Unbeknown Paedobaptist

I have just started reading a modernized abridgement of a Puritan Classic.
Here are two quotes from the first chapter. See if you can guess who wrote the Puritan Classic of which I am reading a modernized abridgement as well as the title of the classic.
1.

In a word - God, angels and the saints already with the Lord are spectators, watching how you conduct yourself as a child of the most high. This crowd of witnesses shouts joyfully from the celestial sidelines every time you defeat a temptation, scale a difficulty, or regain lost ground from your enemies. And if the fight should be too much for you, your dear saviour stands by with reserves for your relief at a moments notice.

2.

The strength of an earthly general lies in his troops - he flies upon their wings. If their feathers get clipped or their necks broken he is helpless. But in the army of saints, the strength of the whole host lies in the Lord of Hosts. God can overcome His enemies without help from anyone, but His saints cannot so much as defend the smallest outpost without His strong arm.

Both quite encouraging quotes even if you can't guess the author.
There we go, three posts in an evening. Must be a record for me...
Have a good weekend.

Cricket quite rightly has been in the limelight in recent times and it is with that that I will start.
Nasser Hussains retirement came as a shock to me. I, like the rest of the country expected him to go on to play in his 100th test and certainly would have been happy to keep him in the team. Never mind. The memory of his inspired 207 against Australia at Edgbaston in 1997 (when I was 10 years old) still remains. One of the best innings I have seen along with Chris Cairns innings of 82 from 47 balls in New Zealands first innings. It probably wasn't the best ever but to get that in that short length of time was impressive.
Michael Vaughan has now passed his fitness test and will join the England squad on Monday. He quite clearly is the best batsman England have at this moment in time, his fabulous 2002 in which he was top test batsman anywhere springs to mind. However, as captain he has a lot of pressure and to relieve the pressure I would put him lower down the order. Robert Key is also having an amazing period for his county which gives me my chance to get rid of either Trescothick or Butcher. In my opinion the team and batting order should be.
1. Strauss
2. Trescothick
3. Vaughan
4. Thorpe
5. Key
6. Flintoff (absolute legend)
7. Jones
8. Clarke
9. Jones
10. Harmison
11. Anderson
I guess thats pretty much the same as Thoms team but there we go. Interesting to note that New Zealands bowler (Chris?) Martin takes over three wickets per run he scores. Now there is a rubbish batter or a good bowler(quite possibly the former)
Now onto Tennis. It may suprise you that Henman (our only hope ever in Tennis for a long time past and for a while to come) is ranked 7th or 9th in the world whichever thing you want to choose. He is making strides in the French Open, reaching the 4th round for the first time ever where he is seeded 9th. The players who are seeded higher than him and have fallen are Andre Aggasi (6), Andy Roddick (2), Juan Carlos Ferrero (4) and Rainer Schuettler (7). 10 of the top 16 seeds have been knocked out or have withdrawn so we see a chance. Sebastien Grojean the silly little Frenchman who beat Henman at Wimbledon last year is out too, something all of us can be happy about - a Frenchman not doing well in a sport. Lets not forget that Henman did not too long ago storm past Roddick and Federer to reach some kind of a final. Thats pretty good going. Oh well, lets not get our hopes up.
I also have got tickets for the first thursday at Wimbledon on court number 1. Hope none of you are jealous...
Football, taking a back seat. I watched the champions league final and was very impressed with Deco and the altogether togetherness of the Porto team... Thats it for that.
Just before I close out a long post I will tell you that I feel an improvement in my golf coming on with 3 300 yard drives in a row!!!
Goodbye

Well, a first full week of GCSE examinations have been and gone and they have been ok.
PE on monday was the most poorly written exam I have ever sat. I took Saturday off to revise my butt off as the saying goes and then walked into an exam which the ordinary person on the street could have sat with ease. Having said that I hope I do well. I found myself using Rugby as an example of a game a lot of times and generally referring to anyone involved in sport as "he" or "him". Just hope I don't get one of those loony, feminists examiners marking my paper. I did write a sentence or two on Hockey to be fair.
German Reading on tuesday. This is my worst subject.
Finally, English Literature today. 45 minutes spent on a question on the wonderful book that is "Lord of the Flies". The question asked me to write about what I found terrifying and haunting in the novel. Pretty tough to answer when it is clearly a light hearted read which didn't haunt me at all.
Then I had to answer a question on poetry for an hour which was far too long a time. Found myself waffling after 30 minutes spent on the question.
Never mind, a week off now which I am thoroughly looking forward to. Hope everyone else enjoy themselves.

