07.15.08
Why God Doesn’t Fully Explain Pain
The problem is, we would have to be God to grasp all that God is doing in our problems.
Restraining Grace, Redeeming Grace and the Words We Speak
Paul Tripp speaks of the impact and import of the words we speak as well as what would happen if God did not restrain our tongues.
07.10.08
Life Update
Why am I not blogging regularly? Let me count the ways…
- Just finished two quarters of school where I carried a near-full load each quarter (10-11 units)
- Still taking a class this summer and trying to wrap up work on a class I didn’t finish last quarter (thank you God for extensions…)
- Managing development operations for SJV Tech
- Managing development operations and a member of the development team for Lotpath
- Leading worship most weekends at The Well (due to unplanned staffing changes at our church)
- Kaitlyn and Kyle are on the Kingsburg Seawolves swim team
- Most spare time I have left is spent with my lovely wife
I’ll graduate from school in May of 2010 with my M.A. I’m just over half-way done. Hopefully our church will be able to staff up this fall so that I don’t have to lead as often. And swim team will end in a week. If I can just hang in there a bit longer…
07.09.08
Exegetical Diagramming
I received an e-mail this morning from a reader asking how I came about my method for exegetical diagramming of scripture passages. I used this method when I preached on Foolish Things a few months ago (see 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 Exegetical Diagram). In case any other readers are curious as to my method, the following is my response:
My approach is a bit of a hybrid between methods I learned in hermeneutics class, books, and my own personal methods.
In hermeneutics, we used a book called “How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth” by Fee and Stuart which does a good job of discussing issues of the context, history and genre of each text. The specific structural method comes from chapter 2, section 1 of “New Testament Exegesis” by Gordon Fee (same Fee who co-wrote the previous book). The highlighting, circling and lines are simply personal inventions of my own taken from my experiences with things like the Inductive Study Bible and simply being creative with thinking through how to bring out authorial intent in my diagramming.
If you find this method useful in your study of the Word, let me know!
06.27.08
Knowledge Increases Mystery
I have thought this for a long time.
Increased knowledge does not equal decreased mystery. It’s the other way around.
It’s nice to see John Piper and Jonathan Edwards explain it so well.
06.24.08
Great Schism
I was talking to a friend recently about my fledgling understanding of the Orthodox church. I took a Church History class earlier this year and took advantage of the opportunity to learn more about this branch of the Christian church. So for my friend, and for you also if you’re interested, here’s my paper. Let me know what you think if you take the time to read it. I’d love to hear your thoughts/experiences/interactions regarding the Orthodox church.
Secret Lego Vault
Every Lego set ever made, all in one place. Wow.
George Carlin
Though he often had a foul mouth, George Carlin was an incredibly creative comedian. I always loved his scathing social commentary, like in his stuff sketch. And of course he was eminently quotable:
We are the proud parents of a child whose self-esteem is sufficient that he doesn’t need us promoting his minor scholastic achievements on the back of our car.
Party on, Rufus.
06.18.08
Politics Test
Not really anything I didn’t know already, but this test does give an interesting graphical perspective. Although I think Fascism isn’t as economically permissive as this chart states. Facism is a leftist ideology, not a rightist one. This is largely due to the fact that economically permissive societies cannot exist without some level of social permissiveness. The Nazis were fascist and were only “economically permissive” toward individuals and corporations that agreed with their ideology. But they were decidedly against economic permissiveness when it came to dissenters and Jews.
So fascism is not truly economically permissive. It really belongs down where Totalitarian, Socialist and Democrat meet (there’s a reason it’s called national socialism).
You are a
Social Liberal (68% permissive)
and an…
Economic Conservative (78% permissive)
You are best described as a:
Libertarian
|
06.16.08
Who are the aggressive drivers?
Colorado State University has completed an interesting study of aggressive drivers. They have found that people who mark their cars with decals and stickers are more likely to act out on their “road-rage”. What’s particularly interesting is that it didn’t seem to matter what the messages were on the stickers. Whether the sentiment was “my kid beat up your honor student” or “practice random acts of kindness” the researchers found that the mere presence of bumper stickers was a solid indicator of driver aggression. And the more personal expressions adorning the car, the more aggressive the driver.
I’d like to know if this finding holds true for people with “Christian fish” on their cars.
