Morning all. I love that picture of the blossoms. Aj, you can leave that one up for the month. Ribs are feeling better. I skipped the weight room again, but went to a tea instead. It was so nice to get together with the other teacher and just chat. Also I learned some things, these gals know so much. Next year’s staff will be entirely different.
I entered my comment using google chrome instead of internet explorer and my name showed up. Does that mean that I am real again???
I am happy that when I checked my account this evening there was a gift from a little old lady that I have only met once. She does not have email and I was worried that she had died.
When I saw the picture, before I saw Dj, I figured “Peter” on a trip to Az.
But it fits.
Good evening Jo.
Good morning everyone else.
We had a rainstorm last night, but everything is ok now.
I think.
Morning. It is a rainy foggy morning here in the forest and the furnace is once again taking the chill out of the air. It is as though a blanket of moisture has been placed over us, keeping our fire danger at bay. For that we are thankful. The sun will return soon enough and for that we will again be thankful 😊
We are mid fifties here, so no heat needed. We will have plenty later in the day. Supposed to get up into the mid seventies. Yet another beautiful day in the neighborhood.
A Cautionary Tale of Woe,
I have been tired. I have been lazy. I have been lots of things lately.
I have an instructor flying in from Philadelphia this afternoon to teach tomorrow at my office. I have tried to make everything smooth and efficient. I asked about where she would like to stay. She told me she had a friend in the area and would stay with her.
Yesterday she let me know that she would be arriving at 3:40 this afternoon and asked who would pick her up. I canceled my appointment with the dermatologist this afternoon at 3:30 so I will be retrieving her from the airport. I asked if she would be staying with her friend. No. Her friend is too busy (selling real estate, I might add, and is to busy to reply to MY agent who is representing a buyer on one of Friend’s listings). I asked if I needed to bring her home with me? “Yes, that would be lovely”. Luckily, I did wash the sheets on the guest bedroom over the weekend because Mr. P and I have been rotating through there depending on his snoring. (I might add I try to get there first. Unfortunately, he has told me it is the most comfortable bed in the house.
Guess who is staying home this morning to clean her house before she drags a stranger home with her tonight?
You are a servant of the King and may He be glorified through your actions. Thanks for being you, Kim. You have been and continue to be such a blessing to me.
From yesterday, on the Salvation Army being a charity and a church, all churches registered in North America are charities. That is how they maintain their tax exempt status. In Canadian tax law, in order to attain charitable status, an institution must meet one or more of four charitable purposes: the relief of poverty, the advancement of education, the advancement of religion, or another benefit to the public as determined by the courts. Churches meet the third charitable purpose. U.S. tax law also exempts churches under charitable status.
(Grand)child rearing question:
When do you take away the bottle? I nursed BG until she was a year old. When the doctor allowed her to have juice I gave it to her in a sippy cup, so when she was weaned she was used to a cup and had never gotten a bottle from me.
Now I have to confess, I am my father’s daughter. He had DEFINITE ideas about bottles and pacifiers. They ruin teeth! BG left her pacifier at the pediatric dentist’s office when she was 20 months old.
Little Missy is a bottle baby. She loves her “pappy”. She is quite adamant she will only drink water out of the Minnie Mouse cup. She will only drink juice out of the orange cup. She will only drink milk out of a bottle. She and I talked about it when she was here on Saturday. I told her that when she came back to Mimi’s house there wouldn’t be any bottles. This morning in my cleaning up, I moved the bottles into a cabinet where she couldn’t see them. I told Mr. P where they were. She said she would only drink milk from a bottle. Mr. Pushover!
Elvera remembers more about this than I do.
But I think Chuck weaned himself. He didn’t gen enough through a nipple. He has always been efficiency minded. He wanted the volume.
The photo was taken somewhat on a whim yesterday from my front yard after I’d done some watering. It’s looking across the ravine (coyote territory) that travels from the neighborhood park (to the west of me) and goes along the north side of my neighbors’ house, then dips under the street in front of both our houses (future sink hole anyone?) and picks up across the street and beyond. It’s one of several ravines that cut through our town from the peninsula hills.
The house in the photo sits on the rim of the canyon/ravine on the far side.
