We had a bit of a traumatic event tonight and I don’t feel like posting anything so I took this quiz and thought I’d post it since I wasted took the time to take it. No surprises.

Christian Traditions Selector

(100%) 1: Presbyterian/Reformed

(86%) 2: Congregational/United Church of Christ

(85%) 3: Anglican/Episcopal/Church of England

(84%) 4: Baptist (Reformed/Particular/Calvinistic)

(82%) 5: Eastern Orthodox

(71%) 6: Lutheran

(59%) 7: Pentecostal/Charismatic/Assemblies of God

(53%) 8: Seventh-Day Adventist

(51%) 9: Baptist/Plymouth Brethren/Fundamentalist

(46%) 10: Roman Catholic

(45%) 11: Methodist/Wesleyan/Nazarene

(39%) 12: Anabaptist (Mennonite/Quaker etc.)

(36%) 13: Church of Christ/Campbellite

I’m a perfectionist. I want everything in my life to be just right. In addition, I’m a very visual person and like to personalize everything. Take the computer for example. I have everything tuned and tweaked and sized and themed and colorized. But as we know nothing works perfectly.

So when I can’t make something perfect I use it as an opportunity to realize that Jesus said we’d have trouble (John 16:33)–although I don’t think he was referring to things as minor as how our computer works–and imperfections to help us realize there is something better. There will be a place where everything is renewed and perfect and this gives us hope.

At the same time, I’m trying to become more willing to say that something is perfect. If it’s as good as it can possibly be, it’s perfect, even if in a perfect world it may be better. Or if something suits my needs perfectly without being exactly how I want it. These are things that the perfect God has provided for me/us (1 Tim 6:17b).

This self-help thought of the day for perfectionists has been brought to you by Jeff at Scripture Zealot.

Do negative ions complain a lot?*

Philippians 2:14
Do everything without complaining and arguing,

*Shallow Thoughts brought to you by Jeff at Scripture Zealot

I’ve been posting a lot of quotes from A Call to Spiritual Reformation, Priorities from Paul and His Prayers by D.A. Carson. I’d like to post some things a little more substantive. I thought it would be good to list all of Paul’s prayers as Carson has them in the book. I couldn’t easily find a list on the web so I thought I would do it here at the risk of reinventing the wheel.

What he would like us to keep in mind is we need “to find out exactly what it is he asks God for on their [the people he prays for] behalf, and compare the results with what we normally ask for.”

Quite a few years ago I memorized some of Paul’s prayers like Eph 1:17-19, Eph 3:16-21, etc. That alone reshaped how I pray. As time went on and I payed attention to what Paul prays for, my own prayers became more and more spiritual and less temporal, not that we shouldn’t spend time petitioning for things related to the latter. When I found out about this book I wanted to look into Paul’s prayers further.

Carson used the NIV and I know he endorses the TNIV so that’s what I’ll use here. Some of them are short enough to mouse-over and see the whole thing. For longer ones you can click on “More” in the lower left corner of the tooltip-like popup or look them up however you’d like if you’re interested. Below that is the list without TNIV in the way if you’d like it (which should show up as NLT as of now):

This exercise is extremely beneficial. If you haven’t already I would highly recommend memorizing some of these prayers.

