A blog by Tom Sheepandgoats (aka Tom Harley)
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Above Us Only Sky on the Cruise Ship
On the cruise ship vacation not so long ago, a makeshift chorale of passengers sung ‘Imagine’ as melodically as a church choir. Only, it was a chorale extolling the virtues of there being “above us only sky” and “no religion, too”—as though they might sing it in a hospital terminal word with the assurance it would bring comfort to ones in their final hours. I…
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The Righteous One Perishes but No One Takes it to Heart
There is no huge significance that the Doomsday Clock stands at 85 seconds to midnight instead of a minute or two either way. But there is significance for it to stand in any of those spots instead of 10:30 AM or even high noon. That’s probably the way to gauge a verse like Isaiah 57:1: “The righteous one has perished, But no one takes it…
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Pop’s Friends and ‘Agape’ Love
Pop’s friends were invariably those on his bowling team. Or golf. Or the husbands of Mom’s friends. He was amiable and would get along with most anyone. One of his pals had always been controlling of his wife. After she died, he was wracked with guilt. She had wanted a computer when the devices were new. He flat out refused her. Not for any good…
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Isaiah 51: Mined from a Quarry
Never thought I’d live to see childbirth likened to mining a quarry, but that is the meaning of Isaiah 51: 1-2. We just don’t usually think of our own birth that way, as though mined from a quarry. Nobody, but nobody I have ever known has likened childbirth to mining from a quarry. Yet there it is in Isaiah. Why had I not noticed this…
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One Recent Day in the Hospital
I visited the ACE (Acute Care for the Elderly) unit of the hospital today and tried to get them to take comfort in the beautiful Lennon song Imagine, and the line in which there is “no religion, too,” and “above us only sky.” They all told me to go to hell. So I switched Beatles and brought up the song lyric. “And when the broken-hearted people…
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Not Giving Up. Not Hardening One’s Heart
Three times Joseph would have been within his rights to give up. Three times he suffered reversal so serious as to think life had betrayed him. And maybe, since God was in charge of life, that He had betrayed him, too. At each instance, the circuit overseer paused to ask how Joseph would have felt at that moment, what prospects would he have just then…
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Isaiah 48:22: “There is no Peace for the Wicked”
Jarringly out of place at the end of Isaiah 48, so it would seem, is the final verse: “There is no peace,” says Jehovah, ‘for the wicked.’” Who’s he talking about? Just who is “wicked?” Is he referring to the same as, whenever the younger brothers took to squabbling, the older bro would tilt back in his chair and say, “It’s amazing what Jehovah can…
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You Almost Never Have all the Facts
Lot was a righteous man. The Bethel speaker said so. Three times 2 Peter 2:7-8 says he was. So, he must have been. “And [God] rescued righteous Lot, who was greatly distressed by the brazen conduct of the lawless people—for day after day that righteous man was tormenting his righteous soul over the lawless deeds that he saw and heard while dwelling among them.” It…
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GB Update: Use of One’s Own Blood (under construction)
who is accountable for the lives lost under the blood doctrine? Who is accountable when a Christian gets killed in war? Who is accountable when a missionary is kidnapped or killed? Who talked them into so putting their lives at risk? I am surprised that this atheist argument—which holds that loss of life is permanent and irreversible calamity—is picked up on a Christian forum. I…
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The Owner’s Manual
This thought I liked from yesterday’s Watchtower Study and compared it to an ad for online therapy now making the rounds in my neck of the woods: “After they rebelled, Adam and Eve immediately experienced the consequences of their violating God’s law—a law that was “written in their hearts.” (Rom. 2:15) They could sense a change in themselves—and not for the better. They felt compelled…