Derrick Harris

While I cannot speak for all of Derrick Harris's work, my wife and I have enjoyed one of his songs for years (we got it off a Silent Planet Records compilation).  I would have raved of him before, but I threw the cd info away and had to google his lyrics, which landed me here.  He has a site where you can listen to some demo's (not his best work).  Or, if you're an iTunes user, check out his song entitled Cup of Life.  Fabulous.  Amazing and Fabulous.  Enjoy.

Packaging Girlhood

This is another disturbing book for parents.  Here's a sort-of-review I did for our church newsletter.  They have a site with excerpts and a watch-dog blog.  The book displays powerful insight, as far as natural eyes go.  It has a good message for parents to engage their kids and their kid's world.  The conclusions are unsatisfying, however, because they don't embrace a vision for womanhood.  Thank God He has not been silent.

Bible Centre: Unbelievable!

MUST SEE: Bible Centre. Don't be fooled by its unassuming appearance. This site is LOADED!
From Foxe to Harnack, Boettner to Boyd, Pink to Hunt, Chesterton to Carson, Genesius to Van Pelt, the Expositor's Greek Testament series, MacArthur's series, Word Biblical, Hendricksen and Kistemaker, Lightfoot, Expositor's Bible Commentary: OT and NT (that problem's solved), and TONS more!
Thank you, Jared.

Update: fees may soon apply

New King?

New King?

on Quitting Soccer

Michael Spencer posts his point of view as a parent regarding his son's early departure from soccer.  It commends itself for a few reasons:
1.  His son, Clay, shares his experience.  I'm closer to his situation than Michael's.  And I quit soccer too.
2.  Michael and his wife both post thoughts on this cross road.
3.  Michael, as the internet monk, always has good, honest things to say about real life issues that peel back our shame to expose the theology beneath.

Weekend Notes

Well, I've been trying to publish a pdf to the web (help?), but instead I'll just post my busted-up Writely version. The outline is severely mangled (the Adrianne Monk in me is twitching), but the content is there: How to Study the Bible.

College Church Senior High Camp Links

God blessed our weekend with the College Church High School Group. I had a very enjoyable time being with them and hope that in some small way God will use this past weekend to further propel that group of about 70 people into His passion: spreading the Kingdom of His Son.
Here are some links, as I promised. Warning: not everything on every link is totally endorsed by David Griffiths (duh). Also, if any of my scholarly and ministerial brethren have other sites that have helped them, especially in dealing with historical background, then please post them in the comments. If any students have questions or concerns, please either comment or email me (side bar "contact David").
The Bible in numerous versions at Bible Gateway
Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Crosswalk Bible Study Tools
Desiring God. Resources from John Piper
"Beginning With Moses": biblical theology thoughts

Biblical Preaching: audio
e-Sword: (excellent) free bible study software. I use this on three machines.

"How to Pray for the Soul: Yours or Another's" by John Piper (Piper's Preparations)
"An Approach to the Extended Memorization of Scripture" by Andrew M. Davis

Rob Bradshaw has TONS of great scholarly articles available in PDF.
"Brief Historical Background to the NT" looks good, although I've not read it.
New Testament Gateway is a treasure trove.
Bishop Tom Wright has some helpful articles on New Testament background.
Biblical Studies from the UK has some helpful articles and links, although this is getting heavy.
Background for NT books.

"I thank God, every time I remember you."

Update: New Testament Introduction is available online!

Off to Wonderland, WI

Keep me in prayer this weekend as I discuss bible study with a group of teenagers. My hope is:
1. to accurately describe a way to read the bible normally,
2. to frame bible study within a view of the whole Christian life, and
3. to exemplify a passion for the Word and the supremacy of Jesus.

I'll publish my notes (and possibly audio) upon my return.

"running the whole world"

Nut job from Miami. 
Worst line:

"I will be president of the biggest government that this earth has
experienced,” said de Jesus.

Yikes.  The dispensationalist in me just
pooped his pants.

