How long of a break am I planning? I don’t know yet. It may be several weeks. It may be for the rest of the summer. At this point I just need to take things one week at a time.

If you are a regular reader, instead of checking in each week to see if the blog is back up, there is a better way. Click here to subscribe by email, and you will automatically get an email notifying you when I start posting again. (This is through a service called FeedBurner. There is no cost, and they do not give away your email address or use it for anything else.) Or if you are familiar with RSS, you can subscribe by feed reader.

I will keep comments open for a few more days, but after Wednesday this week all comments will be closed until I return. However, I will keep the blog and all its archives up and open for searching and browsing. If you have any questions or I can help you in any way, you are always welcome to contact me by email. God bless, and thank you for reading!

I. The Parable of the Growing Seed (verses 26-29)
    A. We plant the seeds.
    B. God makes his kingdom grow.

II. The Parable of the Mustard Seed (verses 30-32)
    A. God’s kingdom starts small.
    B. God’s kingdom will grow surprisingly large.

Note: Click on the Sermons tab at the top of the blog for this and other messages.

C.S. Lewis offers some advice about giving. “I do not believe one can settle on how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.”

Amy Hall dicusses the phrase, If God were real: “It’s the temptation of some who reject the reality of God’s existence to use the following kind of reasoning as part of their evidence: ‘If the Christian God were real, He would do [X]. However, He does not do [X], therefore He is not real.’ The problem with a person using this kind of reasoning is that he presumes to know what God would do, and often he does this without the proper knowledge of God’s actions in the past, His character, or His overall purposes. The reasoning turns out to really be: ‘If I were God, I would do [X]. The Christian God does not do what I would do (in light of my purposes and goals), therefore He is not real.’”

Tony Woodlief looks at friendship as shared experiences. “My 298 Facebook friends aren’t the ones who remember our dead daughter’s birthday or leave flowers at her grave. Nor among them is the pastor who baptized each of our children and waged a personal holy war to keep our marriage from crumbling years ago. We have these deeper friendships because we’ve tried to build a life in one place. They sprang up because the stuff of life happened to this cluster of us living near one another, and much of it was too joyous or heartbreaking not to share with someone. If friendship is the key to happiness, then maybe this is the key to friendship, to be enmeshed — not just tangentially or voyeuristically, but physically — in the lives of others. That can be hard to swallow in a culture that prizes individualism, mobility and privacy.”

10 Ways to Do Your Husband Good (Proverbs 31:12)

1. Write him a love note and place it in his sock drawer.
2. Take an entire evening to enjoy his favorite hobby with him.
3. Show up at work with a special drink or take him to lunch.
4. Encourage him for demonstrating a specific godly trait—in front of friends.
5. Arrange a datenight at his favorite restaurant.
6. Pray for him today and tell him you are doing so.
7. Surprise him with his favorite dessert after dinner.
8. Greet him in an extra-special way when he comes home from work.
9. Lead the children in a time of honoring him.
10. Ask him: “What is one way I can be a better wife?” Then do it!

What are some other ways wives can do their husbands good? We husbands want to get as many ideas out there as possible!

Related post: 20 Minutes to Change Your Marriage

Orange Telecom by PES (video length: 1:05)

 

Ejected. Umpire Don Briggs ejected the entire crowd at a high school baseball game. He said he had no problem with the players but ejected the crowd of over 100 for being unruly, yelling and arguing.

Charming. Would you send your child to this school?

Children in this Indian village attend snake charming school as early as age two.

Vacation Delay. Officials at Dickson Elementary School in California announced that students would have to attend an additional 34 days of school this summer due to a clerical error. Thursday, June 17, was supposed to be the last day of school. Now the students will have to wait until July 31. The error? Their early release days were five minutes too short to count as official school days.

• The number of Protestant foreign missionaries in the world grew from 100 missionaries in 1800 to over 21,000 missionaries by 1914.
• The portion of the world’s population that was Christian grew from 23 percent in 1800 to almost 35 percent in 1914. This rate of growth represented the fastest proportional growth of the church since its earliest centuries — and over a period in which world population grew more rapidly than ever before.
• The number of non-white Christians grew from 28 million in 1800 to 149 million in 1914. This meant that in 1914 the number of non-white Christians in the world was rapidly nearing the number of all Christians who were alive in 1800.
• The number of languages with Scripture increased from 67 languages in 1800 to 676 languages in 1914.

For a great visual of this amazing growth, see the flash video map on the History of Religion.

• Director Guillermo del Toro has confirmed that actors Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, and Hugo Weaving will be returning in their roles as Gandalf, Gollum, and Elrond (respectively).
• Del Toro has narrowed down the choice of actor for young Bilbo Baggins and is “very close” to making an announcement.
• Del Toro also confirmed once again that the two films would focus on the contents of the Hobbit book only and would not be split between the Hobbit and a second film bridging the gap to the Lord of the Rings books.

HT: BBC Radio

… until you place them next to the Obama deficits (projected).

For the record, I was against the large deficits under President Bush, and I am even more against the larger deficits under President Obama. At some point we need to cut government spending and balance the budget. (Wasn’t that one of Obama’s campaign promises?)

HT: Instapundit

I. The Parable of the Lamp (verses 21-23)
    A. The purpose of parables: to conceal and reveal
    B. That which is hidden will be revealed

II. The Parable of the Measure (verses 24-25)
    A. Consider carefully what you hear.
    B. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
        1) Whoever has will be given more
        2) Whoever has not will lose it all

Note: Click on the Sermons tab at the top of the blog for this and other messages.