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A molecular scientist has developed a new method of caffeine transfer for the millions of addicts in the country. His "buzz" donut is the first baked good developed to give the consumer a little buzz and reinforce the coffee along side of it. He says that the donuts and bagels he has created have 100 milligrams of caffeine, about the same as a cup of coffee. Some health officials are concerned that this will only increase heart and other health problems attributed to people who consume more than 300 milligrams of caffeine a day. (AP January 28, 2007, via IvyJungle.org newsletter) Perhaps this is just the beginning of a trend. Soon we'll have . . .
Never mind. Some trends are ahead of their time. Michael
Duduit, Editor Click here to visit "I Was Just Thinking" (Michael's blog) for insights and observations about faith and culture issues. Recent topics: The Dawkins Delusion; No way to elect a president; Global warming on Mars. There's still time for you to join us in Cambridge this April! Visit www.preaching.com/icop to learn about the International Congress on Preaching this April 17-19 in Cambridge, England, sponsored by Preaching magazine.
Picturing the Gospel In a new book called Picturing the Gospel (InterVarsity), Neil Livingstone helps us understand how to use vivid language to more effectively communicate Christ in today's image-driven culture. He notes, "The living Lord inspired living language, and lots of it. To understand and tell of Jesus, those early followers told stories, borrowed terms and picked up metaphors that helped them grasp what Jesus had done. They were not interested in abstract theories of religion, but in life. "British evangelist and scholar John Stott says, "'Images' of salvation (or of the atonement) is a better term than 'theories.' For theories are usually abstract and speculative concepts, whereas biblical images of the atoning achievement of Christ are concrete pictures and belong to the data of revelation." Our 'data' from the Bible are vibrant images of Jesus and his work in our lives. The first disciples found a real-life Savior and told of him in concrete real-life ways. "The first witnesses gave us a variety of vivid and concrete pictures. Sometimes they tell us stories. In the Gospels they show us incidents in Jesus' life and things he said, stories carefully chosen to show his character and the nature of his work. Sometimes, in the letters, they work with extended metaphors. And sometimes they simply bring in terms that conjure up associations for us. For example, to say 'Savior' to a Jewish audience would bring to mind the God who brought his people up from Egypt with 'a mighty hand and an outstretched arm' (Deut. 4:34). A Greek would imagine a semi-divine hero figure coming to the rescue. Both would have associations, mental pictures and feelings aroused by these words. These believers took up the common palettes of their cultures and used them to portray the new thing they had seen in Jesus." (Click here to learn more about Picturing the Gospel)
A Jesus-Haunted Culture In Friday's Wall Street Journal, Ben Witherington took on the James Cameron program purporting to reveal the "coffin" of Jesus. Witherington writes: "Year after year in spring, a new crop of religious dandelions pop up in our post-Christian culture. Like the real ones growing in my yard, they make a colorful splash that briefly captures our attention, until we realize that they are only shallow-rooted weeds, not beautiful flowers planted long ago in the deep rich soil of the past, such as Easter lilies. "Last year, it was the Gnostic nonsense of The Da Vinci Code. We've had the 'Gospel of Judas Iscariot,' written centuries after the eyewitnesses were dead. This year it's a variation on the 'Da Vinci' theme. We are not only being told that there was a Mrs. Jesus (a k a Mary Magdalene). We are also informed that her tomb and that of Jesus have been found in Jerusalem; that DNA testing has proved that they are not related and so must have been married (how exactly does it prove that?) and that an ossuary or small casket of at least one of their offspring has been found as well. News at 11! Or, in this case, on the Discovery Channel's documentary 'The Lost Tomb of Jesus.' "In a surreal moment on 'Larry King Live' . . . the film's producer, James Cameron (of "Titanic" fame), told us with a straight face that we should all be thankful that we now have tangible evidence that Jesus existed. Actually, no serious historian of biblical antiquity has ever doubted that there was a historical Jesus. Yet it tells us a lot about the state of our culture that Mr. Cameron's remark, backed by pseudo-science, could be seriously made on national television and that the film's companion book has already shot up to No. 5 on Amazon's rankings. We are a Jesus-haunted culture that is so historically illiterate that anything can now pass for knowledge of Jesus." (Click here to read the full article.) http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110009735
The Seven Last Words In his book Ministry in a Disaster Zone, Alvin C. Bernstine summarizes the seven last words from the cross, with an emphasis on the seventh: "The Seventh Word tells us that Jesus cried, 'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.' I hear in this last word a lesson before dying. [a reference to the book A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines] It is the only word Jesus spoke for Himself. All the other words were aimed in other directions. "His First Word aimed at His enemies. His Second Word aimed at one worse off than He -- the thief. The Third Word aimed toward the church. His Fourth Word confessed a felt need. His Fifth Word was an acknowledgement of the pain of abandonment. His Sixth Word testified of a completed task. This last word is for Him. He died like He lived, putting others before Himself. This last word speaks of a lesson before dying. . . . "Jesus knew who He was. People didn't treat Him like the Son of God, but He knew who He was. People did not treat him like the only begotten, but He knew who He was. 'Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.' He had a relationship with divinity that was not erased by the insanity of His culture."
