You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December, 2008.
Crystal has persuaded me to watch “My Fair Lady.” The jury is still out on this one (it’s playing right now), but my all-time favorite remains “Fiddler on the Roof.”
How about you?
I went bowling with my brother today. I hadn’t been in three and a half years or so. Here were the highlights:
- Being the only ones bowling in the whole alley for the first few games.
- Learning from my brother how to throw a mean spin.
- Watching my brother be sweet at bowling, just like I watch him be sweet at just about any sport.
- Getting to wear a swanky pair of rented shoes.
- Totally wiping out and banging my knee on the wooden floor.
- Using a scoring computer that was probably older than I am.
- Having my brother promise to buy me a steak if I nailed a difficult spare. I blew it.
- Nailing an unbelievably difficult spare by the grace of God. My brother didn’t promise me a steak before that one.
- Having a first game score (84) better than anything I’ve ever golfed.
- Improving my score by 173.8% from the first to the last game.
- Beating my brother once.
- Knowing my puny right bicep (which goes rather well with my puny left bicep) is going to hurt something fierce tomorrow.
Crystal and I like to keep a steady stash of chai tea mix on hand. This makes for an enjoyable drink in any season, but particularly during the wintertime months. Here is the recipe Crystal uses for this toothsome treat:
Ingredients:
1 cup nonfat dry milk powder
1 cup powdered non-dairy creamer
1 cup French vanilla flavored powdered non-dairy creamer
2 1/2 cups white sugar
1 1/2 cups unsweetened instant tea
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
Directions:
- In a large bowl, combine milk powder, non-dairy creamer, vanilla flavored creamer, sugar and instant tea. Stir in ginger, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. In a blender or food processor, blend 1 cup at a time, until mixture is the consistency of fine powder.
- To serve: Stir 2 heaping tablespoons Chai tea mixture into a mug of hot water.
Footnote:
You may choose to omit the French vanilla creamer, and use 2 teaspoons vanilla extract instead. To do so, mix the vanilla into the sugar, let it dry, then break the sugar into small lumps. Follow the same procedure as above.
(From allrecipes.com)
P.S. This tastes really good mixed with hot milk rather than hot water. Rich and creamy.
I think one of the reasons God created big, rippling, burly animals like the rhinoceros or the grizzly bear is to help us be astounded that he is stronger than they are.
Will you play with him [Leviathan] as with a bird, or will you put him on a leash for your girls? Will traders bargain over him? Will they divide him up among the merchants? Can you fill his skin with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? Lay your hands on him; remember the battle — you will not do it again! Behold, the hope of a man is false; he is laid low even at the sight of him. No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up.
Who then is he who can stand before me?
– God to Job (Job 41:5-10)
Jim Hamilton posted this video created by some students at Biola University. The title is “All Things Are Better in Koine.” It’s pretty rich.
Three matters of introduction for any non-Hellenists:
- Koine Greek was the form of Greek that was spoken in the New Testament era. The word “Koine” means “common” because it was the language spoken by common folks at that time.
- About a minute-and-a-half in you’ll start hearing people singing “Leggo my Eggo.” “Lego” is a Greek verb meaning “I say, speak, call.” “Legomai” is it’s middle/passive form, I’m assuming, meaning something like “I am called.” “Ego” is the first person singular pronoun: “I” in English. Thus, the phrase is “Legomai Ego.” Pretty funny.
- During the hip-hop section in the middle you’ll hear the names “Daniel Wallace” and “Bill Mounce.” These are two authors of commonly used Greek grammars.
Enjoy.
Vitamin Z shares an interview he did with Christian music artist Fernando Ortega. Here are his questions:
- Was there a point in time when you knew you were called to be a full time musician?
- What do you enjoy most about your career?
- What are some of your most significant memories of your career as a Christian artist?
- What changes have you observed in the music industry over the years for good or bad?
- Have you maintained a similar style over the years or are there ways that you have sought to adapt and change? If so, why and how?
- What recording (or recordings) of yours are your personal favorite(s)? Why?
- Is it hard to view your ministry also as a business? What are the unique challenges with this reality and how do you deal with them? Are you conflicted at times? How?
- What do you see yourself doing in the next few years with your musical career?
- Congrats on the new baby! How are you feeling as a new Dad later in life?
- How do you want to be remembered?
Here’s a blast from my nerdy past. In order to fully appreciate the photo, though, I’ll need to give you some inside information:
- The background is called “Odyssey.” My parents typically opted for the “Traditional” background. It was the cheapest option. However, this year, Mom and Dad let me splurge and I chose to plant my cheeky mug before a kaleidoscopic galaxy. Maybe I thought it matched my clip-on tie.
