December 2010 Archives

My quest to learn Greek continues. I am now working especially hard to memorize the various Greek prepositions and starting on learning about adjectives. I also have a few new tools in my hands this week than I had when I made my last post. For Christmas, my wife bought me the workbook to go with the Mounce text (see the Amazon referral link to the left of the page). I also bought an upgrade to Logos Bible Software 4.

I had almost convinced myself that I didn’t really need the workbook, but after I opened it up and started working through some of the exercises, I decided I was wrong. The practice in identifying nouns by case and performing some elementary translations has been really helpful already. Since I’m not taking a Greek course somewhere, I’m glad to find the answers for the workbook available from the author’s web site.

In the workbook, I’m well behind where I’m reading in the book, but that’s kind of a good thing as it is both a good review of the information I haven’t read in a few weeks and tends to be the stuff I really feel ready to to practice.

As for Logos, it gives me a nicely tagged an annotated version of the Greek manuscripts to work with as well as interlinear tools for study. As I continue to practice and expand my vocabulary, it will become more helpful in that it provides dictionaries, search tools, and other bits for seeing how various translators have treated words in their context. This will become increasingly important as I move beyond what the Mounce text is able to teach me (which is several months away).

In the text book, I’ve now read the chapter on adjectives. In Biblical Greek, adjectives have the interesting property that they will take on the gender, case, and number of the word they are applied to. This can help greatly when trying to understand which word the adjective modifies. This is important because Greek syntax allows words to be ordered for emphasis rather than for structure (this is different from English the position of an adjective tells you practically everything about what noun it modifies).

Anyway, since a Greek noun can switch genders depending on what noun it modifies, it can have practically every inflection possible. Whereas a noun will only ever take on the endings that are dictated by its gender.

My progress continues. I am now up to 130 flash cards (117 are vocabulary) and I have completed the first 6 exercises in workbook. I need to start timing my speed at reading 1 John 1 so I can start measuring my speed at reading the text aloud. I am starting to understand tidbits of it as I read, but I still have a long ways to go.

Cheers.

Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things. — 2 Peter 1:12-15

If you have not read it yet, you need to read the post on 2 Peter 1:5-7. There, Peter declares what it looks like to pursue maturity in Christ. As a reminder, the qualities Peter recommends include:

• Faith
• Virtue
• Knowledge
• Self-control
• Steadfastness
• Godliness
• Brotherly Affection
• Love

It is interesting that Peter writes this letter and says in it about the letter itself, “You already know this, but I am reminding you.” In this life, we face a conflict within ourselves. Christians have a new spirit of righteousness, but the same old corrupted flesh. (Galatians 5:17; Romans 7:14) As such, we must constantly be reminded of the fundamentals. Every mature Christian needs the same regular dose of the plain gospel as the new believer who is still working out the basics. In our carnal nature we still to desire that which we should not do and every one of us can stand to be reminded again. (Romans 7:15)

It tells us something more. Peter intended his letter to be read by you and me. Not specifically by name, but the letter is intended to be passed on to the following generations of believers. He magnifies this remark later on in chapter 3, but we will get to that later. For now, I want to point out that Peter knew his end was coming soon and that all that would be left of him were his writings. So, he wrote down these important reminders that every believer needs, “so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.” (2 Peter 1:15)

The final item of interest is that Peter saw the prophesied day approaching. Jesus Christ predicted Peter’s death. Jesus made this prophecy after the resurrection at the end of a story I find to be one of the most personally meaningful in the Bible.

I would love to retell the whole story, but you can read about it at the end of the Gospel of John in chapter 21. Basically, Jesus restores Peter following Peter’s three-time rejection of Christ on the morning before Jesus was crucified. Then, he says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” John adds the comment here, “(This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.)” (John 21:18-19)

Jesus confirmed for Peter the thing which Peter had once swore he would do: die for Jesus. Peter had just proven himself faithless by denying Christ to save his own life the morning of Christ’s own crucifixion. Jesus tells Peter, after restoring, him (my paraphrase), “You will, in fact, die for my name as you promise.” Peter had to first learn the hard lesson that to do the work of Christ requires leaning on the grace of Christ. He failed to do that the night of the crucifixion. Tradition states that Peter was indeed crucified as Christ was, shortly after writing this letter of 2 Peter.

