Tag Archives: Christianity

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DEARBORN, Mich. -- Four Christian missionaries who were arrested at Dearborn's Arab American Festival were arraigned Monday on misdemeanor charges of disturbing the peace.

Charged were Negeen Mayel, Dr. Nabeel Qureshi, Paul Rezkalla and David Wood Mayel, all members of a group called "Acts 17 Apologetics."

Negeen Mayel faces an additional charge of disobeying an officer.

They all pleaded not guilty.

The four were arrested on June 18 while handing out Christian literature and videotaping themselves.

The group said they were arrested over religion, but police insist that it's not true, and continue to stand behind their arrest. Dearborn Mayor Jack O'Reilly defends his police department's arrest, saying he saw the video police confiscated from them and he believes the missionaries came into town to cause trouble.

Dearborn, MI has one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States...and (like most of the country) and these days it seems like if there is a question between Christians and "anybody else", the Christians are going to lose.

BUT...

I'm not sure if this is the case here.  There are certainly different accounts.

The four who were arrested were not the only Christians at the festival.

Groups were to get a permit and have a booth...most Christian groups did that.

These four evidently did not get a booth, but they did get a video camera.

There are quotes of them saying things like they had been threatened the year before, so they brought along the video camera...they were there expecting excitement.  This is not what missionaries should be after.

Here is a video from 2009:

I see aggression on both sides, I see the Christians being inflammatory.  I think that perhaps the arrest was justified, if they were breaking the rules.

Let the courts figure it out.

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On the other hand, here is a t-shirt that was confiscated from Arab students at a Dearborn high school

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blog update...as of 10:00 AM Sunday morning, I'm down to 983 uncategorized posts.

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On "The Private War in The Mind" from Reformation Theology

Yet there is a reality to spiritual warfare and it is something God certainly wants us to know about, or else He would not have revealed it to us in His Word. If we just stay with the Scripture, we will be on safe and sure ground. God wants us to understand the warfare, know our enemy and live a life free from his clutches.

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Hillbuzz on waking up Americans:

this paragraph is talking about why the Republicans don't seem to be all that interested in winning:

Maybe these men truly don’t know how to do that…but we think it’s more like the Washington Generals knowing they have a pretty good racket losing basketball games to the Globetrotters, so why start working harder and winning when the script their all following says they need to lose in the end (if they want to keep their cushy existence as the lovable losers).

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A good article on gay marriage by "The Gay Patriot"

If you feel a victim because the state doesn’t call your union what you want to call it, well, then you have really politicized your psyche.

He says that gay marriage (the union of 2 people) already exists, what they lack is state recognition.  If they went for the recognition of the union (without calling it "marriage"), they would have the rights of the state recognition of the union.

A commenter said,

Even for straights, a State marriage license is a thing created by State legislation (which I call a privilege); not a thing which morally precedes the State and exists apart from it (which I call a fundamental right).

Which is why, in certain circumstances, I would decline piece of paper that tells me that the state has given me permission to marry.

That's God's job, not the state's.

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To me, this is pretty closely related to "the U" - election.  If we (humans) get to pick, then the grace is resistible.  If God picks, the He is sovereign and His will be done, always.

On April 6, 1856, Charles Spurgeon gave a sermon on the "Effectual Calling" (Irresistible Grace)

Can I not remember when God told me to come down? One of the first steps I had totake was to go right down from my good works. And oh, what a fall was that! Then I stood upon my own self-sufficiency and Christ said, “Come down! I have pulled you down from your good works and now I will pull you down from yourself-sufficiency.”

Well, I had another fall and I felt sure I had gained the bottom, but Christ said “Come down!” And He made me come down till I fell on some point at which I felt I was not savable. “Down, Sir! come down, yet.” And down I cameuntil I had to let go of every branch of the tree of my hopes in despair.

Then I said, “I can do nothing. I am ruined.” The waters were wrapped round my head and I was shut out from the light of day and thought myself a stranger from the commonwealth of Israel.“Come down lower yet, Sir! You have too much pride to be saved.”

Then I was brought down to see my corruption,my wickedness, my filthiness.

“Come down,” says God, when He means to save. Now, proud Sinners, it is of no use foryou to be proud, to stick yourselves up in the trees—Christ will have you down. Oh, you that dwell with the eagle on the craggy rock, you shall come down from your elevation—you shall fall by grace, or you shall fall with a vengeance one day. He “has cast down the mighty from their seat and has exalted the humble and meek.”

When God "means to save" -

What I know is this...there is nothing - NOTHING - special about me.  I didn't turn to Christ because I'm smarter, or holier, or more spiritual...

