Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Familiarity with God’s Voice

    Laura has another good post on Pursuing Holiness on hearing the voice of God. She says:

    It’s very convicting to realize how easily I recognize voices – even of people I’ve never met – from the world, and how I struggle to discern God’s will in my life. So what’s the difference? Exposure.

    Just so! If you ask my wife in the evening she will be able to tell you whether I spent the necessary amount of time on my devotional reading, meditation, and prayer that day. And she’ll be right. I’m not talking about how much time I spend reading the Bible academically, as in research for my writing, but devotional reading, but how much time I spend listening to what God has to say to me.

    Go and be convicted by Laura’s post. 🙂

  • Chocolate Cat Cake

    OK, I don’t usually post this sort of thing, but it’s just too funny.

    This morning while driving I was listening to a morning show, and one of the folks is about to get married and was having trouble picking a groom cake. He has finally decided to have his two cats done in chocolate cake form. Chocolate cat cake.

    This is a bit too weird for me! But look at these:

    I guess I’m just a boring person, but I think I’d skip this.

  • Methodist Blogroll Change

    I have changed the code here to reflect the new Methodist Blogroll from the new Methodist portal. I understand (and observe, for that matter) that the older blogroll has fallen into disrepair, and this new one is being diligently maintained.

    Many features of the portal are also of great interest, and I intend to use it more and more as I try to do my part to keep the conversation going. Head on over and check it out.

  • Christian Carnival CXLVII

    Rev-Ed has recovered from election day activities and posted the Christian Carnival CXLVII. Hopefully my schedule this week will allow me to link back to a few of these posts. My post is from my Participatory Bible Study Blog as usual.

    Thanks to Rev-Ed for a nice carnival.

    I divide my posting between three blogs, this one for posts of general interest, the Participatory Bible Study blog for Bible study posts, and the Jevlir Caravansary for fiction, poetry, literature and related book reviews, including my translations and/or transformations of Biblical material.

  • Hebrews: Exercising Confidence

    I’ve been blogging about the book of Hebrews for some time, and I’ve also read and intended to link to some posts from Chasing the Wind that I found through the Christian Carnival, but as the book of Hebrews would tell you, you’ve got to follow through! 🙂

    But this week’s carnival brought us a post from Michael that I think is exceptionally good, and I hope anyone who has been following my series will go read it (and even some who aren’t following mine). It goes point by point into exercising confidence, and is very practical, and well in tune with the overall theme of Hebrews.

    Go read and enjoy!

  • Christian Carnival CXLVII

    Rev-Ed has recovered from election day activities and posted the Christian Carnival CXLVII. Hopefully my schedule this week will allow me to link back to a few of these posts.

    Thanks to Rev-Ed for a nice carnival.

  • Voter Turnout Higher – Wow

    MSNBC reports that voter turnout is slightly higher than the last midterms and was just a tad over 40%.

    I have to say that I’m less than overwhelmed. Where are the other 60% of registered voters, not to mention all the ones who don’t bother to register. You can’t tell me that there was nothing to vote on this time. At least here in Florida there were a number of significant issues, and I know there were in several other states.

    I believe it is appropriate that those who want to rule do so, but I can’t imagine what the rest of the voters are thinking, if anything.

  • Ted Who?

    John at Locusts and Honey links to an interesting post on Evangelical Outpost that refers to the scandal with Ted Haggard in a dismissive way. Now I would agree that any claim that the Haggard scandal would keep evangelicals home is almost by definition exaggerated.

    On the other hand, I think such a scandal does tend to erode support for the moral position involved. Ted Haggard campaigned against gay marriage and then is caught in behavior he has condemned. That’s hypocrisy, and it’s bound to erode some support on his issues. But the political tendency is to spin things before the election. And I want to make it clear that from my persepctive, the hypocrisy is the major sin here.

    I’ve got to say that I’ve found it pretty funny to watch evangelicals pretend Haggard is a minor character. I’m not even an evangelical, and I know him pretty well.

  • Divided Government Again

    Well, I wanted it to happen, and it did. We have divided government. The good news is that the Republicans lost some ground, the bad news is that the Democrats won. Of course, the second had to happen if the first did.

    What annoys me as an independent voter is hearing Democratic strategists claiming that independent voters “turned to them” and talking about the kind of mandate they get from that. There is only one real mandate–that is that you got elected.

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  • Baseball Rules and Bible Study

    Over the last few years I’ve tried to learn a great deal about baseball, because I have a stepson who is a professional pitcher. It has taken me some time to learn, because I didn’t grow up with baseball, and there are quite a number of subtleties. When I first started watching, for example, I thought that the one big thing about pitching was strikeouts, and I assumed that all pitches would be aimed for the strike zone. Over time I’ve learned about many other options. The rules seem simple, but they give rise to a huge number of options.

    A while back I found a quiz on difficult calls an umpire might face. I recall being quite pleased with myself as a relative nephyte, to be able to get 50% of those calls right. You see there are the basic rules, then there are more detailed rules, and then you have to deal with all of the various options that players have while playing within the rules. The rules tell me that if a ball passes over any part of the plate at the appropriate height range, it’s a strike. It’s also a strike if the batter swings and misses, or for the first two strikes if it’s a foul ball. That doesn’t tell the pitcher what kind of a pitch to throw on a full count, however. For that one needs to know one’s own abilities, the batter, the abilities of the catcher, and the current state of the game.

    What does all of this have to do with the Bible?

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