Christ in you

To many pragmatic minds, this total repudiation of self-effort is abhorrent. The thought of it can result in a hostility borne of self-justification. Such people often are very dedicated in their desire to serve God, but they are baffled by the whole concept of a Christian life which is nothing more nor less than Jesus Christ Himself in action.— The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me, page 128

<idle musing>
It is called the Christian life, after all...
</idle musing>

You've got to be kidding

No, they aren't!

As you know, I do a bit of cheese making. Consequently, one of the RSS feeds I subscribe to is a cheese making supply house. They post different recipes periodically. Today, they posted a recipe for—hold onto your hats—Velveeta™! Is nothing sacred? They don't even try to defend it:

Are you serious?

We are. Our official policy is that there is no law against consenting adults making Velveeta in the privacy of their own homes.

Yes, it's embarrassing, but the truth is that sometimes you want macaroni made with Velveeta, the way your mother made it. You're not alone and we're here to help you.

<idle musing>
Don't expect me to be making it any time soon!
</idle musing>

No problem!

"You may be thinking, “if such a life is totally of Him, though Him, and to Him, then where do I come in?” You do not. That is just where you go out! This is what Paul meant when he said, “For to me, to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21).

"Here was Paul dying to self [in II Corinthians], and this dying to self allowed him to hand the whole situation over to the One indwelling him, Jesus Christ, the God of resurrection power.

"Dying to self is a wonderful position to be in, because dead people cannot die, and dead people do not have problems."— The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me, pages 120-121

<idle musing>
I love it: "dead people cannot die, and dead people do not have problems." That sums up our position in Christ! Of course, we can choose to wallow in our self-pity and problems, but that isn't who we really are in Christ.
</idle musing>

5 years

Yep, five years ago today I started blogging; 1829 posts later, I'm still here. A lot of the people I was interacting with aren't blogging anymore, or sporadically at best. Some have moved about 4-5 times since then, falling prey to the evil Wordpress disease and abandoning the true faith :)

Anyway, I was looking back over some of the early posts today. I had just received my new road bike and was gushing forth about it. Five years later, I still love it and have put over 1300 miles on it. I've also burned out one bike commuting in the winter and am on the second year of another one. This one will probably last longer; the frame and wheels are aluminum, so they won't rust. The cables still need to be replaced each year, but $25.00/year is a lot cheaper than driving a car 11 miles a day to work!

The other thing that was preoccupying me was conference preparation. We have made great progress in that area. In fact, we had a meeting earlier this week and were commenting on how much less stress there is now than then. Basically, we just took all the tasks and spread them out over a few months so that no one month gets overwhelmed—usually! This year has a bit of a push to it with a catalog and a new mug, plus new bags, but its still a lot less stressful (others might disagree...).

I still am reading books and putting excerpts up on the blog. The nature of the books hasn't changed much, either. Does that mean I'm stable, or does it just mean I'm in a rut? Just an
<idle musing>

Get out of the way!

Suppose you were digging a hole, and I offered to give you a rest. How would I do it?

While you continued shoveling, I could call down a suggestion to you, such as, “Try tossing the dirt over your left shoulder instead of your right.” I could sing a song about digging, or discuss all the latest philosophical thinking that might relate to it.

Would any of that give you rest? No, it would more likely give you a heart attack!

Yet those approaches are very much like what today's Christianity tries to do to bring rest to struggling believers, all in vain.

How could I truly give you rest if you were in that hole digging? Obviously there is only one way: You must get out and let me get in. You must drop the spade and let me pick it up. You must quit and let me take over. You must vacate that hole in the ground so that I can occupy it.— The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me, pages 95-96

<idle musing>
So simple, yet so difficult, isn't it? Just get out of the way and let God take over. But, we want to prove to God that we can do it! Don't bother; he already knows we will fail...
</idle musing>

Thought for a Tuesday

"The flesh within you has never ceased to love sin, and never will. Given half a chance, it will always manifest its corruption and depravity."— The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me, page 91

<idle musing>
E. Stanley Jones said that the old self likes to put on a religious robe and sneak back up on the throne.
</idle musing>

Thought for a Monday

"If you are not yet prepared to do as you are told, no matter how weak or foolish it will make you look, then whatever you believe about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is still academic. You have not yet entered into the good of it."— The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me, page 73

<idle musing>
I just re-read this without the context, and it sounds scary! He isn't talking about a mindless, obey the master, obedience; rather, he is discussing walking by faith in God. Think Abraham sacrificing Isaac; does that help? If you don't put legs to your faith, it is academic.
</idle musing>

Salvation

"Salvation is so much more than a change of destination from hell to heaven! The true spiritual content of our gospel is not just heaven one day, but Christ here and now In the economy of God, conversion is only an essential preliminary to discipleship, which is a lifetime of allowing Christ to live in you and do His work through you."— The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me, page 57

<idle musing>
I've heard it described as not so much God getting us into heaven as God getting heaven into us. Either way, salvation is about the Kingdom of God—starting right now!
</idle musing>

LIberty or slavery?

"There is a lie that Satan continues to propagate today with signal success in the hearts of countless people. It is the notion that by giving themselves back to the God who made them, and by submitting themselves to His sovereignty, they will be robbed of that liberty which makes life really worth living. Such people are not necessarily insincere in this conviction, but are the victims of their own ignorance, which makes them dupes of the devil, whose greatest delight is exploiting that ignorance."— The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me, page 45

<idle musing>
Kind of reminds me of a Randy Stonehill song from way back: "We are all like foolish puppets, who longing to be free now lie pitifully crippled after cutting their own strings..."
</idle musing>

cute

I know I'm biased, but I think I've got cute grandkids. Last night, I was talking to our son, Ryan, on the phone and he told me he was sending a picture of Evelyn. Sure enough, it was in the Inbox this morning. Here she is, about 18 months old:



And, lest any of Renee and Joel's kids feel shorted, here's a link to some great recent pictures of them. Too bad I can't link to beansprout yet, but he (?) isn't due for another few months...

Fun contest

Doug Mangum took issue with a newly announced AOAT title, The Exchange of Goods and Services in Pre-Sargonic Lagash, calling it the most boring title ever. In reaction, he announced a contest. Initially, he offered a book from his library as the winner.

I figured I could go one better, so I offered to have Eisenbrauns award a $50.00 gift certificate to the winner. Jim Getz came back with a strong contender. If you are on Twitter (yes, you, Jim and Nick!), you can follow the exchange. Personally, I thought he was going to give us the title of his dissertation :)

Anyway, head on over to Doug's blog and enter your most boring biblical studies/ANE title ever. I bet you can come up with one without to much trouble :) I'd offer one, but I'm kinda not eligible...

By our own strength

"The flesh will sing in the choir, teach Sunday school, preside at a deacons' meeting, preach from the pulpit, organize an evangelistic crusade, go to Bible college, volunteer for the mission field, and a thousand other things, all of which may in themselves be otherwise legitimate, if only it can keep its neck out of the noose. The flesh will threaten, shout, strut, domineer, sulk, plot, creep, beg, plead, or sob, whatever the situation may demand in the interests of its own survival. By any and all means it will seek to cause every Christian to live by his own strength instead of by the power and grace of the Lord Jesus, and to conclude that doing so is actually a good thing!"— The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me, page 42

<idle musing>
As usual, we take the teachings of Jesus and turn them on their head...pick up your cross—Nope! That's for somebody else. I'll serve God by doing all these things, and to prove how spiritual I am, I'll do them in my own strength!
</idle musing>

New 10-day sale at Eisenbrauns

With a hearty hat tip to Tommy Wasserman for the choice of books, I managed to create a new 10-day sale. Here's the skinny from BookNews

BookNews from Eisenbrauns

With a special thank you to Tommy Wasserman at the Evangelical
Textual Criticism (http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/)
blog for assistance in choosing the titles, Eisenbrauns is
offering a 15-40% discount on selected New Testament textual
criticism resources. As always, all sales on this web sale
are final; no returns will be permitted. Offer is good only
on orders placed at www.eisenbrauns.com through October 20, 2010.

