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S a t u r d a y , D e c e m b e r 3 1 s t
11:47AM |
Hogmanay
oday, by various means, we celebrate the gift of another year. It is this time of year that people set about to conjure a list of New Year's resolutions, implying that the past year was a disaster and the change of calendar signals a fresh start, a blank slate. In a way, this recognition of our failures is correct, but in a couple ways the underlying attitude that may invade our New Year's resolutions, hopes, and reflections could be ungodly. First, we need to take care to avoid trusting in ourselves to straighten out the problems in our lives and draw ourselves out of whatever pits we might be stuck or sinking in. Our deliverance is not in a new year, a fresh start, or our own efforts. Relying on ourselves, our own power and ability, will lead to the same disappointments next year. Second, the reflective aspect of the New Year should not be consumed solely in regret about all the bad things that happened (or did not happen) in the now-completed year past. Hopefully we all can make an effort to counter this solemnity with grateful thankfulness to our Lord and His provision for and gifting of us.
The new year is a gift, and Dictionary.com's "Word of the Day" explains how the Scottish celebrate this fact. New Year's Eve in Scotland is called Hogmanay, celebrated by children going about singing and asking for gifts. This close upon the heels of the celebration of our Savior's birth, let's take care to remember who is our redeemer, and the source of all the good gifts that have been bestowed upon us.
T u e s d a y , D e c e m b e r 2 7 t h
9:35PM |
Merry Christmas
hope everyone celebrated a pleasant and joyous Christmas this year. I visited my family Christmas day for church, dinner, and gifts, and I received a dining room table. Know ye now that if you ever get subjected to my cooking, you will now have a place on which to set your plate, aside from your lap. Upon returning home Sunday evening, against everything I was expecting, I ended up making a long red-eye drive up to Maryland and spent Monday there for an enjoyable visit, and probably subjected my lovely hostess to too much sleep-deprived yawning. She's a blur of activity for someone who gets even less sleep than I do.
Movies arrive on my doorstep one after another now that I am using Blockbuster's online service and a few good ones that I have seen recently are Assault on Prencint 13 and Internal Affairs; a few okay titles were 11:14, A Lot Like Love, and A Very Long Engagement; ho-hum because it's not my kind of movie was The Aviator; and either horrible or disappointing were War of the Worlds, Robots, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Because I did not post it on Christmas day, being that I was not around, here is my favorite Christmas passage for the year. After all, it's the twelve days of Christmas, right? And we celebrate Christmas every week, and live affected by it and thankful for it every day...
1 "Comfort, yes, comfort My people!"
Says your God.
2 "Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her,
That her warfare is ended,
That her iniquity is pardoned;
For she has received from the Lord's hand
Double for all her sins."
3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
"Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be exalted
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough places smooth;
5 The glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together;
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken."
6 The voice said, "Cry out!"
And *he said, "What shall I cry?"
"All flesh is grass,
And all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades,
Because the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever."
9 O Zion,
You who bring good tidings,
Get up into the high mountain;
O Jerusalem,
You who bring good tidings,
Lift up your voice with strength,
Lift it up, be not afraid;
Say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!"
10 Behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand,
And His arm shall rule for Him;
Behold, His reward is with Him,
And His work before Him.
11 He will feed His flock like a shepherd;
He will gather the lambs with His arm,
And carry them in His bosom,
And gently lead those who are with young.
- Isaiah 40:1-11
T u e s d a y , D e c e m b e r 2 7 t h
7:44PM |
Medical Records
uinness unveils medical record breakers, encompassing such categories as "longest attack of hiccups" (68 years), most operations endured in a lifetime (970), and most kidney stones endured by a single person (4,504). BBC provides some of the records and pictures.
