| God Spot This Christian Resource Blog has been created by a group of friends from around the world. Our purpose is to provide links to useful resources, some commentary on topical or doctrinal issues, a place where anyone can come with questions and a means whereby we can share our faith. And above all, to grow and encourage each other. As Christians, we believe we bear God's image in this world, and seek to glorify God's name in this endeavour. Any Christian who wants to join with us is very welcome! |
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Wednesday, August 25, 2004 Welcome Michele!Dear Michele, you didn't muck up! In fact, your first post is really fascinating and informative - and spot-on about all the different methods and traditions of communion but the thing that is essential is a right condition of our hearts when we partake!I find it exciting, how all the denominational barriers seem to be breaking down, maybe slowly but there does seem to be a general focusing on the essentials of our Christian faith and less separation caused by all the traditions and man-made rules and requirements. Thank you for finding us (compliments of Mr Google?), making the contact and now joining to help encourage us all. If you know of others amongst your friends or church who might like to contribute, please encourage them! We look forward to hearing more of your small evangelical church in the NW 'burbs and trust we can be a support as much as possible! Geoff # posted by geoff @ 9:59 am 0 commentsTuesday, August 24, 2004 Hi everyoneWell, this is my first time on this site - so I might muck it up! But the topic of the emblems at the Lord's Supper --- my husband Wilfred, has got an Anglican/Brethren Assemblies background and had always taken the emblems from a common cup and had the bread broken off from the loaf. I, on the other hand had a Methodist/Baptist background and always had the small peices of bread cut up and had individual cups.When we first married I attended the Brethren Assemblies with my husband. There I had to endure drinking from the communal cup, and because I always sat at the back with an evergrowing family, by the time the cup came to me there was always a film of slag on the wine. Consquently I found it rather hard to have my mind in the proper place! At our church (a small evangelical church in the north-west suburbs) we have the individual cup as well as the small peices of bread - which I don't like. I much prefer having a loaf which has been broken in two for us to pull apart. But there are some people who don't like the thought of 'other' peoples hands touching the bread!! Who knows where their hands have been!! Anyway it all boils down to how our hearts are when we partake and not the actual emblems that are being used. We use to have orange juice and crackers with our kids when they were little and we were on holidays. A dear friend of ours was a reformed alcholic and partook of the Lord's Supper at a church that used actual wine and he nearly 'fell off the wagon' through the experience! We use grapejuice (which sometimes tastes rather 'off') - never mind - it gives us a time to examine our hearts. Michele # posted by shellymac @ 5:42 pm 0 commentsTruly Terrible!Gary, I agree with you that it's terrible. Really, really terrible (grape juice from a plastic throw-away cupette). I like the idea of wine from the silver cup. A common cup. And a big thick loaf of chunky bread, to tear a good piece from and savour.But I don't think anything about the method of communion needs to be made into rules and reg's. It's the symbolism, and reverence and what it all means to us that seems most important to me. Incidentally, we were stopped one morning on way home from church and breath-tested by the local constabulary. The officer, a pleasant young chick, smiled at my answer to her question "have you had a drink today?" And Grant cracked a joke at BSF last night, in his intro lecture to Acts. It was after telling us there's lots of good memory-verses throughout Acts for us to take and use appropriately. It goes (this is for you Gary!): An elderly lady came home from church and surprised a burglar rifling through her apartment. In surprise, she shouted spontaneously "Acts 2:38". The burglar immediately froze, raised his hands in the air and waited patiently while the old lady phoned the police who arrived and handcuffed the burglar. Then they asked him why he had frozen when the lady shouted a scripture-verse at him. The response "I thought she said she had an axe and 2 38's!" Groan! Sorry, Gary - guess you're really missing BSF!! Anyway, we learned that Acts is full of action (including a disproportionate time spent describing Paul's shipwreck), characters, teaching and of course, the Spirit. And that growth of the church rested on the risen, resurrected Christ - not on building programs or personalities! In terms of the characters, Peter, Paul, et al., God works through normal ordinary individuals who are completely surrendered to the Holy Spirit. And that Jesus gives the Holy Spirit to believers in order to empower them. # posted by geoff @ 4:47 pm 0 commentsSaturday, August 21, 2004 wheat, absolutely!Geoff,All my life I have been receiving communion from a silver cup (called also chalice in Churchspeak) and I have always sipped the wine, except in the Neo-Catical Community where its was also large amount of bread and a good drink of wine as was the norm. Now to mention something not so relevant, Jesus, on the Thursday night before he died gave his disciples wine, following a piece of bread -- the bread clearly from one loaf, and the wine clearly from one clay/ceramic cup. What the Lord did and what is clear in the scripture of course is not important in the churches. Two years ago Holy Trin. made it optional to receive grape juice in individual plastic cups, and most