It's been a while since I last posted and I have an unbelievable lack of inspiration. So whats new. At least other people write interesting blogs. Go and enjoy theirs.
I was reading Thoms blog talking about revision and I completely agree. I struggle going over things that I've already learnt. The problem being for me is that I never really learnt anything in the first place so have to do it frantically the night before. Never mind though as in a few weeks time it will be all done and dusted until the next time next year.
I was watching the cricket against New Zealand over the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. Andrew Strauss had two great innings with Nasser Hussain playing remarkably well. Steve Harmison also had a great test taking eight wickets. To be honest, if I were the selectors having decide who to drop for Michael Vaughan I would say Mark Butcher who only made 32 runs in two innings and didn't do too much fielding. That would mean Vaughan who is an experienced batsman could be put at no. 3 leaving Strauss as opening bowler. But then again, I'm no pro cricketer so I'm probably wrong.
Hope you are all enjoying the sun and living life to the full.
English Literature exam tomorrow involving Lord of the Flies and Pre and post 1914 poetry. Should be fun. At leasts= its followed with a round of golf and half term...

I was thinking earlier on today (my first day of study leave) what place (if any) the 10 commandments have in society today. I ended up thinking how society is behaving in a way totally opposite to the commandments of God. They could almost be put this way...

1. Have any God you wish, just don't impose him on anyone else, and make sure it's not the true God of Christians.
2. Make idols for yourself. Human idols can be great role models and deserve the attention. Being superstitious and having things that you trust is fine as long as you feel good.
3. Swear as often as you like. It's good to let your feelings run free, everyone else does. Anyway, there's no God to offend.
4. Use every day as you wish and make Sunday just like any other day, for we did evolve from monkeys and we don't see them keeping a day special.
5. Honour your children, even if they rebel against you and wreck property. Don't smack them, that's physical abuse. Don't tell them off, that's psychological abuse. Don't ground them, that's under age imprisonment. Don't withdraw privaledges from them, that's stealing.
6. Don't kill those who are "normal", but those who are unborn or getting too old have no say in the matter of life or death.
7. Have sex as often as possible with as many people as possible. It's great to get these kind of experiences... After all, life's short. We will respect you even more if you have homosexual relationships, because its another step in the evolution process.
8. Don't steal from those who have less than you, but richer people can always afford to make it up. Why give money to the work of God? Why fill in tax returns properly? Why tell people if you are given the wrong change? Stealing gives you the buzz.
9. Why get in un-necessary trouble when you could lie your way out of it? People shouldn't be so nosey...
10. Covet more and more, its good to have things to aim at.

that's the impression I get. If you disagree I guess you can tell me and complain.

German Listening tomorrow and the final day of school. What a way to go out.

Just thinking...
Why does the bible even mention leah had weak eyes?
Can anything be drawn from that?
Have a good week, enjoy the sun, enjoy the smell of summer, spend less time indoors on blogspots and don't sweat too much.
Bye.

"Master," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us."
"Do not stop him," Jesus said, "for whoever is not against you is for you."

I came across these two verses today (Luke 9:49-50) and wondered what to make of them. It seems quite rebuking to me who can very often be very exclusivist and criticise people who do things in a slightly different way to what I would see as the ideal.
So, although we should avoid pluralism like the plague it's still a good idea not to go too far the other way and become extreme exclusivists... maybe?
You coul also argue for the Passion being good (i'm not i said you could) using that principle.
Just a random thought.

I always thought the BBC had their heads screwed on...

The second story - or rather storey - is missing: that of the immortal Gods above, presiding capriciously over the humans' fates and disputing among themselves. Their presence is entirely excised, perhaps on the grounds that yet more snowy-haired Brit actors, wandering round up to their ankles in dry ice carrying thunderbolts, would undermine the sweaty, ardent seriousness of Brad, Orlando et al down below. But there is a case for cutting the humans and just making it their story: The Passion of the Zeus, performed entirely in ancient Greek.

