Sola Scriptura, “the Scripture alone.”
December 31, 2005
Another Year
It’s time once again to take a look at how I have invested (or squandered) God’s gift to me of my hours on Earth. This analysis of my days may or may not mean much to the reader, but one conceit of growing older is thinking that my experience may be of some interest, and perhaps even of value, to others.
In looking back, I find that I still spend a lot of time reading, a habit that I have indulged since childhood. Books have always been an important part of my life, and for over a half-century the Bible has been my “Book of books.” This is a good thing, for my intellect isn’t up to doing much original thinking about the life and death issues dealt with in the Bible. I must be content with studying the conclusions of those who have gone on before and decide whether they resonate with my own soul. Dr. R.C. Sproul says, in his introduction to The Reformation Study bible,
God calls every Christian to pursue righteousness. Our trust is to be childlike, but our understanding must be mature. Such trust and understanding require study of God’s word. The authentic disciple meditates on it day and night, continuing and remaining in it. Our goal is more than mere knowledge; it is wisdom and the fruit of inward and outward obedience.
This seems right to me. I like to think that my study of Scripture over the years has moved me toward both childlike trust and a maturing understanding.
My Bible’s family tree
My default position these days for Bible study is The Reformation Study Bible, which is based on the new English Standard Version. This translation is one of the last in a chain of translations extending back many centuries.
In England, Wycliff and then William Tyndale translated the Bible into English, which placed it in the hands of the people for the first time. Tyndale was burned at the stake for his efforts in 1536. Then came the reign of Mary Tudor and suppression of the reformation. The Roman Catholic mass had to be conducted in Latin. Two hundred eighty-eight persons were burned, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. Persecution of the English Bible translators drove them into exile from Britain to Europe. Scholars in Geneva, Switzerland, began the task of preparing a new translation of the Bible in English, which became known as the Geneva Bible, published in 1560.
This great work dominated the English-speaking world for a hundred years. It was the Bible used by Shakespeare. The Pilgrims and Puritans carried the Geneva Bible to the New World. American colonists were reared on the Geneva Bible. They read it, studied it, and sought to live by its light. The King James Bible supplanted the Geneva Bible by 1660.
The preface to the English Standard Version says this about its translation legacy;
The English Standard Version (ESV) stands in the classic mainstream of English Bible translations over the past half-millennium. The fountainhead of that stream was William Tyndale’s New Testament of 1526; marking its course were the King James Version of 1611 (KJV), the English Revised Version (RV) of 1885, the American Standard Version of 1901 (ASV), and the Revised Standard Version of 1952 and 1971 (RSV). In that stream, faithfulness to the text and vigorous pursuit of accuracy were combined with simplicity, beauty, and dignity of expression. Our goal has been to carry forward this legacy for a new century.
The ESV is my default study Bible these days. The study notes were written from a Reformed perspective, and over the years I have come to believe that Reformed theology is the highest expression of the orthodox Christian faith.
The NET Bible project
I own and regularly read several translations of the Bible. A translation of current interest (at least to this computer geek) was started a few years ago by twenty Bible scholars working directly from the best currently available Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. They have produced an electronic version of a modern translation that is distributed without charge over the Internet. It’s the first translation in history that has been open to outsiders to investigate and criticize while it is in process. In other words, it is the first translation ever to be beta-tested!
My life’s work
It sounds pretentious, but study of the Bible is in a sense my life’s work. As I read and let the holy words inform my mind, I’m merely standing on the shoulders of the giants of the Christian faith, and I am greatly in their debt for sharing their deepest thoughts and insights with me. So as I begin another year on this planet, I look forward to being continually and freshly blessed by reading and meditating on God’s word. Soli Deo gloria
Dave
Doggie showdown
December 31, 2005
It’s fun to walk the asphalt roads that wander up and down the Ozark ridges framing the lake coves. Clusters of homes pepper the shoreline. Some are permanent residences, but most are occupied mostly on sunny weekends and during summer vacation stays. It’s uphill and downhill as I leave our condo and head for Duckhead Road, which leads to Duckhead Point, which is the shape of a… well, you get the idea. On such strolls I often have the pleasure of meeting with one or more of the resident pooches.
I like dogs, and they mostly like me, but there is one canine in particular that I really would just as rather not meet. He is a Pit Bull, I think, a big dog whose shoulders reach above my knees; a yellow, ugly-faced cur with a mouthful of teeth and, I make no doubt, bad breath.
He has sort of a whiny, attention-getting bark, that seems to say, “You really are not worth barking at, but I’ve nothing better to do at the moment, and, besides, I need to let you know that you’re getting pretty close to my turf.”