Rom 1:8-10 TNIV
Rom 10:1 TNIV
Rom 12:12 TNIV
Rom 15:5-6 TNIV
Rom 15:13 TNIV
Rom 15:30-33 TNIV
1 Cor 1:4-9 TNIV
1 Cor 16:23 TNIV
2 Cor 1:3-7 TNIV
2 Cor 2:14-16 TNIV
2 Cor 9:12-15 TNIV
2 Cor 12:7-9a TNIV
2 Cor 13:7-9 TNIV
Gal 6:18 TNIV
Eph 1:3ff TNIV
Eph 1:15-23 TNIV
Eph 3:14-21 TNIV
Eph 6:19-20 TNIV
Phil 1:3-6 TNIV
Phil 1:9-11 TNIV
Phil 4:6-7 TNIV
Phil 4:23 TNIV
Col 1:3-14 TNIV
Col 4:2-4 TNIV
1 Thess 1:2-3 TNIV
1 Thess 2:13-16 TNIV
1 Thess 3:9-13 TNIV
1 Thess 5:23-24 TNIV
1 Thess 5:28 TNIV
2 Thess 1:3ff TNIV
2 Thess 1:11-12 TNIV
2 Thess 2:16-17 TNIV
2 Thess 3:2-5 TNIV
2 Thess 3:16 TNIV
1 Tim 1:12 TNIV
1 Tim 2:1ff TNIV
2 Tim 1:3-7 TNIV
2 Tim 1:16-18 TNIV
2 Tim 4:22 TNIV
Titus 3:15b TNIV
Philemon 1:4-7 TNIV
Philemon 1:25 TNIV

Rom 1:8-10
Rom 10:1
Rom 12:12
Rom 15:5-6
Rom 15:13
Rom 15:30-33
1 Cor 1:4-9
1 Cor 16:23
2 Cor 1:3-7
2 Cor 2:14-16
2 Cor 9:12-15
2 Cor 12:7-9a
2 Cor 13:7-9
Gal 6:18
Eph 1:3ff
Eph 1:15-23
Eph 3:14-21
Eph 6:19-20
Phil 1:3-6
Phil 1:9-11
Phil 4:6-7
Phil 4:23
Col 1:3-14
Col 4:2-4
1 Thess 1:2-3
1 Thess 2:13-16
1 Thess 3:9-13
1 Thess 5:23-24
1 Thess 5:28
2 Thess 1:3ff
2 Thess 1:11-12
2 Thess 2:16-17
2 Thess 3:2-5
2 Thess 3:16
1 Tim 1:12
1 Tim 2:1ff
2 Tim 1:3-7
2 Tim 1:16-18
2 Tim 4:22
Titus 3:15b
Philemon 1:4-7
Philemon 1:25

‘The Word Does the Work’
David Platt discusses how he raises the bar for biblical understanding and practice.
Interview by Collin Hansen at Christianity Today

I’m not familiar with David Platt but this interview is very interesting.

We have severely dumbed down the Word, and shown a lack of trust in the sufficiency of the Word in the way we preach. We find it necessary to supplement it with entertaining stories and quips or good practical advice for living the Christian life that are not based in the Word. This deficiency transfers into people content with a little ‘Word for the Day,’ in a devotional book at best, as opposed to deep knowledge of Scripture.

From the book Things Unseen by Mark Buchanan:

Few things have the power to fashion in us utter trust in God and deep conformity to the character of Jesus Christ like suffering does. Few things build our faith and refine our faith like it does. What others intend for evil, God uses for good. He takes trials of many kinds and from them makes possible in us the heart of His Son. And to become like Christ is our everlasting destiny. Thus, such trials achieve for us an eternal glory that far outweighs all else.

Genesis 50:20
You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.

2 Corinthians 4:17
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

When Jesus asked that the cup (of wrath) be taken from Him, God answered no (Mark 14:35-36). When Paul asked for the thorn to be taken from his side, God answered no (2 Cor. 12:7-9).

But there are more in the life of Paul that I wasn’t aware of or had forgotten.

Romans 15:31 NIV
Pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there,

Acts 28:17 NIV
Three days later he called together the leaders of the Jews. When they had assembled, Paul said to them: “My brothers, although I have done nothing against our people or against the customs of our ancestors, I was arrested in Jerusalem and handed over to the Romans.

Paul also desired to go to Spain. As far as we know, he never got there.

Did they not have enough faith? Were they not “tithing”? Was there sin in their life? Were they not using the right formula? These are more often than not ridiculous questions to ask.