Politics is Not About Facts
Thomas Sowell on politics:
“Politics is not about facts. It is about what politicians can get people to believe.”
06.10.08
Public Choice Theory
Food for thought in an election season.
Public Choice Theory: instead of imagining what a wise, omniscient, benevolent government might do, one should pay attention to how government operates in practice.
06.09.08
iPhone If Only
I’m glad I haven’t bought an iPhone (yet):
“If I’d spent that original US$599 on Apple stock instead, I’d be able to buy a new iPhone 3G and have about US$599 in assets to my name.”
Derrie-air Airlines
Wow, an airline that charges you based on weight. Not just the weight of your luggage, mind you. Your weight.
Guess I should work on losing those extra couple of pounds before I fly again. Heh.
06.08.08
The Home Stretch
Just one more week. If I can just crank out another 40 pages. I think I can, I think I can…
05.31.08
Manhood, Womanhood and Judges
I just finished writing my final paper for Old Testament 501. The paper presents a complementarian view of the story of Deborah and Barak (Judges 4-5, especially Judges 4:4-9). I was restricted to eight pages, so I had no hope of performing a full analysis of differing perspectives on this passage. Maybe later when I have time (as if I’ll ever have the time?).
And now I’ve got to finish a 50-60 page paper for another class. Whew!
05.20.08
A Story of Redemption
My father-in-law posted a great story of repentance, reconciliation and redemption on his blog today. Check it out.
05.15.08
Celebrity Church Planting
Wise words from a self-proclaimed church planting novice who is learning to be missional in Austin, TX.
Adopting a model that works is not planting a missional church.
Missional churches develop their missional practices and ecclesiastical models not by copy-cating but by understanding their own context so well that they become the expert on how to best be the church in their town, city, county.
05.13.08
Social Networking
Myspace and LinkedIn and Facebook, oh my!
I set up a myspace page probably 2 years ago. Then I got around to creating a linkedin page. And a few weeks ago, I finally drank the kool-aid and joined facebook.
Of course getting in touch with old friends and keeping it touch with new ones is nice. But what’s been really interesting is discovering the ways that my friends know each other. I’ve already had a handful of experiences now where I’ve been shocked to discover that “friend A who I met in college and friend B who I met at a summer camp met each other on the other side of the world, and now they are friends.” I can’t imagine how else I would have ever discovered these random connections.
The world is getting way too small.
My Love, The Mother of My Children
Amy just posted some sweet pictures of our kiddos and she describes some of the reasons she loves being their mother.
05.12.08
Mark Driscoll Fan
While I may despise Facebook on principle, I was finally sucked in a couple of weeks ago. When I tried to become friends with Mark Driscoll, I was unable to do so because apparently Facebook has a limit on the number of friends you can have (5000 I believe). So I had to become a fan of his. Is Facebook just utterly lame?
Mark posted a nice sarcastic video on his “fan page” to express his despair at the fact that I cannot be his friend (well, not me personally, but the collective “we” that may want to be his friend).
The Grace of Wrath
Here are a couple of interesting questions to ponder:
What if God’s wrath is not a caveat, qualification, or even a counterpoint to his love, but an expression of it? What if God grieves sin less because it offends his sensibilities, and more because he hates the way it distorts our perceptions and separates us from him?
05.11.08
Two More Years
Even though I spent two weeks in San Diego, I’ve still got 5 weeks left before this quarter is finished. And then I’ve still got another two years before I graduate in May 2010. When I am done, I will have earned a Master of Arts in Transformational Leadership (MATL). This degree is a sort of hybrid between an M.A. in Theological/Biblical Studies and an M.A. in Organizational Leadership. If you know me well, you know how much I love interdisciplinary pursuits, so this program fits me well.
I’ve been asked a couple of times recently what the purpose is of such a degree. Actually, the possibilities are numerous: entrepreurship, non-profit org. management, business leadership, church planting, etc. Another question I’ve been asked is how I plan to use this degree. In the short term, it is giving me the opportunity to learn more about leading in my current business and ministry environments. In the long term, well, I’ll save that for a future post. Although eventually I would definitely like to teach at the university/graduate level and this will require a Doctoral degree. Oh, man, I guess I’m going to end up as Dr. Doolittle whether I like it or not.
