Thabiti lays down some golden wisdom on Wright's offbase jeremiads

I had the great pleasure of meeting Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile at T4G, and being challenged by his address on the topic of "race."

Now he makes about the best and godliest sense I've read yet about Obama's retired pastor's latest rants. Check it out.

(h-t Justin Taylor)

Another millionaire lottery-winner dies broke and broken: WUWD?

A married couple in Florida wins a $13 million Lotto prize. Sounds happy.

Eighteen years later, everything's broken: their marriage, their family, their finances, his health. And then he dies awaiting trial for tax fraud.

This story is so common, yet none the sadder for it. One hears so often of the miserable lives lottery-type winners lead. One wonders:

1. Are the reports accurate, or “massaged”? (Not that the media would ever knowingly inaccurately report anyth-- oh, wait. They totally would do that.)
   
2. If the reports are accurate, what’s the deal?
3. Is the problem that the personality-type that will look to “quick wins” (rather than hard work and planning), and thus will obsessively play such games, is also the type that will unerringly mismanage the money?
4. Or is it simply that the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil (1 Timothy 6:10), and that the profit-factor for gaining the world and losing one’s soul (Mark 8:36) is unaffected by inflation?
5. Against #4, however, there are rich and godly people (1 Timothy 6:17-18) — though the Bible repeatedly warns that it is difficult (Luke 18:25).
   
6. Perhaps this then falls into the category of Proverbs 20:21 — "An inheritance gained hastily in the beginning will not be blessed in the end"?

You don't have to take the position that any kind of gambling is inherently and always wrong to see that — to say the least! — quick windfalls do not bring happiness. Plus, as one of the commenters on this thread well says:

...those who play consistantly are just simply very bad at math. And winning the lottery doesn’t magically grant them good math skills. Thus, they don’t realize that even the mega-wealthy have to live within their means.

Hard not to recall Jesus' words: "So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12:21).

PS — WUWD = What Up Wid Dat? Not trying to be faux-cool; just didn't want the worlds longest post headline.

Hymn lyric search

Isn't there a hymn that includes the words "tossed and torn by many a doubt"? I can't find it in Google by any combination I've tried. Did I mangle something essential... or make it up entirely?

"Mormon Coffee"

Among the many blessings of my dear wife and my trip to Tennessee was meeting Aaron Shafovaloff (SHOF-a-WAL-lof).

Aaron is an embarrassingly bright young man passionately committed to reaching Mormons with the Gospel. He's had an impact on a number web sites, but I think the primary one on this subject is Mormon Coffee (subtitle: "It's forbidden, but it's good!"), which I commend to you.

The more I learn about Mormonism, the more astonished I am that (A) rational people get caught up in in, (B) rational people stay in it, and especially (C) any Christian wants to argue that it is, in any except a sociological sense, "Christian."

(Wait... are we talking about Roman Catholicism, or Mormonism? Oh, right: Mormonism!)

So here was my particular eye-opener from Aaron this time: that many Mormons not only believe that "God the Father," when a man, could very well have sinned (?!!), and not only are they OK with that possibility... but they actually find it encouraging!

Check out his site.

Just because it chuckles me

I'm fiddling with the time of the earlier post so this won't bump the more important Mormon Coffee post.

But still.

Good word on "Assurance," by J. C. Ryle

Though I read it in a Libronix edition, added to my Logos software, you can read it online.

Ryle is one of those writers whose style is always so engaging and conversational, while no less pleading and weighty, that one is sure he must have been a great preacher as well as an able pastor. I think of some who preach the Bible as if addressing laboratory specimens; Ryle speaks from his heart to our hearts.

Interesting marginal note from the CSB

I have no further comment... except to say that the imagination rather reels.

Talking art

If only it weren't in Korean.

(Warning: partial nudity)

(Disclaimer: that's 99.999% a joke)

UPDATE: my dear wife says I should tell everyone it's the Venus de Milo that provides the partial nudity. No doubt she is, as usual, right.

Are any good hymns still being written?

I'd have to say yes. Not many, perhaps; but yes.

The song linked above was sung on Wednesday at the T4G conference. I'm glad to be able to find the lyrics; it was immensely moving at the time to me, but something (on which I may write more, later) distracted me from full enjoyment.

If this is a copyright violation, someone please tell me; but here are the first two verses:

HOW DEEP THE FATHER’S LOVE FOR US,
How vast beyond all measure,
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure.
How great the pain of searing loss –
The Father turns His face away,
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory.

Behold the man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders;
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers.
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished;
His dying breath has brought me life –
I know that it is finished.

