"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Earlier this week I posted a list of Do’s and Don’ts for leading Bible study, focusing particularly on the preparation before the group gets together. Today I would like to continue that list, looking at some of the Do’s and Don’ts concerning the start of the meeting itself.
Some people have difficulty sharing during Bible Studies…
This last weekend I was in LA to attend a debate between Dr. James White and Shaykh Mustafa Umar on the divinity of Christ.
Despite Dr. White’s rather scathing view of Catholicism, even denying it the classification of “Christian”, I jumped at the opportunity to see him in-person. You see, I have consumed a lot of his material over the years. His apologetics material concerning the Watchtower, Mormonism and Islam have been of considerable help to me in my own encounters with members of those groups. Not only that, but my understanding of Reformed theology is almost entirely drawn from his various videos which are available online.
The debate itself was constructive and enjoyable, despite having a rather disappointingly truncated Q&A session at the end. After the debate, the line for Dr. White was considerable, but I did get a change to speak to Shaykh Umar. Although I found the Shaykh’s answers to my questions unconvincing, I found him to be down-to-earth and very pleasant.
Aside from announcing that I’ve ticked off another bucket list item, I wanted to do a quick post about this last weekend because I wanted to briefly mention a line of argumentation used by Dr. White during the debate…
My post about dancing got picked up by ChurchPop! It’s been tidied up a bit and been upgraded with some snazzy animated gifs. Go read it again 🙂
Everyone knows that, when it comes to comedy, it doesn’t get any better than British. Unfortunately, I regularly meet Americans who have not been exposed to the veritable treasure trove of chortles that my country has to offer.
This makes me sad. Instead of enjoying classic shows such as Hancock’s Half Hour, Fawlty Towers (“Don’t mention the war!”) and Rising Damp, they just sit watching the billionth season of The Office (the American version), waiting for it to finally get funny again. I have therefore decided to compile over a series of posts a list of British comedy shows that simply must be watched…
I was fortunate to grow up in an era of great British comedy. Every Saturday night my family would gather together in the living room. We would eat dinner on our laps, which was considered a huge treat, since eating was not typically allowed in the living room. We would then settle in for an evening of great TV. We would receive Yorkshire wisdom from Last of the Summer Wine and listen to the grumpy rants from Victor Meldrew in One Foot In the Grave.
I’ve started watching many of these shows again as an adult. Now when I watch old episodes of Hi-De-Hi! I’m stunned by how many of the jokes went over my head as a child (probably a good thing!). Another show like this was ‘Allo ‘Allo, a comedy set in the unlikely location of France during the Second World War. Actually, it’s quite surprising how many British comedies used wars as their backdrop, the most famous of which is probably Dad’s Army, which tells the story of the men in England’s “Home Guard”:
More ramblings and recommendations tomorrow!
I’ve already written a “Quick Apology” to this topic before, but as I was responding to a recent commenter on this subject, I thought of an even shorter response…
Here’s the standard objection:
“Mary is not the ‘Mother of God'”
In response to this, you may ask a very simple question: did the child Jesus call Mary “Mama”? Yes or No?
UPDATE: As the more pedantic among the readers have pointed out, Jesus would have spoken Aramaic and therefore called her “Ima”.
Oh my…
Esssh…
This wasn’t a good year, was it? I mean, the very fact that my last resolution update was in February really speaks volumes. Honestly, I don’t know what happened. “Wait!”, I hear you cry, “Nobody ever keeps their resolutions!” Well, I do…well, normally I do. I’ll typically make about ten resolutions and I’ll usually keep 70% of them and at least make some headway on the others.
Okay, let’s get this over with…
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.