After sundown overlooking an icy river. The moon was placed in the photo using a double exposure technique, back when film was used. If you’re too young to know what film is, that’s OK.

Psalm 8:3-9
When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—
the moon and the stars you set in place—
4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them,
human beings that you should care for them?
5 Yet you made them only a little lower than God
and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You gave them charge of everything you made,
putting all things under their authority—
7 the flocks and the herds
and all the wild animals,
8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea,
and everything that swims the ocean currents.

9 O LORD, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!

Photo © Jeff at Scripture Zealot

If a building is condemned does it go to hell?*

2 Thessalonians 1:7-9
And God will provide rest for you who are being persecuted and also for us when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven. He will come with his mighty angels, 8 in flaming fire, bringing judgment on those who don’t know God and on those who refuse to obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord and from his glorious power.

Thank God that we are now in His rest (Matt 11:28-30) and will be fully at the end and for eternity.

*Shallow Thoughts brought to you by Jeff at Scripture Zealot

Born Again in the U.S.A.
The Enduring Power of American Evangelicalism

This article is too long for most of you to read but some may find it interesting.

‘God’s partisans in Iran and elsewhere,’ Shah concludes by stating what he sees as ‘the deepest lessons of U.S.-style entrepreneurial religion: let god be God by freeing him from both governmental regulation and government handouts; do not lash him to the mast of a particular government or political party and in so doing make him a hostage to political fortune. God will indeed keep coming back – especially in those places where he has not been turned into a fawning palace courtier or a shackled political prisoner.’

–John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, God Is Back

HT: WorldMagBlog

Deuteronomy 6:5
And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.

Matthew 22:37-38
Jesus replied, ” ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.

How seriously do we take this? I know there are a lot of people who say that we love God by doing things for others etc. which is obviously important. But why does it seem to be easier for some people to “do things” than it is to get to know God better? How can we really love God without knowing Him? How can we know Him without knowing the Bible? We are in a seriously Bible illiterate Christian culture. Just the the other day I was thinking about how I sometimes get Esther and Ruth mixed up. That’s pretty embarrassing.

Here is yet another quote by D.A. Carson from A Call to Spiritual Reformation, Priorities from Paul and His Prayers:

When it comes to knowing God, we are a culture of the spiritually stunted. So much of our religion is packaged to address our felt needs–and these are almost uniformly anchored in our pursuit of our own happiness and fulfillment. God simply becomes the Great Being who, potentially at least, meets our needs and fulfills our aspirations. We think rather little of what he is like, what he expects of us, what he seeks in us. We are not captured by his holiness and his love; his thoughts and words capture too little of our imagination, too little of our discourse, too few of our priorities.

This isn’t to lay a guilt trip on myself or others. Those familiar with this blog know I’m not into that. This is to spur us on to know Him better so that we can do what we were created to do which is truly fulfilling and pleasing to God so that we can live in the reality of His Kingdom instead of the veneer of this world.

(This post was prepared before I was sick. Proverbs 30:25)

If you search for “Random Verse” at Biblia Hebraica (which I’ve done for you in the link) you will find some random verses illustrating how you usually can’t just use a single verse from the OT as a platitude (or something like that). If you haven’t seen it, go over there and you might find it as interesting as I did.

If you haven’t been subscribed to the NLT blog since they’ve been quiet, Mark D. Taylor will be doing a series called Differences Between Translations.

I’m beginning here an occasional series of posts in which I’ll explore some of the differences between the NLT and other translations. Specifically, I’ll look at underlying differences between dynamic equivalence (DE) translations and formal equivalence (FE) translations, which are also called ‘word-for-word’ or ‘essentially literal’ translations.

A perfect quote for this blog:

Next to praying there is nothing so important in practical religion as Bible reading. By reading that book we may learn what to believe, what to be, and what to do; how to live with comfort, and how to die in peace.

Happy is that man who possesses a Bible! Happier still is he who reads it! Happiest of all is he who not only reads it, but obeys it, and makes it the rule of his faith and practice!

–J.C. Ryle, Practical Religion, p. 97

HT: Between Two Worlds – please see his post for more quotes

I’m either very sick or having a very bad reaction to a med. I won’t go into the awful details physical or emotional. Please pray for me.

I haven’t been responding to any comments but will when I can.

I will remove this post after I’m over this, soon God willing.

I decided that the HCSB Illustrated Study Bible is going to be my main Bible. (See a previous post on this.) It’s not as much of a study Bible as most study Bibles. There are photographs and illustrations (obviously) and there are some inserts here and there, some of which are actually quite helpful, but the inserts are pretty sparse. There isn’t any commentary other than the usual footnotes.

