Stuff Michael Meeks is doing
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- Up rather early; H. sneezing and coughing poor dear.
Re-numbered some dates; they get out of sync too easily.
Looked up talented.
- Sermon from Gordon, on
1 Cor 14:1-5, 22-23.
- On holiday, discussing with a student, the
pillar convictions of his faith.
- Disbelief in everything else. Jesus'
teaching hard and many disciples abandoned him;
to whom shall we go - you have the words of
eternal life - said by
Peter who had plenty
of doubts and confusions. Meaningless,
meaningless everything is meaningless - says
the teacher of
Ecclesiastes - eg. living on in someone's memory
is
meaningless - how many people live in yours ?
- Convictions about creation;
Psalm 19The heavens declare the glory of God -
no literal speach is heard from them but yet their voice
goes out to the end of the earth. The beauty,
the order, the mathematical elegance, the balance
of physics etc.
- The person of Christ - what do you
think about him; not the dirty church, but him.
The evidence for his resurrection, while seeing the
evidence of his love dying for us on the cross.
Better - the power of the resurrected Christ making
it not just a religion but a relationship.
- The miracle of the Bible itself;
particularly prophecy. Lots of people claim the
bible is full of errors - but when pressed most
havn't read it. Some of the best lists of problems, come
from ~2 centuries ago, perhaps 100 - enscriptions
that can't be squared, archaeological issues etc.
Most of these simply have so many potential plausible
answers it's hard to decide.
- Prophecy - the huge resources of the US
would love to be able to predict not 300 years from
not - but not even 3 months from now. Isaiah 41
ridicules the idols who are impotent to predict
anything. God
says "I make known the end from
the beginning" - "what I have said, that will I
bring about, what I have planned, that will I do".
- Jesus'
parable of Lazarus the beggar in heaven, the rich man in hell
(at no point repentant, self pity for eternity):
I've got my brothers who are still living - send
Lazarus to warn them - people need to see a miracle
or they won't believe; Abraham replies: They have
Moses and the Prophets - let them listen to them.
ie. all the evidence the sceptic could want. Abraham
replies - If they do not listen to Moses & the
Prophets - they will not be convinced if someone rises
from the dead.
- The Hindu Vedas have no datable, testable
predictions at all. The Koran has no predictions
whatsoever; Mohamed - The seal of the prophets -
no prophecy; nothing said of him in the Bible. But of
Jesus - we have (eg.)
- Born of Judah - predicted from the times of
Genesis 49, the Lion of Judah's sceptre.
- Miciah 5:2 - born in Bethlehem -
a tiny villiage, almost no-one born there. All
other descendants Solomon to Zedeciah born in Jerusalem;
like a 2nd David - born where he was, in Bethlehem.
- Daniel - born during the Roman empire
~500BC - physical copies of it from 100BC; predict
he would die before the destruction of the temple,
thus a 27BC to 70AD window.
- Isaiah - again hard-copies pre-dating Jesus,
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried
our sorrows - he was pierced for our transgressions,
and crushed for our iniquities. We all like sheep
have gone astray - turned each one to his own way,
but the Lord has laid on him - the iniquities of
us all.
- And many more.
- Perhaps a strange place to begin for today's text.
- Is the gift of prophecy still alive today ? tremendous and
rightful concern that nothing should compromise the inerrant authority of the
prophets God raised up from Moses -> Jesus.
- At Sinai all of Israel heard God articulate the 10 commandments
for them. Then, written in stone by God - to preserve them; for their childrens
children - not on newspaper; but stone tablets - to endure. Now
the beginning of the Bible - begun by his own writing [ no-one had to
question if there were errors - perhaps mis-spelled his own name ? ].
- Israel cowered in fear and dread when they heard God speak. Not
just a little voice inside, a sort of feeling - when he spoke the ground
shook, the people couldn't bear it because of what God said when he spoke.
He doesn't say Friends is on TV tonight - but plumbed right to the
depth of their sin. They said to Moses speak to us yourself and we will
listen - but don't let God speak to us or we will die Exodus 20:18-19
.
- And so began the role of Prophet;
Deut 18
- This is what you asked the Lord your God at Sinai (Horeb).
- I will raise up for them a prophet like you from
among your people. God would put his words in his mouth.
- The standard expected is 100% accuracy: A prophet who
presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to
say; or who speaks in the name of other Gods must be put to death
- no 3 strikes and you're out policy.
- You may say to yourselves, "How can we know when a
message has not been spoken by the LORD ?" If what a prophet proclaims
in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a
message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously.
Do not be afraid of him.
- The standard is as high as it could possibly be.
- Thus some Christians seeing the claims of prophecy in the modern
church - and it's radical disparity with the record; would say that the gift
must be dead. Unfortunately - it doesn't tie with the text;
- Paul does indeed anticipate that indeed these gifts will in fact
cease
but only when we shall see face to face - the end point is in Heaven,
when we shall know as we are known.
- The passage says the gift is great earnestly desire the spiritual
gifts, especially that you might prophecy - inviting many in the Church at
Corinth - who had never met Jesus - to love one another and desire this gift.
- What kind of gift is he speaking about ? - more next week.
- Off to see Linsay, Tim and Christina baptised in Isleham church in the
afternoon, rather an encouraging dunking. Home. Phoning frenzy; bed early.
My content in this blog and associated images / data under
images/ and data/ directories are (usually)
created by me and (unless obviously labelled otherwise) are licensed under
the public domain, and/or if that doesn't float your boat a CC0
license. I encourage linking back (of course) to help people decide for
themselves, in context, in the battle for ideas, and I love fixes /
improvements / corrections by private mail.
In case it's not painfully obvious: the reflections reflected here are my
own; mine, all mine ! and don't reflect the views of Collabora, SUSE,
Novell, The Document Foundation, Spaghetti Hurlers (International),
or anyone else.
It's also important to realise that I'm not in on the Swedish Conspiracy.
Occasionally people ask for formal photos for conferences
or fun.
Michael Meeks (michael.meeks@collabora.com)