S a t u r d a y , D e c e m b e r 2 4 t h
2:49PM |
For God So Loved The World
omorrow we celebrate the Lord's greatest provision for the earth: the sending of his Son to the earth to be born as a man, live a perfect life, die a sacrificial death, and arise from the dead triumphantly and ascend to the right hand of His Father, thereby providing redemption for mankind and establishing His Kingdom on earth. God did not leave the world in slavery to sin and without hope of reconciliation, though that is what we deserved. God loves the world and it is precious to Him, and he demonstrates this not only in the historical event of His redemption of mankind and His mandate to the godly to take restorative dominion over the earth, but also in His active, daily provisioning and care for the earth. Psalm 65 displays this love of our Creator, Father, and King well:
1 Praise is awaiting You, O God, in Zion;
And to You the vow shall be performed.
2 O You who hear prayer,
To You all flesh will come.
3 Iniquities prevail against me;
As for our transgressions,
You will provide atonement for them.
4 Blessed is the man You choose,
And cause to approach You,
That he may dwell in Your courts.
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house,
Of Your holy temple.
5 By awesome deeds in righteousness You will answer us,
O God of our salvation,
You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth,
And of the far-off seas;
6 Who established the mountains by His strength,
Being clothed with power;
7 You who still the noise of the seas,
The noise of their waves,
And the tumult of the peoples.
8 They also who dwell in the farthest parts are afraid of Your signs;
You make the outgoings of the morning and evening rejoice.
9 You visit the earth and water it,
You greatly enrich it;
The river of God is full of water;
You provide their grain,
For so You have prepared it.
10 You water its ridges abundantly,
You settle its furrows;
You make it soft with showers,
You bless its growth.
11 You crown the year with Your goodness,
And Your paths drip with abundance.
12 They drop on the pastures of the wilderness,
And the little hills rejoice on every side.
13 The pastures are clothed with flocks;
The valleys also are covered with grain;
They shout for joy, they also sing.
10:57AM |
Now That's Stubborn
Missouri man and his girlfriend were arguing over which one of them could use their mobile phone. So that her boyfriend couldn't get the phone, the girl swallowed it. She then complained that she was having trouble breathing.
F r i d a y , D e c e m b e r 2 3 r d
12:47PM |
Blue Skies As Christmas Approaches
oday is a holiday, and I'm working. It's not a bad day to work at all: it's not really a holiday, only the day on which the business world observes a holday that falls on a weekend, so I'm not missing out on anything special. I really enjoy it as well because I'm working in the office, and can do so with the lights off (much more pleasant to work in the natural light beside the windows, and not have overhead artificial light reflecting off of the computer monitor) and with music turned up loud, because I'm the only employee in this section of the building. The best thing is realizing that I do not work in retail anymore, so working on holidays is a rare occasion these days. No more do I have to work on Memorial Day or Labor Day or the Fourth of July, and miss out on the usually spectacular weather or cookouts.
This time of year it's easy to lose sight of the significance of the events celebrated and upon which Christmas was born, and therefore the joy of the season is diminished. To help remedy that, Pastor Doug Wilson from Moscow, Idaho provided a great series on the meaning and implications of this celebratory time of year. His series, which has been ongoing on his blog, mixed with discourses on various other topics, since late November is entitled "The Church Year". These specific blog entries can be access by clicking here. Newest entries are at the top, so start from the bottom and work upwards.
T h u r s d a y , D e c e m b e r 2 2 n d
10:08AM |
Helpful and Encouraging Blog
hanks to Mrs. Gunn for pointing out the blog of Doug and Evan Wilson's father: Jim Wilson. I knew him for a couple years when I lived in Idaho, and he is a very godly man with a heart for evangelism and the encouragement of Christians. His blog is equally such: short but direct messages on subjects of Christian life, as well as some ministering directed to those who are not yet saved. Mr. Wilson's blog is just lately started, and already he has some good entries on Christian joy, and recovering the joy that you had upon becoming saved, but that you seem to have lost recently.
M o n d a y , D e c e m b e r 1 9 t h
9:26PM |
What's Going On?
haven't provided many updates on me and what I am doing lately, for those of you interested in such things, and therefore I will do so now.
