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Deanda Noble

Homeless Family Who Held on to Pit Bull Has New Home | ABC News Blogs - Yahoo - 0 views

  • who we reported chose homelessness over abandoning their pet pit bull
  • The California family who we reported chose homelessness over abandoning their pet pit bull finally has a happy ending: a dog-friendly apartment.
Deanda Noble

Family Chooses Homelessness Over Abandoning Pit Bull - ABC News - 0 views

  • “When landlords see Camilla, they have no problem with her. Everybody will take her,” Carol Devia said. “But as soon as they see Rocco, they say ‘Oh no.’”
    • Deanda Noble
       
      they want to keep their family together.
  • “I can’t find a place unless I give up my dog, and everyone tells me to, but I can’t do that,” Devia said. “We’ve had Camilla her whole life and Rocco her whole life.”
  • The issue went viral last weekend, when the owner of a rescued pit bull took to Craigslist to find out the name of the dog’s former owner, who abandoned her in a Manhattan apartment after being evicted
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  • But Rocco was not always a model pit bull, Devia said. One time, when a Dachshund peeked his nose into Devia’s yard, Rocco ran over to the dog and broke his snout, Devia recalled. After the incident, the family had to go to court, take a class, and pay $500 for three years for a special dog license on top of a $200 per year insurance plan, she said.
Gary Patton

Interview with Reza Kahlili, an Ex-CIA Spy Embedded in Iran's Revolutionary Guards - 0 views

  • Summer 2011Vol. 6, No. 2 This article is from TOS Vol. 6, No. 2
  • Summer 2011Vol. 6, No. 2 This article is from TOS Vol. 6, No. 2.
  • Reza Kahlili, author of A Time to Betray, a book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
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    Please don't miss the interview below with Reza Kahlili, an ex-CIA Spy embedded in Iran's Revolutionary Guards" for years. You'll learn how really dangerous Iran is to your family plus practical suggestions re what you can do about it! I'm encouraged that in this ex-Iranian insider's view Canada's Prime Minister Harper is on the right track while the U.S.'s President Obama is derailed! GaryFPatton (gfp '42™ 2012-10-06)
Eli Yanna

Raising Godly Children: 16 Daddy Christmas Tips - 0 views

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    Excellent Bible-based family advice.
Gary Patton

Psalm 23 KJV - The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. - Bible Gateway - 0 views

  • Psalm 23
  • I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever
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    The King James translation of the Christian Bible was the one my Mom used most of her life. This passage was read at her funeral by my Friend, Adele van Caulart. It was one of Ina Donelda Patton's favoutites. My Mom also was called Donnie by my Dad and members of our extended family, as she had been as a child by her 8 siblings. Mom's Friends and catering business colleagues usually called her Donna.
Gary Patton

John 14:1-6; 22-27 NASB - Jesus Comforts His Followers - Bible Gateway - 0 views

  • John 14:1-6; John 14:22-27
  • Do not let your heart be troubled; [a]believe in God, believe also in Me.
  • I go to prepare a place for you.
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  • I will come again and receive you to Myself, that (D)where I am, there you may be also.
  • “I am (F)the way, and (G)the truth, and (H)the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
  • You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?”
  • If anyone loves Me, he will (D)keep My word; and (E)My Father will love him, and We (F)will come to him and make Our abode with him.
  • But the (I)Helper, the Holy Spirit, (J)whom the Father will send in My name, (K)He will teach you all things, and (L)bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
  • Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. (N)Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
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    These passages from John 14 were shared by my Friend, Bruce Malcolm, at the Funeral service for my Mom, Ina Donelda Patton (aka Donnie (family) & Donna (friends). These passages confirm the eternal promise of Jesus to His Followers, of which my Mom was one, that they will spend eternity with Him in His mansions in heaven. Each human is a "spiritual being in a temporary earth suit". And, therefore, we each will live forever. The only question is where we will spend the non-earthly part of our eternity ...in what Jesus called "heaven" or "hell". The answer to that question depends solely on whether one chooses to believe that Jesus was "a liar", "a lunatic" or "Lord" of us all and "God Incarnate", His eternal "Son" who choose to die on a cross to pay the full penalty for our sin nature & sins which our "good works" cannot pay for. In addition to the above passages, another Friend, Adele Van Caulart, read Psalm 23 ...another source of great assurance of God's love and His peace for my Mom and me. gfp (2012-04-04)
Gary Patton

