Another good porn article.
This is a great article on the destructive nature of pornography.
Pornography, by its very nature, leads to insatiability. One picture, stored in the memory, will never be enough to continue arousing a man. God, after all, designed the man and the woman to be satisfied not with a single sex act but with an ongoing appetite for each other, for the unitive and procreative union of flesh to flesh and soul to soul. One seeking the mystery outside of this covenantal union will never find what he is looking for. He will never find an image naked enough to satisfy him.
Life is a precious gift of God. Are our medical professionals losing sight of this?
A TERRITORIAN has woken from the dead.
Gloria Cruz was diagnosed as being “brain dead” by a team of doctors after suffering a massive stroke.
But her distraught husband Tani begged them not to switch off her ventilator.
“I’m a Catholic – I believe in miracles,” he told them.
A doctor finally agreed to put a breathing tube into Mrs Cruz’s throat before turning off the machine.
And three days later, she woke up. Mrs Cruz, 56, is now alert and getting around in a wheelchair at Royal Darwin Hospital.
Her husband said: “She’s well on the way to recovery.”
He said the family never gave up hope.
“We have a strong faith and always believed that God would help us.”
Ms Cruz had a stroke in her sleep on March 7 and was rushed to Royal Darwin Hospital.
After a CAT scan, a doctor said she probably had a brain tumour. Mr Cruz, 51, who works as a forecaster at the Darwin Met Bureau, said: “The doctor didn’t elaborate. He just said I should prepare myself.” His wife underwent brain surgery immediately.
“The moment I saw my wife in the ICU I thought I’d collapse,” he said.
“I couldn’t believe that I was looking at the woman I have loved for 27 years. She was not my wife. Her face was swollen. Her hair was gone. Tubes were inserted in her mouth. There was a tube in the top of her head. Another in her hands. And she was lying almost lifelessly.”
Doctors said the case was “hopeless” and she would probably die within 48 hours.
When a doctor recommended that the ventilator be removed and Mrs Cruz be allowed to die, her husband told them: “A miracle could still happen. I told him that God knows how much I love her – that I don’t want her to suffer but I don’t want her to leave us.”
Mr Cruz asked for a 48-hour respite. A doctor, social worker and patient advocate later rang him and again asked him to agree to have the ventilator turned off.
After two weeks, a breathing tube was inserted in Mrs Cruz’s mouth and the ventilator was turn off.
Hospital staff were stunned when she woke from her coma three days later.
A doctor was so amazed, he said: “It’s a miracle.”
And then he turned to Mr Cruz and said: “I am happy that my prognosis was wrong.”
May 11th 2011
I love reading practical howtos like this written by godly men with runs on the board.
Ten point checklist for sermon preparation and delivery (we all need good methods)
via Bishop John » Sermon Preparation by Bishop Paul Barnett.
Classic Carson with some real sting.
The Christian gospel is news to be preached:
‘… it is not surprising that Paul speaks of the foolishness of what was preached rather than the foolishness of what was taught, or discussed, or reasoned over… the gospel is primarily displayed in heraldic proclamation: the gospel is announced, proclaimed, preached, precisely because it is God’s spectacular news.
So when one hears the frequently repeated slogan, “Preach the gospel – use words if necessary,” one has to say, as gently but as firmly as one can, that this is smug nonsense,’ page 158.
His footnote references the apocryphal link of this phrase to St. Francis of Assisi.
In contrast to so many today that seek to extract an ethical ‘gospel’ from the teaching corpus of the Gospels, Carson rightly challenges:
‘All that the canonical Gospels say must be read in the light of the plotline of these books: they move inevitably toward Jesus’ cross and resurrection, which provides forgiveness and the remission of sins. That is why it is so hermeneutically backward to try to understand the teaching of Jesus in a manner cut off from what he accomplished; it is hermeneutically backward to divorce the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels from the plotline of the Gospels,’ page 160.
Great stuff.
The article can be found in the anthology: “For the Fame of God’s Name – Essays in Honor of John Piper”, edited by Storms and Taylor, Crossway Books 2011.
Christian unity is a unity in one mind, one truth. It is one mind about Jesus and the gospel. It is a common mind imitating the servant leadership of Jesus. It is a concern for each other as well as Christ. It is contrasted with those whose minds are focussed on earthly things.
phronew – to think, hold an opinion, judge, to set ones mind on, be intent on, to develop an attitude based on careful thought (BDAG)
Phil 1:7 – “It is right (diakion) for me to think this way (phronein) about all of you, because you hold me in your heart”
Phil 2:2 – “make my joy complete; be of the same mind (phronayte), having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind (phronountes)”
Phil 2:5 – “Let the same mind (phroneite) be in you that was in Christ Jesus”
Phil 3:15 “Let those of us then who are mature (teleioi) be of the same mind (touto phronwmen); and if you think differently about anything (ti eterws phroneite), this too God will reveal to you”
Phil 3:19 – “Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on (ta epigeia phronountes) earthly things”
Phil 4:2 – “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind (to auto phronein) in the Lord”
Phil 4:10 – “I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern (phronein) for me; indeed, you were concerned for me (ephroneite), but had no opportunity to show it”
This weekend is the Xpose preaching conference in Melbourne… If you want to pick up expository preaching or sharpen your skills.
Melbourne needs an army of expository preachers.
Excellent discussion in this article and the following comments on running a Church vestry/council:
Effective church governance | Church life | Sydneyanglicans.net.