To go directly to the weekly sale, click on this link:
http://www.eisenbrauns.com/pages/NEWSLIST
============================================================
"The Epistle of Jude: Its text and transmission"
by Tommy Wasserman
Coniectanea Biblica New Testament Series - CBNTS 43
Almqvist and Wiksell, 2006. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789122021599
List Price: $79.00 Your Price: $47.40

"Text of the New Testament"
by Barbara Aland and Kurt Aland
Translated by Erroll F. Rhodes
Eerdmans, 1989. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9780802840981
List Price: $30.00 Your Price: $19.50

"Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism"
Edited by David Alan Black
Baker Academic, 2002. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9780801022807
List Price: $20.00 Your Price: $14.30

"Perspectives on the Ending of Mark: 4 Views"
by David Alan Black
Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2008. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9780805447620
List Price: $19.99 Your Price: $12.99

"Perspectives on New Testament Textual Criticism:
Collected Essays, 1962-2004"
by Eldon J. Epp
Society of Biblical Literature -SBL, 2008. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9781589833852
List Price: $82.95 Your Price: $62.21

"The Freer Biblical Manuscripts: Fresh Studies of an
American Treasure Trove"
Edited by L. W. Hurtado
Archaeology and Biblical Studies - ABS 9
Society of Biblical Literature -SBL, 2006. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9781589832084
List Price: $34.95 Your Price: $26.21

"Apologetic Discourse and the Scribal Tradition: Evidence of
the Influence of Apologetic Interests on the Text of the
Canonical Gospels"
by Wayne C. Kannaday
Text-Critical Studies
Society of Biblical Literature -SBL, 2004. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9781589831018
List Price: $39.95 Your Price: $29.96

"The Text of the New Testament: Its
Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration"
by Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman
Oxford University Press, 2005. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9780195161229
List Price: $47.95 Your Price: $42.46

"An Introduction to the New Testament
Manuscripts and their Texts"
by D. C. Parker
Cambridge University Press, 2008. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9780521719896
List Price: $34.99 Your Price: $30.59

"Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri"
By James R. Royse
Society of Biblical Literature -SBL, 2010. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9781589835221
List Price: $89.95 Your Price: $67.46

Enjoy!

Thought for today

The Holy Spirit always exposes the flesh for what it is, and there is nothing more infuriating to the carnally minded Christian than when those who are spiritually discerning remain unimpressed with him in spite of so much self-advertisement.— The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me, pages 40-41

The moral matrix

Last week, Joel Watts posted a graph from a test he had taken. I'm usually a sucker for those things, and this time was no exception. Here are the results for me:



I don't know if anyone is surprised, but I wasn't.

A Christian without Christ?

I just finished reading The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me by W. Ian Thomas over the weekend. I had been reading bits and pieces of it for several months.

My first exposure to Ian Thomas was back when I was in Madison, WI in the mid 1970s. I was attending the University of Wisconsin on an on-again-off-again basis; I was also involved in a house church there and one of the brothers had a series of tapes of sermons given by Ian Thomas.

So, on a trip that he and I took to see my sister, Dianne, in Omaha, we passed the time by listening to a number of them. Believe me, driving across Iowa, you need something :) Anyway, I liked what I heard and when this book was offered to me, I took it. By the way, it was a loaner from someone, not a freebie (disclosure necessary for the IRS).

The format of the book is a series of 53 short (2-2.5 page) reflections based on his ministry. Each is complete in itself, although they do build on each other somewhat. I will be posting some excerpts from it over the next week or so.

Their minds [carnal Christians] are still the plaything and the workshop of the devil, for the devil is smart enough and cunning enough that he can always persuade countless numbers of professing Christians to try and be Christians without Christ. They are willing to do anything for Jesus' sake, but they fail to understand that His presence is absolutely imperative to do it, that without Him we are nothing, have nothing, and can do nothing.— The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me, page 14

Whence this madness?

On my way to work today, I rode past a house that recently had been sold. The new owners have had a dumpster out front for a few days; each day there is a bit more stuff in it. But, today, I noticed that the beautiful dogwood that was in front of the house was gone. They had cut it down! All that was left was a pile of brush where it had once proudly bloomed every spring.

What madness! I can understand cutting a diseased or dying tree. I can understand cutting a tree that is too close to the house. But, to cut down a healthy tree, not even close to the foundation of the house? I can't fathom it—especially a dogwood!

This seems to be happening a good bit this summer. A few weeks ago, we were on a bike ride and went past what used to be a wooded lot. They had cut down about 20 oak trees, not small ones, either. A bit further on that same ride, we came around a corner and discovered that another grove of trees, along a lake/pond, had been cut down. And, further along on that same ride, we came to the top of a hill where there used to be a nice grove of trees around a house. The trees were cut off 6 feet from the ground! What madness is this?

Why the sudden cutting of perfectly healthy trees?

Barclay Newman's revised Greek-English Dictionary

A Concise Greek English Dictionary of New Testament
Revised Edition

by Barclay M. Newman, Jr.
German Bible Society, 2010
xi + 220 pages, English and Greek
Cloth, 5 x 7
ISBN: 9781598566499
List Price: $34.95
Your Price: $31.46
www.eisenbrauns.com/item/NEWGREEKE2

Barclay Newman's revised Greek-English Dictionary arrived today. It was slated for a December release, so this is two months early. I was curious what the revisions were, so I thumbed through it. The most obvious change was the addition of roots in parentheses after a word and the splitting of the root from the prefixes; it reminded me of An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon. Personally, I like it, although others may not. As long as one doesn't try to use the root to shoehorn the definition, I find knowing the root of a word helpful; that is one feature of the middle Liddell I always liked.

The preface states that they checked the definitions, modifying some and clarifying others. In my quick review, I only noticed that some Greek phrases where the Greek had been abbreviated were now written out in full. The dictionary part itself is only 2 pages longer than the original version, so the revision couldn't have been too extensive.

They did add an appendix of sorts, "A Sampling of Some Greek NT Words That Share Similar Meanings." The preface warns it is incomplete, "more in the style of an enchiridion than an exhaustive study." The sampling is in English alphabetical order, a total of 67 English headings. I'm not sure what to make of it. It could be useful, but I fear that people who don't understand Greek might use it incorrectly. But then there is that danger with any tool.

Those who like the original dictionary will doubtless like this one and find it an improvement. Those who don't like the original will find little to dissuade them from their dislike. It is still a very concise dictionary with glosses and minimal context for those glosses. But, that is what it was designed as. Anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of a Greek word should always consult a larger lexicon with references and contexts to understand the semantic domain of the word.

Flat! Flat!

On Tuesday, with the nice crisp 30ºF weather, I was thinking about doing a short post on bicycle commuting in the winter. I figured that after a few winters of doing it, I might have learned something that would save somebody else some trouble. Well, I didn't get around to it (obviously!). I figured on doing it yesterday, but I ran into (literally) a problem—I got a flat tire on the way to work.

My initial response was, "No biggie; I've got a spare tube." I turned the bike upside down, removed the wheel and pulled the tube. OK, it took more time than that implies because the tube was quite stuck to the tire, but you get the idea. I fished the extra tube out of my rack trunk, noticing that it had a few patches on it. That's pretty common; I usually keep a tube until there are about 8-9 patches. I even recognized the most recent one from this spring. I also noted, again, that the tire was getting pretty thin. Time to replace it; tires usually only last 2 years on my bike.

I put the tube in; reseated the tire, attached the pump, and started pumping. And pumping. And pumping. I know that the little portable pump on my bike has a small capacity, but this was crazy. Sure enough, the spare tube had a leak! Now what? I was about 2 miles from home and 3.5 miles from work, on a country road.

