CucKoo's Nest Press

Gd

2011-11-04T18:31:00.001-07:00

Fleeting Dusk

2011-10-06T21:46:00.000-07:00

Psa 148:3

2011-07-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

Ἰδοὺ

2011-07-11T14:49:00.000-07:00

Serenity

2011-03-25T23:45:00.000-07:00

Sky's the Limit

2011-03-23T23:15:00.000-07:00

Barbie

2011-03-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

Crane

2011-03-05T23:23:00.000-08:00

Algorithms 2

2011-03-03T12:45:00.000-08:00

Altocumulus

2011-03-02T11:39:00.000-08:00

A Bit of India

2011-03-01T22:38:00.000-08:00

X Marks the Spot

2011-02-23T17:57:00.000-08:00

Uncle Bud's

2011-01-20T00:25:00.000-08:00

Morning Moon 2

2011-01-19T06:49:00.000-08:00

Morning Moon

2011-01-18T22:42:00.000-08:00

R. Miles

2011-01-17T22:43:00.000-08:00

NYLON

2011-01-14T22:28:00.000-08:00

Don't Shoot Them

2011-01-13T22:24:00.000-08:00

0111110622

2011-01-11T21:27:00.000-08:00

Lousy Soup

2011-01-09T22:25:00.000-08:00

Algorithms

2011-01-08T22:12:00.000-08:00

Leader of the Flock

2011-01-07T21:23:00.000-08:00

Cloud Stairs

Closing Time (853.333333x640)

2011-01-06T21:04:00.000-08:00

La montaña

2011-01-04T20:59:00.000-08:00

Something Good When It Rains...

2010-12-22T00:56:00.000-08:00

il santuario

2010-12-02T12:09:00.000-08:00

Untitled (2010)

2010-11-25T21:49:00.000-08:00

Panoramic Still Life

2010-11-20T21:57:00.000-08:00

yet the darkness has not grasped Him

2010-11-19T22:42:00.000-08:00

Untitleds

2010-11-07T22:18:00.000-08:00

Fear of Heights?

2010-11-03T22:36:00.000-07:00

Nope, not for this guy!

Matthew 24:28

2010-11-02T22:16:00.000-07:00

On Technology, Obsolescence, & Disposability

2010-10-15T23:31:00.000-07:00

It would not be in the interest of industry, to build something that is durable. We feed on innovation and technocracy consumes us.

Godspeed!

2010-10-07T00:34:00.000-07:00

και τώρα με την απάντηση της αναφοράς, ένας γενναίος νέος γυναίκα βγήκε στην αναζήτηση για τις ψυχές που του από την αρχή, που πρέπει να συγκεντρωθούν εις την συγκομιδή στα χρόνια που έρχονται. το πρώτο μέρος της κοινής και των τελευταίων, των αρχαίων ελληνικών and now with the petition answered, a brave young woman went out in search for souls that were his from the beginning, to be gathered unto the harvest in the years to come. the first part is Koine and latter, classical Greek (correction, modern Greek from Google translate) ㅋㅋㅋ...

Burst my Bubble?

2010-10-03T21:06:00.000-07:00

I grieve for those who cannot, do not, care not to see the ways of God. I care not, do not, cannot employ the devices of man to make this Truth known. Wait, that's not true. By all means possible. By all means allowed by the Text.

Allen D. Clark, 1961

2010-09-27T07:21:00.000-07:00

History of the Korean Church

because there have been great men of God here, and their work should be known. Effort has been made to make this a fair presentation of the work of all the denominations involved in the work of Christ in Korea. Prior to 1945, there were only a few of these. The work of those which have come in to work with us since that time are sketched briefly in the final chapter.

In the preparation of the book, I have leaned heavily on the books listed in the bibliography at the close of the book. The three most important sources have been the following; George L. Paik's "History of Protestant Mission in Korea to 1910". Dr. Paik is one of the outstanding Christian leaders today, former president of Yonsei University, once Minister of Education, and now member of the National Senate. Harry A. Rhodes' "History of the Korea Mission, Presbyterian Mission U.S.A. 1884-1934" and Charles D. Stoke's "History of Methodist Missions in Korea 1885-1930". These books are carefully documented, as are some of the others listed, and those wishing to check such documentation can refer to these books. I have not wished to clutter the book for Korean readers with footnotes that would only interrupt the discussion for them.

