Some addition information on the AB of C and other events.

I don’t really know who Brodie McGregor is, but he left a comment on my blog and on visiting his blog in return I found an excellent (and more detailed) post about the discussion between Dr Rowan Williams and Mona Siddiqui. The post is focused more on detailing the exchange between the two scholars than on any judgement or personal view on what was said. My previous post, on the other hand, was more of the latter!

Also, if you are even more interested in this discussion than reading some thoughts from someone else on it, and you wishyou had been there. Or more worryingly, you were there and would like to watch it again, Glasgow University provide the webcast in their archive, and you can find it here. You will have to have windows media player to watch this wmv however.

Brodie, however, also reminded me that Brian Mclaren is coming to Glasgow at the beginning of December. Precisely, he will be speaking on Sunday 7th December and also two times on Monday 8th December. I plan to attend both events on the Monday (11am -3pm at ICC, focusing on the topic ‘A new kind of Christian’, and then laterly at the Vertigo Bar in Strathclyde Student Union from 7.30pm) as I am otherwise engaged with work on Sunday evenings.

And for some added information, I wanted a picture for this post, so choose Brian Mclaren, but found it funny that Google Images more or less only has two different pictures of him, this one, and another with him sitting next to a cross. Either that, or her just poses the same way quite a lot.

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Understand Persecution? – Romans 12v14 Devotion

real persecution?

Today we continue our series on Romans 12 with verse 14. We are looking at the following verse:

 

Rom 12:14  Bless those who persecute you; bless, and do not curse.

 

The image I have used from the Simpsons to illustrate the point which I intend to make may seem a little crude to a few of you, but I just had a feeling when researching into today’s verse that very few of us actually understand persecution. Persecution is not just someone mocking us, scoffing at us, sidelining our views in society, although ultimately these things can be part of persecution in a larger scale. Rather, persecution is the systematic mistreatment of a person/persons. This could involve, arrest, imprisonment, beating, torture or in extreme cases execution. And yes, this still happens, but fortunately not to us. So, how then, do we understand persecution in our contexts? My initial response to my own question would be that we do not fully. However, we must attempt to understand this concept as comprehensively as we can. Therefore, we must look forwards, backwards as well as examining our present circumstances in order to gain an answer.

 

Here are the following three parts I feel would help us understand persecution and this verse:

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Needs or Wants? – Romans 12v13 Devotion

So, here we are, finally getting round to adding more to our Romans study after a good long while of selective forgetfulness. For this I apologise, much as been going on, as you will appreciate from toher posts here.

 

However, this apology made, let us get round to reading the scripture and deciphering yet another verse from Romans 12.

 

Rom 12:13      communicating to the necessities of the saints; given to hospitality.

 

Now, this verse is one which I had to read in many different versions in order to attempt to understand its meaning. In the KJV the translation is not particularly useful for a comprehensive understanding, but looking at the Greek words behind this translation helps a little. In simple terms, and from my simple understanding, this verse tells us that in amongst these other attitudes which we should have as a Christian, we should also be seeking to help our brothers and sisters in Christ, those who have faith like us, especially if they have need in their life. In all circumstances we should seek to pursue hospitality. Hospitality being the quality or disposition of receiving and treating guests and strangers in a warm, friendly, generous way.

 

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Romans 12v11 – our call to be zealous servers.

Romans twelve (specifically 12:11 today) is one of the few chapters in the bible which deals extensively with the attitudes and characteristics of our Christian life. The idea behind this, and one which I personally strongly adhere to, is that these should be carefully outworked by us in our lives rather than just ‘believed’. Today we will deal with the only one verse in chapter 12 and if you missed the first part on “Worship, Loving and Devotion” then you can check it out here. There will be more to come. Please feel free to share with me what you think on these verses.

Rom 12:11 Don’t be lazy in showing your devotion. Use your energy to serve the Lord.

The Apostle Paul writes so many times about “Zeal” throughout his many letters, and as the Christian Church (I refer to this without denomination, of course!!) it is important that we begin to take heed of these words. He has spoken about the dangers of Zeal previously, in that we must be careful that our zealousness is for good (Gal 4:18) and that also we must avoid zealous Hypocrites, i.e people who looks only for others to enlarge their own ranks and nor the ranks of Christ. It is in this that this very in the book of Romans tells us its true purpose. Therefore zeal should only be used with the sole perspective of serving Christ the Lord.

Check out part 1, part 2 and part 3 of this study here, and check back for completion of the series.

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