McHugh identifies three primary characteristics of introverts. First, he says, introverts are energized by solitude and drained by social interaction. (Extroverts, on the other hand, derive energy from external sources and find both inactivity and too much solitude draining.) Second, introverts tend to filter information and experiences internally; thinking generally precedes speaking. Third, introverts prefer depth over breadth in both relationships and interests. They may look calm on the surface, but their brains are “bubbling with activity”; thus, they require less external stimulation than their extroverted neighbors.

–Adam S. McHugh, author of Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture as quoted in an article on Christianity Today titled Introverts for Jesus, Unite!

Being an introvert and having chronic fatigue, social occasions are especially draining. Sometimes I want to plug my ears because of the cacophony of sound. For some reason it takes energy to speak and think when in a group of people. Most don’t understand except those who are introverts. But I know it’s good for me in small doses.

I have yet another injection tomorrow. This will be a cortisone injection for a moderately herniated disc in the lower thoracic area. This isn’t nearly as bad as the lumbar stuff but it’s uncomfortable so I’m going to see if this helps.

I’ve had so many injections of different types in my back and upper rear I feel like a human pin cushion. The multiple trips are more annoying than the injections themselves. Thank God I’m not overly afraid of needles. I can’t imagine the terror for those who are and would have to go through it this many times.

Colossians 1:11-12 NRSV
May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.

I’ve probably focused on those two verses more than any others in the last couple of years. I love the NRSV rendition.

I’m very humbled to say that as of today, approximately 6,799,500,000 people haven’t seen this blog.

Here is a post by Shaun Tabatt on libraries of some notable people. I like Albert Mohler’s and Mark Dever’s the best as far as the libraries go. Pretty incredible.

Here is a video of a library that made the rounds at least a couple of times in the past that I like a lot.

I can’t figure out why the Church Connection blog by Louis McBride isn’t more popular. He regularly post about good books and subjects of interest. He’s very well read and is a mature Christian that I always learn from.

Fighter Verses is a blog I found related to Scripture memory. I can’t tell you how valuable Scripture memory has been for me.

Coming up will be reviews of The Prayer of the Lord and How to Enjoy Your Bible.

I may write general thoughts on Genesis as I read through it recently but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. Unfortunately some parts of the Bible can’t be written about without rancor ensuing.

T.C. wondered why I removed my Blogroll without saying anything. I in fact did say something buried in this post.

I’ve eliminated my Blogroll because I’m going to be reading less blogs and I don’t want to feel like I’m an Endorser of blogs or anything. This also takes stress off of deciding what to add or remove.

Read the rest of the post for more perspective.

I’m only writing this to be polite and offer an explanation. I didn’t do it spur of the moment, out of frustration or anything else like that. I certainly didn’t do it for drama or attention–I hate that. T.C. mentioned me with that Dr. guy which was strange for me we’re cool now. I know it was light hearted anyway.

If I had to offer more explanation it’s because while I love all the people in my Blogroll, I didn’t agree with all of them on basic doctrine and don’t feel some are models of what I would want newbies to see.

I realize the advantages of a Blogroll:

• Others finding good blogs
• Others knowing what kind of blogs I like, getting a feel for what my theology is (part of the problem)
• Providing a link to other people’s blog which is helpful for them because Google likes that
• Reciprocity for those who link to mine

I apologize for taking away some of those benefits.

I saved the links in case the widget got erased and I change my mind in the future.

I could offer a page of all the links I know of whether I agree or not but that’s too much work. I’m trying to spend less time on the internet and that’s part of the reason I originally was going to reduce the Blogroll because I’m not reading all of them (but still the vast majority).

I could offer my top five or ten but that would cause the stress again.

So that’s the explanation. Sorry for the off topic post. I could have offered more drama but that’s what I’m avoiding. That previous post is about as far as I’ll go for now.

Hopefully there is something for everyone and you haven’t already seen all of them.

Dave Black tells us of some Greek resources for his students. Since I’m studying his book I’m one of his students, right?

Ben Witherington has some fantastic photos he took of an archaeological find of Ephesian houses.

Ten Technologies That Will Rock 2010
I apologize for the use of the word ‘rock’ in this way. Hopefully by the end of the decade it will have fallen out of use. We’ll see which of these technologies rock our world and which ones are whack.

In case you’re wondering, Tim Tebow chose Ephesians 2:8-10 as a Bible passage reference to wear on his eye black for the Sugar Bowl.

This post was written partly to bring in search engine traffic. If you’re visiting, please take a look around.

Also see:
Ephesians 2:8-10: Tebow’s Chosen Bible Passage for Sugar Bowl

I’m looking for Christian related documentaries that are pro-Christian and not the PBS/Discovery Channel stuff that denies God created stuff. Things like archeology, culture, Dead Sea Scrolls, anything about the Bible etc.

I pray that everyone who reads this post will have a good time celebrating Christmas and be safe and know that you’re in God’s care whatever may happen. I hope we can all ponder Jesus during this busy time.

For those who are lonely or suffering I pray that God’s grace will be sufficient and that you will in some way grow closer to God.

I got an e-mail message from TBN. At first I wondered why they were writing to me. Then I realized they aren’t the TBN I thought they were. That second link is pretty scary. I notice they have A Tribute To Reggie White so they can’t be all that bad. Except that picture isn’t him.

That’s not Laura Bartlett.

Jason has tagged me with another evil meme. The other is one I still owe him related to grammar.

I’m not real into Christmas movies so this will be a boring post.

I like Dr. Suess’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas and it’s partly because of the music. That baritone/bass voice who sings the main song is great.

I also like Elf which we’ve seen twice. My favorite line is soon after he (Buddy) reached New York after living with Santa’s elves all of his life:

[reacting to sign saying "World's Best Cup of Coffee"]
Buddy: You did it! Congratulations! World’s best cup of coffee! Great job, everybody! It’s great to be here.

These are posts from this blog that I think are worth reading again. It was nice to look back over the year.

January

• That’s God’s Problem

February

• Encouragement for Learning Original Languages
• Spurgeon: A Defense of Calvinism (and Arminians)

April

• American Idol
• Christ’s Substitutionary Atonement In Scripture

June

• Jesus Cleansing The Temple In Mark’s Gospel
• Scripture of the Day – most comments on this blog

July

• Be a Kinder Calvinist
• My definition of a “Calminian”
• Women in the Gospel of Mark

August (The August Experiment)

• How To Be A Cool Biblioblogger
• Marketing Slogans for the TNIV Translation
• Couldn’t the elders and angels in Revelation do something useful?
• The End

October

• When You’re Too Tired To Pray
• Why The Bible Is More Than Just An Owner’s Manual

December

• Power Outage

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?

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Today I informed Westminster Bookstore by email that a link on their site (PDF file) was incorrect and they fixed it within an hour and a half and wrote back to me to thank me and tell me that it was fixed.