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Our Daily Thread 2-13-14

Good Morning!

Today’s photo is from me.

On this day in 1633 Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before the Inquisition.

In 1741 “The American Magazine,” the first magazine in the U.S., was published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In 1935, in Flemington, New Jersey, a jury found Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of the kidnapping and death of the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh.  Hauptmann was later executed for the crimes.

In 1945, During World War II, the Soviets captured Budapest, Hungary, from the German army. Allied aircraft also began bombing the German city of Dresden.

In 1955 Israel acquired 4 of the 7 Dead Sea scrolls.

And in 2000 Charles M. Schulz’s last original Sunday “Peanuts” comic strip appeared in newspapers. Schulz had died the day before.

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Quote of the Day

“Christ told his disciples not to be anxious about tomorrow, but he never said not to consider tomorrow. Intelligent problem solving demands careful consideration of the future effects of present solutions.”

R. C. Sproul

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On this day in 1867 Johann Strauss’ magnificent “Blue Danube Waltz” was played for the first time at a public concert in Vienna, Austria.

It’s Tennessee Ernie Ford’s birthday. So here’s Mr. Ford and Mr. Cash.

And it’s Peter Tork’s as well.

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Anyone have a QoD?

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64 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 2-13-14”

  1. Dresden wasn’t the only atrocity in WW II. Both sides bombed civilian “targets”.
    Dresden was just so near the end of the war. The Bulge was long over and the war had been decided by this time.

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  2. We have about 8″ of snow. The man on the radio says we’ll get some more, but the worst is over. Only one power outtage in Henderson Co. I suspect it’s bad down in SC. But I don’t know yet.

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  3. Good morning, everyone. I hope you all survived your ice/sleet/snow storm down there. Still cold up there. Thank you for all the birthday wishes yesterday. Very much appreciated.

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  4. That is one of many of my favorite Johnny Cash songs. It tells the story of a lot of the rural South especially during the Great Depression, perhaps even long before. This is the South people need to realize existed. No everyone had a big plantation and slaves. “Coal oil cost a dime, but I’ll sit up late come pickin’ time” Their world revolved around “pickin time” If you listen to this song there is another that will round out the story a little more.

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  8. Ernie made Merle Travis’ “Sixteen Tons” famous. It really worked that way in the mill villages . I used to live in one of those villages in Winnsboro Mills,S.C. The house we lived in cost fifty cents per room jper month. It didn’t have a bath. The toilet was enclosed, but on the porch. People showered in the Community Building. The Community Building was still there when I visited Winnsboro in the eighties. But is is now torn down.

    Re: “Picking time”. Elvera’s dad use to take a load of cotton to market, then buy shoes and stuff on the way home. They had nine kids in all, one gone by then and one not born yet. So, seven at home.

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  9. It’s mine. That’s the one who leaves his peanut shells on my porch. 🙂

    I’m having trouble with some of the photos I received. If it’s a zip file instead of jpeg the WordPress system won’t recognize it and won’t upload. Arrrrrggggggghhhhhh.

    I tried a few this morning. Some just won’t work. If you folks don’t mind, could you send it again if you sent it in a Zip file? Send it as an attachment to the email, or post it in the email, then I can save it as a jpeg, upload it, and it will be fine. Thanks all.

    And it’s snowing sideways here.

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  10. You never know what to expect. First there was a rose from Cheryl, then something else, then a squirrel. I took a couple of pictures of snow in front of my house. But I don’t know how to upload them to the computer.
    I’m likely here all day today too.

    Do you get some words underlined in blue? When I put my courser on (don’t haveta click) “tons” i get an ad for Mercedes G Class.

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  12. The snow is beautiful here. I got a few photos. At 10:00 the sun is suppose to start doing its melty thing.

    That is a really fat sqirrel, AJ. How many peanuts do you give him each day?

    I got to thinking about Chas’ pet rock and how it is probably full of microchips. 🙂

    Sounds like the children next door have discovered the snow. I heard them outside yesterday when the sleet was in full force.

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  16. Good morning, my friends! I have a couple questions today, if anyone wants to take a crack at them.

    1.) I wished I’d paid more attention back when many of you were having those long debates on WMB about homosexuality. In the past year or so, I’ve had some email discussions with my young friend (26 years old, not a teenager) on this matter. I have read a lot on both sides of the issue, but one thing I recently read has me wondering how true (or false) it is.

    In an article I stumbled upon somewhere, the writer was trying to make the point, which I’m sure we’ve all seen around, that certain Bible verses are not really about homosexuality, but are about male prostitution (in idol worship, I believe). One verse is purported to be condemning not homosexual sex, but heterosexual men who engage in homosexual sex.

