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How Grain Gets Memorialized
When some Greeks came to see Jesus, Jesus said it was the hour of His glory. Then Jesus explained the truth of buried seed bearing abundant fruit.
The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (John 12:23-24) The way of fruit is sacrifice and burial for sake of life.
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Wise in His Own Worship
Perhaps one of the most response-provoking visits of our trip to the United Kingdom was an unscheduled stop for Sunday morning worship at a church in Coventry, England. Our coach driver had a friend who attends the church there and, though that friend ended up not being there, we enjoyed a different service than most of us are accustomed to.
Everything was different, and similar, all at the same time. Most of our students, however, saw more of the differences than the similarities.
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Scholarship
4 of 5 stars to Scholarship: Two Convocation Addresses On University Life by Abraham Kuyper
Good reminders of our great, and highly privileged, responsibility to study all the world of the Lord.
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The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
5 of 5 stars to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
2018 - Now my favorite book in the series.
2009 - 3 of 5 stars.
This was my first time on the Dawn Treader, and it was as fair a journey that I imagine I would like from fiction. I do mean that to sound positive.
I enjoyed the end the best, not because it the book was finished, but because the imaginative description of the place nearest Aslan’s land made me eager for heaven, whatever (and however much better) the non-fiction version will be like.
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The Mask Is Off
When Jesus turned the water into wine at the wedding in Cana, what did that miracle do? It seems that there are at least two things. First, it enabled the party to continue. Second, it demonstrated that Jesus had divine power.
But is that it? Is the point of the miracles to reveal Jesus as God? It is certainly one of the things that happened, and it is important to acknowledge Jesus’ identity.
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Bow Down
Although I probably could get an exhortation to confession from every page in Jeremiah Burroughs’ The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, I promise I won’t. That said, contentment and thankfulness and emotional self-control requires constant vigilance, and it often requires repentance of fear and anxiety as well.
The confession of every Christian is, Jesus is Lord. At conversion we repent from self-will and self-serving. We turn away from sin and are delivered from our slavery to unrighteousness.
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One Friend at a Time
“I can only handle one friend at a time.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that. Not all friendships are equal, not all require the same amount of attention or effort or time, but the nature of friendship does not limit anyone to only mono-friendship any more than the nature of a flower limits how many can make a bouquet.
My point is not about friendship, but about reading, and fiction especially.
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12 Rules for Life
4 of 5 stars to 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson
This book contains a lot of pointed, profitable counsel for people to take responsibility for themselves, especially since, not in spite of the fact that, we live in a world of suffering. It also references a lot of teaching from the Bible and biblical stories, though Peterson talks about it as if it could be a helpful framework but not as if it were actually true, and that all men must believe in God through Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross.
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The Leader's Bookshelf
I listened to this Art of Manliness podcast on The Leader’s Bookshelf. The host was interviewing Admiral James Stavridis, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (that really is some title) who had surveyed a number of generals and admirals to find out their recommendations for books on leadership and then written about the top 50 results.
Earlier this year my friend Jonathan recommended the episode to some school parents since their students were assigned to read Killer Angels, a historical fiction piece about the Civil War.
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We Were Tohu va Bohu
In the beginning was the Word, the Logos. In the beginning the Logos created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was tohu va bohu, “without form and void.” After the initial act, there was darkness, chaos, and emptiness.
Then God’s Word went to work. God spoke and light pierced the darkness. God spoke and order came from chaos. God spoke and filled the earth, overwhelming the void. His Word formed and filled.
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Appears to Meet the Specs
God frequently reveals the priorities He has for us, and it is very common for us to make alterations. He says what He wants, we give Him something else that we think He might be happy with instead.
The Lord regularly told the Israelites that He desired their obedience rather than their offerings (Hosea 6:6); Psalm 50:8, 14-15, 23; Proverbs 21:3). Those sacrifices were, of course, sacrifices that He Himself had commanded them to make.
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The Last of the Lost Boys
4 of 5 stars to Outlaws of Time #3: The Last of the Lost Boys by N.D. Wilson
Finished this with the kids. Inventive time-traveling, though I wasn’t always sure of the “rules,” numerous thick characters, and a satisfying end to the series.
