Take Women Out of the Box

Mimi Haddad

It’s time the American church stopped arguing about female roles and started empowering women for ministry.

The debate over whether God equips and calls women to serve in positions of spiritual leadership is not over. In 2008, some of the same Christians who were delighted to see Sarah Palin run beside John McCain were also reluctant to welcome women to the pulpit on Sunday morning. And when Gospel Today magazine published an issue with women preachers on the cover, more than 100 Christian bookstores removed the magazine from their counters.

Clearly some Christians believe a woman can lead a country but not a church. But what does Scripture say? Does God’s Word make a distinction between a woman’s spiritual and secular leadership?

Consider Deborah, whose service as a judge and prophet influenced all of Israel. Her leadership and spiritual insight were so significant that the men of Israel refused to go into battle without her (Judg. 4:6-9). She is quoted in Scripture as saying, “Villagers in Israel would not fight; they held back until I, Deborah, arose, a mother in Israel” (5:7, TNIV). On a regular basis, as “a prophet … [who] was leading Israel at that time,” she “held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided” (4:4-5, emphasis added).

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Huge Massacre in North Korea’s Killing Fields

Jeremy Reynalds (Oct (North Korea)—The disappearance of at least some 20,000 prisoners of conscience from North Korea's Camp 22-a massive concentration camp-is a huge massacre of an already brutalized population.18, 2013)Huge Massacre in North Korea's Killing Fields

“…confirmed testimony from camp survivors going back to the late 1990?s, and charges of human experimentation in North Korea continue to be further substantiated by more recent accounts, including those of North Korean chemists, former security officials and former prisoners.” –Robert Park

(North Korea)—The disappearance of at least some 20,000 prisoners of conscience from North Korea’s Camp 22-a massive concentration camp-is a huge massacre of an already brutalized population.

The camp was geographically larger than Los Angeles and thought to have once held between 30,000 to 50,000 prisoners.

According to a story by Robert Park published in Forbes and the Chicago Tribune, satellite photographs indicate that guard posts, interrogation and detention facilities at the camp had been razed last year. By that time, those accused and exploited had been reduced to about 3,000.

While an estimated 7,000-8,000 prisoners are believed by some observers to have been taken away at night via train to similar slave labor/death camps No. 16 (located in a secluded mountain area in Hwasong County), and No. 25 (near the city of Chongjin), the rest remain unaccounted for.

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A Survivor of Auschwitz Recalls the Past Horrors and How the Power of Forgiveness has Set Her Free

Auschwitz Nazi death campAimee Herd (Oct 18, 2013)Eva and Miriam Mozes, who—at 10-years-old—were, along with their family, forced from their small village home in Romania, and taken to the Auschwitz Nazi death camp.

“No human being can be free—emotionally free and mentally free—without forgiving people who have wronged them.”

A CBN TV video details the life of twin sisters, Eva and Miriam Mozes, who—at 10-years-old—were, along with their family, forced from their small village home in Romania, and taken to the Auschwitz Nazi death camp.

Separated from her family, Eva describes how she and her sister determined to stay alive, amid the sights of children’s corpses on the ground. She made a “silent pledge” to do everything in her power not to join those lifeless bodies.

Eva says she and her sister, and the other children in the death camp knew, from within the first week, that the notorious “angel of death,” Josef Mengele, had likely murdered their families, and that they were only alive because Mengele wanted to use them.

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John McCain and ‘Allahu Akbar’

Freedom Center – David Horowitz – September 4, 2013 By Robert Spencer

Tuesday morning, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) got a bit hot under the collar when Brian Kilmeade of Fox News noted that the Syrian rebels whom Barack Obama and McCain want to aid militarily were shouting “Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!” as rockets hit Syrian government offices. McCain’s response to Kilmeade demonstrated not only his ignorance of Islam, but his abysmal misjudgment of what is happening in Syria. And on the basis of that ignorance, he is aiding Obama’s rush to yet another war.

