Translating & Translations (Part 2) (11/30/04 - 0 Comments)
In the first article of this series we examined some of the basic issues in Bible translation. We saw the difference between paraphrase, dynamic equivalence and formal equivalence and identified some rules of translations. Of utmost importance was the necessity of translating words, not meaning. Today we continue with the introduction to translating and translations. Perhaps it is too obvious to mention but I will do so regardless. The Bible was not written in English....
Headlines (November 30) (11/30/04 - 0 Comments)
The Ken Jennings Show - It is the last day of November. Just where has the month gone to? Time seems to be accelerating for some reason. Time could be slowing for Ken Jennings, the man who has won 74 consecutive shows of Jeopardy. According to the rumor mill (ie two people who attended the taping of tonight's show several months ago) this could be the evening his amazing streak finally comes to an end....
Translating & Translations (Part 1) (11/29/04 - 0 Comments)
This is the first in a series of articles which will examine the various Bible translations available today in the English language. With such a multitude of translations available, Christians are often puzzled as they attempt to discern which one most accurately represents the words of God. In past years many have been told that the New International Version provides the best balance between accuracy and readability, that the New American Standard Bible is the...
Headlines (November 29) (11/29/04 - 0 Comments)
Bad Timing, Good Morality - In retrospect, releasing a movie which glorifies bisexuality less than a month after an election where traditional values was so important was probably quite a mistake. I'm not sure that Oliver Stone and the folks at the studio are ready to admit it, though. It seems that a movie praised by The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation but condemned by church leaders was destined to fail in the post-election...
A Lord's Day Reflection (11/28/04 - 0 Comments)
We would consider it a peculiarity if I claimed to love someone yet refused to spend time with him. I love my son dearly, more than life itself, and one of the most sincere expressions of my love is my desire to spend time with him, be it in reading books, playing a game, watching a movie or even in just going for a walk and having a man-to-man talk while we stroll through the...
Headlines (November 28) (11/28/04 - 0 Comments)
I spent a good chunk of time yesterday reading the introductions to Bible translations. Sounds fascinating, doesn't it? I am hoping to do a series on this site about translating and translations, examining the differences in translations and trying to identify the superior ones. I dug up all the translations I could find around the house and found: NIV, NASB, NKJV, Holman and RSV and also read the intro to my Greek Bible and a...
Headlines (November 27) (11/27/04 - 0 Comments)
Christianity Today has released their list of the Top 12 Albums of 2004. Generally in the past I have listened to almost all of the albums on their lists, but this year is an exception as I bought only four of them. Fortunately they made sure to give Derek Webb some love, awarding him the second spot on the list. They say of him "...he doesn't just peel back layers of the heart with candid...
Apologetics 101 (11/26/04 - 0 Comments)
In recent days I have had a few people take the time to challenge me about their perception that this Web site, and the content of it, are largely negative in tone. As one might expect, I take offense to such comments and would largely disagree with them. I do certainly broach topics that are controversial and may generate difficult discussions, but I do not do so from a desire to be negative or simply...
Headlines (November 26) (11/26/04 - 0 Comments)
As Christians we have generally grown accustomed to the use of mainstream music in our faith and in our worship. Christian rock, once a fringe movement, has become widely-known and I suspect most Christians now listen to some form of contemporary Christian music. If you’ve ever spoken to unbelievers about this music, you know that the very mention of it tends to illicit giggles and raised eyebrows. Well, if you want to try to understand...
Thanksgiving & The Appropriate Number of Prepositions (11/25/04 - 0 Comments)
In Canada we celebrated Thanksgiving long ago, on October 11. At that time I wondered on this site just who it is that people offer their thanks to if they do not believe in God. The verb “thanks” without an appropriate number of prepositions makes little sense. While everyone likes to give thanks for things at Thanksgiving, what has often been lost is the fact that we do not merely give thanks, but give thanks...
Headlines (Thanksgiving Edition) (11/25/04 - 0 Comments)
James White was on Issues, Etc (a radio show) last Sunday talking about his book Scripture Alone. The first hour he mostly talked with the host about various issues and the second hour he answered calls from listeners. If you have questions or concerns about the doctrine of sola scriptura I'm sure you would find this program helpful. Part one is here and part two here. Those links take you directly to a Windows Media...
Decisional Regeneration (11/24/04 - 4 Comments)
Last weekend Billy Graham preached at what may be his final crusade, preaching before up to 82,000 people at a time. A headline at Pastors.com proclaimed the crusade a great success, indicating that some 12,000 people made decisions for Christ. In a previous article I expressed concerns with Graham’s ecumenism and the fact that Roman Catholic counselors would be present at the event and any people who made decisions and indicated they were from a...
Headlines (11/24/04 - 0 Comments)
The owner of a grilled cheese sandwich that bears the image of the Virgin Mary sold it at auction yesterday, bringing in £15,000 (I had to work hard to find that £ symbol). The sandwich is ten years old but the former owner insists it has never produced even a single pore of mold. Apparently she decided that it was now time to share this wonderful culinary icon with the rest of the world. It...
Reformation Study Bible (11/23/04 - 1 Comments)
I just received a letter from Sola Scriptura Publishing that contained joyous news. The Reformation Study Bible, previously known as The New Geneva Study Bible is back in print and will be available in English Standard Version as of March 2005. It was edited by R.C. Sproul and contributors included J.I. Packer, Wayne Grudem and James Boice, some of the finest Reformed scholars around. It had been supplanted by the Spirit of the Reformation Study...
Some Search Results (11/23/04 - 0 Comments)
Every now and then it's fun to look through my site stats and see how people found this site through search engines. In the past couple of months 3258 different keyphrases led to this site. Here are the top five with the percentage they constitute of searches leading to this site: 40 days of community constitutes 2%. Praise dancing weighs in second at 1.9%. Rick Warren comes in at 1.%. Duggar family at an even...
Creativity Cramp Redux (11/23/04 - 0 Comments)
Almost a year ago I created a phrase to describe something I was going through. Being unable to come up with any new and exciting site designs, I found that the words Creativity Cramp described how I was feeling. It is a general inability to be creative. And that's where I am today. I have attempted to write three different articles and all of them were just awful. I don't often give up, but today...
Wickedness Under a Form of Godliness Cunningly Managed (11/22/04 - 0 Comments)
Banner of Truth features many excellent articles, but one that grabbed my attention recently is entitled simply Apostasy. The author makes a distinction between two terms that I had never stopped to differentiate – apostasy and heresy. Apostasy he defines as a rejection of truth that one once believed. So I would be apostate if I rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, a doctrine I now hold dearly. Heresy is the addition of foreign doctrines,...
Need Web Hosting? (11/22/04 - 0 Comments)
I don't often advertise here, but I've found a really good deal I'd like to pass along. The company that hosts my Web site, along with the sites of many of my clients, is offering a deal for this week. They are doubling many of their services, so instead of getting 1 GB of storage space you will get 2 GB. Instead of 40 GB of bandwidth, you'll get 80. And all this for $7.95...
Sunday Ramblings (11/21/04 - 0 Comments)
Our church has been in existence for three years now and is at the point where it needs to formalize many things, including its incorporation. This morning I, along with many other people at the church, was handed a 37 page document and asked to review it. Generally I flee from such legalese-filled documents but I am actually finding this one quite interesting as it lays out the inner-workings of a church. I am guessing...
Asleep In The Pews (11/20/04 - 0 Comments)
God uses the most basic building blocks to construct his kingdom. He primarily extends his Kingdom through the family. Second only to the family is the local church. It is no wonder then, that we see both family and church under constant attack from Satan. We see all around us the level of success Satan has had in his battle against the family. Nearly half of all marriages now end in divorce, leaving families estranged...
