a cursory glance

PaulVaartjes.com

sejtraav — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:04:54 +0000

I amgoing to be moving most of my posting over to my own site:

PaulVaartjes.com

Jump on over there, and join back in with the blogging goodness.

Hope you enjoy the move! I’ll still have CursoryGlance up, and may also post here occasionally.

Paul

Breaking News

sejtraav — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:34:04 +0000

‘Double car bombing in Algeria kills eleven’; 1 hour ago

‘James Hardie quarterly profit falls 96%’; 39 minutes ago

‘AirAsia X launches flights to Melbourne’; 5 hours ago

‘Hope fades for Sydney whale calf’; 20 minutes ago

Up-to-the-minute coverage and ‘headlines every fifteen minutes on Sky News’. Breaking news from Australia and around the world. ‘Search and browse 4,500 continuously updated news sources’.

Its hard to avoid it these days – the constant barrage of worldwide news. “Welcome to National Nine News,” Mark Ferguson smiles from above the news ticker sending a never ending string of news snippets across the screen like an endless moving walkway. ‘This is ABC news’, the voice crackles over the airwaves. ‘Stay tuned for updates throughout the day,’ it finishes ten minutes later. ‘Today’s top five news stories’ is plastered onto your internet homepage.

Each day, we are subjected to incredible amounts of news. It’s almost impossible to avoid the the hundreds of reporters, journalist, and news presenters each vying for the privilege to bring us the latest ‘exclusive’ or ‘breaking story’.

It’s all too much. News reports written every second minute. No one can keep up. It’s hard to imagine a time when you would only be updated on the current affairs once daily, in the morning newspaper. Today even that has become incredibly bloated. A Saturday edition of the Sydney Morning Herald has become a burdening weight of exclusive interviews, ‘The Week In Review’, political analysis and special lift-outs. News websites are equally excessive. Within hours an article has been shoved off the front page, and sent to an ever growing “Archives” section of the site, unlikely to be seen again.

Surely this over-abundance of news is impacting our society. There’s no time for us to reflect on any of the stories or form any kind of response. Our attention is to quickly waved on to the next ‘big’ story. The car crash tragedy is all too quickly replaced by the latest football results or tomorrow’s weather. We hear of so many earthquakes, murders, wars and accidents in the news that we seem to have become quite blasé about them. Not much in the news extracts an emotional response anymore. We’ve seen it all before, hundreds of times before in hundreds of articles.

The irony is that the news is killing the news. The more news we are subjected to, the less susceptible we are to be affected by it. Thus it just becomes a meaningless read during our daily routine. We don’t take any of it in, nothing impacts us. News loses it’s purpose if the news doesn’t impact and if the news isn’t new.

Maybe if we went back to the days when all our news just came from the daily paper, we’d have much more sympathy for those suffering around us. We would hear less stories, definitely, however the stories we do hear will be unique enough to elicit a response.

This desire for escalating numbers of news reports causes other problems: journalists’ expectations become quantitative – they want to get the most news out the quickest. Every journalist want to ‘break’ a hot story – they become ruthless in their pursuit of news. Society’s love of news has become so immense that we’ll report on anything. Even the most mundane of achievements or developments in a story (particularly involving a celebrity, however little or long ago their fame was) now needs to be covered in our national television news reports and splattered across our newspapers

Let’s keep news to it’s definition: ‘newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent or important events.’ If we hear hundreds of stories a day, they’re not noteworthy. If we hear who the newest Home and Away star is dating, that’s not particularly noteworthy. We are focusing too much on the ‘newly received’ aspect of the definition – and forgetting about noteworthiness all together. No news may not always be good news, but perhaps a little less of it would be good for everyone.

peas in a pod

sejtraav — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 04:53:10 +0000

have a look at the new group blog i’m a part of:

www.peabrains.wordpress.com

enjoy!

Nineteen, Nineteen, Nineteen Eighty Four.

sejtraav — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:48:46 +0000

My life seems to be revolving around this school-assigned read at the moment.

Everywhere I lay my eyes, I seem to see a reference to George Orwell and his futuristic novel.

Books, TV shows, articles, movies, radio. All their subtle references to 1984 have been revealed to me.

Now that I’ve read the book, every piece of media, every conversation, every document, has Orwellian allusions and quotes riddled throughout it. In the few weeks I’ve been reading the book,

Big Brother, Tele-screens, 1984, Winston Smith. They’re all embedded in an incredible amount of literature and media. The latest example is Laurie Oakes article for National Nine News at http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=453933.

1984 seems to have had an incredible impact on the consciousness of our nation and world. It’s made us think. And worry. And pray that some of those things will never happen

web-design: drupal heavyweights

sejtraav — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:51:05 +0000

If you’re not into web-design, you should probably tune out about… now.

Ok, for everyone else, I’ve made a list of some of the module that are of most use to me in the Drupal CMS. The Drupal Content Management System is a web framework which allows the construction of interactive and dynamic websites. All these modules are not essential for a Drupal site, but I highly suggest a new user look at each carefully when creating a site, as many are neccessay to perform most of the functions needed in a well-designed, working, feature-filled website. Most of my experience has been in Church websites, so these module will kind of be tailored to those kind of sites. Also, this list is by no means exhastive, and if you believe any other modules are very useful, and need a mention , just leave a comment (and, all this is still in drupal 5 – I’ve had little Drupal 6 experience, and many 6 modules aren’t ready for some serious commenting on yet)

So.. here we go: (the numbers are not neccessarily an order, just a way to record each)

Views: Despite my disclaimer above – this definelty is number 1! Views simply provides a way to create lists of nodes (content). So you can create lists of anything, filter them through type, name – bsically anything. You can then sort it by any of these fields too – date create or modified etc. I’d recommend whenever installing Drupal, to install Views and CCK (below) along with it at the same time – the vast majority of sites will need these two super-heavyweight modules – you cant do much without them!
CCK (Content Creation Kit). CCK allows you to add custom fields to nodes. Instead of just the “title” and “body”, you can add countless amounts of text fields, integer fields, node reference fields, and you can also add more add-on modules which will provide more field types, allowing you to add images, links audio etc to a node. Once again, quite neccessary and really improves the things Drupal can do. CCK Imagefield, and CCK Link are both add-ons which provide more fields for CCK
Contemplate: Contemplate is also a pretty essential module if you want to do any kind of node customisation quite easily. It allows you to create a template for each node type where you can insert certain placeholders for each variable and field. Great to get rid of the default drupal look.
Pathauto: Out of the box, Drupal allows you to overwrite those ugly urls like example.com/124 with things like example.com/about-us. However, pathauto will allow you to set up rules which will automatically give the content a URL containing it’s variables, such as title, date created, term, etc. This makes it really easy to set up search-engine-friendly, easily rememberable, and structured URL’s, such as: example.com/2008/may/12/drupal-heavyweights for a blog post, or example.com/photos/family/family-reunion for a photo gallery. Much prettier than /124, and much easier than manually adding each URL.
Image: The image module is a bundle of modules that will allow you to upload and display images, and even create some simple image galleries. Pretty essential for any site incorporating a photo gallery.
Audio: If podcasting is what you want, you’ll need this module. It’ll let you upload audio files, and, most impressive, even provides a couple of little players which will allow users to play the files straight off the site. You can use this to create an RSS feed to use as a podcast, or just for any site that needs to provide some audio or listening or downloading. Perfect for Church sermon recordings.
Read More Tweak: This is a handy little tweak you can pretty much install, set a setting or two, and go. If you are a drupal user, you may have been frustrated by the fact that the “read more” link is hidden with the taxonomy terms. This module will remove tht link and place a “Read more..” link right after the last word of the teaser. Really helpful for your users.
Event: Just like Image gives you images, and Audio gives you audio, the Event module gives you a whole framework to add events and display them on a calendar. Although the same result can be achieved using CCK and Views, this is a simple and easy to use module for groups needing a basic calendaring and event system on their site.
Organic Groups: A really cool module that lets you set up groups such as those seen on MySpace or FaceBook. Users can create and join groups, and then post any type of content you allow to these groups, and then notifications will be sent to each group member, letting them know about the addition. Great for community building and creating smaller groups within the large site. Very flexible and customisable.
BuEditor/TinyMCE: There’s a bit of debate as to which of these is best, but, for most drupal sites, it’s best to have a WYSISWG editor installed – even if it’s only for the administrator. This will stop you having o write out complex html to add some style to you content. If you install the IMCE module too, it allows easy addition of inline images.
Google Analytics: This module allows you to use your site with Google Analytics, a service which collects a heap of site statistics for you. You just install this module, sign up for Google Analytics, tweak a few settings, and you’ll start seeing data about who visits your site, such as visitor counts, referring sites, where you visitors are from in the world etc.
Panels: Panels are like blocks for the main content area of your site. Instead of just having one thing in the content of your site, you can split it into columns and rows to display a variety of different blocks on one page right in the content area. Really helpful to display alot of different types of content on one page (kind of like a “dashboard” view)
Poormanscron: Cron for the Poor Man! If you dont have the facilities or time to set up cron jobs, just install this module, and it will run a cron job after a specified time when a page is loaded. Saves you from setting up cron on your site, but provides the same service. Great for the not too technical minded.
CAPTCHA: Got Spam? Get CAPTCHA. Ever see those litle images on a site with a bunch of letters, and you have to type in what you see? That’s what a CAPTCHA is, and this module enables it for your site. CAPTCHA’s help prevent spam, as any spam-bots cannot read the text in the image and therefore cannot pass the test. If you’re starting to get hit with spam, but still want to allow anonymous posting or use of a contact form, try out the CAPTCHA module.