- If you look hard enough, you just might be able to see my uvula through the gap in my front two teeth. I had just flossed my pearly whites with a garden hose that morning so the view would be unobstructed. Okay, that’s not true, but I sure had a drafty grin. At least I didn’t have to worry about getting anything smaller than a crescent roll stuck in my teeth.
- This picture was taken in the middle of the silk shirt glory years. My cool friends had them, and I wanted one bad, so my mom eventually took me to a local department store to find one. There were none available in the boys’ section, but my mom, in unfettered parental zeal, snagged one from the girls section, bought it, and cut off the shoulder pads when we got home. If I had lifted up my clip-on tie when the photographer said, “Cheese,” you would be able to see that my shirt buttons were decidedly on the feminine side of the tracks.
How about you? Do you have any embarrassing school picture stories?
Which do you prefer: keeping your house colder during the winter and wearing blankets to save money, or paying the extra cash for better quality of life?
John MacArthur appeared on TBN, interviewed by Kirk Cameron. In the following videos he brings a strong word against modern distortions of the gospel and explains how the biblical gospel is different, emphasizing sin, Christ’s substitutionary death, repentance and faith, and the call to take up your cross and follow Jesus. I feel like his words were a prophetic correction to much of popular prosperity teaching.
HT: Pure Church
Minneapolis is in a deep chill today. Both of my car doors were frozen shut this morning. Thankfully, there is a cloak of snow over everything to bring a beauty to the freeze. Beyond delighting the eyes, however, snow speaks to those who have ears to hear. And it is saying more than one thing:
- “This is a day for valiant acts of faith.” — “And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was a valiant man of Kabzeel, a doer of great deeds. He struck down two heroes of Moab. He also went down and struck down a lion in a pit on a day when snow had fallen.” (1 Chronicles 11:22)
- “God is unspeakably powerful.” — “God thunders wonderfully with his voice; he does great things that we cannot comprehend. For to the snow he says, ‘Fall on the earth,’ likewise to the downpour, his mighty downpour.” (Job 37:5-6)
- “Be humbled, O man.” — “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?” (Job 38:22-23)
- “God commanded me to fall.” — “He gives snow like wool; he scatters hoarfrost like ashes. He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs; who can stand before his cold?” (Psalm 147:16-17)
- “Praise the Lord!” — “Praise the LORD from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word!” (Psalm 148:7-8)
- “Be a faithful servant in all of your roles.” — “Like the cold of snow in the time of harvest is a faithful messenger to those who send him; he refreshes the soul of his masters.” (Proverbs 25:13)
- “Seek wisdom with all of your heart.” — “Like snow in summer or rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool.” (Proverbs 26:1)
- “Take care of your family.” — “She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet.” (Proverbs 31:21)
- “God will forgive your sins through Christ.” — “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)
- “God’s word will accomplish all his purpose.” — “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)
- “This is what Jesus looks like.” — “As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire.” (Daniel 7:9) … “The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters.” (Revelation 1:14-15)
Christianity Today has a short Christmas quiz available. I landed an abysmal 2 out of 7 on this one. How did you do?
Here’s a preview of the questions:
- Who made the first Advent calendars?
- Who was Saint Nicholas?
- Why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25?
- Which of these phrases did C.S. Lewis say about Christmas?
- The first church official to propose special activities for the pre-Christmas period did what?
- Which person is more commonly credited with adorning the first Christmas tree?
- Who created the living creche?
I was thinking last night about inside jokes. They are strange creatures, after all. To function, they require access to privileged linguistic, cultural, or relational information not shared by others. They can either alienate or endear depending on whether or not you understand the contexts they assume.
And then it hit me. Every joke we tell is an inside joke. I’ll admit this is probably an overstatement, but think about it. You have inside jokes with your friends, for example. A word or phrase triggers the memory of some funny or embarrassing moment you’ve shared.
You also have inside jokes within your field of specialty. I have nerdy theological humor that I enjoy with my classmates that others wouldn’t understand. My wife could throw down some nursing banter that would fly over my head. Whatever profession you are, there is some humor that is confined to your discipline or your workplace.
And on it goes. You have jokes that assume a shared church culture, neighborhood culture, hobby culture, food culture, etc. The “in” group might even expand to include whole countries or language groups. In fact, I would argue that “Why did the chicken cross the road?” is an inside joke. Try telling it to an isolated tribe in Papua New Guinea and you’ll see what I mean.
Seth Godin laments the bloating of the cyber-belly with information overload:
Due to the extraordinary explosion in video, blogs, news feeds and social network postings, the internet is dangerously close to running out of room.
Nothing can grow forever, and exponential growth is always short lived. We’re running out of disk space, so if you have something left to say, better hurry. Once it’s full, it’s full.
