A Hasidic story tells of a tailor who approaches his rabbi and says, “I have a problem with my prayers. I am a tailor, and from time to time people compliment me on my skills. It is very satisfying to hear their praise. One kind word can keep me going for a week. But if people came to me all day every day saying, “Mendel, you are a wonderful tailor”, “Mendel, you are a wonderful tailor”, “Mendel, you are a wonderful tailor” it would drive me crazy. It would get to the point I wouldn’t want to hear another compliment every again! I would tell everyone to go away and leave me to work in peace. And this is what bothers me about prayer. If just once a week we told God how wonderful he is, and just a couple of us did this each week, that is all God would need. Is God really so insecure that he needs us all to praise him morning, noon and night? Hundreds, thousands, millions of people praying, all praising him. Surely this would drive God crazy?!”
The rabbi smiled and said, “Mendel, you are absolutely right. You have no idea how difficult it is for God to listen to all our praises, day in, day out, 24 hours a day. But God knows how important it is for us to offer our praise, and so, because of God’s great love God tolerates all of our prayers”
Topics: prayer, praise, worship
Source: Told in H Kushner, Who Needs God (Fireside, 1989)
David Livingstone is renowned as one of the greatest missionaries of all time. He was among the first to explore Africa, driven by a passionate desire to end the slave trade. Livingstone was convinced that by opening up the continent he could expose slavery for the evil it was. When he died he was beloved in both Africa and England. His heart was buried in Africa and his body returned to England, where he was given a hero’s funeral. The gravestone read “brought by faithful hand over land and sea, David Livingstone: missionary, traveller, philanthropist. For thirty years his life was spent in an unwearied effort to evangelise the native races, to explore the undiscovered secrets and abolish the slave trade.”
Yet it is easy to focus on Livingstone the “saint” without recognising that he was an ordinary human being facing normal human struggles. Before he found his life’s work Livingstone met with a lot of “dead ends”. He initially entered medical college in response to a call for medical missionaries to China, but by the time his training was complete the Opium Wars had begun and the door to China was closed. He then settled on South Africa, having met a missionary already at work there, Robert Moffat. Moffat had a mission station 600 miles north of Capetown, and had told Livingstone that it glowed in the morning sun with “the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary had been before.” Unfortunately, when Livingstone arrived he discovered Moffat had been exaggerating. Rather than the smoke of a thousand villages Moffat had less than 40 converts, of whom half had returned to their pre-Christian ways, and the surrounding countryside was destitute of people.
Disillusioned with Moffat’s mission station Livingstone then set out to establish his own missionary work. Over the course of ten years he established a strong of mission stations, but had only one convert, who eventually returned to paganism.
This caused Livingstone to rethink his vocation, and it was only after all these setbacks that he finally embarked on his great journeys of exploration.
Not only did Livingstone face many setbacks before finding his vocation, he also suffered many character defects. While he loved the native Africans and got along well with them, he found it almost impossible to get along with his fellow Europeans. He fought with fellow missionaries, fellow explorers, assistants, and even his brother Charles. He held grudges for years, could explode with rage and later in life had a serious falling out and parting of the ways with his original mission organisation, the London Missionary Society.
Application: Livingstone reminds us that God’s work is carried out by ordinary people, not “supersaints.”
Application: . Livingstone’s story reminds us that we move into the future one step at a time, that where we will end up is often unclear, that there may be many detours along the way, but that if we are faithful God will take us and use us.
Jim Langstaff was a Canadian doctor who practised in the early 20th century. He was known for his extraordinary commitment to the welfare of his patients. For example, upon learning a woman who lived on an isolated farm was about to have a baby and needed medical help immediately Dr Langstaff set off. It was a bitterly cold winter’s day and the roads had become unusable. Undeterred Dr Langstaff strapped on his skis and continued. Snowdrifts on the road made skiing difficult so he took to the fields beside the road. At one point he tripped over a fence and became badly tangled in the wire. He freed himself, continue don to the farm house, delivered the baby and, once the weather had cleared, returned to his car.
People who knew Dr Langstaff say that sort of dedication was typical of the good doctor. It came from a sense of place in the world instilled into him by his father. One day Dr Langstaff’s son Walter came to his father and said “Dad, I got 99% in mathematics on my report card.” His father responded, “That’s great, but are you being a good citizen.”
Decades later the words still challenged Walter. “I have remembered that remark for the last 45 years” he said. “Was I being a good citizen?”
Fydor Doestoevsky is one of the greatest novelists of all time. He describes an experience when he was 27 as a turning point in his life. Doestoevsky came from the privileged class of 19th century Russia, but was committed to the liberation of the oppressed working class, the serfs. He joined a revolutionary liberation group, and as a result was arrested in April 1849. Placed in a maximum security prison, conditions were terrible. Doestoevsky slept on a hard straw bed in a small, damp room without much light. For eight months Doestoevsky and his fellow prisoners were questioned and kept in jail.
In October, the prisoners were removed from their cells and led to waiting carriages. They were not sure of their fate, but assumed the sentence would be light. When the carriages stopped, the prisoners were led onto a square and lined up on a gallows. The men were sentenced to be shot; they were given a cross to kiss, the chance to confess to a priest, and then were dressed in peasant shirts and hoods for the execution. The first three men in line were led to some stakes and tied; the soldiers took aim, and held their positions. Then from nowhere a drum roll was heard and a messenger from the Tsar rode in on a horse, with a pardon for Doestoevsky and his fellow prisoners. They were taken back to prison, with the intention they be sent to prison in Siberia.
In a letter to his brother Mikhail, Doestoevsky describes his new outlook towards life. “When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul – then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute can be an eternity of happiness.”
In a novel he later wrote, The Idiot, Doestoevsky describes an execution scene similar to the one he experienced. he describes the thoughts of the 27 year old victim as he awaited death, certainly his reflections on his own near execution. “What if I didn’t have to die!…I would turn every minute into an age, nothing would be wasted, every minute would be accounted for…(Part I, chapter 5)
In his book Written In Blood, Robert Coleman tells the story of a little boy whose sister needed a blood transfusion. She had a rare blood type which she shared with her little brother. The fact that he had recovered from the same disease two years earlier made the chances of success even greater. The doctor carefully explained all this to the little boy, pointing out that without the transfusion his sister would die.
“Would you be brave and give your blood to your sister?” the doctor asked. Johnny hesitated. His lower lip began to tremble. Then he smiled and said, “Sure, for my sister.” The two children were wheeled into the hospital room – Mary, pale and thin; Johnny, robust and healthy. He smiled at his sister, the watched as the blood travelled out of his body, down the clear plastic tube. Johnny’s smile faded, and as he lay there feeling weak he looked up at the doctor and said, “Doctor, when do I die?’
Johnny thought that giving his blood to his sister meant giving up his life. Yet because of his great love for her he was prepared to pay the price.
Source: quote excerpted from Robert Coleman, Written in Blood.
Just about every home in Australia today has a telephone in it. In fact many homes have multiple phones, and a lot of us carry mobiles. And many of you could easily answer the question: who invented the telephone? Of course, it was Alexander Bell. Bell was amazingly talented. Not only did he invent the telephone, he also invented the multiple telegraph, the audiometer – which is used to test your hearing, the tricycle landing gear you find on planes, and a host of other less well known machines. In addition to this he was cofounder of the prestigious magazine Science, served as President of the National Geographic Society, and spent his life working with deaf people.
But most famous of all is his telephone. It also made his family and his descendents enormously wealthy. But he almost lost it all. You see Bell never seemed to get around to submitting a patent application. Finally, his father-in-law, who had financed a lot of the research, got so impatient that he filed the patent on Bell’s behalf on the 14th of February 1876, Bell’s 29th birthday. And it was just as well, because just a few hours later, another scientist by the name of Elisha Gray went to the patent office to get a patent on a machine he’d been working on for many years – you guessed it, the telephone.
Application: Action. Bell reminds us that sometimes its not enough simply to have great ideas. We need to act on them.
Application: Faith, Works. Bell and his father-in-law are a good example of the relationship between faith and works. As James says, one without the other is ineffective. Bell had faith in his telephone but did nothing about it. His father-in-law had faith and works to go with it.
Application: Community, Giftedness. Bells story reminds us how we need all types of people to make our communities and churches function effectively. We need the thinkers like Bell, the doers like Bell’s father-in-law, and together we can accomplish great things.
Source: Scott Higgins. Scientific info from Dr Karl Kruszelnicki’s New Moments in Science #1
In 1505 21 year old Martin Luther walking toward village of Stotternheim when sky became overcast. Raging storm blew up and a bolt of lightning lit the sky with a flash, knocking Martin to the ground. “St Anne help me!” he cried “I will become a monk.” Martin had grown up in a medieval culture filled with talk of devils and demons and angels and heaven and hell and the great judgement day. Culture of great fear. He thought the lightning had been launched at him by God as a message, a glimpse of the terror of Judgement Day. Martin knew he needed to preserve his soul and the best way to do that was to become a monk. So off to the monastery he went to seek God’s grace and mercy. At the end of his first year he was made a priest and invited to celebrate his first mass. Martin’s family came for the occasion, the chapel was filled, the psalms were sung. Then Martin took his place behind the altar and began. But just moments in he was struck by sheer terror – here he was, in his own words, “a miserable and little pygmy…dust and ashes and full of sin” daring to speak to the living, eternal and fearsome God.
Martin got through the mass and kept going as a monk, but those experiences capture his terrible internal burdens. He got to the point where he was convinced that God was so pure and holy no-one could ever hope to be saved. All would be abandoned to the torments of hell. “More than once (I) was driven to the very abyss of despair so that I wished I had never been created. Love God? I hated him!”
