CHONGLAND

Since coming along to St Pauls Carlingford in 2003 they’ve made the informed change from NIV to ESV. When purchasing I decided, along with my Dad, to purchase the Classic Reference Bible in black Genuine Leather with red text for Jesus‘ words. It’s served me well over the 5-6 years I’ve been using it, however it is slowly falling apart; from Galatians 6 through to the concordance has detached itself from the spine in various sized sections, from a few books down to 1 singular page.

So on my daily trawl through the internet on my Google Reader RSS feeds, I came across this post on Frank Turk‘s blog …and his ministers A FLAME OF FIRE which then led me to investigate this post on A Boomer in the Pew who, having just turned 1 year old, are giving away a new Calfskin ESV Study Bible.
This post half qualifies me for an entry, though I do have doubts about my winning…. There are 252 entries at the time of this posting…..

Tonight we went up against WK, a team we beat by 1 point in our last match up; they were still a little bitter over it and were keen to settle the score.

The game started off with Geoff easily winning the tip, sending the ball to Garth, then the ball was slowly taken down and eventually potted. The game progressed slowly with plenty of foul plays coming up, mainly for WK who reached 7 team fouls by the end of the quarter… Although they played a fast running game for the majority of the game, they lacked accuracy and patience. When they did get a good shot off, the height difference showed. As the first half progressed and their team continued to show up, their game seemed to evolve as each player seemed to bring something new to the game. This was hard to overcome, however we pulled away in the end.

With 3 minutes to go, the score was tied up at 24 a piece, the ball moving up and down the court with no baskets due to fouls, turnovers, blocks or missed buckets… Luckily for us, they’d reached 7 fouls and had their 3 point shooter fouled out of the game with 5 fouls…. We were in for free throws and took advantage of them. Those points hand in hand with patience on the offense and a quick to move defense resulted in our home stretch to win the game. Final score was 32 vs 26 to us, a better result than last play.

I wasn’t able to play this week due to a sprained outer meniscus from last weeks game, I should be back on court in the next couple of weeks though… The team did really well in defense though, so I wasn’t really needed…. Ethan, Nima, Geoff and James all got blocks in on the smaller asians; one of James‘ coming on a 2-1 fast break where he was able to to cover the ball carrier and then block the second player after receiving the pass to make the shot. This was then followed up by chasing down the ball and sending it up court for a basket. Amazing play!! The only thing that would have topped it was if Nima was able to complete his drive to the basket, throwing the ball up of the glass and making the tip in, through traffic!!

Next week sees us taking on Xtreme at 8pm. Come on down and cheer us on!! There’s plans to also go and watch the new Watchmen movie after the game if you’re keen.

After a week away from Bible Study due to the St Pauls AGM we dove back in. We heard from Jack and Katie, getting to know them a bit better.

We read through Luke chapters 4-6 and then got into some discussion.

• Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you.

This was the major focus of the evening. How does it look in a day to day, how do you apply, does it apply to everyone, are there limitations/exceptions?? It was basically broken down into 2 sides:

• that these things apply in circumstances of Christian persecution
• that these things apply all the time

In the end we had no solid conclusion, but it was important to note that it was better to recognize it as something general rather than specific, and it was possible a hyperbole, tho not something to detract from the importance of the teaching.

• No doubt you will quote this proverb to me, ‘Physician, heal yourself! What we have heard you did in Capernaum, do here as well in your home town’

What does this mean?? We saw it as a negative comment, writing Jesus off as just the carpenters son, however, it also has similarities to the cross where Jesus is told to save himself…

• A good person brings out good things from the good treasure of his heart; and an evil person brings forth evil from the evil in his heart. For his mouth speaks from the overflow of his heart.

A tough one here as it’s states that no one is good, only Jesus, but then we are a new and good creation after being saved, so there’s the option of pre and post conversion.

In summary the 3 chapters cover the gradual rise of Jesus in his ministry; healing and teaching, and facing opposition, all supported by prayer.