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It is a joy to have some time tonight to look together to the word of God and come back to our very important study of fellowship. For those of you who were not here this morning we are in the a prolonged study of the anatomy of the church, talking about what a church is; we talked about its foundation or its structure, its skeleton. We talked about its internal systems or motivations or spiritual attitudes and now we're talking about the function of the church. If we were comparing that to a body we would be talking about the muscles, the things that make the body move, that put it into motion, and the first of these areas of activity, action in the church we're considering in the church is fellowship. This is what the church does. This is the church in action. It is a fellowship and we said this morning that basically that means it is a group of people tied together in a common eternal life with a mutual ministry to each other. We have the responsibility in love by the power of the spirit to minister to one another. And we asked an initial question this morning which is a very important one and that is what is the basis of fellowship? On what is our fellowship founded or based? And the answer to that came from 1 John 1:3, "Our fellowship is a fellowship of those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ. The basis of our fellowship is salvation." John makes that very clear that when someone believes the Gospel, exercises saving faith in Jesus Christ, they enter into the fellowship with other believers and with the father and his son, Jesus Christ.
So as we talk about the fellowship we start with the basis of fellowship and then we move from there, and I think it's so important to establish that and I know that those of you who were here this morning have an understanding of that very important point. Everyone who is a true believer is in the fellowship and we are responsible for expressing our ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit to them in whatever ways the spirit of God may give us opportunity, and we pointed out some of those things this morning. Now we'll get a little more into that tonight. Let's take the second point as we work our way through these six elements of fellowship. I told you we'll talk about its basis, its nature, its symbol, its danger, its responsibility, and its results. But let's look secondly at its nature. We said that the basis of salvation is fellowship, not let's go to the nature of fellowship. How does it really function? When we as a spiritual fellowship go into action, what happens? How do we exercise this mutual responsibility? How do we move into the experiential, experimental aspect of fellowship? The real functioning togetherness?
Let's begin by looking at Acts 2 and there are a number of passages we'll address but Acts 2 is a good starting point because this is right at the very beginning of the church and defines for us the fellowship at its very start. Now as we come to Acts 2 we most importantly will start at verse 42, but I want to back up a little bit from that because I want to reinforce the point I made this morning. When you come to verse 42 you read they were continually devoting themselves to the apostle's teaching and to fellowship; to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Fellowship was a part of the life of the early church on a daily basis. When it says continually that really means all day, every day. "They were day by day," verse 46 says, "continuing with one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house. They were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart." Praising God and having favor with all the people and that was really a way to describe their every moment of every day kind of fellowship. But who were the people in this fellowship? For that we go back to verse 38 where Peter at the conclusion of his sermon here on the day of Pentecost says to the Jews who were listening to him, "Repent, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins." Baptism as we saw tonight being the symbol of a heart of faith putting its trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and being united to him in his death, burial and resurrection. When that happens the forgiveness of sin takes place and you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Well the promises for you and your children and for all who are far off, that would mean Jews and Gentiles, as many as the Lord our God shall call to himself, and with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them saying be saved from this perverse generation so then those who had received his word were baptized. So you have people who heard the Gospel which he preached, you had people who responded to his call, his invitation to repent and to receive the forgiveness of sins through Christ and to be baptized and 3,000 people that day responded.
Then verse 42, "And they were continually devoting themselves to the Apostle's teaching and the fellowship." And again it reinforces the fact that the only people who really participate in the functioning of fellowship are those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ. It was the 3,000 who were continuing to devote themselves to the Apostle's doctrine and fellowship. They were all true believers. It's always fascinated me that 3,000 souls were added to the church that day and baptized and they were continually devoting themselves. In other words 3,000 were saved, 3,000 were baptized, and 3,000 continued to express their faith in the fellowship. They were all true believers continuing steadfastly or continually devoting themselves; it's the different translation of what could be translated continuing or continued steadfastly.
All the professors we might say were possessors. All of those who had come to name Christ publicly had also come to trust Christ inwardly. They were not just hearers of the word only in the words of James, but they were doers as well. Verse 44 says, "All those who had believed were together." All those who had believed were together, and in that togetherness of the early church there was the sharing of spiritual life and spiritual power that we talked about this morning that belongs to those who are in the fellowship. They expressed their partnership in a mutual ministry. Just a brief moment of diversion over to the tenth chapter of Hebrews, you don't need to turn to it, but you're familiar with it. I'll read it to you, verses 23 to 25. It says, "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful, and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near." And the writer of Hebrews is exhorting the believers to make sure that they get together, that they are assembling together and in that assembly encouraging one another and stimulating one another to love and good deeds. And I remind you of what I said this morning. We have a responsibility as God gives us opportunity to everybody who is in the fellowship. Their theology may be different, their forms of worship may be different, they may interpret some things in the Scripture differently. They may have a different lifestyle. They may come from a different culture. They may be from a different society, whatever. We have a responsibility if they are in Christ, if they have been linked to us eternally and inseparably by the common life of Jesus Christ which we share, we have a responsibility to minister to them, to stimulate them in the words of Hebrews to love and good works, to encourage them. That's part of our responsibility in expressing the partnership of mutual ministry and the power of the spirit to all of those who are in Christ. Now that's very very basic to Christian experience, but I think in the day in which we live today we have lost much of the understanding of that because we live particularly in Western society and even more particularly in America, we live in a culture that is so very used to being entertained. We are primarily used to being spectators, to watching the show go on. And many churches, of course, have fallen into this trap and people go there to watch the performance, albeit it's a spiritual performance to one degree or another, and somebody preaches or speaks and all of that and it looks and feels like it's church, but the reality is for many people it is nothing more than something they attend and they have no idea of the responsibility for mutual ministry in which they have been called and to which they are held accountable by the Lord himself.
Let's go back to Acts 2 for a moment and let's get a little deeper into the fellowship, the first fellowship and find out a little more about it. First of all in verse 42 it is noted for us that they were continuing steadfastly or continually devoting themselves to the Apostle's teaching. It is characteristic of the fellowship that the priority is upon the truth, that the priority is upon learning and knowing the truth. When you enter into the fellowship, you begin then as a child of God, if we can mix our metaphors a little bit, you begin then as a child of God to need to nourish your own soul that you might grow to maturity and you feed yourself on the Word of God. The word is our food; the word is our bread as Peter said, "As newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby." We have the responsibility then to expose ourselves to truth and the truth is primarily the truth that we know the truth of the new covenant, the truth of the Gospel and all that is attendant to the Gospel. The truth of the mysteries which were hidden in time past, but have been revealed in the New Testament through the Apostles and so it is the Apostle's teaching which constitutes the New Testament which is the focal point of our emphasis and our thrust. You say, "Well what about the Old Testament?" well, just be reminded that according to 1 Corinthians 10 the Old Testament exists to remind us, to set examples for us of matters of great importance to us, but the substance of Christian doctrine is found in the writings of the Apostles. We don't minimize the Old Testament, it is equally inspired by God, it is equally edifying when understood in connection with the New Testament, you understand that. You understand that studying the Old Testament without the New Testament does not bring one into the knowledge of God. You must come all the way to Christ. Understanding the Old Testament in light of the New Testament gives the Old Testament the fullness of its meaning.
After all Jesus said to those on the road to Emmaus that the Old Testament are the things concerning me. He opened up the Old Testament, taught the law, the prophets, and the holy writings, and taught himself from them. So we emphasize then the Apostle's teaching not to the disregard of the Old Testament but understanding it in the light of what the New Testament has to say. And then in the fellowship the second thing is that we participate in the expression of fellowship as well as breaking bread which is sharing the communion, the Lord's Table, celebrating the cross as well as prayer, there is this fellowship. Now the fellowship has a number of ways to express itself as we've already noted anyway that we can express some fulfillment, some encouragement, some instruction, reproof, rebuke, or whatever it is to somebody else is an expression of the fellowship, but in this particular portion of Scripture let me show you something that really kind of opens this up to us. In verse 44 it says, "And those who have believed were together." And that is a fulfillment of the injunction of Hebrews 10:24 to assemble yourselves together, and they were all together because that's essentially where the real fellowship takes place. That's where the spiritual dynamics operate; they operate when we're together. That's why it's so important to do what we do, come together on the Lord's Day. To come together in the middle of the week. To come together in Bible studies, to come together in prayer groups, to assemble ourselves in families of believers and in couples of believers and with young people who believe and in those assemblies it's very very important because coming together is where we generate the expressions of fellowship. One of those expressions is indicated at the end of verse 44. It says, "They had all things in common." It was characteristic of early church that nobody felt himself the singular owner of anything that he possessed. In other words, there was a certain sense in which they all felt that everything they had belonged to whoever needed it. And so in verse 45, "They began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all as anyone might have need." This is an imperfect tense verb in the Greek; they began selling which is continuous action in the past. At different times it would become known that different Christians had needs, and so somebody would meet that need. Eventually what happened in the early church was that all of their loose cash was consumed. Let me tell you what the picture was here, remember this; Pentecost, the great Jewish celebration of Pentecost or First Truths, was a celebration that was of significant enough nobility in God's economy of feasts set up in the Old Testament, it was a significant enough feast the pilgrims came to Jerusalem for this and when they came into the city of course they were accommodated by the Jews who lived in Jerusalem who took them into their homes and fed them and cared for them. Now many of these pilgrims who came in for this event heard the Gospel and were among the 3,000 that were saved and a little later you have 5,000 men saved and just a couple more chapters and you probably have 20,000 believers in a very few weeks in the early church. So many of them had come from other places and now they're in Jerusalem and they're still staying with believers and they need resources, they don't have what they need to sustain their life and so the church has to take care of them. They are distanced from their home and their employment, their jobs, their income, their farms or whatever it was that they had. Then you had another problem complicating the situation, it didn't take long for persecution to arise from the Jews and anybody who identified himself with Jesus Christ could lose his job, could be dispossessed from his family and so you had a very large group of poor people in Jerusalem, poor Christians who needed to be cared for those who had resources, and at first everybody would use whatever extra money they had to take care of these people, but eventually that would run out and it probably didn't take too long for it to run out and soon after that in order to meet needs you had to sell, liquidate, assets and so that's what began to happen. This wasn't communism; I want to make that clear because some people get very confused about that. It wasn't one moment in time where everybody in the church sold everything they had and they pooled all the money and doled it back out in equal amounts, no. They were selling over a period of time; they were selling when someone expressed a need. Now that's one of the ways the fellowship worked. It worked to meet needs. It worked to express Christian love to those who were in dire straights of one kind or another and had to have the necessities of life met by someone else. In fact in 2 Corinthians 8:4 it talks about the favor of participation and it's the word fellowship koinonea, the favor of fellowship in the support of the saints, and that was a pretty typical thing that went on in the early church. Then in verse 46 there was another aspect of fellowship, "Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple." What were they doing there? What were they doing all together one-minded in the temple? Well, what did you do when you went to the temple? What was the temple for? It was for worship wasn't it? And so very clearly they were in the temple every day all together worshipping God, praising God, glorifying God. And then it tells us in verse 46 they went from house to house breaking bread. That could refer to meals together, but certainly refers to the breaking of bread in the communion service. They may have had a meal or a love feast prior to the Lord's Table, but certainly were sharing in the Lord's Table every day as they were centering on the cross. Now what is the compelling issue that you direct your attention to before you take the Lord's Supper? What is it? It's confession isn't it? It's coming to grips with your sin so that you don't eat or drink in an unworthy manner. So the fellowship then expresses itself in a number of ways: the study of sound doctrine, coming to the Lord's Table which involves the confession of sin, times of prayer, finding out who had needs and going to sacrificial extremes to meet those needs, and praising God, worshipping God collectively. And then going from home to home and sharing in the Lord's Table and the dealing of sin in the heart. All of those things were part of their life and it says at the end of verse 46, "They were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart." Just the joy of sharing together in the work of God in each life, just the joy of sharing their testimonies with one another, in verse 47, "Collectively praising God," and all of this of course causing favor with all the people because these people had been so totally transformed they were wonderful people. They were people who desired to serve and honor God and the transformation was apparent to everybody in that society who came in touch with them and as a result the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. So I guess in summation of this particular text we could say that fellowship is the sharing of spiritual life daily in the bonds of Christ so that all needs are met. The common joys of praise and thanksgiving, the common discussion around sound doctrine, the common coming to the table of the Lord and dealing with your sin, prayer together; all of those things. Sharing testimonies with gladness and sincerity of heart, collectively praising God; all of those are features of the fellowship. Dietrich Bonhoeffer whom I quoted a number of times this morning again speaks to this. He writes, "Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life," listen to this, "not as demanders, but as thankful recipients. We thank God for what he has done for us. We thank God for giving us brothers who live by his call, by his forgiveness and by his promise. We do not complain of what God does not give us, we rather thank God for what he does give us daily and is not what has been given us enough brothers who will go on living with us through sin and need under the blessings of his grace?" Bonhoeffer talks about that as the divine gift that Christ has given us in the fellowship. He writes, "Even when sin and misunderstanding burden our fellowship is not the sinning brother still a brother with whom I too stand under the word of Christ? Will not his sin be a constant occasion for me to give thanks that both of us may live in the forgiving love of God in Jesus Christ? Thus the very hour of disillusionment with my brother becomes incomparably