And then in 1513, 8 years after that thunderstorm, 7 years after that terrible mass, Luther had a third great religious experience. He was lecturing on the book of Psalms at the University of Wittenburg, then in 1515 on Romans, then in 1516 on Galatians. It was during those studies Luther discovered a life transforming insight from the gospel – that God’s requirement for us is not perfection but faith. “My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him…Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith…whereas before the ‘justice of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love”
Source: Reported in Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther
“You have no idea what this has meant to me. All these years I never thought you were even interested in what I had to say,” the old man told them.
It’s my get away. You heard me mention it before. My favorite restaurant for a good old clog your heart breakfast of eggs, home fries, and bacon. Oh yes. Whole wheat toast to make it healthy.
I find the most incredible people and stories in restaurants. Think about it. It’s your family dinner table removed from your kitchen and placed in a public area. Like home, but better. Somebody else is cooking and doing the dishes.
So scattered all around me are families having dinner, friends catching up with the latest news, business meetings and people like me just there to relax. Oh, of course. Great conversation.
Except in the booth across from me. Silence.
When I first sat down there two men sitting together quietly. One man appeared to be in his thirties. He was dressed in some old work clothes and still wearing his baseball cap. The other man I would guess was about 80. He had the most incredible face. The lines and creases gave him character. His white hair was messy from wearing a stocking cap he held on top of the table. He wore one of those red plaid shirt jackets that you might see on a construction worker. Heavy enough to keep you warm while you’re moving about, but not too bulky to limit your movement.
But he didn’t look like he was going any where. Neither was this conversation.
“Boy, I really worked up a hunger today, Pop. All that shoveling and sweeping the snow will do that,” the younger man said.
“Yeah, this is somethin’,” replied the old man.
Silence followed for the longest time.
Suddenly I heard the young man say, “Here they come,” as he pointed toward the doorway.
He almost looked relieved. Somebody who would join in and help get this conversation going.
It appeared to me that the two people who joined them were a mother and teenage grandchild. The woman sat next to the younger man and Pop stood up to let the grandchild slide in place.
“Hello, Dad. Good to see you!” she said as she sat down.
“Yep!” the old man replied.
Silence. Even longer gaps than before.
“I feel real good,” the old man said proudly.
“Oh, you look good Dad,” the younger man said. Then one by one the others agreed.
Silence.
The waitress approached and took their breakfast orders.
Grandpa excused himself. “Gotta go to the bathroom. It happens a lot when you’re old,” he said.
As soon as he was out of sight, the younger man said, “God, I don’t know what to say to him. We just sit here looking around. He never talks.”
“I know what you mean. God what do you say?” the woman added.
“He’s old. What do you talk about with an old man?” the kid joined in.
Oh, no. Here I go. I can’t just sit here and listen to this. I’m going to say something, swallow hard and wait to see if they tell me it’s none of my business.
“Ask him about his childhood,” I said as I continued eating.
“What? Pardon me? Were you talking to us, sir?” the woman asked.
“Yes. It’s really not my business, I know. But do you realize what he has to offer you? Can you even begin to understand what this man has seen in his lifetime? He most likely has answers to problems you haven’t even discovered as problems in your life. He’s a gold mine!” I said.
Silence again.
“Look, talk to him about his childhood. Ask him what the snows were like back then. He’ll have a million stories to share. He’s not talking because no one is asking,” I told them.
Just then he came walking around the corner.
“Oh, boy. I feel much better now. You know I haven’t been goin’ good in a while,” the old man told them.
They all turned and looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders. Okay. So old people also talk about the facts of life. And going or not going is a major thing when you’re old. You take the good with the bad.
After a long silence the young girl said, “Paw Paw. When you were a kid were the snows this bad?”
“Gees, honey. This is nothing like the snows I had when I was a kid. Did I ever tell you about the snow storm that covered my house?” he asked.
“No, Pop. I don’t think I ever heard that one myself,” said the younger man.
Now for the next twenty minutes the old man was in his glory. At one point he even stood up to show them how high the one snow drift was. Throughout the entire meal everyone chimed in with more questions. They laughed and he lit up like he was on stage and the play he was acting in was his life story.
Just as I was about to leave I heard the old man say, “You have no idea what this has meant to me. All these years I never thought you were even interested in what I had to say.”
“Oh….. well, I guess we just didn’t think you wanted to talk,” the woman said.
“Well nobody bothered to ask me anything. I just figured I was boring or somethin. It’s been a tough life you know. Ever since Ma Ma died I really had nothing to say.” He paused for a moment. I could see him nervously wringing his rough life worn hands together.
“You see, her and I were like a song. I made the music and she…she was the words,” he said.
Like tough guys of his time are supposed to do, he held back any visible emotion, sniffled and wiping his eye he said, “No sense talkin’ if you ain’t got the words.”
As I turned to walk away I looked across the table. I saw the young girl wave and smile at me as she put her arm around Paw Paw’s shoulders.
She didn’t have to say a word.
Source: Bob Perks © 2001. Used with permission
George Bernanos wrote a novel called Diary of a Country Priest. It tells the story of a good young priest who struggles against a corrupt and deceitful church. Has a very difficult life, made more difficult by fact that he develops stomach cancer. In the final days of his life he lies weak and in terrible pain. Another priest is called to perform the last rites. A friend waits with him. Later the friend records what happened as they waited.
“The priest was still on his way, and finally I was bound to voice my deep regret that such delay threatened to deprive my comrade of the final consolations of our church. But a few moments later, he put his hand over mine and his eyes entreated me to draw closer to him. He then uttered these words almost in my ear. And I am quite sure I have recorded them accurately, for his voice, though halting, was strangely distinct.
‘Does it matter? Grace is everywhere…’
I think he died just then.”
In the mid 1990’s the movie Devil’s Advocate was released starring Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino. Keanu plays Kevin Lomax, a happily married and very successful lawyer in America’s South. Down in the South he’s a man of integrity who’s focussed on what’s important in life. Then he’s offered a job in the Big Apple, New York, with a world wide law firm. Kevin and his wife move to New York only to find Kevin being seduced by the atmosphere of greed, sex and power that surrounds the firm, and more particularly it’s owner, John Milton, played by Al Pacino.
But we soon discover that there is more to this movie than the age old theme of greed versus goodness. The plot is much more sinister. It turns out that John Milton is in fact the Devil, a devil who has learned to despise God and embrace self satisfaction.
During the movie the Devil lets us in on his plan to seduce humanity. “You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire; you build egos the size of cathedrals; fibre-optically connect the world to every eager impulse; grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green, gold-plated fantasies, until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own God… And as we’re straddling from one deal to the next, who’s got his eye on the planet, as the air thickens, the water sours, and even the bees’ honey takes on the metallic taste of radioactivity? And it just keeps coming, faster and faster. There’s no chance to think, to prepare; it’s buy futures, sell futures, when there is no future!
“Look at me” cries the Devil, “underestimated from Day One! You’d never think I was a master of the universe, now, would you? I’m a surprise, Kevin. They don’t see me coming: that’s what you’re missing.”
Source: Scott Higgins
William Booth was the founder of the Salvation Army. Once told that certain kinds of music were too much “of the world” to be used in evangelistic meetings, he replied, “Not allowed to sing that tune or this tune? Indeed! Secular music, do you say? Belongs to the devil, does it? Well, if it did, I would plunder him of it. Every note and every strain and every harmony is divine and belongs to us.”
At another time Booth discovered that a popular Christian chorus of the day took it’s tune from a music-hall ditty, “Champagne Charlie is My Name.” His response? “That settles it. Why should the devil have all the best tunes?”
Source: reportes in Chris Armstrong, Christian History Magazine Newsletter 10/1/2003 citing Ian Bradley, author of Abide with Me: The World of Victorian Hymns.
In May 2001 journalist Giles Brandeth interviewed South African Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It was a powerful experience for Brandeth, for Desmond Tutu was suffering from prostate cancer and there was a real chance this might be the last interview he would ever give. What might Tutu want to talk about? Perhaps the amazing transformation in the politics of his country, and of which he himself had a leading role. No. Here’s what he told Brandeth: “If this is going to be my last interview, I am glad we are not going to talk about politics. Let us talk about prayer and adoration, about faith, hope and forgiveness.” For Tutu these are the things that are the stuff of life.
Source: reported in The Age May 19, 2001
In 1985 an ocean research ship was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. A biologist named Bruce was lowered over the side in a Deep Rover, a one person submarine. He’s sitting inside a clear acrylic sphere, with lights on the front and a small bank of controls built into the seat. We hold our breath as Deep Rover and Bruce head down into the ocean, watching the submarine turn from a solid metal, to a shimmering shape, then finally disappearing into the depths of the ocean. Bruce heads down 500 metres below the surface. The sea is now an inky black. Millions of tiny glowing creatures stream by, twinkling like fireflies. Then all of a sudden, out of the black, emerges an enormous, semitransparent creature 40 metres long. The creature has thousands of tentacles, dozens of stomachs. Within moments several others swim up, surrounding Bruce and Deep Rover.
You’re all waiting for me to tell you that they attacked the sub, that it returns to the surface with giant tentacle marks across it. But they don’t. This isn’t a Hollywood horror flick, this is real life. These creatures actually exist. There really is a marine biologist named Bruce Robinson who saw them in 1985.
Ask yourself, why do these giant jellyfish exist? They make absolutely no contribution to human well being. We didn’t even know they existed until the 1980’s. They are not a food source for us, they don’t provide medicines for us.
Now ask yourself why do the millions upon millions of as yet undiscovered species of life on earth exist. The Natural Museum of London estimates that there may be anywhere between 10 million and 100 million unknown species of life on the ocean seabeds alone! Why do they exist?
It seems to me they cry out that we humans need to get rid of our speciesism, our belief that God’s interest is in us alone, that God has made the world simply for us to enjoy and use. They tell us that God’s love and interest and pleasure extend to millions upon millions of forms of life on planet earth and wherever else life may exist in the universe.
