Two Ethiopian eunuchs

I am thrilled that the Bible speaks of two foreigners, who were also eunuchs, who trusted in the God of Israel. As foreigners, they could go no further than the Court of the Gentiles in the temple grounds, a noisy place, hardly suited for the kind of worship a true believer would want to offer. Even if they had not been foreigners, as eunuchs, they could not have congregated with the people of God. All these ceremonial restrictions changed when God established the new covenant through Jesus Christ.

Ebedmelech the Ethiopian eunuch [Approx 588 B.C.] recorded in Jeremiah 38,39
Jeremiah proclaimed, “Thus says the Lord: This city shall surely be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon and be taken.” In obedience to God, he also encouraged the people to surrender to the Chaldeans. Officials of King Zedekiah had strong objections against the words of Jeremiah, and the king gave let them do whatever they wished with him. They threw him into a cistern that had wet mud at the bottom into which Jeremiah gradually sank.

A godly eunuch Ebedmelech, an Ethiopian, who lived in the king’s house, trusted the Lord and bravely confronted the king. The king then commanded him to take 30 men with him and lift Jeremiah out before he died. The mud must have had a strong hold on Jeremiah for Ebedmelech thoughtfully gave Jeremiah old rags and used-clothes to place under his armpits so that the ropes did not cut him when he was being pulled up.

God punished the city but this godly man’s life was preserved because he trusted in the Lord with a living faith that was accompanied by good works.

The Ethiopian eunuch, official of Queen Candace [Approx 33 A.D.] recorded in Acts 8
Philip was sent by an angel to intercept this high official who was returning to his country after worshiping God in Jerusalem. Philip found him seated in his chariot and reading from the book of Isaiah.
Philip enquired, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
The official replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?”

He invited Philip to come up and sit with him. The Bible tells us that the passage he was reading was Isaiah 53, the passage about the suffering Saviour. But the official did not know about whom the passage spoke.  Philip  began with this Scripture and proceeded to tell him the good news about Jesus.

On the way, they came to some water and the official wanted to be baptised. When he had confessed his faith in the Lord Jesus, Philip baptised him. The Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away from that place. The Bible records that the eunuch went on his way rejoicing.

And why not? He had much to rejoice about.
for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave  nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. (Gal 3:26-29)

Heaven is nearer to Joni

Joni Eareckson Tada became a quadriplegic when she dived into shallow waters. Painful though the experience was, it turned her life around and made her lean on God more. The more she leaned on Him, the stronger she discovered He was.

Joni has been a great role model for me. I’ve known about her from 1979 when I read a book about her. I’ve since taught her story to Sunday School kids. I’ve read a couple of her books. Her life has helped me keep my miniscule problems in perspective.

She is an artist and paints with her mouth. She writes books. The proceeds from all this goes to Joni and Friends International Disability Center.

Oh, and does she sing! Our family loves listening to the hymns sung by the foursome— Joni, John MacArthur, and the Wolgemuths.  In New Zealand, you can order these from Grace to you, New Zealand.  The books that come with these CDs are well worth the price.

Joni has a beautiful voice. Many years ago I had one of Joni’s song tapes. Why even right now, after all these years I can still hear her sing Joni’s Waltz written by Nancy Honeytree.

Though I spend my mortal lifetime in this chair,
I refuse to waste it living in despair.
And though others may receive
Gifts of healing, I believe
That He has given me a gift beyond compare….
For heaven is nearer to me,
And at times it is all I can see.
Sweet music I hear
Coming down to my ear;
And I know that it’s playing for me.

For I am Christ the Savior’s own bride,
And redeemed I shall stand by His side.
He will say, “Shall we dance?”
And our endless romance
Will be worth all the tears I have cried.
I rejoice with him whose pain my Savior heals.
And I weep with him who still his anguish feels.
But earthly joys and earthly tears,
Are confined to earthly years.
And a greater good the Word of God reveals.