Other than the translation I like it because it’s:

• hardcover
• single column text
• perfect font size

I used the NIV for about 20 years and then the NRSV for about three. I did a comparison of longer passages I have memorized just to make sure and I definitely like how the HCSB reads compared to the NRSV. There isn’t a whole lot of difference other than less archaisms in the HCSB which makes it more comfortable for me to read. I also looked at the Mounce/Mounce Greek and English Interlinear for all these passages. Not that I know much of anything about Greek, but with the Mounce translation I can make out some things here and there.

As an example, I like how the HCSB translates ὅτι (hoti) as because in the beatitudes instead of for. It’s a minor example but it’s things like these that cause me to like it.

Matthew 5:3 HCSB
Blessed are the poor in spirit, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

I also like how they are willing to break from tradition and translate things in correct modern English:

John 3:16 HCSB
For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

The NLT is a very close second even though it’s quite different. I still use it a lot. NRSV is my third choice and TNIV fourth, but TNIV is first for the Psalms for some reason.

The only disadvantage to the HCSB Illustrated is it isn’t a Holy Bible like most others.

I hate to even mention it because fasting should be done in secret. But I’d like some feedback from people so I hope I don’t get struck by lightning or anything.

I will have a day by myself in September and would like to fast for a day. However, the main thing I will be fasting from, if that’s the right way to put it, is electronics.

A food fast could have consequences for days afterwords for me for various health reasons. Also, I’m not that into food. Eating is more of a chore for me. I’d be happy just eating one or two meals a day. I eat six small ones partly for health reasons. So lack of food isn’t that big of a deal but I’m considering a food fast of some sort.

Lack of internet, computer, TV however is a different story. So I would like to do without these things for a day. Yikes.

I basically want a day concentrating on God by various obvious means. I’m not looking for direction, a revelation from God, an experience etc. I want to let God enjoy having someone pay more attention to Him for a day and enjoy me enjoying Him.

Since I’m not experienced with fasting I’m asking for any suggestions you have. Are there certain portions of the Bible that you benefit from when fasting? Anything you do to take a break from the concentrated reading and praying? Or anything else.

For those of you who follow people on Twitter, if you could only pick one Christian person or organization to follow, who would it be?

Coleuses are my favorite plant.

Genesis 1:11-12
Then God said, “Let the land sprout with vegetation– every sort of seed-bearing plant, and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. These seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came.” And that is what happened. 12 The land produced vegetation– all sorts of seed-bearing plants, and trees with seed-bearing fruit. Their seeds produced plants and trees of the same kind. And God saw that it was good.

The August Experiment is going well. Posting more has its pluses and minuses. A plus and minus are the comments. When there are a lot it can be a lot to keep up with. But it’s the comments that I learn from and is part of what makes blogging worthwhile. I would always rather have too many than not enough.

Another plus is posting more helps me come up with even more ideas for some reason. I don’t know how that works.

I also have been posting with a little more of my own personality mixed in, hopefully without getting self-indulgent which I think is a good thing for a blog.

I’m learning that too many substantive posts are too much for both the writer and the reader. This month is unusual for the writer because I prepared a lot of the posts in late July and also took some posts from my other blogs and modified them or expanded on them. But it’s also a lot to expect of readers to want to read that much. I can’t get myself to post complete fluff (not that there’s anything wrong with that) because it goes against the purpose of this blog. So I always want to tie in Scripture or something related to Christianity with each post.

Although it was never a goal to increase stats because I don’t care much about them, they haven’t gone up, so more posts doesn’t seem to equal more visitors although it’s only been two weeks. Every now and then I try to do a post that will benefit people who come in from search engines. A post on Jeremiah 29:11 is by far the most popular post coming in from people searching on it.

I would like to sell more books from people clicking on Amazon links but that hasn’t happened either.

There are quite a few posts I want to do that would take some time. 1 Peter 1 is one of them among many others. I’m going through France’s commentary on Matthew so I don’t want to spend a lot of time on writing longer posts but will at some point because it’s beneficial to me.

So there you have it. I will try to keep it up for the rest of the month. Maybe I can make myself post fluff but I don’t know if I muster up the strength. This post has gotten too long so I will sign off for now. Thanks for reading. If you have any thoughts let me know.

Do you long for a closer connection to God?
To talk to Him and hear His voice?
To follow His instructions, if only you knew what He was saying?

