Posts from — February 2004

A few fun things that happened this weekend…

Last night, when big G was going to bed, I asked her if she wanted ice in her water sippy. She answered, “Maybe I’ll have some ice”. So I asked her ‘Maybe you want ice, or yes, you’re sure you want ice”? And her answer? It’s the pure cuteness of Geneva… she said, “Maybe I’m sure”.

Also, Sunday afternoon while the girls were napping, Megan and I played a game of Yahtzee. Megan kept trying to get a long sequence, which is five numbers… all the dice. She tried and she tried and every time she’d fail. Usually by only one number, too. So evenutally she had only two open spaces on her scorecard, long sequence and yahtzee, and her roll produced neither. So, since she couldn’t get the sequence after so many attempts, she filled in a zero for it. I said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if you next roll you got a large straight on the first try?” We laughed.

Her next roll came… large straight, right off the bat. We laughed more. She picked up all the dice for her second roll. Large straight, again! Then her third roll was one or two off from the large straight, and we were disppointed that it wasn’t another one. That would have been too good, though. Nothing can be as funny as that.

Man…. if you want people to read your blog, what you need to do is get Barb to post a link. 15 of the last 20 referrals to my blog are from her.

Free Book: Refuting Evolution, by Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D., F.M.

Also, his book Refuting Evolution 2 will be released a chapter at a time until the final appendix on May 13th.

I just discovered (or, rather, kari discovered for me…) that Haloscan has a 1000 character comment limit for their basic (free) accounts. So keep that in mind while composing your comments. I wouldn’t want you to write something superduperextrafantastic, only to have the bulk of it ignored.

You can make an unlimited number of comments, so if you’ve got a lot to say, feel free to say it all. You’ll just have to post multiple comments. I don’t mind… it makes it look like a popular post or something.

What are the differences between the Episcopal church and the Anglican church?

Megan is a bit surprised, and I think embarassed, but when I saw the Homing Beacon Newsletter in my inbox this evening, I gasped with eager anticipation. See, it announced “The most requested films for the DVD format will finally become a reality this September“! “Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi will be available in a four-disc set that includes a bonus disc filled with all-new special features — including the most comprehensive feature-length documentary ever produced about the Star Wars saga and never-before-seen footage from the making of all three films.”

A quote from NT Wright’s lectures on Romans, given at calvin seminary in January 2003:

Romans has traditionally been used, and I have used it myself this way pastorally and evangelistically, as a book about how we are basically all sinners, how Christ died for us so that we can now be justified by faith and find salvation. Now, that message or something like it is there in Romans, it just isn’t anything like the whole of Romans, it isn’t even the framework of Romans. And in order to understand the message that’s there, we have to understand the framework as well. That’s one of the points I’m making. The second point I’m making is that the word ‘justification’ has been used again and again – for a long time, since Augustine, I think – as virtually a synonym for conversion, and so that then the debates about justification have tended to be debates about whether conversion is instantaneous or progressive, and so on, and the debates between protestants and Catholics have often been debates like that. Whereas, in fact, Paul uses it, I’ve argued, in a much more specific way. That Paul does believe in conversion, and he has a very strongly built up theology of how someone who is in a state of sin as yet unreached by grace, comes to be reached by grace, impacted by the Spirit, comes to faith. Paul does not use the term ‘new birth’, but I think he’d have been perfectly happy with it at that point. And then, the point is, that process or that miracle is not what Paul means by justification. What Paul means by justification is ‘how do you know who now is a member of the family’. You can see this most clearly in Galatians 2, where the issue – the presenting issue in Galatians 2:15-21, is not ‘how do you become a Christian?’, but ‘who are you allowed as a Christian to sit down and eat with?’. If you’re a Jewish Christian, are you or are you not allowed to eat with pagan Christians; with Gentile Christians. And Paul says the answer is yes you are, because the badge of membership is faith and only faith. And, of course, because faith is like the first cry of the new born child, um, faith comes to be associated with the moment of Christian birth. The fact that somebody believes, we say ‘this person is now a Christian’. But, and it seems to me that this is one of the places post-reformation theology can get itself into awful tangles, sometimes people have implied that God is looking for faith, and then rewards faith with a new status. As though faith is a sort of surrogate work. It’s a good thing to do, to believe. God likes people who believe. And there are some passages, for instance Hebrews 11, which can be taken sounding rather like that. Whereas, in fact, I am saying the initial thing is all of grace. It is the grace of God active in and through the gospel proclamation. And what results from that, by the power of the Spirit, is faith. Justification does not denote that first moment, it denotes the fact that-that God’s declaration that somebody now is a member of the family.

via kata john:

Jane Austen: Public Theologian

Some friends of ours had a baby a week or so ago, and we brought them dinner last night and saw the little cutie for the first time. She is so tiny! It’s funny how you forget how little and delicate newborns are. Ashley, who is one, seemed like a little thing, but now she seems gargantuan!

When does Fall begin? In September, right?

I think all our babies are going to have Fall birthdays…

I just noticed the AAPC Colloquium page says the files were revised on January 19th. What was changed?

Everyone in my family loves Finding Nemo. All the Pixar films, actually. But Finding Nemo, I think, is our favorite. That or Monster’s Inc. But anyhow…

There’s a part in Nemo that makes me laught every time. (Actually, there are several parts, but I’m just talking about one in particular here.0 Before Nemo is taken away, when they’re at the drop off and Marlin comes along and is arguing with Nemo, Mr. Ray comes up and says, “Excuse me sir, is there anything I can do? I am a scientist.”

Like his being a scientist has anything to offer the situation. It’s a father and a son having an argument. What’s he going to do, talk about the zones of the ocean? But it’s so true of the attitude science has. They think their scientific expertise makes them an authority in every area. Like in Ghostbusters, “back of man, I’m a scientist!”

I’m pretty sure the folks at Pixar are making joke with that line, and haven’t bought the ‘science is everything’ mentality of our age.