A retired farmer in England has spent 30 years building a model of Herod’s Temple, complete with thousands of miniature people.
Model of Herod's Temple
Royal Porch
Archives For Owen
A Boomer in the Pew is celebrating his one-year anniversary. To do so, he’s employing an interesting turn on a tradition. Instead of all his readers sending him a gift, he’s offering a gift to his readers:
One of you, my loyal “Boomer in the Pew” readers, is going to win this beautiful premium calfskin leather version of the new ESV Study Bible!
Boomer has some great posts, and explains why he started his blog a year ago:
My life has been primarily centered around building and selling a successful business. Now I find myself in my early 50’s, semi-retired and asking myself lots of questions.
The first thing that I noticed, after selling my business, was that along with it went my “significance”. I was shocked to find out how much of my self-worth was tied up in my ability to run a successful business. Frankly, I was really more embarrassed. I am certain that my Heavenly Father isn’t going to say “well done” for running a successful business.
In the business world I was able to rub shoulders with very successful people from all over the country. I quickly learned that after the seminar was over, the real talking started around the dinner table. I gleaned that many successful business owners have been in such a pursuit of riches that they haven’t taken the time to see the HUGE hole that was in their hearts. Behind them was left a trail of broken marriages, alcoholism, and great despair.
I also learned that my Christian diet consisted of oatmeal. It is time for me to start eating “meat” so that I can have an impact in these peoples lives. This is the desire of my heart.
Speaking in Toronto, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput gave a speech that any Christian, not just Catholics, ought to hear:
“I think modern life, including life in the Church, suffers from a phony unwillingness to offend that poses as prudence and good manners, but too often turns out to be cowardice. Human beings owe each other respect and appropriate courtesy. But we also owe each other the truth — which means candor.”
Looking ahead to the coming months and years, Chaput offered four “simple things” to remember.
“First,” he said, “all political leaders draw their authority from God. We owe no leader any submission or cooperation in the pursuit of grave evil.”
“In fact, we have the duty to change bad laws and resist grave evil in our public life, both by our words and our non-violent actions. The truest respect we can show to civil authority is the witness of our Catholic faith and our moral convictions, without excuses or apologies.”
“Americans, including many Catholics, elected a gifted man to fix an economic crisis. That’s the mandate. They gave nobody a mandate to retool American culture on the issues of marriage and the family, sexuality, bioethics, religion in public life and abortion. That retooling could easily happen, and it clearly will happen — but only if Catholics and other religious believers allow it.”
The third point to focus on when the beliefs of Catholics are challenged is that “it doesn’t matter what we claim to believe if we’re unwilling to act on our beliefs,” Chaput counseled.
Seeing Clearly puts up a great list of the teachings about Jesus in the Qur’an:
- Jesus was born of a virgin (Surah 3:45-50)
- Jesus is sinless (Surah 6:85)
- Jesus is the Messiah (Surah 3:45)
- Jesus performed miracles (Surah 3:49)
- One of these miracles is especially interesting (although only attested elsewhere in the Gospel of Thomas). Surah 3:49 and 5:110 teach that Jesus created a bird out of clay while He was upon this earth.
- Jesus ascended into heaven in bodily form (Surah 3:55)
- Jesus spoke at his birth (Surah 19:27-35)
- Jesus raised the dead (Surah 3:49)
Question for Muslims: since none of the above is true of Muhammed, how can he be called the greatest prophet?
[Whole list taken from Norman Geisler, “Jesus and Muhammed in the Qur’an: A Comparison and Contrast,” SBJT 8:1 (2004), 50-58.]
In Two Keys at the Same Time from Sovereign Grace Ministries on Vimeo.
What do you do when things don’t go as planned?
While God commends the development of skill (Prov. 22:29), and laziness is no excuse for lack of preparation, there are times that even deliberate practice doesn’t keep us from messing up. But God’s strength is perfected in our weakness. When things don’t go as planned, people are able to see more clearly our humanity, and hopefully our humility.
Of course, some times we can cover up mistakes without anyone noticing or being distracted. If you can do that, great. But there are other times (like playing in two keys) when the best choice is simply to stop what you’re doing and start over. Amazingly enough, God can continue working, even through our mistakes.
Vissarion, Siberian Messiah
An ex-traffic cop is billing himself as the second coming of Christ. He’s not the first to start a cult in Russia’s fertile ground. It’s always been hard for me to understand these groups, and the devotion to their cult leaders:
The Siberian messiah who calls himself Vissarion, meaning “He who gives new life,” is head of an isolated religious commune deep in the birch forests of Russia. Members of the Church of the Last Testament follow the laws of the self-proclaimed reincarnation of Jesus Christ, maintaining a largely vegan diet and skipping modern medicine to maintain harmony with nature. Five times a day, believers turn in prayer toward the mountaintop where Vissarion lives. The group’s calendar even dates from the day of their messiah’s birth.
