Just to lighten up a little bit between posts, I wanted to share a story I heard this weekend.* Do you know how an apple tree grows? If you go to an orchard and look at all the trees, you will see some straight and beautiful, almost blatantly mathematical in their symmetry. Some with so [...]

I was on a school camp during the last week of term (2 weeks ago) when the topic of angels and demons came up (not the Dan Brown book – actual angels and demons of the non-fiction sort). Now, usually I don’t really like school camps. Trying to keep a bunch of pubescent teenagers apart [...]

When I posted on the topic of Judas’ kiss a week or so ago, one of the comments made by James brought something to mind. Something the Chuck Swindol spoke about in a sermon I heard last year. He was talking about what Judas’ surname (?), Iscariot, meant. He wouldn’t say 100%, but he said [...]

I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD. –Psalm 122:1Psalm 122:1English: Contemporary English Version (1999) – CEVA Song of Praise 122 1 It made me glad to hear them say, “Let’s go to the house of the Lord!”WP-Bible plugin What is it that we do in the House [...]

Wow! The turn out was great! (though no comments to the blog, but hey, I would rather have folks who ‘do’ rather than just ‘say’)We probably had 60+ people in all, 40 or so being youth and Catherine Ho, from Student Ministries, says we collected 114 bags of garbage! Thas a lotta trash.I have to [...]

This coming Sunday from 6am to 6pm, we are cleaning up Shibuya. Volunteers can either come before or after worship service, but we are in desperate need of workers in the morning hours when most of it will be done. Hopefully we can bring a few folks into the church like we did last year. [...]

A few prayer requests have come forth I would like to share: 45 Streets, a Tokyo – impact youth campaign and clean up are planned for April 5th. Praying that students and teachers, volunteers and the public would have things brought to the fore of their hearts, our eyes and ears opened and hearts prepared [...]

It feels cold in Tokyo this morning. I don’t usually get cold, being Scottish (we’re mostly upright, de-horned Angus cattle). This morning though, a fog lay on the ground that won’t part to let me step through it. Instead, it goes through me and travels up the back of my neck. I just stepped off [...]

So it’s almost Easter, and I’m reading the betrayal account in the Gospels. But there’s something I don’t really get. The Gospels record that Judas kissed Jesus, and that the kiss was to show who the soldiers should arrest. But here’s what I don’t understand. Jesus says to them “I was teaching daily in the [...]

Expansion! Growth! More! More! More! Well, sort of. We are hoping, by God’s good grace, to expand our ministries, to grow a bit and to do more with this site in conjunction with local and international churches than we have in the past. The contributors here all agree that each Christian should be able to [...]

Here is the last of TBC’s Nothing Syndrome series discussion questions for the Small Group studies: —————-The Scripture reading comes from Luke 10: 25 – 37 Why are the two Laws, “Love God with all your heart, mind and strength(1) and Love your Neighbor as yourself(2)” always given in that order when grouped together?(1) Deut. 6:5Deut. 6:5English: [...]

When you hear a relativist tout postmodern morality, we shouldn’t be surprised to find that they are secular. Sometimes they’re agnostic, occasionally Buddhist, usually atheist. I am surprised to hear Christians throwing it around. Someone very close to me, whom I knew to be a “lifelong Christian,” after years of showing wisdom finally defined their [...]

So, as Dave and I have been lurking in the shadows of atheist web blogs waiting to pounce like rabid tapirs, we have come across some real moral whoppers. Most of these are simply misunderstandings of moral relativism (kind of an oxymoronic phrase, isn’t it?) or of post-modern theory in general.Nonetheless, it drives me to [...]

Small Group Discussion Questions for “The Nothing Syndrome” series at TBC: 1. Why do you do the dishes for your family? Why do put up with so many piles of dirty clothes from your children? Why do you help out a friend? What reward is there? What do you get out of it? 2. Read [...]

We have a short series at church right now based on “Nothing.” Here are the video headers that I made for the iTunes and website sermons. As part of the package for small groups, we have discussion questions for each teaching. (Of course, we have to make it in Japanese as well!)Here are the discussion [...]

I struggled with the righteousness and justice of God for years. I tried to live up to that standard of God only to find that it spurned hatred inside me. Either for myself and my failings, for others for not living up to them as well (who was I to judge but a fool, though [...]

I heard this quote this morning on the way to work and it made me think. It’s A. W. Tozer quoting Rutherford. Its entitled “Praise God for the Furnace”. Here’s an excerpt (the whole story can be found here): “The hammer is a useful tool, but the nail, if it had feeling and intelligence, could [...]

Below is not the book of Creation. But read on anyway. Taschen Books has out a wonderful piece of work by Frans Lanting (view it here) that I think should inspire us to do the same – or at least to show a similar amount of interest in our world, our history and the beauty [...]

I received an email from a dear friend of mine this morning asking if I know the following tradition to be true and I post it here with my response. Please tell me what you guys think.————Hi James!Is this true about the tradition as you know it?? The Napkin: This is really beautiful, with such [...]

The interior ministry of Argentina said Bishop Richard Williamson had been given 10 days to leave the country. Williamson, an ultra-traditionalist British bishop was removed from his post as the head of a Roman Catholic seminary in Argentina due to several reasons, largely relating to his view on the Holocaust which have provoked quite a [...]

This is the last and latest in my posts with Austin and Paul – I hope for more and I think Dave will probably post some of his comments as well! (I need to edit this a bit, but will have to get back to it later)——————ChristianDave is right, Paul, this isn’t the place for [...]

Here is a continuation from the article by Mr. Cline over at About.com. ::Austin writes: “[Concerning the abolition of slavery by Christians such as Wilberforce..] And, if you know anything about history, you know that it was maintained and defended by Christians.” James writes:No, it was maintained and defended by men and women who claimed [...]

Dave and I have been posting recently in response to an article on About.com and I am putting some of mine up here. This isn’t all of them, but about half way though.The article is about a Catholic school expelling two girls for purportedly being lesbians. ::The post-modern paradigm of relativity haunts us these days. [...]

– Hosea 3:1Hosea 3:1English: Contemporary English Version (1999) – CEVGod’s Love Offers Hope 3 1 Once again the Lord spoke to me. And this time he said, “Hosea, fall in love with an unfaithful woman s unfaithful woman: This may refer to Gomer, the woman Hosea married , or it may refer to another woman. who has [...]