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One another in James 4-5

I’ve been reading through James over the last few days and I was struck by three “one another” statements in chapters four and five.

James 4:11 says “Do not speak against one another,” and James 5:9 tells us “Do not complain against one another.”  These two verses are another way of saying do not slander or gossip.  Yet, in every church there are those who slander and gossip – I know because I am occasionally numbered among them.  It is easy to say “I don’t gossip!”  Yet, how often do we speak against one another?  Or complain against one another?  We know that it won’t be with those who we are talking about, but it will be in the presence of friends and perhaps family.

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Quotes from Surprised by Joy

Surprised by Joy

Last week I read “Surprised by Joy” by C. S. Lewis.  On Monday I posted a synopsis of his conversion from atheism to Christianity.  I wanted to follow this up with some of my favorite quotes from the book which are relative to his conversion, and some of which are philosophically interesting.

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C. S. Lewis’s conversion from atheism

C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis traces his conversion story through his autobiography “Surprised by Joy” from his early childhood through to his conversion to Christ as an adult. As the story unfolds, he traces the “aesthetic experience” of “joy” as an experience that “was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer.”

Early in his life, he speaks of a “religious experience”, which is followed by his becoming an “effective believer”, by which he means he “heard the doctrines of Christianity…” and “had no skepticism”. This resulted in a fear for his soul to the effect that he “began seriously to pray and read [his] bible and to attempt to obey [his] conscience.”  At this stage, Lewis’s faith is a simple faith, which does not understand how to comprehend and consider the world. Furthermore, it seems it bore a fear of God, but not an explicit understanding of his own sin and in this sense, he did not feel a sense of personal responsibility before God, which comes much later.

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Listen to all your favorite speakers

Audiobooks

Last week I posted about listening to audiobooks, sermons, lectures and interviews from around the internet.  As I mentioned, there are a heap of resources to consume.  And that is a problem.  How do you whittle down what you do and don’t want to listen to?  How do you keep up the preaching of several preachers and audiobooks and lectures and interviews?

I don’t think you can, but here is how you can create your own podcast with whatever you want in it from around the web.

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Playtime is over

William Lane Craig

Via Christian Apologetics. This is a good quote from William Lane Craig. Apologetics is note the lone answer to the difficulties facing the church (and I don’t think Craig would agree say it is), but certainly churches need to be deadly serious about what they teach – lives depend on it. And as parents – we also must teach our children. The world will regardless of whether we do.

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Issues with Theistic evolution

Jay Richards

I’ve previously expressed my reservations about theistic evolution.  Recently, I was interested to hear some new reasoning against it in this interview with Jay Richards

Jay Richards (who co-wrote the Privileged Planet) has recently edited a book (God and Evolution) dealing explicitly with theistic evolution.  While I haven’t yet read the book (although it looks quite good), I listened to this short interview with him in which he gives a number of reasons. Read more »

Tips for memorizing scripture

Bible

A few weeks ago I posted some journalling tips. This time I want to share some tips for memorizing the Word of God. I’m sure you’ve heard that memorizing scripture is hugely rewarding. You’ve also probably experienced that it is also greatly challenging. But it can be done, and done well. A really good example is Ryan Ferguson’s inspiring example at the Worship 06 conference a few years ago. But don’t aim for theatrics, aim to know the word of God. Here are a few tips I’ve learned over the years for memorizing scripture.

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Five Years

Five years

I just realized I just past the five year mark blogging.  The first post I did was on giving and money.

Much has changed.  Back then I had built my own blogging engine on .Net.  Then I moved it to blogengine.net which has come a long way, even since I migrated to WordPress a couple of years ago.

When I started, this blog was hosted at http://bible.geek.nz, but recently I consolidated my blogging down to just one location that would host multiple writing themes.  This eases the load, makes blogging more fun and means I get to post on any of the subjects that interest me in one place.  I know that not every post I do will be equally valuable for everybody, but even if I were posting on a single theme that would be the case.

So, Here’s to five years.

To those who have followed my ramblings over that time, thank you for reading!  It is good to know someone benefits other than just me.

Grow on the go

Audiobooks

I love listening to books, sermons and lectures while I’m on the go.  Whether I’m running or walking or just driving the car somewhere, I can be learning and growing in Christ at the same time.  So here are some resources you can use to grow on the go.

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A sad way to bow out of CES

I was genuinely sad to read this.  I would love Microsoft to be able to wow consumers again.  But Microsoft is focused on the enterprise more than the consumer now.  I don’t think this is a path to long term success personally.

Consumer Electronics Show: Microsoft CEO’s Keynote… | Stuff.co.nz