The new birth

An immediate and constant fruit of this faith whereby we are born of God, a fruit which can in no wise be separated from it, no, not for an hour, is power over sin; — power over outward sin of every kind; over every evil word and work; for wheresoever the blood of Christ is thus applied, it “purgeth the conscience from dead works;” — and over inward sin; for it purifieth the heart from every unholy desire and temper. This fruit of faith St. Paul has largely described, in the sixth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. “How shall we,” saith he, “who” by faith “are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” “Our old man is crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”—“Likewise, reckon ye yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign” even “in your mortal body,” “but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead.” “For sin shall not have dominion over you.—God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, —but being made free,” —the plain meaning is, God be thanked, that though ye were, in time past, the servants of sin, yet now— “being free from sin, ye are become the servants of righteousness.”

The same invaluable privilege of the sons of God is as strongly asserted by St. John; particularly with regard to the former branch of it, namely, power over outward sin. After he had been crying out, as one astonished at the depth of the riches of the goodness of God, — “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God! Beloved, now are we the sons of God: And it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know, that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is;” (1 John 3:1, etc.;) —he soon adds, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: And he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” (Verse 9.) But some men will say, “True: Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin habitually.” Habitually! Whence is that? I read it not. It is not written in the Book. God plainly saith, “He doth not commit sin;” and thou addest, habitually! Who art thou that mendest the oracles of God? —that “addest to the words of this book?” Beware, I beseech thee, lest God “add to thee all the plagues that are written therein! “especially when the comment thou addest is such as quite swallows up the text: So that by this artful method of deceiving, the precious promise is utterly lost; by this tricking and shuffling of men, the word of God is made of none effect. O beware, thou that thus takest from the words of this book, that, taking away the whole meaning and spirit from them, leavest only what may indeed be termed a dead letter, lest God take away thy part out of the book of life!

Suffer we the Apostle to interpret his own words, by the whole tenor of his discourse. In the fifth verse of this chapter, he had said, “Ye know that he,” Christ, “was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.” What is the inference he draws from this? “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not, Whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.”(1 John 3:6.) To his enforcement of this important doctrine, he premises an highly necessary caution: “Little children, let no man deceive you;” (verse 7;) for many will endeavor so to do; to persuade you that you may be unrighteous, that you may commit sin, and yet be children of God! “He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning.” Then follows, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: And he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this,” adds the Apostle, “the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.” By this plain mark (the committing or not committing sin) are they distinguished from each other. To the same effect are those words in his fifth chapter, “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.” (Verse 18.)—John Wesley, The Marks of the New Birth

Twinkies again

Some of you may remember that two years ago Marti, our customer service manager, set aside some Twinkies to test the urban legend that they have no expiration date. I published the results in two posts. Well, another year has rolled around. Here is Marti’s e-mail:

Hard to believe it has been another year since the great Twinkie experiment began! For those of you who were not here last year here is the background….

In July 2005 there were some extra Twinkies in the break room that were nearing their expiration date. Dave reduced them to $.10 to try to sell the remaining Twinkies. There had been some debate as to whether or not Twinkies have a shelf life of 12 years so I decided to conduct my own little experiment. I purchased 5 Twinkies and put an "open on" date on each of them, spreading out the dates by one year each. Today I have opened the second of five, which means this Twinkie is now 2 years old.

I think after a year it was safe to say that Twinkies really do not have a shelf life of longer than a few months. Now, two years later the Twinkie looks more like corn bread. It is starting to crack, and if you hit it against a hard object it sounds as if it has solidified and is no longer a sponge-like object.

Not content to just look at them, Andy, our webmaster, once again took the plunge:

I got out a knife, and tried to cut a piece off. It split like a graham cracker. It's crunchy and dry, a bit like a shortbread cookie, and only slightly sweet. Taste-wise, cornbread is the closest thing I can compare it to. The filling isn't terribly different from the, um, shell, but has a slightly silkier texture and a hint of flavor like butter frosting. There is a faint, but bitter metallic aftertaste.

We really should have gotten a video of this and put it on You Tube, because the pictures don’t have sound. Marti took and pounded the Twinkie against her desk. It sounded like a block of wood.

I can’t wait until next year!

By the way, if Andy starts mutating, I’ll let you know.

Does sin have dominion?

But even babes in Christ are so far perfect as not to commit sin. This St. John affirms expressly; and it cannot be disproved by the examples of the Old Testament. For what, if the holiest of the ancient Jews did sometimes commit sin? We cannot infer from hence, that ‘all Christians do and must commit sin as long as they live.’—John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection

Prevenient Grace

I'm finally getting around to reading Arminian Theology by Roger Olson. I will be dropping quotes here from it every now and then.

I found one statement very interesting; he claims that most evangelical preaching, even by supposed Calvinists, is actually semi-pelagian. Interesting claim, but he backs it up with quotes from sermons that I'm sure we've all heard: "You take the first step and God will meet you." and other ones like that. As if we can do anything without God's prevenient (Latin, coming before) grace. Here's a great quote from the book:

...prevenient grace does not interfere with the freedom of the will. It does not bend the will or render the will's response certain. It only enables the will to make the free choice to either cooperate with or resist grace. Cooperation does not contribute to salvation, as if God does part and humans do part; rather cooperation with grace in Arminian theology is simply nonresistance to grace. It is merely deciding to allow grace to do its work by laying down all attempts at self-justification and self-purification, and admitting that only Christ can save...Arminianism holds that salvation is all of grace—every movement of the soul toward God is initated by divine grace... Arminian Theology, page 36.

Quote for today

You are really changed; you are not only accounted, but actually “made, righteous.” “The law”—the inward power—“of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made” you “free” —really, actually free— “from the law” or power “of sin and death.” This is liberty, true gospel liberty, experienced by every believer: Not freedom from the law of God, or the works of God, but from the law of sin and the works of the devil. See that ye “stand fast in” this real, not imaginary “liberty, wherewith Christ hath made you free.” —John Wesley, A Blow to the Root

Bicycling craze?

OK, it's July and the Tour de France is going on (which I no longer follow, thanks to the doping scandals), so we expect a few articles on bicycling, but the latest Time magazine has an interesting little article on the increase of bicycling in the U.S.:

People ages 45 to 64 account for 20% of all those over age 7 who rode a bike at least six times last year, according to the National Sporting Goods Association. That's up from 13% a decade ago. Yes, this age bracket is expanding as a percentage of the overall population, but demographics can't tell the whole story. After all, golf--the quintessential 50-plus sport--is moving in reverse, at least in some respects. Last year, for the first time in 60 years, more golf courses shut down than started up, and the number of frequent golfers declined.

The appeal of cycling is most pronounced among the youngest baby boomers (ages 45 to 54), who are also tackling other vigorous leisure activities including hiking and running marathons. Such pursuits embody the active later lifestyle that much of the boomer generation has come to adopt, and which has been embraced as the ad media's new image of older Americans at leisure. Certainly, semi-seniors wake up the morning after a vigorous outing with more aches and pains than they had in their 20s, but the physical benefits exceed the cost.

<idle musing>
Does that mean that all of a sudden I'm doing something trendy? Wow, 45 years after taking up bicycling, I'm involved in a trendy sport!

