Our man in Japan

Sick at home.. Matthew 8:6 Lotsa Christmas songs portray idealized family Christmases where money 💰 is never a problem and 🌰 chestnuts are roasting, etc. Meanwhile, thank God, there are a few Christmas songs that reflect more dysfunctional arrangements. Fairytale of New York by the great London Irish band the Pogues has always been a favourite of mine. If we put our faith in food, 🍰 cake, or one particular significant other at Christmastime we are likely to be disappointed if that Person is not Jesus Christ Himself, who never lets us down. 

Don't immerse yourself in a life of pleasure, drunkenness & worldly cares.. Luke 21:34 Are you drinking more after the pandemic, or less? If more, it is time to realize that this is not a good way of dealing with stress. There are much better ways, & reading the Bible is one of them. 

Sun & moon, praise & exalt him forever.  Daniel 3:62 I'm not sure the people of Kyushu realize how blessed they are to have such glorious sunny days with such blue skies & glorious red leaves this time of year. As a Londoner, used to cold, rain & fog this time of year I certainly appreciate it. But God does 99% of the work, & the Buddhists try to steal all of the credit. 

A mouth that uttered insolent words.  Daniel 7:8 So I've been reading Virginia Woolf. Watched 2 movies about her life, & her books. While she is hailed as a great British modernist, and a pioneering feminist literary critic, I find her unrelenting negativity towards all things Christian far too cynical. She claimed her step brother abused her, so I think we need to cut her some slack, & it certainly helps explain her burning anger towards the patriarchy. But her secular views brought her no lasting happiness, and despite the claims of Wikipedia her lesbian love affairs clearly brought no long term healing: she took her own life. As Jesus Himself said: Blessed are the meek. 

How hard it will be for pregnant women, & for mothers with babies at the breast!  Luke 21:23 No one is saying it is easy to be a woman in 2021, especially in places like Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia or North Korea. However, getting surgery to pretend you are a man is never the right answer. Nor is killing your own child. 

Young men & maidens, old & young together- let them praise the name of the Lord. Psalm. 148:12-13 So I turned 52, & I sure am feeling it. Aches & pains. Ain't no spring chicken 🐔 anymore. But this is a youngish city, probably the youngest average age on the whole island of Kyushu. Maybe I need to get a job in the sticks, way out in the mountains somewhere where I'll be the only man under 80? Then again I'd miss the bookshops. 

Those who are holy & humble of heart, praise & exalt him for ever.  Daniel 3:87 One angry man has just nearly ruined a whole town's Christmas. I think we need to face the fact that every person with a car is a potential terrorist. Which is why we all need to recognize the importance of working on ourselves, working on our own anger & pride, & looking upward. Daniel chapter 3 in the Catholic Bible is a good place to start. There's a huge long list of things to be thankful for. 

To these 4 youths God gave wisdom & proficiency in literature.. Daniel 1:17  Heart of what slave poured out such melody As "Steal away to Jesus"? On its strains His spirit must have nightly floated free Though still about his hands he felt his chains. Who heard great "Jordon roll"? Whose starward eye Saw chariot "swing low"? And who was he That breathed that comforting, melodic sigh, "Nobody Knows de Trouble I see"? From "O Black & Unknown Bards", James Weldon Johnson, 1917.   

Dominion, honour & kingship were given him.. Daniel 7:14 Jesus is King of the universe! 

God is God of the living, & not of the dead, for to him everyone is alive.  St Luke 20:38 This is wonderful news. Think about it. 

Recognize the time & visitation of your God.  Luke 19:44 All true Christians understand that the only God visited the Earth in Jesus Christ. 

As for my enemies who did not want me to be their king, bring them in, & execute them right here in front of me. Luke 19:27 Atheists often misquote this verse out of context, to try to make Jesus look violent, but actually this is the end of a parable He told. It is however a strong warning to those who are foolish enough to think their Creator has no claim on their lives. 

He rescues me from violent people.. Psalm 18:49 Thank God for the taxi 🚕 driver, David Perry, who locked the Syrian in his cab in Liverpool. His wife is describing as a "miracle" how he escaped with minor injuries. It seems like the bomb maker may have been aiming to blow up the Anglican Cathedral originally. 

The wicked lie in wait to destroy me.. Psalm 119:95 One person was murdered today by Islamic terrorists in Liverpool. A bomb in a taxi went off outside a Women's Hospital. I used to live just down the road from there. 

Later on in those days, after that disasterous time, the sun will grow dark.. Mark 13:24 Only our God, the God of the Christians, the Lord Jesus Christ, can turn a star off like we puny humans can turn off a lightbulb. 