“I have a problem,” Kilmeade said, “helping those people screaming that after a hit.” That incensed McCain, who shot back: “Would you have a problem with an American or Christians saying ‘thank God? Thank God?’ That’s what they’re saying. Come on! Of course they’re Muslims, but they’re moderates and I guarantee you they are moderates.”

Wrong on all counts. In the first place, it does not mean “thank God,” as McCain seems to have affirmed when he said, “That’s what they’re saying.” Allahu akbar means “Allah is greater” – not, as it is often translated, “God is great.” The significance of this is enormous, as it is essentially a proclamation of superiority and supremacism. Allah is greater – than any of the gods of the infidels, and Islam is superior to all other religions.

Al-Islam.org states this obliquely: “Allahu akbar implies that God is superior to all tangible and intangible, temporal and celestial beings.” This may seem to be an innocuous theological statement until one recalls that Islam has always had a political aspect, and Islamic jihadists always shout “Allahu akbar” when attacking infidels. It is a declaration of the superiority of their god and their way of life over those of their victims. 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta also stated that it was meant to make the infidels afraid. He wrote instructions to jihadists that were found in his baggage: “Shout, ‘Allahu Akbar,’ because this strikes fear in the hearts of the non-believers.”

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FOUR FATAL FLAWS that RUIN MINISTRIES

by J. Lee Grady – Charisma Magazine – 17th October 2013

Our movement began unravelling a few years ago because of flawed leadership. We will not recover until we clean up our act.

I spend a lot of time investing in young leaders-and I constantly urge them to learn from the mistakes we made in the previous move of God. I appreciate the positive things the Holy Spirit did during the charismatic movement, but we made a mess because we didn´t lead with integrity.

The apostle Paul gave us a crash course in leadership in his second letter to the Corinthians. While studying that epistle recently, I identified four of the biggest mistakes we made during the charismatic revival. I pray we’ve learned our lesson so we can avoid these flaws in the next season.

1. Charlatanism. We charismatics lost our credibility during the past 30 years because certain greedy preachers manipulated their audiences to pad their own pockets. Just as a little leaven spreads to the whole lump of dough, the charlatans ruined it for all of us.

The apostle Paul told the Corinthians, “For we are not like many, peddling the Word of God” (2 Cor. 2:17, NASB). The Greek word for peddling, kapeleuo, means “to make money by selling; to corrupt; to get gain by teaching divine truth.” How many well-known charismatic preachers started out well but ended up as pitiful peddlers, begging for dollars to pay for luxury cars and mansions they felt they needed to prove their importance? (And now some of these guys have their own reality show, The Preachers of L.A., which airs in October and features Noel Jones and Clarence McClendon.) (more…)

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Billy Graham sounds alarm for 2nd Coming

Evangelist Billy GrahamBy Troy Anderson – World Net Daily – 23rd October 2013

Just as Noah did in ancient times, world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham is sounding the alarm that the Second Coming is “near” and signs of the end of the age are “converging now for the first time since Jesus made those predictions.”

Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the United Nations General Assembly “biblical prophecies are being realized.”

And last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., claimed the world has entered the last days.

“When you see up is down and right is wrong, when this is happening, we were told this: that these days would be as the days of Noah,” Bachmann said.

The remarks by Graham, Netanyahu and Bachmann come amid a steadily rising wave of public interest in the end times, as demonstrated by recent polls and New York Times and Amazon.com bestselling books such as “The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery That Holds the Secret of America’s Future,” by Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, and “Four Blood Moons: Something is About to Change,” by Pastor John Hagee.

In September, a poll by the Ventura, Calif.-based Barna Group found 4 in 10 Americans – and 77 percent of evangelical Christians – believe the “world is now living in the biblical end times.”

