Godly Conversations – Messageweek – the best is yet to come!

The Third Exodus

The recent federal election results are now evident in their landslide win. It was a resounding victory for a political system which is essentially anti-Christ in its ethos and practice. As such, given historical precedent and Jesus’ own words, this was bound to happen sooner or later. Australians have now taken yet another step further away from Godly morality. Thus, we as a part of the church collective face the age-old challenge of living as exiles in an increasingly foreign world.

Our identifying name of Australia was derived from the Portuguese explorer who, on navigating the world, named what he thought was “The South Land of the Holy Spirit,” literally, “Terra Australis de Spirito Santo.” Australia thus began as a penal colony in the 1700s but quickly grew on the fertile soil of Christianised values. Much of our history has been culturally Christian, that is, until the late 1950s.

The Bamboo Metaphor

I wrote a book many years ago titled “The Bamboo Metaphor.” It was a self-published endeavour with just two editions before it retired to just a few remaining hand-bound copies abandoned on a dusty bookshelf. The main idea of the book centred around an exquisite bamboo species, that in its germination and flourishing story also portends that love and companionship will grow, but only at the appointed time.

Let me quote from “The Bamboo Metaphor” beginning on page 167:

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In a small room at the back of my shed, is a wooden, lounge room box settee. On there sits, as a reminder of nearly three decades of media ministry, a menagerie of old cameras including once I used as a 15 year old boy. My grandmother bought a Super 8 silent video camera for our family. I immediately fell in love with it, and over the years bought lots of little film reels and made lots of mini documentaries, with editing consisting of splicing and gluing the celluloid film. Those film reels are still stored in the back of the shed, containing many youthful memories.

Ancient Seers

The land of Israel is again in the spotlight of war, with the swift, past victories of 1948, 1967 and 1973 seemingly further away with each passing day. The only democratic country in the Middle East, Israel, is fighting for its survival. This current war started with murder, rape and hostages, and has now dragged on for over 400 days against enemies on all sides, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, inspired and funded by Iran as the head of an “axis of evil.”

Clean and Unclean

The topic of clean and unclean animals arose during a recent conversation. The question proposed was whether the Biblical mandate forbidding the eating of unclean meats in the light of the new covenant, and as it currently appears in the church’s doctrinal statements, is still valid.

The first question we can perhaps ask, is why clean animals? Does the differentiation between clean and unclean possess any religious, theological or health values? The first record of clean animals is when Noah was instructed by God to take pairs of unclean animals aboard the ark, as in contrast to taking seven pairs of clean animals. Was this only about food or was it also about sacrifice?

Migration

Welcome to our Messageweek blog, Godly Conversations. We’ve just upgraded to a new Dell server and in doing so, had some issues migrating the backend data from the old, ailing infrastructure.

So, here we go again, with more fresh insights.

It is the only conversation worth having!

^{Above photo of our server in Perth, Western Australia}