people, (I'm told from those who should know,) most receive their communion that way. I think its terrible. Many churches have no common cup and grape juice only, (an abomination), and they tell themslves how they follow the scripture, and live by it. Comments ..... # posted by Anonymous @ 5:32 am 0 commentsFriday, August 20, 2004 Wafers Must Have Wheat, Says VaticanGary, good to know you're still in the land of the living (and busy at that!). We start back at BSF, 6.30 am leader's meeting tomorrow. That will make you feel good. They have introduced some changes - no bells to warn that discussion time is over, no automatic posting of notes to those away (only if asked), and a greater focus on "training". Oh, also no mention of the A.S.K. prayer program in the intro sessions. Are these improvements? Somebody thinks so!The one change I truly desire, a "late" 7 am start on Saturday mornings, is apparently considered not conducive to strict BSF disciplinary policy. Now, in today's Age, alarming news for (some) Catholics: Wafers must have wheat, says Vatican By Barney Zwartz (Religion Editor) Thousands of Catholics with wheat allergies may suffer a reaction to the eucharist thanks to a Vatican directive that the wafer must contain wheat. Father Williams said gluten-free communion wafers had been available to coeliac sufferers for a decade, kept in a separate dish. But the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had recently determined that only wheat-based flour was valid matter for celebrating the eucharist. "The church would not deliberately attempt to poison its communicant members," he said. "The last thing we want is to alarm Catholic coeliac sufferers." He suggested people with coeliac disease could try the new formula, saying: "Hosts are no bigger than a 20 cent piece and very thin - we're not talking slices of bread here. "But very sensitive sufferers are not going to be disbarred from sacred communion because they can receive communion in just one kind." (That is, leave the wafer but take wine from the chalice). Now, I am not a Catholic and don't want to offend any dear brothers and sisters who are. But statements like the following seem very much akin to the Jewish habit of creating rule upon rule, and then behaving like the Pharisees when those man-made rules aren't strictly adhered to (and without mentioning names, I just realised that other organisations also easily fall into this habit!): The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith ruled last year that gluten-free hosts were invalid, but low-gluten hosts were acceptable under certain conditions. But there is a voice of reason: Father Tony Doherty (former dean of Sydney's St Mary's Cathedral) told Online Catholics website: "The insistence on wheat flour by Rome is another unfortunate occasion when non-essential matters create discord." # posted by geoff @ 10:14 am 0 commentsThursday, August 19, 2004 still aliveHi all, and Michele when you get here,Yes I'm still alive, there is a pulse on the carotid artery and one inside the ankle so that evidence there is life all over me. I have passed level 2 first aid and have been to my first meeting of the local St. Johns group: it was good with a guest speaker an orthopaedic surgeon who showed some great photos of fractures and broken bones. I did learn some things. Going to do first aid with St. J's is likely to be at the cricket not this football season, Geoff, and at the motor bikes, for there is a motor cross track in East Burwood. I'm not missing bsf, but am sure that Acts is a great study, and very encouraging with the spectacular growth of the early church. I'm going to two bible studies a week, still in town club and neighbourhood watch and now going into st. john -- well it will keep me out of mischief and christians should get involved with the world. There is a special outreach breakfast at church this saturday and I cango to it as I'm no longer a bsf leader! Gary # posted by Anonymous @ 9:16 pm 0 commentsWednesday, August 18, 2004 New Member!Welcome Michele - hope you get the hang of how to post here, just ask Gary if you need help! And tell us where you go for worship/fellowship, it will be great to have your contributions and perspective on issues.We are just about to begin this year's BSF study of Acts, and because Gary has jumped ship, we will try to post some inspirational snippets each week (just to remind him of his old bible-study). The theme for Acts is the two attributes of God - God's trustworthiness and lovingkindness. We have total confidence in God's ability - God is of good character, he delivers. Why is God trustworthy? He knows everything, he's wise, makes right choices and hence he's trustworthy. He's all-powerful, present everywhere, what he promises happens. A consistent message. We can trust him! As God's ambassadors, we need to exhibit this character of trustworthiness also. There's more from a Saturday morning spent getting back into the BSF way of things, but time is short - more soon! But looking forward to hearing from you Michele, Geoff # posted by geoff @ 5:22 pm 0 commentsFriday, August 13, 2004 Consulting Mafu at the TempleOn a quiet Friday, consulted Mafu at the temple. He says the date of the Oz election is still too hazy, which probably means October 23rd. It's just possible Little John, with his FTA now tucked away, will spring it upon us this weekend, which will mean a vote on 18th Sept.And Mafu had an interesting observation. Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement, most solemn Jewish day of the year) falls on the most solemn day of the year in Melbourne, Grand Final day (25th September). Interesting confluence of holy days. But of particular note is that the last time this happened was back in 1966, and the winner of the flag back then was... St Kilda! # posted by geoff @ 4:39 pm 0 commentsMissionaries - Changing With The TimesAnother good article by Barney Zwartz in the Melbourne Age.Rather than spending their entire lives spruiking the gospel in far-flung places, the new missionaries are often ordinary Australians on a working holiday. Barney Zwartz reports. Mission remains a vital concept to the church, but its shape has changed irrevocably. Today's missionary is more likely to be a professional offering specialist help to overseas churches. Or someone with an ordinary job who spends his or her annual leave on a short-term placement. Or — numerically speaking — today's missionary is even more likely to be Indian, Korean, African or Chinese. Not for decades have missionaries sought to impose Western theology and church practice. "We are going back to the core model of the gospel rather than trying to transplant our model to them," Irwin says. (It's worth creating a log-in to read some of these Age articles - once you've done it, your computer seems to remember - something to do with "cookies"??) # posted by geoff @ 4:30 pm 0 commentsMonday, August 09, 2004 And a Film...Saw Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 the other night. Made a fair impression. Two memorable scenes were the US soldiers with their machine guns preparing to storm Baghdad on their killing spree, getting themselves kitted up with earphones connected to a loop from the accompanying armoured vehicle, blaring loud thumping rock music into their brains.And the soldier reminiscing afterwards, about his discovery that when you kill someone, a little bit of yourself dies too. Actually, there was a third memorable scene. Bush sitting like a stunned rabbit in front of kindergarten children, for was it nine minutes? while the planes slammed the WTC and Bush was presumably trying to work out how to react without losing face with those kiddies. Anyone still figuring out how they're going to vote in the coming Oz and US elections should see it. # posted by geoff @ 12:43 pm 0 commentsMonday, August 02, 2004 Another BookGeoffLast January I also read a most fascinating book which seems a similar topic. The book: Miracles of Exodus by Colin Humphreys was so awesome and showed that the plagues were very possibly all natural disasters..... but created to happen in Gods time. It was very fascinating and I liked it knowing that the guy (Colin) was a scientist yet also a christian and even though he researched from a scientists point of view, he also stuck to his guns that God was involved. Here is the Amazon info about the book: (reviews first) ‘To the biblical text Colin Humphreys brings old maps, the latest science and a new explanation of the whereabouts of Mount Sinai. This is a simply fascinating, and extremely readable, study of the Israelites in Egypt and on the desert way to Sinai.’ Robert Gordon, Regius Professor of Hebrew, University of Cambridge ‘Professor Humphreys uses his scientific approach to propose a strikingly novel interpretation of the Exodus story that will interest many students of the Bible. He writes in a style that combines clarity with something of the excitement of a detective story.’ Rev. Dr John Polkinghorne, Templeton Prize winner, and author of Belief in God in an Age of Science ‘Science and religion are frequently thought to be at odds. However, Colin Humphreys is a distinguished scientist who believes that painstaking research can shed light on areas often dismissed as inaccessible. Lively and clearly written for a wide audience, The Miracles of Exodus offers a radical insight into one of the Bible’s best-known episodes. This book will re-open the question of what happened when the Hebrews left Egypt for the Promised Land.’ John Ray, Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge About the book Did the Red Sea really part before the Israelites? Why didn’t the fire consume the Burning Bush? What was the Manna in the Wilderness? The Miracles of Exodus explores the truth about these and all the other Exodus mysteries, including the precise locations of the Red Sea Crossing and the route of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt 3,000 years ago. This investigative tour de force explains the Ten Plagues, the true location of Mount Sinai, the ultimate crossing of the Jordan and much more. Colin Humphreys, a distinguished British scientist, uses physics, astronomy, biology and other scientific resources to show that the mysteries and miracles of the Exodus have scientific explanations. These explanations allow us to pinpoint the exact nature, time and place of these miracles, and to reconstruct, for the first time, the true route of the Exodus. This book reveals what really happened and how the biblical account is remarkably accurate and historical when scientifically investigated. Profusely illustrated with maps, photographs and explanatory tables, this book by one of the world’s great scientists unlocks the mysteries of the ultimate Bible story in a fascinating and convincing way. Synopsis After seven years of meticulous research, Colin Humphreys has written this work on the miracles of Exodus and the Israelites' escape from Egypt. Although Humphreys uses science to explain the events of Exodus he does not believe that this makes them any less miraculous - rather, God is the force behind the science. The author attempts to answer key questions about the Exodus, such as how many Israelites were involved and how they manage to survive in the desert for 40 years. He argues that the Israelites did indeed cross over the Red Sea (and not the Reed Sea as some scholars claim) and that the real Mount Sinai is not in the Sinai Peninsula but is a volcano in Arabia. Humphreys provides biblical evidence to support his views and his treatment of the subject is fresh, passionate and often amusing. # posted by Caroline @ 5:50 pm 0 comments |
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