Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Debunking Flood Geology

    This video from AIG Busted is informative, humorous, and quite sarcastic. Hat Tip: Exploring Our Matrix.

  • Reviews Posted on Two Books from Tyndale

    These reviews are on the New Life Application Bible Studies volume on Acts, and the 24/7 Chronological Study Bible.  Both of these are excellent resources for particular needs in Bible Study.

  • The 24/7 One Year Chronological Bible

    The greatest difficulty I have in reviewing this Bible edition is distinguishing between what interests me and what might be helpful for people who are wanting to put more spark in their Bible study.

    24/7: A One Year Chronological Bible from Tyndale House is directed at a particular purpose, and it fulfills that purpose quite well.  I tend to emphasize the translation in discussing Bibles, but individual readers tend to look for a particular edition, often buying a Bible not for the translation, the Biblical text it uses, but for the features of that edition.  What most people look for in a Bible edition is a single volume that will generally be “their” Bible for study, for reading, for use in church–pretty much everything.

    If you look at this Bible from that point of view, it’s not going to make it.  It doesn’t have any study notes (no surprise), and it would be very difficult to find verses as needed.

    My point is not to criticize this edition for not doing what it does not intend to do, but rather to emphasize that it’s good for a particular purpose.  It provides a new approach to reading the Bible through and becoming acquainted with its story.

    There are a number of ways to think of the Bible story.  One is to think of the books are they are collected and put together, the story of the formation of the Bible. This is important, and relates to the process of canonization and thus to the history of the church, our community of faith.  Another way is to look for theological themes.  This Bible provides a way to address the story line, the record of how God has acted.

    In addition, it’s designed for the spiritual discipline of Bible reading.  Biblical materials are arranged chronologically, so that you will hear Psalms in the editors best guess as to where they belong, and you will read the messages of the prophets at the time when they were written.

    There are some obvious difficulties with this approach, one being that not everyone will agree on where things belong.  Psalm 104 is placed with a large group of Psalms, some other wisdom literature, and portions of (1st) Isaiah just after the fall of the northern kingdom.  I know of people who would argue both substantially earlier and substantially later.  Obviously they have to put it somewhere, and that’s not a bad choice.

    Several books whose dating might be controversial are placed in traditional positions.  The book of Jonah is placed right after the narration of the reign of Jeroboam II with a note that Jonah’s ministry occurred during this period, which assumes that the book is not pseudonymous, and many scholars believe.  All of second and third Isaiah is placed inside the reign of Hezekiah, and Daniel is placed in the late 7th/early 6th century.

    These aren’t bad choices, as the reasoning for other dating would have to be explained to the average Bible reader, and there is also an argument for hearing the books in one sense as they were intended to hear.  Whether pseudonymous or not, Jonah bears the name of a prophet from the reign of Jeroboam II, Isaiah internally claims to be written in a period spanning the reign of Hezekiah, and Daniel provides a 7th-6th century chronology for itself.  Nonetheless, I think it’s worth noting.

    Now let me get more to the purpose of the book.  It’s intended to provide a year long reading program, allowing the reading to experience the Bible story in a new way, one that would be very hard to do normally.  I think that’s a laudable goal, and the editors are completely successful.  This shouldn’t be your first reading Bible, but if you’ve read the Bible through at least once, it will be a good way to experience it again.

    One of the great errors of many deep Bible students is to get so focused on the trees (such as the details I discussed above) that they don’t get a picture of the story.  This Bible will help fulfill that need.

    Positives:

    1. Single column text aids reading
    2. Good arrangement with readings identified in the text.  There’s a guide in the back, but you won’t have to use it.
    3. Use of the NLT text.  The NLT is extremely well suited for a Bible of this type
    4. Approximate timeline
    5. It isn’t your “carry to church” Bible and it nowhere pretends that it is.

    Neutral:

    1. There is a Christian symbol chosen and featured each month of reading.  This doesn’t do anything for me, but I’m guessing it will for others.
    2. Scripture index, necessary for looking up particular texts, but not needed for the main purpose of the book.

