Video: Testing babies morality in choosing 'good or evil' from the BBC

Interesting video on research into the moral feelings of babies.

Watch the video here.

Photograph: Angel Wings mural from turkey

From the National Geographic Photo of the day archive. View the whole archive here.

Q&A with Tim Keller on his apologetics book The Reason for God

Terror suspects tortured in Libya with involvement by MI6 and the CIA (from the BBC)

A video from the BBC website documenting the usefulness of the Libyan regime to the CIA and MI6 in interrogating terror suspects. A grim reminder that in a fallen world the authorities are less than perfect.

The commander of anti-government forces in Tripoli has told the BBC he wants an apology from Britain and America for the way he was transferred to a prison in Libya in 2004.

Abdulhakim Belhaj, who was then a terror suspect, says he was tortured after being arrested in Bangkok and taken to the Libyan capital in an operation organised by the CIA and MI6.

Details of his case are included in messages sent to the Gaddafi regime by the two intelligence services.

Jeremy Bowen reports from Tripoli.

Interesting thoughts on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (from Franz Delitzch)

Interesting thoughts on how the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would give that knowledge in the garden. The quote comes from Justin Taylor's excellent blog and you can read the whole post here.

Franz Delitzch:

The tree of knowledge was to lead man to the knowledge of good and evil; and, according to the divine intention, this was to be attained through his not eating of its fruit. This end was to be accomplished, not only by his discerning in the limit imposed by the prohibition the difference between that which accorded with the will of God and that which opposed it, but also by his coming eventually, through obedience to the prohibition, to recognize the fact that all that is opposed to the will of God is an evil to be avoided, and through voluntary resistance to such evil, to the full development of the freedom of choice originally imparted to him into the actual freedom of a deliberate and self-conscious choice of good. By obedience to the divine will he would have attained to a godlike knowledge of good and evil, i.e. to one in accordance with his own likeness to God. He would have detected the evil in the approaching tempter; but instead of yielding to it, he would have resisted it, and thus have made good his own property acquired with consciousness and of his won free-will, and in this way by proper self-determination would gradually have advanced to the possession of the truest liberty. But as he failed to keep this divine appointed way, and ate the forbidden fruit in opposition to the command of God, the power imparted by God to the fruit was manifested in a different way. He learned the difference between good and evil from his own guilty experience, and by receiving the evil into his own soul, fell a victim to the threatened death. Thus through his own fault the tree, which should have helped him to attain true freedom, brought nothing but a sham liberty of sin, and with it death, and that without any demoniacal power of destruction being conjured into the tree itself, or any fatal poison being hidden in its fruit.

Generational Tension in the Church and how in Christ unity is possible (from D.A. Carson)

Article on the Desiring God blog referring to D.A.Carson's thoughts on the conflict that arises between generations. In this case the 'boomers' and the 'millennials'. Read the desiring God summary here and the original Carson article here.

Here's a quote

No institution, organization, entity, or group on the planet has more reason to turn the lemon of generational tension into the lemonade of generational harmony than the Church. Jesus himself is building his Church. And Jesus himself is the great meeting place of peoples who would otherwise be at odds — and his value is seen in diverse peoples coming together because of him. The cross is the common ground where Boomers and Millennials and even Gen Xers can stand together.

The need of the Holy Spirit in preaching

This post is taken right from the Confluence blog. You can read the original post here.

When the Spirit of God is Absent

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (19 June 1834 – 31 January 1892) - Spurgeon regularly preached to a congregation of more than 10,000 people in Victorian London while still in his twenties. His sermons were transcribed and published, selling up to 25,000 copies every week. As many as 2,500 of his sermons are still on sale today and he continues to be highly influential among Christians of different denominations.  While he is often recognized for his strong reformed theology, Spurgeon also emphasized the need for the Holy Spirit's power.  These blogs will reflect the second emphasis.

The Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary to make everything that we do to be alive. We are sowers, Brothers and Sisters, but if we take dead seed in our seed baskets there will never be a harvest! The preacher must preach living Truths of God in a living manner if he expects to obtain a hundred-fold harvest. Too much of Church work is nothing better than the movement of a galvanized corpse! Too much of religion is done as if it were performed by a robot, or ground off by machinery. Nowadays men care little about heart and soul—they only look at outward performances....

Machines, not men

We can preach as machines, we can pray as machines and we can teach Sunday school as machines. Men can give mechanically and come to the Lord’s Table mechanically—yes, and we, ourselves, shall do so unless the Spirit of God is with us! Most hearers know what it is to hear a live sermon which quivers all over with fullness of energy. You also know what it is to sing a hymn in a lively manner and you know what it is to unite in a live Prayer Meeting! But, ah, if the Spirit of God is absent, all that the Church does will be lifeless! It will be as the rustle of leaves above a tomb, the gliding of specters, the congregation of the dead turning over in their graves!

As the Spirit of God is the Quickener to make us alive and our work alive, so must He specially be with us to make those alive with whom we have to deal for Jesus. Imagine a dead preacher preaching a dead sermon to dead sinners— what can possibly come of it? Here is a beautiful essay which has been admirably elaborated and it is coldly read to the cold-hearted sinner. It smells of the midnight oil but it has no heavenly unction, no Divine power resting upon it, nor, perhaps, is that power even looked for! What good can come of such a production?

Living seed

It is only as the Spirit of God shall come upon God’s servant and shall make the Word which He preaches to drop as a living seed into the heart, that any result can follow his ministry! And it is only as the Spirit of God shall then follow that seed and keep it alive in the soul of the listener that we can expect those who profess to be converted to take root and grow to maturity of Grace and become our sheaves at the last! We are utterly dependent here and, for my part, I rejoice in this absolute dependence!

C.H. Spurgeon. January 7, 1877 at The Metropolitan Tabernacle, London.