The Korean edition starts with Chapter II, but it was felt that a preliminary chapter was needed for English readers, covering the history, geography and customs of Korea, by way of background, and Chapter I therefore attempts to fill this need.

I have deliberately not tried to be too detailed for the period from 1930-1960. We are too near this period to write dispassionately about it. It has been a period of sharp conflicts of loyalties and it will take some years for some of these to find their proper level. The period since Liberation, in 1945, has been one of vast changes and the end is not yet.

Aside from a long-term interest in general and that of this field in particular, I was born in Seoul, of missionary parents, and knew many of the early missionaries personally. I have been a missionary in Korea since 1933, except for some years in Colombia, South America. Much of the story, therefore, falls within my personal knowledge. This is a day of great opportunity for Christian service and we ask the prayers of the reader that the Church may be consecrated and adequate to the times in which we live.

Seoul, Jan 16, 1961

Allen D. Clark

Reduce, Reuse, and ReCycle

2010-09-23T23:07:00.000-07:00

Ham Sôkhôn (1901-1989)

2010-09-16T04:22:00.001-07:00

A Korean Quaker.

Robert Jermain Thomas

2010-09-13T23:58:00.000-07:00

"My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart" Job 17:11 (KJV, epitaph in Llanover Church, Wales)

what if "Fishers of Men" pulled one out of the sea like this?

2010-09-08T19:45:00.000-07:00

Big Fish

Korean Church History (Continued from July)

2010-09-07T16:25:00.000-07:00

Thomas and the Nestorians

Apostle Thomas and Tales of his Oriental Evangelical Mission

According to tradition (doubting) Thomas, one of the twelve (of Jesus' disciples) along with Bartholomew is thought to have evangelized the east. According to some Indians, while Paul was preaching through Asia Minor, that Thomas went east into India, while Bartholomew went as far as China.
More concrete details, however, can be found in the historical traditions of the southern Indian Malabar Christians. According to them Thomas had first arrived at Madras (eastern coast of India) progressively moving towards the west towards Malabar, in his evangelical proliferation. It is understood that his ministerial activity had its influences up to the border of China. In literature regarding Thomas, which is used by the Malabar church are recorded the following deeds of St. Thomas.

"St. Thomas has taught the Indian people that idol worship is wrong, and through St. Thomas the Chinese people and the Ethiopian people were able to know the truth... through St. Thomas the light of the doctrine of life was spread through all of India, and it is through St. Thomas that the kingdom of heaven was able to spread its wings on its own and go as far as China."

The hymnody of the Malabar church even finds the following verses:

"Indian people, the Chinese people, the Persian people, and all the people of the islands, again all the people of Syria, Armenia, Java, and Romania remember Thomas, lift high his name, Ah! Precious saviour of ours."

...But the confession of the Malabar Christians, of Thomas' contributions to the Indian and Chinese Christianity is treated with a fair amount of discredit, because of an absence of the objective historical material.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

For further reading: L.W. Brown, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1965; F. A. D'Cruz, St. Thomas the Apostle in India, Madras, Premium Press, 1929; J.N. Farquahar, The Apostle Thomas in North India, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1926...

TRANSLATED LOOSELY FROM: 한국기독교의 역사 vol. 1, 한국기독교역사연구소, 1993 (24, 25).

