Barney Coombs, “Dealing with what life throws at you”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Before I went away, I was reading Barney Coombs, Dealing with what life throws at you, (2004).

Coombs is someone unknown to me.  But apparently he was one of the “fabulous fourteen” of charismatic leaders in the UK during the 70’s.  He aligned himself with the stricter group led by Bryn Jones from Bradford, classified as “Restoration 1″[ref]By Andrew Walker in his analysis, Restoring the Kingdom.[/ref], whose vehicle was the Dalesweek bible week (on which I myself was converted in 1979, as it happens).  Derby Community Church is aligned with Coombs, and I was led to look at a sample volume of his work to get an idea of what sort of thing he teaches.

The book is very sound.  Clearly Coombs has a great deal of pastoral experience, and it shows.  Unfortunately I finished this book just before going to Iceland, so the impression has faded rather.  But I noted various interesting points as I read.

He highlights that “failure” can be anything but.

Firstly, we can never afford the luxury of self-pity. …

Secondly, never give up hope.  Even if it seems that you fail at almost everything you attempt to do, you could yet leave your mark on history.  …

Thirdly, determine to be convinced that through all the failures of the past, you have been acquiring invaluable wisdom.  Those failures can be stepping stones to success.[ref]p.22-23.[/ref]

There are sections on bereavement and rejection, full of good sound practical advice for the Christian.  I wasn’t reading it in order to seek help, but I can see that it would help.

The centre of the book is chapter 7.  Unfortunately Coombs has allowed himself to use some strange terminology here — “scandalized” –, which means that anyone reading the chapter must mentally retranslate the terms whenever he encounters it.  His point in this chapter is that we can become prisoners of what has happened to us. 

The book, in other words, is a good, God-centred piece of work.  It is not primarily aimed at people like me, nor, I suspect, most Christian readers of this blog, but then neither was the New Testament.

All books coming out of that movement tend to feel “harsh” to me.  There is an abrasiveness at points in what is said, as if the object is to make people feel uncomfortable in order to get them to submit to the discomfort.  But it is possible that this is merely how working-class Christianity actually is, and has to be in order to be heard by people who are not particularly educated nor particularly sensitive.

If this is the standard of work in those churches, they are to be commended.

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Grandsons of man born in 1790 are still alive today

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An interesting article in the Daily Mail today.

John Tyler, the tenth president of the United States, was born in 1790. He grew up on a Virginia plantation, became a lawyer, and went on to the White House after the death of his predecessor, William Henry Harrison in 1841. …

But it has been revealed that two of the president’s grandsons are still alive – and were born nearly 140 years after their grandfather was.

Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. was born in 1924 to Lyon Gardiner Tyler, the son of the late president.

His brother Harrison Ruffin was born four years later, according to records kept by the Sherwood Forest Plantation Foundation, the home of President Tyler.

This extraordinary feat was possible in part because their father had Lyon and Harrison whilst in his 70s.

Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Sr., after all, was born while the nation fought the Civil War.

His two surviving sons were with his second wife, Sue Ruffin, who was born in 1889.

29 March 1790: John Tyler [=the father] born in Greenway, Virginia
1811-1839: Served as United States representative, state governor and senator 
1841: Became president, known as ‘His Accidency’ after the sudden death of William Henry Harrison
1853: Lyon Gardiner Tyler [=the son] born; becomes historian
18 January 1862: John Tyler dies, aged 71
1923: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Sr., marries second wife Sue Ruffin, two years after first wife dies
1925: Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. [=grandson] born
1928: Harrison Ruffin Tyler [=grandson] born
12 February 1935: Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr. dies, aged 81

Which I think we can all agree is a very interesting set of statistics.

Transposing that to ancient terms, it’s as if someone born in AD 90 had surviving grandchildren in 312 AD.  And, in view of the availability of slave women to old men of fortune, it perhaps happened rather more often in those days than today.

Averages and probabilities are useless things in history.  All  that really matters is evidence.  What is not evidenced should never be stated as a certainty. 

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been in Iceland for the last few days.  Wonderful!

UPDATE: I didn’t say anything in advance because I didn’t think that I ought to announce in advance that I was away.   The web of today is not the friendly place of five years ago, sadly. 

Now I’m not sure that my adventures in Iceland are really relevant to this blog, but if I wake up tomorrow, I might stick up a photo or two.  It was the best holiday that I have had for years — a much needed complete break.

The Origen book is still going ahead, and with luck the text will be pretty much complete soon.  I also need to pay some attention to a proposal.  Finally a reader has sent me some rather good material with permission to put it up here.  So there will be stuff when I am fit to get to it.  I still have some things to do offline, however, so expect patchy blogging for a while yet.

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Bede on Yule

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In De ratione temporum (On the reckoning of time), chapter 15, the Venerable Bede lists the English months:

In olden time the English people — for it did not seem fitting to me that I should speak of other nations’ observance of the year and yet be silent about my own nation’s — calculated their months according to the course of the moon.  Hence, after the manner of the Greeks and the Romans, [the months] take their name from the moon, for the moon is called mona and the month monath.

The first month, which the Latins call January, is Giuli; February is called Solmonath; March, Hrethmonath; April, Eosturmonath; May, Thrimilchi; June, Litha; July, also Litha; August, Weodmonath; September, Halegmonath; October, Winterfilleth; November, Blodmonath; December, Giuli, the same name by which January is called.  They began the year on the 8th kalends of January [25 Dec.], when we celebrate the birth of the Lord.  That very night, which we hold so sacred, they used to call by the heathen word Modranecht, that is, ‘mother’s night’, because (we suspect) of the ceremonies they enacted all that night.