Categories

Are you familiar with the concept of "categories"? You certainly know the difference between things like "fiction" and "non-fiction." Those are category differences. One might claim during a heated conversation that "apples" and "oranges" seem to be in play. Yet they are both fruit. And, when contrasted with carrots, bear much in common. And oranges and carrots too have much in common by way of contrast with either tomatoes and blood or livestock and platypuses (the first being a contrast in color, the second, in kingdom). Categories can be, and are for our purposes, groupings of like items, usually in contradistinction from another category, and possibly arbitrary.
In addition, categories can be referenced by using an archetype or "type" to illustrate that feature which defines the group. "Orange" refers to carrots and Irish hair color, though neither are citrus fruits.
The concept of categories can be very helpful in navigating the Christian life. I examine my current situation based on possible responses, which I gather from available categories. Thus, 50 Cent became a drug-pusher early in life partially because it was a prominent category for him. Was he aware of the President of the United States? of policemen? of preachers? Certainly. He had those categories in place, or perhaps the larger category of "boring do-gooders." He selected based on his familiarity with and understanding of the categories before him.
In application, the Christian must labor to remind himself/herself and his/her brother/sister of the bible's categories, patterns and types. Examples of how to respond. When confronted with adultery or pornography, the believer has before him the example of Joseph and Timothy ("flee"), Jesus Christ (confront with sinless pure love), or Judah and Bill Clinton ("well, heck..."). Our categories, our types-lists, guide our decisions. The appeal of one over another depends on our exposure levels to that category or category figure, "type."
So the plea then, and the strategy, is for men and women who will consider the examples of the bible in order to reinforce their future decisions with faith. The bible is full of categories and types that illustrate the complex, complicated, and confusing array of situations in which we find ourselves. Saturation in the word shall yield clarity in the Christian vision and wisdom for the Christian's task, because our categories will sharpen and our borders thicken, even as life's stream winds us down ways we do not know.

"...as well as any Christian."

The Normal Christian Blog exists to illustrate and explicate what might be truly considered a "normal" Christian life.  Would this be part of that life?

Christians, Clothes, and Church

What do you wear to church? Does the bible have any principles that might help us guide our wardrobe decisions?
The following principles guide my theology of Sunday attire: heart matters matter most, and church is about God.
1. Heart matters matter most. God doesn't look on the outside (1 Sam 16:7). He is concerned with the heart. Even a sleepy reading of the middle third of your bible will convince you of that more than anything.
1.1. God is not directly concerned with clothes. Clothing cannot be holy, or commend us to God. Therefore, dressing so that you honor God has nothing directly to do with color coordination, name brands, scents, or fabric.
2. Church is about God. Church is not about you. You should not be going to church in order for anyone to think better of you in any way. Church is about you meeting with God together with other believers. I want to be able to focus on God and I want others to be able to focus on God. Whether clothes help or hinder focussing on God should be our sole criteria.
2.1. Therefore, I should dress in such a way that I am able to focus on God. If my pants are too tight, I am unable to focus on God as I want. If I have a new necktie that receives compliments, then I am unable to focus on God as I want. If my shoes are too small, my shirt too thin, my sweater too thick, then I am unable to focus on God as I want.
2.2. Therefore, I should dress in such a way that others are able to focus on God without the danger of being distracted by my attire. If my gender-defining features are manifest, then others will not be able to focus on God as they have come to Church to do. If the color of my shirt is too bright, then others will not be able to focus on God as they have come to Church to do. If my perfume/cologne is too strong, then others will not be able to focus on God as they have come to Church to do. If my jewlery is too expensive, if my shoes too eye-catching or squeaky, if my attire is too formal, if my odor too malicious, if my hair-do too unique, if my ____ too _____, then others will not be able to focus on God as they have come to Church to do.
This then is the primary reason modesty is a must, simplicity is better, cleanliness is helpful, and comfort is holy.

"Love-Rest in God"

"My dear Lord,
...May I love thee, my Benefactor, in all my benefits,
not forgetting that my greatest danger
arises from my advantages."

-The Valley of Vision, 332

Commentary Counsel

CBD has the full Expositor's Bible Commentary (12 volumes) for $120. Ever used it? Recommendations? It has some obvious strengths: Kaiser, Carson, Boice. But I'm wondering especially about the OT volumes.

24 take two

Matt's helpful admission in the comments below coupled with Mark Driscoll's claim that season five may be the "best yet" leads me to consider giving the show a second chance.
24 has a committment to doing the unexpected. But what else would you expect from a traiter-spy, than that she should murder ____? What we love about happy endings is that they are unexpected. I understand that perhaps the genre of happy endings has become too stale. I don't mind an unhappy ending once in a while. But it is the unexpectedness of happy endings that makes them so appealing. We so infrequently enjoy euchatastrophic experiences in our day to day lives, that we turn to Story, via television perhaps, to remind us that there is a hope that one day everything "will be set to rights." Senseless murder and the betrayal of viewer's trust is expected. What we want is to be reminded, in the expected way, that the unexpected can happen.
For believers, we say, "Maranatha," but we know our hearts only half-way believe it. Stories help us. They refresh our ability to hope, to long for something.