The article from the guardian seems to be poking fun at "The Passion" but maybe the part at the end shows the state of society. To them what difference is there between Zeus and Christ? It's a shame really that peoples attitudes can be like that.

Guess the Christian...

And also, apparently the second last post I made wasn't my 55th although yesterday it definately was. This one is my 66th (the number of books in the bible)

Another week goes by and it seems the land of blog is coming to a halt. Jon and Thom keep plodding along fairly successfully while others (including myself) fall by the wayside. Well, I enjoy reading the thoughts of two cleverer than I's so I can't complain. It's been so long for me that this is my first viewing of the new and most definately improved blogger layout. It's been so long since Iconoblog posted that the front page bears nothing.
Admittedly GCSEs are closing in and revision is kicking in and also I am trying to spend less time by a computer screen...
Jon passed his 111th post. The previous post on this site was another palindromic number.... 55th post. So I've fallen behind a lot obviously a sign that Jon has more interesting stuff floating around in that grey matter which I require more and more of. I have no interesting facts about the number 55. I guess one could say 111 (the milestone Jon passed) minus 55 (the milestone I passed) add 10 equals 66 which is the number of books in the Bible which is the best selling book in the world. Jons blog is the best read blog in the world so erm theres a tenuous link for you. (Sorry)
This is actually an interesting fact. The blockbuster film Troy soon to be on general release looks good. Brad Pitt plays Achilles, a mans man. Hero of heros. Well, Brad Pitt aparently had to have a stunt double for his legs because his legs don't look manly enough... and he's a heart throb?!?
On a slightly more serious note. I was listening to some Christian Rock music earlier today by Newsboys. The song breakfast contains the lyrics...

When the toast is burned,
And all the milk has turned
And cap'n crunch is wavin' farewell.
When the big one finds you
May this song remind you
That they don't serve breakfast, in hell

I was thinking. This is the most serious message to be drawn from this song. It gives the impression of Hell being both weak and nothing to worry about. Surely they should approach such a terrifying subject with a little more respect? I don't know, just a thought.
Well, have a good weekend and keep posted for more thoughts (I hope). If not, "peace out A-Town down"...

I AM 46% EMO! Hmm.. I should stop listening to Dashboard Confessional.... enough said... Now that I stopped looking at my shoes, I know how the real world looks. Take the EMO test at Fuali.com

I must apologise for my laziness in posting. I must admit that I thought about it a few times but then ventured onto the Michael Jackson game (probably not the most appropriate game to be playing) so there is the lame and feeble excuse.
Have had an incredibly busy week just past. The strain of looing GCSEs seems to be hitting home (mainly stressing my Dad out). That means revision attempts. I managed to write a timetable... but thats about as far as it went.

The school was steadily progressing through the rounds of the district cup. I have the joys of being a substitute for this team but might as well be the water boy. On tuesday, we travelled to a school 30 mins away to play in the semi final. My school were rubbish but managed to edge the game in extra time.
What peeved me most during that game was the fact our only remaining striker (the other one having been sent off) getting cramp and became useless. I am OK in that position (mainly due to the fact it requires short bursts of speed and little else) and could have been brought on. My friend challenged the manager to bring me on in this guys place. The response? "We only have 5 minutes left I can't risk it". They did not look like they could score if we let them and he thinks me coming on will affect that? Was I going to take on both teams and score an own goal?
That meant I didn't play and got home at 7 o'clock. The final which we won was on thursday. Again I didn't play and this time got home at half past eight.
Apart from those adventures the week was fairly enjoyable.

Yesterday was good. In a new church building in the morning having been ousted from the previous one. This wasn't that great but had a good sermon to make up for it. In the evening we travelled down to Welwyn, where we lived for a while 11 years ago. Met some old faces which was nice although some didn’t recognise me at all but I don’t blame them.
An illustration in the sermon last night struck me. Discussing Pauls words in Colossians 1:28-29 the point was raised that we are not to try half heartedly and let grace fill in the gaps. We must put in all the effort we can in. The effort will be ours but the energy will be all Gods. Quite a comforting thought as well as challenging.

There we go. A few random thoughts not very well linked or anything. But I am posting at a rush and have very little inspiration in me.