But that's not supposed to happen ...

This past summer we lost power for 8 days – see my second blog entry. Eight long days w/o electricity. And they say lightening is not supposed to strike twice in the same place – don't believe that! We had another St Louis storm, but this time with ice and snow. 14,400 out of 19,600 in my zip code were out of power! Over 350,000 people went dark. They were saying that it could be 5 days to restore power for most people. Thankfully, we were only out for two and half days this time – thank you Jesus! We have radiant heat – water pipes in the floors – and I was really worried that we might be out for 4 or 5 days. Never mind the inconvenience of no electricity, I was worried about the freezing temperatures freezing my floors. It only got down to about 25 the first night, but down to 15 the second night. The night we got electricity back it was going down to about 10 degrees, which might have frozen my perimeter. Once that happens, the pipes burst and the concrete slab seeps water into the house. And then its forced air and about 2 grand to fix. I spent a lot of time praying for the Ameren UE repair guys. Really tough conditions to work in.

I can do the heat, but the cold – no thanks! Some friends were going to put us up for however long it would be, which turned out to be only one night. Its always nice to have good friends with finished basements. It was the body of Christ in motion. Christians reaching out to the family of God.

Comments

Banned from the Bible, really?

I just got done watching a couple of programs on the History Channel. Before I get to my blog post, I want you to know that I'm a big history buff. I really love just about anything historical: WWI, WWII, Civil War, Pilgrims, presidents, technologies, scientists. But really I love reading about earlier Christian history between 100 and 300 AD (not CE). I just love it! Yes, I know that probably sounds a little strange. So I know things that a lot of things that most people just don't know about the early church. Like, did you know that during Constantine's time it was common to be baptized on your death bed because they were afraid of loosing their salvation for sinning after baptism? Or that the books for the NT were pretty well decided by ca 180 AD? Or that until 1945, the only thing we know about Gnosticism came from the apologetic writings of a guy by the name of Irenaeus, who would explain what the Gnostics believed and then refute their beliefs from the OT and accepte...

Thanksgiving and Turkey Visiting ...

Last week the Pope embarks on yet another historic good will trip, this time to Turkey. There is considerable open hostility towards him right now in Turkey, or any Muslim country for that matter. But that's really not what's news-worthy, even though its what's being reported. Have you thought about “who” is doing “what”? By this question, I'm not trying to focus on the Pope as the head of the Catholic Church or as the symbolic head of Christianity (but he is doing the heavy lifting, isn't he), but rather on Christianity as a faith. The original flap was about a statement the Pope read which was taken out of context by Muslims, something they do quite often. But the purpose of his comments was to challenge Christians (and in his case, Catholic leaders) to work harder at reaching out to other faiths, and Islam in particular. And that is the real news in this story of his trip to Turkey. The Pope challenged his cardinals and bishops to reach out to Muslims...

Convert or Die ... Postcards from al-Qaida

This was originally posted on my Yahoo! 360 blog in early Sept 2006 ... Once again, the West or should I say America, has received another love letter from the Islamo-fascists in the Muslim world. In a nutshell, we are told by an American traitor, Adam Gadahn, a convert to Islam and now a militant Muslim in al-Qaida, to “convert to Islam or face the consequences.” For all of you out there that are shocked by this, it's really nothing new. Islam has been doing this since it began in the 7 th century. I know, I know, not very politically correct to point out their history, is it? Interestingly, I heard this past week that American Muslims are finally “looking within” to see if maybe they need to be “good” Americans and police themselves. Now there's a concept – are you listening Muslim world? CAIR? After 9/11 all Muslims seemed to want to do is run around and tell every one how offended they were at being labeled as Islamists. I do understand that, and I even agree. ...

The Evil Within

This was originally posted in my Yahoo! 360 blog, Oct 1, 2006: This past week, one of the most gruesome crimes imaginable was committed by a woman. A woman cut the unborn child out of the womb of her friend, killing both and drowned her three other children, stuffing them into a washer and dryer. If the authorities know why she did this unspeakable evil, they aren't saying. She plead innocent even though she's admitted the crime to her boyfriend and the police. I'll assume our “justice” system will place her in the loony bin for a few years and then pronounce her cured. Not much justice for the victim's family in that. As a Christian I know exactly why this crime happened. There is evil in this world, and his name is Satan. Yes, I'm one of those. The very first question that most people ask is, “How can God let such an unspeakable thing happen?” But the assumption in that question is that somehow its all God's fault. But is it? How many of us want others to make...

WBTS Church History 101

I noticed something really unusual in my last blog – I started a discussion about the Trinity, and I didn't bother to define it. Shame on me! Even though I really won't get to discussing it this time around, I really should start by defining what it is so that we all understand what the term really means, from an Orthodox Christian perspective. So let's do that right now, shall we? I'll use as my working definition what James White used in his book, The Forgotten Trinity , Within the One being that is God, there exists eternally three co-equal and co-eternal persons, namely, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. (from The Forgotten Trinity ) So, what exactly does this mean? Let's start with De 6:4: Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! Any definition of the Trinity starts with the fact that God is ONE being, not three beings. First and foremost, Trinitarians are Monotheistic (James 2:19; 1 Cor 8:6; 1 Ti 2:5-6), they are not tri-the...

shadman's old Musings

Search This Blog