The Seminarian

No beer for a month

Sun, 05 May 2013 08:52:21 -0400

I’ve hestitated to write about this topic because the very mention that I want to stop drinking beer makes me sound like an alcoholic. I am not. I enjoy the taste of good craft beer with a movie on the couch with my wife. I enjoy beer like people enjoy good deserts or good food (and some who enjoy them all in one meal).

But, just like over eating ice cream, I think I’ve over done it on beer and I want to just public state that I plan to be without it for the month of May. I think I might actual want to go the entire year - but I’ve said that before (and here I am). So I will make a much smaller goal to go without it for a month and see how I feel after that, then decide what course of action to go with from there.

If at the end of this you still feel like going without beer for a month should be easy and or that it should be given up entirely, I’d like to suggest you go without meat and other animal products for even just seven days - if you find that hard, I would then suggest you do not judge me. If you find it intriguing to go without animal products for seven days, head on over to the 7dayvegan.com and try it.

See also Habit Mastery over at zenhabits.net.

"True repentance is not remorse. It’s actually stopping the sin."

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 13:34:48 -0500

“True repentance is not remorse. It’s actually stopping the sin.”

- Adapted from *Puritan Theology*.

Why I Love Camping

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 09:48:50 -0400

Sure, you may not get the best sleep. Sure you may find out you have no idea how to start a fire. Sure you may be trying to get sleep when your weather radio goes off showing the mother of all storms approaching. Sure, you may wake up in the morning realizing you have never used your JetBoil before, only to find that your model does not include a striker switch.

Lots of things can go wrong. Actually a lot of things, minus the storm and sleeping, would have gone better with a bit of preparedness.

But what I love about camping can be summed up in a few simply words.

When camping there is no need for cell phones, computers, internet, etc. All of that is gone. There is no need for it. It offers to pull.
While it is stressful, without all the distractions it is you and those with you - real relationships. Obviously in already stressed relationships, camping won’t help.
Cincadas. Man I love the sound of cincadas.
Waking up in the morning. Even when I am low on sleep there is something completely different when you wake up to the crisp air, surrounded by trees.

Camping is hard, especially with a small child who will not cease getting dirty. It is worth it though, lack of sleep and all.

Back to basics

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 19:52:16 -0400

I love blogging. I love podcasting. Now, I will see if I can stick with blogging, since I am sticking with podcast.

Nothing special, just a mea culpa. My hope is that I can post shorter posts rather than detailed ones with too many footnotes. As usually we will see how that goes.

I feel like I am back in high school or college - writing a post about my desire to write a post.

Jesus, the Second Adam and True Israel

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 16:54:02 -0400

Jesus, the Second Adam and True Israel

Jesus and the wild animals

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 16:59:10 -0400

Jesus and the wild animals

Minimizing

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:03:13 -0400

[By the way, I am still alive but in the normal course of 3 classes and work, I got swamped with a research paper, examines, and thousands of pages of reading -mc]

We have sold my wife’s MacBook which had a nice 160GB hard drive in it. Now we only have an iPad (2 not 3) and my MacBook Air 11”. It is an interesting dynamic now because my little computer was generally a school only machine and now has to be elevated to our primary connected machine.

Pictures

This has actually gotten me thinking about our digital picture problem. Especially having a kid you tend to take too many shots. You have 7 photos from different angles and you need to just get down to one. But more than that, that’s obvious, is to slim down to just great pictures. Don’t settle for tons of pictures that no one will look through (besides the fictitious anthropologist who will be happy at the treasure trove of your digital hoarding). I rarely look through old photos of myself as a kid, I suspect most of us are the same.

Music

I have a 64GB SSD in the MBA (alphabet soup warning). So again we have to make sure we have music we love. Not music we tolerate because we bought it. A good instance is I used to listen to a lot of electronic and heavy metal music (yes seriously). But after awhile I just didn’t like that music. So I deleted who scores of it off our backup hard drive (where we store excessive music). I just keep coming back to the need to cut deeper. I get rid of books I am no longer using - donating most of them to my church’s library. If I don’t reference it or want to read it - it goes. Same thing should be with music - and to our credit we have gotten rid of a lot of music.