Now, a new wave of end-times predictions for 2014 and 2015 involving blood moons on Jewish holy days and prophetically significant events on the Shemitah – the ancient biblical year of the Sabbath – are igniting even more interest in humanity’s ultimate fate.

Throw in next year’s reboot of the “Left Behind” film featuring Nicolas Cage and the cinematic destruction of biblical proportions in “Noah,” starring Russell Crowe, and last-days fever is back with a mainstream vengeance.

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Revival in Iceland: “It’s Like a Child Has Been Born”

Trevor Freeze (Oct 1, 2013)

Despite a huge, concerted effort by homosexual activists to derail Franklin Graham’s Festival of Hope, dramatic testimonies from thousands reveal tears, brokenness, salvation—assurance of a “new beginning” for Iceland.

(Reykjavik, Iceland)—Last Sunday, as Icelanders came streaming down the aisle responding to a Gospel message from Franklin Graham, an emotional night left tears of joy and real hope for a revival to sweep this nation.

It normally takes a lot to move Skúli Barker to tears.

But what he witnessed on Sunday night in his country…

He’ll be the first to tell you, that simply doesn’t happen in Iceland.

“My wife was sobbing next to me,” Skúli said. “And I started to cry. It’s just amazing.”

It started off as a few souls responding at the end of Franklin Graham’s Gospel message and before he knew it, throngs were flooding the stage, elbow-to-elbow, hundreds of people packed in, aisles backed up.

People wanting to meet Jesus. And willing to say that out loud. Pray that out loud.

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The Issue of the Heart

The Issue of the HeartPat Harrison © Peninsula Bible Church Cupertino

Proverbs 4:20-27

The heart is truly a wonder. It beats more than a hundred thousand times a day, pumping oxygen and nutrition through sixty thousand miles of arteries, veins and capillaries. The health of the whole body depends on the heart. It is strategically protected beneath the surface, and is central to our lives.

The condition of our hearts is of great importance to us, and it should be. We spend a great deal of time and money exercising to get our heart rate up, eating less fatty foods, etc. We are preoccupied with exercise and diet. We look at the heart symbols next to menu items. My wife has convinced me of the benefits of tofu, something I never thought possible. I found myself even ordering a tofu enchilada in a restaurant lately.

The Bible teaches there is a spiritual heart too. It too is central and interior to our being, critical to our life as God intended it to be lived, and is always active, receiving and distributing what we feed it. Our spiritual heart is the part that causes us to act the way we do. Our words, attitudes, and actions flow from it.

To care for our spiritual heart, we must understand some things about it.

The heart is the richest term in the Bible for the totality of man’s inner nature. It is the deepest core of our being which animates the rest of the body. It is the source of what makes us truly alive: our soul, emotions, longings, ambitions, thoughts, beliefs, and will.

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Monash University Journalism Article on Rise Up Australia Party

Dear friends, We’re forwarding the following Monash University Journalism Article by Jackson Stiles regarding Rise Up Australia Party for your interest. The picture shows Pastor Daniel Nalliah flanked by two Israeli…

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Salvation & great move of God in Finley, NSW / RUA Prayer in Melbourne / Live webcast with Pr Daniel this Sun 3rd Nov

Surrendering to JesusDear family & friends in Christ,Pr Daniel & team with farming family of 3 generations

1) Pr Daniel stated today, “We thank and praise God for His mighty hand at work in our nation of Australia. While many Pentecostal churches are blocking the Holy Spirit from moving in the church service, I praise God many mainline churches are opening their hearts to the moving of the Holy Spirit and praying in tongues.”

In Darwin a few weeks ago, a couple of Catholic Priests were mightily touched by God and were praying in tongues. Last weekend in Finley, NSW several people from mainline churches, who came to the meetings, were filled with the Holy Spirit and started praying in tongues.

Several others responded to the salvation call and gave their lives to Jesus. One guy in particular, who many had been praying for his salvation, gave his heart to Jesus on Sunday night. He is a very well known businessman known by most people in the area.

