Living In Humility. The greatness of God is seen by the world in the marvels of creation Psalms 191. The universe is so vast that the human mind cannot. Dalit, meaning oppressed in Sanskrit and brokenscattered in Hindi, is a term for the members of lower castes of India. The term is mostly used for the ones that. IAS exam preparation is made easy by Insights Secure. It is recommended by almost all IAS toppers as one stop solution for IAS GS preparation. Beware from TOP 20 SCAM Offline data entry jobs from home in India. Offline Data Entry jobs in India. Read them here. GRE Exam 2017 2018 India GRE general information on the eligibility, pattern, exam dates, test centers in India, exam fee test price, low GRE success stories. Table of Contents Foreword. Acknowledgement. iii. Editors Note. vii. About Policy Practice Atlas on Microfinance. Acronyms Abbreviations. SECTION I. Knowing Gods Ways cfcindia, Bangalore. Introduction There is a great deal of difference between observing Gods actions even His miracles and understanding His Ways. Most Christians observe only Gods external actions. They are impressed by physical miracles. They eagerly seek for healing and for material blessings. Most of their prayers too are related to such earthly matters, in which they want to see God act on their behalf and bless them in the physical realm. This is because they are in a state of spiritual babyhood. If these are the things that still excite us, then we have not seen the glory of the new covenant. One mark of those who are mature is that they are not taken up Gods external acts as much as with knowing God Himself and understanding His ways. If you want to know more about God and His ways, read this book. Knowing Gods Ways God made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the sons of Israel Psalms 1. This is eternal life that they may know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent John 1. There is a lot of difference between observing Gods actions even His miracles and understanding His ways. Most Christians observe only Gods actions. Wiz Khalifa Lyrics there. They are impressed by external miracles. They eagerly seek for healing and for material blessings. Most of their prayers too are related to such earthly matters, in which they want to see God act on their behalf and bless them in the physical realm. This is because they are in a state of spiritual babyhood. The Bible says that eternal life is to know God and Jesus Christ John 1. Eternal life does not refer to eternal existence. Eternal life is but another phrase for Gods life and nature. Eternal existence will be experienced by all human beings even by those who go to hell. But very few enjoy eternal life. The more we know God and the Lord Jesus the more we will have of eternal life. In the days of Moses, only Moses could understand Gods ways. Today, under the new covenant, that privilege is offered to all of us. Yet very, very few know God and His ways, because most believers are taken up only with Gods external actions. And when they experience an external miracle like getting a job, or earning more money, or getting a new house, or finding a wife or a husband, or experiencing healing, they are excited and are quick to testify about these matters, because these are the greatest things in life for them. If these are the things that still excite us, then we have not seen the glory of the new covenant. One mark of those who are mature is that they are NOT taken up with Gods external acts as much as with knowing God and understanding His ways. It is only when we understand God and His ways that we will be able, for example, to understand what worldliness really is. Many believers think of worldliness as something external, such as wearing lipstick and ornaments and fancy clothes or having expensive electronic gadgets in the home etc. But Romans 1. 2 2 makes it clear that conformity to the world is found in a persons mind. It is in a persons mind that he has to resist conformity to the world and to be renewed so as to understand the perfect will of God. A person may get rid of all the external marks of worldliness and have a good testimony before men, and yet be thoroughly worldly in his way of thinking. Most believers definition of worldliness depends on their own standard of living They feel that whatever they themselves possess of this worlds goods does not make them worldly. But if anyone possesses more than them then such a person IS worldly And when their own standard of living goes up, their gauge of what is worldly is adjusted upwards accordingly But no believer is the perfect standard. Jesus alone is our Standard. To recognise worldliness, we must know Jesus Christ. Only in the light of His life can we see what is worldly and what is not. The Pharisees became self righteous in their pursuit of righteousness because they did not know God. They pursued righteousness without hungering and thirsting after God Himself. We cannot get rid of Phariseeism merely by avoiding the acts of the Pharisees. We can, for example, hear of some of the marks of a Pharisee and perhaps get rid of those marks from our lives. But that would be only snipping off the fruit from a bad tree. The bad fruit will again appear on another branch. A believer can spend his entire life merely snipping off various fruits of Phariseeism from his life and end up as a greater Pharisee at the end than he was at the beginning of his Christian life When we know God however, we will realise that the only way to be saved from self righteousness is by chopping the tree