Coupla thoughts:

• Sun felt that they needed to clarify the whole issue of porting StarOffice to Mac OS X. They're not doing it. Clear enough?
• I've noticed that people here in the Chicagoland area (see, I'm talking like a local!) have this annoying habit at stop lights. No, not picking the nose, that is ubiquitous. They sit until they feel that the light should have changed then they inch up a couple of times. You'd expect that means that they're ready to roll when the light turns but no. They're just as slow on the launch as anyone else so I don't inch with them and then use the gap to get rolling so when the finger emerges from the nose and the foot hits the pedal, I'm alredy moving.
• I hate second aorist verbs and will be revisiting that chapter a few more times. First aorist are much better behaved.

Kai ho logos sarks egenato kai eskenosen en hemin,
kai etheasametha ten doxan auto

Our teacher wrote this verse (in Greek) on the board this morning and we parsed it together as a class. It is John 1:14, a verse I am very familiar with and have taught on. I know the Greek dichotomy between flesh and the Word. I know that the English word "dwelt" is weak compared to the Greek word used. None of that was new to me. What struck me was seeing it in Greek. John's words are rich with power and they thumb their nose at human wisdom.

The Word (ho logos) is sitting right there next to its supposed opposite, the flesh (sarks). Even on the page they are touching, something Greek thought said couldn't happen. The tabernacle (skena) was where God's glory (doxa) dwelt. The Word came and "tabernacled" amongst us and we beheld His glory. But "beheld" is weak. You can see something from across the street and say you beheld it. "Etheasametha" is more than just "looked at" it is more like we experienced, we examined, we handled. Moses beheld the glory of God but that wasn't like what we did.

All of this came together as I looked at Greek letters scribbled in black on a white dry erase board and it struck me how much more Jesus is than we give Him credit (and praise) for. A bumper sticker or t-shirt with a cute phrase can't capture and express that. When we sit quietly at the word and meditate on this it shuts our mouths in awe. "God in a skin-suit" is not just a stupid heresy, it completely misses the majesty of the Word becoming (not merely taking on) flesh. Wow.

Note: I'm not pulling a Muslim "you have to read the Koran in Arabic to get it" kind of thing here. Our English translations express these thoughts quite well, you don't have to read it in Greek to "get it". It was just seeing it in Greek that hit me.

The other day I commented upon Microsoft's threat to stop producing Office for OS X. I was pleasently surprised by Apple's "Fine, take your ball and go home" reply. Well it turns out that Apple had good reason for being a bit cocky. They're teaming up with Sun to produce an OS X version of StarOffice. It is compatable with Office file formats and the kicker is that "Sun is also considering offering StarOffice for free, where Office v .X typically costs $300 to $500." Ha!

I get the feeling that we're seeing the beginning of the downfall of Microsoft. Not that they're going to go out of business or anything but I think they're going to start losing their grip on our PCs. They're getting too greedy and may be getting out of touch with the market they feed. There are plenty of young-and-hungry's out there who'll grab any advantage they can.

The surest sign of their deflation would be if they have a WorldCom/Enron type of "oops, we seem to have been cooking the books for a few years" revelation. I'm not predicting it mind you, just saying that if you see the signs...

June 20th was the last day I used my razor. I'd retired from the Air Force and wanted to grow a beard. I trimmed it to keep it nice looking but I wasn't shaving. My wife Lisa didn't like it so as a compromise I just turned it into a goatee. We'll see how that works for a bit.

I wasn't too interested in seeing S1M0NE until I found out that it was written by Andrew Niccol. I've loved his other movies ('The Truman Show' and 'Gattica') so maybe I will give this one a spin.

Though I have often thought that Doug Wilson too frequently engages in some snooty "not one of us" jibes in Credenda/Adgenda, I was pleased, very pleased to read some quotes of his in an article by Jamey Bennett over at Razormouth.

