How Does God Speak to Me Today?

What Is God Sovereign Over?

Charles Spurgeon Movie
HT: Michael Acidri via Jim West via Facebook (Kevin Bacon should be only a couple more steps away)

Super cool picture of a wasp. One possibly bad word in the description. The picture isn’t very gross from my point of view.

• The London Riots: The Whole Truth With No Ifs And No Buts! – a terrible subject but I think a well-written perspective on it
• G.K. Beale’s Magnum Opus: A New Testament Biblical Theology – looks interesting
• Bible: Sola Scriptura – by Peter J. Leithart
• Is Philippians 4:19 a Promise You Can Claim? – I plan to compile a post on another one of these–Jeremiah 29:11
• I cried out to the Lord for healing. – an excellent post on healing that will make you think

I haven’t been writing much and wanted to at least pass on a couple of new (to me) blogs.

Forward Progress

I like the post on Should You Make Your Kids Go to Church? (Sorry I can’t remember where I got this from.) Not because I have kids but because it makes me think about why we should do things. Many people talk about feeling led (notice the word feeling–it’s such a common term we often don’t even notice that) to do something* or doing things with the ‘right motivation’. I think it’s important to do things firstly out of obedience to God. Hopefully this would stem from love for God, which would be right motivation, but lack of (right) motivation shouldn’t keep us from anything. I’ve done plenty of good deeds I didn’t feel led to do and didn’t have the right motivation. But it met someone’s need and is almost certainly something God predestined me to do. That may sound like a Calvinist joke, but see Ephesians 2:10.

I won’t write more on that now because I want to get back to reading If God Is Good where I found the next blog.

Life Together

In the book, Randy Alcorn mentions a post titled Justin, Dustin, and God’s Lessons in Suffering.

*People often say at the end of a meeting to pray if you feel led. What if I don’t feel led but planned on it beforehand? What does it feel like to feel led? What if somebody is really nervous and can’t feel anything? What if I feel led but don’t have a single thing to say? O, these feelings.

• Luther and Suffering | Commentary on Romans 5:4
• Resisting Consumeristic Temptations
• Why the Debate between Formal Equivalence and Functional Equivalence is Deceptive
• Uncle… Uncle! – see the last part of the post–the lists

The first two are blogs are new to me.

Christian Focus Booknotes

The Caffeinated Ramblings of Chris

From the Twittersphere – Week Ending Feb 19

Hope for Your Dark Night of the Soul

Why isn’t the American Church Growing?*

What is a strong tower?

A strong tower is what a righteous man runs into and it doesn’t fall down. The righteous man is safe and unhurt.

Proverbs 18:10 ESV
The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe.

This is my friend showing a proper pourover technique for brewing coffee (YouTube video). This is pretty much how connoisseurs have been doing it for decades except now the pour has been slowed down. Some of the media are making it sound like something completely new, “Japanese coffee” because they make one of the fine kettles over there, or whatever. Whatever. It really does make a difference if good, fresh coffee is used (not the burnt kind). Otherwise bad coffee will still tend to taste bad. Drinking bad beer in a good glass won’t help much either. I like to use a Swiss Gold filter because I don’t like paper between the water and my coffee.

*Also see: What Is Revival?

FAQ: Why DO bad things happen to “good” people? – amazing how much good information he gives in 2 1/2 minutes, with pointers to more

NETBibleTagger – Automatically Tag and Quote Scripture References on Your Site – This is similar to another very popular one we are used to, and uses the NET translation. Otherwise the main difference that I can see is that it will show a whole passage–even a chapter, in the pop-up window using scrollbars.

Challies.com has free desktop wallpaper

Snow storm HT: Challies

If you happen to like cats, here are some very high quality pictures. These are of all sorts breeds taken at shows. I said I wouldn’t post pictures of my cats on this blog and I’m sticking to it. However if for some reason you would want to see them, and some other stuff, there are plenty on my Flickr stream, also linked in the right column.

I’ve read people asking for “feed back” but they never gave me any feed. Feedback makes more sense on a blog.

Christmas: The Hinge of History at The Gospel Coalition – Bryan says, “Trust me, you’ll want to read it.”

I updated an earlier post titled “For God so loved the world” with links at the bottom. Let me know if you have an opinion.

Does God have a purpose for false teachers?

Caring about All Suffering, Especially Eternal Suffering

There are a lot of lot of blog posts that have photography tips that just state the obvious. Some of them don’t even include pictures! I tried to find some that are at least decent for Christmas, except for the last one which is excellent but only on one topic. If these are over your head, well, you’re probably hopeless anyway. (smiley) Just remember to fill the frame, which usually means get closer and don’t forget to photograph the food since everyone loves it so much.