This is exactly the point made by the writer of Psalm 104.. Verses 5-18 talk about the fact that God has made the world watery. That water is designed to make our fields fruitful so that we have food to eat. But God also ensures that the earth is productive for the wild donkey which lives in the humanly uninhabitable desert, for the wild goats which live high in the mountains. The earth is productive not only for us humans, but also for all the millions and millions of species of life that live on it.
Verses 19-23 talk of God creating the earth with cycles and rhythms. Spring, summer winter, autumn. Night and day. Then the Psalmist makes the interesting observation that while daytime is time for us to go out to work, night time is for the animals of the forest to hunt. It’s their God allotted space and time, and mentioned with the same type of importance and significance as out space and time.
God enjoys creation.
Source: Scott Higgins. Biologist story details from Time Magazine
“I paid little attention as the glare of headlights briefly illuminated my boyfriend Mark’s face and then swept on…” So begins Debbie Morris’s amazing story of suffering and forgiveness. On a Friday night in the 1980’s Debbie and her boyfriend Mark were kidnapped while on a date. One of the kidnappers was Robert Willie, the character made famous in the Susan Sarandon, Sean Pean movie Dead Man Walking. After shooting her boyfriend in the head and leaving him for dead in the woods, the kidnappers subject Debbie to two terrifying days of rape and brutalisation.
Just two days in a lifetime, yet they understandably left an indelible Mark of Debbie’s life. She spent years struggling with pain, anger, depression, alcohol abuse and guilt. Most remarkable of all however is her journey towards healing and forgiveness. In the book Forgiving the Dead Man Walking she tells how she learned to forgive her kidnappers.
She realised that she needed to forgive Willie, if nothing else, for her own good. She had seen the way rage and bitterness consumed the lives of the parents of another girl raped and murdered by her kidnappers. She didn’t want to become a prisoner of her past. And so the night Robert Willie was executed, Debbie realised she could forgive him. She prayed, “Lord, I really do need to forgive Robert Willie. As best I can anyway. If the execution goes on, make it fast and painless. I don’t want him to suffer anymore.”
But what does it mean to forgive in a situation like this? Debbie describes how helpful psychology professor Dr Terry Hargrave was. Dr Hargraves divides forgiveness into two parts: salvage and restoration. Salvage involves insight – recognising how we were violated and who bears responsibility, and understanding – trying to understand why something was done. Restoration involves overt forgiving, where forgiveness is openly sought, given and received and compensation, where there are things which compensate us for past hurts. Hargraves explains that restoration is possible only where there was a prior relationship, or a relationship you want to restore. This was not the case with Debbie. For her salvage was the highest goal she could seek. With its twin dimensions of insight and understanding, its allowed her to move beyond her self blame and bitterness to “salvage” something from her hurtful experience.
Debbie was also helped by Lewis Smedes book Forgive and Forget. In a section entitled “forgiving Monsters” Smedes writes “If we say monsters are beyond forgiving we give them a power they should never have…The climax of forgiveness takes two, I know. But you can have the reality of forgiveness without its climax. Forgiving is real, even if it stops at the healing of the forgiver” In this light Debbie writes “The refusal to forgive him meant that I held onto all my Robert Willie-related stuff – my pain, my shame, my self-pity. That’s what I gave up in forgiving him. And it wasn’t until I did, that real healing could even begin. I was the one who gained.”
Throughout this process Debbie has struggled with what she feels about the death penalty. She closes her book with these words, “God seems to put a higher priority on forgiveness that on justice. We don’t sing ‘Amazing Justice’; we sing ‘Amazing Grace’. Does that mean I think a holy God would oppose the execution of a convicted murderer like Robert Willie? I don’t know; I’m still wrestling with that question. But I do know this: Justice didn’t do a thing to heal me. Forgiveness did.”
Source: Based on reports in Debbie Morris, Forgiving the Dead Man Walking (Zondervan, 1998)
Dr Laura is an America radio personality who hosts a talkback style program. It is said that she once condemned homosexuality as an abomination to God, quoting Leviticus 18.22, and claimed that this verse settled the matter. The letter found below was written in response and has been circulating on the internet. Regardless of one’s stance on homosexuality it highlights the problem of selectively quoting the bible without attention to broader issues of how we should interpret and apply those same Scriptures.
Dear Dr. Laura,
Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s law. I have learned a great deal from you, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.
When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbours. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. How should I deal with this?
I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as it suggests in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence.
Lev. 25:44 states that I may buy slaves from the nations that are around us. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans but not Canadians. Can you clarify?
I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 10:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this?
Lev. 20:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.
David Suzuki is one of the world’s best known campaigners for the environment. He is a respected and regarded citizen of his homeland Canada. Many people are unaware however of the painful memories Suzuki has from childhood.
On December 7, 1941 the Japanese airforce bombed Pearl Harbour and so Japan entered the Second World War. People of Japanese descent were immediately suspect in Canada. Within nine days of the bombing they were required to register with the authorities as “enemy aliens”. Their property was confiscated, their bank accounts were frozen and they were told they would have to leave their homes.
