A Christian Viewpoint

Once again in this chapter it talks about wisdom and referring wisdom to being feminine. Over the years while reading proverbs I always wondered if wisdom is the Holy Spirit. He (She?) is the Spirit of wisdom and truth. In the “Gospel of Thomas”, which isn’t a gospel but a list of sayings, the writer states plainly that the Holy Spirit is feminine. Now I have read most of the gospel of Thomas and find it weak and sometimes contrary to the our four gospels. At times I find myself, even recently, thinking this same thought; the Holy Spirit is the feminine side of God. So out comes the concordance and a search for “Holy Spirit”. Of all the mentions of the Holy Spirit I find only one reference to gender…

John 14:26“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
The Holy Bible, New King James Version, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc.) 1982.

I guess with that in mind, the Holy Spirit is considered by John, to be masculine not feminine. Of course I do not read Greek and some geek who does could write and show me how wrong I am, that there are feminine and masculine references to words like they have in French. This poor boy, however will stick with John’s call. Gee, it was about time I cleared up that little confusion… so far.
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This chapter reminds me of that passage from Hebrews; you must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of those that diligently seek him. The call is to seek out wisdom and search out her ways. In Ecclesiastes it is said that the searching for knowledge is the task of man. The promise of getting that knowledge is assured. The answers that we need are there to be had. If only we would take the time to look. Not only the knowledge but the wisdom to use it. We who are the redeemed in this dispensation have even better promises. Whew… for what more could a person ask? Perhaps the heart to search in the first place? That too is a gift.

Well Merry Christmas everyone. It is important to remember the reason for the season. Christmas is the day we take to honour God’s gift to mankind. Someone who was able to live a life that justified mankind’s existence. The perfect person. The perfect sacrifice. The new creation. We go to church and celebrate his birth according to each of our customs. The gathering of the family. The turkey dinner. Let us also remember those less fortunate than ourselves. Reach out and bless someone with a kind word, a small gift and, if the opportunity arises, the gospel that will set them free. It is a time of giving. Give with a joyful heart. May God bless you and keep you in the centre of his will.
🙂

Remember back when I wrote about Alcoholics for Christ. Well, our church started a new program designed and written by one of our church members named Karl Fair. The meetings have been going for about four months. It follows the same line that you would find in any twelve step program. I take my hat off to the support staff that make this program operational every Tuesday night.

My small part is to provide the praise and worship songs at the beginning of the meeting. Though I cannot be at every meeting I do my best. I missed singing while accompanying myself on the guitar over the past several years. It was a real blessing to myself and hopefully to those attending last night’s meeting… six hours ago.

My thanks to Crossfire Assembly in Hamilton for allowing me to participate on the church worship team and for the Recovery and Support Group for allowing me to lead in the worship part of their service.

Recently I picked up a new domain name. Over the past year I have going out with my camera and taking photos of trees in the Hamilton area. The photos were of a tree as; a whole, the leaf, the bark, the flower and the fruit. Now I have about a thousand photos. I have been working at creating a site that will be called TreeHunter. The great majority of names you will find there will have no links… this project is huge and will take many years to complete… if ever. What I have decided to do is to release it in yearly versions. Over the winter I will be putting together version 2006, relating to the last year of photos. It may be that the bandwidth will be too great for me to sustain the site. Find out next year if that will be a problem. The purpose is to educate and be a blessing. Pray that I will have the wisdom to accomplish both the educating and the blessing.
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From whom do you wish to receive praise. There are two avenues of approach to the situation. You could give so that the public is fully aware of the gift you are giving. In such a case your reward will be the thanks they give and the elevated stature you will attain in the social order. The other way is to do the giving in secret so that there are no witnesses to the event; that is, no witnesses except for God and perhaps some of the spiritual host. When this approach is taken, then God, who wishes to reward well doing, will openly give you favour in the eyes of others and/or blessings of health/wealth. It comes back to the scripture of “you cannot serve two masters.” Anyone can give some type of earthly reward. Only one master can give a full reward. You can receive, mammon from Man or blessings from God. Either you will aim for the temporal and lose the spiritual or you will aim for the spiritual and also gain the temporal. You will have either a win/lose event or a win/win event. When doing things for the approval of the crowd or a specific individual you gain only a temporary benefit from a temporal world. Only when doing alms with a good heart and for the eyes of God only do you achieve the double win.

:satisfied:

I got this unsolicited email today. It was sent by someone calling themselves Rev Franklin T Grayson. He was passing on an article written by James Cieben. He said it was an eye opener for him. I had received this message once before. I have read it through both times I have received it. It is titled: the Flesh and the Spirit. It would take dozens of pages if I were to answer every statement that Mr Cieben makes in his article. This is what I wrote back to Rev T Grayson.