A lot of what Wilson and Bennett have to say goes in to why I decided to attend Trinity instead of WTS-CA. Part of it was a money issue but a lot had to do with being fed the party line. At Trinity, there are a lot of Reformed professors but there are dispensationalists and Arminians too. This is the exposure to evangelicalism I wanted. It is too easy for us Reformed folks to criticize evangelicals as a whole based on the folly of a few. We may say things about Arminians that just aren't true. We may accuse dispensationalists of things they are not doing. Engage them and all of the sudden you find out that Arminians love God just as much as Calvinists do and that dispensationalists are honest with scriptures also.

Oh, I am in trouble. I went to the Maul, erh, Mall just to scope it out and I came across a used music store. Searched in vain for Herbie Hancock and Art of Noise but I did find $25 worth of CDs to pick up. Alright, if you must know, they were Bobby McFarrin Bang!Zoom! (the one without Don't Worry), Crash Test Dummies Give Yourself a Hand, and 10,000 Maniacs unplugged. If you have a specific older, hard-to-find CD in mind, let me know and I'll take a look.

A while ago I ranted about pre-packaged music radio stations and praised ecclectic music like Morning Becomes Ecclectic from KCRW. Well, now that I'm in Illinois I've started missing Morning Becomes Ecclectic. That is until I found WXRT in Chicago. They're not as ecclectic as KCRW (which is fine with me) and only play rock (okay, but not a preference), however they play some unsigned artists and less known stuff. Beats the daylights out of stations that stick to the safe stuff. I don't like every song they play but I do like a lot of it. Cool.

Note: Unfortunately they don't webcast.

So far I've been hovering around a B to B+ in Greek. The problems I've (largely) had have been attention to detail and some memory words that won't stick. Today's quiz was my low point. I got 74% and most of the problem came from memorization words and attention to detail. When I memorized the relative pronouns, I knew that they all had a rough breathing mark and an accent which differentiated them from the definite article. I failed to pay attention to what kind of accent though and marked them all as grave when a handful are circumflex. Got them all marked wrong.

The bummer is that when if comes to actually translating passages, I'm doing steller. It is the little things will get you. When I left class today, I was really bummed and figured I'd be taking Intro to Greek again this fall. I probably won't but right now I'm pretty darn blue. I've been studying non-stop since school ended. Taking a break now for dinner and then back at it.

Candice Bergen admits that Dan Quayle was right about Murphy Brown, but I wonder about his opinion on The Osbournes. What's interesting is that when Quayle first made the speech, the media was all over it. Now when Bergen agree's, nothing. Is there really no such thing as media bias?

Solo Scriptura?

This is a warning to the unwary. Beware of those who base their teaching exclusively on the Bible! Whenever you hear voices raised distancing the Bible from the teaching of the ecumenical councils of the first five centuries, be on your guard! The Reformers were opposed to the teaching of the Church of their day because it deviated from Scripture and the councils. They held Scripture to be the highest, supreme court of appeal, but their interpretation of Scripture -- and ours -- must always be tested against the Confessions of the Church. 'Submit to one another in the fear of Christ (Eph. 5:21). This is because we are placed by Christ in the Church, not distributed randomly as freewheeling individuals. Today, non-confessional evangelicals have nothing to restrain them, other than themselves. Like Jehovah's Witnesses they are free to study Scriptures and abandon the church's confessions -- all in the name of the Bible.

Since we are all influenced to some extent of other by the philosophical and cultural milieu in which we were taught and in which we live, if we leave behind historic Christian teaching we open ourselves to other influences as we come to read the Bible.

Dr. Robert Letham, Adjunct Professor of Systematic Theology, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia and Senior Minister, Emmanuel Orthodox Presbyterian Chruch, Wilmington, Delaware, quoted from Is God Omniscient?, an article examining the claims of open theism in the May-June 2002 edition of Reformation Today magazine.

It's interesting but is it art?