I think it would be a worthy goal of every Christian for his testimony to Christ be as Peter’s. To serve Christ so whole-heartedly that we would be a reminder to others to hold fast the fundamentals when we are gone. It is a worthy goal to hold so fast to the faith that we would be willing to face persecution and martyrdom for the name Christ. I don’t wish to face such a trial myself, but any man who does is greatly blessed in the day of such a trial. (Luke 6:22; Mark 13:13)

Cheers.

Virgin Birth. I think Dr. Mohler has done this every year for a few years, but it’s certainly worth repeating. The virgin birth is kind of important to salvation. If you deny the virgin birth, you are basically denying that Jesus Christ is who he claims to be and after that, what is the point?

Abusive Priests. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20) While a terrible tragedy, I do not find this abuse in the Roman church to be surprising. “They commit adultery and walk in lies; they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his evil.” (Jeremiah 23:14) If that’s offensive, I won’t apologize, but I will explain. They have embraced and engaged in teaching terrible apostacy. From teaching works-based salvation to elevating saints and Mary to priests and intercessors (a position now held only by Jesus) to elevating a single man as the sole and absolute arbiter of truth on earth who is also not Jesus, they hold to the definition of false teaching. Then, they further prove this by their moral failings. The Bible warns us that false teachers are sensual and godless sinners. (2 Peter 2) The Roman church must return to it’s roots and return to the Jesus in the Bible if it really wants to remove this stain. The Roman church must, itself, repent.

Calvinism. Eddy Eddings is just plain funny.

No really, he’s funny!

Science and Religion. Scientists are very tolerant and open minded. Not. It might be found not true or it might be thrown out on a technicality, but this is real. It is becoming less and less acceptable in America and in scientific fields to express opinions that are considered deviant.

Climate Change. I saw a number of articles related to the Met Office’s abysmal record on predicting seasonal weather patterns lately. It seems they want things to be more doomy and gloomy than matching with reality. This article about Piers Corbyn is a good summary that shows where the climate change fear-mongering is just whacky and not based on reality.

Fact Checking. The Wall Street Journal has a great article this week on one of my recent peeves, the fact checking web site. It’s not that fact checking is not a good idea or that having a web site dedicated to the task is a bad idea. The problem is that to do so and claim to be objective is specious and misleading. Unless you are able to cover every angle of the issue in you fact checking, you will be promoting just spin and your own opinions. Very often, something is both true and false merely by defining your terms. The “Death Panels” are an excellent example. Sarah Palin was blasted by several fact checkers over that term, but they did so by avoiding the definition she uses for the term. I might be persuaded that it was unfair demagoguery, but so are many of the “facts” used to sell ObamaCare. How many fact checkers avoided those topics or chose to support the definitions selected by the bills supporters? I don’t know, but that’s the problem.

FOXNews Bashing. I wondered about it when I saw it posted to Slashdot, it seemed a little too convenient. A recent report that is being used to bash FOXNews is actually not a very good argument against FOXNews. Previous surveys have shown that viewers of the FOX tend to be very well informed. It turns out that the report itself uses questionable methodology and even states within itself that to blame FOX over this one report is uncalled for.

Christianity. I enjoy the work of J. C. Ryle. Someday, I hope to actually finish reading Old Paths. A recent quote of the day from Ryle makes a great point about Christianity. We must find our truth from facts. Either Jesus was a real person who said the things the Bible says he said, or Christianity is completely false. The good news is, the facts are on our side.

Fatherhood. This one goes pretty much without explanation. If a father attends church, his children probably will. If he does not, his children probably will not.

Net Neutrality. Net neutrality sounds like a good idea, but it does not mean what you think it means. And Internet access is definitely, definitely not a civil right..

Black Kettles. Any time an actor or rock star criticizes the earnings of someone else, it’s worth a laugh. Thanks, Ben Affleck.

Santa. He had a hard year.

Google Docs. And, in case you haven’t seen it yet, this was an diverting waste of time.

Cheers.

The child, the philosopher, and the religionist have all one question: “What is God like?”

This book is an attempt to answer that question. Yet at the outset I must acknowledge that it cannot be answered except to say that God is not like anything; that is, He is not exactly like anything or anybody. — A. W. Tozer

As a father, this is something I can say I have experienced to a limited extent from the other end of the spectrum now. One of the interesting facts of childhood is that your parents are like gods, incomprehensible, and totally sovereign. As you grow older, you learn that this is not actually the case, but the knowledge of a three or four year old, this is true enough. Young children only know God in what they see in their earthly father and mother.

From the other side, I know that I have a hard time explaining some things to my son. He’s now four, but he sometimes asks the most extremely difficult questions. For example, he asked me what I do at work. How do I explain taxes, tax collection, payments, credit cards, checks, electronic checks, banking, fees, and all other tidbits? (That’s not even covering the software development aspects.) I didn’t. The conversation was something like this:

Dad: You like to play at the park?
Son: Yes. (delivered with a condescending glare)
Dad: Well, because we own a house near the park, we help pay for all the fun things you play with at the park. That’s called taxes.
Son: That’s silly.
Dad: At work, I help people pay their taxes so that the parks near their houses will be fun to play on.
Son: Can we go play cars now?

I find most of what I do at work nearly incomprehensible and I have a pretty good grasp on this stuff. He’s four and without hope of really understanding any of this for at least a dozen years and probably will never understand it to the depth I have unless he ends up in local government.

The intellect knoweth that it is ignorant of Thee because it knoweth Thou canst not be known, unless the unknowable could be known, and the invisible beheld, and the inaccessible attained. — Nicholas of Cusa

God is infinitely more incomprehensible. We have all of eternity to get acquainted and we’ll never finish the task of knowing God as He truly is.

I think Tozer strikes a blow to the heart of human knowledge when he says, “We want a God we can in some measure control.” This is true of virtually every scientific or pursuit of knowledge. We want to take the complex and difficult to understand things and make them simple. Historically, people often did this by using superstition. Now, we make educated guesses, but still make the mistake of thinking we understand complex issues better than we do.

Whether it’s biology or meteorology or anthropology or psychology or paleontology or physics or mathematics or anything else, in most areas of most fields we have just enough knowledge to ask a few interesting questions. Assuming we continue to push our knowledge forward for the next hundred years, or great-grandchildren will be laughing at some of our ridiculous notions just as we can laugh at the fact that 100 years ago people worried that if you drove in a car too fast your face might tear off.

“The God of contemporary Christianity is only slightly superior to the gods of Greece and Rome, if indeed He is not actually inferior to them in that He is weak and helpless while they at least had power.”

In the case of God, most of humanity wants a safe god. He’s like a bigger than life person. He’s cool, he’s nice, he really wants to do whatever we want him to do. He’s not very demanding and he really wants us to have fun. Or whatever idol that is constructed. Most of the gods out there are created in man’s image and not the incomprehensible and terrifying and yet merciful God of the Bible.

In Christ and by Christ, God effects complete self-disclosure, although He shows Himself not to reason but to faith and love. Faith is an organ of knowledge, and love an organ of experience.

This is really a restatement of Matthew 11:27, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

If the Son chooses to reveal himself to you, you will know something about the Father. You will know enough. If the Son does not choose to reveal himself to you, you will know nothing of the Father and nothing of God. This is not a cosed invitation. All are welcome to seek the Son and the revelation He can provide of the Father.

“What is God like?” If by that question we mean “What is God like in Himself?” there is no answer. If we mean “What has God disclosed about Himself that the reverent reason can comprehend?” there is, I believe, an answer both full and satisfying.

Through the Word, that is Jesus and his scripture, you can learn enough of the Father to know God. But this knowledge is never complete. We all must start with the holy terror that is God and move from there to full understanding of his holiness and his mercy. (Provers 1:7)

Cheers.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. — Philippians 2:5-11

This time of year, a lot is said about Christmas in the world and most of it is either wrong or missing the point. Some will say Christmas is about giving or Christmas is about mercy or Christmas is about charity or Christmas is about peace on earth and goodwill toward men. All of these may be excellent, but all of them miss the point. Christmas is about Christ (it is the Christ Mass after all) and not just any Christ, but the Christ. He is God become flesh, born of virgin birth, raised as a carpenters son, engaged in a three year long ministry, willingly chose to die on the cross, and is raised to life on the third day. He is a real historical person. All of human history centers on this one man and Christmas is when we celebrate his arrival on earth.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” — Luke 2:11-14

Christ’s whole ministry, even including his birth, was humble. He was born to peasants. His mother was probably still a teenager when Jesus was born. We do not know anything about the circumstances of the birth itself, but we know that his very first bed was a feeding trough for horses or cattle, probably in a stable or cave. His birth was announced by angels, but the announcement is not sent to any religious or political authorities, but to some local sheep herders. We know that his father was a laborer, most likely a carpenter, but possibly a mason. He was taught in the synagogue as was the custom among Jews of that day, but this was not a prestigious training such as the apostle Paul received, but the more common variety. Humility more than anything else characterized the life of Christ even though He was God. (John 1:1)

There are those who would distract from Jesus at this time to examine Mary, even to the point of engaging in heretical idol worship of her. Mary was no goddess. She had no special power. She has no power now. She was not especially virtuous or holy or conceived without sin or whatever. All of that is just made up by overzealous blasphemers. Mary was chosen to be the most blessed mother of the Messiah. That is quite enough honor to be had all by itself. “all generations will call me blessed.” (Luke 1:48) I’m certain she would be horrified by how some have chosen to magnify her. In her own words, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.” (Luke 1:46-48) Magnify Christ and through him the Father, anything less is idolatry.

There are yet others who want to make Christ less than He is. The unitarians, the Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and all the other Socinians, to them Jesus is just a god or like a god or created by God as another god. These too are blasphemers who will, if they fail to repent, be forced to admit that Christ is Lord one day, but it will not be a pleasant admission. (Philippians 2:11; Revelation 20:15) Christ may have humbled himself to take on the nature of man (Philippians 2:8) and may have submitted to the Father (John 5:19), but is fully God and was never anything less. (John 1:1-2; John 10:30; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Titus 2:13; 1 John 5:20)

Christmas is about Jesus Christ. It is a time to reflect upon Him and the work of redemption He provides. Christmas is a time to reflect upon his birth, his life, and his ministry. Jesus was a man of humble origins seeking to bring humbles sinners to repentance. He healed a few, but did not heal everyone. He blessed a few, but not everyone. He invited a few to follow Him, but not everyone. He even admonished, yelled at, and whipped a few who deserved it. (John 2:15)

Above, all he came to bring a message, which I think is summed up perfectly in John 3:1-21, when he spoke to Nicodemus, the rabbi about being born again. He concludes with this:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God.” — John 3:16-21

Left to ourselves, we all stand condemned. The invitation to come into the light is still at hand. May each of us seek the light anew or seek it now for the first time.

To Christ be all the glory and honor and to the Father and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I need to do a better job of getting these organized during the week. With Gabe’s birthday party, I haven’t had much time to get this cleaned up. But, here we go…

Expository Preaching. Matthew Harmon has posted a repost of 10 Reasons for Expository Preaching. Expository preaching is not the only kind of sermon that can be done, but preaching slowly and steadily through a book is, quite simply, the best and most reliable way to understand Scripture. I don’t think the value of expository preaching cannot be overstated

Calvinism. Eddie Eddings has a lovely little card featuring a great quote from R.C. Sproul:

Christmas. This is an instant classic. Too bad they have to go and ruin it with amillienialism. :-p

Atheism. This is by no means the best argument against atheism, but it does make a point. Atheists seem to be selecting themselves out of the gene pool by failing to reproduce. Apparently, believing in Darwinism is not a good survival trait because, for humans, bringing children into the world is more an act of faith than of survival.

Sins. In case you need a reminder of the deadly sins going into the holiday season.

Mormonism. Mormon Coffee had an interesting post this week that illuminates just how exactly Mormonism can claim to find support in the Bible, but gets it so wrong. When the historic founders of your doctrine don’t have the time to study what he’s talking about from the Bible you can expect to fall into deep heresy. I know many find people who are Mormons but, as the saying goes, there will be many nice people in Hell. It’s not enough to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord, you have to acknowledge the correct one and worship Him according to the truth. Romans 10:1-4 is speaking about Paul’s kin, the Israelite, but I think it applies quite well to LDS, ” Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

Iraq War. Apparently Katie Couric recently interview Condoleezza Rice with regard to our original reasons for going to war in Iraq. Rice does a nice job of explaining why the reasoning that led to the war was sound, even if in hindsight it turned out to be based upon faulty intelligence. I admit to having mixed feelings about the war in Iraq and whether we really should have gone there, but the whole “Bush Lied” thing is a crock. Saying that we shouldn’t have gone there on the justification we used is one thing, but saying that Bush and Rice exaggerated the intelligence from the get go is about as useful as questioning where President Obama was born.

Mexico. There’s an interesting piece over at RedState discussing the rather difficult nature of our southern neighbors in Mexico. We haven’t invaded Mexico in a century, but perhaps that may have to change soon if Mexico cannot get a hole of itself.

Weapons. This is cool. I want a rail gun too.

Education. From the I-can’t-believe-she-still-has-a-job department, a teacher who asked fellow kindergartners to vote on whether a certain student standing in front of the class should be allowed to continue going to school has been able to settle the lawsuit brought against the school district by the family of the child and keep her job. It’s good to know there are high quality public teaching professionals available. cough

Healthcare. A judge has found Obamacare unconstitutional. Well. Duh.

Climate Change. In an interesting case study of why subsidies are stupid, we now see that subsidizing good chemicals over bad has resulted in Europe helping fund the manufacture of bad chemical in China that are making it into the American black market. Mucking in free markets is always a dicey business. I’m not a fan.

Phones. This is hilarious, but scarily I could actually see something like it happening in a few years:

Software Development. Lastly, I’d like to share some excellent programming quotes. If you are a software monkey, married to a software monkey, or work with software monkeys, you’ll probably laugh at least a few of these.

Merry Christmas!

For if these qualities are yours and increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fail. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. — 2 Peter 1:8-11

Peter is now reinforcing for us the purpose of having the virtues he enumerated previously in verses 5-7. “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brother affection with love.”

Verses 8, 10, and 11 give us the good news while verse 9 gives us the bad. Let’s start there. If you, as a Christian believer, fail to practice and work on these virtues you are as good as blind and you will lack the assurance of salvation. As James 1:23-24 puts it, “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he look at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.” It isn’t good enough to know belief, but you must do it. If you don’t do it, it’s almost as good as being an unbeliever. How can you be assured of salvation if you don’t behave as if you believed it?

On the other hand, if you do these things. If you take hold of your faith and supplement it with virtue, then move on to knowledge, then on to self-control, then to steadfastness, then on to godliness, and then on to brotherly affection, and finally take hold of love, you will avoid being ineffective and unfruitful in your pursuit of God. (v. 8) This pursuit will bring you assurance of your salvation. (v. 10) Finally, this assurance will prove fruitful when you finally pass from life into death and into life again through the resurrection, so long as you pursue these virtues until the end. (v. 11)

This passage is, overall, about our role in working out our own faith. Faith is not some magical gift delivered by God that somehow works itself out. We can’t just sit on our laurels and do nothing once God has chosen us. “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12) God, in turn, rewards this diligence with assurance.

Cheers.

I have no worked my way through chapter 8 of Mounce, which covers nominative and accusative nouns (subject and direct object forms), genitive and dative nouns (possessive and indirect object forms), and prepositions.

Greek word forms are a bit more complicated than in English. Most of the time in English, a word has the same form now matter how it is used. Our pronouns are one of the rare exceptions. For example,

• He drove the car.
• The car took him somewhere.

The word “he” changes to “him” when the pronoun changes from subject to object. The word “car” does not change when it makes the same switch. In Greek, the word would change. These changes in Greek are the nominative and accusative cases. Furthermore, Greek words are divided into three declensions, of which I’ve only learned two, first and second declension. The basic first declension words end in alpha (α) or eta (η) and are feminine in gender. The basic second declension words end in omicron (ο) and have either masculine or neuter gender. In Greek, gender doesn’t mean the words are manly or girlish or what-not, but it selects which kinds of articles and word endings are used. (This is something I’m already familiar with from learning German, where the word for girl, Mädchen, is actually a neuter gender word because of the suffix -chen, which means little.)

Greek, like English, also has special forms for possessive words, called the genitive case. For example, in English:

• That is my car.
• That is Gabe’s car.

Here “my” is the possessive form of “I” and and “Gabe’s” is the possessive form of “Gabe.”

Finally (or at least so far as I’m concerned thus far), Greek has a special case for indirect objects called the dative case. These words show up in situations like:

• I drive a car of awesomeness.

Here, “I” is the subject, “car” is the direct object, and “awesomeness” is the indirect object.

In addition to learning all of this, I have been learning about the definite article (the definite article in English is “the”). Greek does not have an indefinite article (in English the indefinite article is “a”). But the article in Greek is helpful in identifying which form a particular word is in because certain case forms in Greek are ambiguous.

In the picture at the top, you can see a table I drew on my whiteboard in my office showing all the first and second declension noun cases and articles for all three genders, nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative cases, and singular and plural forms. I’ve actually changed that table a bit since taking that photo to better identify where cases or articles are similar.

I’m now up to 113 flash cards (96 for vocabulary) in Anki and am steadily improving my speed at reading through 1 John in Greek.

Cheers.

I’m a day late with this post. I blame the Christmas lights, which I had to put up in the fracking cold (“fracking” is a technical term in this usage). I’m still hoping to put up some more lights, but I haven’t gotten to them yet. In the meantime, here’s this…

False Teaching. I start this week with a serious danger facing any church and one that I fear many evangelical churches take too lightly. When selecting a pastor, you must never assume that the candidate that you are evaluating is saved. He may have excellent recommendations and what-not, but you need to be sure this man knows the Savior and test him before you decide to place him in charge of your church. I recommend Dusman’s worthy words on the dangers an unconverted pastor presents to his flock.

Christmas. Also at Triablogue, some explanations of why December 25 is the day we call Christmas and why the accusation of pagan influence is probably not quite accurate, or at least unsubstantiated. There’s also some discussion on what is a baffling topic to me, whether or not we should even celebrate this holy day.

Maps. This was completely random, but I came across a nifty tool for printing map-lined envelopes this week while looking for something else (which I never found).

eBooks. This week, Google launched its new eBookstore with lots of public domain stuff. This also pairs nicely with the new PDF reader built into Chrome.

Screenshots. I don’t know why this has to be harped on anymore, but apparently it does.

This is not rocket science. Not in Windows. Not in Mac OS X. Not in Linux. My favorites, though, are the faxed screenshots. People who fax screenshots should be pilloried.

Jobs. Dr. Mohler notes, this week, that there’s a controversy in Kentucky this week regarding the creation of a Noah’s Ark themed theme park. Rather than focusing on the jobs it would create, it seems some folks are more worried about how backwards it makes Kentucky look. A Noah’s Ark theme park seems a little silly to me, but whatever. If people will pay to go ride rides at the “Ark Encounter” sure great. It’s just funny to watch how bent out of shape some folks get over something so trivial when it actually could actually provide real benefits (jobs) to many and help the local economy.

International Students. I was horrified to read about the darker side of student visas this week. You mock me, but depravity is everywhere and will exercise itself wherever it can and more often where folks can get away with it.

Liberalism. Thanks to coworker Doran for sharing this with me.

As far as I can tell, that video is not only funny but dead accurate. “Are you sure you’re not a creationist?”

Taxes. I wanted to post something about the tax talks going on, but it seems there is such a cacophony of disagreement on the subject I couldn’t find any good summaries of what’s going on.

Science and Faith. Thanks again to Triablogue for pointing out this very interesting read on the subject of science and monotheism that was posted at the NYT. I realize that Mr. Davies and I do not see eye to eye, which is very obvious if you read the rebuttles and his response to them you can find linked from here. However, I agree with much of what he writes in the NYT. Where I disagree is that he thinks that by removing the expectation of order away, you’ll end up with better physics. I dissent. At that point, you can’t pursue science. Without symmetry (the assertion that an experiment is repeatable in different places and at different times), you lose repeatability and you might as just be guessing again. You’re back to voodoo. Monotheism is foundational to science for good reason.

Climate Change. I haven’t discussed one of my favorite topics very much lately, but I really think computer models are a crappy way to do science. Computers are great for analyzing data and such, but simulations are almost always garbage when it comes to complex systems. It almost seems like too many scientists these days grew up playing SimCity and SimEarth and somehow think that those were a good reflection of reality, when they are a really bad reflection of reality. They were just toys. Weather simulations are the same. They’re just toys.