My next order of business is to slim down the applications and documents I use. I generally store most of my information in DevonTHINK and for the most part like it (it outputs files as .rtf). So most of my research goes there. But throughout a normal school semester I have tons of files - half of them duplicates because I can’t send a .mellel or .pages file to my professors!

I really like the idea of owning less stuff. Plus if our plans ever come to fruition of doing mission work - we will have to be doing just that. By why wait till we head overseas to be free?

John Knox

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 13:00:05 -0500

John Knox:

My review over at Amazon.com of a biography of John Knox.

"Roly-poly pickle puppy"

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 12:02:06 -0500

“Roly-poly pickle puppy”

- My toddler, said as he rolled across the floor.

Babylon to Jerusalem: A Book Release, and a Giveaway!

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:00:05 -0500

Babylon to Jerusalem: A Book Release, and a Giveaway!

Kindle Books

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:00:05 -0500

I like my kindle. I’ve owned the K2, K3, and now the K4 (we actually own the K3 and 4 presently). I have a good stock of kindle books. One thing that surprises me, but I suppose shouldn’t, is the lack of combining books into anthologies. A good example of this is the insanity of The Chronicles of Narnia and A Dance to the Music of Time which are sold as individual books when they are obviously part of an entire set/story. You can read the books separately and I am sure people have but the point is that they are not supposed to be - and if you enjoy them, you would not read them separate but as a long continuous whole. So there is wasted data really, why do I want to fill up my kindle home screen with all 7 volumes of Narnia and all 12 volumes of Dance?

Thankfully there is hope on the horizon. The Lord of the Rings has actually two editions, a combined (originally the way Tolkien intended) and individual - perfect! Great! Finally! Now roll it out to other books since to combine The Lord of the Rings is rather a no brainer, since they were actually conceived and written as one story and broken down because of printing costs.

But, low and behold, looking at kindle books today I found what I have long searched for. An example of taking stories that occur together, but are separate, combined into an anthology edition: The Karla Trilogy (Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, plus the other two stories) by John le Carre.

What can we do next? Why not take Justo Gonzales Story of Christianity two volumes and combine them into a single digital volume? Hopefully when Harry Potter is finally released there will be a digital set title simply: Harry Potter which will include all 7 years. If not, I will not be happy.

We need to remember that 1) physical books will remain, I love them and cannot give them up 2) kindle books are not physical books, so please do not treat them as such. Yes I need page numbers for reference until we can create a better reference number (maybe similar to DOI’s). I am also not asking for a discount, charge the same price for the combined set as buying all the books separated, that’s what the Karla Trilogy does. I want the convenience of not gunking up my home screen.

How can you pray better?

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:00:00 -0500

This is a completely subjective post, keep that in mind! But I wanted to share a way I’ve found that has generally helped my prayers. I don’t know how to express that quantitatively as if any method of mine increases the validity of my prayers but nonetheless God calls us to pray and we can pray better (see though my Trinity & Prayer).

Anyway, what I’ve found to be a better way to pray is to limit praying for myself. Praying for yourself can seem redundant, repetition, and for me sometimes simply as if I am praying to the ceiling. On the other hand praying for others helps in many ways for me to grasp the great commission.

The problem with Israel is that it became insular, it treated God as a tribal deity (contra Genesis 1) and it thought of themselves as the chosen people of God at the expensive of the rest of God’s creation (contra Exodus 19:6). The church, in its rocky history, is the fulfillment of what Israel should have been (cf., 1 Peter 2:5, 9; Revelation 5:10). The church’s mission is directly and explicitly commanded to go out throughout the entire world (Matthew 28:18, duh!).

Back to prayer

If you want to accomplish something in your time of prayer, pray for others. Pray for the Kingdom of God to be made manifest in this world. The best advice I can give is you find missionaries and join them in prayer. It is amazing to really see your prayers at work as you pray for what they need and receiving updates shows you God advancing! Pray for your church and your pastor in much the same manner, that God’s Kingdom would break out amongst your community. Pray that your pastor would preach as if the “preaching of the word of God is the Word of God” (Second Helvetic Confession, Chapter 1).

Simply pray, Your will be done, your Kingdom come!