    Anyway, none of that is too new to any of us, I don’t think. There was one thing the writer wrote that was new to me. He said that the idea of homosexuals having relationships, or the whole idea of modern homosexuality, would have been completely foreign to the apostle Paul & other first century believers. Therefore, according to this author, the Bible verses we believe are addressed to men & women living the “homosexual lifestyle” cannot possibly mean what we think they mean.

    Does anyone know how accurate that statement is? (Not necessarily about the interpretation of those verses, but about the people of that time not having any idea of other people living as homosexuals?) It doesn’t ring true to me, but that’s not exactly a scholarly statement.

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  17. 2.) Okay, this one may seem just plain silly, but here goes anyway…

    In my prayers, I try to be as precise as I can be, but also know that God knows what I mean even if I can’t find the right words. One of the areas that kind of trips me up, & maybe using too many words, is if my prayer should be about my loved one’s heart or mind or spirit. There is a lot of overlap in those areas within a person, but also some matters that are specifically of the heart or of the mind or of the spirit.

    Do you think I could just substitute the word “heart” (as in “inner being”) for all of those, unless specifically led otherwise?

    Even as I write that, I feel silly for asking. I’m sure the answer will be something along the lines of “Of course you can. God knows what you mean.”

    Maybe my real question should be… Do any of you have questions like those pop up in your praying?

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  18. Karen O, it seems that the person is suggesting that sin evolves into something acceptable to God. Solomon said “There is nothing new under the sun.” The outward aooearance of sin may have changed in style, but in the heart it is the same. In my timely Bible reading for this subject, in Samuel 16 when a king is being chosen the Bible reads,”…Man looks at the outward appearance, butthe Lord looks at the heart.”

    It seems the heart is the main issue. Think of hardened hearts and how many times the heart is mentuoed. Perhaps the mind can be a stumbling block for the heart, but to me the heart is core. Also, people can have an evil spirit living in them when they do not let their heart be devoted to God. Again in Samuel 16, the evil spirit would leave Saul when David played the harp. I am thinking as Saul was drinking in the beauty of the music of God’s creation that during those moments the evil spirit fled away.

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  19. Sorry for all the typos, but I hope you could understand the point.

    It would be interesting to look at a concordance and verify which is mentiined more frequently in scripture, heart, mind or spirit (not including Holy Spirit references).

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  20. Then what? I began reading more Scripture. That’s all I had. God delivered me from my drug addiction, but the one thing I was holding to was my sexuality. Passages in the Bible, three in the Old and three in the New, seemed to condemn this core part of my identity at that point: “I am gay.” So I went to a prison chaplain, and to my surprise he told me the Bible doesn’t condemn homosexuality, and gave me a book explaining that view. I took that book. I wanted to find biblical justification for homosexuality.

    Did you? I had that book in one hand and the Bible in the other, and every reason in the world to accept what that book was claiming. I wanted to have God and a gay relationship, but as I read through the Bible and read that book, it was clear to me that the book presented a clear distortion of God, His Word, and His unmistakable condemnation of homosexual sex.

    Prisons are notorious as places where some people go deeper into homosexuality, with all the pressures and opportunities there. Yes.

    So why do you think your response was different? I believe it was a miracle. I had no reason to reject what that book was claiming. It would have been the easier route—embrace my sexuality, as the world says, not to have to deny myself, pick up my cross, and follow Christ. God helped me not to just read this book on its own, because if you read it as a stand-alone many people would be convinced. I felt I could not read it apart from the Word of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit was guiding me.

    So these theories that the Bible doesn’t condemn homosexuality, just a particular type of homosexual practice, didn’t make sense to you? They didn’t. At that time I hadn’t been to seminary and learned Greek and Hebrew: I was just reading the English text. Now I know that Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1 links two Greek words that are the exact Greek words we find in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. In Leviticus 20:13 those two words are right next to each other, and any first-century Jew who had memorized the Torah, most likely in the Greek, would have known when Paul used that word for homosexuality it meant Paul affirmed the universal condemnation against homosexual sex in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13.

    The Talmudic sages, when they wrote about homosexuality, reflected that understanding as well. It was universal condemnation.

    So earlier, when you had to choose between family and sex, you chose sex. Yes.

