It’s nice to know that in the sports world there are more verses in the Bible than just John 3:16 and Philippians 4:13. Yesterday Tim Tebow put the reference for Hebrews 12:1-2 on his eye black.

Hebrews 12:1-2 HCSB
Therefore since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of God’s throne.

I saw highlights of the game and it could be clearly seen.

The most popular college football player has started a trend in sporting a different verse or passage for each game. I think this is a great way to get the word out. See ‘Tim Tebow’s selected Bible verses’ slide show down the page a bit.

I hope this will help more people take a look at the Bible.

(AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain)

I’m considering these:

• The Book of Acts (New International Commentary on the New Testament) by F.F. Bruce
• The Acts of the Apostles (Pillar New Testament Commentary) by David G. Peterson
• Acts (The NIV Application Commentary) by Ajith Fernando

F.F. Bruce is tried and true. The Peterson is new and I’m having a hard time getting a feel for it from the reviews. I like the series having commentaries on John, Ephesians, James and the epistles of John. I have one NIVAC that I don’t really like but the one on Revelation by Keener is fantastic. The one on Acts is actually longer than the one by F.F. Bruce which is a good thing. The commentary by Fernando might give more of a non-Western perspective too. I can only afford one.

Any comments?

If you haven’t seen them, there are some great Bibledex Videos that Matthew at Cryptotheology is involved with. They are done by the theology department at the University of Nottingham which includes Anthony Thiselton. You can find the first post on it here. You’ll learn things you didn’t know.

I’m thankful for the love of God towards a sinful world and towards me. I always knew he was there, but I didn’t truly seek him. But God sought me, even though I clearly don’t deserve it, and spoke to me when I read through the book of John which someone challenged me to do. He presented the gospel to me in the Bible and opened my eyes so that I could suddenly understand what the liturgy of the Lutheran church meant, giving me confidence that it was him who did this. I would have accepted the gospel at any time in my life but God chose the time so that I can’t say I’m saved because of my decision. I was too arrogant for him to let that happen.

I’m thankful that God did the same for my wife and brought us together and has increased our love in spite of difficulties and that we can spend a Thanksgiving truly loving each other.

I pray that everyone in the U.S. has a nice Thanksgiving whether you have family or are alone, happy or suffering.

“Man of Sorrows!” what a name
For the Son of God, who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood;
Sealed my pardon with His blood.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Guilty, vile, and helpless we;
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
“Full atonement!” can it be?
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Lifted up was He to die;
“It is finished!” was His cry;
Now in Heav’n exalted high.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

When He comes, our glorious King,
All His ransomed home to bring,
Then anew His song we’ll sing:
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Philip P. Bliss

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

• There is a new Firefox extension for reading RSS and Twitter feeds called Feedly. It’s a beta release so use with caution. I think this is one to watch for those who use Firefox.
• Thunderbird 3 RC 1 is now out. This is an almost ready release of the next version of the Mozilla email program. I haven’t seen Lightning (Calendar) in this yet. See the Release Notes. Not many Add-ons are usable yet.
• Amazon is offering $3 in MP3s until November 30.
• Here are more people who aren’t in favor of The Manhattan Declaration including links to John MacArthur, James White and Frank Turk. I’m not sure why I’m spending time posting on it at all.

I found a blog called Scripture in Pictures. From the About page:

“Scripture in Pictures” is an inspirational devotional blog. The concept is simple – a verse or set of verses, and a picture that speaks of that verse. We pray that they might inspire you, or that you will find a use for them in your personal materials – please feel free to use them in your own blogs, presentations or in publications such as church bulletins or messages. We would love to hear about where you have used the images.

Here are some posts on the Manhattan Declaration.

• The Manhattan Declaration: Is It Worth Signing?
• Manhattan Declaration
• I Respectfully Decline
• Al Mohler on Why He Signed The Manhattan Declaration

I agree with what TC said in the first link in the list, that it’s too political-like and not Gospel-like in my words.

My question is: Even if you agree with it, what does signing this document accomplish? Will the majority of the people you know even know what this is?

This is a flower from a Christmas Cactus plant which is actually a succulent. I have them in front of a cold window and they bloom very early. They normally bloom at around Christmas, although these could be Thanksgiving Cactus (a real name) for all I know because I inherited them.

This is a flower in full bloom. As you can see they are unique. I think it’s great that God created plants that normally grow in the tropics that we can grow in our homes. I believe He had that in mind when He created them.

On another note I want to thank the people who have bought books from Amazon through my search box at the right or by clicking on books if you are reading this. I really appreciate it.

I predict that this blog will drop out of the top ten of The Biblioblog Top 50 list. I’ve been posting less and my Alexa rating is very slowly going down for the first time since July. No problem. I’ve in a been in a bit of a blogging slump but also trying to spend less time on the internet and more time reading. Plus there are a lot of finer blogs than mine to come and fill in the spot.

The Greek is going well but I forgot to review verbs for a while. That set me back while I went back and reviewed them for a few days. If you’re learning Greek on your own don’t forget the verbs.

I plan on reading the NLT Mosaic devotional starting on Nov. 29 with Advent. Is anyone with me?

I plan on reading through the OT next year (using the NLT 24/7 Chronological Bible). Is anyone with me?

I just got done reading Polishing God’s Monuments which is about suffering. It’s very good even if a little unbalanced in writing style and sometimes a bit cheesy like when an author says, “Friends…” I don’t know why that sounds weird. I’m not really his friend. A brother in Christ certainly.