2. Nestorian Christianity and its Oriental Mission

The more empirical version of the history of the proliferation of Christian gospel through out the east, is discovered in the history of Nestorian Christianity. His birth place (Nestorius) is not clear but he had lived a monastic life in a monastery near Antioch, and studied under Theodore of Mopsuestia, who was regarded as the representative theologian of the Anthiochian school. The emphasis of the Antiochian school was on the humanity of Jesus Christ, although both deity and humanity of Jesus was fully acknowledged. Based on this, they were opposed to the term theotokos (mother of God) to refer to Mary, which was a term used by the Alexandrian school- with the emphasis on the union of Christ's two natures. The Alexandrian school was more prone to metaphorical/allegorical interpretation of Scripture whereas the Antiochian school was more prone to critical and analytical approach to the text. The result was, that the Nestorians were declared as heretical and expelled during the First Council of Ephesus (431). But not everyone from the school of Antioch accepted their decision. A good number of Nestorian followers moved out and settled in Edessa, of Persia. After the Council of Chalcedon of 451 had declared Nestorianism a heresy, the Western church and the Nestorian church had split. Later the Nestorians would call their church the "Assyrian Church", or the "Chaldean Church." Subsequently, due to the emperor Zeno (489) of Eastern Rome, they had been driven out of Edessa, and relocated to Nisibis, reconstructing their school and keeping their traditions. Even after the fall of Persia of 674 by the Islamic Arabia, they were able to continue after obtaining the endorsement of Khalifa and in 762 they moved to Bagdad as their home base. From the beginning of the 7th century they began to send missionaries to India and Arabia, with Malabar the central point of focus in India. It is during this time, that the missionary enterprise takes advantage of the Silk Road, through Central Asia and have missionaries reach China, with the Nestorian Christianity developing there as 경교 (景敎) during the Tang Dynasty.

3. China's Early Church Jiang Jiao (景敎) History

Alopen and his company of the Nestorian Missionaries arrived in China in 635, during the reign of Tang

Tai Zhong (唐太宗). Jiang Jiao (also known as: 波斯敎, 大秦寺) enjoyed royal protection for about a century, during early parts of it important documents were penned: 一神論, 一天論, 世尊布世論...

The Nestorian Stele (大秦景教流行中國碑) for instance, reveals the most about the 150 years of Jiang Jiao's influence: "To beat on the wooden gong is to wake the world to the message of grace, to worship towards the East is to move towards the eternal life of glory. To keep the beard unshaven is to preserve the outward form of man, to shave the sides is to indicate no guile. To not keep slaves is tantamount to keeping the heavenly return of man, to not collect material offerings is to be occupied with service and to not leave private property. To live alone and to achieve resolution through meditation, and to fix on practice through discretion and silence, offering devotions every seven hours by which to widely protect the living and the dead, and to cleanse the inner will by giving offerings once every seven days."

A sort of a monastic life can be traced, but even then efforts of contextualization is evident in the nomenclature, by how the Holy Spirit was dubbed "The Wise Wind," prayer called "Mantra" chapel, a "shrine..." Retaining emphasis on the Eastern tradition of filial piety (孝), ceremonial rituals towards the ancestors, or even the forbearance of polygamy were attempts to mediate the religious teachings with minimum social conflict in China. Towards the end of the two hundred years of Jiang Jiao had looked significantly different from its Nestorian origins, having become a contextualized, indigenous Chinese religion of its own right.

4. The Decline of Jing Jiao

The rapid growth that had taken place under the auspices of national protection during the Tang dynasty had progressively declined towards the end of the dynasty. The decisive period was in 845, when a five year movement towards prohibition of gatherings were initiated by Wu Zhong (唐武宗), originally with Buddhism being its primary target... to be continued.

Separated at Birth?

2010-09-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

Mark Lau Branson and Saul Kripke... which one's which?

Authority and Dominance

2010-09-03T15:08:00.000-07:00

"A dispute...arose among [the disciples] as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. But [Jesus] said to them, 'The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves" (Luke 22:24-27)

Invariably, this little tidbit from Luke poses a great challenge to many hierarchical structures- institutes of learning, military systems, and yes. Churches.

279

2010-08-25T00:07:00.000-07:00

Not a very good bowler, although back in the days I was around 130-140 pretty consistently. Nowadays no power, no accuracy, definitely no finesse. I saw a man bowl 8 strikes in a row next lane. And just as we took notice of this incredible streak, he took a spare on the 9th frame and finishing with 9 pins down on the tenth.

I was like angry, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" "MAN, I'M LEAVIN'" It would have been something, to witness a perfect game. After I settled down a bit I asked, "Sir, have you ever bowled a perfect game?" He replied. "A perfect game? No." "Never?" "Nope" "Unbelievable..." He said, "It could be perfect but by the eleventh frame your knees wobble." He was bowling alone, and like I said, I am no enthusiast of any sports involving balls of any kind; ruling out pretty much everything from basketball, volleyball, football, ping-pong, billards,... including bowling. But man, I think I would have bought that man a drink if he had bowled a perfect game. He told me, "The best I've bowled is 279." Man, I hope that he'll bowl a perfect game just once. I think I'd be so happy for him when he does. Perfection... What a remote obsession. I bowled a 100 today and I was happy. I think my best was 169.