I am pursuing a couple advancement opportunities at work - the primary IT provider for the North American railroad shipping industry. The first opportunity is to train as a Unix administrator. This would involve a lot of work and maintenance on the servers that run and power many of our company's web applications. I have no prior Unix experience or education, but the Unix chief has expressed willingness to take me on and train me for the job. Unix admins usually make good money with a few years of experience under their respective belts. The second position under consideration is that of being a report writer. This does not involve, as you might think, typing research papers or anything similar. Despite the title, the job primarily entails creating and manipulating Oracle and SQL database scripts. The purpose of these scripts are to pull data into reports that users of certain of our web applications can view and print.
Work generally slows down around the Christmas season, and this month I have been dutifully expending the last of my vacation time. Four weeks of vacation allotted during the year can go a long way. For once, I completed my Christmas shopping ahead of the week before Christmas, so I am mostly all set; the only problem is that not all of the items ordered online have arrived.
Things are going quite well; I probably need to buckle down and get more accomplished.
6:57PM |
Men's Room Monologue
adies, have you ever wondered what it is like for a dude in a men's public restroom? Guys, have you ever been frustrated by the men's room? A Men's Room Monologue says it all.
S u n d a y , D e c e m b e r 1 8 t h
8:41PM |
Advent Hymn
n the Bleak Mid-Winter, by Christina Rosetti, as sung by Chanticleer.
In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter,
Long ago.
Our God, heav'n cannot hold him
Nor earth sustain;
Heav'n and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign;
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ.
Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air:
But only his mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.
T u e s d a y , D e c e m b e r 1 3 t h
9:29PM |
Hope From Today's Bible Reading
ne of the passages in scripture that convinces me the most that the postmillenial eschatology of hope and victory is the most biblically consistent theory of future history is Ephesians 2:19-23, specifically the analogy of the Church as Christ's body (a theme common elsewhere in the Bible such as I Corinthians 12:12-31, especially verse 27).
...And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and has put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.
The Church is Christ's body, the fullness of Christ, the agent through which he now operates in history (inclusive of the present and future). Christ as the head is that to which the Church as the body is subordinate - the head directs, wills, and causes the body to do the things that the head wants it to do. Now if Christ is above all principality, power, might, and dominion, there is nothing that is more powerful than God (not Satan, not man, not Satan's minions) - not only on earth but also in all the created universe outside Earth and also in the spiritual realm of the heavens. He is the ruling power over all. If Christ is omnipotent, how can we think that the body which is subordinate to Christ and directed by him is impotent, weak, and on the path to defeat? Christ redeemed us into the Church so that we may be joined to Him as his bride and become one flesh - become his one body. He did not come to earth as a man, humble himself, and endure the cross to join a cancer to himself. Specific individuals and even entire denominations may fall away, but the true Church will always remain, and Christ's body will never perish. With Christ as our victorious all-powerful head, the Church will triumph in culture and history. We will triumph not because of who we are, but because of who has claimed us for Himself and joined us to Himself. This body is still maturing, and there is much still for the Church to do.
4:32PM |
Rough Delivery
eird news story of the day: pregnant woman survives face-first fall onto parking lot when her parachute has problems during a skydive. Her unborn baby is ok too.
M o n d a y , D e c e m b e r 1 2 t h
3:02PM |
Not Floating About In A Vacuum
he past week or so I have been enjoying Kenneth Gentry Jr.'s He Shall Have Dominion, a systematic exposition and defense of a hopeful and victorious philosophy of history for the church, the body of God's people sent forth in Christ's great commission to spread the gospel to the whole world and exercise dominion over it. One excerpt that I particularly found helpful was Gentry's brief explanation of the relationship of God's soveriegn predestination and control of all things with man's free will:
This sovereign control by God includes even the free acts of men (Gen. 45:5-8; Deut. 2:30; Ezra 7:6; Prov. 16:1; 19:21; John 19:11). Man has "free moral agency." But he cannot do just anything by an act of his will; he is limited and can only act in terms of his nature. Man is not floating about in a vacuum with nothing to "push" against; he operates within the all-encompassing plan of God. It is up against the plan of God that he gets his "footing." God's control of man, however, is not "across the board," as our control of another would have to be. Rather it is a control that cuts across planes: God above and man below. Such a control guarantees man true significance (he is no automaton), while guaranteeing God's true sovereignty (all things issue forth under the direction of His wise counsel). This is not contradiction but mystery - mystery rooted in God's transcendence.
