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EDITORIAL..BR N. NKOMO
One of my favourite quotations from Ellen White has come to be of greater significance for me over the
last month. It is strange in that I had not had recourse to think about it for a while but events here have
made me to take another look at it and I will dwell on it for our editorial this week. The quotation states:
―Do not waste your thoughts in dwelling upon the defective characters of others. This will not cure your
defects of character. By dwelling upon the wrongs of others, you will be changed into the same image.
Whenever you are tempted to talk of others' follies, or blame them for injuries they have done to you,
consider that they have wounded the heart of Christ in the person of His saints. Then take your Bible,
and open it before God, and plead with Him for the healing balm of His peace.‖ 21MR p25
I am not sure about you but I have found myself on a number of occasions dwelling on the defective
characters of others. I have found myself sometimes wishing that certain people were there to hear a
sermon so that they could see that their characters are not quite what they out to be. I have found myself
at times thinking about how if some people would change certain things about themselves that the
world would be a better place. We should not get the inspired prophetess wrong in what she is saying;
she is not saying that there is no place for us to be our brothers‘ keeper. What she is referring to is more
the inordinate time we tend to spend in analyzing the faults of others without either the desire or moti-
vation to address their faults and hence help them to draw closer to Christ.
I have also found that I have had a tendency in the past to dwell more on the defective characters of oth-
ers than to dwell on my own. I have often wondered whether or not we are willing to subject our own
characters to the same scrutiny as we do the lives of others. It is very easy for us to see faults in others
and yet be blinded to our own hence the mote and beam analogy. I wonder how many of us have ever
requested of a trusted Christian friend to show us the defects in our own characters. Yes, I know that the
Holy Spirit can do that for us, but it does not preclude the fact that He can speak through others to us,
and of this we have ample Biblical examples. And then of course there is the question that how do we
react when our own characters are placed under the spotlight? Are we humble enough to accept the
criticism of our characters? Are we gracious enough to take on board what is perceived by others and to
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
take it to Lord in prayer? I can confess that it has hurt in the past to hear of my character flaws, and that
my immediate reaction was to defend, and I probably still suffer from it to some extent. The question to Editorial ......................... ……1
ask myself is, ―Why does it hurt?‖ Could it be that I do not have the humility required of me by our Sav- Feed My Children.......... .….2
iour? Could it be pride, which the Lord hateth so much rearing its ugly head? Could it be that I have not Love Was Not Enough . .….3
Fornication Part 1 ......... ..…5
died to self?
Charming Charcoal ....... …..6
Another danger that I have often observed is that when we dwell upon the defective characters of others Elijah Was Discouraged …..7
it tends to be difficult to keep our thoughts to ourselves. There is a tendency to seek others of a similar Religion in the Hopme…….8
persuasion and discuss what is going on in our thoughts. This is especially so, as the quotation alludes to
in its second part, when the person in question has caused hurt to us. The Bible provides us with a
framework for dealing with our problems. ―Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there re-
memberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy
way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.‖ Mat 5:23,24. The duty of mak-
ing wrongs right rests upon us the aggrieved party. The scripture does not counsel us to find others that
have been slighted by the same brother and to counsel together. The scripture does not advise us to hold
a grudge and dwell on the defective character of the brother. Instead, it tells us to go and be reconciled
to our brothers and sisters in Christ before we offer our gift to Christ.
My challenge for us is that we not dwell on the defective characters of others outside of a setting of as-
sisting them to through the Holy Spirit be changed more into the likeness of our High Priest. My chal-
lenge for us is that we take the time to prayerfully consider our own flawed and imperfect characters,
hold them up against His perfect character, and earnestly seek that He cover us with His blood. For out-
side of Him we have no hope of ever being changed into His likeness and fitted for our heavenly home.
