homepage

The homepage is the main hub of what's going on in my life. The homepage consists of four main sections. First, the blog is the main place where I will post longer essays on my life, theology, and technology. The blog probably won't be updated as frequently, but I'm slowly trying to work my way back into a regular routine. Second, the tmblg is the place for short little snippets of interestingness that I find around the internet. These include things like quotes, links, videos and pictures. Third, on the far right is my most recent tweet. Fourth, you can see what books I am currently reading or I have recently purchased and the music that I have been listening to recently.

about

The about section of the site is there you can find out all about me. There is a short biography about me as well as some of the other work around the internet that I have built.

books

I have spent a while cataloging all of the books in my library. For now you can just view them. In the future, I hope to write a few reviews of books that have been particularly influential on me.

music

In addition to the book library, I have also published my entire audio library.

stuff

Finally, there is a link to my stuff. This is a catalog of the significant items that I use on a regular basis. Perhaps you'll find them interesting. Everything I use is highly recommended.

you

The best part about this site isn't me, but you. I'd love it if you were to interact with the different bits on the site. Feel free to leave and comment or send me an email. I'd love to hear from you. Even better would be if you were to start your own site and share some information about yourself.

So, that's about it. Welcome to the new site.

Keller’s series at GCTS was called “Preaching to the Heart”. To better explain what that means, preaching to the heart can be contrasted with two other ways of preaching, namely preaching to the will and preaching to the emotions, both of which do not get at what Gospel preaching is all about. To illustrate the difference he examined Paul’s exhortation to the Corinthian church to give money. The way that Paul preached to the heart was by recontextualizing the Gospel in terms of the issue he was addressing. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor 8:9). Here Paul states the Gospel message in terms of wealth and poverty. If he was to preach to their will he could have appealed to his authority as an apostle and commanded them to just work up the energy to do what he said. Or if he was preaching to their emotions he could have told them about the details of the condition of the poor Israelites to get them to give. But he does neither of those things. Instead he knows that a true understanding of the Gospel is motivation enough. What is more the Gospel is not simply the motivation to give, but is itself bound up with the ability to do what God commands.

One of the ways that preachers can “preach to the heart” is by distinguishing between three ways of living. Keller noted that traditionally preaching has focused on emphasizing two ways of living – man’s way or God’s way. We can choose to live our lives according to our own rules and desires or we can submit and live for God and in his way. This dichotomy is heard regularly in many contemporary Gospel presentations. And while on the surface the identification of these two ways is true, unfortunately we live in a day when these two ways of living do not accurately correspond to the reality of what Christianity and the Gospel are all about. Instead Keller says that we must distinguish between three ways of living. In his terms these are irreligion, religion and the Gospel. In other words, living according to our own ways, living according to the external religious regulations or living according to the Gospel. Distinguishing between these three ways is important for a couple of reasons. First, it is important because non Christians don’t realize there is a difference. They already know that there is the way they are living their life and the way that they see Christians live. But they think that Christianity is all about moralism; it is all about getting everything “right”. They don’t always realize that Christianity actually has a lot to say against legalism and moralism and they need to hear Christians deconstructing it. Moreover, Christians need to hear legalism and moralism (religion) being distinguished from the Gospel because sadly, many Christians (including myself) have a tendency to fall into that trap. The main Biblical example Keller provides of this distinction is the story of the prodigal son. He says that the story of the prodigal on pretty closely reflects what he is trying to get at by distinguishing between 3 ways of living. Irreligion corresponds to the younger brother and his quest to control the father’s wealth through disobedience and rebellion. Religion corresponds to the older brother who tries to control the father’s wealth through obedience and condescension towards the younger brother. The fact is that both of them are wrong and both ways of living need to be contrasted with the Gospel. The problem is that we often spend too much time contrasting just the story of the younger brother with the Gospel and not doing the same thing with the older brother and the Gospel. Both are wrong and both need to constantly be avoided. Finally, the Gospel is not simply some happy medium between irreligion and religion; it is on a completely different plane. In mathematical terms it would be like moving from a simple two dimensional plane of x and y coordinates to a third or fourth dimension. To those stuck in a two dimensional world, the third dimension comes a something completely foreign and new. It is unlike anything they have ever experienced before.

It is this careful thinking being done by people like Tim Keller that really gets me excited. Be sure to check out the work he and his church are doing; there is much to be learned from them. You can download audio versions of a couple lectures where Keller talks about these things from the Covenant Seminary website (LINK)

Worship is the primary matter of the universe, and life is a battle for worship.