The future belongs to Islam- Culture - Books - 0 views

  • Likewise, the salient feature of Europe, Canada, Japan and Russia is that they're running out of babies
  • the salient feature of Europe, Canada, Japan and Russia is that they're running out of babies.
  • Sept. 11, 2001, was not "the day everything changed," but the day that revealed how much had already changed.
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  • start with demography, because everything does:
  • Greece has a fertility rate hovering just below 1.3 births per couple, which is what demographers call the point of "lowest-low" fertility from which no human society has ever recovered. And Greece's fertility is the healthiest in Mediterranean Europe: Italy has a fertility rate of 1.2, Spain 1.1. Insofar as any citizens of the developed world have "big" families these days, it's the anglo democracies: America's fertility rate is 2.1, New Zealand a little below. Hollywood should be making My Big Fat Uptight Protestant Wedding in which some sad Greek only child marries into a big heartwarming New Zealand family where the spouse actually has a sibling.
  • this isn't a projection: it's happening now
  • Experts talk about root causes. But demography is the most basic root of all.
  • Demographic decline and the unsustainability of the social democratic state are closely related.
  • Age + Welfare = Disaster for you;Youth + Will = Disaster for whoever gets in your way.
  • By "will," I mean the metaphorical spine of a culture.
  • Islam has youth and will, Europe has age and welfare.
  • We are witnessing the end of the late 20th- century progressive welfare democracy.
  • For states in demographic decline with ever more lavish social programs, the question is a simple one: can they get real? Can they grow up before they grow old?
  • Which brings us to the third factor -- the enervated state of the Western world, the sense of civilizational ennui, of nations too mired in cultural relativism to understand what's at stake.
  • But there is a correlation between the structural weaknesses of the social democratic state and the rise of a globalized Islam. The state has gradually annexed all the responsibilities of adulthood -- health care, child care, care of the elderly -- to the point where it's effectively severed its citizens from humanity's primal instincts, not least the survival instinct.
    • Gary Patton
       
      This is an insightful and interesting thesis!
  • They corrode the citizen's sense of self-reliance to a potentially fatal degree
  • may talk about "winning" the Cold War but the French and the Belgians and Germans and Canadians don't. Very few British do. These are all formal NATO allies -- they were, technically, on the winning side against a horrible tyranny few would wish to live under themselves.
    • Gary Patton
       
      WOW!
  • it's hard to credit the citizens of France or Italy as having made any serious contribution to the defeat of Communism. Au contraire, millions of them voted for it, year in, year out. And, with the end of the Soviet existential threat, the enervation of the West only accelerated.
    • Gary Patton
       
      Harsh, like Mr. Steyn often is to grab one's attention! But also true!! gfp
    • Gary Patton
       
      An interesting observation about which I hadn't reflected before. gfp
  • in the old days, the white man settled the Indian territory. Now the followers of the badland's radical imams settle the metropolis.
  • Thomas P. M. Barnett's book Blueprint For Action, Robert D. Kaplan, a very shrewd observer of global affairs, is quoted referring to the lawless fringes of the map as "Indian territory."
  • In the old days, the Injuns had bows and arrows and the cavalry had rifles. In today's Indian territory, countries that can't feed their own people have nuclear weapons.
  • Though Eastern Europe and Latin America and parts of Asia are freer now than they were in the seventies, other swaths of the map have spiralled backwards.
  • The enemies we face in the future will look a lot like al-Qaeda: transnational, globalized, locally franchised, extensively outsourced -- but tied together through a powerful identity that leaps frontiers and continents. They won't be nation-states and they'll have no interest in becoming nation-states, though they might use the husks thereof, as they did in Afghanistan and then Somalia. The jihad may be the first, but other transnational deformities will embrace similar techniques. Sept. 10 institutions like the UN and the EU will be unlikely to provide effective responses.
    • Gary Patton
       
