227 fruit
Sweetness upon sweetness
Lagging behind by many days in my Bible reading, I was glad to be able to take a day off today. At about 10:00 in the morning, I took off by myself to a quiet spot to catch up with my reading. The first few chapters of Joshua, the last few chapters of Isaiah, the first two chapters of Jeremiah, and about 10 psalms. I was even able to compose a tune for Psalm 133.
Surely the scriptures are ’sweeter than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.’ To makes things sweeter, I realised that I had parked at a lovely spot. A quiet beach-side street. It was windy and wet outside and I could see the boats bobbing in the water through the rain.
The sun came out again around 1:00 in the afternoon, and I drove home in the sunshine.
Chennai Traffic
When we visited Chennai in December 2007 and January 2008, one thing that struck me was the traffic. Overwhelmingly chaotic and noisy with incessant honking. That it was raining did not make it easier. Hats off to all those expert drivers who must have a big dose of courage, intuition, skill, and God’s providential protection.
This is a compilation of three different occasions.
Facts from ‘By Fear and Fallacy’
In 2006, Mr. Michael Drake, Principal of Carey College, Auckland, produced a booklet called By Fear and Fallacy. This was before the amendment to Section 59 of the Crimes Act was passed, and yet its current relevance is immense. It is well researched, comprehensive, and written with passion and from personal experience.
Some excerpts:
. . . to withhold correction from children who do wrong is to perpetrate an abuse that will have far-reaching consequences for the morality and stability of our society
A biblical family is made of husband and wife in life-long monogamous covenant, having primary responsibility for the nurture of children God may give them. God has embedded in families relationships of authority and submission, care and dependence, against which autonomy, by its very definition, rebels. Those family relationships cannot be shared with the extended family or community, albeit the extended family and community have an important role in the nurture of children
Fellow blogger, Scrubone, has put it up in the Internet. Click here to read.
Good videos explaining why you need to vote NO
I liked the video on scrubone’s post of Renton Maclachlan explaining the upcoming referendum. I soon found two more videos by Mr Maclachlan on this subject. I would like to share all three videos with my readers.
The first video points out the vital difference between the wording of the original Section59 and the wording of the amendment.
The second video is a comedy satire where Mr Maclachlan interviews Dennis Morris, Traveler of Baanaadoze and spokesperson for the Yes vote campaign.
Vote No, please
http://www.voteno.org.nz/index.htm
Between July 31 and August 21, people in New Zealand will participate in a referendum. The question for the referendum is:
“Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?”
This is New Zealand, and so sadly this question is not as rhetorical as it sounds. Some will actually vote Yes. Even if a resounding majority vote No, there is no compulsion on the government to change the bill. Despite this, I hope that we will see a strong and sensible message sent to the government from the people of New Zealand.
What is this bill that needs to be changed? It is the amendment made to Section 59, a part of the 1961 Crimes Act in New Zealand.
Before the amendment in 2007, Section 59 read as follows:
“Every parent or person in place of a parent of a child is justified in using force by way of correction towards a child if that force is reasonable in the circumstances.”
The left-wing Green Party raised a hue and cry about how this law went against the rights of children. They said:
This goes against the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (which came into force in 1990). It states in article 37 that “No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Section 59 allows the parent to degrade’ the child by being allowed to use force, thus legitimatises assault on children.
The Green party’s Sue Bradford came up with the ammendment, that I will only link to, because it looks as messy as it really is and would instantly render my post unpleasantly confusing.Please click here to read the substituted section 59.
Everyone I’ve spoken to about this would like to vote No, and most of them will. But there are some who favour the bill as being indispensible, though far from ideal, given the situation we find ourselves in. Here are the points they offer and my thoughts.
1. This bill could help some families make a culture change and not beat their children to death:
“I see some cultures using excessive smacking as the norm. I hope that the debate may make them think that there are other ways. But maybe thats wishful thinking. I think its a culture change we need, and I think the law just highlights it, for lack of a better tool. I would vote Yes, until I/they can think of some better way to get the message across ‘ to use less violence’ on kids.”
2. This bill could help pin child abusers down:
Discussing this subject with another friend, I pointed out that there was a world of difference between a smack as part of loving parental correction and child abuse. I suggested that surely other laws in place against abuse and violence were sufficient to reel in child abusers. But he felt that without a bill worded as obnoxiously as this, “any above-average lawyer can get around them.”
3. This bill does not target good parents
“. . . and, what good parent has been prosecuted by the law?” Well, the truth is that many normal families have been criminalised and traumatised by the law. Click here to read about some of them.
Small shops in another world
Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I was looking at some photographs taken in India, some during our holiday in North-East India in June 2005 and some during our visit to South India in December 2007- Jan 2008.
