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Showing posts from October, 2011

I Know Him Very Well

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This is a song I wrote some years ago and is on my album Beauty of Grace . I'd heard about Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of Christ' and how graphic it was. Some Christians strongly recommended seeing it as it brought the reality of the crucifixion to life. However, the more realistic something is the more you think you've experienced it first hand. But the Christian faith is about commitment not emotional attachment; more about faith than experience. The Passion of Christ is a dramatisation of an event, produced to create an emotional response. In that, there is nothing wrong but you cannot say you know Jesus if you've never met him in person. I've created a video on YouTube to illustrate the song. I know it very well: the carpets, curtains, paper on the wall, the living room and hall. But I have never lived there, never been at all. I've seen it on TV and it seemed like home to me. photo © francesco for openphoto.net CC:Attribution-ShareAlike I know her

It's Not Common Sense

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What you Herd Credit: Free photos from acobox.com Do you know why sweaty feet smell like cheese? It's the same bacteria producing the smell. Very often two things are quite different yet there is some commonality that links one with the other. We wonder how two things can be so different yet so similar at the same time but its not surprising when you consider that most of what we eat is made up of the same two elements, carbon and hydrogen. And if you appreciate that food is body fuel you won't be terribly surprised that petrol and diesel are also combinations of the same elements. We put carbohydrates in our bodies and hydrocarbons in our cars. With this in mind you can understand that though people are quite different, one from another - in a given situation the majority of people may act in a very similar way. It has nothing to do with our similarities or differences but what we have in common; its what makes families sticky even when siblings are quite different to each ot

The Wrong Way Round

A critical look at the Full Gospel I've just been listening to an address by Steve Jobs at Stanford University. He tells three stories, the last of which refers to death as a gift. He says that death clears out the old and makes way for the new, that to be reminded of death gives life more focus and immediacy. He makes good sense and in many respects I would agree with him except in one respect. Death is not a gift. The shortest verse in the Bible is 'Jesus wept', a phrase abused by many who have never read the book. But even for those of us familiar with its context there is some confusion over its meaning. It comes in the story of the death and resurrection of Lazarus and its often assumed that Jesus was sorrowful at the demise of his friend and sympathetic to the grief of Lazarus' sisters. However, seeing that Jesus was intending to raise Lazarus on that day its not likely he would be sorrowful. But the verse does indicate a strong emotion which some render as Jesus