David Suzuki was five years old at the time, and his parents were second generation Canadians…of Japanese descent. By the time David turned he, his mother and his sisters were sent to an internment camp in British Columbia. His father was sent to work on a road gang, rejoining his family in the camp a year later. The conditions were filthy and cramped.
Toward the end of the war the internees were given a choice. The Canadian government would pay for them to move to Japan, or they could remain in Canada, on condition that they lived east of the Rocky Mountains. Japanese-Canadians were no longer welcome in the Suzuki’s hometown of Vancouver. David’s family chose to remain in Canada, destitute and in poverty.
The entire episode left a terrible legacy in David Suzuki’s life. Proud to be Canadian he began to despise his Japanese descent and his Asian appearance. For years as a teenager he saved money for an operation to enlarge his eyes and dye his hair. He refused to walk down the street with his parents because he felt ashamed of them. His father drummed into him that to do well with white people he would have to be twice as good as them.
Even today Suzuki struggles with the past. He says “The terrible burden I’ve had all my life is that I seem to be constantly trying to reaffirm to Canadians that I’m a worthwhile human being. It’s really ridiculous to be 64 years old and still feel that you’ve got to prove to them that you’re not somebody who should be locked up.”
Source: Information reported in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend Magazine, April 8, 2000
An article in National Geographic several years ago provided a penetrating picture of God’s love. After a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park, forest rangers began their trek up a mountain to assess the damage. One ranger found a bird literally petrified in ashes, perched on the ground at the base of a tree. Somewhat sickened by the eerie sight, he knocked it over with bird with a stick.
When he struck it, three tiny chicks scurried from under their dead mother’s wings.
The loving mother, keenly aware of impending disaster, had carried her offspring to the base of the tree and had gathered them under her wings. She could have flown to safety but had refused to abandon her babies.
When the blaze arrived and the heat scorched her small body, the mother had remained steadfast. Because she had been willing to die, those under the cover of her wings would live.
Likewise Christ gave his life to save us from the disastrous fire of sin.
Contact, starring Jodie Foster, tells the story of astronomer Ellie Arroway’s search for extraterrestrial life. It is more however than a movie about aliens. It raises profound questions about life, faith and science.
Ellie’s parents both died while she way very young, and she is left with a keen sense of aloneness and a drive to discover some sense of meaning and purpose to life and existence. Her chosen path to truth is science. She refuses to accept anything on the basis of faith. Only that which can be scientifically demonstrated can be intellectually embraced.
The other central character in the movie is Palmer Joss, a spiritual adviser to the president. Ellie and Joss find themselves attracted to each other, but their relationship forces them both to explore the place of faith and reason in their lives. Ellie challenges Joss to proven that God exists. Ockham’s razor demands that the simplest explanation is the best. On this basis she asks “So what’s more likely? That a mysterious, all-powerful God created the universe, and then decided not to leave a single evidence of his existence? Or that He simply doesn’t exist at all, and that we created Him, so that we wouldn’t have to feel so small and lonely?”
Joss responds by asking Ellie if she loved her father. She affirms that she loved him deeply. Joss then turns Ellie’s demand back on her. “Prove it”. Joss explains that although he may not be able to scientifically prove God’s existence, he once had a deeply moving experience where he felt overwhelmed by the presence of God. It’s on this basis that he believes. Ellie however can’t accept this. If it cannot be proven it cannot be true.
Then one day, as Ellie is listening for signals from outer-space contact is made. Aliens from deep in space have returned radio signals to earth and then send details for the construction of what seems to be a time machine. After one person has died when the first machine explodes, Ellie is chosen to travel in the second. When Joss asks her whether she is willing to die for this she replies: “For as long as I can remember, I’ve been searching for something, some reason why we’re here. What are we doing here? Who are we? If this is a chance to find out even just a little part of that answer… I don’t know, I think it’s worth a human life. Don’t you?”
So Ellie finds herself sitting in a small metallic sphere suspended from massive circular arms. The arms start rotating furiously, reaching a point where the sphere is dropped. This time the machine doesn’t explode, the sphere simply falls to earth. Nothing has happened…
Or at least that’s how it appears to inside observers. Ellie’s experience within the capsule is extraordinary. She finds herself hurtling down a “wormhole”, a doorway through space, until she emerges on a beautiful beach. A figure walks across the sand toward her. It’s her father…in fact an alien life form coming to her in the guise of her father so that she will feel comfortable. Finally Ellie has overcome her sense of cosmic aloneness, perhaps found some of the answers she is looking for. In some poignant lines the alien says: “You’re an interesting species, an interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.”
After 18 hours Ellie has to return. When she does she finds herself confronted by the same skepticism towards her experience that she showed to Joss when he spoke of his experience of God. From the viewpoint of everyone observing from outside the capsule nothing happened. Surely Ockham’s razor demands the simplest explanation – that nothing did happen other than Ellie being fooled? Surely they can’t be expected to accept Ellie’s story on the basis of nothing but faith? Ellie’s confronted with a terrible dilemma. Can she now embrace her experience on the basis of nothing but faith? It seems her answer is “yes”. She says “I had an experience I can’t prove, I can’t even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. I was part of something wonderful, something that changed me forever; a vision of the universe that tells us undeniably how tiny, and insignificant, and how rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us we belong to something that is greater than ourselves. That we are not, that none of us are alone. I wish I could share that. I wish that everyone, if even for one moment, could feel that awe, and humility, and the hope, but… that continues to be my wish.”