Whose hearts he turned to hate his people.. Psalm 105:25 Many Japanese buy into this idea that the Christians who first came to Japan 500 years ago or so were full of nefarious schemes to take over the country. This is not history. It is a ridiculously biased one sided anti-Christian view of history. If you actually look into the true events of the period, instead of just accepting the biased Japanese nationalist view of events which tends to be taught in Japanese state schools, you will find the Christians were more sinned against than sinning. 

Light gives way to night, but evil cannot prevail against Wisdom. Wisdom 7:30 In the short term sometimes evil seems to prevail, but never in the long term. 

A king is not saved by a powerful army.. Psalm 33:16 Hitler built a war machine that took over most of Europe, but like Napoleon he made the mistake of invading Russia. Kishida seems to think that building up the SDF will protect Japan from Chinese aggression. But he still trusts in the same Shinto false gods that lost the last war. 🤔😬😞

Actually, Jesus was referring to the temple of his body. John 2:21 There are too many Buddhist temples in Japan. We don't need them. Even my wife agrees with that, & she's a Buddhist! 

Wisdom is a spirit, a friend to man, & will not leave the blasphemous unpunished, because God knows his innermost feelings, truly sees his thoughts & hears what he says.. Wisdom 1:6 So yesterday my wife was watching Japanese TV, & I was sorting some food out in the kitchen, & I happened to see a noodle ad which ends with the man saying "Oh my God!". Funny ad, right? ☹️ I do not think so, because of verses like the above. Now admittedly, we live in a terrible age for blasphemy, when people, especially atheists, all over the internet are saying wicked & evil untrue things about God. But surely, just using God's Most Holy Name to sell noodles is ok, right? I wouldn't be so sure. The producers of that ad, the actor, & the TV executive that felt it was ok to air are all in trouble, if you ask me, & should probably repent ASAP if they know what is good for them. God is not mocked. There will be consequences. 5 million dead from the WU flu, and yo...

Any plan comes to nothing. Psalm 146:4 When I was a student at Bristol in the early 90s, I met a black South African member of the ANC. He had a heart full of bitterness against whites & all that apartheid had done to his country. Certainly understandable. But in an age where we hear about "White supremacists" and "Black lives matter" every day from the left, it is time to look at the failures & corruption of the ANC over the last 20 years or so, and remember that deeply flawed & evil as apartheid was, economically, South Africa used to be the richest country in Africa. Is that still the case? I read today that in certain matters of infrastructure, Nigeria has now pulled ahead.. The lesson is, we need each other and our complementary strength & weaknesses to build a better world. We need the Bible & we need Jesus. Just saying white bad, black good, is never the answer. Yes, South Africa, you can beat England at cricket & rugby sometimes with ...

They will celebrate your abundant kindness, & rejoice in singing of your justice.. Psalm 145:7 It's that time of year again. It's not even Advent yet, but Mariah C dropped her new Christmas song. And as secular Christmas songs go, it's pretty great, tho maybe not quite as good as her famous: All I want for Christmas.. So much better than the John Lewis Christmas ad, which seems to have a unChristmassy subtext that whites are aliens in their own country.. Would it have killed them to have a angel instead of a UFO? 

The farthest ends of the earth all have seen God's saving power.. Psalm 98:3 Hokkaido is about as far as you can get from here while staying in Japan. Furthest east would be Iceland for me I think. Ireland I have already been to, and I count the islands off the west coast of Ireland as the furthest West I've ever been. In the meantime, I don't even have the cash to travel to Miyazaki, the other end of this island we are on..

There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one repentant sinner, than over 99 decent people.. Luke 15:7 In Japan we see former members of the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia, converting to Christianity. 

He has no fear of evil news.. Psalm 112:7 Waiting to see which way Virginia will go..  And Virginia just told the country what it thinks of Joe Biden. And it wasn't polite. 

The deep world below.. Romans 8:39 (Catholic Pastoral edition) It is All Souls, when Catholics remember those who have died. Now I checked this in the Greek, and it seems that St Paul actually only says "Bathos", depth, so the Anglican translation I have says "nor depth", following the KJV. However, various Protestant translations also expand on the phrase, with the NLT going with "in the earth below". This is important, because the existence of Purgatory remains in dispute between Catholics & Protestants. Where do we go when we die? I'd love to see an Orthodox translation also but I don't have one at hand. As I understand it, while not talking about Purgatory as such, which is a Latinate word, they are sympathetic to the Catholic view, but I can't attempt to summarize their exact theology here. The issue is: is Christ's sacrifice on the cross sufficient to release us from all post death suffering from sin, and get us to heaven straight...

Fortunate are the gentle, they shall possess the land Matthew 5:5 The day after another loony thinks the Joker is cool, and stabs people, Jesus reminds us it is the gentle or meek, as many translations have it, that are worth celebrating.