Update From the AR&DF

Received via email.

THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 2010

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Your support for earthquake relief in Haiti has been absolutely amazing. Not only have you given generously but also Anglicans in Canada and the Dioceses of Singapore joined you in providing more than $450,000 in relief funding. Rice, oil and peas have been distributed to some of Haiti’s most vulnerable families, water wells have been drilled and hand pumps installed, hygiene kits have been distributed, and thousands of tarps have been provided for shelter. Your support has been an encouragement not only to the victims of the earthquake but to the staff of World Relief and Water Missions International working on the ground in Haiti on behalf of donors like you. Our work continues there.

The needs are still enormous and will continue for many months while the recovery process continues in both Haiti and the recent earthquake in Chile. Please continue to pray for the survivors of these disasters and that doors will be opened for them to receive the Gospel. Please prayerfully consider continued financial support for the work in Haiti, Chile, Myanmar and the ARDF 2010 development projects in Ethiopia, Bolivia, Kenya, Sudan, Congo, and West Africa.

Make a donation to ARDF for projects most in need

Matthew 25:40 “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

Thank you for your partnership in proclaiming the Gospel with both word and deed throughout the world.

In His Service,
Nancy Norton
Executive Director
The Anglican Relief and Development Fund

Dr. Ben Witherington Posts His Fifth Installment on the Gospel of Jesus

CHAPTER FIVE: JOHN AND JESUS AT THE JORDAN

When Jesus awoke numerous of those staying at the oasis had already packed up and left, either heading home from being with John the previous day, or heading down the slope into the water to be baptized by John. Jesus looked up into a sky in which there was not a single cloud, but there was a bird circling high overhead, so high that one could not tell what sort of bird it was. It did not have the long wings of a bird of prey, a vulture or an eagle, but it was hard to tell what sort of bird it was.

Rising and going over to the spring, Jesus dusted himself off and washed his hands and face, and then proceeded to unwrap the few figs and olives he had left in his little bag around his waist. Filling his wineskin with water, he said a brief morning prayer to G-d for guidance for the day, but his senses were all tingling, telling him something very significant indeed was going to happen on this day. Jesus had decided that he would wade across the river and observe John’s practice from the far shore, where John’s disciples stood. He would engage several of them in conversation and learn what he could from them. What he had already heard had led him to understand why the authorities might well come and object to what John was doing — offering forgiveness for sins quite apart from requiring any sacrifice in the temple in Jerusalem.

Check it out.

Thinking About the Trinity Requires Humility

I now begin to speak of a mystery which is altogether above the power of any human being (including myself) to express in words. Indeed, when I begin to reflect on the triune God [God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit], I am conscious of the distance between my mind and the God of whom it is thinking. Therefore I call upon the Lord our God for help to understand and explain my subject and I beg His pardon wherever I go astray.

—Augustine, The Trinity, 5.1.1

From the Morning Scriptures

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because servants do not know their master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

—John 15:12-17 (TNIV)

Here Jesus tells us plainly what he expects Christian love to look like. It is sacrificial love, the kind that he demonstrated when he humbled himself and went to the cross on our behalf to give us our one and only chance to live with God forever. Most of us will never be called to give our lives for another. But we are to give ourselves in service to others, not based on their merit but because we are to do as our Lord commands. The love we offer others is never tied to the worth of the individual. If that were the case, he would not have suffered the cross for us because none of us are worthy of that.

No, Christian loves seeks to build up the other, seeks the best for the other. It is not indulgent or sappy. It is sacrificial enough to be able to speak the truth to others, a truth that is God’s, not our own concoction. It is a love that does not insist on having its own way all of the time. This does not mean we are to be someone’s doormat, that we can never say “no” to people. Rather, it means that in our interactions with others, we are to have their best interests at heart, we are to think about what is best for them. Sometimes this requires us to say “no” to them, or refuse to bless their sinful behavior.

Do you demonstrate this kind of love in your dealings with other Christians?

Courageous Endurance

Blessed are those who, when grace is withdrawn, find no consolation in themselves, but only continuing tribulation and thick darkness, and yet do not despair, but, strengthened by faith, they endure courageously, convinced that they do indeed see him who is invisible.

—John of Carpathos, Texts for the Monks in India, 71

More on the Resurrection

[Jesus] restored that body which he had worn, destroying death’s power over all flesh, for as God, he was life itself. Why would he need to show them his hands and side if, as some perversely think, he did not rise again bodily? And if the goal was not to have the disciples think about him in this way, why not appear in another form and, disdaining any likeness of the flesh, conjure up other thoughts in their minds?

—Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, 12.1

Surpassing Loving-Kindness

Christ was actually crucified, and actually buried, and truly rose again; and all these things have been vouchsafed [given graciously] to us, that we, by imitation communicating in his sufferings, might gain salvation in reality. O surpassing loving-kindness! Christ received the nails in his undefiled hands and feet, and endured anguish; while to me without suffering or toil, by the fellowship of his pain he vouchsafes salvation.

—Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem [late 4th century], Mystagogical Catechesis 2.6