A Prayer (for the great grandchildren)

The timing of capturing Grandma Marge's prayer could not have been better as I was preparing to teach on Judges 1-2 at Veritas. Judges 2:10 is probably the saddest verse in the Bible... what is worse than the next generation missing God? I used this video as an example for what we hope to be about as a church. There are over 30,000 young people about to converge on Iowa City this week...

God, help us to make it difficult for them to escape your mercy. Give us this kind of passion to pass on authentic faith to all who are to come.

The Plague, Cousins, Advice

We had the plague hit our house a couple weeks ago. If you were to walk onto our back porch, you would be instantly attacked by these little specks you can see on the tape...

They almost completely covered our kids, looking like mud moving up their bodies, biting and embedding themselves in the skin. It was terrible. Under a magnifying glass they looked like baby ticks. But our doctor sent them in and an entomologist at Iowa State concluded that they were bird mites.

Lesson: Never let a bird's nest anywhere on or around your house.

After spraying and getting rid of the nest, the plague cleared right before we welcomed family visiting from the other side of the globe. First time together in 2 years!

The cousins loved meeting each other for the first time...

Makai wears his baseball glove at all times. It comes in handy for such a time as this...

The garden is ripe...

Our connection group went to help out a family in our group clean up from the wind storm that swept across central Iowa and hit their town with 130+ mph WINDS. It looked like a tornado hit Vinton...

What would a blog post be without evidence of kids sabotaging a perfectly good batch of banana bars? Imagine me looking down to see this and then yelling, "JETT??!!!!!!" We then go on to play out the scene from Genesis 3:9-12...

Who knows how long this headless star wars figure has been riding with us? Good thing we didn't rear end anyone. He would've been dead...

I mentioned before the challenge of where to find Rob Bell's new book at Barnes&Noble, but the truly formidable task was finding a home for it on my book shelf. I think I'm happy with my decision...

...Lodged between Idiot's Guide to World Religions and Jesus Under Fire. And yet not too far from church history, as a reminder of the nugget of wisdom my friend David Churchill bequeathed upon me the summer of '98...

"When I was a teenager, I never listened to anyone over 30. Now that I'm over 30, I don't listen to anyone under 300."

What I'm Reading and Watching

First of all, I'm trying to do more of the former and less of the latter... so I'm going to try to make this post sound like I'm doing a LOT of reading and very little TV watching- hardly any. Here's my best shot at it...

"The Online Looking Glass": Ross Douthat is my favorite editorialist. This article is prophetic, and something I have to think about all the time. Why do we feel the need to blog, post our thoughts and pictures online for the world to see? It can lead to the dark place of narcissism.

"Miami Heat Needs to Work on Their People Skills": I'm one of the "billions" that enjoyed watching the Heat lose Sunday night. But why? Mike Lopresti has a good take.

"The Reason for God": This is one of those books that I'm ashamed I haven't read yet. Speaking of prophetic, there's a reason God has put his favor all over Tim Keller's writings and ministry. He's worth hearing.

Team of Rivals: I'll be reading this book for awhile...

"Mere Christianity": This won't be the last time I talk about reading and (currently) listening to this book by C.S. Lewis. Next to the Bible, this is my most frequented book. Writing about it is my way of prodding you to take and read, not throwing out the excuse "I read it once back in college."

"Revelation: God Wins" (itunes podcast or website): Speaking of what I'm listening to... My partner's bro, Bob Thune Jr., just finished rocking this series on Revelation. People ask about my view on Revelation and end times... Bob articulates them in his journey through Revelation with his church, Coram Deo. Revelation is cyclical, allegorical, and as much about the past (the cross) as the future. As GK Chesterton said, "And though St. John saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators." God won, and he will win. God wins. We were going to teach through this at Veritas this fall, but I think we're headed for Luke's two books this fall and spring...

Samuel and the Epistles: I'm reading the ESV in a year. I'm not loving the ESV, mostly because it doesn't follow the most natural lingual paths. On the other hand, it's more literal translation colors in certain parts of the text. For example, this morning in Colossians 2:18 the ESV uses "asceticism" where the NIV uses "false humility." An argument could be made for either word choice, but I hadn't heard "asceticism" used before in that passage and it seemed to help me understand what Paul was conveying. Next year I think I'm going to give the Holman translation a shot.

Joshua 6 and related commentaries: I'm preaching on the fall of Jericho this week at Veritas. Last week Jeff took one for the team, taking on the issue of circumcision in Joshua 5.

Now to the candy section of life- what I've been watching:

I just subscribed to FreddeGredde's youtube channel thanks to Todd Wallace's twitter post.

Ryan Seiler's "Greener" music video

Sarah Palin's explanation of Paul Revere. That's just plain sad; enough to end someone's political career.