down from the roots itself. Consider the matter of the healing crusades that are conducted everywhere these days. Millions of rupees are collected for such crusades from gullible believers. It is rare to find a believer who can discern that there is nothing of the spirit of Christ in such commercialised Christianity. When you know Jesus Christ however, you will compare everyone who claims to be a servant of God with Jesus Himself. In the light of Jesus life it will become evident that there is no similarity at all between the Lord Jesus and these so called healers. But if you dont know Jesus Christ, many things that are done in such crusades can look very impressive to you, and you can be deceived. The Holy Spirit has emphatically stated that in the last days there will be a flood of deceitful spirits invading the world, who will lead many astray 1 Timothy 4 1. Jesus often warned His disciples to be careful that they were not deceived. He mentioned deception as the first sign of the end of the age Matthew 2. The only way to escape such deception is by knowing the Lord. Then we will be able to discern between what glorifies God and what does not. Christian parents are often confused these days concerning what they should permit their children to do and what they shouldnt, what school programs are proper for their children to participate in and what are not, what type of clothes they should permit their daughters to wear, etc., etc. Are we to just imitate the standards adopted by other godly brothers The Bible seems to imply that imitating the actions of others can lead to our being drowned See Hebrews 1. We are to imitate the faith of others not their actions See Hebrews 1. We are to understand the principles by which a brother arrived at a decision, and not just imitate his actions. Let me illustrate this with an example. I was told of a brother who, knowing that frugality was an essential part of godliness, used to put tooth paste across only half of his tooth brush, so that his tooth paste tube would last twice as long. But you can imitate that practice every day and yet never become godlyIt is the principle of frugality that that brother lived by that we can imitate and not the measure of tooth paste he used on his tooth brush If your teeth are bad, you may need to use a full length of tooth paste on your brush, even if you are a godly man Our passion should be to know God better and better, because this is eternal life. We are going to spend all eternity getting to know God more and more. This is why eternity will not be boring for anyone whose passion is to know God. Our earthly life too will then not be boring any more. Let us learn something of Gods life and of His ways from Genesis 2, in the way He dealt with Adam. There we see that it was God Who saw Adams need for a wife and Who met that need and made a wife for him. There we see what Gods nature is like. God is always alert to the needs of people and does all that He can to meet those needs. When we partake of this Divine nature, we too will become like that always alert to the needs and problems of those around us and doing everything we can in order to meet those needs This will involve a great deal of sacrifice on our part often. Saint Thomas Christians Wikipedia. Saint Thomas Christians. Regions with significant populations. India Kerala, Bangalore, Mumbai UAE Dubai Oman Kuwait USA New York City metropolitan area, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Tampa, Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Los Angeles Europe UK London, Birmingham The Netherlands Amsterdam Canada Toronto, Edmonton12Languages. Vernacular Malayalam. Liturgical Syriac Aramaic3Religion. Christian. Saint Thomas Christian Churches. Related ethnic groups. Cochin Jews,3Malayalis, Knanaya. The Saint Thomas Christians, also called Syrian Christians or Nasrani, are a community of Indian Syriac Christians from Kerala, India, who trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. The term Syrian relates not to their ethnicity but to their historical, religious, and liturgical connection to Syriac Christianity. Historically, the Saint Thomas Christian community was part of the Church of the East, centered in Persia. They were organised as the Province of India in the 8th century, served by Nestorian bishops and a local dynastic Archdeacon. In the 1. 6th century the overtures of the Portuguesepadroado to bring the Saint Thomas Christians into the Western Latin rite. Catholic Church led to the first of several rifts in the community. It led to the establishment of Eastern Catholic Syro Malabar Church and Oriental Orthodox Malankara Church factions. The Syro Malabar Church follows the East Syrian Rite Liturgy traditionally attributed to Saints Addai and Mari which dates back to 3rd century Edessa. The Malankara Church follows the West Syrian Rite Liturgy traditionally attributed to Saint James, and is an ancient rite of the Early Christian. Church of Jerusalem. Since that time further splits have occurred, and the Saint Thomas Christians are now divided into several different Eastern Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, and independent bodies, each with their own liturgies and traditions. The Eastern Catholic faction is in full communion with the Holy See in Rome. This includes the Syro Malabar Catholic Church which is the largest denomination and colloquially known as R. C. S. C. and the Syro Malankara Catholic Church who were a minority faction that left the Malankara Church and joined in communion with Rome in 1. The Oriental