ear update

Thanks everyone
who remembered my ear surgery and was praying for me.
The operation went well. I was knocked out and that was great.
My ear still hurts, is healing and recovering.
Nothing unusual. All is well.

Thanks
Alex

me and my sedimentary lifestyle

I have some bad habits that I am frustrated about, but apparently not enough to do anything about...
1. I spend WAY too much time online. I have found some timers the BEST thing to do for better productively and my well-being is to close the computer - GET AWAY!!!
2. Lack of exercise. If I am not or pleasure then I am "having fun" visiting blogs, sites, etc online, or I playing video games and sometimes playing guitar. This is pretty sedimentary and not a lot of energy is used in my daily average life.
3. I distract myself WAY too easily. I like to blog instead of do school work. I like to play video games, play guitar, read other blogs, go eat food...anything to distract myself intentionally and therefore I get behind in my school work. popurls.com is a good distraction from reading or school
Recently i have been playing a lot of Nascar 2002 for Gamecube as well.
And atakoo.com - I won an I pod Shuffle for answering questions on there

Hezekiah's sons?

Today I was reading Zephaniah and some commentary on it.
The first verse got me asking a question:
1The word of the LORD which came unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah.

I think that both Zephaniah and Josiah are related.
Zephaniah is the son of Cushi, who is the son of Gedaliah, who is the son of Amariah, who is the son of Hezekiah.
And Joshia is the son of Amon, who is the son of Mannaseh, who is the son of Hezekiah.

Mt. 1:10: Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah

So basically Zephaniah and Josiah were cousins!

anti-intellectualism in the church

In the book, Love Your God With All Your Mind, J.P. Moreland writes that the growing anti-intellectualism in the church has resulted in the marginalization of Christianity in society and the emergence of the most secular culture the world has ever seen. The real problem for us shows up when tough times hit and our house-of-cards belief system tumbles down because we’re used to “putting our hands together” but not our heads.

Some theories why this is happening:

Christians are reading less, in general. Busy doing life. More time on internet. More time pursuing selfish ambitions.

One of the main reasons. Christians are reading less Bible! Without the Bible, Christians are not loving God with all their mind. They are not able to be ready at any moment to give a defense in what they believe.

The average reading level in America and the church is general is going down.

What do you think?

To be young again

I went for a bike ride the other day and in the sub-division I live there are a lot of kids. I see them outside having fun with no other cares in life. I remember being young. I wanted to be young again. To be innocent again. To be naive. To NOT care about anything. To exercise outside all day as a day job. To want to be outside and NOT have any commitments keeping me away from where I wanted to be. Those were the days...

ear surgery

Had ear surgery this morning, so you get no other post today, besidesA this very informative one....
(ouch my ear hurts)

is it out of context?

An excerpt from "Hermeneutics for Missionary Preaching," which will make a chapter of historical case study in Kim, Dae Ryeong's Ph.D. dissertation, "Toward A Missiological Approach to Hermeneutics for Gospel Proclamation in a Post-modern World."

" Don M. Wagner observes the abuse of theological method of Bible interpretation, especially in using Scripture fragments out of context. Therefore, he suggests the Compbell Morgan’s expository method as a solution to address the issue. His expository method is, if we summarize in a word, ‘interpretation in the context’—the synthesis of biblical text into its historical and literacy context. “The essential characteristic of the Morgan method is” he states, “the application of the context principle of Bible Study.” Each verse of Scripture cut out of its setting must first be understood in relation to what immediately precedes and follows, before one can properly evaluate its relation to theological subject (1957:93, 114). This principle of Bible exposition is exactly what Spurgeon also supports when he remarks: “We cannot expect to deliver much of the teachings of the Holy Scripture by picking out verse by verse, and holding these up at random. The process resembles too closely that of showing a house by exhibiting separate bricks” (Pattison 1902:84). "

Morgan makes a great point!
How often do we see this! -Scripture ripped out of context! And how it bothers me!

compartamentalization is bad

How often I catch myself doing this!!!

I organize my "to do list" and I have my employment related tasks, my University related tasks, taking care of me/myself, family, social events, and my church related tasks, and somewhere in there I know I need to spend time with God.

You know? I give him maybe 30 min.s to an hour in the beginning of the day and then that is it...

I get so caught up in the flow of life, marking off my things to do, that I use that mentality to my own personal walk with God. And when I do this, my walk with God suffers.

On these days, God is just a brief section of a day that centers around ME.

I got my God section of life, my blog section, my guitar time, my reading portion, my sleeping hours, and my personal down time....you get the idea!

