Archive for the 'Whatever' Category

Isaiah 42 - 58: Essay on Righteousness

Friday, June 5th, 2009

Isaiah 42:6
“I, the Lord, have called you to demonstrate my righteousness.I will take you by the hand and guard you,and I will give you to my people, Israel,as a symbol of my covenant with them.  And you will be a light to guide the nations. (NLT)

Isaiah 42:21
It pleased the LORD for the sake of his righteousness to make his law great and glorious. (NIV)

Isaiah 45:8
“Open up, O heavens,and pour out your righteousness.Let the earth open wide so salvation and righteousness can sprout up together.I, the Lord, created them. (NLT)

Isaiah 45:24
The people will declare,“The Lord is the source of all my righteousness and strength.”And all who were angry with him will come to him and be ashamed. (NLT)

- - -

Isaiah 46:12
Listen …

Isaiah 26 - Bringing it all Together

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

 9 My soul yearns for you in the night;
       in the morning my spirit longs for you.
       When your judgments come upon the earth,
       the people of the world learn righteousness.

 10 Though grace is shown to the wicked,
       they do not learn righteousness;
       even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil
       and regard not the majesty of the LORD.
Isaiah 26:9-10 brings it all together for me.  This chapter speaks to me of Jesus’ coming at the end of the Tribulation, to establish His new kingdom on Earth.  However, before He can do that, He has to clean house.

The thing to notice is that His judgement will be just, and that is …

Isaiah 9 - That’s what Christmas is all About Charlie Brown

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

 6 For to us a child is born,
       to us a son is given,
       and the government will be on his shoulders.
       And he will be called
       Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
       Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

 7 Of the increase of his government and peace
       there will be no end.
       He will reign on David’s throne
       and over his kingdom,
       establishing and upholding it
       with justice and righteousness
       from that time on and forever.
       The zeal of the LORD Almighty
       will accomplish this.
You can read a pretty decent article about this Messianic verse at truthnet.org.  It is not a perfect article, but it is well worth the read. The article discusses Isaiah 9:6 together …

Ecclesiastes 7 - Postscript on Sorrow

Friday, May 8th, 2009

 14 When times are good, be happy;
       but when times are bad, consider:
       God has made the one
       as well as the other.
       Therefore, a man cannot discover
       anything about his future.
To me, this means that times change, and that God has your path laid out for you.  But are we completely out of control?  No, for death is not our fate, but our destiny.  We go through the times that God has laid out, but we choose how to respond to them.  God has not laid out our actions.  On the other hand, because we don’t know what the times hold for us, looking at how things are now will is not indication that times won’t change… …

Ecclesiastes 7:4-7 - Lessons on Sorrow Wisdom in the Movies

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

 4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
       but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.

 5 It is better to heed a wise man’s rebuke
       than to listen to the song of fools.
So far in Ecc. 7, we’ve seen 2 things: 1)We need to keep our eyes on Heaven, to be joyous of people’s passage there, and to look forward to it ourselves. 2)Mourning and sorrow are signs of a heart that loves and delights.  Verse 4 builds on that, saying that such are the wise.  Essentially, fools seek out pleasure because they lack love and delight… but they never find it because they won’t themselves feel pain, and …

Why Knowledge Does Not Yield Righteousness

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Reading Elihu’s speech in Job 37, it struck me that it was immediately followed by Job 38, which contains one of the Creation stories in the Bible that is consistent with both the ancient pagan creation myths, and paradoxically modern science.  You can read more about The Creation Account in Job.

What struck me is the contrast between how Elihu attempts to challenge Job with Creation, versus how God does, and how that applies to today.
Job 37 

 14 “Listen to this, Job;
       stop and consider God’s wonders.

 15 Do you know how God controls the clouds
       and makes his lightning flash?

 16 Do you know how the clouds hang poised,
       those wonders of him who is …

Biden to step down?

Thursday, September 18th, 2008

I got the following email.  I seriously doubt it’s true, and I didn’t want to email it to people.  But, I also wanted to make sure that if it is true, that I had it documented in a verifiable place before it happened.  So here it is:
This is the most recent unconfirmed report/rumor I have received about Biden stepping down from the ticket, and the first I’ve circulated. It’s crystal clear that Biden is a liability to the Democratic ticket, and Hillary would bring scorned radical feminists back into the Democratic fold. (I’d wager that Hillary & Co. would not vote for an Obama/Biden ticket,  allowing McCain to win so Hillary can run on her own in 2012.)
The question would …

Bush Succeeding with North Korea

Friday, June 27th, 2008

I haven’t written for months, and thought I’d pick up my blogging again.  With so much else in life (Cub Scouts for my son, long hours for work, watching my boys grow, improving my home), I let this fall by the wayside.  In any case…

According to this report on North Korea’s destruction of its cooling tower:
McCain’s Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, used the breakthrough to stress “the importance of direct talks.'’ Obama, 46, has been criticized by McCain for proposing talks with Iran about its nuclear program.

“When we weren’t talking to North Korea, they were advancing their nuclear program,'’ Obama said in a Bloomberg Television interview.
This is doubtless a reference (in part) to Bush’s severance …

The Coming and Cunning of Herman Cummings

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

I recently encountered a person, on Steve Martin’s excellent blog An Evangelical Dialog on Evolution, named Herman Cummings.  Cummings espouses his own theory of how to interpret Genesis 1 that he calls the “Observations of Moses”.  To be honest, I thought he was kidding because of his self-declaration:
If you wish to waste your time with those that are not an expert on Genesis (there’s only one), then expect to be given false information.
I wasn’t sure if he was talking about himself or not, so I googled him and found that he was referring to himself, and he is not kidding.  Here is how he introduces himself in a letter connected to a Cobb County lawsuit regarding what …

One Geocreationist’s World View

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

  I thought this quiz was interesting, and summed up my attitude quite well:

What’s your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/WesleyanYou are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God’s grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. 

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

 

86%

Classical Liberal…