Wise Words on Wednesday: Let It Snow
Christians, like snowflakes, are frail, but when then stick together they can stop traffic
– Vance Havner
Month: December 2016
Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 12 (“Ta-ha”)
Today’s chapter of the Qur’an focuses on the life of Moses…
Surah 20 – “Ta-ha” (Taha)
We start with the origin story of Moses, starting with the Burning Bush. Unlike the Biblical account, Moses has his family with him at the time he encounters the bush. Allah calls to Moses and tells him to worship Him alone, to “establish prayer” and then warns him of Judgement Day. Allah instructs Moses in transforming his staff and hand, then tells him he’s going to go to Pharaoh who “has transgressed [i.e. tyrannized]”. Moses asks Allah to “untie the knot from my tongue” and to grant his brother Aaron as a minister. Allah grants his request.
Music Monday: Learn to Let Go
“Learning to Let Go” by Levv, the collaboration group between Audrey Assad and Seth Jones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JblrapsL7o
Living alone, living a lie, stealing what you need from me
Your heart in your chest, knife in your breast
Call it what you want, honey
When you battle like a soldier, dropping bombs on everything you see
Fighting a forsaken war, what for?
You create your enemies
Runaway, runaway I wish you would give it up and come home
The fear in your eyes, you’re seeing spies everywhere you turn, you know
But you battle like a soldier, dropping bombs on everything you see
Fighting a forsaken war, what for?
You create your enemies
But I am learning to let go of you.
Give me a rhyme or reason why I should turn my back and be gone
At times I confess, it seems the best and easiest way to go on
But I battle like a soldier, picking up the pieces of our love
Fighting a forsaken war: what for, when it’s time to give up?
So I am learning to let go of you.
Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 11 (“Mary”)
Today is a particularly special chapter of the Qur’an, the one dedicated to Mary (“Miriam”), the Mother of Jesus (“Isa”):
Surah 19 – “Mary” (Maryam)
We begin this chapter with the story of Zechariah. As in the Bible, we are told that he and his wife had failed to have children. He is told through an angel that he will have a son named John. However, we soon start seeing a departure from the Biblical narrative…. Zechariah asks Allah to “make for me a sign”. He is then told that the sign will be that he will not be able to speak for “three nights”. However, in the Bible Zechariah cannotspeak until John’s circumcision. An interesting side note is that Allah tells John to “take the Scripture [i.e. adhere to it] with determination”, which shows that, at least in this chapter, the Old Testament is assumed to be preserved without corruption (contrary to the claim of most Muslims with whom I’ve spoken).
We now come to the story of Mary. We’re told that she withdraws from her family, heads eastwards and takes seclusion behind a screen – it’s not clear to me why. At this point, Gabriel visits her to give her “[news of] a pure boy [i.e. son]”. As in Luke’s Gospel, she does not understand how this will happen. There is a conspicuous absence of St. Joseph in this story – he is not mentioned once.
Reading Restless Pilgrim just got easier…
I post on this blog every day, but not every post is especially substantial.
On Mondays I post a video of Christian music.
On Wednesdays I share a quotation which I feel teaches some truth and is marked by wisdom.
On Fridays I post something light-hearted on the last day of the workweek to sustain good cheer and to usher in the weekend.
On the remaining days, I write some short posts, but I typically aim to write at least one substantial article each week, tagging it with the featured tag.
I was recently chatting with friends and a couple of them said that they come to my blog specifically for the more substantial articles and only visit the site periodically. In light of this, I wanted to explain to all readers how to best consume these articles if this is what you prefer.
Highlights Newsletter
For those who only periodically visit this site, but still want to stay abreast of the more substantial posts, I would recommend subscribing to the monthly newsletter. If you would like to sign-up for the newsletter, simply fill out the form below:
[wysija_form id=”3″]
I will only ever send out one email each month, promise!. In these emails I highlight my favourite posts from the last calendar month:
Featured Menu
Another way to consume the more substantial articles is to use the menu system at the top of the page. I’ve recently made a couple of changes to menu layout to make this easier:
The “Featured Articles” menu contains two entries, which allows readers to only view the more substantial articles I’ve written. All other posts, such as the music and quotations, will be filtered out.
How do you read Restless Pilgrim? Is there something else I can do to make it easier for you to consume the content?
Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 10 (“The Angels”)
Today in Atlanta, my friend’s son was baptized and entered into the Body of Christ! However, there’s no rest for the wicked, so here I am writing up today’s text from Qur’an, Surah 35:
Surah 35 – “The Angels” (Fatir)
The chapter begins with a typical set of assertions relating to Allah’s soveignty and the denial of the existence of any other God.
Some interesting things are said about Satan and evil doers. One phrase I really liked was “[Satan] only invites his party to be among the companions of the Blaze”. This is why Satan’s parties are the worst! Ayah 8 affirms that “Allah sends astray whom He wills”, once again suggesting that Muslims believe in double-predestination.
Prophet or Messiah?
As you will have no doubt noticed, I have been recently working my way through reading the Qur’an. As a result, over the last few days my inbox has begun filling up with messages related to Islam…
I received one such email from a Muslim who asked me about the time when the Jewish leaders questioned John the Baptist about his identity:
And this is the testimony of John [the Baptist], when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed, he did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Eli′jah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” And he answered, “No.”
– John 1:19-21