Actually, my next door neighbors, who haven't had a bicycle in over 40 years, are in the process of buying two. I think this is a very good trend, and hope it lowers the nasty trend towards weight gain and sedentarism amongst boomers.
</idle musing>

Quote for today

“Unconventional in many respects, John Wesley violated parish boundaries, employed lay preachers, and proclaimed a message of good news to the poor that offered them genuine hope today—all of which resulted in censure from a more “settled” clergy who were more than comfortable with the way things were.”—The Theology of John Wesley, page 153

Quote for the day

“How far is love, even with many wrong opinions, to be preferred before truth itself without love! We may die without the knowledge of many truths and yet be carried into Abraham’s bosom. But if we die without love, what will knowledge avail.”—John Wesley

The next big thing

Ok, blogging is now passé; everybody is doing it, or has done it, or thought about it. Time for the "next big thing" to come sweeping through the waters. (insert relevant Acts 17:21 reference here). Are you ready? I think I know what it is...drum roll please.

<marketing mode on>
This last two days have seen a plethora of bibliobloggers joining Facebook. Yep, either they have recently joined or have recently decided to become active there. So, Chuck Jones, former Research Archivist at University of Chicago and now in Athens, Greece, formed a new group— The Ancient World Bloggers Group. All are invited to join in the fun. It was a conscious decision on Chuck's part to call it "Ancient World" to avoid being too narrow and limiting it to bibliobloggers only.

So, come one, come all and join the latest thing! Yes, you too can be a part of the new buzz and gain bragging rights (or is that rites?) as someone on the bleeding edge of what's new and cool!
<marketing mode off>

Watchpoodles?

Dan Kimball almost always writes stuff worth reading. Today is no exception. As a member of the "emerging" church, he sometimes takes flack. I found this comparison interesting (and too accurate):

I have found it at times fascinating, strange, helpful and hurtful when certain watchdog types of Christians write on blogs pretty mean things about other Christians and 98% of the time they are grossly inaccurate. I am aware that it is a pretty small slice of Christians who think like that and do those things, but as my theory goes - the small % are the most vocal ones. At first I was caught off guard by the tone and spirit of the "watchdogs" as I had never experienced that level of tone and words from Christians before. But then I realized, most of them are just trying their best in their own way to protect what they feel should be protected. But after reading enough of how many of them think, they really aren't watchdogs as in trained watch dogs like Doberman pinschers, but are more like little barking poodles. I like poodles actually. But the tiny ones sure can be mean and bark loudly and bare their fangs at anyone who doesn't live in their home. We owned a poodle growing up, so I have seen how you could have your best friend over and even relatives over, but the poodle didn't like anyone they were unfamiliar with. Poodles would then bark and growl in the way little poodles do even at friends and family members. It seems that many of the "watchdogs" out there, are like the poodle where they growl and bark at anything that is unfamiliar to them - even if it is the best friends or other family members of the family they live with. The poodle has good intentions, but anyone different and unfamiliar that isn't in their particular world or way of thinking gets barked and growled at.

He goes on to reflect on how Hudson Taylor took a lot of flack for his unorthodox presentation of very orthodox Christianity. Please, do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.

Website woes

Don't you love technology?

Of late we have been having problems with our website. It would return multiple instances of the same title on a search, which is bad enough. But, to make matters worse, it would multiply the shipping charges on an item 2, 3, or even 6 times. Talk about a recipe for disaster! The poor customer would see shipping charges more expensive than the book! Ouch! We were fixing it before charging the card, but I'm sure we lost some sales.

Anyway, we got that fixed this morning (long story, not worth telling), only to have all the items in our database disappear totally from the website for about 20 minutes. Yikes! How can you sell something that doesn't appear? Well, it seems that one of the work-arounds that we had created until we fixed the original problem was still running halfway, just enough to erase everything, but not put it back...nice graphics, but no books.

So, if you were looking for something on our website around noon EDT today, and it didn't show up, try again. It should be back to normal now, I hope...

Bicycling

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such rememberance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.—Ernest Hemingway

The price on your soul

<idle musing>
At what price do you value your soul? Most people would say they value their soul quite highly. If someone offered them a million dollars to do something they knew was wrong, would they take the money? Lots of books and movies have been made on that storyline. Most people would probably say it depended on how bad the thing they were to do was. After all, God grades on a curve, doesn’t he?

In actual fact, I have found that most people value their soul much less highly than they say they do. For example, the other day I went into a store to purchase a lawn mower blade. It is an odd size, 22 inches, and the store didn’t have any on display. The sales person offered to look in the back room for one, a noble gesture. Sure enough, he found a 22 inch blade, still in the package. Now, the blade I had brought in to show him was plainly a mulching blade, but the blade he was selling me very plainly said “bagging blade” on the package. He saw it, but he was willing to sell his soul for about $14.00 by pretending that this was what I needed.

You might think he sold his soul much more cheaply than you would, but stop and think about it for a minute. I will give you another example: Wednesday night we went to the grocery store and the cashier failed to charge us for 2 gallons of filtered water and mis-rung our fresh broccoli as cucumbers. We didn’t notice it until we got home and looked over the receipt. The total bill was off by about $1.60 in our favor. What would you do?

Would you just blow it off and say, “It was their mistake. God clearly blessed me with an extra $1.60!” Suppose the total were off the other way, and you were overcharged $1.60, would you just blow it off and say, “Oh well, God clearly blessed me!” You are the rare one if you would!

Well, I went back Thursday afternoon (it was too late on Wednesday) and pointed out that I owed them money. The reaction was what it always is—astonishment. That alone is an indictment against our society. It shows that our real god is money, but that is another story for another day...

I submit to you that if you didn’t go back and point out the error and pay the balance, you sold your soul. Further, I would venture to say that most people would sell their soul for a quarter. What do you think?
</idle musing>

Religion

Our main doctrines, which include all the rest, are three, that of repentance, of faith, and of holiness. The first of these we account, as it were, the porch of religion; the next, the door; the third is religion itself.— John Wesley

Eisenbrauns monthly sale

Wow, who'da thunk? Out of curiosity I checked the rating on our monthly sale, to see if it was "kid-safe."

I'll give you a hint: It's not; so make sure you keep your kids away :)

Well, I kind of expected that; after all, there is a title called Hell: A Hard Look at a Hard Question. Fair enough. But, they give you the list of words that are considered bad. What? missionary and dangerous! You've got to be kidding! Hell didn't even make the list, missionary did? Strange times we live in.

New books?

I walked into the warehouse this afternoon on my way to lunch. This is part of my normal procedure; I like to see if there is anything new. My eyes caught sight of two mailbags; this could be interesting. The address tag said Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft on it. My heart quickened in excitement as I grabbed a blade to cut the ropes holding it shut. Could this be it? Of course they had to put about 8 plastic bands around the box! I cut through those quickly; sliced the tape open...they double boxed it! Oh well, I cut the tape on the second box; yanked the box open; pulled off the packing material—only to discover it was just a reorder!

But, there was another mailbag, also from the DBG. Quickly, I repeated the procedure, missing the packing list in my haste. Sure enough, it had the familiar graphic of the BHQ fascicles! Could this be it, the long awaited and highly anticipated Deuteronomy? Wow, it sure is thin! Oh no! It is just a reorder of Ezra-Nehemiah.

The whole time, Jessica (remember Jessica, the warehouse employee?) was looking at me, wondering what in the world could be this important. She innocently asked, "Did you find what you wanted?" Talk about anti-climactic!

I went to lunch and hoped for more mailbag deliveries on Thursday.

Of decks and mildew

Over the weekend, I pressure-washed the deck at Debbie's parents' place. I don't believe it had ever been done before; the mildew was so thick it was black instead of green. They were gone for a week, visiting in Wisconsin, so we wanted to have it done before they got back.

Wow! You wouldn't believe it was the same deck. It now looks like it was built last month; I can't wait to see what it looks like once it is sealed. But, the clean deck came at a cost—no, not financial. I wore a tank top, knowing that it would be hot and wet work. I am in the sun enough on my bike that I figured I wouldn't burn. What I forgot is that the back of my neck is always covered because I am looking up on my bike. Well, the back of my neck burned royally. It hurts, even today, two days later.

But, I still think it was worth it. I was worried that the mildew would get slippery when it was wet and they might fall. That would not be a good thing, since they are in their upper seventies.

New month, new sale

The July sale is now going on at Eisenbrauns. This month we are offering 30% off on selected titles in these Paternoster monograph series:
* Paternoster Biblical Monographs
* Paternoster Theological Monographs
* Rutherford Studies in Historical Theology
* Studies in Baptist History and Thought
* Studies in Christian History and Thought
* Studies in Evangelical History and Thought

All the details are available here

There should be a little for everyone in the selected titles, from OT/HB to NT to theology to ethics to church history. I'm sure you'll find something you can't live without :)

10 about Bonhoeffer

Ben Myers has a guest post today with 10 theses on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Well worth the read, especially the ninth one:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a maverick theologian. John Maverick was a 19th-century Texas rancher and legislator who received a herd of cattle in payment of a bill and turned them loose on the range without a brand. When one of them turned up without a brand, it was assumed to be one of Maverick’s. Many have tried to mark Dietrich with their own brand, to no avail! He slipped away from the death of God theologians when they realized that the same man who wrote from prison about living in a world without God was the one who invited a Russian atheist fellow prisoner to participate in a final communion service just before being executed. Pacifists put a claim on him but felt betrayed by his admission that he would kill Hitler himself if the lot fell to him as a member of the conspiracy. Evangelicals like his talk about Jesus but wish Bonhoeffer had been more concerned about his unsaved relatives and friends. Social activists appjavascript:void(0)
Publish Postlaud him for his concern for the oppressed but are embarrassed by his orthodox Christology. Even in death, as in life, he remained unbranded.

<idle musing>
I like that-unbranded. I would say that he had but one brand—the brand of Jesus Christ, indelibly written on his heart. May his tribe increase!
</idle musing>

Wrath and holiness

As I was reading through Collins’ The Theology of John Wesley, I ran across this very good observation on wrath and holiness, and their interconnectedness.

Thus, a holy God is present to sinful human beings precisely as resistance, and as Brunner observed, “The Bible calls this ‘resistance’ the Wrath of God.” And finally, it is good in that wrath marks the response of God to the stubborn ongoing power of evil. This truth, however, is turned on its head when the love of God is separated from the holiness of God. When this is done (and it can happen for all sorts of reasons), then wrath will inevitable be seen as something utterly “evil,” as actually alien to the divine purpose and love. But as noted earlier, such a “love,” divorced from holiness, will emerge as sentimental, imaginary (a species of wishful thinking), and cheap, for it oddly enough tolerates evil, by making ongoing allowances for it, precisely in the name of love! Mincing no words, Wesley called those ministers who brought such views into the classroom and pulpit “promise-mongers.”—The Theology of John Wesley, page 105

And a page later:

[The] difficulty with divine wrath, which perhaps is far more indicative of a twenty-first-century Western setting than Wesley’s own setting, has to do with some of the consequences of reigning therapeutic models of salvation that view sinners principally as victims. So understood, sinners have caught the disease of sin, albeit with some appreciation of responsibility for having done so, and they languish in a sickbed as the Great Physician nurtures them on to increasing degrees of health and wholeness. And though Wesley’s doctrine of salvation can indeed be explained, in part, by appeal to therapeutic models, he never viewed sinners merely or even largely as victims but also as perpetrators—as those who not only actively fed their own inbred sinful inclination to depart from the living God, but also were quite energetic in their opposition, even rebellion, against a God of holy love.—The Theology of John Wesley, page 106

<idle musing>
Too true. We have lost the sense of responsibility; all see themselves as victims. “If only society would treat me right; if only I had the job and income I deserve; if only this or that.” We fail to realize that all we deserve is wrath and hell; that we are actively pursuing our own path in direct violation of the revealed will of God. That the only escape is in repentance—not feeling sorry for something, but actual repentance in the Hebrew sense of the word, a turning and moving away from our sin; anything less in not repentance but a sentimental feeling sorry for getting caught with our hands in the cookie jar—yet again!
</idle musing>

A few good posts

The marines may be looking for a few good men (does that date me?), but I have found more than a few good posts from last week:

Ted Gossard has been reading Bonhoeffer, which can be a faith stretching and convicting exercise. See his posts here and here.

Jim Martin had a nice little series of thoughts on the lies we tell ourselves with follow-up posts here and here.

While over at Vintage Faith, Dan Kimball reflects on the misuse of the scriptural statement that we will be hated on account of Christ.

And Kevin Edgecomb has started what looks to be a long and interesting series of translations from the Psalms; two translations per Psalm, one literal/formal and one more informal/dynamic.

Finally, the ever prolific Alan Knox did a series on Five things I dig about Jesus. While the title is a bit unusual, the five things he chooses to blog about are very good (he explains the title in the first post).
1. Jesus is the Great High Priest
2. Jesus is the Great Shepherd (Senior Pastor)
3. Jesus demonstrates God's love even towards those who reject him
4. Jesus cares more about people than rituals
5. Jesus abides with me and I can abide with him There is a follow up post to this one here

Grace sufficient

Over the weekend I did some catching up on backlogged blogs. Alan Knox led me to this wonderful post on grace:

I can truly relate to the "fear" of living by grace. I remember back to that time 12 years ago when I had been wondering and worrying about giving myself completely over to God's grace. I truly feared that I would fall into licentiousness, or at least that I would get lazy in my Christian walk and would perhaps stop caring about my life in Christ. For a period of time I hesitated, but one day I remember seeing myself in my mind (not a "vision," so to speak, but just an image in my mind) standing near the edge of a cliff. I couldn't see what was over the cliff, but I knew that somewhere down below was a sea of grace. In other words, I knew that "grace" was beyond the cliff, but I couldn't really see what it looked like or what it was all about. But I had heard enough about it, and I can remember finally taking that "virtual" step off of the cliff.

I really didn't know what would happen, but I realized that my step turned into a dive and I found myself free-falling ever so briefly and then there I was, floating restfully in the sea of grace. It's hard to explain the imagery of the mind, but the gist of all this was that I took the plunge and I was no longer trusting in my own strength to live the Christian life and I was solely trusting in grace. I can't begin to tell you how my life changed. The roller coaster ride of feeling joyful when I felt I was performing well, and feeling very low when I wasn't performing so well, was over!

And no, I didn't get lazy in my walk with Jesus. Rather, my walk became restful (soooo different from lazy) and I took on a new-found JOY in serving and walking with Jesus!

And let me tell you about one of the biggest changes that took place at that time. It's in regards to sin. What I'm about to say will scare the living daylights out of legalists. And I can understand, because it was one of my biggest fears that kept me from giving myself over to grace. Part of my plunge into grace involved the decision to stop trying to stop sinning. I fully understand how haphazard and irresponsible that sounds! But follow me through on this - Up to that point in my Christian walk, I had tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried to stop sinning, many many many many many many many times, but the sum total of all my trying was a seeming victory here and there, but mostly a LOT of guilt from failure and from not measuring up to how I thought my "victorious" Christian life should truly be.

And while you are there check out this post on Grace (redone)

Renaming the classics

This is unbelievable, even in a nation that has forgotten the Greek classics! As reported by David Meadows:“Who Wants to be a Millionaire” had a question about the classics, the contestant declined to answer and walked away with some cash. Good thing they didn’t try to answer:

"The Homeric Question" is a centuries-old debate among scholars over the authorship and origins of what two works? If Lynn had guessed incorrectly she would have fallen back to $1,000. The correct answer was Electra and Medea.

