The Manual

Prayer Request

Hello all readers...

some of you may know that two Iranian women go on trial tomorrow for "propagating Christianity and Apostasy"

I ask all of you to pray for them... i can only repeat the request i got from Prayerforce:

Tomorrow, 13th April 2010 Maryam and Marzieh will appear at court in Tehran where they face charges of propagating Christianity and apostasy.
 

Please pray:

• For a tangible presence of the Holy Spirit with Maryam and Marzieh during their court appearance.
• For courage to stand in the knowledge that believers throughout are standing with them.
• That the charges against them will be dropped.
• For continued strength and healing after their imprisonment in Evin Prison

For more information on their case please go to the Open Doors or Elam web-site.

Let's stand in solidarity with Maryam and Marzieh

Hebrews 13:3

I don't want this blog to be political, but I am glad that Muslims are free to propagate their faith in my country. I may know that the only way to heaven is through Christ Jesus, but that doesn't make me feel compelled to lock up the people in my country who disagree.

The Media and the Manual

I have recently watched the BBC's History of Christianity, and am currently plowing through CH4's "The Bible A History".

Of course these programmes are not serious theology, but they deal with the heart and soul of belief in God, and manage to do so in ways that alternate from truly factually poor to truly showing a lack of understanding.

It is a shame the media can no longer deal with God properly.

I want to talk about the intriguing episode of "The Bible" which had Catholic Ann Widdecombe dealing with the Ten Commandments.

The reaction of the "New Atheists" to this was startling. The vitriol and bile of both Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry was truly scary. What puzzled me most was, what is not to like about the Commandments?

Stephen seemed upset that God was commanding us, we, it seems are too lofty to be commanded by God. It's OK to be commanded by those losers in parliament who steal from us via their expenses? But not by God? Seriously?

Hitler was too lofty to be commanded, he managed to ignore "thous shalt not murder" about 6 million times, and the war that deposed him led to anopther 30 million deaths. Stalin was too lofty to be commanded, he managed to kill 20 million Soviets long before the nazis started a war that lost 20 million more. Pol Pot... well, suffice to say that it may have been valid in 1900 to say that Religion had led to more death than love. But after the 20th Century Atheists lead the genocide league tables by far.

What is wrong with the Commandments?

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments. "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

Commandments such as these would be wrong coming from Parliament (but Parliament expects us to obey no other parliament but them!) But these come from God. It is worng to assume God is just some nice powerful bloke who you can be on first name terms with, he is God! Creator of the Universe. Why cannot he demand that sort f respect? Even yourMP wants to be called "Right Honourable Gewntleman" while he fiddles your expenses. If you take God as existing, even if only for the sake of a discussion about the commandments, then surely these are perfectly reasonable things for an Omnipotent Creatior to demand?

So what comes next?

"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

My mum always said The Sabbath was a way to make sure ordinary working people got some time off back in the days before Unions. Makes sense for God to do that, a loving God, and not a God only of the rich.

 Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

Makes more sense than ASBOs for hoodies doesn't it?

 You shall not murder.

What's your proiblem Mr Hitchens?

 You shall not commit adultery.

Of course this appals Mr Fry. I have no idea why. Everyone slags off marriage, but has anyone proved anything other than that the statistics for co-habiting couples splitting up and leaving kids in the lurch is worse than marriage. Marriage is not perfect, but it's better than anything else man has invented, and marriage without adultery would have better statistics.

You shall not steal.

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

What is wrong with not stealing or lying?

 You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor

On the programme a psyhcologist said coveting was natural and good. Is it? Seriously?

Doesn't it rather lead to crime? drugs? De[ression? feelings of inadequacy? When i was in Soweto I learned that people can be happy with those of God's blessings they have, not needing those they don't have. They put ME to shame, I am sure they put Mr Hitchens and Mr Fry to shame.

Messrs Hitchens and Fry will blame God (if they believed he existed) for poverty. Insread of seeing that God's creation has provided enough resources and wealth to feed and clothe and give medication to everyone on it. Everyone. The unfairness of that distribution is man's problem, not God's.