Cups and mugs in New Market, Calcutta
Open air market in Darjeeling
Woolens being sold in the War Memorial near Batasia Railway Loop in Darjeeling
Vegetables sold by the side of a mountain road
A typical friendly neighbourhood shop in Bangalore
Woman selling flowers and sugarcane in Bangalore
Flower seller in Madurai seated next to a cobbler
A busy street of shops in Madurai
Sketches from Church History by S M Houghton Chapter 10
Some of us are going through Sketches from Church History by S M Houghton one small chapter at a time. (By the way, the book has pictures.) Aiding us in this study is the work book by Rebecca Frawley. Both are Banner of Truth books.
Now we are at
Chapter 10 Early Missionaries in Europe
S M Houghton ends this chapter like this:
How is it possible, we may ask, that these Christian workers did not give up in despair? The secret is that they did not work with an eye to success, and much less for personal gain or glory, but first and last and always they complied with the command of the Lord, ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature’ (Mark 16:15).
Some keywords/names to remember/key ideas from this chapter are:
- Willibrord (658-708) Apostle to the Frisians. Frissians were the Dutch or people of the low countries.
- Boniface (680-754) Apostle to Germany
- Eligius (589-659) Apostle to Flanders and the low countries
- Ansgar (801-865) Apostle to the North
Sketches from Church History by S M Houghton Chapters 8 and 9
Some of us are going through Sketches from Church History by S M Houghton one small chapter at a time. (By the way, the book has pictures.) Aiding us in this study is the work book by Rebecca Frawley. Both are Banner of Truth books.
Now we are at
Chapters 8 and 9 The Christian Faith comes to the British Isles
These chapters include many interesting little stories and anecdotes that have been handed down over the years that make for interesting reading.
Some keywords/names to remember/key ideas from this chapter are:
- The earliest Christians in Britain were Roman colonists belonging to the army of occupation. (The Romans were in Britain for three and a half centuries)
- Britain’s first martyr was Alban, who was executed on a mound outside the city, because he refused to carry out a simple act of worship on a heathen altar.
- St. Patrick, Apostle to Northern Ireland
- Two groups preached to the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons who invaded and conquered large parts of Britain in the fifth century.
- Monks (Aidan in particular) came from Iona.
- Augustine, sent by Pope Gregory I
- Cantebury became the center fro Roman Christianity in Britain.
- Edwin, British king converted to Christianity because of the preaching of a Roman monk who came to him when he married a Christian princess. Edinburgh in Scotland is named after this King Edwin.
- King Oswy had been brought up in the Celtic church. He embraced the views of the Roman Church after hearing a debate, at the Synod of Whitby, between a Celtic Church speaker (Colman of Lindisfarne) and a Roman abbot (Wilfred, the Abbot of Rippon).
- Some ways in which Alfred the Great furthered Christianity in England:
- Provided Christian education to his subjects
- Engaged in work of translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History from Latin to Anglo Saxon and also translated many of the Psalms
- Presented the chief of clergy of England with copies of Pope Gregory’s Pastoral Care
- Revised the laws of the land and included the law of Moses
For continuity’s sake with a Lutheran past
I printed out two articles about Luther/Lutheranism from the Internet for my father GB, for continuity’s sake with his Lutheran past. (GB hails from a Lutheran family, where his father, uncles, and grandfather were godly pastors.)
The first is Martin Luther: Lessons from His Life and Labor by John Piper.
The headings according to which the article is organised are:
- Luther Discovers the Book
- The Pathway to the Professorship
- Why Should Pastors Listen to Luther?
- He was more a preacher than any of us pastors.
- 2. Like most pastors, Luther was a family man – at least from age 41 until his death at 62.
- 3. Luther was a churchman, not an ivory tower theological scholar.
- Luther at Study: The Difference the Book Made
- 1. Luther came to elevate the Biblical text itself far above all commentators or church fathers.
- 2. This radical focus on the text of Scripture itself with secondary literature in secondary place leads Luther to an intense and serious grappling with the very words of Paul and the other Biblical writers.
- 3. The power and preciousness of what Luther saw when he beat importunately upon Paul’s language convinced him forever that reading Greek and Hebrew was one of the greatest privileges and responsibilities of the Reformation preacher.
- 4. This reference to “indolence” leads us to the next characteristic of Luther at study, namely, extraordinary diligence in spite of tremendous obstacles.
The second is A Lutheran Response to Arminianism by Rick Ritchie.
Here are some excerpts:
The reason Lutheranism has never been presented according to a five-point scheme is not that it lacks the doctrines that would allow that, but that the Arminians never issued to the Lutherans a five-point refutation of their supposed errors. . .
At first glance, Lutheranism might appear to be an amalgamation of Calvinism and Arminianism because, with regard to the five points, it seems to agree with Calvinism on some points and Arminianism on others. We must be careful, however, to look at the underlying principles that motivated the positions. When we do this, we will find that Lutheranism is not in fundamental agreement with the Remonstrants on any of the five points.