According to D.A. Carson in A Call to Spiritual Reformation, Priorities from Paul and His Prayers:

Suppose, for argument’s sake, that every time we asked God for anything and ended our prayers with some appropriate formula, such as ‘in Jesus’ name,’ we immediately received what we asked for. …

[T]his is not true religion. This is magic, not worship; it is another power trip, not hearty submission to the lordship of Christ. It is superstition, not a personal relation with the Father God who is wise, good, and patient.

I know I’ve been quoting from him a lot lately. And I have a few more coming.

1 Peter 1:20-26
God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but he has now revealed him to you in these last days.

21Through Christ you have come to trust in God. And you have placed your faith and hope in God because he raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory.

22You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.

23For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God. 24As the Scriptures say,
“People are like grass;
their beauty is like a flower in the field.
The grass withers and the flower fades.
25But the word of the Lord remains forever.”

And that word is the Good News that was preached to you.

Photo © Jeff at Scripture Zealot

For the last few weeks, I’ve been in training, trying to limit my online time because I’m reading France’s commentary on Matthew which is about 1200 pages. I don’t want to be reading this commentary forever. I want to reduce online time to spend more time on the more important things.

Look for some posts on that. I’ve been having a great time with it.

I’ll admit this is rather ironic because I’m also doing the August Experiment at the same time. I did have many of the posts already started or written though beforehand. But it does still take time.

So anyway today I found some Twitter tweets or whatever they’re called and thought it was pretty funny. Wait till you see the last one.

————–
Slept in some this morning. Xxxxxx’s making pancakes for breakfast.
about 23 hours ago from web

Watching ‘Wyatt Earp’ on tv. ‘Tombstone’ was better.
about 23 hours ago from web

XXXXX’s home from work finally!
3:29 PM Aug 7th from web

I woke up this morning and found that cricket dead on the floor. Sometimes I like that we have a cat.
7:17 AM Aug 7th from web

The apartment had my package all this time (almost a month) and never told me. Boo apartment life!
4:19 PM Aug 6th from web

Wish there was more time in the day. I’d love to get more done.
8:14 PM Aug 5th from web
————
Hmmm. I wonder how they could save time and get more done?

Related post:

• The Benefits of Twitter

Matt at Broadcast Depth received a random copy of a book from Westminster John Knox that came with a couple other books from Abingdon Press.

He is giving away Exodus from the Interpretation Bible Studies series and written by James D. Newsome. Here are the ways to win this contest:

1. Write your own blog post promoting the giveaway and provide me with the link.
2. Comment on this post and tell why you want this book.
3. Tweet “Win a free copy of Exodus (Interpretation Bible Studies) by James Newsome http://tinyurl.com/l33qcs” and let me know your twitter user name.

I’ve been having a difficult time the last few days and especially today. I like this post that I put on another blog and thought I’d post it here.

I sense that people often feel a need to be right and one way to exercise this is to give advice to those who are suffering so that they can fix them. Then if they get better they can feel good about how they were right. Two problems with this is that it makes the sufferer feel like they are seen as not as smart as those who don’t suffer as much because much of the “advice” is already known by the sufferer and in fact the sufferer usually knows much more about the subject than the person giving the advice! People don’t always suffer because of lack of knowledge.  It also shows that we can forget that although we can help each other, God is ultimately the who heals, who decides a person’s fate and who is always right.

From Still Higher For His Highest by Oswald Chambers
January 20

Temperamental-the way a man looks at life. My temperament is an inner disposition which influences my thoughts and actions to a certain extent, i.e., I am either pessimistic or optimistic according to the way my blood circulates. It is an insult to take the temperamental line in dealing with human beings-”Cheer up, look on the bright side”; there are some types of suffering before which the only thing you can do is to keep your mouth shut. There are times when a man needs to be handled by God, not by his fellow men, and part of the gift of a man’s wisdom is to know how to be reverent with what he does not understand.

