Tuesday, November 18, 2008

A Distinction between Modernism and Postmodernism

Douglas Wilson made and interesting observation over at Blog and Mablog about the difference between modernism and postmodernism:

Modernism pretends to have the truth, but without humility. Postmodernism pretends to have the humility, but without the truth. Modernism was a bad dream. Postmodernism is the cold sweats right before you wake up. Wake up O sleeper, and Christ will shine upon you.

The reference is taken from Ephesians 5:14.

Friday, November 14, 2008

A John Piper Commentary

I just finished reading a column for World Magazine (dated tomorrow) by John Piper. You can read it here. Some of my missions students will certainly recognize his name. He is reflecting on the current political scene, beginning from a text that seems almost bizarrely contradictory: 1 Cor. 7:29-31.

He uses the terms: marry, cry, rejoice, and buy. You will find them all in the text. The rest of the essay reflects on each one of those concepts, followed by a reflection: "So it is with politics."

The last several sentences are worth quoting directly, though you should read the entire article:

So it is with politics. We deal with the system, the news, the candidates, the issues, the outcomes. But they are not the great thing in our lives. Christ is. And Christ will be ruling over His people with perfect supremacy after every election and after the vanishing of every nation.

So we do not revel or retreat. Our reward is in heaven. Our comforts are great. Our task is clear. Make much of Christ, not Caesar.

Amen!

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Thunder and Lightning

I was awakened early this morning to some pretty noisy storms--thunder and lightning with strong winds. The weather report I heard this morning on the radio made reference to tornadic weather, in November!!!

Sorry, Kim, but this is neither a post about the weather, nor about grammar (no sentence diagrams coming). Unfortunately it is about Biblical Hebrew . . . and about politics.

President-elect Barak Obama was strongly criticized for the radical associations of his earlier life. Was he born in Hawaii? Or was he born in Kenya? What connections does he really have with Raila Odinga, who shares power in Kenya, but allegedly has designs to benefits Muslims (at the expense of Christians). All of this caused some to question how President Obama will deal with the Israel-Arab tensions.

To help him along those lines, Obama has named an Illinois Congressman, Rahm Emanuel, to be his Chief-of-Staff. Emanuel is Jewish, and his father was born in Israel. That should help ease the fears of some who fear that Obama might sell Israel into the hands of Iran.

It is fairly well known that the name Barak in languages having some relation to Arabic means "blessing." Notwithstanding what Obama himself said in his comedy routine at the Alfred E. Smith Foundation Dinner, that Barak
in Swahili means "that one", the name Barak in Hebrew means lightning.

The Hebrew word ra'am, similar to Rahm, means thunder.

So, what we will have in the White House next January will be . . . thunder and lightning! To see those two Hebrew words together in
one verse, one must look to Psalm 77:18. Below, you can see the text, with annotations from the ESV Reverse Interlinear, and lexical entries from the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

For Kim, who is Working in Mexico

Rarely will my daughter, Kim, comment on this blog site. She did today, so I decided to honor her: Now the election is over.

I'm Glad the Election is Over!

Elections are very stressful, and a lot of unkind things are said. What does the United States need to do now?

The Apostle Paul gave a very strong recommendation (is that the same thing as a command?) that seems especially fitting at this time: 1 Timothy 2:1-2.

Let's pray for our President-elect Obama!

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Affleck as Olbermann--Hilarious!

Last night, Ben Affleck hosted Saturday Night Live. Saturday Night Live has had a resurgence during this election season. In fact, Monday night (on the real eve of the election), all of their spoofs will be aired again in a two-hour special.

I first remember watching Keith Olbermann on ESPN. I don't usually watch MSNBC, so I am not a regular watcher of his Countdown program. I think that Olbermann would rather be seen as cerebral, rather than comedic,
but Affleck's spoof was hilarious. Here it is, taken from the NBC Saturday Night Live website:





Saturday, November 01, 2008

From a "Brother" Who Prefers Trickle Down Economics to Obama's Trickle Up Plan

This video is kind of long (between 8-9 minutes), and comes at you pretty fast, but he says some things that make sense. The video is titled "1 More B4 11 04".