[I]t really is possible to hear from God. In fact, God longs to talk to us. He loves us and wants to communicate with us, just as we desire to communicate with those we love.

Praise God for giving us His written word, the Bible. Anytime we wish, we can read the words of God and hear Him speak to us.

Psalm 19:7-9 HCSB
The instruction of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the LORD is trustworthy,
making the inexperienced wise.
8 The precepts of the LORD are right,
making the heart glad;
the commandment of the LORD is radiant,
making the eyes light up.
9 The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever;
the ordinances of the LORD are reliable
and altogether righteous.

You can also read this book. “He is always as close as your thoughts.” It’s scary what people are teaching and how people are eating it up.

Although I am a complementarian (and I’m not going to defend myself at this point), I find the The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood (CBMW) pretty creepy.

So I was looking at their blog because I’m looking more into what complementarianism really is–wondering if I’ve made up my own version of it where the man isn’t evil or abusive (sarcasm because of some other posts lately)–and found this blog post: Gospel Implications of Picky Eating (regarding children).

Picky eating doesn’t just imply that their taste buds are simply narrowly focused. Picky eating says something about the heart.

Is that so.

Yet, in a very real sense, there is no heart of thankfulness, contentment, or gratitude in picky eating. In fact, it is the opposite of thankfulness, contentment, and gratitude. Instructing the child’s heart in the little mundane things like eating what their mother has prepared for them begins to prepare them to have a thankful heart, being content in the Lord and in what he has ordained for them.

In a very real sense, this is what is referred to as over-spiritualizing! I’m the poster boy for God’s sovereignty, but ordaining what a child eats for dinner?

If a parent likes broccoli and can’t understand why their child doesn’t, telling them they need to have a thankful heart isn’t going to be very edifying. (This is not to say the child shouldn’t be thankful for the parent preparing the food for them or thankful that they have food in general.)

I am a picky eater. You know why? BECAUSE THERE ARE A LOT OF FOODS I REALLY DON’T LIKE.

Being a coffee connoisseur, I roast my own coffee and evaluate coffees for a green coffee (unroasted) buying co-op. I’m what’s called a high-taster. Some people have more taste buds and/or more sensitive taste buds. This means they may be more sensitive to certain tastes. Low tasters are often people who don’t have very discerning palates and also tend to like anything. Many are fine with Folgers, Budweiser and a $3 bottle of wine, which is not a bad thing.

I worship God when I drink coffee. I am amazed at the seemingly infinite kinds of flavors He has put in coffees grown in many parts of the world. It’s no different than fine wines but is a secret largely because of the ubiquity of Starbucks which burns the flavors out of the beans. I digress. I thank God for coffee probably more than once a week. It’s a blessing for me.

As someone who deals with chronic depression, it’s important to insert enjoyable things into each day in order to be able to cope. Because of living with difficulties, I’ve actually become more thankful. This is a work of God. I don’t know how it works, but I’ve become more thankful as life has gotten more difficult. God is strong in our weakness. What I’m saying is these are the types of things that create a thankful heart and this is an example of how God works as opposed to forcing a kid to be thankful for food that tastes bad.

Part of why I’m picking on the CBMW is because they are a big organization and can handle it. I hope that saying that they creep me out isn’t slanderous or violating anything in Matthew 5:22. The individuals there are highly respected by many, including me. They are brothers and sisters in Christ and not fools or idiots or anything of the sort.

There is a lot of food that literally makes me gag. That’s how God created me. And I’m very thankful for the amount and type of taste buds He gave me. This means there are some things I unfortunately strongly dislike and some things I savor with a discernment for subtleties that God has included when He created them. For this I’m very thankful.

Romans 9:20
Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, “Why have you made me like this?”

Psalm 139:14-15
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous– how well I know it.
15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

John Piper on Reading and Studying the Bible

Desiring God Blog let’s us know that the newest Bible Study Magazine features an interview with John Piper.

Transmitting the Word
An Interview with John Piper
on Consistency and community

They ask him…

• How do you keep from growing indifferent to the Bible when you’re so familiar with it?
• How do you approach the Bible?
• How can we make time for the Bible?
• How do you memorize Scripture?
• Is the Bible easier for you to understand than for other people?
• What would you say to someone who hasn’t read their Bible in a long time?

Read the article (PDF Document)

Are dust jackets made out of dust or are they supposed to protect from dust? If the latter, shouldn’t the dust jacket be on top of the book when it’s on a shelf?*

I just take them off unless the underlying book is so ugly I can’t stand it. Sometimes they are much better underneath.