They don't respect that God gives us free will so that the rich can ignore the poor. They think that if God existed he would force us to do this.

They don't want even to be commanded by God not to murder... but they want God to force the world to be equitable.

The picture I remember most was Hitchens getting up and walking out, because he was so upset that Bible was Evil and being given to children, unable to face another question, and unable to offer another solution. It did rather hurt though to see the Ste[hen Fry i jhave always admired (literally) with spittle running down his chin as he fulminated at a God who bullies people.

Jamie Bulger was murdered by bullies. It broke God's heart, and maybe even made himthink about his guarantee of our free will to choose. Meanwhile Messrs Fry and Hitchens think God's a bully for saying "Thou shalt not murder."

Sheesh

Discipline? Well yes, one day...

I was listening to Radio 4, as usual, this morning.
Ros Altman, a former adviser to Tony Blair, and Jim O'Neill, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, discussed the Bank of England's decision to cut interest rates to the lowest level in 57 years.

I met Jim many years ago when he was at Marine Midland Bank New York (part of HSBC whose Frankfurt branch i was chief dealer of at the time).

Ros was propounding the view that low rates punished savers, and that, we had needed more savers in the past and that we got into this mess by imprudent lending and imprudent borrowing.

Good point Ros.

Jim, always a plain speaker was making the point that what we needed in the past was not relevant.

Well said, Jim.

I rarely say good things about anyone from HSBC - or Goldmans - for whom Jim now works, but, unsurprisingly, I found he spoke sense.

Here's the thing, Ros.

We do need savers, we need prudent savers, but to be a prudent saver, you need a job.
To be a prudent saver you need to have a house whose mortgage you can afford.

What we need now are safer jobs.
This means companies more sure of getting credit, and more sure that one or two folks might buy their products.

The Bank of England's current approach is right.

Jim said something fab about it being very English to worry about what we should do when we get out of this mess, when what we should be doing is whatever it takes to get out of the mess.

There is no doubt that Winston Churchill took steps that pretty much ensured that Britain was bankrupt after the war, and that our creditor, the US, would be handed on a plate, the dominance (economic and military) of the free world.

Bad boy Winston!
However, Winston at least ensured that he didn;t hand the dominance of the world tp Adolf Hitler.
Good boy Winston!

We learn in business (and in playing Puerto Rico) that you never have enough time and money and resources to do everything you want to do.

It will always make sense to solve the biggest problem first. Winston knew that. Winston was good in a crisis. He wasn't so clever if there wasn;t a crisis, but thankfully we had him when we really needed him.

Gordon Brown is not ever going to be Winston, but at least he too is solving the most pressing problem and not worrying about the others.

Ros, you ARE right, we need more savers in the future. We need a whole new culture, which values denial and waiting and discipline and not just instant gratification.
We certainly need a new culture in the City too.

But for now we need to survive. So I like the lower rates.

The manual does support Ros, and of course the manual supports prayer.
I think we have a better chance with prayer than we have with the Bank of England. But. Later let's try self discipline?

    No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Hebrews 12: 11

I suspect that little message is Pearls thrown to pigs, (Matthew 7:6) in the Big Brother generation, but we have to keep sowing seeds don't we?

Forgive the presumption (please)

Can there be anything more presumptuous than a newcomer to The Manual commenting on it?

Well, perhaps not, and perhaps my comments are all old hat, and maybe deeply flawed. But I have recently discovered The Manual, and it is a source of incredible inspiration.

What amazes me most is that, as I write my blog, which focuses mainly on "Business Thinking", "Financial Markets", "Business Communications" and related subjects (unless there is a major sports tournament underway, when I generally get sidetracked), I keep finding common-sense statements in The Bible.

I am sure many of you take that for granted, having more experience of it than I do, but I am regularly amazed.

Today I read:

The wicked desire the plunder of evil men,
but the root of the righteous flourishes.

(Proverbs 12:12)

And I thought well the plunder is going down the toilet pretty fast.
So maybe it's a good time for the short sellers and the corporate raiders to reconsider the righteous man approach, after all a flourishing root has more value than a frozen Icelandic bank account doesn't it?

Who knows, it may catch on!