I suppose I could have tried to repair one of the tubes on the spot, but trying to find a leak in a tube can be a real pain without a bucket of water. I only do that if I have to. Instead, I opted to walk the 2 miles home. After all, it was a beautiful fall day. So, I walked home, exchanged my road bike for the winter commuter, called work to let them know what was going on, and rode in.

I was about an hour late, but the time outside was a nice extra :) Maybe I shouldn't be giving advice to others on commuting. What do you think?

Now this is scary

I was at Lowe's last night and is my wont, I perused the latest Mother Earth News. I don't subscribe to it, but always look it over. I've been known to buy them if enough articles are helpful. Anyway, there was an article about systemic pesticides. Huh? I'll let them explain it:

In conventional food production systems, not all pesticides remain on a plant’s exterior. Systemic pesticides are chemicals that are actually absorbed by a plant when applied to seeds, soil or leaves. The chemicals then circulate through the plant’s tissues, killing the insects that feed on them. Use of these pesticides on food crops began in 1998, and has steadily increased during the past 10 years. Unlike with traditional insecticides, you can’t wash or peel off systemic pesticide residues because they’re in the plant’s tissues, not on their exteriors.

<idle musing>
Yikes! That just makes me more convinced than ever that we are killing ourselves. I'm glad I have a garden. The article goes on to state that they don't really know the effect yet and that there are studies being done. It also lists some of the pesticides and what plants they use them on.
</idle musing>

Thought for the day

"You can know about God, but not know God. That would describe most people today."—The Enoch Factor: The Sacred Art of Knowing God, page 1, by Steve McSwain

Salt

"When churches succumb to the temptation to join an established order and share in temporal power, they soon become part of the world and cease to be relevant to the kingdom. What Christian revivals do is shake up the system and pluralize power. They create communities of counter power and religious choice."— Global Awakening, page 212

<idle musing>
Jesus said something about salt losing its savor, didn't he? Revival shakes up the salt and makes it savory again. May God have mercy on his church and send it frequently!
</idle musing>

Update on the frost

Sunday night's frost was minor enough that I didn't lose anything except a few leaves on some plants along the outside edge of the garden. But, it was a wake-up call, preparing me to take precautions for last night.

I checked the temperature at 9:00 PM, it was 49º F. I checked again at a little before midnight; it was 40º F and clear. If it had been cloudy, the temperature would have stabilized. But, because it was clear, I knew the temperature was headed toward a hard freeze. So, I turned on the garden light on the back of the garage (I installed it about 2 weeks ago for such nights), grabbed the row cover that I just got from Pine Tree Seeds two weeks before, and headed for the garden. Oh, I grabbed a bag of clothes pins, too.

I mainly covered the tomatoes and peppers. Because the tomatoes are all on hog feeder panels (4 feet high), I had to use two sections of row cover per bed (the row cover is 6 feet wide). I attached the top to the panels with clothes pins and staked the bottom in with garden staples. As I worked, my fingers got quite cold.

When I looked at it from the outside of the garden, it looked almost ghostly with the white row cover draped all over the plants. It was at varying heights, as the peppers are shorter than the tomatoes. A picturesque sight in the semi-darkness of the bug lights.

This morning, I was glad I had done all that work. It was 34º F by the house and well below that in the garden. I had covered some marigolds in the front yard. When I removed the cover from them, it was stiff with frost. I decided to leave the garden covered :)

SBL in October!

Our third annual SBL in October sale is going on right now. Savings from 20-70%, but only until October 18. You can see all the items here

Enjoy!

Frost!

A bit early this year, like 2 weeks! This morning, I woke up to frost on the lawn. I wasn't quite ready for that yet. I put the cover on the greenhouse over the weekend, but didn't have all the row cover ready yet. I guess I shouldn't have listened to the weatherman when he said no frost :(

Oh well. We'll see what survived when I get home tonight. I'm hoping for more green peppers. That's about the only thing I don't have enough of right now. It would be nice to get some more tomatoes for fresh eating, too. But if they didn't make it, I have enough canned.

Speaking of tomatoes, last year I read that you can take a cutting of a tomato and bring it inside for the winter. If you place it in a big pot with potting soil and give it a gro-lite™, it will bear. So, yesterday, I took a cutting of a cherry tomato and did just that. We'll see what happens...

The only thing I'm really worried about is the kohlrabi, beets, and bunching onions that have just come up. I put a cold frame over them, but didn't close the cover. We'll see how cold-hardy they really are!

Riding to work this morning was beautiful, though. The mist was rising off the lakes as I rode by. The air was nice and crisp; the sun was just peaking over the horizon. I love this time of year!

Garden update

Well, the garden is winding down for the season. On Tuesday night, Jim and Shannon came over and we dug the potatoes. Not that we really had to dig; they were straw potatoes, so it was more a matter of removing the straw and checking the first 2 inches of dirt.

We harvested around 30-40 pounds. Not bad for a trial run of 6 pounds of seed potatoes. I will definitely do straw potatoes again next year—and increase the number, too. In case you are wondering, straw potatoes are simply seed potatoes placed on the surface of the ground and covered with 3-6 inches of straw.

In this case, we put them on 6 inches of leaf mold (partially decayed leaves). The resulting compost when we dug the potatoes was marvelously black, much nicer than the compost I get from the city. I'm definitely looking forward to more home made compost!

In other news, we picked the last watermelon. It was 18 inches long by 10 inches in diameter, weighing in around 20 pounds. Nice and sweet, but not as good as the ones from July; our hot, dry August and September definitely affected the flavor.

The fall planting of peas is in bloom. I ate the first fall radish earlier this week, the spinach is getting close to big enough to eat, and the fall planting of bunching onions (green onions) is showing itself. I definitely need to get the top on the greenhouse this weekend; they are predicting 35º F for Sunday.

The old-new narrative

Today's excerpt from Global Awakening:

These [1998 Chinese house church] documents reject the Marxist master narrative of a religion as a poison or opiate, the European master narrative of the church as a department of the state seeking to provide sacred canopy under which national life is conducted, as well as the American master narrative of capitalism and unfettered individualism.

Their new story is an older and more global story. Part of the new narrative apologetic is crafting a new story about a heroic struggle against two dominate powers of a state church and a totalitarian state. as such the house churches are tapping into the traditional narrative resources used by Luke in Acts and Eusebius in his history of the church in the first three centuries...

While formal treatises to government officials seemed futile in the second and third centuries, they did accomplish two things. Christianity increased its popular appeal even as it maximized the conditions of growth by ensuring that government opposition as episodic rather than sustained.— Global Awakening, pages 195-196

<idle musing>
I like the first paragraph, showing the shortcomings of the 3 main meta-narratives people have to choose from. There is a fourth: The kingdom of God; what a strangely biblical idea :)
</idle musing>

The sky is falling!

I just read this:

39% of kids (age 9-17) agree with the statement, "The information I find online is always correct."

<idle musing>
The sky is falling!!The sky is falling!!The sky is falling!!The sky is falling!!The sky is falling!!

Think they'll believe it if they read it?
</idle musing>

Who's changing?

Other sociologists prefer to speak of “churches of choice” versus “churches of place.” Secularization will often turn a church of choice into a church of place as it adjusts itself to the expectations and agendas of the general culture. Troeltsch assumed that secularization was inevitable and unstoppable. Sect-type churches in his schema were doomed to marginality in a world in which the only way a church could survive without losing their minds or their members was by serving the social agenda of the society.” Global Awakening, page 109

<idle musing>
Yikes! The church is called to be the conscience of society; the salt that leavens the whole loaf. But, far too often Troeltsch is correct: the church changes and not society. I ran across a statement the other day that said, “Far more Christians have been changed by Nashville than have changed Nashville.”

Unfortunately, you could substitute just about any city or country for Nashville. The siren call of the world lures the christian to his/her spiritual death; the only way to resist it is to live already dead—dead to self and alive to Jesus Christ, as the scripture says. If you are already dead (and the scripture tells us we are), then the world and its riches have no appeal to you. But, you have to realize and believe that you are already dead! Faith, again, is the core issue.
</idle musing>

Why the rudeness?

One of my co-workers sent me a link to a newspaper-related blog post about bicycle commuting. The author had interviewed a bike club president about what cyclists didn't like about motorized vehicles. It was an OK article, pretty basic stuff. I don't have the link right now, and even if I did, I wouldn't link to it for the following reason: The comment section was loaded with profanity and hate—on both sides of the issue.

This leads me to ask, why can't the comments be civil? It's not just that post where the problem occurs, either. It seems that most newspaper blogs have comment sections that bring out the worst in people. Why? It isn't just anonymous commenters, either; many people sign their whole name to their comment.

Have we, as a nation, lost the ability to have a reasoned discussion where we don't agree with each other? Why is a disagreement taken as a personal attack? Is the sense of self-worth that tied up in whether or not a bicyclist has the right to ride on the road? I certainly hope not! And, some of the places where I have seen these hate-filled comments are even more trivial than a bicycle issue.

Is there hope for the flowers anymore? I'm beginning to doubt it, at least on a widespread level. Some sites seem to keep a more civil dialogue going, but even there, people show that they are taking offense far more easily than I seem to remember even a few years ago.

Just an
<idle musing>

The work of the cross

More from the Ugandan revival:

The work of the cross was more than forgiveness. The cross also provided the foundation for a holy life. Joe Church [of Uganda] who was exposed to the Keswick message of complete surrender as a student at Cambridge believed that it was this model of holiness that produced the revival. “We never remember anyone coming to us...to hold meetings on revival or to preach to us about it. Revival is not a program but a way of life. A God-given hunger for more holiness and Christ-likenss has come upon us and what is known as revival followed.

This emphasis on the cross and its power both to liberate the conscience and transform the life was the basis for “walking in the light” and its spiritual two-step of public confession and brokenness before God and others.&mdash Global Awakening, page 100

<idle musing>
The cross is central to Christianity; without the cross, there is no forgiveness, and—just as important—there is no deliverance. We shy away from the cross, but it is our only hope!
</idle musing>

New book I just finished

I just finished an interesting book last week from IVP (thanks, Nick!), Global Awakening. It wasn't at all what I thought it would be; I expected a recounting in narrative form of the major revivals in the 20th Century. Nope (despite the book blurb!). That's not what the book is about. Instead, it looks at a few of them with an eye to examining why they succeeded. The author used a sociological approach based on research on revivals. I don't have the book in front of me right now, so I can't enumerate them, but it is quite provocative and he defends his thesis well.

For the rest of this week, I will be pulling a few quotations from the book. Here's the first, about a revival in Uganda:

“Kefa explained the appeal of the revival in these same terms. He described a typical conversion with his revival friend Mondo. “Everytime I met Mondo he would greet me with the threefold challenge: Are you repenting? Are you walking in the Light? Are you being broken?” To Kefa the significance of these questions was all too clear “It was Mondo who taught me that walking in the light means a total sharing with my brother of my secrets...'When we share our secrets,' Mondo said, 'there is total identification with our brother. We have a reciprocal bond.'” Walking in the light meant brokenness, in Luganda, okmamyeka. “To be broken,” wrote Kefa, “is to have no pride, for where there is pride there is no confession and no forgiveness.” Walking in the light meant moving the double alienation that overshadowed most lives: distance from God and from one another. It broke down the barrier that prevented union, sonship and intimacy with God and one's fellow humanity. It meant the end of inner exile.— Global Awakening, page 97

<idle musing>
I like that, "the end of inner exile." The phrase rings true in my experience. But, it requires transparency, which is a scary thought...what if I'm not accepted anymore because of who I am? Better to keep the masks up and not let anybody too close. Praise God! The Holy Spirit won't let us take the option.
</idle musing>

The end of the matter

"We are no longer driven by compulsions of what we ought to be or do. If we are, we are not using God's yardstick. God declares us holy and blameless and beautiful in His sight. You are not to strive. You are to be. That's the good news. You already are.

"Turn your eye—your spiritual eye—inward. But don't stop the inward look at the soul, at the feelings and the thoughts that have controlled and dominated your life for as many years as you can probably remember. Rather, rest in that spiritual center that God placed in humanity, where God could meet His creature."— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, pages 248-249

<idle musing>
That's the final snippet from the book. When I first started the book (how long ago now?), I had no idea I would be pulling that many excerpts from it. But, I found it very good; I hope you enjoyed the selections. I would encourage each of you to read the whole thing and ponder its implications for your life. The concepts he sets forth are extremely biblical and very freeing.
</idle musing>

Read this book?

Here's what a book looks like after a forklift puts a fork through the box:



I only have one word: "Ouch!"

Here's the box:

New sale at Eisenbrauns

This is a great sale, if I must say so myself :) Hebrew is one of my favorite languages, so I love running this sale. Here's the details from BookNews:

We continue our back-to-school sale with Hebrew reference
tools. For the next 10 days, you can save 20-50% on these
great reference works.

As always, all sales on this web sale are final; no returns
will be permitted. Offer is good only on orders placed at
www.eisenbrauns.com through September 29, 2010.

To go directly to the weekly sale, click on this link:
http://www.eisenbrauns.com/pages/NEWSLIST
============================================================
"Beginning Biblical Hebrew"
by Mark D. Futato
Eisenbrauns, 2003. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9781575060224
List Price: $44.95 Your Price: $31.47

"A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax"
by Bill T. Arnold and John H. Choi
Cambridge University Press, 2003. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9780521533485
List Price: $20.99 Your Price: $16.79

"Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar: Edited and enlarged by E. Kautzsch;
Second edition"
Edited by E. Kautzsch
by William Gesenius
Clarendon Press, 2006. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9780198154068
List Price: $129.00 Your Price: $103.20

"Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax"
by Bruce K. Waltke and Michael Patrick O'Connor
Eisenbrauns, 1990. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9780931464317
List Price: $59.50 Your Price: $41.65

"The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon with an appendix
containing the Biblical Aramaic: Coded with the numbering system
from "Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible""
by Francis Brown, et al.
Hendrickson Publishers, 1995. Cloth. English and Hebrew.
ISBN: 9781565632066
List Price: $34.95 Your Price: $20.97

"A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament"
by William L. Holladay
Eerdmans, 1971. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9780802834133
List Price: $40.00 Your Price: $26.00

"Dictionary of Basic Biblical Hebrew: Hebrew-English"
by Shlomo Karni
Carta, Jerusalem, 2002. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9789652204981
List Price: $24.95 Your Price: $19.96

"Ezra-Nehemiah: Biblia Hebraica Quinta"
Edited by David Marcus
Biblia Hebraica Quinta - BHQ 20
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, 2006. Paper. Hebrew.
ISBN: 9783438052803
List Price: $109.95 Your Price: $65.97

"Proverbs"
Edited by J. de Waard
Biblia Hebraica Quinta - BHQ 17
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, 2008. Paper. Hebrew.
ISBN: 9783438052773
List Price: $75.00 Your Price: $48.75

"Konkordanz zum hebraischen Alten Testament"
by Gerhard Lisowsky
Edited by H. P. Ruger
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, 1958. Cloth. Hebrew and German.
ISBN: 9783438052308
List Price: $84.99 Your Price: $67.99

"Phonology and Morphology of Biblical Hebrew: An Introduction"
by Joshua Blau
Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic - LSAWS 2
Eisenbrauns, 2010. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9781575061290
List Price: $59.50 Your Price: $41.65

"Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew"
Edited by Walter R. Bodine
Eisenbrauns, 1992. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9780931464553
List Price: $49.50 Your Price: $24.75

"Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting:
Typological and Historical Perspectives"
Edited by Steven E. Fassberg and Avi Hurvitz
Eisenbrauns, 2006. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9781575061160
List Price: $49.50 Your Price: $34.65

"Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine, 1000-586 BCE"
by W. Randall Garr
Eisenbrauns, 2004. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9781575060910
List Price: $47.50 Your Price: $28.50