      This is the thesis of what one portion of the U.S. military calls Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) i.e. what unfolded in Iraqafter the Liviatan defeat of Sadam Hussein when the U.S. did not pursue an effective nor efficient strategy of "waging peace" as strategy as argued in Chapter one of Dr Barnett's "Action Plan".
  • Four years into the "war on terror," the Bush administration began promoting a new formulation: "the long war."
    • Gary Patton
       
      Thomas Barnett's thesis in "Blueprint for Action" by the US is that the long war is waged as a "war for peace" fought by a powerful and numerous SysAdmin force of multinationals after the "hot war' is won by the US military 'Liviathan'. Iagrree that makes more sence than a 4GW approach which kees the West always in a "hot war". gfp
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    Article on the dangers of spreading Islam | Macleans.ca 2011-06.
Gary Patton

REALity February 2012 - 0 views

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    REALity is the monthly newsletter of Real Women Canada, a traditional, family-oriented advocacy group of Canadian Men and women. gfp (2012-02-03)
Gary Patton

Great Commission ...Does It tell Us To Go or Not? : Apologetic Methods - 0 views

  • A More Accurate Look at Matthew 28:19
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    "John A. Finton makes a case in the is article for translating Matthew 28:18 as including the imperative verb "go" rather than what the Koine greed says "as you go" , a participle not a verb. gfp (2012-02-26)
Gary Patton

"What The Body of Christ Looks Like" - Bible Gateway - 0 views

  • All of you who were baptised “into” Christ have put on the family likeness of Christ.
  • Galatians 3:26-29
  • Gone is the distinction between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and female—you are all one in Christ Jesus.
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  • you are true descendants of Abraham, you are true heirs of his promise.
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    "What The Body of Christ Looks Like" Galatians 3:26-29 spells out clearly what "the Body of Christ" looks like. GaryFPatton (gfp '42™ 2012-10-15)
Gary Patton

Instructions for Christian Households - Bible Gateway - 0 views

  • Ephesians 5:21-27
    • Gary Patton
       
      Husband/Wife Relationships in Today's Western Homes This topic is, arguably, one of the most argued-over issues in all of Holy Spirit's "how-to" instructions to Jesus Followers in God's words to Their people. This is especially the case in light of the evolution from the paternalism ...if not misogynism... of many in Biblical times and even now, especially many Christian and Muslim men, to the egalitarianism of our modern age in Western society and some parts of the Body of Christ. What did Holy Spirit REALLY mean when He inspired the Apostle Paul to pen the words in Ephesian 5:21-27, not just 22-27? I have added some comments for your consideration and reaction back to me, if you will, via the e-Sticky Notes below. In this passage, Paul wrote to some new Followers of Jesus in Ephesus and elsewhere around 50 A.D.. Ephesus was a major commercial city and a spiritual hub for Paul's evangelism efforts in what was called Asia Minor at the time in what is now Turkey. Holy Spirit intended those same words for us around the world in the 21st century? gfp (2012-04-14)
  • Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
    • Gary Patton
       
      One key for me in answering the question I pose in my first paragraph above, is that I prayerfully believe that too many Christians can be, and probably are, theologically preconditioned on the relationship between husbands and their wives. I feel that they are preconditioned in reading the Holy Spirit's words by the translating-authors of many Bibles ...intentionally or unintentionally. A classic example is in many Bibles including the Original New International Version (NIV) Study Bible and the English Standard Version (ESV). The classic example lies in what I consider the preconditioning-placement of a non-Biblical footnote "Husbands Obey Your Wives" between verse 21 and 22. Hence the great possibility of preconditioning. I feel the Footnote's positioning puts a very different thrust than what Holy Spirit may have meant on the interpretation of this passage by many wo(men)! This possible perversion once more illustrates the truth of: * "[Bible] Translations are like wives ...either beautiful or faithful ...seldom both!" ~ an anonymous French wit
  • Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.
    • Gary Patton
       
      Reverend Chuck Swindol, the internationally-famous author, academic leader, radio and web commentator and Pastor, wrote or said, many years ago somewhere about this passage. I have never forgotten them. He intended his words as a paraphrase of a few of God's words to Their people in the Christian/Hebrew Bible that was originally written in Koine Greek. Swindol's words come to mind every time I read this verse. He said: * "Wives, submit to your slaves!" ~ Chuck Swindol The context of Jesus' relationship to His Spiritual Body, the church, is confirmed by Holy Spirit in Jesus' repeated statements to His Followers and other Jews listening in as He taught when on earth the first time. This relationship has been recorded by God in Jesus' statements throughout the Gospels and his Apostles (sent out ones) in the New Covenant portion of the Bible. In this context, I sense Swindol's quote above is an accurate translation of Holy Spirit's REAL point, not a less than authoritative paraphrase, given the different verbs used in this verse, directed to wives, and that to husbands in verse 25.
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  • Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
    • Gary Patton
       
      Regarding the possible reason for the differing verbs Holy Spirit used in this passage to lay down a Godly relationship a married couple ...submit for wives and love for husbands... ?, a U.S. author and Bible teacher suggests an interesting thesis. You can read about it at ? .
  • present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
    • Gary Patton
       
      Personally, Karen, my wife and I are looking forward to sitting around a heavenly campfire in due course in our exciting, new spiritual state as "unmarrieds" after, even now, 55 years of intimate relationship. When we do, I'm planning to ask Father, Son and Holy Spirit if, in using the verbs they did to instruct us in Ephesian 5:21-27, they also were describing the relationship that They have had forever with One Another? I think about God's relationship as Trinity in this way ever since I learned about the meaning of the Hebrew word "yada" in Proverbs 3: 5-6 [ http://diigo.com/0mnpj ]. here God tells us how to relate to Them. In many Bibles, this verb is often translated as "acknowlege. Interestingly to me, it also means "to have intercourse with" as in Adam "knew" Eve in Genesis 4:1 (KJV) or "had relations with" (NASB) or "made love to" (NIV). Genesis 4:1 is one of the few other times that yada is used in the Old Covenant!
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    Ephesians 5:21-27 is one of the most argued over Scriptures in the entire Word of God in our modern egalitarian age.
Gary Patton

We're Not As Indispensable As We Think - Bible Gateway - 0 views

  • “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”
    • Gary Patton
       
      Esther 4:12-14 makes clear that God doesn't need any one of us! gfp (2012-04-16)
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    Esther 4:12-14 makes clear that God don't need us! gfp (2012-04-16)
Gary Patton

The Western Wall Excavations, Jerusalem - Google Maps - 0 views

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    WOW! The new Street View treatment of Jerusalem by Google Maps is incredible. At these links, one can spend hours "walking around" in the Old City and among its excavations. gfp (2012-04-23)
Gary Patton

Decoding The Mystery Of Near-Death Experiences : NPR - 0 views

  • "There are various explanations," Woerlee says. "One: that the earphones or plugs were not that tightly fitting. Two: It could have been that it was due to sound transmission through the operating table itself." So Reynolds could have heard conversations. As for seeing the Midas Rex bone saw, he says, she recognized a sound from her childhood.
    • Gary Patton
       
      Whether one believes in after death experience or not, its these so-called expalnations that are riduculous and preposterous, in my opinion!
  • That doesn't convince cardiologist Sabom or neurosurgeon Spetzler. They believe the combination of anesthesia and the sluggish brain activity caused by hypothermia meant that Reynolds could not form or retain memories for a significant part of the operation. At the very least, Sabom says, Reynolds' story raises the possibility that consciousness can function even when the brain is offline.
  • In the end, Reynolds' story is just an anecdote. And in fact, that's the problem with all the studies of near-death experiences.
    • Gary Patton
       
      Jesus Followers, however, can listen to what the person reports re their so-called after-death experience and evaluate it against what the Bible tells us.
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  • it seems that these people have a different sort of brain," Beauregard says in his soft French accent. "It's like there's a shift in their brain, and this shift will allow these people to stay in touch with the spiritual world more easily, on a daily basis."
  • "It's like the near-death experience triggered something at a neural level in the brain," he said. "And perhaps this change, in terms of brain activity, is sort of permanent."
  • Their brains in the spiritual state look a lot like those of Catholic nuns and Buddhist monks who have spent tens of thousands of hours in prayer and meditation. Both groups showed extremely slow brain wave activity
  • The researchers also saw significant changes in brain regions associated with positive emotions, attention and personal boundaries, as subjects who had had near-death experiences lost their sense of their physical bodies and merged with God or the "light."
  • Skeptic Woerlee says there's nothing remarkable — and certainly nothing spiritual — about these findings.
  • It's brain chemistry, he says, not a trip to heaven.
  • n other words, Woerlee a
  • nd Beauregard looked at the same images and came to opposite conclusions.
  • It was about that time that Reynolds believes she noticed a tunnel and bright light.
  • "She is as deeply comatose as you can be and still be alive,"
  • She says she found herself looking down at the operating table.
  • During her near-death experience, she says she chatted with her dead grandmother and uncle, who escorted her back to the operating room.
  • My uncle pushed me," she says, laughing.
  • "From a scientific perspective," he says, "I have absolutely no explanation about how it could have happened."
  • Spetzler did not check out all the details, but Michael Sabom did. Sabom is a cardiologist in Atlanta who was researching near-death experiences.
  • what she said happened to her is actually what Spetzler did with her out in Arizona
  • How, Sabom wonders, could she know these things?
  • "She could not have heard [it], because of what they did to her ears," he says. "In addition, both of her eyes were taped shut, so she couldn't open her eyes and see what was going on. So her physical sensory perception was off the table."
  • That's preposterous, says anesthesiologist Gerald Woerlee. "This report provides absolutely no evidence for survival of any sort of consciousness outside the body during near-death experiences or any other such experiences," he says.
  • Woerlee, an Australian researcher and near-death experience debunker who has investigated Reynolds' case, says what happened to her is easy to explain.
Gary Patton

10 Commandments List of the Bible - 0 views

  • many Christians take these special ten commandments for granted
  • The 10 Commandments of the Bible
  • These 10 commandments are good, basic, moral laws that will help keep us out of trouble with ourselves, family, friends, and neighbors
Gary Patton

KONY 2012 - YouTube - 0 views

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    "Where you live [as a child] should not determine whether you can live!" ~ Invisible Children KONY 2012 is a film and campaign of "waging peace" by Invisible Children Inc.. It aims to make Joseph Kony, the LRA leader in Uganda, more infamous ...not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice. Please invest 27 minutes of your life in watching this video and learn why Joseph Kony MUST be stopped., this year, in 2012. Hear the cry of kids who are being robbed of life! Then, write the leader of your country and demand his involvement in Kony 2012. gfp (2012-03-10)
Gary Patton

Trials Produce Joy? Say what! | NIV YouVersion - 0 views

  • Trials and Temptations
  • When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
  • If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
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  • Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,t whenever you face trials of many kinds,3
  • because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Gary Patton

"Wage Peace ...Not War" - Bible Gateway - 0 views

  • give preference to one another
  • Bless those who persecute [d]you; bless and do not curse
  • do not be haughty in mind,
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  • Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.
  • BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS ON HIS HEAD.”
    • Gary Patton
       
      Placing Burning Coals on Another's Head Paul, quoted from Proverbs 25:21-23 here to make a crucial point for his First Century readers and Jesus Followers today. He did so to demonstrate that our heavenly Father does not overlook fairness and justice although He substituted New Covenant 'grace' for Old Covenant 'law' when He sent Jesus to die for us as outlined in His New Covenant. (You can read about Jesus' crucifixion in Matthew 27:27 to Mathew 28:20 at . Proverbs 25:21 at confuses some people because its Jewish cultural context is not clear from its words. A "burning coal" was essential in Biblical Palestine each morning so Jewish families could re-light their cooking fire for the day after it died out during the night. In each Jewish village, one man carried a pot of coals from home to home to assist the homemaker who needed one. "Burning coals" are blessings not torture instruments in this Proverb as some think. "The head", in Jewish culture was the place on another's body where one anointed them with precious perfumes and oils as a extension of an oral blessing on them. (gfp 2011-10-24)
  • Respect what is right in the sight of all men.
  • Never take your own revenge, beloved, but [g]leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “(T)VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord.
  • If possible, (Q)so far as it depends on you, (R)be at peace with all men.
  • Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
  • For (Y)rulers are not a cause of fear for [k]good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an (Z)avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.
  • Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for (AE)he who loves [l]his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
  • YOU SHALL NOT MURDER
    • Gary Patton
       