This is cool. I went looking for a bank today. I figured that I'd stop by a few and get information on their rates and pick the one that charges me the least. Turns out the first one I walked in to, the one closest to my house doesn't have a minimum balance, doesn't charge any fees, gives me a free ATM/Debit card and paid me $50 to open the account. So I'm not going to pay to write checks, use the ATM, speak to a teller, do on-line banking and they pay me $50 to join? Works for me. :) Not only that but everyone was so friendly.

Speaking of friendly, my postman is great. He gave me my mail when I had to hunt down a key to the cluster box, then he gets me a key and refunds the rekeying fee. My Thursday trash guy is really nice too and took some stuff the Tuesday trash guy wouldn't take. I know that not everyone I'm going to meet is so nice but this is a great way to start life away from the Air Force.

I've just watched Gattaca on DVD. The end sequence where the genetically impure Ethan Hawke walks onto his spaceship heading towards Titan and the genetically enhanced Jude Law crawls into the incinerator was poignant. According to human engineering standards, they should have swapped places. Hawke had a predisposition to heart disease and Law had "the heart of an ox." And yet Law always came in second and Hawke fought to escape his lot in life.

Of course the writer believes in evolution but his message is that we cannot take over for natural selection. The movie's subtitle is "There is no gene for the human spirit." Andrew Niccol, the writer and director is saying that what still dominates is the will to survive. "Fittest" for him is not the one with the cleanest set of DNA, it is the one who wills to power. This is Neitzche.

On the DVD, there is an extra scene named "Coda" which should have been left in the movie. Text scrolls across a star field that talks about how evolution has delivered us to the point that we can now guide and direct our own evolution. Then it goes on to say that if we'd had this technology years ago some very important people wouldn't never have been allowed to be born and lists their "defect." They include Abraham Lincoln, Emily Dickinson, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Ray Charles and others*. The scene ends by reminding the viewer that it is quite possible that their own birth might have been prevented likewise.

Pointed stuff. Aside from the evolutionary crap, it reminded me of a very important message. It isn't "random chance" that produces great people with great defects, it is God. God is providential over all and nothing happens by chance. The 1689 Baptist Confession (and I believe the Westminster says it the same way) explains it like this:

Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly; so that there is not anything befalls any by chance, or without His providence; yet by the same providence He ordered them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently. - BFC 5.2

Through the ordinary means of human decisions and actions (among other means), God causes all things to work out according to His will. So when we say, for example, that abortion must be stopped because how do we know if the person who would find a cure for AIDS wasn't an unwanted pregnancy, we play right into the evolutionists hands. We employ their rational in defense of our noble cause. If God wanted AIDS ended, that person would have been born (and let's pray that he or she has been born!) and they will discover that cure.

Is it in God's will that mankind begin to tinker with his own DNA? Well, we have the capability to do so, so if we actually get around to doing it, yes, it is God's will. Whether it is God's will for our good or our destruction is completely another question.

Back to Gattaca. Do we follow Niccol's line of reasoning and not tamper with our own evolution but instead take the good and the bad as natural selection would have it? Maybe, maybe not. But don't forget Who's in control of "natural" selection. Wouldn't it be fitting if in the age to come, God shows us the possible futures of all of the aborted children, what they could have done, who they could have become? Wouldn't it be a fitting judgement if He allowed us, through our own greed and selfishness, to murder in the womb men and women who could have been great peacemakers, great doctors, great musicians, great philosophers? Wouldn't we, in the New Jerusalem, then all rise up and condemn our own sin for the wickedness it is? Wouldn't it be fitting for us to praise God for His wisdom in bringing things to pass exactly as He did, for His greater glory?

* I would have left off Rita Hayworth and included Beethoven.

Just pulled my first all nighter. Don't know how many words will stick after pacing the carpet at 3:30 AM trying to stuff them in my head. Ugh. Coffee.

Random Rant Let me first say that "I am a catholic" and "I am orthodox"! It bugs me that Roman Catholics and the [fill in the blank] Orthodox have taken those terms. I'm catholic because I believe in and confess a holy, catholic and apostolic church. I don't believe that it is exclusivly the Roman church though I am sure some Roman Catholics are part of the catholic Church. I am orthodox because I believe and confess what the Church has always confessed about the person and work of Jesus Christ. I don't believe that you have to take all of the Eccuminical Councils or be part of the Eastern, Greek, Russian, etc. Orthodox Church to be orthodox.

Come to think of it, I'm not so crazy about the Baptists taking that name either. I am baptistic in relation to the sacraments only in that I do not hold to infant baptism. Other than that, I am not what one often thinks of as a Baptist. By and large, Baptists are dispensational, I'm not. By and large Baptists are memorialsts in relation to the Lord's Table, I'm not. There are some Southern Baptists who are liberal, I'm not. There are a lot of Baptists who are fundimentalists, I'm not.

I guess that at the end of the day, I am best called a disciple of Christ. No, wait, someone has taken that name too! AAaarrrggghhh.

On a whim (a whim I tell you!) I downloaded and installed ThinkFree Office. I had heard that it was completely compatible with Microsoft Office and the only complaint was that since it is Java-based, it tends to run a little slow. The up-side is that it is only $50.00 while Microsoft Office X.v is in the range of $400.00. I'm currently using Microsoft Office 2001 which runs under OS 9 only so I have to fire up the Classic layer. It is getting old.

So far I like what I see. Yes, ThinkFree Office is a little slow but what it does, it does well. The only thing I've really used it for so far was making my business cards. I bought card stock and set up the document in Word. I then imported it to ThinkFree and it came over without any formatting errors (although the lines on the table did get turned on which made printing that first time a bit tedious.) ThinkFree doesn't have a tool to automatically set up labels and envelopes (yet?) but it does give you a bit more freedom with what you can do inside a cell of a table.

The demo is 100% functional but expires in 30 days. I plan on using it for all of those 30 days before I decide. It comes with a word processor (Word compatible), presentation software (PowerPoint compatible), and a spreadsheet (Excel compatible). The controls are pretty much where they are in Word so there hasn't been a steep learning curve here. Plus they throw in 20MB of web-based Cyberdrive storage for a year.

ThinkFree Office is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, Mac OS 8.6 and Linux.

Sadly I have dropped As The Apple Turns from my daily reading routine. The Millers had a baby (congratulations) and since then production has been sporatic at best and Jack's writing quality has drooped. Thankfully, Paulo has pointed me to Crazy Apple Rumors and though the language there isn't always wholesome, it is at least the Apple-oriented humor I love (and its a blog too!). Off-site links have been updated to reflect the change.

I also updated my Current Reading list to reflect "seminary mode." The only reason "The Gospel According to Abraham" is still there is because it is a small book and remains in the bathroom. Even a seminary student goes in there once in a while.

Human Evolution? Fascinating. They found a skull in Chad that is much older than Lucy (the skeleton that is supposed to link us to the apes) which, surprizingly, looks very little like an ape! Humm, is it possible that Lucy isn't our ancestor and that we didn't descend from apes?

Now I am not one of those creation science folks (I think they do some terrible things to the book of Genesis) but neither do I believe in inter-species evolution either. This is a very interesting find. Just in case someone asks, I'm not sure what the age of the earth is. The geneologies in the Bible are not exhaustive but selective so I'd say that Bishop Usher got it wrong when he calculated that the world began in 4004 BC.

Poor Paulo has been stricken by an Anonymous Nietzschean (A.N.) commenter. Paulo is handling things pretty well but I would like to comment on A.N.'s misunderstanding of Christianity. The fellow said:

I don't know how in the world - and I mean that literally - a true Christian can speak of "love" when Christianity hates and condemns everything in this world - ourselves included - as an evil error, and only loves it's unknown opposite.

