The Books and the Parchments

Spurgeon reminds us of the importanct of reading in, Paul—his Cloak and His Books:

How rebuked are they by the apostle! He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a men to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books!

The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, "Give thyself unto reading." The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people.

You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers, and expositions of the Bible.

We are quite persuaded that the very best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master's service. Paul cries, "Bring the books"—join in the cry.

From Between Two Worlds

Christ-Centered Preaching

This morning I read the first chapter (ten more to go) of Christ-Centered Preaching,: Redeeming the Expository Sermon and I was very impressed. I picked up this from Amazon to supplement my reading for Holimetics I. Even though I've only read one chapter so far, I can "sense" that this book will be a great help.

ESPN: Special Preview Edition

Yet another new NBA season is upon us! Here's ESPN's take on the Spurs' chances of taking the 2007 NBA crown.

The Mother-in-law

A couple took a trip to the Holy Land and the husband decided to invite his mother-in-law. Before they even got there she was already complaining about the long flight and he knew he was in for a long trip. For two weeks they visited every major site from the bible. They walked the path that Jesus walked from where he was born in the manger to the tomb where the stone was rolled away. On one of the last days there the couple received some bad news from the hotel manager. A housekeeper had found the mother-in-law in her room dead of a heart attack. The manager informed them that they could take care of the arrangements and bury her in the holy land for only $200.00. If they decided to take her back to the U.S. the expense of preparing the body for the trip and the flight would run about $5,000.00. The husband said he would think about it and let him know the next day. The next day the hotel manager saw the husband in the lobby and asked him if he had made a decision. "I decided to take her back home for the $5,000.00" He told the manager. "That's fine" said the manager "But do you mind me asking why since we can do it here for just $200.00". "Well I've been thinking about it", said the husband, "And in the two weeks that we've been here all I've heard about was this man that they crucified and buried and then three days later he arose from the grave. For $4800.00 I'm not willing to take that chance!"

From: http://www.bestcleanjokes.com/vacation.htm

The Nicene Creed

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, of things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the begotten of God the Father, the Only-begotten, that is of the essence of the Father.

God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten and not made; of the very same nature of the Father, by Whom all things came into being, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.

Who for us humanity and for our salvation came down from heaven, was incarnate, was made human, was born perfectly of the holy virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit.

By whom He took body, soul, and mind, and everything that is in man, truly and not in semblance.

He suffered, was crucified, was buried, rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven with the same body, [and] sat at the right hand of the Father.

He is to come with the same body and with the glory of the Father, to judge the living and the dead; of His kingdom there is no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, in the uncreated and the perfect; Who spoke through the Law, prophets, and Gospels; Who came down upon the Jordan, preached through the apostles, and lived in the saints.

We believe also in only One, Universal, Apostolic, and [Holy] Church; in one baptism in repentance, for the remission, and forgiveness of sins; and in the resurrection of the dead, in the everlasting judgement of souls and bodies, and the Kingdom of Heaven and in the everlasting life.

The world is not running out of oil

"If you think the world is on the verge of running out of oil or other mineral resources, you've been taken in by the foremost of seven myths about resource geology, according to a University of Washington economic geologist." Read full story...

M'Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

CALENDAR FOR READING THROUGH THE WORD OF GOD IN A YEAR By the late Rev. R. M. M'CHEYNE, M. A.

A Slice of Infinity (October 20th, 2006)

Today's Slice of Infinity (A Reasonable Belief) by Jill Carattini is exceptionally good!

Here is an excerpt - "If belief is the readiness to act as if something is true, it follows that unbelief, whether chosen consciously or unconsciously, still affects our behavior. There are consequences to our non-answers in the same way that there are consequences to our answers. And yet, in our society where skepticism is almost encouraged, belief and unbelief are treated quite differently. We do not feel compelled to justify our disbelief in the same way we feel compelled to justify our belief. We expect a certain reasonableness about belief that we don't expect of disbelief, in part because we've been conditioned to see skepticism and disbelief as logical, and belief as emotional or irrational."

Internet Explorer 7 is out

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 is finally out. I have been using it since the early beta and release candidate stages. It's great. Outside of Visual Studio and Windows Media Player, IE is one of the best products Microsoft offers. Download it for Windows XP here.

Seriously mulling a move...

I'm really considering moving my blog to TypePad. I think I'll eventually do so, but this wiill require a lot of time (which I can't spare right now). So I probably won't update this blog that much, but I won't stop writing though.

United too strong!

Manchester United FC have one foot in the UEFA Champions League knockout rounds after a comfortable 3-0 victory over FC København

Legislating morality and the "fight" against AIDS

On page 24A of the Sunday Sun (October 15th 2006) Dr. Wayne Greaves said he would back decriminalizing Barbados’ laws so that those people fighting the spread of the deadly disease (HIV/AIDS) could reach more prostitutes and homosexuals, or bi-sexual men. “Controlling the spread of the disease and the public health problem caused by the disease while saving lives is more important than any individual’s prejudice about morality or otherwise.”

