Isaiah 55:11
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it
Gen 1:3
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light
Matthew 26:26
And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body."
Malachi 1:11
My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations," says the LORD Almighty.
John 20:23
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.
James 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
James 2:14
What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
Luke 20:38
For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.
Rev 21:27
Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.
1 Cor 3:15
If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
Psalm 51:5
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.
John 3:5
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Titus 3:5
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
1 Timothy 3:15
but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
Acts 22:16
And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.
Here at CAS, we have started an non-credit Arabic language class at the local university. The two lessons this week have focused on the Arabic alphabet, which while confusing to most Americans, actually makes good sense when one considers that the Arabic alphabet was designed to be written in "cursive" script and not printed or type set.
Our first language introduced us to the complete Arabic alphabet which consists of 28 "consonants". Like Hebrew and other semitic languages, the are no "vowels" in the traditional Arabic alphabet, but there are some marks that can be used to indicate particular vowel sounds.
Our second class focused on the first four letters of the Arabic alphabet and included instruction on how to write the letters depending on the letter's location in a word. Similar to the English upper- and lower-case letters, letters in the Arabic alphabet are written differently depending on if the letters starts, ends, or appears in the middle of a word. Just to make the Arabic alphabet interesting, some letters don't have a "middle" and therefore don't connect to the following letter as in English cursive writing.
This is not our first introduction to Arabicand its alphabet. We previously lived among the peoples of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for most of a year. While we never got the hang of the Arabic alphabet during our stay, due to the large English speaking communities in both countries, we did gain much insight into Arabic and Islamic culture.
Our instructor is a young Palestinian man from Gaza and a Muslim. His immediate family came through the recent Israel military operation unharmed, but he has several cousins that suffered some injuries. Among these is a young child who had glass blown into their face and badly cut. Please join us in prayer for the healing of his loved ones.
Hopefully, our mastering the Arabic alphabet will lead to us mastering enough Arabic to read and cite from the Koran in our apologetics ministry. We doubt we'll ever have the Arabic and apologetic skills of Father Zakaria Boutros. But, we have a good benchmark!
While one often reads much criticism of the Vatican for being stuck in the Dark Ages, the Vatican is definitely well into the 21st Century in regards to technology. Catholics and others can now watch Pope Benedict XVI on YouTube via The Vatican channel.
The channel is difficult to locate for new YouTube users. Searching for "Vatican channel" locates dozens of non-official homemade videos, some pro-Vatican and others anti-Vatican. Clicking the Channels link at the top of the page switches the results to a list of matching channels. The Vatican channel is at the top of these results.
The Vatican channel and uploaded videos are available in four languages: English, Italian, German, and Spanish. According to the statistics, the channel has been in existence since November 21, 2005. We suspect the channel was kept private until its recent announcement. In the short time the channel has been public, The Vatican has accumulated 6,052 subscribers and 197,825 views.
The appearance of The Vatican channel on YouTube is not without detractors. YouTube user freedomanddemocracy was less than thrilled. In his video Pope Benedict XVI - Vatican YouTube New Channel? - The fast path to Atheism, freedomanddemocracy complains; "is it too much to ask for a little space?" It may be a simple case of jealousy as freedomanddemocracy video has been viewed a scant 885 times, while most of the Vatican videos have counts over 10,000. As rants go, we'd rate freedomanddemocracy an 8, largely for use of phrases like "the tentacles will spread all over" and "the fake sense of love." Your results may vary.
Always interesting to see the reaction to the light of God being shined in previously dark places.
The Anchoress brought to her readers attention a YouTube clip by avowed atheist Penn Jillette. Its seems that after one of his shows someone handed him a Gideon Bible or New Testament. In the video, Penn is clearly emotional as he describes the event. Penn, the brilliant man that he is, says something extremely succint and profound, that one expects only from the likes of a G.K. Chesterton:
"How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible, and not tell them that?"
Let that sink in for a moment. An atheist is asking how much Christians have to hate non-Christians to deliberately not tell them the gospel. Penn's reaction is similar to one that a gay Jewish friend once had. My friend was so touched that I loved him enough to be concerned about his salvation. I provided books and patiently answered his many questions over a period of years. He now considers himself to be a Hebrew Christian, much like the early Jewish converts.
Its a short video. Penn remains an atheist, but you can see that the seed has been firmly planted and awaits the nurturing of the Holy Spirit.
"Always be prepared to make a defense of anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence." 1Peter 3:15
UPDATE
My critique of the video doesn't seem to be too far off-base. Baptist Ed Stetzer of Lifeway Research posted the video. Among the 35 comments was one about the "seed being planted".
