sunday evening. Well, I hope to be preaching more about who God is in the face of our worries.
It will be our Harvest Service. Matthew 6 & Exodus 16 make the link between worry and food. So I hope it 'fits' in an interesting way. [I'm tempted to say, I am worried it won't! But I will resist that temptation.]

Passive Aggressive Sins

“So much attention is paid to the aggressive sins, such as violence and cruelty and greed with all their tragic effects, that too little attention is paid to the passive sins, such as apathy and laziness, which in the long run can have a more devastating effect.” Elizabeth Franklin

establish the work of our hands

this week's memory verse

Mark - the action movie

Matthew's gospel moves in a leisurely fashion from a genealogy to the beginning of Jesus' ministry in four chapters; Mark has Jesus born, baptised, tempted, and calling disciples before he is halfway through the first chapter.

If Matthew presents Jesus as a new Moses, as a Rabbi or Teacher, Mark presents Him as a man of action, always on the move, a new David, the Warrior.

The Four: A Survey of the Gospels

yeah ... that's right

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I will begin.

The possibility that the evangelists wrote their books to be read as wholes (probably out loud in the congregation), and that they designed them in such a way that the hearer would be led effectively from theme to theme, building up the total picture in the manner of a good novelist, seldom occurs to us. 

Divine Government: God's Kingship in the Gospel of Mark (p6)

My Marvelous Metronome

good medicine

Where's your head at?

In the sand? 

In the clouds?

Screwed on? 

Keeping it while all around are losing theirs?

To get the context read this article in The Briefing.

60 million at least

It is impossible to say how many Christians there are in China today, but no-one denies the numbers are exploding.


The government says 25 million, 18 million Protestants and six million Catholics. Independent estimates all agree this is a vast underestimate. A conservative figure is 60 million. There are already more Chinese at church on a Sunday than in the whole of Europe.

BBC

Corporal Punishment in the Bible

William Webb has just written a book about smacking. Thomas Schreiner summarises: 

If we truly followed what the OT teaches about corporal punishment, according to Webb, our “discipline” would be much more severe. He insists, for example, that those who spank can’t (if they truly follow the OT) apply age limitations or limit the number of “smacks.” Webb appeals to the overlap between corporal punishment texts and cases in which slaves or those who violated the law were punished (Exod. 21:20-21; Deut. 25:1-3). It is clear from these comparative texts, Webb argues, that punishment of children was much more severe than those who advocate spanking today would tolerate. Nor can we apply spankings to the buttocks alone, for we see in Proverbs (e.g.,Prov. 10:13; 19:29; 26:3) that fools were struck on the back. Furthermore, bruises and welts were inflicted on slaves and criminals, and hence those who favor spanking today are inconsistent when they claim spanking should not leave marks on children.

To read Schreiner's evaluation of this argument click here.

HT: Justin Taylor