Our man in Japan

Our heart is wide open.. 2 Corinthians 6:11 Is your heart open to becoming a parent? Are you an adult? Or are you so heartlessly focused on your own pleasure & selfish priorities that you are willing to kill a tiny child through abortion to get what you want? 

..We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.  2 Corinthians 5:20

We must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ.. 2 Corinthians 5:10 It ain't Buddha gonna judge Japan. It ain't Mo gonna judge the Middle East or Iran. It ain't Darwin gonna judge the West. 

Is it oxen God is concerned about?  1 Corinthians 9:9 God is concerned about you & me. 

God is faithful.. 1 Corinthians 1:9 God is faithful, people not so much. 

The thief does not come except to steal, to kill, & destroy. John 10:10 Everyone knows there is a war on in Ukraine because it is never off the news. But did you know there is a war in Mali? Over 200 UN peacekeepers have been killed. Jihadists in the north want independence. But hey, it's only Africans so it almost never makes the news. 

"Whose minds the god of this age has blinded.. " 2 Corinthians 4:4 Richard Gere may be a good actor & God may have blessed him with a beautiful face, but like much of Hollywood he  seems determind to hate on Christianity. Want to make a movie about a bad Catholic? Fine, that happens. Now make 19 movies about good Catholics and we will have balance. 

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. 2 Corinthians 3:5 I supported Brexit, but I don't see a secure or positive identity in mere English or British nationalism, or any kind of nationalism for that matter. Sure I hope England makes it out of our group in the World Cup this November, but it should be clear to everyone in Britain by now that Liz, Kier & Rishi don't have all the answers. Only Jesus can lead Britain forward into the perfection of the Kingdom of God. No secular pol can do that, & many will do more harm than good. 

Do we begin again to commend ourselves? 2 Corinthians 3:1 I find it interesting that attacks on British Imperial history are ramping up now that much of the former Empire has had many decades to rule themselves. Let's take Hong Kong, the most recent cast off. Are the people of HK better off under communist China than they were under us Brits? I think not. Easy to complain, harder to rule. 

Lord, You know all things.. John 21:17 I have a lot more respect for agnostics like Stan Lee, Spidey's creator, who admitted he didn't know about God's existence, than for atheists who claim they know God doesn't exist. There is so much science doesn't know, it is ludicrous to take a metaphysical position against God at this point. Atheism is an emotional stance, not a rational one. 

Jesus then came & took the bread & gave it to them, & likewise the fish.. John 21:13 Well, I'm not rich, by Japanese standards at least, but God has given me bread for today. I don't have any fish but I do have Bologna. 👍

Thieves & robbers.. John 10:8 I'm not sure that when a grieving Buddhist widow spends vast sums of ¥ on a Buddhist funeral & altar, that she intends that money to be spend by her Buddhist priest on "orgies" with under age girls at Tokyo hotels. The girl herself, according to Japan Today, is saying it was not consensual, which make it even worse. Meanwhile in Nigeria, Islamists killed 80 people & abducted 60 more. 

When they were fully awake, they saw His glory.. Luke 9:32 The 'woke' only think they are awake. If you don't understand that Jesus is Lord of all, you are still asleep. 

As the sufferings of Christ abound in us. 2 Corinthians 1:5 Jihadi gangs terrorize Christians in many parts of Africa, including Burkina Faso, but Western media seems reluctant to cover it. 

Spend the winter with you.. 1 Corinthians 16:6 Who's looking forward to Christmas already? 

Do not be deceived: "evil company corrupts.." 1 Corinthians 15:33 Secular norms are not good. Fornication is still a mortal sin. For this reason, it is good that fewer kids are being born into the much too liberal West. But sadly, many kids are being born into countries where radical Islam predominates. Liberals like to worry about climate change or vax mandates, which is why it is important they should mix with a variety of viewpoints not just people who agree with them, but the attempted murder of Rushie this week & Iran's wholesale backing of the thug who carried it out gives us notice what the real threat is. 

How do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 1 Corinthians 15:12 There is no question science has brought great technical development. But it has also led to nuclear weapons and toxic pollution. So why are so many modern men so keen to put their faith in positivism & empiricism? A lack of philosophical understanding, I think. A lot of people who are clearly positivists don't even know what the word means, & they have certainly never read Comte. 

Jesus came & stood in the midst, & said to them: "Peace be with you". John 20:19 It's easy to be anxious & stressed about stuff, whether it be money, your career, the plagues in the news, wars, etc. Jesus wants you to know His peace. 