In this life we have a cross that we must bear;
A tiny part of Jesus’ death that we can share.
And one day we’ll lay it down,
For He has promised us a crown,
To which our suffering can never be compared

In an interview with Larry King on 3 August 2004, Joni said:

And I can’t wait go to Heaven, and I look forward to Heaven so much, because not only will I paint murals, but I’ll have back use of my hands, and I really will jump up, dance, kick, aerobics. And I hope I can take this wheelchair to Heaven with me. I know, if you had Pastor John MacArthur here, he’d say that’s not biblically correct. And it’s not. But if I could, I would take it with me and I would be standing next to my savior Jesus Christ, and I would say, “Lord, do you see this wheelchair? Well, before you send it to hell, I want to tell you something about it. You were right, when you said, in this world we would have trouble. And there’s a lot of trouble being a quadriplegic, but you know what, the weaker I was in that thing, the harder I leaned on you and the harder I leaned on you, the stronger I discovered you to be. Thank you for the bruising of a blessing it was, this severe mercy. Thank you.

And when asked about 9/11 in particular and bad things happening to us in general, she said:

That’s a tragedy, to be sure. And I look at that and I think: What has God done here? And when I look back at 9/11 — and I don’t know all — who am I? I don’t know reasons why.

If God told us the reasons why anyway, it would be like probably pouring million gallon truths into our one-ounce brains. We couldn’t contain it all. But when I look at national tragedies or even personal tragedies, sometimes I think these things are like God’s way of, like, wake-up calls, like yellow lights blinking, like red flags waving.

Like what are you doing with your life? Where are you going? Do you not know that this parade of life as you enjoy it is not going to last forever? And what will you do when you face the other side of your tombstone?

And it’s the — I think suffering is God’s way of sometimes waking us up out of our spiritual slumber with an ice-cold splash in the face and getting us seriously to consider his claims, who he is and where we’re going. (Click here for entire transcript)

And ever o’er its Babel sound the blessed angels sing

Just before leaving for home today, my colleague called her mother in India and spoke to her in Tulu. It was fascinating because, although I am familiar with a number of Indian languages, I could not understand a single word.

Most Indian languages are based on Sanskrit or at least have some association with Sanskrit, which gives them many common words.

“How many Indian languages are there,” my team leader asked.  I had to look it up.

‘India has 22 officially recognised languages. But around 33 different languages and 2000 dialects have been identified in India.’

The three languages most spoken are:

• Hindi (spoken by 180 million people)
• Telegu (spoken by 70 million people)
• Tamil (spoken by 66 million people)

Hindi–I can read, write, understand a fair amount, and speak self consciously
Kannada and Malayalam–I can recognise and understand a little Telegu and Bengali–I can recognise
Tamil–I can speak and understand well, but cannot really read and write

People did not always speak so many languages. Genesis 11 gives an amazing account of what happened in the land of Shinar after the flood:
Verse 1 reads like this:

Now the whole earth had one language and one speech.

Circumstances change entirely as recorded in the next few verses, for Verse 9 reads like this:

Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

That must have been a terrible time for the people who lived then, and to this day our languages divide us all. However, it is not all gloom and doom, for God wants for people everywhere to come to faith in Him, repent of their sins, and be saved in the Name of Jesus. All those who come thus to Him are one in Him.

. . . for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

I look forward to the day when Babel’s effects will be reversed and all of God’s people will understand one another.

For now, I am thankful for English.

Tree of Life

CNN’s piece  ‘Darwin still making waves 200 years later’ starts like this:

Before there was an extensive fossil record, DNA sequencing or even a basic understanding of genetics, there was Charles Darwin.

This has been the problem, hasn’t it? For the last 200 years, fossils have been studied with Darwin’s theory and geological time frame in mind. Why, the Tree of Life, the sole diagram in his book ‘On the Origin of Species’ has cast its shadow on all of science. I wonder if the larger scientific community has completely lost its ability to think outside the shade of this tree. Will children ever bask in the sunshine of free reason? How much has its influence rendered the inferences of many a good scientist’s work inaccurate?