And that’s it. My list of relatively essential modules for learning Drupal. Disagree? Did I miss one?

Let me know.

And I hope it’s helpful – it is for me: each time i install drupal I look through this list to make sure I have everything I need.

At The Sound Of Your Name

sejtraav — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:21:07 +0000

Recently, American Idol performed at some kind of charity concert (sorry to my american readers – I’m not up to date with the ins and outs of your reality TV).

Surprisingly though, they performed “Shout to the Lord”, a song by our very own Aussie Hillsong-er Darlene Zschech, and more importantly, a song which praises Jesus Chirst as Lord and King. Or at least is supposed to.

Have a listen. A close listen

Notice anything? The words should sing: “My Jesus, My Saviour”. American Idol has switched them with “My Shepherd, My Saviour”. It’s kinda sad that TV stations are scared to say Jesus name, but it’s suprising that they sang a worship song at all.

However, without Jesus our faith is nothing, Christianity is nothing, and our lives are nothing, and that song becomes nothing – just another love song.

It kind of become ironic with the Idols sing “Mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of your name” – when they purposely don’t mention His Name.

Your thoughts?

This was brought to my attention through this post: http://stevenjcamp.blogspot.com/2008/04/american-idol-shouts-to-who-jesus-is.html. Give it a read for a more in-depth analysis of what happened.

paul.