Of course, the decentralized nature of the net means that it will never be physically full. As long as we can keep making hard drives, we won’t run out of space to store those inane videos of your Aunt Sally. What is full is our attention.
Ten years ago, you had a shot of at least being aware of everything that mattered. Five years ago, you had to be really selective about what you took in, but at least it was possible to know what you didn’t know. Today, it’s impossible. Today, you can’t even read every article on a thin slice of a thin topic.
You can’t keep up with the status of your friends on the social networks. No way. You can’t read every important blog… you can’t even read all the blogs that tell you what the important blogs are saying.
Used to be, you could finish reading your email, hit “check email” and nothing new would show up. Now, of course, the new mail is probably a longer list than the mail you just finished processing.
The internet isn’t full, but we are.
This raises a good question. Given the astronomical amount of information available on the internet, how do you decide what you read each day? Do you have a selective list of sites that you visit? Do you limit the time you spend online? What tips do you have for relating to the internet as a tool and not as a slavemaster?
Paul exhorts us to “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2). If you’re interested in a resource that can help you do that, I would highly encourage listening to the message Sam Storms preached at Desiring God’s 2003 National Conference on Jonathan Edwards. The title of the message is “Joy’s Eternal Increase: Edwards on the Beauty of Heaven.” It is Storms’ attempt to explain Jonathan Edwards’ conception of heaven as an experience of unbridled and ever-expanding happiness in God. I had to listen to this for a class I’m taking on Edwards. It is a masterful address and I think you will be mightily encouraged.
You can listen or watch online or you can download the audio or video by clicking the “Download” link at the message’s web page.
You know the feeling you get when you wake up in the morning and can’t believe you have to get up? What about those precious few times when you wake up and it’s much earlier than you feel like it is and you still have two hours left to sleep? Glorious.
Now, what I’ve found is that you can actually replicate that blissful experience whenever you want. This is one of my quirky occasional pastimes. All you have to do is set two alarms in the morning: one for the time you actually have to get up, and the other for two hours before that time. Try this first on a morning when you have some liberty with your wake-up time in case there are any bugs in the process.
Just imagine it. Your alarm goes off at 5:00am and a wave of panic rushes over you. And then you remember. I don’t have to get up until 7:00am! Trust me. It will be great.
I only have three qualifications:
- I’m not sure how this affects the stability of your body’s sleep patterns. Therefore, it probably shouldn’t become an everyday occurrence. Let it be an occasional treat.
- If you are the kind of person that can’t get back to sleep very well after you wake up, then this activity is probably not for you. It will likely only promote exceeding frustration.
- Be sure to clear this with your spouse or roommate before you attempt a test run. If your spouse is anything like mine, he or she may be the kind of person described in qualification #2 and may not enjoy your experiment as much as you do.
The winner of this month’s book giveaway is Keri Rosen. Congratulations, Keri, and thank you to everyone who participated! Stay tuned for future giveaways.
Al Mohler interacts with a recent report that shows the average American child spends 45 hours a week using some form of media. What I found striking were his comments on how media consumption has, over time, shifted from being a mostly communal diversion to a private one. It has i-Podified, if you’ll permit me to make up a word. Here’s what he says:
Another relatively new phenomenon is the digital revolution and the transformation of media consumption from a largely communal activity to one that is more and more solitary. The television set used to be located in a family gathering place and families watched television together. No longer. Now, televisions are distributed throughout various rooms in most houses, and viewing is increasingly solitary. Millions of American children and adolescents have televisions in their bedrooms — many combined with digital recorders, video games, and other components.
Add to this picture a virtual explosion in the number of children and teenagers with computers and Internet access in bedrooms. Today’s children, equipped with iPods, cell phones, laptops, and portable video players, are seldom more than a few feet (if not inches) separated from media technologies.
Mohler concludes with some helpful counsel for parents who want to shepherd their children well in their use of media.
In the Bowers household growing up, one of the yuletide mainstays was Alabama’s Christmas album. It boasted such songs as “Santa Claus (I Still Believe),” “Joseph and Mary’s Boy,” and “Tennessee Christmas.” Our favorite tune, however, was “Thistlehair the Christmas Bear.” It’s a story about a bear named Thistlehair who lives in the woods and comes around at Christmastime to tell all the children what Christmas means. Here’s the chorus. I hope it’s as delightful to you as it is to me:
Oh, Thistlehair the Christmas bear
Spreadin’ the good news everywhere
About Christmastime and what it means
To all the children of the world
Every little boy and girl out there
Loves Thistlehair.
