Consumer Church

There is a nice bit of advice about house church/small group gatherings over at
The House Church Blog. In six short points he sums up what he has been learning about “church.” The first one struck me the hardest:

1. Relax. This is not a performance-oriented event. In our past church-life we gauged the value of our gatherings by how “good” the church-event was. We have grown past that. Our church-life, now, is about being the church everyday, living a 24/7 lifestyle, and about being part of a community of people whom we love and share life with. We don’t look to the gathering to be the “big event” that will make up for our own lack of relationship with God. So, we can relax and enjoy whatever God does in our midst.

<idle musing>
In our performance based society, it is refreshing to remember that God’s love for us is not based on what we do, but on who He is. I have been reading in second Isaiah lately with his heavy indictment of the idols and idol makers. One thing comes through very clearly: God is; the idols and the ones who make them are but a breath, at best.
</idle musing>

Resurrection!

“A biblical theory of atonement does not stop at the cross, even if it views the incarnate life of Jesus and everything else through the piercing image of the cross. Several texts bring home the fundamental reality that, without the resurrection, atonement is incomplete. We need to begin with this: the point of the resurrection is more than hope for those who fear death, for those who are on the verge of death, or even for those who long to be reunited with loved ones. . .

“What then is resurrection all about? If the death of Christ wipes away sin, the resurrection of Christ makes all things new. Resurrection is about new creation. A theory of atonement that does not flow into the resurrection is an atonement that rids one of the sin problem but does not transform life and this world. Stopping that flow of life from God into God’s people is the abortion of full atonement. To extend my earlier image, many choose to leave the resurrection and Pentecost [golf] clubs at home when playing the atonement game. The bag is incomplete until both are carried.”—A Community Called Atonement, p. 70

"in Christ"

“To say that Jesus is the second Adam ushers us directly to the importance of union with Christ. If ‘in’ Adam we sin and die, so ‘in’ Christ we become righteous and live. In other words, it is all about ‘with and to whom’ we are united. Jesus is the second Adam who, through the whole of his incarnation, incorporates us into his life. The upshot of this is enormous: everything that is Christ’s becomes ours by being united to him. Everything, including wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, comes to us because we are united to the incarnate one (I Cor. 1:30).

“Emphasizing union with Christ foregrounds a relational theory of the atonement. My own reading of the Reformed thinkers on atonement leads me to contend that many of them deemphasize the relational aspects because they deemphasize ‘union with Christ’ and Christ as the second Adam.”—A Community Called Atonement, p. 59 (emphasis his)

Round and round and round and round and...

We recently got a shipment of Illustrated Wall Maps of the Bible from Carta. Unfortunately, these come unassembled :(

So, today, 7 or 8 of us began the assembly process of putting together 12 map sheets and one atlas. We walked around the tables, picking one of each map and stacking them at the end of the table:


Here is the intermediate result (the stack at the end of Robin's desk):


And the end result:


See, I really do work around here!

What is evil?

“He [Augustine] contends that good things can be corrupted, which leads him to this arresting conclusion: ‘I sought to know what wickedness was, and found it was no substance, but a perverse distortion of the will away from the highest substance and towards the lowest thing’ (Confessions 7.16.22, emphasis added). Which is to say that evil does not exist, but is only the diminution and distortion and perversion and corruption of the good. Or, again, as Plantinga puts it, ‘the person who curves in on himself. . . ends up sagging and contracting into a little wad.’ Do we say that sin ‘is’ or do we say that sin really is nothing more than diminution of God’s good things?”—A Community Called Atonement, p. 48 (emphasis his)

One-trick pony?

“What I hear in those who think penal substitution is the “center” of the atonement is this: I have a bag of [golf] clubs but I like to play my 5-iron as often as possible.

“That is, if this is how they talk about their theory, soon their theory will dominate which themes in the Bible they find pertinent to atonement. In particular, they will focus on wrath, on God as holy, on the cross alone (omitting life, resurrection, and the Holy Spirit), and on the resolution of sins being little more than propitiation of wrath and declaration of justice—none of which I’d want to omit in a theory of atonement. A charitable reading of penal substitution theorists knows that most penal substitutionists do not reduce their theory to this, but I contend that there is a tendency to do so. And the way out is a more comprehensive expression for describing their 'theory.'”—A Community Called Atonement, p. 42-43 (italics his)

Growing in Grace

A while back I ran across a post that nicely highlights my own thinking about works versus grace

I've come to understand that this is what 'Grace Roots' is all about. It's about getting the heart established in grace, and growing in grace. Grace is fertile soil. Grace is far more than forgiveness of sins. Grace is the power and source of the Christian life.