FEED MY CHILDREN... BY SR T NKOMO
In the previous month‘s editorial, my husband mentioned more. But even 19 was too large a number for us. So he came
that we‘d been touched by the plight of some widows in a vil- up with a figure of 10 of the most urgent cases and we made
lage called Matanana. A few Sabbaths ago, we visited Ma- an appeal that helped us buy the widows 63 bags of fertiliser
tanana SDA Church and as our custom is, stayed with our two and 2 bags each of seed. It was a happy day when we got to
little ones in the kindergarten and Cradle Roll class. I held meet them at Steward‘s house, to hand them over. But it was
our son who‘s quite ‗jumpy‘ in new situations, while our also humbling because these are older ladies, some of them
daughter sat on the bench next to me and the other children. with children only 10 years younger than I am, yet their grati-
There was one little boy with glue ear, who was walking tude...It felt wrong for an older lady to be thanking one so
around and started crying. My husband picked him up and he young, who hadn‘t done much for them. While with them, we
kept quiet immediately. For the rest of the lesson, he held asked them to confer among each other, to decide what their
him in his arms and the little boy (Not even two years old yet) next need is, what they need most urgently. And you know
remained calm and peaceful. After class, Steward, the local what? It‘s manure. The soil is so bad that after they plant,
who‘d been translating from English to kiSwahili (One of the they will need to add more fertiliser-and the bags we gave
missionaries had been teaching the class) told my husband them each weight 50kg. While they were discussing, the need
that HIV infection is a big problem, and that that little boy for school uniforms and fees for their high school children
was also infected with it. He then mentioned the sobering fact came up, but they felt they‘d already asked us to do a lot and
that about 60% of the village, has contracted HIV. Not only decided not to let us know (They weren‘t aware that Steward
was this little boy infected, he was an orphan that was being was translating their deliberations for us!) As we were leav-
taken care of by one of the church ing, some of the widows were hoist-
members. Steward also said that ing those 50kg bags onto their heads.
he and his wife are trying to help Little did we know how far away they
widows and their children, as lived! And all of them had a number
much as they can with their lim- of bags to get home. We asked if they
ited funds. Needless to say, this needed transport, but they are so
piqued our interest. Finally, we used to this life of hardship, that ob-
had a chance to get to really know viously for them, this was an easy
the locals and see if God would task.
allow us to be His hands.
So our next goal is to raise funds to
A few days later, we went to Stew- buy them more manure/fertiliser at
ard‘s home and met his wife and the end of December.
grandson. We have a big project
Today, October 18, we went to visit
planned, trying to help the widows make a sustainable living
each family in their homes. We wanted to meet their children,
while feeding themselves nutritious food-most of them have
find out how old they are and get to meet them as individuals.
HIV/AIDS. In the meantime, the urgent thing was to get
The first lady whose home we were graciously welcomed in
them fertiliser and maize seeds. Steward and his wife had
was Fatuma. She‘s the most recent widow, her husband died
even given one of their ‗shambas‘-fields- by the river, to one
in June of this year. He used to drive a lorry and found an-
of the widows! The set-up here is that a family has a small other woman who he stayed with for 2 years, while his poor
food garden next to their house, and a shamba further away. wife stayed alone. He then returned, made her pregnant, then
They are unable to afford fertiliser and seeds and Steward when he discovered she was pregnant, he left again. He only
and his wife had been giving away their chicken manure to try came back when he got sick. By then it was too late. He died
and help them. His big hope is to build a chicken run for the and left her with only one month‘s salary, which she used to
widows where they can raise chickens and sell eggs. Sadly, open up a small shop in her yard. She sells salt, soap, cold
the soil here is extremely infertile, not many vegetables and drinks, oil, tomatoes. Considering this is a poverty-stricken
fruits grow, and those that do are of a very bad quality. Even area, she doesn‘t make enough to survive. Fatuma has 5 kids.
as an institution, we have been struggling to plant anything Actually, the oldest one is her husband‘s, but as the custom is,
that would sustain us. The best thing that would grow in this she took that child on as hers too. The youngest is 1 and a half
hostile soil is barley-and we all know what use would come years old, with the oldest girl is 14 years old. Fatuma has to
out of that! walk 4km to go work in her shamba! She does have a bicycle
(the vehicle of choice in these areas) but the road is just too
Steward knows of 19 widows personally, but there are many
bad.
2
Sister Fatuma is the only Adventist of the group. She joined $3.
the church last year. In her garden, she plants maize, soy-
Life here is hard. They collect water at a communal well.
beans and wheat. But wheat doesn‘t grow too well. Fatuma‘s There‘s no electricity. The houses are bare, some are just
problems are not over. Her deceased husband‘s brother came stone floors. And these are not polished stone like ours is.
to her house and told her that he wants to sell the family ra- This is as if someone just looked at a piece of ground and de-
dio in order to buy a tombstone for her late husband. The cided they‘d live on it so they put a roof over the ground and
poor woman is apparently confused about how to handle it. that was the end. No smoothing of the floor..They are essen-
She spoke to her sister in law and (thankfully) she told her tially ‗sleeping outside‘ with a ‗brick‘ tent for shelter. My hus-
not to allow him to take anything from her home. It must be band noticed that they had no shoes-their feet and even their
so difficult. Yes, the husband was a scoundrel, but at least toes were badly cracked. You‘d have had to be hard hearted
they were able to feed their children. And I assume that when not to have to hide your tears at their plight. Oh, and did I
he was back home, she got used to having him back again. mention that the group of 10 grew to 11!? One of the widows
The next home we visited was Sevelina‘s. She was widowed told one of her widow friends about the fertiliser and seed
that we‘d gotten together so she also went to Steward‘s
in 2007 . She has two 17 year old boys, and one of 16. They
house. Steward and his wife offered her manure as there
have 4 cows and a shamba that she plants some vegetables,
were insufficient bags on the day. But God is good. !A couple
beans and maize. We found her not well at all and it turns
of students gave us some money to help the widows AFTER
out she had malaria. She‘s been having these fever attacks a
we‘d bought the first set of gifts, so my husband was able to
lot since last year. Sevelina is Catholic and also caught HIV
take some of our money to buy the manure and to transport
from her husband. Her situation is very sad. She has to beg
it to the widows. The transport? A man will cycle up these
her neighbours to give her a ride on their bicycle to go to the steep hills for the equivalent of $1 for distances of 35km.And
hospital to collect her antiretroviral medication every month. each bag weighs 50kg. Life here is hard, I‘ll say it again.
And this isn‘t some easy bicycle ride. It‘s uphill a lot of the Please pray that not only will this endeavour aid the widows,
way and the hospital is about 35km away. Her sons don‘t but that they will see the true gospel of Jesus and be won
know that she is infected with HIV. Getting to and from the over to the truth.
hospital would ‗only‘ cost about R24. Which is not more than
4
FORNICATION PART1... BY BR E MUELLER
Introduction fathers and were warned against fornication (Lev 19:29;
The issue of fornication is repeatedly mentioned in both the 21:9). At Shittim the Israelites had sexual relations with the
Old and the New Testament. The question arises what the women of Moab which is called fornication.
term really means. We will focus on the Greek terms as found
in the Septuagint (LXX) and in the New Testament. Five Another case is presented in Dt 22:13-21. A husband discov-
Greek words form the word family that describes fornication. ers that his wife was not a virgin when the couple married.
It consists of three nouns and two verbs. In alphabetical order Again the word family -porn- is used to describe what the
the terms are: ekporneu_, porneia, porneu_, porn_, and woman had done. Obviously, this is a case of premarital sex
pornos. The lexicon definition of the noun porneia is described with the term ―fornication.‖ The punishment is
―prostitution, unchastity, fornication, of every kind of unlaw- death by stoning.
ful sexual intercourse.‖
Dt 23:17 warns Israel‘s daughters and Israel‘s sons not to
The verbs ekporneu_ and porneu_ can be translated ―to function as prostitutes. Instead of the normal Hebrew word
prostitute,‖ or ―practice prostitution or sexual immorality.‖ A to translate playing the harlot (zanah) the Hebrew words
porn_ is a female prostitute, a harlot. A pornos represents a q’dešah and qadeš for a female and a male prostitute are em-
male prostitute or a fornicator, one who practices sexual im- ployed. Some understand these words as pointing to cult or
morality. In this article ―fornication‖ is used to refer to this temple prostitutes and claim that temple prostitution was a
Greek word family, especially to porneia. common practice in the Ancient Near East. Others seriously
question this interpretation. The word zônah describing a
I. Fornication in Extra-Biblical Greek harlot, is found in the very next verse and may be used as a
In the non-Jewish Greek world a porn_ was a prostitute for kind of synonym.
hire, oftentimes a bought female slave. On the other hand, a
pornos was a man who had intercourse with harlots or who In Hos 2:2-7, Hosea‘s experience with his wife becomes an
allowed himself to be abused for money, in other words, a illustration of God‘s experience with his people. In Hos 2:2
male prostitute. The word is also translated ―catamite‖ and harlotry and adultery are found in parallelism. By committing
―sodomite.‖Porneia is not found frequently in classical Greek. harlotry a married woman also commits adultery. In Ezekiel,
It can be rendered ―fornication,‖ ―licentiousness,‖ although used with a symbolic meaning, prostitution is adul-
―prostitution,‖ or ―unchastity‖and includes homosexuality. tery. Jerusalem played the harlot and committed adultery
The two verbs mentioned above and also found in extra- against God, its husband. Israel and Judah pictured as God‘s
biblical Greek stand for committing fornication and prostitut- two wives, named Oholah and Oholibah, have multiplied
ing oneself. Ekporneu_ seems to be stronger than porneu_. their harlotry and by doing this they have committed adul-
In addition classical Greek has a number of composite words tery. In Isa 57:3 the terms adulterer and prostitute stand next
which refer to a brothel, a brothel keeper, being born by a to each other. They may be used interchangeably, if the gen-
harlot, etc., synonyms for porneia and porn_, which use the der is adjusted, just to avoid duplication of one term.
same root, and other related terms that belong to the same II. Summary
word family. In summarizing the following picture emerges in the OT:
(1) The word family -porn- depicts prostitution, playing the
II. Fornication in the Septuagint harlot.
1. Observations (2) It is predominantly used in a figurative sense, but it also
The Greek word family -porn- is found approximately 147 has a literal meaning. Both the symbolic and the literal mean-
times in the canonical books of the LXX. It is used predomi- ing correspond with each other and are even used in juxtapo-
nantly in a symbolic way3 and stands for turning away from sition.
the Lord and getting involved in idolatry. In Jer 31:1-10 both (3) The word group is used for premarital sex.
the northern and the southern kingdoms are accused of play- (4) Prostitution or fornication can be adultery.
ing the harlot with their lovers (5) When Tamar is accused of fornication it is in reality a
instead of being faithful to the form of incest as prohibited by the later law in Lev 18.
Lord. However, the terms are also
used in a literal sense. They apply III. Fornication in the New Testament
to secular as well as to so called In the NT the word family -porn- is found 56 times. The pre-
sacred prostitution. Tamar be- dominant word is the noun porneia (fornication) which oc-
haved like a prostitute, and curs 25 times.9 The word family is most often found in the
Judah regarded her as such. Pauline writings including Hebrews, namely 24 times, fol-
lowed by the Johannnine writings with 20 references. This
While pregnant she was accused makes the Book of Revelation the work employing this word
of having played the harlot (Gen family most frequently, namely 19 times, followed immedi-
38:13-24). As a widow she had ately by 1 Corinthians which has 14 references. Quite often,
sexual intercourse with a man–in the word family has a symbolic meaning, but in the NT this is
this case with her father-in-law— not the predominant understanding. Furthermore, the sym-
and that was considered to be bolic meaning is restricted to the Book of Revelation. Yet
fornication. Daughters were not to be made harlots by their Revelation uses the respective terms also literally.