And it should not be this way. The center needs to be God. When God is my center. EVERYTHING flows much smoother. There is peace. There is a strong relationship and their is communication through-out the day between a loving Creator and His son! Ah!

Stop sharing Gospel, stop being a minister

Think about it...
if we stop teaching the Word, preaching the Gospel, sharing the Good News...
then are we really ministers?
Our ministry should center on the Bible, the Holy Word of God.
When we stop using the Word, when we stop getting in the Gospel and feeding ourselves, and when we stop sharing that News with others, we are no longer ministering effectively!

Something to ponder,
Alex

Emerging, Emergent, Evangelical, etc...

I am totally stealing these awesome pictures from Michael Patton and giving him FULL credit...
This is cool!:
Anyone who has read my blog knows that I read Parchment and Pen theology blog a lot, in fact, my blog would be significantly different (maybe even non-existent) without his blog (and influence of such!) So thanks Michael!

Today I am examining some cool drawings/graphs from post " Will the Real Emerger Please Stand Up?"

The post is real long and has a lot really good detail and insight. I highly recommend you go to his sight read it and even download the PDF as a resources for future teaching/preaching and or reflecting.

These graphs are only a very small portion of the entire post:




Here is the idea! This is the template. To differentiate between Emerging, Emergent, Evangelical, and Fundamental - Michael charted dotes that represent how each group sees theological issues. It does not have to do with where they land theologically. It has more to do with how much focus each group places on certain issues.


For example, the perspective or angle of a fundamentalist is " “If it is in the Bible, it is absolutely essential, and we are certain that we are right!”
Very dry cut, black-and-white, and clear.
They spend their time on essential issues, yes...but they also make EVERYTHING (in the Bible) an essential.





And here, we see that Evangelicals have a place for everything. This is more balanced. We spend a lot of time deciding what is essential what is not essential. What is important and fun to talk about but is not essential, etc.



We see here, emerging, begins to drift away completely from the center.



And here you can even begin to see a difference between Emerging and Emergent camps!

Gridiron Irony

So he is likely already going in the NFL Hall of Fame. But the talk is only going to get bigger and bigger this week as the New England Patriots (won their first season game) but lost their hero, Tom Brady due to a sever ankle injury that is going to require surgery.

So fans of the NFL, in general are happy, realized...
Boston residents, Patriot fans around the USA are stressing out and worried and upset.
Some controversy centers around the play...was it 'dirty,' as Randy Moss speculated? (probably nothing)


But my post today is around the irony of the injury. (Despite the fact I am a Pats fan and was even BEFORE Tom Brady!)
The Irony is this
this week before the game, Tom Brady was NOT on the injury list...the FIRST time he was OFF the injury list since the 2005 Super Bowl!! ( A whooping 32 games consecutively on the injury list! Including going 16-0, last year!)
But this week, before having to be taken off the field to this year ending injury, Brady was NOT on the proverbial, almost common-life injury list.....

idolatry

Idolatry is the most serious evil, b/c it makes 'god' what is not God.
The confidence and faith of the heart can only go to one God alone
Not both God and an idol

Recall the First commandment. In Exodus 20, Moses spends 6 verses on this First commandment:

2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;

3 Do not have any other gods before me.

4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,

6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

There is a reason why he spends so much time on this one and it is the same reason why it is the first commandment, it is the most important....

When Jesus was asked which is the greatest commandment in Matt.22:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the great general commandment that Jesus took from the book of Deuteronomy 6:5. And a second is like unto it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

Israel struggled with idolatry throughout the Old Testament history! And God continually punished them more for this sin than any other sin!

Interesting facts about gas

According to Businessweek...

1. There Is No Shortage

Gasoline reserves on hand are at the highest levels since the early 1990s...

2. Demand Is DOWN, Yet Prices Are UP

3. Speculation is Up, and the Dollar Is Down

Exxon is a top earning company....why can't they lower their income a bit in order to help everyone out and lower gas? The answer is not really about Exxon or even the Sadie Arabians. It is about the way Americans buy and sell oil...it is dumb. I do not have time to go into that today in this post.

People are confused about this issue: It is not OPEC and it is not Exxon, it is really the US Oil Market:

In today's complex global markets, the price of crude oil is set by movements on the three major international petroleum exchanges, all of which have their own Web sites featuring information about oil prices. They are the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX, http://www.nymex.com), the International Petroleum Exchange in London (IPE, http://www.ipe.uk.com) and the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX, http://www.simex.com.sg)."

http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3708951.stm
http://www.opec.org/library/FAQs/aboutOPEC/q20.htm