SEATTLE (AP) — Thirty-five years ago, Mount St. Helens in southwest Washington state erupted, killing 57 people, blasting more than 1,300 feet off the top and raining volcanic ash for miles around. Today, the volcano has become a world-class outdoor laboratory for the study of volcanoes, ecosystems and forestry, as well as a major recreational and tourist destination.
( I remember when I heard the news that St. Helen's blew I was in Discovery Bay, with my family on vacation, I was a kid back then.)
More news from the religion of "peace" folks!
Christian Lives Don't Matter?
So far as liberals, including Barack Obama, are concerned, dead people only count if they happen to be black criminals killed by white cops, not if, as in the majority of cases, they’re black people being killed by other black people.---PATRIOT POST
Ayatollah Speaks to Teachers, Who Chant: ‘Death to America! Death to England!...Death to Israel!
(CNSNews.com) - Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, addressed a gathering of Iranian teachers on May 6, who responded to his address by chanting: “God is great! Khamene'i is the leader! Death to the enemies of the leadership! Death to America! Death to England! Death to the hypocrites! Death to Israel!”
You Will Become Muslims When We Rape You, ISIS Told Yazidi Girls
(CNSNews.com) – Yazidi girls kidnapped by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria jihadists were given the chance to convert to Islam but told if they refused they would automatically become Muslims anyway the moment an ISIS fighter raped them, U.S. lawmakers heard on Wednesday.
Special Forces kill ISIS commander in secret raid: Dramatic firefight ends with more than fifty jihadists killed despite using children as human shields - and chief's wife who runs sick trafficking network is also captured
U.S. Special Forces have killed a top ISIS commander in charge of their lucrative oil business, and captured his slaver wife in a dramatic overnight raid.
Elite forces stormed a residential building in the Syrian city of Deir Ezzor, killing 12 jihadists in hand-to-hand combat before claiming the scalp of Abu Sayyaf, the twisted regime's 'oil minister'.---DAILY MAIL UK
ISIS in Ramadi: Like the Tet 1968?
If Syria is — in the words of Al Arabiya’s Washington correspondent Nadia Bilbassy — likely to be remembered as Obama’s Rwanda, will the ISIS offensive now underway in Iraq go down as the president’s Tet? Their attack on the city of Ramadi caught the media by surprise and the first reports coming out of the city were tinged with an alarm born of shock.---PJ MEDIA
Pope Francis Refers to Holocaust Denier, Anti-Semite, and Terrorist as an ‘Angel of Peace’
Francis said he thought the gift was appropriate since “you are an angel of peace.” During his 2014 visit to Israel and the West Bank, Francis called both Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres men of peace.---PJMEDIA
(These Islamic Nazis makes it so easy, they by their actions and deeds proves my case even more how they crave power and control. They kill and slaughter of their own people of they dare speak against them, they kill Christians and Jews alike without remorse or regret. Yet, we have a president who looks the other way.)
More Commentaries
Vladimir Putin calls Ukraine fascist and country’s new law helps make his case
As Ukraine continues its battle against separatists, corruption and a collapsing economy, it has taken a dangerous step that could further tear the country apart: Ukraine’s parliament, the Supreme Rada, passed a draft law last month honoring organizations involved in mass ethnic cleansing during World War Two.---REUTERS
Fifty years on, practical lessons from German-Israeli friendship
On the 50th anniversary of their diplomatic ties, Israel and Germany offer a model for others in reconciling after a dismal past like the Holocaust.---CSMONITOR
Israeli Ambassador on Iran Deal: ‘We Cannot Roll the Dice’ on Survival of Jewish State
Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, snapped his fingers to signify how quickly the Jewish state could go from being strong to vulnerable in the face of a nuclear Iran.---DAILY SIGNAL
Ignore Politicians Saying Amtrak Crash Is Proof More Funding Is Needed. We First Need to Know More.
On Tuesday night, an Amtrak train travelling on the Northeast Corridor crashed near Philadelphia, killing at least seven and injuring over 200 others.---DAILY SIGNAL
STEPHANOPOULOS APOLOGIZES…SORT OF
George Stephanopolous (I cannnot believe how many times I've had to write that name this week), has apologized for the conflict of interest he created when he deposited three $25,000 checks into the Clinton Foundation's bank account.----AMERICAN SPECTATOR
RELATED STORY: From the Rush Limbuagh show on Friday: Really? You're Just Figuring All This Out About George Stephanopoulos?