5
CHARMING CHARCOAL... BY SR T NKOMO
Once you have this wonder ‗drug‘ you wonder how you ever Sore throat and mouth ulcers-gargle with charcoal powder
survived without it! Ellen White used it to treat her hus- or suck on a charcoal tablets.
band, it has been used for centuries...Pregnant women can
Ear infection- dribble a little mixture into the infected ear.
use it, children can use it and it doesn‘t have the effects that
western drugs have. It‘s adsorbent, ie. Poisons and toxins This is not an exhaustive list, of course, others take it every
stick to charcoal‘s surface and they are eliminated from the day for 12 week sessions, and others take it every once in a
body with the charcoal. What‘s not to like? So, here are some while just as a preventitive measure. Charcoal is also benefi-
reasons why you should give this natural remedy a try- cial in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, so current
firstly, it‘s inexpensive, not hard to find (if pressed, you can studies say. And if you are taking drugs, then you may have
take it from your fireplace (Pure charcoal, not briquettes) to wait until you are off that course of medication as acti-
and as already mentioned, it‘s basically harmless. But if vated charcoal will interfer with absorption. Remember to
these reasons aren‘t good enough, here are the many condi- use old cloths and bandages and to beware, once it stans
tions it can be used for. Then you‘ll believe that it‘s multi- your clothing or bedding, it‘s virtually impossible to remove.
purpose too! Take note, these are guidelines only. We all use Another note is that charcoal causes dehydration, so make
it in different ways. sure you drink, drink and drink!
Diarrhoea and gas-you can use up to 1T of the powder in wa- Charcoal, like all other natural remedies doesn‘t work in one
ter three times a day. It even reduces the smell of flatulence! dose, it may take days to heal serious infections. It may take
time, but it won‘t affect your health negatively, so try it! And
Treatment of wounds and ulcers- make a paste of charcoal
it‘s best to use it in conjunction with other natural remedies.
and water, put it on a cloth/paper towel/gauze just the right
If you have an infection, use it while also taking garlic, gold-
size for the wound (ie. To make a poultice) and put it on the
enseal etc, orally. That will boost the immune system and
wound, ensuring that the cloth is moist and warm. Then
aid in the healing proc-
cover it with plastic. Change it every 8 hours or so. It also
ess. If used on an in-
helps to eliminate the bad odour that comes with skin infec-
fected foot, one should
tions.
also use sunbaths when
Most poisons-(but not for alcohol, boric acid or cyanide) the coverings are being
Only use on conscious victims. Continue to administer every changed, or also, add
10 minutes until it appears in the stool.Use about 3T for an cold and hot baths. And
adult and half of that for a child. If one has eaten recently, above all, take it to the
then more needs to be taken. Remember, charcoal isn‘t dan- Lord in prayer. He will
gerous so taking more than you need isn‘t a bad thing. hear and answer the
prayer of a righteous
Insect bites and itch- apply charcoal paste on a small plaster.
man.
First sign of a cold/flu-try drinking some charcoal
8. Why did God confide in Abraham, and commit sacred trusts to him?
"For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall
keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment." Gen. 18:19.
10. What instruction suggests the giving of thanks for daily food?
"In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." 1 Thess. 5:18.
NOTE.-As a rule, children will reflect the life and principles manifested in their parents. The reason
why so many children are irreverent, irreligious, and disobedient today is because their parents are
so. Like parent like child. If parents would see a different state of things, they must themselves re-
form. They must bring God into their homes, and make His Word their counselor and guide. They
must teach their children the fear of God, and that His Word is the voice of God addressed to them,
and that it is to be implicitly obeyed. "In too many households prayer is neglected. . . . If ever there
was a time when every house should be a house of prayer, it is now. Fathers and mothers should
often lift up their hearts to God in humble supplication for themselves and their children. Let the
father, as priest of the household, lay upon the altar of God the morning and evening sacrifice, while
the wife and children unite in prayer and praise. In such a household Jesus will love to tarry."-
"Christian Education," page 221.
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