S u n d a y , D e c e m b e r 1 1 t h
11:48AM |
Let All Things Now Living
his is a hymn written by Katherine Davis and sung to the tune of the Welsh melody "Ash Grove".
Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving
To God the creator triumphantly raise.
Who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,
Who still guides us on to the end of our days.
God's banners are o'er us, His light goes before us,
A pillar of fire shining forth in the night.
Till shadows have vanished and darkness is banished
As forward we travel from light into light.
His law he enforces, the stars in their courses
And sun in its orbit obediently shine;
The hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains,
The deeps of the ocean proclaim him divine.
We too should be voicing our love and rejoicing;
With glad adoration a Song let us raise
Till all things now living unite in thanksgiving:
"To God in the highest, Hosanna and praise!"
S a t u r d a y , D e c e m b e r 1 0 t h
7:26PM |
Better Said
was pleased to discover in Greg Wilbur's review of the Narnia movie, written a couple days before my review but unread by me until today, that he also thinks the part of Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe (LWW) book in which Aslan lets the giant kick open the gate to the White Witch's castle is a special scene and interprets it the same way as I do. Says Mr. Wilbur "One of the great themes of the book is the opportunity that Aslan gives for characters to explore, develop, and utilize the gifts they have been given". Wilbur also touches on one of the issues that concerned me when I first saw the Narnia trailers and thought that everything looked too real: "C.S. Lewis was self consciously writing a fairy tale. From the filmmaking perspective, that element could either be emphasized or excluded. This production chose to minimize the fairy tale aspect and, from the opening scenes, create an atmosphere of realism. This fact is also accentuated throughout the film with dialogue pertaining to motivations, psychology, and parental/authority relationships."
F r i d a y , D e c e m b e r 9 t h
12:14PM |
Numa Numa
lick here to watch an insane German guy's version of the famed Numa Numa dance. It starts out slow but gets... interesting. Thanks Josh Claybourn.
10:53AM |
Southwest Flight 1248
ast night, Southwest Airlines flight 1248 from Baltimore to Chicago suffered a front landing gear collapse when touching down on the snowy runway of Chicago's Midway airport. The plane carrying 103 people skidded off the runway and into the nearby intersection of 55th Street and Central Avenue, killing a six-year-old boy in a car and injuring eight other vehicle passengers and three passengers onboard the plane. I think it is a testament to ground crews, aviation directors, pilots, and aircraft manufacturers that tragedies like this do not occur more often. Hopefully these eleven injured will be brought back to full health, and salvation of their souls will accompany the sparing of their bodies.
10:42AM |
First Reaction To The Narnia Movie
y older sister and I caught the pre-release showing of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe last night. No spoilers here - I will just say that the movie was well done, particularly in the acting of the human characters from Professor Diggory to the first-time actors and actresses who played the four young Pevensies. I was prepared for the worst, and thus came away more pleased with the movie than I thought I would have been. There were a few departures from the book, but generally insignificant to the story. But really the only particular improvement of this movie over the old BBC productions were far greater special effects (of course) due to the animation capabilities of CGI, better music, and more remarkable actors. Despite all that, I did not feel that this movie was that much of an upgrade. Oh, there's no blood in this edition of the movie either. It's a PG movie with G-rated swords.
