Category Archives: God Stuff

This is where everything God and Christianity related can be found.

A Question For My (Ancient) Greek Speaking Friends

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In Revelation 5:6, it says the slain-looking lamb has “seven horns and seven eyes”. In the Greek, is it made clear whether this means the lamb had 7 eyes where I have 2 (i.e. they are an attribute) , or does it mean he had 7 eyes and 7 horns like I might have 7 peanuts and 7 pistachios (a possession)?

The difference has an implication as to whether his worthiness to open the sealed scroll is implicit in his being, or whether it is in response to what he has done.

RodeoClown: likes to imagine the 7 seals on the scroll perform clever tricks for fish.

Beggars Can Be Choosers?

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I’m never really sure how to deal with the large number of homeless people abound on the streets of the Sydney CBD. Today I talked to a young lady who had a sign saying she needed help to get back to Nowra. I asked her if I could buy her a train ticket to get back there. She didn’t want it. I’ve offered to buy food for several homeless men, and I’ve been knocked back because they just want money (I’ve also met very grateful men who asked if I had any money for food and were more than happy for me to buy them lunch instead). Today I saw another homeless man turn down a feed from someone else.

I don’t want to give money directly, as friends who have worked with charity organisations have told me that it just makes their (both the homeless and the charity’s) problem worse. But I know God is definitely not happy with just ignoring the poor either.

What do you do?

RodeoClown: What should you do?

Change

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Loose Change AUD $5.80
Loose Change AUD $5.80 by Joriel “Joz” Jimenez, on Flickr

I just tipped out the coins I had in my change bucket next to the PC (Jen’s friend needs some change for a market stall over the weekend), and found that I had $123 in $1 and $2 coins. About $150 in total.

That’s a whole lot of milk and bread.

How much cash is in your change bucket?

RodeoClown: worth checking

Agnostic Christian

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I read this letter in the Sydney Morning Herald today:

To believe or not to believe

I’m not sure how anyone can claim to be a “Christian agnostic” (“Believe it or not, the bishop’s an agnostic”, May 20). It makes as much sense as calling a colour “ashen red” or a size “gigantically small”. The words are incongruous. An agnostic believes God is unknowable, whereas a Christian believes God has made himself known in the person of Jesus. Bishop Holloway has a choice to make.

Lynette Spicer Telopea

What a fantastically concise explanation of  what God has done through Jesus. Thanks Lynette!

RodeoClown: unagnostic.

Sex and Death

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Sex and Death in the Royal Botanic Gardens (as viewed in Google Maps)

Justin had an (almost) throwaway line today while we were discussing resurrection in the Jewish scriptures. My paraphrase:

Even now, when there is almost no visible difference between Christians and “the world”, there are two areas where the distinction is evident: sex, and death.

Impersonal sex dominates the media; death is glossed-over and buried away. Christian morality calls for an extreme monogomy, a lifetime of sex exclusive to two people. And the Bible prompts a celebration of death as we look forward to “life after life after death”, the resurrection of our physical bodies as displayed in Jesus.

It is worth thinking about how and why we keep these areas “sacred”, and what other parts of our lives we can reclaim as distinctly Christian.

RodeoClown: anticipating.

Like a Madman Shooting Firebrands…

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Jesus: firebrands, arrows and death?

Among various theological commitments I have, one of them is a complete repudiation of the “Jesus was only joshin’ ya” school of exegesis. 
…
Now, I know what you’re thinking, and you’re absolutely right. No one says Jesus, Paul, God, or whomever was joking. What we really do is give a high-minded philosophical explanation for why whatever Jesus was saying doesn’t really apply to us.
…
So it’s really not so much that you think Jesus was joking. You just found a loophole.

- Fearsome Comrade, Jesus, The Great Kidder

 
I’m trying to take Jesus seriously even when it hurts. He claims to be the truth, so how can I assume that he doesn’t mean what he says*. If he says one thing, and I choose to do the opposite, I’m not treating him as the lord that I claim him to be.

RodeoClown: can’t accept a saviour who lies.

* That doesn’t mean every word is to be taken literally – common sense shows Jesus using hyperbole, allegory and imagery from time to time – but I’m trying to accept his words at face value rather than trying to twist whatever he says to fit my own desires.

Mo’ Money, Mo’ Worries

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THE retail king Gerry Harvey [has] a personal fortune of about $1.6 billion
…
In the interview, Mr Harvey also said that despite his wealth, “I still have a fear about going broke. I always think about it.”

-Harvey: charity not so sweet (SMH 21/11/2008)

 

 
10Whoever loves money never has money enough; 
whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. 
This too is meaningless.
…
12The sleep of a laborer is sweet, 
whether he eats little or much,
but the abundance of a rich man 
permits him no sleep.

-Ecclesiastes 5:10 & 12 (NIV)

 

RodeoClown: Doesn’t have as many worries as Gerry Harvey