The Hope Within

Bahamas (How to Help)

"How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?" (1 John 3:17)

"If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead." (James 2:15-17)

 

Barbados Mediathon 

“All funds collected during the event will go into the CDEMA Barbados/Bahamas Relief Fund at the CIBC First Caribbean International Bank.  The account number for the fund is 1001186684.”

(Rise Again Bahamas)

Via First Citizens (Bahamas Relief Fund) (First Citizens Account No: 50090001348)

Food for the Poor Jamaica

Sandals Foundation

Bahamas Ministry of Foreign Affairs Amazon Wishlist (via Jamaica Gleaner Instagram account)

 

Bahamas.com Hurricane Relief

Bahamas Disaster Relief (via Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency)

Hurricane Dorian Aid (via Washington Post)

The Grand Bahama Disaster Relief Fund and Foundation

• What Goods to Donate
• Dropoff Locations

Wire Transfer Instructions (PDF document)

Via Amazon

 

Photos (via WSJ)

CHESS

New video from H.U.R.T.'s album Heaven on Earth:

 

Baptist Heritage Conference Messages

The 27th Caribbean Baptist Heritage Conference was hosted at the Berean Bible Church from July 7-10, 2019. The messages from conference are available here. Select CBHC 2019 from the drop down "Series" menu and all of the messages will appear there. There is a "Download Audio" option once you click "Listen" to any particular message.

If you can only listen to one, let it be: The Frightening Reality of Sin by Hensworth Jonas.

HJ-John-1-10-14

 

Thoughts for the Quiet Hour (March 14)

He that eateth me, even he shall live by me

John 6:57

 

To feed on Christ is to get His strength into us to be our strength. You feed on the cornfield, and the strength of the cornfield comes into you, and is your strength. You feed on Christ, and then go and live your life; and it is Christ in you that lives your life, that helps the poor, that tells the truth, that fights the battles, and that wins the crown.

Phillips Brooks

 

Source: Thoughts for the Quiet Hour  (Logos Bible Software)

 

China Reading List

Under Red Skies

The Great Firewall of China: How to Build and Control an Alternative Version of the Internet

China's Global Identity: Considering the Responsibilities of Great Power

In Line Behind a Billion People

Red Flags: Why Xi's China Is in Jeopardy

The Problem with Xi’s China Model

End of an Era: How China's Authoritarian Revival is Undermining Its Rise

AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order

China's Great Wall of Debt: Shadow Banks, Ghost Cities, Massive Loans, and the End of the Chinese Miracle

Foreign Affairs (January/February 2019)

MIT Technology Review (January/February 2019, The China Issue)

Public Intellectuals in the Global Arena: Professors or Pundits? [The Public Intellectual in China by Willy Lam]

From Benito Mussolini to Hugo Chavez: Intellectuals and a Century of Political Hero Worship [Western Intellectuals, Mao's China, and Cambodia under Pol Pot)

Mars Hill Audio Journal (Volume 142)

Guests on Volume 142: Stanley Hauerwas, on writing letters to his godson about the virtues; Perry L. Glanzer and Nathan F. Alleman, on the fragmentation of modern higher education and why we need theology to unify universities; Jeffrey Bishop, on how modern medicine shapes an inadequate understanding of the human body; Alan Jacobs, on how contemporary communications media discourage charitable thinking; D. C. Schindler, on the diabolical nature of the modern understanding of freedom; and Marianne Wright, on how the gospel comes through in the writings of George MacDonald.

Any Way Will Do?

Sometimes we make dealing with the current controversial features of Christianity more difficult than it actually needs to be. Here I’m talking about politically charged theological and ethical issues like abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, gender dysphoria, and the like. In one important sense they’re not hard at all; they’re easy.

Some ideas flow so naturally and directly from clear, core elements of the Christian worldview that they are not “tough” issues in a scriptural sense. The relevant texts are clear. There is no ambiguity in the Bible’s teaching. The basic doctrines informing these issues are not gray areas. They never have been.

The confusion comes almost completely from the outside, not the inside. Lots of folks—including Christians—simply don’t like what the Bible teaches, so they wrangle about words and twist the text trying to get the verses to say the opposite of what they clearly mean.

Evolution

Whenever you come across the topic of evolution, ask a simple question: What definition of evolution is being used? Since evolution has at least three different meanings, it’s essential to know which one is being invoked.

 

For evolution to be a fact, you must have two things, minimally. First, you've got to have life coming from non-life--abiogenesis. Second, you've got to have a change in that life from simple forms to complex forms over time. You must have the kick-off, and you must have the rest of the game.

Thoughts for the Quiet Hour (December 19)

A hearer of the word … a doer of the work

James 1:23, 25

Religion may be learned on Sunday, but it is lived in the weekday’s work. The torch of religion may be lit in the church, but it does its burning in the shop and on the street. Religion seeks its life in prayer, but it lives its life in deeds. It is planted in the closet, but it does its growing out in the world. It plumes itself for flight in songs of praise, but its actual flights are in works of love. It resolves and meditates on faithfulness as it reads its Christian lesson in the Book of Truth, but “faithful is that faithful does.” It puts its armor on in all the aids and helps of the sanctuary as its dressingroom, but it combats for the right, the noble, and the good in all the activities of practical existence, and its battle ground is the whole broad field of life.

John Doughty

 

Source: Thoughts for the Quiet Hour, Logos Bible Software

 

Cranmer on Christ

From Archbishop Cranmer:

People no longer feel they need to be saved, and that’s the problem. If there is no hell, no eternal damnation, no separation from God, then Jesus is of no more significance than any other professing prophet: he is just a wise man who did some good things. But ‘God’ and ‘Saviour’ he patently isn’t, and who cares anyway as long as you’re happy and nice to people? And here’s where Christians waffle on about Christology and soteriology and vicarious satisfaction – more Greek – and by so doing we neglect to love, to show people Jesus, to live our lives in relationship with the One who was born in Bethlehem and taught us that we must become incarnations of him – little christs, morally set apart, striving to do good.