I believe our hearts need to be established in grace, and we need to grow in this. Not just a dab here and a dab there. Not just a sermon series now and then. My frustration, as I think about churches I've been in and as I survey Christian media, and as I simply look at the lives of people I know who are trying to live this Christian life, is that so much of the teaching and preaching is about establishing people in what to do and how to live as a Christian. Now, aside from some teachings that I don't agree with, I think that a lot of the "doing" that's taught isn't necessarily wrong. It's just that it's very rare to find ongoing teachings about grace and our identity in Christ. It seems as if the church is established in doing, and that grace is merely a supplemental teaching.

What I've found to be true in my own life, and what I believe to be Biblical, is that when the foundation is grace - which is found in the living Jesus Christ, with whom we've been made alive together - the "doing" becomes an outflow of our relationship with Christ and His life in us.

If your life is established in "doing" the things of the Christian life, it may seem very noble and it may appear very wise. But I hope you'll consider taking a breath and taking a step back and reevaluating and readjusting your thoughts, and asking God to help your heart to be established in grace. I don't believe for a minute that you'll ever regret it!

<idle musing>
Yes! The works are an outflow of a life lived in union with Christ. They are not works that I do, but works that God does through me by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. I can take no more credit for them than I can take credit for being born; my only action is surrender—and even that is a result of the prevenient (going before) grace of God!

As an aside, Debbie (my wife for the past 29 years) doesn’t like me to use the word “grace;” she says too many people view grace as a “pep-pill” that they take when their own strength runs out. She is probably right. She prefers to say it is “the indwelling power of God, Christ’s life within us” that enables us to live the Christian life. That is a mouthful—a very good mouthful, but a mouthful nonetheless. So, I continue to use “grace,” but for me the word is packed with years of reading theology, Greek, and Hebrew; all of which cause me to lose touch with what the average Christian is thinking when they hear the word.

I remember teaching a class once and asking people to define what grace was. I got the fairly standard “God’s riches at Christ’s expense” answer. When I asked them to explain what that meant, they were at a loss. They had simply memorized a definition that was cute, but it had no impact on daily life. How sad.
<idle musing>

Atonement metaphors

“Atonement language includes several evocative metaphors: there is a sacrificial metaphor (offering), and a legal metaphor (justification), and an interpersonal metaphor (reconciliation), and a commercial metaphor (redemption), and a military metaphor (ransom). Each is designed to carry us. . .to the thing. But the metaphor is not the thing. The metaphor gives the reader or hearer an imagination of the thing, a vision of he thing, a window onto the thing, a lens through which to look in order to see the ting. Metaphors take us there, but they are not the “there.”

“Knowing that the metaphor is not the thing leads to important implications, not the least of which is to admit in humility that we can have proper confidence in the God who atones by indwelling each of the many metaphors that lead sus to the God who atones. We need each of them. We need justification and sacrifice and substitution and satisfaction and ransom and recapitulation and incorporation and imputation because each, in its won language game of metaphorical exploration and imagination, leads us to the core of it all: reconciliation (which is a metaphor) with God, self, others, and the world.

“Perhaps most radically, we are bound to our metaphors..."—A Community Called Atonement, p. 38 (italics his)

Book Sale

Are you an SBL member? If so, you received an e-mail way back on August 8 with a code good for 25% off on Brill titles. Did you know that code works at Eisenbrauns website, too? Yep, that's right, just enter the code (47507) in the purchase order field while checking out. We'll take 25% off our already discounted price before billing your credit card or account. The discounted total won't show on the web check out, but will be on the billed invoice.

That's right, 25% additional off on Brill titles. That means instead of having to take out a second mortgage on your house, you will only have to take out another loan on your car or SUV! Imagine that :)

It's August!

