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Showing posts with the label Shema

Rihanna Rumpus...

One of the unexpected upshots of the unseasonably warm weather here (now sadly departed), is that events in a certain wheat field in rural county Down have made it onto the national and international news… It would never have happened had the late September weather here been its usual cold, wet self, but  Rihanna’s disrobing and farmer, Alan Graham, stopping the filming of her pop video, has made it onto the front pages of papers worldwide, TV news programmes and radio discussions, whilst video clips have gone viral all over the internet. Was Mr. Graham too prudish? Is Rihanna, a good role model for young girls. Let's remember after all that this isn't the first time that her video's have got Rihanna into trouble . Is this a deliberate embrace of the policy, no publicity is bad publicity? Meanwhile, more seriously, but with much less coverage (no intended irony in my choice of words there), in Saudi Arabia, another woman, called Shema, was sentenced to 10 lashes for br...

Shema and Response

A call to worship and act of corporate confession based around the Shema (Hebrew for "Hear..."), which is the call to worship in Jewish Synagogues (Deuteronomy 6: 4-5), and Jesus' incorporation of this in what he described as the 2 greatest commands in the Law. Hear, O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Which is the greatest commandment in God’s Law? 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' The second is? Love your neighbour as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. There is no commandment greater than these. From Matt 22:36-40, Mark 12:29-31 and Luke 10:27-28 Response O Lord our God, the one and only We confess before you our lack of love. We have not loved you as we should. We have not loved others as we love ourselves. We have been self-centred and self-satisfied. Yet out of your eternal love for us you sent your son To show us how to love and to ...