The Age Of Anonymity

sejtraav — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:32:31 +0000

From the day we are born, we have a name – we are given an identity. Something that separates us from the 6,602,224,175 other people currently on this earth; and, if your name isn’t individual enough – you’re one of those ‘John Smith’s’, or the like – birthdates, addresses, phone numbers, drivers license numbers, all set us apart from the guy next to us. The experts on this stuff, whoever they are, call these bits of information PII, that is, Personally Identifiable Information. They are what singles out one from the millions. They are our identity.Yet society’s growing trend is to ditch the age old tradition of the name. It seems anonymity is the new black. No longer does anyone want to be linked to their birth names. Perhaps, like most trends and fads, it started in Hollywood. Pseudonyms are all the rage with the rich and famous – we’ve got P. Diddy (Sean Combs), Eminem (Marshall Mathers), or U2’s Bono, born Paul Hewson.The general public are beginning to like the idea of hiding their identity as well, and there’s nowhere like the internet for people to indulge themselves incognito. Most people are known online by their usernames, also called ‘handles’ or screen names.  Online, one could become ‘LaughingPirate124’ or ‘Britney_Spears_Rox’, or anything in their wildest dreams. They can create a new identity.But why, besides the ‘follow the crowd’ effect, do people want to hide their names on the internet? What problems do they have with having their name as a username? The answer of many would be ‘security’. They believe they’re protecting themselves from identity fraud, stalkers, and other questionable people who could access the information.While I’m not encouraging a free-for-all release of tax documents, credit card numbers, and medical records on the net, I have a problem with people scared of disclosing their name. Despite sensationalised media reports, no one can steal your identity with just a name. They need much more than that. Giving out your name doesn’t pose any serious security risk. It just seems, whatever we tell ourselves, we like to be nameless.This is shown in our behaviour on the roads. Hiding behind the facade of our vehicles, much like guests at a masquerade ball, we drive around, content in the knowledge that no-one knows who we really are. The driver honking his horn loudly, tailgating, cutting off other cars, or participating in other acts of road rage, feel as if, behind his strongly tinted windows no-one knows who he really is. He could be a respectable, high up executive, but sitting in the anonymity of a car, he feels he no longer needs to take responsibility for his actions. Road rage incidents are so high, because people relish the freedom and power that comes with anonymity.I think in that last sentence we’ve found the root of this trend to be anonymous: we don’t have to take responsibility for anything. No-one knows who they are, so therefore there can be no consequences. A ‘pro-anonymity’ website sums up this idea people have quite scarily:

“If you have a name, you can be found. You can be hunted and sought out and brought down… But if you are Anonymous, you are forever elusive, invisible, and unstoppable. You are invincible. You are god.”1

We see this attitude everywhere: hoax and prank calls, angry callback radio listeners. We see it in amount of nighttime crime – criminals seek the darkness as a source of anonymity – just like their balaclavas. They don’t want to be held accountable.We’re fine with our names in the telephone book, but we tremble with fear at the thought of our name being online. Why? Perhaps it’s because our name in the phone book isn’t linked with our actions. It’s just a name, sitting there. It has no opinions, it makes no nasty comments, it doesn’t shout abuse, it’s just your name. Online, however, it’s a different matter. Our name becomes linked with our online activity. Our actions can therefore directly impact our reputations, and we can be held accountable – and that’s what we’re scared of.So grow up. Take responsibility for your actions, online or otherwise. Don’t post a comment behind your anonymous username. Don’t yell abuse from behind your anonymous windshield. The invisibility of anonymity is fake. In reality, all it is cowardice. Be accountable, not anonymous.

Fridays…

sejtraav — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:44:01 +0000

The Following is a speech I gave to my school at our Easter Assembly:

“Fridays. They’re good.

Each week we all look forward to them – they’re a cause for celebration! The weekend is near! A sunny Friday is always good. A lazy Friday is always good. A Friday with an awesome weekend is always good. Friday heralds the arrival of a temporary break from our weekly struggles. It’s always good.

But imagine if one Friday we were told we could have the rest of the term off. That would be a very good Friday. But that’d never happen

Or imagine a Friday where Chicko’s were giving out free chicken burgers and Pepsi Max’s. That would be a very good Friday. But it’d never happen

Imagine a Friday where we recieved notification from the Board Of Studies that everyone’s marks were being scaled to up 100%. That would be a very good Friday. But… It’d never happen

Imagine a Friday where Kevin Rudd visited and personally distributed laptops to every student. That would be a very good Friday. But, again, it’d never happen

Imagine a Friday where the King, the King of Kings infact, made an incredible sacrifice so we could have an incredible gift. That would be a very good Friday – and that really did happen!

It’s a Friday that stands out above the rest. Not only is it good, its the best. Its the ‘most good’ Friday (excuse my grammar). It wasn’t a sunny Friday or a lazy Friday. It was a sad and dark Friday. But it was the Friday which changed the world, the universe. It was the Friday God sent His son to die on a cross.