Orthodox faction includes the Malankara Orthodox Church and the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church colloquially known as Jacobite. The Malankara Orthodox Church is headed by the Catholicos of the East and Malankara Metropolitan in Kottayam, India. Whereas the Jacobite Orthodox Church is an integral part of the Syriac Orthodox Church and is headed by the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch in Damascus, Syria. Independents include the Malankara Marthoma Syrian Church and the Chaldean Syrian Church of India. The Marthoma Syrian Church were a part of the Malankara faction that came in communion with the Anglican Communion during the late 1. The Marthoma Church follows a Reformed variant of the West Syrian Rite Liturgy. The Chaldean Syrian Church is an archbishopric of the Assyrian Church of the East in Iraq. They were a minority faction within the Syro Malabar Church, who split off and joined with the Church of the East Bishop during the 1. Saint Thomas Christians represent a multi ethnic group. Their culture is largely derived from Jewish, East Syrian, West Syrian and Hindu influences, blended with local customs and later elements derived from indigenous Indian and European colonial contacts. Their language is Malayalam, the language of Kerala, and Syriac is used for liturgical purposes. Terminology. The Saint Thomas Christians are so called due to their reverence for Saint Thomas the Apostle, who is said to have brought Christianity to India. The name dates to the period of Portuguese colonisation. They are also known, especially locally, as the Nasrani or Nasrani Mappila. The former is a term meaning Christian it appears to be derived from Nazareth, the home town of Jesus. Mappila is an honorific applied to members of non Indian faiths, including Muslims Jonaka Mappila and Jews Yuda Mappila. Some Syrian Christians of Travancore continue to attach this honorific title to their names. The Government of India designates members of the community as Syrian Christians, a term originating with the Dutch colonial authority that distinguishes the Saint Thomas Christians, who used Syriac East Syrian Rite or West Syrian Rite as their liturgical language, from newly evangelised Christians who followed the Latin liturgy. The term Syrian relates not to their ethnicity but to their historical, religious and liturgical connection to the Church of the East, or East Syrian Church. History. Tradition of origin. According to tradition, Thomas the Apostle came to Muziris on the Kerala coast in 5. AD,8 which is in present day Pattanam, Kerala. The Cochin Jews are known to have existed in Kerala in the 1st century AD,1. Aramaic speaking Jew, such as St. Thomas from Galilee, to make a trip to Kerala then. The earliest known source connecting the Apostle to India is the Acts of Thomas, likely written in the early 3rd century, perhaps in Edessa. A number of 3rd and 4th century Roman writers also mention Thomas trip to India, including Ambrose of Milan, Gregory of Nazianzus, Jerome, and Ephrem the Syrian, while Eusebius of Caesarea records that his teacher Pantaenus from Alexandria visited a Christian community in India using the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew language in the 2nd century. The tradition of origin of the Christians in Kerala is found in a version of the Songs of Thomas or Thomma Parvam, written in 1. Thomas is described as arriving in or around Maliankara and founding Seven Churches, or Ezharapallikal Kodungallur, Kollam, Niranam, Nilackal Chayal, Kokkamangalam, Kottakkavu Paravur, Paloor Chattukulangara and Thiruvithamcode Arappally a half church. The Thomma Parvam also narrates the conversion of a few Jews, along with many natives, and the local King at Kodungallur by St Thomas. The Thomma Parvam further narrates St Thomass mission in the rest of South India and his martyrdom at Mylapore in present day Chennai, Tamil Nadu. According to legend, the community began with Thomass conversion of four Brahmin families, named as Pattamukkil,Pakalomattom, Sankarapuri, Kaliyankal and Kalli. Other families claim to have origins almost as far back as these and the religious historian Robert Eric Frykenberg notes that Whatever dubious historicity may be attached to such local traditions, there can be little doubt as to their great antiquity or to their great appeal in popular imagination. While there is much doubt on the cultural background of early Christians, there is evidence that some members of the St Thomas Christian community observed Brahmin customs in the Middle Ages, such as the wearing of the sacred thread and having a kudumi. The medieval historian Pius Malekandathil believes these were customs adopted and privileges won during the beginning of the Brahmin dominance of medieval Kerala. He argues that the Syrian Christians in Kerala, integrated with Persian Christian migrant merchants, in the 9th century to become a powerful trading community and were granted the privileges by the local rulers to promote revenue generation and to undermine Buddhist and Jain traders who rivaled the Brahmins for religious and political hegemony in Kerala at the time. An organised Christian presence in India dates to the arrival of East Syrian settlers and missionaries from Persia, members of what would become the Church of the East, in around the 3rd century. Saint Thomas Christians trace the further growth of their community to the arrival of Christians from the Middle East led by Thomas of Cana, which is said to have occurred either in the 4th or 8th century.