Sunset

2010-08-22T21:38:00.000-07:00

Finely got my bicycle back from Ben (Lakewood Cyclery) and went for a weekend-warrior-type bike ride. 22 miles, 2 hours and some walking in-between for the saddlesore and leg-cramping. But then on the dogged ride back I saw a stunning, tall blonde young woman running at a pace of about 9-10 mph. She was in the zone man! I had to get off my bike twice because my butt hurt, and she zoomed by me when I got off the path to exit on South Street. By this time I was exhausted. Oh in the old days this lean little ride would have been refreshing! Now I need some sleep and then a nice cup-o-jo to feel remotely refreshed. Tsk, tsk. What a great Sunday though! (no preaching on Sunday for the first time in 4 years!)

Soul-Rest

2010-08-07T00:25:00.000-07:00

1000th post...

2010-07-29T22:53:00.000-07:00

A Place for Soul-Rest

2010-07-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

One of the "Messianic" Psalms

2010-07-25T12:36:00.000-07:00

Psa. 16:0 ¶ A Miktam of David.

¹ Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge.

² I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;

I have no good apart from you.”

³ ¶ As for the holy ones in the land, they are the noble,

in whom is all my delight.

⁴ ¶ Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows;

their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out

or take their names upon my lips.

⁵ ¶ The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;

you hold my lot.

⁶ The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

I have a goodly heritage.

⁷ ¶ I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;

in the night also my heart instructs me.

⁸ I keep the LORD always before me;

because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

⁹ ¶ Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;

my body also rests secure.

¹⁰ For you do not give me up to Sheol,

or let your faithful one see the Pit.

¹¹ ¶ You show me the path of life.

In your presence there is fullness of joy;

in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

NRSV

Biblical Poetry

2010-07-20T15:27:00.000-07:00

Psalms being the obvious poetic sections of the Bible, as per scholastic classification of genres there are three others in this category: Song of Solomon, Jeremiah, and Lamentations (although some Hebrew scholars bunch Job as an early narrative poetry, while still more will include Genesis 1 as a poetic and theological preamble to the other creation narrative. But Psalms in and of themselves have a lot of different kinds:

a. Thanksgiving and Adoration

(8,19, 29, 33, 65, 67, 81, 91, 95, 96, 98, 100, 103, 104, 105, 107, 111, 113, 114, 115, 117, 123, 124, 131, 133, 134, 135, 136, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150)

b. Individual Praise

(11, 18, 23, 30, 32, 34, 40, 41, 46, 48, 66, 75, 84, 85, 92, 106, 108, 116, 118, 138, 139)

c. Individual Lament

(3, 4, 5, 6, 7,13, 17, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 35, 39, 42, 43, 51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 63, 64, 69, 70, 71, 76, 77, 86, 88, 102, 109, 120, 130, 140, 141, 142, 143)

d. National Lament

(44, 74, 79, 80, 83, 90)

e. Royal

(2, 18, 20, 21, 45, 72, 89, 101, 132, 144)

f. Enthronement

(47, 93, 96, 97, 98, 99)

g. Songs of Zion

(42, 43, 87, 121, 122, 125, 126, 129)

h. Penitential

(6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143)

i. Imprecatory

(35, 58, 69, 83, 109, 137)

j. Messianic

(2, 16, 22, 24, 45, 72, 110)

k. Wisdom

(1, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 19, 36, 37, 49, 50, 52, 53, 73, 78, 82, 94, 112, 119, 127, 128)

One of the interesting categories that strike me, is "Imprecatory" or cursing Psalms. Why? Because these set of Psalms are extremely comforting in times of spiritual attack. There are times when even your best friends will turn on you, and there are times when you will realize that they had never even been truly friends. There are times when for no reason, you are plotted against by many and there are times you are ensnared and stumbled by malice. But Jesus and Paul's teachings run decidedly antithetical to these Psalms. (Matt. 5:44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, Luke 6:27 ¶ “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, Luke 6:35 But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Rom. 12:14 ¶ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.) These are hard teachings, and the ones that fulfill them consistently will be proven to be truly of God.