Talking about worship is dangerous. Indeed, the first murder in human history took place between two brothers in a disagreement over worship!

Acceptable worship, then, is Israel's faithful response to, or continued expression of, their covenantal relationship with Yahweh that he initiated.

While I would acknowledge that there are ways in which certain wordings of truth can become more important than actually understanding them or seeking to live them out, I think that Alan’s post makes these seem more at odds than they really are. Is a focus on living missionally really in opposition to studying theology and seeking to order God’s truth? Are not these things more intimately related than Alan’s post would lead you to believe? The other day, JollyBlogger wrote a post entitled How is the emerging church post-liberal? In it he describes the battles between “conservatives” and “liberals” around the beginning of the twentieth century. One quote from that post seems to fit the controversy surrounding Alan’s post pretty well. He writes:

The core rallying cry of liberalism was that Christianity was a life not a doctrine. [J. Gresham] Machen opposed this, saying that Christianity is a life founded on a doctrine. Doctrine was the foundation of Christianity – we are saved by what we believe, and there are historical realities which must be affirmed when we say what we believe.

I think Machen is exactly right. Why must we pit living the Christian life against doctrine? Are not these things more friends than enemies? More fuel to enflame the other than water to snuff it out?

I have found Kevin J. Vanhoozer’s book The Drama of Doctrine a wonderful work which seeks to move past what he calls this “ugly ditch” I see represented in Alan’s post. Permit me to quote a somewhat lengthy section from the book which I think is relevant to the discussion:

Theology is connected to the life of the church. Doctrines arise not from speculative theories but from core practices – baptism, the Eucharist, prayer, worship – that constitute the ongoing life and identity of the church. The theory/practice distinction, together with the contrast between doctrine and life to which it gives rise, is toxic to Christian faith and to the project of faith seeking understanding. The present work seeks to move theology away from theoretical knowledge in order to reorient it toward wisdom. It is this picture of theology as wisdom that, more than anything else, enables us to traverse the ugly ditch between theory and practice. . . . Theology involves both theory (knowledge) and practice (life) for the sake of its pastoral function: assisting people to enjoy and glorify God. Perhaps the best way to overcome the theory/practice dichotomy is to let the subject matter of Christian theology determine theology’s task. Jesus Christ is the word and wisdom of God, the revealer and the redeemer: the way, the truth, and the life. Several points follow for theology from this astounding identification. First, theology must be concerned with what each of these terms represents; it must deal with truth, with ways of living, and with the meaning of life. Second, it must keep all three in mind at once. Focusing on truth to the exclusion of way and life leads to a preoccupation with theory; conversely, a preoccupation with way and life can lead to pragmatism. Christian doctrine, similarly, should serve the purpose of fostering truthful ways of living.

I could go on, but I think the above section is well suited to address both those in the emerging church who come across as trying to pit doctrine against life, as well as those who, often too quickly and sometimes rudely, dismiss some of the more positive points the movement makes while rightly rejecting that which is false. The Christian life is a hard one to live and we all need to be challenged in different areas at different times, let us try to do that Biblically and in love.

The chatroom

It seems that whenever the book of Genesis is studied the question of what the word "day" means comes up. To be honest I think that this is completely misguided and very unhelpful. First, as I read the text, there doesn't appear to be any internal indicators given in the text by Moses that let us know what he means by the word "day". Realizing this, people then go off to other places of the Bible to try and "prove" that day means 24 hrs or day means a long period of time. This to me seems pretty fruitless because you're going to easily be able to make a case for both of those definitions. Finally, I just don't think that the point of the text is to emphasize that God created the world in 7 days; regardless of how you understand the word day. The point of the text is that God created, not that he did it in a certain time period.

While we were discussing this, one of the clearest examples of what happens when one asks the wrong questions of a text was given. One well intentioned student tried to prove the point that "day" in Genesis 1-2 means a 24 day by going to Jesus' first miracle. Jesus' first miracle is when he turns water into wine and not just any wine but the best wine, which also happens to be the oldest. This student's point was that in this story we see that Jesus performed a miracle of time. He accomplished in a very short period of time what usually takes a very long period of time. Just as Jesus performed a miracle of time with the wine, so too did God work a miracle of time by creating the world in seven 24 hour days. While this is very creative, it is just completely misguided; it misunderstands the points of both stories. Just as the point of the creation narrative is not the length of days, the point of the miracle at the wedding of Cana is not that Jesus can do things in a short period of time which usually take a long period of time. I don't mean any disrespect to this student, it was just too clear an example of what happens when you ask the wrong questions of a text.

