At least two other bloggers mentioned this but I thought I would post it anyway for anyone new who isn’t knowledgeable about TBN. I saw the other posts after I had written this.

From a blog post called Unholy Trinity.

John MacArthur talks about watching TBN on TV. I thought this quote was pretty funny.

Recently, however, while recovering from knee-replacement surgery, I decided to sample some of the current fare on TBN. From a therapeutic point of view it seemed a good choice: something more excruciating than the pain in my leg might distract me from the physical suffering of post-surgical trauma. And I suppose on that basis the strategy was effective.

“For many years TBN has been dominated by faith-healers, full-time fund-raisers, and self-proclaimed prophets spewing heresy.”

I have often heard “The Gospel is preached more loudly by actions rather than words.” What actions would these be? What Scripture supports this?

Isaiah 28:21-22 HCSB
For the LORD will rise up as He did at Mount Perazim. He will rise in wrath, as at the valley of Gibeon, to do His work, His strange work, and to perform His task, His disturbing task. 22 So now, do not mock, or your shackles will become stronger. Indeed, I have heard from the Lord God of Hosts a decree of destruction for the whole land.

Not something you’ll find on a plaque.

The Lord does strange and disturbing things. I actually find this comforting. God let’s us know that He realizes that things that are normal to Him seem strange to us. And we can know that this in fact is how God sometimes operates.

Louis points out one of the Advent passages and I thought I would post it in the REB:

Zephaniah 3:14-20 REB
Zion, cry out for joy;
raise the shout of triumph, Israel;
be glad, rejoice with all your heart,
daughter of Jerusalem!
The Lord has averted your punishment,
he has swept away your foes.
Israel, the Lord is among you as king;
never again need
you fear disaster.

On that day this must be the message to Jerusalem:
Fear not, Zion, let not your hands hang limp.
The Lord your God is in your midst,
a warrior who will keep you safe.
He will rejoice over you and be glad;
he will show you his love once more;
he will exult over you with a shout of joy
as on a festal day.

I shall take away your cries of woe
and you will no longer endure reproach.
When that time comes;
I shall deal with all who oppress you;
I shall rescue the lost and gather the dispersed.
I shall win for my people praise and renown
throughout the whole world.
When that time comes I shall gather you
and bring you home. I shall win you renown and praise
among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes before your eyes.
It is the Lord who speaks.

What I need encouragement for is how useful learning beginning Greek will be.

I’ve gotten to like learning it somehow and I’ve even gotten interested in how the language works, which is highly unusual for me. I hated learning Spanish. I’m not a nerd like many of you. I do have a feeling that God is leading me along this path and that it will be ‘profitable’ but I still have doubts.

But when I read posts like this I think about how paltry my learning will be and how much I’ll be able to read, understand and benefit from after going through Black’s beginning book (which I’m a little more than half-way through) plus a very basic linguistics book (probably also by Black) and maybe just a little of something else. I really don’t want to spend much more time than that on the language. There is so much other stuff I want to read and learn.

I’m normally somebody who goes all out with whatever I do. I can’t just do something as a light ‘hobby’ or it isn’t as much fun. I know I’m free to learn as much as I want. But like I said, I just don’t want to spend that much time on it.

Any words of encouragement for me and anyone else in the same situation?

When I saw that Dave Black commented on a post by TC Robinson–a blogging friend–I wondered if he reads this blog. So today I saw this:

6:30 PM Jeff asks:

Why are the new gifts always dorky and the Bible gifts useful for the church?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know that one of my spiritual gifts is eating, and that Bec is calling me to the table right now.

He’s referring to Newly Discovered Gifts.

I started reading his site recently and I’m honored that the author of the Greek book I’m studying is reading mine. I will be reviewing his basic grammar book soon, hopefully by next week.

Now is a time when people think about Bible reading and devotional reading for the next year.

Although I’ll be reading through the Old Testament using NLT’s 24/7, I’m extremely interested in Professor Grant Horner’s Bible Reading System which Nathan W. Bingham wrote about. I’d like to use that system in 2011. There is a link on Nathan’s site to a Scribd document of the system. However I found him on Facebook and found this link to a PDF file which you can download. Nathan’s site has bookmark images in Photoshop format if you want to use those for any reason.

Does anyone use this system?

For devotionals, there are a lot of hokey ones out there that aren’t much worth reading, especially if you want to learn something specifically about Scripture each day. Tim Challies has a Daily Devotional Roundup which includes a lot of good ones.

From something Joel mentioned at the Church of Jesus Christ–Holy Spirit works healing miracles, charismatic Christians say

I found out about some new “gifts”.

They practiced the New Testament “gifts of the spirit” — healing, prophecy, speaking in tongues — and discovered new ones — “holy laughter,” for example, or teeth suddenly turned gold.

Why are the new gifts always dorky and the Bible gifts useful for the church?

A few nights ago we had a power outage. It was one of those things where heavy snow was sticking to everything and starting to turn to ice. I had a feeling it would be a long one.

It happened at the time of night that I usually read. This is where the personal media player comes in. I’m not afraid to say I’m very thankful for material things like my Cowon D2, especially in times like these. I have some articles, books, and Ephesians and Colossians on it. (I need to get more of the Bible on it.) Though it only has a 2 inch screen, that’s plenty for me to be able to read on it.

I read through Ephesians 1 and am always amazed at how dense this is. I’m awed and thankful after reading every sentence. How amazing God is, what He’s done for us and that He chose us before the beginning of time even though we don’t deserve anything. I read this in the HSCB and NLT. What a great combination of translations these are.

Then I read Colossians 1:1-20 in the NLT and GNB. I put the latter on there just for something different. John Piper did a sermon on 15-20 and suggested memorizing it so I did (in addition to vv. 9-14) and it’s been one of my favorite passages ever since. I noticed that the GNB is similar to the NRSV here interestingly enough.

After reading an article about the gospel by D.A. Carson and looking at some of my favorite pictures I was too tired to listen to a sermon and called it a night. Nothing like a power outage to make you slow down and meditate.

Exodus 15:3
“The Lord is a warrior; Yahweh is his name.”

Books:

• Best Biblical/Theological Books of 2009 at Biblical Foundations » Blog by Andreas Köstenberger
• My Top 9 Books of ‘09 at Challies.com
• Christian Book Previews.com – a site I just found today

I’d like to do a separate post listing all of the favorite books of 2009 posts. If you’ve done any or come across any please let me know.

Stan put together some brief quotes on why R.C. Sproul isn’t signing the Manhattan Declaration if you’re interested but don’t want to read the whole thing:
Why didn’t my pastor (R.C. Sproul) sign the Manhattan Declaration? at just after sunrise
And you can read why five of them wouldn’t sign.

Here is an interesting post and comments by Dr. Jim West that I like which is a little out of the norm and is about something he’s been interested in for over 20 years:
That’s Not Quite Correct, Ken

HT: Ancient Hebrew Poetry

Come and see it at:
http://www.scripturezealot.com/sufferingchristians/

This is the latest to move from the dreaded Blogspot to WordPress.

I’m not sure how people will like the dark theme. The base theme worked really well and I modified it quite a bit by adding a logo, the orange thing at the top, lighter post box color tinted orange, smaller post headers and a few other things.

I like dark colors because they’re easier on my eyes and seem to match my mood in a sense. Others might think it looks gloomy. Let me know what you think. I tried a bunch of themes and almost all had a problem or two.

If you’re interested in the site, be sure to see the About page and read about how the categories work. This can be useful if you need material for other people you know.

I’m sick today on my birthday weekend. I don’t usually mention it’s my birthday because I’m not much for them and don’t really like all the ‘Happy Birthdays’ and attention on me other than my family. But I’m really disappointed and down about being sick at this time in addition to feeling miserable.

My wife always does her best to make me feel good on my birthday which is really nice so I do have that.

I wanted to go back and read my post on birthdays from a year ago so I thought I would repost it here.

——————

For most of my adult life I’ve hated it when my birthday comes around. Suffering from mental health ailments which also have physical effects have made life difficult. In addition, my back has developed degenerative conditions over the last few years. I’ve had to give up quite a few things, many of which are various forms of exercise I’ve been so serious about since middle school years. (I still do what little exercise I can.)

There are a few reasons I don’t like my birthdays, the main one being that I (used to) wish I hadn’t been born. Life is too difficult and this world is fraught with evil and suffering. I seem to see the world through darkly colored glasses.

Last year at this time I was starting to feel “the dread” because I always get more depressed as it gets closer.

At that time I was going through 2 Corinthians and was looking closely at 4:17 which I’m familiar with in the NIV:

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

But looking at the verse in other translations gave me a fresh perspective:

2 Corinthians 4:17 NASB
For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,

2 Corinthians 4:17 NRSV
For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure,

If I were to say that the glory in heaven will be 900 trillion tons and our suffering here, as bad as it can be (and I know mine is much less than many), is like one tenth of a gram, that wouldn’t show enough of a difference because that isn’t “beyond all measure.”