It is certainly August here in Indiana. Yesterday afternoon, when I went for my bike ride, I came back covered with black gnats. I looked like I had black measles :) They bite, too.

Yesterday the public schools started, so the traffic was busier than usual when I walked to and from work. People in a hurry to get where they are going; I would say that there was 3-4 times the normal traffic on the road.

I'm not complaining, just observing. I walked out the front door yesterday morning and scared a deer that was eating the corn we put out for them. Yesterday evening after my bike ride, I sat on the front porch and watched the hummingbirds feed on our hummingbird feeder. A few minutes later, a deer came and started eating about 25 feet from me. She got sick of what we had to offer and sauntered down the driveway and across the street to eat some apples that had fallen off the neighbor's trees. The chipmunks chased each other and had a good time. The cardinals fed off our feeder, and a few woodpeckers sampled our suet. Then the mosquitoes came out and drove me inside.

Interesting, we are coming up on four years in Indiana, and loving it. If someone had told me five years ago that I would be living in Indiana, I would have told them they were crazy. If they had said we would be loving it, I would have told them to get their head examined. Interesting how God leads, isn't it?

Tomorrow marks the second anniversary since the truck hit me on my bicycle. You would never know it now, unless you look at the bicycle that was hit (I still use it in the winter for a stationary bike). God is so exceedingly good...

Heaven, or earth?

Both! Says Scot McKnight

...we need to observe that biblical language of eternity does not justify passivity on earth; a biblical vision of eternity stokes heated passions to yearn the way Jesus yearned—that God’s kingdom might come “on earth as it is in heaven.” Any atonement theory tat thinks exclusively of the earth is inadequate, just as any theory that shifts to thinking too much of eternity is also inadequate. Nor is it wise to choose which one to emphasize; the atonement is designed for both an earthly realization and an eternal destination.”— A Community Called Atonement, page 27 (emphasis his)

Atonement for whom?

“It would be simplistic and colonizing to suggest that power determines everything, but we should be alert to the observation that the power a local church possesses shapes what it offers as gospel and atonement. Could it be that we are not reconciled more in this world—among Christians, within the USA, and between countries—because we have shaped our atonement theories to keep our group the same and others out? I believe the answer to that question is unambiguously yes.

There is no reason to pretend otherwise; it is inescapable. We are shaped by the texts of our sacred tradition but we also shape what we read and hear in those sacred texts.”—A Community Called Atonement, page 5

Marketing, or lying?

When does marketing become outright lying?

Well, how about some background information first, rather than jumping in medias res...a few weeks ago I had a person come up to me in the grocery store concerned because they had not been able to see me on my bicycle when they overtook me in their car. They were afraid I was going to get hit by someone else who didn't notice me. I just blew it off; I always assume that no one sees me anyway. But, two days later at the same intersection (225 and Packerton, if you care), I had a car pull out in front of me and then suddenly stop in the middle of the intersection; they hadn't seen me until then. As I went past him, he yelled out the window, apologizing for not noticing me. I decided maybe God was trying to get my attention. I've already been hit by a truck, and I can assure you it isn't my idea of fun :(

So, I started looking for hi-vis jerseys—reasonably priced, which is a trick. I found one that was hi-visibility yellow with this marketing description:

The century ride – a rite of passage for every cyclist. And thanks to breatH20 fabric, you can cycle several centuries without even breaking a sweat!

The first part is true, the century ride (100 miles) is considered a rite of passage, but the second part? Well, the only way I can figure it is that you would be so dehydrated by the time you finished several centuries that you wouldn't have anything left to sweat!

My jerseys came on Friday, and on Saturday I wore one for my morning ride. Sure enough, I started to sweat well before 100 miles :) I only rode 45 miles, and I can assure you that I was sweaty.

So the question is, when does marketing become lying? Would anyone believe this marketing piece? I doubt it. Does that make it hyperbole instead of lying? What do you think?

Oh, by the way, the hi-vis does work. Our neighbor commented that she could see me a good 1/4 mile down the road. She said she couldn't see my legs or the bike, but the jersey was very visible. Debbie says I look like a bumble-bee, because there is black highlighting on the jersey.

Update (8/21/07): Dr. Carl Conrad kindly pointed out my nasty Latin error. You would think that after teaching Latin for 3 years I would know better than having a ablative modifying an accusative, especially when one is singular and the other plural! :(

Why?