24: Season One

This is going to seem like old news to you 24 fans. But I felt I needed to comment on it. The conclusion of Season One was so perverse, so faithless, that my wife and I vowed on the spot to never watch another season of 24. We had checked it out from the library and were plowing through it. For it to have the ending it did could only work in a sick society that has come to hope for the worst. If I were a psychologist I might suggest that it somehow validates our own inappropriate behavior for "the worst" to happen, as if to say, "hey, it happens, so what if I do it. It'd happen anyway." For a nation with a bad conscience, this works. For me it ruined what was otherwise a fantastic series of programs. Some of my friends are passionate 24 fans. Offer an explanation or rebutal...that is, try.

Solomon at 8 months: Crawling, Growing teeth

4%

Ron Luce seems to be championing the downcast assesment of modern youth ministry: about 4% of today's youth will become "bible believing" adults.
Here's my take on such statistics and some suggestions on how to read Ron Luce.
1. Things are going to get worse and worse. Remnant categories should be a deeply ingrained perspective for us to take. There is a remnant, always has been, always will be. But we're not promised more (such as a Christian Nation).
2. At the same time, if such a percentage is accurate, that only means there are so many more young people who have yet to see and be taken by the glories of Christ. There are, so to speak, more fish in our barrels. Let's shoot catch 'em.
3. Ron Luce has devoted 15 years of his life to these mega-lo-mart style crusades. He's 45 years old. I don't mean to make lite of his scenario, but this smells like a mid-life crisis moment. "Fifteen years...for what?" Well, Ron, we'll see one day. Don't loose heart.
4. At the same time, decisionalism, crisis-inducing rallies, and the days of the effectiveness of the crusade-speaker are waning, if not over. People have come to expect all public personalities (television, politics, artists, stars) to be thinly veiled hypocrites. We just don't trust the talking heads, whoever they are. Once upon a time, Billy Graham could reach hundreds of thousands through the new-fangled device called television. Arenas would fill quickly to hear him. We trusted public figures. Now we don't. We've disassociated authenticity from the public forum. It's not that Ron's a bad guy, but we don't believe showman anymore, whoever they are: P.Diddy, President Bush, or Ron Luce. We want authenticity. We want access. Events like those run by Mr. Luce may still serve a purpose, and I'm not going to dogg them, but I think they preach to the choir, the already-devoted kids, and fail to impact the marginally Christian, "spiritual" kids.
What were your thoughts?

spleen

We watched "Tombstone" the other night. I love this movie for many reasons. Besides the slate of actors, the shoot-em ups, the facial hair, the period, I really love the dialogue. One of the final scenes between Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp provided the roots for the meditation that led to the naming of this blog: "There is no normal life, Wyatt...just life." So we embrace the "normal" Christian life as just that particular life in which we live and move: screwed up, hurried, worried, painful, and yet strangely bouyant.
But today I feel like the Doc Holiday character. I'm a little drunk, coughing up blood, staggering about, but I must keep moving forward, pistols pulled, courage cocked, ready to rumble.
I'm sick. I'm dying. But I'm ready to fight.

Dr. Ralph Wood

Mars Hill Audio has done some interview with Dr. Ralph Wood.  They are always enjoyable.  If you enjoy literature and literary reflections, from an intellectually Christian view, you may find something you like on his site.  I'm looking forward to getting into his stuff on Tolkien and Chesterton.

Galatians 1:3-5

If you have a moment, say five, consider looking at and commenting on the following analysis of Galatians 1:3-5.
1:3- Main proposition. Restated as, "Grace and peace [can be yours] from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
1:4a- Beginning of Grounds. Action. "[because Jesus] gave Himself for your sins
1:4b- Purpose. "in order to deliver you from this present evil age."
1:5- series within Grounds. "[and because God, who deserves all glory, willed it]."

good birthday

So far, so good.
Started things off with a Dunkin Donuts trip with my wife and son.
Then received gifts from my wife: Good Monsters, by Jars of Clay (preview this excellent album on their MySpace), and a monster bottle of Royall Bay Rhum (for the skin, not "the thirst").
These items, and more, could be found on my Kaboodle page. Iknow it would sort of be like giving to those who can give to you, but I would love it if more of my friends had wishlist pages. Then we could send a little gift whenever the thought (and available finances) strikes.

Wright about things

Do you feel discouraged? LIke you're not the hero you hope'd you'd grow up to be? Reading a little N. T. Wright gave me a shot in the arm tonight. He emphasizes the cyclical stories of the Bible. I don't think the following are his thoughts, but mine.
The basic story of the bible is creation and the fall. The reason the bible keeps going after Genesis 3 is because there is also the hope of redemption (and/or restoration). Helpful to me today was a cursory examination of the men, the heroes, of this cyclical story.
Adam: proto-type MAN, "unconfirmed creaturely holiness"...Failure.
Noah: next Adam-figure, right family tree, last faithful man on earth, tireless worker...Failure.
Abraham: next Adam-figure, bold and courageous, full of faith, wandered in hopes of a better land...Failure.
Moses: next Adam-figure, fortuitous infancy, clear call of God, friend of God, saw the backside of God's glory, glowed...Failure.
David: next Adam-figure, plucked from obscurity by God's prophet, defeats national enemy, anointed King, prepares Temple...Failure.