LINK: http://theresurgence.com/free_sermon_video_footage

When you are close to the ground it is often very hard to see exactly where you are in relation to other places. A few trees, a dip in the ground, a couple of buildings or some other natural or man-made feature can prevent us from getting our bearings. That is why poeple build observation platforms on high buildings or on mountains, and why aerial photography became so important in war or in peace-time making of maps. The bird’s eye view enables us to see things and places in relation to other things and places. A map is a representation of a bird’s eye view of a particular part of the earth’s surface. It reduces an area that is too big for us to see at a glance to a model that is small enough for us to see all at once.

Seeing the whole is so important to understanding the individual parts. It is all to easy to misinterpret a passage because one neglects the large whole in which it is found.

Recently I came across a great link for gaining a better understanidng of the whole Bible. It is a series of sermons preached by Mark Dever at Capitol Hill Baptist Church . During his time as pastor of that church he has preached an overview sermon of every book of the Bible. I think that he does a fabulous job of clearly and comprehensively explaining large sections of the Bible in a short period of time. To help support his new book on the message of the New Testament; his church has posted the audio versions of all of the New Testament. I would highly recommend listening to at least his sermon on the message of the Bible if not the whole series. It is a wonderful resource.

LINK: New Testament Overview Sermons

GMail

Gmail is by far the best webmail client out there. I love all of the fancy interface features that they have; especially labels, shortcut keystrokes and limited page reloads. Recently I also came across some great Greasemonkey scripts at userscripts.com They add even more functionality to make gmail my only mail client.

LINK: gmail.com

Basecamp

Basecamp is a great project management tool. It lets you collaborate with a bunch of poeple around a certain project using messages, to do lists and milestones. Currently I use it to manage a website that I created for StudentBody and the sunday school class that I teach.

LINK: basecamphq.com

Backpack

Backpack is similar to Basecamp but on a smaller scale. It is designed for making simple one page webpages. The pages can have notes, lists, images, etc. You can also set up reminders that will send you an email and a text message on certain dates when you are supposed to do things (like pay the bills).

The other great thing about both backpack and basecamp is another app that they both have called Writeboards. Writeboards are basically just simple text editors on the web that you can use to write, store and share text. Now that I have writeboard I don’t even remember the last time I used MS Word.

LINK: backpackit.com

del.icio.us

del.icio.us is my online bookmark management tool. I have all 700+ of my bookmarks online and with me whereever I go.

LINK: del.icio.us

FeedLounge

FeedLounge is an online RSS feed reader. I love its user interface and it is just as fast as a desktop client. But the best part is that if I check a feed during lunch at work, it will be marked as read when I look at later at night at my apartment. Before when I used a desktop application for reading feeds I would have to mark something as read twice; once when I read it at work and then again when I read it at my apartment. Having a great online application is much better.

LINK: feedlounge.com

All in all, I really like having all of my main applications online. I feel much more portable now and best of all, I don’t have to carry a laptop around with me.

Which web applications do you find most helpful?

For those geeks who care, the new site powered by Typo and Ruby on Rails It will serve as my little playground for learning new things about Ruby and Rails.

Be sure to check back often because I plan to have a much more consistent posting schedule for 2006.

Happy New Year!

1. Finish the new smerickson.com

2. Post something on the blog at least 3 times a week.

3. Learn Ruby and Ruby on Rails

4. Release one simple but useful webapp using Rails

5. Read The Institutes by John Calvin

The Kingdom of Christ Lectures

This summer I read a book called the Kingdom of Christ by Russell Moore. Moore is the dean of theology at Southern Baptist. He is a relatively young guy but someone who is already a strong contributor of Biblical writings. In his book, Moore articulates an excellent understanding of the Kingdom which reframes the conversation beyond the divide that existed between older versions covenant and dispenstional theologies. There are some really encouraging developments going on in covenant and dispensational circles which are actually bringing together these two groups. The main insight motivating this is a better understanding of the eschatological nature of the Kingdom; that is has been inaugurated with the incarnation of Christ but awaits its consummation on the day when Christ comes again. The implications for this understanding are manifold, as Moore tries to show in his book.

