Manly and More

Jane and Tim started their new semester at Bible college on our third full day in Sydney, so Duncan and I ventured out alone for the first time (oooh scary!).  After a number of friends recommended taking the ferry to Manly, that's exactly what we did!

There are some fantastic walks around the coast.



View of the city from the ferry on the way back.





Kirribilli House.  We wanted to drop in on Julia Gillard, but she was probably out.





Duncan was OBSESSED with the Opera House.



And the jolly bridge! :)



He made me climb many stairs for this picture.



Government House.  It opens for tours, but unfortunately it was closed when we were there.

Four People, Three Sisters and a Lot of Fog

On Day 2, we went to church with Jane and Tim before heading out to Katoomba to see the Three Sisters and have a picnic lunch.

As soon as we got into Katoomba, we realised we might be disappointed.  The fog was thick and we could barely see more than 20 metres ahead while driving.  After trying in vain to see the Three Sisters from the lookout, we gave up and had lunch before Duncan and Tim decided they wanted to go down the Giant Stairway.  Jane and I went back into Katoomba and hung around the shops for a while.

After coffee in town, we headed back to the lookout and had success....sort of.

I can't see a thing



One of the sisters



Amazing view







Aha there they are





All right, Duncan, you may take a photo

Day 1 in Sydneytown

Well.....we're back!

Sydney is fantastic!  I had such a great time.  I think I have post-holiday depression actually.  While it's all a bit too loud and scary for country bumpkins like us, it was a great adventure. When we flew into Australia's biggest city, I saw the bright lights and immediately thought, I don't think we're in Kojonup anymore.

We crammed so much into four days and I drank so much coffee that I'm just starting to get 'with it' again.  I've been over east quite a few times and have never had a problem with the two hour time difference before.  It's funny, we were in JB Hi-Fi in Perth before heading home when Duncan came up next to me with a handful of DVDs, asking which ones I wanted.  I was so out of it that I thought he was someone who worked there!

Anyway, I digress.  Back to Sydney....

I must thank our friends, Jane and Tim, who were so hospitable.  They took us around for the first two days until they had to start their new semester at Bible college, and they even gave up their bed for us while they slept on an air mattress in their lounge room.



The boys were too shy, but Jane and I just had to have a photo with CAPTAIN COOK! (What do you mean he's not the real Captain Cook?)



Typical tourist shot!





For some reason, Duncan wanted to take a photo underneath the Sydney Harbour Bridge





The Rocks Markets.




View from The Rocks





A picnic lunch on the North Shore (ooo posh!)



Luna Park!  There was free entry.





Hehe Tim the bearded granny!  Funniest pic ever!




Duncan was a bit obsessed with the Opera House.



An out of focus pic of us showing the end result of a visit to Max Brenner :)

Friday Funny

Bible Verse of the Day

Behold I will create a new heavens and a new earth.  The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.  But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.  I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.  Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be considered accursed.  They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.  No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat.  For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands.  They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they and their descendants with them.  Before they call, I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.  The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent's food.  They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.
Isaiah 65:17-25

666 And All That

With a title like that, this book is bound to get some attention!  It sure jumped out at me when I saw it sitting on the table at a camp bookstall.

John Dickson and Greg Clarke are two fantastic, down-to-earth writers and this book is no exception.  It dares to delve into the topics that divide or confuse many Christians and offers easy-to-read and biblical explanations.  To those Christians who are attracted to the 'weird and wonderful', it will plant your feet back on the ground.  To those who are afraid, it will help you realise that end times is not as scary as you may think.  To those who have very rigid views on the topic already, it will rebuke and challenge you.

Here's what the blurb says:
As we look together at what the Bible says and doesn't say about the future, we expect many readers will be disturbed, comforted, humbled and hopefully thrilled.  Some cherished beliefs may be rattled, some confirmed and others discovered anew.

Some of the topics it covers are:

• The different views on the millennium in Revelation - including looking at where beliefs such as the Rapture came from.
• Jesus' return
• Hell
• God's judgement, including hard questions such as the fate of those who have never heard the gospel.
• Life after death
• Renewed creation

Those of you who are regular readers of this blog may remember last year I asked the theological question, What happens after you die?  Soul sleep or straight to Jesus?  in Calling All Theoblogians #9.  Dickson and Clarke provide a pretty good answer.  They believe that a believer rests in God's presence until their body is raised physically on the last day and they live forever with God in the renewed creation.  It fits with verses about bodies being raised and also with Jesus telling the thief that today he will be in paradise.

I won't say anymore.  I don't want to spoil it.

On the downside, I did find the sequence of chapters a bit hard to follow.  The authors do say in the book that they arranged it that way for a reason, but I found sometimes it felt like the subject matter was jumping all over the place a bit.  Personally I would have arranged the chapters differently, but that's just me.

What I will say though is: read this book!  If you are not sure of your beliefs in some of these areas and it has been too confusing and hard to explore, have a read.  If you've grown up with your parents' or church's view of the end times and not questioned it, have a read too.  The book is controversial and the authors don't shy away from stating their beliefs, but they do it in a friendly manner.

The Pendulum: End Times

I'm trying not to make this post too controversial...but here goes...

I find it hard...VERY hard... to have meaningful fellowship with Christians who are OBSESSED with end times.

It's not that they aren't nice people, it's just that it's hard to steer the conversation away from their favourite topic.  It's all some Christians want to talk about.  Whether it's debating whether Barack Obama is the antichrist or being glued to the TV when anything about Israel comes up in the news, I get thoroughly sick of hearing about it.  I don't know whether to be offended or amused when some people just assume I agree with them.  If I'm silent, it doesn't mean I agree - it means I don't see any point arguing.

Why is it when I see some people they are always telling me about how they're studying Daniel or Revelation?  Umm there are 64 other books in the Bible that are worth a look too.

Oh and don't get me started on the Left Behind series!  I don't normally destroy books, but for that I made an exception.

It's funny I'd never even heard of the terms premillennialism or amillennialism until Duncan and I started dating.  He was telling me that he knows many strong premillennials and I asked, "A pre-what?"

I came from a church in Perth that spoke very little about the various views on end times.  Although my views on the end times probably most closely resemble amillennialism, they can really be summarised in a few points:

• Jesus is coming back one day, but no-one except God the Father knows the date or hour.
• We have been given the task of reaching people with the gospel.
• Therefore, we need to be ready for Jesus' return, but not in an obsessed, star-gazing, current affairs-analysing kind of way.  We need to make the most of our time to tell people about Christ because we do not know how long we have.

I went through a stage when I thought that the end times didn't matter at all (I called myself an I-Don't-Give-A-Toss-Mill), but I listened to a sermon series on Revelation a couple of years ago challenged my perspective.  This stuff is in the Bible so it does matter.

Although I don't consider myself a hardcore amill, I disagree with the premillennialist view.  I think it's a wrong interpretation of Scripture and that we are given glimpses of the future, but cannot say emphatically, "It will happen like THIS."

Having said that, I would never EVER not want to have fellowship with people who have differing end times views.  It is not an important issue so it should not cause divisions between Christians and churches.  It is not a test of whether someone is a true Christian or not, and it should NOT be a requirement for church membership or choosing a pastor.

I have some great friends who I know have different end times views to what I have (or aren't sure what they believe) and that's fine.  It only becomes a problem when divisive, argumentative people come into play who want to make grey areas into black and white ones.  It is pointless to split hairs over it because there is a lot we DON'T know.

There are things in which Christians should stand their ground on.  I do not believe this issue is one of them.