Chris Rosebrough over at Extreme Theology recently posted a short video featuring Julia Duin of the Washington Times discussing her new book, Quitting Church: Why the Faithful are Fleeing and What to Do about It. Julia cites George Barna as saying that about one million people drop out of church each year. Julia goes on to list several reasons why people are leaving churches. The video is just under three minutes.
In the video, Duin cites her forthcoming article. You can read her article, Why even the pious are leaving, in the Sunday, September 21, 2008 edition of The Washington Times.
We encourage everyone to watch this short three and a half minute video produced for Catholic voters. The video is actually non-denominational and does not contradict any Christian doctrine that we are aware of. The video depicts candidates of both major U.S. political parties and neither supports nor derides either. Other than four brief depictions of the word "Catholic", the video could have been made by any Christian congregation and targeted to any Christian congregation.
This is likely the best Christian outreach video of this political season. Thank you Arlington Countryside Church for bringing it to our attention.
Pretty incredible, huh? Please tell others and help spread "the Word". Embed this video on your own blog or church website. This video ought to run night and day as a continuous infomercial on its own cable or satellite channel.
UPDATE
It seems Michael Spencer, the Internet Monk himself, has found this video and has posted it on his blog as well. Ditto for the Anchoress. As of this moment the video has been seen 2,116,821 times. Your vote and your actions in the few remaining days can effect history. Make a difference. Vote your conscience. Spread the word and pray.
Stand Firm, a favorite Anglican blog, posted the following YouTube video showing pro-abortion protestors harassing and provoking pro-life Christians preaching the gosplel by their witness of peaceful and unceasing prayer.
One of the most surreal moments comes midway when the pro-abortion protestors begin chanting "Killers! Killers! Killers!" at the peaceful pro-life counterprotest group. One cannot begin to fathom what logic went in to deciding that pro-life Christians are "killers."
Also, burning the pro-life banner and throwing the glass bottle are sure fire methods of losing the moral high ground.
Stand Firm, one of three Anglican blogs we read regularly, pointed readers to an interesting YouTube video featuring Behold The Lamb of God singing the "begats" from the Gospel of Matthew. In light of recent interest on memorizing scripture, the BTLG video seems a good match to CAS readers' interests.
Take just over two-minutes and watch a simple song that you can use to memorize the genealogy of Christ from Matthew:
To the Muslim apologist who searched on "answering Zakaria Botros", I can only say: "Good luck with that! Inshallah." Like John Corapi, Zakaria Botros seems to have been given the rare charisma of apostolic preaching. That's pretty much a no win situation for the Muslim debating Zakaria.
A good many video clips of Zakaria Botros and the Islamic apologists attempting to answer Zakaria have been appearing on YouTube. Most of the clips are video captures from Arabic television stations. Very few clips are in English. Here's a good Zakaria Botros video for first timers that has been overdubbed in English.
Again, note that Zakaria does not waste time and energy arguing about Moon gods or false gods, but goes straight for the many inconvenient, and often embarassing, truths that have developed in Islam over the 1300 years since Mohammed. If you as a Christian seek to engage Islam, you need to spend time reading and studying Zakaria Botros.
As CAS reported earlier, Zakaria Botros has a website and makes available many of his apologetics resources in English for those Christian apologists engaging Islam. Forget the feable "Moon god" and "false god" arguements and go learn some of Zakaria's hard hitting lines of questioning that are causing much grief among Islamic apologists. So much so that our Coptic brothers and sisters in Christ are bearing physical abuse for the sake of the Gospel. Please keep Zakaria Botros and our Coptic brothers and sisters in Christ in your prayers.
Here's an interesting video from a Catholic priest who baptises by immersion. "Father Geek" describes in a YourTube video how their church's immersion pool is constructed and setup. Later, several immersion baptisms using the pool are shown.
I don't know if you caught it, but the converts are immersed not once, but three times. This is in keeping with the early NT church's teaching on how to baptise as described in The Didache and in later ante-Nicene letters.
And concerning baptism, thus baptize ye: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if you have not living water, baptize into other water; and if you can not in cold, in warm. But if you have not either, pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the baptized, and whatever others can; but you shall order the baptized to fast one or two days before. The Didache
"And each of you was asked, whether he believed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and ye made that saving confession, and descended three times into the water, and ascended again; here also hinting by a symbol at the three days burial of Christ." Cyril of Jerusalem, Of Baptism
Also, by using a pump, the baptisms were able to be conducted in "living water" as instructed by our early Christian forefathers.
Thanks to the Anglican blog Stand Firm, I was made aware of a very good video that effectively demonstrates how we treat the "pie" that God has gifted to us. Please watch and tell others.