      Please Jesus Follower, do not mistake the Old Covenant commandment to "not murder" as permitting, as some unBiblically teach,: * so-called "just wars", plus * participation as a gun-carrying police person, or * participation as a politician who can vote on declaring war or laws sentencing a person to death for a crime. Jesus' clear, unequivocal call is to be a non-violent person who wages peace on his behalf ...not war... because Jesus came to "fulfill the [Old Covenant] Law'". Our commanded peace-making lifestyle is clear in this passage of Scripture plus Jesus' many commands to His Followers to live a life of non-violent behaviour in every way that I mention below. "Peace is not something you wish for. It's something you [first receive, then something you] make, something you do, something you are and something you give away." ~ Robert Fulghum (1937- ) U.S. author http://diigo.com/0kmml As Mr. Fulghum writes above, Jesus calls us to be non-violent peace-makers throughout His New Covenant with us! e.g.: * Matthew 5:9, the reward for peace-making at http://diigo.com/0kmjn; * His commanded peace-making approach in Matthew 5:38-45 at http://diigo.com/0kmlr and * God's condemnation of violence including war in Romans 12:10-13:9 at http://diigo.com/0kmml. Jesus has no concept of a so-called "just war" Jesus Follower please do not feel that because the State is authorized to use violence to protect society that you are permitted to: * participate in making, as a politician, or upholding, as a gun-carrying justice officer, a State's laws that contain a death penalty, or * voting as a politician or a citizen for your country to participate in a so-called "just war", or fighting in a war as a weapon-carrying soldier. You are not according to Jesus' clear calls to a non-violent life. How do I obey the law you might ask? Simple, I suggest! You will never be "forced" in a democracy to run for an elected office in "the world", as distict from "Jesus'
  • Romans 12:10-13:9
  • You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
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    In Romans 12:10-13:9 in the pre-Jesus (Yeshua) New Covenant, Jesus' Apostle (Sent-Out-One), Paul, makes clear there are no "Just Wars" as far as Jesus Followers are to be concerned. Jesus Followers are called by our Lord and Saviour to wage peace ...not war. We are commanded to be non-violent radicals not passive pew-sitters. To be Gentlewo(men) Warriors not D.O.O.R.M.A.T.s (members of the "Dependent Order Of Really Miserable And Timid Souls"). You may ask me for my article about ""Real Warriors Are Humble & Meek" if the link doesn't work for you. Paul also includes an interesting Old Covenant Proverb in Verse 20 from Proverbs 25:21-23 the cultural context of which might fool you into thinking something it doesn't mean. To better understand what the Apostle meant, don't miss my Sticky Note on Verse 20. gfp (2011-10-24)
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    So you think there are just wars, eh? Check this out! gfp
Gary Patton

William Wilberforce : Biography - 0 views

  • At seventeen Wilberforce was sent to St. John's College. Following the deaths of his grandfather in 1776 and his childless uncle William in 1777, Wilberforce was an extremely wealthy man. Wilberforce was shocked by the behaviour of his fellow students at the University of Cambridge
  • After leaving university he showed no interest in the family business, and while still at Cambridge he decided to pursue a political career
  • "Wilberforce was little over five feet tall, a frail and elfin figure who in his later years weighed well under 100 pounds. His charm was legendary, his conversation delightful, his oratory impressive. He dressed in the colourful finery of the day and adorned any salon with his amiable manner.
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  • his object in life - no less than the transformation of a corrupt society through serious religion
  • In 1784 Wilberforce became converted to Evangelical Christianity. He joined the Clapham Set,
  • In 1787 Thomas Clarkson, William Dillwyn and Granville Sharp formed the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
  • nine out of the twelve members on the committee, were Quakers.
  • Wilberforce's nephew, George Stephen, was surprised by this choice as he considered him a lazy man: "He worked out nothing for himself; he was destitute of system, and desultory in his habits; he depended on others for information, and he required an intellectual walking stick."
  • writing, on the other hand, was to be discouraged, since it would open the way to rising above one's natural station."
    • Gary Patton
       
      When you're starving, "half a loaf is beter than none"! And God seldom uses perfect people to advance His Kingdom!
  • In May 1788, Charles Fox precipitated the first parliamentary debate on the issue.
  • Charles Fox was unsure of Wilberforce's commitment to the anti-slavery campaign.
  • "Following the publication of the privy council report on 25 April 1789, Wilberforce marked his own delayed formal entry into the parliamentary campaign on 12 May with a closely reasoned speech of three and a half hours,
  • "Everyone thought the hearing would be brief, perhaps one sitting. Instead, the slaving interests prolonged it so skilfully that when the House adjourned on 23 June, their witnesses were still testifying."
  • on 10th July 1789: "Whether the bill goes through the House or not, the discussion attending it will have a most beneficial effect.
  • the visit was a failure as Clarkson could not persuade the French National Assembly to discuss the abolition of the slave trade
  • the government published A Declaration of the Rights of Man asserting that all men were born and remained free and equal. However
  • During this period he could only find twenty men willing to testify before the House of Commons. He later recalled: "I was disgusted... to find how little men were disposed to make sacrifices for so great a cause."
    • Gary Patton
       
      "Seldom do great and difficult quests proceed with ease!" ~ gfp
  • Wilberforce initially welcomed the French Revolution as he believed that the new government would abolish the country's slave trade.
  • Wilberforce believed that the support for the French Revolution by the leading members of the Society for the Abolition of Slave Trade was creating difficulties for his attempts to bring an end to the slave trade in the House of Commons.
  • On 18th April 1791 Wilberforce introduced a bill to abolish the slave trade.
  • "a war of the pigmies against the giants of the House".
  • defeated by 163 to 88.
  • In March 1796, Wilberforce's proposal to abolish the slave trade was defeated in the House of Commons by only four votes.
  • a dozen abolitionist MPs were out of town or at the new comic opera in London.
  • In 1804, Clarkson returned to his campaign against the slave trade and toured the country
    • Gary Patton
       
      Note that Clarkson's 'rest' lasted about 8 years and Wilberforce is not here noted to have advanced the cause during Clarson's absence from the frey. But, who among avserage men has heard of Thomas Clarkson as winning the abolitionists cause against slavery?
  • William Wilberforce introduced an abolition bill on 30th May 1804.
  • In 1805 the bill was once again presented to the House of Commons. This time the pro-slave trade MPs were better organised and it was defeated by seven votes.
  • advised Wilberforce to leave the vote to the following year.
  • t moved to the House of Lords.
  • In February, 1806 Lord Grenville was invited by the king to form a new Whig administration.
  • Grenville's Foreign Secretary, Charles Fox, led the campaign in the House of Commons to ban the slave trade in captured colonies.
  • was little opposition and it was passed by an overwhelming 114 to 15.
  • In the House of Lords Lord Greenville made a passionate speech
  • the bill was passed in the House of Lords by 41 votes to 20.
  • In January 1807 Lord Grenville introduced a bill that would stop the trade to British colonies on grounds of "justice, humanity and sound policy".
  • "Lord Grenville masterminded the victory which had eluded the abolitionist for so long...
  • Wilberforce commented: "How popular Abolition is, just now! God can turn the hearts of men".
    • Gary Patton
       