His turf is the cluttered back yard of a waterfront house, down and to the left of the road. Some days he is chained up down there, a fact that doesn’t give me much comfort when he is loose and blocking my way.
I smile and make eye contact, saying, “Hello there, friend doggie. Why dost thee make such a racket?”
Friend doggie doesn’t smile, but his yapping starts to betray lack of conviction, and he condescendingly lets me pass. He is now behnd me, and quiet. Am I emanating the smell of fear?
I hear another couple of yaps, as if to say, “I still may attack your meager hams, but at least you are leaving my turf. Anyway, I really don’t have the energy to chase you. It’s a dog’s life, let me tell you.”
It turned out to be a good walk, after all.
Dave, who still likes most dogs.
The Ozarks in December
December 30, 2005
As I sit here at the keyboard, a virtual blank piece of paper facing me, I look out over a piece of Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks. It isn’t the view I would have chosen in my more energetic years, but as decrepitude crept up on me we opted for a unit in one of those horrible multiple-level condominium apartments that have been blighting portions of this beautiful lake’s oak lined shore in recent years. In one of the boat wells in the dock below nestles an eleven year old Ranger bass boat that is calling me even now, in spite of 45 degree water and 35 degree wind. Sixty-five steps take me down to my boat, and sixty-five steps bring me back. When the steps become no longer negotiable, if I haven’t tumbled out of the boat by then, there is an elevator suitable for wimp-fisherfolk.
A lake condo in the dead of winter has one big thing going for it. It’s quiet. No growling PWCs churn up the lake. No oversize yachts send huge wakes pounding into the docks. No kids. No dogs. Few neighbors. Just peace.
What could be more appropriate during this last week of the year, when the world’s mischief makers are pausing to plot next year’s surprises?
Dave, feeling reflective.
Gerontocapitalism
December 29, 2005
I love articles like this. I suspect that young, hungry reporters are fascinated by the idea of craggy old men grasping for more and more and staying alive in the process.
Entrepreneurship | Gerontocapitalism | Economist.com
GETTING old is a depressing prospect. If things go well, you may find yourself playing shuffleboard on a cruise ship with some fellow geriatrics; if things go badly, then it is off to the old folks’ home.
So far, so good.
Finally, “greed”—the pursuit of wealth—is obviously good for you: keeping at it is helping to keep these men young. The money, evidently, is not the point. The Kerkorians, Redstones, Icahns and Murdochs have stashed away more billions than they could ever spend on new houses or wives, yet they go on slugging. Maybe it’s the lust for power that drives them to fulfil their evolutionary destiny. Maybe it’s the love of the chase. Either way, it beats shuffleboard.
That it does.
Dave, not that he would know.
Blogosphere growing pains
December 26, 2005
It’s fun to observe the ebb and flow of technological change around me. What will turn out to be just the latest geek fad and what will bring about a change in our lives? One straw in the wind is the tremendous popularity of weblogs. It seems that a whole lot of people, myself included, want to publish their thoughts, be they wise or inane. This sometimes strains the Internet system.
Slashdot | Blog Services Outgrow Their Data Centers
Posted by Zonk on Friday December 16, @06:54PM
from the it’s-fun-to-write-things dept.
The Internet
miller60 writes “The growth of the blogosphere is straining the infrastructure at popular service providers. TypePad is having serious problems again today, the latest in a series of outages and malfunctions as it switches to a larger facility. Bloglines is also apologizing for performance problems, and says it too will move to a larger data center to accommodate growth. There’s been no sign of a mass migration from either service. Are bloggers and blog readers willing to accept rocky performance from popular services?”
Some say that the ‘blogs’ are signing the death knell of conventional publishing. I rather doubt that, but if I were a newspaper publisher I would be squirming a little.
Dave, happily scribbling away.
Galatians 5:13-21
December 25, 2005
Practice Love
5:13 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge your flesh, but through love serve one another. 5:14 For the whole law can be summed up in a single commandment, namely, “You must love your neighbor as yourself.” 5:15 However, if you continually bite and devour one another, beware that you are not consumed by one another. 5:16 But I say, live by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. 5:17 For the flesh has desires that are opposed to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires that are opposed to the flesh, for these are in opposition to each other, so that you cannot do what you want. 5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, depravity, 5:20 idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, 5:21 envying, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and similar things. I am warning you, as I had warned you before: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God!
It’s a rare Sunday Christmas morning, and at first I thought this passage from Galatians is not too appropriate for this day. But maybe it is. This is Paul’s admonition to “practice love,” and on this day, Christians throughout the world celebrate the greatest example of the practice of love, ever.
