There are these billboards I see everyday on my way to school for Dasani bottled water from Coke. They always bugged me because it is a picture of a woman looking up smiling with her mouth slightly opened and there's a hand holding an empty bottle of water superimposed over it like she's drinking. I always thought what bugged me was the amaturish construction of the image till I looked again. Along the side of the poorly constructed image are these words:

Treat
Yourself
Well.
Everyday.

Improper capitalization aside, they used "everyday" instead of "Every day." (check it on their website here.) 'Everyday' is an adjective and while 'Every day' is not a complete sentance, it is what they meant. In the end I think both the bad grammar and the poor graphics are what bugged me. I know, it worked because I remembered the sign, however, it hasn't made me want to drink their water so it didn't really work!

By the way, they picked the name 'Dasani' because "Consumer testing showed that the name is relaxing and suggests pureness and replenishment." I don't find it relaxing nor does it suggest pureness or refreshment! Which consumers did they talk to?

Oh yea, and one more thing...There are a lot of laptops here at school. Some of them sound like jet engines when the fans start up. Well, last night I thought I'd heard the fan start on my iBook and I couldn't believe it, it'd never had to do that since I've owned it! As I bent close to listen, yup, it turned out to the be the Dell on the other side of the table. Just one more reason RISC chips are a better approach. (PS, yes, I know that RISC stands for Reduced Instruction Set Chip and that I didn't need to say chip again. Thank you for pointing that out.)

My "sending" church in California, Lancaster Evangelical Free Church recently updated their website and the church logo. Looks great! It sure has come a long way from my first attempts (which are thankfully no longer available).

All registered for Spring 2003. Here's the line up:

• New Testament Greek Exegesis II - Tu/Th 7:35-9:15 Quad A
  
• New Testament Greek Exegesis III - Tu/Th 7:35-9:15 Quad B
  
• Intro to Counseling Ministries - M/W 9:25-11:05 Quad A
  
• Issues in Counseling Ministry/Grief Counseling - M/W 9:25-11:05 Quad B
  
• Preaching from the New Testament - W 7:35 - 9:15 Quad B
  
• Theology and Methodology of Biblical Preaching - Tu/Th 12:55 - 2:10 Quad A, 9:30-10:30 Quad B
  
• Personal Assessment & Intro to Ministry - M 7:35 - 9:25 Quad B

Looks bad but it is only 10 hours total. Almost every class is either Quad A or B, only Theology and Methodology of Biblical Preaching goes the whole term (but it changes instructors midterm and as you can see, the time changes as well). Since they change at the half way point, my scedule gets jumbled quite a bit. Chaos ensues and then order emerges and an M.Div. wanders out from the mists.

I'm now using Chimera as my web browser almost full time. It renderes so much faster than IE does. Sometimes IE has to draw the page and then clear and redraw it and sometimes I have to "select all" to get it to display. Also, I don't have the problems with Quartz font smoothing in Chimera that I had with IE.

One thing I will miss about IE that Chimera doesn't have is the Scrapbook where I can save a webpage for later viewing. Other than that, I think I'm sold!

So the Jews said to him, "What sign do you show us for doing these things?"
Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
The Jews then said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?"
But he was speaking about the temple of his body. - Jn 2:18-21 (ESV)

I thought of this passage this morning in worship when we sang this song:

How lovely is Your dwelling place, oh Lord Almighty
My soul longs and even faints for You
For here my heart is satisfied, within Your presence
I sing beneath the shadow of Your wings

Better is one day in Your courts
Better is one day in Your house
Better is one day in Your courts
Than thousands elsewhere

One thing I ask and I would seek, to see Your beauty
To find You in the place Your glory dwells
My heart and flesh cry out, for You the living God
Your spirit's water for my soul, I've tasted and I've seen,
come once again to me, I will draw near to You
I will draw near to You

What does it mean for a New Covenant person to dwell in God's courts? The temple was a shadow of Christ, the reality is Him. For Old Covenant believers, drawing near to the building in which God's glory dwelt was what the psalmist had in mind (this song comes from Ps 84) but for us, it is a drawing near to Christ. It brought tears to my eyes as I sang about being satisfied in God and the image of dwelling in Christ for only a day being better than a thousand days elsewhere.

On top of that, the sermon began with our pastor quoting C. S. Lewis:

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

It snowed. Like, sticking to the ground snow. Like about 1/2 an inch of sticking to the ground snow. And the family is out of town this weekend! I'm sure they'll get enough of it in short order. :)

I watched a Dharma & Greg rerun last night. The plot was about a young man having sex for the first time with a girl who admittedly didn't love him but didn't want to go to collage a virgin. Rife with comic possibilities, huh?

