Friday, 3 January 2014
Views, Visions and Values.: The Church, God's Agent of Change and Transforma...
Views, Visions and Values.: The Church, God's Agent of Change and Transforma...: We, the Church are the visible representation of God ’ s Kingdom Rule and Reign here on Earth, we are his messengers of hope, lov...
Words for The Wise, Living to Please God, 1 Thessalonians 4 NIV
1 Thessalonians 4
New
International Version - UK (NIVUK)
Living
to please God
4
As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in
order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in
the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we
gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
3
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual
immorality; 4 that each of you should learn to control your own body[a] in a
way that is holy and honourable, 5 not in passionate lust like the pagans, who
do not know God; 6 and that in this matter no one should wrong or take
advantage of a brother or sister.[b] The Lord will punish all those who commit
such sins, as we told you and warned you before. 7 For God did not call us to
be impure, but to live a holy life. 8 Therefore, anyone who rejects this
instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you
his Holy Spirit.
9
Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you
yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. 10 And in fact, you do
love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and
sisters, to do so more and more, 11 and to make it your ambition to lead a
quiet life: you should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as
we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so
that you will not be dependent on anybody.
Believers
who have died
13
Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep
in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.
14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God
will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the
Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the
coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the
voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ
will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be
caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so
we will be with the Lord for ever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with
these words.
Footnotes:
1
Thessalonians 4:4 Or learn to live with your own wife; or learn to acquire a
wife
1
Thessalonians 4:6 The Greek word for brother or sister (adelphos) refers here
to a believer, whether man or woman, as part of God’s family.
The
Bible Panorama
1
Thessalonians 4
V
1–2: INCREASE AND INSTRUCTION Their spiritual lives should increase continually
and abundantly. They should remember Christ’s commandments received through
Paul and his Christian colleagues.
V 3–8: SANCTIFICATION AND SEX God’s will is to
have a holy people in contrast to the unregenerate Gentiles. This means that
sexual immorality has no place whatsoever in the life of any believer. Adultery
and lustful passion is out. To reject this clean and holy teaching is to reject
God and His Holy Spirit.
V
9–12: LOVE AND LIVING Heavenly love towards each other must predominate. As it
increases, it will produce a quiet, industrious, ordered life. This will ensure
that they have a good testimony to those outside and that their needs are met
by their daily work.
V 13–18: COMFORT AND COMING Some suggested to
the Thessalonians that Christians who had died had missed the blessing of
Christ’s second coming. Paul teaches them that, when Christ comes, those who
have died physically will be raised with a resurrection body first and be
reunited with Christ in the air. Christ will bring their redeemed souls with
Him, so there will also be another reunion—that of the body and soul of the
believer. Then those who are alive physically will join that blessed reunion
with their returned Lord of glory. This is, of course, a great comfort. The
Christian who has died and the Christian who is alive both have their future
gloriously secured in Jesus Christ. Those who died trusting Christ only fell
‘asleep’ in death, and awoke immediately in His eternal presence. Now they will
be given a resurrection body also when Christ brings them back with Him.
The
Bible Panorama. Copyright © 2005 Day One Publications.
Michael Gove blasts 'Blackadder myths' about the First World War spread by television sit-coms and left-wing academics
- Education Secretary says war is represented as a 'misbegotten shambles'
- But he claims that it was in fact a 'just war' to combat German aggression
By TIM SHIPMAN
|
'Just war': Michael Gove says left-wing myths about the First World War peddled by Blackadder belittle Britain and clear Germany of blame
Left-wing myths about the First World War peddled by Blackadder belittle Britain and clear Germany of blame, Michael Gove says today.
The Education Secretary criticises historians and TV programmes that denigrate patriotism and courage by depicting the war as a ‘misbegotten shambles’.
As Britain prepares to commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the war, Mr Gove claims only undergraduate cynics would say the soldiers were foolish to fight.
