I finally took some time to organize my blog links a bit better. I figured that since my interests are a bit varied, maybe I should organize them better by topic. I'm always looking for interesting blogs, just because I don't list them doesn't mean I don't frequent them :)
By the way, have a happy and safe new year.
James
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Friday, December 30, 2005
John the Baptist
I finished The Jesus Creed the other day. Very good book, but I think the most memorable section is the chapter on John the Baptist. This quote is worth the whole book:
"The first word out of John's mouth is 'Repent!' This is repentance with an edge—a sharp one. As Frederick Buechner puts it so memorably 'No one ever invited a prophet home for dinner more than once.' John maybe not even once."
<idle musing>
I remember reading in a book many years ago—I don't remember who the author was or the name of the book, but I think it was Elton Trueblood— this quote: "Every where that Paul went there was a riot or a revival. Every where I go they serve me tea."
Personally, given the choice (and we are), I would rather have the riot or revival. I like tea, but it doesn't have the same edge to it :)
</idle musing>
"The first word out of John's mouth is 'Repent!' This is repentance with an edge—a sharp one. As Frederick Buechner puts it so memorably 'No one ever invited a prophet home for dinner more than once.' John maybe not even once."
<idle musing>
I remember reading in a book many years ago—I don't remember who the author was or the name of the book, but I think it was Elton Trueblood— this quote: "Every where that Paul went there was a riot or a revival. Every where I go they serve me tea."
Personally, given the choice (and we are), I would rather have the riot or revival. I like tea, but it doesn't have the same edge to it :)
</idle musing>
Thursday, December 29, 2005
The year in review blog posts begin...
Scot McKnight has a nice summary of his experiences this year in blogging. I especially like this comment (bold is his):
"Sixth, I still am bewildered at the way some bloggers talk to one another — and you can get a good sample of this if you look at Tony Jones’ site and see the sort of meanspiritedness in the responses to his posts. This I simply can’t accept as a form of Christian discourse. The standard rule obtains: don’t say to others what you don’t want them to say to you, or don’t write things you wouldn’t say if you were facing the person yourself. If you do, you should be ashamed of your calling to walk in the way of Jesus. Disagreement and nastiness are not the same thing. Conversation and scoring points with cheap shots are neither winsome nor wholesome."
<idle musing>
Scot seems to have done a better job than most academics at getting the general public to interact. His site always has interesting posts and good discussion, whether you agree or not.
</idle musing>
"Sixth, I still am bewildered at the way some bloggers talk to one another — and you can get a good sample of this if you look at Tony Jones’ site and see the sort of meanspiritedness in the responses to his posts. This I simply can’t accept as a form of Christian discourse. The standard rule obtains: don’t say to others what you don’t want them to say to you, or don’t write things you wouldn’t say if you were facing the person yourself. If you do, you should be ashamed of your calling to walk in the way of Jesus. Disagreement and nastiness are not the same thing. Conversation and scoring points with cheap shots are neither winsome nor wholesome."
<idle musing>
Scot seems to have done a better job than most academics at getting the general public to interact. His site always has interesting posts and good discussion, whether you agree or not.
</idle musing>
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Weather/miscellaneous
It looks like Global Warming has come back from its brief vacation. The temperature here has been in the upper 30's to upper 40's for the last week. All the snow is gone and we are having a thunderstorm right now. They are predicting 49 for the high today.
This weather frustrates a person like me, too warm to showshoe or cross-country ski, too cold to bicycle—besides getting dark too early; ever since I got bronchitis real bad about 10 years ago I can't bike in weather below 50 degrees without getting bronchitis again. Definitely not worth it.
There is a bright side to it, though. My son and friends left last night/early this AM for Kansas City, MO and they didn't have to worry about snow or ice on the roads.
Ryan (our son) was loading the car late last night when our neighbor, the policeman drove by on duty. He thought it was I outside so he flashed the spotlight on him. Imagine a 21 year old caught in a cop's spotlight at about 1:00 AM. To make matters worse, Terry (the cop) turned into our driveway and flashed the lights. Ryan about died, he had never been to our new place and didn't remember our neighbor was a cop. Terry thought it was hilarious, as did Debbie and I. Ah, the little memories that he will take with him :)
This weather frustrates a person like me, too warm to showshoe or cross-country ski, too cold to bicycle—besides getting dark too early; ever since I got bronchitis real bad about 10 years ago I can't bike in weather below 50 degrees without getting bronchitis again. Definitely not worth it.
There is a bright side to it, though. My son and friends left last night/early this AM for Kansas City, MO and they didn't have to worry about snow or ice on the roads.