    Now, you were clear that this was a question of God or homosexuality. I went through every page of Scripture, looking for positive justifications for gay, monogamous, consensual, adult homosexual relationships. I didn’t find anything. There was nothing in Scripture that blessed a gay relationship. That’s when I knew I was at a turning point: either reject God and pursue gay relationships by allowing my feelings, my orientation, to dictate who I was and how I lived, or abandon gay relationships by liberating myself from my sexuality, and live as a follower of Christ. I chose God.

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  21. Homeschool consisted of Becca writing her name 65 times (on Valentine’s cards for the ice skating party tomorrow), and decorating a box. Then, her tutor worked with her for an hour. He had good things to say about her progress, which was encouraging to me.

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  24. Squirrel!

    An ice skating party sounds fun, especially with all the inspiration from the Olympics! Anyone going to try some triple spin throw-downs?

    While you all back east are digging out of mounds of snow and ice, you’ll be glad to know we survived our morning coastal fog.

    Karen O, I, too, believe there’s nothing new under the sun — homosexual behavior has been around probably as long as mankind. Trying to make Scripture say what we want it to say is also not new (we’ve all probably been guilty). It seems, though, that a number of young Christians have been persuaded by some of these arguments and don’t see gay marriage as an issue of concern.

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  26. Chas, I had something like that happen a few years ago, where random words would be hyperlinked and would pop up ads if you hovered over them. It’s not anything on the web sites you’re looking at. It’s something that’s snuck into your browser.

    It happened far enough in the past that I don’t remember now what I did to get rid of it. But I found this article about “text-enhance” with some steps to get rid of it for different browsers: http://botcrawl.com/how-to-remove-text-enhance/. Hope it helps.

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  27. Yes, I cut and pasted on my phone and didn’t mention the article was in World Magazine last week, I think. Very insightful, I thought. He’s also been interviewed in Today’s Christian Women. Don’t have the link.

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  28. Karen O, I am thinking that the new style or clothes that homosexuality wears is that it is out of the closet. It is not being considered to be a shameful act as it was for so long. God’s condemnation of the sin has been thrown off by those who think that way. Having done that, then they go on to say God thinks what they do is fine because God is about love. They do try to remake God in their own image and in so doing it is okay with them to trample on the religious rights and beliefs of others. You probably can’t logically win an argument or debate with someone who chooses to take on the role of god. In time they may find other conclusions as the Yuan person did. That must involve being drawn by the Holy Spirit. And I think more than anything it involves deciding to go to the original source, the Bible, to see what God has to say.

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  33. Our trash pickup company just went out of business. With four bags of trash sitting at the end of the driveway (Wednesday pickup) and the company not answering their phone, my husband checked online and found Better Business Bureau says they’re out of business. They’ve always been good about calling us if for some reason they can’t pick up on the normal day, so it’s odd to find out in such a way.

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  34. Cheryl, is your area within any city boundary — or is it an unincorporated county territory. I know you said you’re in the ‘country,’ but what’s the local government that oversees things like trash? Usually the government entity has a contract with a hauler, although maybe it works differently there where you have to sign up with a company on your own?

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  35. Pre-mil? Or post-mil? The end times caught on video.

    OK, this is l-o-n-g (2 hours+), but for the truly dedicated & interested, here’s the video link to our church’s recent end times debate:

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  37. I recognized the interview, having recently read it in World.

    I know & agree with what you’ve all written. As I said, the idea that the ancient world didn’t know about homosexual relationships doesn’t ring true to me. I just wondered if someone with more knowledge of that time had any more specific knowledge on the subject.

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  39. michelle, that’s one of my frustrations in posting links to world mag pieces (which are often so good and deserve to be shared).

    Unless they are registered and logged on, ‘outside’ readers sent there can only see the first couple of paragraphs. I’m thinking people maybe can “register” for free (?) without subscribing to see the piece in its entirety, but I’m not sure about that. And even if it were the case, few probably will go to the trouble unless they’re very motivated.

    Our pay wall (which admittedly is new and still be phased in — so our content is still largely open for free — is set up so that articles shared on social media are fully available to read.

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  40. Karen O — So if I share a link to a world magazine article it won’t prompt them (as it does me) to log on or register? Since I always get that prompt I assumed others would as well and would only feel frustrated by not being able to read the entire piece.

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  42. Okay, so I logged in. Let’s try it now: http://www.worldmag.com/2014/01/from_gay_to_joyous

    Looks like the same link to me . . .

    I’ve had to open the windows to let in the lovely breeze now . . . off to WWI in Egypt.

    BTW, watched Birdsong last night–most realistic trenches scenes I’ve seen now that I’m working on the entire canon of WWI movies . . . I skipped through the scenes that appeared to be headed toward too much information vis a vis the love affair, so I can’t comment on those, but I gasped aloud at what they showed when a young man was blown up.

    Good for me to see it for my book; I hope to never see anything like that again. 😦

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  44. Karen O – In reply to the author’s claim that First century believers would not have any idea of other people living as homosexuals. All I can say is, “What a lot of baloney!” Secular literature from that time period makes it quite clear that the ancient world did know about the homosexual lifestyle, perhaps a little too much. I include this next part for your information.

    In The Peloponnesian Wars, Thucydides (460 -395 BC) writes about two Spartan generals who had a quarrel over a man they both wanted. The Roman Emperor Hadrian (ruled 117-138 AD) created a cult surrounding his dead male lover. Here is a quote from Plato’s Republic, written circa 380 B.C., during a dialogue about education and love (I have taken out portions of the dialogue for brevity):
    ‘”It is then with people of this sort that the educated man will fall in love; where the combination is imperfect he will not be attracted.”
    ” Not if the defect is one of character,” he replied,” If it is a physical defect, he will not let it be a bar to his affection.”
    “I know,” I said. “You have got, or once had, a boyfriend like that. I agree with you…
    …”And so I suppose that you will lay down the laws in the state we are founding which will allow a lover to associate with his boyfriend…'”‘
    [An aside: Plato goes on to state that in his ideal republic, although men could show romantic love to other men, sexual relations between them would be considered excessive and in bad taste.]
    If the author you were reading used the term Lesbian, he should have known better than to make that claim, since the term comes from the ancient Greek island of Lesbos – the most famous inhabitant of which was the female poet Sappho, whose love poems are now revered amongst a certain group. Sometimes I wonder if these writers are really that ignorant, or if they are just counting on the ignorance of the reader.

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  45. About the World site – if you are not a subscriber, the site will allow you to view five article pages a day before it blocks you. Any subsequent time you go on during the day, it will block you – unless of course, you have your internet setting to ‘Delete all browsing history upon exit’ which will remove World’s tracking cookies when you close your browser window. Then, you can go back on and read another five pages 😉 😛

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  46. All this talk about love is just a cloak to hide the real issue about homosexuality.
    It’s not about love, it’s about lust. Everyone talks about homosexuality as a relationship, but nobody talks about what homosexuals do. Regardless of how you color it, it’s a perversion.
    Men and women can develop close friendships based on love. Such as David and Jonathan. “Band of Brothers” for men, and Best Friends Forever for women are products of that. Not at all concerned with sex.

    All cultures reject it as a lifestyle. Some drastically. Ancient Judaism stoned them. Muslims still kill because of homosexual practices. e.g. “There are no homosexuals in Iran.”
    At no time in history, and in no culture is it considered that same sex persons can create a family. That’s what marriage is about, it’s about sex too. Opposite

    Some say that it’s unfair because of tax and other consequences. I agree that some of those things, i.e. visitation rights, should be considered. But marriage is a covenant between two people of opposite sex who want to create a family.
    Under no circumstance should we redefine marriage. All Christian denominations properly consider it a sin. The Bible is clear on that. As I said, ancient Jews stoned for the practice. Paul condemned it in no uncertain terms.

    Romans 1:
    24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity forthe degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
    28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done
    ….
    I believe a lot of people are going to be head accountable for false teachings about this issue. Another quote from Paul: Romans 2:5 “But after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasue (stores) up unto yourself wrath in the day of wrath….”
    Lots of people are putting away a little more wrath for the day of judgement.

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  48. Karen, on your second question and the difference between the mind and the spirit: First off, I will say, your wording in praying does not matter to God, for His Spirit intercedes for us, because we do not know how to pray for the things we should (Romans 8:26). That being said, I grew up in a certain homeschooling program which did try to distinguish between mind, soul and spirit. Apparently, the distinction was supposed to be the key to finding spiritual success. I later discovered, not only was the distinction unnecessary to living the Christian life, but also some elements in the teaching actually followed Gnostic doctrine – a heresy which Paul and John both deal with in their epistles – which states that the material body is evil and the spirit is good (Gnostics denied Jesus had come in bodily form, because the body is evil). So don’t worry too much about it – God understands and will guide you into all truth (John 16:13); overthinking things can lead into dangerous territory.

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  49. Chas, I hope you did not misunderstand me. I wasn’t using the quotes from Plato to endorse the popular view of homosexual love. I used the quotes to answer the question that Karen was asking at posts 10:17 and 3:07 – whether first century Christians would have known about homosexual relationships. The answer is yes, they would have and, therefore, Paul knew what he was condemning in I Corinthians 6.