You can get an idea of the tune here. Thank God for those who can put the precious truths of the Gospel to music. Al Mohler made the point in his talk that some who are trying to destroy the truth of penal substitutionary atonement lament that, even if it is banished from the pulpits, when Christians assemble, they'll still sing about it.

Revelation, from a dispensational perspective

I was asked if I could point to any sermon series preaching through Revelation from a dispensational perspective. I don't know of one offhand and can't find one in the time I can spare. Can anyone link to a sermon series online?

Thanks.

"Yes, yes, that's right... I'm the guy who blogs with Phil Johnson and Frank Turk"

Just getting in practice.

I don't get modern poetry

Look at this:

You could almost think the word [nous; Greek, usually translated "mind"] synonymous with mind, given our so far narrow history, and the excessive esteem in which we have been led to hold what is, in this case, our rightly designated nervous systems. Little wonder then that some presume the mind itself both part and parcel of the person, the very seat of soul and, lately, crucible for a host of chemical incentives—combinations of which can pretty much answer for most of our habits and for our affections.

When even the handy lexicon cannot quite place the nous as anything beyond one rustic ancestor of reason, you might be satisfied to trouble the odd term no further—and so would fail to find your way to it, most fruitful faculty untried. Dormant in its roaring cave, the heart’s intellective aptitude grows dim, unless you find a way to wake it.

So, let’s try something, even now. Even as you tend these lines, attend for a moment to your breath as you draw it in: regard the breath’s cool descent, a stream from mouth to throat to the furnace of the heart. Observe that queer, cool confluence of breath and blood, and do your thinking there.

So, you make your way through that, and if you're like me, you say, "Huh? Okay, then... huh?" It just doesn't make much sense, and you wonder why it was written.

But break up the lines (apparently randomly), and voila! somehow it's a modern poem. Not only a poem but, according to Karsten Piper, an example of a poet "writing with the beating muscle and translucent beauty that’s often missing from church libraries and waiting room magazine piles."

Um... okay....

Look, I know that I'll get beaten senseless by those refined higher souls who are able (as I evidently am not) to appreciate all the beauty and translucent muscle of it and all... but before that happens, I'll just say that this is an example (though by no means the worst) of what I mean when I say I don't much like English-language poetry.

I like Hebrew poetry, I like Kipling.

And that's about it.

(BTW, the title's milder than my original thought. I don't want to be beaten that badly by the raised-pinky crowd.)

So, I was thinking...

Maybe this whole poetry-thing
Isn't as hard as it looks.
Since no one is after the
Extraordinarily tight
and disciplined
Structure
of Greek and Hebrew poetry
Or the rhythm and sounds of
(what I think is)
better English poetry

So maybe

All's you have to do
is
Write some random thoughts
in a stream
And hit "Enter"
Every few words
And break up the lines
with some
random
Capitalizations
and good people will read it
with furrowed brows
and mouths slightly open
and
when they get through
they'll say
"Hunh!"
and
"Whoa"
and
"Deep!"
And they'll think that you're all
muscular
and translucent
and you can have a
nice
little
gig!

UPDATE: Ah. See? It's bad of me to see this differently... or to say I do. Bad Dan! Bad! No cookie!

The race is McCain's to lose...

...but, sure as water's wet, he's the man who could do it.

Boy, "Legion" sounds d-u-m-b

From DarkHorizons:

...the thriller casts [Paul] Bettany as the archangel Michael, the only one standing between mankind and an apocalypse, after God loses faith in humanity.

Man's lone hope rests with a group of strangers who must deliver a baby they realize is Christ in his second coming.

I just, I... unngh! Where do you start?

How many times has that stupid theme been done? Dudes, dudes... step away from the bong. It's a Second Coming — it's not a reincarnation.

It isn't Jesus who needs to be born again.

Yikes.

My little friend

This little fellow came and kept me company in my office for awhile. It was odd, having a spider look at me. Until I photographed him, I thought the shiny iridescent spots were eyes — but they sheathed his fangs.


He was a jumping spider.


I let him go. (Happily, he never jumped at me.)

Search "jumping spider" among vids and web sites, and you seem some pretty amazing pictures. Check this slo-mo vid, and this amazing National Geographic vid.

Grrr, but doggone it, those pictures REALLY have me missing my old 35mm camera from the 80's. I bought a bunch of lenses, and could take the most amazing, precise, exact close-ups. Maybe I'll scan and post some, sometime. My digital camera just can't do it, among other things. A few months ago, I was tempted by a really expensive digital SLR (Canon?, not sure), that could take attachment lenses and take quick-exposure shots.

I'm being tempted again. Do have that bonus money....

Okay, this has GOT to be a joke

(Thanks, Carlo)