It’s been a while since I linked to him, but Alan over at The Assembling of the Church has a very good series of questions that should be asked, although the title of the post is “It is dangerous to ask why.”

Here is a selection of his questions (but take the time to read them all, it's worth the time):

Why do we say that the church is people and people are important, but spend so much money on buildings?

Why is the place where the church meets called a "sanctuary", "house of God", or "church"?

When believers meet together, why is it called a "worship service"?

Why is the "preacher" or "pastor" allowed to speak when the church meets but no one else is allowed?

Why do we need a special "family life center" for sports activities when there are perfectly good community centers?

Why do we call each other "brother" and "sister" when we barely know one another?

Why do we spend one minute shaking hands and call it "fellowship"?

When we meet with other believers, why do we spend most of our time looking at one person and the back of everyone else's heads?

Why do we emphasize, teach, and demand obedience to these things (and others) which are not found in Scripture - and some are even contrary to Scripture - while we de-emphasize, ignore, or explain away other things such as discipleship, fellowship, community, or the "one anothers" which are emphasized in Scripture?

Two more new books

Yesterday at about this time I walked into the warehouse, as usual, to peruse the new arrivals. I spotted a box from Hendrickson and tried not to get too excited. My rep had told me that they were shipping some new releases this week, but the day before some Hendrickson boxes had arrived with back-order fill. No need to get excited, I thought, it's probably just more of that. So, containing my hopes, I opened the box...

Hey, it really was the new releases this time! I stripped the shrink wrap off one of them, opened the book, being careful not to drool on the pages :) Hmmm, interesting way of doing it...By now you are all ready to shoot me, I'm sure. Interesting way of doing what? What are the titles?

Well, the titles are the long promised, oft-delayed wide margin Greek and Hebrew bibles. What is interesting is that they took the size and cover from the Novum Testamentum Graece--Large Print edition, dropped in the text size from Novum Testamentum Graece standard size and left the rest as margin. That leaves a lot of writing space, which is good. But, my eyes aren't good enough anymore to read the standard sized text. They did the same thing with the Hebrew text.

So, if your eyes are good, this is a great text edition to get. If they aren't, get better reading glasses! Oh, by the way, Jessica just smiled when she saw me going nuts over the books. I guess there's hope yet...

Here's the bibliography on them:

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia
Wide Margin Edition
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, 2007
lvii + 1574 pages, Hebrew
Cloth
ISBN: 9781598561999
List Price: $69.95
Your Price: $48.90
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~BHSWIDE

Novum Testamentum Graece
Wide Margin Edition
27th edition
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, 2007
812 pages, German, English, and Greek
Cloth
ISBN: 9781598562002
List Price: $59.95
Your Price: $41.91
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~NESNOVUMWIDE

P.S. I've reordered, the first shipment already sold out since yesterday. It takes about a week, so hang on...

New book

A new book crossed my desk late last week, but I didn't have time to start it until Wednesday. Once I did start it, I had a hard time putting it down. Here are the details:

A Community Called Atonement
by Scot McKnight
Abingdon, 2007
176 pages, English
Paper, 6 x 9
ISBN: 9780687645541
List Price: $17.00
Your Price: $14.45
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~MCKCOMMUN

Scot takes a very broad view of atonement, which I find to be a healthy corrective to the normal "one theory fits them all" approach of most. In fact, he likens having one theory of atonement to the golfer who only has one club for everything. A driver doesn't make a very good putter! Neither does the penal substitution theory fill the full spectrum of what atonement means. In fact, I would venture to say that it is one of the worst "clubs" to use.

Anyway, there will doubtless be quotes here in the next week or so from the book; I highly recommend it. Oh, and the next time someone says that the emerging movement takes a dim view of the cross, remember that this is the first book in a series done by emerging leaders. I think it is significant that they chose to have the lead book be on atonement :)

Foreordained, or predestined?

