I have no lust after power but wish with as much fervency as any man upon this wide extended continent, for an opportunity of turning the sword into a plow share.
George is stealing his imagry here from Is 2.4 and Mic 4.3. Thanks, Lewis.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Quote of the Day
George Washington:
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Quote of the Day
John Piper:
There are two kinds of Bible scholars: those who are playful with truth and those who smell the smoke.
Wine/Alcohol in the Bible
It's quite unique to note the way that the biblical writers talk about wine/alcohol. There are primarily two ways that it is referred to.
First, it is seen negatively as that which, because of irresponsibility, should incur judgment and wrath. This negative view of alcohol can be symbolic or literal. Paul says to not be drunk with wine. This is irresponsible and cannot yield living life rightly. On the other hand, Isaiah and the Apostle John write of the the wine press of the wrath of God. See Prov 20.1, Is 51.17-23, Jer 25.15-29, Job 21.17-20, Rev 14.9-10, Eph 5.18, Is 5.11-12, and Rev 16.19.
Secondly, wine/alcohol in the Bible is seen as something celebratory, joyous, or satisfactory. The fact that God gives wine for man to enjoy is grounds for praise for the psalmist. Before you arrive at the end of chapter 12, some of the only snapshots of fulfillment in Ecclesiastes are when Solomon says that we should eat, drink, and be merry. Shockingly, this is not a reference to Welch's. Jesus even kept a wedding fiesta going by making 120 gallons of tasty wine. Conservatively, this is about 2,500 glasses. See Ps 104.14-15, Ecc 5.18, Ecc 9.7, Is 55.1, Mt 26.26-29, Mk 14.22-25, Lk 22.14-20, and Jn 2.1-11.
Maybe, just maybe, balance is the key to many things. Here's the point though: The emphasis on wine in the NT is that it serves as a two-fold eschatological metaphor.
In Revelation, John writes several times about the cup of wine of the fierce wrath of God. This is the negative.
Conversely, in each synoptic gospel, Jesus holds forth hope to His disciples by telling them that He will one day drink New Covenant wine with them in the Kingdom. This is the positive. And I'm looking forward to it.
MY WiFE JUST SAiD:
I remember thinking in middle school that when I get to heaven I'm going to have an eternally long Kit-Kat bar in one hand and an eternally long Slim Jim in the other.
On a much more sweet, beautiful, and maternal note, her last blog is fun.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
THE BiBLE iS KiND OF iMPORTANT
- "As in paradise, God walks in Holy Scriptures, seeking man" [St Ambrose].
- "A single line of the Bible has consoled me more than all the books I have ever read" [Immanuel Kant]."
- Abraham Lincoln called the Bible "the best gift God has given to man."
- A dictionary published by the Soviet government in mid-1900s called the Bible "a collection of different legends, mutually contradictory and written at different times and full of historical errors, issued by churches as a 'holy' book."
- "A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education" [Theodore Roosevelt].
- "There's nothing written in the Bible that says, 'If you believe in Me you ain't going to have no troubles.'" [Ray Charles]
- "Give a man an open Bible, an open, mind, a conscience in good working order, and he will have a hard time to keep from being a Baptist" [A. T. Robertson].
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Maybe We Should Call the Bible Belt the "Live Like Hell" Belt
A team at Kansas State University plotted the geographical sway of the seven deadly sins across America. Those south-easterners are a bunch of rabid hellians. Very interesting graphs here.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Happy Late Birthday, John Calvin
Calvin's 500th birthday was this year. There have been conferences and celebrations all over the world, and rightly so.
I'll steal wisdom from Ghandi here. Of Christianity, he said, "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians; they are so unlike Christ."
I feel the same way about John Calvin. He was a faithful pastor who wanted to preach the Bible. Yet many people who want to go by his name are arrogant knuckleheads. He would've hated the title "protestant" and loved the title "reformer." He was way more Catholic than Presbyterians and Catholics are willing to admit. Timothy George correctly states that Calvin was "a theologian of both/and, not either/or: divine sovereignty and human responsibility, written Word and living Spirit, the Church invisible and the Church congregational, already and not yet."
George's full article can be read here. He discusses Calvinism as it relates to capitalism, Calvin and Servetus, and three reasons Calvin's ideas are getting traction again today.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Chandler on Sanctification
Sanctification here at The Village begins by answering two questions. What stirs your affections for Jesus Christ? And what robs you of those affections? Many of the things that stifle growth are morally neutral. They're not bad things. Facebook is not bad. Television and movies are not bad. I enjoy TV, but it doesn't take long for me to begin to find humorous on TV what the Lord finds heartbreaking.The same goes for following sports. It's not wrong, but if I start watching sports, I begin to care too much. I get stupid. If 19-year-old boys are ruining your day because of what they do with a ball, that's a problem. These things rob my affections for Christ. I want to fill my life with things that stir my affections for him.We want our people to think beyond simply what's right and wrong. We want them to fill their lives with things that stir their affections for Jesus Christ and, as best as they can, to walk away from things that rob those affections—even when they're not immoral.
Read more here.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
THE THOMPSONiAN PSALTER
Some of the following I have posted elsewhere online. But since Little Mr James has made the scene, it has been so satisfying to me to write songs out of the book of Psalms. Some of them are for him and some are for me.
The book of Psalms is actually divided up into five books [1-41, 42-72, 73-89, 90-105, and 106-150]. Some say this in order to liturgically reflect the themes and narratives in the Pentateuch. Whatever the case, the divisions were very important to the editor(s) of the Psalter.
So, along with other psalms, I'm trying to write a song for the first and last psalm in each book of the Psalter. Here are several of my meager efforts thus far.
Friday, September 4, 2009
BiBLE TRANSLATiONS [and the new NiV]
Stereotyping Bible readers. Stolen from Scot McKnight, here. Very funny if, like me, you are way too immersed in American evangelicalism.
- NRSV for liberals and Shane Claiborne lovers
- ESV for Reformed complementarian Baptists
- HCSB for LifeWay store buying Southern Baptists
- NIV for complementarian evangelicals
- TNIV for egalitarians
- NASB for those who want straight Bible, forget the English
- NLT for generic brand evangelicals
- Amplified for folks who have no idea what translation is but know that if you try enough words one of them will hit pay dirt
- NKJV and KJV for Byzantine manuscript-tree huggers
- The Message for evangelicals looking for a breath of fresh air and seeker sensitive, never-read-a-commentary evangelists who find Peterson's prose so catchy
This is, of course, all brought on by the announcement of the new NIV coming out in 2011. Which, if you think about it, could read: The New New International Version Version. Here are some various takes on it all:
Thursday, September 3, 2009
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