Ryan (our son) was loading the car late last night when our neighbor, the policeman drove by on duty. He thought it was I outside so he flashed the spotlight on him. Imagine a 21 year old caught in a cop's spotlight at about 1:00 AM. To make matters worse, Terry (the cop) turned into our driveway and flashed the lights. Ryan about died, he had never been to our new place and didn't remember our neighbor was a cop. Terry thought it was hilarious, as did Debbie and I. Ah, the little memories that he will take with him :)
Blogging
I just ran across a post on Ben Witherington's blog with 10 comments on blog etiquette. I'll list only the first one, but you really should check out the other 9:
"Weblogs can be a wonderful form of having a dialogue or discussion on something that matters, though too often they are used just to vent. But what is really amazing is how many people are prepared to ask personal questions and make private remarks on a blog, when they could have sent an email to the person in question. Sometimes we even have people airing their dirty laundry for all to see on the internet. This unfortunately is another example of the narcissism of our culture, where people do not care or are oblivious to the effect of what they are doing on others who use the same public space. There need to be some suggested rules for bloggers. Here is a rudimentary set as a starter:
"1) Nothing strictly private should be posted on a blog. One should confine such comments to an email message or a private phone call or better yet a conversation in person. If you want to have a one on one private discussion with either the blogger or someone else who is commenting then do it appropriately."
<idle musing>
I was once told that you should never send an angry e-mail until the next day. Compose it in anger maybe, but always save it as a draft and then re-read it the next day. If you still feel the same way, send it. Good advice that I should have heeded more often. How much more important on a public forum such as a blog...
</idle musing>
"Weblogs can be a wonderful form of having a dialogue or discussion on something that matters, though too often they are used just to vent. But what is really amazing is how many people are prepared to ask personal questions and make private remarks on a blog, when they could have sent an email to the person in question. Sometimes we even have people airing their dirty laundry for all to see on the internet. This unfortunately is another example of the narcissism of our culture, where people do not care or are oblivious to the effect of what they are doing on others who use the same public space. There need to be some suggested rules for bloggers. Here is a rudimentary set as a starter:
"1) Nothing strictly private should be posted on a blog. One should confine such comments to an email message or a private phone call or better yet a conversation in person. If you want to have a one on one private discussion with either the blogger or someone else who is commenting then do it appropriately."
<idle musing>
I was once told that you should never send an angry e-mail until the next day. Compose it in anger maybe, but always save it as a draft and then re-read it the next day. If you still feel the same way, send it. Good advice that I should have heeded more often. How much more important on a public forum such as a blog...
</idle musing>
Monday, December 26, 2005
The Jesus Creed
I started Scot McKnight's delightful little book Jesus Creed over the weekend. I got a pre-release copy from him way back in June 2004 and finally getting around to reading it.
I especially like this quote, from Chapter 18 (italics his):
"A concrete suggestion to aid us in preparing for eternal fellowship with Abba: we need to read the Bible Abba-centrically, or "Father-centered." Christians sometimes read the Bible too often to "figure things out," to come to terms with a theological debate, or to settle an old score. They read it for information.
"But, as M. Robert Mulholland explains in his very important book, Shaped by the Word, in reading the Bible for knowledge we can (and often do) miss the mission: for Abba to love us and for us to love Abba. When we let Abba speak to us through the Bible, we come to know him (and not just about him) and our reading moves from communication from God to communion with God, from 'information to formation,' from learning about love to learning to love."
He continues, almost Kirkegaardianly:
"My suggestion is simple: Put away study aids, commentaries, Bible Study Group materials: get out a piece of paper and a pen, and write down what we learn about God in a passage of scripture. Just what we learn about our Abba. We read, we meditate and we pray...There is no substitute for reading the Bible in order to hear from God."
<idle musing>
Not to disparage the use of tools to understand the biblical text better, but there is definitely a time to put away the tools and listen. Listen for God, commune with Him, follow the path of the mystics. Not an easy task in our fast-paced world with always-on-Internet, radio, TV, ipods, etc.
Perhaps as scholars we are asking the wrong questions of the text. Instead of judging the text, perhaps it would be better to let the text judge us. Of course, that's scary...I might not—no, I will not—measure up. I will be forced to rely on grace instead of my knowledge of the original languages and cultural background. I will be face-to-face without the comfort of my tools and training. But God is calling us, as he did Augustine, "Tolle, lege. Tolle, lege." "Pick it up, read it. Pick it up, read it."
Just a post-Christmas musing on too little sleep. Our son and friends arrived at 5:00 this morning after driving all night from Minnesota and we talked until 7:00, so I'm running on about 3-3.5 hours of sleep...everybody else is still sleeping.
</idle musing>
I especially like this quote, from Chapter 18 (italics his):
"A concrete suggestion to aid us in preparing for eternal fellowship with Abba: we need to read the Bible Abba-centrically, or "Father-centered." Christians sometimes read the Bible too often to "figure things out," to come to terms with a theological debate, or to settle an old score. They read it for information.
