 |
| My dad was always very neat about the collar. He always used a Windsor knot, which he taught me to do. I think other knots look rather naff. |
A blog featuring whatever I fancy, often on the Christian faith but not exclusively
TTRMOMD 09
Books on the KJV 03
Derek Wilson is a popular historian and his book The People's Bible on "the remarkable history of the King James version" (publisher Lion) is an essentially historical approach with some comments about Bible translation more generally.
He begins as far back as 1215 and medieval antipathy to translating the Scriptures and making them available. Further chapters take us from Wycliffe to Tyndale then on to Coverdale and the other translations immediately before the AV. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the Hampton Court Conference and the translating of the AV with some further comment on its publication and reception in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 takes us as far as the Restoration before coming to the impact on America and the British Empire and its growing popularity in general. Chapter 9 briefly surveys modern translations from the RV on. A final chapter attempts some sort of analysis, while keeping in mind the changing ecclesiastical scene, touching on the literary merits of the work and wisely pointing out that compisons with Shakespeare are out of court, being of so different a nature.
Wilson is not afraid to criticise the AV but his conclusion is that the book has had an extraordinary and unique history. "Its influence" he says "has been and continues to be incalculable. It has helped to shape the western mind; has influenced what we think and how we think. It has changed the world." These lavish statements are followed by a warning against idolatry. he is probably right to see the story as part fo a larger narrative - tht of the quest for religious certainty.
In his preface he remarks on how ironic it is "that a Bible commissioned by a cheerfully bisexual monarch" should be the standard translation for "Christian fundamentalists in the world's most powerful republic". As a historian, however, he is well aware that "history is prone to playing strange tricks".
The Adjustment Bureau
PS She doesn't wear that red dress at any point.
Ron Sexsmith
Sometimes when you "veg" in front of the TV it is a completely unrewarding and pointless exercise. On other occasions, you may find a gem. That's what happened to me last Friday when I caught a documentary on Ron Sexsmith on BBC 4 called Love Shines (available for another 6 days here).
The portrait of the Canadian singer making his twelfth album was quite beguiling and has resulted in me buying the album Long Player Late Bloomer from itunes. It's a great album - very commercial in its presentation but with enough depth to make it possible to listen to it over and over again. The vocals remind me of Paul McCartney and Gerry Rafferty but the voice is individual enough. It's pure humanism, of course, but humanism in a very attractive package for all that.
"Heavenly" slips into the quasi-religious as so often happens. Difficult though not to warm to a line like "Pessimism's so tempting/It's spreading all over town". "Believe it when I see it" is more overtly anti-Christian (We've just a wish and an empty vessel/A hole to fill with days/On a road where children stray/Then pray there is no hell/And as for heaven, well). The utter hopelessness of such nonsense is made palatable by the beauty of the song itself. Even bleaker, yet powerful for its honesty, is "No help it all" which would serve as a good theme tune for humanism I guess. "Michael and his dad" is moving. The more aggressive, uncaring and self-asserting side comes out on the opening track "Get in line". So all in all an album that people will enjoy in their droves, sadly having their worst prejudices confirmed at the same time. Or perhaps they will listen carefully, rejecting the philosophy but enjoying the music.
In the documentary Ron says he feels he's here to produce music. He's not much good as a dad or anything but he can produce music. You can see how he has got there but most people won't want to get too close to someone like that, as endearing as he may appear.
Goldsworthy/Blackham
Dr Densham also drew our attention to the interesting debate from 2001 between Paul Blackham and Graeme Goldsworthy recorded here. Goldsworthy also interacts with Carl Trueman here. There are a few interesting things on the site Theologian.
Systematic/Biblical Theology
 |
| Elliott & Fry, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons |
We had a nice lecture from Dr Ian Densham today at the Westminster Fellowship. Among other good things was this quote from T C Hammond's In understanding be men
"A gifted preacher of over a century ago, Dr Thomas Guthrie, drew attention to the difference between dogmatic and biblical theology. He compared biblical theology to the profusion of nature in which the various plants and flowers are scatted with a bountiful hand 'in ordered disorder'. He compared dogmatic theology to the botanical garden where plants and lowers are gathered together and arranged according to species. The former is pleasing to the eye. The latter is suited for that closer study which opens up the secrets of nature."