Speaking of friends I’m on Facebook now and am able to keep up with some of my blogging friends.

Did you hear Sarah Palin wrote a book? Wow!!! Let’s dissect every sentence in the book and assign a motive to it. Those who love her and think she is the greatest thing since politics can talk about how great she is. Those who hate her and are afraid of her or who have SPS (Sarah Palin Syndrome) can talk about how fake and malicious she is. Can one of the antichrists be female? I suppose the egalitarians will have to say yes and the complementarians no. Or would that be the other way around… Let’s scour her book and the Bible and then use whatever bits we can to make our point!

Speaking of taking things out of context–I was wondering if the Bible didn’t have verse numbers would there be less sentences taken out of context. Maybe people would pay attention to the surrounding text better. But then I realized how the media takes things out of context all the time and really, all of us do to certain degrees when we want to defend a position or idea. So I guess it wouldn’t really matter. Never mind.

I like this succinct explanation of fearing God in Eaton’s commentary on Ecclesiastes:

The way of safety is to fear God. In the wisdom tradition the ‘fear’ of God is the awe and holy caution that arises from realization of the greatness of God: ‘Splendour… terrible… majesty… power… justice… righteousness… Therefore fear him.’ (Job 37:22-24)

–Michael A. Eaton, Ecclesiastes pp. 122-123

Ecclesiastes 8:12-13
But even though a person sins a hundred times and still lives a long time, I know that those who fear God will be better off. 13 The wicked will not prosper, for they do not fear God. Their days will never grow long like the evening shadows.

and earlier he says:

…in the Lord’s Prayer … the twin truths that God is ‘Father’ but ‘in heaven’ guard against craven fear on the one hand and flippancy on the other.

pg.99

Ecclesiastes 5:7
Talk is cheap, like daydreams and other useless activities. Fear God instead.

I like these quotes:

[T]here doesn’t seem to be anything objectionable in principle about scientific knowledge informing our interpretations of Scripture. The problem arises, however, when scientific knowledge is given ‘veto power’ over our best historical-grammatical interpretations of Scripture, forcing us to accept very contrived readings of the text.

As a follower of Christ, I don’t want to hold any lower a view of Scripture than he did. So if I’m ever faced with a choice between what Scripture appears to tell me and what science appears to tell me, I will always err on the side of Scripture in the absence of any more satisfying resolution.

You can find them in this excellent post: Scripture or Science?

Suzanne McCarthy, in her Open Letter to John Piper, mentions his famous (infamous?) video clip of a sermon where he criticizes the TNIV for not translating all the words. (There is a link to it in her post.) Today on Koinonia, William Mounce writes a post titled Words, and the Word of God—γαρ (Monday with Mounce 49) where he brings up basically the same subject.

(I like Piper when he isn’t talking about translations or tornadoes.)

One reminded me of the other so I thought I would put them together.

If you want an example of a translation that does translate the Greek word γαρ (gar) often, take a look at 1 Corinthians 1:17-31 in the ESV and you’ll find the word for used a whole lot to the point of sounding rather annoying.

Tangent:
On the word for, I wish translations would use the word because more often. Even the NLT uses the word for pretty often. In reading through John in the NLT (which was great–both the book and the translation), I realized that the NLT uses more formal language than I previously realized. They use the word for a lot where it isn’t what most of us would use in conversation. There are many scholars who write this way, some of whom were on the translation committee of the NLT (Moo and Schreiner) but I always wonder if they speak this way too.

This is probably a bad example but compare:
“I went to the store, for I needed food.”
“I went to the store because I needed food.”
Multiple sentences are needed for a good example but that gives you an idea of what I think it sounds like when for is used all the time.

But again it was great to read John for the first time in the NLT.

Comments welcome.

Does Scripture indicate that we’ll learn in Heaven? Consider Ephesians 2:6-7: “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace.” “Show” means “to reveal.” “In the coming ages” indicates this will be an ongoing revelation, in which we learn more and more about God’s grace.

–Randy Alcorn via Facebook

I had never heard of this idea before. If this is true, it’s another indication that heaven won’t be something static. Seeing God face to face for eternity will certainly be enough but to know that we have things to do and things to learn makes it all the more appealing.

Learning about God and the Bible here is fantastic by itself but to have continuing perfect revelation (that everyone agrees with!) straight from God for eternity is unfathomable.

What do you think? This interpretation seems to hinge on the plural “ages”. Certainly not of primary importance but interesting in developing the hope for heaven.

Do you have anything to gauge where you’re at spiritually? I’m talking about how willing your are to give it all up to God and how aligned you are to doing God’s will on a time line of a few weeks to a few months.

For me it’s reading Tozer’s The Pursuit of God. When I first read this short but challenging book, I just couldn’t get with the program. He’s talking about following hard after God, contentment–even with nothing, listening to and obeying God, humility etc. The second time I read it I had gone through a lot in my life and was so beaten down I was willing to give it all up. Since then I’ve wavered slightly, then got back with it, then realized I hadn’t given it up as much as I thought, found a lot more sin and had to go further to ‘get with the program’ again.

Trusting God by Jerry Bridges was a good help for me when I was afraid and needed to go farther.

On a daily basis I have indicators for if I’m angry, depressed, anxious etc. which affect my relationship with God but I’m interested to see if you have longer term indicators.

I have the prayers from the book printed out and go over those now and then which remind me of what’s written in the book. They are at the end of each chapter. I copied and pasted them from this site and printed them out.

Find out about it at Beauty of the Bible.

Update: NLT Blog