So who can we curse? I think it would not be unbiblical to curse the forces that clearly exist, both in the visible and invisible, that hinder our love relationship with God. These can be operative within the self, within a collective group, a territorial region or even a political boundary. When I was younger and more naïve, I used to think that I had no enemies. But when you have made an allegiance and commitment to the Truth of Jesus Christ, all sorts of enemies suddenly creep up into your life, both inwardly, through people of your intimate circle, through people that you would not have expected. It is always with the hope that they too will come to know the Lord, that we do not curse the people caught in a particular opposition against us. Instead we bless them with our prayers, our thoughts, and our actions. It is entirely appropriate to vent our vexations to God, as many of David's Psalms abundantly show.

And some of the keener minds out there may be thinking, wait a minute, aren't you just trying to spiritualize our opponents? Well, there is a spiritual priority to the material reality, they are not disconnected. On a concluding note, Woe to the spirits, who take pleasure in malice!

On Prayer

2010-07-19T13:38:00.000-07:00

My cousin whose current (a)theological position is in constant denial of a healthy dose of the "hermeneutic of suspicion," and so with presuppositions that are framed around the worldview of scientific materialism declared: "Prayer, in the sense that Christians know and practice it, doesn't work."

By this he means that if there is a God, he would not change his mind about what he was going to do or to allow to be carried out in the first place by the petition of an individual or group of his followers. So if God was going to annihilate say, Sodom and Gomorrah, the priestly intercession of Abraham was not going to influence this matter of decision at all. What we see in the Bible, at least if we are going to use this section as a case in point, he is right. The whole process of negotiation that Abraham was making on behalf of the people only may have retarded the process a bit, but ultimately the decision was in the predestined sense, foreordained (Although why is a whole 'nother worthwhile discussion revolving around the issue of morality). So my atheist cousin, if he was by some miracle to become Christian, would be someone contemporary church-goers call a "high Calvinist."

So if we were to reduce reality to a set of course of events, deterministic and locked into effects that can only be traced back to the causes as they are ultimately in operation originating from light-years back from the Prime Mover (the First Cause), prayer is never the mode by which one can alter circumstances to any of one's favor.

But what if we suppose, that prayer is not about changing God's will or predestined master plan, but as free individuals conceding to such and yielding to it, to enter into the salvation of who may not be annihilated? The stories of the Bible can be placed into a category of salvation, it may be safe to employ a certain soteriological hermeneutics to find that for one, there is the process of judgment, one that I will call "supernatural partitioning" of what is of God himself and what is not. (and of course this forces us at some level, to examine what it means to be "saved;" which in turn opens up a whole 'nother discussion on the continuum of the spiritual and the material which by the way, Walter Wink provides an interesting modernist interpretation)

We may consider Jesus' instruction of prayer which embodies the spirit of what prayer was supposed to be in the first place.

Matt 6:9) Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
6:10) Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
6:11) Give us this day our daily bread.
6:12) And forgive our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
6:13) And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.

Those who pray, to God (who is exclusively accessible through the person of Jesus Christ according to the Bible) are in line with the perfect intent and will of God. And this creates for us, a category of salvation. If you recognize yourself as someone who understands that there is a transcendent, immanent and a sovereign God as to the understanding afforded by Jesus Christ (Theologia Crucis has to be expounded here) one understands that this intent and will exudes out of the love of God. And the conscious exaltation of God's name in appropriate subordination of the self (and collective selves) constitutes the acknowledgement of a separateness (or holiness) of God. In the original design, the purpose of man was explicitly work but the ultimate spirit of why is centered around the exaltation of God. In short, worship of God the Pantocrator. And the political structure of this governance, up in the heavenly realms (a plenum of pure potentiality) is where things are already in their rightful order, with a theocentric monarchy where God is already the ruler in perfection that is near impossible to ascertain by mortals. There is a double assumption that is carried in the Lord's prayer as we read in Matthew, that for one, the will of God is perfect and desirable because it is of God, and being that a level of perceived freedom of will apart from God's is permitted on earth, that the perfect will of God above is not forcefully imposed on earth. (Free will therefore becomes an issue that cannot be neglected even in the grand schema, of predestination)

I heard an interesting sermon from a member of our laity yesterday about verse 11. The dependence on God as opposed to dependence on things that God give us. (which by nonbelievers could be argued, "God didn't give you these things, you only assign credit to someone for what you earned yourself." which is a very unfortunate assumption that robs any person of gratitude) Material blessings are often associated with prosperity gospel, that is on one hand indicted as an impure gospel by some, and a partial gospel on the other, both sustaining criticisms of the inordinate concerns for the temporal, physical life. But before trailing off into that rabbit hole, is the reality that our present life is suspended by some factor that sustains it. And as far as I can perceive, from the limits of my own scientific knowledge, God is it, the giver of life. So if I earn money, do work on the field, or write here this entry, it is assigning credit to someone who has the ultimate handle on my mortality. "Give us this day our daily bread." is a reminder, that this is God's nature. But what about those who are starving to death? Here, the us may be a point for issue. We are not limited to those who are already receiving our daily bread, here we include people who are yet to receive our daily bread. The life's concerns are partitioned into "days." And these days make years, and ultimately sum up one's life- but this verse both reminds us and asserts a declaration, that our lives are owed to God. The nonbelievers deprive themselves of this truth, that we cannot manufacture the life essence, the vitality that staves off mortification on either pole of the existential continuum (spiritual/corporeal).

The focus is then, on daily dependence to do the will that is above my will (In Jesus we see that his will was the same of the Father's will- a Mormon stance on their Arian Christology, which denies their unity in person which will be, a whole 'nother entry for another time). And forgive our debts (the Greek here opheilemata) entails that we denounce the privileged position of some entitlement, which is to say: "God does not owe me anything but rather, I owe God everything." followed by: "as we also have forgiven our debtors." This is essentially the same as in the first clause in spirit. Since I owe God everything, may it be that our forgiveness of those who owe us, serve as signs of our own forgiveness. This prayer is a petition, a confession and an exposition of God's will all at once. The power to forgive is ultimately assigned to God but the true sign of this in us (i.e. Salvation) is in our empowerment to "have forgiven" those who owe us. (The tendency may be to read this as monetary debts but it goes so much beyond monetary transactions. It could be years of life, it could be suffered injustices, it could be insults, it could be any thing that would require vindication, for peace).

The last verse leads up to the freedom, that the above petition, confession and exposition of God's will entails. "Do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one." Here the mention of "trial," (periasmon) affirms the existence of it, and associates these to its agent, "the evil one." The opposition of good.

Does God change his mind based on our prayers, or do we change? I think that faith involves our change. On a long enough timeline (or according to His sovereignty on an incredibly short one- as we see in Saul to Paul from Acts) our change is the purpose of prayer as we see in verses 9-12 and the salvation that we embody as we proclaim it, is to be out of evil, and in good, for good.

As he (Jesus) was setting out on a journey,

a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him,

"Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good?

No one is good but God alone." (Mark 10:17-18)

Thunderhead

2010-07-16T12:48:00.000-07:00

Being in the temperate climate of Southern California, I am always keen on climatic anomalies. I was stuck on the 60E, listening to a Tim Keller sermon on my iPod and noticed the air getting thicker, as my imagination allows memory of a time, an antediluvian time when the atmosphere must have been more moist, less UV rays, longer life and better life expectancy... etc. And off in the distance I see lightning, striking intermittently as the visible ray reaches the sky, followed by thunder (unfortunately I can't pull off taking a picture of lightning with my phone cam while driving thru congested traffic). And of course my mind conjures the name Boanerges. How cool would it be to have someone name me that... Son of thunder. Maybe lightning, since that name is already taken in the Bible. How about Son of lightning? Better yet, how about "Son of Light"? What would that be in Hebrew? Bar 'or? or how 'bout Bar 'qasht (Son of 'bow' or rainbow) Yeah, a bit fruity but so what? Who don't like fruits? A lot of vitamins...
Anyway shortly after I arrive where I gotta be, (a whole hour late, with me being in the car for over 90 minutes) started showering, heavy rain. On my way back I notice my car got a good wash, a good 10 to 15 shower that is seldom experienced here in the Southland mid July! The thermometer registers 85 degrees in the bedroom right now. Outside a scorcher for sure. This anticipation for the change of weather that we all carry on hot days has me ruminate on the Caananite deities like Baal (to my knowledge, a storm god.) And then I got to thinking about the Timothy Keller sermon that I was listening to, THE LORD OF THE WINE and thinking about at least ten people on my thumbs and fingers who could benefit from hearing this message. And then I got to thinking, "there were times when I thought I was the Lord of the Wine..." And of course I am thinking about Dyonisus or Bachus. There is definitely a polemic in there about who is the author of true Joy. How can I find a time and space, where I can just sit down and study and not have my mind wander around from here to Andromeda? (on a related note)