I used the phone camera w/the zoom, should have used the real one as this looks washed out and a bit blurry. But I did want to shoot those purple jacaranda trees in the distance before they lose their prettiness. Jacarandas and their purple haze are in bloom all over town and throughout LA right now. Beautiful but messy & sticky once they start to shed.
The sun is out right now, but stormy weather was in the forcast. We had a storm last night. There were power outages near here from downed trees. Wish we could avoid that today.
I entered the haiku contest several times since they are going by the 5-7-5 style. They are many entries. I do not expect to win but it was a fun challenge.
And down the hill beyond those jacarandas is the Port of Los Angeles, the busy shipping harbor that we can hear (fog and ship horns, sea lions, music during the summer festivals) but not see from where I live. 🙂 I have a view of the harbor when I walk to the corner, though.
When my house was built in 1923, the “port” would have consisted of mud flats, dirt roads and wooden docks and ships, hauling in lumber and other building materials mainly. Trains would then take it all from there.
I took one glance at that picture, saw the house, the palm trees, and the jacarandas, and new instantly it was DJ’s. Oh how I miss seeing those jacarandas every year.
DJ, are they blooming later than usual? I thought May was their big month. But perhaps I’ve been gone too long to remember clearly.
It does seem a little late, Kevin, although many are shedding now. They’ve been in bloom for a while, probably since May. Maybe all our rain gave them an extra long season this year.
Some days it feels harder than other days to not be driving. I just need more patience with people. By getting rides to stores with my brother, he feels he has a right to make judgement on my spending. He just called to tell me that Kroger has Mayfield ice cream on sale for BOGO. I said we don’t need all the calories. Then he chided me for wasting money or in his words ‘blowing money’ by going to Bruster’s for ice cream on Fsther’s Day. We got single dips on sugar cones for about the price of two boxes of the Kroger Mayfield. I reiterated that we did not need the calories of two boxes of ice cream. This is just so petty and I don’t want to dwell on it. Why do such little things get next to me? I just need to pray not to be dragged down by such nonsense.
A relatively new Facebook friend of mine (who has been FB friends with a couple other of my FB friends for a while) has posted a cartoon-type thing about how a child should not talk to his father. It shows a little boy standing in front of his dad, who is sitting in a chair with a book, and the boy says, “Dear father, I am unworthy to be called you child. Let me be your servant to do your will. Use me as your instrument. Take my mind. Take my heart. Take my body. Take my life! I am nothing, so consume me for your purpose and for your glory, even though I’m the worst person in the world.”
As you can see, the point is anti-Christian. In the past, this is the kind of post I would spend time writing a gentle, polite, hopefully winsome reply to, but I am holding back on this. The other commenters are talking about how psychologically harmful the doctrine of sin is, and how awful the Christian religion in to teach it. (I recognize a couple of them from other threads, and know that they are virulently anti-Christian, and can be quite caustic and condescending.
One lady claims to be a Christian, but then goes on to say that she rejects the concept of God as Father, saying that has done much psychological harm to people, and made some mention of “the patriarchy”.
I know that staying out of it is the wise choice, but it hurts to see the cold attitudes of these non-believers. Praying that somehow, even as they feel so superior and enlightened, God’s spirit would truly enlighten the eyes of their hearts. (And I am hoping that the other two Christian mutual friends we have will come along and have something helpful to say.)
Be very careful how you respond, Karen.
I don’t know about your friends, but lots of non-Christians will agitate and try to set you up for something. I would not attempt to answer this unless I had a specific calling.
There is a time to shake the dust. Reading this morning about Paul turning some folk over to Satan that they might come to the Truth. You can pray and leave it to God. As Chas said, they are baiting, not interested in discussion or learning.
This is so utterly foolish and obviously wrong, I would ignore it, too. You will not change the mind of the one who shared it and most of those (if any) who comment. Remind yourself you do not carry the weight of the world and what everyone believes on your shoulders. Jesus himself did not waste his time trying to convince people who would not be convinced. It is distressing. I see such nonsense too often.
I think our big challenge going forward as ‘the church’ will be to strengthen the saints. The culture has so influenced the church in recent decades — because the church had/has become so comfortable with the “americanized” culture that used to be outwardly (but thinly and nominally) “christian.”
Now we’re reaping the results of that and we’ve become deeply influenced — and confused.