So last year God was teaching me to hope for heaven—when we are clothed with our heavenly bodies (1 Corinthians 15:53-54 {put cursor over Scripture reference}) and dwell in the new heaven and the new earth (2 Peter 3:13)—and have faith that when that time comes around, it will have been more than worth it and I will be very glad that I was born so that I could be with God forever seeing Him face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12).

It doesn’t make this life much easier but I need to ask God to give me the grace to have faith that it will be as He says it will be (2 Corinthians 1:20-22) and experience the hope for heaven in this life.

This year God is teaching me that it is His will for me to have been born and to live for Him. In the past, I knew it was His will for me to stay alive. Not to be morbid but what I mean is not to kill myself. That isn’t for me to decide, as much as I wanted to at some points in the past. But now, more than that, He’s teaching me that it’s His will for me to have been born in the first place (Psalm 139:16). And it is His will for me to be born again (John 1:13).

I’ve come to embrace this with joy, even if I don’t usually feel happy. And I’m certain that without suffering God wouldn’t have matured me spiritually as He has so far.

I’m taking a big risk in writing this personal information. Spurgeon and Luther were candid so why shouldn’t I be? I’m certain many of my blogging friends are or were in a place of similar or greater suffering. Some aren’t able to disclose for many reasons.

I’m not writing this for sympathy because I feel like I’ve had the opportunity to grow more than most and as worldly things have fallen away, my zeal for God and getting to know Him through Scripture has increased exponentially.

God works through suffering and I thought I’d write briefly about it here. It’s definitely a subject of interest for me. (I almost wrote that it’s one of my favorite subjects. That’s not quite the right way of putting it!)

I don’t like “Happy Birthdays” but if you’d like to give me a present (other than a book of course*) nothing would be better than praying that God would continue to teach me about Himself (Ephesians 1:17) and to find more and more joy in this (Romans 15:13).

My prayer for anyone reading this post:

Hebrews 13:20-21
Now may the God of peace—
who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus,
the great Shepherd of the sheep,
and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood—
may he equip you with all you need
for doing his will.
May he produce in you,
through the power of Jesus Christ,
every good thing that is pleasing to him.

All glory to him forever and ever! Amen.

I hope this post isn’t too self-centered. I’d like to read it a year from now and thought it might be of benefit to someone else out there.

*I usually hate asking for things but it seems customary for bibliobloggers to make shameless requests for material goods when their birthday comes around, or whenever they feel greedy. (I eschew smilies.) So I thought I’d throw that in there. But really, prayer would bless me the most and be the best present I could get. And don’t feel like you need to comment. E-mail me with any prayer requests you have. I like praying for others.

Warning: this post meanders a bit, as do many of them here.

Michael Horton shares concerns of mine but speaks of them much better and with more authority than me. I know many will disagree of course but I thought I would post these.

An Interview with Dr. Michael Horton (pt. 3)

What’s one of greatest doctrinal threats facing the church today, doctrinally speaking?
I really do believe we are facing the same doctrinal crises that the Reformers faced, only in some respects it’s worse because Rome never questioned the authority of Scripture or the inerrancy of Scripture. Both are widely disputed in Protestantism generally, and increasingly in evangelicalism particularly. If we lose the authority of Scripture and the sufficiency of Scripture, then what’s the point? There would be no point in trying to understand what we believe and why we believe it–no point in even talking about a Gospel because there would be no authority for this Gospel.
…

Religious pluralism has not only made us more aware of other beliefs, which is good, so that we’re explicit about what we believe and why, it has made us more vulnerable to the belief that religion is really about morality. It’s about being nice. It’s about being good. It’s about loving each other. It’s not really about the intervention of God in human history, assuming our flesh, dying on the cross, and being raised the third day for our justification, His return in judgment, and a real Heaven and a real Hell. To the extent that we’ve already turned religion into morality–something we do rather than something that God has done for us–to that extent, religious pluralism will mean, not only that there are lots of people of different religions we must respect and to whom we have to witness, but rather that there are all of these wonderful people who have their sources of morality just as we do, and we need to realize that there are different paths to God. Increasingly that’s where we’re going with a lot of pastors, telling believers that Jesus is the best way of pursuing community and self-sacrifice, but not the One who was sacrificed for our sins and raised for our justification.

What’s the greatest ecclesiastical threat facing the church today?
No one has to be convinced that evangelicalism has about the lowest ecclesiology since the Quakers. It is an ecclesiology based on the individual’s decision for Christ, rather than God, from eternity past, making a blueprint for the church and executing it in His Son by His Spirit. And so it’s easy if the church is just sort of created by a collection of deciders and choosers, to turn the church into a market, into a shopping mall of consumers.

