Book Reveiws
Dying Journalist Writes Life Story In 3 Months Using Only Her Thumb And iPhone
Jan 4th
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.” James 4:14,15
We don’t know Susan’s spiritual condition, if she has trusted in Jesus Christ as her Saviour or not. But this story is a very timely-reminder of the brevity of life, that any one of us at any time can be struck down. We are not promised tomorrow, or even the rest of today. Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.
Today is the day of salvation…
Until I Say Goodbye
As her body succumbed to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, journalist Susan Spencer-Wendel wrote her life story. It took her three months to type it, letter by letter on her iPhone, using just her right thumb-all of her other fingers had stopped working by then.
Susan Spencer-Wendel with her family. (Photo: SusanSpencerWendel.com)
“I cannot lift my arms to feed myself or hug my children,” the 45-year-old mother of three wrote in “Until I Say Goodbye: My Year of Living With Joy,” which will be published in March. By then, she says, she will probably no longer be able to speak clearly.
“My muscles are dying, and they cannot return. I will never again be able to move my tongue enough to clearly say, ‘I love you’,” she wrote. “Swiftly, surely, I am dying. But I am alive today.”
A former courts reporter for the Palm Beach Post newspaper in south Florida, Spencer-Wendel lives in Florida with her husband, John, and their children, Marina, 15, Aubrey, 11, and Wesley, 8. She was diagnosed with the disease during the summer of 2011, and swiftly decided to make every moment count.
Paralyzed by ALS, Susan Spencer-Wendel Writes Memoir About the Beauty of Living
Spencer-Wendel, who was adopted, met her birth mother in Northern California and journeyed to Cyprus to learn about her birth father. Before her body could fail her, she traveled to the Yukon to see the Northern Lights with her best friend, Nancy Maass Kinnally, in December 2011; her hands were so weak that Kinnally had to dress her in the heavy-duty cold-weather gear.
“Time to stop dreaming and start doing, I thought,” she wrote of her trip.
She and her daughter, then just 14, went to New York City to pick out Marina’s wedding dress at Kleinfeld’s Bridal, where the TLC reality show “Say Yes to the Dress” is set. Both mother and daughter are fans of the show; both know that Spencer-Wendel will not live to see her daughter walk down the aisle.
“As my beautiful daughter walks out of the dressing room in white silk, I will see her ten years in the future, in the back room right before her wedding, giddy and crying, overwhelmed by a moment I will never share,” she wrote. “When my only daughter thinks of me on her wedding day, as I hope she will, I want her to think of my smile when I say to her at Kleinfeld’s, ‘You are my beautiful’.”
She and her husband went to Budapest to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary in May 2012. She wrote about her travels for the Palm Beach Post, where her stories caught the eye of editors at publishing giant HarperCollins. They offered her $2 million for her memoir; co-written with Bret Witter, “Until I Say Good-Bye” is expected to be translated into 25 languages. Universal Studios paid her another $2 million for the movie rights to her story.
But she knows that she doesn’t have much time left
“My decline is speeding up: each day I lose more steps and words. I now choke at most every meal, episodes which leave people around me screaming ‘Should we call 911?’ Ergo, I don’t eat much anymore,” she wrote in a New Year’s email to The Palm Beach Post.
“I knew it would be this way. So for Thanksgiving we had our major holiday event. Our entire families-40 in all-came. Was wonderful. Hectic, but wonderful,” she continued. “Thus, Christmas is a time just for John and me and our children.”
They celebrated by giving money to their favorite charities, and special “forever” gifts for family members-scrapbooks for her children, jewelry that can be handed down to her future daughters-in-law and grandchildren, personal gifts for her husband and parents. But the most tangible part of her legacy is her book.
“I am writing about accepting, about living with joy and dying with joy and laughing a helluva lot in the process,” Spencer-Wendel wrote on her website. With her memoir, she’s crossing one last item off of her life’s to-do list: “To make people laugh and cry and hug their children and joke with their friends and dwell in how wonderful it is to be alive.” source – Yahoo News
New Bible Version Called ‘The Voice’ Removes The Words ‘Christ’, ‘Angel’ and ‘Apostle’
Apr 20th
One more slap in God’s face
RELATED STORY: 400 Years Of The King James Bible
The Bible is the most published book by far and those numbers will continue to increase as a new English translation called “The Voice Bible” will enter the mix of scores of revisions of the Holy Scriptures. What makes this version different is that it has removed Christ, the term angel, and apostle from the wording.
Professor David Capes of the Houston Baptist University said that “people don’t really understand what the term Christ means”. Capes said the term “Christ” is a transliteration meaning “the anointed One of God”. Capes noted that even Christians erroneously believe that Christ is part of the name of Jesus instead of a title which Christ actually should be.
Capes called the Bible “the most owned and least read” literary work meaning many people have Bibles but don’t take the time to read it. The Voice was put together using scholars, poets, musicians and story tellers in hopes of making the Bible easier to read and understand.
An example is the King James in Genesis 1:1 notates, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.” The Voice states, “In the beginning God created everything: the heavens above and the Earth below. Here’s what happened”. Not as majestic, but it gets the point across.
Reading for better understand is a great idea, but removing names as “Christ” because people don’t undertand the meaning of the word Christ may not be a good idea. Removing the title of Christ removes the meaning “Anointed One of God, Messiah, the Promised One; the Deliverer of the Jewish people from the scriptures.
The disconnect takes place in Bible verses as Isaiah 10:27 which read, “And it shall come to pass in that day that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.”
