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By infowriter
The resources of social networks are quickly becoming a very popular tool for businesses to utilize in order to reach a huge crowd. The unimaginable popularity that’s associated with Facebook has millions of people frequently participating in an environment of open communication and constant interaction. This can be very appealing to the business since it will produce its own profile in order to join this resource of interaction and expand upon providing data to customers so as to increase revenue. If you’ve created a social profile yet are struggling to find online fans, below mentioned are few ways to increase your Facebook fans.
Step One: Develop Relevant Branding
The first step to take when attempting to boost the number of your Facebook page fans is to make sure you’re following the resources of brand development. A brand represents a very important element for an organization to take advantage of thus it helps to make an image for consumers to relate to when considering making any investment. When your Facebook page matches the brand, colors, logos, company message, and other resources of your website, this will increase recognition which can improve the chance of capturing new friends.
Step Two: Improve Communication
One of the biggest attractions to social profiles is that individuals are regularly updating information, posting comments, in addition to providing visual entertainment such as photos or videos. Creating a profile through Facebook isn’t enough to capture a massive amount of Facebook page fans. You must also improve your communication efforts through the utilization of the social network. This includes answering any questions your customers may have, frequently putting on new data to your website, as well as updating the resources of entertainment so your profile does not go stale.
Step Three: Invest in Facebook Marketing
The third step you’ll be able to utilize so as to extend Facebook page fans are seen with investing in Facebook marketing. Facebook participants often post data like hobbies, job descriptions, and interests that Facebook then collects. When you’ll utilize this marketing it permits for a unique type of target selling where you can come in direct contact with shoppers who may be interested in your business. This will facilitate in drawing in new client attention and produce a low -cost solution for bringing fans to your Facebook profile.
By utilizing these three steps you may often realize an improvement in gaining client attention which can facilitate capturing new Facebook page fans. Make sure you continuously update relevant data that will attract shoppers and keep them constantly interacting with your social profile.
By infowriter
Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. 25Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. 26So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; 27but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.
“I do not box as though beating the air,” says St. Paul, and all the boxers in the congregation say … Amen!
There was a great choice of readings to work with today – from Elisha’s healing of Naaman the Syrian to Jesus’ healing of the leprous man in today’s Gospel reading – but I don’t think anybody will blame me today for choosing this passage from St Paul’s first epistle to the Christians at Corinth – “I do not box as though beating the air” – when today we have baptized a lad of such prestigious pugilistic pedigree and who promises to be such a fantastic future fighter!
“I do not box as though beating the air”! You might have thought that I had dug through the Scriptures and specifically plucked this passage out today, but it is not so! This is the reading scheduled in our lectionary, believe it or not!
Evidently it was meant to be – predestined from before the foundation of the world perhaps – that on this auspicious day, when there are so many boxers in the house, that St Paul’s one and only reference to boxing would be read!
Of course, Paul wasn’t referring to the Queensbury-rules-style of boxing with which so many of us are familiar. In St Paul’s day boxing was far more brutal!
There are no shortage of people today, of course, who consider modern boxing to be barbaric. It might help put such things in perspective by comparing the type of sport-fighting to which St Paul was accustomed – namely, the ancient Greek Pankration, which was the original fighting art of the Olympic Games.
Even though it was considered a noble sport, the Pankration was a brutal form of no-rules fighting where too naked men tore away at each other until the one left standing was ultimately able to claim the wreath with which he would be crowned Olympic champion!
Legend has it that when Ulysses returned from the Trojan wars his own mother didn’t recognise him. I’m told though that when the Pankration champion returned from the first Olympics that his own dog couldn’t recognise him! First-century boxing was a brutal activity, which is why it might strike a to be a strange sort of metaphor to use with regards to the Christian life!
In our culture, being a follower of Christ is often considered to be a bit ‘girly’. Indeed, not only in our 21st century Australian culture but worldwide, Christianity seems to have taken on a certain feminine character.
I remember our dear friend Father Elias (the colourful Catholic monk who served us so well here as a part of our community a few years back) saying to me that in France now, where his community is based, you are considered a Christian if your wife goes to church!
Now … I am not regretting that it is chiefly women who are now leading the church into the future (and this despite the best efforts of certain elements of the church’s leadership to hold them back) but I am sensing a certain cognitive dissonance between the imagery of the Christian life that is current in our own culture and that which is here being propagated by St Paul.
“I do not box as though beating the air,” says Paul, and his point is that real faith is a hands-on experience, and there is an implicit contrast here between two ways of trying to follow Christ – one that is a hands on, body-on-the-line type of stoush, and another which is something more akin to boxercise, where you appear to be fighting but when, in fact, you’re only punching the air!
Now I’ve got nothing against boxercise, but as a boxing trainer and fight club manager I can tell you that I often have to make the point to our clients that “this is not a boxercise gym”.
Most people do recognise that of course when they turn up to ‘Father Dave’s Fight Club’. They realise that they are joining a fight club and not a boxercise class, but occasionally people do need to be reminded, because there is a big difference between the two types of gym, and people attend the two for very different reasons, just as people attend church for very different reasons.
Some attend because they want to look good, and because they are interested in self-improvement. Am I talking about the gym or the church? I’m talking about both!
I can tell you though that in our case people do not join because they want to look good nor simply for the sake of self-improvement. They join because they want to fight! Am I talking about the gym or the church? I hope, once again, I’m talking about both!
For this is the key difference between the Fight Club and the boxercise gym. When you come home from Fight Club you sort of expect that you’ll be a little bruised and bleeding.
As most of you would know, I’ve been training pretty hard of late, and I’ve been coming home bruised and bleeding pretty regularly. Indeed, as I look out on the congregation today I think I am in a reasonably unique position as a preacher, as I am looking at most of the people who are responsible for those bruises and blood loss! There’s quite a few of you in fact!
I’ve had the privilege of doing quite a few rounds lately with my brother, Lovemore, and I can tell you that I have come away bleeding on every occasion, though I must add that the only person who has actually stopped me recently (that is, the only person to have actually forced me to stop fighting and take time out before being able to continue) is young ‘Bruiser Dayal’ (16-year-old Irena).
Anyway, the point is that the path of Christian discipleship is likewise a bloody experience. We wish it were not that way but it is.
We wish we could love others without having to make real and costly sacrifices but we cannot.