Resources:

Go through your denomination and find active missionaries to pray for.
Operation World, 7th Edition. Get it and pray through it systematically throughout the year. We are doing a country a week as well as using it in the Sunday School class I teach.

Pericope, n

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:00:05 -0500

I realize that I use the word quite a bit and thought I would offer a quick definition. Simply put a pericope is a section of Scripture. It comes from Greek, literally translated as “cut around,” and was used as a technical term well before we have chapter division.¹

The word moved into Latin so to make the word plural it apparently can be pericopes or probably more correct pericopae.² At the very least you will probably see both if you read any type of scholarly work since “section” is a more ambiguous word than pericope.

Soulen & Soulen, Handbook of Biblical Criticism 2001, s.v. periocope. ↩
Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pericope ↩

Mark 3:20-21; 31-25 The New Family

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:00:05 -0500

A couple of things, one is that I think these sections are working off of Mark 1:29-31 (see Jesus’s Loves Your Family). Second this is (to the best of my knowledge) what is called a Markan Sandwich (a lovely technical term!). A Markan Sandwich is really a literary device that Mark uses when he wants to have things happen but not dwell on the travel (cf., Mark 5:7-13 [14-29] 30-44).

While Mark sets up the idea that Jesus loves your family and that the best place for your family is you being a disciple now Mark has to deal with the hard question of real life. People will have left - or been cast out of - their families (cf., 10:29¹).

The story appears to be that news of Jesus and his antics have reached Nazareth, that Jesus has become so revered (or infamous) that everyone if flocking to his house so that he can’t even sit down to eat in it. The passage makes mention that Jesus is at “home” (see 2:1 which appears simply to mean that Jesus was at Peter’s house in Capernaum). His family hears in Nazareth all these crazy things and goes to retrieve Jesus because he is sullying their good name (a hypothesis but probably true, to much notoriety even now is never a good thing). So Mark inserts this attribution of Jesus’s power to Satan, which is the last straw, the unforgivable sin (see my discussion on the unforgivable sin). It sounds as if, Jesus’s family is not expressly doing this but they are not recognizing that Jesus is the bearer of God’s new kingdom, the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament (1:13-14). So in a round about way they are attributing all of this to the wrong source (by not attributing it to God).

Once they reach their destination (3:31) Mark picks up the story. The house is still crowded, Jesus is just there - he isn’t apparently teaching or healing right now. Its told to him that his mother, brothers, and sisters are there for him. Yet this amazing statement, Jesus says that those who do the will of God are his family.

Let’s remember some controls on the text. First Mark is writing to real people, Christians, who are struggling as Christianity picks up steam and comes into conflict. Secondly the discipleship that Mark is speaking of is one that will bring conflict because there are only two kingdoms: darkness and light. Jesus and Satan. There will always be conflict because you can only be a part of one and they are vehemently at war with each other!

So Mark here is encouraging the Christians. Have you lost your family because of Jesus? Jesus is a better family, the Son of God is now your brother! God then is your Father. He will never leave or forsake you. Are you looked at weirdly because you follow Jesus, is your family less than supportive because you are somewhat cooky - do not worry, Jesus is the faithful loving family that you long for. Did you grow up in a non-Christian family and become a Christian? Do not worry, you have a Father who loves you, a brother who fights for you.

Follow Jesus and gain an eternal family!

These verse, while helpful to realize that to be a disciple one must have total allegiance to Jesus, does not mean that you abandon your family if they do not become Christians. While the disciples left all, Peter apparently still cared for his mother-in-law. And with Jewish customs as they where it is unlikely that Jesus could command such a thing as abandoning your family when it is a charge he brings up to damn the pharisees (7:10-12). This verse I think is not talking about an active leaving but a passive, much like this verse. Following Jesus will have consequences when it comes in contact with the kingdom of Satan (which may be some of the warning in the sandwich (3:22-30). ↩

Episode 2 - COMA & the Prologue

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:00:05 -0500

Episode 2 - COMA & the Prologue:

The second episode as we start chugging through Mark.

