A summary of what happened to Brazil at the world cup

The Old Testament is the Gospel in bud

...let us beware of under-valuing the Old Testament. There has arisen of late years a most unhappy tendency to slight and despise any religious argument which is drawn from an Old Testament source, and to regard the man who uses it as a dark, benighted, and old-fashioned person. We shall do well to remember that the Old Testament is just as much inspired as the New, and that the religion of both Testaments is in the main, and at the root, one and the same. The Old Testament is the Gospel in the bud; the New Testament is the Gospel in full flower. The Old Testament is the Gospel in the blade: the New Testament is the Gospel in full ear. The Old Testament saints saw many things through a glass darkly: but they looked to the same Christ by faith and were led by the same Spirit as ourselves. Let us, therefore, never listen to those who sneer at Old Testament arguments. Much infidelity begins with an ignorant contempt of the Old Testament.

— J. C. Ryle, Sabbath: A Day to Keep

Proud of my little red babies

Some of the fruit of this year's labours. Don't they look scrumptious? And simply the work of some watering and protecting the strawberries from birds and those wretched slugs! One is proud and God is good:

Praise the Lord, O my soul!

    O Lord my God, you are very great!

You cause the grass to grow for the livestock
    and plants for man to cultivate,
that he may bring forth food from the earth

    and wine to gladden the heart of man,
oil to make his face shine
    and bread to strengthen man's heart.

Psalm 104

To see what is right and not do it is...

...cowardice. It is never a question of who is right but what is right.

— John Buchan (1875-1940)

England fans on their chances of winning the World Cup

Finding rest for your soul, featuring prophet Jeremiah and Bonheffer

Much of the what we know as Western civilisation (a la the first world) is rapidly falling apart. People mistreat one another, husbands cheat on their wives, mothers abandon their families, leaders prey on little children - and that's just in the Church! At the start of his heartbreaking book, Jeremiah rebukes God's people that they have forsaken God the spring of living water and have dug cisterns that cannot hold water. In other words, God's people had turned away from the source of all goodness and life and have tried to replace Him with disappointing, worldly, sham gods - which are no gods at all. Rather than completely abandon them, God offers a way out:

Stand at the crossroads and look;

  ask for the ancient paths,

ask where the good way is, and walk

        in it,

  and you will find rest for your souls

So the way out is to quit faffing, to cease babbling and to stand, to reflect, to pause and to ask for the ancient paths. Rather than keeping busy, immersing ourselves on facebook, twitter and i-tunes or with sex, money and skinny lattes, Jeremiah invites us to stop and consider God and His good and loving ways. Have you stopped and looked at where you are? Have you considered what road you are on and how you got there? If you are not in a good place, then perhaps you need to heed Jeremiah's advice and stop, stand and look. It won't do to keep walking on, in the hope that the future will suddenly turn bright. Bonheffer put this well:

If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction

Or in a slightly different vein, CS Lewis says:

We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

Our culture is very big on progress and many people nowadays (including in the Church) want to be progressive. But, what good is that if you're progressing in the wrong direction? Progress means getting off the wrong road and getting onto the right road. If you've been on the wrong road - avoiding God and His ways - then the best thing you can do for this life and the next, is to stop, look, turn - to turn to Christ and to submit to Him for in Him is life, life in all it's fullness.

When Wright is right: why gay marriage is a non-starter

So much good stuff packed into these 5 minutes...