Pr Daniel preachingOne of his friends stated, “This is the best thing which is happened in this town this weekend. We have been praying for my friend’s salvation. Praise God he is now born-again.”Worshipping the Lord

As people from around six churches came together, God moved most powerfully. Many travelled more than one hour to get to the meetings. Many responded to the altar call.

The farmers were telling Pr Daniel and the team that it had not rained for months, and that if it does not rain this week, that it will be very hard for them.

Glory to God before Pr Daniel and the team left Finley it started pouring down with rain. Thank you Jesus for answering our prayers.

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IRAN: FOUR CHRISTIANS SENTENCED TO 80 LASHES FOR DRINKING COMMUNION WINE

IranFor Immediate Release – 23 October 2013 – Christian Solidarity Worldwide

A court in the Iranian city of Rasht has sentenced four members of the Church of Iran denomination to 80 lashes each for drinking wine during a communion service.

The verdict, dated 6 October, charges Behzad Taalipasand, Mehdi Reza Omidi (Youhan), Mehdi Dadkhah (Danial) and Amir Hatemi (Youhanna) with drinking alcohol and possession of a receiver and satellite antenna. They received the verdict on 20 October and have ten days to appeal the sentence.

Behzad Taalipasand and Mehdi Reza Omidi (Youhan) were detained on 31 December 2012 during a crackdown on house churches by the Iranian government.

Mervyn Thomas, Chief Executive of Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), said, “The sentences handed down to these members of the Church of Iran effectively criminalise the Christian sacrament of sharing in the Lord’s Supper and constitute an unacceptable infringement on the right to practice faith freely and peaceably. We urge the Iranian authorities to ensure that the nation’s legal practices and procedures do not contradict its international obligation under the International Convent on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to guarantee the full enjoyment of freedom of religion or belief by all of its religious communities.”

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Premier Barry O’Farrell condemns Jewish attack as community on alert folllowing Bondi bashing

by: Clementine Cuneo, Leigh Van Den Broeke and AAP From: The Daily Telegraph - October 28, 2013 NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell says there will be zero tolerance for religious discrimination…

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Atheists Continue Relentless Attack on the Ground Zero Cross

Ground Zero Cross

Matthew Clark (Oct 18, 2013)

Simply put, the Constitution is not an atheist manifesto.

Following a big victory for the Ground Zero Cross earlier this year, where a federal judge threw out an atheist lawsuit to tear down the Cross, angry atheists are now appealing that ruling to a federal appeals court.

The Ground Zero Cross, two intersecting steel beams found in the wreckage of the World Trade Center, became a symbol of hope and healing for first responders on the ground in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and for thousands of Americans across the nation.

Atheists, from the particularly vitriolic American Atheists, demanded that it be torn down. They attempted to make a federal case of their hurt feelings and lost.

The trial court correctly noted that the Cross was a historic artifact – an actual piece of 9/11 history. It really meant something to those affected. (more…)

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Arabs Realizing Israel Is Not the Enemy

Arabs Realizing Israel Is Not the EnemyRyan Jones (Oct 18, 2013)

“Many nations in the area have a strong desire to eliminate the influence of Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaida. This is an important development, even historic.” –Benjamin Netanyahu

One of the very few positive outcomes of the regional crises engulfing the Middle East is that a number of Arab states are beginning to realize that Israel is not the true enemy.

“For the first time in Israel’s existence, there is an understanding in the Arab world, that Israel is not the enemy of the Arabs. On many issues, we are united,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the opening of the Knesset’s winter session earlier this week.

Netanyahu noted that the hijacking of pro-democracy revolutions in Egypt, Syria and elsewhere had turned many of the Arab states against the same Islamist regimes and groups that most threaten Israel.

“Many nations in the area have a strong desire to eliminate the influence of Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaida,” the prime minister said. “This is an important development, even historic.”

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