Tuesday January 1st 2008
7:40PM | Incoincidental References
can recall three times in 2007 where one of my daily Old Testament readings was quoted directly in the New Testament passage of the day. For example, John 2:17 quotes Psalm 69:9, which I had just read that same hour. I am not on any official reading plan, so this was purely by chance, so to say.
On the first day of 2008 I have already encountered my first such reference. After having read the O.T. passage, I had better be able to say of the N.T. reference "hey, I just read that". Hebrews 10:28 (when warning about the danger of neglecting or falling away from Christ's ultimate redeeming and purifying sacrifice, especially considering how disobedience under the old covenant resulted in death) says: "He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses", referring to Deuteronomy 17:6.
Hebrews repeats over and over again the fact of the comprehensiveness of Christ's atoning sacrifice: he has completely covered my sins, the Father does not remember my sins and hold them against me, I am not held guilty. This is often difficult for me to grasp: I need to be careful about what really lies behind my thoughts when my conscience makes me feel guilty and a sense of having to "make it up". There is a place and a role for conscience regarding particular deeds, but there is also a kind of feeling of guilt which is not humility but is its opposite - pride, being a lack of faith. Moving on from the precious milk of Christ's atonement, I should be progressing on to the meat of willing obedience and full reformation.
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Tuesday January 1st 2008
7:27PM | Scotch Mist
adiohead delivers a New Year's present in the form of a movie called Scotch Mist. How can the sultan of sulk provide so much happiness? Surely this is some paradox, some oxymoron - but they pulled it off.
HT: Jon Amos
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Monday December 31st 2007
6:30PM | New Year Resolutions
esolutions for 2008:
1. Reduce my existing bills by 20%. The net amount I pay in bills may go up this year, but electricity (assuming I do not move into a house), internet, cell, water etc should accumulatively go down in cost 20%. Why 20%? It sounds good and might be do-able. Even if I move into a house, my electricity use and so forth should be more carefully moderated in a way that might realize some monetary benefit.
2. Take on at least one commercial client for website development, and get started on formulating a detailed business plan. Possibly outsource myself to contribute to others' projects, for gaining experience and starting to cultivate professional relationships.
3. Continue taking career-related college courses throughout the year.
4. Travel somewhere, even if just the NC mountains.
5. Get back into the habit of blogging regularly; but more importantly, resume private journaling even more regularly.
6. Exercise more consistently, particularly during the colder months.
7. Time management: manifested in increased reading time (at least one book per month) and slightly less time on the internet.
8. A popular favorite: eat better. Eat out less, save maybe $150 each month as a result (I have already become much better at the eating out part, but this has to hold up over an extended period).
9. Help at least one stranded motorist (I feel guilty because I pass so many in a hurry - I think I have helped only one all year). A few years back I was blessed by some aid that really saved me some time.
10. Attain the modest goal of running six straight miles this summer.
I reserve the right to add more to this list later.
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Sunday December 30th 2007
8:29PM | The Glory of Eternity
rom C.S. Lewis's The Weight of Glory:
"This brings me to the other sense of glory - glory as brightness, splendour, luminosity. We are to shine as the sun, we are to be given the Morning Star. I think I begin to see what it means. In one way, of course, God has given us the Morning Star already: you can go and enjoy the gift on many fine mornings if you get up early enough. What more, you may ask, do we want? Ah, but we want so much more - something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words - to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves - that, though we cannot, yet these projections can enjoy in themselves that beauty, grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can't. They tell us that 'beauty born of murmuring sound' will pass into a human face; but it won't. Or not yet. For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and case us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in."
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Saturday December 29th 2007
8:51PM | Assurance
homas Chalmers comments on Hebrews 7, relishing in the assurance of salvation that this passage provides:
Christ is able to save to the uttermost. He addeth intercession now to the atonement which He hath already made once for all. What a blessed apparatus of reconciliation with God! He who pleadeth for us at God's right hand is omnipotent to save - and willing as He is able.
Sabbath Scripture Readings (Solid Ground Christian Books. Birmingham, AL. 2006.) p. 348
I have had the pleasure since October of Chalmers' chapter-by-chapter devotional commentary accompanying my daily New Testament reading.
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Saturday December 29th 2007
8:39PM | Return of the Blog
have completed one of my New Year's resolutions for 2008 a little early, as I have re-constructed the back-end of my blog and have this blog back up and running after over two months off. Last Saturday I started constructing the CMS, writing the code that runs the show, debugging, and making everything secure. All the major functional stuff is out of the way, so now I can focus on enhancements and fixing the inevitable bugs that are bound to pop up (but will hopefully go unnoticed by you the visitor).
There are not very many visible changes: most of what is new are things that make blogging easier for me by automating processes so that all I need to do is write my blog entry and click the Publish button. While one big benefit is that I will be blogging again, I feel like the biggest benefit was the experience gained from solving problems, spending hours debugging a single problem, trial and error, and accomplishing intimidating tasks so that I will be better equipped to apply the experiences and the new knowledge gained to future projects.
One thing to note is that my RSS feed has changed, so if you subscribe to this blog's feed please update the link in your favorite feed aggregator to http://www.joshuamcinnis.com/blog/rss/rss.php. Also, regarding previous blog entries, I have not updated the archives to incorporate into the new system since it would be too much unadvantageous long work to handle those years' worth of entries, so be prepared for a little bugginess if browsing old entries. New archives from this point on will be fine though.
I hope you enjoy the return of the blog! It was fun to revamp.
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