Psalms

I have really enjoyed my time in The Book of Psalms this year. Its blending of history, prophesy, and praise in a uniquely poetic form makes this a challenging read for a meat head like me, but the richness of the text in relation to both the rest of scripture and the human experience is worth the challenge. Here are a few good lines from chapter 119. I have pulled them out of the poem and transformed them into regular sentences:

5&6- Oh, that my ways were directed to keep Your statutes! Then I would not be ashamed when I look into all Your commandments.

7- I will praise You with uprightness of heart when I learn Your righteous judgments.

9- How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.

11- Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against You!

14& 15- I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies as much as in all riches. I will meditate on Your precepts and contemplate Your ways.

18&19- Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from Your law. I am a stranger in the earth - do not hide Your commandments from me.

67, 68& 71- Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word. You are good and do good- teach me Your statutes. It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I may learn Your statutes.

Psalm 119, more than any other Psalm, exhibits the tremendous passion that David had for the mind of God; to know it, to obey His Laws, to declare His ways to others. I am challenged by his passion for God and His perfect ways!

Fuel Sniffers and Tazers Don't Mix

I admire policemen. They have one of the most difficult jobs in the world. They have to make split second decisions that may mean life or death and never know when some jerk with a video camera is going to feed the media only half of the story. I've been told that police work can be 99% boredom and 1% fear. I think the following article may be in the 1%.

Man Tasered After Sniffing Gas Bursts in Flames
Tuesday, July 21, 2009


SYDNEY — A man whose relatives say had been sniffing gasoline burst into flames after a police officer Tasered him as he ran at officials carrying a container of fuel, police said Tuesday.

The man, identified by his family as 36-year-old Ronald Mitchell, was in critical condition at a Perth hospital in Western Australia state following Monday's incident in Warburton, an Aboriginal community 950 miles northeast of Perth.

Western Australia police said they were responding to a complaint at a house when Mitchell ran outside the house carrying a cigarette lighter and a large plastic bottle containing what they believe was fuel. When he refused to stop running toward them, one officer Tasered him, police said in a media release.

The man was immediately engulfed in flames. The officer threw him to the ground and smothered the blaze with his hands, the statement said. Mitchell was charged with assault to prevent arrest and possession of a sniffing substance.

An 18-year-old woman threw rocks at the officer as he tried to help, and he was later treated for a cut on his head and burns to his hands, police said.

The woman was charged with two counts of assaulting an officer, police Sgt. Graham Clifford said. Two others at the house were charged with possessing a sniffing substance.

Mitchell's sister, Morinda West, told The Australian newspaper that her brother had been sniffing gasoline and that when he ran out of the house he was carrying a lighter and an orange juice container full of gasoline.

Police spokeswoman Susan Usher said Mitchell appeared to have received third-degree burns to about ten percent of his body.

The officer who Tasered Mitchell was not suspended, Clifford said

Acts 20:27

I am often troubled by the tendency to attack one another in the church. I'm using the term church in the broad sense. If you view the church as a family then I suppose it is not unusual to fight amongst your loved ones, but in the family of God this ought not to be.

What am I talking about? There is a tendency for individual churches to view themselves as the last bastion of faithfulness to scripture and to point out the perceived evils of other churches. There is the tendency for one system of theology to set up arguments against another by either willful mischaracterization or finding an extreme view and representing it as mainstream. Both of these examples are unconscionable. I believe we play into the devil's hand when we do not take an honest account of another's view and measure it against... our own view? No. Scripture! In fact, measure not only your opponent's view, but hold your own up to the light of Scripture. Get rid of presuppositions; you might just as well read a book about the Bible that you know you will agree with if you're not willing to let the Bible speak for itself.

Easier said than done? You're right. It is much easier to read a book or listen to a preacher or theologian then formulate an opinion based on other's study and teaching with your own dabbling here and there in the Bible. Unfortunately, the conclusions you draw will not be your own if you rely solely on others for biblical knowledge. Only by a careful study of the entire counsel of Scripture guided by the Holy Spirit, supplemented by the studies of others, can one be able to "rightly divide the word of truth." A large part of the human race has been blessed with access to the Holy Bible for the last 400 years. What a shame to shrink from the task of studying this immense book that others before us (and even today!) could only dream of doing.

I would encourage my friends and kinfolk to go to the following link: http://kimriddlebarger.squarespace.com/a-reply-to-john-macarthur/ and carefully read this reply to an attack made by John MacArthur on amillenialism. Eschatology is one of those areas in my opinion where the church has engaged in hyperbolic attack instead of fully understanding the case for a particular doctrine and then holding it to the light of Scripture. Read this essay, then avoid the temptation to reject it because of a book you read or "party affiliation." Reject it because you searched the entire counsel of Scripture without presupposition and found his case wanting.