At left: The twelve hostages who were released yesterday
Today at 8:30 PM local time, the last three of the 23 South Korean Christians kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan were released to Red Cross representatives. A total of nineteen hostages were finally set free yesterday and today, after two members of the group had been shot and killed--Pastor Bae Hyung-kyu and Shim Sung-min--and two others had been freed on an earlier occasion.
As part of the conditions for the hostages' release, the South Korean government reiterated its promise to withdraw all Korean soldiers from Afghanistan by the end of the year--and also banned South Korean Christians from doing missionary work in Afghanistan.
(Sources include Chosun Ilbo, International Herald Tribune, and The Christian Science Monitor).
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Remaining Koreans freed in Afghanistan
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
John the Baptizer
One of the more ancient traditional memorials among Christians is the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, which is commemorated on August 29 in Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran traditions. This great man of God--the one who, according to Messiah Himself, has never been surpassed among those born of women (Matthew 11:11)--was beheaded at the birthday feast of Herod the tetrarch as the result of petty jealousies and vindictiveness. By convicting a monarch of sin, John lost his head, but gained eternal glory before that Lord whose way he came to prepare.
This John was the man that the archangel Gabriel was talking about when he told Zacharias, "You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord" (Luke 1:14-17).
I was born on this date. If the traditional date of John's beheading is correct, this means that I share a birthday with Herod Antipas. But far better, I was born on the same date that John, the great Forerunner of Messiah, was "reborn" through death into an unending life.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
On divisions in the Church
“I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said, ‘Stop! Don’t do it!’
“‘Why shouldn’t I?’ he said.
“I said, ‘Well, there’s so much to live for!’
“He said, ‘Like what?’
“I said, ‘Well...are you religious or atheist?’
“He said, ‘Religious.’
“I said, ‘Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?’
“He said, ‘Christian.’
“I said, ‘Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?’
“He said, ‘Protestant.’
“I said, ‘Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?’
“He said, ‘Baptist!’
“I said, ‘Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?’
“He said, ‘Baptist Church of God!’
“I said, ‘Me too! Are you Original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?’
“He said, ‘Reformed Baptist Church of God!’
“I said, ‘Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?’
“He said, ‘Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915!’
“I said, ‘Die, heretic scum!’, and pushed him off.”
—Emo Philips
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
"The LORD Always Before Me"
Notes for another sermon:
"The LORD Always Before Me"
Text: Psalm 16:5-11
Exposition, part 1: David—It doesn’t get any earthier, any more direct, than David’s descriptions of the Lord in this psalm.
- “The portion”: When you divide up food, “here’s your piece”; Yahweh, the Lord, is David’s piece.
- “of my inheritance”: my share, the part that I own, my section, my own possession, what I get, what I choose for myself. David says, “God, You are my section of my land. You are my own portion of my feast.” You are just as much mine as if I didn’t have to share You with anyone else on earth.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Sydney closes doors to apostate U.S. bishop
The Anglican archbishop of Sydney (Australia) has banned retired Episcopalian bishop John Shelby Spong from preaching in any of the churches of the Sydney diocese. The Rt. Rev. Peter Jensen gave this order in response to another Australian bishop's invitation for Spong to preach in St. John's Cathedral, and to give a public lecture at St. Aidan's Anglican Girls School (both in Brisbane).
Spong is well known for his denial of almost all the essential truths of the Christian faith--including the existence of a transcendent God, the deity of Christ, the fall of man, the Virgin Birth, the miracles of the New Testament, the atoning power of Christ's death, Christ's physical resurrection and ascension, the moral authority of the Bible, the efficacy of prayer, and the hope of life after death. He has also worked to subvert traditional Biblical gender roles in the Church, by (among other things) agitating for the ordination of women and homosexuals as priests. Despite these things, he was permitted to continue serving as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, New Jersey, until his retirement in 2000. Since then he has maintained an active schedule of speaking and writing and is influential in some Anglican circles.
This latest discord over Spong, between two Australian Anglican archbishops, is the most recent in a series of fractures that have appeared in the Anglican Communion. This denomination numbering almost 80 million members worldwide seems to be headed for a major schism, unless God intervenes to prevent it, over a cluster of disagreements rooted in different views of the authority of Scripture.
(Sources include Christian Post and The Australian.)
Sunday, August 12, 2007
The anti-creation and its aftermath
After the beginning, man deformed the heavens and the earth.
Then the earth was again formless, and void;
and the light became dull over the face of the deep,
because the spirit of man was cowering over the face of the waters.
And man said, "Let there be darkness,"
and there was darkness.
And man saw the darkness, that it was pleasant;
and man loved the darkness rather than the light,
and he separated himself from the light,
and remained in the darkness.
And man called the darkness "Light,"
and the light he called "Darkness."
And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And man said, "Let there be firmaments
between me and the waters,
so that I may gain power over the waters."
And man built his cities
of wood and stone, iron and concrete,
and he seeded the clouds and dammed the rivers,
and took dominion over the waters,
but his heart hated the waters even as he dominated them.
And the evening and the morning were the second day.
And man said, "Let the waters be gathered to serve me,
and let the plants of the earth, and their fruits,
be mine and not another's."
And man fought great wars over earth and water and crops,
and he created great famines,
and many men died in the wars and by the famines,
and yet man when he was victorious thought that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the third day.
And man said, "Let there be light in the darkness,
and darkness in the midst of the day,
and let the signs and the seasons,
the days and the years,
be confused."
And man made little lights
in imitation of the great lights of heaven,
and he set them throughout the night,
so that his toil might never cease,
and with the smog of his cities
he turned the day into darkness.
And man mingled day and night,
and turned them all into dim and cheerless pallor;
and man thought that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
And man said, "Let the waters be polluted with toxic wastes,
and let the open firmament of heaven
be choked with noxious fumes."
And man deadened sea and sky
with oil spills and plumes of smoke,
and with the wreckage of ships and planes from his wars,
and with human corpses;
and man thought that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
And man said, "Let our will be done
upon the living creatures of the earth;
let them exist solely for our pleasure,
and let our hatred be poured out on them."
And man hunted and killed the living creatures
and the beasts of the earth,
not for food, nor for protection,
but only to take away life.
And man cut down forests and made pasturelands barren,
and many animals died for no purpose, and left a void behind,
and man thought that it was good.
Then man said, "Let us make god in our image, after our likeness;
and let god be our servant, and serve us;
and thus let us fulfill our will upon the earth."
So man created god in his own image,
in the image of man he created him;
male and female he created it.
And man cursed the god that he had made, and man said to it,
"Be sterile, and diminish;
and let your name remain in the temples, and on the coins,
and in the mouths of the simple,
but let our will alone have dominion."
And in the name of the god whom man had made,
he turned against the God who had made man,
and nailed Him to a tree stripped of its branches.
Though God took flesh that man might live,
man seized that flesh, that God might die,
and man alone might be exalted in that day!
And man saw everything that he had done,
and behold, though the earth was ruined,
he thought it very good.
And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were darkened
by the sinfulness of man.
And on the seventh day man sought rest
from all his work which he had done,
but though he had labored and toiled long,
his soul was not satisfied,
and his heart brooded on in the darkness.
And very early on the eighth day,
which was the first day of the week,
some women who still sought after their crucified God
found the stone rolled away from His tomb,
but they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
Then two men appeared to them in shining garments,
and said, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?
He is not here, He is risen!"
For God Himself stripped gods and men of strength,
and rose on high, to reign and come again.
Before Him all must bow the knee, in heaven and on earth,
for He it is who says, "Behold,
I am making all things new!"
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Early Christian rock
Slate published an article last week looking into some of the most striking Christian rock musicians of the 1960s and '70s, and those who influenced them.
Both "this present age" and the next, both righteousness and wickedness, show themselves unmistakably in these few paragraphs. The Jesus People movement and Christian rock did much to remake American Christendom in the second half of the twentieth century, both for good and for ill. The Lord God does not accomplish His purposes on earth in a vacuum. People like Lonnie Frisbee--an ex-druggie hippie youth minister, instrumental to the growth of both Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard Movement, but who struggled with homosexuality and eventually died of AIDS--are the kind of people we ought to expect to encounter in the Christian Church. We are, after all, a people still stretched out between sin and righteousness, hoping against hope for a salvation that is as certain as God's promise.
Monday, August 6, 2007
"With All Your Might"
Notes for another sermon that I preached at a small church fellowship:
"With All Your Might"
Text: Ecclesiastes 9:10-18
Introduction: This world is a complicated place to live in. God told Adam and Eve to have dominion over the earth; but since the Fall, the serpent and the earth often seem to have dominion over mankind. Instead of man mastering his work and the circumstances of his life, work and circumstances threaten to master him.
The Preacher (a.k.a. Solomon "son of David, king in Jerusalem"), in his dry and level-headed way, analyzes the situation with all of its ironies...and points the way to a solution.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Life and death: Son Jong Nam in North Korea
On Wednesday of this week, North Korea added its voice to the calls for Taliban forces in Afghanistan to release their 21 remaining South Korean hostages, who were kidnapped while on a Christian charitable mission there. The deputy director general of the North Korean Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying, "We hope that South Koreans kidnapped in Afghanistan could return home safely." He added, "It is the consistent stance that our republic is opposed to all kinds of terrorism."
Also on Wednesday, Crosswalk.com reported (on behalf of Voice of the Martyrs) that former North Korean army officer Son Jong Nam is on death row in North Korea, facing public execution by Kim Jong-il's government for his evangelistic activities. Mr. Son was sentenced to death for being a "national traitor" and "receiving Christianity." (A similar report about Mr. Son's case is available here.)
So I ask you, President Kim: do you really value Koreans' lives? Why should you urge the Taliban to spare South Korean Christians, when you sentence your own citizens to death simply for confessing that same Christ?
If you would like to do something tangible to support our brother Son Jong Nam, you can do so by going to Voice of the Martyrs' prisoner advocacy website to find out how to pray for Mr. Son, how to write to him, or how to write to North Korean officials to ask for his release.
