Be Human! You're Too Ethereal and Ghostly

A pair of excerpts from The Mantra of Jabez by Douglas Jones, a goofy and ever sarcastic parody of the popular The Prayer of Jabez.

A woman confronts the lead character (who is taking his delight in spreading and repeating the mantra of Jabez:

She looked directly at me and said, “Be human! You’re too ethereal and ghostly. You’re fingers aren’t even touching your briefcase, for Pete’s sake,’ she said. “Grow up. Doesn’t the Incarnation mean anything? Life is more than passing out Christian sentences. Pure religion is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. Show me how to see the glory of God in the ordinary things of life, show me how to be faithful and find meaning in the quotidan; show me how to ‘eat my bread with joy and drink my wine with a merry heart’ like Solomon says. Show me how to raise children so that, from them, generations will rise up and count me blessed. Show me how to live life artfully. Show me….”

She kept shouting after me as I wandered off. There was no helping her. She just didn’t get it. Not only did those things require time and maturity and a future (and wine!), but they didn’t involve real ministry. They would require seeing the world and life poetically, as if the heavens declared the glory of God or “day unto day uttered speech.” But God isn’t concerned with little things: “He that is faithful in the big things of ministerial work, he shall be blessed” (Luke 16:10).

Housewives and office workers and engineers and children can’t really live the Christina life. They are too encumbered by earthly things. They actually touch stuff with their fingers. An exciting life means that you will find exhilaration in big, daily miracles. If we spent our time seeing the miraculous in ordinary things–in labor and cleaning and raising children and creating, then God would have by no means by which  to get out His sentences. If ordinary Christians were truly able to delight in the divine poetry of housework, flowers, clothes, oceans, car repair, and plumbing, if they were able to see the utter glory of god in every mundane thing, then who would buy this booklet? Who would think that ministry only equals evangelisitic sesrvice? No one would want my bungee mantra.

(The Mantra of Jabeez, Jones, p.48-49)

This sarcastic narrative is a true but sad commentary on much of Christianity today. The lead character exhibits a problem with the way many Christians view their life, and the woman who challenges him brings up a lot of good points.  We need to be more human. Less ethereal and ghostly. Less shallow. And take more delight in good things that God has given us and the good callings we are called to, even if they don’t seem very “spiritual” to others.  And as this book sacrastically illustrates us, we need to stop thinking mantras, catchy cod words, and thoughtless platitudes are what pleases God.

Could Afghanistan Borrow Some Peace from Obama's Peace Prize, Please?

Obama gets a Nobel peace prize…are you kidding me?

The title of a U.S. Libertarian Party article captures the disbelief: Libertarians suggest Nobel announcements should be moved to April Fool’s Day.

Norman Horne of LibertarianChristian.com, also chimes in with his piece A Peace Prize for a War Hawk. He concludes with a good summation of the backwardness of recent Nobel Prize selections: “We live in a bizarro world, folks, when you can get an Economics Prize for supporting the destruction of an economy (Paul Krugman), a Peace Prize for frightening people (Al Gore), and now a Peace Prize for supporting war (Obama)”.

My thoughts are that Obama mainly got this on the basis of (a) not being George Bush, (b) having some ideas that people liked (but never really putting them into practice), (c) being an “inspiring” figure, and (d) not being George Bush.

Maybe I should enter the Mr. America body building contest this year. I’m starting to think I might have a chance.

Rothbard on Whether The State Owns Your Child

“The key issue in the entire discussion is simply this: shall the parent or the State be the overseer of the child? An essential feature of human life is that, for many years, the child is relatively helpless, that his powers of providing for himself mature late. Until these powers are fully developed he cannot act completely for himself as a responsible individual. He must be under tutelage. This tutelage is a complex and difficult task. From an infancy of complete dependence and subjection to adults, the child must grow up gradually to the status of an independent adult. The question is under whose guidance, and virtual  “ownership” the child should be: his parents’ or the State’s? There is no third, or middle, ground in this  issue. Some party must control, and no one suggests that some individual third party have authority to  seize the child and rear it.