"Untersuchungen zur verbalen Valenz im biblischen Hebraisch"
by Michael Malessa
Studia Semitica Neerlandica - SSN 49
Van Gorcum, 2006. Cloth. German.
ISBN: 9789023242406
List Price: $85.00 Your Price: $68.00

"The Verbless Clause in Biblical Hebrew: Linguistic Approaches"
Edited by Cynthia L. Miller
Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic - LSAWS 1
Eisenbrauns, 1999. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9781575060361
List Price: $49.50 Your Price: $24.75

"Hebrew Verse Structure"
by Michael Patrick O'Connor
Eisenbrauns, 1997. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9780931464027
List Price: $59.50 Your Price: $29.75

"Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics"
Edited by Robert D. Bergen
SIL International, 1994. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9781556710070
List Price: $42.00 Your Price: $33.60

True rest

"Most of us are still rest-seekers. The lack of rest within us proves that we haven't really entered His rest. I was a rest-seeker for years, because I hadn't found rest. For a long, long time I thought that the rest was just a kind of passive existence. I wanted to go to a retreat and get somebody to take care of me, so I could get out of my regular routine and shift into neutral. I called that rest. But that wasn't rest.

My concept of rest was external because my inner knowing wasn't any deeper than that. My inner knowing was still just me. I didn't have any spiritual awareness deeper than an awareness of myself. And since that was my deepest awareness, I had to make myself look acceptable before I could possibly be at rest. So I tried to stop my soul fluctuations, which God never meant us to stop. It was all based on my works, my efforts. I couldn't be at rest that way, because I was trying to do something that was foreign to God's plan for my life. If we're constantly trying to stop an activity within us that God has put into motion, then we never will know rest."— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, pages 246-247

<idle musing>
Amen! Good preaching! Stop trying to be what you aren't and can never be. Relax, and let God live through you so you can be who you already are.
</idle musing>

The smell of books

Andy LePeau, the publisher at IVP, has a nice post today about the smell of books. I agree with him. I remember when I was a kid, burying my head in a good used book. The smell was wonderful; it would transport you miles away.

The modern bookstores don't have that same smell. Sure, I love the smell of coffee, but it doesn't compare to the smell of books. Give me the twisted aisles of a used bookstore, with stacks of books all over the place, or the jam-packed shelves of the Seminary Co-op Bookstore in Chicago any day. There's just something about the smell of a book...

When I was a kid, growing up on the campus of UW-Stout, every spring they would run a Friends of the Library type sale in the basement of Harvey Hall. They would set up tables in the basement hallway, which was extra-wide, and load them with used books. I have no idea where the books came from, but there were lots. And the pricing was wonderful–5 cents for paperbacks and 10 cents for cloth. I would load up bags of books and spend almost nothing. At that price, you could afford to take a gamble on a book. I probably only read 60% of what I bought, but it was wonderful. And the smell of the books; they were used, some very well used, and somewhat musty. I couldn't wait to get them home (all of about 2 blocks) and start reading them...I'm still a sucker for a used bookstore :)

Loving God

"I think it's hard for us to believe that maybe God's main objective would be that we just love Him. We think that God's main objective is that we save the world. To just love God seems like a waste of time to a busy person. And yet when we start reading those Psalms that mean the most to us, most of them are nothing but the psalmist's expression of love and adoration to God. We talk about knowing God. What better way to know God than to fall in love with Him—without Him having to reward you? Without Him having to reward you."— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, page 243 (duplication and italics his)

<idle musing>
"To just love God seems like a waste of time to a busy person." Ain't it the truth?! But, that is what we are called to do. We can't save the world—and we aren't called to do that. Of course, some will use that as an excuse to sit on their behinds and serve themselves pretending to be loving God. But, the opposite extreme is happening now, with people running to and fro, running programs—or, more accurately, being run by programs—pretending to serve God. Humanity is very good at deceiving itself about why we do what we do :(
</idle musing>

Loving God

"You and I want to love God if He'll bless us. We want to love Him if He'll save our children. We want to love Him if He'll provide us with a lovely home, or if we can keep all of our things. We want to love Him, but we think He ought to be doing something for us.

But there is a deeper level, an inner knowing for you and me, where we just fall in love with God because He is God. We love God in the same way God loves us. He didn't have to learn to do it; He can't help but do it. So also we can't help but love Him.— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, page 242

<idle musing>
Yes! I want the second paragraph! You can keep your stuff; I want God! Nothing less will satisfy my soul—and, if you are honest with yourself, nothing else will satisfy you, either.
</idle musing>

Thought for today

He defended the cause of the poor and needy,
and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?”
declares the LORD.
“But your eyes and your heart
are set only on dishonest gain,
on shedding innocent blood
and on oppression and extortion.”—Jeremiah 22:16-17 TNIV

<idle musing>
Oh no! Social justice! A code word for Communism or Nazism! Who would have guessed, and from the 6th century BCE, no less!

Just more proof that the political pundits don't have a clue what is in the Bible. Yet, one of them wants to start a “religious revolution”! The only religion he understands is civil religion that uses God as a a cloak for his selfish nationalism.

Earlier, Jeremiah had said:

This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hands of their oppressors those who have been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. Jeremiah 22:3 TNIV

Kind of relevant, no? But, you might say, we are new covenant people, so that doesn't apply. Right, the new covenant is even stricter, so get out your walking shoes and walk that second mile: give the foreigner your car, or house, or job! Still want to talk new covenant? I didn't think so...
</idle musing>

Where's the reward?

There isn't any reward system in God's love. He loves because He is love, not because of what He gets in return. But there has been and still is a whole lot of reward system in the love that we are often taught in the Christian faith. What else can we expect? There is a reward system in fleshly love. We love because we are going to get something for loving.— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, page 241

<idle musing>
Yep. Show me the cash! That's our motto. But, it certainly isn't God's; his is the exact opposite—Praise God for that!
</idle musing>

It's Fall

How do I know? Well, several reasons: the cool, crisp mornings and evenings, the leaves are falling, the corn is being harvested. But, most importantly, this:



What you see is stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato soup, apple sauce, pickles (beet, relish, and bread & butter), rhubarb sauce, peaches, dried onions, and dried apples (Jonathan and Gala). I think that covers it...

I thought about taking a picture of the two freezers stuffed with vegetables and fruit, but they are chest freezers. That wouldn't show up the variety very well, would it? We also have some acorn squash (Does anybody know how to cook those in the microwave?) sitting about 10 feet from there and some hickory nuts, too. The squirrels keep beating me to the nuts :(

We still have a peck of apples to dry and peppers to freeze, but otherwise we are pretty much ready for winter. If my hoop house works like I plan, we will have fresh greens most of the winter, too. We'll see...

We got it backwards, as usual

"In our generation, the fellowship of the Spirit is often presented not as us being expendable, but as us being exalted. But Jesus took off His outer garment, asked for a towel and a bowl of water, and washed His disciples' feet. The Son of God did that. I have to remind myself, that's who is alive in me. Washing feet doesn't look very earth-shaking or life-changing. But Almighty God pursued you and wooed you and enlisted you, not only to love you, but also to love through you. That kind of truth we can't despise.

"God is a lover through you. He is the kind of lover that doesn't need rewards, doesn't need applause, doesn't need acclaim, but loves for the sake of loving."— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, page 235

<idle musing>
I love the beginning of John 13

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. (RSV)

But, here I like the option for translating the Greek participles that the NET and TNIV follow (maybe others, I just haven't checked). Here's the NET Bible:

Because Jesus knew that the Father had handed all things over to him, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, he got up from the meal, removed his outer clothes, took a towel and tied it around himself.

And the TNIV:

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist.