Christmas Photography Tips at Flickr

Christmas, Holiday, Winter and Vacation Photography Tips – More links

How to Photograph Christmas Lights

Trials and Suffering at Isaac’s Musings

Christian Carnival CCCLV at who am i?

2010 in photos at boston.com (some are disturbing)

In the Mail at THEOparadox

I now partially agree with the last one. I think it’s better use of readers’ time to write about books that the blogger is reading or has read unless a specific list or question about it is relevant.

I participate in a home coffee roasting (no, it’s not illegal as Dr. Jim West might think) bulletin board. It’s very frustrating to read about someone who just bought some green (unroasted) coffee beans and then says, “I can’t wait to roast these tomorrow night!” Well thanks for wasting my time! How about wait a few days and tell us how you like it?

Click for a larger one

Photo ©Jeff Oien
I cannot offer this as a Free Photo

• One Year Later – Matt Chandler’s battle with cancer
  HT: Between Two Worlds
• Various translations of Psalm 23 in PDF format – See the Introduction page for the purpose
• 10 Ways the Doctrine of Suffering Is Mistaught
• TC let’s us know about Another Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians which looks to be very interesting and more to my level than Longenecker’s, which was too much for me. See all four of the commentaries in this series.
• The correct URL for God’s Word translation is www.godswordtranslation.org
• Where is God When We Suffer?

The last one is video Acidri’s Blog brings us that you may have seen. The absolute sovereignty of God is a counter-intuitive comfort once God showed it to me. When I get in the “dark valley” and am having deep trouble with the difficulties with mental and physical health, I always go to Psalm 139:13-16 which the man in the video alludes to at one point.

I’m so impressed with his knowledge of Scripture and you can see how important Scripture memory is for him.

• Is Inner “Peace” a Good Indicator For Being in God’s Will? – Take Your  Vitamin Z
• An Interview with Joni on Suffering and Healing – new book
• In Defense of Twitter; How It Has Helped Me As A Christian – Nathan Bingham
• Heidelberg: What is thy only comfort in life and death? – Acidri’s Blog®

I get so mad when I read this. If only I had this as a kid:

The [Heidelberg] Catechism is an introduction to the Christian worldview and the basic teachings of the Bible; it is divided into fifty-two sections, called “Lord’s Days,” which were designed to be taught on each of the 52 Sundays of the year. Elders and deacons were required to subscribe and adhere to it, and ministers were required to preach on a section of the Catechism each Sunday so as to increase the often poor theological knowledge of the church members.

–Michael Acidri

I have The Heidelberg Catechism on its own page with Scripture references shown on most systems if you pass your cursor over them.

• What’s Wrong with Theistic Evolution?
• Inerrancy and the Incarnation
• What are some spiritual benefits of physical sickness? HT: Take Your Vitamin Z
• NIV2011/NIV2010 Changes

Autumn is coming to a close here. Click for a larger one.

This one has been going around fast but in case you haven’t seen it, this person does at least one design for each book of the Bible after he reads it and he’s not afraid to include some unpopular verses in them.
Word Designs

Ever wonder exactly what a tunic, cloak etc. is?
ANCIENT CLOTHING

Thinking About September 11th
and
When Worlds Collide

Is it progression if a cannibal uses a fork? Well, evolutionists, is it?

Another short version:

Two good posts at Pastoral Musings:
Jesus’ View of The Scriptures
Is Creationism of Recent Origin? – let’s put that myth to rest

More Things Not to Say to Those Who are Suffering by Ed Welch

I’m going to be writing my own post related to that based on Job.

Here is a light version of Around the Web. See the the one Louis posted a couple of days ago which has more links.

Audio Lectures: Gordon Fee on the Epistle to the Philippians
I haven’t listened to these but read his commentary on Philippians which is excellent.

Here is another T4G video of a pastor’s study:
Ligon Duncan’s Study at Between Two Worlds
See the others at their video site on both pages.

Released This Week: By Grace Alone by Sinclair Ferguson
I read and reviewed his book In Christ Alone and thought it was one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. I’ve reviewed five books for Reformation Trust and thought I was done for a while but now this one comes up. He may become one of my favorite authors. I have his book on the Sermon on the Mount on my wish list.

We’ve all see those pictures of drops of liquid but I think these are especially interesting:
Highspeed Photography: Drops
Just think, this happens all day everyday and we don’t even realize it. God sees all of the things we can’t and enjoys them because he created them.

Various people have been letting us know about the new NLT Blog (New Living Translation). Editor and contributor Keith Williams has posted on other blogs when translation issues come up and also has a blog called the NLT Study Bible Blog.

Other blogs that I know of are the ESV Bible Blog and TNIV Truth, an independent blog.

Updated:
NLT Study Bible Blog
NET Bible Revolution

Any others?