Reading

Tim Challies offers some great advice on reading. Click here.

"Temptation"

Most of the TSC staff came over for a meal and hangout at our house today. Everyone brought something to contribute to the meal, so there was plenty to tempt our kids, as you can see.

Tonight Beck told me, "Dad, I need some pop so I can be tempted to eat my dinner." [That's his covert way of trying to bait me into using coercion to get him to eat.]

"No, Beck."

"But I need pop so I can be tempted."

That's a new spin on temptation.

Romans

Conveniently, I lost my voice last week when I was supposed to speak on Romans 7.

So I called my friend Alex Tuckness and he saved the day. Listening to Alex speak on Romans is like having the Apostle Paul explain- in the form of a sermon- what he meant.

Click here for the message on Romans 7.

I'm sure I'll have my voice back to preach on Romans 8 for the last two TSC's...(then lose it again on 9 and 11 next semester)

Weekend Retreat

I just got back from another retreat... here's a picture of Ed Noble and me at the camp. Ed spoke Friday night and Saturday, while I led worship with some of the Anthem band. Here are some highlights:

- Along with being one of the wittiest (i.e. smart alec) guys I know, Ed always sharpens me theologically and spiritually. Topics of discussion: Atonement theories, church leadership, politics, perspective on gay marriage, sporadic prayer, some lessons in appreciating Hebrew and Greek, words of knowledge, demonology/spiritual warfare. I was bummed he had to take off on Saturday night to speak at Brookside Church in Omaha on Sunday morning.

- It was great to see Jeff Dart, an old roommate and friend from college who leads the Brookside youth ministry. He is more like Jesus than most of us. His love for people is sincere and God really seems to have his hand on him for ministry. His group was fun to lead in worship, as they were very open and responsive.

- This morning I spoke in Ed's place. I called it the "choose your own sermon adventure." I gave them four options and let them vote on the sermon they wanted to hear:

1. How to have good sex
2. How to be a Christian and still go to hell
3. Mystery talk (but I told them it involved angels and demons)
4. The best thing in the Bible you've never heard preached on.

Which do you think they chose?

I thought number one would be a slam dunk (we did a secret ballot system to ensure anonymity). Drum roll...

They chose #4, which made me a little nervous, because I only spent 15 minutes preparing that message- and that was 15 minutes before the session. But it was a fun message to preach, as I've done a lot of thinking on it over the last 10 years since I first stumbled upon 2 Peter 1 "so that you may participate in the divine nature" in the summer of 1998.

The message?

Basically a meditation on the doctrine of glorification. God is going to share his glory with us. Calvin's commentary on "divine nature" is that it's a sort of "deification." Wow. I won't re-preach the sermon but it's central to our hope, and yet we do so little thinking and preaching about it.

- The other highlight from the weekend was getting home. Although I was running on fumes coming home, I'm always re-energized by pulling in and seeing kids teeming out of the house to greet me.

I can't wait for a restful week, filled with thanks to God for his kindness to us Americans. Ever since reading the Mayflower (great book), my awe of what we have here has skyrocketed.

Expelled

On Monday I did my typical routine... got a text message from redbox with my free DVD rental. So I watched Expelled.

This movie is worth seeing. It's a little polarizing (comparisons to Nazi Germany), and certainly not the whole story, but it exposes the ridiculous suppression of truth ("damned nonsense" as C.S. Lewis calls it) that goes on in academia. I was surprised to find a friend that was in it... Guillermo Gonzalez. He was a part of our church and recently "expelled" from Iowa State.

My O.T./N.T. prof...Hector Avalos. I also did an independent study with him on my topic, "An essay concerning Jonathan Edward's biblical exegesis in 'The End for Which God Created the World.'" Although Dr. Avalos is a prosletyzing atheist, I consider him a friend and a man with crazy knowledge about the ancient near east.
And last but (or and...) least my physics prof- John Hauptman. I didn't get to know him well, but he seemed like a nice guy. But his quotes in the movie were blatantly hostile to faith.
Where do we go from here?

If you're a young person with an inclination toward science- strive to be the next Newton or Kepler or Einstein. Do science with all your might and remember the chief end of all science is the glory of God. Cherish Psalm 19. And remember that as a scientist, you are merely "following the faithfulness of God in all things." (to loosely quote AW Tozer in Knowledge of the Holy)

If you're a schmo... pray and love people. Don't try to win arguments. Don't throw down your "pearls of knowledge" on intellectuals. But don't think the truth is unknowable. "The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple." Ps. 19

If you're a Christian apologist...don't deny this fact- believing in a Creator God is an issue of faith (Hebrews 11:3 "By faith we believe God created the world...").

Babysitter and the New Cave

Today Leatha had to run to Des Moines, so I dropped the kids off with one of our students, Tim Odell, who lives in the dorms. I played b-ball at the nearby gym (as I always do over the lunch hour on Mondays and Tuesdays).

Makai was a fan of the animal crackers. This is such a stereotypical guy dorm room- skateboard, guitar, random food, a mess... the boys loved it.
Tim cooked Beck some Chicken Noodle soup. It was a big hit.
Tim can do both the traditional 3x3 and 4x4 Rubick's cube. Cameron was impressed.
This was a very sad day yesterday. My office is officially a cave. Here is the last glimmer of light that will ever be seen through the window. I'm so glad I was able to capture it on camera...Goodnight now.