Huh? I don’t think so! Unless, of course, Euripedes suddenly became Homer, and the Iliad and Odyssey changed their names also.

And this blog is rated...

I am pleased to announce that this blog is rated G!


HT: Jim West

On the other hand, this is not necessarily a good thing:

84%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Free will?

I have been reading The Theology of John Wesley lately. I really like Collins as an author; he is careful and thorough. And, unlike some recent Wesleyan scholars, he doesn't try to push free will back onto Wesley.

What? you ask. You thought Wesley believed in free will and it was only those Calvinists who didn't. Wrong! Wesley believed in total depravity; I mean total depravity. But, he also believed in free grace:

We [Wesley and Fletcher] both steadily assert that the will of man is by nature free only to evil. Yet we both believe that every man has a measure of free-will restored to him by grace.

So, what Wesley believed in was free grace, not free will. I think he was right. If you understand Wesley here, the rest of his theology makes sense. The concept of sanctification is not a works oriented, man centered doctrine, but one of free grace poured out on the believer. Because Wesley believed in free grace, he was not bound to the paradigm of the Reformers, who believed that man was doomed to sin every day, in every way, even after salvation. For Wesley, salvation was from sin, not just the effects of sin, not just past sins, but the being of sin. But, it was all by grace, not one ounce of it was by mankind's works. In his sermon The Scripture Way of Salvation, he asks if you believed you could be saved from sin. If you didn't, why not? Was it because of something in your life that you had to remove first? Then, says Wesley, you are no longer seeking holiness by faith, but by works!

Those wide margin Greek and Hebrew texts

I just got the latest update on the wide margin Greek and Hebrew bibles. The printer is having trouble getting them to format correctly, which has caused the date to slip. The latest word from Hendrickson is late July, early August. Personally, I put my money on just in time for AAR/SBL :(

And what about the Westcott-Hort edition? Well, one of the editors has been ill with cancer, but is recovering. They are planning on a late September date. Pray for the editor with the cancer, his name is John.

Quote for the day

“The scriptures were never intended to instruct us in philosophy, or astronomy, and therefore, on these subjects, expressions are not always to be taken in the literal sense.”—John Wesley

de calciamentis

Huh? Well, it was the custom in Latin to title a work by what it is about, so lots of titles started with de—about/concerning. This post is about a mundane little item called sandals, hence de calciamentis.

I don't buy many name brand items, but once in a while I find that they are the better buy, and then I do. For example, I wear sandals all the time in the summer; I used to go barefoot, but have given that up, so sandals are the next best thing. I also am quite hard on them, frequently going through 2 pair in a summer. Sure, they were the cheapo Target ones, but that still comes out to $16-20 per year.

Four years ago, I decided to invest in a pair of expensive sandals, Tevas. They were on sale for about 30% off, but still a lot of money. Well, those sandals lasted me for four summers! I finally had to retire them yesterday because I had worn the soles off them. Needless to say, I am sold on Tevas.

I have no idea how many miles they had on them, but I walk over 5 miles per day just to work and back and with Debbie at night. That doesn't count any other walking that I might do. I also wore them for lots of day hikes. So they had plenty of miles on them. Requiescatis in pacem, calciamenta!

ATLA pictures

OK, no cable while I was there, and the batteries in the camera died on Friday. So, finally, some pictures.

Ignore the boxes, I had just finished setting up. The tables were a bit shorter than usual, as you can see from the Eisenbrauns table drape:

How about from another angle?


ATLA always has good snacks—I means good as in healthy. I was right next to the food table, a very good place to be from a vendor's viewpoint; a lot more traffic is generated, not so I could eat more :)

More on Michael O'Connor

Jim Eisenbraun has posted a personal note about Michael on Eisenbrauns website. If you knew Michael well, you are welcome to send us an e-mail with your reflections and memories.

Very sad news

I got back from ATLA late Friday night and didn't check e-mails until last night. The first one I checked was an e-mail from Jim with the sad news that Michael Patrick O'Connor had died. This is truly sad news. Not only was he a great scholar, but he was a personal friend and a great friend to Eisenbrauns, editing one of our series-LSAWS-and also authoring one of the first books we published, Hebrew Verse Structure. I remember when it was first published while I was in graduate school. Every day Dennis Pardee would walk into our Ugaritic class and be arguing with what he had just read in the book :)

I will miss his wonderful sense of humor, and I am sure the company as a whole, and Jim especially will sorely miss him. If I knew how to do it, I would drape this whole blog in black. But, maybe it is as well that I can't since the promise of I Corinthians 15 says that death is swallowed up in victory.

ATLA day 1

Well, I knew I was forgetting something! I forgot the cable for the camera, so unless I can find someone with one, there won't be any pictures until Monday. Sorry about that, I know you were holding your breath :)

Here's a quick rundown of what's happened so far...

I left Fort Wayne yesterday at about 1:45 PM, got to Cleveland in time to walk quickly to another concourse, board the plane with about 10 minutes to spare, only to sit for 90 minutes on the runway. Apparently there was a problem with wind shear at Philadelphia, preventing landings. So, I got to the hotel around 8:00 PM, which was fine, since nothing could be set up until today anyway.

The Doubletree is a very nice hotel, with a full exercise room, all Precor equipment. They only have one recumbent cycle, so I got there right away at 6:00 AM to make sure I got it. The nice thing about being a cyclist is that most people aren't—most people go for the ellipticals and treadmills.

Setup started at 7:30 and since I only have a table, it didn't take long. I really like ATLA; for one thing, they treat the exhibitors well. Tim and company make you feel like you matter and even make sure that there is food for you. Usually it is bagels, fresh fruit and muffins, and this year was no exception. Strawberries and fresh cut pineapple tasted very good, and the tea water didn't have that coffee taste that often happens when they use the same dispensers for tea and coffee—you tea drinkers know what I mean.

Well, I need to get back into the hall, so hopefully I will find a cable and post some pictures later.

I'm off!

I am off to the ATLA conference. I will be posting pictures tomorrow and Friday. It is a delightful little conference with only theological librarians, bibliophiles all! If you happen to be in the Philadelphia area, drop by the Doubletree Hotel and I can get you a pass to see the book exhibits.

A little light reading

Yesterday afternoon, just for kicks, Andy and I were figuring out how long it would take to read all the books Eisenbrauns lists. Now, as booksellers go, we don't have a large inventory since we are so specialized&mdashonly about 15000 titles; there aren't a lot more books than that in biblical studies and ancient Near Eastern studies.

Here's what we came up with:
The average scholar has a 40 year career, from graduate school until retirement (give or take a few years). That means they would only have to read 375 books a year to read all 15,000 titles. Just one book a day. That's it, only one book a day. A tall order, but perhaps manageable.

But, we add about 1,000 titles per year to our inventory. You would have to read those too, if you want to stay current. No problem! You only have to read 19 books a week. A mere 3 books a day, allowing for a sabbath rest of only one book!

So, to get a handle on all the books we list, you would need to read 4 books per day, 6 days a week for the next 40 years. Too much you say? And you call yourself a scholar :)

Oxymoron

<idle musings>
Being the director of marketing, I get some interesting e-mails, but this one struck me as an oxymoron: Christian consumers

Perhaps that is appropriate; maybe the church has degenerated in our culture into just another group to target in niche marketing. But, it still struck me as odd, theologically. Christians, who are called to die to the world, "love not the world" in the words of I John, are now seen as just another segment of the population to receive targeted marketing.

