Archive for category: everything

yep..

Viva la libertad — A Friend

I recieved this today from the biblical-studies mailing list, from Dr Jim West:

Listers who receive any mail from something called ‘grouply’ should rest assured that it is nothing but spam. persons sending it claiming to be list participants are deceiving, if possible, even the elect.

That last bit just cracks me up.

Andrew over at the tallskinnykiwi blog notes that there is a new Larry Norman documentary called “fallen angel” by David Di Sabatino.

He quotes this statement by Di Sabatino regarding a controversy over this movie:

“I think that if you or I met the prophet Ezekiel or Hosea brought his whore wife over for dinner or John the Baptist sat at your table and demanded to be fed locusts and honey, we’d call the cops never mind anathematize them. I always ask people when they start parsing the life of Elvis or Bono or some lesser mortals and whether they are heaven bound what their reaction would be if the Apostle Paul showed up a few years after his conversion to speak in your hometown church, and he had been responsible for killing your parents. Not likely you’d be dropping a bundle in the offering that night.”

Quite profound I thought.

link to movie

John Samson posted this here

I thought it should be repeated… often.

1. Expositional Preaching

This is preaching which expounds what Scripture says in a particular passage, carefully explaining its meaning and applying it to the congregation. It is a commitment to hearing God’s Word and to recovering the centrality of it in our worship.

2. Biblical Theology

Paul charges Titus to “teach what is in accord with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1). Our concern should be not only with how we are taught, but with what we are taught. Biblical theology is a commitment to know the God of the Bible as He has revealed Himself in Scripture.

3. Biblical Understanding of the Good News

The gospel is the heart of Christianity. But the good news is not that God wants to meet people’s felt needs or help them develop a healthier self-image. We have sinfully rebelled against our Creator and Judge. Yet He has graciously sent His Son to die the death we deserved for our sin, and He has credited Christ’s acquittal to those who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus’ death and resurrection. That is the good news.

4. Biblical Understanding of Conversion

The spiritual change each person needs is so radical, so near the root of us, that only God can do it. We need God to convert us. Conversion need not be an emotionally heated experience, but it must evidence itself in godly fruit if it is to be what the Bible regards as a true conversion.

5. Biblical Understanding of Evangelism

How someone shares the gospel is closely related to how he understands the gospel. To present it as an additive that gives non-Christians something they naturally want (i.e. joy or peace) is to present a half-truth, which elicits false conversions. The whole truth is that our deepest need is spiritual life, and that new life only comes by repenting of our sins and believing in Jesus. We present the gospel openly, and leave the converting to God.

6. Biblical Understanding of Membership

Membership should reflect a living commitment to a local church in attendance, giving, prayer and service; otherwise it is meaningless, worthless, and even dangerous. We should not allow people to keep their membership in our churches for sentimental reasons or lack of attention. To be a member is knowingly to be traveling together as aliens and strangers in this world as we head to our heavenly home.

7. Biblical Church Discipline

Church discipline gives parameters to church membership. The idea seems negative to people today – “didn’t our Lord forbid judging?” But if we cannot say how a Christian should not live, how can we say how he or she should live? Each local church actually has a biblical responsibility to judge the life and teaching of its leaders, and even of its members, particularly insofar as either could compromise the church’s witness to the gospel.

8. Promotion of Christian Discipleship and Growth

A pervasive concern with church growth exists today – not simply with growing numbers, but with growing members. Though many Christians measure other things, the only certain observable sign of growth is a life of increasing holiness, rooted in Christian self-denial. These concepts are nearly extinct in the modern church. Recovering true discipleship for today would build the church and promote a clearer witness to the world.

9. Biblical Understanding of Leadership

What eighteenth-century Baptists and Presbyterians often agreed upon was that there should be a plurality of elders in each local church. This plurality of elders is not only biblical, but practical — it has the immense benefit of rounding out the pastor’s gifts to ensure the proper shepherding of God’s church.

Episode 13 contained one of the best quotes ever:

“that was the man who invented the radio dissing jack the ripper”.

Classic.

Well, I think finally Dr Jim West has lost it.

I thought this movie was decent. Reeves acts brilliantly in movies that he has to play a mechanical, expressionless being, Matrix and this movie being case in point.

I thought the story was told well. It appears the key point that they wanted to get across was that “when you are at a crisis point, it is only then you can truly change”. As a Christian that totally resonates with me.

Although, rather than being able to change ourselves, we recognise that we cant change our own nature, only God can change us through the spirit.

I thought ultimately this movie was better than I Am Legend, which pretty much sucked, and was better than hancock too. I’m a will smith fan, but he seems to have gone downhill lately.

It appears that the only way you can get a half decent movie is to rehash one from years ago.

Well, I’m fat. Yup. I am. I have been everr since I was 13.

ANYWAY… I have been put on a list to get a stomach stapling operation. Bariatric surgery I think its called. I have to lose 13 KG before Feb before they’ll do it though. Problem is, if I could lose 13KG I wouldnt need the surgery!

Talk about a quandry.