In an article for the Daily Mail, Mr Gove says he has little time for the view of the Department for Culture and the Foreign Office that the commemorations should not lay fault at Germany’s door.
The Education Secretary says the conflict was a ‘just war’ to combat aggression by a German elite bent on domination.
‘The First World War may have been a uniquely horrific war, but it was also plainly a just war,’ he says. ‘The ruthless social Darwinism of the German elites, the pitiless approach they took to occupation, their aggressively expansionist war aims and their scorn for the international order all made resistance more than justified.’
Britain has pledged £50million in public money to mark the event, with school trips to battlefields and ceremonies planned over four years. The French government has also embraced the centenary, planning 1,500 events across the country. But there are few plans for events in Germany itself.
Mr Gove, who has rewritten the school history curriculum to give pupils a better grasp of the broad sweep of British history, reserves his greatest scorn for those who have sought to depict the soldiers as lions led by donkeys.
He says: ‘The war was, of course, an unspeakable tragedy, which robbed this nation of our bravest and best.
‘But it’s important that we don’t succumb to some of the myths which have grown up about the conflict in the last 70 or so years.
‘The conflict has, for many, been seen through the fictional prism of dramas such as Oh! What a Lovely War, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder as a misbegotten shambles – a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite.’
Vanessa Redgrave playing Sylvia Pankhurst, in the film Oh! What A Lovely War: Mr Gove singles out the film as propagating what he calls the myth of the First World War as a 'misbegotten shambles'
Mr Gove turns his fire on ‘Left-wing academics all too happy to feed those myths by attacking Britain’s role in the conflict’.
He singles out Richard Evans, regius professor of history at Cambridge University, who has said those who enlisted in 1914 were wrong to think they were fighting to defend freedom.
Dramatisation: Paul McGann, as Percy Topliss, in the 1980s television series The Monocled Mutineer, another of the TV programmes Mr Gove targets
Mr Gove writes: ‘Richard Evans may hold a professorship, but these arguments, like the interpretations of Oh! What a Lovely War and Blackadder, are more reflective of the attitude of an undergraduate cynic playing to the gallery in a Cambridge Footlights revue rather than a sober academic contributing to a proper historical debate.’
The Education Secretary says it is time to listen to historians such as Margaret Macmillan who has ‘demonstrated how those who fought were not dupes but conscious believers in king and country, committed to defending the western liberal order’.
He also cites the work of Professor Gary Sheffield, who has reassessed the damaged reputation of British commander Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.
Blackadder Goes Forth cast Rowan Atkinson in the title role as a captain in the trenches of Flanders during 1917.
It focused largely on his cowardly attempts to avoid certain death through going ‘over the top’ to engage the enemy.
Under the misguided leadership of a general played by Stephen Fry, and with little help from the hapless Private Baldrick (Tony Robinson) plus a twittish ex-public schoolboy played by Hugh Laurie, it chronicles his increasingly gutless efforts to dodge the action or escape the trenches.
The series was written by Four Weddings and Bridget Jones creator Richard Curtis in partnership with Left-wing comic Ben Elton.
It is still shown in schools to help children learn about the war.
Why does the Left insist on belittling true British heroes?
By MICHAEL GOVE, Education Secretary
The past has never had a better future. Because history is enjoying a renaissance in Britain. After years in which the study of history was declining in our schools, the numbers of young people showing an appetite for learning about the past, and a curiosity about our nation’s story, is growing once more.
As a Government, we’ve done everything we can to support this restoration. We’ve changed how schools are judged, and our new measure of academic success for schools and pupils, the English baccalaureate, rewards those who study history at GCSE.
And the changes we’ve made to the history curriculum have been welcomed by top academics as a way to give all children a proper rounded understanding of our country’s past and its place in the world.