What he missed is that we don’t hate the rocks and trees and oxygen and water of this world, we hate the sin of this world. It has all been contaminated by sin and yet it groans under the burden of it. When we go to the beach or to the mountains we don’t look around and despise it all or secretly like it but feel like we’re in sin. We love God’s creation because it is so magnificent. When we look at our fellow man we don’t hate them because they are not Christians, if that were so then missions would never take place. We condemn this sin they are engaged in but our desire is still to call them to Christ.

The underlying misunderstanding here is that A.N. missed the truth that it is all about God. Creation is for His glory and man was created to enjoy and worship Him forever. We don’t hate creation just because we don’t worship it. We enjoy creation as it reveals God’s glory. We long for the day when the world is set free and sin is no more.

I’m not sure what A.N. is reacting against, but I suspect that A.N. is a college student who came from a fairly strict fundamentalist home and has read Nietzsche for the first time. What A.N. needs to do now is to read some more contemporary works (I’d recommend Ravi Zacharias’ A Shattered Visage to start with) who deal with Nietzsche pretty well.

Go get 'em Paulo!

Oh, you just knew this was coming! (Another Register article)

As many (most) of you know, I love Apple computers but I am often puzzled by Apple Computers. The Register pointed out that Apple has begun pulling the plug on sites it says print rumors. As the Reg pointed out, it is legit to print rumors and the sites recently nailed hadn't printed rumors. This leaves me to wonder what exactly the heck Apple is doing! With the start (and recent expansion) of the Switch campaign you would think they'd want more coverage on the web, not less. Still, Apple has always been tight on their image and how it is portrayed so maybe the whole Switch thing is why they're tightening up. Er somethin' I guess.

Oh golly, I forgot to mention this since I didn't have Internet access. Sunday I went to a PCUSA church and guess what? Well, yea, they didn't have female pastor but that wasn't what I was going to say. It was Patriotic Sunday! My son leaned over and asked, "Are we ever going to get away from these things?"

They sang the National Anthem and America the Beautiful but no Yankee Doodle for which I was thankful. I really like the Presbyterian litergy. The call to worship is important so that people know that we're getting down to business. Everything from now to the benediction is (supposed to be) focused on worshiping God. I like the confession and assurance of pardon, what a great way to remember what we're all about.

At this particular church the senior minister is Scottish so he had a great accent. Not only that but he gave the sermon without notes. Unfortunately, he did it without a Bible either. He kept using terms like "people of faith" and "journey of faith" but he never actually told us what we were supposed to have faith in. I knew it was PCUSA going in so I wasn't surprized just disappointed. The text it was supposed to be on was Matthew 11:16-19 but I'm not sure the good minister actually read that text as he prepared. He talked about freedom in faith. Ugh.

The other choice for worship that Sunday was across the street: The Solid Rock Bible Church. The name put me off but if we'd gone there maybe it would have been a good idea to bring my Bible to church. I don't want, can't use and can't stand preaching about me or the preacher. I want Jesus, give me Jesus. I need to know Him better. I don't want cute stories and interesting illustrations (unless they actually help) I want to hear about Jesus and the furtherance of His Kingdom. I want to hear a sermon that stirs my heart to marvel at our glorious God, to delight in Him and to long for heaven. Practical tips for living I can get from the news paper. A self-respect boost I can buy at the book store or catch on Oprah. The church is supposed to be about Jesus.

On the way home I heard a rebroadcast of Prarie Home Companion and the sermon sound a lot like Garrison Keillor's closing monologue.

Saw Minority Report last night. It was okay but was missing something I just can't put my finger on. The premise was interesting but it could have been teased out more. I wasn't surprized to find out who the bad guy was when he was revealed. Cruise did some fair acting. I don't know why but the movie didn't connect with me.

First day of Greek was yesterday. Everything covered in class was stuff I'd already studied when I was trying to do Greek on my own. I still have a lot of homework to do and reading. I'm going to run up to Starbucks to read before school. No, it isn't cramming since I've already read this stuff, it's more like refreshing my memory.

My phone got turned on! Finally. The only thing left to complete the move in is to get a key for my mail box which I should do today.

