Frequent Bible Reading tied to Social Justice and Openness to Science" - Huff Post

Learning to share the work together

Some interesting news - which will surely stir up a lot of debate.

How does frequent Bible reading impact a person, say comparing reading the Bible one day a year, compared to once a month, once a week, or several times a week?

What is it about the life of Jesus that inspires millions of people to help widows, orphans, lepers, outcasts, prostitutes, refugees and many other people for whom life is hard?

Here is an article of interest. Read more.

"Christianities (plural) in Africa: What a growing faith looks like south of the Sahara"

"Christianity in Africa has benefited from sustained exponential growth, with numbers growing from about 10 million in 1900 to just over half a billion in 2015; but the diversity of the different forms of Christian practices and teachings on the continent means that it may be more accurate to see it as Christianities rather than Christianity. . ." Professor Joseph Galgalo lives in Limuru, Kenya and his view of the growth of the faith, as well as it's failure, is found here .

"Why do Muslims flock to the 'Evil West'?" - Gladstone Institute

Germany is receiving thousands of refugees

Burak Bekdil once again highlights the conflicting emotions and decisions of Muslims.

To stay in many parts of the Middle East is to face an uncertain future, perhaps persecution, war, poverty and death.

But, to leave the Middle East, having Berlin, or a small city in Southern Germany, as one's destination, is to put the hope of a peaceful future in the hands of a father's family.

Why leave the heartland of Islam for the "Evil West"?

Read more.

"A great tribute to Yogi Berra" - Kefsetz Letter

At the end of this baseball season, here is a great tribute to Yogi Berra, looking at the changes he faced during his lifetime and his impact upon the sport and the culture.

Read more.

"A Gladiator battle field is unearthed in Turkey" - Turkish Daily news on research in Anavarza

A "gladiator" - pay to take his picture!

This was an immense city, with a special area designated for gladiator fights.

Anavarza, near modern day Adana, was close to St. Paul's home city of Tarsus. Gladiator fights took place during the time that the New Testament was being written.

This is just one more spectacular discovery by archaeologists in Turkey, where there are an estimated 5,500 ancient cities.

Of those, about 800 sites are being explored, but none of them, even Ephesus, are anywhere near being completed for their archaeological heritage and riches.

Read more.

"Ancient animal bones in Ephesus from rhino and leopard give fresh archaeological insights" Turkish Daily News

Artist's concept of ancient homes - 4,000 years ago

Incredibly, ancient animal bones in Ephesus have come to light through this year's archaeological research.

Some of the animals were from rhinos and leopards, fallow deer and red deer. Some of these species no longer exist.

These discoveries point to social hierarchies, too.

Read more.

"One million more refugees to Turkey - Three Million more coming to EU" - Turkish Daily News

What does Turkey expect, now that Russian airplanes are bombing the opposition forces to the Syrian President? Could it really be true that another 1,000,000 refugees could be on their way to seek safety in refugee camps in Turkey, just north of the Syrian- Turkish border?

Read more.

Just think about it. Syrian refugees heard that friends and neighbors made it safely to Europe during the last few months. What can the EU expect next summer, given the warm welcome German officials have extended to these Syrian (and other) refugees. Could next summer see many times more refugees on their way to find safety and comfort?

Turkish authorities detained 1,451 refugees in the last few days as they tried to make it to Greek islands. During the last several months, 56,697 refugees were turned back.

Read more.

"Mobilizing a Generation of Missionaries" - Christianity Today

"The 19th century was the heroic age of missions. It produced some of the greatest heroes that the Christian faith has ever seen. Yet churches were only sending a small number of missionaries. If something had not changed, it would have taken centuries to evangelize the world.

"The churches needed a new initiative: something that would kick-start a new and powerful movement in missions. And that's what happened. In the summer of 1886, the Student Volunteer Movement was launched."

read more.
 

Is Climate Change mainly driven by the sun? Or, are humans causing these changes?

Sunrise over Athens, Greece

The Die kalte Sonne site here features a worrisome essay by German climate scientists Horst-Joachim Lüdecke, Dr. Alexander Hempelmann and Carl Otto Weiss. They carefully examined climate changes of the past and have found that the recent changes (of the last 40 years are nothing out of the ordinary and that we need to worry about a global cooling that will persist until 2080.
They published 2 papers on the subject in the journal European Geophysical Union (EGU) [2], [3].

According to the 2 scientists, climate is often cyclic. The first study appeared in February 2013 and it examined six of the longest existing thermometer data series recorded in Europe, as well as one dataset from an Antarctic ice core and another from a data series extracted from stalagmites. The datasets were covered the period of 1757 – 2010.

Read more.


 

Two views of USA gun deaths - one from England and one from Canada

The shocking deaths of college students and one college professor in Oregon has touched off a spate of commentaries. I found that these, one from England, and one from Canada, wrestled deeply with the main issues involved.

President Obama refuses to go along with the "normality" of it all and we could all see the visible anger showing through, on his face and in his demeanour. He has stated that since 2001, more than 150,000 persons died from gun shots, compared to the slightly more than 3,000 caused by Islamic extremism, or terrorism in the same period of time.

In 2015 alone, more than 250 school / college / university incidents have taken place in which guns caused unnecessary deaths.

From England Read here.

and from Canada Read here.

"A Top Nigerian Export: Christianity" (!) - The Christian Science Monitor

"The roads that wind north from Lagos, Nigeria, toward the headquarters of the Winners’ Chapel mega-church are lined with unusual testaments to Nigerians’ religious fervor.

"There’s the Amazing Grace Hair Salon and the No King But God Driving School, My God Is Able Furniture Makers and God’s Grace Multipurpose Hall. And wedged between these omnipotently styled businesses are the churches themselves, hundreds of them, carrying on tenaciously in a sweltering tin shack or a room balanced atop a gas station, in the parking lot of a half-finished shopping mall or perched on stilts above Lagos’s thick, viscous lagoon."

"Britain’s fastest growing church is the Nigerian Redeemed Christian Church of God, and four of that country’s 10 largest churches were founded by Nigerians. In Kiev, Ukraine, a city awash in onion-domed Orthodox cathedrals, the largest Sunday service – with about 5,000 people attending – is conducted by Sunday Adelaja, a Nigerian and founder of the Pentecostal Embassy of God church."

Read more.

How big is one trillion? What would that look like in 100 dollar bills?

How big is "one trillion"

What would that look like if it was pilled up in $100 bills?

Stand to be amazed.

Short video here.

"First inhabitants at Ephesus - 9,000 years ago" - Turkish Daily News

One of my favorite places to take tourists on their trip through Turkey is the ancient city of Ephesus. I was blessed to be able to visit there 25 times, 23 of them taking tourists who were being led by a Turkish guide.

On the walls of homes built more than 2,000 years ago, one can photograph images painted on bedroom walls by artists with exquisite taste.

Now, new excavations on one of the older sites of Ephesus yields a fascinating discovery. The amulets discovered may have been made 9,000 years ago, or very early in human history. These findings will be presented at professional archaeological bodies next May  - June.


Archaeologists believe that Ephesus occupied four different sites during its long history.

Ephesus is important for many reasons. For Christians, it is the city in Asia Minor to which one of the key books of the New Testament was addressed. Later, perhaps 40-50 years after Paul visited there, Jesus Christ told the Apostle John that the believers had lost their "first love". For historians, this ancient site reveals much about Greco-Roman culture, government and history.

Read more.