Sola Scriptura
Sola Scriptura is the name of a Reformed Baptist Blog organised by Micheal Haykin, Fred Zaspel and others. I have been invited to contribute and the first of these can be found here. You will find the other articles interesting and stimualiting too, I'm sure.
Chief Paul Achimugu
It was my privilege last Saturday to be at a memorial service for a Nigerian friend, Chief Dr Paul S Achimugu, who died back in February at the age of 66.
An early press release announced his death this way
Dr. Paul Achimugu, a leading Kaduna-based businessman died yesterday in London. He was 66 years old.
Achimugu was the chairman of the board of a number of business organisations, including the defunct Eagle Bank Ltd.; Arewa Textiles; Zaria Industries, and Arewa Cotton and Allied Company Limited.
According to family sources, the late businessman had been receiving medication in a London hospital over a protracted illness before he was transferred to his residence in the British capital city, where he breathed his last in the early hours of yesterday.
A scion of the late Chief Peter Achimugu, a minister in the Northern Regional Government of Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, Dr Paul Achimugu was born on December 10, 1944 in Idah in the present Kogi State.
He had a distinguished career in the civil service before he went into business following his retirement.
Dr Achimugu is survived by his wife, 9 children and several grandchildren.
Arrangements for his burial will be announced by his family soon.
With others, I was asked to pay tribute. This is what I wrote:
2 Samuel 1:19 Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights. How the mighty have fallen!
It was my privilege to have known Paul Achimugu for a period of over 25 years, indeed from the time I began as pastor at Childs Hill Baptist Church in 1983. I want to acknowledge here his respect for and love to me as a younger man than himself and occasional acts of kindness that I am still grateful for.
At first, I was unaware of his prestige back home in Nigeria and his many achievements. In some ways I was at an advantage in that, getting to know and admire the man before I was fully aware of his honours and successes. It was only as the years went by that I began to be aware of his significance as a chief and in the world of business and with the YMCA.
Most of what I learned about his achievements came from others. Not that Mr Achimugu tried to hide his life in any way. He was quite happy to explain to an ignoramus like me what a cotton gin was or to laugh with me regarding the novelty that his skin colour was for the Japanese. I remember asking him too about the Qua Iboe Church's Peter Achimugu College of Theology and his simply saying, with no trace of pride, “it was named for my late father”.
I last saw him shortly before the Lord took him and he was full of Scripture. All those verses he had stored away, especially as a young man, were now rising to the surface, as it were, and what comfort they were to him. I cherish the memory of a man at death's door, yet being sustained by the Word of God.
I also remember the dignified and God-centred way he conducted himself at the time of Timothy's tragic death. What a model of dignity and of submission. He was determined to look to the Lord. His whole conduct seemed to say with Job “shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
These examples from the end of his life are consistent with all that I saw in Mr Achimugu in the previous years of happiness and sadness, good times and bad.
The verse I have quoted above from 2 Samuel refers, of course, to the deaths of King Saul and his son Jonathan. They were “the chief ornament and pride of Israel” just as, in many ways, Paul and Timothy were “the chief ornament and pride of the Achimugu family”. It is right then that we mourn and grieve. However, it is right too that we look to God with hope. The same God who sustained them and brought them safe home will sustain us and bring us safe home too, if we look to him. What God gave to Israel following the death of Saul and Jonathan was even greater than what they had known before. Great David's greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is on the throne, and the God who kept Paul and Timothy on earth until he was ready to take them to himself in heaven will keep us too, until his time.
I also spoke briefly making that same point that we should grieve but that we should not grieve without hope.
Crossing the Red Sea
I read the story again today amd watched this. There are some inaccuracies but it gives the feel.