To: Rev Franklin Grayson,

This is a very long piece to be sending over the internet without prior approval from the recipient. You see, I have read this article many years ago. It was sent to me by James Ciebien. I asked to be removed from his mailing list. Must I now ask you to do the same?

As relates to the article itself? Bit by bit I believe this gentlemen turned the scriptures upsidedown. I would remind you of John 1 chapter 1. It shows that Jesus, before his birth, was the Word of God. He spoke and the universe was created. He became flesh. Dwelt among men. Taught the way of God. Was the blood sacrifice to take away our sins. Was ressurected the third day. As Paul wrote we also will be changed, in the twinkiling of an eye, and this corruptible will put on incorruption. Hmm… just like Jesus on his resurrection day. That is the promise.

There are many more, of what I believe to be, twists and “learned” suppositions that Mr Cieben make in this article. I have spent 28 years reading the bible and doing many private studies. He does have one or two unique ideas (which I believe to be incorrect), yet most of what he has written is also held by many others who would deny the diety of Jesus and the true purposes of God as revealed in John 1 and the rest of the scriptures.

So we disagree.

I believe most people getting this email would simply delete it because of its length. If you receive this email and are tempted to read it may I make a suggestion? Delete it! Unless, of course, you know scriptures well and want to exercise your discernment and your “sword of the word” skills.
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Hmmm… or just delete it.
😀

PS: Surprise, surprise, surprise! (as Gomer Pyle would say) The email I sent was bounced back to me because the return address does not exist. I can only guess as to whether this somehow reflects the character of the original sender? If so, what to make of his message. Spammer?
:confused:

Motivation?

Hamas is the newly elected government of Palestine, bent on destroying Israel. They were being squeezed by the U.S. and Europe to change their stance. Iran was being pressured by the United Nations to stop processing nuclear material. Hezzbolah negotiations with the rest of the Lebanese government was coming to the point they would have to give up their arms. Syria was simply being ignored by the United States. What are nations and people to do when faced by the global community expecting them to behave in a civilized manner?

Hamas leads the way. Israel was moving their troops out of the Gaza Strip. The wall between Israel and the West Bank grew longer. They fired rockets into Israel. That didn’t work. Israel continued to withdraw. The noose of isolation was tightening. They were left with their own people angry and wanting an improvement in living standards. There was no way to make the life of the common people better. They crossed the border and kidnaped an Israeli soldier. Their people would be united after Israeli’s expected response. Success at a high price.

Iran needed a diversion. They saw what the Hamas had done. They knew that a greater conflict would be the focus of the coming G8 conference. If a problem of great enough magnitude were to occur the members of the summit would be fixated on the new problem. They had friends in the region they supported with training, money and munitions. Time to call in a favour. They got what they needed.

Hezzbolah needed to make their enemy strike against them. They saw Israel’s response to the kidnaping of an Israeli soldier by Hamas. They would have to be as bold to pull Israel into a conflict. They would take a political hit at the beginning of the conflict. .. Acceptable. There would be many Lebanese casualties… Acceptable. They would use many of their rockets and missiles to kill Israeli citizens… Desired. Muslim passion would be fanned to fever pitch against Israel and the west… Desired. If all works out well they will have a stronger position in the Lebanese government when it was all over… Expected. Shia Jihadism would be stronger in Sunni nations… and other countries… Dreamed. They kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. They got the response they wanted.

Syria wants the United States to open formal talks with them. They are the pipeline of weapons from Iran to Hezzbolah. They do not want to get directly involved in the conflict. They gain “face” by negotiating with the greater power. To stop the flow of support the powers that be will have to talk to Syria. Their importance will rise as negotiations begins. They still wait. They still hope.

Politics, religion and tribalism are the foundations of a people. In the case above their idiom is war.

Israel, wants to be left alone in peace. They would like to have good economic relations with their neighbours. It is a dream. It is a hope. It appears for a moment before being taken away yet once again.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

I have been on the web now for about eight years. In that time my site has undergone many changes. Just finished going through the files on my server and deleting a mess of them. Funny how things accumulate. Old projects started or tested and then abandoned. I guess it was reflecting my habit of keeping things around because I may find use for them at some point in the future. Naturally it became rubbish that needed to be tossed into the garbage. :O

I get quite a few visitors to my site. The sad thing is that I don’t get a good representative share of these visitors leaving comments or sending in e-mail. Feedback would be welcome. Though I have tried various methods to help people to leave messages, that advantage however, was seldom taken. I can only hope that whatever is hindering the interchange of ideas be taken out of the way. 🙁

Oh well, I continue to hope and I will continue to build my site. Most likely in a few years I will have to clean house again. Maybe by then the website will be more of a two way street than a oneway. 🙂

God bless 😀