Why’s it so good though? Why do we celebrate Christ’s death, not just his glorious resurrection? It’s because His death has some amazing consequences for all of us.Firstly, Jesus died to take away our condemnation. He took our punishment. Romans 8:1 says “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Jesus takes away the punishment of disobedience to God through his death. It is through Him, and only Him, that this punishment can be removed. Romans later then asks triumphantly: “Who can condemn?”, the answer is no-one. Our condemnation doesn’t just disappear, but get wholly placed upon Jesus, He took it all so we could live a life right with God.Sometimes it might seem as if this condemnation and punishment still exists. We see Christians being persecuted, made fun of, joked about. We’ve probably experienced it ourselves. To us it may seem like condemnation is very real. Yet we have to see that although we face earthly opposition, no one can defeat us. For “if God is for us, who can be against us?”. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” No. We’re alive in Christ, and in Him there is no condemnation. That’s what makes this Friday a very Good Friday.

This may be stretching the metaphor, but typical Fridays for us students signal a short time where normal punishment don’t happen. Friday brings in the weekend, and there’s no detention on the weekend, there’s no picking up papers – those punishments are gone. Similar to that, Good Friday, that is, when Jesus died, removed all punishments. Unlike normal Friday’s, whose release from punishment lasts only a few days, Good Friday gives us an eternal release from this condemnation.

Jesus also died to give eternal life to all who believe in Him. John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him, should not perish but have eternal life.”Humans were meant for life. We want to live. Even in times of great suffering and pain, humans don’t want death – they want relief. Humans are made for life. It’s because we’re made in God’s image and He’s a living, life-loving God. However, when we sinned, we brought on death – eternal death in hell. This is totally opposite to the living happy state we’re meant to be in, and it’s what makes Jesus’ death so amazing. Jesus died so we could have eternal life in the presence of God. By taking the condemnation we deserved upon Himself, Jesus gives us the gift we don’t deserve.There’s one way to unlock this amazing gift. It’s to believe in Jesus, and what He’s done. Because, as it says in 1 Corinthians, “What no eye has see, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined… God has prepared for those who love Him.” Jesus suffered, and Jesus died to give us this gift. Why wouldn’t we want to accept Jesus and live eternally!

Just as each Friday starts off the weekend – a period of happiness and joy, so Good Friday gives us the gift of eternal happiness and joy through Christ in Heaven.

There’s another reason why Jesus had to die. This one might seem a little strange – but Christ died so we could live for Christ. It says that in 2 Corinthians: “He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him”! So Jesus died so we could live for Him. Bluntly, I guess, Christ died for Christ. It sort of sound selfish like that – but Jesus did die so He himself could be exalted. That kinda jars with us – it seems unloving, and a bit vain. In reality though, it’s the most loving thing Jesus did for us.You see, Jesus knows what we need, and what we needed was some serious help – we we’re head-high in sin. So God decided to give us the best help he could. And that was Jesus. Knowing Jesus is better than anything the world has to offer. Now we can see how Christ dying for us to live for Him is so loving. Jesus is the greatest help we could have, so by giving himself, Jesus is showing amazing love. Showing love to us went hand in hand with exalting himself. Now that he is exalted, our lives have purpose, our hearts have comfort. We are given reason to live, to strive on towards the goal. If Christ had not been exalted, If he had not died, and we were not living for Him, we would have no direction. Christ’s lifting up gives us something to look towards. We can live our lives purposefully and joyfully because of what Jesus has done. We can go into the world living confident loving and Godly lives because we live in Christ.

The song “When I survey the Wondrous Cross” says:

“Love so amazing, so divine, 

Demands my soul, my life, my all.”

When you hear the sing it, remember how Jesus died to give us the ultimate help – himself. And this love ‘demands’ action. This love is so amazing, we can’t just sit there and just pray a “Thank You”, instead we must give out entire soul, our entire life, our all to Jesus. We must live for Him, and thats what the crucifixion enabled us to do.