National Insecurity. My friend Jim sent me a story about some recent idiotic behavior in Denver by the police. The Denver police had an hours long stand off with a small plastic robot last week. The picture is classic. The example of how unmanned the Denver police are is tragic.

Futurism. Challies has some sobering words regarding our societies growing infatuation with whistle blowers and a new kind of expose your neighbor voyeurism. Accountability is a good thing, but there can be too much of a good thing.

Chrome. Finally, here’s a video from Google showing off their new Chrome laptops. I like the idea some, but Google Docs still lacks some important functionality, like envelope printing and properly built-in mail merge printing. (Both on my mind because I couldn’t use Google Docs to help me send out Christmas cards for lacking both features.) However, since this is how I work most of the time without a Chrome laptop, I thought I’d share… and Gabe enjoyed the laptop carnage.

Cheers.

Why We Must Think Rightly About God

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. — A. W. Tozer

Christians are to be God’s people. Yet, what does that mean? Who’s people? What God? This question is the heart of every true believer and the place where every heresy finds its foundation. Either God is perfect and good and sovereign and holy and loving and defined in the terms given to us in revelation or god is something else. Often these other gods are kind of like God, but some virtue gets over-emphasized. A heretic may love a god of love but avoids the god of wrath whereas another worships a god of justice who is not a god of mercy. Yet, God is who He is and not what we want Him to be.

Always this God will conform to the image of the one who created it and will be base or pure, cruel or kind, according to the moral state of the mind from which it emerges.

The other gods are idols. Whether they are carved or molded or simply gods of the mind, they are still idols. “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:21) The idols available are legion, but the God of heaven is One. Tozer reminds us of Psalm 50:21, “you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.” God does not suffer idolators and is quite jealous of the worship of himself.

“Perverted notions about God soon rot the religion in which they appear.” Tozer rightly points us to history. The church and the ancient chronicles of Israel provide us with ample evidence. If you start to take God for granted, if you forget who He is, if you aren’t careful enough in making sure your leadership knows and loves God, corruption and destruction will follow.

The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him - and of her. In all her prayers and labors this should have first place.

The very purpose of the church is first to glorify God and to do that we must know intimately the One we worship.

Cheers.

It is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneous or inadequate. If we would bring back spiritual power to our lives, we must being to think of God more nearly as He is. —- A. W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy

A. W. Tozer wrote his book, Knowledge of the Holy, because he saw that the church had abandoned a high view of God. It is a sad thing that in the decades since his writing this situation does not seem to have improved. His words are just as appropriate today as they were when he first penned them. “The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us.”

It astounds me to know that so many who claim to be Christians today have chosen science or psychology or capitalism or some other idol ahead of Christ. A person may profess to believe in the resurrection of Christ and that Christ is the Creator of the universe and yet hesitate to say that the creation was a miraculous event that took only seven days. A person may profess to believe in the Christ who taught that the most fundamental human problems are spiritual and related to sin and yet this person will refuse to confront sins explicitly named int he Bible in his own life. While I cannot judge the hearts of such men and women, these are not acts and behaviors worthy of Christ.

The only way to recoup our spiritual losses is to go back to the cause of them and make such corrections as the truth warrants.

The truth of the Bible is what we should recoup. Our first source of truth, for all Christians, must always be the revelation God has given us. To substitute any other authority, but God Himself, as a rival is idolatry.

I hope by studying this book myself, I will “be encouraged to being the practice of reverent meditation on the being of God.”

Cheers.

Marriage. Al Mohler has a review of Time’s consideration of the topic of marriage. It would seem that Time has concluded that marriage is “in purely practical terms just not as necessary as it used to be.” Dr. Mohler points that this is really just a wrong-headed way of examining the problem, but that most Americans lack the spiritual framework to even understand the issue properly. This is kind of sad.

Theology. The Pyromaniacs have posted an excerpt from Spurgeon examining the sin of academic hubris committed by some theologians who think that theology must be lofty and require a degree to be understood. However, God’s theology is simple and is meant to be understood by children and simply trained men. Theology goes deeper, but only in the way that if you closely examine the petals of a flower you find more details you don’t see when you look at the whole.

