I like to ride, but I’m not a racer. Some silly things happen on roads – silly riding as well as silly driving.
So I like this. Commitments from riders (rather than riders simply making demands on drivers).
And cyclingtipsblog.com is one of my favourite blogs, too.
Co-operation is good, true?
Depends, really. We can’t co-operate with a completed work (“Hey mum, now I’m grown up let me help you give birth to me”). Nor can we co-operate with a gift (“What a generous present, I’ll have to pay you for it”).
Of course, God’s work for us to be his children is complete (John 19:30). And it’s a gift, grace alone (Romans 11:6). So offering to ‘co-operate with God’ in salvation is not faith, it is faithlessness.
If we add our efforts to God’s work, we dishonour God – as if his work was not sufficient, and we displace God – we put our efforts in the place of his power.
I think this applies also to God’s revelation, his speaking. I heard this comment from some minister (name forgotten):
Without faith this [Bible] is just a written word. But with faith it becomes a living word.
So my faith brings God’s word to life? It’s the Spirit of God that makes the word living – that’s ‘inspiration’. I’m nervous about trying to take the place of God’s Spirit!
The way to read the Bible is not for me to help God stop lisping, but to reverently trust the true and living word of his gift.
Our family loves the local library, and I think the local library loves our family. Whenever the library (more accurately, it’s a LibraryMuseum) needs people for promotion, we get a call. I guess it’s handy: get five kids at once; home-school kids are available when paper & TV journos want to turn up.
This means the kids have featured a few times on both local TV stations as well as the local paper. Today, Border Mail front page! (You’ll need to have a pdf reader to see this. I recommend you do!)
PS I can understand the difficulty with ‘Little’, it’s such a hard word to spell correctly.
You want to understand Shakespeare? (I hope so!) Then read the Bible.
Really, this is true for literature at large. The article above includes this, from the book Shakespeare and the Bible:
knowledge of the Bible informs any reading of literature.
They Might Be Giants. Yay! (Which when translated means, ‘I’m a fan.’)
We recently received their new kids’ album, Here Comes Science. Recommended – though they should have included Mammal, a song from an earlier album that perfectly fits the theme of the new one.
But I wonder about one song, Science is Real. Especially these lyrics:
I like the stories
About angels, unicorns and elves
Now I like those stories
As much as anybody else
But when I’m seeking knowledge
Either simple or abstract
The facts are with science
The facts are with science
What on earth? Shakespeare gives no knowledge? No knowledge from Aesop’s funny little stories? Nothing abstract to help us live if we reflect on Lord of the Rings? These guys need to read Aristotle on poetics – the power of fiction is when we read what’s made-up and are struck by reality (‘Aha!, that’s true love/hate/forgiveness/real life/whatever.’)
Perhaps John & John are acolytes of the empty Richard Dawkins view – science is the only knowledge, and anything not open to investigation by scientific method is ipso facto not knowledge.
This view is both vacuous and impossible to sustain – but that’s for another time. (Except I can’t resist this – TMBG are career musicians, who have devoted themselves to an art form that can’t be reduced to scientific formulae. Come on guys, wake up!)
But the thing that troubles me is putting such a loaded, argumentative piece in a collection of kids’ music. Oh well, the positive is a good chance to talk about this with our little ones.
PS I think my favourite track is The Elements. I know you were wondering.