cheese-based life forms

Go Wisconsin!
Solomon eats "mommy-milk" exclusively. This gives him kicking-cute milk breathe. Yesterday I called Jenecia and ask her to bring him to church so I could smell him.
But as I meditated on his diet I was startled.
We are what we eat. The food we take in turns into cells and livers and spit and hair.
What does this mean for baby-man? He eats milk. And since we don't refrigerate him, quite the opposite, the milk he eats quickly becomes curds, which in turn quickly becomes Solomon. You heard it here first, folks. We are a cheese based life form.
Thus the international preoccupation with Wisconsin. Where else in the nation can you find stores devoted to selling various types of Cheddar? We're not specialists. We make Cheddar, some Colby, and if you're citified, Munster. And babies.

SuDoku

You've seen Sudoku books around but perhaps you've not delved further into what this apparent fad might be. Then Al Mohler posted an entry on Sudoku.  I bought White Belt Sudoku, which was the most puzzles for the least money at Barnes and Noble. We're hooked. Read Dr. Mohler's entry and then go buy yourself a beginner's book. Already had fun with Sudoku?  Where do you get your puzzles?

Look and See

I'm not here to talk about racism or even the more controversial, and more probable, problem of racialization.  Yet we must look at this issue. We must see it. When you move to your next position of authority and staffing needs confront you, lend a hand.
Disturbing article from NYT:
Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn
Xavier Pickett, of Reformed Blacks of America, has some comments too.

They call themselves people

Stumbled upon this Flickr slideshow: "They call themselves people." Good work, if you like photography.

Victoria Falls

This is why I like Google Sightseeing: Victoria Falls. And this is nothing to the beauty and fury of YHWH, which He will unleash on His enemies and will display for His beloved.

"Let's Do the Mash"

The article: "Let's Do the Mash: The Who Boys, the Beastles, and the Bible."

It's taken me approximately five tries to get through the article and I still haven't processed it all. It's long and suprisingly weighty. I love it... It crosses from remixed music to theology, no, make that Biblical Theology to redemption and Christ and, oh it's sweet.

I love remixed music. There are tons of crappy remixes out there, true. But when they're done right they're just about the best music available. I could wax windy on this topic, but as it's late and I need to go to bed I'll save it for later. Read the article. Tomorrow I'll post on whom I wish would get remixed and mashed with whom.

Gethsemane

I had the opportunity to preach this last Sunday. I jumped in at Gethsemane in Ted's series on Matthew.

The passage opened up and I saw how beautiful our Lord is, and how much like His disciples His disciples (us) remain. Here's the overall structure, the big picture, on which I think is helpful for us to meditate...

Jesus and the disciples start and end in nearly opposite spiritual states. The disciples hear the Word, both the warning of their apostasy and the promise of the resurrection, and they deny its applicability to them. This denial they then act upon by sleeping through Jesus' passion, against His explicit requests and commands. This accordingly prepares them to fulfill the prophecy by fleeing the scene when Jesus is arrested.

Jesus on the other hand has been meditating on the Word. Indeed, the Zechariah prophecy He quotes in 26:31 has been heavy on His heart: "strike the Shepherd..." Therefore, He is scared and anxious. Jesus responds to the Word with Prayer. Interestingly, as we walk with Jesus through the three recorded prayers we find subtle indications that the Father is using prayer to strengthen Jesus to face the Cup of His Wrath. Jesus' second prayer says, "If my previous prayer cannot be answered positively, then just let Your will be done." His third prayer gets a slight mention. After the third prayer Jesus is ready to meet His betrayer. Because Jesus responds to the Word with prayer He receives strength, strength that carries Him through Calvary and through Sheol to the joy He saw in the dregs of His Father's "cup."

We must take Scripture seriously and respond to it correctly. Jesus does this in His hour of greatest fear and comes out bold as a lamb. The disciples fail on both accounts and descend from boasts to scurrying off scene.

You can get the audio, though right now (I just tried) it seems to be having problems. If you know how to subscribe to a podcast you can download it very easily. Our Web-Sensie has many podcast options for you.

"Mooooovin' on...Moooovin' on" (from, "A Place in the Sun")

Sorry for the week long blogg-io silence. I was fighting off the curse in my sinuses and working on a sermon. And when we weren't doing that we've been blitzing through "ALIAS", first season (redeeming the time?). Here are some new Solomon pictures to keep everyone happy for a while.
Daddy and Sol' go for a walk.