Job 2:13
Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

I think Oswald Chambers had a good knowledge of what I call “real psychology” as opposed to our typical psycho-babble. (That’s not the main topic of his devotionals though.) D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones is another one who was ahead of his time in this regard.

Peter at Beauty of the Bible laments the fact that he went to a Christian book store and didn’t find any commentary on the Old Testament. Peter says, “I think this is evidence of the sad state of Christianity’s understanding and interest in the Old Testament. Unfortunately, Christians will never understand the New Testament as well as they want or need to without understanding the Old Testament.”

I always think of Romans 15:4 regarding how important Paul thought the OT is.

Romans 15:2-4
We should help others do what is right and build them up in the Lord. 3For even Christ didn’t live to please himself. As the Scriptures say, “The insults of those who insult you, O God, have fallen on me.” 4Such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us. And the Scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled.

Obviously Paul was talking about what we call the Old Testament. Even the Gospels most likely weren’t written until after Romans. There’s no way we can know what he’s talking about or receive teaching, hope and encouragement from them if we don’t know the OT. If the OT wasn’t useful, it wouldn’t have been quoted so much by Jesus and the inspired NT writers.

Related post:

• Old Testament Education

• Baker Book House informs us that “Scot McKnight and fellow blogger RJS have started a series of posts at JesusCreed.org on the book with Walton interacting from time to time.” This book has made quite a splash and having a series with the author participating is a bonus.
  Genesis One 1 (first in a series)
• I asked about the state of evangelicalism in a previous post on this blog. Phil Johnson wrote an interesting post where he writes from a perspective that’s similar to mine. He says, “Evangelicalism regularly comes under attack from all sides, and let’s face it: a lot of the criticism leveled against evangelicals is well deserved. Although I hold firmly to historic evangelical doctrine, I thoroughly despise what the contemporary evangelical movement has become.” This perspective helps me understand why I would have to say that I am an Evangelical by definition but I don’t really like being identified as an Evangelical because of what the movement has become.
  Whither Evangelicalism?
• Creation Points to God’s Greatness and Beauty – Photographs collected on Randy Alcorn’s blog
• Relevance of the TNIV:

HT: Aberration blog

prognosticism – forecasting of the probable course and outcome of a disease through the acquisition of heretical esoteric knowledge

This is an old one, but I thought I’d mention it again for those who are interested in this stuff.

For some it makes no sense and doesn’t help at all. For others like me it really helps in understanding a passage although I’m sure it’s much more beneficial to look at one you’ve worked on yourself than one that someone else has done.

Phrasing of 1 Corinthians 1:17-31, 2:1-5 (PDF Document)

I’ve asked this in the past, but if anyone knows of any examples they know of out there, I’d love to see them.

Since so many people use feed readers, does it really matter all that much what a blog looks like anymore? Do people ever find the other links? People may come to the blog from search engines or to comment and might see things there but most people who read don’t comment.

I spent a ton of time modifying the CSS markup of the WordPress theme I use here to suite my tastes and I hope make it appealing and readable to visitors.

But I wonder if it will ever be worthwhile to do this again.

Right now this theme is very appealing to me but I’d want to add a little color and reduce some wasted space.

What do you think?

[T]he Bible [is not] like a jigsaw puzzle that guarantees all the pieces have been provided. It is rather more like a jigsaw puzzle whose Maker has guaranteed that all the pieces he has provided belong to the same puzzle, even though for various good reasons he has not given us all of them. ‘The secret things belong to the LORD,’ Moses tells us, ‘but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever’ (Deut. 29:29 NIV). That means that we will always have gaps as we construct the puzzle; it means that clumsy players will try to force some pieces into slots where they do not belong and may be tempted to leave some pieces out because they cannot see where they fit in.

–D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, Priorities from Paul and His Prayers

Psalm 139:6 TNIV
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

I found this tucked into an interview with Randy Alcorn on suffering and evil.