"But, as M. Robert Mulholland explains in his very important book, Shaped by the Word, in reading the Bible for knowledge we can (and often do) miss the mission: for Abba to love us and for us to love Abba. When we let Abba speak to us through the Bible, we come to know him (and not just about him) and our reading moves from communication from God to communion with God, from 'information to formation,' from learning about love to learning to love."
He continues, almost Kirkegaardianly:
"My suggestion is simple: Put away study aids, commentaries, Bible Study Group materials: get out a piece of paper and a pen, and write down what we learn about God in a passage of scripture. Just what we learn about our Abba. We read, we meditate and we pray...There is no substitute for reading the Bible in order to hear from God."
<idle musing>
Not to disparage the use of tools to understand the biblical text better, but there is definitely a time to put away the tools and listen. Listen for God, commune with Him, follow the path of the mystics. Not an easy task in our fast-paced world with always-on-Internet, radio, TV, ipods, etc.
Perhaps as scholars we are asking the wrong questions of the text. Instead of judging the text, perhaps it would be better to let the text judge us. Of course, that's scary...I might not—no, I will not—measure up. I will be forced to rely on grace instead of my knowledge of the original languages and cultural background. I will be face-to-face without the comfort of my tools and training. But God is calling us, as he did Augustine, "Tolle, lege. Tolle, lege." "Pick it up, read it. Pick it up, read it."
Just a post-Christmas musing on too little sleep. Our son and friends arrived at 5:00 this morning after driving all night from Minnesota and we talked until 7:00, so I'm running on about 3-3.5 hours of sleep...everybody else is still sleeping.
</idle musing>
Friday, December 23, 2005
Biblical Studies debate
There has been a lively debate going on in the biblical-studies yahoo group for several days now on interpreting the Bible. I received permission from Professor Jerry Shepherd to post his contribution. There was some discussion of Luther's view as interpreted by David Steinmetz in Archiv fur Reformationgeschicte 70 (1979), saying basically that the Holy Spirit is all we need.
"In my hermeneutics class I teach that Christians have no cognitive or epistemological privilege in biblical interpretation simply because they are Christians. This goes against evangelical tradition which says that because Christians have the Holy Spirit, they can expect to be supernaturally illuminated in their interpretive activities. When I teach against this tradition, this at first rankles some of the students. But all I have to do to demonstrate the truth of my thesis is put a Greek or Hebrew text in front of them and ask them to pray for the Holy Spirit to zap them to make them understand what it means. Of course it never happens. From there, it is only slightly more difficult to show that there is no special privilege when it come[s] to an English text of the Bible either. So in this regard, I am somewhat uncomortable with Steinmetz's take on Luther, or perhaps with Luther himself, in that, frankly, it is our intellectual activity and careful, disciplined study that brings the text to intelligibility. In this regard, interpretation does belong in the hand of scholars.
"But on another level, the affective, many times those whose orientation is toward the text as an object of joy and love and delight, rather than away from the text, treating it merely as an artifact, are better able to understand the text and resonate with its ethos. Our study of the prophetic books has been greatly enhanced with the various critical studies that have been done in recent decades, but I don't think any of them understand the prophetic books as well as did Abraham Heschel. Our Psalms scholarship has been vastly improved over the last thirty years, but I'd rather read John Donne's sermons -- he understood the Psalms. This just to say that sometimes those who love the text can better understand the text than those who don't. And sometimes, after I've exerted much energy and spent many hours in my hermeneutical endeavors, someone in my class, or my church, or my small care group, may understand that text better than I do."
Dr. Jerry E. Shepherd
Associate Professor of Old Testament
Taylor Seminary
<idle musing>
Seems to go hand in hand with the quote from Bonhoeffer I posted this morning as well as one of my favorite Augustine quotes, which I can not remember the reference for: "The word of God is like an ocean, deep enough that the oldest saint cannot plumb its depths, shallow enough that the youngest will not drown exploring it." We need all of our abilities, as given by God, to understand what the scripture is saying. That's why I have a library full of books--and work for a bookseller with a warehouse full of them. And besides that, Heschel's book The Prophets is a great book!
But, in the end the secrets are revealed to the one who seeks with a humble heart.
</idle musing>
"In my hermeneutics class I teach that Christians have no cognitive or epistemological privilege in biblical interpretation simply because they are Christians. This goes against evangelical tradition which says that because Christians have the Holy Spirit, they can expect to be supernaturally illuminated in their interpretive activities. When I teach against this tradition, this at first rankles some of the students. But all I have to do to demonstrate the truth of my thesis is put a Greek or Hebrew text in front of them and ask them to pray for the Holy Spirit to zap them to make them understand what it means. Of course it never happens. From there, it is only slightly more difficult to show that there is no special privilege when it come[s] to an English text of the Bible either. So in this regard, I am somewhat uncomortable with Steinmetz's take on Luther, or perhaps with Luther himself, in that, frankly, it is our intellectual activity and careful, disciplined study that brings the text to intelligibility. In this regard, interpretation does belong in the hand of scholars.