Recently, Moore gave the 2005 Criswell Lectures where he spoke on this topic and highlighted many of the things which he covers in the book. I’ve listened to two of the three lectures and, on the whole, have found them to be encouraging. As with anything, there are points where Moore and I disagree, but I think the overall theme of what he is trying to say regarding the Kingdom is a breath of Biblical fresh air. I’ll probably post some thoughts on the lecture in the coming days/week but until then you can go and listen to the lectures yourself:

http://www.henryinstitute.org/forums_view.php?cid=10

Reformation21

Another great resource that I have known about for a while now is the Reformation21 site. This site is run by some great people in the reformed community. They are providing some great biblical wisdom on a host of different areas. I think it is great that men of such stature make themselves so accessible on the web. Be sure to check out their blog and current edition of the online publication.

http://www.reformation21.com

“Dramaturgy” is the working of a drama, just as “metallurgy” is the working of metal. What does it mean to “work” drama, or to make drama work? The dramaturge has, until recently been relatively unknown in the American theater. In Europe, however, the dramaturge is the person responsible for helping the director to make sense of the script both for the players and for the audience. This dual responsibility corresponds to a remarkable degree to theology’s twofold task: an exegetical scientia and a practical sapentia.

In the first place, the dramaturge is responsible for researching the script and for preparing the text for performance. This involves selecting a particular edition or translation of the play, researching the play to keep it historically accurate, thinking about the playwright’s intent, studying the play’s production history and collaborating with the director on a compelling and coherent interpretation. The dramaturge is concerned both with the play’s details and with its large themes. For example, a good dramaturge would object to a scene of a medical drama set in 1810 in which a doctor bends over his patient and places a stethoscope on his chest, because the stethoscope was not invented until 1819. At the same time, the dramaturge is thinking about how best to articulate the play’s main themes. This first aspect of dramaturgy focuses on the study of a given play ?¢?Ǩ?Äú it’s author, content, style and background ?¢?Ǩ?Äú and emphasizes the importance of staying faithful to the text. This is the exegetical, scientia aspect of the dramaturge’s task, and issues in a “protocol”.

The dramaturge’s protocol or preproduction study of the play is of special interest. It consists of notes to the director and actors ?¢?Ǩ?Äú often fifty to one hundred pages ?¢?Ǩ?Äú and typically includes information concerning 1) the historical, cultural, and social background of the play; 2) the biography of the playwright; and 3) the history of earlier productions of the play and an assessment of the major translations. The dramaturge will also often produce 4) a comprehensive analysis of the play and 5) a comprehensive bibliography of helpful resources on the play and its previous productions. The purpose of the dramaturge’s work on the text is to help those involved in the production, particularly the director, come to a better understanding of the play so that the performance will stay true to the playwright’s intent.

If the first aspect of dramaturgy is script-oriented, the second looks toward the performance. The dramaturge advises the director how best to communicate the text and articulate the play’s ideas in terms that would be compelling and intelligible to contemporary audiences. This aspect of dramaturgy corresponds to theology as sapentia. It is noteworthy that the single most importance requirement for the dramaturge is understanding, the ability to follow the play where it leads: “To inform the director, the cast and the audience about the play’s past history and its current importance, dramaturges assemble ‘protocols’ (or casebooks consisting of written and found materials toward a theatrical production), prepare program notes, leas post-performance discussions, write study guides for schools and groups, lecture in the community as well as the academy, and publish scholarly essays and books.” One is hard pressed to think of a better job description for the theologian than that.

I find this analogical definition of a theologian to be extremely helpful. It is a wonderful picture of the part that the theologian is to play in the life of the church.

At the risk of ruining the beauty of this passage, permit me to highlight a couple relevant points in Vahoozer’s description of a dramaturge. First, in the above description, the director is analogous to the pastor, albeit this is a secondary director to that of the primary director, the Holy Spirit. The actors are analogous to the congregation, although again this is a secondary role to that of the primary actors, Father, Son and Spirit. The audience is analogous to the watching world outside the church. The performance is a description of the speech and actions of the congregation as it seeks to faithfully live out the script. The script is analogous to the bible, providing both speech and stage directions for the actors.

Second, these are descriptions of roles rather than individual people. As such the best directors also have dramaturgical abilities just as we ought to have pastor/theologians leading congregations.

Third, and finally, Vanhoozer goes on to write,

A good dramaturge helps articulate the sense of the whole, helps display dramatic unity: play seeking understanding, one could say. “The main job of the dramaturge is to keep asking why. Why are we doing this play? . . . Why does our theatre exist? . . . Why are we, inside the theatre, excited about the plays we are doing and why are we not spreading our excitement to the community?” The dramaturge answers such why questions by articulating the meaning of the play and the public significance of its production. The dramaturge’s task continues during rehersal, ensuring that the director and the actors remain in line with the overall vision of the production, its meaning and truth.

I strive to be and pray that there might be more theologians in the world who fit this excellent description.