Ignorance
I came across this quotation from Barry Reay's 1985 Popular Culture in Seventeenth Century England in a book I am reading at present. It acts as a warning against idolising the past but is also a reminder of how we are probably in similar times once again. How much gained, how much lost.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century the rector of a parish in Kent found that of four hundred communicants "scarcely 40" had any knowledge about Christ, sin, death and the after life. It was said of men in south Yorkshire and Northumberland that they were totally ignorant of the Bible and did not know the Lord's Prayer. A Yorkshire boy when quizzed by a minister could not say "how many gods there be, nor persons in the godhead, nor who made the world nor anything about Jesus Christ, nor heaven or hell, or eternity after this life, nor for what end he came into the world, nor what condition he was born in". Otherwise he was "a witty boy and could talk of any worldly things skilfully enough". A Lancashire woman when asked about the Jesus Christ mentioned in the Creed, replied "she could not tell, but by our dear Lady it is sure some good thing, or it should never have been put in the Creed, but what it is I cannot tell you". An old man from Cartmel, also in Lancashire, a regular church attender, did not know how many gods there were. When Christ was mentioned by his questioner he said: "I think I heard of that man you spoke of, once in a play at Kendall, called Corpus Christi play, where there was a man on a tree, and blood ran down."
At the beginning of the seventeenth century the rector of a parish in Kent found that of four hundred communicants "scarcely 40" had any knowledge about Christ, sin, death and the after life. It was said of men in south Yorkshire and Northumberland that they were totally ignorant of the Bible and did not know the Lord's Prayer. A Yorkshire boy when quizzed by a minister could not say "how many gods there be, nor persons in the godhead, nor who made the world nor anything about Jesus Christ, nor heaven or hell, or eternity after this life, nor for what end he came into the world, nor what condition he was born in". Otherwise he was "a witty boy and could talk of any worldly things skilfully enough". A Lancashire woman when asked about the Jesus Christ mentioned in the Creed, replied "she could not tell, but by our dear Lady it is sure some good thing, or it should never have been put in the Creed, but what it is I cannot tell you". An old man from Cartmel, also in Lancashire, a regular church attender, did not know how many gods there were. When Christ was mentioned by his questioner he said: "I think I heard of that man you spoke of, once in a play at Kendall, called Corpus Christi play, where there was a man on a tree, and blood ran down."
Gwyl Dewi Sant 04
Okay last one. I haven't mentioned the rugby this six nations as although Wales have won two of three games they haven't been playing at their best. I came across this the other day, though, and thought I might pop it on here. Look out for one of the few B&W sections and an utterly amazing try by the previously mentioned Keith Jarrett.
TTRMOMD 08
Being in St David's Day mode my mind has gone back to St David's Day as a child in Junior School, when it was always a half day at school (we'd spend the morning drawing something Welsh - a leek or a daffodil - the girls would wear traditional clothes with black top hats you could buy from local shops). We'd also get a half day if there was a rugby game on (my dad was a soccer man and would sometimes moan that they didn't do that for soccer). Anyway on the afternoon of December 6, 1967 (I was 8) my dad took me to Rodney Parade in Newport to watch Monmouthshire play the touring New Zealanders (who only lost one game that tour). The great Keith Jarrett (not the jazz pianist) whose career was tragically cut short by strokes when only 25, was playing, and Monmouthshire did well thanks to his kicking, eventually losing 23-12. All I remember is Jarrett kicking a lot of goals and that they wore black shorts. It might have been the only rugby game my dad took me to (not sure how he had time off work).
Gwyl Dewi Sant 03
The other thing I thought I might put down here on this St David's Day was a little bit about Afon Leri (the Eleri River), the interest being that my wife's name is drawn from it.
Mae hen delynau yn y gwynt
Am ddyddiau gynt yn canu
A llif Eleri yn y glyn
A’r niwl yn dynn amdani
[The wind like harps singing Of times that have gone And Eleri’s waters flowing Through the mists of the glen]
The valley of the river Leri (as it is named on maps) or Eleri, as those who know her call her, begins on the western edge of the Cambrian Mountains where the river waters fall from a lake into the narrow gorge of Craig y Pistyll. They run for twenty miles or so to reach the sea through the salt marsh between Borth Bog (Cors Fochno) and the sand dunes of Ynys-Las. In spite of the natural settings of both her source and her estuary, both are engineered places. At the end of the lake where the waters fall into the gorge there is a dam to regulate the flow down to the water pumping station on the nearest road in the
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)