Huh.

Thank you to those of you who made it out to my BibleWorks seminar at Heritage Bible Church. And thank you, Heritage, for the use of your facilities. I had a great time. I hope those who came found it profitable.

Reportedly, a Greek professor at an area school told his students in no uncertain terms that they were to attend; if they did, they’d get to skip a homework assignment! Thank you, Greek professor, for doubling my attendance!

There is still just a bit of room for anyone who would like to come. Click here for information.

Dozens of Mount Calvary people are actively and frequently involved in the lives of needy kids, teens, and adults, and I am so eager to see what the Lord will do with these relationships.

If you ask questions but you reject answers, you’re not actually asking anything. You’re just festooning tired, old propositions with trendier punctuation.

[From Disingenuous Doubt: It’s inauthentic to ask questions with no interest in answers.]

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,  for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Php 2:12-13 ESV)

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1Cor 15:10 ESV)

I must work hard—but in the end I must look back and confess with joy that God was the one who was at work in any good I did.

Slavery to this Master is true freedom, because He commands only good and He gives what He commands.

But my advice to potential buyers comes in two steps, following an outline suggested by Neil Postman:

1. Logos Gives: Know what you’re buying before you buy it: get with someone who really knows books and add up the monetary print value of the good ones you will actually use. Then figure in the additional value of portability, searchability, and the excellent tagging and indexing Logos books include. Also note the exciting news that some of your Logos books will be available on your iPhone or iPod Touch. More on that in future posts…
2. Logos Takes Away: Newer doesn’t mean better. For every minute technology saves you from looking up words in Strong’s Concordance, it can waste several minutes by distracting you and scattering your thoughts. The more Logos books you have, the greater number of search hits you’ll get while studying. If you do not have Spirit-filled self-control and a good understanding of which books in your library are worth looking at, you may end up wasting your morning devotional time reading random book reviews from 1989. This isn’t Logos’ fault; but figure it into your planning. Using physical commentaries may be better for you if it helps you stay on track.

A final piece of advice: Logos and Accordance are the only Bible software companies I know of that are attempting to put out real quality books for the trained exegete (BibleWorks is, too, but it’s not mainly an electronic library). But that doesn’t mean all the books in every package will be useful to you. Don’t be wowed by quantity; instead carefully evaluate quality.

Nathan Wilson quotes Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative, then he invents an instructive dialogue between two students evaluating it:

Kant’s categorical imperative: Act only according to maxims which you can desire to be universal.

Student One: That doesn’t make sense. It’s a cheapened golden rule. Without a creating God imposing it, it’s entirely arbitrary. Logic can’t give you goodness, just validity. And if it could, how would a “rational” law achieve any actual authority in an accidental world?

Student Two rebuts: Think about bicycle theft. What if everyone stole bicycles?

Student One: We’d all have someone else’s bicycle.

—N. D. Wilson, Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl

Nathan Wilson feels sorry for the philosopher who urged the good riddance of the weak, only to end up deranged himself, cared for by his sister:

I have never been irritated by Nietzsche, never annoyed. At his most blasphemous, at his most riotously hateful and pompous, I have only ever been able to laugh. But even then, there is something bittersweet about the laughter. I know his story. I know how his bluff was called, how he was broken. Again from The Anti-Christ: “The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it.” Spake the paralytic. The man fed with a spoon by those who loved him. “What is more harmful than any vice—Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak—Christianity. . . .” And yet, because I see the world through my eyes and not his, I have sympathy for Nietzsche himself. Bodies and minds are not all that can be botched in a man. Souls can be hollow, twisted, thrashing.

—N. D. Wilson, Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl