It’s been a while….

It has been nearly a year and a half but given that I might have some spare time at work (though doubtfully at home) to muse on things and dribble nonsense all over the Internet, I though I might return to this little project. Hopefully, readers, we can have some iron-sharpening-iron going on to so I welcome your comments.

Wally Of The Week

My Wally Of The Week this week is….. Phillip Ruddock for suggesting that it was a mistake to allow Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer a visa.

Because here in Australia we don’t have freedom of speech and should be last place that people can come to talk about the brutal repression that constitutes government in the People’s Republic of China!

For being a moron, Phillip Ruddock, this week, you are my Wally Of The Week

Quote of the week

Quote of the week goes to everyone’s favourite Nationals Senator – Barnaby Joyce.

Upon hearing Family First’s Steve Fielding making an offer for the Nationals to join him, he replied:

“What I like about Family First is even though they have got one member, sometimes they’ve got two positions (laughter) so there’s a place in there for all of us. In fact if we doubled the number we could have like 15 positions.”

With such wit as that, I say Barnaby for PM.

Forgiveness and the painful turd

I love my Cub pack. They are sweet kids, they are enthusiastic and they can be a lot of fun. But there is this one kid who is a painful turd and is just plain disrespectful at times. He thinks its ok to back chat and doesn’t ever remember that the Cub Scout Law says to be obedient. I don’t trust him and in short, it seems sometimes the Pack would be better without him.

But what would Jesus say in this situation? Matthew 5 has an uncomfortable answer:

³⁸“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ ³⁹But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ⁴⁰And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. ⁴¹If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ⁴²Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”

The Power of God

Romans 1:16-17:

¹⁶I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. ¹⁷For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

I am currently doing a course on Romans through Trinity Theological College and we’re discussing the broad themes of Romans on Sunday. And one of the things that struck me about Romans 1:16-17 during the discussion was that we rate power by what you can do.

For example, the US military machine is the most potent fighting force ever known to man. With nearly 1.5 million men and women in the regular forces, 850 000 reserve personnel and a budget of over half a trillion dollars annually, it is hard to imagine a force more capable. They are engaged in two full-scale wars and can still have dozens of large bases across the world AND defend their own turf. By any measure, they are a powerful. Similarly, the Hubble Space Telescope has allowed us to see things that Earth-based telescopes would have never achieved. It is a powerful telescope.

How does the power of God compare? What can God achieve? To begin with, he made the world just by speaking and everything fell into place with no dramas. Every atom, every star, everything went exactly where it should have; all with just a word. God created life from dust, he made the Sun stop, he’s parted the sea, he’s annihilated armies, he’s healed the sick and he’s raised the dead. None of those are easy. God knows everything, sees everything, is all powerful and is omni-present.

Yet, out of all of that, Paul says that the gospel is the power of God in Romans 1, something he repeats in 1 Corinthians. What an odd thing to say is powerful! A message of a guy who died a traitor’s death, with no friends, in some backwater province of the Roman empire. How pathetic! That’s not really powerful at all you we could say. But what does it achieve?

It is the salvation of all who believe. Now that’s powerful! To turn rebels who hate God into children of God, who serve and worship him, is no mean feat. Barack Obama would give his right arm to be able to turn al-Qaeda from merciless insurgents into trusted allies; to be able to win over Osama bin Laden to the American way.

Yet God has done that to us through Jesus Christ. We can now, by faith, become the children of God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. No power compares to that!