salutary because it is so thoroughly teaching me that neither of us can live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one word and deed which really binds us together; the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ." We share everything. We share even common forgiveness and that's a humbling reality, but that is Christianity. Aristides wrote in ancient times about Christians, "They abstain from all impurity in the hope of the recompense that is to come in another world when there is among them a man that is poor and needy and if they have not an abundance of necessities," he writes, "they fast two or three days that they may supply the needy with the necessary food. Such is the law of the Christians and such is their conduct." What is the nature of fellowship? It is mutual sharing. That's it. It is the sharing of everything that is an expression of love and spiritual life. This is the character of the early church. This should be the character of every church. Another couple of passages that illustrate this, 2 Philippians for an illustration, the first few verses, Paul writes, "If there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love," and then this, "if there is any fellowship of the spirit and if in that fellowship there is any affection and compassion." And what he's saying here is if the fellowship is real, if there really is a fellowship of the sprit, if there really is Christian love and compassion in that fellowship, then make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, loving everybody the same. United in spirit, intent on one purpose; that's all fine, that's all sort of abstract in a sense. But he gets very specific in verses three and four, "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interest of others." Now here is the essential that makes the fellowship work. In a word, humility. Right? Humility. How is it that you can be willing to sacrifice your property for the sake of someone in need? How is it that you can be willing to fast for two or three days so someone else may eat? How is it that you are willing to get on your knees to pray and intercede with someone else? It is when you view them as more important than you. It is when you are not merely looking out for your own personal interests but for the interests of others. And when you come together with God's people and the perspective is right, it is this perspective, I'm not coming to see what I can get, I'm coming to see what I can give. I'm not coming to see what might be done for me; I'm coming to see what I might do for someone else. I'm not coming to be encouraged, I'm coming to encourage. I'm not coming so much to be instructed as I'm coming to instruct. I'm not coming so much to have all my needs met as to be available to meet somebody else's need. I'm coming in order that I might give. That's the fellowship. The nature of fellowship is selfless, sacrificial, humble giving. It's giving. It's sharing everything I have in Christ with you. If I have truth and wisdom and encouragement and strength, I share it with you. If I have resources, I share them with you. If I recognize your need and I can meet your need, I must do that. 1 John 3 says that, "If I see that you have a need and I close up my compassion to you it's questionable whether I'm even a Christian," right? How dwells the love of God in such a person?
So the nature of fellowship very simple; the basis is salvation, the nature is sharing. Sharing of all spiritual realities as it becomes evident that there is a need. Sharing together in common confession of sin, confronting sin if need be, rebuking sin as well as extending forgiveness and restoration. Sharing.
Turn to Romans for a moment, chapter one, just to strengthen this point a bit. In 1 Romans the Apostle Paul is writing to the Romans to sort of establish himself with them because he wants to come there. He wants to come to the great city of Rome, the capital really of the ancient world. He wants to preach the Gospel there. He wants to have a ministry there. He's greatly burdened about that city, but even more significant in his mind is he wants to come to Rome and preach and establish himself and get to know the believers there so that they will send him to Spain. He wants to go to the utter most part of the earth as far as he knew. He wants to go as far as he can go, all the way to Spain. And so his goal is to come to Rome and to set up a relationship with them to get some support from them so they can kind of launch him to Spain. As he writes to them in chapter one to introduce something of his heart and his theology and then at the end of the epistle to the Romans has talks more about his plans, but as he starts he says in verse 11, "I long to see you in order that I may impart some spiritual gift to you that you may be established." Now here is a man who has a goal in mind, he wants support. He wants to go to Rome so that he can get the necessary base established, to get the financial support and the prayer support, and perhaps the human support to go with him to Spain. His objective is to get support for his ministry. Even though that is his ultimate goal and his ultimate objective, his immediate objective and his heart is not to go to get all of this for him, but to go to give; and so he says, "I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you that you may be established." And that was always in his heart. He was always the giver. He was always the one willing to make the sacrifice for someone else. He lived what he wrote in 2 Philippians; "He looked not on his own things, but the things of others, and he considered others better than himself." That's how real fellowship works. One other passage on this point 2 Timothy 4, 2 Timothy 4, the Apostle Paul is writing the last chapter of his life really, the last chapter of his epistles, he's about to die and the last thing he wrote was 2 Timothy and this is the last chapter in 2 Timothy. He's writing to his young son in the faith and he says to him, Timothy probably in his late 30's, Paul in his mid-60's about to die, and he says to him in verse nine, "make every effort to come to me soon." He wanted fellowship. At this time obviously he knows his life is coming to an end and he wants to be with Timothy one more time. And then he adds this, it's really sad, "for Demas having loved this present world has deserted me and gone to Thessal and Ika, Crescens has gone to Galachia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Pick up Mark and bring him with you for he's useful to me for service." And then verse 21 he said, "Make every effort to come before winter."
Paul wanted fellowship. He wanted someone there, someone he loved, someone he knew deeply for mutual exchange. He wanted to strengthen Timothy because he knew what was ahead of him and he knew Timothy had been struggling deeply. Now let me give you a little background without belaboring the point, when Paul writes 2 Timothy, Timothy's in some bad shape. Go back to chapter one. Now remember Paul is going to pass the mantle to Timothy, he's going to hand off his responsibility to Timothy, but Timothy is in a very serious situation and Paul has to say to him in verse six, "Kindle afresh," or stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. The Apostle Paul was God's instrument, put his hands on Timothy and Timothy received the gifts of ministry for preaching and evangelizing and leading the church, but he had let it fall into disuse because he was so intimidated by the people in the Ephesian church who were sinful and who were in leadership and shouldn't have been there. And he was also fearful of the persecuting of the Roman Empire that was going on in Ephesus where he was when Paul wrote him. And so he had sort of folded up his tent and stolen away into the night and he wasn't doing what he should. It was a very very difficult time for Timothy and he was waning in his spiritual strength, so Paul says, "Stir up the gift of God, put it back into action Timothy." And then in verse seven he reminds him that God hasn't given him a spirit of fear or a spirit of cowardess or a spirit of timidity and it indicates to us that Timothy was behaving in a timid way, a somewhat cowardly way. In verse eight he says to him, "Don't be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord." It's almost unthinkable that Timothy could express any shame over the person of Christ, but apparently he had or at least was on the brink of that. He says, "Don't be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. Don't be ashamed of the testimony of me as prisoner. Be willing to join with me in suffering for the Gospel."