"But on another level, the affective, many times those whose orientation is toward the text as an object of joy and love and delight, rather than away from the text, treating it merely as an artifact, are better able to understand the text and resonate with its ethos. Our study of the prophetic books has been greatly enhanced with the various critical studies that have been done in recent decades, but I don't think any of them understand the prophetic books as well as did Abraham Heschel. Our Psalms scholarship has been vastly improved over the last thirty years, but I'd rather read John Donne's sermons -- he understood the Psalms. This just to say that sometimes those who love the text can better understand the text than those who don't. And sometimes, after I've exerted much energy and spent many hours in my hermeneutical endeavors, someone in my class, or my church, or my small care group, may understand that text better than I do."
Dr. Jerry E. Shepherd
Associate Professor of Old Testament
Taylor Seminary
<idle musing>
Seems to go hand in hand with the quote from Bonhoeffer I posted this morning as well as one of my favorite Augustine quotes, which I can not remember the reference for: "The word of God is like an ocean, deep enough that the oldest saint cannot plumb its depths, shallow enough that the youngest will not drown exploring it." We need all of our abilities, as given by God, to understand what the scripture is saying. That's why I have a library full of books--and work for a bookseller with a warehouse full of them. And besides that, Heschel's book The Prophets is a great book!
But, in the end the secrets are revealed to the one who seeks with a humble heart.
</idle musing>
More Bonhoeffer
I finished Creation and Fall yesterday. Well, not really, I am reading the afterword now. Another great quote there, excerpted from a letter to his brother-in-law in 1936:
"One cannot simply read the Bible like other books. One must really be prepared to put questions to it...The reason for this is that in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot just proceed to think about God under one's own steam; instead one must ask God questions. Naturally one can read the Bible like any other book and so study it from the point of view of textual criticism, etc. There is absolutely nothing to be said against this. Only this way of going about things does not unlock the essence of the Bible but only what lies on its surface. Think of how we come to understand something said to us by a person we love not by dissecting it into bits but by simply accepting it as the kind of word it is, so that for days it echoes within us simply as the word of that particular person whom we love; the more we, like Mary, 'ponder it in the heart,' the more the person who has said it to us becomes accessible to us in that word. That is just how we should treat the word of the Bible."
"One cannot simply read the Bible like other books. One must really be prepared to put questions to it...The reason for this is that in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot just proceed to think about God under one's own steam; instead one must ask God questions. Naturally one can read the Bible like any other book and so study it from the point of view of textual criticism, etc. There is absolutely nothing to be said against this. Only this way of going about things does not unlock the essence of the Bible but only what lies on its surface. Think of how we come to understand something said to us by a person we love not by dissecting it into bits but by simply accepting it as the kind of word it is, so that for days it echoes within us simply as the word of that particular person whom we love; the more we, like Mary, 'ponder it in the heart,' the more the person who has said it to us becomes accessible to us in that word. That is just how we should treat the word of the Bible."
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Winter is here!
No, not because it is December 21st, but because today on the way to work I saw the true sign of winter--an icefisherman (person?). I'm not sure if the picture is good enough to make out, but there he is, standing on the ice with pole in hand.
Forgiveness
Very nice post on forgiveness over at theheresy.com. I quote in part:
"Our first internal objection to forgiveness is the need for justice. If I forgive so and so I'm letting them get away with what they have done to me. I disagree with that. God will judge people and that kind of judgement is too much for a victim to bear. It puts us in a place where the memory of our victimization only serves to make us victims once again. We become trapped in it. Eventually this trap begins to change how we see the world and we become oversenstive so that even friendly gestures can be interpreted as another attack.
"I ask God to help me forgive. I become to[o] tired to carry the pain and I want to release it and accept God's comfort and grace. I don't care if my adversary is properly punished I leave that to God as He has a much better grasp of the situation anyway. I feel the burden lift as the Spirit of God raises my eyes. Thank you God for enabling me to forgive. Help me to let you in deeper to my heart too root out all the bitterness and anger."
Brings to mind another new book that I am going to have to read:
<idle musing>
There is a saying that Debbie ran across a while back:
"Unforgiveness does more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than the vessel upon which it is poured"
I need to practice forgiveness on a daily basis, Jesus said that if we don't forgive others, we won't be forgiven. Pretty heavy words and worth thinking about. No! Worth putting into practice, daily.
</idle musing>
"Our first internal objection to forgiveness is the need for justice. If I forgive so and so I'm letting them get away with what they have done to me. I disagree with that. God will judge people and that kind of judgement is too much for a victim to bear. It puts us in a place where the memory of our victimization only serves to make us victims once again. We become trapped in it. Eventually this trap begins to change how we see the world and we become oversenstive so that even friendly gestures can be interpreted as another attack.