" Clinton became the front-runner, and Perot was finally dealt with, but during that campaign it was George Stephanopoulos and James Carville and Paul Begala that were running the Clinton campaign operation, and they called themselves "the war room." And their purpose, like the bimbo eruptions division, was to simply set out and destroy anybody who came forward with any credible criticism of the Clintons either regarding a Clinton scandal or anything else that Clinton was talking about, say potential policy or what have you. " -----read more
Another related story: Flashback: George Stephanopoulos to Hillary Clinton: 'I Love You'
Former Democratic operative turned journalist George Stephanopoulos was rocked this week by the revelation that he donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation, an action he kept from the public and his bosses at ABC. ---NEWS BUSTERS
George Stephanopoulos’s Clinton Foundation Hypocrisy Is Staggering
The problem with George Stephanopoulos’s Clinton-gate mess is that his own words prove him to be both a bully and a hypocrite, as well as abjectly unethical.---NATIONAL REVIEW
President Obama and the Gulf Arabs
Saudi Arabia is so angry at the emerging nuclear agreement between Iran and the major powers that it is threatening to develop its own nuclear capability — one more indication of the deep differences between the United States and the Persian Gulf Arab states over the deal, which the major powers and Iran aim to complete by June 30----NEW YORK TIMES
Ralph Nader: Why run for president if you don't have a real chance?
The 2016 presidential election is attracting an unusually large number of hopefuls. The Republicans will probably field more than a dozen candidates and the Democrats, as many as five. Presently, very few of these supposed contenders have a real chance of becoming president. Republicans Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz are long shots. On the Democratic side, that term applies to everyone but Hillary Rodham Clinton.---LA TIMES
A Chinese-Russian alliance that complicates the Middle East
Though on a very small scale, Russian and Chinese navies have engaged in their first joint exercises in the Mediterranean. On the one hand, it shows a level of cooperation and the expanding horizons of Chinese maritime interests in the Middle East. On the other hand, Russian and Chinese interests in the region are divergent.---WASHINGTON TIMES
Jeb Bush’s alarming caution
Jeb Bush promised he would be his “own man,” and this week he proved it — alas for him.
The former Florida governor, often regarded as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, managed over an extraordinary 72 hours to demonstrate that he is not anything like his older brother, the former president. He showed himself to be indecisive, uncertain where he stands, afraid of his shadow and nakedly calculating.----WASHINGTON POST
Don't feed the Amtrak beast
Remember when Congress responded to the alleged malfunction of Toyota brakes by offering the company $1 billion and telling its heroic employees to keep up the good work? No, neither do we.---WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sentence is justified
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s life is a meager compensation for the murder of Martin Richard, Lingzi Lu, Krystle Campbell, and Sean Collier. But it is the highest price he can be made to pay under our system of justice, and a jury of his peers has unanimously recommended that he pay it.---BOSTON GLOBE
Clinton has to watch out for Warren
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) says she won't run for president. Many observers speculate the now-senior senator from Massachusetts is either biding her time or is waiting for an honest-to-goodness serious draft. For someone who was just elected to the Senate in 2012, the she has become a major name and force in the Democratic Party.---THE HILL
Is Christianity in America doomed?
Last month, New Atheist God-hater Daniel Dennett wrote an op-ed column in The Wall Street Journal that used a Pew poll to argue that the future of religion is bleak. I responded with a column of my own in which I mocked this claim, since the poll Dennett relied on actually made mixed predictions about the future of religion in the United States and painted a fairly rosy picture of its next few decades around the globe.---THE WEEK
Autism Reveals Problems in How We Measure Success
Eight-year-old Charlie has an infectious smile. He loves swimming, hiking, and skiing. And he’s smart, too. By the age of 2, he knew every letter, color, shape, and number. “He loved books and wanted us to read to him for hours,” his mom Tricia said.---TIME
Benghazi controversy explained
It’s been nearly three years since the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and the events of that night still remain a political controversy. The eighth investigation into the tragedy is currently under way. But, as previously expected, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will not be called upon to testify, just yet. ---YAHOO NEWS
Facing questions over foreign donations, Hillary Clinton starts cutting ties to Bill’s foundation
Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation moved swiftly Friday to begin cutting ties as she prepares to announce her candidacy for president, amid mounting criticism over millions of dollars in foreign donations that have poured into the foundation’s coffers.---YAHOO NEWS
Body camera policies must block officers' previewing of video in use-of-force cases: Editorial
These days, it's tough to find anyone who really opposes the idea of police officers wearing body cameras for recording their encounters with the public.---THE OREGONIAN
Obama's Casual Slander of American Christians
Earlier this week, Harvard professor Robert Putnam did a Q&A with Washington Post religion reporter Michelle Boorstein, headlined "Have faith groups been too absent in the fight on poverty?" Here is Putnam's answer to that question---WEEKLY STANDARD
Henry Johnson’s honor: WWI hero set for long-overdue presidential medal
It was exactly 97 years ago, May 15, 1918, in a front-line World War I outpost near the Tourbe and Aisne Rivers in northeast France, that an American infantryman from Albany, Pvt. Henry Johnson, repelled a German attack.---NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Why humanity may yet reach the stars
It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s starting to look as if Einstein might just have been right about that speed of light thing. From apparently superluminal radio sources in deep space, to the neutrinos that were supposed to be arriving ahead of schedule at the Grand Sasso experiment in Italy, every apparent exception to Einstein’s ultimate speed law has turned out to be a phantom. Even in the quantum realm, where entangled particles seem to communicate with each other instantaneously across any distance, no useful information is shared at anything other than the speed of light.---REUTERS
He Is Heavy. He’s My Brother.
