Law keeping?

Jesus was pretty scathing of people of who honoured God only through outward observance (Matt 6, Mark 7:6-8). I wonder what he would think of this.

Atheists face death

Jim Crace is an author who presented at the recent Adelaide Writers' Week. His thoughts of death from an atheists' point of view end up slipping into a sentimental pantheism (at around 13:30). The reality is that atheism affirms the meaningless of life. The search for solace in the face of death is just a recognition that atheism does not deliver at the point of humanity's greatest need.

Only Christ overcomes death and gives us hope. The Easter story is hardly wishful thinking but the reality that death does not have the final say but that God will raise the dead.

UPDATE: I have updated this post with a link to the full presentation from ABC and not just the highlights.

Seats in churches (cathedrals mainly)

From Blogger Pictures

When I was last in England I visited a number of cathedrals which used the Howe 40/4 chair. These included Christopher Wren's St Paul's Cathedral in London and Salisbury Cathedral (pictured above). I'm also aware that Southwark Cathedral and Ely Cathedral also use these chairs. While in Oxford I really liked the welcoming entrance placed on St Aldate's church and their flexible interior (pictured below). The design of the Howe 40/4 chair is from the early 1960s and a real classic and very beautiful chair. Check out their website here.

From Blogger Pictures

Ideas for the Parents' Room

We're thinking of setting up the Parents' Room better. The idea is to move it from under the tower to the vestry. Any good ideas for the room?

Lion enclosure at Taronga

(NIV) Revelation 5:5
Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals."

I think the symbolism of Jesus as a lion predates Medieval Europeans!

Some thoughts on sticking at church

Mark Dever shares about sticking at your church...

Phillip Jensen asks Mark Dever - When is it ever right to leave a church? from Audio Advice on Vimeo.

Belonging and Possessions

I was thinking about the possessions we have and how they help us have a sense of belonging.

Our homes let us belong because they often are where we want to be - the very place where we see ourselves belonging. Our clothes express our belonging to a particular community and our general possessions let us do things others do enabling us to belong to the group of people. There are other possessions which might be described as 'leveraged' devices for belonging.

A mobile phone is more than an object in itself, it is our connection with our world. It is the way we belong in the modern world. It is a means of making communication and receiving information. Try and take away a mobile phone from a teenager and you will see what I mean. No phone and there is no means for belonging for many people.

Another possession with this kind of 'leveraging' are things with significant memories. An old chair is more than a chair. It represents memories and connections with the past - two powerful forces which help us belong. We belong because of the continuity with the past.

The last leveraging I see is in shared possessions. Since they are shared they immediately reflect our belonging together. I have a sense of belonging since we share the possession together

Am I thinking right?


The sense of belonging given by our possessions is very powerful.

I take it that however powerful this sense of belonging is we ought to treat it as nothing compared to belonging to Christ and his people through the power of the gospel of grace (Rom 14:18). Furthermore we need to get our possessions, however valuable we think they are, into perspective:

1Cor. 7:29-31   What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.

It is hard to see that we belong to the future kingdom since the things of this world are so tangible, but we must! Paul writes,

"Phil 3:20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. "