"I ask God to help me forgive. I become to[o] tired to carry the pain and I want to release it and accept God's comfort and grace. I don't care if my adversary is properly punished I leave that to God as He has a much better grasp of the situation anyway. I feel the burden lift as the Spirit of God raises my eyes. Thank you God for enabling me to forgive. Help me to let you in deeper to my heart too root out all the bitterness and anger."
Brings to mind another new book that I am going to have to read:
Surrendering Retribution in the Psalms
Responses to Violence in the Individual Complaints
Paternoster Biblical Monographs-PBM
by David Firth
Paternoster Press, 2005
xix + 154 pages, English
Paper
ISBN: 184227337X
<idle musing>
There is a saying that Debbie ran across a while back:
"Unforgiveness does more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than the vessel upon which it is poured"
I need to practice forgiveness on a daily basis, Jesus said that if we don't forgive others, we won't be forgiven. Pretty heavy words and worth thinking about. No! Worth putting into practice, daily.
</idle musing>
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
More Bonhoeffer
“Adam where are you…? This word of the Creator calls the fleeing Adam away from his conscience to stand before his Creator. Humankind is not permitted to remain alone in its sin; God speaks to Adam and halts him in his flight. Come out of your hiding place, out of your self-reproach, out of your cover-up, out of your secrecy, out of your self-torment, out of your vain remorse. Confess who you are, do not lose yourself in religious despair, be yourself. Adam, where are you? Stand before your creator. This challenge goes directly against the conscience. The conscience says: Adam, you are naked, hide yourself from the Creator; you dare not stand before God. God says: Adam, stand before me."
<idle musing>
We want to run and hide, knowing we deserve death and punishment for our deeds. We believe the serpent, that God will destroy us, ignoring the clear statements of grace and mercy by a pursuing God, Augustine's "hound of heaven." We create our own god, made in our own image: self-serving, self-centered, vengeful. We ignore the man on the cross and establish our own righteousness.
It never works, it never has and it never will. Bonhoeffer reminds us of that, calls us back to the Creator, to grace...
</idle musing>
<idle musing>
We want to run and hide, knowing we deserve death and punishment for our deeds. We believe the serpent, that God will destroy us, ignoring the clear statements of grace and mercy by a pursuing God, Augustine's "hound of heaven." We create our own god, made in our own image: self-serving, self-centered, vengeful. We ignore the man on the cross and establish our own righteousness.
It never works, it never has and it never will. Bonhoeffer reminds us of that, calls us back to the Creator, to grace...
</idle musing>
Monday, December 19, 2005
New ICC volume
It feels like Christmas, all these great new books. The latest ICC volume just hit our doors, and in time for your Christmas shopping :)
Colossians and Philemon
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary
International Critical Commentary - ICC
by Robert Mcl. Wilson
T & T Clark, 2005
xxxvi + 380 pages, English
Cloth
ISBN: 0567044718
List Price: $100.00
Your Price: $69.90
http://www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~WILCOLOSS
Description:
For over one hundred years International Critical Commentaries have had a special place among works on the Bible. They bring together all the relevant aids to exegesis - linguistic, textual, archaeological, historical, literary, and theological - to help the reader understand the meaning of the books of the Old and New Testaments.
The new commentaries continue this tradition. All new evidence now available is incorporated and new methods of study are applied. The authors are of the highest international standing.
No attempt has been made to secure a uniform theological or critical approach to the biblical text: contributors have been invited for their scholarly distinction, not for their adherence to any one school of thought.
Bonhoeffer quote of the day
I am still plowing through Creation and Fall. This time of the year it is difficult to get a lot of time to read, but this is worth posting:
"The Serpent asks: Did God really say, You shall not eat from every kind of tree in the garden? It does not dispute this word, but opens the eyes of the human being to a depth of which the human being has until now been unaware, a depth from which one would be in a position to establish or to dispute whether a word is God's word or not. The serpent itself at first only poses the possibility that perhaps the human being has in this regard misheard, as God could not possibly have meant it in that way. God, the good Creator, would surely not impose something like that on God's own creature; tha would surely be to limit God's love.
"The decisive point is that through this question the idea is suggested to the human being of going behind the word of God and now providing it with a human basis--a human understanding of the essential nature of God. Should the word contradict this understanding, then the human being has clearly misheard. After all, it could only serve God's cause if one put an end to such false words of God, such a mistakenly heard command, in good time...In this way the serpent purports somehow to know about the depths of the true God beyond this given word of God..."
It goes on for another page, well worth the read.