Of course, the really scary thing about it is that it works! The christian subculture is big business. I don't remember the figures now, but it runs in the billions of dollars. But, it still strikes me as an oxymoron.
</idle musings>

Of bicycles and 4x4

<idle musing>
This weekend, Debbie and I were riding on busier roads than usual and a trend emerged. Nearly every time a large 4x4 passed us, they seemed to feel obligated to gun the engine. If it were only the ones passing us, I can somewhat understand it; it makes sense that you want to get past as soon as possible and get back in your lane—although a vehicle going 50-60 mph passing a bicycle doing 15-20 mph doesn’t need to accelerate very much. But, the oncoming vehicles, why should they need to gun their engines? It’s not like they are passing us!

So, I ask, what is it about a bicycle that causes the driver of a 4x4 to feel the need to gun their engine? It certainly can’t be that we are a threat to them, can it? When was the last time you saw a bicycle pass one? It must be something deeper. Could it be that it reveals the secondary nature of the power they control? Is a bicycle a threat to their masculinity, so much so that they have to reassure themselves by gunning the engine? Perhaps “muscle trucks” is a misnomer and they should be called muscle-less trucks : )

Just an idle musing on a Monday morning
</idle musing>

Timber!

We have had windy weather here of late, so windy in fact that it brought down a tree in the Eisenbrauns' parking lot. Good thing it was Sunday, or it would have landed on Jim's truck.

New Orleans

Our son-in-law, Joel, went to New Orleans for a week to work on rebuilding (he’s a carpenter by trade). He recently wrote this in an e-mail to us with some pictures:

...there are continually people going down to serve that city from all over the country. We found that largely this is because the hurricane two years ago only highlighted the bigger problems of poverty and moral devastation that plague parts of New Orleans. You will see some hurricane and flood damage in the pictures. But much of the disrepair is indicative of the hopelessness of the poorest people in that area. These long-term problems as well as rebuilding after Katrina, are being addressed by the churches...We saw how important it was to have believers living amongst the people they are trying to reach. We put the roof on an addition to that house. We also worked on a warehouse to be used for storage; pulling down a rotten ceiling, securing the rest of it and building walls to contain tools and a staging area for work crews. We dealt with frustration over the lack of organization and materials, high security measures, the apathy of those in the neighborhood we were there to help, a crumbling city infrastructure. But at the same time we saw God shining through in His love for people, in His miraculous provision for the people doing His work, in the passion and dedication of the staff for "Loving God with all they got and people ‘til they drop". And we saw Him at work in our own lives as well.

Quote for the day

"In the bible it was a miracle when God spoke through an ass. Now it happens everyday."
Dave Johnson, pastor Church of the Open Door, from Out of Ur

The whole article is very good, and too close to correct for comfort.

Ancient Near Eastern catalog, again

OK, 4 days later than I wanted, and about 3400 items later, I'm done. The file is now exporting from the database into an XML file for Michael to do his magic on. But, as I was finishing it, a terrible thought occurred to me: What if customers don't want the catalog to have series together, but would rather have it all topical?

Now, that is a scary thought because about half of the titles are listed in series. Generally the series reflect the category, but what about series like Harvard Semitic Studies, where the books can range from Hebrew Grammar to Akkadian to history to archaeology? Or, worse yet, OBO where the topic can be Egyptian, Greek, or Levantine?

If a customer were looking for a good book on Egyptological papyrus, would they think to look in ANE series under OBO? Or, if they were looking for a good Ugaritic grammar, would they think to look under AOAT instead of just the Ugaritic section in languages? I can't list them twice; I tried that in the last ANE catalog and ran out of room.

So, it's too late for this year's catalog, but what about next year's Biblical Studies catalog? Should I abandon the series listing in the catalog and just go with a topical list? But then if someone were looking to see what was still missing in their Word Biblical Commentary, or ICC, or Anchor Bible, or NICOT series, what would they do? Hopefully go to the website, but some of our catalog recipients live in places with slow or no Internet access.

What's the best option? Your input is welcomed...

What is church?

At first I misspelled church as “chruch.” That would have had a simple answer, it is simply church misspelled. The answer to “what is church?” isn’t as simple, but Guy Muse over at the The M blog takes a stab at it with this list:

• From meeting centered to life centered.
• From church houses to house churches (simplify to multiply).
• From special priesthood to priesthood of all believers.
• From super organization to simple organism.
• From bringing people to church to bringing church to people.
• From performance by professionals to "every one of you" (1 Co.14:26).
• From program-based church to home-based church.
• From titles to function.
• From independence to inter-dependence.
• From paper membership to Body membership.
• From "us and them" to "us".
• From local vision to world vision.
• From building my kingdom to building THE kingdom.
• From wall-wide church to city-wide church.
• From Christianity to Christ (not a philosophy, movement, or religion, but JESUS!)
• From pastor only to five-fold ministries (we need ALL the gifts God gave to the church).

I’m sure some would argue against some of these and others would want to add more, but it’s a good start. If even half of them were evident in our lives, what would the world see? Interesting thought, isn’t it?

Consumerism

Out of Ur has a short little interview with Dan Kimball about consumerism and the church. After discussing the effects of consumerism, “Is it really producing people who are living and demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit in their lives? Are they loving one another and loving God more?” He goes on to describe how Vintage Faith is trying to change that:

We’re asking God to transform us (because it can’t be done through human effort); into a worshiping community (because we want to be worshipers first); of missional theologians (because if we’re on a mission in our culture we have to be thinkers).

We’re calling the church more of a missional training center as much as we can. We’re launching community groups. We’re calling them "community groups" even though we see them as house churches, but that name has weird connotations for some.

Definitely worth a read.

Academic Writing

Charles has a nice series going over at Awilum on academic writing which continues here. He got his inspiration from Angie at Imaginary Grace, who has now followed up with another post with some advice on forming a writing group (I really do need to update my sidebar to include her blog).

As a person who works for a publisher, all I can say is a hearty “Amen!” May their tribe increase to fill the earth—well, at least the manuscripts that are submitted to us, anyway.

In the meantime, Eisenbrauns is looking for a copy editor. Know anybody that wants to move to Warsaw/Winona Lake, Indiana? Oh, one of the side benefits (other than working with a great group of people, such as yours truly) is cheap books! Now, if that doesn’t attract you, you really aren’t a serious bibliophile, right? You can read all the details here.

Plone help needed

I am trying, vainly, to get a Plone site up and running. Here’s my problem:
I am running Plone on Debian Etch on a bare Zope server (no Apache). Plone is listening on port 8081 (the Debian default install). I am trying to remap incoming traffic using the Virtual Host Monster (VHM), but to no avail. Yes, I have RTFineM and googled, so don’t flame me if it is obvious to you. It isn’t to me, even after the fine Manual. I’ve tried 4 remappings, all unsuccessfully:

/VirtualHostBase/http/www.mysite.com:8081/Mysite/VirtualHostRoot/
/VirtualHostBase/http/www.mysite.com:80/Mysite/VirtualHostRoot/
/VirtualHostBase/http/www.mysite.com:8081/VirtualHostRoot/Mysite
/VirtualHostBase/http/www.mysite.com:80/VirtualHostRoot/Mysite

Any ideas?

Second problem: I can’t get the e-mail to interface correctly. I am running Exim, which I have never run before, so I may have it configured incorrectly. But, here is the error:

Site error

This site encountered an error trying to fulfill your request. The errors were:

Error Type
SMTPException
Error Value
SMTP AUTH extension not supported by server.
Request made at
2007/05/30 16:42:03.513 GMT-5

Any assistance would be most gratefully accepted. If you need more details, either e-mail me or leave a comment.