    Negative:

    1. Size and print size. This could also be positive, but it strikes me as negative based on the purpose.  It’s a bit small.  That makes it portable, which could be useful, but at the same time a bit harder to read and to use.
    2. Binding.  I don’t know about this, but my wife believes the binding will not be durable enough if one is reading through it in the year.

    Since I cited my wife, I should mention her other comments.  She didn’t like the print and binding that much, but she very much liked the idea of having a Bible arranged chronologically.  She thinks more devotionally than I do, so that’s worth mentioning.

    Despite the comments on binding and print, in general this is a wonderful addition to the available tools for students of the Bible.

    Now we just need to start using them.  We are richer in Bible study tools right now in the English language, yet our Biblical knowledge continues to deteriorate.  That indicates a lack of desire or will, I think, as there is certainly no excuse for someone who reads English and wants to know the Bible not to do so.

  • Christian Carnival CCLXII

    Welcome to Christian Carnival CCLXII.  I could always call this the “I’m too tired to think of a theme” edition, but I’m really just presenting the posts in order this time.

    There are several really good ones, so check them out.

    GP presents The Circle of Life « Manely Montana posted at Manely Montana, saying, “The circle of life”

    Travis presents Our Plans or His Purpose posted at Your Everyday Christian, saying, “Sometimes God’s purpose means changing our plans.”  (Oh no!  Hate it when that happens!)

    Roy Twogood Jr. presents About Plans and Planning… posted at OLIN e-Book e-Publishing.  He got a lesson from God on the subject and he’s passing it on!

    Ronnica presents I Trust You, Lord posted at Ignorant Historian.

    Chris Brooks presents A Non-Religious Case Against Same-Sex Marriage posted at Homeward Bound, saying, “An argument that same-sex marriage is unhealthy for our society that we can take into the public square.”

    ChristianPF presents How to be a Biblically responsible investor posted at Money in the Bible | Christian Personal Finance Blog, saying, “We are stewards and have a responsibility to invest in appropriate companies. These are some tips to help us…”

    Allen Scott presents Give me, Give me, and then give me Some More posted at Journey Across the Sky.

    Vickie Sloderbeck and Faith Janes presents Do Your Children Know Who You Really Are? posted at Sidetracked Moms.

    Josanne Anthony presents Dolls **some adult content** posted at Brilliant Babblings.  No, don’t worry.  We’re not starting to link to adult content, though the post does ask you just what you want to put in front of your pre-teen children.  On another blog, she presents Jesus Picks Up Pennies posted at The Radiant View.

    Diane R presents The Three Dialectics posted at Crossroads: Where Faith and Inquiry Meet, saying, “Adult Sunday School classes can use one of three dialectics. One should probably be ditched; one should be used at times and the third one is the one that will release the class from boredom and bridge the generations.”

    Richard H. Anderson presents Pyramid Scheme posted at dokeo kago grapho soi kratistos Theophilos.

    Andy Deane presents Pastor Andy Deane’s New Book – Learn to Study the Bible posted at How to Study the Bible – 40 Bible Study Methods!, which tells about a new book on how to study the Bible.

    Raffi Shahinian presents Stick Your Systematic Theologies… posted at parables of a prodigal world.

    Frances presents Two Questions posted at Christianity Lived Out, saying, “I would love some help answering two questions.”

    Bob MacDonald presents Is faith a leap? posted at Sufficiency, in which he discusses the relationship between faith and science.  On his other blog he presents Rarely Used Words in the Psalter – 17.  I must personally note that Bob’s work on the Psalter is well worth reading, though not for the faint of heart.

    David presents Intimacy With Christ, Taking Thoughts Captive, Day Two posted at TransformSA Blog, saying, “God Bless!”

    Annette presents True Woman – Reflecting God’s Glory posted at Fish and Cans.  Do you think of modesty of dress from a Biblical perspective?