I would like to think that many of us may come closer to God’s example on this day than on any other day of the year. Or, at least we should. Our thoughts should be anchored on those we love, based on our gratitude for the way God showed his love for us over 2000 years ago. -sdg-
Want a 10% raise? Go to church.
December 24, 2005
Strange things happen when an economist views the world at Christmas.
Economics focus | Wealth from worship | Economist.com
AT CHRISTMAS, many people do things they would never dream of the rest of the year, from giving presents to getting drunk. Some even go to church. …According to Mr Gruber’s calculations, a 10% increase in the density of co-religionists leads to an 8.5% rise in churchgoing. Once he has controlled for other inter-city differences, Mr Gruber finds that a 10% increase in the density of co-religionists leads to a 0.9% rise in income. In other words, because there are lots of non-Polish Catholics in Boston and few in Minnesota, Poles in Boston both go to church more often and are materially better off relative to, say, Swedes in Boston than Poles in Minnesota relative to Swedes in Minnesota.
Got that? Well, how about this conclusion?
Perhaps, Mr Gruber muses, the faithful may be “less stressed out” about life’s daily travails and thus better equipped for success. This may make religion more appealing to some of those who turn up only once a year. But given that Jesus warned his followers against storing up treasures on earth, you might think that this wasn’t the motivation for going to church that he had in mind.
My conclusion: Some economists don’t have a clue. What’s missing is the idea of worship, being driven to our knees by the reality of God becoming man.
Dave, on his knees.
Old toys
December 23, 2005
Popular toys of the last 100 years - Forbes.com - MSNBC.com
In 4000 B.C., Babylonians played a board game that was probably the ancestor of chess and checkers. Stone yo-yos were first used in ancient Greece around 1000 B.C. Kites appeared in China around the same time, though historians speculate that they have probably been flown since before recorded history.
Games and toys. We need them to balance our lives, don’t we?
But the trinkets that we give at Christmas time pale in significance compared to the greatest gift of all: the gift of new life in Jesus Christ.
Dave, who sometimes forgets that he can’t take his toys with him.
Winter solstice at last!
December 22, 2005
The twenty-second day of December is always a big day for me. Although I won’t really notice it for another month or two, starting today the days will be getting longer, and the sun will be riding a tad higher in the sky each day until the June 21 summer solstice.
Answers.com tells me that the sun is heading back toward the equator at long last.
solstice (sŏl’stĭs) [Lat.,=sun stands still], in astronomy, either of the two points on the ecliptic that lie midway between the equinoxes (separated from them by an angular distance of 90°). At the solstices the sun’s apparent position on the celestial sphere reaches its greatest distance above or below the celestial equator (see equatorial coordinate system), about 231/2° of arc. At the time of summer solstice, about June 22, the sun is directly overhead at noon at the Tropic of Cancer (see tropics). In the Northern Hemisphere the longest day and shortest night of the year occur on this date, marking the beginning of summer. At winter solstice, about Dec. 22, the sun is overhead at noon at the Tropic of Capricorn; this marks the beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. For several days before and after each solstice the sun appears to stand still in the sky, i.e., its noontime elevation does not seem to change from day to day.
So there you have it. Here at about 40 degrees north latitude, the sun rises at 7:23 and sets at 4:43, giving us only 9 hours and 20 minutes of daylight, with the sun rising to only a little less than 27 degrees above the horizon at solar noon. At least there is very little risk of sunburn and skin cancer.
Major league baseball spring training is only a couple months away.
Dave, heading back into hibernation.
BlackBerry troubles
December 21, 2005
Intellectual property | The real lesson of BlackBerry | Economist.com
After a vicious patent suit, the maker of the BlackBerry—the wireless e-mail gadget that chains the white-collar proletariat to its work—faces the threat of a court-ordered shutdown in America. The service’s users (widely known as CrackBerry addicts) fret about coping without it; …
I don’t use a BlackBerry, so I have no dog in this fight, but it gives me a chance to vent about e-mail and cell phones and personal privacy. Who decided that I owe the world instant access to my life? Who’s in charge here? I insist on reserving the right to use my time in a way that let’s me discharge my responsibilities to you and the Lord I serve in a way that leaves me a little privacy.
Phone me any time you like, but don’t expect me to drop everything to answer you. Leave a message, and I’ll respond at a time of my choosing. I usually don’t carry a cellphone.
Drop me an email anytime you want, but don’t expect me to be online waiting for your message. I’ll check my email at least daily, when I can. No BlackBerry for me.
No fair, you say. After all, you’re retired, aren’t you?
Well, not really. I haven’t retired from trying to be a responsible citizen and servant. In so doing I’ll respect your time and privacy, and I hope you will do the same for me.
Dave, feeling better, now.