Hey, while I’m asking, if you have experience changing the logo on a random basis, I’ll accept help on that too! Any other Plone expertise might be of use, too. I’m not above begging, or bribing with books, for that matter :)

Strawberries

It’s June, and it’s strawberry picking time! That doesn’t require as much effort on my part as it used to, now that the kids are gone. But, I still went out and picked over 30 pounds, which translates into about 24 pints of freezer jam and 15 pounds of frozen strawberries. Of course, that doesn’t include the ones I ate while picking them :)

To add to the fun, we just got a waffle cone maker. Our first few attempts at making waffle cones were pretty pathetic, but we got better. Similarly, we tried making waffle bowls with interesting results. I put some home made ice cream, fresh from the ice cream maker, into one. Oops, bad choice; apparently I had stretched the waffle too much in forming it; there were pin holes all over it and since the ice cream was very soft, it leaked-lots. I ate it over the sink.

God has blessed me with a wonderful wife, and I thank him for it. We have wonderful times together, from making strawberry jam, to discussing theology; from waffle cones to Christian praxis; who but God could have brought her into my life over 30 years ago?

And the frustration level climbs...

Ah yes, it's that time again, and the frustration level begins to climb and I feel the pinch of the clock ticking away...what could be so stressful? Simple, it's time to update the Ancient Near Eastern Resource Catalog. The stress is two-fold: I have to have it created, proofread, bound and printed by the time Jim leaves for the RAI conference in early July. Second, how do you narrow down all the excellent books on the ANE to only 2500-3000?

Considering that printing and binding takes 2-3 weeks, that doesn't leave me a whole lot of time! I certainly can't afford to short-change the proof-reading, or you will have way too much fun pointing out my various errors :)

I have done the easy part, all the series titles (about 2000 titles), but now I have to select the most important reference works for 16 different languages in the ANE. That is not an easy task. I'm sure I will miss something important, or something I list will go out of print about 2 weeks after the catalog goes to press, or a publisher will announce a major work and everyone will ask how could I possibly have missed X?

Oh well, my problems are minor in the great scheme of things!

June sale

Since Eisenbrauns hasn't run a sale on New Testament books for a while, I thought June would be a good month to remedy that. So, for the entire month of June, you can save 20% on 23 different titles in the series Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus (NTOA).

Check out the list here

Akkadian sale at Eisenbrauns

Akkadian was officially accepted as deciphered by the Royal Asiatic Society 150 years ago yesterday, May 29. Some accept an alternative date of June 6; no matter, the Eisenbrauns sale encompasses both dates. Take advantage of savings from 20-50% on Akkadian related books from Eisenbrauns in celebration of this event. For more details on the decipherment, go to the IAA page

To all the items on the weekly sale, which includes the Mesopotamian Civilizations series, two RAI proceedings, Lambert's classic Babylonian Wisdom Literature, plus Huehnergard's Akkadian Grammar and Key, click here

Hannibal and the Alps

During the second Punic War, the Carthaginian general Hannibal led his troops, 25,000 strong, over the Alps, along with not a few elephants. At least that is how the story goes. But, did you know that we don’t have any archaeological evidence to support the story?

That’s right, no one has found so much as a single Carthaginian coin in the Alps in over 2000 years. Further, you would think that 25,000 men and some elephants would leave a trail that someone would be able to find, but no one has been able convincingly to map the route. What’s more, we don’t have any contemporary accounts of the feat; everything we have is later, and either in Greek or Latin, nothing in Punic. To make matters even worse, our manuscripts are late, and in some cases fragmentary and contradictory.

Now, with all this negative evidence, you would think that people would be up in arms about the tale that has been foisted on unsuspecting students over the years. How do we know that it wasn’t just an invention of the Roman propaganda machine to justify the destruction of Carthage? After all, Cato the elder ended every speech with the friendly phrase Carthago delenda est (Carthage must be destroyed); not exactly what I would call a sympathetic attitude. The only power that could have derailed the Roman imperial monster was Carthage. Revisionist history would seem to be the clear answer. But is it?

Nope. Hannibal’s march through the mountains is in the history books; on the exams; in the research; National Geographic even is funding yet another attempt to find the route he used.

At the risk of being simplistic, what is the difference between this and the history that is recorded in the Hebrew bible? You get people complaining that the exodus and David and Saul are being foisted on unsuspecting youth, corrupting them forever. Ah, you say that is a theological worldview. Right. Do you really think the Romans didn’t have a theological worldview that comes through loud and clear in their histories?

This might come as a shock to your secular worldview, but the ancient world didn’t move without consulting the omens. Armies would face each other for days, with neither side making a move. Why? Because the omens weren’t right! You don’t want to fight without the gods on your side; you’re sure to lose. Yes, especially the Romans. They were probably the most superstitious around. Don’t believe me, read Livy sometime. They could portray the Carthaginians as the bad guys for practicing infant sacrifice, which they did, but don’t push them too hard about the vestal virgins that they buried alive in their panic. No, they weren’t above human sacrifice, if it would bring a victory to Rome.

So, again, why isn’t Hannibal’s march questioned and the existence of David is?

The heart of the matter

Ted Gossard over at The Jesus Community recounts an experience hearing a sermon that didn’t ring true.

Some years ago I remember hearing a pastor and thinking he sounded hollow, or that something just didn't seem right, or at least that in spite of the way he preached which was an emulation or model of "good preaching", and that there was good in his message, I frankly was glad when it was over. Later it came to light that he was having an emotional affair with a woman from another city. I don't know if I had just been having a bad day or had been given a measure of some kind of discernment. But there are few issues I'm more concerned about than losing my heart in God, really none.

He goes on to reflect “When I'm losing my heart in God I no longer feel quite at home in God. My heart is elsewhere. Isn't that idolatry?”

<idle musing>
That is so true. When I find that I don’t desire to live in God’s presence, it is always because I have allowed something else—maybe even something “good”—to displace God in my heart. God brooks no rivals, either he is lord, or he isn’t. I just finished reading the hextateuch again, and that seems to be a resounding refrain throughout all six books, all the way up to the last chapter in Joshua:

But Joshua said to the people, “You cannot serve the Lord; for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm, and consume you, after having done you good.” Joshua 24:19-20 RSV

</idle musing>

Things!

I spent the weekend getting caught up on older blog posts (actually I did other things, too, but that is another story). Here is a post that really caught my eye:

. . .We did not have time to stop and ask if this is truly what God wants from us, because we were so busy doing things.

We were so busy doing things...

And, that's just what they were... things. This is what I realized this morning while I was talking with my wife. We had been so busy doing things for so long that we had almost forgotten that God is not interesting in things. God is interested in us and other people... relationships.

Don't misunderstand me... I don't think these things were designed as things. But, they became things. Things to do. Things to prepare. Things to instruct. Things to follow. Things to believe. Things to support. Things to finance. Things...

We should teach other believers... but teaching can become a thing. We should preach the gospel... but preaching can become a thing. We should meet with other believers... but Sunday morning events (and Saturday evenings spent with friends) can become a thing.

Even quiet times... devotional times... prayer times... can become things. And things are not God.

<idle musing>
Martha and Mary in the Gospel of John. We live in a Martha centric society. Do this, do that, here’s the latest deadline, don’t miss it or you’re in trouble. Activity, everywhere you look. If you take time to stop and meditate, you feel guilty for not producing.

But how much of the activity is just hiding the emptiness inside? How much of the activity is a subtle form of works righteousness? How much of the activity is to keep us from confronting who we really are? If we just stay busy, we can collapse at the end of it and feel like we “did something,” thus keeping the conscience quiet.

A whirlwind of activity, but what is at the center of it? Self! And what does Christ call us to except death to self! As usual, we get it backwards. Christ calls us to die, that we might truly live. So we work like crazy, thinking we can truly find life that way. Ah, the folly of our ways. Genesis 3 permeates everything we do, think, and see. Would that we were to allow Romans 8 to have the same reign in our lives! What a transformation the world would see. Would that I John’s perfect love of God and neighbor were allowed to control our thoughts and actions. We would rapidly recover the reputation that the early church had among their neighbors! Instead we devise clever programs for “reaching the lost.” Things!
</idle musing>

Do no evil

This from BBC News

From next month, Google will no longer take adverts from companies which sell essays and dissertations - and the internet company has written to advertisers to tell them about the policy...