It is obvious that the natural state of affairs is for the parents to have charge of the child. The parents are the literal producers of the child, and the child is in the most intimate relationship to them that any  people can be to one another. The parents have ties of family affection to the child. The parents are interested in the child as an individual, and are the most likely to be interested and familiar with his  requirements and personality. Finally, if one believes at all in a free society, where each one owns himself and his own products, it is obvious that his own child, one of his most precious products, also comes under  his charge.”

- Murray Rothbard in Education: Free and Compulsory (p.6)

Epistle to the Philippians Resources Online

So far I’ve posted a collection of on-line resources for a range of Bible books from the Gospels of Matthew through Ephesians. The idea was to give a broad range of resources, even some from angles that I don’t necessarily agree with. Further, it wasn’t necessarily a collection of the “best” resources, but rather I wanted to compile a good starting point for venturing deeper into the New Testament.

Well, here is a similar collection for Philippians.

Introductions and Outlines and Themes:

Older Sermons, Commentaries, Studies

Modern Sermons, Commentaries, Studies

Pointers to Other Resources

Other Items Not Specific to Romans, But Helpful

Finally, Some Spam Relief

I must ask for your forgiveness, readers, for the excess of spam that has been gathering into the comments on my blog. If you’ve done more than just quickly glance over my blog, you’ve probably noticed many posts with hundreds of comments, and anyone who knows my blogging knows it normally doesn’t provoke hundreds of comments. As compelling as I am, I’m not that compelling.

It’s been getting progressively worse, and finally I’ve enabled some more advanced filters in hopes that it makes a significant improvement. It appears to be working very well so far. I’m looking forward to a more pain-free WordPress existence from now on. Of course, the filters only eliminate spam from now on, but I will be going through my blog archives and eventually will eliminate all previous spam.

Legendary Goldthorpe of the Minnesota Fighting Saints

In a previous post, I shared some information about the WHA, an upstart hockey league of the 1970′s. Despite the contributions it made to  revolutionary developments in the sport, it had an unusually bountiful collection of straight-up loony characters. I mean, real “basketcases”. I do not use that term lightly. One such character was Bill Goldthorpe, the real life inspiration for “Ogie Oglethorpe” in the movie Slap Shot.

“Goldie”, as he was lovingly known, wore a rare blond afro and was only 5’10 and perhaps 170 pounds. He earned 1,132 penalty minutes in 194 games in the pros (assuming no overtime and assuming a high-end ice time of 20 minutes per game, your average player will be on the ice for less than 4,000 minutes in 194 games).

And certainly, he was a showboat: “In addition to everything else, Goldthorpe was a workout fanatic and a practitioner of martial arts. Before practices with the Saints, he would walk into the dressing room while the other players were putting their gear on, pull out a set of nunchaks, and perform a Bruce Lee routine in the centre of the room. Then he would put the nunchaks away and without a word begin to get dressed for practice.” (Willes, p.94)

“Goldie” is said to have never touched come-back star Gordie Howe, who played on a team with his sons Mark and Marty Home. However, he is said to have threatened the aging star: “You can’t play forever, old man, and when you retire, I’m going to get your kids.”

Those who roomed with “Goldie” certainly remembered him. “[I]t was like rooming with Kato, Inspector Clouseau’s combative manservant in the old Pink Panther movies. ‘He always wanted to wrestle. It didn’t matter where or when. He’d jump out from behind a door or a closet and I’d have to wrestle him.” (Rebel League by Ed Willes, p.93) The team’s goalie commented that “People think he didn’t exist, Oh, he was real alright. I mean, it was scary. People watch Slap Shot and they go, ‘That never happened.’ But it happened.” (Wiles, p.94).

Diligence in II Peter

Chances are you’ve already noticed this, but in case not..