Illustration: Evangelism, Witnessing Timothy Satryan of First Assembly of God in Wilmington, NC, tells this story about the power of one person sending an alert: Out of all the horrific stories surrounding the tragedy of the earthquake and tsunami in the south Asian area, comes a miraculous report from a small village in India. I heard of this first hand from one who has relatives in this village, and then discovered written reports verifying its accuracy. The report says that an individual by the name of Vijayakumar, a former resident of a small town in India, currently resides in Singapore. The entire population of Nallavadu, India, was saved from the destruction of the tsunami by a single phone call from Vijayakumar in Singapore, Indonesia! The village is part of a project run by the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation and Vijayakumar, one of the foundation's former volunteers, now works in Singapore. Vijayakumar saw a tsunami warning in Singapore and immediately phoned the village's research centre, setting off a local alert. A warning was repeatedly announced over the village's public address system and a siren sounded allowing people time to move away from the danger area before the waves hit. As a result, not one of Nallavadu's 3,600 residents was killed while the surrounding area suffered massive loss of life. One phone call resulted in saving 3,600 people. The simple act of making one phone call resulted in an entire village being spared of the death that engulfed all those surrounding it. Have you ever thought about that one person that you need to speak to about Jesus? Perhaps you have hesitated, thinking that your singular witness could not possible mean too much. My pastor friend, have you hesitated in considering planting new churches, because you thought "what difference could just one more church mean?" Witness to just one person? Someone led Billy Graham to the Lord! I am sure that they didn't realize at the time the impact of what "just that one witness" would have upon the world! http://www.wfa.org/newsletter/archive/2005/0501_050107/0501_050107.html
Illustration: Warning, Children Finding one of her students making faces at others on the playground, Miss Smith stopped to gently reprove the child. Smiling sweetly, the teacher said, "Bobby, when I was a child, I was told if I made ugly faces, it would freeze and I would stay like that." Bobby looked up and innocently replied, "Well, Miss Smith, you can't say you weren't warned."
Plan
to be with us in Cambridge for the There's still time for you to plan to be part of one of the most exciting preaching events of the decade as you attend the third International Congress on Preaching, April 17-19 in Cambridge, England. This event is only held once every five years, so the next one won't be until 2012! ICOP 2007 will feature an amazing team of preachers and teachers, including N.T. Wright, David Jeremiah, Alister McGrath, Calvin Miller, Dave Stone, J. Alfred Smith, Michael Quicke, Timothy Warren, Robert Smith, Mike Glenn, Michael Milton, and many, many more. You'll enjoy stimulating addresses on the Congress theme, "For Such a Time as This: Preaching Truth in an Age of Idolatry." You'll hear challenging sermons, and you'll participate in practical workshops on a variety of preaching-related topics. There's still time to register, and airlines are beginning to announce airfare sales, so make your plans now to be with us. To learn more (and register online), go to www.preaching.com/icop or you can call 800-527-5226 (toll free inside U.S.) or 615-386-3011 (outside the U.S.)
Illustration: Students, Self-Esteem Today's college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society. The report is discussed in a Feb. 27 AP story. "We need to stop endlessly repeating 'You're special' and having children repeat that back," said the study's lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. "Kids are self-centered enough already." The AP story says the study asserts that narcissists "are more likely to have romantic relationships that are short-lived, at risk for infidelity, lack emotional warmth, and to exhibit game-playing, dishonesty, and over-controlling and violent behaviors." Twenge, the author of Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- and More Miserable Than Ever Before, said narcissists tend to lack empathy, react aggressively to criticism and favor self-promotion over helping others. The researchers traced the phenomenon back to what they called the "self-esteem movement" that emerged in the 1980s, asserting that the effort to build self-confidence had gone too far. (Click here to read the full article.) (Click here to learn more about the book Generation Me) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17349066/?GT1=9033
Illustration: Directions One day, a housework-challenged husband decided to wash his sweatshirt. Seconds after he stepped into the laundry room, he shouted to his wife, "What setting do I use on the washing machine?" "It depends," she replied. "What does it say on your shirt?" He yelled back, "University of Florida." (from Cybersalt Digest)
"We cannot ask in behalf of Christ what Christ would not ask Himself if He were praying." (A.B. Simpson)
On the preacher's bookshelf . . . Two preacher biographies recently released: From the Hood to the Hill (Thomas Nelson) is the autobiography of Barry C. Black, who now serves as Chaplain of the U.S. Senate. Black is a powerful preacher (he spoke at our last International Congress on Preaching in Edinburgh), and this interesting book tells of how he overcame challenges to become a two-star Admiral, and the first African-American to become Chief of Chaplains of the U.S. Navy, then Senate Chaplain. The Truth That Transformed Me (Christian Focus) by Mary Lou Davis is the story of D. James Kennedy, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, founder of Evangelism Explosion, and a well-known preacher on television and radio. You'll learn things about Kennedy you never knew: for example, he went to college on a music scholarship, ran a water-ski boat to earn extra money, and left college to become a dance instructor -- until he was challenged by the gospel. (Click on the book title to go to the Amazon link to learn more or order a copy)
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Illustration: In-Laws, Marriage A young woman brings home her fiance to meet her parents. After dinner, her mother tells her father to find out about the young man. The father invites the fiance to his study for a chat. "So what are your plans?" the father asks the young man. "I am a college student." he replies. "A college student. Hmmm," the father says. "That's admirable, but what will you do to provide a nice house for my daughter to live in, as she's accustomed to?" "I will study," the young man replies, "and God will provide for us." "And how will you buy her a beautiful engagement ring, such as she deserves?" asks the father. "I will concentrate on my studies," the young man replies. "God will provide for us." "And children?" asks the father. "How will you support children?" "Don't worry, sir, God will provide," replies the fiance. The conversation proceeds like this, and each time the father questions, the young idealist insists that God will provide. Later, the mother asks, "How did it go, Honey?" The father answers, "He has no job and no plans, but the good news is he thinks I'm God."
"It is not well for a man to pray cream and live skim milk." (Henry Ward Beecher)
Laws of Parenthood A child's behavior will improve in proportion to the distance she is away from the parent. Two is equal to two, except when referring to time. Two minutes of tantrum lasts 20 times as long as two minutes of quiet time. The choice of a preschooler's best friend corresponds directly to the distance the friend lives from your house. A child's enjoyment of a popular entertainment will be inversely proportionate to the parent's enjoyment. The chance of a surprise visit by your parents-in-law is directly proportional to the size of the mess in your home. A child will always eat exactly what she has loved for the past year unless it is the only food in the fridge. The ease with which a toddler acquires the ability to say a word increases with its likelihood to embarrass a sailor. (from Cybersalt Digest)
And finally . . . How can you have a good anti-poverty summit with a bunch of poor people hanging around? That seemed to be the problem for the World Social Forum, an anti-poverty event recently held in Nairobi, Kenya, according to the Feb. 10 issue of World magazine. Event organizers refused to help a crowd of hungry street kids who asked for food. In response to such treatment, "dozens of languishing street children broke into the five-star hotel's food tent and gorged themselves on cuisine meant only for the anti-hunger elite. Each plate of food in the hotel sold for roughly $7 in a nation where many live on less than $2 every day. After a series of protests by street children as well as other locals, the organizers relented and agreed not to charge for the food."
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