His Bit on the Side

It would appear that sexual fidelity isn't the only challenge men face when doing honesty in a relationship. There's now the whole new world of dietary fidelity (or lack of it) with which to contend.

As an aside - many (men) seem to think that meat eating is a sign of prowess, but love it or hate it - vegetarianism is the future.

At the centre of the New Jerusalem is a tree not an abattoir.

The the Temple of the Old Covenant was a glorified slaughter house, death was the major theme and it was temporary. But at the centre of the New Covenant, at the centre of the New Jerusalem is a tree - a symbol of Christ's abundant life and this temple is eternal.

The good news is: cheese, alcohol and chocolate are still on the menu!

I Went to School with This Guy

My generation is taking its place...

Pizza and Porn!

Greetings anonymous reader,

If you have arrived at this page thinking from the title you would be served some X-rated food fest. You are about to be wholly disappointed, but now I have your attention feel free to read and watch on...

Communion: How Did we Turn a Feast into a Funeral?

Been doing a little research into the practice of communion. Up until about 400 years ago, it would have been inconceivable to meet as God's people and not include the "breaking of bread" aka communion in that gathering. The early church put it on a par with teaching, fellowship and prayer (Acts 2:42). These days evangelical churches in the UK that do it more than once a month are an exception rather than the rule.

But then, given the way we celebrate it, who can blame us for not wanting to do it that often. Communion often feels more like a masonic funeral than a feast, more like a tomb than a table set for a banquet, more like self-flagellation than celebration. And who, in their right mind, would ever invite you to a meal and then think themselves a hero when all they had given you was a crumb and a sip?

Discipline vs Love?

in agreement with Sean's sermon yesterday, Peter Mead offers the following additional and helpful pointer to people like me who can fall into thinking that pursuing the disciplines are ends in themselves. He says...

Jesus did, of course, have extended prayer times and experienced physically harsh settings, yet he didn’t promote such things.

His own devotion was, of course, robust: he once spent more than a month in the wilderness being tempted by Satan; he also spent full nights in prayer; and he often hiked long distances and slept in rough settings. Yet asceticism wasn’t a take-home lesson for his disciples. Even the followers of John the Baptist asked why Jesus didn’t insist on some fasting.

Read the whole thing here.

Approaches to the Book of the Revelation

Have recently started meandering through a sermon series on Revelation that is 204 sermons long.  At current rate, I will finish the last sermon about three tears (tears? I mean years!) from now.  One of the introductory sermons was on different (European) approaches to the book. Here follows a brief summary:

On Prejudice and Scapegoats

One of the reasons I love working in a comprehensive secondary school setting is because you see wider society played out on a microcosmic scale.

The following social experiment is VERY clever and a real eye opener. Many of us liberally educated types assume we have risen above prejudice, but that's because we earn enough to enjoy enough creature comforts in life with our loved ones.

If the economy continues to stumble along as it has today, it will only be a matter of time before the cry for a scapegoat becomes unbearably loud and even the so-called "enlightened" will be drawn into baying: