the horns of ames

Quote of the Day

2006-10-14T23:35:00.000-05:00

"...If we walked out of this room really believing all of this stuff was really real, I mean really real, we'd turn the world upside down. I've often thought, if I really believe that when I went before God in prayer, that I was really walking into the throne room and God was leaning forward with his arms out and says "Come closer, lets talk," if I really believed that, I wouldn't have trouble praying, I'd have trouble getting up and leaving! Do you really believe that what you believe is really real?"

Dr. Del Tackett

President

Focus on the Family Institute

As seen on a key chain...

2006-10-09T20:43:00.000-05:00

"Good morning, this is God. I will be handling all your problems today. I will not need your help, so have a good day!"

:-)

Dave Barry's "25 Things"

2006-10-02T08:30:00.000-05:00

25 Things I Have Learned in 50 Years
Dave Barry

The badness of a movie is directly proportional to the number of
helicopters in it.

You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and
compelling reason why we observe Daylight Saving Time.

People who feel the need to tell you that they have an excellent
sense of humor are telling you that they have no sense of humor.

The most valuable function performed by the federal government is
entertainment.

You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely
suggests you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby
emerging from her at that moment.

A penny saved is worthless.

They can hold all the peace talks they want, but there will never
be peace in the Middle East. Billions of years from now, when Earth
is hurtling toward the Sun and there is nothing left alive on the
planet except a few microorganisms, the microorganisms living in
the Middle East will be bitter enemies.

The most powerful force in the universe is: gossip.

The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age,
gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that,
deep down inside, we all believe that we are above-average drivers.

There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to
make a big deal about your birthday. That time is: age 11.

There is a very fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness.'

People who want to share their religious views with you almost
never want you to share yours with them.

Nobody is normal.

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human
race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential,
that word would be: meetings.

The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to
annoy people who are not in them.

If there really is a God who created the entire universe with all
of its glories, and He decides to deliver a message to humanity, He
will not use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad
hairstyle.

You should not confuse your career with your life.

A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a
nice person.

No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too
seriously.

When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one
individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command.
Very often, that individual is crazy.

Your friends love you anyway.

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

Funny thought

2006-09-13T00:43:00.000-05:00

I don't know why this struck me as funny, but I was reading in Revelation tonight and came across Revelation 21:17 - "He also measured its wall, 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel's measurement." I guess an angel is about the same size as a human being. I have always assumed that I suppose, but it kind of argues the thought that angels are some giant beings or small things that sit on your shoulders. Just an interesting thought, nothing theologically ground shattering. :-)

The Bible Says...

2006-08-16T19:56:00.000-05:00

I read this story today and I thought it was amazing. How much time do I spend trying to prove the Bible is accurate instead of letting God's words (1 Thessalonians 2:13) pierce the hearts of the unbelievers and let the Holy Spirit do His work. For me, a natural debater, that's hard for me to do. I will just relay it here from Dr. Adrian Roger's study on "The Incredible Power of Kingdom Authority - Achieving Victory Through Surrender." Copyright LifeWay church resources.

BILLY GRAHAM AND THE POWER OF THE WORD OF GOD

In 1949, when Billy Graham was a very young man, he harbored the same doubts about the Bible that many young people have. When he stood up to preach there was a lack of power. He knew an intellectual battle was waging in his mind over the authority of God's Word.

That year God allowed Billy to spend some time in the mountains outside of Los Angeles. There, he wrestled with God and with himself. He said, "In desperation, I surrendered my will to the living God revealed in the Scripture. I knelt before the open Bible and said, 'Lord, many things in this book I do not understand, but Thou hast said the just shall live by faith. All I have, I have received by faith. Here and now by faith, I accept the Bible as Thy Word, I take it all, I take it without reservations. Where there are things I cannot understand, I will reserve judgement until I receive more light. If this pleases Thee, give me authority as I proclaim Thy Word, and through that authority convict me of sin and turn sinners to the Savior."

Within six weeks of that prayer, Billy Graham preached the great Los Angeles crusade where thousands were swept into the kingdom of God. His ministry caught on fire for the Lord - making a global impact for the Savior! Now, he recognized that he didn't have to prove the Bible was true. He had settled it in his mind and that faith then impacted his preaching and the men and women who were saved as a result. Now he had a quick, powerful weapon in his hand - a two-edged sword that could pierce the heart of people. He had a flame with which to melt away the unbelief of people, a hammer to break up the stony covering of hearts. All this, Billy Graham says, is why, to this day, he frequently begins sentences with the phrase, "The Bible says..."

Another Christian Publisher Ban

2006-08-12T17:18:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I wrote a while back on my disapproval and boycott of Zondervan publications. Unfortunately, I have a new publisher to add to this list. Heard of Thomas Nelson? Of course you have, they are the world's largest publisher of Bibles in English. So why the ban? I have discovered that Thomas Nelson has decided to diversify a bit. What's their newest project? Something called Naked, Inc. which promotes a new book and website. The book is "The Hot Mom's Handbook" and the website is http://www.hotmomsclub.com. How can Thomas Nelson attach their name to the Word of God and at the same time to the Word of ones that would promote sex outside of marraige, astrology and readings, yoga and meditation, and a hedonistic lifestyle? I have no idea, but I'm sure Nelson would roll over in his grave if he knew what his company has come to.

Congrats to Adam and Jo!

2006-08-07T22:56:00.000-05:00

Well, it's official, my younger brother Adam is married. He and Jo got married on August 5th and the wedding was great. Eli was a ring bearer and he actually went up the aisle. It's great to have Jo in the family, but now we have to figure out a way to get them back up to Iowa instead of that house they just bought in Jefferson City, MO. :-)

Pics from my photo blog can be found below...

Adam and Jo's Wedding

Aug 5, 2006 - 93 Photos

Our Bibles as our Cell Phones

2006-08-01T03:21:00.000-05:00

I wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phones.
What if we always carried it around in our purses or pockets?
What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?
What if we flipped through it several times a day?
What if we used it to receive messages from the text?
What if we treated it as if we could not live without it?
What if we gave it to kids as gifts?
What if we used it as we traveled?
What if we used it in case of an emergency?

This is something to make you go...hmmm...where is my Bible?
Oh, and one more thing, unlike our cell phone, we don't ever have to worry about our bible being disconnected because Jesus has already paid the bill

Baby Got Book (parody video)

2006-07-26T11:43:00.000-05:00


This is pretty funny. Dan "Southpaw" Smith's parody of "Baby Got Back" as seen on VH1's WebJunk. A "hip" preacher from the Cleveland area. www.whiteboydj.com

Thought of the day

2006-07-16T12:47:00.000-05:00

This day has been brought to you by Jesus Christ.

- This thought was posted with a text message from my mobile phone, this is an update for further explanation. The thought came from the song "Lifesong" by The Casting Crowns that was playing this morning.

"I want to sign your name to the end of this day."

Does God Believe in You?

2006-07-13T23:50:00.000-05:00

I heard this concept from a friend (let's call him Harley) two nights ago. He said that at the Promise Keepers conference, there was a video from www.nooma.com that told the story of Peter walking on the water to Jesus. Essentially the guy said that everyone thinks that Peter had doubts in Jesus, but this guy said that the account in Matthew 14 doesn't actually say that Jesus asked Peter why he lost faith in Christ, he just asks why he had doubt. So this guy thought that maybe our typical interpretation of that story is wrong and that Jesus really was asking Peter why he had doubt about his own ability to walk on water. His point was that God Believes in You! I couldn't disagree more, and this is the outcome of the back and forth we had on the topic. Another friend (let's call him Google) jumped in as well. Here's the transcript. It started as a chat and went to e-mail.....

***BEGIN CHAT***

Harley: http://www.nooma.com/uploaded/ProductMedia/2005/December/d91e927f-39db-4fa4-9604-d2b7b6765368.pdf

Harley: pg 15

Harley: the whole deal was in jewish culture, you want to be just like your rabbi
that is the entire point
so peter walked on water to "be like" his rabbi
but then started to doubt that he could be like him
that was the story
peter doubted that he could do what his raabi was doing
which is why he fell

me: God believes in us?
I'm not sure how I feel about that

Harley: why?

me: because God knows we can do NOTHING on our own without Him
that we can never even come close to being like Him
without Him and His forgiveness
so really God believes in Himself if anything
"I can do all things THROUGH CHRIST who strengthens me."

Harley: so cant god believe in us that we have teh power to accept and do things thru christ?

me: that's not believing in us!
that's believing in Christ and what He can do with us
John 15:5
Jesus says "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: FOR APART FROM ME YE CAN DO NOTHING."
so to me, that means God has zero belief in me on my own

Harley: so are you saying believing in yourself is bad?

me: depends, sounds like a slippery slope towards pride to me
I always credit everything to God and ZERO to my own credit
I have always taken that verse to heart
as soon as I believe in myself, it shows up as pride
you know, it's really just depends on what the real message is behind those taglines
if the point is that you can believe that you CAN pursue a Christlike walk in life, then yeah, I think you should at least believe that's possible
and that you can do that, but only because of God's grace, not because you're able to refrain from sin
and does God believe in us? No, I don't think so. I think He shows us His Grace and helps us along and doesn't let us just self destruct in our own evil desires and actions. Without his influence, we would have self destructed by now.

***END CHAT***

***AARON EMAIL TO GOOGLE AND HARLEY***

I gotta get to bed. Just wanted to see if "Google" agrees with me, or if he has another thought on this topic. I like to find things that we might not agree with, it keeps me thinking. :-)

***HARLEY'S RESPONSE***

http://www.rockies.net/~spirit/sermons/a-or02sn.php looked interesting

***AARON'S RESPONSE***

Here's my opinion on that sermon (nice use of Google.com, btw.) :-)

Besides him saying "God believes in you" a ton of times, there isn't really anything backing it up. He uses one verse: "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up
the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will
give you as a light to the nations."

And that pretty much is God saying I WILL GIVE YOU as a light. God is doing that, He's not "believing in us" to do it. That guy used some REALLY tricky wording, he'd put "I believe in you" RIGHT before and after a quote from Jesus. He also wrote this:

And yet, to our inadequacies and to our fears,
no matter how well hidden, or how up front they may,
the prophet says, Jesus says, God says, but one thing,
and he says it over and over again
"I believe in you."

That isn't a quote, that's putting words in Jesus and God's mouth. He even puts quotes around "I believe in you"!

:-) Sorry I'm attacking this guy, but it's a pretty blatant example of quoting something that isn't really there in my opinion. Reading that thing gave me visions of sitting in a Lutheran church. :-)

What do you think "Google", am I totally off on this one?

***HARLEY'S RESPONSE***

I think there is a lot of comfort found in that this may be a reciporacal relation ship. I trust in god, and likewise god trusts in me (you could add BECAUSE i have trust in him and believe). You could also make the argument that if the holy spirit has entered you as a result of acceptance, then the holy spirit is now your guiding principal and an inherent "part" of you, THEREFORE if god trusts in you hes really trusting partly in himself :-)

***GOOGLE'S RESPONSE***

You guys are amazing! A whole conversation, websites, and chat log while I slept....sweet!

Aaron, I think you are right on the money, from what scripture says. It never, never, never builds the case that we can do anything on our own, or to believe in 'self'. Romans 3 (read the whole chapter) is all about that very idea, "There is no one righteous, not even one; 11there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." I like what you said about John 15:5.

Harley, you are sooo right that men find comfort in the idea of a reciprocal relationship, because it says, "I do hold some power". But reciprocal shouldn't be the word...God is not dependent on man. We have to die to self, pick up our cross, and follow Christ.

Thanks for including me,
"Google"

***MY RESPONSE***

So is God trusting me or is God trusting Himself (the Holy Spirit?) I'm worried this is getting into semantics, but I would be scared if God put any real trust in me. He might have hope in me that I will follow Him, but the only person God can put trust in, is in Himself. If I asked God how much faith He had that I would do something for Him, the answer would be zero. If I asked God how much faith He had that I could do something for Him with His help and power, it would be 100%. I think this seemingly harmless philosophy that God has faith in us or that God trusts us, can be dangerous if we unpack it and start to make God out to be counting on man for anything.

Do you know why we aren't tempted beyond what we can handle? Because God doesn't allow it. Not because we can do it on our own. Not because God trusts that we will follow His will and not fall into temptation, but because God doesn't allow temptation to come our way without providing an escape for us. 1 Corinthians 10:13 "No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. "

You know, I just read "Google's" response before finishing this one, and I think he has struck a chord with the "I do hold some power" comment. This seems to come full circle to the desire to have a will and control over where your life is headed without surrendering fully to God's will for our lives. Why are we so scared to give God full control? Probably because we know He'll take us out of our comfort zone and we're not willing to give everything up. It's the same excuse some people use not to become a Christian and give their lives up to Christ. Because they know it means giving up excessive drinking, fornication, lust, and other attractive sinful behaviours. In their worldview, it's just not worth it. Man is not inherently good like John Locke would argue. I'd agree with Thomas Hobbes that man is inherently evil. We are born into sin, and we'll turn our back on God and nail Him to the cross any chance we get in the absence of His grace and forgiveness. God doesn't believe in us. Like D said, He calls us to pick up our cross and follow after Him. We can only do that with His help and grace. He can't count on us to do it otherwise.

However, I DO agree that we should strive to be like our rabbi. Ephesians 4:14-16. "14so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. " Romans 12 tells us to be transformed in our minds so that we think like God thinks. Has compassion like God has compassion. Desires truth and holiness like God desires truth and holiness. We should be like Christ.

Should Peter have been able to walk on water? Yes. Because of his own power? No. Because of Christ's power? Yes. He had little faith, he doubted. Was Christ disappointed that Peter doubted himself that he could walk on water? Absolutely not, I think that's absurd and really trying to find something that isn't there at all. I think Christ was disappointed that Peter doubted that Christ would protect him and allow him to walk on the water when He had clearly commanded him to do it. Peter took his eyes off of Christ. That is why he sank. Not because he started to doubt himself, but because he looked away from Christ, and started looking at the wind and doubt in Christ crept in, so he began to sink. Read the account from Matthew 14.

Matthew 14:28-33 - 28And Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." 29He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. 30But when he saw the wind,[ d] he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord, save me." 31Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" 32And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

This is great stuff, and if nothing else I've been challenged to realize even more that Philippians 4:13 is the theme of my life. Nothing I have is mine, nothing I have done is of my own abilities, all glory and honor goes to the one that created me and gives me the life, the talents and the blessings that I have today, and if He decides in His sovereign will that I should no longer have those things, that is His very right to take them away, and like Job I should continue to praise Him and realize that it is according to His will. Now I just pray that God doesn't find it necessary for me to practice what I preach. :-) Not really, but I have zero doubt that it would be a struggle and painful, but I truly submit to His will...

***GOOGLE'S RESPONSE***

And all the people said......"Amen".

***HARLEY'S RESPONSE***

See, this is one of those things that would define a new division of the church. In the end, it probobly doesnt matter, the only thing that matters is that you believe you are a sinner, cannot not be forgiven without the blood of JC, and accept his sacrafice.

Now, back to the trust issue, I do see that it can lead to self boasting, take away from god, etc, HOWEVER, put this spin on it

God Created Man
God cannot trust man
God cannot create a trustworthy being...is god somehow imperfect then?

in case this comes to a definition problem....

Definition of Trust - Firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing.

Cannot god have belief in the ability of us to accept him? I would say he has a LOT of that, otherwise how are we saved if we dont have the ability to accept what JC did for us

Definition of Faith - Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance.

This whole thing doesnt assume god has "allegiance" in us I dont think, and nobody has said god has "faith" in us i dont believe.

***MY RESPONSE***

Ok, as we discussed briefly in person, I definitely don't think this would cause a division in the church. I think there is a right and a wrong answer here and we should be able to unpack this enough that someone is going to see that they are wrong and concede the point. :-) I agree that the most important thing is accepting Christ as your atonement for your sins, but I don't agree that it's the ONLY thing that matters. :-) There's more to it than only being saved. That's the beginning.

As for your line of reasoning:

God Created Man
God cannot trust man
God cannot create a trustworthy being...is god somehow imperfect then?

I have a problem with the third point. God cannot create a trustworthy being? Yes, He could have. He could have created us all as robots that would perfectly obey Him and not sin. However, then we wouldn't have had the ability to love Him by CHOICE and the relationship wouldn't be any more significant than the relationship He has with, say, monkeys. God CAN create a trustworthy being. He just gave us free will by putting that tree in the garden where we could decide to continue to be perfect, or to sin. We all know what we chose and continue to choose every day.

You also said, "Cannot god have belief in the ability of us to accept him? I would say he has a LOT of that, otherwise how are we saved if we dont have the ability to accept what JC did for us."

So we have boiled down "God Trusts in you" or "God Believes in you" to "God believes you have the ability to accept him." I think these imply completely different things. God knows you have the ability to accept Him because He gave us that ability, uh, so He believes that what He gave us is sufficient. I don't think it's a matter of having a LOT of that. He KNOWS He gave us the ability to chose or reject Him. It's a matter of black and white. We have the ability because He gave it to us. That's it. Can God take away that ability? I definitely think so. How many times in scripture do we read that he hardened someone's heart? Pharaoh is the prime example. So is it really something that God gives us, not something we were able to create on our own. I think this is starting to really get away from what these guys are trying to preach when they say "God Believes in you." No He doesn't. This whole "believe in yourself" and "God believes in you" philosophy is such a slap in the face of God's gift and grace for us. Leave it to man to take credit for themselves or like to think that God believes in us, trusts in us, or needs us for anything. Not exactly my idea of surrendering.

Am I going too far on anything or am I missing a major point?

Let go. Let God.

Aaron

Welcome to the New Blog Layout

2006-07-12T11:29:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I kept my personal Blog at MSN Spaces for a year because it had a great photo album feature. Now that I have my new photo album ( http://photos.hornit.net), I figured it wasn't worth trying to keep the MSN Spaces Blog up to date since it was more difficult to post to. I already have several Google Blogger.com Blogs, so adding one more is a snap. So, I copied each of my old posts from the old blog to this blog.

I'm doing this in hopes that I'll keep it up to date a little better, but no promises. :-)

New Photo Album

2006-06-15T23:22:00.000-05:00

Ok, I have a new photo album website that I really like (it's Google, so go figure), so all of my photo updates will be done here: http://photos.hornit.net/

Sorry I don't post here much, I've been SO busy. I know, you see that on every blog. :-)

The Da Vinci Code Notebook

2006-05-20T23:50:00.000-05:00

Ok, you got me. I don't really keep this blog up to date very well. I do, however, have another project I'm working on and felt it worthy for it's own page (especially since it gave me an excuse to utilize new Google technology called Google Notebook. I am doing some studying on the Da Vinci Code claims and I am posting my findings at the following site:

http://davinci.hornit.net

I hope you find it interesting!

Preaching to a bear

2006-05-08T19:38:00.000-05:00

A Priest, a Pentecostal Preacher and a Rabbi all served as chaplains to
the students of the University of Georgia in Athens.

They would get together two or three times a week at the Varsity for
coffee and to talk shop.

One day, someone made the comment that preaching to people isn't really
all that hard. A real challenge would be to preach to a bear.
One thing led to another and they decided to do an experiment.
They would all go out into the woods, find a bear, preach to it, and
attempt to convert it.

Seven days later, they're all together to discuss the "experience".
Father Flannery, who has his arm in a sling, is on crutches, and has
various bandages, goes first.

"Well," he says, "I went into the woods to find me a bear. And when I found
him I began to read to him from the Catechism. Well, that bear wanted
nothing to do with me and began to slap me around. So I quickly grabbed
my holy water, sprinkled him and, Holy Mary Mother of God, he became
as gentle as a lamb. The bishop is coming out next week to give him
first communion and confirmation."

Reverend Billy Bob spoke next. He was in a wheelchair, with an arm and
both legs in casts, and an IV drip. In his best fire and brimstone oratory he
claimed, " WELL brothers, you KNOW that we don't sprinkle! I went out
and I FOUND me a bear. And then I began to read to my bear from
God's HOLY WORD! But that bear wanted nothing to do with me. So I
took HOLD of him and we began to wrestle. We wrestled down one hill,
UP another and DOWN another until we came to a creek. So I quick
DUNKED him and BAPTIZED his hairy soul. And just like you said, he
became as gentle as a lamb. We spent the rest of the time praising Jesus."

They both looked down at the rabbi, who was lying in a hospital bed. He
was in a body cast and traction with IV's and monitors running in and out
of him. He was in bad shape.

Rabbi Lipschitz looks up and struggles to speak to the others. "Looking
back on it, circumcision may not have been the best way to start things
out."

What about those that haven't heard?

2006-03-03T07:23:00.000-06:00

If you have 15-20 minutes, give the following article a read. However, I will caution that this guy's paragraph mentioning predestination and election, in my opinion, negates his entire argument for evangelism because he views certain people as already predestined to be believers, so I view it as failed logic. Definitely a Calvanist, although never specifically stated (see also his many references to RC Sproul, a well known Calvanist.) That's just one paragraph, though, the rest of it is pretty convincing. I'm not done looking, but I found this to be one of the better cases for point of salvation by Christ's name only, no exceptions.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8449/exclus2.html

Let the good news roll...

Oh yeah, and if you wonder what John MacArthur says on this topic, here's a summary: "People say, you hear this in mission discussions, "Oh those people over there who have never heard the gospel, the Lord's going to save them somehow." Nobody will ever be saved, nobody will ever come into a saving relationship with God who does not know the true gospel regarding Jesus Christ...nobody. There isn't any salvation in any other name. The one who does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. The one who does abide in that teaching has both the Father and the Son."

The entire sermon is worth reading, it can be found here: http://www.ondoctrine.com/2mac0009.htm

And finally, a 3 pager that answers some of the common objections to this philosophy: http://www.calebproject.org/userfiles/MIB-lost.pdf
So what do you all think? Use the Comments section!

[Comment from David S.]

Aaron,

Hadn't been to your site in a while, but found this posting of interest. I read a bit of the first article. Then read the 3rd one, then John MacArthurs article. My initial take on it is this:

The 3rd article contradicts the 1st one to me. The 1st article claims, "I do not see how this verse can be used to argue that one can be saved without hearing of Christ if he follows his conscience." The 3rd one says, "The Bible does not teach that God will judge a person for rejecting Christ if he has not heard of Christ. In fact, the Bible teaches clearly that God's judgment is based on a person's response to the truth he has received."

While the 3rd article goes on to say that there is no record of those who have been saved outside of Christ, it purposes not to rule it out, which I think the 1st article clearly does.

For a starting point, I think there are two parts to this discussion. In the quote you have from the John M. article, he speaks of his disagreement with those who claim people are Christians who have never heard the 'truth'. The 1st article talks of those who believe in Christ specifically, and the 3rd article points to both the idea of revelation through creation/conscience and Christ.

What do you think?
David S.

Ephesians 4:29

2006-02-17T23:06:00.000-06:00

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. [ESV]

I kind of like how the HCSB uses the phrase "rotten talk." Is negative and filthy talk a benefit to others around us? Then why do we throw it out there? I think it's for attention, but without considering the type of attention it brings.

Memorize a Bible Verse, Get a Free Drink

2006-02-07T08:13:00.000-06:00

Memorize a Bible Verse, Get a Free Drink

SNEAD, Ala. -- Dale Lanier has found a way to get people to read and memorize Bible verses.

If they walk into his convenience store in Snead, Ala., and recite the Bible passage he's selected, they can have a free soft drink or cup of coffee.

This month's memory verse is Psalm 118:8, which reads: "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man."

Lanier said he's been doing this for the last six years, and gives away between two and 12 drinks a day. He said entire families sometimes walk in and recite the Bible passage he has picked.

http://www.kcci.com/irresistible/6791834/detail.html?rss=des&psp=irresistible

EZWord

2006-02-01T06:39:00.000-06:00

I really, really love this software. It's a program that runs in your taskbar and whenever you move your mouse over a scripture reference, it immediately brings up the chapter with the verses highlighted. It's awesome because you don't have to get out a Bible, copy and paste the reference into a new window and do an Internet search on it, or launch your Bible software. It's just instant. I get several daily devotionals in e-mail and when the mention a Bible verse, I can just roll my mouse over it to read it. I know it's $10, but it's definitely software worth paying for. It comes in King James Version and Holman Christian Standard, but you can purchase other translations as well.

Definitely worth checking out!

http://www.ezword.com/

[Originally posted February 1, 2006 - 6:39AM]

Talking about 2006 May Motorcycle Trip

2006-01-28T23:39:00.001-06:00

Hey, check out the new blog that David is maintaining for our motorcycle group. The next ride is May 5th-7th 2006. Check out the routes!

Aaron

Quote

2006 May Motorcycle Trip

The next motorycle trip will be the weekend of May 5th-7th. We will originate out of Ames and head southeast down towards Wapello State Park. If you would like to join us, or just get the route info, let me know. Should be 12-15 people going as of now.

Friday night we would stay at Wapello State park, which has a lake. Saturday night we would stay at Stevens State Park. Sunday morning we return. Camp under the stars or tent...cook around a fire. You know the drill!

Here are links for the idea:

Friday:
http://tinyurl.com/dfctm

Saturday:
http://tinyurl.com/dvbfl

Sunday:
http://tinyurl.com/7levz

Bearing Arms

2006-01-28T23:39:00.000-06:00

Ok, so after 2 trips to Sportsmans in Ankeny, one trip to JAX in Ames, and two gun shows, I finally found the handgun to add to my collection. I already own a .22 rifle and a 16 guage shotgun (yes, 16 guage). Gifts from my parents when I was a teenager. I didn't have a handgun yet, so I finally took care of that problem today!

It's a Ruger Blackhawk .357 Magnum. It has a 6.5" barrel. It actually came with a second chamber that holds 9mm, so it can actually shoot 3 different jackets (.357 Mag, .380 Special, and 9mm). Nice 6 round single action shooter. Should be lots of fun. I saw it brand new at Sportsmans for $439.99, but I got it (brand new) from a booth at the gun show at the fairgrounds in Des Moines for $386! I wanted the one that did 9mm so I could take it to the range in Ames and plunk off the cheap ammo. The Mags will be for when needed in the middle of the night (hopefully never!) :-)

If you'd like to shoot with me sometime, just let me know!!

Zondervan fan?

2006-01-22T09:46:00.000-06:00

I found an article in the January 2006 edition of "The Berean Call" kind of interesting. It was titled "Earnestly Contend" by Dave Hunt. I don't always agree with what Dave Hunt says or how he says it, but this comment was intriguing:

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association published a special "Crusade Edition" (1962, 1964, 1969) of Halley's Bible Handbook and boldly removed Halley's careful documentation of the evil of the popes and the slaughter of true Christians. Zondervan published a revised edition of Halley's Bible Handbook in 2000, which likewise eliminated references to the RCC's (Roman Catholic Church's) heresies and the millions of evangelical CHristians slaughtered by Rome. Instead it says: "The Roman Catholic CHurch responded to the Portestant Reformation by reforming and renewing itself."

When challenged about its lies, Stan Gundry, Zondervan's Vice President and Editor-in-Chief responded, "The purpose of the rewriting was...to give a more balanced portrayal of the history of Christianity." Whitewashing Roman Catholic doctrine and practice and leaving out the slaughter of millions of Christians gives a "More balanced" history?! And who owns Zondervan, publisher of The Purpose-Driven Life?

In 1988, Zondervan and its NIV Bible were purchased by Harper & Row Publishers (now HarperCollins Publishers), who put out pro-homosexual books such as Making Out, The Book of Lesbian Sex and Sexuality ("Beautifully illustrated with full-color photography...") and others! HarperCollins is a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's The News Coporation, which owns Twentieth Centry Fox and Fox Broadcasting. The latter produces some of the most immoral, anti-family shows on television. Murdoch - to whom Pat Robertson sold the Family Channel (paid for by CBN donors) for $1.9 billion - was knighted by the Pope after donating $10 million for a new Catholic cathedral in Los Angeles. And Rick Warren claims to be Murdoch's pastor.

Christian publishers have put profits ahead of sound doctrine and have made a lot of money by giving customers what they want instead of the biblical truth they need, selling out to the world monetarily as they alread had morally. Isn't this the opposite of contending for the faith?

You've got a little glory on your face

2005-12-30T06:54:00.000-06:00

I was reading 2 Corinthians 3 this morning (yes, I read "Our Daily Bread") and thought it was really cool. I had a slightly different take on it than the ODB author. First of all, there's something cool in the first 3 verses. Paul calls the church of Corinth "Christ's letter." It made me imagine that God is trying to communicate with the people of the world, and the way He choses to do that, besides with His Word (the Bible), is by writing them another letter through the lives of His church. Unfortunately, there are plenty of churches perverting His message and actually hurt His message instead of expressing it. We should accurately express the love and judgment of God to others in our lives and as a church body. If nothing else, to show the love and peace we have as members of God's family!

Paul jumps into his "Romanesque" talk about how we need to shed the Old Testament law structure (he refers to it as "the letter" in verse 6) and take on the new convenant of faith in Christ alone and indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

The part I took from 7-18 was more about Christ's glory reflecting on our faces. Moses's face was shining so brightly as a reflection of the glory of God, that his face had to be veiled. However, it eventually faded away. Just like the necessity of keeping the law of the Old Testament. So if obtaining the law and meeting with God once made Moses's face shine with glory, how much more obvious should it be to other that we are "glowing" with Christ's glory? Because the salvation we are offered now through the faith in Christ is so much more powerful than the keeping of the law was back then. The keeping of the law was simply to point out that it couldn't be done and that everyone was a sinner needing God. Now we have full access to God and can communicate with Him whenever we want!

Verse 15-16 says "However, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts, but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed." The Jews were still following the Old Testament law and regarding their good works as their way to salvation. They were dimming the true glory of God. It can only be fully recognized through faith in Christ!

And here's my favorite. Verse 18. "We all, with unveiled faces, are reflecting the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit." We should have glowing faces (figuratively speaking)! People should know right away that there is something different about us when they meet us. They should see a happiness and a love for God that shines brightly. We are like the moon is to the sun. We should be reflecting God's glory to the people around us. We should be like Christ! That's what sanctification is all about. Being made more like Christ. Let's not wait until we die to be like Christ, let's be like Him now while people on earth can witness it and want to have the joy that we have and "turn to the Lord."

In Him,
Aaron

Brasilian Dancers

2005-12-28T23:22:00.000-06:00

Check out my Tech Blog to see some dancers I videoed in Brasil. Unfortunately, MSN Spaces won't let me link up the video here, so you'll have to check it out on my Tech Blog...

Legal Disclaimer

2005-12-19T13:09:00.000-06:00

Legal Disclaimer: "Merry Christmas" (hereafter "The Greeting")... this
announcement is not intended to offend, alienate, foster hate or be a
precursor for any egregious acts (legal or illegal), thoughts, words or
deeds. "The Greeting" is made only in the context to which it may be legally
received, if in fact, it is received at all. It is not intended to be nor
should it be, in any way, connected to any other type of greeting, real or
imagined, past, present or future. No references to any persons,things or
substances, animate or inanimate, real, fictional or otherwise should be
assumed by the reader or receiver of the greeting (hereafter, 'the
greetee').

The greeting is not being made to (nor will tenders be accepted from or on
behalf of) nonbelievers in 'The Greeting' in any jurisdiction in which
making and or accepting the greeting would violate that jurisdiction's laws
or feelings (also refer to local statutes and ordinances related to'The
Greeting'). In any jurisdiction in which perceived 'greeting' is not
welcomed nor agreed upon by all 'greetees', then the 'greetor' of 'The
Greeting' will be held harmless in this life and the next, including
allissuing posterity both now and forever. 'The Greeting' may be made by a
licensed 'greetor' and any liability assumed or created by the 'greetee'
shall be the sole responsibility of said 'greetor'.

If you have been aggrieved, offended, waylaid, parlayed, filleted or delayed
in any way, either real, imagined or perceived by said 'Greeting' and or by
'greetor' as the result of receiving said 'greeting', you can call toll free
1-800-CHRISTMAS to speak with legal counsel."

Copyright: Urban Family Council, 2001

Re: Translation discussion

2005-12-18T23:55:00.000-06:00

Well, we're obviously at a key disagreement in the philosophy of dynamic equivalent translation. For those that are having a hard time following, let me try to summarize. Remember, Dynamic Equivalence is the theory of translation used by such works as the NIV, the CEV, GNB, NLT, etc.

Aaron - Dynamic Equivalence translation actually interprets (both in language and in doctrine) what the Bible says in order to make it more readable for the reader.

Wally - Dynamic Equivalence does not interpret, it translates the original authors' meaning into English.

Wally, definitely let me know if you think I misrepresented your stance on the issue. I certainly don't want to put words in your mouth.

First of all, we've made some progress. Originally, it was stated that "There is NO "interpretation" inherent in this process" and now we're agreeing that interpretation is inherent in the process, but debating whether it's "language interpretation" or "doctrinal interpretation." Obviously, if we were talking about translation with the complete removal of interpretation, we would be offering a literal word for word translation instead of a "thought-for-thought" interpretation.

So what's the difference between "language interpretation" and "doctrinal interpretation?" Language interpretation is a judgment that translators make regarding which English words best render the meaning of the words in the original biblical text. For example, is the Hebrew word zera best rendered as "seed" or "offspring"? Were the Israelites led through the "desert" or the "wilderness?"

Let's talk about doctrinal interpretation then. Obviously doctrinal interpretation is a judgment about the theological meaning of a passage. Something I think we should all agree should not be included in a Bible, but should be left for the reader to decide, or for commentaries to expound upon. So do dynamically equivalent translations embed doctrinal interpretation? Let's look.

Romans 1:17 says that in the Gospel "the righteousness of God is revealed" (RSV, NASB, ESV). This literal translation of what the original says does not proceed to interpret whether this righteousness of God is an attribute of God's character or whether it is God's gift of righteousness conferred on those who believe leading to salvation . So how would a dynamic equivalent translate the "thought" of this verse? With any doctrinal interpretation? NIV - "For in the gospel a righteousness FROM God is revealed." NLT - "This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight." GNB - "For the gospel reveals how God puts people right with himself." CEV - "The good news tells how God accepts everyone who has faith." This is far from the literal meaning of the original which said "the righteousness of God is revealed."

Here are some examples from the dynamically equivalent Contemporary English Version:
Rev. 22:21—"The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen." (ESV) becomes "I pray that the Lord Jesus will be kind to all of you" (CEV). (The term "grace" means free unmerited favor and blessing" and it carries a lot of rich theological meaning when it is studied in the various contexts. To change this blessed Bible word to "kindness" is to dilute the Word of God and change its meaning.)

Eph. 2:8—"For by grace you have been saved through faith" (ESV) becomes "You were saved by faith in God's kindness" (CEV). (Again, "grace" is changed to "kindness." The dynamic equivalency translators have also changed almost everything else in this important verse.)

Phil. 1:1—"overseers and deacons" (ESV) becomes "to all of your church officials and officers" (CEV). (The term "deacon" is a technical and important term that is used consistently in Scripture. To water this term down to the vague "church officials and officers" is inexcusable.)

Phil. 1:1—"the saints in Christ" (ESV) becomes "all of God's people who belong to Christ Jesus" (CEV). (The term "saint" means one who is set apart for God, one who is holy; it is from the same Greek words that are translated "holy" and "sanctify." The term has a great depth of meaning when it is studied in the various contexts, but the dynamic equivalency translators typically choose one of the weakest definitions and replace the choice theological word with that definition.)

Rom. 3:10—"none is righteous" (ESV) becomes "none acceptable to God" (CEV). (The term "righteous" means right living, godliness; by changing it to "acceptable," the meaning is diluted and changed. It is true that sinners are not acceptable to God, but that is not what this verse says. The dynamic equivalency translators have interpreted the verse and given the readers their interpretation rather than a precise translation.)

Rom. 3:24—"are justified by his grace" (ESV) becomes "he freely accepts us" (CEV). (The term "justification" means declared righteous.")

1 Cor. 6:11—"But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (ESV) becomes "But now the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of God's Spirit have washed you and made you acceptable to God" (CEV). (In this verse, in addition to many other changes, the glorious Bible terms "sanctified" and "justified" have been watered down to "made acceptable to God.")

As Ryken says, "For dynamic equivalent translations, all translation is potentially interpretation - interpretation defined as we define it hermeneutically to mean interpreting the thought of a statement or passage." And further, "For essentially literal translations, translation is translation, and its task is to express what the original says. Only for dynamic equivalent translations is all translation potentially interpretation - something added to the original or changed from the original to produce what the translators think the passage means."

Does a dynamically equivalent translation include doctrinal interpretation? I think the examples above shows it does.

So a dynamic equivalent bible would strive to translate meaning rather than words. Here are quotes from the preface of a few dynamically equivalent translations: GNB - "the meaning of the original." NIV - "the thought of the biblical writers." NLT - "a thought-for-thought translation...has the potential to represent the intended meaning of the original text even more accurately than a word-for-word translation." Here's the problem. Ideas and thoughts depend on words are are expressed by them. When we change the words, we change the meaning. I'll grab a comparative example from Ryken:

Psalm 1:3 ends with a statement of the complete prosperity of the godly person.

"Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper" (KJV)
"In all that he does, he prospers" (RSV, ESV; NASB similar)
"In all that they do, they prosper" (NRSV; NLT nearly identical)
"Whatever he does prospers" (NIV)
"They succeed in everything they do" (GNB)

Do these translations communicate the same meaning? No. Some translations say the prosperity comes in the future (shall prosper) and some say it's a present state (prospers.) Some translations say the person prospers (he prospers) and some say it's "whatever he does" or "they do that prospers. Some translations say it's a godly person (singular) and some say it's a group of people by saying "they." When the words differ, the meaning differs. We can't translate the ideas instead of the words.

Since Todd and Caleb have both said that readability is not the ultimate goal of a dynamic equivalent, I won't argue that point, but some people do say that readability is the key. I like the way Wally put it "Clearer understanding is the ultimate goal." Excellent. To that I would say, if you want to clearly understand God's Word, then read what the original author's of God's word wrote via a literal translation (or as Caleb says, ultimately by reading the original language in which it was written), and then use the Holy Spirit and external commentaries to better understand it.

It bothers me that the dynamically equivalent translations adapt God's Word because they consider me a "modern reader." I want to know what the author had to say in their original text, not what the modern reader dictates it says. Here are some examples from dynamically equivalent prefaces:

GNB - "...to express that meaning in a manner and form easily understood by the readers."
NLT - "Metaphorical language is often difficult for contemporary readers to understand, so at times we have chosen to translate or illuminate the metaphor."
NIV - "Because for most readers today the phrases 'the Lord of hosts' and 'God of hosts' have little meaning, this version renders them 'the Lord Almighty' and 'God Almighty'"
NCV - "Ancient customers are often unfamiliar to modern readers"

Ok, so the last point got off the original topic of conversation. I think I have shown that the dynamic equivalent translations DO indeed entail interpretation, both of language and of doctrine. The length of my e-mail directly correlates with the length of sleep I get at night, so I'm going to call it a night and hope that my point has been sufficiently argued. If not, I'm happy to go more rounds. I'd much rather be doing this than wasting time watching television or participating in some other eternally meaningless activity. :-) This is great fun, I hope we haven't lost everyone with our novel like e-mail thread, but based on some conversations we've had, I'm guessing we might have. My bad, Wally does a good job of keeping his points succinct, I'm the one that rambles...

In Him,
Aaron
Proverbs 30:5-6 ESV - "Every word of God proves true...Do not add to his words"

On 12/15/05, Todd Wallace wrote:
Responses in BOLD:

-----Original Message-----
From: hornit@gmail.com [mailto:hornit@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Aaron Horn
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2005 9:39 AM
To: Todd Wallace
Cc: Caleb Ehlers; John Scheppler; Larry Novak; Brett; doctormichael@netins.net; Brian Packard; Andrew [EPM/MTN] Paullus; ritchie@chieves.org; scott@randallcorp.com; shenry@iowatelecom.net
Subject: Re: Translation discussion

Now we're on a roll! Again, can't respond due to the fact that it doesn't really assist in getting this website done for BU, but I wanted to address one key point.

Wally - Aaron, I think you should be careful here. Aaron, you are not a proud man. This phrase can be taken to sound like you are though. I don't think that's what you want to communicate. " Specifically for new believers and young people who have a difficult time following the language of a more literal translation."

Aaron - Excellent point. You are correct that my statement could sound arrogant and I certainly didn't mean for it to. I appreciate your statement that I'm not proud, I'm glad we know each other well enough that you know that, and I appreciate the warning that those that don't know me as well might see it that way. I am FAR from really understanding God's Word. Nor can I easily pick up a King James Version Bible and easily grasp the verses without need for discernment. The idea I was trying to express was that new believer in Christ needs to be fed with milk. As they grow in Christ and continue to walk with Him and meditate on His Word, they start to need the meat of God's Word. (Hebrews 5:12-14) In my opinion (and this could be wrong, they are just examples I think of), the milk is learning about the stories of Christ, the way a Christian should act, the characteristics of God, the call of baptism, stories from the Old Testament, etc. The meat gets into doctrine like election, predestination, true meaning of communion, characteristics of elders/deacons, literal/figurative, etc. When we start to talk about doctrine and things that literally shapes your belief system, it is vital that we are getting the true literal translation, and not what the authors of a "dynamic equivalent" thinks it means.

Again, Aaron, you are making a wrong assumption here. A "dynamic equivalent" should not communicate what the "translator" thinks the TEXT means! It should communicate what the "original author" means!

Predestination and election is a perfect example. Some people take predestination to mean that we have no control over whether we are saved or not. God has already predestined some people to be saved and others to not be. This belief makes for a drastically different attitude about evangelism and the gospel than the belief that man has free will to choose God and that God's predestination is for believers and based on the fact that He is omniscent and already knows whether you will accept Him. I really don't want to get into the predestination/election debate right now, I just wanted to point out that if someone is interpreting God's Word in their translation, then we are reading it as it's already filtered through their ideas of what predestination means (or rather, whether they should be using the word predestination or if that was really the word/idea the author was conveying.) I'd rather see the raw text and use commentaries and studies to determine what it means for myself.

You are continuing to make the same errors, here Aaron. There is a huge distinction between the PROCESS OF LANGUAGE INTERPRETATION, and the process of DOCTRINAL INTERPRETATION.

The best resource I have found on this whole topic is the book "How to Read the Bible for All it's worth". There is an entire section in this book on translations.

Anyway… I will do some more reading, and get back to you.

Thanks Aaron.

Todd

Caleb posted an excellent comment on my blog in response to one of my posts and said, "I think a secure approach, rather than swearing by one version, would be to use multiple translations when studying a text. That way at least you can see the text in different lights and hopefully come to view the original meaning of the text more clearly."

Absolutely. If nothing else, this study has shown me that we can't just say that one version is the perfect infallible translation of exactly what God's authors wrote, unless we study the original manuscripts. This has, on some level, frustrated me that I don't speek Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic. Or that God didn't just have it written in English! :-) Stupid Tower of Babel...

The point I was trying to convey was that most young/new believers aren't going to dive into studying the semantics of 5 different versions of the Bible. They mostly want to learn more about Christ and their relationship with Him and to develop that walk. (Note, I'm saying "they" because I don't consider myself a YOUNG believer at this point as I've been a believer for 17 years and have been exposed to and have been pursuing more knowledge for most of those years. I guess relative to those that have been believers for 40 years, I'm definitely young, but my point is that I am moving from "milk to meat" and that stage happens at different times for different people. Am I a seasoned and experienced teacher of God's Word? NO! But I'm working towards it just like the rest of you!) We should ALWAYS be developing our walk, that's for sure. And I'm not saying that I'm any further in my walk than any of you, far be it from me to convey that.

Ok, this e-mail took way too much time. I'd better stop. I apologize for any arrogance I may have conveyed as that was the last thing I wanted to do. We can discuss more about interpretation and the details of dynamic equivalence a bit later...

In Him,

Aaron

On 12/15/05, Todd Wallace < toddwallace@cornerstone-church.com> wrote:

This is fun! Thanks Aaron for the dialogue.

One quick thought…. I will give more later…

I realized that in my response (and then reading your response) that we are talking about 2 types of interpretation:

1. Language interpretation (what does this Greek word mean in English)

2. Theological interpretation (what does this word or phrase say about God)

Yes, and I agree, all translation is LANGUAGE INTERPRETATION. So I will grant to you, that LANGUAGE INTERPRETATION is happening. What I just learned is that that's not what I am arguing against.

In a good translation, the MEANING of the original text should be clearly translated. I am not quite sure why you think one word is better than a phrase, and I disagree with your statement

"Specifically for new believers and young people who have a difficult time following the language of a more literal translation.".

Aaron, I think you should be careful here. Aaron, you are not a proud man. This phrase can be taken to sound like you are though. I don't think that's what you want to communicate.

The problem with the KJV is that the language is wrong in many places. The words have changed their meaning. Language is an ever changing beast. For example, if something is "the Bomb" in 2005, it's cool. In 1992, that meant it wasn't cool. Same holds true for our language in translations. Here is just a quick example:

The King James Bible Word Book by Ronald Bridges and Luther A. Weigle, published by Thomas Nelson Publishers, states the following on the inside jacket:

"Did you know that in the King James Version of the Bible the word 'advertise' means 'tell,' 'allege' means 'prove,' and 'conversation' means 'behavior'? That 'communicate' means 'share,' 'take through' means 'be anxious,' and 'prevent' means 'precede'? That 'meat' is a general term for 'food,' and 'anon' and 'by and by' translate Greek words which mean 'immediately'?

These words -- and many like them -- made perfect sense to readers when the KJV was published in 1611. But today, after nearly four centuries of changes in English, few readers know what such words mean. And most readers miss the riches of the all-time favorite King James Bible" [emphasis ours].

I am ok with a translator interpreting for me the English equivalent to the original Greek text. If done properly, it should have the same MEANING in a literal and dynamic equivalent translation. What I do not want, is Theological Interpretation. That would be the definition of a bad translation.

Anyway, I'm rambling. My point? It is quite possible that a DYNAMIC EQUIVALENT translation better communicates the original MEANING of the GREEK, HEBREW, or ARAMAIC text.

Mr. Horn. Your turn. I've taken too much work time already.

Mr. Ehlers? You out there?

Todd

New Translation for the Ten Commandments

2005-12-17T14:59:00.000-06:00

Speaking of new translations...

People here in Arkansas have trouble with all those "shalls" and "shall nots" in the Ten Commandments. Folks here just aren't used to talking in those terms. So, some folks in middle Arkansas got together and translated the "King James" into " Pulaski County " language:

The Hillbilly's Ten Commandments
(1) Just one God.
(2) Honor yer Ma & Pa.
(3) No tellin' tales or gossipin'.
(4) Git yourself to Sunday meetin'.
(5) Put nothin' before God.
(6) No foolin' around with another fellow's gal.
(7) No killin.'
(8) Watch yer mouth.
(9) Don't take what ain't yers.
(10) Don't be hankerin' for yer buddy's stuff.

Now that's kinda plain an' simple, don't ya think? Y'all have a good day

[Originally posted December 17, 2005 - 2:59PM]

Re: Translation discussion

2005-12-15T00:00:00.000-06:00

[This interaction happened over e-mail, but I thought I would include it here for the benefit of the followers of this debate via Blog]

First of all, this is great fun. If I didn't have guys challenging me on my statements, I might slip into a lull, but you guys keep me digging and reading, I love it! PS, I'm going to give the same caveat that Caleb gave as we have similar styles. If I come right out and say something contradictory, it's not a personal attack by any means, I just don't like to come up with the fluff to make it sound pretty and unoffensive. That being said, I feel like my debate is with the theories, not with any person in particular...

1. Wally said - I think you are misunderstanding the meaning of the phrase "dynamic equivalence". If a translation uses this method, the translators are only trying to find words or phrases that " better communicate" the original meaning where no suitable word exists for the current culture. Readability is not the only goal of this process. Clearer understanding is the ultimate goal! There is NO "interpretation" inherent in this process! I think that is the biggest hang up here. Do some use interpretation when translating? Probably. But that's not the fault of the "dynamic equivalence" process. They should not be interpreting the text. It is strictly a language to language conversion.

Aaron replies - Yes, the translators are trying to find words or phrases that "better communicate" what they think the text is trying to communicate. It's not a matter of a word not existing, it's a matter of them feeling the words won't make sense to the readers. You've probably heard dynamic equivalence refered to as "phrase by phrase" as opposed to "word for word" translation. They aren't interpreting each word literally, they are taking the idea and interpreting it.

Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia (online encyclopedia) article on what dynamic equivalence is: Dynamic equivalence (or functional equivalence) attempts to discern and render the thought of the original.

"to discern and render" = "interpret"

I have to straight up disagree that "there is NO 'interpretation' inherent in this process!" The fact that someone is deciding what the literal words MEAN and are providing me with another way of saying what they think the author MEANS or by giving me another analogy, is the very definition of interpretation. From Webster's Dictionary, here are the definitions of "interpretation":

1 : the act or the result of interpreting
2 : a particular adaptation or version of a work, method, or style

Definition 2 is right on. They are providing you with a particular version of a work. Their version of what the original author of the Scripture was saying. "It's too hard to understand when read literally, so they are going to give you another version (or interpretation) of it so you'll understand it better."

I found an article called "Dynamic Equivalence: A Method of Translation or a System of Hermeneutics" written by Robert L. Thomas, Professor of New Testament at The Master's Seminary. Due to the word being in the title of the article, I'll provide Webster's definition of hermeneutics: the study of the methodological principles of interpretation (as of the Bible)
Here's a quote from that article:

"From the perspective of a traditional definition of hermeneutics little doubt can be entertained that D-E [Dynamic Equivalence] is, among other things, a system of hermeneutics [Aaron's note: or interpretation]. Perhaps some will respond, however, that all translations are commentaries and hence incorporate the application of hermeneutical principles in arriving at their renderings. This is absolutely true. A certain degree of interpretation is unavoidable, no matter how hard the translator tries to exclude it. Yet a characteristic of formal equivalence [Aaron's note: or essentially literal translation] is its effort to avoid interpretation as much as possible by transferring directly from the surface structure of the source language to the surface structure of the receptor language. By omitting the step of analysis that is built into the D-E approach, interpretation can be excluded to a much higher degree. Since D-E intentionally incorporates interpretation, it obviously has a significantly higher degree of interpretation than formal equivalence and is in a much stronger sense a system of hermeneutics than is formal equivalence."

So, I disagree with the idea that dynamic equivalence is not interpretation. I can go into this further if I haven't fully supported my position that dynamic equivalence does in fact entail interpretation of the original in order to present an acceptable substitute for the reader.

2. Wally said (In reference to my distrust of Wescott and Hort) - Again, their doctrine and/or history of these men should not be in consideration here. The question is "How well did they translate?" and "Can we verify what they did translate?" I would rather have a Mormon who believes in reincarnation translate the text, if I knew fully well he would us the rules of translation well.

Aaron replies - I think their doctrine has to be considered when you take into consideration the fact that these men were motivated to replace the Received Text and made crucial decisions about which verses to delete or question (48 verses), which verses to remove significant portions of verses (193 verses) and which names and titles of the Lord to delete (221). In each of those cases, Westcott and Hort were more liberal in ommission than later translators. When a man is in charge of translating the word of God, I think it's fair to criticize his doctrine. However, the point is well taken that if it is a true literal, word for word interpretation of the Scripture, this shouldn't weigh heavily on the outcome. If Westcott and Hort wrote a dynamically equivalent Bible, however, I'd have some serious issues with calling it the Word of God.

Are we having fun yet? You betcha! I think I should point out here that I really believe that dynamically equivalent translations can have their place. Specifically for new believers and young people who have a difficult time following the language of a more literal translation. However, when we sit around to discuss the deep doctrines of God's Word like in a Bible Study, or in a teaching setting, I think it's important that we read what the author's wrote, not a paraphrase of what they wrote. It seems like in every other Bible Study we've had lately, symantics regarding the original Greek word has come up. I tend to put more faith in a literal translation at that point than a dynamically equivalent translation where there is a "similar meaning" given instead of the original word translated into English.

You've heard the phrase, "The devil's in the details." Well I believe "The doctrine's in the details."

Larry has challenged me to look at the NASB as arguably one of the most literal translations into English available. I've seen that phrase thrown around a lot, but I'm having trouble getting to the meat and potatoes about why that is an accurate statement. However, I'm very open to being convinced that the NASB is the way to go! :-) By the time this is over, I'm probably going to own 30 different translations and it will take me an hour to read 3 verses. Thank goodness for the Compare feature in e-Sword! :-)

In Him,
Aaron

On 12/14/05, Todd Wallace wrote:
Hey guys… again, great conversation.

Aaron, let me ask a few questions.

1. You said,

" When you start talking about translations that apply dynamic equivalence instead of essentially literal, you're allowing someone to institute their interpretation right into the text of God's Word, which to me isn't worth the "readability" it provides"

I think you are misunderstanding the meaning of the phrase "dynamic equivalence". If a translation uses this method, the translators are only trying to find words or phrases that " better communicate" the original meaning where no suitable word exists for the current culture. Readability is not the only goal of this process. Clearer understanding is the ultimate goal! There is NO "interpretation" inherent in this process! I think that is the biggest hang up here. Do some use interpretation when translating? Probably. But that's not the fault of the "dynamic equivalence" process. They should not be interpreting the text. It is strictly a language to language conversion.

2. The second comment I have is with this:

The last thing I'd ever do is read a dynamically equivalent translation by Wescott and Hort knowing a little bit more about the history of who these men were and what they believed (their doctrine).

Again, their doctrine and/or history of these men should not be in consideration here. The question is "How well did they translate?" and "Can we verify what they did translate?" I would rather have a Mormon who believes in reincarnation translate the text, if I knew fully well he would us the rules of translation well.

A similar situation is being played out right now in our courts, with all of the new candidates for Supreme Court Justice. The question (in my mind) is not what political view, religion, or personal lifestyle these men or women uphold.. but whether they will fulfill their duty of judging based upon the law.. with a non partisan judgment. I know that's a big statement, and problems arise when there are cases that needed to be interpreted using the law (so I could be in trouble here). I am about putting the right people in the right places… conservatives if possible.. not because they will judge conservatively, but because they more often are convicted to judge by the law, and not their own preferences. I think you understand my point.

Let me know what you think Aaron. Again, conversations like this are so helpful. Keep us the great work!

Todd

5 Fallacies of the Bible

2005-12-13T23:31:00.000-06:00

Ryken mentions in chapter 4 that all translation theories presuppose certain things about the Bible. I'll summarize the fallacies he believes underlie some modern translations.

Fallacy #1 : The Bible Is A Uniformly Simple Book

After listing countless examples of how it's NOT a simple book, and that the verses that don't need interpretation are actually the exception to the rule, he points out why this fallacy is a problem. One example he gave of why it's not simple is Matthew 13:11 where Jesus says he speaks in parables because "seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand." Many of the statements made, Jesus did not intend to be taken at face value and were deeper than the surface. So when a translator begins with the assumption that the Bible is uniformly a simple book and simplify the vocabulary and syntax, they eliminate theological language. This isn't up to them to be doing, they need to allow the reader to draw conclusions on what is really meant.

Fallacy #2 : The Bible Is A Book Of Ideas Rather Than Concrete Particulars
Many translators have the opinion that the Bible is a book of ideas. It does embody many ideas, but we need to be concerned with what the actual text is like before we extract religious meaning from it and translate the details of the text into a set of ideas. What difference does it make? As always, the tendency will be to use translation from one language into another as the occasion to produce the kind of biblical text that corresponds to the translators' conception of what kind of book the Bible is.

Fallacy #3 : The Bible Is A Modern Book

Many translations worry about how WE would phrase things today, not how the authors said them. In many translations, ancient customs are replaced by formulations that are immediately accessible. The Bible is an ancient book, not a modern one. It is SUPPOSED to take us back to a different place and time. We don't need to translate it to make it look modern.

Fallacy #4 : The Bible Needs Correction

He gives 6 examples of modern translation prefaces that talk about the need to change some text for the benefit of the contemporary reader. One example includes the preface to the SEB: "Sentences are purposely kept short, transparent, and uncomplicated to promote greater understanding. Complex sentence structures are often unnecessary anyway."

Fallacy #5 : The Bible Is A Book Devoid Of Mystery And Ambiguity

He gives 4 examples of modern translation prefaces that state the Bible intended one meaning and is unambiguous. However, one look at an example of Scripture like John 12:24-25 will show that it IS mysterious. "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains along; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life."

Ryken likens the modern translators trying to put the Bible in understandable terms to medieval Roman Catholic priests that read the Bible in Latin, which the attendees didn't understand, and interpreted it FOR the ignorant church goers.

So, these are the presuppositions that translators might have before they even start translating, which can greatly affect the outcome of the final translation. His next chapter talks about the seven fallacies about translation.

Digression

2005-12-11T00:52:00.000-06:00

I want to digress from the topic of Bible Translation for a second. I've been thinking about and talking to people close to me about gossip and backbiting, specifically in the church. It's amazing to me how easy it is for some people, even people I revere as extremely Godly people, to slip into a judgmental state and "innocently" discuss the actions of others with fellow believers. How destructive is it to the body of Christ? At what point do we realize that discussing our negative thoughts of someone with others is not helping anyone? Sadly, I really believe that some people don't even realize they have this problem. It's become such a way of life for them, that it doesn't even occur to them that their slander isn't just innocent conversation, it has a true impact on the body and it's Satan tool to make us less strong and less effective for Christ. As Paul would say, "LET IT NOT BE SO!" I thought I'd list a bunch of verses on the topic of gossip. To bring this full circle to my topic of Bible translations, I'll be quoting from the English Standard Version. :-) Read these verses and prayerfully consider in your heart whether God brought you to read this post because you might struggle on some level with this topic. Yes, I'm talking to you...

Lev. 19:16 - 16You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life[ a] of your neighbor: I am the LORD.
Psa. 34:13 - 13Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.
Psa. 101:5 - Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly I will destroy. Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not endure.
Prov. 6:19 - a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.
Prov 10:18 - The one who conceals hatred has lying lips, and whoever utters slander is a fool.
Prov. 11:9 - 9With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered.
Prov. 11:13 - 13Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered.
Prov. 16:28 - 28A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends.
Prov. 17:9 - 9Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.
Prov. 18:8 - 8The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body.
Prov. 20:19 - 19Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets; therefore do not associate with a simple babbler.
Prov. 26:20 - 20For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases.
Matt. 12:36 - 36I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak,
Eph. 4:29 - 29Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
Eph. 4:31 - 31Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
2 Thess. 3:11 - 11For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies.
1 Tim 3:11 - 11Their wives[a] likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things.
1 Tim 5:13 - 13Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not.
Titus 2:3 - 3Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good,
Titus 3:1-2 - 1Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, 2to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.
Jam. 4:11 - 11Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.[ a] The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.
1 Peter 2:1 - 1So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
1 Peter 3:10 - 10For "Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit;..."

I don't have all of the answers and I couldn't be further from perfect, but sometimes I feel like we need to be slapped in the face with these exhortations and not just nod our heads in agreement, but actually digest them and realize that these messages might be intended for ME. God has used the face slapping technique on me quite a few times in life, and as painful as it is, I have grown leaps and bounds thanks to it.

In Him,
Aaron

History of Translation

2005-12-10T00:06:00.000-06:00

Again, my source here is Leland Ryken's book "The Word of God in English." He summarizes some of the main translations that have come about in the History of English Bible Translation. He summarizes them and I will summarize his summaries, so they'll be very basic, but you can learn more about them by Googling their history if it intrigues you.

Wycliffe Bible (1380). John Wycliffe translated the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into Middle English.

Tyndale's New Testament (1525). This is where Modern English Bible translation begins. William Tyndale was only able to translate the new testament before being killed by a Catholic traitor. 80% of Tyndale's translation eventually found its way into the King James Version. He really started the tradition of English Bible translation as we know it.

Coverdale's Bible (1535). Miles Coverdale was an assistant to Tyndale and continued on his work. This was the first complete Bible in English. It was also the first Bible to include chapter summaries and marginal notes.

Matthew's Bible (1537). John Rogers, pen named "Thomas Matthew", divided the material into chapters and paragraphs, but not verses in included copious notes and cross-references. The first English concordance was based on Matthew's Bible.

The Great Bible (1539). Very large in size, it was championed by Thomas Cromwell, and was a revision of the Matthew's Bible.

Geneva Bible (1560). Bible of the Reformers who fled from Catholic persecution. Contained copious anti-Catholic notes that provided running commentary on the text. Had mass appeal due to it's small size and affordability. It used italics for words not found in the original text but needed to make sense in English and broke paragraphs into verses.

Bishops' Bible (1568). Initiated by Queen Elizabeth to counteract the bias of the Geneva Bible. The committees that produced the King James Version were mandated to use it as the starting point for their translation work.

The King James Version (1611). John Reynolds proposed a new English translation to King James, who commissioned 6 committees of the most knowledgeable biblical scholars of England. It was a revision of previous translations and the beneficiary of the earlier evolving history of English Bible translation. It is an essentially literal translation. Alister McGrath claims that a careful study of the way in which the King James Bible translates the Greek and Hebrew originals suggests that the translators tried to 1) ensure that every word in the original had an English equivalent, 2) highlight all words added to the original for the sake of intelligibility, and 3) follow the word order of the original where possible. Instead of translating the same Hebrew or Greek consistently in the English, the King James translators loved the principles of synonymity (using synonyms instead of verbatim repetition for the same Hebrew or Greek word) and variety; so they multiplied the number of English words used for a given Hebrew or Greek word. Stylistically, the KJV is the greatest English Bible translation ever produced. Its rhythms are matchless. It did not maintain its supremacy after the mid-twentieth century for three main reasons: Its language is now outdated, the translators' knowledge of ancient languages was less reliable than modern knowledge is, and the translation uses a New Testament text (the Textus Receptus) that most scholars no longer consider the most reliable.

Revised Version (1881-1885). Tried to overcome the increasingly obsolete language of the King James Version. Arranged content by paragraphs and improved consistency in placing words added to the original in italics. This was a British movement. American scholars converted it into the American Standard Version to make it less "British," but it didn't catch on.

J. B. Phillips' New Testament (1947-1957). The first real dynamic equivalent Bible. A truly loose colloquial English version.

Revised Standard Version (1946 [NT], 1952 [OT], 1957 [complete], 1971 [rev. NT]). Intended as a revision to the American Standard Version, but also considered a revision to the King James Version. Next to the KJV, the most literary (not literal, literary) translation. Some of its literary excellences, though, carry the price tag of being based on emendations that, although they have the support of ancient versions (especially the Septuagint), have lost credibility in more recent exegetical theory. In translation philosophy, the RSV inclined toward verbal equivalence. It was the first ecumenical (universally accepted across denominations in Christianity) translation. The New Revised Standard Version came out in 1989, but it's not a genuine heir to the RSV, it's a dynamic equivalent that is quite liberal. The true heir to the RSV is the English Standard Version (more on that later.)

New American Standard Bible (1971). For evangelicals who wanted a modern Bible and were distrustful of the RSV, the NASB was the translation of choice until the NIV appeared. The NASB was a revision of the American Standard Version of 1901. It's great virtue is its reliability and fidelity to the language of the original. Its weakness is that it ranks low in readability and literary style.

Good News Bible (1976). Also known as Today's English Version. Pushes new translation philosophy to its limits. Very contemporary American speech. The GNB was sponsored by the American Bible Society, which in 1995 also produced the Contemporary English Version, which is even freer than the GNB, which is gender inclusive and avoids theological terms like atonement, redemption, and righteousness. A Bible without the philosophy of righteousness?

New International Version (1978). A true dynamic equivalent, but on the conservative side, it often moves beyond what the original text says to the interpretations preferred by the translators. Readability was a high priority so as readable on a seventh-grade level. Today's New International Version, however, is completely gender-inclusive and very liberal.

New English Bible (1970), Revised English Bible (1989). British translations not making much of a splash in the US. NEB was the first dynamic equivalent produced by a committee whose members were regarded as the best British linguists in the scholarly world at large. However, looked at by many scholars as experimental.

New Living Translation (1996). Published by Tyndale House, the NLT was based on a desire to refute charges that its predecessor, The Living Bible, was unscholarly. Based on the ancient texts, but firmly committed to the principle of dynamic equivalence.

English Standard Version (2001). Strove to be a more literal translation than was available, wanted more stylistic flair than the NASB, and more accurate than the New KJV. The committee took the RSV (as slightly revised in 1971) as it starting point. The entire Bible was subjected to comparison with the original texts, and the committee ended up changing about 6% from the RSV text, more than originally envisioned. The entire oversight committee of 12 members met in full for all deliberation on spadework done by specialists, with literary interests fully represented at the table in all deliberations. Leland Ryken, who was on that committee, believes it to have the highest possible degree of consistency and unity throughout the Bible.

Ok, that's enough for this blog. I'll let you ponder some of the major translations throughout history and decide which ones peak your interest to learn more about...

In Him,
Aaron

Bible Translations

2005-12-09T00:05:00.000-06:00

Ok, so as many of you know, I am doing a study on Bible translations in my "free time" and have been doing so for several months. I've always had a strong bias against the NIV and for the KJV, but I realized that I really didn't know why, so I set to find out. My original thought was that I could Google it and figure it out in an hour or two. What I didn't realize was the extent to which this can of worms reaches. It's open, and I can't stop, so I'm going to pursue it and see where it leads me. So far, my bias against the NIV is still strong due to it's translational theory of dynamic equivalence, but I am now also equally convinced that the KJV is not the most accurate translation to use either. I'll start to lay out the basics here, and then add more posts as I learn more.

I decided that for me personally, I needed a bible that most accurately reflected the original text. I needed an essentially literal translation. I realize this means it will probably be harder to read, but I really don't like the idea of a translator changing what the text said so that I would understand it better. If I need help, I can always make use of commentaries. This is the debate of "essentially literal" versus "dynamic equivalent." Let me define some key phrases here, because these phrases will continue to pop up through my posts (these are from the book, "The Word of God in English" by Leland Ryken:

Receptor Language - The language into which a text written in a foreign language is translated (in this case, English).

Native Language - The original language in which a text is written.

Dynamic Equivalent - A meaning in the receptor language that corresponds to (is "equivalent" to) a meaning in a native-language text (for example, the "heart" as the modern way of denoting the essence of a person, especially the emotions, which for the ancients was situated in the kidneys.)

Dynamic Equivalence - A theory of translation based on the premise that whenever something in the native-language text is foreign or unclear to a contemporary reader, the original text should be translated in terms of a dynamic equivalent.

Functional Equivalent - Something in the receptor language that differs from what the original text says but that serves the same function in the receptor language (for example, "firstfruits" translated as "special offering.")

Functional Equivalence - A theory of translation that favors replacing a statement in the original text with a functional equivalent whenever the original phraseology or reference is obscure for a modern reader in the receptor language.

Equivalent Effect - A translation that aims to produce the same effect on readers of the translation as the original text produced on its native-language readers.

Formal Equivalence - A theory of translation that favors reproducing the form or language of the original text, and not just its meaning. In its stricter form, this theory of translation espouses reproducing even the syntax and word order of the original; the formulas word for word translation and verbal equivalence often imply this stricter definition of the concept.

Essentially Literal Translation - A translation that strives to translate the exact words of the original-language text in a translation, but not in such a rigid way as to violate the normal rules of language and syntax in the receptor language.

Besides Googling this topic to death to learn more about the "reliability" of the Greek manuscripts used in translation, the two main sources I have been using thus far include a letter written by a woman named Sue Winters that is basically a KJV only argument. It's about 38 pages and I have it in PDF form, which I will link to later if I can remember to. Otherwise, I'd be happy to e-mail it to anyone. It has some good points, but overall appears to be a stubborn attempt to say that God used the evolution of the KJV as it was brought together in 1611 as His ultimate Word and nothing else will suffice.

My other source is the book I mentioned by Leland Ryken. His bias is towards the English Standard Version, which holds to the philosophies of the KJV, but is based on the Revised Standard Version, which is a revision of the KJV, but used more accurate manuscripts (Google Textus Receptus versus Septuagint for more information than you could ever want on this topic.) Ryken's book is available for download at: http://www.esv.org/assets/pdfs/woge.pdf

Ok, so that's the start. You have to decide which theory of translation you agree with before you can start looking at all of the translations that are available (and there are TONS, just check out www.biblegateway.com and click the drop down to pick a translation, you'll see what I mean.)

Next post I'll give a summary of some of the most common translations, or at least the ones that made a huge impact and that many of the other translations are revisions of. I hope someone else is enjoying this stuff, cuz I sure am!

In Him,
Aaron

Third Day

2005-12-08T08:47:00.000-06:00

Our CFO informed me today that Third Day is coming to Ames with the David Crowder Band in January. How could I pass that up? I mean, I drove straight down to Atlanta for a weekend with very little sleep to see Third Day, of course I'm going to drive 10 minutes to see them! I had him put me down for two tickets. It reminded me to play their newest album (Wherever You Are). I'm a big fan of their song Communion. I'm not sure why, it's not really my favorite style, I just like the lyrics and the idea I think.

In Him,
Aaron

We hunger and thirst for your love and your righteousness. We long for your presence here, Lord. Be with us again.
This is the body, this is the blood. Broken and poured out for all of us. And in this communion, we share in His love. This is the body, this is the Blood.

Smell the Color 9

2005-12-06T15:40:00.000-06:00

These Chris Rice lyrics really hit me today as I was driving down the road. I'll let them speak for themselves...

Now I've never felt the presence,
But I know You're always near,
And I've never heard the calling,
But somehow You've led me right here,
So I'm not lookin' for burnin' bushes,
Or some Divine graffiti to appear,
I'm just beggin You for Your wisdom,
And I believe You're puttin' some here...

Election

2005-12-04T23:39:00.000-06:00

I was listening to a sermon on Election (link provided below) and took notes while listening to it. I thought people might enjoy looking over the notes to hopefully gleam some understanding from them.

Notes on Election

This link is to a 40 minute sermon by Lehman Strauss on Election:

http://flester.dyndns.org/vfc/VFC-GOLD/Strauss_Lehman/Strauss-WOM-p0656-05.mp3

Guidelines in studying Election

1) The Bible does not provide all of the answers to our intellectual and theological inquiries.

There are issues involved that our finite minds cannot comprehend.

2) God is completely holy and righteous in all that He does, whether we understand his ways or not.

Psalm 145:17

3) The total extent of our knowledge is limited to that of which God chooses to reveal. Beyond the revelation of Holy Scripture, there is no room for human speculation or reasoning.

Deuteronomy 29:29

There are some things that God has not revealed and they belong to Him. What He has revealed belongs to us.

4) A work which is dependent upon God's grace cannot in any way involve man's works. Grace and works cannot be combined to establish a reason for anything God does.

Romans 11:6

Definition

Election is the sovereign act of God whereby He chooses certain parts of His creation, always to accomplish a special purpose.

God has the right to make choices, He is the sovereign God and the creator of the universe. Where would we be without God's choices? If he didn't pick people and events to accomplish his purposes, we would be drifting in a purposeless world.

Examples of election in the scriptures

Psalm 106:21 - God ELECTED Moses

Psalm 89 - God ELECTED David

New Testament examples:

Election->Salvation->Predestination->Adoption->Redemption

Ephesians 1:4 – Salvation cannot begin if God doesn’t start it. Salvation begins with election. Verse 5 - Predestination is the sovereign act of God where he sets a goal/destination for the believer. God NEVER predestinated anyone to go to hell. It’s always a destination for the believer. Adoption – spiritual blessings that come from God. He takes the born again believer and puts them in the position of a full grown mature son. Romans 8 – we are waiting for the adoption, the future of our bodies. It is yet to come. Then the doctrine of redemption in verse 7.

The real purpose for why God makes a choice. 1 Cor. 1:26. “That no flesh should glory in His presence.” God decided that sinners should be saved. He made that choice. Suppose you had something to do with your salvation. We could brag about what we did to get saved. Salvation begins with God’s election. God is pro choice. God gave man the essential attributes of personality. God created man in his own likeness and image. The includes the basic essentials of personality. The capability of thinking, the capability of feeling (emotions), and the capability of making a choice (free will.)

For those of us that made a choice to believe in Christ. Romans 8:33. It is God that justifies and declares us righteous. This is where our eternal security comes from. From God’s election. It gives us the basis for our assurance.

Nothing can separate us from God’s love.

Distinguishing marks of God’s elect (those that made the choice to believe in Christ.)

Colossians 3:11 +. Every believer is among the elect of God. If you didn’t make that choice, you wouldn’t be in the family.

What is my behavior like? Do I behave as one of God’s elect?

1 Thess. 1

John 3:18 – He that believeth NOT is condemned already. Those that haven’t accepted Christ is already under condemnation. You can only get out of that condemnation by making a choice of accepting Christ. If you end up going to hell, it’s because you CHOSE to go there, not because God chose for you to go there.

It is our job to witness. And the only way we’ll know if the person we are witnessing to is one of God’s elect, is if they chose Christ. We have a responsibility to continue to witness. God has given us the capability of making a choice.

Talking about When Chimps Attack News Anchors

2005-12-04T21:15:00.000-06:00

Who's idea was it to have a monkey live on the set of a News show? :-)

Quote

When Chimps Attack News AnchorsMikey the monkey goes ape wild on the set of a news program in Baltimore.

Rocco Di Horn

2005-12-04T10:00:00.000-06:00

So for those of you that don't know, we have a new family member.

My mom raises Doberman Pinschers and for Christmas, they gave us a fawn Dobberman. We named him Rocky (boxing reference? Maybe.), but his AKC registered name is Rocco Di Horn. Nice and Italian, don't ya think?

He's getting along quite well, except Eli doesn't really appreciate being attacked with puppy bites very much. :-) If Rocky gets after him, he falls to the ground in a fetal position to protect himself. It's very humorous, although it probably shouldn't be. Maybe we're just bad parents. :-)

I just had to go get a shoe out of his mouth. Typical puppy. He's already 14 pounds (our Boston Terrier is 16), and he's expected to get to over 100 lbs. It'll be different for us to have a big dog like that. He and Harley just got done with a 20 minute wrestle fest. Finally Harley had enough and when Harley has enough, game's over. She'll be smaller, but she'll always be the boss.

I'll post a few pictures we have of him, even though they are from before the snow, so they aren't THAT recent. Check the photo gallery for more...

Music

2005-12-04T09:55:00.000-06:00

I just bought two new CDs yesterday and thought I'd share my thoughts on them here. They are awesome. :-)

The first one is MercyMe's Christmas album. It's like any other Contemporary Christian Artist's Christmas album. Classic songs, redone in their style. The great part about MercyMe is their style is good old rock! They really jazzed up the songs, but kept the integrity of the harmony, which I think is pretty important so you can still sing along with it. So yeah, great album. $14 at Lemstone.

The other one I bought was Chris Rice's "Short Term Memories" album. It's basically like a Greatest Hits album, but the thing I liked about it was that they were truly his Greatest Hits. It's got 17 songs and I think I loved at least 13 or 14 of them. The first 7 were my all time favorites. There's two new songs on it as well. It really reminded me of the time I saw him in concert in Des Moines. Just a man and a guitar on stage at a church singing some of the most amazing lyrics written. He is truly a talented and blessed man.

So, that's it, just two recommendations for ya for the Christmas season. :-)

I also bought several CDs last night through www.sound-and-spirit.com for $5.99 each and free shipping. Kutless "Strong Tower", Jeremy Camp "Restored", Audio Adrenaline "Until My Heart Caves In", and Big Daddy Weave "One and Only." Can't wait!

Katrina

2005-11-15T23:41:00.000-06:00

Ok, so many of you know that I went to New Orleans with Cornerstone Church in Ames in the end of October to help do a little bit of relief work. And I do mean a little. We drove down there and arrived Friday afternoon and worked until Monday afternoon. It seems like we did a ton of work, but in the grand scheme of things, we really only helped out a handfull of people. Of course, to those people, it made a huge difference in their lives.

We mainly helped church members of the First Baptist Church of New Orleans, but on Monday we drove around to find people to help. Some people actually turned us down (skeptical), but others really appreciated our help. We tried to make it clear that we were just being servants for Christ.

It's going to take a long time for that city to rebuild, but I was encouraged by the fact that most of the relief work is being done by Christian organizations, so God's Word is being lived and preached in this trying time. A lot of the evil of the city has gone, but they will need to work to keep it out when they rebuild. We can be praying for that. The Salvation Army is truly a great organization and have seen 200 people profess to come to Christ in New Orleans. They don't just distribute food and necessities, they also show people God's love and talk about Christ's free gift of salvation.

There are so many pictures that it doesn't make sense to post them here. I have put together a slideshow presentation you can download at http://www.hornit.net/katrina.zip, but beware that it is 9.5MB so it is really only for high speed internet users. The slideshow highlights some of the best pictures we all took.

If you want to peruse the over 800 pictures that were taken by many of the 24 people that went down, you can check out http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=om8wg8q.6b4nzjai&x=0&y=ia5elb. Again, there are a ton of pictures, so dialup users beware. Although, the thumbnails aren't so bad and they will start loading individually, so you can still probably get good pics without having to wait long. I have a condensed version with 56 pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/HornIT/KatrinaOctober2005

Quote of the Month

2005-10-19T09:08:00.000-05:00

With hurricanes, tornado's, flooding and severe t-storms tearing up the country from one end to another, the quote of the month is..... Jay Leno:
"Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?"

Talking about Ultralight Flying!

2005-10-06T10:07:00.000-05:00

Turning a motorcycle into an ultralight. How cool is that?!

Ultralight Flying! New Products

God Exists

2005-10-02T10:18:00.000-05:00

This is one of the best explanations of why God allows pain and suffering that I have seen. It's an explanation other people will understand.

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many things and various subjects.

When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: "I don't believe that God exists."

"Why do you say that?" asked the customer.

"Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things."

The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond because he didn't want to start an argument. The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop. Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and un-kept.

The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber: "You know what? Barbers do not exist."

"How can you say that?" asked the surprised barber. "I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked o n you!"

"No!" the customer exclaimed. "Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside."

"Ah, but barbers DO exist! What happens is, people do not come to me."

"Exactly!"- affirmed the customer. "That's the point! God, too, DOES exist! What happens, is, people don't go to Him and do not look for Him. That's why there's so much pain and suffering in the world."

Brasil Pics

2005-09-19T14:04:00.000-05:00

So as you can probably tell, I'm not mainly using this for updating my Photo albums online.

While I'm here in Curitiba, Brazil, I thought I'd upload some pics of the cool stuff I've seen down here. Greg Waibel took me on a bus tour of the city and we took quite a few stops to see the coolest stuff. It was pretty sweet...

Eli's first ISU Game

2005-09-03T22:19:00.000-05:00

It's official. Eli is an ISU Cyclone Fan! He had his first full ISU football game experience. From tailgating at 3pm to the fireworks at the end. Ok, so he fell asleep on my shoulder before the fireworks, but he made it through the entire game. Well, all but the last 2 minutes. :-)

See the photo gallery for shots from the game. For those that didn't know, the Cyclones beat the Illinois State Redbirds 32-21.

Sorry

2005-08-29T09:40:00.000-05:00

Added pics of Eli at the Fair.

Sorry this doesn't get as much action. It takes more time to post here, so the Tech Blog gets a lot more posts.

Starting a study in Romans with some people at work, so that should be good. Going to use John MacArthur's study through Romans as a base, but use supplemental stuff throughout. Going to start off with an intro to Paul and why he wrote Romans. Should be good!

Stem Cells We Can All Love?

2005-08-22T23:04:00.000-05:00

Interesting stuff.

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,68608,00.html?tw=rss.TOP

So we don't need to create embryos just to destroy them after all? Funny what "not budging" on moral standards will drive us to discover...

New Text Message Website

2005-08-07T18:58:00.000-05:00

Truthfully, the best way to get a hold of me if you need to is to send a TXT message to my cell phone. Why? Because if I'm not at my desk, I won't see your e-mail. If I'm in a meeting or am otherwise busy, I'll probably ignore your call and check the voicemail once I'm done. However, if you send me a text message with the subject of what you need to talk to me about, I get it immediately (my cell is almost ALWAYS on me and on) and I can prioritize when I need to get back to you. There are several ways to TXT message me. First, you can just e-mail aaron.horn@vtext.com. However, it's hard to know how many characters will come through when you do it that way. Therefore, I have created a new page that makes it VERY simple to send me a text message (it will even count the chacters and convert the message to be as short as possible for you): http://text.hornit.net

Check it out and just remember text.hornit.net the next time you need to get a hold of me. And don't just send me a message that says "Call me" because it will be sent to the absolute bottom of my priority list. That goes for voicemails as well. :-)

An Intellect CAN Believe in Creation?

2005-08-03T21:35:00.000-05:00

Ok, so OZ brought up an excellent topic to touch on in a comment on my last post and I was worried that if we pursued it in the comments section, people would miss out. So I'm going to post this response here and I want people to pay attention to the comments section following this post so that if this discussion continues on, it's not missed. If nobody really cares or disagrees, then there will be no comments. Why do I think that's unlikely? Maybe because there aren't that many people that probably read this Blog to tell the truth. :-)

So many of us have been raised to believe in Creation in Sunday School, but Evolution in Public School. Worse yet, some Christians try to "explain" evolution's "evidence" in the terms of the Bible and Christianity. Folks, please understand that we don't really need to "justify" our beliefs about Creation. We are looking at the SAME EVIDENCE as the evolutionists. They don't have some secret "facts" that we as Christians aren't aware of! Think about it: we all have the same earth, the same fossil layers, the same animals and plants, the same stars—the facts are all the same.

IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO INTERPRETATION OF THOSE FACTS! Am I right? As Christians, we start out with certain presuppositions. Presuppositions are things that are assumed to be true, without being able to prove them. These then become the basis for other conclusions. Evolutionists also start out with certain presuppositions. We then both take the SAME FACTS and mold them to support OUR presuppositions. So we aren't debating the facts, we're debating our interpretations of those facts based on our presuppositions.

I can't even begin to give you all of the interpretations of the evidence that would make one agree that the earth is the result of a Creator God. There are so many rational, intelligent, and well respected scientists that can look at the same evidence and show that Creation is the most logical explanation. (Don't get frustrated by my lack of supporting evidence here, you'll get more than you can digest at the end of this post.) I think the misconception is that it's "science" versus "religion." That's not true at all. Science definitely has it's place in religion. God gave us science!

I am a very rational person, and please don't take this as a weakness of faith, but I don't make it a habit to just blindly accept things because "the Bible says so" so don't even question it. Granted, there are some things I accept that I can't prove beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt, but I'm not an ignorant closed minded person. If the Bible teaches something, I PRESUPPOSE that it's true and accurate because I believe that God's Word is infallible, but that doesn't mean I stop there and presuppose you believe the same thing. I look at it from your perspective and try to understand your presuppositions so I can do one of two things. 1) Show you my point of view in relevance to your bias or 2) See the error in my thinking and take on your belief. However, I will say, that if your belief contradicts the Word of God, the odds are 1 in a trillion that I'll take your stance. A presupposition that is making it impossible for me to see the "truth" because I'm blinded by religion? No, a presupposition based on faith, that I have yet to be convinced is not true. A presupposition making me totally closed minded? No, a presupposition that is different than yours when looking at the evidence, which isn't going to change unless some miraculous evidence is shown to me that I absolutely cannot ignore that totally abolishes my presuppositions. Wow, that was a big sentence.

If I have used the word presupposition too much, I apologize. I just can't think of a better way to say it. Ok, so I promised you some "interpretations" of the evidence that would support Creation and the Young Earth theory. What? You mean to tell me that you believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old? Yes, based on the same evidence you are looking at, but using different presuppositions about the existence of God (or the lack thereof for some people), I believe that the earth is NOT millions and millions of years old as we were so factually taught in school. Let Bill Mahr call me a moron. I don't care, I've thought worse about Bill Mahr. I pray for Bill Mahr, he is truly one of the most affected people I know. And not by the truth, but by the world's theology. If you don't know who Bill Mahr is, good for you. You're a better person for it. :-)

Sorry, I digress. I have spent some serious time at Answers in Genesis, which I am proud to cite as the basis for my rant here. Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry that equips Christians with the ability to defend their faith to skeptics. It's the kind of thing that a guy like me eats up. I love it and I could spend hours swimming in it. So I promised you some interpretations of the evidence that supports my views on Creation and the Young Earth. Here they are. I encourage you to spend some time at this site and just read through the evidence. It's really good stuff and will hopefully show you that Christians aren't just a bunch of thoughtless dolts that use God as a crutch.

I believe in a Young Earth: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/young.asp

My hat goes out to OZ for bringing up this discussion and letting me dig in a little bit about why you can't just blow off a Christian as a non thinker and why, as a Christian, you need to think. I hope we're in the same boat, brother, and if not, I'd love to fill up the Comment section of this post until we are.

1 Peter 3:15 "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear"

Scientists vs. God

2005-08-03T06:32:00.000-05:00

There's a story about a group of scientists who decided that humans could do without God. So one of them looked up to God and said, "We've decided that we no longer need You. We have enough wisdom to clone people and do many miraculous things."
God listened patiently and then said, "Very well, let's have a man-making contest. We'll do it just like I did back in the old days with Adam." The scientists agreed, and one of them bent down and picked up a handful of dirt. God looked at him and said, "No! You have to make your own dirt!"

HornIT.net Technology Blog

2005-07-28T22:22:00.000-05:00

Ok, for those of you who wanted to see Technology related stuff here. I've decided to segregate it out to another blog to make my life simple. Here is where you should go to see the newest Tech tips and news I've run across. Plus, sometimes I just post stuff that is pretty darn funny...

http://techblog.hornit.net

Enjoy!

Cornerstone Bike Trip 4.11

2005-07-25T10:04:00.000-05:00

So the highly anticipated Cornerstone Bike Trip 4.11 (it's the 4th ride of its kind and 4.11 is derived from Revelation 4:11) was a big success. I have posted pictures to the Photo Album and will continue to do so as David and Brad send me the ones they took.

We took off Friday at 3:30pm 2 guys short. Two new guys on the trip were Kurt and Tyler. Besides them, we had David, Nate, Doug, Todd, Mike, and myself. We had about 200 miles to cover to get to Pike's Peak state park near McGregor, Iowa. We had a good ride, but it was pretty warm. We had to have seen around a dozen deer. We didn't take the direct route; we pretty much went scenic the entire way so it took slightly over 5 hours. At Pike's Peak we met up with Brad and Doug. As we all sat there greeting each other, a very (rightfully so) concerned looking Park Ranger came up to greet us. We asked him about the facilities and he took the opportunity to share that there was another private campground close by that we might also enjoy. We took the hint and checked it out. It was called Paradise Valley and had a lake you could swim in (none of us did) and a nice park for kids/myself. :-)

We rolled into Paradise Valley around 9pm, and the guy let us all stay in one site for $11. He even delivered a batch of firewood for $5. The guys setup camp (including putting up my tent) while Doug, Nate, Brad and I went into Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin to Super Walmart for food. Here's where the trailer is no longer dorky. We loaded it up with dinner and breakfast for the next morning. By the time we got back, it was 11pm. Everyone turned in around 12:30am or so.

Tyler asked to sleep in my 3 person tent with me, which I said was perfectly fine. I had agreed to this before realizing that Tyler can snore louder than a grizzly and has one way conversations in his sleep. I laid there and was just about to doze off when Tyler says, "And then there were 5 of them!" I asked him what he was talking about and realized he was fast asleep. Around 1am I heard discussions coming from outside my tent among David, Nate, and Doug about heading into Walmart to buy tents because they were being eaten alive by mosquitoes (even despite the DEET which they seemed to be licking off their faces.) I jumped out of the tent ready for some more riding since 8 hours hadn't been enough and even Brad joined us. Two of the guys were waiting for us at the bottom of the hill and when David saw 3 more bikes heading down, he said "Look, there's 5 of us," which is believed to be the fulfillment of Tyler's sleeping prophecy. ;-)

After buying 6 ft junior tents at Walmart in Prairie du Chien, we decided we weren't ready to go back yet, so we did some cruising around Wisconsin and North East Iowa. After 2 hours and 65 miles of nearly being hit by deer, nearly being hit by a car since we were stopped on the middle of a bridge, attempted burnouts, no handed stunts through town, and all around way too fast driving, we decided to head back to camp and get some sleep. When we got there, Mike (aka Chicken Little) was claiming the end of the world was at hand due to the lightning coming from both the East and the West. He setup an elaborate tent from a picnic table and his tarp to protect his gear, all the while claiming that we were all about to die from the impending storm. His paranoia was great entertainment for the rest of us. The tents were a bit on the small side, but kept the bugs out of the guys' ears. Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up to see Mike laying in the tent with Tyler and I, which was definitely a good move on his part since it rained for hours, even raining a little while we were trying to pack up Saturday morning.

Due to the rain, we overtook a shelter at Paradise Valley and found a grill with propane to cook our breakfast with. Nate and David prepared an excellent meal of bacon, eggs, pancakes, and Ruffles potato chips. We took off from Paradise Valley (nice place, I'd recommend it to anyone traveling through that area) around 10am and started our drive down the Great River Road through Dubuque and other Eastern Iowa towns down the Mississippi. I think we saw corn more often than we saw the river, but it was nice and scenic either way. We stopped in Dubuque and checked out the Lock and Dam Number 11, then ate lunch at Wendy's. We eventually made our way to Maquoketa, Iowa.

We checked out Maquoketa Caves State Park and were followed into the park by a Park Ranger who wanted to make sure we knew the rules of the park before unpacking our gear. Quiet time was enforced at 10:30pm and there was only 1 tent allowed per campsite (no exceptions.) Much like the Pike's Peak Ranger, he graciously offered another campsite which was a City site in Maquoketa. Brad, David, Nate, Mike, Doug, and I hung out and reserved our campsite while Wally, Kurt, and Tyler went into town to check out the site there. Turns out it was an awesome site and we were the only ones there. We setup camp and then set off for the caves. We searched for the elusive Ice Cave for hours, then found out that we had already been in it, but it wasn't marked. We also were looking for a cave that you had to swim under some water to come to a big open room. That turned out to be myth, since Ice Cave was just simply a cave that was very, very cold (a nice place to hang out when you've been running/climbing in high heat and humidity.) We came back to the camp and made supper and participated in the best part of the trip: fellowship. I think the last of us went to bed around 1:30am or so and we were up and eating breakfast by 7am. We wanted to head out ASAP Sunday morning since we knew the heat (forecasted to be 101 in Maquoketa that day) was coming and we didn't really want to be driving in it.

We took some good scenic roads back, but after Cedar Rapids it got a little too scenic. Somehow we ended up driving on countless miles of gravel road before finally ending up back on pavement. We found old 30 and made a straight shot back home from there. I couldn't stand the dust, so I took my bike and trailer through a do-it-yourself car wash. That was where we got our only picture of everyone lined up together. We pulled into Ames somewhere around 1pm on Sunday where I'm sure most people's first stop was their shower. My suggestion to all of the guys that were crying about their sore rear ends: Mustang Seats.

The next trip is scheduled for September 9th-11th. I can't wait!

Letters

2005-07-21T07:39:00.000-05:00

Short thought from 2 Corinthians this morning.

2 Corinthians 3:3 "Clearly, you are a letter from Christ prepared by us. It is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on stone, but on human hearts."

Jesus didn't write any letters, unlike Paul. He chooses to use us as His "letters" to the world. His letters of love, forgiveness, and acceptance in return for repentance. I think his letters are constantly changing as we live our lives. The message always stays the same, but the way it is presented through us changes based on the events we experience in our lives.

Is Christ's letter through you one of extreme encouragement that shows His love or one filled with sorrow over your repeated human failings (even this letter shows Christ's forgiveness)? Boldly (2 Cor. 3:12) let others read the letter Christ is trying to share through your life.

Cool Poem

2005-07-20T06:34:00.000-05:00

I saw this today and thought it was neat.

You're writing a "gospel," a chapter each day,
By the deeds that you do, by the words that you say;
Men read what you write, whether faithless or true,
Say, what is the "gospel" according to you? —Gilbert

Contentment

2005-07-17T22:03:00.000-05:00

Today the kids that went to Panama to minister to the people spoke a little bit about their experiences and Jeff Dodge gave the "Lessons from Panama." It was really neat to see how God used them to reach the people in Panama who desperately needed it. Most importantly, it was great to see the emphasis put on teaching and raising up men to lead their churches once the Americans had left.

