Why so similar?

Firstly, Fort Knox.

Secondly, the Mormon Temple in Brisbane.

If you just photoshop out the palm trees...

:O

Quote #1

From Augustine:

He that is kind is free, though he is a slave;
he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.

Naomi and Mara

Naomi leaves the promised land.

Naomi loses everything. Except Ruth.

Ruth is blessing to Naomi, despite Naomi telling her to leave.

Naomi returns.

Naomi becomes Mara.

Or should that order have been reversed?

Ruth goes out and seeks favour.

Boaz offers favour.

Boaz redeems Ruth

Thus also Mara.

Mara is restored, despite the humiliation of her return.

Mara becomes Naomi.

Humiliated, helpless, bitter, unable to redeem oneself but rescued by another. A story repeated offtimes through history.

Credit update: Thoughts inspired by my discussion with my wifey this morning.

Competitiveness and Scripture

For a little while now I've been thinking about a question: What does the Bible say about competitive sport?

A very difficult topic, because it doesn't say anything directly on the topic.

Thanks to Dave, I've recently read an essay on the topic which was quite helpful. It essentially saw sport as a neutral activity, but one in which it is very easy for sin to be masked as acceptable.

I'll be posting more on this as I work through it, but my current thought is about Sport as a revealer. I don't think that sport necessarily produces greater ungodliness, but is instead a revealer of ungodliness that is already there. In short, it reveals the person underneath.

This, however, can also be a beautiful thing when great sportsmanship and honourable play are demonstrated, or pursuit of excellence without cheating despite great pressure to do so. The high-emotion arena of sport is "a true revealer of character" as the great Stan Coombs once said.

What do you think about competitive sport, is it a good part of our created humanity? Or just pride dressed up in respectability?

Clarification

In case anyone was wondering whether my post (Those People) about people who make critiques of other people all the time was about them, it wasn't. As the ending hopefully hints at, it was as much about my desire to do the very same thing and the irony of that.

Apologies if anyone out there in blogland is fretting over having offended their most admired and respected blogger. *coughchoke*

To a tea

This afternoon:

My wife and I start discussing what's going to be on for dinner tonight. She starts explaining to me that her sisters are coming over and that they'll be having High Tea. Now I start wondering what High Tea truly is, by definition, having experienced not only the traditional cucumber sandwiches but also some pretty crazy treats that bear little resemblance to said staple.

Melissa informs me that it's essentially lots of different little things eaten together as a meal. I suggest that this is just a posh English version of Yum Cha.

I then suggest that perhaps the dodgy finger-foods served at certain larger functions (Ie, mini spring rolls, curry puffs, meatballs, etc) ought thus to be labelled 'Low Tea'.

Low Tea. I like it.

Those people

I find it silly that so many times I see comments that snipe negatively about something or other about the culture of a particular church or denomination. I don't mean jokes about Presbyterians never changing anything, I mean things like “all those Xs worship their favourite preachers instead of Jesus” in a case when it's really not a big deal.

It makes me want to write a big post attacking people who snipe at ...

…

Oh.

>:-|

Top 'o the league

Our futsal team is top of the league table, where we belong.

Warning: That's us at the top of the ladder before we won again this evening, 5-2. So we could be further out ahead, depending on results.

Our team name is 'Name of Team' in French. Classy, eh?

Team members:

Nathan and Robyn

Steve

Ross

Mattias

Sarah

Amy

Jamin

Me and Meli

Phew! That's a lot of people.

Ecclesiastes: THE book about faith in the Old Testament?

Just reading Jeffrey Meyers' commentary on Ecclesiastes, and loved this quote.

Life in itself is unable to supply the key to the questions of identity, meaning, purpose, value and destiny. Only God holds the key, and he must be trusted with it. He does not make copies of the key for us to use. You do not get to keep God's key in your back pocket. Sooner or later, if you are a believer, you are going to have to actually trust God to keep the key of life.