There were two ommissions from the movie that I especially felt the loss of. First, Aslan did not speak his line about the "deeper magic from before the dawn of time". Second, and this one will demand explanation for the randomness of it, Andy Adamson's Narnia did not show the Giant kick open the gate to the White Witch's courtyard after Aslan breathed him back to life from his previous state of being turned to stone. In the book, and in the BBC production, Aslan flies to the White Witch's castle and brings back to life all the petrified host of creatures kept in her mausoleum-like courtyard. There they all are, urgent to join the battle with the witch's minions, but the heavy gate leading from the courtyard into the hills of Narnia is securely shut and none of them can open it. Of course, Aslan could open it if he wanted to - maybe with an ear-splitting roar, because he is the top cat, representing God. But he instead allows the gentlemanly giant to take a stride to the gate and deliver two solid kicks that splinter the gate.
The message that this event in the story gave to me was this: God is omnipotent, able to do anything, but instead he chooses to act through people. He endows each one of us with particular gifts, and allows us to use our gifts. The giant's gift was size and strength, and Aslan let the giant use these gifts to serve the "good guys". Even so, I believe it is biblical to say that God has given us believers individual gifts, and He utilizes our gifts and abilities to work through us to spread the dominion of His kingdom on the earth.
T h u r s d a y , D e c e m b e r 8 t h
10:16AM |
Tell Me What Really Happened
read Russian writer Leo Tolstoy quoted as saying: "History would be an excellent thing if only it were true". I want to clarify immediately that I am not about to comment on Tolstoy's words in their context, and for the reason for this is that I do not know the context in which they were uttered. I rather want to make a couple brief observations on the gist of this sentence, and the idea it conveys.
In school and in my couple of years at a Christian college I enjoyed studying history. I'm not especially knowledgeable in that field of study, but history is a subject that I find intriguing - I just failed to go nuts about it and ride that wave when I had the chance. In reading various accounts of historians, especially those contemporary to the events they were recounting, it became abundantly clear that historians have an agenda, or a bias. This is only natural. Greek historian Herodotus had an agenda of "who started it and who was right" regarding the Greco-Persian wars. The venerable English monk and historian Bede recounted early post-Christ British history from a perspective aimed to show the hand of God in the events of history. William of Malmesbury mentioned how a historian writing about his contemporary king had to be sure to write something positive about his king in order to save his own neck. Julius Caesar wrote about the events of his day in such a way as to praise himself. Et cetera, et cetera. Just like you and me in everyday speech, the historians say something because they want to get a point across, and as objective as they might try and claim to be, they are not. For example, Donald Kagan et al in the informative Western Heritage textbook try to be objectively systematic in their presentation, but they label years as C.E. (Common Era) rather than the Christian calendar's A.D. (anno domini: in the year of our Lord) and B.C.E (Before Common Era) rather than B.C. (before Christ)... they have adopted the modern academic system that attempts to suppress overtly Christian institutions.
What does a historian's agenda mean for his telling of history? It means that he, the single historian, will interpret the facts and events according to his worldview; it means that he will emphasize certain facts that advance his theories or message, and omit facts that he deems inessential or insignificant. His goal is to recount the facts in such a way that steers the reader and coaxingly perseuades the reader to realize and accept his message, which is seldom explicitly stated - because that might hurt his academic credentials and acceptability.
Not only are historians bias-driven, but they are a single witness telling a story. They are single person filtering out what they think is true and what they think is, well, mythology or folklore. Famous orthodox Christian writer G.K. Chesterton wrote about the curiousness of this (see also my story Of An Evening In The Library); curious because here we are in our existence so many years advanced from the olden days, and we accept the word of one professional historian's "facts" and knock off the many common people's stories handed down by oral tradition as "mythology" and probably-not-true. We tend to view the peasants' firelit tales as wild and insane imaginations and superstitions, whereas Chesterton wonders if rather the contemporary historian was the village idiot: the cold skeptic who speaks out as the lone voice in disagreement with the majority of the village, only he is the professional and writes down his account to be stored in the libraries of academia.
So what do we do with history? Do we, like the modernists, become skeptics and doubt it all - doubt whether we can know real truth? Is the study of history worthless, and are we to be unsure that all those dates and king's names that we learned in high school are correct?