Diligent Godliness

Throughout his second epistle, Peter speaks earnestly of the necessity of a Christ-centered diligence. We’ve received all that we need from God in Christ (1:3), but we are called to work this out into Christian virtue (1:5-8).

The listing of virtues (1:5-8) is not an abstract philosophical exercise, but has real implications not only in regard to the church’s glorious future but also its present  struggles. This theme of this moral diligence runs through the entire letter (see 1:5, 1:10, 3:14, 3:17, etc.) and it is very much related to what Peter is saying about false teachers in chapter two.

The pressure of damnable false teaching all the more necessitates strong teaching on moral excellence, since false teaching is not merely a matter of assenting to certain beliefs, but is very much at its core a moral issue. The teaching Peter was addressing involved a certain carnal way of thinking and a certain manner of life. When God’s people lack diligence, regardless of how much they know, they are susceptible to deception and even sound knowledge will not guard them from error. To Peter, advocating growth in godliness was very much a defense of the faith.

A Diligent Pastor & Apostle

However, there is another facet to diligence in II Peter. It is not limited to a general call to diligence in Christian virtue. There is also a discussion of Peter’s diligence as an apostle in reminding the recipients of certain important matters (1:12-15).

Peter had a grave responsibility to warn his people and encourage their spiritual development, particularly in light of the situation they faced.  He knew that immature and lacking believers make easy prey for false teachers, and he saw his responsibility before God for their well-being. He recognized that this responsibility extends to beyond his own life-span in the remembrance of his teachings. He would die, but through his pastoral diligence he would ensure that his influence did not stop there (1:14-15).

The Importance of Diligence

Hence, to sum this up, Peter holds up diligence as absolutely necessary both in the general Christian walk but also, through his example, diligence in the
tasks laid upon pastors.

As believers, our diligent pursuit of godliness has far-reaching implications on our usefulness to God (1:8) and our spiritual vision (1:9). It is God’s means of preserving us (1:10). And it has some surprising eschatological implications! (see 1:11 and 3:11-13)

October Poetics

October, October
weirdly named you are
you come in tenth but signify eighth
obviously you couldn’t
invade August’s territory

The yellow month, the winterfylleth
leaves leaves leaves, a party of leaves
hockey begins and baseball ends

To humble us after July and August
God gave us October
To prepare us for November and December
God gave us October

To learn longsuffering, we got the October frost

First book-end
The 1st of October
274th day of the year
tumultous
Mammon begins trusting in God
and in Model T’s
International day of older persons
why did they pick October
Berkeley wants to be free to speak
Alexander the Great takes action
and defeats Darius

Second book-end
The 15th
rest easy
only 77 more days to go
listen
this day gave us
Tito Jackson
and took away Goering
not crazy about Jackson
but I still like the trade

Third book-end
The 31st of October, multifaceted day
John Candy and Vanilla Ice born
Ghandi assasinated
Reformation Day and Halloween
Stalin’s body removed from Lenin’s tomb

Enigmas wrapped in mysteries
like the Red October
which didn’t start ’til November
communism is so messed up
even its revolutions
aren’t named properly

October crisis
Canadian federalism’s zit
reversals, reversals
providence has some wit
for once the Canadiens subjegate a Brit!

Beware of: Gospel Fellowship India, Ezra Vesapogu & Share Ministries

If you come into contact to someone representing Baptist churches in India under the name of “Gospel Fellowship India” or “Share Ministries”, particularly someone by the name of Ezra Vesapogu, you may wish to stop for a moment and consider what Ian has to report over at RearViewMirror, particularly the following posts:

In reading these, you will see that there is some major deceit/fraud that has been going on, and I just wanted to post this to possibly help someone else avoid from being tricked. It is horrible to hear what Ezra has done, and also to see that he appears to be continuing in it. I personally sat through his “testimony” and to some degree feel deceived by this, though obviously the people who have supported him long term are obviously the ones most hurt by this.