These dubious comments raise two important issues, namely, legislating morality and the idea that decriminalizing high-risk sexual, immoral behaviour will somehow aid in the fight against HIV/AIDS. It was G. K. Chesterton who alluded to the fact that before tearing down a fence, one should always pause long enough to ask themselves why it was put there in the first place.

One of the more disturbing trends early in the 21st century is the deliberate departure from traditional values. We are enduring what Gertrude Himmelfarb called the de-moralization of society. Asinine fatuity is therefore the kindest description we could give to the idea that legalizing any immoral, high-risk sexual behaviour will aid in the “fight” against HIV/AIDS. The morality in the law, whether moral or immoral, tends to become the morality of the people. Take the following example from the United States. Before the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, about 100,000 abortions were performed in the US annually. After Row v. Wade, the number rose to between 1.2 and 1.5 million a year. There are countless other examples one could list, but the fact is, law is always a tutor to morals and a shaper of national character – whether good or evil, moral or immoral.

If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. Similarly, errors are errors regardless of either their prevalence or the persistence of those who advance them. Therefore, no matter how often one hears that you cannot legislate morality, the truth is that you cannot legislate anything else but morality. All laws, whether permissive or prohibitive, legislate morality. All laws, regardless of their content or their intent, arise from a system of values, from a belief that some things are right and others wrong. When it comes to the question of legislation and morality, the question is never whether or not morality will be legislated but which one – for better or worse – will become the law of the land.

One of the functions of law is moral education. Only a well-formed, morally responsible law can help to develop right thinking and right choosing people in a society. Good and decent people do not simply happen, they are nurtured. And whether we admit it or not, the law plays a part in teaching. Ideas have consequences and bad ideas have bad consequences. Decriminalizing prostitution, homosexuality (or any other immoral behaviour for that matter) is a very bad idea. The idea simply smacks of intellectual laziness.

As Michael Bauman, Professor of Theology and Culture, put it: “We must not forget that law is an expression of and a shaper of the conscience of a nation. Consequently, the nearsighted and misguided movement to separate law from morality is as dangerous as it is impossible. Both for nations and for us as individuals, our character is our future. Morality is destiny.”

I'm currently very busy...

• @ WIST
• reading Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview & To Everyone An Answer
• balancing everything else that life encompasses

Google Docs & Spreadsheets

With Google Docs & Spreadsheets, you can:

• Use our online editor to format documents, spell-check and more.
• Upload Word documents, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or text.
• Download documents to your desktop as Word, PDF and more.
• View your documents' revision history and roll back to any version.

This looks like a very interesting (and promising) service from Google. Check out Google's Tour.

Mixed sports bag

In what has to be considered the shock of the MLB century, the Yanks were booted from the postseason by....(deep breath)....the Detriot Tigers. And for the third straight week Peyton Manning had to rescue the Colts from the jaws of defeat!

French police union: Muslims are waging civil war against us

"You'll note that I began that second article, "Has an intifada begun in France — an all-out jihad?" It's interesting that in this piece the police union uses the same word -- intifada. Now the truth is beginning to come out in the mainstream media, almost a year after you could have read it at Jihad Watch."

Yankees are losing :( ... but...

...my books just arrived! I don't know how I'm going to manage with my coursework from WIST and these new books, but we shall see. Although two of the books are specifically for additional reading for Homiletics I. The full list is:

• An Essential Guide to Public Speaking: Serving Your Audience with Faith, Skill, and Virtue
• Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon
• To Everyone an Answer: A Case for the Christian Worldview: Essays in Honor of Norman L. Geisler
• Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview

How about those Yankees?

The New York Yankees got off to a winning start in this year's playoffs (special thanks to Jeter!). Here's hoping they go all the way this time and take the World Series. That disaster against the Red Sox still irks me til this day!

TIME.com: Did a critic of Islam go too far?

Read full story here...

2006 Young Innovators Under 35

Since 1999, the editors of Technology Review have honored the young innovators whose inventions and research we find most exciting; today that collection is the TR35, a list of technologists and scientists, all under the age of 35. Their work--spanning medicine, computing, communications, electronics, nanotechnology, and more--is changing our world.

Time.com coolest sites

50 coolest websites (according to TIME)

DVD: Ravi @ the Roxy

Description from RZIM: "Ravi @ the Roxy was captured at an inaugural ministry event in April. The hip and historic Coca-Cola Roxy Theatre in Atlanta was rented, and an evangelistic event open to the public and with free admission was hosted by RZIM. Within weeks of publicizing the event, tickets were “sold-out,” the venue was packed, and Ravi delivered a persuasive message titled “Questionable Answers.” Now, experience the flavor of the evening, feel the energy of the crowd, hear a compelling presentation of Christianity. We are confident you will find this DVD to be an excellent tool for skeptics and those searching for answers."

I watched this DVD last night and it was quite good. Ravi looked at evil, justice, love and forgiveness and how they all coverge in the cross of Jesus Christ and ultimately point to Him alone as the Way, the Truth and the Life. Highly recommended.

Solskjaer double strike!

Inspired by Cristiano Ronaldo and armed with two goals from Ole Gunner Solskjaer, the Reds returned to winning ways in the Premiership with a comfortable 2-0 victory over a Newcastle side that rarely threatened to deny United all three points. Read full match report on Manutd.com...