Mark 1:29-31 Jesus loves your family

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:00:05 -0500

I wanted to title this: Jesus loves your Mother-in-Law but this seemed more succinct. Often times, at least coming from a more Baptistic background, is the idea of individual salvation. Everyone is accountable before God for his or her own salvation. While there is truth in this - that you need to know Jesus personally, I think we can over state this.

God cares for your family. I do not see another possibility. If you care so much for them, how can he not care even more? How can the faith of the father/leader not affect the family (see the book of Acts which is replete with examples of a federal head accepting Jesus and the entire household being baptized, Acts 16:15, 31, 34; 18:8). God commands us to teach our family (Deut. 6). Israel is a nation whose promises are based on the fact that God loves them and their families/offspring (Gen. 17:2; Acts 2:39).

Then this passage in Mark states a few things quite clearly. When Peter and the other new disciples leave their boats, they do so for absolutely no reason (according to Mark). Jesus calls them and they leave to follow a wandering a rabbi. Fishermen called to be disciples. It is this passage which offers an “incentive” for following Jesus.

Think through it for just a moment, would Peter’s mother-in-law have been healed had her son-in-law not left all to follow Jesus? Not likely since she is bed ridden widow (no mention of a father-in-law) and can’t even serve food to guests. Lets add more to the picture, if you were a new Christian coming from a Jewish background, post AD 70, you family may actually be trying to kill you. If you are coming from a pagan background there is a good chance that you are ostracized because you can’t participate in the civic cult. The Synagogue and the civic altar are now closed to you. Either way you cut it, you are probably cut off from your family.

Why should you follow Jesus if it is going to take away people so dear (cf. 10:29)? Even if the reward is so great, how could any of us trade our families for it? Here Mark sets it up clearly: if you follow Jesus, the kingdom of God comes to your family. Now for us today, we often aren’t ostracized for following Jesus (some may, and what I’ve said above is what the Holy Spirit is saying to you through the text), but for most of us we need to hear is the radical discipleship. Jesus calls and we should respond, give up all, and follow because that is the safest place for our family. The flip side of this is that your family, without Jesus and his kingdom, stand ready for judgment. They need Jesus, you need Jesus. You need to follow Jesus in order to save your family!

Follow Jesus and save your family!

Mark 3:22-30 The Unpardonable Sin

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:00:00 -0500

Before we get concerned with what this sin is, let’s quickly remember the preceding phrase:

I tell you the truth, people will be forgiven for all sins, even all the blasphemies they utter. (Mark 3:28 NET).

Think, dwell, meditate, on that! God is a God of forgiveness – forgiveness that is never-ending, like using a spoon to drain the sea. This is a God who can and does forgive. Whatever your sins, through Jesus, they can be forgiven. In some ways that is the problem of the Scribes and the Pharisees (see Losing Sight; they just can’t accept it).

Here Mark frames this story as Jesus’s family doesn’t know what to make of him.

A caution

If you are concerned about committing or having committed the unpardonable sin, it is rather unlikely that you would do it, precisely because conviction of sin is part of what the Holy Spirit does. And if you are convicted it is likely that it is the Holy Spirit’s prompting.¹

This verse makes clear that, as Satan’s kingdom is not divided, then certainty God’s is not! The Scribes could care less that Jesus is the Son of Man and Son of God, the new Israel, the new Adam, the creator and sustainer of the universe, the God of gods, Lord of Lords, standing, in the flesh, in front of them! They attribute Jesus’s miracles to Satan. Jesus is incredulous, asking how can Satan cast out Satan? This is stupid, he seems to say.²

You had better follow Jesus, because he brings the grace of God as well as the judgment of God. You are either for Jesus and his Kingdom or you are against it.

The Reformation Study Bible “The Unforgivable Sin” in Mark 3. ↩
See the NET Bible notes on Mark 3:28, sn. 55. ↩

First Century Manuscript Found

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:00:06 -0500

First Century Manuscript Found:

A first century fragment of the Gospel of Mark was found, the earliest manuscript we have now have to date. Before that was a fragment called P52, from the Gospel of John, which was second century. This is really an amazing discovery, but the whole article is worth a read if you wonder how well the manuscripts line up with what we have today.