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Moby-Dick
4 of 5 stars to Moby-Dick: or, The Whale by Herman Melville
It took a while to finish, but I enjoyed it. The beginning chapters were Wodehouse-ian, the majority of the middle chapters were Ecclesiastes-ian, and the finale was simultaneously disappointing and deserved.
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What God Does
Two kinds of pleasing worship to God:
“in active obedience we worship God by doing what pleases God, but by passive obedience we do as well worship God by being pleased with what God does.” —Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, 120
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Cognitive Productivity with macOS
4 of 5 stars to Cognitive Productivity with macOS: 7 Principles for Getting Smarter with Knowledge by Luc Beaudoin
We must process a lot of information, and this book provided some useful (cognitive) categories for sorting and prioritizing and reviewing knowledge using Apple products. I am thankful for the terms and for the many screencasts linked to in the book. I already use some of the apps he recommended and will be adding OmniOutliner and a flashcard app to my arsenal.
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What Good Is That
If you walk into your house and your wife is cooking something new for dinner dinner that smells delicious and she offers you a bite of whatever she’s making, what good is that taste? Or if you are watching a show about food, especially one of the shows where the host visits a hole-in-the-wall place, and you get to see how the dish is made and the host takes a bite and his face lights up, what good is that to you?
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Full Attention
The theme of our recent youth retreat was self-control, and that’s also been a theme for my recent study and sermons in 1 Corinthians 9-10. Self-control touches everything in our lives.
Usually our thinking about our self-control starts with physical/external/tangible things. We think about what we eat, what we do, how much we sleep, and so on. These are very much a part of self-control, just as athletes exercise self-control in all things in order to win the prize.
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The Most Honorable Lineage
Near the end of Prince Caspian, Aslan feasted the Narnians (yes, feasted can be a transitive verb with a direct object), and declared Caspian, “a son of Adam from the world of Adam’s sons,” as the true King of Narnia. The story, though, was not so positive about the sons of Adam, and when asked if Caspian understood it, Caspian replied, “I do indeed, Sir. I was wishing that I came from a more honorable lineage.
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There Is Always Someone
All sin is personal. I don’t mean only that a person sins, but that sin is always an attitude or an action against a person. Righteousness has to do with what is right between persons. You can’t be right, or wrong, autonomously.
One thing this implies is that you cannot ultimately be angry due to the “situation.” There isn’t an impersonal cause of your bitterness. You can call it what you want, but you can’t blame no-one.
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Prince Caspian
5 of 5 stars to Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
I apparently didn’t write a review the first time I read this in July of 2009 (reading it to the kids if I remember correctly), and I only gave it 2 stars! My appreciation for fiction, and Narnia, has certainly grown. Read it this time along with our school board. A delight.
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Weaponized Inspiration Generation
Thanks to this I saw this about weaponized inspiration generation. My treadmill is his bike ride, and it is the place where the majority of my ideas (good and bad) occur because I am doing something else. An hour a day on the treadmill accompanied by a half-size yellow pad is an offensive maneuver.
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The Seven Laws of Teaching
5 of 5 stars to The Seven Laws of Teaching by John Milton Gregory.
Absolutely fantastic. Makes me feel guilty in all the right ways every time I read it.
The ideal teacher is “an incarnate assemblage of impossible excellencies.” –John Milton Gregory
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Citizen Soldiers
4 of 5 stars to Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany by Stephen Ambrose
This is the only book on the Eastern Theater of WWII that I’ve read. I read Unbroken previously, which was in the Pacific, and that’s probably it for WWII. Citizen Soldiers was hard to read, but made me thankful for the ingenuity and sacrifice of the men, the Americans in particular.
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Joy for the World
4 of 5 stars to Joy for the World: How Christianity Lost Its Cultural Influence and Can Begin Rebuilding It by Greg Forster
2017 - I don’t share Forster’s view on the Christian-or-not founding of the United States, nor do I share his view on a variety of other specifics in the book, but I definitely share his enthusiasm for “awakening from the dogmatic slumbers of fundamentalism” and very much enjoyed sharing the “victory feast of [his] liberation” from dualism (page 16).
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On Writing
3 of 5 stars to On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
This book is often near the top of the favorites list by some writers I like. I still like those writers better than this book. It’s the only one by King I’ve read, and it gives me good reason to keep it that way. I was most interested in by the Postscript where he describes what it meant to him to get back to writing after his accident.