the glory and the horror

UFO: Aftermath

Fans of X-COM, rejoice.

Luther

A full-length feature film about Martin Luther.

So I have this bump on my eyelid, a chalazion, and I’ve had it since last summer (over a year now), and I’m finally getting it taken care of. It hasn’t been much of a bother until recently. For some reason, it decided to start getting bigger and redder, and start to actually begin to make my eyelid stay lower than normal. I’m normally fairly conservative in my medical decisions, and I think that’ll probably carry over into whatever practice I have, but it’s starting to interfere with normal function. I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon with an ophthalmologist to get it taken care of, but it’s not going to be cheap. My student health insurance has a $300 deductible. The costs of health care.

Real Live Preacher

Just go read it. Start with his life story.

More from Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper:

“But my sense is that in the prosperous West, the danger in the church is not that there are too many overly zealous people who care too deeply about the lost, and invest hazardously in the cause of the Gospel, and ruin their lives with excessive mercy to the poor. For every careless saint who burns himself out and breaks up his family with misdirected zeal, I venture, there are a thousand who coast with the world, treating Jesus like a helpful add-on, but not as an all-satisfying, all-authoritative King in the cause of love.”

“Oh, how many lives are wasted by people who believe that the Christian life means simply avoiding badness and providing for the family. So there is no adultery, no stealing, no killing, no embezzlement, no fraud – just lots of hard work during the day, and lots of TV and PG-13 videos in the evening (during quality family time), and lots of fun stuf on the weekend – woven around church (mostly). This is life for millions of people. Wasted life. We were created for more.”

“I want to be able to say to suffering and perishing people, ‘I tried everything in the world… I was trying so hard.’ And I want to be able to say to those around me when I die, ‘It’s all right. To live is Christ, and to die is gain.’”

“Oh, that young and old would turn off the television, take a long walk, and dream about feats of courage for a cause ten thousand times more important than American democracy – as precious as that is… When they see our sacrificial love – radiant with joy – will they not say, ‘Christ is great’?”

Here’s some interesting/disturbing info on what is usually considered a quality Christian organization:

Apologetics Index – Youth With A Mission (YWAM)
Phil Johnson’s Really Bad Theology bookmarks – YWAM link at the bottom of the page, with other links

I’d only heard good things about them, and I remember seeing their ads in Focus on the Family’s Breakaway magazine for teen guys. Never been on a YWAM trip, and can’t really think of anyone who I know that has been involved with them. However, it came up in conversation tonight, so I just figured I’d post it, if just for future reference to find these pages again. And in case anyone is wondering, the Apologetics Index is a great site, and so is Phil Johnson’s site. Lots of good links and analysis of various versions of Christianity, cults, and personalities.

Oh yeah. Sister heads to college at the end of the week. Incredible! And my aunt is adopting a little girl from China. Exciting! And the Millers will be back in the States for a bit in September, and Derek Webb will be playing in Dallas in a couple weeks. Yippeee!

No time for a real update, but here goes.

This weekend, Kathleen and I went down to Fredericksburg area for the Gillespie County Fair and Robert Earl Keen on Saturday night. Then we visited Kristen and Mike, and we also got to hang with Jeff S. for a bit too. That was just SPECTACULAR. It was really fun.

Took Kimbell out to dinner tonight, for his birthday. Kathleen and I really had a great time with him. I look forward to learning more from him and hearing his stories. Quite fun. Good kid.

I also met with a HS senior from church before dinner, and we had a GREAT conversation, too. It’s only our 2nd time hanging out, but I look forward to hanging out with him again. But I really gotta work on my listening. I am still too prone to jumping in and cutting people off. Kathleen can vouch for that. She’s so patient with me and kind to me in that regard.

Theology question of the night: Is death evil? Why or why not? If you’re Reformed, explain death and its evil-ness or non-evil-ness in terms of God’s sovereignty and greatest glory, and the purpose of redemptive history.

What happens to infants who die?

Sam Wu pointed this article out. It’s good. I’d never heard this argument/line of thought before. I think I might just be persuaded from my previous position, at least in the sense that there seems to be stronger Scriptural support for this position, as opposed to my “God may choose to reveal Himself to infants in a way that we cannot comprehend.”

I guess my argument isn’t excluded by this article. It takes it back a little further, for sure…. the article assumes that our criteria of “understanding” applies to infants: “If we are all born under sin, and salvation is by faith in Christ (which infants do not seem to have the mental capacity to exercise)…”

So I guess I could still take my position, arguing that we can’t know what an infant can or cannot understand if God chooses to reveal Himself to the infant. But assuming the infant is mentally incapable of faith, then I can totally see how this position would be defensible.

From Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper

The strength to risk losing face for the sake of Christ is the faith that God’s love will lift up your face in the end and vindicate your cause. The strength to risk losing money for the cause of the Gospel is the faith that we have a treasure in the heavens that cannot fail. The strength to risk losing life in this world is faith in the promies that he who loses his life in this world will save it for the age to come. p.90

God does not promise enough food for comfort or for life – he promises enough so that you can trust him and do his will. p. 94

In other words, no misery that a true Christian ever experiences is evidence that he has been cut off from the love of Christ. The love of Christ triumphs over all misery. p. 95

On the far side of every risk – even if it results in death – the love of God triumphs… It is childlike faith in the triumph of God’s love – that on the other side of all our risks, for the sake of righteousness, God will still be holding us. We will be eternally satisfied in him. Nothing will have been wasted. p. 95