Weltanschauung

2010-07-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

"The world is, to a degree at least, the way we imagine it. When we think it to be godless and souless, it becomes for us precisely that. And we ourselves are then made over into the image of godless and souless selves. If we want to be made over into the image of God- to become what God created us to be- then we need to purge our souls of materialism [triumphalism, elitism, egocentrism... etc.] and of other worldviews that block us from realizing the life God so eagerly wants us to have. [ie. block our senses from the transformative properties of the gospel]
Understanding worldviews is key to breaking free from the ways the Powers control people's minds. Yet there is remarkably little discussion of worldviews. Spirituality writer Morton Kelsey first woke me to their importance. Even the term "worldview" is fairly recent. The Germans had the word Weltanschauung ("view of the world"), but that referred more to one's personal philosophy of life. A worldview, by contrast, dictates the way whole societies see the world. A worldview provides a picture of the nature of things: where is heaven, where is earth, what is visible and invisible, what is real and unreal. As I am using the term, worldviews are not philosophies, theologies, or even myths or tales about the origin of things. They are the bare-bones structures with which we think. They are the foundation of the house of our minds on which we erect symbols, myths, and systems of thought. Through the lens of our worldview we make sense of our experiences. In the very act of opposing another person's thought, we often share the same worldview." (Wink, p. 14- The Powers that Be)

15106

2010-07-10T00:45:00.000-07:00

Long Day?

2010-07-08T23:58:00.001-07:00

It was a long day... that really only began with a nice full meal at Habana Cafe in Downey. They have a lunch special there that ranges from $4.99 to $7 something, and I usually order the 1/4 pollo. Today I tried the fish, the most affordable thing on the menu. Not bad, but I think I will stick to the pollo.

Anyway, in lieu of studying I got to the office and started cleaning up a little. It is often difficult to separate between visual chaos and inner peace. Let the LORD of order govern me, those in our church who belong to HIM, and everyone else in this community, city, nation and world.

Is it however, possible to have inner turmoil while total order on the surface? See I have never enjoyed what can be remotely described as total external order, so I don't know. But so far this much I do see. Internal peace does produce external order. And sometimes putting things into order from without is conducive to the inner cleansing- while, it is very possible to bypass this inner cleansing all together. ("First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean."- Jesus indicts the scribes and Pharisees for not dedicating to the cleansing of the inside of the cup, while ostentatiously dedicating to their external cleanliness. The scribes and Pharisees both being experts of the Law and Scripture, leads me to believe that it is possible to know Scripture but to utterly fail in its more tangible demands for social and structural justice, as well as the internal, personal relationship with the giver of the Law, the inspirer of Scripture... to meet those demands as demonstrated by Christ is LOVE, and the kind of love that is called to order was, the love unto death. Even death on the Cross)

Faith: "The Bible and Human Transformation"

2010-07-07T10:42:00.001-07:00

"In the solidarity of our shared interest we come together round the text. We wish to learn something from it, not better, but different, something we did not know at all, or only sensed dimly. Respondeo etsi mutabor: we are ready to listen even if we must change. And in rare moments of lucidity and courage we may listen in order to change.

