Muslim Cleric Says Christian Women Should Wear Veils.

Outspoken Muslim cleric Taj al-Din al-Hilali has claimed that the Bible "mandates" the wearing of the veil by Christian women. Writing in a new book, Sheik Hilali, who lost his job as mufti of Australia after comparing scantily clad women to uncovered meat, argues that the Bible and the Koran make similar demands of a woman's modesty.

Hilali, who remains the head of Australia's largest mosque in the south western Sydney suburb of Lakemba, says the purpose of the book is to show the commonalities of Islam with the Jewish and Christian faiths when it comes to women's modesty and clothing.

In the soon to be published The Legitimacy of the Veil for Women of the Scripture - Evidence of the Veil in the Bible, he points to references in the Old and New Testaments to women wearing a veil. "

Through this, I hope to raise awareness and understanding and eliminate apprehensions and misunderstandings about the veil," news.com.au quotes him, as saying.

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The Invisible Man

Claude Rains was one of Hollywood's best actors. His spine chilling role as the original Invisible Man has remained unequalled.
As Christians, we believe in an invisible Christ, so how can we convince the world that Jesus exists?

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1 Peter 1:8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.

I love old movies, especially the black and white ones. The storylines have a lot of depth to them and the actors are incredible. What passes for movie entertainment these days is just an excuse for extroverts to do something outrageous. There’s no real acting, just gross stupidity.

Anyway, one of the best Hollywood actors in my opinion was Claude Rains. You’ll maybe remember him as Captain Renault in “Casablanca,” or King Herod in “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” or even Prince John in “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” He usually played the baddie in movies, but the three roles that I liked most are when Claude played Caesar in “Caesar and Cleopatra”, Job Skeffington in Mr. Skeffington, and, my all time favorite, as the Invisible Man.

If you’ve ever seen the original “Invisible Man,” you’ll know that most of the time you hear Claude Rain’s voice. It’s absolutely creepy and can still send shivers down my spine. He plays a scientist who discovers a formula for making himself invisible, but the side effect is that it drives him insane. He wants to rule the world and becomes a monster in the process. It’s like “Phantom of the Opera” and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” all rolled into one. The ending is marvelous, but I won’t spoil it for you!

When the apostle Peter writes about Christ being invisible, he is writing to a new generation of Christians who have never seen Jesus. He knows that his own time is running out and that he is amongst some of the last survivors who knew Jesus personally. His mission is to help this new wave of Christians understand that although they cannot see Jesus, they can feel His presence joyfully in their hearts. He refers to this as a glorious and inexpressible joy.

Peter’s words are also meant for us today. None of us have ever seen the Lord, but we feel His Presence within our souls. The world may not understand what this is like and refuse to believe us, but we know what we feel, and we place our faith on the certainty of that feeling being real.

We may not be able to convince everyone that Christ exists because some are always going to say that “seeing is believing.” But perhaps more people would accept His invisible presence if they could see His Holy influence over our lives. That is our mission; that is our ministry to a faithless world – to show it that Christ exists because our lives exhibit Christian faith, hope, and love.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank You for entering into our lives and for touching our hearts with Your Spirit. Help us to be vessels of Your love to our community and grant us the ability to let people truly see You through who we are and what we do in Your Name. Amen.

By the Spirit

Today, we will all experience situations that will cause us to react badly or respond spiritually, The choice is ours. Paul gives us guidance for those frustrating moments in his letter to a young church.

Galatians 5:26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Do you ever get the feeling that the first group of Christians must have been a bunch of really hard-to-please people? In my head, I’ve got this nostalgic notion that the New Testament Christians were holy saints, who peacefully, nobly, and humbly went to their deaths in the Coliseum. I’ve thought about them as being incredible saints and holy people, whose perfection is the ideal that we lowly 21st century Christians must attain.

However, when I read some of Paul’s letters, I get the impression that their churches were full of ordinary people, whose personalities and characteristics often caused conflicts or dysfunction in the family of faith. Why on earth would Paul have to implore the church at Galatia not to be conceited, aggressive, and envious, if it wasn’t already there in the life and work of that church?

Initially, it makes me feel better because I realize that Christianity is always going to be imperfect and that conflict is inevitable in any faith community. Envy, pride, and belligerence are human traits that we try to master and control, but we cannot do it on our own. That’s why Paul urges the Galatians to live by the Spirit, and not by human weaknesses. I may feel better because I am no better than the first Christians, and vice versa, but both they and I have a need to try to be better Christians. And the only way that is going to happen is by surrendering our pride, envy and antagonism to the Spirit, in order for those weaknesses to be replaced with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

As far as applying this is concerned, there are going to be moments today where we will either react humanly to a situation or respond spiritually. The choice is ours. Hopefully, we will all decide to surrender ourselves to the Spirit’s bidding.

Prayer: Holy Spirit, You bring us great comfort and strength, wonderful guidance and godly counsel. Restrain our pride and capacity for wanting to get mad and even with those who displease or dislike us. Grant us patience and self-control in those frustrating circumstances that we may face today. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. Amen.