They both take the participles as indicating Jesus is doing it because he knows who he is. No identity crisis, so he empties himself; shades of Paul there, aren't there :)

Here's the Greek, if prefer:

εἰδὼς ὅτι πάντα ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ ὁ πατὴρ εἰς τὰς χεῖρας καὶ ὅτι ἀπὸ θεοῦ ἐξῆλθεν καὶ πρὸς τὸν θεὸν ὑπάγει, ἐγείρεται ἐκ τοῦ δείπνου καὶ τίθησιν τὰ ἱμάτια καὶ λαβὼν λέντιον διέζωσεν ἑαυτόν·

Just an
</idle musing>

Father, Son, and ?

Nice post on the authority of scripture today by Roger Olson:

I believe in the Bible as God’s Word BECAUSE I believe I encounter Jesus there and am taught by him there. For me it is the Book of Jesus. That means it is extremely important, necessary, valuable, indispensable, but not alongside of or even in the same category (being-wise) as Jesus himself. It is the unique written witness to Jesus and THEREFORE the book of the church.

I suspect this upsets some evangelicals because, even perhaps unconsciously, they believe in Jesus only because and insofar as the Bible contains him. In other words, functionally, the Bible is above Jesus.

The implications of these two approaches for hermeneutics are immense. My view requires Christological hermeneutics. The other view tends to lead to having to interpret everything the Bible says as as literally true as possible without exception or qualification.

<idle musing>
Read the whole post. I think is spot-on; I have said for years that far too many people believe it is Father, Son, and Holy Bible. Olson expands on this very nicely. I'm really liking his blog...
</idle musing>

Thought for today

"God through us is only interested in what's best for the other person. Beloved, get that straight. Christ through you is not interested in what's best for you. That's hard. Christ through you, as He is using you, in only interested in what's best for the other person.

"That's why there's a death in this life. There is a daily dying. We don't get up in the morning and try to die, but we daily recognize that we are dead. We're dead to those feelings and thoughts that pulls us this way and that...

"I'm talking about a quality of life and love that is characterized by rest. It is lived from the spirit, not the soul. If we haven't learned this yet, He's going to keep running experiences by us until we do. The only reason that's true is because you signed on. You told God you wanted to be His instrument, His vessel. The book of Hebrew says a real father chastens his kids. He corrects his kids. He wants what is best for his kids. He wants his kids to grow up and be adults to take their proper place, to be an extension of the father."— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, pages 233, 234

You are already filled

"Jesus said, “He who believes in Me, as the Scriptures said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'” That's why I say, you'd better know that you are already filled. Because those rivers are flowing out of you, and you're going to have a hard time getting a drink for yourself. Your tongue isn't quite long enough to reach those rivers of living water flowing out of you. Why? Because they are for somebody else. You don't need to drink. You are permanently drunk. You don't need to eat. You're already fat on the Spirit. You're filled.

"If we see ourselves as a liability or as hungry or thirsty, we'll say, 'I've got to have some of that for me, then I'll give some away.' But we're getting free of that, aren't we? We have no need above the line, in the spirit realm, because Jesus has already promised us, 'I am your sufficiency. I am your filling.'”— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, page 231

<idle musing>
It seems so simple, doesn't it? Then why don't we accept it? Probably because we want so desperately to earn it! Right? It's a gift, but we have a hard time accepting that...God, deliver us from ourselves and our presumptuousness!
</idle musing>

Cleanup that tree!

The last of the tree trunk disappeared last week. But, there was still a lot of sawdust and brush all over the front yard. Over the weekend, I spent a little time hauling the brush to the backyard and adding it to the brushpile—now a very big brushpile—but didn't get a chance to rake up the smaller stuff. So, Monday evening I got out the shovel, rake, wheelbarrow, lawn roller, leaf vac, and lawn tractor for some serious cleanup.

I raked up the smaller limbs and some of the sawdust; it was about 3-4 wheelbarrows full. Then I took the shovel to the large divots in the yard from the falling limbs and trunk. It still looked like a mortar practice field, so I hooked the lawn roller to the back of the tractor and ran over it a few times. It looks a bit better, but the roller was only about 1/2 full of water, so I will need to fill it and do it again.

Last of all, I hooked up the leaf vac to the back of the tractor and began making passes over the whole area. Saw dust and dust everywhere! I wondered if any of it was going into the vac, but it was. There was just so much sawdust that it seemed to be ineffective. I think I finally ended up going over some areas 7-8 times, but here's what it looked like in the end:




It filled up the vac all the way with a nice compost mix of grass, sawdust, and dirt. I won't be able to use it on beds where things are growing right now; the sawdust actually steals nitrogen while it is breaking down. Once it breaks down, it returns all the nitrogen (and then some) to the soil, but not before. But, that's not a problem because I am digging 2 new strawberry beds, a new raspberry bed; it will work wonderfully there, breaking down over the winter and being nice and loamy by spring. Here's a picture of the sawdust pile. For perspective, the pile is about 3 feet tall and about 5 feet long and 3 feet wide. That's a lot of sawdust!



Ah, but what to do with the stump? Good question; Debbie had the answer. What do you think?

The pleasant life

"Of course, we thought life with God would always be pleasant. That's how we think when we're still babes. But now as we look back we can say, “Lord, that time I was miserable, that's when You became real in my life. That's when in my prayers I was really honest with You. That's when I had to tell You I was really hurting. I had to lay it at Your feet. Out of that old tree stump You caused a new shoot—a new life—to come up. And through that experience You strengthened me. You taught me. You remade my life into that of a disciple who is not above his master.”

"May God teach us to look at the misery in our lives, the tough times, the hard times, and say, “Yes, but.” The Holy but. Nothing happens to us outside of God's providence and sovereignty. Nothing happens in our lives about which we cannot say, “He meant it for good.” and He works it for good."— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, page 228

<idle musing>
As I often say, as I look back on my life, I wouldn't have chosen the path that I followed, but I wouldn't change it. God directed it, every step of the way. He knows better than I do what I need and when. Wesley once said that God is like a pharmacist who dispenses the correct medicine in the correct amounts at the correct time—never too much and never too little.
</idle musing>

Good bicycle accessories

Two weekends ago my bike headlight stopped working—well, actually it wouldn't stop working. The switch broke somehow and the light wouldn't turn off or flash as it was supposed to. I took it apart, changed the batteries, tried to figure out the switch, all to no avail. It is a microswitch and not user serviceable. And it was only a little over a year old!

I figured it was out of warranty and was resigned to buying a new one. But, I thought I should at least check the company's web site first. There was a section for warranty replacement, but no details on what the warranty was. So, I e-mailed and asked how I could know if the light was still under warranty. The next day I received a reply, complete with a return authorization number. Turns out that the light has a lifetime warranty! All they asked was that I return it to them. They want to do a postmortem on it for quality improvement. I mailed it off a day or two later—postage was under $2.00—and expected a new one in about a week or two. Two days later, I have a brand new headlight in the mail! How's that for service?

The name of the company, you ask? Planet Bike, of course!

I love their lights; the tail light that I have is visible for over ½ mile and strobes in such a way that you can't miss it. The Beamer 5 headlight strobes, too, but it also can be a steady on, which is really handy in my winter commutes when I ride through the woods every morning and evening in the dark.

So, now I have another reason to recommend them. Not only do their products work wonderfully well, but their warranty service is phenomenal, too.

What Jeremiah says

“They have become rich and powerful
and have grown fat and sleek.
Their evil deeds have no limit;
they do not seek justice.
They do not promote the case of the fatherless;
they do not defend the just cause of the poor.
Should I not punish them for this?”
declares the LORD.
“Should I not avenge myself
on such a nation as this?
“A horrible and shocking thing
has happened in the land:
The prophets prophesy lies,
the priests rule by their own authority,
and my people love it this way.
But what will you do in the end?”—Jeremiah 5:27b-31

<idle musing>
Sure, Jeremiah is addressing Judah in the 6th century, but doesn't that ring true for today, too? Not only do the rich not seek justice or promote the case of the fatherless or defend the cause of the poor, but they go so far as to say it is wrong to do so! Shades of Thomas Malthus from the 19th century (look him up). There really is nothing new under the sun...
</idle musing>

Looking for an escape

"We say we want God, but we want a fix. We want an escape. We want the pressure removed. When we don't have anything else to bargain with, though—when we don't have anything to lay before Him but filthy rags, when we're miserable enough—then He's ready to deal with us."— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, page 225

<idle musing>
The first half describes us far too often. We really are looking for an escape—give me the "good life", and give it to me now! God, on the other hand, is waiting patiently for us to reach the end of ourselves.