Application: Science and religion, truth, God’s existence, evidence for God, apologetics. The movie suggests that faith and science are not opposed, as Ellie thinks, but can complement each other as Joss believes. Truth can be accessed not only through scientific experiment but also through experience. Indeed, the film suggests that the greatest truths – love, meaning, purpose, etc – are outside the ability of science.
Application: Meaning of Life. Ellie’s closing words represent a wonderful description of the Christian perspective on life. “I had an experience I can’t prove, I can’t even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. I was part of something wonderful, something that changed me forever; a vision of the universe that tells us undeniably how tiny, and insignificant, and how rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us we belong to something that is greater than ourselves. That we are not, that none of us are alone. I wish I could share that. I wish that everyone, if even for one moment, could feel that awe, and humility, and the hope, but… that continues to be my wish.”
Application: Relationships, Loneliness, God’s presence. The alien in the movie provides a poignant expression of our desperate need for others (and God), when he says of humans, “You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.”
The Sydney to Hobart is one of the world’s great yacht races. But in 1998 it was struck by terrible disaster, when a ferocious storm forced most of the fleet to retire and claimed six lives.
One of the yachts competing was the 43 footer, the Sword of Orion. During that storm the Sword of Orion was a cork on the ocean, battling its way against huge seas. All of a sudden the crew heard a roar like the sound of a train, a breaking wave of 80 feet hit their yacht side on, and flipped it over. When the boat righted itself, one crewman had been swept away, the mast had torn away from its footing and was threatening to spear straight through the hull, and the equipment and rigging was in terrible shape.
The crew sent out a mayday call and did their best to keep the yacht afloat. They braced the hull to prevent it from collapsing, they started bailing out the water seeping in, and like a cork bobbing on a violent ocean they waited for a rescue team to arrive.
They waited through the night and heard nothing. Then in the dim light of early morning one of the crewman saw something he almost couldn’t believe. There just 150 metres away was another yacht! He raced below deck to grab the flares. He let off the first, but got no response. He let off a second, but got no response. He let off the third, but got no response. Hadn’t they seen him? Couldn’t they see this yacht was in trouble? He let off a fourth and a fifth, but still no response. With their hearts sinking the crew of the Sword of Orion watched the other yacht sail away.
The other yacht was the Margaret Rintoul II The skipper of the Margaret Rintoul had seen the flares set off by the Sword of Orion, but was faced with an agonising decision. One of the first rules of yachting is that you always go to the aid of a yacht in distress. But the Margaret Rintoul was only just making it through the storm herself. The engine was not working, making manoeuvrability in the atrocious conditions very difficult, and to go to the aid of Sword of Orion would mean turning the Margaret Rintoul II side-on to the giant waves, and that would mean a very strong risk that Margaret Rintoul IIwould herself be flipped and left helpless by the sea. Weighing up the risk to his own crew the skipper of the Margaret Rintoul II made the heartbreaking decision to sail on. They eventually sailed to safety, and were later vindicated by the coroner for their choice.
Meanwhile back on the Sword of Orion the crew held on. They were located by a search plane, and a short time after watching it fly off, they heard the drone of a helicopter engine. The helicopter lowered a cable into the raging seas, and a crewman would jump overboard, grab the cable, attach it to themselves and be hoisted to safety. After rescuing three of the nine crew the helicopter had to leave, it was running low on fuel. When it arrived back at base it had just 10 minutes of fuel left. The six remaining crew waited out a cold and terrifying night. Then the next morning another helicopter arrived, able to rescue the remaining six crewman. Moment after the last crewman was rescued the Sword of Orion was flung down the face of another huge wave and began to crack apart.
When we’re in crisis often the only thing we can do is hang on and wait for help. Like the crew of the Margaret Rintoul we might be so overwhelmed by the crisis we face that we’re not able to help others in need. But in a healthy community there will always be those who can help us through.
Source: Scott Higgins. Information on the yacht race found in Rob Mundle, Fatal Storm.
It’s often easy to look at “successful” people and think that it’s all come easily to them. In many cases this is not what happened. Colonel Sanders went to more than 1,000 places trying to sell his chicken recipe before he found an interested buyer. Thomas Edison tried almost 10,000 times before he succeeded in creating the electric light.
The original business plan for what was to become Federal Express was given a failing grade on Fred Smith’s college exam. And, in the early days, their employees would cash their pay checks at retail stores, rather than banks. This meant it would take longer for the money to clear, thereby giving Fed Ex more time to cover their payroll.
Sylvester Stallone had been turned down a thousand times by agents and was down to his last $600 before he found a company that would produce Rocky. The rest is history!
The poet Robert Forst had his first poetry submissions to The Atlantic Monthly returned unwanted.
Ray Kroc, the late founder of McDonalds, knew this too. “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence” he once said. “Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with great talent. Genius will not. Un-rewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence, determination and love are omnipotent.”
I want to give you a scenario. You’re 22 years old – it’s already attractive to many of you isn’t it? You do well at school and head off to Uni. You work hard and do so well that even before you finish your uni course you land a plum job in a merchant bank. You work hard in your new job and life is looking pretty good. One day your boss calls you into the office and greets you with the words, “We’ve decided to terminate your employment. Your work isn’t good enough, you’re a bit too different and you don’t fit in with the others.”
That’s what happened to a young Australian by the name of Brett Kelly. Brett’s world came tumbling in on him. This was the first time in his life anything had gone really wrong. He lost his confidence in himself, lost all sense of purpose and direction, and slipped into a routine of getting up late, watching the Midday show and wasting the afternoon.
Then one day Kerrie Ann Kennerly turned Brett’s life around. Sitting there day after day watching the Midday show Brett noticed Kerrie Ann’s passion for her job, the way she so obviously enjoyed what she was doing, and gained so much energy from it. “That’s what I want” he said to himself – “that type of energy, that type of passion.” But how? Where could he find it? How could he learn to have that type of success?
He had no answers but he figured people who were successful in their chosen career probably did. So he made up a list of prominent people he admired – from rock stars like Peter Garrett, to political leaders like Bob Hawke and Jeff Kennett, to entertainers like HG Nelson. The idea was to interview them, discover their secrets, then publish the interviews in a book. When he got through all his interviews Brett was startled at what he learned about success. Brett had always thought that success in work and life would come from skill and talent and so he had chased qualifications, skills, and experience. What he found was that the one thing all the people he interviewed shared was the ability to build high quality relationships.
You want to know the title of his book? Collective Wisdom.
A number of years back the codfish industry on the northeast coast of the US had a problem. The fresher the fish the better. So how could they keep the codfish fresh while they transported them across the country? When they froze the fish they lost too much flavour. When they transported them live in tanks filled with saltwater the fish got soft and mushy.
Finally they found a solution. They placed catfish in the tanks. Catfish are a natural enemy of codfish, so the catfish would chase them around the tanks all the time they were being transported. The cod now arrived in better condition than ever.
Relating this story, Chuck Swindoll points out that we all need catfish in our lives – the difficult people or situations in life that may not be pleasant but keep us healthy and growing.
Have you ever driven by a highly polluted area and wondered what can be done to stop people dumping their rubbish? At the turn of the Millennium Peru city authorities tried a novel approach. Some of the streets in the capital city were scarred by terrible littering – people even stopping to urinate in the streets. The authorities responded by placing pictures of Jesus and Mary on the walls of buildings lining the most polluted streets. Why? Because the people of Peru are, on the whole, committed to Roman Catholicism. The authorities have found that people are far less likely to litter the streets under the gaze of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.
Source: based on Reuters News Story January 2001.
Winston Churchill was one of the great leaders of the twentieth century. Even today his speeches to the British people steeling them for war with the Nazis can send shivers up the spine: ”We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. . . . We shall fight on the beaches . . . we shall fight in the fields and in the streets . . . we shall never surrender.” ”Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’…”
Churchill was a man of great vision and determination, and from his story we can learn at least two things about vision:
- Staking out a visionary path is not always a matter of clear cut choices. At the same time Churchill was steeling the resolve the the British with his speeches, many in the governing circles were convinced Hitler could not be beaten and were urging him to abandon the war, surrender Europe to the Nazis, and maintain Britain as a small enclave of freedom.
- Staking out a visionary path often begins with wild and crazy ideas. A former officer of the Home Office, commented: ”Once a week or oftener Mr. Churchill came into the office bringing with him some adventurous or impossible projects; but after half an hour’s discussion something was evolved which was still adventurous, but not impossible.”
Source: Information reported in New York Times review of Roy Jenkins book Churchill, November 11, 2001.
Winnie-the Pooh is one of the most loved children’s characters of all time. Of course, Pooh is the bear who belongs to Christopher Robin. At the end of the one Winnie-The-Pooh story we learn that Christopher Robin is soon to “go away” to school. Here’s how the story goes:
Now there comes a time in everyone’s life when toys and games are replaced by pencils and books. You see Christopher Robin was going away to school. Nobody in the forest knew exactly why or where he was going, all they knew was that it had something to do with twice times and ABCs and where a place called Brazil is.
“Pooh, what do you like doing best in the world?”
“What I like best is me going to visit you and saying, ‘How about a smackerel of honey?”
“I like doing that too, but what I like doing best is Nothing”
“How do you do Nothing?”
“Well, it’s when grown-ups ask ‘What are you going to do?’ and you say ‘Nothing’. And you go and do it.”
“I like that, let’s do it all the time.”
“You know something Pooh, I’m not going to do just Nothing anymore”
“You mean never again?”
“Well, not so much.”