There are others between the cracks there (perhaps you could note some). But the point is, our story, the manly story, the tale of would-be heroes, is a tale of failure. So we need to learn to manage our expectations. Jesus is the only Hero, and that through apparent failure. I won't be Jesus...but I need Him.

Nothing drives me to Christ like contemplating biblical theology.

entrusting the faith

The phenomenon that Scott McKnight talks about in his post, "20somethings and sustainable faith," should cause us deep concern. Are there any churches out there who don't have children's and youth programs? Yet, suddenly it seems, when the same kids become 20 year olds, the church doesn't know what to do with them. It's probably because we weren't doing what we should have all along. What if we contemplated our ministry as entrusting it to faithful men (2 Tim 2:2), even though those men are currently boys, instead of setting our ultimate goal as "getting saved" with a side of service, tithing, and life-long church attendance? Pass The Faith on, not relgiousity. The final paragraph of McKnight's article, a quote from Kinnaman (?), is too good to not reproduce:

Much of the ministry to teenagers in America needs an overhaul – not because churches fail to attract significant numbers of young people, but because so much of those efforts are not creating a sustainable faith beyond high school. There are certainly effective youth ministries across the country, but the levels of disengagement among twentysomethings suggest that youth ministry fails too often at discipleship and faith formation. A new standard for viable youth ministry should be – not the number of attenders, the sophistication of the events, or the ‘cool’ factor of the youth group – but whether teens have the commitment, passion and resources to pursue Christ intentionally and whole-heartedly after they leave the youth ministry nest.

Comment 15, by Chris Folmsbee, is also worth your attentions.
(HT: CRBlog)

Youth Workers

Do you propogate a "stark raving, in-up-to-our-nostrils...kind-of youth ministry"? Stop. It's one thing to be beside one's self for the sake of the gospel, persuading men and young people to be reconciled to God. It's quite another to think that the gospel will be natural in a JackAss context. What are we here for? Why does youth ministry exist? Are we stark-raving nostril-people who dance like monkeys for our bourgiouse teenagers? No. Hell, no. And that's just it: there's hell out there, so, No. We are not playing with just hormones and soccer schedules, but with hell and heaven.
Let all your ravings be ravings of the glories of Christ. Be in-up-to-your-nostrils about the Word. How will they see Jesus if we show them our best Brad Pitt impersonation or real-slim-shady routine? Show them Jesus! You are Christ to them. You're not cool enough to save their souls. But Jesus is.
(rant based on one phrase on a page of a generally helpful youth ministry...ministry. No links to them, because I do like them, and this whipping is not just for them.)

State of the Union: October 3, 2006

My twenty-sixth birthday is two days away and I am severely disappointed: my cars still use gasoline and have tires. Michael J. Fox was hovering nearly twenty years ago and I'm still consuming fossil fuels and touching the planet? Aside from that perpetual disappointment, life is good.// I'm busier now, hence the infrequent postings and the dated links columns. If I don't link to your site, that doesn't mean I don't love you.// Jenecia has a piano studio (can you keep a secret? It's in our kitchen). I don't even have her linked on my sidebar. //My son, Solomon, has two teeth and toys with the idea of one day crawling. His only speech is that barbaric yelp we all hold deep in our souls. He grows accustomed to human waste.// Church life always and ever seems to sit on the edge of a knife. I think humpty-dumpty was a tale of churches. We are eggish things. Fragile, thin-shelled, ready to spill irreversibly: "but it has not yet been revealed what we shall be..."//I'm beset with excellent musicians: Leeland, Aaron Shust, John Mark McMillian, and some other guy whose name I cannot remember (daG-gum). David Crowder is my main man right now: B Collision.//The complete Sherlock Holmes is my bedtime companion and the only volume I really, truly, honestly, no-fooling, read. My list of almost-reads embarrasses me, although it probably contains some of the best authors you've never read either.//I'm smack in between Sundays of a series on 'How to study the Bible.' Later this month the plague that is me will sweep westward for a youth weekend of the same content. Do you ever feel like someone somewhere has made a tragic mistake? I'm working overtime so as to not do so bad of a job that I lose a friend in the process. Ah, don't listen to me, I love it. Audio of my sermons will be up shortly.//I've finally registered for a seminary course atop it all.//If you're my friend, and you blog, please accept my apology for not being better about meddling in your affairs. If you don't blog, sorry for not providing you with enough meddling material. Otherwise, shout out a prayer for your brother as he inches toward the end of his life.