Bully's Blog

Michael’s Dispute with the Devil

Liturgy as Prophecy

End of the Abrahamic Rift

Jesus’ New Broom

Our God is Coming

or Blood versus Water

They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham… You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.” (John 8:39, 44)

The theme of seed and fruit, or genealogy and mission, runs throughout the Bible. Genealogy is entirely objective. Our heredity is a factor in which we have no choice. It is the tree of life. But the fruit of our lives, what we choose to do with that life, involves our volition. Volition is mission. “It’s not about the hand you are dealt; it’s about how you play it.”

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or The New Commandment

1 John 5: 1-12   |   Sermon Notes   |   17 June 2012

Introduction

Jewish Christians were first opposed by unbelieving Jews, then by Jews who said they believed. Members of this latter group are called “Judaizers,” and they were the false teachers whom the apostles condemn in their letters.

Not only did these men pervert the gospel by including adherence to the Law of Moses, they also failed to keep the commandments of Jesus. This was Pharisaism dressed up in Christianity, the old leaven carried into the new age. The Pharisees loved to control people, while they failed to control themselves. This is the context of John’s letters to Jewish Christians: despite their profession, these men would be exposed by their lack of of certain things in their character.

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A documentary on fractals showed a scientific team in a rainforest. Through careful measurement, they worked out that, when graphed, the ratio of branches to trees was the same as the ratio of trees to forest.

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Samiam reviewed Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key:

The history of the Bible is written in blood

Mike Bull wrote,”God desired a world covered by blood.”

Mr. Bull’s latest book spells out the essence of the bible and Christianity: it’s a blood cult. Christians drink the blood of Christ during Mass, They are “covered in His blood”, “washed clean with His blood”, they praise the idea of blood sacrifice over and over again. The highest grossing religious film of all time, Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”, was as Mike Bull wrote, “a new cinematic genre: the religious splatter film” and Christians all over the world got what they wanted in buckets… blood, blood and more blood.

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“In circumcision, Adam was Divided.
In baptism, Adam is Conquered.”

It seems to me the assumption that the New Covenant “people” includes infants because the Old Covenant people did has to overlook Pentecost. Are we to believe that once the Gentiles were included things went back to business as usual, with churches simply serving as Jew-Gentile hybrid synagogues, another “genealogical” people of God?

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“The Left might be godless, but the Right has only the form of godliness.”

Just chucking some ideas around here, so comments are welcome (especially from actual Americans.)

From the New York Times (April 2008)

U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.
[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]
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or Getting a Handle on the Scandal

“We are on the right track as long as we have biblical horizons.”

Peter Leithart has been put through the ringer with accusations and trials for having some “Romish” doctrines. He’s posted some good defenses (links posted on here recently). Basically, Protestantism threw out some baby with the bathwater, and we need it back.

Now it turns out that the gent at the centre of the condemnation of Dr Leithart for going over to the dark side was himself a Sith Lord in training.

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James Jordan’s paper on capital punishment begins with the very first threat of death in history. The rest of the Bible shows us that the curse was subtly paired with a promise of a more abundant life:
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There’s a new chapter from God’s Kitchen posted for members here. Let me know what you think.