…

The months of Giuli derive their name from the day when the sun turns back [and begins] to increase, because one of [these months] precedes [this day], and the other follows. … [ref]Bede, The reckoning of time, translated … by Faith Wallis.  Liverpool, 2004, p.53-4[/ref]

‘Giuli’ is Yule, I believe.  Note how it is a two-month month.

 

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Wondering about Yule

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I was just wondering about “Yule”, and what is really known about it, what the ancient/medieval sources are.  Generally we hear jeering about it at Christmas, and that’s it. 

A look at the web suggests that no-one online knows anything about the subject.  Certainly those who talk about it don’t seem troubled as to what, if any, evidence there might be. 

It might be interesting to research and put online the primary sources, whatever they are.  When I feel more like it.

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Early papyrus fragment of Romans 9-10?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Via Paleojudaica I see a report on Evangelical Textual Criticism of an interesting CNN report.  The statement is that “within the last 48 hours” a fragment of Romans has been discovered, dated to the mid-2nd century AD.  The interview is vague, but it sounds as if a team somewhere in the US has been taking something — cartonage from an Egyptian burial? — and separating out the layers, and finding fragments of all sorts of things.  What else, one wonders?

I don’t suppose that I am alone in feeling rather uncomfortable with the context in which this announcement is made — essentially a non-specialist talking to a reporter about an exhibition for the general public.  I think we need to be very wary here.

There is no reason why such a discovery should not be made, it must be said.  It’s not really that early, for New Testament papyri.  Second century Christian papyri are familiar to us all.  Classical and patristic scholars are less fortunate, of course.

But before we get too excited, let’s be sure of the facts.

Hope it’s true!

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Glenn Myers, Life Lessons : life-changing stories for Christian growth

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Over the last few days, I have been reading life lessons: life-changing stories for christian growth, ed. Glenn Myers, Christian Focus, 2010.  It’s a slim paperback, less than 100 pages.  It consists of ten chapters, in each of which someone reflects on their life, and how God has worked in it.

It’s been enormously helpful to me, because it’s real.  These are people who have had real problems.  They have not always overcome them, but had to learn to live with them.  Yet they all know God, and are faithful to him.

It’s also easy to read, and intelligent.

I won’t give a link to an online shop.  Go to your Christian bookshop and support them by buying or ordering it.  It will do you good.

All of us need something to aspire to.  Books of Christian testimony can sometimes be a little corny, or superficial.  This one is gold.

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Does God only use “people” people?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Does God only use the ‘people’ people? 

There are two sorts of people out there.  There are those focused on other people, and there are the task- or thing-oriented people.  I know that I am in the latter class, and indeed I only function among others by means of some carefully fabricated plastic personalities.  Most of us, perhaps, do the same. 

It’s like getting a lame dog over a stile.  Some people will pick up the lame dog and lift it over the stile.  Others will look at the stile and say, “We need to redesign this stile so that lame dogs can get themselves through it.”

Neither is wrong.  Temperament comes into this a lot.

But … does God only want the first sort?  It sometimes seems so.  Certainly those who are NOT people oriented find only a marginal role in most Christian activity.  They get set to do the magazine, or stuff like that (hey, I’ve been there!)  Can we think of a thing-oriented person in the bible?

It’s worth praying about.  God calls us to be like Him, to submit to Him, to be changed by Him into what he meant us to be. 

So how does it work for those of us who are socially awkward, rather isolated?  What does God want of us?

And, of course … how on earth do we ever get married, if the Christian girls all want to marry the other sort!

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Finding Christians in your local town in the UK

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been trying to connect with Christians in my local area.  It’s always a tiresome process, when you move to a new town, and a lot of people do not manage to make the transfer.

Traditionally you made the rounds of the local churches, in a series of Sunday services; the good, the bad, the mad and the embarrassing.  If you were lucky, you found someone who you could relate to, and settled in that church.  If you weren’t — and a lot of people weren’t — you got more and more embarrassed, and gave up after church number four-to-eight (depending on your persistence level).

But the web has made quite a difference, I find.  People are setting up sites to network people.  In my own town, for instance, a search on “<town name> Christians” brings up some dubious sites and then a site which contains a calendar of events, lists of projects, and so forth.  It’s not perfect, and there are dreck “events” in there, but it gives you a bit more than you might otherwise get.  The newcomer can at least go along to some of the evidently larger events and see a cross-section of people from the area.

Facebook is also coming into its own.  You get things in Derby like the Derby Community Church on FB here, with a link to its own website; and the Derby City Mission here.  In some ways these are more useful than the standalone websites, since they get updates and can be watched for news.

It’s really hard for Christians who move town to integrate into the new community, whether they are single or married.  There seems to be practically no horizontal communication.  I wonder how many of those people who leave Christian Unions when they leave college every summer, most of whom go to new towns, actually make it through and get hooked up to the Christian community in their new town.  Few, I would guess.

Surely something could be done?

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Ibn Abi Usaibia: an analysis of authority

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Douglas Galbi has been working on the text of Ibn Abi Usaibia, and has come out with some interesting metrics on how the author sees the authority of various people mentioned in it.

Galen of Pergamon dominates among Greek figures in History of Physicians.  References to Galen measure 0.55 on an authority index in which references to Allāh / God measure one.  The three next most frequently referenced Greek figures are Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Plato.  They have authority indices of 0.26, 0.22, and 0.10, respectively.  Galen himself emphasized the authority of Hippocrates.  Hence the relatively frequent references to Hippocrates are partly an effect of Galen’s authority.   Aristotle, who wrote extensively on anatomy, taxonomy, and philosophy, is a much bigger figure than Galen in modern Western classical studies.  But references to Aristotle in History of Physicians are less than half as frequent as references to Galen.

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