Anointing in Isaiah 10:27 refers to the title of Christ, the Anointed One of God. Removing Christ disconnects Christ as the identifier of Isaiah 10:27 and thus removes not only Jesus but removes the prophesy which is critical towards the referance to Jesus. This is just one example. Time has not allowed a complete analysis of what other “anointing” terms were deleted with Christ being removed from the translation. Even if it’s one, then it’s too much.
The Bible has been riddled with modern day updates that tweaks the meaning away from the verbage written 400 years ago. Reading for understanding seems like a nice intellectual enterprise, however the Bible is illuminated through revelation knowledge that is spiritually discerned. It is an intergrated message system that is interconnected with other verses in the Bible.
Words written by men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit need not be adjusted or changed since we lack the ability to understand if there is an interconnection to other scriptures. Changing one word can interrupt or void other written scripture. This is one reason why there is a warning about adding or subtracting from the word of God.
In 1 John 1:27 the word says, “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.”
The Holy Spirit, which Jesus commanded the earliest disciples to wait for in Jerusalem, is very spiritually connected to Him. The anointing breaks the yoke of bondage and sets the captives free, ie: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”, which is John 8:32. The anointing and title of Christ transcends our understanding, thus our understanding should not be a reason why Jesus’ title is subtracted from the equation. It diminishes what Jesus represents. source – Examiner
Islamic Book Published On How To Beat Your Wife
Mar 24th
A Gift For The Muslim Couple
The bible has quite a different take on this subject: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” Ephesians 5:25
From the Toronto Sun: The 160-page book, published by Idara Impex in New Delhi, India, is written by Hazrat Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, who’s described in the book’s foreword as a “prolific writer on almost every topic of Islamic learning.”
The store’s manager, who didn’t give his name, said the book had been sold out for some time, and the store’s owner, whom the manager identified as Shamim Ahmad, refused to comment for the story.
It wasn’t clear whether the shop has ordered more copies of the book, but it’s available at online Islamic bookstores and even through eBay.
In the book’s opening pages, it is written that “it might be necessary to restrain her with strength or even to threaten her.”
Later, its author advises that “the husband should treat the wife with kindness and love, even if she tends to be stupid and slow sometimes.”
Page 45 contains the rights of the husband, which include his wife’s inability to leave “his house without his permission,” and that his wife must “fulfil his desires” and “not allow herself to be untidy … but should beautify herself for him … ”
In terms of physical punishment, the book advises that a husband may scold her, “beat by hand or stick,” withhold money from her or “pull (her) by the ears,” but should “refrain from beating her excessively.”
Moderate Muslim voice Tarek Fatah says the shopkeeper should be charged for selling such a book.
“I wouldn’t say it’s hate, but it is inciting men to hit women,” said Fatah, who identified the book’s author as a prominent Islamic scholar. “This is new to you, but the Muslim community knows that this is widespread, that a woman can be beaten. Muslim leaders will deny this, but… ”
Male dominance over women has been making headlines for some time, with the recent lengthy trial and conviction of the Shafia family.
Mohammad Shafia, 59, his second wife, Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son, Hamed, 21, were each convicted in January on four counts of first-degree murder in what was characterized as an honour killing of four female family members as punishment for disobedience. They were handed life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Shafia’s three daughters and his first wife were found drowned in a car at the bottom of the Rideau Canal in Kingston, Ont., in June 2009.
Eric Brazau says he was flipping through the marriage guide while in the bookstore around a month ago.
Brazau bought it out of curiosity but was taken aback when he found dozens of chapters and passages giving Muslim husbands advice on controlling, restraining, scolding and beating their wives.
“At first, I thought that it is incredible that this kind of thing can be found in Canada,” said Brazau. “And then I thought, radical Islam is not coming to Canada, it is already here.” source – Toronto Sun
Book Review of The Coffeehouse Chronicles by Josh McDowell and Dave Sterrett
Jan 31st
The Coffeehouse Chronicles
If you are or will be the parent of a college student, or if you know anyone who is struggling with their faith as a result of the often liberal views being taught at universities across the country, I invite you to do two things…First, I invite you to check out Josh McDowell and Dave Sterrett’s three book series entitled The Coffeehouse Chronicles.
The brilliance of The Coffeehouse Chronicles, with titles including, Is The Bible True…Really?, Who is Jesus…Really?, and Did the Resurrection Happen…Really?, is that it is set on a university campus. The story centers around a handful of students and professors who share real life together, all the while wrestling with deep theological truths. The character development and storyline is so compelling, the reader will actually feel as if they are sitting at the Coffeehouse taking part in the discussion. The second reason this series is a very worthy read, is that it addresses every major theory that will be thrown at college students related to their faith—with the goal being not just to challenge their faith, but to refute it all together. Upon reading this series, many students will be able to, for the first time, defend their faith not just with their heart, but with their mind as well. They’ll be able to give sound answers from history regarding the inerrancy of the Bible, the deity of Christ, and the validity of the resurrection. Without a doubt, these books should be in the hands of every college student as well as those who love and minister to them. For these reasons, The Coffeehouse Chronicles has earned a well-deserved grade of an A!
Secondly, I’d like to invite you to a very special event regarding The Coffeehouse Chronicles…JOIN Co-authors Josh McDowell & Dave Sterrett for The World’s Biggest CoffeeHouse Chat Wednesday, Feb. 2, at 7 PM Central/7 PM Pacific. Josh, a former agnostic and best-selling Christian author, and Dave of I am Second will host a one-hour live, interactive webinar to tackle your hard-to-answer questions about the Bible, Jesus, and the Resurrection. To sign up for this event, or to purchase The Coffeehouse Chronicle book series, go to http://www.theworldsbiggestcoffeehouse.com/.