Romanism. Which brings me back to the absurd statements made recently by the pope. One of the basic problems with the Roman tradition is its insistence that only the Church and its magisterium can provide ultimate authority on truth. However, as the recent absurdity from the Vatican shows, that only begs the question, if the pope is the only ultimate authority able to interpret scripture, who is the authority responsible for interpreting his statements? The Reformation teaches us that everyone is responsible in himself to God for his own theology. The church certainly has a role in theology, but ultimately, even churches may succumb to sin and heresy themselves.

Truth. That theology must be according to the truth of the word. And that truth is the heart of worship. A worshipper of God, must worship according to God’s truth. You cannot worship God without God’s truth. And the key to that, is realizing how God has made himself known to us.

Creationism. Fred Butler has another edition of his series discussion the theological complications caused by more “modern” interpretations of Genesis. Basically, if you decide science trumps the Bible, you’ve already destroyed the basis for good theology, so what’s the point?

Environmentalism. Ever seen one of those images of New York or the earth water. Been reading Hunger Games? Sea level rise is a total myth. Check this analysis of how unlikely some of these scare tactic photos are.

National Insecurity. I had several friends link off to Bruce Schneier’s article suggesting we close the George Washington monument until such time as we, as a nation, grow up and stop sacrificing our liberty for safety. I agree. A closed monument would be a superb symbol to our national disregard for freedom.

TSA. The list of TSA injustices continues unabated. I have fewer things this week mostly because I was finding so much other stuff of interest, not because there were fewer things to post. It’s good to know that our government thinks pizza boxes are a good advertising source for jobs for people interested in groping airline passengers. Also the TSA does respect the privacy of its own employees accused of abuse even if it does not respect your Fourth Amendment rights.

And here’s yet another movie showing that the process you go through at the airport is about jumping through meaningless hoops and punishing passengers and has nothing to do with finding weapons.

Toys. If we ever move to a different house, I think Gabe wants us to build him a room like this:

Economics. There are real poor people in the United States and the west, but I get really annoyed at the level called “poverty” in this country. People who live in “poverty” in this country are often wealthier than their wealthiest ancestors. Here’s a nice visualization showing how quality of living and wealth have increased over the past couple centuries and a good reminder of how much we take for granted.

Cheers.

For some years now I’ve thought about training myself up in Biblical Greek. I’m going to take a crack at it over the next few months. While I do that, I hope to blog hear a bit about how that’s going and any interesting things I learn on the way.

For this first post, I want to share some of the tools I’ve got at my disposal. During a recent visit, my father-in-law gave me a Greek Reader’s New Testament (Thanks Scott!) and the Basics of Biblical Greek by William Mounce. From there I’ve started in on the basics, reviewing the Greek alphabet and pronunciations rules (which I already knew from a previous introduction to the language).

I’m practicing reading Greek and have now read through 1 Peter 1 and 1 John 1. However, I’m still just getting the initial pronunciation down, so it takes me as long to read a word or two in Greek as it would to say a sentence or two in English. I’ve found some MP3 audio files online of fluent readers reading the Greek. I may see if I can use those to improve my pronunciation and speed (which are both horrible for now).

Another tool I’m using to help in this process is Anki. This is a tool for building sets of flash cards, which are pretty mandatory for learning the vocabulary. The extra gimmick, though, is that Anki will reorder your decks according to how well you know your vocabulary. So, each time you go through the deck, you note on each card how hard it was to come up with the answer.

I’m sure someone has some pre-built decks for Mounce’s vocabulary, but I want the practice of typing out the words to help me as well (it’s a visual-kinesthetic learning thing). As such, I had to see about using a keyboard. Unfortunately, I had the craziest time trying to get a decent Greek Polytonic keyboard to work under Ubuntu. However, since I got myself a new Mac for Christmas, the built-in Greek Polytonic keyboard was pretty close to what I needed. However, it uses the wrong phi (“φ”) character by default. So I used a program called Ukelele to edit the Greek Polyphonic to use the “circle with a pipe through it” version rather than the “long curly line” version. I can now switch to Greek as easy as hitting Cmd-Opt-Space. Ἀί κάν συίτχ βάκ τού Ἐγγλεις ἄζ ἴζι ἄζ ἵττιγγ θώς κἰζ ἀγήν.

Anyway, I’m having fun with it so far. Cheers.