It is only by the work of the Spirit that I can claim to trust.

And trust is a challenge sometimes, but I can no more turn away, than I could stop being...the core of who I am.

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Thoughts on "Forgotten God" (Francis Chan), Chapter 2 - "What Are You Afraid Of?"

There are a lot of thoughts that are rather meaningful right now.

What AM I afraid of?

  • rejection
  • loneliness
  • deeper things that I don't need to go into here.

What I know is that a life of following Christ requires me to relinquish my fears.  Pursue truth and...be prepared to be wrong.

Chan asks, What if God doesn't "come through?"  Do we ask for less, believe less, trust less - because we're "covering" for God, just in case He doesn't come through if we ask for something bigger?

Do I ask for a stone, because I don't trust Him to provide bread?

Do I ask, trusting, for what Christ promised that the Father would deliver - the gift of the Holy Spirit?  What would that gift look like, and am I willing to have it look like THAT? (whatever "that" might look like?)

And am I willing to take a closer look at the difference between what God has promised vs. what I want to be true?

DO I WANT THIS?

Giving up control?  Trusting the Holy Spirit to mold me, stripping away selfishness, fear, distrust?

Do I want this?

How am I willing to respond (change) if my beliefs about the Holy Spirit change?  Do I desire truth over acceptance?

How do I (not so much "if I") allow the perceptions of others to affect my relationship with Christ?  How do I allow them to affect how I view the Holy Spirit?

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From a "Christ the Center" podcast - a rough quote:

Our expectations of a pastor stems from our ecclesiology - our thoughts about what a church is.

If our understanding about church is that our priority is social justice, our pastor will be our chief social worker.

If we believe our goal is to affect political change, our pastor will be our community organizer.

If "church" is about our friends and family - a neighborhood clique, there will be little outreach.

If we know that our church exists to proclaim the person of Jesus Christ and His work on the cross - and to equip the saints to do that - we will expect that the Gospel be preached from the pulpit each and every week.

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Reading Francis Chan's "Forgotten God" - in the first chapter he writes that "another" denotes not a "different" counselor, but rather another of the same kind (p.34).

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. (John 14:16-17)

ἄλλος (allos) is simply "another;other) and is used 160 times.  I'm not sure that Chan is quite right...but when Jesus was born, His parents returned to their home country in an "allos" route.  Another (different) route.

From John 16:

But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

I'm not sure that one can always take something said specifically to the apostles, and apply it universally, but the point that Chan makes remains:

Jesus had to leave so that the Spirit could come.

Chan says that having the Spirit with us - within us - is better than having Jesus Christ standing next to us.

The Spirit will remind us of what Jesus told His followers.

To them, the Spirit reminded them of the time they spent with Christ; as they penned the New Testament, they wrote as ones who had the Spirit within them, reminding them of what Jesus said and did.

To us...those Scriptures come to mind as we have need of them.

this day...

...as the storms of life loom on the horizon - maybe the storm will miss me this time, maybe it will sweep over me head on.  Or maybe the last few months have simply been the peaceful eye of the storm.

Either way, Jesus said,

"You of little faith, why are you so afraid?"

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Isaiah 40

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins.

A voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

A voice says, "Cry!"

And I said, "What shall I cry?"
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the LORD blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.

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From "Puritan Paperbacks"

I've been working through a study on the Lord's Supper - leaving one church, looking for another - I find kinship in those congregations with a rich liturgy, could find a place in a Lutheran church (LCMS), but I cannot and will not be in a church with closed communion.

What does the "Lord's Supper" mean and what is it supposed to represent?

I've just finished reading the "Epistle to the Reader" (the message in the beginning of the book from Watson).

When I contemplate the holiness and solemnity of the blessed sacrament, I cannot but have some ache upon my spirit, and think myself bound to hold this mystery in the highest veneration.  The elements of bread and wine are in themselves common but, under these symbolical representations, lie hid divine excellencies.  Behold here the best of dainties, God is in his cheer.  Here is the apple of the Tree of Life; here is the "banqueting house" where the banner of free grace is gloriously displayed, "He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me is love" (Song of Sol. 2:4)

Watson strove for the "correct middle" - between two extremes that he thought should be avoided - transubstantiation (which he believed was contrary to reason and Scripture and that - he thought - profaned Christ's institution of the supper; and mere symbolism, which aimed short of the mystery and fell short of the comfort.

According to the forward, Watson built on the teachings of Calvin, who believed that this sacrament was a means of grace, through faith - in which Christ works effectually within the believer.