Scripture no longer is the source of truth about our faith; the popular culture is.
I have a number of professing Christian FB friends who are passionately supportive of gay marriage, for example. These are people who should know better but somehow don’t.
One of the best things I was taught early in my Christian walk (by my pastor’s wife) was to filter everything through scripture, not to filter scripture through experience or worldly wisdom. If there is a conflict, trust in God’s word over your own understanding.
Donna, that’s the reason I say that we no longer need an evangelist. We need a prophet.
Not only to point us to Christ, but away from some accepted lifestyles.
Just heard the first plane leave. The Seniors graduated last night and now the first ones are leaving. Everyone goes to the airstrip to say goodbye. This is ‘Cry Week”
False professors of the faith have been present in the Church in every age. Christ said the tares would grow with the wheat and the birds of the air would rest in the branches of the tree (Matthew 13:24-32). He is the Prophet (Deuteronomy 18:15-19) and he builds his Church (Matthew 16:18). The gospel of Jesus Christ is perfectly adequate for all that faces modern Christianity because our Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
But much of the church today has fallen prey to filtering Scripture through their cultural lens. Has that always happened? Of course. But it is a distinct and more apparent issue of late in the U.S. church. It still needs to be addressed; and I agree, He is our Prophet, Priest and King, people failed to listen to the prophets of old and would do so again.
The filtering of Scripture through a cultural lens is not solely a weakness of the more liberal church, as the naming of the ‘culture wars’ indicates. The words of Christ to the Laodicean church are often quoted to stir up the conservative church to action in the culture wars, “You are neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm”. But there is another passage which is pertinent to a church who spends so much time and energy opposing the secular world, that of Christ to the Ephesians:
“I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil. You have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be liars. You also possess endurance and have tolerated many things because of My name and have not grown weary. But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.” [HCSB]
As Paul said in I Corinthians 13:
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” [ESV]
The Sadducees were the liberals of their day, skeptical of the resurrection, angels, and spirits (Acts 23:6-8); but although Jesus summarily dismissed the Sadducees’ silly arguments against the resurrection (Matthew 22:23-33), he had many more warnings against the Pharisees, who were the conservative and orthodox element of their day. The Pharisees, as Jesus said, sat in Moses’ seat and held to the law and the prophets as firmly as any believer in Biblical inerrancy does today (Matthew 23). But they were proud and self satisfied (Luke 18:11), merciless to those who fell from perfect keeping of the law, and unjust in their zeal to punish sin (John 8:1-11). They are a warning of what happens when professing Christians zealously follow the Bible without a true love for God or their neighbour (Mark 12:28-31; Luke 10:25-29; James 2:8-9). False professors of the faith can be conservative as well as liberal.
And some believers are genuinely misled and confused, unduly influenced by outside forces. They aren’t tares, they are believers in need of sound doctrine and teaching from their churches.
The equippers of the saints need to be about that business and the saints need to be listening and discerning. Going home, reading the Word, looking for the Truth and then living it.
And when we see a fellow believer faltering, we need to come alongside an encourage or even correct and encourage, but when we find they will not hear, let it go and move on. Though we can continue to pray for them.
Good Wednesday morning everyone.
TSWITW wanted to get up about four AM. I got her back into bed about 4:30, but we’re up now.
Have a nice day everyone.
Wandering Views 
Morning all. I love that picture of the blossoms. Aj, you can leave that one up for the month. Ribs are feeling better. I skipped the weight room again, but went to a tea instead. It was so nice to get together with the other teacher and just chat. Also I learned some things, these gals know so much. Next year’s staff will be entirely different.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I entered my comment using google chrome instead of internet explorer and my name showed up. Does that mean that I am real again???
I am happy that when I checked my account this evening there was a gift from a little old lady that I have only met once. She does not have email and I was worried that she had died.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When I saw the picture, before I saw Dj, I figured “Peter” on a trip to Az.
But it fits.
Good evening Jo.
Good morning everyone else.
We had a rainstorm last night, but everything is ok now.
I think.
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On “Fox & Friends” they are having lessons on the best way to peel garlic.
I have never peeled garlic and likely never will.
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I did it! I did it! I liked a comment for the first time in months.
