Monday:
Old Testament final
Wednesday:
Paper due: Charles Hodge on Revival (15 pages or so)
Projects due: church planting case study; area code research project
Thursday:
Christianity and the Visual Arts final
Friday:
all graduation requirements fufillled!

Brent Thomas says of Mark Driscoll’s talk at the recent Acts 29 Boot Camp in Dallas:

“… towards the end of Driscoll’s talk, he publicly repented of setting the wrong tone for the network. He said that he had allowed arrogance to seep into the culture of the network from the beginning and that, not only had he come to recognize this but repent of it. I can’t tell you how important this was for me to hear. For all my excitement, this has been one of my hesitations with the network. Yes, I understand that church planters need a certain forward-ness, even brashness if you want to call it that, but an entrepreneurial spirit is not necessarily the same thing as arrogance. Leadership does not equal pride. Some of the greatest leaders in the Bible have also been the most humble. Jesus Himself modeled humility rather than anything that could be perceived as arrogance.”

I have had the exact same thoughts about Acts 29 as Brent, and this point made by Driscoll is incredibly encouraging. It says a lot about Driscoll himself and the A29 movement as a whole.

Heidelberg Catechism,
Question 1.
What is thy only comfort in life and death?
Answer.
That I with body and soul,
both in life and death,
am not my own,
but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ;
who, with his precious blood,
has fully satisfied for all my sins,
and delivered me from all the power of the devil;
and so preserves me
that without the will of my heavenly Father,
not a hair can fall from my head;
yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation,
and therefore, by his Holy Spirit,
He also assures me of eternal life,
and makes me sincerely willing and ready,
henceforth, to live unto him.

The Bible says: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep”.

But, I often say, “I wish it were me!” and “I’m sure glad it’s not me!”

How do you react?

A good word from over 150 years ago:

The autumn of 1857 was signalized by a sudden and fearful convulsion in the commercial world. That calamity was so speedily followed by reports of revivals of religion and remarkable displays of divine grace, that it has been a widely received opinion, that the two events stand related to one another, as cause and effect. In the day of adversity, men consider. When the hand of God is suddenly laid upon city and country, the sources of prosperity dried up, fortunes taking themselves wings; houses, venerable for years, integrity, and success, tumbling into ruins; and names, never tarnished by suspicion, becoming less than nothing in general bankruptcy, it is natural to believe that men will look away from themselves, and say, “Verily there is a God, who reigns.” As in the time of an earthquake, or wreck at sea, men’s hearts failing them for fear, they will cry to him who rides upon the whirlwind, so it was believed that the financial storm had driven men to pray.

Samuel Prime, The Power of Prayer, 1-2.

The dusty tomes of fourteen generations, thrice,
blew open to their fullness,
as the divine Spirit shadowed
over a young semitic girl.

A memory or, better, remembrance,
from something like almighty synapses firing into connections,
not because of absentmindedness, but ripeness:
timelines were never promised.

So, the memory came, born into a broken place,
unto forgetful people.
He cried, the wailings rising and proclaiming
with infant-eternal breath to all creation:
“I do not forget!”

My little brother just called me to tell me:

Tim Lincecum is the 2008 National League Cy Young Award Winner!

He got 23 of the 32 available first place votes. (Now THAT is mandate, Obama-ites!)

Congratulations, Tim!

No one considers,
nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, Half of it I burned in the fire;
I also baked bread on its coals;
I roasted meat and have eaten.
And shall I make the rest of it an abomination?
Shall I fall down before a block of wood?

This flows from the preceding verse. That is, “no one considers” because the Lord has blinded them into their follies. Again, it should be obvious, the absurdity of idolatry, and the prophet criticizes them subtly as he emphasizes the fact that they do not notice that their gods were first used for a fire, burned to ashes in minutes. It was used by them, for them: for fire, baking, roasting. Half of it, anyway. But the other half (and here comes the insanity): an abomination, worship—before a block of wood! Oswalt has a wonderful discussion of the use of “abomination” to describe this act of worship before a block of wood:

This extreme conclusion is an important one. Why, if it is not a god, is it an abomination? Why not merely a mistake? It is because of what the worshiper has claimed for the block of wood. We have claimed that we can find the transcendent (the holy), the destiny and meaning of life, in the shapes and stuff of this world. But what if we are wrong? The consequences are of an ultimate nature. Thus an instructor might say to any unroped climber who reaches for an outcropping of rotten granite, “Death is in your hand.” A wrong choice is not merely a mistake when one’s whole life rides on it (The Book of Isaiah, chapters 40-66, 185).

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

“No, Sabean’s not budging. At the GM meetings Wednesday, Sabean delivered his strongest statement to date that the 24-year-old pitcher won’t be traded this offseason for a hitter.

Asked if Cain is untouchable, Sabean said, “Yes. Clubs know that. That hasn’t necessarily discouraged clubs from inquiring or making suggestions of offers. But we don’t see anything out there that gives us a net gain by losing him.”

Sabean is seeking offensive help in other ways, including free agency and trades for pitchers not named Cain, Tim Lincecum or Brian Wilson. His best remaining chips include Jonathan Sanchez and pitching prospects, though it wouldn’t be easy parting with top prospects Madison Bumgarner, 19, or Tim Alderson, who turned 20 this week, both first-round picks from the 2007 draft.”

Obviously, keeping Lincecum last off-season was the right move. So, I think, is keeping Cain.

Here in Kentucky, Laura and I got to help re-elect Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell.

Out in Cali, my family’s votes (five of them, if I count correctly) are helping to pass Prop 8, which looks likely to pass. Prop 8 is a ban on gay marriage.