How to undelete documents in Logos Bible Software

The other day I must have pushed the wrong button because my Notes disappeared.

After a day or two of grieving over all the notes I'd put together over many years, I wondered if anyone else had had a similar problem.

Even tho its a mystery to me how it got deleted: This is how to undelete things:

Documents.Logos.com lets you store your study notes, presentations, sentence diagrams, reading plans, and more—all in one place. And if you delete an important document, it’s easy to get your work back.

Here’s how to undelete files:

1. Log in at Documents.Logos.com with your Logos.com credentials.
2. Using the dropdown menu in the top-left corner, filter documents by visibility.
3. Select “Deleted” to see all your deleted documents.

The Ethics of Israel's conduct in the Israel-Gaza war 2023-2024 - A christian perspective

 

The events of October 7 have drawn Israel into a significant conflict with the Gazan people.  

Gaza has suffered considerable loss of life, injury and destruction of their cities and communities.

Daily images of dead or suffering children and now starving children has swayed world opinion against Israel.  

Last week the UN passed a resolution for an immediate ceasefire when a wavering USA decided not to exercise its veto power and instead abstained.

Many Christians feel conflicted when it comes to deciding what position to take.

1. Aren't Christians meant to love our enemies? (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27,35)
2. Aren't we meant to turn the other cheek? Matthew 5:39, Luke 6:29)
3. Doesn't one of the ten commandments require us not to kill? (Exodus 20:13)
4. Doesn't God love both Israelis and Gazans equally (John 3.16)?

Taken alone, they seem problematic.  As C S Lewis says, if we saw a vulnerable loved one about to be violently struck by another, would we really stand by and watch even though we had the power to stop it?

What guidance can the bible give to resolve this quandary?

It turns out Romans 12:9ff and Romans 13:1-9  help to resolve this quandary.

Romans 12:9ff echoes many of the passages cited above in Exodus, Matthew, Luke, and John.  And it discusses these things as how an individual might deal with enemies, and persecutors.

Romans 13:1-9 takes us into the realms of civic society and government authorities.  As a collective, we cede authority to governments to act on our behalf.  This passage makes it clear what their duties and responsibilities are:

1. To protect the vulnerable from wrongdoing (Romans 13:3)
2. To punish wrongdoing (Romans 13:2-4)
3. To prevent further wrongdoing (Romans 13:5)

In Israel's case, how is it to act in response to the October 7 massacres in the light of Romans 13?

1. It must act to protect the vulnerable.  Therefore it used deadly force on the day, to neutralize the terrorists and to prevent them killing any more Israeli citizens.  
2. Israel must punish the actors for wrongdoing.  This means Israel must seek out those responsible for the October 7 atrocities and hold them to account.  And if these suspects are unwilling to be taken alive, then Israel is left with few options except to use deadly force if it wishes to prevent further wrongdoing.
3. For Israel preventing further wrongdoing is ultimately the biggest problem.
   * Preventing Hamas from carrying out another October 7 massacres must be a high priority.
   * However, Hamas is determined to annihilate Israel.  Co-existence is unacceptable to them.
   The 700+ km Gazan tunnel system allows Hamas to hide from Israeli military action by turning Gazan hospitals, UN facilities, civilian buildings, and infrastructure into battlefield cover.  This has resulted in widespread destruction of these assets because Hamas has turned them into legitimate military targets.  
   * War is ugly and cruel.  Civilian deaths are inevitable.  That is why war should be avoided as much as possible. Yet war is sometimes inevitable and warranted.(Ecclesiastes 3:8).  And when it is required, as Churchill says, we must be resolute.  If this war and the subsequent peace are not won, then Israel will embolden others to repeat Hamas' crimes.
   * Like WW2 Germany, Hamas is waging a total war.  They have created a society where the division between civilians and combatants are heavily blurred.  The doctrine of martyrdom is taught to children from a young age.  The values and heritage of Gazans involve a fundamentally erroneous worldview, a worldview that believes that their land was taken from them when they have never exercised Manua Whenua over it.  Correcting this may take a generation or more to do.  There is no quick fix answer to a problem that runs so deeply.  It is also a worldview that much of the world has come to accept as fact in direct contradiction to the historical record.
   * Israel must therefore remove Hamas from power, prevent it from ever taking power again and then administer Gaza until a new generation emerges that is willing to accept co-existence with Israel. 
   * For many the fact that Israel is acting in self-defence is fair but the disparity of deaths on either side is sufficient to conclude that Israel is reacting disproportionately, and therefore unjustly, to Hamas' crime.  But a layperson's understanding of disproportionality in war under international law is wrong. Proportionality under the Geneva Conventions is related to the military objective not a naive comparison of war dead figures.  Israel's military objective is to prevent another October 7 being repeated.  Hamas has already publicly declared that October 7 is the first of many to come.  From Israel's point of view, Hamas must be destroyed. Hamas' total war strategy puts everyone in Gazan society in harm's way.  Even prominent leaders in the Arab world have criticized Hamas for doing so. 
   * We should also be aware that the Gaza Ministry of Health produces these figures and Hamas controls this ministry.  It must be seen as an organ within Hamas' propaganda machine.  All its figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants, implying that they too recognize Hamas' total war doctrine.  
   * In a similar argument, partly fuelled by thoughts about a perceived lack of proportionality, the accusation of Genocide is also directed against Israel.  Again, what constitutes genocide from a layperson's understanding is quite different from the definition used under international law.  Even the learned justices at the International Court of Justice are loath to conclude that genocide has been committed so quickly.  An outcome of their deliberations will likely be a more refined definition of genocide because the current one allows any killing to be construed as genocide, and if so, it robs the word of its intended meaning.  
   * For God, he does love both Israelis and Palestinians equally.  Perhaps our experiences as Parents may be analogous and help our understanding here.  When we have two children having a fight.  What do we do when there is a risk that one or both could be physically harmed?  We separate them.  But when the siblings are now whole ethnic groups involving millions of people on either side, what then?  Then separation is needed on a scale that is logistically quite different.  And how do you stop the fighting when one side wants to stop so they can regroup and repeat October 7 another day? And the other side does not want to stop because they don't want another October 7?    Unless the world is willing to risk the lives of its own citizens to keep them apart then it must allow protagonist Israel to subdue antagonist Gaza so that a lasting peace can be built.
   * Ultimately a lasting peace must deal with the root cause and that is, we have two tangata whenua, two indigenous peoples, both were offered statehood.  One accepted and said we will give co-existence a shot.  The other rejected statehood multiple times, and repeatedly opted for a winner takes all, fight to the death.  Until co-existence is acceptable to both sides, then peace is just a utopian dream.  
   
   

Bequeathing Logos Bible Software Licenses

 

The strength of Logos is its ability to give you access to a wide range of resources.  Its power improves greatly the bigger the collection of resources you have.

Over many years the number of resources you have accumulated licenses for can be quite considerable.  As you become more conscious that your time to pass into the afterlife is nearing, you may start thinking it would be a terrible waste to let the licenses lapse.

Perhaps someone else among your circle of friends, family and loved ones might benefit from them.

Faithlife has kindly provided a process to allow you to bequeath your licenses to an heir. 

Here is the process:

Provide Logos Support with the following information:

1. Current license holder details
   Email address
   Street address
   A list of titles from the order history on your account and if not purchased online, a list of titles and serial numbers
   A letter instructing Logos that this your wish and it will be saved to your account record.
   And if deceased already, a death certificate and an instruction from the Executor of the Estate.
   If you wish to effect the transfer before you pass, then there is a USD 20 fee.  The fee is waived if you have already passed away.
   
   
2. Recipient details
   Email address (if already a Logos user, the email address being used for their account)
   Street address
   

My uncle has just done this and his gift is a huge blessing.  There were many commentaries that I was saving up for and they were already in his collection.  

Hope this helps!

Why the West won and will still win

I was in Tienamen Square six months before the massacre.

Everyone remembers the occasion through the iconic picture of the "Tank Man".

But the Tank Man photo doesn't show you that over a million people gathered there, demanding:

• Freedom...
• Freedom of speech
• Freedom of association
• Social equality
• Democracy and 
• The end of corruption and nepotism.

Things we take for granted in the West.

But both photos don't show how it brutally ends.

While I was there, I met with a professor of history and sociology.  He told me he had been part of a research team that had been hired to look into something.  But now after three years they had their results but he was afraid to present their findings.

"Who was the client and what were you researching?" I asked.

"The client was the Chinese Communist Party," so I said, "you have a right to be frightened."

"What did they want you to research?"

"They want to know why the Western Civilization had got ahead of all cultures."

"What did you fnd out?"

"We thought it was technology at first because you defeated us so easily at the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the 20th century.

But after some deliberation, we decided it wasn't that.

Then we thought it might be democracy but after considering that carefully, we decided it wasn't that.

Because we are a communist country we thought it might be free markets but after a lot of investigation and debate, we decided it wasn't that either."

"You're running out of possibilities," I said,  :What did you conclude?"

"You won't believe me," he said.  

"Try me," I replied.

"It's religion.  Because for centuries you believed in a God who gave you benevolent laws, you obeyed them.

As a result, you ended up with the rule of law.

We don't get the rule of law like that.  We get it by frightening the bejesus out of people.  

We hold open trials, with very public and gruesome executions.

But when you see a crowd gathered around a television watching these things, you won't hear them saying, 'Bad person, deserves all he gets', instead, you will hear, 'Stupid person, for getting caught!'

But we know that Western society is becoming more secular and moving away from a belief in God.

And so we know that we will catch up."

I was left wondering, "Was he warning me or was he threatening me?"

Our knowledge of God and His ways have shaped the world.

The knowledge that 

• God created the world for the basis of modern science and the scientific method.
• God loved all human kind, led to the idea that all life is precious.
• That all humans are created equal led to
• The idea of Human Rights and
• Servant leadership
• God gave us his law (or ways) led to the Rule of Law; and
• God's gift of reason meant that there was an obligation to Progress.

God's revelation has shaped and changed New Zealand too:

In the 1870s, an elderly Hawke’s Bay chief, [Chief Hapuku Ngaruhe,] reflecting on the changes that had occurred in his community over his lifetime, concluded that:

‘It was only after the word of God was preached that the evil of the deeds and life of olden times was seen, that is these were condemned, murdering, family quarrels, seduction, and cannibalism, but there were many and great evils committed in Ao-tea-roa (North Island) but the gospel being preached caused the evils of Maori to cease.’

Western civilization has been touched in so many ways by God and his revelation through the bible.

And we are all the better for it

The Western World may not be perfect 

And despite what its critics may say:  

There are not thousands of people lining up trying to emigrate to Iran, China, Saudi Arabia or Russia.