Good day dear friends.
Please keep Jim Scarborough in your prayers. Doctors have discovered he has prostate cancer and he asks for our prayers in determining his treatment and all that is before him. He also asks prayers for his wife, Jane, as she stands beside him during this time. May the Lord bring him complete healing!
Here is today's study guide. The Scriptures will follow a devotional thought:
Monday: Hosea 4, 5, 6Outline the people’s case, and God’s answers, in Hosea 6.
Last week I shared a devotional based on training up a child, etc. And this past weekend while driving in Austin I saw a "typical" Austin car, the kind with more bumper stickers than you can count, let alone read. Well, one of them jumped out at me for it read: National Atheist's Day, November 4th. I shared that thought with the congregation in our Contemporary service and one gentleman asked, "Are they still around?" I said I would not ask for a show of hands and my thought that atheists were not liked because since they don't have to go to church they're always first in line at Luby's. Well, I came home and wondered what information I could find about this national day for nonbelievers and Google revealed that the "real" day for atheists is April 1st, because "the fool says in his/her heart there is no god" and realized that that was not very nice nor true. But I found nothing on any celebrations or anything closely related to a national atheist day. But when I opened the NY Times Sunday magazine I found an interesting article on Antony Flew, a noted British philosopher, who at the age of 27 read a paper he had written called "Theology and Falsification." He read this paper at C. S. Lewis' Socratic Club and from that date in 1950 til the recent few years was noted for being a nonbeliever. He wrote several books that became the intellectual standards for atheists. All from the mind and hand of the son of a Methodist minister, who decided during his teens that he would rebel against dad by becoming a nonbeliever.
It turns out that a new book is coming out called "There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind." This book is co-authored by Roy Abraham Varghese, a noted Christian apologist. It seems now Flew is convinced that there can be scientific proof for explaining God. Flew was changed from nonbeliever to believer by seeing that the "fine tuning" of the laws of nature are too perfect to have been the result of an accident as well as the "intelligent design" argument that human biology cannot be explained by evolution to various computations mean to show that probability favors a devine creator. Some believe that "There is a God" is perhaps the handiest primer shared with society on the science of religious belief.
Nellie and I discussed the article and wondered how Antony Flew, now 81, and his father ended their life. Did "Tony" and Dad have a discussion prior to the parson's death about faith and the lack thereof? Was there forgiveness needed to be shared by either person and if so, was it shared? The article goes on to say that Tony won't be singing in any church's choir for he still rejects Christianity and the God of the Jews, Muslims, and Christians. He doesn't accept Jesus as God, etc., but to have come this far in his journey still is a victory, in a sense, for believers. And certainly a reinforcement of that verse that does say, "Train up a child in the way he or she should go, and when he/she is old s/he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6 (Revised Standard Version)
PRAYER: Living God, we thank You for this day. I pray that as the day progresses I would show through my words, actions and thoughts to those around me the faith that I have in You. I especially pray for the "little ones" in my life that need my witness. Make my faith stronger, for I ask this in Jesus' Name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
e.v.
Please keep Jim Scarborough in your prayers. Doctors have discovered he has prostate cancer and he asks for our prayers in determining his treatment and all that is before him. He also asks prayers for his wife, Jane, as she stands beside him during this time. May the Lord bring him complete healing!
Here is today's study guide. The Scriptures will follow a devotional thought:
Monday: Hosea 4, 5, 6Outline the people’s case, and God’s answers, in Hosea 6.
Last week I shared a devotional based on training up a child, etc. And this past weekend while driving in Austin I saw a "typical" Austin car, the kind with more bumper stickers than you can count, let alone read. Well, one of them jumped out at me for it read: National Atheist's Day, November 4th. I shared that thought with the congregation in our Contemporary service and one gentleman asked, "Are they still around?" I said I would not ask for a show of hands and my thought that atheists were not liked because since they don't have to go to church they're always first in line at Luby's. Well, I came home and wondered what information I could find about this national day for nonbelievers and Google revealed that the "real" day for atheists is April 1st, because "the fool says in his/her heart there is no god" and realized that that was not very nice nor true. But I found nothing on any celebrations or anything closely related to a national atheist day. But when I opened the NY Times Sunday magazine I found an interesting article on Antony Flew, a noted British philosopher, who at the age of 27 read a paper he had written called "Theology and Falsification." He read this paper at C. S. Lewis' Socratic Club and from that date in 1950 til the recent few years was noted for being a nonbeliever. He wrote several books that became the intellectual standards for atheists. All from the mind and hand of the son of a Methodist minister, who decided during his teens that he would rebel against dad by becoming a nonbeliever.
It turns out that a new book is coming out called "There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind." This book is co-authored by Roy Abraham Varghese, a noted Christian apologist. It seems now Flew is convinced that there can be scientific proof for explaining God. Flew was changed from nonbeliever to believer by seeing that the "fine tuning" of the laws of nature are too perfect to have been the result of an accident as well as the "intelligent design" argument that human biology cannot be explained by evolution to various computations mean to show that probability favors a devine creator. Some believe that "There is a God" is perhaps the handiest primer shared with society on the science of religious belief.
Nellie and I discussed the article and wondered how Antony Flew, now 81, and his father ended their life. Did "Tony" and Dad have a discussion prior to the parson's death about faith and the lack thereof? Was there forgiveness needed to be shared by either person and if so, was it shared? The article goes on to say that Tony won't be singing in any church's choir for he still rejects Christianity and the God of the Jews, Muslims, and Christians. He doesn't accept Jesus as God, etc., but to have come this far in his journey still is a victory, in a sense, for believers. And certainly a reinforcement of that verse that does say, "Train up a child in the way he or she should go, and when he/she is old s/he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6 (Revised Standard Version)
PRAYER: Living God, we thank You for this day. I pray that as the day progresses I would show through my words, actions and thoughts to those around me the faith that I have in You. I especially pray for the "little ones" in my life that need my witness. Make my faith stronger, for I ask this in Jesus' Name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
e.v.