We wish that we could speak out against injustice without having people ridicule us, malign us, and deliberately misrepresent us, but we cannot.
We wish that it were possible to care for the poor without having to impoverish ourselves but it is not.
We wish we could care for the homeless without having to open our own homes or sacrifice our own privacy, but it is just not possible.
We wish that people weren’t so complicated, and that all our friends and family and children needed was just a few wise words, after which they would sort themselves out, but instead it turns out that family and parenthood and even friendship itself is a life-long commitment where those we love never seem to get things entirely right and where nothing ever seems to get ultimately resolved and where we are nonetheless expected to continue to pour ourselves out without ever necessarily seeing any results for our efforts.
We wish that Christian discipleship was not like this but it is! We wish that fighting the good fight was something more like a boxercise class, where we can go through the motions, look good, improve ourselves, and do so at a minimal personal cost, but this is just not possible. The path to glory is soaked with blood. Am I talking about the Fight Club or the church? Both!
I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it – I do the training. I put in the hard rounds. I put in the work in the gym and in the ring – so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.
The path of Christian discipleship, like the path of the athlete, can be a hard and lonely path. And just as the boxer needs to train properly if she is going to survive in the ring, so the follower of Jesus needs to take her training seriously, to focus, and to put in the hard yards if she is going to make it to the final round.
I know that there are a lot of theories going about as to how best to accomplish that training (and I’m talking both about the Fight Club and the church).
In the world of boxing there are a lot of theories as to how to best prepare for a fight, and I’ve heard most of them. Most recently though, in my own training, I’ve been taking my lead from a wise indigenous friend and boxing trainer who told me that I should simply follow the example of the indigenous fighters of this country in my fight preparation.
Our indigenous sisters and brothers tend to excel in boxing like no other group in the country and this guy swears that all his indigenous fighters do in preparation for their fights is two things – they run and the box.
So that’s all I’ve been doing for the last 12 months in my own fight preparation – I’ve been running and boxing (trying to box at least 10 rounds per night and run a minimum of 10kms/day, six days per week). And I have found that it works!
And at the risk of being simplistic, I want to suggest that, spiritually speaking, there are really only two things we need to focus on in preparing ourselves for the spiritual fight too, and they are ‘prayer’ and ‘praxis’.
Prayer and praxis – those are the keys I believe.
Prayer is what we are doing now – meeting for prayer and worship, and we can’t expect to progress far as a Christian warrior unless we spend time with the commander in prayer and worship.
And praxis is the other key element in the training program. Praxis means doing. It means getting our hands dirty and vigorously doing the work of Christian ministry – feeding the poor, working for justice, sharing the Gospel of hope, and doing all the ordinary, every-day works of love that Christ calls us to do.
I often reflect on the words of Jesus recorded in John chapter 8: “If you hold to my teaching … you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (vs. 31-32)
Doing the truth leads to knowing the truth (rather than the other way round). The more time we put in to actually doing the work of Christian ministry, the more we understand of God and of ourselves, and the stronger we become as Christian pugilists, just as the ring-fighter, the more times he boxes, the better boxer he becomes.
Prayer and praxis – that’s the exhortation I want to finish on today. That might not sound like much of a climax for the sermon but hard work is the flip-side of glory!
I always warn the boys in the Fight Club, ‘winning a fight is glorious, but training, for the most part, is just hard work.’ Perhaps that sums up how a lot of us feel about church at the moment too? Well, we don’t have to enjoy every session, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be there.
For we didn’t follow Christ for His entertainment value, or because we wanted to look good or simply because we wanted to improve ourselves. If those were our goals we would have joined the boxercise class at the local punching-the-air boxercise gym. No! We knew what we were letting ourselves in for when we chose to follow Christ. We knew we were getting ourselves into a fight.
For we don’t have to look to hard around our world today to know that there’s a war going on, and it’s not a fight for the faint-hearted.
We know that if we are truly going to follow Jesus in this world that it is going to cost us everything that we have. But we know, too, that if our resolve is firm and if we train hard, if we develop our spiritual muscle and self-control, if we can endure the pain and keep our cool that we will survive until the last round is over.
We will hear that final bell, we will see the enemy at our feet, and we will receive that imperishable wreath that the apostle speaks of, reserved for those who have fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith. Training is hard, but victory is glorious. Amen!
Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.
By infowriter
I had the privilege last Friday night of being back amongst my friends at the Imam Husain Islamic Centre where we met to grieve the death of the father of my dear friend, Sheikh Mansour Leghaei.
And it was good to be back amongst those lovely people, and it was good to a part of the live Skype linkup with Mansour back in Esfahan (in Iran) and it was to once again enjoy the experience of being kissed by an enormous number of bearded men (an experience that [sadly] I just don’t get anywhere else).
And I was reminded very clearly, while I was there, of one particularly endearing thing that one of the members of that community had said to me on a previous visit. It wasn’t Sheikh Mansour who said it to me or any of his family members but one of the elders there – a retired professor from Newcastle University.
This man had been looking after me on one of the previous times that I’d been there and we had been talking very warmly and candidly, when said to me, “You know, before I was a Muslim, I was a Christian!” And I was taken aback and said, “Really?” He said, “Yes, and before I was a Christian, I was a Jew”.
Then I understood, of course, that he didn’t mean that he’d actually been a convert from Christianity, but that rather he was expressing our common spiritual heritage.
And of course I could not share his perspective – that Islam fulfils the Christian hope, just as we believe the New Testament Gospel fulfils all the hopes and dreams of the Old, but I appreciated that this elder in the Islamic community was basically just expressing his closeness to me, and I found that touching.
And I’ve thought of that man and his message to me often because I think the whole world needs to hear what he has to say!
I do sincerely believe that if we could somehow get rid of all the dirty politics, we’d find that the common heritage of the three Abrahamic religions is so great – at least in terms of basic ethics and values – that we really have no ideological basis for enmity, let alone for any ‘clash of civilisations’!
‘Before I was a Muslim I was a Christian, and before I was a Christian I was a Jew’ – it was an impressive thing to say, but it was also a statement that required a response, I felt – a response that I wasn’t able to give at the time, but I’ve thought of one since – a good response – and I got it from the story of Noah!
One thing that always comes to mind for me when I think of Noah and the Flood is an old Peanuts cartoon, featuring Linus and Lucy sitting at home, looking out of the window, and it’s raining!
Lucy says to Linus, “I can’t believe how long it’s been raining for! Perhaps it will just keep raining until everything is flooded and we are all drowned?” Linus replies, “No, in Genesis chapter 9 God tells Noah that He will never again allow a flood to take over the whole earth”. Lucy says, “Wow! Thanks”. Linus pauses and says, “Good theology is a beautiful thing!”
Good theology is a beautiful thing, and it’s the theology of Genesis 9 and the flood story that has interested me, as I think it’s a story with a very important message.
The Noah story is a tale of pain and passion – the pain caused by humanity on the one hand, through their violent and reckless behaviour, and the passion of God, who is grieved by His creation and seems to be ready to throw up his hands!
If you’re familiar with this part of the Bible you know that the Noah story is a component part in a series of similar stories that span the first eleven chapters of Genesis – starting out with the very beginning of creation – where things just seem to go from bad to worse.
First there is Adam and Eve and the incident with the snake. Next thing, there’s a murder in Adam and Eve’s immediate family, and things just seem to degenerate from there until, by the time of Noah, we’re told that “every inclination of the human heart was only evil all the time”. (Genesis 6:5)
And I appreciate that that’s a very black and white way of looking at the world, but if you look at what’s going on in the world today, you could be forgiven, I think, for coming to exactly the same conclusion!
And it makes you angry! I find myself getting angry about things all the time! I’ve been getting angry this week about Syria, though not so much over what’s going on in the country itself, but over the way it’s being reported out here!
I’m convinced we’re being hoodwinked again by our media on this one, and I spent extensive time on Friday evening with a guy who had just returned from Syria, and he said exactly the same thing. He said that he and his friends would watch the foreign media coverage from Syria, where CNN or BBC would tell them what was going on in the area they were living in, and it was clearly entirely inaccurate!
And it makes you angry, and people do crazy things when they’re angry. They take up arms and they strap bombs to themselves and they commit acts of violence.
But God is not exactly depicted as getting angry here, but rather as grieving.
“The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.” (Genesis 6:5-6)
And perhaps that depiction of God strikes you as sounding ‘all too human’, but perhaps that is the point!
The God we read of in these early chapters of the Bible is not one who sets the whole machine in motion and then steps back and lets it rip. On the contrary, this is a God who engages with his creation from the outset, and engages passionately!
And so this God gets frustrated, exasperated, and ultimately regrets ever having created the human race. And so the flood comes, not so much as an act of angry vengeance on God’s part, but more out of a desire for a fresh start.
Even so, the flood is a violent act, and there’s no getting around that. It’s exactly the sort of incident that leaves people shaking their heads and asking “why would God allow such a thing to happen?” to which we are generally respond by trying to excuse God from blame.
Here though God seems happy to take the blame, and yet the conclusion to the story is rather telling. God makes a covenant with Noah, and with all flesh through Noah, such that God will never allow another act of such universal cataclysmic violence to ever happen again.
And so God hangs up His bow as a sign to all flesh that such violence is never going to come from His hand again. Just as the modern-day farmer might lock away his rifle in the shed, or the master swordsman sheaths his sword, so the warrior-archer hangs up his bow! And this is what God is does – hangs up His bow above the mantle-piece (so to speak) as a sign that He will never be using it again!
And it’s a covenant. It’s a promise. And if you know your Bible at all you know that the concept of ‘covenant’ or ‘testament’ is a very key Biblical concept.
We divide our Bible into covenants (or ‘testaments’) – the Old Testament and the New Testament, which would suggest that there are only two covenants. In fact, Biblically speaking, I think there are five:
•#This one
•#The covenant with Abraham and his children forever (Genesis12)
•#The covenant with Moses and his people at Mount Sinai
•#The covenant with David – that one of his children will always reign as king
•#The ‘new covenant’ with Jesus
And in each case what we are dealing with fundamentally is a promise – a commitment on the part of God to His covenant partner.
And you can see that there’s a progressive narrowing of the focus of these covenants. They begin with Noah, with a commitment to all flesh. After that there is a commitment to a particular race of people, then to those members of that race that make it to Mount Sinai, then to one particular family within that group (the line of David) and finally to one particular individual (Jesus).
And my dad used to say that it was like a funnel, with the promises of God becoming increasingly focused – from the children of Abraham to Moses, to the specific line of David, and finally to an individual – Jesus, through whom the Grace of God becomes available again to everybody!
And that’s a good way of looking at it, with the funnel ending with a universal shower of love, and it’s appropriate too because it all begins here with Noah with a universal and unconditional commitment to ‘all flesh’, and it is a commitment of mercy – a promise on the part of God that He will deal gently with His children – with ALL His children, and with animals too!
God has hung up His bow. The days of divine violence are over. No matter how bad things get, God is going to find another way of working things through.
It’s a bit of a strange parallel, but I don’t know if you’ve been following the story of Khader Adnan Muhammad Musa –the Palestinian hunger-striker?
I find that story really fantastic, because Khader Adnan is a leader of Islamic Jihad, which is an organisation committed to armed resistance against the Israeli Occupation of Palestine. Islamic Jihad believes that dialogue and so-called passive resistance are useless. As I understand it, he’s openly encouraged people to strap on bombs and do whatever they have to in order to bring an end to the injustice.
And this guy has been arrested a lot of times, though it seems the Israeli authorities rarely have anything to charge him with. So this time when he was arrested, he insisted that he get a trial or be freed, and when they refused to do either he went on a hunger strike!
And he fasted for 66 days, which I believe is a world record (so long as you don’t count the famous Irish ‘terrorist’, Bobby Sands, who didn’t survive his hunger strike). Anyway, Khader Adnan was successful, and the Israeli authorities have said that they are going to let him go! Islamic Jihad, it seems, have one a victory though, ironically, it has not been through armed resistance but through using a form of protest that Mahatma Ghandi made famous!
Yes, there are better ways of dealing with evil and injustice than the resort to violence, and God Himself, according to this ancient story, has committed Himself to finding other ways of dealing with evil and injustice. God will not punish without mercy. God will be gracious because God has made a commitment – a solemn promise of love – to us and to all flesh!
‘Before I was a Muslim I was a Christian’, he said to me, ‘and before I was a Christian I was a Jew’. And my response is, ‘and before we were men of faith, we were men’ – brothers in the flesh (so to speak) and still, as brothers in the flesh, recipients of the promises of God and beneficiaries of His Grace!
For the Covenants begin here, with Noah, with a commitment from God to be merciful to all flesh.
And yes, we enjoy the Grace of God made ours through Christ, but let’s remember that the promises of God were extended to us first not as Christian people but simply as people – simply as creatures of flesh, for God has made a commitment of love to all creatures of flesh.
Good theology is a beautiful thing, isn’t it? And the story of Noah, while many elements of it may be difficult to come to terms with, is ultimately a beautiful story too, I think, for it affirms the fundamental equality of all flesh before God, and it proclaims the unconditional commitment of God to all flesh.
‘Before I was a Muslim I was a Christian and before I was a Christian I was a Jew’. And before I was a man of faith I was a man, and before being a man (in a sense) I am simply a human being – a creature of flesh. But that is nothing to be ashamed of. For on the contrary, it is creatures of flesh that God is committed to, and He has committed Himself to all of us!
Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.
By infowriter
A business website is an important part of any businesses working tools and it should be as modern as the company can run, without committing a lot of your business funds to the effort. The website has an necessary role to play in bringing individuals to the company and persuading them to stay long enough to confirm that they make a purchase, but so as to make utilization of the site and to be ahead of your rivals selling similar products, you should have good web site optimization services.
Many individuals spend a great deal of your time browsing the web, and tablet computers enable them to do this in a variety of new places. If a website will not have an efficient SEO strategy, then the business may easily lose these potential clients, who are ready to go elsewhere to get what they need. Businesses ought to consider the SEO of their website as similar to advertising a real-time shop, absolute with data about the services they need to give, what they are doing, and the way guests can make the most effective utilization of the site.
It is not always easy for business leaders to create such information for a website from nothing and therefore they are much probable to use a search engine marketing service that could assist them to build their SEO and satisfy their customers. Anybody who is thinking of opening an online business or who already have a website like this needs to really think about if the skills are up to the job of promoting the site. Or else they have web site optimization services that may assist them to rise to the first page of the search engine rankings.
The first page is important for anyone who wants to make cash from an online business and a search engine marketing service could really help you to manage this effectively. By creating a content strategy which includes the full variety of web site optimization services, such as web auditing, content creation, social media networking, link building and video messaging, the service could assist you to keep your visitors entertained and informed, and give you sensible and appropriate content for the site, which is what many search engine bots are looking for. By having someone else come in and do your writing for you, you can make a huge deal of difference to your website, and it does not have to be expensive at all.
By infowriter
Creating a successful web based business can be one of the most tough responsibilities to achieve just simply because of the vast number of potential rivals which could be found online. Individuals believe they have the next amazing product to make them online fortunes only to discover many of other sites providing a similar goods or services and dominating the promoting environment. Instead of abiding to battle with trying to discover a brand new marketplace for you to enter through hours of infinite research, turn to a resource which will finish this job on your behalf. Simplify your online search with the unimaginable solutions offered by niche reaper.
The online environment has thousands of internet sites promising you a chance to revolutionize your promoting efforts so as to make strong promoting and search engine optimization results. The difficulty many businesses eventually discover is that these services can produce initial page Google search results, however at a cost. The companies choose the most obscure keywords which only provide your business with limited access to the large quantity of clients who might be available. The concepts of niche research tools is not to produce you with the best keywords to support your current business but to identify the latest niches you can build your business around.
Some of the most profitable companies found in the online environment are businesses that were able to get in on the ground floor of a brand new niche beforehand it exploded. Rather than reacting to the popularity of a brand new product or service, think of being able to spot these niches in order to be proactive and take advantage of the unexpected popularity which is about to happen. With a weapon like niche research tools your business can be ready to access a form of software planned not to find generic keywords however the newest niches.
When your company could create websites around niches which are about to explode, niche reaper will provide 3 major advantages. The first benefit is to find this market ahead of time so your company could be established when the new consumer interest begins to expand. The next benefit is from finding out a list of productive keywords thus your company dominates this internet based market instead of a competitor. The third benefit is that the reaper system will go ahead to discover new niches so your company could often develop new sites and products so as to remain beneficial.
The present oversaturation of the internet based environment makes it very tough for a business to enter any new market and find real marketing sources such as effective keywords.
By infowriter
Every day I receive emails supposedly sent out from fatherdave.org, and sometimes they even have ‘a message from the team at fatherdave.org’, embedded in the email body! Some days I get hundreds of these, and if I’m receiving hundreds, there must be millions that are being sent out!
A couple of years ago, I never would have dreamed of writing an article, warning anybody about the dangers of identity theft. Mind you, back then I never expected to ever receive emails from someone pretending to be me, selling me viagra!
There are plenty of unscruplous people around who will try to adopt your identity in order to get what they want (normally money). And while it doesn’t help if you do what I do – publish not only your email address and phone number on your website, but also a map on how to get to your house on foot – trying to conceal your identity from everyone is not the answer either.
I appreciate that some people feel that they shouldn’t give any personal details to anybody, for fear that these details will be used against them, but that’s a bit like never getting into a car because you’re aware of dangers on the roads.
In truth, I hate the ‘privacy’ push. C’mon! We live in a community, which means that we need to work together, and if we’re going to work together, we’ll need to know something about eachother. Even so, the problem is that the mechanisms we’ve set up for the sharing of information are open to abuse, and my goodness, have they ever been abused! The Internet is a sad case in point!
It never ceases to amaze me how this great gift to human kind – the Internet – that has the potential to bring people together from around the world, seems to function primarily to spread B-grade jokes and porn around the office, and to sell viagra! And the painful thing for me is not only the number of people trying to sell me viagra, but the number of viagra-sellers pretending to be me!
Every day I receive emails supposedly sent out from fatherdave.org, and sometimes they even have‘a message from the team at fatherdave.org’, embedded in the email body! Some days I get hundreds of these, and if I’m receiving hundreds, there must be millions that are being sent out!
In truth, limiting the number of spambots that can harvest your email address is not difficult. Just make sure that you scramble your address before you allow it to be published online. I’ve got an excellent email scrambler you can download for free right here. Unfortunately, email-author impersonation is not the worse form of identity theft around, and I’m afraid you need someone more knowledgable than me when it comes to the more serious forms of identity theft.
Some of these more serious forms of identity theft include:
• people running up gas or electricity bills on your account
• hi-jacking your telephone account and using it to make long-distance phone calls
• criminals getting hold of your credit card details and making purchases
As I say, this is not my area of expertise, but I can certainly refer you to the ‘Inside Identify Theft‘ report if you want to be better prepared against these sorts of criminal invasions. I’ve even got a video review on the book that you can take a look at if you’re keen.
Of course, even the techniqes taught in the Inside Identity Theft report can’t protect you from the most serious forms of identity theft, such as when a government agency assassinates a foreign diplomat and then frames you for the murder. It happens on 24 all the time! We’ll just have to trust the Lord above that He will protect us from that one (possibly with some help from Jack Bauer) .
Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.
By infowriter
The foreign exchange market, even known as Forex, is usually something that beginners to the world of the stock market struggle to comprehend. If you know how it functions, then it may be a smart way of getting into the market, and it can even prevent from the hard grind of stocks and shares, but if you’ve no idea a way to trade Forex effectively, then it can be just a means of losing your cash. As more and more individuals with no expert training in understanding the stock market have moved into Forex, hoping to make a profit from trading foreign exchange, therefore the earlier technique of using multiple sheets of information to work out for what the Forex shares were doing has fallen out of fashion.
What new traders are doing is using Forex trading software to assist them in deciding whether to purchase or sell. This software allows you in making selections about your Forex stock without having to pour over the earlier knowledge, or try to make sense of data that you have. Instead, the robot trading system takes the work of analyzing the movement of foreign currencies out of your transactions, so that you may focus on doing the right thing to confirm the best profit.
If you wish to move into the world of using Forex trading software, then you have two major types that you can opt from. With the simpler way of software you may control your accounts, figure out if few Forex shares are making you money or if the time has come to sell them, or maybe purchase new shares.
The other type is somewhat more like a robot trading system, an automated trader that may make suggestions about your stock, advice you of sudden changes in any particular stock and also read and assess knowledge that you put into it. The latter is a much more effective system if you are new to Forex trading, since it takes the effort out of the procedure, and allows you to get to grips with what is vital in the current movement of the Forex market.
This software is also protected, which means that you do not have to worry about hackers or at least as much as you could do with a website connection or a communal analysis program. The Forex trading software is protected, and completely independent of any websites or other parties. This makes it a much smoother to trade huge amounts of money, because you understand that you’re secure.
By infowriter
As a trader, the worst thing which will happen is that an investment undergoes a sudden drop in value in the night. No trader can be awake 24 hours at a time, just watching what occurs with the stock and however sometimes it seems like that is precisely what is required in order to get a good earnings on the cash you have put forward. It is impossible to keep up with all the modifications which happen to your stock, mainly if you are working in futures, that are notoriously unstable and thus futures trading software may seem like a great idea.
The thought of investing in futures, where anything could occur at any time of day or night, is difficult enough, however reading the information on the futures may also be extremely difficult. Traders use a published report known as the Commitment of Traders to work out exactly where they should be investing, except for beginners this is often not a light read and the majority have difficulty without assistance from any other broker.
Instead, they usually depend on myths or cult-type teachers, who promise to show them how to manage futures trading, however in reality give them nothing however a few tips about how to work like a trader. Those coming in without having been trained on the stock market often do very badly in the initial years.
This is where a futures trading software package could make the difference between getting the results you need, and obtaining the question wrong. The data you acquire from the report may be put into the computer system and it would help you to locate distinct patterns in the manner that futures trading has occurred in the last week. Considering such patterns would enable you to see beyond your skill level and start trading as if you had a lifetime’s worth of skill behind it.
When you know how the futures market works and the way the data you employ may be applied to it, you will then be able to get suitable stock to invest in. Since the futures trading software would permit you to put in all the data you want and then arrange for it to set your own personal perimeters. It could then inform you if something influences the stock in a serious way, therefore you can take the decision to either purchase or sell, depending on the movement. These steps could mean that you can always handle your stocks effectively and efficiently.
By infowriter
After they left the synagogue, they went directly to the house of Simon and Andrew, along with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was lying in bed, sick with a fever, so they promptly told Jesus about her. He went up to her, took her by the hand, and helped her up. The fever left her, and she began serving them. When evening came, after the sun had set, people started bringing to him all those who were sick or possessed by demons. In fact, the whole city gathered at the door. He healed many who were sick with various diseases and drove out many demons. However, he wouldn’t allow the demons to speak because they knew who he was. In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went to a deserted place and prayed there. Simon and his companions searched diligently for him. When they found him, they told him, “Everyone’s looking for you.” He said to them, “Let’s go to the neighboring towns so that I can preach there, too. For that is why I came out here.” So he went throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.
Looking through the Gospel text this week I was reminded of the story of the priest who gets pulled over by a policeman after running a red light, and when the window is wound down, the officer is immediately confronted with the smell of alcohol emanating from the car!
“Have you been drinking, Father?” the policeman asks. “Not a drop”, the priest replies.
“Well … would you mind telling me what you’ve got in that flask”, the policeman asks. “Ah … that would be water”, says the priest.
The policeman picks up the flask, opens it and sniffs it. “I believe this is whiskey, Father”, says the policeman.
“Mother of God!” says the priest, “Another miracle!”
And as I read through the Gospel reading today I find myself making the same response: ‘Another miracle!’
We’re actually only in the first chapter of the Gospel according to St Mark, and yet already we have been confronted with a whole series of miracles!
No sooner had Jesus entered the synagogue to teach than he was confronted by a wild, crazy man, screaming out at him, and Jesus healed the man.
And within a day of that event, or so it seems, everybody who is sick or possessed is crowding around Jesus, and Jesus is healing them of their illnesses and driving out demons, and the activity becomes all-consuming, though the irony is that Jesus seems to be engaging in the whole process a little reluctantly!
We sense a degree of frustration, I think, with Jesus early on, as He tries to quieten the testimonies of the possessed – “You are the Holy One of God!” – lest the whole thing get out of hand. And yet it does get out of hand, and Jesus seems frustrated by the hordes that press on him. It appears that He wants people to listen to what He has to say, and not just to get carried away with His miracles or His mysterious identity.
This is made quite explicit at the end of our reading today, where we see Jesus, having escaped from the crowds that were pursuing him to a ‘lonely place’ (vs.35), telling His disciples that it’s time to move on.
“Let’s go to the neighbouring towns so that I can preach there, too. For that is why I came out here.” (vs.38)
And it seems that Jesus, after having taken some time to think things through, realises that His priority has to be spreading His word of hope about the new world coming. The great well of human need that He sees round about him is, it seems, a distraction that threatens to divert Him from His real work.
Surely there were any number of others who could take up the task of healing the sick. Jesus must focus on spreading the word, “for that is why I came out”!
As I say, there is a fair degree of irony in this because despite Jesus’ words, He never actually acts in accordance with His own pronouncement!
Perhaps indeed the ordinary needs of ordinary human beings are a distraction from the greater work of spreading the Gospel, but if so, Jesus seemed to consistently allow Himself to be distracted!
So many people come to him, we are told, that there isn’t room at the door, and yet we don’t see Jesus standing up and saying, “Look! I want everybody to put their physical issues on hold for a moment. I have some things I’d like to say.”
No! There is a well of human misery surrounding Jesus as He begins His ministry, and Jesus wades right into it!
Jesus does not detach Himself. He allows Himself to be distracted. He reaches out. He heals. He liberates both the infirmed and the possessed, and He does so knowing full well that this is detracting from the work that He was sent to do, but He does it anyway!
Yes, at the end of the day he creates some distance for Himself and He decides that it’s time to focus on preaching, and yet the immediate follow-on from this pronouncement is that a person afflicted with leprosy finds Jesus and asks for help.
And Jesus doesn’t say, “Not now, buddy! I’ve got other things I need to be doing. At least wait until the end of the sermon!” On the contrary, St Mark records that Jesus was ‘moved with compassion’ for the man (vs.41), and so He healed him. And so the pattern of preaching AND healing (where there always seems to be a lot more healing than preaching) continues!
Now that story of the man with leprosy is in next week’s reading, I think, and I don’t want to snatch the thunder from next week’s sermon, so perhaps I should focus on the main healing that is dealt with in this week’s story – namely, the healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law – a healing that I must say has to be one of the least spectacular healing stories ever recorded in any of the four Gospels!
It is preceded by the healing of the crazy demoniac and proceeded by the story of the man with leprosy, and it seems like a rather innocuous example to focus on relative to those two!
We are told that Simon Peter’s mother-in-law had a fever, but there is no suggestion there that it was life-threatening. It may have been, of course, or she may have just had a slight touch of the flu!
It does make you wonder why the Gospel writer chose to include this particular incident when it does seem to detract from the action-packed nature of the adventure that’s unfolding.
Was it just that the Gospel writer and his first readers all knew Peter’s mother-in-law personally? If so, it’s a bit of a surprise that she doesn’t receive a name in the story!
Some scholars suggest that there is a movement in the story of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law that is archetypal for the process of discipleship.
As you read the narrative, you do feel that movement:
• Jesus goes to her
• He takes her by the hand
• He lifts her up
• She is healed!
And it’s almost like a dance that Jesus and the woman are sharing in together, where Jesus leads the dance but where, you will notice, the woman makes the final move, for we are told that no sooner has she been healed than she begins to ‘serve’ Jesus – literally, to ‘wait on Him’ but the implication being that she has now become a disciple, and so the dance of love and healing and service will continue!
I’m sure this story has deliberately been framed to encapsulate this movement, as a sort of template for discipleship. Even so, there’s no reason the Gospel writer could not have overlaid that template on any number of other more spectacular healing stories too
My guess is that Mark deliberately included this story of the healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, in all its ordinariness, simply because it is so ordinary, and hence so familiar!
We see healings like this all the time, don’t we? We are often involved in healings like this, are we not?
It may be that you, like me, have seen a handful of spectacular healings and/or exorcisms in your time, but for the most part it is these little miracles that we are familiar with, and perhaps part of the point of this passage is that little miracles are still miracles, and the fact that they are small and familiar does not mean that they are unimportant!
I think of all the little miracles I’ve been privileged to be the beneficiary of over the years – not normally directly from the hand of Jesus, but more often through the healing touch of one of Jesus’ people.
I think back to the time when I was struggling with depression, trying to survive my own family breakdown many years ago. And I remember all the little acts of healing that took place back then – the little miracle of a friend who would sit up with me and share a beer with me and let me talk until I was able to go to sleep.
We’ve been remembering the lives of dear old Margaret and Thelma today, and I remember well the small miracles that they would dispense – nothing spectacular, but a gentle word, a loving embrace – coming to me, taking me by the hand, lifting me up and giving me healing and strength. Life’s little miracles!
“Let’s go to the neighbouring towns so that I can preach there, too. For that is why I came out here.” (vs.38)
As I say, there is a subtle irony in this pronouncement, in part because Jesus seems to be incapable of following His own advice!
If Jesus really was psyching up the team for a more focused ministry where words came first and acts of healing second, it was a program He never carried through with. His compassion got the better of Him.
And yet there is another irony here too, and it’s found in the text of the Gospel itself!
Jesus’ priority, we are told, is preaching and teaching, and yet if you read through this extensive first chapter of the Gospel according to St Mark, there’s not a single word of Jesus’ teaching recorded! It actually not until we get to the latter part of Mark chapter 2 that we get any of the actual teachings of Jesus recorded!
I’m not suggesting that this makes the teachings of Jesus any less important – not at all – but I am suggesting that (at least so far as the Gospel-writer Mark was concerned) these were not the things Jesus was best remembered for!
And this is true to life!
As we are remembering today the lives of dear Thelma and Margaret, I must say that I remember them very well, but it’s not their wise words I remember, though I’m sure Thelma (in particular) had plenty for me. It was her compassionate touch, her loving looks, the affectionate kiss, the healing embrace …
St Francis of Assisi is said to have said, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary use words”. I don’t know if he really said it, but it makes sense.
Of course we don’t do anybody any favours by holding back the words of the Gospel, for indeed these words can be the source of life and hope. And yet words by themselves can be very hollow.
When we die it will most likely not be our words that we are best remembered for. Most likely it will be the little miracles that we were a part of. And it may seem sometimes that our contribution is not that great (‘ah … another miracle’) and yet every miracle – great and small – is a part of that great dance that Christ is leading us in.
For Jesus is more than just a teacher, just as His teaching is more than mere words. He is “the visible image of our invisible God”, says St Paul (Colossians 1:15).
Or in the words of Charles Wesley:
Jesu, Thou art all compassion.
Pure, unbounded love Thou art.
Visit us with Thy salvation.
Enter every trembling hear!
‘Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.
By infowriter
The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2“Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”
5And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. 6When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” 10When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
When I decided that this week I’d preach on the book of Jonah I immediately started to think of fish stories that I could introduce my reflection with, and the only one I could think of is one I fear I’ve already mentioned.
It concerns a guy going fishing at his favourite spot by the river, but when he gets there he realises that he’s forgotten his bait, but he notices a lovely fat looking tree frog sunning himself on a lily pad, so he decides to stalk the frog and capture it and use it for bait. And he’s just about to grab the frog when he realises that there’s a brown snake alongside him who also has his eyes on the frog, and before he can do anything else, the snake has leapt forward and swallowed the frog whole!
Not thinking about what he was doing, but angry as hell at the snake, the guy leaps forward and grabs the snake around the throat and yanks the frog out of its mouth and drops the frog in his bait box. It’s then that it really strikes him that he has an angry, snapping venomous snake in his hand that he can’t simply pat on the head and let go.
Thinking quickly, he grabs his hip-flask with his free hand (which is full of whiskey), opens it, and pours a goodly amount into the open mouth of the snake. The snake goes limp and the fisherman places it on the ground and walks away to get on with his day’s fishing.
About twenty minutes later he feels a tapping at his shoe. He looks down and sees it’s the snake, with two more frogs!
It’s not really a brilliant joke, but what was less brilliant really was my knee-jerk reaction to the mention of Jonah – thinking that I needed to come up with a fish story. I hear the word ‘Jonah’ I think ‘fish’, which really only reflects my historic failure to really grasp what the book is about!
For the fish in the book of Jonah is only mentioned in three of the forty-seven verses of the book, which is in itself a solid indication of the fact that the fish is a minor character in the drama, and hardly the central theme of the book!
I’m not going to beat myself up about this, as Jonah’s under-water antics are indeed the only part of the prophet’s career that are generally remembered in our culture.
I still remember being introduced to the story of the prophet as a child by means of a picture book that had an image of Jonah and his fishy friend on the front cover – a book that I seem to remember was entitled, “Jonah and the Great Big Fish!”
Moreover, the association of Jonah with his scaly friend has so penetrated Western history that the pair long ago became a part of a distinctively maritime lingua-franca! I have read, at least, that the term used by sailors of the under-water grave, “Davey Jones’ Locker” does in fact go back to the book of Jonah!
Apparently there never was any famous underwater character named ‘Davey Jones’ (the lead singer of The Monkeys included). The name is rather a bastardisation of the Western Indian words, ‘Duffy Jonah’ (meaning ‘prophet Jonah’), which means that ‘Davey Jones’ Locker’ is in fact another reference to the fish!
Even so, as I say, the Book of Jonah is not really a book about fish (nor about whales for that matter [for those who feel a need to point out that if Jonah had been swallowed by a whale, a whale is not actually a fish, technically speaking]).
Let’s just clear the deck (so to speak) of fish and whales – neither of which are really significant themes in the book of Jonah. But if the maritime adventure of Jonah is not the key theme of the book, what is it all about? That is the question!
Personally, I stopped seeing Jonah as a fish story once I gave my life to Christ as a teenager and joined a youth group, for it was there that I learned that the book of Jonah was not really a book about fish but was rather a book about priorities and about obedience, and about the importance of submitting ourselves to the will of God, even when God’s plans for our lives conflict with our own personal agendas.
God had a plan for Jonah’s life. Jonah had other plans. Jonah had to learn that in the end it is God’s will that has to be done rather than your own. The book of Jonah, when seen from this perspective, is a challenge to each of us to submit ourselves to the will of God, lest we find ourselves thrown off a boat, drowning in the water, swallowed by a great fish, and spat out in the direction that submission to the will of God would have originally taken us anyway.
We might refer to this interpretation of the Book of Jonah as the pious interpretation, and there’s obviously a lot of value in this ‘Thy will be done’ application of this book, but in my view now, as an adult now, the pious interpretation of Jonah is as far removed from the central message of the book as is the maritime adventure theme!
In truth, I think it is very hard for us Sydney-siders of the 21st Century to grasp the central message of the Book of Jonah for one very simple reason: we just don’t harbor any real hatred towards the Assyrians!
The Book of Jonah was written a long time ago in a culture far removed from our own, and the issue that upsets Jonah in the book and the issue that would have upset most of the original readers of the book was not simply that God had a plan for Jonah’s life (in some a general sort of way) but that God called Jonah to prophesy in Nineveh, which was the capital of Assyria, and both Jonah and the Book of Jonah’s original readers hated Assyrians!
And the Jews didn’t just hate the Assyrians because they looked different either. They hated the Assyrians because the Assyrians had a history of killing them!
Assyria was once the world’s most fearsome superpower! From the middle of the tenth century B.C. right through to the end of the seventh, the Neo-Assyrian Empire dominated the Middle East, and, during the 8th century reign of Tiglath-Pileaser III most especially, their empire was vast – covering all of what is modern-day Iraq and Syria, and covering enormous chunks of what is today Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and, of course, it covered all of Israel and Palestine!
And it was an Empire built on violence! That in itself is in no way unique, of course, as indeed all the world’s empires have been built on violence, and yet the stories of the savagery of the Assyrian armies do seem particularly horrible.
Nineveh’s military machine was renowned for being sadistic. If enemies resisted surrender during the siege of their city, once defeated, the whole population would be horribly mutilated and slaughtered. Their houses and towns would be torn down and burned, and the flayed skins of their corpses prominently displayed on stakes as a warning to others who might have been considering resistance.
After their battles, public amusement would be provided for the people of Nineveh via a victory procession wherein enemy survivors were led down the city streets by leashes attached to rings inserted through their lips, with the vanquished nobles wearing the decapitated heads of their princes hanging around their necks. And all of this fun was accompanied by music from bands of minstrels playing merry tunes! Oh, the people of Nineveh knew how to enjoy themselves!
And they enjoyed themselves like this for more than 300 years! It must have seemed as if the arrogant might of Nineveh would never fade and that their power-hungry god, Assur, was unbeatable. The Assyrian war-machine enjoyed so many bloody victories over their enemies in those 300 plus years between the 934 and 609 B.C., but none was remembered in the Bible more clearly and more bitterly than the sacking of Samaria and the destruction of Northern Israel in 721.
The Jews did not hate the Assyrians because they looked funny or ate strange foods or just didn’t make an effort to mix in with the locals. They hated the Assyrians for far more obvious (and surely far more valid) reasons.
They hated them because the Assyrians had destroyed more than half of their country. They hated them because of the countless number of their kinsfolk who had been slaughtered, imprisoned, enslaved and/or humiliated by the Assyrians. And they hated the Assyrians because in 721 B.C. it seemed that their god, Assur, had been victorious over the God of Israel.
That day in 721 B.C. would forever be remembered by the people of Israel, not just as a day of mourning, but as a day of national humiliation. Their people had been butchered, half their country destroyed, and their temples desecrated.
It was all done by the Ninevites, and so Jonah hated the Ninevites as the readers of Jonah hated the Ninevites. And now God asks Jonah to go to Ninevah to preach to the people there, and call on them to repent! And Jonah did not want to go there. Why would he? The only Jews that went to Ninevah were dragged there in chains!
And yet it’s not only because he hates their city and might well fear for his life in such a place, but most of all because he feared that if he went to Ninevah, God might use him to do something good for the people of Ninevah, and in as much as Jonah might have feared that the people of Nineveh might do him some evil, his far greater fear was that he (Jonah) might be for the people of Nineveh the instrument of some good!
National hatred of an enemy race is a terrible thing, but something we are all familiar with.
I remember being told of a Jewish man and a Chinese man who, amongst others, are sitting at a bar, slowly drinking away the night. There were plenty of others perched between these two at the bar but the Jewish guy kept looking over at the Chinese guy with a surly expression on his face and was mumbling curses at him that got increasingly louder with each beer he consumed!
Eventually the Jewish guy gets up and walks over to the Chinese guy and pours his beer over the poor guy’s head! The Chinese guy says, “What’s that for?” The Jewish guy says, “That’s for Pearl Harbour! My uncle was killed at Pearl Harbour!” The Chinese guy says, “I’m Chinese. That was the Japanese, you fool!” The Jewish guy says, “Chinese, Japanese … what’s the difference?” and he returns to his stool.
Two minutes later the Chinese guy walks over to the Jewish guy and pours the contents of his beer over the Jewish guy’s head. “What’s that for?” asks the Jewish guy. The Chinese guy says, “That’s for the Titanic! My grandfather died on the Titanic!” The Jewish guy says, “What’s that got to do with me?” The Chinese guy says, “Steinberg, Goldberg, iceberg … what’s the difference?”
Humour can be an effective way of confronting racial prejudice. So can stories such as we find in the Book of Jonah.
The Book of Jonah is a book that is written with a purpose, and it’s purpose is not to encourage us to submit ourselves to the will of God (as important as that is) any more than it is to chronicle an ancient yarn concerning ‘the one that got away!’ It’s purpose is in fact summed up very succinctly in the final verse of the book of Jonah (chapter 4, verse 11) which I will read to you, but not just yet!
Before I do read it, I want to raise the question with you, very briefly, as to who might have been the original audience that the Book of Jonah was addressed to?
For the book is set in the 8th century B.C., but most Biblical scholars assume that the book wasn’t actually written till a great deal later – most probably in the post-exilic period, late in the 6th century.
If so, it is quite possible that it was published at around the same time that Ezra and Nehemiah were active in trying to rebuild the ancient city of Jerusalem – a city that had been lying in ruins since the Babylonians had destroyed it 50 years earlier.
And if you are familiar with the history of that time you will know that it was a time of great nationalistic fervour.
The Jews were returning to their homeland and they were rebuilding their ancient city and they were rebuilding their temple, and all of a sudden, for the first time in a great many years, it felt good to be a Jew again!
And leaders like Ezra and Nehemiah did a great deal to encourage the patriotic fervour of the returning Jews and to get them excited again about their city, about their religion and about their God.
And in the process of doing that the issue of racial purity became a sticking point for a lot of people, and indeed both those leaders – Ezra and Nehemiah – became very upset over the issue of inter-marriage between Jews and non-Jews.
Ezra indeed accused the men of mixing their ‘holy seed’ with the people of the lands (Ezra 9:2) and he encouraged large numbers of Jewish men to divorce their foreign wives and to send them away, along with the children of their mixed marriages!
And I’m not saying that the Book of Jonah was written specifically as a response to the nationalistic ‘reforms’ of Ezra (though a lot of scholars have suggested exactly that) but I am suggesting that at around the same time all that was happening, a little tract was certainly circulating that told a story of how God had called one of His prophets to minister in the land of the Assyrians, because the God of Israel loved and respected foreigners too – even the people of Nineveh!
In Jonah 4:11 – the final verse of the Book of Jonah – God says to Jonah “And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons that cannot discern their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”
Jonah is a remarkable book. Indeed, perhaps the only thing more remarkable than the book itself is the fact that our Jewish fathers and mothers, when it came time to put together the collection of books that have become known as our ‘Old Testament’ recognised that this book – the Book of Jonah – deserved to be included too, as one of the inspired works of God!
It is a book that strikes at the heart of every manifestation of religious nationalism, as indeed it is a book that confronts religious arrogance in all its forms, for it a book that reminds us that the God of Israel, the God of the faithful and the God of the upright, is also the God of the Assyrian, of the unfaithful and of the not-so-upright too!
And that’s why the Book of Jonah is a book our world needs to hear right now.
As our political leaders and media beaver away at dehumanising Arabs and Iranians and Muslim people in general, to prepare us for further bloodshed.
When being Christian has somehow once again become associated with being white!
And when refugees of all kinds are being treated with suspicion and contempt because of their strange foreign habits and strange foreign gods.
It’s time to once again hear the message of the Book of Jonah.
“And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:11)
‘Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.