Down in verse 13 he says, "Retain the standard of sound words or sound doctrine. Hold on to your sound doctrine." In verse 14 he says, "Guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us the treasure entrusted to you." And the treasure of course was truth. Truth, revelation, Scripture. In 15 he sums up his concern, "You're aware of the fact that all who are in Asia turned away from me." One of the saddest things he ever wrote. Here he is at the end of his life and everybody all around him is abandoning him. The heat is too hot, the persecution is starting to escalate and everybody's abandoning Paul and Paul says, "Timothy don't do that." He let his gift fall into disuse. He had become timid. He had shown signs of being ashamed of Christ and Paul. He maybe was not holding firmly to sound doctrine. Maybe he was on the brink of turning away. In chapter two, verse one Paul begins by saying, "Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Be strong Timothy. Don't be weak in this time." In chapter three he begins by saying, "Realize this, that in the last day's difficult times will come. You have to expect it Timothy, it's going to be tough. You be strong. You hang on." In chapter four he starts out by saying, "I'm charging you solemnly in the presence of God and Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing in his kingdom preach the word. Don't let go of the word. Don't let go of your ministry. Don't fail. Be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction, Timothy. Hang in there and be faithful." Now with that background you come to verse nine. "Make every effort to come to me soon. Along with all the rest Demas has deserted me." Then in verse 21, "Make every effort to come before winter." Let me tell you something. It wasn't just that Paul wanted some sweet fellowship with Timothy; Paul knew Timothy needed help, and Paul wanted him there because Paul wanted to exercise some real spiritual fellowship. And the wonderful end of the story is that Timothy in the end was faithful and strong and courageous and suffered willingly for the Gospel. But Paul wanted him there because Paul wanted to minister to him. Paul knew what Timothy's needs were and he knew that by the grace of God and the power of the spirit he could be the instrument to meat those needs. That's real fellowship. Whenever it is that that believer needs, whatever it is that that brother or sister needs, if you have the opportunity to meet that need that is fellowship. That's how fellowship functions. It's basis? Salvation. It's nature? Sharing. One other point for tonight, it's symbol. It's symbol. The Lord has given us a magnificent symbol of our common shared life. To understand what that is turn to 1 Corinthians 10, and this is but a brief point, but an important one. We've already alluded to it in the expression of fellowship in the early church, but in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 we read this. "Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a fellowship in the blood of Christ?" Literally koinonea. "Is not the bread which we break a fellowshipping in the body of Christ since there is one bread we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one bread." Beloved, the symbol of our fellowship is the Lord's Table. It is the cup and it is the bread. That's the symbol. We share a common participation in Christ by salvation. We have in common our faith in Christ and his life in us and his spirit in us and his truth in us, and nothing celebrates that or symbolizes that like the Lord's Table. The church gathers at the Lord's Table to share in expressions of its common life. We all come to the Lord's Table as sinner forgiven, right? We all come to the Lord's Table acknowledging that our common life is based upon a common faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Communion then visualizes the fellowship. It symbolizes the fellowship. I'm not a sacramentalist, I'm not a sacerdotalist, I'm not somebody who wants to read more into the "sacraments" of the Lord's Table and baptism than the Bible allows. I'm not someone who would ever say that in baptism and in the Lord's Table there is some dispensing of saving grace or even that there is some dispensing of sanctifying grace. And I do not believe that God reveals himself in some supernatural manifestation in the elements of the communion, either literally or spiritually. And I do not believe that there is some revelation of God in a miraculous way in the waters of baptism. I'm unwilling to read into those ordinances any more than the Bible permits. Both of them are symbols. Symbols of a spiritual reality, but in themselves they are only symbols and not the reality. The most that can be said for baptism is it is an act of obedience by which one is blessed in the same way that one would be blessed in any act of obedience. And the most that can be said about the Lord's Table in so far as its spiritual benefit is that it too is an act of obedience in which the believer is blessed and it too is a focusing on one's sinfulness and that blesses us when we seeing our sinfulness confess and repent of it. But it is the repentance that brings the blessing. It is the obedience that brings the blessing. It is the remembrance of the death of Christ that excites the heart to worship that brings the blessing. It is not the sacrament itself mediating some supernatural grace. And so I want to make it clear that I am not one who will overstate the significance of these, but neither will I understate it. Baptism is essential and important because it is commanded in the Scripture and because it gives us opportunity to confess Christ before men which we are to do. Because it gives us the privilege of portraying the dramatic reality of being united with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection as one goes into the water and comes out, and the Lord's Table is the same. As we take of the cup it is reminiscent of the blood of Christ which was given for us as he poured it out in death as a substitute for us on the cross and the cup I should say and the bread is his body which symbolizes of course his atoning work as a substitute, dying as man for man in our place. It is the symbolism that is all the reality God ever intended. But when you come to the Lord's Table in that symbolism, you look face to face into the reality of our common life. We all get stripped down to the bear minimum at the Lord's Table, don't we? We're all sinners saved by grace. We all stand commonly at the foot of the cross. We've all come through the same route, the prompting of the spirit of God who convicted us of sin and righteousness and judgment. We came under the conviction of sin, the Lord moved upon our hearts so that we in hearing the Gospel understood it, believed it, confessed faith in Christ, embraced in the savior, had our sins forgiven and we all came in the same way. We came in like children who have nothing to commend themselves and no record of achievement to offer God. We came to the foot of the cross as needy sinners all redeemed by Him, granted forgiveness by Him, and through love brought into his fellowship. The Lord's Table vividly celebrates this, and that is why the Lord's Table is so important in the life of the church because it just pulls us back to the substantial basis of our fellowship. All who can come to the table and eat and drink in a worthy manner because they have embraced Jesus Christ are part of the fellowship. We all come, we all drink the cup, we all eat the bread. We are all confessing that we together have been redeemed through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and we celebrate that common redemption, that common eternal life, that common Holy Spirit, that common resurrection which some day we will all enjoy and then we will share together commonly in the presence of the Lord forever. So back to chapter ten for a moment, verse 16. Now you understand what he means is not the cup of blessing which will bless a fellowship in the blood of Christ. Is not the bread which we break a fellowship in the body of Christ? Yes it is. It is the symbol of our fellowship. Paul ____ said a lot of things and wrote a lot of things that were kind of goofy when it comes to theology, but one thing he may have had right was when he said, "Fundamentalism has been the death of the sacraments." I suppose he would have certainly read more into them than I want to, but I do see today a diminishing of the centrality of the Lord's Table and I think that's to the great great danger of life in the church because I think there was a reason why the early church did this every day; a reason why they broke bread every day, why they came to the Lord's Table every day, because they were so enthralled with the work of Christ. They were so amazed and astonished and astounded at the meaning of the cross and so eager to deal with their own