Many of Vissarion’s followers are educated people from different European countries. Some of them used to work as doctors, teachers and engineers. One was even the former Belorussian deputy railway minister. “When I saw him the first time my soul recognized him. I could not cope with my emotions and my soul cried, ‘It’s him, it’s him. He is on earth!”‘ Galina told me. “It was as if a flood came down from the sky and my body was shivering nonstop!” Tatyana added.
Read the rest of the article to see the extremely uninspiring interview with Vissarion.
How many of us spend our whole days listening to noise. We wake up and immediately turn on the tv, then listen to the radio in the car, and mp3 players when we walk. When I’m at my desk, I have Pandora constantly running. It got to the point where silence was almost unbearable. Try driving in your car for even 15 minutes without the radio. It’s tough. I need the constant stimulation, even if it’s only in the background. Music has always helped me concentrate. With silence, I find that my mind just wanders … often to places that I don’t want it to.
Recently, however, I have been trying to conquer and reclaim silence, and I stumbled across an interesting post on silence and God:
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven… a time to be silent and a time to speak…
Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7bThe Bible says in Luke 5:16 that “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places.” Jesus spent considerable time alone in silence to pray, rest, and focus on what priorities He should be devoting His time and energy to. This helps to explain why, in just three short years of ministry, Jesus had a greater impact on history than anyone else who has ever lived.
The Bible also describes multiple benefits of purposeful silence, including:
- hearing from God (1 Kings 19:11–13)
- waiting patiently for the Lord to act (Lamentations 3:25–28)
- worshiping God (Habakkuk 2:20)
- knowing God better (Psalm 46:10)
- praying effectively (Luke 5:16)
If we’re undisciplined, silence can indeed be an enemy. With the right focus, however, it can be a tool for reflection, introspection, and recentering of ourselves and our priorities.
A friend of mine lost her grandfather last year. While in Florida helping out, her Grandmother gave her a wrinkled, torn piece of paper on which her Grandfather had written a poem. Beautiful and simple:
“By Dying I Live”
by Arthur Neil DuBois (1931-2008)By dying, I live.
By surrender, I win the victory.
By giving, I am made rich.
By kneeling, I stand firm.
By weakness, I am made strong.
By fasting, I am made fat.
By selflessness, I am made satisfied.
By praying for others, I am blessed beyond measure.
By serving others, all my needs are met.
By comforting the lonely, I receive fellowship.
By praising the Lord, I receive high honor.
By being a fool in the world’s eyes, I am made wise by the Lord.
By not seeking my own comfort, I receive all my satisfaction.
By dying to self, I will live forever.
She also writes about the difficulties of the family situation following her grandfather’s death, but also about how the Lord was using her and about the life that her grandfather built:
These last few days have been hell on earth for her [grandmother], and it has been almost unbearably hard to watch it happen. I say “almost” because, through it all, our Father has been faithful to guide and comfort us. He has been using my mouth to speak His Word to her in an amazing way. It seems that Scripture comes forth without any effort on my part to seek out the right word for the moment or to recall verses memorized in Sunday school. I open my mouth, or rather, my mouth opens and out come these words–His Words, apt and true, sometimes ones that I didn’t even know I’d memorized.
He also continues to remind me that the house I’m living in, the subject of the new debate, was built by a godly man, my great-grandfather, for the purposes of raising his family in a God-honoring way. Every nail was hammered into place with that purpose. In my grandma’s despondency, I was pushed to remind her of this. This house is God’s. It always has been. I have seen the enemy trying to infiltrate and subvert, taking advantage of the death of my grandfather, pillar of faith that he was, but the enemy has no place here. This place was consecrated to His service then, and we will fight to keep it that way. This house will not be a stumbling block or a millstone but a sanctuary.
I found a box of letters that my great-grandmother wrote to her sister at the turn of the last century (1901 mostly). I also found a book written in 1848 Proverbial Philosophy: A Book of Thoughts and Arguments. Right up my alley. I intend to read its fragile and fragrant pages with care. And lastly, I found a some poetry from another relative written in 1880. All so interesting and enlightening. Be jealous.
I am sleeping in the room in which my dad spent his first few months of life. His crib was by the window where my dresser now stands. That’s kinda cool.
My grandmother has been sharing much of her wonderful marriage and life with my grandfather. Each new story leaves me both hopeful, eager, and in pain.