You have over 1000 unread feeds in your RSS feed reader.

You move into a new apartment while going through a big deployment at work.

You then choose to invite your dad to come help you move into your new apartment at the same time, but still have to go into work on a Sunday in order to get caught up.

You haven’t told the school you’re enrolled at that you aren’t coming in two weeks for orientation because you’ve decided to defer.

You don’t remember where you put your PDA and digital camera and then call and blame the rental car company that you thought you left them in, only to realize 4 days later that they were in your car all along.

These are just some of the things that have happend in my life over the past month. It has been a significant time of transition and I have learned much. We now return to our regular blogging schedule.

Here is an example of how I find this to be really helpful. Each day I spend about 1.5 hours in the car driving to and from work and school. What I do to use that time wisely is to subscribe to the Albert Mohler Program and to Desiring God Radio and a few technology shows. By subscribing to these podcasts, I always have the latest shows on my iPod, ready to be enjoyed as I drive around. The best part is that it requires no work on my part to get the updated program! All I have to do is sync my iPod as I normally would and I receive the current file. I don’t have to go to the website, manually download the file and then add it to my iPod.

Recently Apple added this feature to iTunes which makes subscribing to podcasts very easy (link to apple.com). All you have to do is add the feed to your library and iTunes will do the work of downloading the updated files and syncing them to your iPod. Another new product out there is a web app called Odeo.com. If you listen to audio content on the web and have an mp3 player, podcasting is very helpful.

RSS

Have you ever wished that instead of visiting a website to see if it has been updated, the site could tell you that it has new content and what that new content is? This is one of the benefits of a growing technology called RSS. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. (There is also another format called Atom that accomplishes the same thing.) The best analogy that I can think of to describe RSS is the concept of a magazine or newspaper subscription. There are two ways to get a magazine or newspaper. You can go to a newsstand and buy one or you can subscribe to the magazine or newspaper and have it delivered to you. This is one of the main purposes of RSS. It allows users to “subscribe” to websites that they visit often (or not so often) so that information will be delivered to them rather than forcing them to retrieve the information themselves. For instance, many blogs and news sites use RSS to deliver frequently updated content to their visitors; so someone could subscribe to CNN.com and receive updates on the latest news headlines instead of constantly checking the site to see if it has been updated.

I find this to be something that is very useful. By subscribing to websites, I am able to stay up to date on information that is important to me. It also enables me to keep track of a large number of sites very easily. At present I subscribe to over 100 sites. If I had to visit each of these 100 sites each day to see if they had been updated, I would spend all day. But because of RSS feeds I am able to spend only 15 minutes reading just those sites that have been updated.

• Weather :: Receive updates on the current weather conditions and forecasts
• Calendar :: Share your calendar with a group of people using RSS (ex. http://www.rsscalendar.com)
• Share to-do lists :: There are some online to-do list programs that allow you to share an RSS feed of your to-do list. (ex. http://www.tadalist.com)
• Bookmarks :: Many online bookmarking services allow you to create RSS feeds for a specific person’s bookmarks, or any bookmarks with a specific tag(s). (ex. http://www.del.icio.us or http://www.spurl.net)
• Track packages :: Most shipping companies offer RSS feeds of the status of your package.
• Broadcast Radio programs :: This is called Podcasting. My next post will go into more depth on this growing technology.
• File sharing :: Store files online and alert others, via RSS, when new files have been added or updated. (ex. http://www.box.net)

By this point, you should be asking yourself, how can I subscribe to RSS feeds? In order to subscribe to feeds you’ll need the appropriate software. There are three main varieties of RSS Readers.

1. Browser plugin

Many newer browsers have support for RSS feeds built in. For example, Mozilla Firefox or Safari allow you to track feeds in the browser.

2. Stand alone program

Another way that you can subscribe to feeds is through a stand alone program. A good option here is FeedDemon.

3. Online reader

The third kind of RSS readers available are online readers. I use a new website called FeedLounge. This is nice because it allows me to check my feeds from anywhere and to keep track of which feeds have been updated.

Hopefully you can see how useful RSS can be. People are constantly coming up with new ways to use the technology and I think it is an exciting thing to watch going forward.

Today, the folks over at the English Standad Version (ESV) blog posted an idea about using Google Maps to plot informaton about the Bible. That is a great idea! They also provided a link to an example. All I have to say is that I wish I had had this when I was studying for my Intro to Biblical Studies exam on Ancient Near East geography. Go check it out!

LINK: The Bible and Google Maps @ ESV.org