Another issue I’ve been thinking about that lessens the authority of Scripture is that many people say Scripture doesn’t speak about itself very much. Concerning the Old Testament, what about Joshua 1:8, Psalm 19:7-11, Psalm 119, 2 Timothy 3:15-17, 2 Peter 3:16 (possibly even the NT in the latter)? If you have other references for Scripture referring to itself please let me know.

In addition, Jesus, the living Word, talks about what he himself inspired as authoritative many times in the Gospels, and those Scriptures point back to himself. I would think that’s evidence of validity even more than “Scripture talking about itself”. If any of it was errant or was just people writing about what they knew about at the time and wasn’t correct, I wish Jesus would have told us which parts of the Scriptures might be subject.

Matthew 21:42 HCSB Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This came from the Lord and is wonderful in our eyes?

Matthew 22:29 HCSB Jesus answered them, “You are deceived, because you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God.

Matthew 26:54 HCSB How, then, would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way?”

Matthew 26:56 HCSB But all this has happened so that the prophetic Scriptures would be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples deserted Him and ran away.

Mark 12:24 HCSB Jesus told them, “Are you not deceived because you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God?

Mark 14:49 HCSB Every day I was among you, teaching in the temple complex, and you didn’t arrest Me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.”

Luke 24:27 HCSB Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted for them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.

Luke 24:32 HCSB So they said to each other, “Weren’t our hearts ablaze within us while He was talking with us on the road and explaining the Scriptures to us?”

Luke 24:45 HCSB Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.

John 5:39 HCSB You pore over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, yet they testify about Me.

John 7:15 HCSB Then the Jews were amazed and said, “How does He know the Scriptures, since He hasn’t been trained?”

I realize some people have various views on these things that are either semantics or things that are very close, as in the truthfulness of Scripture vs the term of inerrancy. I’ve looked at both or more than one side of all of these things and I’m certain of what I believe but I’m not a good apologist so I can’t say I’m up for debate with my friends and acquaintances here. If there happens to be debate I think I would rather read others than get into it myself. I just want to point out some of the things I believe and post some material I appreciated and hope you are edified by them. Thanks for reading.

I feel a need to say that I don’t idolize the Bible though I hold it in very high esteem. That seems to be brought up on blogs a lot lately. I worship and learn about God through it.

Another interesting post:
Calvinism, Assurance, and Inerrancy

I always hesitate with these kinds of posts because I don’t think anyone should care what I’m up to, but then I like hearing about what others are up to and many of you are my blogging friends.

I’ve been spending a little less time on the Internet and a little more time reading. I’ve also been spending less time blogging. I can imagine how boring my posts are lately. Although if Dr. Jim West liked me then he’s probably mention me and make fun of me and stuff because he’s so mean. Sometimes I think of things I want to write about, like (soft) complementarianism from my point of view, but I know it would be controversial (the subject, not really what I have to say) and that’s too stressful for me.

One thing I used to do a lot of is insert Scripture into a quote, like Calvin on Prayer. That’s always a good exercise.

I also have a few things that I’ve been meaning to put up like some differences in translation in 1 Peter 1 that are really interesting.

Right now I’m halfway through Black’s Greek grammar and I’m spending a lot of time reviewing verbs and other grammar. I think verbs could have been handled a little differently. The chart in the middle of the book is great but he never tells you about it earlier in the book. I’m going to read Mounce’s take on learning them at the end of his book.

I really want to get through Carson’s commentary on John before Christmas. That’s been great. After I read commentaries on Luke and Acts I will have read one commentary for each book of the NT. So I will be ready to answer all your questions.

I’m really looking forward to reading the Old Testament next year. I almost started early. I may read it faster than scheduled. We’ll see.

So for now I may still just be posting some quotes, links, pictures and whatever and making trouble on all of your blogs as usual.

Proverbs 27:17 NRSV
Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another.

Here is a post I previously wrote on Proverbs 27:17. I will say that when I said, “This doesn’t sit well with me” is a very invalid way to judge an interpretation of Scripture. But I think my conscience was telling me something so I looked into it and posted on what I found with the tools I have.

Here is a much better post dealing with it from the original language and various interpretations from other scholars at Ancient Hebrew Poetry. If some parts are too heady, skim them and you can still get a good idea of various interpretations.

While I don’t think that declarations and treaties accomplish much of anything, here is one that is interesting and contains a response to the Manhattan Declaration within it:
The Providence Treatise

I’ve been interviewed by Shaun Tabatt at Bible Geek Gone Wild. Please read it quickly so that I can get the attention off of me. It’s very itchy.

Thanks for choosing me Shaun.