From Knowledge to Wisdom

From the Protestant Church of Smyrna

See the report from the From the Protestant Church of Smyrna to the Global Church about the recent torture and murder of three Christians in Malatya, Turkey.

It is a gruesome story in more than one way:

• Firstly the terrible way the Christians were tortured and murdered.
• Secondly the fact that they were murdered for their belief.
• Thirdly the ambiguous attitude of the people and authorities in Turkey.

Such barbarism is all the more disturbing when it happens so close to home. Turkey is a candidate for EU membership. It is a popular holiday destination. Two groups from my daughter's school will spend a week there in October. Many fellow residents of NL are of Turkish origin.

So are we in Europe going backwards into barbarism? Is this the 'clash of cultures'? Do we have to pay attention to Jespersen and Pittelkow and their book "Islamists and Naivists"?

Are we strong enough in our faith to face the persecution, when it comes our way, with such grace as the families of these martyrs?

References:
Bible publishing firm murders in Malatya on Wikipedia
Turkish Believers "Satanically Tortured" Before Being Killed on BosNewsLife
"Danish wake-up call on Islam" review of Jespersen and Pittelkow book on International Herald Tribune

Eindhoven station

Eindhoven station
Originally uploaded by Andrew B47.

Recently started using Flickr somewhat seriously. This is one of my favourite shots.

This is also a test of posting to my blog from Flickr.

(Updated some stuff after the successful post from Flickr.)

"God's Ultimate Passion"

A while ago I was invited to write a review of this book - "God's Ultimate Passion: Unveiling the Purpose Behind Everything" by Frank Viola. Here is a first shot. It has been a long time coming.

This book contains so much. To try to capture the passion and purpose of God in human language is an endless challenge. (We have to live our relationships with God, not just write and read about them.)

And so far, I have only read the early chapters and the closing chapters. My wife has this habit of reading books from the end. "This is amazing! You must read this!" And so I was tempted to skip to the closing chapter, the Afterword, which is a kind of a check-list in the spirit of 2 Corinthians 13:5

"Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?"

Evelyn found this check-list at an appropriate moment. We were heading into a big discussion in our gathering about how we are organised and whether we should be more connected with institutional church. So now we are aiming to use this check-list to stimulate some evaluation in our group about what we understand by 'church' and how we do it together.

Frank Viola opens the Afterword with: