James's Weblog

Hymn: Prevenient Grace

Mon, 18/08/2008 - 11:50 -- James Oakley

I love discovering new hymns.

Like this one by Josiah Conder, entitled My Lord, I did not choose you.

My Lord, I did not choose you,
for that could never be;
this heart would still refuse you
had you not chosen me:
you took the sin that stained me.
you cleansed and made me new;
for you of old ordained me
that I should live to you.

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Death is not nothing

Fri, 15/08/2008 - 10:22 -- James Oakley
Death - nothing? At all?
Image Credit: Mark Faviell

I have huge respect for Christopher Idle. I love the hymns he writes. And he's a godly man with a wise, pastoral heart. I was searching for some of his hymns, when I found something rather different.

Doubtless, many readers of this will be familiar with Henry Scott Holland's poem Death is Nothing at all. For those who don't know it:

Death is nothing at all. It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you, and the old life
Death is Nothing at all

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The Spirit-filled church

Wed, 13/08/2008 - 12:09 -- James Oakley

Lovely quotation from Leithart in Against Christianity on what a Spirit-filled church looks like:

Christian myth and ritual shape the people of God, by the power of the Spirit, into conformity to Christ, creating within the Church a palpable aroma of love, peace, purity, joy, ministry, mission and forgiveness. That aroma spreads from the Church to the city around it.

blockquote

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Site up again

Tue, 12/08/2008 - 12:12 -- James Oakley

Sorry for the extended downtime over the weekend everyone - all the maintenance is now complete. Thanks for your patience.

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The world will be better than you'd think if you look at it now

Tue, 29/07/2008 - 09:49 -- James Oakley

I haven’t posted for ages – partly very busy, partly nothing to say.

But I thought I’d post briefly now, because this has encouraged me.

The parable of the weeds and the wheat in Matthew 13:24-30 shows (I think) that the world is a mixed place – it contains true disciples and it contains unbelievers. We need to wait until the end of the age to see truly who is who.

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No more CAPTCHA

Tue, 15/07/2008 - 16:23 -- James Oakley

CAPTCHA has become a standard device to trap and block spam on sites like this one.

The idea is that if someone writes a computer program to drop spam comments on this blog, the computer program will be asked to solve a problem first. That problem (like “what letters are below in this squiggly image?” or “what’s 4+12?”) is not Turing-computible. So only a human being will solve it.

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