WASHINGTON — IT isn’t about what we know now.
It’s about what we knew then.
It is simply not true, as Republican presidential aspirant Scott Walker said on Friday, that “any president would have likely taken the same action Bush did with the information he had.”---NEW YORK TIMES
INSPIRATIONAL MESSAGE
From Gospel Way: Hating Relatives and Forsaking Possessions - Luke 14:26,33
Luke 14:26 says, "If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother, and wife, and children, brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Verse 33 adds that one cannot be Jesus' disciple unless he forsakes all that he possesses.
Jesus here shows some of the reasons why people may reject discipleship in His kingdom. To be a disciple one must pay a severe cost. Sacrifice and hardship are required. So Jesus urges people to consider the cost before becoming disciples. Many, after becoming disciples, will find that they are unwilling to continue, so they will be rejected. One should realize from the outset what he is getting into.
Hating our relatives
Does this mean we must literally hate our own parents, wife, children, etc.? Notice that Jesus says we must even hate our own lives. Clearly this is not absolute or literal. We are told to love others as we love ourselves, and no one hates his own flesh (see again Matt. 22:36-40; Eph. 5:29).
"Hate" here does not mean to have no love at all nor to actively seek the harm of others. All Bible passages must be understood by comparing them to other passages. Many other Scriptures command us to love everyone (Matt. 22:36-40). Surely that includes our family. Ephesians 5:22-25 commands men to love their wives, and Titus 2:4 commands wives to love their husbands and children. Clearly, then, Luke 14:26 does not literally mean to hate our family members.
Sometimes the Bible uses the term "hate" in a comparative sense. Genesis 29:31 says that Jacob hated his wife Leah, but v30 shows that really this means he loved Rachel, his other wife, more than he did Leah. So "hate" is used in a comparative sense to mean "loving one thing or person less that we love another." See also Genesis 25:34.
This is the point in Luke 14:26. Jesus is not saying that we are to have malice or ill will toward our family. That would contradict other plain passages. Instead, Christ is saying that we must always put Him before our families. Our love for Christ must be greater than our love for anyone or anything else.
Matthew 10:37 helps to explain Luke 14:26. Jesus said, "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."
We may never actually be required to literally give up our relationship with our loved ones to please the Lord, and we may never be required to actually die for His cause, but we must be willing to do so. Many have had to do these things. And even if we don't actually give up our family, their desires must always come second to the will of Jesus. And even if we don't physically die for His cause, we must devote our lives to seeking His cause above all else. This is what it means to bear our cross and follow Him (see Luke 9:23-27).
Jesus plainly says that people who are not willing to pay this price simply cannot be His disciples. They may think they are disciples, they may appear to others to be, and no one may know till judgment that they are not true disciples. But Jesus does not consider such half-hearted followers to be true disciples, despite their pretensions. There is no point starting to serve the Lord, unless we are willing to give true, whole-hearted commitment, seeking His will above all else. See also v33 below. Cf. Matthew 6:19-33; 10:34-39; 16:24-27; Romans 8:5-8; 12:1,2; John 6:27,63; Luke 12:15-21; 1 Timothy 4:8; 6:6-19; 2 Corinthians 4:16-18; 8:5; 10:3,4; Colossians 3:1,2; Galatians 2:20.
Forsaking our possessions
On v33 Jesus added that the price we must be willing to pay is to forsake all that we have. Again, we may not physically lose all we possess, but we must be willing to do so if necessary to please the Lord. And many have made exactly this sacrifice. And even if we do not lose them physically, we must commit ourselves to using them for His service. Far too many of us are too attached to our material pursuits. If we are not willing to sacrifice them for His cause, we simply cannot be disciples.
Note that Jesus is not teaching a blanket requirement that all disciples must give up all possessions or that it is a sin for Christians to own property. If so, what do we do with our possessions when we are converted? Do we give them to others? No, they could not possess them either, or they would be in sin! Many other passages show disciples who were acceptable though they owned property. Zacchaeus was accepted by Jesus when he committed to give only half his goods to the poor (Luke 19:1-10). Cf. Acts 12:12; 21:8; etc. Just as we are not literally required to "hate" our family members, so we may not be literally required to give up all possessions.
But, while we may not have to give up all possessions, there is a real warning here for us. We must not be so attached to our possessions that we would not be willing to give them up for the Lord (Luke 14:33; Matt. 6:19-33). If we are so attached, then we are not true disciples.
Are we willing to pay the price?
For further study I encourage the reader to go to www.gospelway.com/instruct/ and study our online articles about Biblical family relationships.
(c) Copyright David E. Pratte, 2/5/2005
ref. http://www.gospelway.com/topics/family/hating_parents.php
DAILY DEVOTIONAL
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
Romans 11:33 NKJV