Jesus death takes away our condemnation, it gives us eternal life and It enables us to live a life for Christ.

There’s a progression there. The act of removing our punishment was all Jesus. We had to do nothing. He took our punishment upon Himself, There was nothing we could or would do. For while we were still sinners, or God’s enemies, Christ died for the ungodly.

Then there’s eternal life. It’s something that Jesus offers. For eternal life we must believe in Jesus. It requires a response. We have to fully believe in Him, and what He has done for us to gain eternal life. Without faith, We won’t get this benefit of Jesus’ death. We play a part in gaining this gift.

Thirdly, His death lets us live for Him. This aspect, unlike the others, is fully Jesus, and fully us. Although Jesus died to enable us to live for Him, we are the ones that must actually do it. We have to respond to his love, and we ought to do it by living for Him.

Many Friday’s are good. But Good Friday is the best – it’s a day of so many blessings: removal of condemnation, eternal life, and the exultation of Christ, and these blessings don’t come to an end like a weekend would. There’s no “Monday”looming in terms of heaven – the future is bright – eternal life with Jesus Christ, but we need to believe, and show our belief in a live thats lived for Christ.Most of the time we’re told to stop and ponder what Jesus has done on this Good Friday. But we should do more than that. Take advantage of that third blessing of Jesus’ death – being able to live for Christ. Think about what Jesus has done, but then get up and do something about it! Show Jesus how thankful you are by taking advantage of the gifts he died to give us. Start living a life dedicated to Him. Love God and Love others. Do Good, obey the Lord, not as a way to earn brownie points with God, but as thanks for the amazing gifts and sacrifices he has made for us.

We’ve got a four day weekend coming up. Four sleep-ins. Four days without school, Four days with family and friends. As you’re out during easter, enjoying Friday and the days that follow, see the parallels.

This Friday brings in a time of happiness and joy. The original Good Friday brought eternal happiness and joy

This Friday temporarily releases us from the bonds of school. The original Good Friday released us from the unbreakable bonds of sin.

This Friday give us a time with Family and friends. The first Good Friday allowed us to live a whole live with our greatest friend and saviour Jesus Christ.

If there was a Friday where we were told we could have the term off, we would eventually have to come back.

If there was a Friday where Mr Rudd handed out laptops, they break sooner or later

If there was a Friday where Chicko’s gave out free burgers, they’d be gone in literally seconds.

But the gifts and blessings of Good Friday will not fade, they will not break or end. They’re eternal

Thank Jesus for Good Friday, and the blessed heavenly weekend it brings!”

Copyright Paul Vaartjes 2008

church website

sejtraav — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:36:33 +0000

while i try to find some time to add a proper post, have a look at www.crcw.com.au
It’s the website for my church I’m working on (drupal set-up).It’s far from finished at the moment, but I’m looking forward to it being a fully functioning community website that will help our church congregation.
Many thanks to Rob and Matt at Geeks&God who really helped me to get this happening through their podcast (www.geeksandgod.com)
Hope to write again soon!
Paul

Hallowed Be Thy Name

sejtraav — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:39:35 +0000

Before the luxury of the printing press, all books were copied by hand – even the Bible. Scribes, who had this tedious, painstaking job, spent their whole day copying letters and words from one scroll to another. Many people dispute the authenticity of the Bible both as a historical document and as the true Word of God. They argue there was no way that a book could be passed errorless through centuries of this ancient form of ‘photocopying’. Looking deeper into this issue helps us understand how that argument has no grounds, and also gives us some food for thought on how we respect the Name of God.