"The Serpent asks: Did God really say, You shall not eat from every kind of tree in the garden? It does not dispute this word, but opens the eyes of the human being to a depth of which the human being has until now been unaware, a depth from which one would be in a position to establish or to dispute whether a word is God's word or not. The serpent itself at first only poses the possibility that perhaps the human being has in this regard misheard, as God could not possibly have meant it in that way. God, the good Creator, would surely not impose something like that on God's own creature; tha would surely be to limit God's love.
"The decisive point is that through this question the idea is suggested to the human being of going behind the word of God and now providing it with a human basis--a human understanding of the essential nature of God. Should the word contradict this understanding, then the human being has clearly misheard. After all, it could only serve God's cause if one put an end to such false words of God, such a mistakenly heard command, in good time...In this way the serpent purports somehow to know about the depths of the true God beyond this given word of God..."
It goes on for another page, well worth the read.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
House church
There is a nice post at House Church Chronicles about how to prepare for a house church meeting.
"Years of sitting in traditional church has not prepared us to do church in the manner described in the New Testament. We have been taught to come. To sit. To watch and listen to what others have prepared. (Someone described it as "sit, soak and sour".) This is Spectator Church. And it is no way to train believers to be priests!
"By contrast, the churches described in the Bible engaged in Participatory Church. This kind of church requires preparation on the part of all of it's members. This is new. We haven't been taught how to do this..."
He then goes on to do an exposition on Hebrews 10.
His post had disappeared for a couple of days, I'm glad typepad.com got it restored, well worth reading.
"Years of sitting in traditional church has not prepared us to do church in the manner described in the New Testament. We have been taught to come. To sit. To watch and listen to what others have prepared. (Someone described it as "sit, soak and sour".) This is Spectator Church. And it is no way to train believers to be priests!
"By contrast, the churches described in the Bible engaged in Participatory Church. This kind of church requires preparation on the part of all of it's members. This is new. We haven't been taught how to do this..."
He then goes on to do an exposition on Hebrews 10.
His post had disappeared for a couple of days, I'm glad typepad.com got it restored, well worth reading.
Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays?
This is a week old, but nonetheless worth posting (thanks to Scot McKnight for posting it), from Vanguard Church(italics are his):
"...I contend that consumerism is one of the top cancers for evangelical Christianity in today’s America. American Christians have participated in and are equally to blame for how consumerism has taken over the celebration of the birth of Christ.
"Instead of spending so much time, energy and money on fighting against retailers saying “Happy Holidays,” maybe we should spend it more on creating a body of believers who would be so Kingdom-minded and so counter-cultural that they would recognize how they’re voracious appetites for consumer goods is corroding their spiritual lives.
"And, maybe, instead of being a bunch of angry Christians demanding that people say “Merry Christmas,” we should joyfully proclaim the Good News that God came in the flesh in order to free us from such truly insidious powers such as consumerism and materialism."
<idle musing>
Now that is a good sermon!
</idle musing>
"...I contend that consumerism is one of the top cancers for evangelical Christianity in today’s America. American Christians have participated in and are equally to blame for how consumerism has taken over the celebration of the birth of Christ.
"Instead of spending so much time, energy and money on fighting against retailers saying “Happy Holidays,” maybe we should spend it more on creating a body of believers who would be so Kingdom-minded and so counter-cultural that they would recognize how they’re voracious appetites for consumer goods is corroding their spiritual lives.
"And, maybe, instead of being a bunch of angry Christians demanding that people say “Merry Christmas,” we should joyfully proclaim the Good News that God came in the flesh in order to free us from such truly insidious powers such as consumerism and materialism."
<idle musing>
Now that is a good sermon!
</idle musing>
Friday, December 16, 2005
Balloon?
Overheard at Eisenbrauns today:
One customer service rep to another, "What's that sound? It sounds like a balloon being blown up. It's coming from James' office."
Rep two, "Oh, that's his head expanding. He must have just read Joe Cathey's post.
Rep one, "Quick, get a pin before it fills the whole place!"
POP!!!
Peace descends again...
One customer service rep to another, "What's that sound? It sounds like a balloon being blown up. It's coming from James' office."
Rep two, "Oh, that's his head expanding. He must have just read Joe Cathey's post.
Rep one, "Quick, get a pin before it fills the whole place!"
POP!!!
Peace descends again...
New Book
Another intriguing book just came across my desk today, in the Paternoster Theological Monographs series. Here are the details:
A Theology of Work
Work and the New Creation
Paternoster Theological Monographs - PTM
by
Paternoster Press,
xvi + 207 pages,
Paper
ISBN: 1842273329
http://www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~PPCOSTHEOLO
Description:
Given that so much of our contemporary lives are spent working and that so many major decisions and issues in life revolve around our work, it is surprising just how little serious theological reflection there is on the subject. A Theology of Work makes work itself the subject of theological enquiry. From within Christian doctrine it asks the pressing questions 'what is work and work's place in God's economy and thus, how shold we be carrying out our work'. Through dialogue with Jurgen Moltmann, Pope John Paul II and others, this book develops a genitive 'theology of work'. It offers a normative theological definition of work and a model for a theological ethics of work that shows work's nature, value and meaning now, and, quite uniquely, eschatalogiically related to the new creation. Throughout the book it is argued that work in its essence is about transformation and, as such, it is an activity consisting of three dynamically interrelated dimensions: the instrumental, relational, and ontological.