Have you ever noticed in the book of Hosea that Israel goes looking for God near the beginning of the book with all their stuff; they don't find him. Near the end of the book, they go looking for God, but without any stuff. This time they are promised they will find him. So true.
</idle musing>

Great little video

Saw this on Out of Ur today. I must say that it pretty much sums up most of the theology that I've heard preached and seen written.

Misery

"Thank God for your misery. It prepares you to be a vessel for His use, for His strength—not yours—to flow through.. It doesn't seem to make sense. In your weakness is your strength. In your misery is your hope. In your death is your life. In your nothing is His everything. It's amazing how God works. Out of the dung heap grows a rose. Out of misery grows a mighty man of God. Thank God for your misery. Thank God for your pain. Don't attribute it to the devil. If you do, paraphrase Joseph: 'The devil meant it for evil, but God turns his tricks on him and works it for good.'”— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, page 224

<idle musing>
Not an easy sell, is it? But, it is the truth, just not a welcome or comfortable one. I guess that is why it isn't often heard or preached, but, as Bonhoeffer said, when God calls someone, he bids him come and die...
</idle musing>

God's timing

He [Moses at the burning bush] probably thought, “What took You so long? I was ready forty years ago. Where were you then?” But that was his problem. He was ready. He had power. He had influence. That's when God can't use us. When we have all the resources, when we have the power package, when we can do it, then He can't use us.— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, page 223

<idle musing>
Ain't it the truth! Think of Gideon with his large army; God had to trim it down to keep them from stealing the glory.
</idle musing>

Beautiful weather

I love this time of year. The mornings are crisp and the air is clear, the afternoons are warm and the evenings cool down nicely. This morning it was 45 F outside, which seems a bit early in the year, but it was beautiful. As I rode past ponds and lakes, the mist was rising off the mirror-like surfaces.

The sun is rising later, too, which allows me to see more nocturnal animals. Tuesday I saw 3 deer, then 100 yards further another 6. They were in no hurry to get out of my way. Of course, there is a downside to all this activity; the morning commuters are hitting more wildlife, too. That same morning I saw a freshly killed possum; the blood was still running out of his mouth.

The garden is slowing down; I've been pulling bean plants and planting fall crops like romaine, spinach, radishes, and beets; I still haven't planted the cucumber—it is probably too late now, but we'll see. I need to move the greenhouse to cover the new plantings. I also need to order some more row cover, too.

We expanded the fence around the garden last weekend. The cats were wreaking havoc with the raspberries and were starting to kill the new asparagus plants, too. I have them all enclosed now, but that means more landscape timbers and cloth, as well as more wood chips and other stuff. Hopefully, I'll be able to get it all done in the next week or so.

Yesterday the person who is taking the large part of the tree came and took a good percentage of it and cut up the rest. Debbie thinks the slices are pretty neat looking; what do you think? I tried moving a circle; it weighs probably 200 pounds!

What a gift

"The truth is that as long as we can handle life, we don't think we need God. We'll tip our hat to Him, but we're doing just fine. Then when we can't handle life, we want Him to get us out of the jam. And He tells us, “I made the jam. Why do I want to get you out of it?” It's the gift of misery."— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, pages 221-222

<idle musing>
We see it all the time, don't we? They talk about the God-of-the-gaps, but this is far more common; maybe the God-of-the-foxhole should be what we call it. God puts us in situations where we are required to depend on him, and him alone, or we will fail. What a great place to be!
</idle musing>

The retreat cycle

"When my wife and I were external persons, we liked to go on retreats, because they allowed us to get away for a weekend. We left the kids at home and somebody else cooked for us, so it was different than our ordinary routine. It was quiet. I don't mean the absence of any noise, but the absence of routine. The retreats were tranquil places.

"As we would leave those retreats to head back home, though, the quietness would slowly ebb away. By the time I drove up to the house, I was already reverting to my pre-retreat self. I was going to walk in there and straighten out the kids and reestablish my authority and get my space. I was right back where I was before, because quietness to me was a completely external thing.

"We can manufacture quiet for a little while. We may be able to create an external setting where we can occasionally have quiet. But I'm talking about an internal quiet that filters throughout our lives."— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, page 218

<idle musing>
Rest and abide. That's the only way to have inner peace and quiet. The world can go crazy, but you are established on the "rock that doesn't roll" (as Larry Norman put it in one of his songs).
</idle musing>

Timberrr!

We had a tall, and I mean tall—80 + feet—elm tree that was dying. In the ice storm 2 years ago, it shed 4 branches. It was about dead and leaning toward the house. All in all, not a good situation. So, we had it cut down 2 weeks ago. Here's some pictures of the wreckage:





We offered the wood to some people for firewood; they have been cutting a bit each day, but the rest is too big for his saw. Here's what it looks like today:


We have someone else with a bigger saw coming this week to cut and take away the rest. To give you an idea of how big it is, here's a picture of the stump. It is 53 inches in diameter.

Adjuncts

I want my understanding of Christ being my life to be a lifestyle, not an adjunct. It's not a piece of the pie; it is the pie. — The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, page 217

<idle musing>
Being an adjunct is bad enough in academic life...in the spiritual life having part of your life as an adjunct is disastrous.
</idle musing>

Sailing, sailing...

The dream of previous centuries, the North East passage, has become a reality:

Sea ice has been receding for the last few decades and 2007, 2008 and 2009 where the record years for the smallest polar ice cap making the channels wider and the number of icebergs fewer...The biggest challenge though is undoubtedly the short season, the route is only open for about two to three months a year at present, although on current warming trends this may gradually increase in the years ahead.

<idle musing>
But global warming is just a myth...
</idle musing>

Eisenbrauns September sale

Eisenbrauns is running a great sale for all you Assyriologists out there. This is a great deal; some of these titles have never been discounted more than 20% before. Here's the BookNews announcement:

BookNews from Eisenbrauns

The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project has given us permission to
run a sale on 35 of their titles. For the month of September,
you can save 20-50%, an unprecedented discount on some of
these titles.

As always, all sales on this web sale are final; no returns will be
permitted. Offer good only on orders placed at www.eisenbrauns.com
through September 30, 2010.

To easily access all the sale items, please visit:
http://www.eisenbrauns.com/pages/SPECIAL
================================================================
"Assyria 1995: Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, Helsinki, September 7 - 11, 1995"
Edited by Simo Parpola and Robert M. Whiting
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1997. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514577031
List Price: $79.00 Your Price: $39.50

"The Mechanics of Empire: The Northern Frontier of Assyria as a
Case Study in Imperial Dynamics"
by Bradley J. Parker
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2001. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514590528
List Price: $124.00 Your Price: $62.00

"The Helsinki Map of the Near East in the Neo-Assyrian Period"
Edited by Simo Parpola and Michael Porter
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2001. Paper. English.
List Price: $19.95 Your Price: $13.97

"The Heirs of Assyria: Proceedings of the Opening Symposium of the
Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project Held in
Tvarminne, Finland, October 8-11, 1998"
Edited by Sana Aro and Robert M. Whiting
Melammu Symposia - MS 1
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2000. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514590436
List Price: $59.00 Your Price: $29.50

"Mythology and Mythologies: Methodological Approaches to Intercultural
Influences: Proceedings of the Second Annual Symposium of the Assyrian
and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project Held in Paris, France,
October 4-7, 1999"
Edited by Robert M. Whiting
Melammu Symposia - MS 2
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2001. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514590498
List Price: $110.00 Your Price: $55.00

