OU and Semester?

Rumor has it that the switch is likely.
I am glad that McDavis waited until at least his first for full years (my entire class) to try to instate this.

It is a bi g switch!

I really enjoyed the 10 week quarter program though it is fast paced and fun with a long winter break!

Another amazing OT passage, Christians today forget!

"He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head; he put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak."

This is Isaiah 59:17!

Christians forget that and only recall later in Eph. 6 when Paul applies the Warrior aspect of our faith to us personally.


But what is important to remember is that The Lord is a Warrior…I think that we, Christians today, forget this. It is still true tody!

Check out Ex. 15:3, Isa. 42:13


Here is a cool document I found that shows how God, The Divine Warrior applies today and in the New Testament

idolatry consumerism link

Gordon McConville in Exploring the Old Testament V0l. 4: The Prophets in chapter 6 (Hosea)
makes a connection between Idolatry and consumerism.
This is a connection I had not heard before.

In fact McConville even relates consumerism to Baa-worship: "trying to secure the goods of life without receiving them as God's gift."

McConville, say: "idolatry is the most serious evil, becuase it makes 'god' what is not God. Martin Luther sad: 'The confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol.' "

Here is another interesting angle to the argument from The Simple Pastor and The Gospel Coalition:


"The gospel opens our eyes to the fact that all our wealth (even wealth for which we worked hard) is ultimately an unmerited gift from God. Therefore the person who does not generously give away his or her wealth to others is not merely lacking in compassion, but is unjust. Christ wins our salvation through losing, achieves power through weakness and service, and comes to wealth through giving all away...Indifference to the poor and disadvantaged means there has not been a true grasp of our salvation by sheer grace."

beautiful feet

Check this out!:

Isa 52:7 How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!"


Christians can (and do) commonly quote the passage in Romans 10:15 when Paul says "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
But what people often forget is that this was a quotation from the OT prophet Isaiah!

Isn't this spectacular!

A lot of times we miss the quotations of the OT in the NT. And the integration of the meaning of the texts is something awesome to thing about!!

Social justice

I have written blog posts about this previously but
today it seems even more real and more concerning!
I am going to be blogging more about this in the future as well,
the topic:
social justice.
Why has it been so real to me recently?
I have been reading the prophets a lot recently!
It is not just in Amos, although there it is prevalent!
Just read in Isaiah, Micah, Malachi - social justice is a foundational point to all of the prophets and the ideas are not just limited to the prophets!
In fact the prophets were only building on the foundations of the Mosaic and Deuteronomic law!
Which also speaks about fighting for justice!

God is a God of justice, love and compassion.

I will be posting more later to build on this but I wanted to stress the idea in this post that OT stresses the importance of fighing for social justice.

In later posts I will address these questions:

Does the NT also address social justice/issues the same way?
How does this relate to us today in modern world?
Why should you care?
What social justices should we be concerned for/ fighting for?
How does this relate to Dominion theology and what are the concerns (pros and cons?)
How does this relate to our political stance?
Should a conservative and/or liberal Christian work together for social justice?
How does fighting for social justice relate to post-modern society?
How does it relate to the emergin and emergnat churches? Should we be concerned?
Can we take stands for social justice and not loose our foundational, essential theology?

Random Question

I have been trying to do some extra research in my free time to learn about the differences between:
Covenant theology vs. dispensational theology
And then:
The different types of dispensational theology:
premillennial, progressive, traditional, etc

I was wondering if anyone had a simple, easy, or straight-forward resource about any of these topics or if they simply have an explanation that they just want to share with me! That would be great!
I have not had enough time to delve too much into this research, so for now I just would like a starting point.

Thanks
Alex

Brand yourself...

...have we taken competition too far in America?

A lot of advice I have heard recently upon graduating from Ohio University is that we all need to specialize in our own little categories. In other words if we are going to be successful we have to be an expert in something that is unique and no one else is an expert on that category except us.

It is no longer about having the best product, that is a given, but it is not enough. In order to become great in today's market, today's America/today's workplace, you have to have something new, fresh, special. Something awesome that no one else has. You have to be different and unique.

In my opinion this is not great news to hear....

We have become so competitive and so customer oriented that we are unbalanced as a nation, I am only speculating....but speculate here with me. With so much stock and hope in branding yourself to be unique and specialized, we are forgetting about tried and try important values and jobs that have made America so successful in the past.

Sure everyone wants to be happy with their job. But job security is probably a little more important than getting that dream job! Think about it. America's unemployment recently has been increasing. People are losing jobs right and left. We do not have time to create this cool, fictional job, that is perfect for you - when we are all suffering in this drained economy.

And besides thing about the effects if everyone had their own specialized company, everyone was their own brand....There would be way too many choices for customers. I know customers typically like choice, but then think about Walmart. Customers also like having it all in ONE place, convenience...

So which is it? I do not know. I have a lot of unconnected thought here. It is not fully developed. It is random, I am sorry.

NASCAR

I do not know if I have told you but I love Nascar. It is a great sport.
My Favorite driver was Dale Earnhardt. After he passed away I began rooting for Junior. He is overrated but I still think he is a decent driver. It really excited me when he joined Hendrix. Although this year Hendrix has NOT been the winning team. I think Gordon is taking so getting use to in these "Cars of the Future."
You really have to let loose and slide around the track a little, like Kyle Bush. Which is different than the old Winston Cup cars.

My family has a Sunday tradition. We watch and always hae watched the cars go around the track on the big screen. Sometimes we talk, sometimes we eat, sometimes we sleep, and a lot of times we are intensely participating with the race. No matter what the tv is tuned to the race. It is fun.
And also my brother has got me addicted to Nascar 2003 for Gamecube. So now we race on the weekdays too!

Apple Shuffle

I never thought it would be a worthwhile investment to purchase an Ipod Shuffle, so I have NEVER bought one...
but I won a shuffle recently and I love it already!

1. It is small and works way better for exercising than my big old 30 Ipod Classic gigger!
2. It is so small and light, it is easy to hide and perfect for taking anywhere!

I am not sure how long the battery life is but so far it is not too bad. And the only other thing I miss is the ability to look at a screen and see what song is playing.