Nielsen’s Nook

Helen Samhan at Groiler’s Multimedia Encyclopedia via the Arab American Institute writes:

The majority of Arab Americans descend from the first wave of mostly Christian immigrants. Sharing the faith tradition of the majority of Americans facilitated their acculturation into American society, as did high intermarriage rates with other Christian ethnic groups.¹

When my wife and I lived in Moscow, there were huge numbers of Arab immigrants, Christians many of them.  They bore with the bias that many premillennial Christians gave to the Israelis for the love of their brothers and sisters in the church.  As a final reflection on 1 John 3, I find such a position worrisome.  We are marked out as Christians in a number of ways, one of the greatest of which is the love we demonstrate for our fellow Christians, Arab, Jew or otherwise.

Read the complete article

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Arab Americans
By Helen Samhan
Grolier’s Multimedia Encyclopedia
Posted on Friday April 21, 2006
http://www.aaiusa.org/foundation/358/arab-americans

One of the most brutal sermons and Sunday school lesson for which I have had to prepare is for 1 John 3:11-18.  I am confronted with a hollow sounding words that my lips seek to circumscribe as the arid and the acrid exhaust past them.  I have found these lyrics as a wet salve caking in the fissures of my heart. If only the lovelessness in my own heart would trouble me as deeply as the lovelessness of others.  Lord Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.

I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord
No tender voice like Thine can peace afford

I need Thee every hour, stay Thou nearby
Temptations lose their power
When Thou art nigh

I need thee, oh, I need thee, every hour I need Thee
I need thee, I need thee, I need Thee every hour

I need Thee every hour in joy or pain
Come quickly and abide or life is in vain
I need Thee, oh, I need Thee, every hour I need Thee
I need Thee, I need Thee, I need Thee every hour
I need Thee, I need Thee, I need Thee every hour

Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to Thee
Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to Thee
I need Thee every hour, teach me Thy will
And Thy rich promises in me fulfill

I need Thee, oh, I need Thee
Oh I need Thee every hour
I need Thee, I need Thee, I need Thee every hour
I need Thee, I need Thee, I need Thee every hour

Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to Thee¹

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¹ Lyrics from "I need thee every hour" on the album Redemption Songs by Jars of Clay.

“These are the two messages of the entire Gospel: the message of faith and the message of love—through faith before God, through love before or toward one’s neighbor. Here, therefore, he will treat of two kinds of people who sin against love. In the first place, there are the hypocrites, who do the most harm by feigning love. Many seem to have love but do not have it. The fanatics are people of this kind. They wish, ask, and strive for the complete destruction of their opponents. Meanwhile, however, they preach love. Thus the greatest murderers are sometimes concealed under the guise of love and piety.”¹

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.²

¹ Luther’s Works: The Catholic Epistles, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther’s Works, vol. 30 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 274.

¹Wilde, Oscar. The Ballad of Reading Gaol. http://www.bibliomania.com/0/2/57/104/frameset.html, complete version.

^{1Jn 3:8ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστίν, ὅτι ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆς ὁ διάβολος ἁμαρτάνει. εἰς τοῦτο ἐφανερώθη ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, ἵνα λύσῃ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ διαβόλου.Those who practice sin are from the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. Into this [mess of a context] the Son of God was made manifest in order that he should destroy the works of the devil (writer’s translation).}

^{Many of us are most familiar with the Latin description of Christ’s work as being a legal justification of the sinner before God on account of God’s love for sinners. As ancient and important as this understanding is, it is not the most ancient and I would say does not describe the other critical aspects of Christ’s work on this earth as θεάνθροπος, the God-Man. 1 John makes plain to us that Christ is our Divine Warrior, our “Mighty Fortress”, who has come to decimate his and now our enemies. The Most Holy God is one who is worthy of our reverence and weighty worship. For He alone has sent the devil packing. Indeed His D-Day incarnate invasion of this world was an absolute success and He has been raised from the dead to demonstrate this. We now live in the time in which we await the V-Day celebration in which the devil and his minions are marched through the streets of glory in humiliation before Christus Victor.}