Andrew Murray
And God Created Woman
Difference between Anabaptists and Evangelicals
Mysteries of the Kingdom of God
Anabaptist
Voice
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The Anabaptist Voice
01/28/2009
Proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God: Love, Joy and Peace in
Jesus.
Dear friend,
Warm Greetings to you from sunny Tucson. We pray you are well under the
grace of our Heavenly Father and His love. We are all fine. Praise God. The
temperature was 29 degrees this morning, but with our desert sunshine, it is
nice and warm outside this afternoon.
We enjoy the wild creatures that come to our back yard, at least most of
them. The mean old hawk keeps coming around, trying to catch a dove. Today he
was setting on the tree branch just waiting so Don went out and threw a brush at
him to chase him off. Later many quail were eating bird seed in our back yard.
Naomi is doing so well on the Wii Fit exercise board. It is amazing. She
is enjoying it also.
We are glad that our sons recommended getting
it. Don and Michi are also getting work
outs on it.
Jim is writing a book and he
sends each chapter to us to read it. We are glad to read it and give some
thoughts back to him. 
We
like what he has been writing recently. The other day he
asked what the word “ZOE”
means to Japanese people. So
Michi asked her cousin Dr. Ken Kida, president of a Christian women’s college in
Japan. He wrote back to Michi and
told her to read again his book about peace and thinking in the Old Testament,
his book is titled HEIWA NO MOKUJI.
So Michi is reading the book over again. We thought that for
us Christians, we should read mainly the teaching of Jesus. We do read the Old
Testament for a background foundation, but Ken-chan’s writing opened her eyes.
He wrote: “Shalom is the peace between God and people who are not under
the power of this world, who are inside the kingdom of God. God chooses people
who were freed from the power of the world.” We are studying more about the
Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of the world. Michi is grateful to her cousin
who wrote this book. Thank you, Ken-chan.
We are glad that God has chosen us to be His children. He is wonderful to
us. We want to learn more about Him and want to be pleasing
to Him who is so good to us.
Vineyard Church Meetings
The Wednesday evening meeting last week at the home
of Elizabeth Willott was a joyful meeting with much laughter and good
fellowship. There were 16 people in attendance. Don gave his testimony, we
sang, studied the teaching of Jesus concerning anger and we prayed for each
other. We look forward to going
to Elizabeth Willott’s house for Bible study this evening. It is wonderful to
study together with fellow Christians who want to follow Jesus and want to be
pleasing to God Almighty.
Don went to the Saturday morning men’s breakfast at a Denny’s Restaurant
for the first time. There were five men there. The leader, Jeremy Carroll,
lead a discussion on patience.
After the Sunday morning Vineyard service, we stayed for the annual meeting
where we were amazed to hear that people who do not attend this Vineyard church
had sent checks for $50,000.00 to the church. The church does a lot of
outreach, helping local and distant people in need.
Acts 2:46 Daily Church Meetings
In our daily 5 pm church meeting in our home on Monday (as per Acts
2:46), we began with a prayer and then sang an old Anabaptist song titled "God
Who Has Made Earth and Heaven" which was written by Heinrich Albert in 1642.
(The German version is #364 in the Gesangbuch.) One of the verses is:
"Lead me, and direct my doings By Thy holy Word and Will;
Order all my ways and goings, Keep me, Lord, this day from ill;
Nowhere else, except with Thee, Can I safely guarded be."
Then after prayer asking God for understanding, we read chapter 3 of
James. (We are going through the letter of James now, one chapter a day.) It
ends with:
"But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then
peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial
and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness."
After a bit of discussion of chapter 3 in James, we sang another old
Anabaptist song, "To God The Lord We Would Draw Near" written by Hans Betz about
1537 and is found in the Ausbund, No. 088. One of the verses is:
"The Holy Spirit is God's grace, The Comforter, to help and bless,
Admonishing and teaching. He guides and keeps us on our way,
That into sin we do not stray. This gift we are beseeching."
We closed the meeting by praying for each of the people on our Monday night
prayer list; after which we went around the circle and prayed for the person on
our left. (We alternate praying for the person on our left one day and for the
person on our right the next day.)
Thus we follow the custom of the daily church meeting shown in the Bible
and today still practiced by the Hutterian Brethren.
Good News!
The good news of the kingdom of God that Jesus and His apostles preached
was the love, joy and peace that people in His kingdom have.
Love... joy... peace...
When a person is right with God, when they are close to Him and have died
to self, they will be always experiencing the love, joy and peace in the kingdom
of God that is the fruit of the Holy Spirit within them. They will be happy
people...
Jesus said that unless a person becomes like a little child, they will
never enter the kingdom of God. By that He means that His followers, His
disciples, His brothers and sisters, are to trust their heavenly Father like a
small child trusts his earthly father.
John wrote: “We know that we are children of
God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.” (1 John
5:19) “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the
world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15)
James wrote: “Don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred
toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of
God.” (James 4:4)
We recommend a book titled "The Shack". It brings out what we are saying
here in a very real, human and gentle way.
Peter Riedemann’s teaching on Marriage
Let the wife be subject to her husband in all that is right and good, and
the husband be the head of his wife; and let the wife revere her husband, but
not the husband his wife, for the man was not made for the woman, but the woman
for the man’s sake. Adam was not the first o transgress, but Eve, who brought
in the curse. Yet neither can man exist without woman nor woman without man,
for just as woman came from man, man also comes through woman, and everything
from God. So the wife should obey her husband, but the husband should love his
wife. For a good wife is the crown of her husband, strength for his bones, and
an adornment to his whole house. (From “Love is like Fire”)
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the
love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you. (2 Cor 13:14)
your brother and sisters in Christ,
Don, Michi & Naomi Murphy
Tucson, AZ, phone 520-297-1639
www.AnabaptistChurch.org
"Do not store up wealth on earth… You can not serve
both God and wealth.” (Mt 6:19, 24)