How Could A Good God Allow Suffering and Evil? (PDF Document)
A Biblical Approach To The Logical And Emotional Problems Of Evil
by Andrew David Naselli

One of my favorite parts is:

You shouldn’t say certain things to people who are suffering.
The first eight are from Feinberg, who shares what is inappropriate to say.

1. Don‘t say, “There must be some great sin you‘ve committed; otherwise this wouldn‘t be happening to you.”
2. “Another mistake is to focus on the loss of things rather than the loss of people.”
3. “Sometimes people try to comfort us by convincing us that what has happened spares us from other problems.” “Insensitive speculations about the future” are not helpful.
4. Don‘t say, “Well, everyone‘s going to die from something. You just know in advance what it is in your wife‘s case.” That‘s comfort?
5. “As we fumble for something to say that will comfort our friend or loved one, somehow it seems appropriate to say, “I know how you must feel at a time like this.” Through my experiences, I have learned how unhelpful this comment can be. One problem is that it isn‘t true, and the sufferer knows it. Hence, it sounds phony when you say it. . . . What helps is not knowing you feel like I do but knowing that you care!”
6. “My friend replied that I was too focused on various models of God and that I needed to recognize that God is bigger than all those conceptions [of God].” This “treats what is fundamentally an emotional problem as if it were an intellectual problem.”
7. Don‘t say, “When things like this happen, aren‘t you glad you‘re a Calvinist? Isn‘t it great to know that God is ultimately in control of it all, and he‘s already planned the way out of your problem?” “I am a Calvinist, and I found that comment distressing, not helpful.”
8. Don‘t say, “You aren‘t spiritually mature until you‘re happy about this.” Feinberg heard an interview on Moody radio of a couple that had just lost their daughter in an auto-accident: “They concluded that even though the loss of their daughter was hard, it was all for the best. I heard that and felt more guilt. It seemed the height of Christian maturity to take life‘s harshest blows and say that it was good that this had happened. If that was what it meant to be victorious in the midst of affliction, I knew I was far from that. I couldn‘t rejoice over the evil that had befallen and would befall my family. But I thought I was supposed to, so my sense of inadequacy increased.”

In addition to Feinberg:

9. Don‘t glibly quote Romans 8:28. Not helpful!
10. “Many verbal expressions of encouragement should not be based on the assumption that they must answer an implicit ‘Why?‘ Not everyone asks that question.”

See the document for things you can do.

The Biblioblog Top 50′s tagline is “The very best in biblical studies blogs“.

On the Technical Bits page it states,

A blog is included in the rankings if it contains substantial content related to biblical studies or closely related fields, evidences a scholarly approach to biblical studies (not requiring academic qualifications, but excluding blogs with mainly homiletic or devotional content, unscholarly approaches, or a primarily theological focus), and is currently active and posting.

First of all I’m not exactly sure what the difference is between “substantial content related to biblical studies” and “primarily theological focus” other than the former is directly related to the Bible. I’m not sure how one can get theological without the Bible though.

I’m not sure how Challies.com is less of a biblioblog than someone like Ben Witherington or Dr Jim West. The whole thing is rather confusing. Dr Jim West should be thankful for the criteria they use for ranking. And me too for that matter only because it helps bring more commenters here that I can learn from.

I’m glad this blog is considered a biblioblog although I’m not sure how scholarly it is.

In any case The Biblioblog Top 50 (and beyond) is a great place to go to find all sorts of Christian blogs.

What do you think?

Please stop commenting on Bible translations!

Many can obviously see this isn’t your area of expertise.

Thank you,
Jeff at Scripture Zealot

Barack Obama and the TNIV by John Piper

ESV onlyism and Sproul at Suzanne’s Bookshelf

Edit March 5, 2011: I now believe open letters are kind of dumb. I was going to remove the post–one reason being there’s a 99.9% chance they won’t even see this. But with all the comments, I think I’ll leave it. It still stands because they keep making blunders.