Love that bit about no copies. Beautiful.

I'm the best uncle ever

Just taught my nephew his first dribble. Not the saliva kind, he mastered that ages ago. He dribbled his mini Arsenal soccer ball quite well a couple of times before deciding he wanted to practice his throw-ins.

Back!

Just had a great weekend at Suffolk Park, a few clicks south of Byron Bay. A pretty awesome place to stay, but just make sure that you get the manager when booking, otherwise there could be confusion over rates and minimum nights, etc...

Totally enjoyed it: Beach soccer, losing at chess to Christina, nearly losing to myself in chess but being rescued by Daniel, hanging out with little Ruby Kovac, kayaking in the surf, eating fish and chips, sleeping in a non-snoring tent, eating gelato, drinking 2 cappuccinos in two days :-o , learning to play stand-ball,* telling kids' stories around the circle, swimming, playing break-the-line,** eating bacon and eggs for breakfast and celebrating my wifey's birthday.

Very good.

* I'm not going to tell you how to play stand-ball. It was, however, invented by Karl Pacholke and his future brother-in-law.

** See diagram for how to play break-the-line

Thoughts from the floor: Ecclesiastes

How does Ecclesiastes speak to you? What bits in it make you think, "That is SO it. This guy understands."? Any favourite bits, especially those which relate to a particular frustration/joy/aspect of real life?

Writing a Bible talk here people, need your help body of Christ.

Sad tidings

I don't think any of you reading this are Arsenal supporters. So you'll not understand my pain at linking this article. Nor will you be annoyed that I've spoiled the game for you.

Barcelona 4 - 1 Arsenal

:'-(

An invitation

I'd love to hear Jeff's, Dave's, Anna's, Arthur's and Tamie's views on all this as well.

The sort of thing that you have to deal with in eternal damnation...

From here.

A clarification of a fun discussion

There's been a big bunch of discussion on all things sin and depraved going on lately between Simon (here and here + comments) and Nathan (here and here + comments) and myself.

My thoughts (here and here + comments) aren't actually centred on quite the same focus as Simone and Nathan's, from what I can tell. My point is merely to give an anthropology which gives an acceptable approximation of the Scripture's testimony about us. In so doing, I've dealt with the area of sin as a matter of necessity.

My point, though, hasn't been to create a method for dealing with temptation. No how-to guides here.

And so, in this way, I say a hearty 'amen' to many of the points made by both Nathan and Simone. Particularly, to many of the things that Nathan said from Romans 6 in his post on righteousness.

I'll try to engage with their thinking on temptation (which, to me, seems ultimately to be the context for Simone's thinking) and the 'stance' of the Christian life in general (which seems to be the context for Nathan's thinking) in the next couple of days.

Should Catholics and Protestants have a group hug? (part 2)

Sorry about that break in transmission.

To add to the weight of Kung's theory that we should all just get along, Karl Barth wrote a letter to Kung (that Kung has placed in the front of his book) saying that what Kung says about his doctrine is all accurate. He's not twisted anything that Barth believes.

Sounds good, doesn't it! A protestant and Catholicism agreeing on Justification!

Unfortunately, it's not as good as all that.

Firstly, Kung's version of Catholicism isn't what the infallible words of the Pope (backed up by the council of Trent) actually teach. It's the opinion of some modern (and more Biblical) Catholic scholars, but not the official teaching of the magisterium of the Catholic church. More's the pity.

Secondly, the bits of justification that Kung is dealing with are so narrow as to make it pretty easy to get agreement on it. They essentially are both anti-Pelagian, and that's about as broad as the agreement can be said to extend. Alistair McGrath has noted that in this sub-section of doctrine, even Calvin and the Catholic church could be said to agree! Even I agree that Manchester United play football, kinda.

Lastly, the implications of the doctrine of justification, all the things that are implied by it, are massively different across the protestant and Catholic divide. While the words may be the same, the implications are a world apart.