I tried to paste part of the introduction, but it wouldn't take...
Friday fun
This was on the Classics list earlier this week. Thought people would enjoy it on a Friday.
'Only 100 words' needed to read
England's strategy for teaching children to read could be overloading them with superfluous words, researchers have suggested.
The strategy recommends teaching them to recognise 150 words initially.
An ongoing study at the university of Warwick says 100 will do to read most written English, including books intended for adults.
Far fewer phonic skills than in the official strategy were needed to understand various letter combinations.
Minimal returns
Warwick researchers Jonathan Solity and Janet Vousden analysed a range of books including adult fiction and non-fiction, and two popular reading schemes.
By learning 100 key words, children found they could understand books designed for both youngsters and adults.
Being able to recognise the extra 50 most-used words, as recommended by the literacy strategy for the first two years of schooling, meant children gained an understanding of about 2% more of the texts.
Dr Solity told the BBC News website that his Early Reading Research project had reduced the incidence of children having problems with reading from about 20-25% to less than 2%.
It involved both phonics - the sound of letters and letter combinations, and "sight vocabulary" - recognising whole words from the letters in them.
Sounds
He said written English appeared to have lots of irregular words, but in fact when analysed a significant proportion of it was highly regular and could be taught through a very small number of skills.
There are about 44 phonemes - sounds. But these are represented by a rather larger number of letter groupings. For example, an "ee" sound might be "ee" or "ea" or "ie".
He said the national literacy strategy required 108 of these, some said there were 195 and the maximum possible number of associations between sounds and the written representations of them had been calculated at 461.
But his approach meant children had to learn only 61.
"So we teach half the number but the principle is the same: they enable children to read somewhere in the region of 70% of all the phonically regular words in the adult literature," he said.
The core 100 words accounted for 53% of all the words in a database of 850,000 words analysed in the adult texts.
And just 16 words accounted for a quarter of all the words.
"If you teach more and more of them children end up being confused - and they are just redundant."
Self-correction
For example, the letter combination "dge", as in "fridge", cropped up only 11 times in the 850,000 words, he said.
The letters "ie" could represent no fewer than nine different sounds.
They occurred 267 times in the 850,000 words but because they could be nine different sounds, a child was left working out which "through nothing other than trial and error".
So the Warwick scheme focused on the most frequently occurring.
A key feature is what he calls "phonic self-correcting".
For example, if a child is taught that the letters "ea" have an "ee" sound, they will initially trip over the sentence "I went to the shop to buy a loaf of bread" - pronouncing it "breed".
But they know that doesn't make sense, so quickly correct it.
He said this was not "a return to the old days" - give children books and they would learn to read.
"It is underpinned by careful teaching. They are not encouraged to guess or look at picture clues, but to use their skills," he said.
Dr Solity said the findings were important not only for children but also for adults who struggled to read - not least because they were put off using children's reading schemes.
The researchers could say to them, "show us what you want to read and we'll give you the skills you need," he said.
The 16 most frequently occurring words:
a, and, he, I, in, is, it, my, of, that, the, then, to, was, went, with
The 100 high frequency words:
a, about, after, all, am, an, and, are, as, at, away
back, be, because, big, but, by
call, came, can, come, could
did, do, down
for, from
get, go, got
had, has, have, he, her, here, him, his
I, in, into, is, it
last, like, little, live, look made, make, me, my
new, next, not, now
of, off, old, on, once, one, other, our, out, over
put
saw, said, see, she, so, some
take, that, the, their, them, then, there, they, this, three, time, to, today, too, two
up, us
very
was, we, were, went, what, when, will, with
you
Story from BBC NEWS:
Now you know. All that energy that you put into learning new vocabulary was a waste. You could have learned just 150 words. I wonder if that works for other languages, just think, you could know each language in a week...
'Only 100 words' needed to read
England's strategy for teaching children to read could be overloading them with superfluous words, researchers have suggested.
The strategy recommends teaching them to recognise 150 words initially.
An ongoing study at the university of Warwick says 100 will do to read most written English, including books intended for adults.
Far fewer phonic skills than in the official strategy were needed to understand various letter combinations.
Minimal returns
Warwick researchers Jonathan Solity and Janet Vousden analysed a range of books including adult fiction and non-fiction, and two popular reading schemes.