Captain Coward: Tony Robinson as Private Baldrick, left, and Rowan Atkinson as Blackadder in the titular sit-com, which Education Secretary Michael Gove blames for distorting attitudes about the First World War
That understanding has never been needed more. Because the challenges we face today – great power rivalry, migrant populations on the move, rapid social upheaval, growing global economic interdependence, massive technological change and fragile confidence in political elites – are all challenges our forebears faced.
Indeed, these particular forces were especially powerful one hundred years ago – on the eve of the First World War. Which is why it is so important that we commemorate, and learn from, that conflict in the right way in the next four years.
The Government wants to give young people from every community the chance to learn about the heroism, and sacrifice, of our great-grandparents, which is why we are organising visits to the battlefields of the Western Front.
The war was, of course, an unspeakable tragedy, which robbed this nation of our bravest and best. But even as we recall that loss and commemorate the bravery of those who fought, it’s important that we don’t succumb to some of the myths which have grown up about the conflict.
Our understanding of the war has been overlaid by misunderstandings, and misrepresentations which reflect an, at best, ambiguous attitude to this country and, at worst, an unhappy compulsion on the part of some to denigrate virtues such as patriotism, honour and courage.
The conflict has, for many, been seen through the fictional prism of dramas such as Oh! What a Lovely War, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder, as a misbegotten shambles – a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite. Even to this day there are Left-wing academics all too happy to feed those myths.
Professor Sir Richard Evans, the Cambridge historian and Guardian writer, has criticised those who fought, arguing, ‘the men who enlisted in 1914 may have thought they were fighting for civilisation, for a better world, a war to end all wars, a war to defend freedom: they were wrong’.
And he has attacked the very idea of honouring their sacrifice as an exercise in ‘narrow tub-thumping jingoism’. These arguments are more reflective of the attitude of an undergraduate cynic playing to the gallery in a Cambridge Footlights revue rather than a sober academic contributing to a proper historical debate.
The First World War may have been a uniquely horrific war, but it was also plainly a just war. Nigel Biggar, regius professor of moral and pastoral theology at the University of Oxford, laid out the ethical case for our involvement in a superb essay in September’s Standpoint magazine.
The ruthless social Darwinism of the German elites, the pitiless approach they took to occupation, their aggressively expansionist war aims and their scorn for the international order all made resistance more than justified.
And the war was also seen by participants as a noble cause. Historians have skilfully demonstrated how those who fought were not dupes but conscious believers in king and country, committed to defending the western liberal order.
Other historians have gone even further in challenging some prevailing myths.
Other historians have gone even further in challenging some prevailing myths.
Generals who were excoriated for their bloody folly have now, after proper study, been re-assessed.
Douglas Haig, held up as a crude butcher, has been seen in a new light thanks to Professor Gary Sheffield, of Wolverhampton University, who depicts him as a patriotic leader grappling honestly with the new complexities of industrial warfare.
Even the battle of the Somme, once considered the epitome of military futility, has now been analysed in depth by the military historian William Philpott and recast as a precursor of allied victory.
Rehabilitated: Even Field Marshal Douglas Haig, popularly known as 'the butcher of the Somme', has been seen in a new light thanks to Professor Gary Sheffield, of Wolverhampton University, writes Gove
There is, of course, no unchallenged consensus. That is why it matters that we encourage an open debate on the war and its significance.
But it is important to recognise that many of the new analyses emerging challenge existing Left-wing versions of the past designed to belittle Britain and its leaders.
Instead, they help us to understand that, for all our mistakes as a nation, Britain’s role in the world has also been marked by nobility and courage.
Indeed, the more we reflect on every aspect of the war, the more cause there is for us to appreciate what we owe to our forebears and their traditions.
But whatever each of us takes from these acts of remembrance and hours of debate it is always worth remembering that the freedom to draw our own conclusions about this conflict is a direct consequence of the bravery of men and women who fought for, and believed in, Britain’s special tradition of liberty.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532923/Michael-Gove-blasts-Blackadder-myths-First-World-War-spread-television-sit-coms-left-wing-academics.html#ixzz2pJOKtkSy
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