Crystal likes to make fun of this song. She thinks that it’s silly to sing a song about a Christmas bear. I can handle it better now, but early on in our marriage it was a touchy subject. In fact, during our first Christmas season as a married couple I played this CD once while Crystal was cutting my hair and actually started crying because of all the nostalgia of it all. Yeah, it’s embarrassing. But that’s okay. Thistlehair understands.
For Crystal’s family, Amy Grant and Point of Grace decked their halls. One of the reasons I’m okay with Crystal making fun of my Alabama Christmas CD is because it gives me some latitude to deride Amy Grant’s album. I realize I may alienate some of you by saying this, but I am of the persuasion that this CD could be erased from the public consciousness and we would all be better off. I cringe every time I hear “My Grownup Christmas List.”
Of course, all of this is in good fun. I’m glad Crystal and I get to share — and laugh about — our favorite Christmas music. We also have some CD’s we both enjoy, like City on a Hill’s “It’s Christmas Time” and the music to “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”
What Christmas albums did you grow up with? What are your favorites now?
To further whet your appetite for this month’s giveaway, here is an excerpt from “Total Church” in which the authors contrast a common presentation of the gospel in individualistic terms with an explanation of the biblical storyline as it has to do with the people of God. This has definitely forked some straw into my mental feed trough. I’m still chomping, in fact. Here is what they say:
At the heart of much evangelical piety is the individual soul before God. A personal relationship with God has all too often become an individual relationship with God. This individual relationship is seen as authentic spirituality from which other expressions of spirituality are derived. So people say things like, “We will not be prayerful in the public life of the church unless we have first learned to be prayerful in private.”
In some ways it depends how you tell the Bible story. There is a version that runs something like this: “God made you to know him, but you have rejected God. Your sin cuts you off from God and brings you under his judgment. But God sent his Son to die in your place and reconcile you to God. Now you can know God and look forward to being with him after death.” It is the story of an individual out of relationship with God brought back into relationship with God. This version of the story is true. But it is not the whole truth, nor is it how the Bible itself tells the story.
Hmmm. How many times have I heard — and explained — the gospel in this way? The question, of course, is not whether or not this way of understanding the message of the Bible is true. Chester and Timmis acknowledge this. The question is whether or not there is more that needs to be said. They continue:
Consider instead a different version: “God made humanity to know him and to rule over his good creation. But humanity rejected God, and ever since we have lived in rebellion against him and in conflict with each other. But God chose Abraham and his family to be the beginning of a new humanity. He rescued this people from slavery and made a covenant through which they could relate to him and display his glory to the world. When they persistently rejected God, he promised a remnant who would continue the promise of a people who know God. He promised a new covenant bringing forgiveness for sin and his Law written on their hearts. Ultimately Jesus was that faithful remnant. He died for his people to redeem God’s new humanity. And he rose as the first among many who would enjoy new life in a new creation. God is now gathering his people through the mission of the church and will present them, drawn from all nations, as the perfected bride of his Son.”
The invitation implicit in this story is not simply to an individual relationship with God (though that is one implication). The invitation is to become part of the new people of God, the bride of Christ. It suggests a spirituality with a much more communal orientation. Here is a spirituality in which we grasp the amazing dimensions of Christ’s love “together with all the saints” (Ephesians 3:18). We model and embody God’s love for one another (1 John 4:12). I have a relationship with God because we have a relationship with God. There are persons of God because there is a people of God. (pages 148-149)
What do you think?
This month I’m giving away a free copy of “Total Church” to any new or current subscriber to The Fool’s Gold.
Here’s what to do:
1. Subscribe to The Fool’s Gold by RSS or by e-mail.
2. Contact me letting me know you’re a subscriber, whether new or old.
3. I will randomly select a winner on Friday.
About the Book
“Total Church” is a book by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, British co-founders of a church-planting initiative called The Crowded House. The book argues for doing “ordinary life with gospel intentionality” and stresses the necessity of being both gospel-centered and community-centered in the way we approach evangelism, discipleship, apologetics, pastoral care, etc. I have about twenty pages left in the book, and I doubt these pages will be any less delightful and provocative than the first 180. I highly recommend it.
Zach Nielsen at Take Your Vitamin Z had this to say about the book:
I have just finished reading Total Church by Steve Timmis and Tim Chester and can say without qualification that this book is one that most pastors and church leaders should consider picking up and reading. You won’t agree with everything these guys write, but the content is worth wrestling through.
I found that the conclusion was one of the most powerful sections of the book and as with many other books I wish the conclusion would have been the introduction. Many of the objections that will be raised to this book would be squelched if the conclusion was read as the introduction. Read the conclusion first and then work your way through the book. You won’t be disappointed.
You can also read an interview with Tim Chester at the DG Blog.