Something that I noticed at my old church and confirmed at my new church is that Gen X/Y church musicians use Youtube as the major form of sharing and spreading new songs for church.
In fact I first noticed this a few years ago when wedding couples were using Youtube to lookup different processional tunes from a list I had given them.
Hillsong and many others have all their material on Youtube, including updated arrangements. New band members don’t know that song? Email them a youtube link. Or watch it on Youtube from someones smart-phone at the music practice.
Would be great if other evangelical stables of church music would follow suit: Sovereign Grace Music, EMU Music, Colin Buchanan. Copyright paranoia is limiting the spread of great content here. I own every Colin Buchanan CD/DVD/Music Book – but you can’t beat the simple ubiquity of Youtube.
In fact Hillsong take it a step further – they not only put on their official material but they don’t take down other people/churches/bands putting up arrangements of their music. (though I just noticed an official HillsongVEVO channel that blocks the content to AU – fail)
From the Autumn 2011 CMS Checkpoint magazine:
David Williams is praying for a one-off gift of $6 million to redevelop the St Andrew’s Hall accommodation block, built as a temporary structure in the 1960s
What a great prayer for a great cause!
You can even give online.
So what does: “Deus meus et omnia” mean?
A bunch of websites claim it is the motto for the Franciscan order who translate it: “My God and my all”. However Wikipedia says the Franciscan motto is “Pax et bonum”.
In Knowing God, J. I. Packer ascribes the phrase to Martin Luther and translates: “God is mine and everything is mine,” p143.
The Packer quote is awesome (very Romans 8:31-32), but is it right? Confusing.
For the Fransican option you would expect ‘meus’ to be genitive not nominative, right? (although Thomas’ “My God” in John 20:28 is ‘Deus meus’)
For the Packer/Luther way you would expect ‘meus’ to be accusative tense, right? However it seems to be nominative! Any Latin gurus out there?…
The committee set the dates of the Ridley preaching conference well ahead of time. We did consider moving our date after hearing about the John Piper conference in the same week. But we decided not to.
My thoughts on what is good about the Oxygen/John Piper conference:
But, here is why I think you should consider coming to the Ridley Preaching Conference (RPC) instead:
I wish I could go to both conferences, but even if they were on at different times it would be hard to justify going to both in one year. I pray both conferences increase the quality and quantity of Christ-exalting expository preaching across the pulpits of our nation and beyond.
The Ridley Annual Preaching Conference is on Tuesday 30th August – 1st September 2011.
This is a great conference, our third year of encouraging passionate and challenging Aussie expository preaching.
Our speakers are both Aussies: Ed Vaughan and Murray Capill.
The emphasis this year is on application in preaching – preaching that sings and stings. Too often expository preaching is criticised as lacking relevance. We aim to address this head on.
Yes it is on at the same time as the John Piper Oxygen conference in Sydney. I’ll post later as to why I think the Ridley one is a better choice!
Ridley Melbourne, Theological College – Annual Preachers’ Conference.
Good analysis and critique of modern educational values and literacy:
If the twentieth century was called the Age of Anxiety, the twenty-first should be called the Age of Ignorance. To coin (or rather, purloin) a phrase, never in human history has so much knowledge been available and accessible, and yet so little curiosity or effort been expended by so many in response to it.
via Quadrant Online – The Decline of Reading in an Age of Ignorance.
The Fulfilment of Old Testament Prophecy and Hope
There are so many Old Testament hopes and prophecies that come together in the resurrection. God promised King David there would always be a Davidic King on the throne: “Your house and your kingdom shall endure for ever before me, your throne shall be established for ever” (2 Samuel 7:16). This failed hope is fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus, the descendant of David who will rule forever at God’s right hand (Psalm 110:1, Psalm 16, Psalm 132).
The resurrection affirms God’s commitment to his created order which is assumed throughout the Bible.
The resurrection makes Jesus the head of a restored humanity, the new Adam.
The more I read my Bible the more I see how much all the Bible’s hopes centre and are perfectly executed through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The Existence of the New Testament
The New Testament is an extraordinary collection of documents. Multiple authors, mostly independent, all testifying to the same historical events and reality. The groundswell of careful copying of these documents is amazing.
The resurrection accounts have the sense of authentic testimony, they feel real. They are imperfect enough such that they definitely do not appear to be made up.
It is hard to explain the shape and resurrection focus of the New Testament other than by the fact of the resurrection of Jesus.
Many Many Eyewitnesses:
(This table taken from Little, “Know Why You Believe”, p45.)
This claim that many people witnessed the resurrection is important for these reasons:
The New Day of Worship:
Pliny and other historical writers of the first century note the specific tradition of Christians to meet on the first day of the week – Sunday, corresponding to “The Lord’s Day”, that is, the day of the Resurrection.
Yet the the Christian “sect” emerged out from the disciplined religion of Old Covenant Judaism. One of the most core beliefs of the Jews was the Sabbath day (on the Saturday). This was one of their most cherished and distinctive beliefs. What would cause so many Jews to join this new movement and give up the Sabbath for the “Lord’s day”?
Why did the Apostles suffer so much for their message?
Acts 12:1 It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. 2 He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. 3 When he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. 4 After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.
“I [Paul] stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection”… The dispute became so violent that the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them… (Acts 23:6, 10)
“I [Paul] have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. 27 I have laboured and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.” 2 Corinthians 11:23-27