sins that it was a daily situation to come to the Lord's Table, confess your sin, and partake and thus to share your common life. The church needs to do that regularly so we never get too far away from that commonality. A writer some years ago wrote of an individual he was absenting himself form the worship and from the Lord's Table. The pastor went to see him and after they had talked over the issues involved as they were sitting by an open fire, the pastor took the tongs from the hearth and separated the flaming coals in the fire and spread them around the outer circumference of the open grate. In a few moments the flames died down. In another few minutes the coals lost their brightness and grew ashen and dull. The pastor looked at his member and said, "Do you understand?" The man had grace and wisdom enough to say, "Yes, pastor, I understand." Then he took the tongs again and taking the coals from the outer edge of the grate he drew them all and piled them together, you know what happened. They had not been together many moments before they began to glow once more. They came up in flames and the fire was strong. Again the pastor looked at his erring member and said, "Do you understand? Do you? Let nothing divide you and your fellowship with your fellow believer because you will both grow cold. Not only will you be the losers, but so will the integrity of the church. The flame will go down; the fires of revival will depart. We are together in Him and never more," said the pastor, "than at the Lord's Table. The nearer we come to the Lord at his table, the nearer we are to each other." That's the symbol of our fellowship. I might say to you in closing that it is absolutely crucial for you to come together with the Lord's people regularly Sunday morning, Sunday night forsaking not the assembling of yourselves together and I thank the Lord for your obedience in that regard and I know that he will bless you life for it. You need to do that, you are doing that, and I thank God for that and you can count on his faithfulness to bless your faithfulness to him. But may I say especially is it important that you gather when God's people come to his table so that you can be reminded again of that which is true of all of us; that we are damned sinners apart from coming to the foot of the cross and having that common forgiveness which Jesus provides for all who are penitent. The Lord's Table is the symbol. Sharing this, the nature and salvation is the basis of fellowship. While I didn't think I'd get through this today, next time there are three more. First of all I want to talk about the danger to our fellowship, and we'll do that next Lord's Day. Father it is with a sense of grave responsibility that we submit ourselves to the Word. We understand its strong implications in our lives. We understand how essential it is for us to be obedient to it. And we hear it with seriousness. And we understand the duties of fellowship as binding. And when obeyed, as blessing, and when not obeyed, as leading to chastening, but Lord even as we think about that we are most mindful of the fact that this is not just duty. We thank you that the fellowship is not just a duty that we have to grit our teeth and perform but it is the sweetest of enterprises we can ever engage in for in it we minister in the power of your spirit on behalf of those we love, and more than that those whom you love. Show us the duty of fellowship and the sweetness of it as well and may we enjoy both. One for the sake of blessing from you and the other for the sake of reciprocal joy and love from others, and may you be honored as we fellowship. In Christ's name, amen.
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Where Did The Love Go? 8 Celebrity Couples Who Had Nasty Divorces
Divorces are messy in general, but when you're a celebrity it's ten times worse. Here are 8 of the nastiest celebrity divorces of a time.
Deion And Pilar Sanders
Pilar didn't get custody of the kids, child support or alimony and the bish stole the family dog. Doesn't help that Deion is now smashing Tracey Edmond's cakes to smithereens.
Tameka and Usher
Usher freaked the bridesmaid and got custody of their children. Tameka also had to deal with the loss of her son Kile. R.I.P.
Porsha and Kordell
She found out about her divorce on Twitter and he locked her out the house. That's cold.
DWade and Siohvaughn
From "psycho" Siovaughn's homeless protests to the Gabrielle Union homewreckin' rumors, this has been hella messy.
Heidi Klum and Seal
This ugly swirl divorce had Seal accusing Heidi of busting it wide open for their bodyguard– while still married. Swirl gone wrong.
Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian
Kim put Kris through it. He would have given his left leg to get her to admit their marriage was a sham.
Continue Slideshow
Arnold Swarzenegger and Maria Shriver
Arnold did a number on Maria during their marriage…poor thang always looked stressed out. This dude gave the maid a gut full of human.They may not be officially divorced, but it's just a matter of pulling that trigger.
More Stories From Bossip
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subset: commoncrawl


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Disney: When We Copy, It's Inspiration; When You Copy, It's Infringement
from the hypocrisy-you-has-it dept
Ah, Disney. You have to love a group of people with the ability to compartmentalize their views on matters like intellectual property to the level of these folks. We're talking about a company that plants its mouse-shaped flag firmly in the land of family values...and then attempts to oddly trademarks a term associated with military operations and death. This same company is part of the chorus of folks out there decrying the public domain as a wasteland of unused creation... despite the fact that many of their best-selling products are built off of public domain works. I mean, this is the bastion of creation that hired a guy to do some remixes for them...and then refused to release those works.
And so it will come as a great shock to perhaps a couple of loin-cloth clad pygmies somewhere in the Amazon Rainforest when reader JMT alerts us that Disney, all-powerful harborer of their intellectual property, managed to be so inspired by a New Zealand-created supercar (called the Hulme CanAm Spyder) that they pretty much copied the design exactly for their upcoming Cars 2 movie. The link to the New Zealand Herald discusses the situation with the car manufacturer's director, Jock Freemantle:
"Everybody is telling us, 'it's your car'. I have had emails from around the world saying it looks like our car. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."
Oh, if only Disney had the same perspective as this Kiwi with the possibly single most-fun-to-say name of all time. Why is it that Disney, grim reaper of the copyright/trademark realm, has no problem with this? It's not like this is even the first time the Cars movie series has dealt with this kind of thing, having been through the court system over publicity rights concerning a car in the first Cars movie. Take a look at the image comparison below and decide for yourself how closely Disney's car resembles the CanAm Spyder (hint: if your determination is anything other than "Disney's looks exactly the same, except Disney's looks like they fed a bunch of Skittles to pigeons and then made them fly over the car to, er, color it," then you're insane). The irony of this rip off design bearing the name "Rip" in the movie isn't lost on anyone, either.
To make this as clear as day, the issue is not that Disney used a real life car as inspiration for one of their cartoon movie characters. Rather, the problem is that if the roles in this story were reversed, Disney likely would have pooped its pants as a result from filing a lawsuit with the kind of speed that'd put the Spyder supercar to shame. As one recent commentor put it in an unrelated story, Disney: Sue Thyself.


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Does anybody know why the hotel demolition has suddenly stopped?
I have noticed a vintage London transport "Red bus" doing the Llandudno, Deganwy, Conwy sightseeing tour route, is this new. ?
Hugo, I wouldn't want to be staying on the top floor of the Broadway Hotel this weekend and I certainly wouldn't recommend an ice cream sundae sitting outside Fortes for the foreseeable future.
I got talking to the chap who was in charge of the demolition and he said "If you think this side is bad, you want to go round and look at the other side" (Conwy Rd / Vaughan St corner) "It's worse than this side" So it's quite possible the whole place will have to come down, just like Anwyl did to the Gogarth Abbey. :rage:
Good news - I have just driven down the right-hand side lane of Conway Road past Parc Llandudno, then round the front of the Tudno Castle Hotel and back along Mostyn Broadway.
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The dominant factors in the new European situation have
been the liquidation of the policies of the anti-Commintern and
the Common Front and the rapprochement between the two ideological extremes in the direction of a Moscow-Berlin axis.
This new alignment of forces is disconcerting alike to the
liberal and socialist sympathizers with communism and to the
conservative sympathizers with Nazism including, it seems, even
the Italians, the Spaniards and the Japanese. Nevertheless
it has a certain internal justification inasmuch as it corresponds to some of the most fundamental trends in recent political
developments and clarifies a good deal that was obscure and inconsistent in the situation as it existed at the time of the
Spanish Civil War. /If the new alignment of forces becomes
consolidated, it would mean the formation of a movement of
totalitarian revolution, which if it lacks any definite positive
aims at least possesses a very strong negative impulse. We
must remember that Bolshevism and Nazism in spite of their
opposing ideologies are alike in that they represent the release
of strong unconscious forces that failed to find satisfaction
through the traditional channels of Western political action.
When the German Communist Urbalins was tried after the abortive
rising at Hamburg in 1923, he declared »the masses will say
with us, we will rather burn in the fire of revolution than
rot on the dunghill of democracy1. These words are quite in
the spirit of Lenin and the old Bolsheviks, but they also express
the spirit of the revolutionaries of the Right in Germany and
as early as 1923 we find an attempt being made by Rudek to
form a common front between the revolutionaries of the Left
and those of the Right, as represented by Reventlow, against
the socialists, the democrats and the powers of Versailles
and Geneva.
This rapprochement could not mature in the circumstances
of the post war decade. The Nazis were forced to have recourse


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In words, in pictures, online and in the news media, the Division of Marketing and Communications shares the many examples of how DU and its people are improving the human condition. We specialize in:
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We always base our work on best practices and research. Our hallmarks are integrated strategy and collaboration.


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Trenton, NJ - Colonel Rick Fuentes, Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police and Director of the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management, is reminding the public about driving safety as more severe weather approaches the state.
Colonel Fuentes is reminding all state residents and commuters to reduce speed when any freezing rain, snow or sleet is falling, or when temperature is approaching or below freezing. Drivers are advised to drive with caution, follow the rules of the road, stay alert and be aware of the changing weather conditions.
Driving safety also involves having a pre-driving plan which includes making family aware of your travel, including routes and estimated times. Make sure your gas tank is full and have a winter survival kit to keep in your vehicle in case of a breakdown or road closures that may force you to stay in your car.
Winter survival kit for your vehicle:
- Warm Clothing
- Gloves
- Hat
- Flashlight with new batteries
- Bottles of water
- Snacks such as protein bars
- Bag of cat litter or ice melt
- Folding shovel
- Cell phone fully charged and car charger
For more information regarding winter safety information or to sign up for the NJOEM Twitter and Facebook pages, please log on to www.ready.nj.gov. Those without internet access can dial 211.


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by Ethan Gilsdorf
The Lyons Press 320 pp US/Canada Hardcover: ISBN 978-1-59921-480-1
Retail $24.95
US/Canada Paperback: ISBN 978-1-59921-994-3
Retail $14.95
UK paperback: ISBN-13: 978-0762756759
Retail £9.99
The UK Tolkien Society and NPR have called Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: ""Lord of the Rings meets Jack Kerouac's On the Road."
Click here to Read the Synopsis
Now author Ethan Gilsdorf teams up with author, Tony Pacitti, MY BEST FRIEND IS A WOOKIEE: One Boy's Journey to Find His Place in the Galaxy (Adams Media), to bring us an evening:
Of Wizards and Wookiees: A Panel Discussion on Gaming & Fandom
*Attention gamers and geeks! Free Mountain Dew and Doritos!*
"Of Wizards and Wookiees: A Panel Discussion on Gaming & Fandom"
Word Books, Brooklyn, Mon Nov 22
Somerville --- Two local geek memoirists have teamed up to offer an evening of geekery at WORD Books Monday, November 22 at 7:30pm (22126 Franklin St., Brooklyn, NY)
Moderated by Rebecca Carroll, former editor at PAPER, their panel "Of Wizards and Wookiees: A Panel Discussion on Gaming & Fandom" will delve into the appeal of fantasy, science fiction, gaming and other geek subcultures.
Free Mountain Dew and Doritos will be served.
Ethan Gilsdorf, a Somerville, Massachusetts resident, wrote FANTASY FREAKS AND GAMING GEEKS (Lyons Press).
Tony Pacitti, of Providence, RI, is the author of MY BEST FRIEND IS A WOOKIEE " (Adams Media). The authors will discuss their books and the appeal of fantasy, science fiction and gaming, followed by a Q&A and book signing.
Both are heartbreaking works of staggering geekiness --- coming-of-age tales set against the backdrop of Star Wars and Dungeons & Dragons obsessions --- that are ultimately quests to make peace with their geeky pasts and accept their "inner geeks."
National Public Radio described "FANTASY FREAKS AND GAMING GEEKS: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms" as "Lord of the Rings meets Jack Kerouac's On the Road."
Wired.com proclaimed, "For anyone who has ever spent time within imaginary realms, the book will speak volumes." It was also named a "Must-Read" by the Massachusetts Book Awards.
Gilsdorf's geek-out travel memoir investigates fantasy and gaming subcultures. In FANTASY FREAKS AND GAMING GEEKS, the author travels from Boston to England, France to New Zealand, Planet Earth to the realm of Aggramar, to ask gaming and fantasy geeks how they balance their escapist urges with the kingdom of adulthood. He hangs out with Harry Potter tribute bands, attends fan conventions and gaming tournaments, camps with 12,000 medieval reenactors, sews his own tunic, learns to sword fight, battles online goblins and trolls, and plays D&D again for the first time in 25 years. FANTASY FREAKS AND
GAMING GEEKS was recently released in paperback.
|Author Ethan Gilsdorf
Gilsdorf publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories regularly in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor and other magazines and newspapers worldwide. His blog
"Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com and he has also been a guest on talk radio as a fantasy and escapism expert. He watches the extended edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy at least once a year.
Follow Ethan's adventures at http://www.fantasyfreaksbook.com/
Pacitti's "MY BEST FRIEND IS A WOOKIEE: A Memoir, One Boy's Journey to Find His Place in the Galaxy" is a hilarious and heart-wrenching tale of a real-life certified geek and official Jedi Knight wannabe, framed around Lucas' epic Star Wars, the movie that changed one little boy's life. With the Force on his side, Pacitti survives countless hurdles of adolescence, temptations from the Dark Side, and ultimately lives
to see the day when he can be comfortable in his own skin.