"In spite of the widespread scholarly acknowledgment that Arminians do believe in predestination, popular Christian opinion has become firmly convinced that the difference between Calvinists and Arminians is that the former believe in predestination and the latter believe in free will. That has been elevated to the status of a truism in American pop theology and folk religion. But it is false. The fact is that many Calvinists believe in free will that is compatible with determinism. They distinguish it from libertarian freedom, which is incompatible with determinism and is the Arminian view of free will. It is also a fact that all true Arminians believe in predestination, but not in Calvinist foreordination. That is, they believe that God foreknows every person's ultimate and final decision regarding Jesus Christ, and on that basis God predestines people to salvation or damnation. But Arminians do not believe God predetermines or preselects people for either heaven or hell apart from their free acts of accepting or resisting the grace of God. Furthermore, Arminians interpret the biblical concept of unconditional election (predestination to salvation) as corporate. Thus, predestination has an individual meaning (foreknowledge of individual choices) and it has a collective meaning (election of a people). The former is conditional; the latter is unconditional. God's predestination of individuals is conditioned by their faith; God's election of a people for his glory is unconditional. The latter will comprise all those who believe."—Arminian Theology, pages 179-180.

A broken heart

"In all sorts of words and nuances the prophets proclaim God's anger to be near. There aim is that the people may escape from it. Therefore the prophetic preaching is closely related to the call for repentance and confession of sin. The surrounding nations had several instruments to turn away divine anger: incantations, rituals and magic, manipulations in sacrificing. This route is not open to Israel. The essential thing is a broken heart."—Shadow Sides, page 119

But does it mean anything?

OK, I suppose I should have posted the transliteration and translation for the t-shirt...it is the first two lines of Enuma Elish:

e-nu-ma e-liš la na-bu-ú šá-ma-mu
šap-liš am-ma-tum šu-ma la zak-rat

When on high no name was given to heaven,
nor below was the netherworld called by name

You can also see it here

Prevenient grace

“A better illustration using water would be a man who has fallen into a pit and is unconscious. God calls to the man and offers help. The man awakens to consciousness. God pours water into the pit and encourages the injured person to float on the water out of the pit. All the man has to do is allow the water to lift him out by not struggling against it or holding on to the bottom. That is a picture (however homely and feeble) of prevenient grace. How could a person thus rescued boast of aiding in the rescue operation? All he did was relax and allow the water (grace) to save.”— Arminian Theology, page 159.

Check this out!

A little over a year ago now, Eisenbrauns introduced the cuneiform mug, which was an immediate hit. We actually went back and reprinted it. At the time people asked us to make the design available in other formats. Well, we decided we didn't want to get into the clothing business, so we put the idea on the back burner.

About 3 weeks ago, we pulled it off the back burner and decided to do something with it. Below are our two newest employees, Jon and Amy—both are copy editors by the way—modeling the new Cuneiform t-shirts.




So, did we decide to get into the clothing business? Nope, but you can order them here We even have "onesies," but nobody who works here could fit into it as a model!

We're working on another idea, but that might not be ready until AAR/SBL. I'll let you know. Meantime, be the first one in your graduate school, nursery school, grade school, etc., with an Eisenbrauns cuneiform t-shirt.

Holy love

"For those who are soteriologically oriented and who are suffering, who bear the burdens of wrenching sin, whether personal or social, who have felt the anguish and the near despair of a divided will whereby the mind assents to what goodness it knows, but the heart simply does not follow; for those who seek the freedom of the love of God and neighbor, but know only the slavery of self-will on a personal level, and the bondage of an intolerant tribalism on a group level; for those who hanker after the good community, in which fellowship is a gracious reality, and in which consumerism and competition do not divide; for those who are tired, old , and lonely, who have been forsaken by an indifferent, materialistic society that considers them nothing; for those who yearn for a gracious word of liberty, real liberty, not the phony kind of liberty that the world offers that leaves people under the grievous dominion of sin while it simply polishes their chains, for all these people, these hurting people, the practical theology of John Wesley was good news indeed. It proclaimed nothing less than liberty to the captives as well as the acceptable year of the Lord. It offered succor where there was neglect; hope where there was despair; love where there was none. Pastorally sensitive without diminishing the high calling of the gospel, Wesley developed a ministry that was marked by a sophisticated balance, a balance that evidenced nothing less than abiding holy love, the very emblem of historic Methodism itself.”— The Theology of John Wesley, pages 330-331.

semper reformandum

“. . .in Wesley’s estimation, the broader church was constantly in need of reform and therefore ever required a transforming, prophetic order within it, lest the formal ‘objective’ elements of the tradition, necessary to communicate the faith to subsequent generations, edge out a due consideration of the ‘enthusiastic,’ ‘supernatural,’ and ‘subjective’ elements entailed in the healing presence of the Holy Spirit in all of the Spirit’s decisive redemptive power. This is a dynamic, charismatic understanding of the church and one in which reform is ongoing.”— The Theology of John Wesley, page 253

Free!

