THE ETHIOPIAN CHURCH JOURNAL

The Colonel and Hell And so the Libyan leader Gaddafi died in the manner he lived. Violently. Every one seemed to be in agreement that Gaddafi deserved to die. There were jubilant street scenes even as the cellphone-video of his bloodied body went viral. Some wished he would go straight to hell. These are thinking people hailing as far north as North America and Europe . These are the same crowd who more than likely would fight to abolish capital punishment or to uphold due process or rubbish off-hand the existence of Hell and critique the Bible mercilessly for teaching such a "gory and outmoded" doctrine. It now appears there are exceptions to the rule. It is interesting how times like this often lay bare our true intentions, our true nature and the values we thought we've managed to hide. So what do we think of hell? Or more appropriately, what does the Bible teach on the subject? Here is a piece by Tim Keller that, we hope, could make the skeptic and the uninformed to...

GOD OF THE HOMELESS photo credit: ifhomeless.org GOD SAID HE IS SLEEPING ON THE STREETS TONIGHT WITH THE HOMELESS GOD said  I should remind people to wash the blankets first before they give them to the homeless, so that it is given with a good heart.  GOD said if you have spare sleeping bags, sleeping bags are better and a small pillow.  GOD said some of them are hungry.  If you have a flask, put a hot drink in it, HE would appreciate it.  GOD said HE is sleeping out on the streets with the homeless.  GOD said if you have any old warm jumpers and spare woolly socks, bring them with you, it's cold! GOD said don't take the food or clothes to the shelters, they do not need them.  GOD said HE will protect you, come in twos if you are afraid, the people who need it are underneath the railway arches and in the doorways of buildings in the cities and on the streets. I wrote this song in 1994 after giving MY life to Jesus.  In 1983 I w...

Steve Jobs on Death credit: the verge “Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”   [Steve Jobs' Commencement Speech at Stanford, 12 June 2005.] ---------------------------------------------------- There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die … He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. [Ecclesiastes 3:1-2,11] Since the children have flesh and blood, [Jesus] too shared in their hu...

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make oura joy complete. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from allb sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our ...

SIN By Mitiku Adisu Emergence of a set of problems often point to a deeper problem. There was, for example, a debt ceiling confrontation that went on for weeks between US political parties and the President. Each knew what needed to be done to resolve the problem but none were prepared to do the right thing. Instead each blamed and maligned the other side - and history - to get a sizable segment of the public behind them. Each side engaged in a deadly fight for what is right in their own eyes. It is all about self-interest (pride, greed, hate-mongering) couched in ever creative patriotic, legal, religious, and refined phrases. We bet you know what that is called? S-I-N. SIN. And just last week there were riots and looting in Britain where children as young as ten were observed taking part. With economic downturn and the Cameron government slashing funding to social services, it is not surprising that poor neighborhoods are relatively hit hard and hence the locus of the incident. What i...