    Chasing the Wind presents Walking Together posted at Chasing the Wind, saying, “What do the Pittsburgh Steelers and a good church have in common? Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians can teach us how to play nice together.”

    Danny presents What Do We Pray For? A Look at the Sermon on the Mount posted at Boston Bible Geeks, saying, “A short look at Matthew 7:7-11 in the context of the rest of the Sermon on the Mount.”

    Michelle presents Ephesians 5:22 – Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. posted at Thoughts and Confessions of a Girl Who Loves Jesus….  Oh no!  Taking on that long “s” word.  Check out what she has to say!

    Rani presents Jabez’s Prayer posted at Christ’s Bridge, saying, “Enjoy learning about an important person who only had two verses in the Bible.”

    Wickle presents The view from the rear posted at A True Believer’s Weblog, saying, “Wickle works as a graphics tech at his church, and loves to see the congregation at worship.”

    Mark Olson presents On Celibacy posted at Pseudo-Polymath, saying, “I’ve heard the phrase “celibacy is a calling which only few of us can answer.” I think this is exactly wrong. Celibacy is a universal Christian calling. Do you agree or not?”

    From Pastoral Musings we get Bibilical Manhood: Man The Crown of Creation, Not The All – A call for men to remember that humanity is God’s crowning work of Creation.  Man, the individual male, is not, but should be a servant-leader in his home.

    Weekend Fisher of  Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength offers Grace over meals – for troubled times especially, an original prayer for grace in troubled times, based closely on the Sermon on the Mount.

    That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of christian carnival ii using our carnival submission form. For past posts, see the Christian Carnival Archive.

  • The Internet Monk is Believing Stuff

    … and not believing other stuff. I found his whole list pretty interesting and thought provoking. Check it out!

  • Epiphany 5B Preliminary Thoughts

    In trying to write these lectionary notes I have found that it is so much easier to get notes into my Bible margin, or on sticky notes marking the pages as I read, than it is to write them up for others.  I hope some of you will be patient enough to stick with me until I can get to the point of getting more of my thoughts actually posted.

    There were several things that struck me as “first thoughts” in my lectionary reading this week.

    1.  The focus seems to be on healing.  I even see healing as Jesus retreates for prayer (Mark 1:35ff).  Those who do the work of ministry need to rest and also receive ministry.

    2.   There is a time when even speaking the truth can be demonic.  Note how Jesus silences the demons in Mark 1:34, not because they are lying, but because they know him and are speaking at what is apparently the wrong time.  I would like to expand on this later if I have time.

    3.  Just because ministry is bustling in one place doesn’t mean we need to stay there.  In fact, our tendency is to stay with success until it stops being success and becomes just repetition.  We need to move on to other calls (Mark 1:38-39).

    4.  Healing and restoration go together.  Look at both Isaiah 40 and Psalm 147.

    5.  Some of the things Paul says he is willing to be in order to reach people are frightening!  (1 Corinthians 9:22).

    6.  It is because God is creator that he is also redeemer (Isaiah 40).

    7.  Why do you imagine that the demons reacted when Jesus showed up and those in need of healing flocked to him?  Jesus never seems to need any instroduction or hype–people just come to him.

     

  • Christian Carnival by Tonight

    I’m going to be posting it some time in the evening.  Thanks for all your submissions!

  • Review – Life Application Bible Studies: Acts

    I’ve had this booklet for some time and have been intending to review it.  Procrastination works, however, so it hasn’t risen to the top of the pile of things to write about until now.  That’s not because it isn’t interesting or useful–not at all!

    In fact, this book falls right into the center of my work–getting the folks in the pews to study the Bible more.  My short summary:  This is a valuable addition to the arsenal, and I hope the remainder of the Life Application Bible Studies are done in much the same mold.

    I always approach books with certain expectations.  It may be the person who recommended them, the author, the publisher, the series, or some other hint along the way.  In this case, I had high expectations because the study is based on the New Living Translation (NLT), and the Life Application Study Bible.  Now that combination is not exactly five star material for my personal study, as it is too direct in application, and too light on the detailed exegesis and theology for my personal taste.  But to judge it in that fashion would be wrong, as it does what it intends to do rather well, both in the translation and in the notes.

    The study guide includes all of the relevant material for the book of Acts.  While I like this material, I suspect this may actually be the least useful part of the study guide.  How can I say that after what I’ve just said?  Well, in my experience most class members have their own Bibles and they generally tend to want to use them.  This can be a bad thing, when the study group gets too scattered because of different notes used, or a very good thing as people get exposed to different ideas.  How valuable the included translation and notes are will depend on your particular group.

    The actual lessons and notes, however, are simply outstanding for a fairly average church group.  They tend to start simple and factual, and grow to more thoughtful and direct questions.  For example, in Acts 4 we go from asking what opposition the people of the early church experienced, to opposition that people you know have experienced, to the much more personal question 11 (p. 97) “When were you afraid to speak up for Christ?”  In the “MORE” section we get down to church unity with questions like how unified your church is, and what you can do.

    Because many of the questions can overwhelm the small group leader and the time for a small group, you will need to go through them and decide what you will emphasize.  There are suggestions for this in the introduction.

    Speaking as a person who has written Bible study guides, even though mine are aimed at a more theologically oriented study, I could easily see myself choosing this as a guide for a group that I would teach.  I recommend it highly.

  • They Really Do Believe the Earth is Stationary

    Occasionally when I mention “geocentricity” people will roll their eyes and let me know that nobody is believes that any more, nobody is that stupid, and comparing the rejection of overwhelming amounts of modern science in favor of young earth creationism with similar rejection of science by geocentrists is silly, because there aren’t any such people.

    I’ve previously linked to the Geocentricity web site to show that there really are such people. Yes, they do exist, and they really are just that far out.

    Today in the mail, however, I got further proof. Not only are they capable of producing web sites (using modern science to attempt to destroy it), but they are capable of producing and mailing brochures as well. I received a brochure titled “Have Scientists Been Wrong? For 400 years?” In the pamphlet they argue that “the mobility of the earth is the only place where science and the Bible have come into real conflict, and is the starting point for all churches that have compromised the authority of scripture.”

    Gotta love all that rejection of compromise! Can’t allow even one iota of fact to pervert our doctrinal systems!

    They even advertise a free book (one doubts very many people would pay for such drivel, but there it is–The Geocentric Bible–freely available to all with time to waste and a brain to fry.

    Here is your brain; here is your brain after reading the book through.

    (Imagine the pictures!)

    Question: Is this much more brain frying than Kurt Wise’s claim that he believes in young age creationism even though the evidence is against it because of his beliefs as to the literal understanding of Genesis? (See my notes on his book Faith, Form, and Time.) I’d like to think not, but it seems to me that with the young age view, he is flying pretty vigorously into the face of reams of scientific evidence.

  • Setting the Proper Priority for Tolerance as a Value

    Every so often I have a conversation with someone who knows I value tolerance that goes something like this:

    Q: So you believe in tolerance?
    Me: (Heroically resisting the urge to tear apart the phrase “believe in x”) Yes, I value tolerance.
    Q: But then you have to tolerate intolerant people.
    Me: No, actually I don’t.
    Q: But then you’re not really tolerant, because you don’t tolerate intolerant people.
    Me: (Resisting pointing out the difference between not being logically required to do something, and actually not doing it.) ….

    That one is easy to answer, simply because I don’t “believe in” tolerance as a type of absolute, but rather I value tolerance. One must, in addition, define tolerance, because many people seem to define tolerance as “believing everybody is equally correct” rather than something like “favoring freedom for people to hold ideas I regard as incorrect and take actions I think are stupid.” I mean something more like the latter. I value a broad range of tolerance. My value of tolerance, does not trump my value of private property, however, so I don’t favor toleration for stealing. It doesn’t trump my valuing of human life, so I don’t wish to tolerate murder.