“When Wesley sought to give greater precision to his understanding of the new birth, he employed three marks or traits of this distinct measure of grace, namely, faith, hope, and love. Concerning faith, the first mark, Wesley reiterated the themes that faith is not only an assent to divine truth, but also a confidence in the mercy of God through Jesus Christ. A new emphasis, however, emerges in his comments that a fruit of this faith through which one is born again, and which cannot be separated from it, is freedom from the power of sin: ‘power over outward sin of every kind; over every evil word and work. . . And over inward sin.’ This is the second great liberty of the gospel and one both taught and preached by Wesley for much of his career.”— The Theology of John Wesley, p.217

The burden

“Like it or not, we have to recognize that perpetrators not only can commit physical, moral, psychological, and spiritual evil against their neighbors, but also are able to pose a trial (what power they seem to have!) that can try the very souls of their victims. ‘Christianity is a religion in which sinners have all the advantages,’ [Barbara Brown] Taylor exclaims; ‘They can talk bad about you every time you leave the room, and it is your job to excuse them with no thought of getting even. The burden is on you.’”—The Theology of John Wesley, page 190

98% Pure

“Nobody gets up in the morning and prepares a cup of coffee or tea with just one drop of poison in it, and then stirs and drinks it…No one would consider buying a bottle of mineral water whose label read, ’98 percent pure mineral water; 2 percent sewage water.’ Yet that is just what many Christians have allowed in their lives.

“…When I speak of holiness, they imagine that I am talking about living according to a legalistic set of man-made rules about clothing and hairstyles. They think this because, sadly, the church in times past has defined holiness simply by whether a person refrained from smoking cigarettes or watching worldly entertainment.

“This is not true holiness! The Bible does not define holiness as a man’s attempt to live according to certain man-made rules or regulations. True holiness, in fact, is an inward work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of a believer. Only God can make us holy, and He is more interested in shaping our heart attitudes and delivering us from wrong desires than He is about conforming us to some man-made code of behavior. He wants to form Christ in us! And this work of refining can only be done by His Spirit.”
”—Sergio Scataglini, The Twelve Transgressions page xviii, xx-xxi

Continue in sin?

"'Therefore if any who profess the gospel do not live according to it, they are sinners, it is certain, but not justified, and so the gospel is clear [Wesley, Notes on the New Testament, Galatians 2:20]. Simply put, though no true Christian holiness can precede justification, it must immediately follow it. Justification, properly speaking, ever occurs with regeneration; never one without the other."—The Theology of John Wesley, page 182.

Monthly and weekly sales at Eisenbrauns

It's August, and time for Eisenbrauns to run our annual back-to-school sales. These are my favorite sales, bringing back memories of the annual Seminary Co-op Bookstore sale every spring in Chicago. I would save my money waiting for the chance to buy those language references at a discount. I must have spent thousands of dollars there on books. This was in the days before discounting of books was common, and that 10% was a wonderful benefit of being a member.

So, right now Greek stuff is on sale, with discounts from 10-50%, and so is Akkadian and Sumerian stuff at discounts of 10-30%.

I hope you enjoy browsing the sales as much as I enjoy putting them together. And if you have an idea for a sale, either drop me an e-mail or comment.

Food?

We have some miniature candy bars here at work, and I was looking at the ingredients today. There were the normal ones, high fructose corn syrup, peanuts, caramel, etc. Then at the end it added the normal allergy disclaimer, but with an interesting little twist:

This product contains [some sugar that starts with t] which may cause an allergenic reaction in sensible people.

Leaving aside what allergenic is doing there, it makes one wonder if the candy bar is only for insensible people, or if sensible people don't eat candy bars, or...

Update: Here is a picture of the ingredients for you to attempt reading :)