      However, the Bible itself does not make a strong case for the abolition of slavery and really only for the equality of men before God and in his Kingdom ...not in the world!
  • The trade was abolished by a resounding 283 to 16.
  • it was the largest majority recorded on any issue where the House divided.
  • a generous tribute to the work of Wilberforce:
  • Some people involved in the anti-slave trade campaign such as Thomas Fowell Buxton, argued that the only way to end the suffering of the slaves was to make slavery illegal. Wilberforce disagreed, he believed that at this time slaves were not ready to be granted their freedom. He pointed out in a pamphlet that he wrote in 1807 that: "It would be wrong to emancipate (the slaves). To grant freedom to them immediately, would be to insure not only their masters' ruin, but their own. They must (first) be trained and educated for freedom."
  • In July, 1807, members of the Society for the Abolition of Slave Trade established the African Institution, an organization that was committed to watch over the execution of the law, seek a ban on the slave trade by foreign powers and to promote the "civilization and happiness" of Africa.
  • The African Institution carried the torch for antislavery reform for twenty years and paved the way for later humanitarian efforts in Great Britain."
  • Wilberforce made it clear that he considered the African Institution should do what it could to convert Africans to Christianity.
  • we ought to rejoice in every opportunity of bringing them under their present sufferings, and secure for them a rich compensation of reversionary happiness."
  • (Perronet Thompson) single-handedly abolished apprenticeship and freed the slaves. He filed scandalised reports to the colonial office. Wilberforce told him he was being rash and hasty, and he and his colleagues voted unanimously for his dismissal. Wilberforce advised him to go quietly for the sake of his career."
  • the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery. Buxton eventually persuaded Wilberforce to join his campaign but as he had retired from the House of Commons in 1825, he did not play an important part in persuading Parliament to bring an end to slavery.
  • William Wilberforce died on 29th July, 1833. One month later, Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act that gave all slaves in the British Empire their freedom.
  • How far the memoir was Christian, I must leave to others to decide. That it was unfair to Clarkson is not disputed. Where possible, the authors ignored Clarkson; where they could not they disparaged him. In the whole rambling work, using the thousands of documents available to them, they found no space for anything illustrating the mutual affection and regard between the two great men, or between Wilberforce and Clarkson's brother."
  • Wilson goes on to argue that the book has completely distorted the history of the campaign against the slave-trade: "The Life has been treated as an authoritative source for 150 years of histories and biographies
  • its treatment of Clarkson, in particular, a deservedly towering figure in the abolition struggle, is invalidated by untruths, omissions and misrepresentations of his motives and his achievements is not understood by later generations, unfamiliar with the jealousy that motivated the holy authors. When all the contemporary shouting had died away, the Life survived to take from Clarkson both his fame and his good name.
  • left us with the simplistic myth of Wilberforce and his evangelical warriors in a holy crusade.
  •  
    Some key bibliographical background on the famous Englishman who, allegedly, was single-handedly responsible for the freeing of slaves in the British Empire after many years of fighting in thr English Parliament.
  •  
    So you thought William Wilberforce was responsible for getting England to abolish slavery, eh? Not so! gfp
Gary Patton

Putting "Burning Coals" on Another's Head - Bible Gateway - 0 views

  • If [p]your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; 22 For you will [q]heap burning coals on his head, And (AA)the LORD will reward you.
    • Gary Patton
       
      Placing Burning Coals on Another's Head This Proverb confuses some people because its Jewish cultural context is not clear from its words. A "burning coal" was essential in Biblical Palestine each morning so Jewish families could re-light their cooking fire for the day after it died out during the night. In each Jewish village, one man carried a pot of coals from home to home to assist the homemaker who needed one. "Burning coals" are blessings not torture instruments in this Proverb as some think. "The head", in Jewish culture was the place on another's body where one anointed them with precious perfumes and oils as a extension of an oral blessing on them. Jesus' Disciple/Apostle (Learner/Sent-Out-One), Paul, quoted this Proverb from the pre-Jesus (Yeshua/Isa), Old Covenant in Romans 12:20 at http://diigo.com/0kmml to demonstrate that our heavenly Father does not overlook fairness and justice although he substituted New Covenant 'grace' for Old Covenant 'law' when He sent Jesus to die for us as outlined in His New Covenant. (gfp 2011-10-24)
  • Proverbs 25
    • Gary Patton
       
      This ancient, pre-Yeshua (Jesus), Old Covenant and Hebrew Proverb, contains and interesting cultural reference that you'll discover in the e-Sticky Note on verses 21-23 below. gfp (2011-10-24)
  •  
    This ancient, pre-Yeshua (Jesus), Old Covenant Hebrew Proverb, contains and interesting cultural reference that you'll discover in the e-Sticky Note on Verse 21-23 below. gfp (2011-10-24)
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