One "Lesson from Panama" that struck me today was one of "contentment." It makes sense to me that the people of Panama, specifically in that village where the people were dirt poor and the conditions were less than sanitary, would have feelings of discontent. They have nothing, they are often ill, and they don't seem to have much to look forward to. However, it doesn't make sense to me why we often feel discontent. We have so much, and yet we often feel like we don't have enough. Jeff Dodge put it this way, "A lot of people feel like they don't have enough stuff, so they feel discontent. However, there are plenty of wealthy people that seem to have everything that will tell you that having 'stuff' doesn't make them feel content either." The only thing that will give you the contentment you are looking for is Christ.

We read Philippians 4:11-13:

11Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: 12I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Verse 12 reminds me of a book (I have not read) by Judy Resnick titled I've been Rich, I've been Poor, Rich is Better. What a contrast between Resnick and the apostle Paul. I think we should be saying "I've been Rich, I've been Poor, In all Things Christ is Best."

Are you content with what Christ has given you? Is He content with what you've given Him?

Different

2005-07-10T00:01:00.000-05:00

I am thoroughly enjoying my new "Church History in Plain Language" book. I highly recommend it, it's very interesting and not at all like the boring History books from your Western Civilization class in college. Maybe because it's all focused around a topic of extreme interest to me, but I'm finding it fascinating.

Last night I read about the spread of Christianity and one point that really stood out was that one reason Christianity spread and was so noticeably different was the love that Christians had for everyone. Not just other Christians, but for their neighbors. It was quite obvious to everyone they were around and made them really stand out as something different. How much do we emphasize loving and showing kindness to the people around us? ESPECIALLY our fellow believers? We all know it's "the right thing to do," but do we actually follow through? Maybe if we did, we'd be all that more effective in reaching non-believers for Christ.

Tonight I read about the hindrances faced by Christians in the early church, especially in regards to the Roman Empire. Surprisingly, the Roman Empire was actually quite tolerant of various religions. They really allowed you to worship any god you wanted, as long as you also paid respect (and worship) to Caesar. They required you to pay homage to Caesar once a year by coming to a temple, burning incense, and say "Caesar is Lord." They then gave you a certificate to prove you had done it, and then you were free to return home and worship whichever god you wanted, at least you had proven you were loyal to the empire. Jews were offered an exception (because they were more than willing to return to the wilderness and suffer bloodshed before worshipping another god), and originally the Christians fell under that protection, but the Jews made it quite clear that there should be no connection with the Christians. Also, Jews weren't out "evangelizing" and trying to get people to convert, while Christians were, so this made them a threat. Christians would die before they would call Ceasar, Lord. And a lot of times they did. Nero was famous for having Christians burned on crosses in his garden for his entertainment.

I was also struck with how "obvious" it was that you were a Christian back then. If you were a believer, there were so many more opportunities for you to be "set apart" from everyone else and you were very obviously "different" than everyone else. Even your work and livelihood created opportunities for you to be "called out" as a Christian. Christian tailors found themselves refusing to hem the pagan priest's garments, brick layers wouldn't build pagan temples, incense makers found their incense being burned to pagan gods, and teachers found ancient stories of gods in their textbooks. Taking a stand against these things made you really stand out.

Do we really stand out today? There are things that can make you stand out, like praying for your meal in a restaurant and refusing to participate in gossip, foul language, and telling of dirty jokes. However, are we often faced with having to take a stand against doing something at work because it contradicts our beliefs? My hat goes off to the Christians that do face this and overcome it, but I don't think it happens nearly to the extent that it did in early Christianity. We have the even more religious freedom than the Romans offered their subjects in America today, but a lot of Americans consider themselves "Christians" so we don't stand out nearly like the early Christians did. However, we definitely have plenty of opportunities to stand out even in a self proclaimed "Christian" society.

We should live differently. We should live with extremely high (perfect) standards. People should be able to tell that we are "different" whether it be from the way we live or by the way we express love and servanthood to others. We should be like the early Christians and drastically stand out. We should not be "of the world," even though we are "in the world." We should be like Christ.

Does your neighbor know you're a Christian? Does your coworker know you believe that Jesus provides the only way to eternal life? Do they know the kind of life you are called to live as a Christian? Do they think you're a hypocrite? Are you?

Mornings

2005-07-07T07:26:00.000-05:00

I recently went through a personal debate about whether to have my devotions in the morning or at night. I had been struggling with hitting the snooze button too many times and sleeping through my time with God, so I thought maybe I should do them before I went to bed, instead. While I think it's most important to simply have devotions, and the timing isn't the most important thing, I decided it was more important for me to overcome my weakness and be recharged every morning so I had something to face my day with. That decision was reinforced when I read Psalm 5:3 this morning: "Listen to my voice in the morning Lord. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly."

If I brought my requests to God at night, would I really be able to wait expectantly? I'd wait for about 5 minutes, then fall asleep. I probably wouldn't even remember all of the thoughts I had the following day. So for me, like David, it's definitely mornings.

Sadducees and Pharisees - United for a cause

2005-07-05T23:30:00.000-05:00

I got two of my books today! I've decided that I'm going to read one question every morning from R.C. Sproul's book "Now That's a Good Question" along with my other devotions and I'm going to try to read my "Church History in Plain Language" by Bruce Shelley book at night. We'll see how it goes.

I did read a great summary of why Sadduccees and Pharisees both were anxious of what Jesus was teaching. This is all quoted from the book:

"A man like Jesus presented a real danger to the Sadducees, because they held their privileged position with the support of the Roman authorities. Anyone who aroused talk of a messiah undermined the people's allegiance to the established political order and endangered the relationship the Sadducees had with the Romans. Such a man, they concluded, had to be silenced before he sparked an uprising, which the Romans would crush with characteristic brutality. If that happened, the Sadducees stood to lose their privileges.

Thus, their common fear of Jesus brought about an unusual alliance between the Sadducees and their rivals, the Pharisees. Jesus, who openly violated the Sabbath laws and questioned the vailidity of other laws, seemed to be undermining the authority of the Jewish relition. FOr their separate reasons, both parties saw this self-styled prophet from Galilee as a dangerous enemy, and together they concluded that he should be brought to trial and condemned to death."

July 4th Pics

2005-07-05T23:23:00.000-05:00

Be sure to check out the pictures posted from the second annual 4th of July parade in Ames. It's been a huge event the last 2 years and this year the parade was over an hour long. Lots of candy, but also lots of trinkets like frisbees and balls and such. Eli had fun, but we had to keep tight reigns on him (no surprise) as he wanted to run off and do his thing. I think he was burnt out after an hour. It was nice that we didn't have to drive because traffic was nuts. It was only 5 blocks from our house, so we strolled into downtown and had watched the parade.

The fireworks in Ames are always amazing. So is the stadium parking lot. Thousands of people line Elwood Drive and pack the stadium. We were able to get out of the stadium rather quickly, only waiting 30 minutes. Eli just stared at the sky, never letting his grip loosen on my arm. I'm waiting for the year he decides he's scared of them. So far so good.

Near sightedness

2005-07-05T10:58:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd post a little 'nugget of truth' I gleamed from a recent lunch with my friend Ritchie. It's something that I've heard 1000 times and it's nothing ground breaking or really spiritually astounding. It's a simple truth that needs to be repeated and thought about daily. It is this: "How are my actions affecting the growth of God's family?" I could have said "God's Kingdom" and it would have had the same affect, but I didn't because "family" makes it sound more personal and is less Napoleonesque than "kingdom." The point is, we waste so much time and money pursuing things that aren't going to matter the moment Christ returns or we die (whichever comes first.) Why don't we spend our time strengthening our relationship with God, or building up our families, or fellowshipping with and encouraging other believers? Why? Because we're selfish and materialistic. I think it's easier for us to see how an action can make us happy than it is to see how a more sacrificing action can make God happy.

When I get to heaven and meet Christ, I want to hear "Well done, My good and faithful servant." I don't want to hear, "What exactly did you do for Me while you were down there?"

Rapture Will

2005-06-29T17:03:00.000-05:00

I just spoke with a friend today that was heading out to meet with his lawyer to go over his wills. You read it right, it's not a typo, that's wills - plural. He is actually creating two wills, one in the unfortunate circumstance of his death (which most people should have) and an additional one in the impending circumstance of the rapture (in the awesome case that this precedes his death.)

How great of an idea is that? Think about it. As a Christian, how would I want my money spent if I was taken away due to the rapture? If I was unfortunate enough to leave family members who were unbelievers (certainly not my immediately family), what good would some extra money do them for the next 7 years when their ultimate demise has already been sealed? Wouldn't my money be far better spent supporting the evangelistic effort of reaching the ones that had not heard the gospel before the rapture, or orphanages rearing young children during a very trying time? I don't know how you would word all of that, but my friend promised to let me see it when he's done.

This was a unique concept to me, which I think is great. What a great witnessing tool to reach his lawyer! Anyway, something to think about...

Hebrews 13:5

2005-06-29T06:53:00.000-05:00

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." - Hebrews 13:5

I'm reminded of the song "For the Love of Money" by the O'Jays. You know, the Apprentice theme song. "Some people .... got to have it. Some people .... really need it." They should have said "Some people .... aren't content with what they have like Hebrews 13:5 says to be." :-)

Why is it that we struggle with materialism? I am definitely a guilty party. It is a challenge for me to be content with what I have, even though I have a LOT. I'm always wanting the newest coolest gadget, which plays into my profession. I have so many great things and one person to thank for it. The one who said He would never leave me or forsake me. He has certainly kept that promise in my life.

New Cobra Slashcut Exhaust Pipes

2005-06-25T09:42:00.000-05:00

So I was all excited to try mobile blogging, but after 2 days and 3 attempts, I can't get a blog to post by sending an e-mail to my secret blog e-mail address. I sent a note to MSN Support, so maybe they can figure out what's wrong. Oh well, once that's going, I think it will be very cool.

So, I got my Father's Day present installed on Tuesday night. Eli bought me some used Cobra Classic Deluxe Slashcut exhaust pipes on ebay for $200 shipped. It took me about an hour and a half to get them installed on my 2002 Honda Shadow Sabre (it completely replaces the stock exhaust, they are the real deal, not just slipons.) If you want to hear what they sound like, check them out here: http://www.cobrausa.com/content/index.cfm?siteaction=Exhaust&bikeID=46

I have some serious 'popping' (backfire) when I decelerate, so I need to find the mixture screw and adjust it, but it's kind of fun to watch people walking down the sidewalk jump when I cruise by because they think they're being shot at. :-) Brad Hofer told me where he thinks the screw should be located, so hopefully I'll get that resolved. It's fun to watch me drive by at night though, because I'm shooting flames out my pipes whenever I let off the gas!

I highly recommend modifying your exhaust if you have quiet factory pipes. It's one more way to get cars to look at you, which keeps you safer on a bike when they know you're there. I attached a photo of my bike with the new pipes. I definitely like the slashcut look.

I decided to create a "Motorcycles" category in case people want to filter all of these blogs to just motorcycle related rants. Don't worry, I'm sure this novelty will wear off and the posts will become less and less frequent. :-)

Books

2005-06-24T10:21:00.000-05:00

So I was in Borders browsing through the Christianity section and came across some good stuff. First of all, John MacArthur has a book called "Fools Gold" which looked interesting. I read his section on Contemporary Worship in the church. It was mainly focused on the content (lyrics) of the songs and didn't go into the style. He was expressing his concern that the newer songs talk more about personal feelings and play on your emotions too much, while the older hymns (keep in mind there hasn't been a hymn written and widely adopted since 1940) contain a lot of mentally stimulating verses, which he feels is Scriptural.

Upon writing this, I discovered that there is actually a Baptist Organization that thinks MacArthur is a Hyper Calvinist. Check out the article: http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/warning-johnmacarthur.html Based on the way it is written, I'd say someone has a personal vendetta and some of the comments are completely unfounded (like "MacArthur is Hyper Calvanist.") John MacArthur said on a radio program "But universalism or annihilationism or hyper-Calvinism or Arminianism are not biblical responses to this very, very important issue of God loving the world." People also accuse him of being a Dispensationalist like it's a bad thing (supporting article here: http://www.biblebb.com/files/macqa/1301-N-6.htm)

Ok, I digress. The real reason for my post was to let you know about the two books I actually ended up with. Ok, I'm a cheapskate, so I noted the books I liked and went home and ordered them from BAMM.com, saving me $14. :-) I bought RC Sproul's "Now That's a Good Question" book. I didn't like how few supporting Scriptural verses were in the book, but I did like how much common sense was used to address the questions. My challenge will be to not just accept his answers that don't have Scriptural emphasis, and make sure they are sound answers and not just his opinion.

The second book I bought was "Church History in Plain Language" by Bruce Shelley. This looked like an interesting read. I find myself interested in figuring out how we got to the point we're at today, so this should satisfy some of that curiosity.

Maybe I'll use this blog as a diary of thoughts as I read through some of these books. Perhaps it will spark interest in someone else. I'm going to give these blogs a Category of "Devotions" so you can easily sort the blogs and just see the ones related to my comments from my devotions. I can already promise I won't have comments for every day, but I hope to post often...

It's a Start

2005-06-24T00:01:00.000-05:00

Ok, it's a start. I liked the layout and completeness of the MSN Space as opposed to a plain blog at blogspot.com, so I thought I'd update some pictures and create a profile. I can't promise I'll be good about blogging consistently, but it's fun to at least pretend like I will and maybe this thing will be something people can actually use to keep up on what's new.

Alright, it's getting late, time for bed. Maybe more later...