When I was a kid, I loved watching this on TV. It's a children's adaptation of Bunyan's classic Pilgrim's Progress, free on Youtube if you've got a couple of hours to watch it - I'm doing one 15-minute episode a day for a couple of weeks...
(HT - Justin Taylor)
“Knowledge puffs up but love builds up”
I'm a bit of a geek for facts, especially Bible facts. When I was 6 or 7, my school teacher asked which king was killed by an arrow to the eye. I answered “Josiah”, because my cartoon Bible had Josiah being shot in the eye with an arrow. The actual Bible says that Josiah was shot with an arrow (2 Chron 35:23), but doesn't say he was shot in the eye. Then again, no contemporary accounts say King Harold II Godwinson was shot in the eye either.
For years, my knowledge held me back from knowing God. I thought that because I knew lots of stuff about God that I actually knew him. Head knowledge is not a substitute for relationship.
Head knowledge can also get in the way when it leads to pride or when we start finding our identity or our sense of self-worth in what we know rather than in the fact we are known and accepted by God.
But in its right place, knowledge can be useful – even geeky Bible trivia. Knowing which order events occur in in the gospel of Mark, for example, helps you see how the story fits together which helps you understand better some of the significance of the individual events. Or knowing small details in one story helps you see resonances and connections with other, seemingly unconnected stories.
One of the best ways I've found of learning facts, especially for people like me, is quizzes. There's nothing quite like an internet quiz for helping me to learn (say) the capitals of Caribbean countries. So here are some helpful internet quizzes I've found for getting to know Bible facts:
Books of the Bible: OT | NT | all.
OT events | Psalm 23 | Bible quotes
Bible events in order (tricky)
Three of the best articles I've read about the women bishops vote:
Here are some of the best online resources for daily Bible reading...
I don't use any of those. Personally, I find internet-enabled devices too much of a distraction when trying to read the Bible. But I know some people might find them helpful...
Here's one about being welcoming (or otherwise): (hat tip)
And here's probably the best advert of the year. Acts 20:35.
In an interesting article, Albert Mohler argues that the normal justifications for homosexual relationships apply equally to incest. (Of course, being Albert Mohler, he also shows that the commonly used societal arguments against incest apply equally to homosexuality...)
There's a really interesting report here on the UK - always interesting to see our culture from an outside point of view.
In quick summary, the UK is one of the nicest places in the world to live, but if you went by what people think of it, you'd think it was one of the worst. For example, we're ranked 101st out of 110 countries for financial confidence and 40th for feeling safe walking home alone at night (though we're actually 23rd).
This is a very interesting film. If that's what the research shows - as well as (un-)common sense, experience and yesterday's TV - then why do people keep on pushing on the silly track?
Of course, there's a lot that can be said from that for running churches...
(HT to +Donald)
Russell Moore has written an interesting article on cremation. I'm still not convinced either way about cremation, even (or perhaps especially) after presiding over a fair few. My worries aren't to do about the question of resurrection - it's to do with the attitude to humanity, the importance of the physical body, and respect for the dead. Moore concludes:
Sometimes the “culture wars” that really matter aren’t the ones you’re screaming about with unbelievers in the public square; they’re the ones in which you’ve already surrendered, and never even noticed.
On a not intentionally connected note, Mark Meynell has written about how church autocrats work. Interesting, true to my experience, and a worthwhile checklist for ministry.
As I may have mentioned before, one of the main things I've learnt from coming through some quite traumatic leadership experiences in Christian circles is that godliness is the most essential quality for leaders, especially humility.
Once again, possibly connected is this really sad bit of news. Bruce Waltke, who is a seriously good Bible scholar, has left his job at the Reformed Theological Seminary after a video he made about evolution attracted a lot of hostile attention.
In an earlier version of this post, I incorrectly stated that he was sacked (sorry!). RTS's comment on the issue is here, but from my POV the seminary should have stuck by him if they thought he was right to be allowed to say what he said. They try defending their corner by saying they're a confessional seminary. Confessional in the sense of sacking someone who doesn't believe something the Church has always agreed on (like the divinity of Jesus) - fine. Confessional in the sense of not sticking up for a seminary professor who points out the intellectual and apologetic difficulty of taking a popular but contentious line on the interpretation of one Biblical passage - mad and bad. And I thought RTS was meant to be OK...
John Piper quotes David Livingstone:
For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. . . . Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.
The Telegraph had an interesting article about Christians fleeing from Iraq.
And Mark Driscoll describes how to become a legalist:
Some wisdom on the old "Can God make a rock so big he can't lift it?" question from Dinosaur Comics. Quick stuff about Dinosaur Comics - the pictures are always the same; only the text varies. And they're very weird. But this one made me laugh...
There's a popular internet movie called Zeitgeist. It's basically a hodge podge of conspiracy theories, but it's one of the main ways they spread. Today an ex-pupil asked me about it, so I thought it worth putting this response from an Aussie historian up here. Good on conspiracy theories and so on...
There's a longer interview available via audio here.
The 11th Star Trek film finally manages to break one of the long-running rules in Hollywood - that odd-numbered Star Trek films are rubbish. Many would say the even-numbered ones were too...
This is partly an attempt to do a film that comes just before the first series in the 1960s, and partly a reinvention of the whole franchise. And I have to say it's very well done. All the major characters from the first series are there, all well played by different actors but in such a way that it's believable that they're the same people. There are lots of nods to stuff in the original series - like a sense of fashion that could explain how on earth they ended up with the uniforms from the first series, and a scenario that explains how someone like Kirk ended up as captain. And it brings in some of the science from later series without the whole "particle of the week" solutions that dogged the later series of TNG.
The special effects are of course much, much better, even than the later series. And it's fun! (significantly helped by Simon Pegg as Scotty.) And the start of the film is incredibly good.
As a bit of a physics geek, I have to say I like what they did with the philosophy of time travel here. Not just having a consistent theory of it, but also playing with some characters having alternate theories of it...
It's worth adding that a friend of mine pointed me to this amusing video review...
There was a good piece in the Telegraph today about the modern decline of the family and how it links into politics and so on. For me, the scary statistic was that half of all cohabiting couples split up before their child's first birthday. (I don't know if that just applies to first children or not...)
I guess therefore that part of what it means to be a witness to the transformation that Christ brings is being a culture where husbands stay with their wives and vice versa and where children are brought up in the best possible environment, even if it is more expensive. And of course, seeking to transform society in a loving way so that the best possible support is provided for children while being loving and supportive to those in situations where that is not possible.
The other day, I came across this excellent site - Playmobible. It presents some modern evangelical Biblical studies research using the medium of Playmobile figures.
So far, there is David Instone-Brewer's work on divorce and remarriage, some discussion of the function of the tithe in the OT, an interesting discussion of the Bible's attitude to slavery and a re-telling of the Samson story which I'm not sure I agree with.
It's modern evangelical research. Some of it is controversial, some of it is less so. But it's really really well presented. It's a wonderful example of popularising theology...
