Hall of Fame? Old Testament. Downton Abbey. ‘Celebrate’. Potomac Crash. Michael Jordan.

 

For “Scripture Sunday”:

Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame?

“Should accusations of steroid use keep a retired player from Baseball's Hall of Fame?”

Transcript at: http://www.ucg.org/beyond-today-daily/christian-living/hall-fame-or-hall-shame

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Tear Out the Old Testament?

“Here's two ways to see how the Old Testament is integrated with the New Testament.”

Transcript at: http://www.ucg.org/beyond-today-daily/bible-study/tear-out-old-testament

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Downton Abbey in Prophecy

“Is there a larger lesson to notice within the PBS Masterpiece hit drama?”

Transcript at: http://www.ucg.org/beyond-today-daily/news-and-prophecy/downton-abbey-prophecy

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This morning’s program on WGN TV:   The Rapture: Hope or Hoax?

“Many feel they will be taken to heaven secretly before a time of tribulation. Is this idea biblical? You need to know.”

Transcript at: http://www.ucg.org/beyond-today-program/doctrinal-beliefs/rapture-hoax-or-hope

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Groaner:

“A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the
other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand.
He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not
from the original manuscript.

So, the new monk goes to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.

The head monk, says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."  He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years.

Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot.  So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing, "We missed the "R" ! , we missed the "R" !"  His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably. The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?"
With a choking voice, the old abbot replies, "The word was...
CELEBRATE!!!"”

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On This Day:

Plane crashes into Potomac, Jan 13, 1982:

“On this day in 1982, an Air Florida Boeing 727 plunges into the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., killing 78 people. The crash, caused by bad weather, took place only two miles from the White House.

Thirty seconds later, the plane crashed into the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River, less than a mile away from the runway. Seven vehicles traveling on the bridge were struck by the 727 and the plane fell into the freezing water. It was later determined that 73 of the people on board the plane died from the impact, leaving only six survivors in the river. In addition, four motorists died in the crash.”

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Michael Jordan retires for a second time, Jan 13, 1999:

“On January 13, 1999, the National Basketball Association (NBA) superstar Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls announces his retirement from professional basketball, for the second time, in front of a crowd at Chicago’s United Center.

Jordan had an outstanding college career, but left the University of North Carolina after his junior year when he was selected by the Chicago Bulls as the third-overall pick in the first round of the 1984 NBA draft. Jordan helped the Bulls make the playoffs in each of his first six seasons on the team. In 1991, he got to his first NBA finals, where he led his team to the first of three consecutive championships.

Shaken and disillusioned by the murder of his father and an NBA investigation into allegations of illegal betting (of which he was eventually cleared), Jordan announced his retirement from basketball in 1993. He signed a minor league contract with the Chicago White Sox baseball team and was assigned to a White Sox affiliate team, the Birmingham Barons. Though his very presence on the field drew crowds, Jordan batted only .202 in his first summer, striking out 114 times in 127 games. By March 1995, he had decided to put down his bat and return to the basketball court.

After a disappointing finish in the 1994-95 season, Jordan (aided by his old allies Scottie Pippen and Coach Phil Jackson, as well as the new star Dennis Rodman), turned things around for the Bulls. Jordan led the league in scoring that year with 30.4 points per game and helped his team to a 72-10 record, the best regular season finish in the history of the NBA. The Bulls won three more consecutive NBA championships in 1996, 1997 and 1998, becoming the first team in league history to win three straight championships twice. In his 12 full seasons with the Bulls, Jordan was voted the NBA’s Most Valuable Player five times and won six NBA Finals MVP awards, one for each final his Bulls played.

Jordan’s second retirement announcement, in January 1999, came after bitter tension between General Manager Jerry Krause and Coach Jackson resulted in Jackson’s leaving Chicago. Though he had earlier stated publicly that he would not play for any coach besides Jackson, Jordan explained his decision to retire by saying he had lost the drive and desire that was necessary to continue playing at such a high level, and that he wanted to spend more time with his family. When asked if there was a chance he would come back, Jordan said he was "99.9 percent" sure he would not.

In January 2000, Jordan became part-owner and president of basketball operations of the Washington Wizards, a struggling NBA franchise. After the Wizards won only 19 games in Jordan’s first full season in this position, he decided to rebuild the team, hiring the former Bulls coach Doug Collins. Most surprisingly, the 38-year-old Jordan got himself into playing shape and came out of retirement yet again in September 2001 as a free agent with the Wizards. Though he scored his 30,000th career point on January 4, 2002, against his former team, the Bulls, Jordan was never able to lead the Wizards into playoff competition.

He retired for the third and final time on April 16, 2003, and is widely considered to have been the greatest player in the history of the sport.”

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Yesterday:

Jay called about 8.30am and wanted me to go down there to help him clean his house.  He and some ‘friends’ had got it in a mess the evening before.  I told him that I wasn’t going to clean his house, especially not on the Sabbath, but I would bring some things down there, so that he could do it.  He just needs to be motivated, and can’t do anything on his own.  I loaded a couple of small buckets, cleaner, sponges, rags, shop-vac and Misty in the Puddle Jumper, and we went down there.  I told him how you start at the top, so he cleaned the crumbs, litter and stickiness off his counter-tops, and tables.  Then he took all the rugs outside, vacuumed and mopped the floor.  He has floor tiles, and he was mortified how much crud gets in the cracks.  Misty and I left to let him get on with it.

No-one seems to like linoleum anymore, but I wouldn’t want anything with seams or cracks in it, like floor tile or strips of flooring.  My lino is the type that has an attached under-pad, so it is very comfy to walk on.  I know when I mop my lino that it is clean, and there is nothing lurking in cracks.  As for my carpet and area rugs, they get deep-vacuumed and shampooed regularly.  Jay uses my shampooer on my carpet about every 60 days, whether it needs it or not.

I got ready for church, and arrived in time to play “Bible Trivia”, that’s a game where you have to answer in the form of a question, like Jeopardy. My team, the Over 30’s, are all pretty knowledgeable, but we lost to the Under 30’s this time.  We all had a lot of fun, and it really tested our knowledge of the Bible.

The talk was interesting, and given by one of the elders, not the pastor this week, but the air conditioning was really cold, so I didn’t stay for the pot luck.  I had the feeling that if I stayed in that cold, that I would have come down with one.

Jay had told me that he was going to go to church with me, but someone came by and told him that a man was seen stealing some of the lumber off a job that Jay is doing.  So he had to wait for the police yesterday.