But one of the UK companies fearing that it will be prevented from advertising, Essaywriter.co.uk , is angry at the threat to its business - with 80% of its customers coming through Google.

Managing director Matthew Wilson says this will punish the legitimate, transparent companies, which sell essays, but which warn students that they must not be used dishonestly.

Mr Wilson says that such a bespoke service, selling tailor-made essays at short notice, with prices around £70 and upwards, can be used as a guide for students wanting extra assistance.

Overseas students are frequently customers, he says - but the firm makes clear that essays should not be passed off as being written by the student.

And he says that such a blanket ban will not stop the search engine from generating links to rogue essay selling companies, which have been accused of scamming customers by providing poor quality material.

<idle musing>
Right! They write and sell the essays, but warn people not to use them. Doesn't that sound a bit hypocritical?

But, the fact that Google is cutting them off is good news.
</idle musing>

Local church?

The ever-prolific and thought provoking Alan Knox asked a very good question on his blog about 10 days ago (that is how far behind I am in reading!) concerning the “local church:”

While location and distance are certainly important, I'm also concerned about how we see our connection to believers around us. If we drive even 5 minutes to meet with a group of believers, but never interact with the believers in our own neighborhood (because they belong to another local church), I think we have an invalid concept of local church.

I'm beginning to think of the "local church" as all believers with whom God allows me to interact. That includes the ones that I meet with regularly. But, it also includes my neighbors and co-workers who are believers. They are part of the local church for me, and we are responsible for one another just as the ones who share "membership".

<idle musing>
Barna raised this same question in The Revolution; his answer is that we have too narrowly defined church. Church is the body of believers, where ever and whenever they happen to meet. If there are two or more gathered, then it is Church. Pretty wide-open definition, but quite biblical!

Under that definition, Alan’s understanding is correct, and our parochialism is unbiblical. If I am talking with my neighbor, we are experiencing a bit of church. If co-workers are discussing biblical concepts, it is church. This definition is at once freeing and scary. Freeing because I don’t have to be concerned about putting on a “church face,” but scary because it makes the presence of God more immanent—everytime two or more are gathered! That’s pretty immanent.

What do you think? Am I all wet here?
</idle musing>

New Testament Christianity?

Guy Muse has a bit of a rant about Christianity, or rather what it has become.

However as the Kingdom grew, so did the desire to control and monitor all that was happening. Around the year 300 A.D. the spontaneous expansion of the church led by the Holy Spirit was formalized into an institution largely governed by a professional clergy class. For 1700 years Institutional Christianity has shifted from being a priesthood of all believers to becoming one of the world's major religions.

God has certainly not ceased to work through His Church, but in a real sense, his divine methods and purposes have been substituted for man-made religion, programs, dogmas and a divided Body.

. . . We have turned Christianity into a religion. Complete with hierarchy in our churches, organizations and institutions. We have added rules, regulations, expectations, and interpretations which govern the simple commands of Christ and the apostles. Isn't this the same kind of stuff Jesus condemned the Pharisees?. . .

Today we get bogged down in a never-ending debate about who, what, when, and where, and how things can and should be done. Instead of just doing what Christ said to do, we now have formal written documents, clauses, guidelines, interpretations, and definitions for everything. Clutter.

<idle musing>
Yep.
</idle musing>

The helmet, a tough decision

I read an interesting study last week on helmet use and bicycling. Now, I ride between 2500 and 3000 miles a year on country roads, so the results of this study aren’t just an academic interest to me; they affect the way I live, since any decision I make can be life-threatening.

Walker attached ultrasonic sensors to his bike and rode around Bath, allowing 2,300 vehicles to overtake him while he was either helmeted or naked-headed. In the process, he was actually contacted by a truck and a bus, both while helmeted—though, miraculously, he did not fall off his bike either time.

His findings, published in the March 2007 issue of Accident Analysis & Prevention, state that when Walker wore a helmet drivers typically drove an average of 3.35 inches closer to his bike than when his noggin wasn't covered. But, if he wore a wig of long, brown locks—appearing to be a woman from behind—he was granted 2.2 inches more room to ride.

My experiences while living in Minneapolis confirm his findings. I didn’t tally it, and I certainly didn’t have ultra-sonic sensors! But, when I wore a helmet (which was usually), the traffic would give me less space; when I forgot my helmet, they would give me more space, or slow down until they could. It wasn’t something I consciously kept track of, but rather a general impression.

Another scary site I ran across the same day is cyclehelmets.org. I hadn’t seen these data before, but they certainly were enough to make me reconsider my stand on helmets. The fact that a helmet can actually lead to more brain damage because of torsion was especially scary.

Based on these sets of data, I have decided to begin, once again, to ride without a helmet. As I said, this is not something I do lightly and frivolously, since it can affect my life in a very real way on a daily basis, but I think the data lead to that conclusion. I am not going to become an “anti-helmet evangelist,” but if people ask why I no longer wear a helmet, I will tell them.

To cite, or not to cite

OK, the kerfuffle has reached crazy levels now. You can read about it here, here, here, here. I'm sure I'm missing some of them, but if you check those posts, it should link to the others.

The claims, counterclaims, personality cults, purpose of footnotes, etc., has been enlightening. But, through it all, one thing has bothered me. The people involved in this debate (if it is a debate) are all learned, knowing at least one, if not more, inflected language. Jim knows Greek, speaks a fluent German, yet he fails in English. I am not picking on Jim, the others involved have also overlooked a very basic error in the whole thing.

My Latin and Greek teaching background is crying out, and I can't hold it in any longer! The topic was entitled "Who to cite." Now, students, what basic rule of English does this violate?

What, you don't know? Please, students, what is the subject of the sentence? That is correct, it is not stated, but implied. Now, class, what is the object of the verb? Again, you are correct, but how can a subjective case pronoun be the object of a verb?

Exactly! It can't; so what is the correct form of the word?

Class...class...hello; anybody there? Yes, you, the old codger in the back of the room. That is correct, we need to resurrect the word "whom" in order to clarify that the object of the verb is the person being cited! So the correct title should be "Whom to cite."

While we are on the topic, there is a homonym for cite that has made an appearance in this debate by mistake; what would that be? That is correct; site, a homonym with a very different meaning. Don't you just love English?

I couldn't resist

Jim West has created quite a tempest (see here and here) with his latest broad brush claim. He says that Intervarsity Press is a fundamentalist press. Of course, the inference is that they only publish fundamentalist authors...

Thank you Jim. I was wondering what to put on sale for the next 10 days; now I know. I'm putting 15 books from the Intervarsity Press Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series on sale! Of course, you had better be careful, these books (culled from over 1000 years of church tradition) could be dangerous—after all, they are published by a "fundamentalist" publisher, which means they are fundamentalist themselves and therefore have no value, except to steal your brain away :)

You can see all the dangerous titles here.

Prepublication offer

Eisenbrauns is pleased to announce that we will be reprinting Simo Parpola's classic work, Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal.

"Part I: Texts" appeared originally in 1970 as AOAT 5/1; "Part II: Commentary and Appendices" originally appeared in 1983 as AOAT 5/2. We will soon go to press with the reprint, which will be in the usual quality Eisenbrauns hard cover printing and binding; and we want to make a special offer for those who are willing to preorder the books.

Through July 31, 2007, special pricing is available on (to individuals and libraries): order now, and we will send you the set for $120.00, shipping included (free--via UPS inside the U.S.; via DHL worldwide). If you use a credit card to pay, we will not charge your credit card until the books are shipped in late June/early July. After July 31, normal pricing will apply to all orders. This special prepublication price will not be available after the prepublication offer closes. Sorry: the prepublication offer is good only on set purchases! (You may, of course, order either volume at the regular price, if you need it to complete your set.)

Normal prices will be:
Set: ISBN 978-1-57506-139-9. $169.00
Volume 1: ISBN 978-1-57506-137-5. Pp. xx + 341. $85.00
Volume 2: ISBN 978-1-57506-138-2. Pp. xxxiv + 542. $110.00

What I'm reading

I need to take the time to catch up my sidebar. Last week I read The First Christian; a short little book that started out well, but ended rather disappointingly. The first 60-70 pages are a very nice, concise overview of the first, second, and third quest for the historical Jesus. Granted, the title doesn't give you a clue that the book is about the historical quest—poor marketing :)

Anyway, his central thesis is that the first quest ran aground when it hit the realization that Jesus was an eschatological figure and not the rational 19th century man they were looking for—see Schweitzer's book. The second quest was started in 1953 and continued until the summer of 1968 when student unrest on the campuses and "ban the bomb" took over everyone's interest. Zahl claims that the second quest didn't die because it hit a logical wall, but because interests turned elsewhere. Since most of the questers had lived through the eschatological experience of WW II, they didn't have a problem with Jesus as an eschatological figure. Enter the third quest. According to Zahl, the third quest is a reaction to the Holocaust on the part of Christians. The Jesus they are looking for, and finding, is continuous with Second Temple Judaism. So continuous, in fact, that one is tempted to say "What's the problem? Why did Jesus get crucified?"

If Jesus is continuous with Second Temple Judaism, then Christianity must have been a creation of his followers, or more precisely, Paul. According to Zahl, this cheapens not just Christianity, but also Judaism. There has to be a difference, and he claims that Jesus was the first Christian (hence the title of the book), and that he was not continuous with Second Temple Judaism, but in stark opposition to it. Here he calls in the testimony of Flusser. Now, I must admit that the reason I even read the book is because I noticed he referred to Flusser a lot, so I enjoyed his appeal to Flusser.

Based on his reading of Flusser, Zahl is calling for a fourth quest, as a resurrection of the second, unfulfilled quest. This is where the book got boring. He paints the third quest far too broadly, ignoring the subtle distinctions within the various questers involved in the third quest. To see the nuances of the third quest, I recommend reading Mark Goodacre's recent summary (which I can't find right now).

In summary, Zahl has some good points, but he tends to oversimplify a bit. But, at 134 pages, it is worth a quick read. He has some good insights, having studied under Dunn, Kaesemann, and other luminaries of both the second and third quest. Being a pastor, he brings in some good pastoral perspective to the various quests also.

Canoe

I have always wanted a canoe, but everywhere we have lived is too small for a 16 or 17 foot canoe. Besides, I would prefer a 12 foot one. Well, Debbie brought me back a canoe from Minnesota, but it wasn't a 12 foot one:



Too bad there isn't a hand in the picture to show the size better, but it is about 6 inches long. Hey, she was thinking of me :)

Holiness

In Christianity Today this month there is a great little article on holiness. It became available on line. Here's a bit to whet your appetite, but do read the whole thing. By the way, the full title of the article is Holy to the Core: We're tempted by moralism because we've forgotten what God wants at the center.

We act as if holiness were either outdated or something that characterizes only a small (if important) part of our lives.

This is partly due to our quest for cultural relevance, which is defended in the name of winning others to Christ. If we talk about holiness with unbelievers, won't that present just another hurdle for them to overcome on their way to Christ? For this and other reasons, we are rapidly forsaking our historic commitment to holiness. Recent polls show that many self-described evangelicals march in moral lockstep with mainstream American culture in practices of divorce, spousal abuse, extramarital sex, pornography consumption, materialism, and racism, just to name a few. While we tip our cap to the importance of holiness, many in our culture don't view us as morally different in any meaningful way—except to see us as hypocrites.

I believe one crucial ingredient to healing our moral confusion is the recovery of the biblical idea of holiness, which includes private morality but so much more—the very life of God in us. Holiness is not just for advanced Christians but stands at the beginning and center of God's call on our lives: "Be holy, because I am holy" (Lev. 11:44; 1 Pet. 1:16).

<idle musting>
If you have read this blog very long, you know that one of my burning passions is to see scriptural holiness in the lives of Christians. This article is a good start to pointing out that it is all God's grace, power, and mercy; none of the strength, power, or accomplishment comes from me.

Along those lines, I just started Ken Collins' new book The Theology of John Wesley in which he does a good job of articulating the fact that it is all God's holy love that allows a Christian to live a holy life, but more on the book later as I get into it further.
</idle musting>

Bicycling

Debbie has been gone for over a week now, visiting our daughter, granddaughter, and grandson while Joel was in New Orleans helping rebuild some houses. She drove, so I have been without a car, but never fear! I bought a bicycle trailer this spring for just such an occasion.




It will carry 70 pounds, but so far I haven't had more than about 30 on it. I have been using it to go to the grocery store. I used it once without the bag to get gas for the lawnmower. I strapped the gas can to it with bungy cords and rode to the gas station. It must have looked pretty funny to people seeing it, but it worked.

Mega versus Organic

Wow! David Fitch is at it again over at Out of Ur. He is taking on the mega-church, claiming that it is more difficult to pastor a church of 100 than one of 1000+. I think he's correct.

It is more difficult to take 10 people and grow a body of Christ to 150 than it is to transplant 200 or 300 people and then grow that congregation to 5,000. A crowd draws a crowd. From day one if you have all the bells and whistles, 5 full time pastors, a youth program, and a charismatic speaker with spiked hair (a shot not aimed at anyone in particular) and you don't mind putting the smaller community churches out of business, it will be harder to stop attracting a big crowd...

It is more difficult to preach a sermon to 100 people than to 8,000 people. Of course, there are some of my emerging co-laborers who don't believe in preaching per se. I believe in proclamation of the new reality, the calling of truth into being, and my thoughts on expository preaching are already out there. My point here is that preaching to 100 people you actually know and live with is a lot harder than preaching to 8000 people, 99% of whom you don't know. It is not that it is harder to be vulnerable in a larger crowd. It is that in a space of 100 people you are more vulnerable when so many know you. You are naked.

That's just an excerpt. I'm sure he's going to get burned in the comments, but that doesn't mean he's wrong!

And another one

This must be the week for quizzes...this one is via Jesus Creed.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North   You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Northeast
The Midland
Philadelphia
The South
North Central
The West
Boston
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Again, no surprise for someone who spent more than 35 years of their life in Wisconsin/Minnesota/Chicago...

One more

Yep, I fell for another one. Same source as last time: Katagrapho.

You scored as Anselm. Anselm is the outstanding theologian of the medieval period.He sees man's primary problem as having failed to render unto God what we owe him, so God becomes man in Christ and gives God what he is due. You should read 'Cur Deus Homo?' Anselm 73% John Calvin 67% Jonathan Edwards 67% Martin Luther 60% Karl Barth 60% Friedrich Schleiermacher 60% Jürgen Moltmann 47% Charles Finney 47% Paul Tillich 40% Augustine 27% Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Hmmm...I have a harder time with this one. I never really thought of myself as agreeing with Anselm that much. The Calvin and Edwards is funny; me, the Wesleyan/Arminian. Oh well, they must not have considered classic Wesleyanism, but the modified free-will versus classic free-grace version.

Have fun finding out whom you agree with...