We accept everything we know apart from our personal experience on the basis of authority. We accept the explanation of how rain is caused by evaporation leading to condensation building into clouds and then breaking into precipitation because that is what the meteorologists have studies and have told us. We accept that the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 because that is what people who were alive back then recorded and have told us. Likewise, anything we believe about history must come on the basis of someone's authority. But we must take care and do a little extra work if we want to filter through all the bias and opinions and find truth, find fact. That is why I appreciated my former history professor Chris Schlect's approach: when studying a historical event or era, do not read just one account or just one historian's book. Gather several books from many different writers with many different perspectives, read and compare, and find where they agree. Look for a cloud of witnesses, not the voice of the lone village idiot.
How does this apply to the Bible and the historical events recorded there? Modern scholarship has seen the "Quest for the Historical Jesus" and new perspective movements that question who the real historical Jesus really was against what the Bible reveals him to be. But the historicity of the Bible has been maintained by external historians (Josephus for example) and archaeological evidence. The Bible has a cloud of witnesses, those who have together passed these events down by written and oral tradition. As Christians, we also have faith in the inspired authorship of Scripture by the eternal, omniscient Lord (2 Tim. 3:16,17). Here in the Bible is another clear agenda, and one that every individual on this planet must come to grips with. Many will embrace it, some will not.
This is a just a preliminary look into the study of history, but it is fun to think about.
W e d n e s d a y , D e c e m b e r 7 t h
12:44PM |
Meeting At The Lamppost
y now you've probably seen the nine minute supertrailer for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe, but here's another treat for you: the scene where Lucy meets Mr. Tumnus.
T u e s d a y , D e c e m b e r 6 t h
1:35PM |
A Virgin Unspotted
virgin unspotted, the prophet foretold,
Should bring forth a Savior, which now we behold,
To be our Redeemer from death, hell and sin,
Which Adam's transgression involved us in.
Then let us be merry, put sorrow away:
Our Savior, Christ Jesus, was born on this day.
Through Bethlehem city, in Jewry, it was
That Joseph and Mary together did pass,
And for to be taxed when thither they came,
Since Caesar Augustus commanded the same.
Then let us be merry, put sorrow away:
Our Savior, Christ Jesus, was born on this day.
But Mary's full time being come, as we find,
She brought forth her first-born to save all mankind;
The inn being full, for this heavenly guest
No place there was found where to lay him to rest.
Then let us be merry, put sorrow away:
Our Savior, Christ Jesus, was born on this day.
Currently listening:
Sing We Christmas
by Chanticleer
M o n d a y , D e c e m b e r 5 t h
3:07PM |
Did You Miss Me? Did You Even Know I Was Gone?
just returned from a refreshing weekend in Maryland with my good friend Megan. She was a wonderful hostess as she introduced me to some of the cuisine only found in the Eastern Shore, showed me the Maryland countryside, laughed with me, and sacrificed her morning to keep me company in the airport when it turned out that I had to take a departing flight many hours later than the flight I was originally booked to take. We fed and groomed her three beautiful horses and tossed around sixty bales of hay, and she proved once and for all how women can be much stronger than given credit for. Way up there in the northern fastness of the United States, the forecast was calling for snow today, so there was some wonderment over whether I would get snowed in and delayed on my return flight. That would have been just fine with me, the guy who is on vacation all week, though it probably would not have been for Megan. In summary, this was the best weekend I've had in a long time.
Here at home, I'm about as tired and sleepy as a young man off from work on a rainy winter day might be. I reckon I'll have to do what I rarely do and take a nap.
S a t u r d a y , D e c e m b e r 3 r d
3:23PM |
Online Abbey
van Wilson owned and presided over the boarding house in which I resided and fed during the couple of years that I attended college in Idaho. His chalet of mansion-like proportions boasted one especially handsome room: the library. You can see a photo of part of the library, as well as the library's potentate, here. That's from Evan Wilson's new blog: The Evantine Abbey. Evan and his wife continue to run the Big Haus as a boarding house for college students, and a Christian ministry to the community of the town of Moscow, though their influence spreads as the once-visitors roam about other parts of the country, or even return to the Big Haus for special events.