Time.com's Techland says, "[My Best Friend Is A Wookiee] is an autobiographical coming of age tale with a bit of sci-fi thrown in for good measure that reminds us all of the good old days when we were being picked on and laughed at." Alec Sulkin, executive producer of Family Guy, calls the book "hilarious, tragic, touching, and most of all, honest. Tony Pacitti deserves a medal from Princess Leia and a hug from Chewbacca."
|Author Tony Pacitti and his best friend
Tony Pacitti has written for SouthCoast247.com as a features writer and video game reviewer and has had his short science fiction published at 365tomorrows. He has been the writer for the online comics RoboPlanet and The Silencer at Pandemonium Comics. Tony lives in Providence, Rhode Island and is probably watching The Empire Strikes Back on laserdisc at this very moment.
Click here for more info on Tony and Wookiees


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Pac-12 Morning Five: 01.25.12 EditionPosted by AMurawa on January 25th, 2012
- The Faisal Aden Explosion (I'm pretty sure that was a British invasion band, right?) still has Washington State fans buzzing several days later. Back before conference play, Jeff Nusser at CougCenter wrote an excellent piece on the harm that Aden's bombs-away philosophy on offense was doing to the Cougars' chance. Yesterday we got his reaction to Aden's weekend outburst, in which he points out that the player we saw this weekend clearly has stolen the identity of the guy we used to know as Faisal Aden. Or, barring that likelihood, he's at least changed his game drastically. Going back to the Washington game, Aden has earned trips to the free throw line at a far greater rate and he has dialed back his attempts from behind the three-point line drastically. It will be interesting to see if Aden can keep it up this weekend.
- A couple weeks after being dismissed from the Arizona State basketball team, Keala King has landed at Long Beach State. According to his Twitter feed, his first day on campus was yesterday, meaning he should be eligible to play at the end of the fall semester next year for the 49ers, near where he grew up in Southern California. Given LBSU's track record of playing any and all comers from anywhere around the country, you haven't seen the last of King.
- In the wake of yet another Pac-12 dismissal, freshman Kareem Storey has taken over as the point guard at Utah. When head coach Larry Krystkowiak dismissed senior point Josh Watkins, he was left with little choice but to hand over the keys to the Ute offense to Storey. And while Storey's numbers have gone up with the increased playing time (he's averaging 10.7 points and six assists per game in the three games he has started in Watkins' absence), Krystkowiak still sees plenty of room for improvement. Nevertheless, the fact that Utah is now spending the rest of this year giving Storey more experience and building him up for next year instead of throwing minutes at a problem child who was going to be gone next year anyway, means this program is officially building for the future now.
- Another freshman guard is making a big impact at the other new Pac-12 school this year, as tiny Askia Booker has jumped right into his role as Colorado's sixth man. Head coach Tad Boyle was the only coach at a power conference school to offer Booker a scholarship, and Booker keeps a chip on his shoulder over that perceived slight with a special grudge held for his hometown school and one of this weekend's opponents, UCLA. Booker participated in open gym sessions at UCLA and made his interest in playing for the Bruins apparent, but despite helping his team to a state title as a junior, Booker couldn't turn any heads in Westwood, a decision that looks like yet another questionable personnel decision from Ben Howland's staff.
- Washington is sitting as 12-7 on the season and 5-2 in conference play, numbers that are not sitting well with a lot of Husky fans. At Husky Haul, Jeff Taylor says that despite some of the bad breaks that the Washington program has had to deal with this year, the blame for the Huskies' mediocrity lies squarely on Lorenzo Romar and some of the bad decisions he has made in previous recruiting classes. Taylor kills Romar for Charles Garcia's inability to get eligible at Washington, for Elston Turner and Clarence Trent transferring, for not pursuing guys like Jamaal Franklin (who wound up at San Diego State) and Joe Eberhard (who went to Sacramento State). Honestly, there's obviously some blame to be laid at Romar's feet (he is, after all, the head coach – the buck stops there), but these several points seem to be stretches, especially when the team's defensive struggles and chemistry problems seem to be much easier targets. But, it is still an interesting read, and the comments afterward go a long way towards capturing the feeling of frustration in the Husky fan base. And all this for a team that is currently only a half game out of first place in the conference!


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Alexander Stepanovich Kutschin (1888 -1912)
Aleksander Stepanovich Kutschin was born 16 September 1888 in a poor Russian family in the village of Kusherek by the coast of the White Sea.
From early youth he worked as an assistant on board his father's ships, sealing and hunting in the Barents and Kara seas. On these voyages he visited Svalbard, Novaya Zemlya and the northern part of Norway several times. In 1886, Alexander's father Stephan Kutschin took an exam as third mate at a school for mariners when he was only 19 years old.
Alexander Kutschin was the first born of six siblings - three sisters and two brothers. The youngest brother died while Alexander was living in Norway. For one year, in 1904, Kutschin lived in Tromsø, Norway, where he attended school in the winter and worked on a fishing vessel in the summer. Here he stayed with a family named Gudmundsen. They were four people in the family, and they let Kutschin live together with them in their apartment. He became very attached to this family. Later he moved back to Russia and stayed in contact with them all the time.
Kutschin attended one of Russia's oldest educational institutions, the Arkhangelsk Navigation College, and graduated as an ocean officer. It seems that he was at high school and the Navigation College simultaneously. He almost got expelled during the 1905 revolution when he was one of the agitators for the strike that occurred among the students. There were a lot of students from poor families attending the Arkhangelsk Navigation College, and Kutschin received money from the mandatory school because of his family's situation, but also because of his good skills. The money was however taken away from him when he almost got expelled with 8 against 6 votes.
Kutschin then had to take leave from school to work as a hunter in Norway to make the ends meet. Then it seemed that he lived under a pseudonym and was a political activist in the RSDAP (The Russian Social Democratic Party). It seems that he was connected with the printing of underground Marxist news bills, proclamations, brochures and documents. This literature came from the Russian printing office "Pomor" in Vardø, a town and a municipality in Finnmark in the extreme northeast part of Norway, and he was smuggled from Vardø to Arkhangelsk by on different ships. The smugglers got caught, and the Norwegian police did some confiscations. The Norwegian minister of Justice feared that this litterature would bring Norway into a dangerous situation with Russia. Kutschin was threatened with deportation from Norway, but because of mass meetings and articles in the newspapers, the police dropped the charges against him. During this period Kutschin had his book "Liten russisk-norsk ordbok" (a small Russian –Norwegian dictionary) published by this printing office.
When Kutschin returned to Russia in 1906, the security police was shadowing him, but did not manage to catch him. He started on his studies again, but at the same time he worked as a captain on board a Norwegian vessel. He gained his scholarship and exemption for the school money as the best and the poorest student at the school. When he graduated in 1909 he received the gold medal for best student.