LikeLiked by 6 people
Morning. It is a rainy foggy morning here in the forest and the furnace is once again taking the chill out of the air. It is as though a blanket of moisture has been placed over us, keeping our fire danger at bay. For that we are thankful. The sun will return soon enough and for that we will again be thankful 😊
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We are mid fifties here, so no heat needed. We will have plenty later in the day. Supposed to get up into the mid seventies. Yet another beautiful day in the neighborhood.
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A Cautionary Tale of Woe,
I have been tired. I have been lazy. I have been lots of things lately.
I have an instructor flying in from Philadelphia this afternoon to teach tomorrow at my office. I have tried to make everything smooth and efficient. I asked about where she would like to stay. She told me she had a friend in the area and would stay with her.
Yesterday she let me know that she would be arriving at 3:40 this afternoon and asked who would pick her up. I canceled my appointment with the dermatologist this afternoon at 3:30 so I will be retrieving her from the airport. I asked if she would be staying with her friend. No. Her friend is too busy (selling real estate, I might add, and is to busy to reply to MY agent who is representing a buyer on one of Friend’s listings). I asked if I needed to bring her home with me? “Yes, that would be lovely”. Luckily, I did wash the sheets on the guest bedroom over the weekend because Mr. P and I have been rotating through there depending on his snoring. (I might add I try to get there first. Unfortunately, he has told me it is the most comfortable bed in the house.
Guess who is staying home this morning to clean her house before she drags a stranger home with her tonight?
LikeLiked by 6 people
You are a servant of the King and may He be glorified through your actions. Thanks for being you, Kim. You have been and continue to be such a blessing to me.
LikeLiked by 9 people
Amen & amen
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I saw the picture and thought, “That doesn’t look like Cheryl’s neck of the woods.” Then I saw DJ’s moniker and thought, “Definitely California.”
We’re leaving here in a few minutes. Just have to get things in the minivan.
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I grew up about a mile northwest of those Jacaranda blossoms! I recognized home immediately. 🙂
Off to another crazy day of VBS. The weather here is perfect–which has not been true the last few times I’ve done outdoor rec!
LikeLiked by 1 person
From yesterday, on the Salvation Army being a charity and a church, all churches registered in North America are charities. That is how they maintain their tax exempt status. In Canadian tax law, in order to attain charitable status, an institution must meet one or more of four charitable purposes: the relief of poverty, the advancement of education, the advancement of religion, or another benefit to the public as determined by the courts. Churches meet the third charitable purpose. U.S. tax law also exempts churches under charitable status.
LikeLiked by 2 people
(Grand)child rearing question:
When do you take away the bottle? I nursed BG until she was a year old. When the doctor allowed her to have juice I gave it to her in a sippy cup, so when she was weaned she was used to a cup and had never gotten a bottle from me.
Now I have to confess, I am my father’s daughter. He had DEFINITE ideas about bottles and pacifiers. They ruin teeth! BG left her pacifier at the pediatric dentist’s office when she was 20 months old.
Little Missy is a bottle baby. She loves her “pappy”. She is quite adamant she will only drink water out of the Minnie Mouse cup. She will only drink juice out of the orange cup. She will only drink milk out of a bottle. She and I talked about it when she was here on Saturday. I told her that when she came back to Mimi’s house there wouldn’t be any bottles. This morning in my cleaning up, I moved the bottles into a cabinet where she couldn’t see them. I told Mr. P where they were. She said she would only drink milk from a bottle. Mr. Pushover!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Elvera remembers more about this than I do.
But I think Chuck weaned himself. He didn’t gen enough through a nipple. He has always been efficiency minded. He wanted the volume.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The photo was taken somewhat on a whim yesterday from my front yard after I’d done some watering. It’s looking across the ravine (coyote territory) that travels from the neighborhood park (to the west of me) and goes along the north side of my neighbors’ house, then dips under the street in front of both our houses (future sink hole anyone?) and picks up across the street and beyond. It’s one of several ravines that cut through our town from the peninsula hills.
The house in the photo sits on the rim of the canyon/ravine on the far side.