I recorded the Republican debate last night but I'm not sure if I'll get around to watching it. I'm a little jaded when it comes to politics right now, but I know I should be informed and prayerful for our leaders and country.

Truth be told, the reason for less tv watching is seasonal. NBA finals are over, who cares about baseball until late September?, and we have a 3 month lull until kickoff of college/NFL football.

For now, I'll get back to pretending I like to read more than watch tv...

Controversy

Today I watched Rob Bell's interview with Lisa Miller about his book, Love Wins (click here for the interview)

I also read Kevin DeYoung's thorough review of the book (click here).

What I haven't done is read Bell's book, which was released today. To be honest, I'm in the same place I was 8 years ago when everyone told me there were all these books I had to read, by a new wave of authors like Brian McClaren and Doug Pagitt, Rob Bell, etc... I read a couple, but in the end, it just seemed like rehashed liberal theology. I spoke in person with Pagitt, and after talking to him, I warned people not to follow what he taught (which was very hard to figure out- like nailing jello to the wall). I feel the same way now about Bell. I'm currently fighting my resistance to read Bell's book, because there are so many others on the shelf that I think would make me a better pastor and shepherd of God's people.

As a pastor, I would encourage the people of Veritas not to follow any teaching that denies the eternal nature of heaven and hell, and the eternal consequences of rejecting Jesus Christ in this life. We reject universalism, even in its rehashed state.

I'm sure there will be more to come on this topic. For now, I think it's hard to improve on DeYoung's response.

Santa Claus is coming to town

Here are some thoughts from Bruce on Santa...

And some even better thoughts from Driscoll...

http://blog.marshillchurch.org/2010/12/13/what-we-tell-our-kids-about-santa-pastor-mark-for-the-washington-post/

Bible Translations

As a new church, we are thinking through which Bible translation to use in our preaching. Some of what has brought on this discussion is that Cornerstone is also wrestling with this. One of the great minds on the Cornerstone elder team (sorry, Jeff, in this case I'm referring to Alex...) wrote some great thoughts on the topic. You can read his series of blog posts: click here

OR, you can just read a summary of all the posts put together...

Bible translations part 1

My last blog talked about getting a couple of new Bibles for Christmas even though I already have a bunch. The three reasons were that sometimes they wear out, sometimes a particular translation helps with a particular function, and sometimes it is just a matter of convenience. So in the next few blogs I am going to do a tour of the Bibles we have around since people are often interested in what the differences are.

Let me start with the big picture. I think of a translation as being like a map of the world in the sense that the world is in three dimensions but maps are in two dimensions. That is why all maps are a distortion of reality. Some make Greenland look as a large as South America, others make the countries at the equator look bigger than they actually are. Now we can either get frustrated by the fact that our maps are not perfect or we can be happy that we have lots of maps available that are perfectly adequate for what we need to do. The distortion on your map is not the reason you missed a turn or got lost the last time you went driving.

Bible translations, at the most basic, have to choose between trying to translate the original Hebrew or Greek word with a single English word each time so as to be as literal as possible or trying to capture the thought the author was trying to express and expressing it as clearly as possible in contemporary English. Both involve some distortion of the original. But the bottom line is that all of the translations I will talk about are, on the whole, good translations. As long as you are able to understand the language a major translation is using, it will be adequate for clearly communicating the main themes of the Bible. What they all have in common is far more important than the differences among them. Sometimes with “translation wars” we emphasize what makes our translation better to the point where minor differences are overshadowing the common truth that they all proclaim. When we get to heaven and are rewarded by our Father, I don’t think “nice translation choice” will be in the top 10 for any of us. Far more important is really believing the gospel and orienting our lives in gratitude to obey what we understand. Our mistakes in applying the Bible often have far more to do with the way we read it than with the translation.

So with all that as a disclaimer, there really are differences. Airline pilots use different maps than the ones in your car atlas because for the task at hand they need to minimize a particular type of distortion. In the next post I will start breaking down our inventory and the functions the different translations have.

Bible Translations, NIV and RSV
The translation I have used most is the NIV. I grew up with it, so it is familiar and it is the most commonly used one in evangelical circles so when I teach or preach it is the least distracting for the most people. People who use other translations even though the preaching is from the NIV are generally people who like comparing translations anyway. I am not sure if it is the “best” translation. Sometimes things become the standard because they are in the right place at the right time. In the 1970s there was a strong demand for a more readable translation then the King James which was written in the early 17th century and was not based on the earliest original manuscripts. Then once people get attached to something it is hard to change. Most of the scripture I have memorized is in the NIV and that is one of the main reasons for being reluctant to change. The NIV is somewhere in the middle of the translation continuum between being ultra-literal and being a mere paraphrase. It flows well for reading aloud and silently and generally does a very good job of capturing the author’s point.

The only stretch where I was not primarily an NIV person was in college and grad school. I wanted a more literal translation but thought the New American Standard Bible (NASB) was too stilted for every day use. I also wanted a study bible. So I ended up using the Revised Standard Version which was the most common alternative to the King James before the NIV came out. At the time I also remember wondering whether the NIV was “biased” in that evangelicals translated it in such a way to cover up “problem” passages. When I moved to Iowa I switched back to the NIV. It is easier to read and memorize and easier to teach from. I also decided my fears were overblown. I almost never use my duct tape repaired RSV study bible anymore but keep it around for sentimental reasons and because when I went to Zambia I was trying to take easy to read translations.

More literal Bible translations

The biggest weaknesses of the NIV come from the fact that it is not as literal. Sometimes I think that it interprets things wrongly. I don’t, for example, like “sin nature” as a translation of a Greek word that means “flesh” in Romans 6-8. I understand why they did it. They didn’t want people to think God hates bodies or that we should hate our bodies. But in the process they make it hard to see how much “body talk” is going on in those chapters. Paul talks about bodies, flesh, and “members” (body parts) constantly. I discussed this in a talk I did for Salt Company in November. Sometimes there is a repeated word or phrase that an author uses and if the word is translated several different ways you won’t notice it as much. The word “walk” in Ephesians is a key word that the NIV translates “live a life.” Thus “walk in love” becomes “live a life of love” and so on. “Live a life” is a more natural way of saying it in contemporary English, but sometimes that phrasing seems forced and so the NIV picks another one. All of this is why when I am teaching a passage I try to look at one or more literal translations.

For a long time my main Bible for this purpose was the New American Standard Bible, which is as literal as they come. I still think it is a very good one for that purpose. When Anastasia does “Precept” studies, she uses our NASB. But there are a few other options now that I like as well. The two new Bibles I got for Christmas were the English Standard Version (ESV) Study Bible and a $5 Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB). I got the ESV because 1) My current study bible is falling apart 2) A number of people at my church are using it now and so I wanted to be more familiar with it and 3) there is some logic to having a more literal translation when I am in “study” mode. I am going to be teaching a course this semester on the Old Testament and am planning to go through the ESV Study Bible to check it out as I do so. I had a paperback copy of the HCSB but I gave it away in Zambia. I like it because it feels like someone took the NIV as a baseline and then make it a little more literal. “Flesh” is “flesh” and “walk” is “walk.” It also has extensive notes on alternate translations of verses. Thi s is the translation I used for teaching Romans 7 last semester because it was literal enough to get the points across but still as readable as possible. I picked the ESV over it for the study bible not so much because the translation is better but more because it looked like the notes, maps, etc. for the ESV were better.

Less literal Bible translations

You reap what you sow. Even in Iowa, no one actually talks about reaping and sowing. They talk about planting and harvesting. It is sometimes hard for those of us who have been hearing the Bible for a long time to notice ways in which the language is very different from how we talk now. The less literal translations give themselves even more freedom to understand what the author was trying to say and say it the way we would now. Compare the beginning of Hebrews 8:1 “The point of what we are saying is this” (NIV) with “Here is the main point” (NLT). Honestly, I think the NLT is better here even though the NIV is closer to the original Greek. Free translations are best when you are simply listening to the Bible rather than doing close study of a particular passage. Every night before bed, I read to Anastasia from the Bible and the NLT has become our preferred translation for that. Sometimes the NLT will even throw in a little detail that is not in the text because it is something that would have been obvious to the original audience. Several of these examples were given to me by my father in law who also likes this translation. There are some other good ones as well. I gave away my Contemporary English Version (CEV) which is similar and has worked on getting the cadence and word order right for oral reading. Right now the difference between them isn’t enough for me to justify going out and buying another one. I think I also gave away my copies of The Message. It is one of the most interesting but has the disadvantage that it was all done by one person and is very free . Think of it as Eugene Peterson’s commentary on the Bible with no explanation for why he understands the passages the way he does. That said, it is very good. If there are parts of the Bible that are hard for you to understand and so you never read them, it might be worth trying again with one of these translations. I still have both the CEV and The Message for the New Testament as part of a parallel Bible I will talk about later.

Misc. Bible translations and software

I haven’t discussed the King James in this series of blogs. I do use it sometimes, mainly for historical purposes. For my job I actually read a lot of 17th century English prose, which happens to be what the KJV is. So when I read works from that time that reference the Bible (and the generally did so a lot back then) the KJV is what they tend to quote. So oddly enough I use the KJV for work more often than for personal use. I can read that style of English fairly well, but it makes reading the Bible seem like work and the KJV is not based on the more recent manuscripts. Sometimes I use the Strong numbers that go with the KJV to look up a greek word using my Bible software.

The main Bible software program I have, Logos, I got probably 12 years ago for about $70 and it has been one of my best investments. I don’t know if Logos is the best value for the money or not, but it gives me the NIV, the old American Standard, and the KJV indexed to the greek and hebrew originals. I can search words and phrases and it has some other tools that I occasionally use. I sometimes use e-sword which has the ESV available for free and some other nice free downloads.

If I had known where things were going with Bible software, I would not have invested in some of the books I own. I have a NT word study, a couple of greek new testaments, a parallel greek-english NT, and a greek lexicon (dictionary). All of this I could have on a CD if I were willing to pay for it. Eventually I will probably break down and upgrade, by I keep assuming that some next generation software will come out so I am waiting.

I also have some parallel Bibles. One is a NT only that has 8 translations side by side (4 per page on facing pages). It has the New King James, the ESV, the HCSB, the NIV, the TNIV, the NLT, the New Century, and The Message. If I could replace the New Century with the NASB it would be perfect. There is also a parallel bible that is NASB, NIV, KJV, and NLT that I like. I don’t own it, but I have it checked out from Parks Library most of the time and it sits in my study room at the library. The big downside to it is how much it weighs, but I never have to carry it so that is not a problem. If you have an ISU card you can recall it if you would like to use it.

I think that is a good overview of the Bibles I use. Let me conclude this particular series by emphasizing something I said at the beginning, which is that what the translations have in common is far more important than the differences. With so many good translations around, the real question is how we respond to what we read.

The Library

Here's something I love about being in a university town: the library.

It's a humbling place. Five stories of this...

Google doesn't even know what this book is MADHYANDINASAKH... Vannah, I'd like to get a vowel please.
The Talmud of Babylonia... that's a lot of OT commentary. I wonder how many people have read every word of this.
I found it ironic that Calvin's commentary had the "BS" call number.

It's interesting how all of this knowledge affects people, either making them proud or humble. I suppose the knowledge isn't what "makes" us proud or humble, but rather exposes the condition of our souls.

Although Solomon is right, "Of making many books, there is no end, and much study wearies the body..." (Eccles. 12:11), the library is a place I need to frequent more often.

Sunday's Kickoff Sermon

Thanks to Chris, our videographer and web guru, the sermon from Sunday is up on the Veritas website: http://www.veritasiowacity.com/

Imago Dei

Today I was driving down a fairly busy four lane highway, when a driver a few cars ahead of me decided to randomly slam on his brakes. The next car quickly responded with brakes and swerving.

I had to make a quick choice... rear end the car in front of me at a high speed or risk it- hitting the brakes and swerving into the left lane, hoping for an opening in that lane.

I swerved, barely missing the car in front of me.

As I passed the stopped cars to my right, I saw the reason for the mayhem...

A Dog.

Are you kidding me? For the love of humanity- hit the animal!

Whatever you do, don't get yourself and others killed trying to avoid... a dog. Nobody wants to be responsible for hitting Max the Retriever, but nobody really wants to be responsible for saving a dog and killing a human. They teach that in driver's ed. Back in high school, a kid in Omaha was paralyzed when he swerved to miss a squirrel.

I drove by the madness on the road, then I recalled a conversation with my philosophy professor back in the day.

I was talking to him about the moral argument for God's existence, which I consider the most intuitive (i.e. It's naturally obvious) of the classical arguments. I asked him if he thought there would be a moral obligation in the following scenario: A house is on fire and you can save the baby or the dog. Are you morally obligated to save the baby? If so, where does this sense of "ought" come from? Is it mere preference and/or socialization, or moral obligation based on something outside of us. And something in us.

It made me think of the aforementioned scenario on the highway.

If a child were to wander out onto the highway, there would be an obligation to brake, swerve or whatever to avoid the child. But not in the case of a dog, cat, deer, raccoon, or bird (btw: two of my coolest roadkill- a hawk and coyote).

The difference, of course, is that we we're made in the "imago dei"... image of God. His fingerprint is on us. We have souls. We are eternal beings, and although we have some things in common with animals, a dog will never watch a sunset in awe of its Maker. A dog cannot lift its paws in worship or sing a hymn of praise. It cannot repent and surrender its will.

Nor can it blog about its experience of almost getting killed on the road.

All said and done- I'm glad the dog is still alive. But I'm more glad that I'm still alive.

Cue Pearl Jam.

Book List

I told some guys I've been mentoring I would give them a book list. Fellas, here you go...

1. Mere Christianity (CS Lewis)- If I only had one book next to the Dangerous Book, I'd take this one. Also, read all the Chronicles of Narnia, as they will expand your imagination.

2. Desiring God (John Piper)- This created a Copernican revolution in my theology back in '97.

3. The Knowledge and the Holy and...

4. The Pursuit of God (AW Tozer)- My grandpa Bill used to quote large chunks of Tozer to me. Tozer is in the "mystic" category, but your soul will expand reading Tozer.

5. The Supremacy of God in preaching (Piper)- If you're planning on preaching

6. Working the Angles (Eugene Peterson)- If you're going into ministry, this will remind you of the balance you need.

7. In Harm's Way (Doug Stanton) and Endurance (Alfred Lansing)- got me into historical non-fiction, WW2 history, and challenged me to love adventure, risk, and not giving up.

8. Systematic Theology (Wayne Grudem)- This is a must have resource

9. The Life You've Always Wanted (John Ortberg)- some lighter reading to mix in with the deeper stuff. You'll find this refreshing and helpful as you learn what ingredients go in to life with God. Disciplines of a Godly Man (Kent Hughes) is also good on disciplines.

10. Purity Principle (Randy Alcorn)- most concise and best book on purity

11. How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth (Fee & Stuart)- Bible interpretation 101

12. Let the Nations be Glad (Piper)... the first sentence of the book is worth the price of the book. "Missions is not the chief end of the church, worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't." Too many people without a heart for the nations are in ministry. This book will help you get off on the right foot. But having taken Perspectives... you already are!

13. Turning Points (Noll)- a primer on church history.

14. Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God and...

15. Knowing God (Packer)- doctrine of God (Theology Proper)

16. Shepherding a Child's Heart (Tripp)- this is for when you "grow up" and have a family. It's the best book on parenting

17. Pilgrim's Progress (Bunyan)- one of the all time best sellers

18. Master Plan of Evangelism (Coleman)

Books I'm ashamed to say I haven't read- but are in the dock:

1. The Cost of Discipleship (Jeff Dodge and Ed Noble will not be happy about this... I'm on it!)

2. Magician's Nephew (last book in the Narnia series... or first book, however you look at it)

3. Confessions (Augustine). I've read it once. I put it on the list because I'm ashamed I haven't read it more than once.

4. Institutes of the Christian Religion (Calvin)- maybe I'll read this in another life

5. The Divine Conspiracy (Dallas Willard)- I'm about half way through. The hardest part about this book is figuring out what not to underline.

6. Anything by Tim Keller (ouch!!!). Reason for God, here we come!

Alright, fellas, in 15 minutes, that's the best I can come up with. I'll add to this list as I think of more. Remember Ecclesiastes 12:11-12, "The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails- given by on Shepherd. Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body."

Thank you, Dallas

In high school, I was told to read books like The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer and Knowing God by J.I. Packer and Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, and Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard.

Apparently my youth pastors shouldn't have been youth pastors (i.e. Ed, John...). There was probably more age appropriate books out there.

But as I read these books, I may not have gotten them, but I knew there was gold in them. So I kept digging.

To this day if I could only have one book next to the Bible, I'd pick Mere Christianity. That should be a post of its own. Related to that is why we should read a few books a lot rather than many books once.

But the Dallas Willard book really troubled me. I knew he was saying something profound that I really couldn't quite explain. Over the years Willard has become more popular, and people have sought to regurgitate him in more understandable ways. His thoughts on the kingdom are brilliant. When I finally "got" Willard, it was a Copernican revolution close to the scale of when I "got" what John Piper was saying about the glory of God.

Where is this going?

I came across a Willard article that could've saved me a lot of time. It's a cogent article on his thoughts on evangelism, discipleship, heaven/hell, pluralism, etc... Click here for the whole thing, or here are some sound bites...

On evangelism...

Much of evangelism today is rooted in a misunderstanding of salvation. People have been told they are Christians because they have confessed they believe that Jesus died for their sins, but the total package is presented in such a way that it leaves the general life untouched.

Biblically, salvation means deliverance; the question is, "Deliverance from what?" The common message is "deliverance from guilt." But the full concept of salvation in the New Testament isdeliverance from our present sins. Deliverance from sins comes from the new life of God’s Kingdom when we place our confidence in Jesus the person.

The problem is that we have been obsessed with this idea that the real issue is "making the cut" to get to heaven. We have taken the discipleship out of conversion.

I am uncomfortable with the distinction between evangelism and discipleship. What we call evangelism is often nothing more than soul-winning. Evangelism has come to mean getting people "across the line." It operates according to a model of providing goods and services that has nothing to do with Christlikeness.

The real question is, How do you do "evangelism-discipleship?" My short answer: You ravish people with the blessings of the Kingdom. You make them hungry for it. That’s why words are so important—we must be wordsmiths. You use words to ravish people with the beauty of the kingdom. It’s the beauty of the kingdom that Jesus said was causing people to climb over each other just to get in. People become excited like the pearl-purchaser—they will give everything to get in.

On discipleship...

My definition: A disciple is a person who has decided that the most important thing in their life is to learn how to do what Jesus said to do. A disciple is not a person who has things under control, or knows a lot of things. Disciples simply are people who are constantly revising their affairs to carry through on their decision to follow Jesus.

On pluralism...

If somebody says to me, "What name would you give by which I might be saved?" I’m not going to say, "Buddha." I’ll say Jesus. Someone may say to me, "I know a Buddhist who is going to heaven." I will say, "Good luck."...I always say, if you’ve got someone who honestly is better than Jesus, trust them. And if you don’t, trust him. By all means, don’t trust yourself, because you’re the one who’s got the problem.

Peter Kreeft

Friday night I had the privilege of eating dinner with Peter Kreeft, one of the great Christian philosophers of our day (pronounced Krayft, as in "Beethoven"). Pictured below...Me, Pete, Alex, and Dan.

Here's what I learned from the conversation:

Kreeft came across as a black and white guy, which I didn't fully expect. Alex, a brilliant guy in his own right, and Kreeft discussed how hard we should be on Karl Marx. Kreeft put the deaths of 100 million people on him, while Alex encouraged us to learn something from what he had to say. They also got into a similar discussion about Rousseau, who I know little about.

When I asked Kreeft what he thought about the new atheist movement (Hitchens, Dawkins, etc), he dismissed them and their arguments as unoriginal. "If you want to read a real atheist with consistent arguments, read Nietzche." I asked what modern books are must reads if we want to understand modern thought and he dismissed them all. He basically said that although they are marketable and appeal to the masses, they don't hold a candle to the philosophical rigor of previous thinkers. He said there's nothing quite as brilliant as Locke and Kant, and modern minds just can't appreciate it.

I disagreed with him.

I said, "I'm pretty sure that the contemporaries of Locke and Kant probably had a hard time reading them as well. When I read "Critique of Pure Reason" and "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" in college, they were almost unreadable. It's said of Kantian philosophers that they are angry people." Alex had my back with Kant, saying that even Germans read Kant's translated essays in English, because they are so difficult in German. But Alex wasn't much help on defending Locke, because he's an expert on him.

Kreeft basically said, "Your generation watches too much TV and doesn't have the mental capacity for it."

He's probably right.

I should wrap this up so I can get back to the Olympics...

Other things I found interesting:

He had never heard of Mark Driscoll.

He hates computers.

He thinks part of the hope for unity in the church is a "charismatic experience." He said the last 3 popes were all baptized in the spirit and performed exorcisms.

He said he's Catholic, not Jesuit, "The Jesuits are like Yankee fans, there are a few good ones."

Regarding Lent fast... "Last year I gave up alcohol, but I found times where some Scotch would've been nice to wash down a bad taste in my mouth. So this year I've gone to increasing alms to the poor. This has made more sense."

Why Evangelicals are often quicker to embrace him than Catholics... he said he always tries to emphasize "Mere Christianity", as C.S. Lewis did.

He thinks preaching should be more narrative and story based than systematic and expositional. "Who wouldn't choose Matthew over Romans?" he asked.

He called his spiritual life, "messy and unorganized, just like everyone else's."

Overall, this guy is brilliant and did a masterful job speaking at our Veritas forum. I could count all the "and um you knows" on no fingers. Filler words were noticeably absent. Every word was profound and perfectly placed. It was an honor to hang out with a man that we will look back on as one of the greatest Christian thinkers and most prolific writers. Period.

Last Week

One of the highlights of my week is meeting on Thursday mornings with a group of new believers. Last week, Bill had a message on his heart. So I had him preach it to 4 of us in the chapel of the Memorial Union. It was amazing. Click here for more on that.

Notice the curtain that you can pull over the cross if it offends you. Welcome to Iowa State University.

Moroccan tea from Cafe Milo is a must for last minute sermon preparation. Especially when you're fighting a cold.
The main point of my message from John 3 was, "Missing the point of life is easy, even though God has made it hard to miss." Then I had four points on "How to miss the point of life."

It wasn't that great, so I won't bore you with all four points. But I thought the opening story (via youtube) was a good contrast of two guys- one who missed it, the other got it.

Have you ever seen this on a t-shirt? Sillyness, right?
Well, not for Michael Jordan. Start watching his closing remarks at about 7:53...

Then you have a guy building his house on a rock... start at about 1:53 to hear his words to his family and then skip to the end around 6:40.

What a contrast. Just when you thought Jordan was going to close his speech by thanking people and, perhaps God, he goes off on how much the game of basketball has been there for him.

That's a great way to miss the point of life: live life for _______ (insert "sports" or anything else that doesn't matter for eternity)

Here are some pics from church history class. We went to Des Moines and visited the Greek Orthodox church.

Father Basil shared about the history of the Greek Orthodox church. I have a lot of thoughts on this. Too many for now.
Afterwards Stan made some poor man's lemonade at Chili's. I think his drink reached the supersaturation point with sugar.
Friday night I got choked up as I watched a beautifully redemptive wedding. Congrats to Dan and Allissa. Bless your new life together. I wish I had more time to tell the world how God blessed your broken roads.
On the home front...

Somehow putting the first letter of their name on a pancake (here with peanut butter), makes all the difference.
Tonight I finished "Oliver Twist" (illustrated classics) with the kids. Makai was noticeably quiet in the other room.

He was busy making crafts. It was a small miracle that he only wrote on the paper and not the walls, computer, NEW WASHER...heaven knows we don't want that 1978 (?) beauty marked on...

Being Critical?

I'm not in favor of suspending all moral or doctrinal judgments, but sometimes I wonder why I'm so critical.

Surfing for fun

Last night instead of watching a late night movie (as if the Viking/Packers game wasn't enough), I chose to catch up on some blogs and do a little internet surfing.

Here are some waves I caught...

Bob Thune...

went yard (baseball metaphors are a must this time of year) with his two posts: "Why you shouldn't go to seminary": For Part 1 click here and for Part 2 click here

U2...

is the best band of all time. Is there any doubt? Click here for article, here for interactive view, or here for pics.

Baseball...

call of the year (props challies.com)

More from challies.com...

Sermons...

from Desiring God's latest conference on Calvin (click here)

Food for thought...

regarding his meeting Rick Warren and Saddleback visit (click here)

Jim Rome (.com)...

on Favre. Note: Reading or listening to Jim Rome is like eating candy. It won't make you a better person for having partaken. But somehow the laughter will enrich your life in some small, insignificant way...

Favre telling the Packer fans they just need to let the past go and move on…would be like Roger Clemens telling Barry Bonds to stop cheating. I’m sure Packer fans will get right on that. Like Bernie Madoff telling all those people who he ripped off: yeah, I know you thought you had retired at 60…now you have to go back and work until you’re in your 90’s…let it go already…just move on!

Jim Rome (.com) on the Twins preview tonight (click here)

Mike Easton...

who just left for overseas, watches the Cyclone game via skype (Des Moines to East Asia)- click here. This is a reminder to pray for our friends overseas. This is part of the suffering... missing much anticipated sporting events. Mike, sorry about the game. What did we expect?

Reed, I'm also feeling your pain way out there in Central Asia... some of the best 72 hours of sports that has ever happened in the Twin Cities...

The Y Word

Ed checks in with some great thoughts on whether or not we should say God's name: YaHWeH. Click here to be clued in to that uber practical theological discussion.

Week in Review

This is why we have so many kids... someone's got to grind the wheat. He's wearing ear protection. You never know when OSHA is going to show up. Actually our wheat grinder is super loud.

This is what I listened to on my laptop while cleaning the kitchen on my day off. Tim Keller, one of the brilliant minds (and pastors) of our day.

Our kids didn't do the best job of taking care of their frog. It shriveled up in the bottom of the bucket. Dehydration can't be a fun way to go.

A boy's jackpot.

The young guns
Makai playing dead

Grandma Marge holding Jett. What a legacy Grandma is leaving for our family... she is praying for all of her offspring to follow Christ until the day he returns.

Beck at Papa Jack and Grandma Linda's in Omaha last weekend.
For my weekly ministry report, click here. In this picture, Jeff Dodge is teaching church history as a part of Cornerstone's school of theology.

While I'm Quoting People

Sometimes when preaching (tonight at Salt Company, for example), I'm tempted to stand up and say,

"Thanks for coming. We're continuing our mini-series on our core values. Tonight we'll be in Isaiah 42:5-8, focusing on God's Glory, God's Word, and God's People. To quote C.S. in Reflections on the Psalms:

“When I first began to draw near to belief in God and even for some time after it had been given to me, I found a stumbling block in the demand so clamorously made by all religious people that we should ‘praise’ God; still more in the suggestion that God Himself demanded it. We all despise the man who demands continued assurance of his own virtue, intelligence or delightfulness; we despise still more the crowd of people round every dictator, every millionaire, every celebrity, who gratify that demand. Thus a picture, at once ludicrous and horrible, both of God and His worshippers, threatened to appear in my mind. The Psalms were especially troublesome in this way —’Praise the Lord,’ ‘O praise the Lord with me,’ ‘Praise Him.’ . . . Worse still was the statement put into God’s own mouth, ‘whoso offereth me thanks and praise, he honoureth me’ (50:23). It was hideously like saying, ‘What I most want is to be told that I am good and great.’ . . . [Furthermore], more than once the Psalmists seemed to be saying, ‘You like praise. Do this for me, and you shall have some.’ Thus in [Ps.] 54 the poet begins ’save me’ (1), and in verse 6 adds an inducement, ‘An offering of a free heart will I give thee, and praise thy Name.’ Again and again the speaker asks to be saved from death on the ground that if God lets His suppliants die He will get no more praise from them, for the ghosts in Sheol cannot praise ([Pss.] 30:10; 88:10; 119:175). And mere quantity of praise seemed to count; ’seven times a day do I praise thee’ (119:164). It was extremely distressing. It made one think what one least wanted to think. Gratitude to God, reverence to Him, obedience to Him, I thought I could understand; not this perpetual eulogy. . . .

[Part of my initial problem is that] I did not see that it is in the process of being worshipped that God communicates His presence to men. It is not of course the only way. But for many people at many times the ‘fair beauty of the Lord’ is revealed chiefly or only while they worship Him together. Even in Judaism the essence of the sacrifice was not really that men gave bulls and goats to God, but that by their so doing God gave Himself to men; in the central act of our own worship of course this is far clearer — there it is manifestly, even physically, God who gives and we who receive. The miserable idea that God should in any sense need, or crave for, our worship like a vain woman wanting compliments, or a vain author presenting his new books to people who never met or heard him, is implicitly answered by the words, ‘If I be hungry I will not tell thee‘ (50:12). Even if such an absurd Deity could be conceived, He would hardly come to us, the lowest of rational creatures, to gratify His appetite. I don’t want my dog to bark approval of my books[!].

But the most obvious fact about praise — whether of God or anything — strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honour. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless . . . shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise — lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favourite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favourite game — praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. . . . Except where intolerably adverse circumstances interfere, praise almost seems to be inner health made audible. . . . I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: ‘Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?’ The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can’t help doing, about everything else we value.

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. . . .

If it were possible for a created soul fully . . . to ‘appreciate’, that is to love and delight in, the worthiest object of all, and simultaneously at every moment to give this delight perfect expression, then that soul would be in supreme beatitude. . . . To see what the doctrine really means, we must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God — drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by, that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves as incommunicable, hence hardly tolerable, bliss, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression, our joy is no more separable from the praise in which it liberates and utters itself than the brightness a mirror receives is separable from the brightness it sheds. The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is ‘to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him” (pp. 90-98)."

Let's pray."

What from that quote can you possibly cut?!

J.S. Bach Quotes

Johann Sebastian Bach is the man.

If I was alive when he was, I probably would never have heard of him. Thanks to technology we have access to his music and a window into his soul. These quotes reflect the true heart of a worship leader.

He told a student, "Just practice diligently, and it will go very well. You have five fingers on each hand just as healthy as mine."

To an acquaintance who praised his organ playing, "There is nothing very wonderful about it; you have only to hit the right notes at the right moment and the instrument does the rest."

Batting clean-up, here's the quote that clears the bases- “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.”

Head Coverings in Church

Here's an email exchange you might find helpful.

Hey Mark, I recently attended my home church's retreat at _____. During one of the meetings, I was wearing a hat. Not thinking anything of it, I had to go to the bathroom. When I was done, I headed back into the meeting when an elder stop me, and asked if I had heard the Holy Spirit talking to me. Confused and not knowing how to respond, he told me that the holy spirit was telling me that I needed to take off my hat while in the the presence of God. I quickly apologized, removed my hat and submitted to his authority.

My church has always held true to 1 Corinthians 11 in following what it says about woman wearing head coverings and men hats.

So my question is: Why is this teaching not common in a majority of churches today? How do we respond to this?

Here's my response, a quote from Grudem's Systematic Theology:

"Just as God the Father has authority over the Son, though the two are equal in deity, so in marriage, the husband has authority over the wife, though they are equal in personhood. In this case, the man's role is like that of God the Father, and the woman's role is parallel to that of God the Son. They are equal in importance, but they have different roles. In the context of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, Paul sees this as a basis for telling the Corinthians to wear the different kinds of clothing appropriate for the men and women of that day, so that the distinctions between men and women might be outwardly evident in the Christian assembly. (footnote: The fact that head coverings were the kind of clothing that distinguished women from men in first century Corinth meant that Paul directed the women to wear head coverings in church. But this does not mean that women should wear head coverings in societies where that is not a distinctive sign of being a woman. The contemporary applications would be that women should dress to look like women and men should dress to look like men, in whatever form those clothing patterns are expressed in each society: Paul is not in favor of unisex clothing!) Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem, pp 459-460. See also Thomas R. Schreiner, "Head Coverings, Prophecies and Trinity: 1 Corinthians 11:2-16," in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, pp 124-139.