Receiving and Giving

"As we stand now at the entrance to the third millennium since Jesus, we can look back over the horrors of Christian history, never doubting for an instant that if Christians had put kindness ahead of devotion to good order, theological correctness, and our own justifications – if we had followed in the humble footsteps of the heretical Samaritan who was willing to wash someone else’s wounds, rather than in the self-regarding steps of the priest and the immaculate steps of the Levite – the world we inhabit would be a very different one". (Thomas Cahill)
One can only receive something which has been revealed to him by God. If this has not happened, then we are commanded to love the person anyway. My natural ability to love regards what I will get in return. God's love doesn't look at the returns but gives anyway, as it it more blessed to give than receive. Coincidentally, the more I give, the more I will receive. Therefore, the more I love like God, the more I will receive revelation from Him. Perhaps we would be theologically more correct if we loved more - for God would then give us more revelation of truth. But like the priest and the Levite, we try to be holy and correct in our own eyes, instead of trusting in God's righteousness and holiness, which are in us through faith in Messiah.... Talking to myself here...

Last Saturday we went to a series of fascinating lectures about archaeological discoveries in Israel; giving an answer to the book by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman , 'The Bible Unearthed' ( Deutsch - 'Keine Posaunen vor Jericho'), in which they say that "the historical saga contained in the Bible . . . was not a miraculous revelation, but a brilliant product of human imagination" (p. 1). The lectures showed that the lecturers had scientific integrity as well as a sincere faith, and that accepted biblical chronology has been about 150 years out for the last couple of hundred years, which means that archaeologists have been looking for evidence in the wrong layers, and of course haven't found any.
During the afternoon coffee or tea break, we congregated downstairs around tables and chatted. We'd  brought some banana cake and fruit with us, which we put on the table. It was interesting how reluctant people were to take the cake we offered to them, once they realised that it hadn't been provided by the organisation giving the seminars. I suppose they hadn't wanted to impose or take 'private' victuals. It was jolly nice when people did take it though.
Today I picked sloes, and made sloe gin, which I hope will be ready in a couple of months.