Category Archives: What’s going on

A Scripture Reading and a Brief Exposition, and then a Baptism

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Exodus 10:7-11 Then Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God. Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?” So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. And he said to them, “Go, serve the LORD your God. But which ones are to go?” Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old. We will go with our sons and daughters and with our flocks and herds, for we must hold a feast to the LORD.” But he said to them, “The LORD be with you, if ever I let you and your little ones go! Look, you have some evil purpose in mind. No! Go, the men among you, and serve the LORD, for that is what you are asking.” And they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence.

 

1 Corinthians 10.1-4 For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.

1 Corinthians 12.12-26 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

 

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Please help me minister in Musoma, Tanzania

Recently, at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, I was reminded that I have faithful, appreciative readers who I have never met yet (or at least I did; I’m hoping the wonderful people I met were representative rather than exhaustive!).

Next month I’m going to Musoma, Tanzania on the shores of Lake Victoria. I volunteered as part of a team on a mission trip that will culminate in five nights of festivals with public evangelism. You can read some about it here. The overseeing organization is For His Glory Evangelistic Ministries.

I will be participating in pastoral training and open-air evangelism, as well as helping out in any way I can with logistical issues that inevitably arrive.

This will be a stretching experience. Being away from, and mostly out of contact with, my family for almost two weeks, will not be pleasant. The last time I was in Africa was on the other side of the continent way back when I was in elementary school (I was an MK). But I’ve been praying to get more ministry opportunities and God clearly led me to this one. My wife is fully supportive that I do this. I am excited at the prospect of preaching and teaching in such a different context!

I’m asking you to partner with me in this endeavor. I am also sending out snail mail appeal letters to as many as I can, but that takes time, and expense, especially since I haven’t been keeping track of physical USPS addresses for about a decade. We all have social media, after all.

While I have received great generosity, I still need to raise funds. I need at least $4k total for my own expenses in the trip, plus the mission as a whole has a great deal of support to raise. I’m trusting God this will all come together, as he has done for For His Glory many times in the past as they have raised funds for overseas festivals. I would greatly appreciate any help you might give to this worthy ministry.

Please go here and click on the second link, which is for the Musoma mission. Just put my name in the donation description. Everything and anything God leads you to give will be helpful!

And, if you want to learn more about the Musoma mission, either now or especially when I come back, please contact me. Use the form below.

Also, please pray for me. The trip dates are July 19-August 1. Pray for safety, effective ministry, conversions, and for God to be with my family while I am gone. It is through your prayers that I will be able to serve.

Thank you dear friends, known and unknown. I am grateful to God for all of you.

[contact-form subject=”BLOG MUSOMA EMAIL” to=”hornemark@gmail.com”] [contact-field label=”Name” type=”name” required=”true” /] [contact-field label=”Email” type=”email” required=”true” /] [contact-field label=”Website” type=”url” /] [contact-field label=”Snail Mail” type=”text” /] [contact-field label=”Comment” type=”textarea” required=”true” /] [/contact-form]

 

While I was at work on my night shift, my family had an adventure with fire…

Came home to this:

No one was hurt. Fire department came and put out the fire (which had descended from the top burner into the stove).

We need a new stove and electrical connection for it. Not sure what we’ll do about the scorched Formica counter-tops.

I heard about this as it was going on while I was at work, but there was nothing I could do to help. Hated that.

The acrid smell is noticeable every time I enter the house. I’m hoping that is not a health problem.

Prayers appreciated.

A switch flipped over in my head

I notice when I was blogging in 2000, my posts, for all their flaws, were much more personal. I’m afraid controversy has changed my stance. Also, the results of controversy: I was a lot more confident about my personal future and my ability to provide for my own back in 2000. (Some of this confidence was somewhat sinfully naive, I think. But much of what happened was truly unforeseeable.) Optimism produces a different tone.

Anyway, this is kind of a throwback autobiographical emotive thingy.

I’ve always been a six-day creationist, “young” earther–at least since college anyway. I’m convinced 1. the Bible teaches these things and 2. that the Bible is true. Until one of those premisses changes, I remain a young earther.

But I have hated having to argue about it in the unbelieving world. It seems so much easier to start with Jesus and the first century and argue for his resurrection and then from there to the reliability of Scripture (I’m not renouncing presuppositionalism, here, by the way).  So intellectually faithful but emotionally weary or wary, I was. I believed and would assert what the Bible says about chronology, but I wanted to talk about other things.

But something has happened. I don’t know how to explain it other than the analogy of a switch flipping in my head.

Suddenly I think the fact that history has barely begun is an exciting truth that deserves to be trumpeted. The whole world seems tired and depressed right now. Even the people trumpeting Keynsean myths about how the future can be opened up don’t seem to believe what they are saying. (It seems far easier to believe that people hate those who disagree with global warming or evolution or quantitative easing or environmentalism than that they are firmly convinced of the ideas they defend. Am I the only one who detects this?) We’re running out and running down. Austerity is ahead.

But like John Paul Jones, Jesus has not yet begun to fight. History has barely begun. Remembering that the earth has just started, and that Jesus came quite near to the beginning of history rather than waiting a million years, just seems like good new worth sharing.

I think a couple of things have converged to make me more excited about this message. For one, the financial crisis is also a Science ™ crisis. Science has been a welfare case especially since WW2 and it has all the resulting features of a bubble and corruption. (More on that in a later post, perhaps). On a personal level, I’ve had to direct my one homeschooled child to do some science reading, which means I’ve been doing some myself.  So this has all become the focus of my attention as has not been true for some time.

Anyway, I think people need to know that the human story has just begun. It is not ending. Whatever judgments we need to go through (and yes we need to repent to avoid eternal wrath) austerity is not the future of the human race. Unimagined prosperity lies ahead for our children–our many many unrestricted, unaborted children with unrationed wealth. Jesus is gracious and he is just starting.

 

My 3 recent “Neos”

I mean that as the plural of the name “Neo” from the movie, “The Matrix” (which as a standalone was the Christian movie of the decade).

Neo: Got the money?

Choi: Two grand.

Neo: Hold on.

Choi: Hallelujah. You’re my savior, man. My own personal Jesus Christ.

via Neo/Christ Parallels in The Matrix.

Kind of blasphemous for what looks like a drug deal and seems to be a software piracy. But as the Israelites had a Redeemer in Moses, I have at the moment three of my own personal Jesus Christs that I think are sent by the original and true one to help me.

This is about Exodus. To put it in Dave-Ramsey-speak, if you are sick and tired of being sick and tired you might need one of more of the following helpers:

Neo #1: John Taylor Gatto

Neo #2: Paul Campos (and several others)

Neo #3: Dave Ramsey (and maybe a couple of others)

If I have a chance I’ll blog some more explanations. But google should give you an idea.