    All that is pretty clear, I think. I think it’s good to find limits to tolerance in our values, i.e. to find out where tolerance stands in our scale of values, and to make sure that it is placed in the proper order. Personally, on the question of tolerating intolerance, while I do not feel logically impelled to tolerate intolerance, since I could treat it like murder, I do try to tolerate intolerant expression. I’m thus strongly opposed to government hate speech restrictions (private organizations can do as they wish), and I question a great deal of hate crimes legislation. Thus my tolerance protects certain people who are intolerant, but not others, depending on their actions.

    But there is another set of limits to our tolerance, ones that we may not even be aware of. I’m going to start by looking in church, and then take a look at Washington, D.C. In the United Methodist Church, I have found some very interesting limits on our tolerance. Now don’t get me wrong here. I’m not complaining of how I personally have been treated. I am noting how people have suggested others should be treated.

    We can, for example, tolerate people who are, by their own admission, either not Christian or barely Christian in United Methodist congregations I’ve known, and even let them teach. I hear occasionally about people who are too liberal feeling they are suppressed, but I also hear about many evangelical candidates for ministry who feel that they are being pushed out of that envelope of tolerance. It’s really a hard set of limits to see, but I get the distinct feeling that our candidacy program is not designed for boat rockers.

    I see much more clearly that while various theological views are tolerated, provided they are expressed in proper theological language by people with the proper credentials, certain types of behavior are much less tolerated. For example, you would get less reaction in some congregations if you said Jesus was not divine than if you raised your hands during a song in the worship service.

    As a sideline, I note that in my experience I can get by with saying things that my wife cannot. She is an RN (graduate of a three year program) author of three books, with 12 years experience in hospice care, ending as a director of education for a regional organization. I have an MA degree in religion (concentration–Biblical languages, which earns respect in many quarters!). If I were programming Sunday School classes, I would find more opportunities for her to teach than for me. There are more people who need her expertise. Yet she is heard much less, which is frankly a tragedy.

    But where I have seen a consistent lack of tolerance is for the charismatic movement. I can see this when I teach about different streams of Christian thought. Presbyterians and Baptists are fine. A bit weird, maybe, but they’re respectable neighbors. But mention Charismatics and Pentecostals, and resistance starts in. Aren’t those the crazy people who speak in tongues? I can feel the discomfort.

    The bottom line seems to be that we can tolerate any level of theological disagreement, but we can’t handle odd behavioral differences. We can’t tolerate being embarrassed. I think that is a line that we need to examine. Which is more important? Which is more substantial. The limits of our tolerance need to be chosen wisely, according to our values. If an embarrassing level of enthusiasm is really that important, then we need to be honest about it.

    There is plenty there for people to question, because I’m speaking subjectively. But I see this in Washington, D.C. all the time as well. What kind of behavior should we tolerate in a politician? In a nominee for cabinet or the courts? I think that our politicians are showing their partisan stripes. Remember that partisanship is not just displayed in opposition; it is also displayed in support, based on party, of something that one wouldn’t otherwise support.

    If we had a Republican president, would the Democratic Senate tend to respond in the same way to nominee problems? I’m guessing that we would have a reversal. Some Republicans and some Democrats would be consistent, but the proportions in each party would change. Tolerance, in that case, is based on party loyalty. We allow things in people of our own party that we would reject in the other one.

    We tend to respond most negatively to things that embarrass us. The embarrassment is more important than any moral or legal issue. Our tolerance is determined not by our values, but rather by what is socially acceptable in our own circle.

    While I value tolerance, I think that it can be extremely dangerous. It can, if it is not properly defined and positioned, provide me the excuse to allow things that I should not allow. At the same time since we all know, instinctively if not consciously, that tolerance can’t really be absolute, we have an alternative excuse to allow ourselves to be intolerant–when it suits us.

    Making the choice to be tolerant or not from anything other than a conscious, well-chosen set of values is dangerous to each of us, and to our society.