The Perfect PoMo Apology (11/19/04 - 0 Comments)
Like many other people, I was a little disturbed by the introduction to this week's broadcast of Monday Night Football. If you happened to miss it, it featured the Eagle's always-controversial receiver Terrell Owens and Nicollette Sheridan from the show Desperate Housewives. Sheridan was clad initially in a towel, but in an effort to persuade Owens not to take to the field but to instead spend time with her (hint hint), she soon dropped the...
Emergent Church � Nothing New Under The Sun (11/19/04 - 1 Comments)
The November issue of Christianity Decay Today featured an article entitled The Emergent Mystique which examines the so-called emergent church. The subheading says �The 'emerging church' movement has generated a lot of excitement but only a handful of congregations. Is it the wave of the future or a passing fancy?� The emergent church, knowing elsewhere as the emerging church seems to defy description. I have read long, drawn-out discussions where various members of this movement...
Total Depravity: Extent vs Degree (11/18/04 - 1 Comments)
This morning I decided that today I was going to write about man's sinful condition, or as we says as Calvinists, man's total depravity. Doing my rounds of other blogs this morning I noticed that Jollyblogger had written about this topic yesterday, so I thought I would take a slightly different approach and write about two types of depravity - depravity in extent and depravity in degree. When we say that mankind fell in Adam,...
Album Review - I See Things Upside Down (11/17/04 - 0 Comments)
Many people wondered what Derek Webb was thinking when he abandoned his position as co-leader of Caedmon’s Call, a band that was routinely playing before crowds of 2000 people, to strike out on his own. After all, why would he abandon security and a regular paycheck to do his own thing? On this album he gives the answer: Webb sees things upside down. In “What is Not Love” he tells us that “what looks like...
Experience The Labyrinth (Insert New Age Music Here) (11/16/04 - 2 Comments)
When I hear the word "labyrinth" I immediately think of that awful movie from the 80's starring David Bowie. If you grew up in the 80's I'm sure you remember it - the one that launched that career of Jennifer Connelly and brought so much pleasure to so many young girls (it seems the girls liked the movie more than the boys). Of course, and unfortunately, labyrinth also has a religious connotation, as it describes...
Levelled (11/16/04 - 0 Comments)
I rarely get sick, but this morning I woke up at the way-too-early hour of 3:00 to find myself aching, coughing and oozing. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since this is prime Canadian cold season and each of the people who live under this roof have already had a visit from the bug. I spent the hours before the sun rose watching reruns of the now defunct Mike Bullard Show and other mindless shows...
Witnesses & Witnessing (11/15/04 - 0 Comments)
Today I spent some time thinking about being a witness for God. Witness has a couple of meanings, and both of them are applicable to the Christian life. The first meaning is “One who can give a firsthand account of something seen, heard, or experienced: a witness to the accident.” According to this definition, a witness is one who is able to give a firsthand account of something that person has experienced. As believers we...
Eschatalogical Ramblings (11/14/04 - 0 Comments)
Of the 600+ articles I have written over the past couple of years, I don't think a single one has been about Eschatology (which refers to the doctrine of the last days). There are a couple of reasons for that. First, it is a subject that some people love to discuss and consider absolutely essential to a strong faith. These people usually hold to a premillennial view and it seems they somehow equate a belief...
Yassar Arafat - A Christian Response (11/13/04 - 0 Comments)
By now we all know that Yassar Arafat is dead, and as Christians we know that he has gone to meet his Maker. There is no reason to doubt that he has already been consigned to an eternity of facing the wrath of God which burns against sin. How do we, as Christians, react to this? I have read some rather disturbing articles over the past few days where the authors took delight in his...
Saturday Ramblings (11/13/04 - 0 Comments)
The BlogExplosion experiment continues. It certainly has brought a lot (and I do mean a LOT) of traffic to this site. While a lot of the people who came by took the time to respond to the first poll I posted here, fewer have responded to the second. If I had to guess I would say probably about 24 to 30 percent of the visitors from BlogExplosion read or skim the top article on the...
Realistic Expectations of a Dead Man (11/12/04 - 0 Comments)
The story of Lazarus, found in John 11, is one of the most moving stories we find in the Bible and surely portrays one of the most significant acts of our Lord. There is so much depth in this short story – so much we can meditate upon. It seems each time I read it something new jumps out at me. Having read the story several times this week, I want to share some of...
The Newly Redeemed? (11/11/04 - 0 Comments)
This morning I was reading a book by a very well-known Christian pastor and author (and no, his initials were not R.W.) which discusses Christian leadership. In one section he speaks about a friend of his who has dedicated his retirement years to helping his local church, volunteering on a continual basis and delighting in his ability to do work for God’s Kingdom. The author relates how he once watched the man looking over a...
Question For BlogExplosion Surfers (Updated) (11/10/04 - 1 Comments)
New poll for November 12! First off, allow me to extend my condolences that you did not receive any mystery credits on that last click. Instead you ended up here, for which I am profoundly apologetic. But while we have a few seconds together (it seems unlikely this will be more than a 30-second visit), allow me to ask you a question. In a previous poll I asked how many of the sites that BlogExplosion...
Book Review - Evangelism & The Sovereignty of God (11/10/04 - 11 Comments)
When it comes to evangelism, it seems that Calvinists have quite a poor reputation in the church today. Most of the largest and seemingly most successful mission organizations were founded by Arminians and continue to be based around Arminian theology. Arminian churches seem to grow much faster than churches based on Calvinist principles. It seems that part of the reason for this is that Calvinists have such a high view of God’s sovereignty that it...
Book Review - Rediscovering Expository Preaching (11/09/04 - 0 Comments)
Though I am not a preacher, I decided to read Rediscovering Expository Preaching in an attempt to discover exactly what expository preaching is and compare it to the type of teaching practiced in most modern churches. That this book was written by John MacArthur and the faculty of Master’s seminary is a strong endorsement of its value, for that institution is known as being one that upholds the value of expositional teaching. I hoped also...
Mysterious Ways...More Than Mere Cliche (11/09/04 - 0 Comments)
Two good friends of mine have begun planting a church in the Greater Toronto Area, in the city of Brampton. For about a year now they have been doing Bible studies, holding preview services on a monthly basis and trying to just meet members of the community. They have had their share of ups and downs (which seems to be the way it goes with church planting, though there are usually far more downs than...
Evangelism & Outreach (11/09/04 - 1 Comments)
Every Christian should agree on the necessity of reaching out to the world with the Good News of Jesus Christ. Through history some Christians and some groups of Christians have placed more emphasis on this than others, but nearly all have agreed on its importance. In the English language we have two terms that are often used synonymously to describe the sharing of the Good News � evangelism and outreach. In this article I would...
Billy Graham and Ecumenicism (11/08/04 - 1 Comments)
Conservative Christians have long lamented Billy Graham's ecumenicism. Since the early days of his ministry, Graham has worked hand-in-hand with Catholic Churches and has often expressed his belief that Catholics who are faithful to Roman Catholic teachings are saved. While I certainly believe that Catholics can be saved, those who believe the Church's doctrine on salvation must be excluded because the doctrine denies that salvation is by faith alone. It is a simple but effective...
Whatever Happened To The Bible? (11/08/04 - 0 Comments)
A reader forwarded the following article to my attention this morning and it grabbed my attention. Now of course those who read this site consistently will immediately assume I mean it to preach against The Purpose Driven Life but I think it speaks far beyond that one issue. Just recently my pastor told me that he could make it his whole job to merely direct traffic for all the people that want to push their...
Sunday Ramblings (11/07/04 - 0 Comments)
Another Sunday...another set of ramblings. I do look forward to being able to jot down a bunch of completely disconnected thoughts every week. While it's nice to write a good article that carries a theme, it's also nice just to be able to touch on the things that couldn't quite make an article-length piece either. I continue to enjoy BlogExplosion, though I continue to wonder if it has any real value. I have seen an...
God's Sovereignty & Human Responsibility in Evangelism (11/06/04 - 0 Comments)
For the second time in the past year I am turning to J.I. Packer's small but powerful book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. Having read several books on the doctrines of grace, I wanted to make firm in my mind how human responsibility and divine sovereignty interact in the process of evangelism and conversion. I know of no better resource for this than Packer's book. I would like to provide a lengthy quote that...
The Listener's Responsibility (11/05/04 - 0 Comments)
We set high expectations for our pastors. We expect that every Sunday we will sit under their teaching and learn sacred truths from their mouths. We expect that they have spent their week investigating Scripture and digging deeply into God’s Word so that they can teach us something that will change our lives. We expect them to be true to Scripture, to entertain us and to make a good presentation. While a pastor bears great...
BlogExplosion (11/05/04 - 1 Comments)
I'm a sucker for things that claim to bring more traffic to my blog. I don't think it's so much that I really want more people coming here (especially if they are "random" people who likely have no interest in the subject matter) but that I am very skeptical of anything that says it can do that. I'm a sucker for them just because I want to try them out and see if they deliver...
Ken Jennings' Amazing Streak (11/04/04 - 0 Comments)
I quite enjoy a good game of Jeapordy in the evenings. It sits so nicely in that period of time between dinner and putting the kids to bed (or watching a primetime show). While I used to watch the show every now and then, ever since Ken Jennings began to play I've been watching with much greater frequency. Judging by the show's ratings, which have increased very significantly in the past months, so have many...
Book Review - The Doctrines of Grace (11/04/04 - 0 Comments)
There is any number of books available today that serve as introductions to Calvinism or the doctrines of grace. While some of these leave much to be desired, many of them are excellent and do justice to the topic. One might ask, then, why someone would want to write (or read) yet another one, and that would be a fair question. What attracted me to this title is that it was the final book written...
On Reading & Libraries (11/04/04 - 0 Comments)
"It seems odd that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to them, should think so little of what he has revealed to others."--Charles Spurgeon, Commenting and Commentaries "That the average library of the Christian layman and of the minister of the Gospel is poor beyond words, is a lamentable fact. Many of the books are of such inferior authorship as to unfit them for even storage in any home...
W (11/03/04 - 0 Comments)
Now that it is official, I can offer my congratulations to George W. Bush for winning his second mandate. It was a long, hard, nasty battle but in the end I believe America chose the right person. I guess the importance of this election is shown in the fact that I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning watching an election that does not even involve my own nation! I found it fascinating...
Rick Warren (11/03/04 - 19 Comments)
In past weeks I have been challenged by several fellow believers on my statements concerning some of the people I have written about on this site. In particular, people have questioned my views on Rick Warren and John Eldredge. Because of their impact on the evangelical church, I have written about each of these men extensively over the past year. While I have read everything I have written (obviously) I realize that some newcomers to...
Renaming The Doctrines of Grace (11/02/04 - 1 Comments)
English-speaking Reformed believers have long been taught the acronym TULIP as a memorization aid to the doctrines of grace. In classic Calvinist terminology, the letters stand for: T - Total DepravityU - Unconditional ElectionL - Limited AtonementI - Irresistable GraceP - Perseverance of the Saints Recently many authors and theologians have realized the shortcomings with trying to make theology fit into nice acronyms. In the case of TULIP, several of the terms have not received...
Contemporary vs Traditional Music (11/02/04 - 3 Comments)
9 Marks Ministries has a great article about which is right: contemporary or traditional music. Too often when people write about this subject it stems from one of two opposite viewpoints. The first is that any type of contemporary music is evil. These are the people who relate stories about the children of missionaries being told by the natives that their rock music is the very same music the natives left behind when they came...
John Eldredge (11/01/04 - 6 Comments)
In past weeks I have been challenged by several fellow believers on my statements concerning some of the people I have written about on this site. In particular, people have questioned my views on Rick Warren and John Eldredge. Because of their impact on the evangelical church, I have written about each of these men extensively over the past year. While I have read everything I have written (obviously) I realize that some newcomers to...