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  50. I understand Phos. I understand. In fact, I studied about the Spartans & the Peloponesian wars at the Naval War Collage. They weren’t particular about whom they raped.

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  51. Roscuro – Thanks for your input. As I said earlier, the idea that the ancients were so clueless didn’t ring true, but my opinion about that wouldn’t necessarily hold weight with my friend, if this matter came up.

    As for the matter of the words I mentioned, a brief look into it shows me that sometimes where the Bible uses “heart”, it is the idea of the heart & mind as one, but other times, it is more the idea of heart & spirit as one. I know that in at least one translation, “heart” is interpreted “inner being”.

    It seems to me that our inner being is made up of our heart’s emotions, our mind’s perceptions, & our spirit’s spiritual insights. So maybe “heart” is a good all-purpose word to use when asking God to change someone or reveal something to them, or for some other requests of that nature.

    You see, sometimes I just think too much, & over-analyze things. 🙂

    Does anyone else here do that sort of thing in regard to prayer?

    Donna – From what I read (on the website maybe?), as long as the member sharing the link is logged into World, other people clicking on the link should get the full article.

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  52. I grew up in a huge Greek community. Ancient Greeks believed that relationships between men and women were for procreation. Relationships between men and men were a what happened on the battlefield. Relationships with women and women were a result of what happened when no men were around. Only a man could be intellectually equivalent to a man.

    It brings me to my next question. The things people share with me that leave me speechless.
    1. The 30 year old woman whose father molested her older sister, she may have blocked any molestation of herself.
    2. The 55 year old woman whose husband is unalble to have sex and how alone and lonely she feels…rejected is the word she used.

    What would you say to these women. I was more capable of handling the 30 year old. I didn’t know what to say to the other one.

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  54. I wonder, do you feel homosexuality is more sinful than extramarital heterosexual sex? I don’t, but can’t back it up with anything other than my gut feeling. I have a dear friend, whom I dearly love, that I’ve known since third grade. He is gay. He is not a Christian, which makes me sad. He has had hateful, horrible things said to him by so-called Christians .

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  56. unable can be fixed, unwilling is a different story.

    As for NT era ideas of sexuality, it was different. There was no strict definition of straight or gay rather some men leaned one way or the other. Whether that factors into Biblical interpretation is an other story; I suspect who interprets is more important than the actual context of the text.

    In reading a book on the history of swearing (Holy Sh*t) I came across an interesting theory — sexual relations were defined by power and hence penetration was more important than who it was with. The “reciever” whether male or female was thought to be the lessor in the relationship. Thus it was not with what gender you had relations with but what position you took.

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  57. Received.
    AnnMS, I also have a long time friend…he was my 6th grade boyfriend, who is gay. He went to Christian school with me. He sang in the Baptist Church choir. He knows right from wrong. Before I met Mr. P he and I were making our plans to grow old together…He was going to wear a searsucker suit and buckskin saddle oxfords…We had not decided upon my wardrobe yet…we were going to set on the veranda, sip mint juleps, and talk about people.

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  59. This is my favorite of the Valentine’s cards I made, other than the one I made for my honey. I may post that one tomorrow. But in the meantime he is in bed and that gives me a good opportunity to write a nice note in his card.

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  61. FB personality quizzes are really big lately.

    Turns out I’m like “Lenny” in Law & Order (“reliable, funny, steady in emotional circumstances when everyone else is losing it & tough as nails”); and I should really be living in Kansas. 🙂

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  64. Maybe it is a Canadian thing, because apparently I most resemble Jefferson on that test.

    To reply to Ann’s question, no, I don’t think homosexuality is any more of a sin than extramarital heterosexual sex. Sin is sin – contrary to Dante’s Inferno there are no higher and lower circles of hell for the better or worse sins. I have observed that many who rail against homosexuality (I am talking here about those of the Westboro-church ilk) are usually hypocrites in their own lives. The only type of sinner that Christ railed against were the religious hypocrites; he ate with publicans and prostitutes (Mark 2:16-17). Even Paul’s condemnation of sexual perversion in places like 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, are merely preludes to speak of the wonderful grace of God which rescues us all from such bondage – “And such were some of you” (vs. 11). I treat those who identify themselves as homosexuals with whom I come in contact like I would treat any other human being, with respect and dignity. I am willing to speak of my faith if they are interested, but I do not single them out for hell fire and brimstone speeches because of their particular peccadillo.

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