Unhindered

κηρύσσων τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ διδάσκων τὰ περὶ τοῦ Κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ μετὰ πάσης παρρησίας ἀκωλύτως.
"Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him." Acts 28:31
ἀκωλύτως actually means “without hindrance” or “unhindered.” Hence the name of my blog, Saints on the Loose!

Jesus Wept

"Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.
 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,
 And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.
 Jesus wept.
" John 11:32-35.

Jesus wept at the tomb of his personal friend, Lazarus, who had been dead and buried for four days. Talking to Sean Hannity, Christian evangelist Franklin Graham said, "I think He cried because He had to bring Lazarus back."

Bob Dylan's Christmas Album

Bob Dylan (b. 1941 as Robert Allen Zimmerman) was a 1979 convert to Christianity. Many of his fans thought he was nuts as he released albums containing overtly Christian lyrics. They got over it and realized he was still Bob Dylan.

Now, Dylan has released Christmas in the Heart, a collection of Christmas themed songs. The first single from the album, Must Be Santa, features a video of Dylan in a Santa hat at a boisterous Christmas party singing in his unmistakable gravelly, almost on key, voice. Critics immediately declared he had released the video as a spoof.

Dylan thought otherwise and didn't mind saying so. He said he was pushing his musical boundaries and that true fans of his music would understand. "Critics like that are on the outside looking in. They are definitely not fans or the audience that I play to. ... Even at this point they don't know what to make of me. These songs are part of my life ..." It appears that Bob Dylan is still Bob Dylan, a little cranky, very serious and cerebral, genuine, and totally aware of his place in music history. God bless him!

A Christian Sex Magazine from Africa

Intiem, an Afrikaans language magazine was begun in 2006 in Africa and, in 2009, has begun an English language version entitled Intimacy. The target audience is married Christian women from strict religious backgrounds which have often left the women with an unease about physical intimacy. The magazine insists that sex is a gift from God which married Christian women can rightly claim without guilt about not being "good girls."

The magazine endorses strict monogamy and is opposed to same sex marriage or relationships.

"We believe that if a sex act stays within a marriage, is shared by only husband and wife, and both of them are comfortable with and enthusiastic about doing whatever they are doing, it can only be beneficial to the marriage. And this is what God wants for us."

News: Religious Intimidation in Pakistan

The radical group, Ideological Supremacy to Uphold Islam in the World, has been linked by police to a bombing in Kas, Pakistan. The bombing on 23 November was aimed at a video/CD shop which sold Urdu and Pashto language Islamic and Christian religious films including the Jesus Film. The shop's owner, Muhammad Taos Khan, was warned that he was "disseminating vulgarity." Well, at least we know where we stand with radical Muslims.

Holy Cow! Jesus is in My Screen Door!

In early December of 2009, Moses, a half-Jersey, half-Holstein, calf was born on Brad Davis' farm in Sterling, Connecticut. What is special about Moses that made the international news is that on his forehead is a patch of white hair in the shape of a cross. Some have already started with the predictable "maybe God is sending us a message from above." No one is sure what message God might be sending on the forehead of a cow. It's the wrong place anyway. As one sarcastic blogger opined, "... religious icons should only appear in cheese ... you can find that in the Bible."

In the film, Screen Door Jesus (2003), it's not a cow's head but the front screen door of Old Mother Harper, an old black woman in a small Texas town. On the screen some, but not all, see the smiling face of Jesus. the entire population of the town and then the outside press show up in Mother Harper's front yard and start taking sides. So many people come, tramping her flowers and leaving trash, that Mother Harper gets righteously annoyed.

It seems that Jesus (or sometimes Mary) appears everywhere: on billboards, in pictures of spaghetti, in water stains, in the shape of a deformed Cheeto, etc. and that pathetic people, desperate for a proof of what they want to believe, rush to worship the holy item. Jesus told us that we don't need that.

"Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." John 20:29.

Rushing to fawn over a piece of cheese or a Jesus shaped mushroom brings ridicule to the Church. They already think we're crazy and then we go and prove it.

Another light bulb joke

How many Zen masters does it take to change a light bulb?

A lily pad floats on the surface above a goldfish below.