Brother will deliver up brother to death.. Matthew 10:21 So Salman Rushdie has been stabbed in Upper NY by a young dude sympathetic to the Iranian fatwa on Rushdie's life. I haven't yet read The Satanic Verses but I don't like Iranians telling me what I can and cannot read, & I certainly don't like Muslims stabbing people. It should also be noted that the Japanese translator, Professor Igarashi, was murdered here in Japan in 1991, and his killer, almost certainly a Muslim, was never caught. 

It is shameful for women to speak in church.. 1 Corinthians 14:35 I'm Anglican, but ordaining women is unbiblical. 

What is the conclusion then? 1 Corinthians 14:15 Dark days in America. Desperate Democrats facing annihilation in November seek to distract, & to destroy Trump. Will they succeed? Possibly, in the short term. I do know God wins in the end. All tyrants are overthrown eventually, whatever their personal politics, whatever their party. In the meantime, Biden's White House looks like a tinpot regime that needs to arrest opponents in order to win. 

The babe leaped in my womb.. Luke 1:44 So we know free speech online is deeply at risk from the extreme left in America and in Europe. But today Line, a Japanese app, refused to post a video from Alliance Defending Freedom regarding pro life work amongst students. What exactly is Line afraid of? Why are they shutting down free speech? Why suppress good organizations? There should be a pro life group at every university & college in Japan.  

Betrayed even by parents.. Luke 21:16 FGM is still a thing in Africa. 

These dumb idols.. 1 Corinthians 12:2 So football is back, which is great, though my team lost to Man City, which is not. But what I want to talk about here is this: imagine, you are on holiday in Sussex by the sea, you go watch the footy on a Saturday night at a bar and end the evening dead. An argument about footy & a man is dead in Camber Sands. This is dumb, guys. 6 dudes are charged with murder. For what exactly? Love football, hate violence! If you need to kill someone who insults your team, or your favourite player, you are taking what is after all a game way too seriously! 

Supposing Him to be the gardener.. John 20:15 You have probably heard the atheist joke about Jesus the Mexican gardener. Yes, Mexican Catholic moms love Jesus so much many name their kids Jesus in the hope that they will grow up to be just like Him. They all fail of course, because perfection is a terribly high standard to meet. We shouldn't blame them for having high standards & ideals. After all, we are all God's children, made in His image, & there is nothing at all shameful in gardening as a profession. God Himself created the most beautiful garden in Eden, and every beautiful flower, tree, shrub, bush and petal in every country, be it Mexico, America, or Japan. Heck, without God we wouldn't even have grass. Have all these atheist botanists created one new plant in 200 years? No, of course not. All they can do is mess with the ones God has already given us.

Not a hair of your head shall be lost.. Luke 21:18 In Japan I keep seeing these infomercials for hair replacement therapies.  For thousands of yen it seems they are sewing back hair into balding mens' scalps or something- heck, it is all in Japanese & I'm not interested at all. Seems to me if the love of your wife & the repect of your fellow men & your own self esteem depend on your head of hair you have already lost...  Just accept the aging process & stop behaving like a vain & insecure teen already!😔

Blessed is the fruit of your womb. Luke 1:42 There is no womb in a male homosexual marriage. Why should such a godless abomination be blessed? 

The head of every man is Christ.. 1 Corinthians 11:3 Jesus is alive in heaven & He has total God given authority over all of us. 

Flee from idolatry.. 1 Corinthians 10:14 Many traditional Catholics feel the Pope in his recent visit to Canada crossed the line in his involvement in pagan rituals. I agree with them. But the Church of England has idol problems of its own. Many on the left/liberal wing of Anglicanism are in danger of making wokeness an idol, hence their recent decision to fail to condemn same sex marriage. Homosexual behaviour is never condoned by Jesus. 

The heaven was shut up 3 years & 6 months.. Luke 4:25 Can't say I'm crazy about the household water being shut off for 5 hours on one of the hottest days of the year, but it could be worse: at least there isn't a drought..

My yoke is easy.. Matthew 11:30 Many people think it is easy to be a teacher. Those long summer holidays, right? Actually there are always classes to prep. Right now I'm planning a class on Talcott Parsons, a mostly forgotten American sociologist. He more or less founded sociology at Harvard. He is notorious for his obscure & technical prose, which is probably why I picked his book up fairly cheap. Here's an example: "When the conformist component of the ambivalent motivational structure is given opportunity for acting out along with the alienative, the former pattern tends to shift into the pattern of illness, the latter into the criminal or delinquent gang or sub-culture." Parsons, Deviant Behavior & Social Control, from: The Social System, 1951 I think the reason he isn't particularly remembered is that he is more Freudian than most of us are comfortable with these days, that and he is more conservative than the majority of social "scientists"...