Whoot! I've climbed a notch at Leaderboard. I rated a 4 and am now up to a 5.

I read Revelation 12 this morning and it got me thinking. I love the book of Revelation and I highly recommend Scotty Smith's book Unveiled Hope as a guide to read it. Anyway, one of the questions I've been asked by non-Amils (typically asked by Dispensational pre-mills) is "Well, if you don't take the 1,000 years literally, what else don't you take literally? Was Jesus in the tomb for three literal days? Why would you take the three days literally but not the 1,000 years?"

The way I answer is that I take things literally when the type of literature I'm reading intends it to be taken literally. What I would love to ask them is why they take some things literally and some not. For example, from Revelation 12, there is a woman who is taken figuratively (usually of Israel) and she is protected for "a time and times and half a time" which is literally three and a half years. You can see the inconsistency. The woman is figurative but the time is literally three and a half years even though the text does not literally call the "times" a year. The examples could be multiplied. Just one would be the bride in Revelation 21 who is figurative of the church but the 1,000 years from chapter 20 is literal.

This arbitrary hermeneutic drives me nuts. The book of Revelation is apocalyptic literature and it employs figurative language which should be interpreted figuratively therefore I take the 1,000 years of Revelation 20 to mean "golly, a real long time." But something like Luke's gospel is not figurative so I would take the three days Jesus spent in the tomb to mean "at least a portion of three days" which is how a Jew would have understood it. If you take the three days literally by our standards then Jesus didn't die on Good Friday, He died on Good Wednesday or Thursday (depending on how you count.)

When evangelicals criticize theological positions they don't agree with, too often they criticize them poorly. If you don't hold to my interpretation, you're in danger of becoming a liberal or Roman Catholic or whatever. For people so focused on being saved by grace, we sometimes show precious little of it to others saved by it.

Got on line yesterday at a local library and posted the previous blogs but Blogger was down so I couldn't publish them. Here they are for your reading pleasure.

On the 4th, my plan was to sit on the deck and watch the fireworks from Six Flags. There were trees in the way so we couldn't see much. We were headed out to the car to drive around and see what we could see when we saw what we could see from the other side of our house was much more than we though. The whole family piled into the kids rooms with the windows opened and we watched about 5 or 6 different firework show at once. What a great night.

New Home At Last! We made it! I didn't have internet access in Iowa and our home phone won't be connected till next week so I am Internet-less for a bit. The trip could, I suppose, be summed up in the words of Ezra:

For I was ashamed to request from the king troops and horsemen to protect us from the enemy on the way, because we had said to the king, "The hand of our God is favorably disposed to all those who seek Him, but His power and His anger are against all those who forsake Him." - Ezra 8:22

The hand of God was indeed favorably disposed towards my family. We didn't have one single problem the whole time. No breakdowns, no missed turns, no running out of gas, no break-in of the U-Haul, nothing. The trip couldn't have gone more smoothly. So smooth, it was boring. :o)


Our new condo is fantastic. Every window you look out of has a fantastic view. Central air, a fireplace, a deck and most of our stuff fits in it so far. Our new landlord helped us unpack when we arrived. We left more than half the stuff on the truck and got started the next day on that part. A friend came over and we had the truck empty by 1:00 pm. The garage is rather full, but we'll get there.

Some praises:

• No major damage.
• The part of the shipment the pros moved was supposed to arrive Monday. I have school Monday, my kids will be at my mom's and my wife will be out of town for a short-term mission trip. We tried to call the military to postpone the delivery but they were closed because of the 4th and not supposed to open till...you guessed it: Monday. They called me this AM and we're scheduled for a day after my wife's return.
• I already own most of the books I'll need for Beginning Greek I.

The good hand of our great God is indeed with us!

We made it to Council Bluffs. It was a long, straight drive and it took about 10 hours. Gotta run since we're heading out on the last leg of the journey. Can't wait for it to be over. :)