I used the phone camera w/the zoom, should have used the real one as this looks washed out and a bit blurry. But I did want to shoot those purple jacaranda trees in the distance before they lose their prettiness. Jacarandas and their purple haze are in bloom all over town and throughout LA right now. Beautiful but messy & sticky once they start to shed.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Your photo looks nice on my phone screen, DJ. Perhaps my blurry vision cancels out the flaws you see!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The sun is out right now, but stormy weather was in the forcast. We had a storm last night. There were power outages near here from downed trees. Wish we could avoid that today.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I entered the haiku contest several times since they are going by the 5-7-5 style. They are many entries. I do not expect to win but it was a fun challenge.
LikeLiked by 3 people
And down the hill beyond those jacarandas is the Port of Los Angeles, the busy shipping harbor that we can hear (fog and ship horns, sea lions, music during the summer festivals) but not see from where I live. 🙂 I have a view of the harbor when I walk to the corner, though.
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I left out the fireworks, those we can actually see (and definitely hear) in the summertime.
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When my house was built in 1923, the “port” would have consisted of mud flats, dirt roads and wooden docks and ships, hauling in lumber and other building materials mainly. Trains would then take it all from there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I took one glance at that picture, saw the house, the palm trees, and the jacarandas, and new instantly it was DJ’s. Oh how I miss seeing those jacarandas every year.
DJ, are they blooming later than usual? I thought May was their big month. But perhaps I’ve been gone too long to remember clearly.
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It does seem a little late, Kevin, although many are shedding now. They’ve been in bloom for a while, probably since May. Maybe all our rain gave them an extra long season this year.
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It is a pretty view, DJ.
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Hey, Friday is Take Your Dog to Work Day.
Now that I (mostly) work from home, my dogs and I can participate for the first time. 🙂 Even the cat gets to join in.
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Some days it feels harder than other days to not be driving. I just need more patience with people. By getting rides to stores with my brother, he feels he has a right to make judgement on my spending. He just called to tell me that Kroger has Mayfield ice cream on sale for BOGO. I said we don’t need all the calories. Then he chided me for wasting money or in his words ‘blowing money’ by going to Bruster’s for ice cream on Fsther’s Day. We got single dips on sugar cones for about the price of two boxes of the Kroger Mayfield. I reiterated that we did not need the calories of two boxes of ice cream. This is just so petty and I don’t want to dwell on it. Why do such little things get next to me? I just need to pray not to be dragged down by such nonsense.
LikeLiked by 3 people
That would bug me, too, Janice.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A relatively new Facebook friend of mine (who has been FB friends with a couple other of my FB friends for a while) has posted a cartoon-type thing about how a child should not talk to his father. It shows a little boy standing in front of his dad, who is sitting in a chair with a book, and the boy says, “Dear father, I am unworthy to be called you child. Let me be your servant to do your will. Use me as your instrument. Take my mind. Take my heart. Take my body. Take my life! I am nothing, so consume me for your purpose and for your glory, even though I’m the worst person in the world.”
As you can see, the point is anti-Christian. In the past, this is the kind of post I would spend time writing a gentle, polite, hopefully winsome reply to, but I am holding back on this. The other commenters are talking about how psychologically harmful the doctrine of sin is, and how awful the Christian religion in to teach it. (I recognize a couple of them from other threads, and know that they are virulently anti-Christian, and can be quite caustic and condescending.
One lady claims to be a Christian, but then goes on to say that she rejects the concept of God as Father, saying that has done much psychological harm to people, and made some mention of “the patriarchy”.
I know that staying out of it is the wise choice, but it hurts to see the cold attitudes of these non-believers. Praying that somehow, even as they feel so superior and enlightened, God’s spirit would truly enlighten the eyes of their hearts. (And I am hoping that the other two Christian mutual friends we have will come along and have something helpful to say.)
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Be very careful how you respond, Karen.
I don’t know about your friends, but lots of non-Christians will agitate and try to set you up for something. I would not attempt to answer this unless I had a specific calling.
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e.g some people throw out bait.
LikeLiked by 3 people
There is a time to shake the dust. Reading this morning about Paul turning some folk over to Satan that they might come to the Truth. You can pray and leave it to God. As Chas said, they are baiting, not interested in discussion or learning.
LikeLiked by 5 people
This is so utterly foolish and obviously wrong, I would ignore it, too. You will not change the mind of the one who shared it and most of those (if any) who comment. Remind yourself you do not carry the weight of the world and what everyone believes on your shoulders. Jesus himself did not waste his time trying to convince people who would not be convinced. It is distressing. I see such nonsense too often.