Copying the Bible was not a task the Jews took lightly. God had entrusted these people with the safekeeping of His Word, and to ensure this the Jewish people formed many rules for those given the special task of copying the Scriptures. These rules were to maintain the accuracy and integrity of the Word and to show utmost respect for He who had spoken it. These rules included:

The parchment used to copy Scripture onto must have been the skin of a clean animal, and the scribe had to be in full Jewish dress
Each column of text must have had between 48 and 60 lines. The lines were to be drawn up before any copy was commenced.
The ink was always black, and had to be created from a special recipe
The scribe could not write from memory. They had a authentic copy in front of them and had to read each word aloud before writing it to prevent duplication or omission of words.
Rules regulated the size and forms of letters and spacing and how the quill was used
In the rare case a scroll needed to be corrected after copying, it needed to be done within 15 days, otherwise the copy was considered worthless, and if there was three or more mistakes on one page, the page was destroyed straight away anyway.
Proof-reading wasn’t just how it is today – casually reading over searching for any spelling mistakes or sentences that don’ make sense. No, every word and every letter was counter to make sure it matched with the original. If the amount of letters did not match, or two letters touched, the copy was immediately destroyed. The first word of each line was also checked, as well as the middle word of every page. (source)

From this record we can see the scrupulously meticulous care these people took to coping this special text. A mistake was virtually impossible – in fact, we can compare the earliest records of Scripture available to copies from much later, and not see a difference! Certainly God was working through this time to ensure His Holy Word was preserved for generations to come. The Bible is one of the most historically exact pieces of writing in the world - throughout all time on Earth, it has been maintained in it’s original words. The Bible has more historical integrity than most other books from its time, and it is hard to see how anyone can argue its contents are untrue or have been changed, or that great mistakes have been made to the point that the original message has been changed.

I purposefully left out one of the eight rules for Bible scribes above. This is because it presents another interesting topic. This last rule said that each and every time the scribe had to write the word “God” (Elohim), he had to clean his quill. Moreover, whenever he had to write the word “LORD” (Jehovah), he had to clean his entire body – every time! Not only this, to write that word, the scribe had to take a new unused pen to write that one word with, and then afterwards burn it so that nothing else could be written with it. The writing of this word was treated with so much respect that even if the King spoke to the scribe at the moment he was writing the Name of God, the scribe was to ignore the King until he had finished the word.

This is an incredible account of an amazing respect for the Lord’s name, and incredible obedience to the third commandment: “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.” We can learn so much from this example. Today there is extremely little respect for God or His name. It is said lightly, jokingly, or used as a swear word. We ought to respect the name of God – firstly because He commands it, but also because a respect of the name is representative of a respect for the person.

An incredible amount has changed from the time when the Israelites would not even write the name of God to prevent it from being deface. The Holy and Righteous Name Of God is used everyday and everywhere – sadly though usually in vain. Even Christian people can fall into defiling the name of God. The Heidelberg Catechism (Q&A99) says:

What is required in the third commandment?

A. We are not to blaspheme or to abuse the Name of God by cursing,[1] perjury,[2] or unnecessary oaths,[3] nor to share in such horrible sins by being silent bystanders.[4] In short, we must use the holy Name of God only with fear and reverence,[5] so that we may rightly confess Him,[6] call upon Him,[7] and praise Him in all our words and works.[8]

[1] Lev. 24:10-17. [2] Lev. 19:12 [3] Matt. 5:37; James 5:12. [4] Lev. 5:1; Prov. 29:24. [5] Ps. 99:1-5; Is. 45:23; Jer. 4:2. [6] Matt. 10:32, 33; Rom. 10:9, 10. [7] Ps. 50:14, 15; I Tim. 2:8. [8] Rom. 2:24; Col. 3:17; I Tim. 6:1.

We must address our God with fear and reverence. Perhaps the most challenging part of this answer for me is “nor to share in such horrible sins by being silent bystanders”. This hits home hard for people who may not use God’s name in vain, but often hear people around them say it. Just witnessing people blaspheme and not rebuking them means we are also “sharing in such horrible sins”. Do not be a “silent bystander”. If someone around you uses the name of God in vain, let them know this is not on – God hates it so much he puts the punishment of death upon it (Lev 24:11-16). But also let them know that Jesus came so that God’s wrath could be turned away from us, and we could live forever wih our God.Promote respect for God and His Name. When speaking of Him or writing about Him, treat the subject with special reverence. For this is our God, the Creator of the Universe we are talking about. His Name is to be Hallowed, it is Holy, it is Righteous.