But Take Heart

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world."

These words from Jesus constitute my favourite Bible verse in John 16:33 (I've posted on this before here & here). 

I like the fact that trouble is just part of the human condition. Jesus didn't say we were being tested or refined, nor is there a suggestion that god is a malevolent being that relishes in visiting bad upon mankind. Nope, trouble is simply a fact of life, full stop.

Women Of Worth

A good friend posted this great quote from Wesley on Facebook yesterday with this scripture from 2 Timothy 1:5 - “I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also”.

There is so much truth contained in there and when one considers how the Word teaches us that we should instruct a child in the ways of the Lord it makes infinite sense.

A Time Of Exile

We do love a bit of Tom Wright, so excuse us for taking a look at this recent article about him and his new book (God and the Pandemic) on Time.

Exile is classic biblical language and is appropriate for this time under the coronavirus pandemic in which our church buildings were forced to close. The Israelites experienced a number of periods of exile, the two best known being their time in Egypt and their time in Babylon, which most people will know from Boney M's 1978 song version of Psalm 137 "By the rivers of Babylon...".

Genesis

If you've followed FTM for any length of time you'll know that we're big fans of N.T Wright, and this just makes us love him even more.

Enjoy...

Topsy Turvy Kingdom

I was stood outside The Gathering's premises recently when this rather nice Bentley pulled in to the service station for fuel. Like everyone else, I stood and admired such a beautiful car but then I stood back and watched the bigger picture unfold.

But first, a bit of context...in South Africa it is against the law to serve yourself at a fuel station, you must be served by one of the attendants. It's a nice touch and the attendants normally go beyond their basic duty and clean your windows and offer to check your oil and water, invariably this leads to a nice tip for the attendants.

Servant Leadership

Here's a thought for all my church leader friends...

At your next leaders or elders meeting, forget the business side of things and rather, give each person a mop, broom, duster etc. and get stuck into cleaning the premises.

If any of your leaders complain or refuse to get stuck in remove them from the leadership team.

You'll be doing yourself and the church a huge favour!

Mr Fry, Your god Is Utterly Utterly Evil!

This video clip is doing the rounds on Facebook at present and is causing a bit of a stir.

I first saw it on the Huffington Post website where it's become quite a sensation.

It Is Finished

Tetelestai, a simple ten letter word in Greek meaning: It is finished.

We're Doomed

In the words of Private Frazer from Dad's Army, "We're all doomed!".

Or maybe not.

Thankfully Dad's Army was a comedy and Private Frazer's catchphrase never amounted to anything. I guess it's the same with all these predictions by the likes of Camping and misinterpretations of the Mayan calendar, they provide for some great comedy.

Sadly after the Mayan farce we have to wait until 2018 for the next comedian's prediction to be proven wrong. Someone called F. Kenton Beshore reckons the world will end between 2018 & 2028.

Don't Go Camping Tomorrow!

Apologies to Ben Witherington for plagiarising his blog post title about the pending judgement day.

So Harold Camping and his sect have come up with a convoluted mathematical formula to determine exactly when the day of judgement will be.

Is This What Jesus Told You Guys To Do?

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the whole issue of church and what it is or what it shouldn’t be and what we as Christians should and shouldn’t be doing.

A case in point at present is the whole media circus around a tiny church of 50 and their idiotic pastor. Either he’s a marketing genius who has got himself known all around the world or he’s a lunatic. Either way there's very little of the grace of God in his interviews etc. Anyway, he’s not my main topic here and he’s already had way too much publicity so back to the question in hand.

Two things I’ve read lately have come back to bug me and the more I think on them the more I feel they are simply wrong. It took me a while to come to this conclusion because one of the comments came directly from a church leader I have massive respect for and the other came from a leader in the same church.

Wiersbe Quote

"We have two ears and one mouth, which ought to remind us to listen more than we speak."

One of my favourite quotes from Wiersbe which I feel is particularly pertinent to those of us in church leadership. I'm convinced more leaders would at least look wise, even if they're not, if they exercised Wiersbe's advice.

If God Shows Me A Miracle I'll Believe!

I guess most Christians have at one time or another heard the line: "If God shows me a miracle I'll believe". It's actually complete tosh but for some reasons many non-believers feel comfortable hiding behind it.

As Christians we know this line to be complete rubbish as we have a wealth of historic examples down the centuries of God pulling some amazing miracles and yet still people fail to believe in him.

Why Does God Allow Natural Disasters?

Not my choice of a title for a blog post or a headline for a news article, but the Beeb are running the headline: Why does God allow natural disasters? in the magazine part of their news website.

I find the arguments quite interesting and am always keen to know what the world makes of our Lord.

Leaders Training

This morning I attended the Senior Leaders Training hosted by Jubilee Community Church in Cape Town. To be honest I didn't really want to go but thought I ought to given that I've signed up for it and paid.

As I was driving into Cape Town I was really struck by the beauty of where we live. One of the highlights of the drive is Table Mountain as it starts of quite small in the distance and just keeps getting larger and larger the closer you get. What a privilege to live somewhere so spectacular!

The training was great, as ever and really helpful. I always enjoy listening to Steve Van Rhyn but this morning it was listening to Lex Loizides that really spoke to me. Steve had spoken about the Sovereignty of God followed by Lex on Our Authority in the Supernatural.

Who Did You Vote For?

Over on the BBC News website there is an article about the US election entitled: Who voted for Obama. It makes for some very interesting reading and tells you quite a lot about modern America. One of the things that struck me from it is the fact that older whites are generally pretty scared of anything resembling change, especially if that change is represented by anyone other than an old white man.

Easter & The Silly Season

Easter is the most important of festivals for Christians and as such we celebrate Easter in a low-key but meaningful way, taking time to remember that by giving up His life, Jesus opened the way for us to have life and a genuine relationship with the Father. For us this is a very important time of year, much more so than Christmas or any other festival.

Christ, A Radical Too Far?

Heavenly Sanctuary is a Christian ministry that puts on Conferences around America on the Character of God. This year they hired an artist named Lars Justinen from the Justinen Creative Group to paint this picture to use on posters advertising their conference. Under this picture they had captions like "Follow the Leader," "God IS Great," and most accurately, "Jesus - Still Too Radical?"

Match The Picture..

Here's an excellent post from Ben Witherington's Blog: You Look Tired-- Exegeting Proverbs. Match the Picture with the Scripture.

Ben's Blog is always worth reading but this post is very good. Enjoy..

The Jesus Tomb

I couldn't resist posting this cartoon, judge for yourself but I thought it was quite good.

Further to my previous post about the Tomb of Jesus, Ben Witherington has written two further posts on the subject, both of which are excellent!