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I pray that this day would glorify God, and remind us that one glorious day, Jesus will return for his bride and restore this broken world to it’s intended glory. We pray for your return, Lord, and to be in your presence forever in the garden-city. [No, I will not be live-tweeting the ceremony
Fortunately, it’s a good friend of mine—Alicia. Alicia emailed me recently to tell me the good news that she is now writing a column on Christianity based out of St. Louis, which is the second best “louis-” city after Louisville. Her focus, thus far, has been apologetics though she has a pretty open range of issue she can and will be discussing. I definitely suggest checking it out: Alicia’s column.
1. Greg Beale, Christopher Wright, and Tremper Longman III More than any other authors, these three have heavily influenced me in several areas including intertextuality, and understanding the Old Testament in light of the New. In terms of intertextuality, Greg Beale’s book “We Become What We Worship 2. Andy Crouch, Michael Wittmer, Abraham Kuyper and Tim Keller This three men have all written books/sermons that have absolutely transformed my view of Christianity’s call to cultural engagement. Crouch’s “Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling Now I’ve already gone over my limit of 5, though I guess I’m really doing this by themes instead of authors. Either way, I’m going to stop with the next section— I know there’s a lot more people that should be on this list… but I either can’t think of them or I’m not trying because I have so many already. I’m hoping that Brad and Jacob pick up on this.
First, we have the Apostle Paul: Ὄφελον καὶ ἀποκόψονται οἱ ἀναστατοῦντες ὑμᾶς. which, translated, says: “I wish that those who bother you [by saying you need to be circumcised] would just cut the whole thing off!” Wow, Paul. Second is the prophet Elijah: ויהי בצהרים ויהתּל בהם אליהו ויאמר קראו בקול־גדול כי־אלהים הוא כי שיח וכי־שיג לו וכי־דרך לו אולי ישן הוא ויקץ Translated: Oh Elijah. Of course, the best Old Testament story goes to Elijah’s protégé Elisha. Check it out: Elisha went up to bethel, and as he was walking along the road some children came out from the town and began to make fun of him. “Get out of here, baldy!” They said. Elisha turned around, looked at them, and cursed them in the name of YHWH. Two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youth. So Elisha went on to Mount Carmel, and returned to Samaria from there. 2 Kings 2:23-25. Hahahaha. That’s hardcore. This is made even better in the KJV/ESV where they translated the gender of the word for bears as “she bears.” You DO NOT mess with God’s annointed—especially the bald ones. I’m tagging Brad, Jacob, and Rick. So, the server that is hosting my site crashed and I lost all the posts and changes I’ve made since June 1st. I’ll be adding the posts back, as they are saved in my google reader, but I’m not really going to try and remember what cosmetic changes I’ve had since then. If you subscribe to my blog, you’ll probably be getting some repeats in your email or reader—just FYI!
Hey readers, I have two big announcements for you. First, after many many months of not being on the list, I am back on the Top 50 Biblioblogs for the month of May! Apparently, I moved from number 127 to number 19 on the list! You can check out the list here: Top 50 Biblioblogs. The blog states:
You can read more about the technical process of how blogs are ranked on the technical bits (aka about) page. Announcement 2: New Translation Project The second announcement has to do with a new project I’m working on: The Katagraphais Translation Project. Basically, this isn’t much different than clicking on the translation tab above. So why am I doing it? As I translate more and more of the Bible, several things are growing persistently annoying. One issue is how to manage the main translation page with all the chapters that I add and link too. For every book of the bible I need a main page, and then a page for every chapter, which only adds to the amount of pages I have to keep up with in my wordpress dashboard, plus keeping track of making sure they all have the correct “parent” pages (if you don’t use wordpress, don’t worry about what I just said). By dedicating a whole section of my site apart from wordpress to it, it makes it much easier and simple to deal with navigation and files. Another issue is design. As I put translations up on wordpress, it’s hard to get the text to do what I want. Sure, I could edit the css1 files and everything, but I have several themes installed for this site. That would mean finding all the css files for each theme and editing them all, and frankly I don’t want to put forth the effort. So by moving the translations, I’m able to work out the design I want in one single css file. Basically, to put all that into english, this new project will allow me to continue putting up my translations in a way that is easier to control and keep track of. Also, note that it is in “beta.” This means that it is an initial and incomplete version. Unfortunately, Google’s use of the perpetual beta in its products has transformed our thinking of what beta means. This site, though it doesn’t have much function apart from the translations itself, is not fully function. This isn’t “Gmail beta.” I have a lot of kinks to work out, particularly on issues of navigation. The address linked above will not be its permanent address. It is temporary until I have the site functioning well enough to fully release. So, enjoy the sneak preview (Genesis 1, Jonah 1 and 2, and Philemon are all up at the moment), and please leave some feedback with what you might suggest!
First, I’ve added a katagraphais store, thanks to the amazon associates program. The store will link to books that I enjoy as well as books that I’ve reviewed here on my blog. Purchasing books is just like purchasing from amazon… because it is. I’m merely linking to the books from amazon. For every book purchased through the store, or clicking a link to amazon from this site, I will get a small percentage of the money (so help a poor seminary student out!). Second, I’ve updated my translation section to include Genesis chapter 1, and 2 Corinthians chapters 1 through 4:15. As followers of this blog will know, my project for this summer is to translate Genesis 1-3 and finish 2 Corinthians. Third, I’ve upgraded to the newest version of the theme that I’m using, Atahualpa 3. You can check out the theme via the link at the bottom of the site. I’m really loving the new version, and allows for easier control over changing pretty much every element of the theme. Definitely give it a try if you’re using wordpress.org (the self-hosted version of wordpress.com. Fourth, I should have a review of James White’s The King James Only Controversy I just want to say thanks to everyone who visits this blog, or subscribes to it through RSS!
The text literally reads “a door was opened to me by the Lord.” So here’s my question- is it ever ok to just walk away from an “open door?” Paul specifically tells us that it was an opportunity (open door, if you will) that was given to him by Jesus himself. Was it a sinful act for Paul to just walk away from it? There’s something we have to keep in mind- just because the Bible records a historical act does not mean that God gives his stamp of approval. The passage here is simply Paul telling the Corinthians what he did during his travels that had kept him from coming to them as he first expected too. Paul is not giving an ethical judgment on his actions; he is simply stating what he did. But that’s what makes it so weird for me… Paul is somewhat flippant about it. “Jesus gave me an opportunity to preach the Gospel, but I skipped out on it and went to hang out in Macedonia because I was sad that I couldn’t find Titus.” My opinion is that we shouldn’t miss out on divine opportunities, and that Paul was in the wrong here- but there’s two qualifying remarks I need to make here: 1. This is an opinion that I would give up if I was being persecuted for it. And by that I mean I would recant as soon as I saw them approach. 2. I’m just stuck on the flippancy of the statement. Also, I get it. Not the point of the passage. If I was preaching this, it would be a sub-sub point. The point Paul is getting at is that he was so worried about finding Titus because it was Titus who was bringing Paul the news of how things were going at Corinth. When we couldn’t find Titus, his worry about the welfare of the Corinthians overwhelmed him. Paul was torn between Troas and Corinth. I really like what David Garland says on verse 13:
Hmm. You know what? My original question doesn’t matter anymore. The question I should have asked first is, “do I have this same heart for those I minister to?” If you want to answer the question posed in this post, go ahead. It’s an important question. But I realized it’s not the most important question. I’m off to pray and ask Paul’s ministerial heart.
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This evening, I will be marrying my fiancée. I’m am so thankful for such a beautiful gift from our Lord. I do not deserve such grace. 
]
” (
” (review [link down at the moment]) and “
” Tremper Longman has a lot of great books out there, but the most recent I read by him is “
” (
” is an absolute must-read in this area. Wittmer’s “
” is one of the better theologically reasoned books on the subject. Kuyper’s sphere sovereignty is foundational for most of my thinking. And Tim Keller is Tim Keller. 
. No ETA as of yet, but it will be the next review on the site.
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