Dale offers “starting afresh” as the prompt for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge. I picked some morning scenes for the prompt.
Starting Afresh
Art – Décima
His promises He’s come to keep.
Deception’s seen through flashy art
as idols fall and drift apart.
Where demons dug delusions deep
the truth’s now clear. The liars weep.
Here comes the morning freshly made
as night departs and star lights fade.
It’s now we fully understand.
We are the bride. We take His hand.
Our ransom long ago was paid.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “art” to be used in a B-line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge.
Eugenia offers the word “promises” for this week’s Thursday Prompt.
I am thinking of the last chapters of Revelation.
Sunday Walk 74 – Carbon-14
The half-life of carbon-14 is under 6,000 years. No carbon-14 should be detectable in fossils claimed to be over 100,000 years old. But that is what has been found. Carbon-14 has been found in both dinosaur soft tissue and also in diamonds claimed to be many millions of years old.
Ian Juby shows how the presence of carbon-14 undermines the reliability of dating methods in the video below.
Weekly Bible Reading: Luke and John
Commentaries:
David Pawson, Luke, Part 4, John, Part 5 Unlocking the Bible
Bible Project, Luke 1-9, Luke 10-24, John 1-12, John 13-21
Weekly Torah Readings
6 Shevat, 5782, Bo: Parashat Exodus 10:1-13:16; Haftarat Jeremiah 46:13-46:28
Charm – Six Sentence Story
Beatriz’ sister told her that she could get her six-year-old son healed from his stomach pains that often left him wincing and crying for a mere $70. The bill from the hospital had already reached thousands of dollars with no hope that her son would ever get better.
Beatriz had no doubt that what her sister offered would work since she knew many who were healed through those means. However, she also knew there would be hidden costs living under the charm of a deceitful lullaby.
Within two months her son breathed his last and was buried in the church cemetery attended by friends who had prayed for them seemingly without success. However, right up to her own death forty years later Beatriz was grateful for those prayers which gave her the strength to reject her sister’s screaming, blaming and hell-bound insistence that she exchange her and her son’s souls for temporary relief.
Denise offers the word “charm” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.
Proverbs 31:30 (NASB)
Christmas Sunrise
Dale offers the prompt “show us your Christmas” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge. I am posting some photos of the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean on Christmas morning.
Sunday Walk 73 – Contested Bones
The evolutionary view claims that some transition from animal to man occurred over millions of years. There are four general objections to this view: (1) the small amount of fossil evidence allegedly confirming the transition is contested even by evolutionists, (2) radioactive dating of the age of those fossils exaggerates the amount of time between fossil layers, (3) genetic evidence shows we have less in common with animals than previously suspected, and (4) genetic entropy shows that random mutations filtered through natural selection, the supposed mechanism of evolution, leads to extinction, not evolution.
The following video is a presentation by Christopher Rupe, co-author with John Sanford of Contested Bones discussing the contested fossils.
The other author, John Sanford, added genetic entropy as evidence showing that there could have been no evolutionary path from animal to man through random mutations. Genetically we are too different from animals. Furthermore, random mutations are deleterious. What they lead to is mutational meltdown which precedes extinction.
Only from a Christian perspective is there any hope out of this mutational meltdown scenario for life on earth. We look forward to the second coming of Jesus, the new heaven, the new earth and our resurrection bodies.
After rereading this I wondered: Aren’t we already “animals”, even if evolution is false? To make sure I have a biblical worldview let me check what Genesis 1 says about creation order.
There I read that we were a separate created kind made in the image of God and specifically made as male and female on day six. We (adam אָדָם) have the same Creator as animals (behemah בְּהֵמָה) and we were made to live on the same earth where plants are food for both animals and us. This accounts for the similarities we have with them, but we are not animals anymore than we are birds or fish.
Weekly Bible Reading: Matthew and Mark
Commentaries:
David Pawson, Matthew, Part 2, Mark, Part 3, Unlocking the Bible
Bible Project, Matthew and Mark
Weekly Torah Readings
28 Tevet, 5782, Va’eira: Parashat Exodus 6:2-9:35
Merry Christmas
Michael Wilson posted the following Christmas story earlier this evening. I am passing it on to you.
Jubilant Christmas – Décima
He’s there for every foe or friend.
The special gift of Christmas day
foreshadows sacrifice and may
our hearts renew, our false ways end.
While there’s still time let praises send
our gratitude beyond our tears.
Rejoice! His Spirit watches, hears
as we are blessed with penitence
for wanderings that made no sense.
We wait. Come soon – the Lord appears.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “friend” to be used in an A-line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge.
And Eugenia offers the word “jubilant” as this week’s Thursday Prompt.
May you have a jubilant Christmas!
Fair – Six Sentence Story
Johnny didn’t trust anyone because he knew they were a lot like himself and knowing himself he knew better. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with his own behavior because when dogs ate dogs the rats better watch out.
After all, wasn’t it the point of the game, the purpose of life, to get more stuff than the other guy before one died? He just didn’t like it when someone pulled a fast one on him and wasn’t fair.
Surveying his wealth Johnny was proud of all he had been able to accumulate before he died. However, on the final day of his life, too weak to chase them off, he watched dogs fight over his treasures and rats clean up the crumbs.
Denise offers the prompt work “fair” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Featured Photographs
Dale offers the prompt “your best bits” featuring what we feel are our best photos from this past year for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 