*Shallow Thoughts brought to you by Jeff at Scripture Zealot

Christians are quick to spread glory stories, but disappointments tend to be brushed under the carpet because we don’t want to discourage anyone at church or be a bad commercial at work. But God isn’t like us. He doesn’t get insecure about His performance, and He never asks us to cover up for Him.

–Pete Greig, God on Mute: Engaging the Silence of Unanswered Prayer

Here is a video posted on the Koinonia blog in a post titled (entitled?) Con Campbell discusses how his book fits with Wallace’s, Mounce’s, and other texts.

As someone who is a beginner in learning some Greek, I think it’s very important for me to remember that the vocabulary I’m learning are just glosses–simple definitions that don’t cover the whole range of meaning. The same would go for grammar terms.

I think this is important for those of us who look up a word in a lexicon like Strong’s and expect to find the meaning of a word or unlock any information we don’t get from an English translation. The people who translate the Bible in general are extremely knowledgeable about the original languages aside from the disagreements some people have on certain passages in certain translations (I need to cover myself for those who will protest that thought).

I think what’s most helpful for a word or phrase study is to compare it in at least six different translations of different styles ranging from the more literal (formal equivalence or whatever more current term you’d like to use) all the way to paraphrase. This will show you how different translators handled the text, especially if different Greek manuscripts were used for different translations.

Keep in mind these are comments from the peanut gallery so I hope I’m not embarrassing myself too much.

This requires a little explaining.

Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds wrote a post called On Being More Biblical Than the Bible where he quotes a post by Trevin Wax titled Why Calvin is More Biblical Than Some Calvinists.

Let me quote what Justin Taylor wrote on his post first:

Trevin Wax:

In recent years, I have noticed a tendency in some Reformed circles for Calvinists to bristle at the very mention of Jesus dying for the sins of the world or at an evangelist’s call to choose Christ. Other Calvinists can’t stomach the song, “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.” After all, they might say, doesn’t this type of language mislead people into thinking they can decide for Christ apart from the Holy Spirit?

I recommend that Calvinists and non-Calvinists alike follow the example of John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon and others in not refraining from using biblical language when speaking of these matters.

Justin Taylor:

One small thing I’d add (and I know Trevin wouldn’t disagree). Using the language of Scripture doesn’t make something biblical, and not using the language of Scripture doesn’t make something unbiblical. The most important thing is that we reflect the meaning (logic and intention) of Scripture. But it should certainly make us pause when we get so detailed in our semantics that we wince at a Scriptural writer using certain unqualified expressions.

So my encouragement–building off of Trevin’s–is for people not to be semantic legalists (either in favor of, or in opposition to, repeating Scriptural language).

I have to admit I get caught up in this now and then. There are some things that are semantics and there are some things that just aren’t Biblical. “Asking Jesus into my heart” would be one of those things that isn’t Biblical and it bugs me when people say it. But even that is something most people say with good intentions. Other things are just semantics that I need to let go of or even repent.

Then let me take you to Castle of Nutshells where Damian writes a post titled Re-sacramentalising, worship, and God in experience which comments on a post by Internet Monk titled Resacramentalising Evangelicalism.

Here is a quote:

But evangelicals are in sacramental chaos, and the results are quite obvious. Evangelicals are “re-sacramentalizing” in an uncritical and unbiblical way. The Planetshakers article was good evidence, but you can see and hear it everywhere. What are our evangelical sacraments? Where will evangelicals defend the idea that “God is dependably at work?”

• We have sacramentalized technology.
• We have sacramentalized the pastor and other leaders.
• We have sacramentalized music. (i.e. the songs themselves and the experience of singing.)
• We have sacramentalized leaders of musical worship.
• We have sacramentalized events. (God is here!)
• We have sacramentalized the various forms of the altar call.
• We have sacramentalized the creation of an emotional reaction.

We’ve done all of this, amazingly, while de-emphasizing and theologically gutting baptism. We’ve done this while reducing the Lord’s Supper to a relatively meaningless, optional recollection.

These things are very important, especially for those who are leaders of any kind. For me, I don’t believe I get caught up in any of them and these are some of the things I don’t like about evangelicalism. However, when I read things like this, I use it to judge others more than to inform myself and do something about it. (This is in no way negative towards Damian or Internet Monk.)

So what I’m saying is, this is the dark side of biblioblogs for me. I let myself get caught up in semantics and I let myself become judgmental in a bad way. I’ve been so blessed by all the things I’ve learned from all the blogs I read but I also use them to be overly critical at times, even of people in my own circles.

Do you know what I mean?