LikeLiked by 3 people
“claims to be a Christian.”
I think our big challenge going forward as ‘the church’ will be to strengthen the saints. The culture has so influenced the church in recent decades — because the church had/has become so comfortable with the “americanized” culture that used to be outwardly (but thinly and nominally) “christian.”
Now we’re reaping the results of that and we’ve become deeply influenced — and confused.
Scripture no longer is the source of truth about our faith; the popular culture is.
LikeLiked by 5 people
I have a number of professing Christian FB friends who are passionately supportive of gay marriage, for example. These are people who should know better but somehow don’t.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Don’t worry – I am staying out of it.
One of the best things I was taught early in my Christian walk (by my pastor’s wife) was to filter everything through scripture, not to filter scripture through experience or worldly wisdom. If there is a conflict, trust in God’s word over your own understanding.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Donna, that’s the reason I say that we no longer need an evangelist. We need a prophet.
Not only to point us to Christ, but away from some accepted lifestyles.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I heard a Rwandan pastor on Metaxas yesterday comment, about his country, “We were a nation of baptized pagans, not Biblical Christians.”
Still true here.
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Just heard the first plane leave. The Seniors graduated last night and now the first ones are leaving. Everyone goes to the airstrip to say goodbye. This is ‘Cry Week”
LikeLiked by 1 person
False professors of the faith have been present in the Church in every age. Christ said the tares would grow with the wheat and the birds of the air would rest in the branches of the tree (Matthew 13:24-32). He is the Prophet (Deuteronomy 18:15-19) and he builds his Church (Matthew 16:18). The gospel of Jesus Christ is perfectly adequate for all that faces modern Christianity because our Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
LikeLiked by 2 people
No one disputes that, roscuro.
But much of the church today has fallen prey to filtering Scripture through their cultural lens. Has that always happened? Of course. But it is a distinct and more apparent issue of late in the U.S. church. It still needs to be addressed; and I agree, He is our Prophet, Priest and King, people failed to listen to the prophets of old and would do so again.
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Doesn’t mean there still (always) isn’t a call within to be aware and to strengthen the church with clear teaching.
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Amen. Watching for wolves among the flock requires good teaching..
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The filtering of Scripture through a cultural lens is not solely a weakness of the more liberal church, as the naming of the ‘culture wars’ indicates. The words of Christ to the Laodicean church are often quoted to stir up the conservative church to action in the culture wars, “You are neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm”. But there is another passage which is pertinent to a church who spends so much time and energy opposing the secular world, that of Christ to the Ephesians:
“I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil. You have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be liars. You also possess endurance and have tolerated many things because of My name and have not grown weary. But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.” [HCSB]
As Paul said in I Corinthians 13:
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” [ESV]
The Sadducees were the liberals of their day, skeptical of the resurrection, angels, and spirits (Acts 23:6-8); but although Jesus summarily dismissed the Sadducees’ silly arguments against the resurrection (Matthew 22:23-33), he had many more warnings against the Pharisees, who were the conservative and orthodox element of their day. The Pharisees, as Jesus said, sat in Moses’ seat and held to the law and the prophets as firmly as any believer in Biblical inerrancy does today (Matthew 23). But they were proud and self satisfied (Luke 18:11), merciless to those who fell from perfect keeping of the law, and unjust in their zeal to punish sin (John 8:1-11). They are a warning of what happens when professing Christians zealously follow the Bible without a true love for God or their neighbour (Mark 12:28-31; Luke 10:25-29; James 2:8-9). False professors of the faith can be conservative as well as liberal.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And some believers are genuinely misled and confused, unduly influenced by outside forces. They aren’t tares, they are believers in need of sound doctrine and teaching from their churches.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Again, no dispute, roscuro
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The equippers of the saints need to be about that business and the saints need to be listening and discerning. Going home, reading the Word, looking for the Truth and then living it.
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And when we see a fellow believer faltering, we need to come alongside an encourage or even correct and encourage, but when we find they will not hear, let it go and move on. Though we can continue to pray for them.
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Good Wednesday morning everyone.
TSWITW wanted to get up about four AM. I got her back into bed about 4:30, but we’re up now.
Have a nice day everyone.
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