9:23AM |
Pin-Up Christianity
hat a disappointing witness: a Protestant youth group in Nuremberg Germany has created a calendar in which they pose in erotic scenes from the Bible (the idea is not totally new, and people come up with errant justifications for it). "It's just wonderful when teenagers commit themselves with their hair and their skin to the bible," said the Nuremberg pastor. "We wanted to represent the Bible in a different way and to interest young people," said one of the posing students. They want to appeal to a younger generation. Yes, the Bible contains some eroticism, but the Bible also contains commandments about modesty and propriety of conduct. This German group claims they are trying to spread Christianity, but would do better to follow the apostle Paul's example and simply preach the gospel, not operating through cunning strategies of man's wisdom, because it is the Spirit and not man's own works that awakens a response in men's hearts to listen to and embrace the gospel. These Germans have demonstrated seeker-friendliness going too far. Horny men and women might be encouraged through this calendar to pick up a Bible, though I imagine most will not be fooled, hoping to find satisfaction for their perverse second-hand sexual appetite, which is the wrong way to approach the Bible. They will be disappointed in that regard, but perhaps they will find some conviction as they read God's Word. But the ends do not justify the means, and the kingdom of God is not won through trickery and subtlety. Those are traits of the serpent. The church needs to be maturing as children and princes of God, and should shine as a good example to the rest of the world. And rather than being seeker-friendly, the church needs to concern itself with its primary function: giving honest, reverent, and biblically-based worship and adoration to the Lord. The church as the bride of Christ should remain pure and present herself in unspotted adoration and faithfulness to Christ, but instead those who claim to be the bride are posing in bare-breasted erotic calendar photos for the world to see. The promise of becoming Christ's royal bride is there, but some people in the church cannot part with their previous figurative life of being a cheap whore.
More on seeker-friendliness. Christians are to be set apart, distinct from those in the world who exalt men and the imaginations of men's minds as their god, because we are antithetically opposed to those who cling to the fallen world. The goal and vision of history should be for the world to conform to Christianity, not for the Church to conform to the world. The Church is not a business, nor is Christianity a product that should be professionally marketed to as many whimsical buyers as possible. Christianity is not something we are to cleverly try to sell, nor is it a trap that we are supposed to try to ensnare people in. That is not how the Spirit directs us to work.
F r i d a y , D e c e m b e r 2 n d
8:04PM |
Is It Friday?
he cold weather of autumn has hardly descended upon Raleigh, but I am already finding myself indoors more and feeling the need for additional exercise. I've been going to the gym for an hour each time two or three days a week, but that has not been enough - it doesn't do much for me, is not sufficiently challenging, and does not lend itself to a developing program of increased workload. Starting this week I am going to be working with weights five days a week, with two days off to allow the body time to rest and repair: Sundays and probably Wednesdays, though the specific weekday will be flexible depending on class work and other things that come up. I want to spend two hours a day in there: one for weights and one for the elliptical machine, but I'm pretty sure that I won't have such time available when classes resume in January.
I haven't seen any particularly excellent movies lately. Most recently I have watched War of the Worlds and Spellbound. I knew how the War of the Worlds story was supposed to end, but it happened to suddenly in this newest film and did not really inspire a feeling of relief that the alien invasion was finished. I was more relieved that the movie was over. Oddly enough Spellbound, a documentary following eight young students from different backgrounds as they prepared for and participated in the 1999 national spelling bee, was more interesting. I had been wanting to see this film for a while, and I finally had the opportunity since I am now a subscriber to Blockbuster Online, which makes far more movie titles available than can be found in the local stores.
Did you notice I haven't been blogging every day lately? I guess I'm in a blogging funk.
Currently listening:
Do You Like It?
by Our Lady Peace
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