educating eric

Sometimes a statement strikes you as unusual enough that you do a mental double-take and have to dig in to figure out what's really going on. So when I encountered "F.B. Meyer Devotional - Our Daily Homily - Devotional for June 11" ( http://devotionals.ochristian.com/F.B.-Meyer-Devotional.-Our-Daily-Homily/061... I had to stop and think at this one: "God cannot deliver us from besetting sin unless we yield ourselves to Him entirely." I agree that deliverance from "besetting sin" requires that we yield ourselves to God entirely. That's good advice in general. But any time I see the phrase "God cannot" I get worried. "God does not" wouldn't bother me a bit. But, proponent of free will though I am, I'm reluctant to say that something is impossible for God unless it contradicts his very character (e.g. it's not a limitation on God's omnipotence to say that He cannot be evil because, by definition, he isn't). ...

While doing a bit of quick "what does the InterWebz think of Alcoholics Anonymous" research, I came across a great quotation: "When a person is not clear about the Gospel, who Jesus is and what He did to save sinners, he is not presenting a Christian message." True. AA, at least, doesn't present a confused message claiming it to be a Christian one; they leave room for members to find Jesus as who He said he really was. A real danger in our Christianity is that we take our own non-Biblical (or extra-Biblical or, worst of all, un-Biblical) opinions and present them as if they were the words of Christ. No matter how sincere we might be, that's still wrong and dangerous. Via http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Other%20Pagan%20Mumbo-Jumbo/...

I need a developer, a statistician, a psychologist and... a cosmetologist. Why? For years I've been interested in the "Ginger vs. Mary Anne" question: What criteria do different individuals use to prefer one attractive person over another? If you walk down a hair-color aisle in the drugstore or leaf through a fashion magazine, you probably find different models more or less attractive. They're all "beautiful people" of course, but don't some seem to be "your type" while others aren't? Why is that? As far as I know, there aren't studies or tools that address this. There have been projects to determine the "perfect average" of male and female attraction... But I'm looking for something that that ties to individuals with particular preferences. What good would that be? 1) it's interesting 2) it might be useful in a dating site, to find who you're physically attracted to 3) it might be useful in a dating site, to war...

Okay, this isn’t a theological crisis… but I’ve got an interesting question to throw out to my theological circle. In Mark 8:38, Jesus (in the context of explaining his pending suffering and death and rebuking Peter’s rejection of these facts) says: “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” I don’t think you can get more clear than that.  Jesus says other “not so fluffy” things (the phrase “weeping and gnashing of teeth” comes to mind) but this one seems to connect the dots as unavoidably clearly as possible. Fair enough? So, a couple clarifying questions: What did Peter do when Jesus was arrested? What was Jesus’ reaction to him? What was Peter’s future in ministry? And once you answer those for yourself, tell me this: If Jesus said he would be...

Remind me to re-listen to this one (or perhaps the following week when Micah moved on to Part 2... But I think it was this one...) GLIMPSE _ PT 1 Micah Witham 7/31/11 Description:Week 1 of a series called Glimpse where we explore parables of Jesus. This week we unearth the context of Matthew 20 and seek to gain a better understanding of what Jesus was actually saying. http://awakencommunity.com/media.php?pageID=15#27

[wpvideo LEZhTSNP] As someone who has spent a career trying to emphasize the customer service concepts of “meet people where they’re at” and “understand and engage the ‘ love language ’ of the person you’re serving” I have a special place in my heart (no pun intended) for today’s Google.com homepage video. At the risk of incurring the wrath of a fleet of attorneys who want to rile up trouble with DMCA take-down notices, I’m including it here for the simple reason that this post won’t make any sense tomorrow when Google changes its homepage back to the default.  No infringement intended, the video here is © 2012 Google, Inc., etc. etc. etc. (The Washington Post has an interesting article on some related controversy and if I were to mention it I’d probably take it in a totally different direction than they and their site’s commenters do… so I’ll save that for another time…)

Over on one of my other blogs I have a page that jokingly but honestly lists the things I don't care about -- sports, cars, etc. Maybe I need a page like that here, because when a friend mentioned Dispensationalism in passing I realized that (despite brief study of it in a class one summer) it really wasn't "on my radar" as a topic of interest. Maybe I can start with: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensationalism The interesting thing to me is that, unlike the topic of cars or sports, the topic of "God's nature and character" is one that we ought to pursue. Not to the exclusion of other ministries and not as a point of division, but I think one of the spiritual disciplines is a growing interest in and pursuit of God and what He has revealed to us. So, maybe I should study up on Dispensationalism vs. Covenant Theology vs. whatever else is out there...?