Sol' working on a smile.

just in case

We just finished watching "Masked and Anonymous." I felt compelled to post on it quickly in case of the random possibility that you or someone you know might be watching it...Though it looks like it might have a Coen Bros. quality (John Goodman + Bob Dylan + Luke Wilson) and hosts several other fine actors and actresses, as you can well see with a perusal of the above site, it is a rediculous, poorly acted, incomprehensible, multi-million dollar version of a middle school pageant. You wait for two hours for something to happen, but nothing does. And then there's Bob Dylan. He's a wonderful musician, in his own way, but he acts like he's an alien. He looked on screen like I look when I jog, like a fish out of water, like a self-inflicted oral surgery performed from the pulpit, like...like...like (my well of similies has run dry). I apologize to the whole world for the existence of this movie and for my having watched it. Please forgive me.

frustration

Can I just say that it is rediculously hard to find a decent, non-gay looking, plain gospel tract! Take the Tract League site for example (Crossway's no better): over 300 tracts from Abortion to Halloween to Usa-Patriotic to Voting. Don't give me the spin, give me the straight stuff! Do you know of good tracts? I liked Piper's Quest for Joy, but they axed the cool looking one from their web store.

online theological conversations of note

Chris Azure is stirring the pot over at Berean Friends, revisiting the book ends of Romans.
Bob Kauflin replies to Christine Berglund on "Should Women Lead Worship?"
Nathan Pitchford waxes musical over John Murray's masterpiece with a chunk of good lyrics (I think the music should be something like Staind).
Nate Mihelis reopens the wound with "Broken Fellowship? Not with Jesus!"
And (drum role) my dear brother, Jonathan Cummings, joins the WWW with, naturally, a canon blast of "God's Absolute Supreme Rule and Our Joy."

cool map stuff

I've been looking for good online maps: here are some cool ones... I'm especially geeked about TopoZone. Naturally, Rand McNally, GoogleMaps, National Geo', Atlapedia, and the US Gov, if you can figure theirs out. For purchase, all the above offer excellent maps. Also note, duh, maps.com: good stuff. And this shocked me: DeLorme, home of "Eartha", the giant-mini version of our terrestrial ball located in southern Maine (now there's an oxymoron), offers a $100 (US) software and GPS bundle.

Link updates

The BlogConnect section continues to grow. Thank you all for your submissions. Be sure to check it out periodically. New links are intermixed with old, so be sure to check it out.

I'd also like to draw your attention further down the page to a few of the other sections that have been beefed up.

In "Theology" i finally got my David Instone-Brewer link to work. It is a Cambridge, UK, link and for some reason therefore needed a "www" before it in the code. Instone-Brewer is both one of the finest biblical theologians, in the purest sense, around and one of the finest pastor-theologians. I highly recommend his book on Divorce and Remarraige: it has been definitive for me.

Also in "Theology", please note Simon Gathercole. He may be one of the next premier scholars. He has a heart for worship, a love for John Piper, and a wonderful, pervasive humility focused on helping the Kingdom, not just helping his point.

In "Periodicals",...(you will want to read this whole article!)while the link is worthless for research, I cannot too highly recommend a subscription to "The Journal of Biblical Counseling." I was a fool for not subscribing sooner.

The Credenda Agenda is really truly funy, though provoking, and good literature. Doug Wilson writes an enormous amount, if you count his blog too (Blog and Mablog). He writes more than most of us can read, but the periodical is free as a PDF download for those of us strapped for cash.

The section I'm bursting to tell you about: "Good Things." And of course I borrow that phrase from Martha, who gets a nod for her incredible flowers.
If you're not watching a quality family feature from Walden Media you'll need to check the film out at Kids-in-Mind.
Fujimura was Daniel of the Year at World Magazine and has some pretty cool stuff that none of us, but none of us, can afford.
If you're one of the "book worms" peoples, then maybe you'll like these book buffets: Bartleby, PDF Planet, and the Gutenburg Project.
If you're not like-totally a book worm, then you need to read Neil Postman, a stinging sociologist whom I hope knew our Lord. I do a poor review of one of his books: The Disappearance of Childhood.
Want to be a life long learner even if you're not a strong reader? The Teaching Company will help. The finest lectures from the snootiest professors: what's not to like. (HT: Ligon Duncan)
If you're more into "visual learning" (ok...my time out: who isn't a visual learner? I think the label of "visual learner" is given to people as a last ditch effort to make them feel like they're really a "learner" even though they can't read or count to 10. At least they like pictures!), and enjoy traveling, you must check out Google Sightseeing. Very, very cool. Where else will you get a shout out to a DeLorean with proof!
Perhaps I've overloaded you by now. Take some time then and go relax with my great friends, Calvin and Hobbes (HT: Christine Berglund), at the incredible, inimitable Louvre. Calvin and Hobbes World will connect you to other such intellectual stimulation (CJ Mahaney and Al Mohler endorse!). The Louvre offers 3D tours! Radical!
Enjoy these links. We'll talk bands another day. Peace, Joy, Love.