Theories are fine as long as they do not intimidate and supress truth and thought. Scientific truth should only include what can be observed and experimented. Amazing design is clearly observed by studying any one aspect of nature whether it is a microbe or a galaxy. Intelligent design (God) or evolution could be inferred from such an observation.

As for me, I have nothing better than the Bible to rely on, and this book introduces me to an Almighty God who created all things seen and unseen. This book tells me about life and it tells me about what will happen to me after I die. In the things that can be proved (from science, archeology, and reason) the Bible has been spot on. So I trust it to be true for the other things as well.  If someone has something surer to rely on, please do write and tell me.

The Bible tells me that to take God, the Author of Life, out from the understanding of life is folly.

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God (Psalm 14:1)
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Prov 1:7)

This Bible also tells us that those who acknowledge God,
whose handiwork we see in nature,
and whose existence we know innately (unless one effectively supresses it)
and seek after Him–
will be welcomed into God’s family through Jesus Name.

I’ll close this post with a quote from the last pages of the Bible that record a prophetic vision containing many symbols.

. . . . on either side of the river, was there the tree of life . . . and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Witness in nature

Paul and Barnabas had stayed for some time in Iconium to share the gospel among both Jews and Gentiles. Inspite of their teaching and the miracles that they did, both groups were stirred up against them, and Paul and Barnabas had to flee to Lystra and Derbe.

Now in Lystra, Paul observed the faith of a crippled man and healed him. It is now that a strange thing happened. The people thought that Paul was Hermes and Barnabas was Zeus.

“The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” they cried out. The priest of the temple of Zeus brought oxen and garlands to perform a religious ceremony and sacrifice to these “gods”.

What are Paul and Barnabas thinking? They are horrified. For some reason, I can see the whole sequence of events unfolding comic strip fashion. Paul and Barnabas tear their clothes and rush out into the crowd preaching, nay, crying out, their sermon.

“Men, why are you doing these things?
We also are men with the same nature as you,
and preach to you that
you should turn from these useless things to the living God,
who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them,
who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways.
Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that
He did good,
gave us rain from heaven
and fruitful seasons,
filling our hearts with food and gladness.”

In this way, they somehow managed to stop the people from sacrificing to them. We go on then to read how this very multitude is persuaded, in a short time, to stone Paul and leave him for dead.

I was interested to see the word ‘witness’ used in this sermon because it reminded me of the hymn Great is Thy Faithfulness.

Summer and winter, and spring time and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

The sermon does not mention the name of Jesus. It is a general sermon such as the one in nature, about which we read in Psalm 19:1ff

The heavens declare the glory of God;
and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
Day unto day uttereth speech,
and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
Their line is gone out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world . . .

And such is the general message spoken about in Romans 1:19ff:

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them;
for God hath shewed it unto them.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made,
even his eternal power and Godhead;
so that they are without excuse . . .

Hawking’s hope(lessness)

An article entitled, ‘Hawking: If we survive the next 200 years, we should be OK,’ CNN.com reveals some conclusions reached in the mind of the greatest scientist of our times, Stephen Hawking. Hawking thinks that the only hope for the survival of the human race is to establish pockets of human communities in space.

“It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next 100 years, let alone next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn’t have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let’s hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load.”

This is what brilliance sans the knowledge of God concludes.

The very environment in which we live—education, entertainment, and society—has helped many to suppress the knowledge of the existance of God, which each one of us is gifted with.

The Bible says:

” . . . because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God . . . Professing to be wise, they became fools . . .”

Having allowed our knowledge of God to be suppressed and boxed in by strong forces in the world in which we live, can we please dare to think outside the box? Can we please be brave enough to at least consider that perhaps the foolishness of the Greatest Book of all time is wiser than the greatest scientist of the present time?

Only one way is open for the human race to survive. The Book says that only few will find it.

Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord our Righteousness

I once was a stranger to grace and to God,
I knew not my danger; and felt not my load;
Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree,
Jehovah Tsidkenu was nothing to me.

I oft read with pleasure, to soothe or engage,
Isaiah’s wild measure and John’s simple page;
But even when they pictured the blood-sprinkled tree,
Jehovah Tsidkenu seemed nothing to me.

Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll,
I wept when the waters went over His soul,
Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree
Jehovah Tsidkenu — ’twas nothing to me.

When free grace awoke me by light from on high,
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;
No refuge, no safety in self could I see —
Jehovah Tsidkenu my Saviour must be.

My terrors all vanished before the sweet name;
My guilty fear banished, with boldness I came
To drink at the fountain, life-giving and free—
Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me.

Jehovah Tsidkenu! My treasure and boast,

Jehovah Tsidkenu! I ne’er can be lost;

In Thee shall I conquer by flood and by field—

My cable, my anchor, my breastplate and shield!

Even treading the valley; the shadow of death,
This “watchword” shall rally my faltering breath;
For while from life’s fever my God sets me free,

Jehovah Tsidkenu my death-song shall be.

Robert Murray McCheyne (1813-1843)

Have you been forgiven of your sins and declared righteous by God through Christ? In other words, have you been justified.

God will not justify you simply because you have been raised in a Christian home. You may know all the Bible stories. Like the hymn writer, you may even feel overcome by emotion when you think of Calvary.

To be justified, God must meet with you at Calvary and by His grace, show you your sinful and wretched state. You must understand with a supernatural understanding that but for His atonement, hell will be your destiny. Suddenly Jehovah Tsidkenu, though His Son Jesus, must become all things to you, because He takes away your guilt and sin, covers you with the righteousness of Jesus, and fills you with a new love for the things of God.

Prof. Enoch’s ‘Where did man come from?’

In the mid 80s and in Mount Carmel College in Bangalore, doing my B.Sc., I was goaded by one young lecturer to participate in a lecture contest. An initial round or prelims was held internally and those selected were sent to compete at the intercollegiate level. I was one of the participants who got to the finals where I gave an half-hour lecture on a hazy subject in genetics called Spindle Dynamics.

Every biology student knows that during cell division, at a stage known as Metaphase, the chromosomes line up at the equator of the cell. Then at the next stage known as Anaphase, they begin to separate out to either pole. My lecture was about how this separation was made possible. It dawned on me then that so little was actually known about so many processes in God’s nature. I also realized that science included theorizing and speculation, and that it was possible to sound very pompous and scholarly without knowing much.

The subject of Spindle Dynamics was not my choice but my lecturer’s. At the prelims, which was just for five minutes, my topic had been “Refuting the Theory of Evolution.” The moment I mentioned to her that I had selected this topic, she warned me that some judges did not take kindly to that subject.

A wall-hanging over 2000 years old

Dead Sea Scroll in stone

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

Some years ago, David Jeselsohn, a Swiss-Israeli collector bought an ancient stone tablet, actually a wall-hanging, from an antiquities dealer. This tablet has suddenly become the talk of the archaeological world.

In a recent video report by CNN’s Ben Wedeman, David Jeselsohn says that the writing on the stone tablet is not easy to understand because it speaks of the future, of visions, and of mystical experiences.

In the same report, Israel Knohl of Shalom Hartman Institute says that the stone, which predates Jesus, speaks of death and resurrection. According to him, the stone also suggests that

“only the shed blood of the Messianic leader will move God to come and redeem His people.”

Madurai’s wall of shame

I find it hard to believe that such a wall exists. But it’s true. The city of Madurai is tense because police broke a portion of this wall yesterday. It is a 100-meter wall that was built 20 years ago to keep “low caste” people from entering the “upper caste” area of a village.

Caste is a very complex matter in India, a monster that clings so closely to us even 60 years after Independence. I worry for the children who are caught in the crossfire, those growing with the wrong notion that they are in some way superior, and those growing up believing that they are inferior.

My great grandfather’s father converted to Christianity from one of these very same castes that built this wall. So I am a pure-blooded one-of-these-castes person. I am in no way inherently superior to any one else—not superior to a Dalit or any other Indian or Asian or European or anyone else.

What does the Bible say about such divisions among human beings?