After his education he returned to Norway, this time Bergen. Here he studied oceanography under Professor Helland-Hansen, head of the Bergen Biological Station. He became a paid assistance on this station because of his skills. Through this work he got to know Helland-Hansen's close friend Fridtjof Nansen. Kutschin was recommended by Helland-Hansen and Nansen to fill the position as expedition oceanographer when Roald Amundsen assembled his team for an expedition allegedly for an attempt on the North Pole. Amundsen's acceptance of Kutschin was made in spite of the Norwegian government discontent. They preferred to have only Norwegian crew members on the Fram. Kutschin promised in his contract with Amundsen to sail with the Fram to San Francisco, but he became one of nine men remaining on the ship, completing an oceanographic survey of the Atlantic Ocean, while Amundsen's group sought the South Pole. Kutschin made 60 oceanographic studies during two and a half months sailing in the Antarctic Ocean. He was, together with ltn. Gjertsen, one of the first who made any form of oceanographic research in the South Atlantic Ocean.
Kutschin was the first crewmember to leave the Fram, taking the water samples from the expedition to Bergen as early as in October 1911.
In Bergen on Christmas Eve 1911, Kutschin became engaged to the seven years younger Aslaug Poulsen. She was the daughter of the well known journalist, theatre, music and literature critic Andreas Poulsen, and Alexander had known her for a long time. They sent letters to each other during the period Alexander Kutschin was on the Fram.
After returning to Russia in 1912, Kutschin was recruited by the explorer and geologist Rusanov to join a scientific expedition to Svalbard. The ship was called Hercules, and he was asked to be the leader and the captain. The ship had been bought in Ålesund, Norway, by Kutschin and Romanov. It was built in 1908 for hunting, especially in the Greenland area. It was built for eight men, but the expedition's participants were 14, among others Romanov's French fiancée Julie Jean. Kutschin wrote to his father that the Hercules was not good enough for the ice, but later in a new letter he wrote that he was very pleased with the ship, and that it now had a new layer of ice sheathing.
On 26 June 1912 the Herkules left Alexandrovsk (now Polyarny) in Murmansk. The expedition to Svalbard was successful, among other things they found a great deal of coal that the Russian industry would find great value in later. At the end of August 1912 three crew members returned to Russia, while the rest of the crew went on further into the ice. This happened without the permission of the Russian government. The plan was to attempt the Northern Sea Route to the Bering Strait, but the Herkules disappeared and was never seen again. Kutschin was only 24 years old.
No rescue operation was sent out by the Russian government until 1914 when Norway was asked to put one together. The 60 years old polar captain Otto Sverdrup took the mission with the ship Eclipse. On 6 March the same year, the Russian government agreed in a Council of ministers that the members of the expedition were to be considered dead, and that the rescue mission should be stopped. No objects were found before 1934 when different artefacts were found on a nameless island on the west coast of Tajmyr. A 2.5 m high post with the inscription "Herkules 1913" was also found on an island in the Mohn archipelago.
A glacier in Antarctica and two islands in the Arctic Ocean are named after Kutschin .


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Assuming reasonably good weather in October and November, Steve Harrison expects Louisiana producers to plant the largest wheat crop since he began work in the state over 20 years ago.
"In the spring of 1985, we had 500,000 acres of wheat," said the LSU AgCenter small grains breeder at the recent Dean Lee Research Station field day outside Alexandria, La. "And we've been going downhill ever since. However, I'm confident that this year we'll be over 300,000 acres and perhaps over 400,000."
Seed availability will be a big factor in how much wheat will be planted. "Our neighbors to the north who provide a lot of our wheat seed had severe freeze injury last spring. That damaged a lot of our seed supply. The Arkansas (Plant) Board scrambled quickly to allow conversions of some good wheat fields into seed fields that weren't originally intended as such."
Harrison prefers to choose wheat varieties based on at least two years of data. In Alexandria, "it doesn't matter if you check data from north or south Louisiana — the location here is a 'tweener.' But go through the variety list and find the varieties that have performed well for a couple of years."
Then, check the test weights. "That's important. If you go to an elevator with a 55-pound test weight in May, you aren't going to get $5 per bushel. You'll be docked rather severely for a 55-pound test weight."
Disease resistance and heading dates are also important. Match the heading date with your planting date. "Late October in central Louisiana is an ideal planting time. If I could plant all my wheat on one day, it would be Oct. 28. However, as you travel north to Monroe, move the planting date a couple of weeks earlier. As you move south to Baton Rouge, plant several weeks later."
Plant late-heading varieties first and early-heading varieties like LA482 last. Planting an early-heading variety early increases chances it will get too much warm weather, will move too fast and will more likely experience spring freeze damage.
"Varieties that will be available this fall include 841, which we've grown a lot. Others are Terral 8558, DKGR9108, Croplan 8302, and Coker 9553.
"Those varieties are generally available in a normal year. However, right now, I promise you every bag of seed in those varieties is accounted.
"As soon as you finish picking up doves from the Labor Day hunt, go book your seed. Otherwise, you'll end up growing varieties that aren't adapted to this region and that we don't have good data for. And it'll take a lot more scrambling to make a decent wheat crop out of those varieties."
If forced to use a second tier variety, go back and look at old variety data from Louisiana. See what used to do well in the state. "Plant that rather than something that did well in northern Arkansas last year. If you make central-Louisiana wheat choices based on data from northern Arkansas, you'll be disappointed. You're better off planting a variety that used to do well here that may be a bit susceptible to disease. Just plan on putting out a fungicide at flag-leaf."
Two of the most crucial decisions in wheat management are drainage and early-season weed control. "Wheat doesn't mind heavy soils but it doesn't like going underwater. It needs a lot of surface drainage." Second, in terms of weed control, wheat is very competitive if planted into a clean seedbed.
"If you put out 2 ounces of Sencor early and get rid of the poanna and small grasses coming up and allow the wheat crop to start first, it will do well."
Is it better to put the Sencor out before planting or after achieving a stand? "For several reasons, you're better off getting the stand first. One, if the seed is just germinating, a heavy rain could wash the Sencor down the plant. That can cause severe damage.
"I prefer to get the crop up to two-leaf stage before putting out the Sencor. You might want to put out Roundup a week prior to planting and burn down anything in the field."
e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


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Thanks to Gini at Ginisology for sending me a Happy 101 award — what a nice surprise! Per the award's rules here are my 10 things that make me happy:
1) Finding an elusive ancestor.
2) Cooking something that comes out well
3) Making and sharing memories with family and friends.
4) Puppies and kittens
5) A mug of Irish Breakfast Tea
6) Helping others
7) Chocolate
8) Taking photos, especially outside.
9) Scrapbooking
10) Water, be it a creek, a tide pool or the ocean.
And, here are 10 other bloggers whom I feel should receive this award.
All of the above are active members of a blogging community that I am happy to be a part of!