Guilt by Association

This common expression is unjust, foolish, and ultimately, un-Christian. It must not be included in a Christian's decision-making rational.

Unjust:
There is no such thing as guilt by association: having been friends with the culprit in no way implicates a person, at least not in a just system. It would never hold in court. Imagine:
Judge: “What are the charges?”
Prosecutor: “Befriending a murderer.”
Judge: “So, he was an accomplice?”
Prosecutor: “Well, in a way, perhaps.”
Judge: “What do you mean?”
Prosecutor: “He was the murderer's friend.”
Judge: “But he had nothing to do with the murder?”
Prosecutor: “No...”
[silence]
Prosecutor: “But, but, still, being a murderer's friend ought to be good for at least a fine and some public service!”

He'd be held in contempt.

Foolish:
We know that associative guilt is primarily the expertise of Junior Highers, or those trapped in that mindset. Listen:
“Why were you hanging out with that person?”
“Well, why not?”
“like, oh, mygosh. She lives next to ___x___ and I heard that they played together growing up.”
“Nu uh!”
“yup”

Phew, serious social misstep averted. But seriously, in our clear moments we know that nothing incriminates through contact. To so judge someone or something by their associations is foolish.

Un-Christian:
But more than foolishness, judging guilt by association is Pharisaical and un-Christian. It was the Pharisees who uttered the famous phrase: “He eats with publicans and sinners.” The guilt of Jesus was partially, for them, a guilt of association. As woeful as their blindness was, they at least had some grounds: Israelite laws of cleanliness. In Israel one was unclean, not originally by association, but by touching an unclean person. The Pharisees were just minding their P's and Q's. You certainly won't touch someone you don't ever come in contact with. But Jesus came preaching peace: the ultimate party crasher. He'd have made a lousy Jerry Springer guest. Not only did He associate with the guilty, He didn't have a beef about touching them. As if to stick a stake in the ground marking His declaration, He allowed Himself to be marked a criminal, joining Himself to the ignoble death of gypsies, tramps, and thieves, and that all for a sinner such as I.

As Christians we should hate the impulse in us to prejudge a person, organization, or activity by their associations. The Man among sinners is the Lord our God. We should rather follow Him to ignoble friendships, questionable alliances, and “unclean” acts of love than risk His terrifying disapproval for a surgically clean life free from the dirt and shame that often accompanies love.

I do not do this well, but I have come to detest the act of accounting guilt by association. It is a foolish and un-Christian impulse that we must work to banish from our persons and relations. And, oddly enough, we must disassociate from those who claim Christ's name while judging in such an anti-Christian way.

This is not a definitive statement on Christian associations. But I think these common sense realities get overlooked amidst the "deeply theological" discourse of the more separatistic circles of American Christianity. If the cults teach us anything they teach us that sincere people can have lots of reasons, even theological sounding ones, and be as nuts as Almond Joy. What do you think?

Phil Johnson on Fundamentalism

Phil Johnson, of Grace Community Church, offered this his second critique of fundamentalism at the Shepherd's Conference. It is much softer and more agreeable than those of us who've drunk the gall would care to offer them, but I know many of you who swing by here still consider yourselves fundamentalists or are trying to make sense of your upbringing and move into the mainstream. Perhaps the article will be of benefit to you: Dead Right, part 2: Taking a Second Look at Fundamentalism

It hardly needs to be said, but I do not agree with a lot that appears on the website linked to above.

HT: b.bixby

baby pictures from Sol's third week

He's got his father's chins and his mother's beautiful smile.

the Genns

Josh was one of my heroes in college. Kelly, his wife, was one of Jenecia's best friends. They've started a blog.
Start with this great story of God's faithfulness in His people's love: "so much love in a bottle of TIDE."
Then pitch in baby-book suggestions for them: "calling all readers."

free commentary samples

I don't know how good they'll be, but Michael Bird thinks they're "excellent."
PDF commentary samples

no mo' "macpo"

or new lead singer for third day?

for crowder fans

ridiculous.
best line: "collection of hair follicles organized into a
single passion."
I guess offering our bodies as living sacrifices includes facial hair.

Thomas Sowell on writing

An excellent article on writing, the writer's world, the publishing industry, and the humor along the way.

Here's my favorite part:

Even when a writer is successful, it is seldom overnight success, and it may be success at getting into print more so than success in getting rich. Even writers who have gone on to win prizes and make the best-seller lists often spent years collecting rejection slips. My own experience may not be unusual. I first tried to sell something that I had written when I was 17 years old. I first succeeded when I was 30. I first made any serious money from writing—enough to buy an automobile—when I was 40. I first made enough money from writing in a year to live on for a year when I was 52. Fortunately, I had other jobs, usually in academia, to keep a roof over my head and food on the table during all those years.