"The Prosopography Neo-Assyrian Empire, volume 1, part 1:
A (Names Beginning with A)"
Edited by Karen Radner
Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire - PNA 1/1
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1998. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514581632
List Price: $84.00 Your Price: $50.40

"The Prosopography Neo-Assyrian Empire, volume 1, part 2: B - G"
Edited by Karen Radner
Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire - PNA 1/2
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1999. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514586453
List Price: $79.00 Your Price: $47.40

"The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire,
Volume 2, Part 1: H - K"
Edited by Heather D. Baker
Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire - PNA 2/1
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2000. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514590450
List Price: $74.00 Your Price: $51.80

"The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Volume 2,
Part 2: L - N"
Edited by Heather D. Baker
Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire - PNA 2/2
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2001. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514590559
List Price: $94.00 Your Price: $65.80

"The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Volume 3,
Part 1: P - S (Sade)"
Edited by Heather D. Baker
Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire - PNA 3/1
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2002. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514590566
List Price: $79.00 Your Price: $55.30

"The Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh"
by Simo Parpola
State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts - SAACT 1
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1997. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514577604
List Price: $44.00 Your Price: $30.80

"The Standard Babylonian Etana Epic: Cuneiform Text, Transliteration,
Score, Glossary, Indices and Sign List"
by Jamie Novotny
State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts - SAACT 2
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2001. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514590474
List Price: $39.00 Your Price: $27.30

"The Standard Babylonian Epic of Anzu: Introduction, Cuneiform Text,
Transliteration, Score, Glossary, Indices and Sign List"
by Amar Annus
State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts - SAACT 3
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2001. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514590511
List Price: $44.00 Your Price: $30.80

"The Standard Babylonian Creation Myth: Enuma Elish"
Edited by Philippe Talon
State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts - SAACT 4
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2005. Paper. English and French.
ISBN: 9789521013287
List Price: $44.00 Your Price: $35.20

"Evil Demons: Canonical Utukku- Lemnu-tu Incantations"
by M. J. Geller
State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts - SAACT 5
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2007. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789521013317
List Price: $77.00 Your Price: $61.60

"The Neo-Assyrian Myth of Ishtar's Descent and Resurrection"
by Pirjo Lapinkivi
State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts - SAACT 6
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2010. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789521013331
List Price: $35.00 Your Price: $28.00

"Ludlul bel nemeqi: The Standard Babylonian
Poem of the Righteous Sufferer"
by Amar Annus and Alan Lenzi
State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts - SAACT 7
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2010. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789521013348
List Price: $35.00 Your Price: $28.00

"Neuassyrische Glyptik 8.-7.Jh.v.Chr.: Unter besonderer
Berucksichtigung der Siegelungen auf Tafeln und Tonverschlussen"
by Suzanne Herbordt
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 1
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1992. Paper. German.
ISBN: 9789514560477
List Price: $69.00 Your Price: $55.20

"The Use of Numbers and Quantifications in the
Assyrian Royal Inscriptions"
by Marco de Odorico
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 3
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1995. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514571251
List Price: $64.00 Your Price: $38.40

"Nippur in Late Assyrian Times, c 755-612 B.C."
by Steven W. Cole
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 4
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1996. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514572869
List Price: $54.00 Your Price: $43.20

"Neo-Assyrian Judicial Procedures"
by Remko Jas
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 5
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1996. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514572876
List Price: $52.00 Your Price: $41.60

"Die Neuassyrischen Privatrechtsurkunden als Quelle fur Mensch und Umwelt"
by Karen Radner
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 6
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1997. Paper. German.
ISBN: 9789514577833
List Price: $76.00 Your Price: $45.60

"References to Prophecy in Neo-Assyrian Sources"
by Martti Nissinen
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 7
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1998. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514580796
List Price: $54.00 Your Price: $27.00

"Die Annalen des Jahres 711 v.Chr."
by Andreas Fuchs
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 8
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1998. Paper. German.
ISBN: 9789514584107
List Price: $49.00 Your Price: $34.30

"The Role of Naqia / Zakutu in Sargonid Politics"
by S. C. Melville
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 9
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1999. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514590405
List Price: $45.00 Your Price: $31.50

"Herrschaftswissen in Mesopotamien: Forman der Kommunikation zwischen
Gott und Konig im 2 und 1. Jahrtausend v.Chr."
by Beate Pongratz-Leisten
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 10
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1999. Paper. German.
ISBN: 9789514590412
List Price: $94.00 Your Price: $56.40

"A Survey of Neo-Elamite History"
by M. W. Waters
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 12
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2000. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514590443
List Price: $49.00 Your Price: $39.20

"A Sketch of Neo-Assyrian Grammar"
by Jaakko Hameen-Anttila
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 13
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2000. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514590467
List Price: $49.00 Your Price: $34.30

"The God Ninurta in the Mythology and Royal Ideology of Ancient Mesopotamia"
by Amar Annus
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 14
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2002. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514590573
List Price: $62.00 Your Price: $37.20

"The Sumerian Sacred Marriage in the Light of Comparative Evidence"
by Pirjo Lapinkivi
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 15
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2004. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514590580
List Price: $75.00 Your Price: $52.50

"Grammatical Variation in Neo-Assyrian"
by M. Luukko
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 16
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2004. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514590597
List Price: $75.00 Your Price: $45.00

"La Magie neo-assyrienne en Contexte: Recherches sur le métier
d'exorciste et le concept d'a-šipu-tu"
by Cynthia Jean
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 17
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2006. Paper. French.
ISBN: 9789521013270
List Price: $49.00 Your Price: $34.30

"Voyages et voyageurs a l'epoque neo-assyrienne"
by Sabrina Favaro
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 18
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2007. Paper. French.
ISBN: 9789521013294
List Price: $65.00 Your Price: $52.00

"Secrecy and the Gods: Secret Knowledge in
Ancient Mesopotamia and Biblical Israel"
by Alan Lenzi
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 19
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2008. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789521013300
List Price: $72.00 Your Price: $57.60

"The Induction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia:
The Mesopotamian Mis Pi Ritual"
by Christopher Walker and Michael B. Dick
State Archives of Assyria Literary Texts - SAALT 1
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2001. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789514590481
List Price: $119.00 Your Price: $95.20

In the world...

Those of us who write or teach extensively about our union with Christ emphasize being over doing. And we should. In the context of our spirit union, doing flows from being. But if we are to give Jesus free reign to live His life through us—if we are to truly experience His abundant life—we are going to have to make some choices. One of those choices involves detaching ourselves from a preoccupation with the values of this world...

When I was on the road speaking to groups, I was always glad to have people come to conferences. However, I knew that if they were just looking for another wedge of pie that might make life a little happier, a little easier, a little less stressful, then they were missing the point. Jesus doesn't have another Band-Aid to patch you up with. He really doesn't...

Not to belabor the point, but there's so much activity for what we don't need. I'm not speaking against things. But if we're talking about a lifestyle of living from the unseen and eternal realm, some of us are going to have to make some changes. Otherwise, we're constantly going to be too distracted to ever be in touch with anything but the seen and temporal. The more we let the world beset us by dictating priorities, the more traps we are going to get into. That's a fact. I simply want you to mull this one over with the Holy Spirit. Do you really need everything you're working for?— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, pages 215, 216-217

<idle musing>
Yep. That's the part that gets people. Everyone wants more of God's blessings, but do we want more of just God? Tozer said that anytime we say "God and" we have fallen into idolatry; I'd say he is right.

We have to live dead to self—and alive in Jesus. That means we make choices. Some are pretty easy and obvious, but others aren't always understood by those around you. But, you make those choices because you want more of Jesus in your life, shining through you, pouring out of you. The world won't understand that; you'll get a blank stare sometimes, other times downright hostility. No matter; it's worth the cost.
</idle musing>

Thought for today

"Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple"—Barry Switzer, quoted in Feet of Clay