HT: Challies.com

Calvinism != Predestination

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:03:00 -0500

!= is typically used to indicate not equals

Calvinism does not have an exclusive claim on predestination, as if John Calvin invented it. Yes , it may be known for it. Yes, some of its adherents may vehemently talk about it and defend it, but it isn’t something exclusive to Calvinism (or modern day Presbyterianism).

Protestantism = Predestination

If you were part of the protestant reformation, you believed in predestination. Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer, believed it (maybe more on grounds of logical humanism), Luther believed it, because Scripture said it and a true understanding of the Scriptural idea of Justification by Faith Alone needed predestination.¹

John Calvin, then, is a second generation reformer who comes from a humanist and medieval background in his schooling. He is generally considered to be a careful exegete of both the Scriptures and the Church Fathers (just peruse his Institutes).

The thing that separated the reformers into different camps was their understanding of the Eucharist (Lord’s Supper). Now if you are an Anabaptist, maybe you didn’t hold to predestination but since they generally didn’t like creeds and confessions we can’t really know, with the exception of the Dorbrecht Confession, a “more mature” confession of the Anabaptists (now the confession is used for the modern day Mennonites). In Article III and IV there is language that suggests what would later be called Arminianism.²

Early Church = Predestination

Even as early at 529 AD, the Church came together in the Council of Orange to settle the question of Double Predestination (saints to heaven, unrepentant sinners consigned to hell) and came to a moderating conclusion: they affirmed predestination (single predestination, saints are predestined to heaven) and rejected double. They chose a moderate or semi-Augustinian position. ³

All of this was because Augustine, an early theologian, was such an influence over the church. So from the time of the 4th and 5th centuries the Church was already as an institution believing in predestination (as Calvinism defines it).

Finally, we must admit that the matter is even worse than that. Paul the Apostle, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, commissioned by Jesus Christ, taught the Church that predestination was true. In Ephesians 1:5 Paul says that God has predestined us, from the Greek really meaning to pre-determine something beforehand. In other words, God decided before the world was formed (1:4) who would be chosen in Christ, thus saved.⁴

Conclusion

Now, you can believe what you want to believe. I have given a simple survey of the information, namely to point out that it is wrong to say the belief in predestination is strictly a Calvinist idea. It goes back to the beginning of Christianity. So it would seem, as Calvin was a student of the Scriptures and the early church fathers (notable Augustine), that he would come to the same conclusion. He is also a second-generation reformer and knows what is being taught as the Church is being reformed.

Lastly and probably the most important, for Calvin predestination was not something to wrestle with, but rather a comfort to those who are Christians. The comfort is that their salvation is settled; they cannot be snatched away now from God because of the firm grasp of Christ. They did not choose to be saved and cannot un-choose salvation. That is good news.

Justo L. Gonzales The Story of Christianity Revised Edition (HarperOne New York: 2010) 63. ↩
John Leith Creeds of the Churches Revised Edition (John Knox Press Richmond: 1963) 295. ↩
Creeds, 37. See Canons 5-7 on our need for God’s intervention in our salvation, without which we would not be saved. ↩
Obviously Arminianism and Calvinism disagree on how this works. That’s fine, but you have to believe in predestination if you believe the Bible is true. ↩

Behind the Scenes - Episode 1

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:00:05 -0500

Behind the Scenes - Episode 1:

The first episode of Behind the Scenes, where I talk with my pastor about how to read the Bible and eventually we delve into Mark.

The Seminarian

No beer for a month

"True repentance is not remorse. It’s actually stopping the sin."

Why I Love Camping

Back to basics

Jesus, the Second Adam and True Israel

Jesus and the wild animals

Minimizing

Pictures

Music

Next

John Knox

"Roly-poly pickle puppy"

Babylon to Jerusalem: A Book Release, and a Giveaway!

Kindle Books

How can you pray better?

Back to prayer

Resources:

Pericope, n

Mark 3:20-21; 31-25 The New Family

Episode 2 - COMA & the Prologue

Mark 1:29-31 Jesus loves your family

Mark 3:22-30 The Unpardonable Sin

A caution

First Century Manuscript Found

Calvinism != Predestination

Protestantism = Predestination

Early Church = Predestination

Conclusion

Behind the Scenes - Episode 1