The year has just begun and you're probably thinking of a book to read. Cat & Dog Theology by Bob Sjogren and Gerald Robison is a good book to start the year. As the subtitles suggest, it's the perfect time of the year to rethink of our relationship with God. This new year, how far are you desiring to know Him more?
Cat and Dog Theology is full of simple yet powerful illustrations of our relationship with God. In this book, you'll find out if you're a cat or a dog. Yes, you heard it right. Christians are either cat or dog. Find out what you are and why by reading this book.
[n.] 1. A woman who has lost her husband by death and has not remarried.
2. In some card games, an additional hand dealt to the table; also a kitty
3. Printing An incomplete line of type ending a paragraph; especially, a single line or less at
the top of page or column
[v.] 1. To make a widow of; deprive of a husband: usually in the past participle: a woman widowed by war.
2. To deprive of something desirable; bereave
3. Rare To survive as the widow of
4. Rare To recognize as a widow; give the rights of a widow to
WIDOWin the Bible
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
AAFC has 500+ photos which you can see in slideshow or grid view by clicking the Photobucket link below. You can also download the original file by going back to the main view of the album.
It's all yours to use for church presentation reports or youth video promotions. Just make sure that you will use it accordingly. Contents of this site are protected by law through Creative Commons.
Hear young ladies, Hannah Farver and Lindsey Wagstaffe, speak about beauty. Beauty that is pleasing to no man's eye but to God.
Why did God create women?
What is true beauty?
What's the point of purity?
Modesty? Femininity?
We've wondered too.
Ask the world what womanhood is about, and you'll get a blank stare in return. No one knows. Young women are devoid of any vision beyond popularity, fortune, fame, a cute guy, and a dream career. From the glorified feminist ideals promoted on theater screens to the hurting, provocatively dressed twelve-year-old girl at school, it's unavoidably clear: our culture's idea of "womanhood" is a miserable, twisted version of the truth.
God had something greater in mind. From the start of creation, women were designed to live beautifully. But God's idea of beauty isn't about physical characteristics or the approval of others. It's about loving the God who created us for His glory, and enjoying the unique design He's given us.
Inner beauty is distinct. It's not intrinsic. It doesn't come naturally or easily; this beauty develops slowly in the heart, as a believer learns to love Christ more deeply. The more passionate for the Gospel we become, the more our hearts grow to reflect His image.
The goal of Beauty from the Heart is to nurture this growing beauty, and counter our culture's ideal for womanhood with God's breathtaking vision. Our one day conferences are designed to refresh young women (and their moms) with a renewed desire to live solely for Christ.
If you are interested in attending the UNASHAMED conference, please get in touch with Christin A. of SIBFK-AAFC through her mobile no. +639283247664 or you can email her at christin.alvarez@gmail.com.
Many young people don't like reading. And for sure they'll loathe history reading. Just like the history maker, Ulrich Zwingli, below--and most likely (though we hope not) his story will be ignored.
As Christians, we should know how God has blessed our faith and how it survived the persecutions throughout the centuries. This we can only know if we take time to read history. Gilbert Blythe once said in the Anne of Green Gables books,
"The folks who lived before me have done so much for me that I want to show my gratitude by doing something for the folks who will live after me. It seems to me that is the only way a fellow can get square with his obligations to the race."
What he said has so much profound truth in it. Our forefathers have gone through so much to keep the faith. They were kept in dungeons, chained, burned in stakes so they can hand down their faith to the next generation. On and on to the next generation. To our generation. The faith they fought for is the faith that we have now.
Let their stories be an inspiration as we keep on with the fight.
ULRICH ZWINGLI
Militant Swiss Reformer
"For God's sake, do not put yourself at odds with the Word of God. For truly it will persist as surely as the Rhine follows its course. One can perhaps dam it up for awhile, but it is impossible to stop it."
Ulrich Zwingli, the city chaplain, stood before the Zurich City Council in January 1523. The winds of reform had made their way over the Alps from Luther's Germany, and Zwingli was arguing 67 theses, beginning with "All who say that the gospel is invalid without the confirmation of the church err and slander God." Though 28 shy of Luther's 95 Theses, published some six years earlier, Zwingli's arguments were more persuasive: authorities gave him permission to continue his preaching, which emphasized Christ first and the church second ("Christ is the only mediator between God and ourselves," said another of Zwingli's theses). The Reformation in Switzerland was now well on its way, and Zwingli would play the key role in the early years.
Anxious For His Charge
Zwingli was born to a successful farmer in the Toggaburg Valley of the eastern lower Alps. Here Zwingli developed a deep love for his homeland. Later he translated one line of , "In the beautiful Alps, he tends me," and he used the Rhine River as an illustration of a key theme of his preaching: "For God's sake, do not put yourself at odds with the Word of God. For truly it will persist as surely as the Rhine follows its course. One can perhaps dam it up for awhile, but it is impossible to stop it."
But it took Zwingli years to discover the power of this Word. After graduating from the University of Basel in 1506, he became a parish priest in Glarus. From the beginning, he took his priestly duties seriously. He later wrote, "Though I was young, ecclesiastical duties inspired in me more fear than joy, because I knew, and remain convinced that I would give an account of the blood of the sheep which would perish as a consequence of my carelessness."
The feeling of responsibility for his charge (rather than, like Luther, a personal search for salvation) motivated Zwingli's increasing interest in the Bible. In an age when priests were often unfamiliar with the Scriptures, Zwingli became enamored with it, first after purchasing a copy of Erasmus's New Testament Latin translation. He began teaching himself Greek, bought a copy of Erasmus's Greek New Testament, and started memorizing long passages. In 1519 he began preaching from the New Testament regularly.
Privately Zwingli also started challenging the customs of medieval Christendom he thought unbiblical. He had struggled with clerical celibacy for some time (and even admitted that as a young priest, he'd had an affair). In 1522 he secretly married. That same year, he broke the traditional Lenten fast (by eating sausages in public) and wrote against fasting.
By 1523 he was ready to take his ideas to a larger audience, and in January he did just that before the Zurich City Council at what is now called the First Disputation. The Second Disputation came in October, and with further approval from the council, more reforms were carried out: images of Jesus, Mary, and the saints were removed from the churches; the Bible was to have preeminence.
Arguments Over Supper
Things moved rapidly after that. In 1524 he wedded his wife publicly, insisting that pastors had the right to marry. In 1525 he and others convinced the city to abolish the Mass, with its emphasis on the miracle of transubstantiation, and replace it with a simple service that included the Lord's Supper but only as a symbolic memorial.
As it turned out, it was the Lord's Supper that prevented the uniting of the German and Swiss reform movements. At a 1529 meeting at Marburg, called to unite the two movements, Luther and Zwingli met. Though they agreed on 14 points of doctrine, they stumbled on the fifteenth: the Lord's Supper. Against Zwingli's view, Luther insisted on Christ's literal presence. Zwingli balked. Luther said Zwingli was of the devil and that he was nothing but a wormy nut. Zwingli resented Luther's treating him "like an ass." It was evident no reconciliation was possible.
Zwingli died two years later in battle, defending Zurich against Catholic forces, and plans for spreading the Reformation into German Switzerland were ended. Still Zurich remained Protestant, and under the leadership of Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli's successor, this unique branch of the Reformation continued to blossom.
The year has just begun and you're probably thinking of a book to read. Cat & Dog Theology by Bob Sjogren and Gerald Robison is a good book to start the year. As the subtitles suggest, it's the perfect time of the year to rethink of our relationship with God. This new year, how far are you desiring to know Him more?