Anyway, it reminded me of something Dr. Vanhoozer said covered in Theology I the other day. It was under the heading "The Disappearance of God." He said that you from the Middle Ages you could track the disappearance of God from art, culture and media. He said that the last one, media, was the most dangerous. The reason is that there isn't anything to argue against since they don't acutally affirm anything, they simply depict life as if God didn't exist. People just watch life paraded past them in 30 minute segments from a world where God doesn't exist. That was Dharma & Greg last night. There were no ethical implications to extra-marital sex, use a condom was the only caution mentioned.

At least Nietzsche understood that life without God was meaningless and went insane (could have been the syphilis too). This kind of world view is sad to me. The idea that that is "freedom" is so backwards, true freedom is serving Christ.

Hey computer geeks, I have a question for you. Last night when I was reading at an unsecured (but private) website, I noticed at the bottom of the browser that the little lock icon was showing and the it said that connection to www.paypal.com was secure. I switched to another webpage and it stayed the same. Freaked me out so I quit my browser and logged off. Did I get hacked?

The new Anakin Skywalker switch ad. It is really funny. Via Paulo.

For those interested, I am involved in a good discussion about Tradition (capital T) and scripture over at Jeremy's blog (start at the bottom and read your way up.)

After my introduction to New Wave music in the early '80s I began avoiding what is now called "classic rock" as much as I could. I got tired of hearing the same 100 or so songs by the same 40 groups over and over. Well recently I let my guard down and listened again, for the first time. Here's what I've found:

Led Zepplin: Overplayed so much that there are grooves cut into the CDs but actually, they weren't that bad.
The Who: As pathetic as I remember them. Roger Daltery's voice is as annoying as I thought it was and the lyrics to 99% of the songs are as pedantic as I recall.
Rolling Stones: Mixed bag. Some of their stuff is good and some is garbage.
Cheap Trick: Snuck them in because I liked them in the '70s. They're not bad. Not formulaic, that's for sure.
The Eagles: Hotel California was pretty much it for me. I don't like country music and country rock doesn't help. Which leads me to the next one...
Lynard Skynard: I spent two years in North Carolina (properly pronounced "Norf Ka-lina") in the early '80s so Freebird remains overplayed for me even though I haven't heard it since. It is confirmed, I still hate Lynard Skynard. Two words: Red, Neck.
Aerosmith: I never really got to hate Aerosmith, just a few of their songs. I still hate those songs but overall they're okay. One good thing came from Aerosmith: Liv Tyler. She was way great in Lord of the Rings.
Alice Cooper: Formula music for sure. But now a days I hear he's golfing with RC Sproul so that makes me like him.
Boston: I liked them when they first came out and I still don't mind them, they're just way overplayed. They had an original sound and the music went somewhere.
Foreigner: Blagh. I can't believe I used to like them. Jukebox Hero? Eeeewww. I must have been young and impressionable to enjoy that.
Rush: Geddy Lee's voice on the early albums was annoying, but the music and lyrics worked. As the albums came out, it got better and so did the music. I think they peaked with Signals, but they're still doing some good stuff. Never hated them.
Pink Floyd: If I never hear another song from The Wall, that'd be okay. I like Floyd, even their early stuff. I'm just sick to death of The Wall. Animals is my favorite.
Fleetwood Mac: Tough one to call. Stevie Nicks has an annoying voice that works on a few songs. Most of their stuff is okay. Loved Tusk. I guess they're still okay. Besides, Mick Fleetwood was on Star Trek: The Next Generation so that makes him okay.

According to Acts 14:17, common grace is a source of general (or natural) revelation. So even as God gives grace to the world by sending rain and sun, it accumulates the judgement that will be heaped upon the unbeliever. "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened" (Rom 1:21 ESV). Truely, all men are without excuse.

I remember RC Sproul talking about this topic. He said that if someone asked him that question about the "innocent native" who has never heard the gospel going to hell, he was answer, "No! An innocent person would go straight to heaven! The problem is finding an innocent person." All men know enough about God from creation for Him to judge them for not worshiping Him. It is amazing to me since I see God's "fingerprints" all over creation. The order, the laws, the beauty, the cycles, the balance. Why is it that Carl Sagan couldn't see it? As Calvin said, the "specticals of faith" are required. Praise God that he gave them to me.