By learning 100 key words, children found they could understand books designed for both youngsters and adults.
Being able to recognise the extra 50 most-used words, as recommended by the literacy strategy for the first two years of schooling, meant children gained an understanding of about 2% more of the texts.
Dr Solity told the BBC News website that his Early Reading Research project had reduced the incidence of children having problems with reading from about 20-25% to less than 2%.
It involved both phonics - the sound of letters and letter combinations, and "sight vocabulary" - recognising whole words from the letters in them.
Sounds
He said written English appeared to have lots of irregular words, but in fact when analysed a significant proportion of it was highly regular and could be taught through a very small number of skills.
There are about 44 phonemes - sounds. But these are represented by a rather larger number of letter groupings. For example, an "ee" sound might be "ee" or "ea" or "ie".
He said the national literacy strategy required 108 of these, some said there were 195 and the maximum possible number of associations between sounds and the written representations of them had been calculated at 461.
But his approach meant children had to learn only 61.
"So we teach half the number but the principle is the same: they enable children to read somewhere in the region of 70% of all the phonically regular words in the adult literature," he said.
The core 100 words accounted for 53% of all the words in a database of 850,000 words analysed in the adult texts.
And just 16 words accounted for a quarter of all the words.
"If you teach more and more of them children end up being confused - and they are just redundant."
Self-correction
For example, the letter combination "dge", as in "fridge", cropped up only 11 times in the 850,000 words, he said.
The letters "ie" could represent no fewer than nine different sounds.
They occurred 267 times in the 850,000 words but because they could be nine different sounds, a child was left working out which "through nothing other than trial and error".
So the Warwick scheme focused on the most frequently occurring.
A key feature is what he calls "phonic self-correcting".
For example, if a child is taught that the letters "ea" have an "ee" sound, they will initially trip over the sentence "I went to the shop to buy a loaf of bread" - pronouncing it "breed".
But they know that doesn't make sense, so quickly correct it.
He said this was not "a return to the old days" - give children books and they would learn to read.
"It is underpinned by careful teaching. They are not encouraged to guess or look at picture clues, but to use their skills," he said.
Dr Solity said the findings were important not only for children but also for adults who struggled to read - not least because they were put off using children's reading schemes.
The researchers could say to them, "show us what you want to read and we'll give you the skills you need," he said.
The 16 most frequently occurring words:
a, and, he, I, in, is, it, my, of, that, the, then, to, was, went, with
The 100 high frequency words:
a, about, after, all, am, an, and, are, as, at, away
back, be, because, big, but, by
call, came, can, come, could
did, do, down
for, from
get, go, got
had, has, have, he, her, here, him, his
I, in, into, is, it
last, like, little, live, look made, make, me, my
new, next, not, now
of, off, old, on, once, one, other, our, out, over
put
saw, said, see, she, so, some
take, that, the, their, them, then, there, they, this, three, time, to, today, too, two
up, us
very
was, we, were, went, what, when, will, with
you
Story from BBC NEWS:
Now you know. All that energy that you put into learning new vocabulary was a waste. You could have learned just 150 words. I wonder if that works for other languages, just think, you could know each language in a week...
Thursday, December 15, 2005
And the answer is...
No takers on the Hittite. I'm not surprised.
It is from a trial transcript and the witness is defending himself, I have forgotten the tablet numbers, I think it is KUB something. It translates, "Some things get lost, but some things remain."
When I was working for the Chicago Hittite Dictionary, we had t-shirts made up with the logo and that phrase in cuneiform across the bottom of the shirt. We actually ended up selling them through the Suq at the OI Museum and Professor Hoffner made up a nice little paper explaining all about it.
So now you can tell people you know something in Hittite (Neshite).
It is from a trial transcript and the witness is defending himself, I have forgotten the tablet numbers, I think it is KUB something. It translates, "Some things get lost, but some things remain."
When I was working for the Chicago Hittite Dictionary, we had t-shirts made up with the logo and that phrase in cuneiform across the bottom of the shirt. We actually ended up selling them through the Suq at the OI Museum and Professor Hoffner made up a nice little paper explaining all about it.
So now you can tell people you know something in Hittite (Neshite).
Let's see how obscure we can get
Joe Cathey and Jim West have been posting Sumerian and Akkadian on their sites this week. Well, I never learned Sumerian and my Akkadian is so rusty I would barely recognize an infinitive, so I am not going to play that game. But, I do remember one phrase from my Hittite, so let's see how many Hittitologists there are :)
martariwaratkan nuwaratkana:szi
(I don't know how to make shin or macron appear, so a: is long a and s is shin)
Any takers?
By the way, the logo is from the Chicago Hittite Dictionary. It is the Hittite empire's official seal. We poor graduate students used to joke that the two heads were Professors Gueterbock and Hoffner and the rabbits were the graduate students...
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