In order to arrive at what you do not know
  You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
  You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
  You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know...62

This kind of knowing is not the quest for certainty about things known, but the search for the unknown. We no longer regard knowledge as a truncated pyramid in which each advance in knowledge diminishes the unknown, with an eye to its final abolition. Such an image of the intellectual quest is nothing more than an egocentric device for controlling our anxiety about existence. Instead we perceive knowledge as an inverted pyramid opening up out onto infinity, in which each advance in knowledge leads to greater wonder and wider vistas of unkowing. The text, the tradition, the human community, I myself -these are not problems susceptible of technological manipulation only (as indeed they are in the moment of agentic distance), but mysteries requiring unveiling, insight, revelation. Such knowledge is not mastery but participation received as a gift. Understanding is substituted for mastery... (not opting to replace the master with mastery- or, when we 'let the text speak,' we do not value equally everything it has to say, but fashion an order of ranked priorities in terms of the resonances it establishes with our own unknown but higher potentialities.'73 or better yet, the analyst must be willing to change 33) ..." (Wink, 78-79)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

... courage is required. If you really understand another person in this way, if you are willing to enter his private world and see the way life appears to him, without any attempts to make evaluative judgments, you run the risk of being changed yourself. You might see it his way, you might find yourself influenced in your attitudes or your personality. This risk of being changed is one of the most frightening prospects most of us can face. If I enter, as fully as I am able, into the private world of a neurotic or psychotic individual, isn't there a risk that I might become lost in that world?... The great majority of us could not listen; we would find ourselves compelled to evaluate, because listening would seem too dangerous. So the first requirement is courage, and we do not always have it. (On Becoming a Person- Boston: Houghton Miffin Co. 1962, Carl Rogers)

"All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sitting down and Studying... (at least trying)

2010-07-06T18:11:00.000-07:00

See now, I never learned this kind of stuff in seminary. But I do vaguely remember learning it at church, in the KM discipleship session out of all places:

1. The division of the books of the Old Testament of the Judeo Hebrew Bible

Part 1: Torah (or Pentateuch- Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy -5 Books)
Part 2: Nevi'im (or Prophets- Former Prophets 4: Joshua, Judges, Samuel 1 & 2, Kings 1 & 2;
Latter Prophets 4: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Minor Prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habbakuk, Zepheniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi- all 12 considered 1 -8 Books in total)
Part 3: Kethubim (or Sacred Writings- 11 books: 3 books of Poetry- Psalms, Proverbs and Job; 5 "Scrolls" Lamentations, Ruth, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Esther; 1 Prophecy- Daniel; 2 History- Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles (1 & 2)

One of the super-frustrating things about having to memorize this "Jewish structure" of their canon is that it is difficult to understand why this might be useful for the average pastor. Why do they include such a stupid question, when we have to provide the "literary types" as outlined by modern "universal" biblical scholarship? At least the number of books on the list below adds up to 39! Yiiish!

1) History: Pentateuch, Joshua, Former Prophets (does this mean Judges + 1 & 2 Samuel + 1 & 2 Kings? and if so, why is Joshua excluded from this when in comparison to the above list?), 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (16)
2) Prophecy: Latter Prophets (15)
3) Apocalyptic: Daniel (1)
4) Wisdom: Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes (3)
5) Poetry: Psalms, Song of Solomon, Jeremiah, Lamentations (4)

2. PARTITION of THE NEW TESTAMENT

1) Gospels (Synoptic: Matthew, Mark, Luke) + John ("The Fourth Gospel")
2) History (Acts)
3) Epistles (21)
3a) Pauline Epistles
3.a.1 Doctrinal Epistles: Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians
3.a.2 Prison Epistles: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon
3.a.3 Pastoral Epistles: 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus
3b) General Epistles: James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1, 2, & 3 John, Jude
3c) Hebrews
4) Prophecy: Revelation

창출레민신수삿룻삼삼왕

왕대대스느에욥시잠전아

사렘애겔단호욜암옵욘미

나합습학슥말마막눅요행

롬고고갈엡빌골살살딤딤

딛몬히약벧벧요요요유계

A Little Labor with the Hands...

2010-07-05T21:56:00.000-07:00

My brother had made a special request to help him install a microwave oven, and maybe do some modifications on the stove to have it mount more flush against the wall. Hmmmnnn. I don't get to spend time with this guy nearly enough.

During the Fuller years, (which is technically not finished yet) I was so busy as to see him less frequently than once a month, when he lived quite close-by. Even when he was single, it wasn't too easy to spend time with him. Why are our lives so individualistic? So separate?

The fancies of an extended family, living in the same compounds is such a nostalgic notion and yet- the most renowned families keep their familial solidarity (maybe not all living in one castle but...). Maybe I'm still stuck on the "clan" mode of being. Anyway, my brother had spent so much time planning the job that the execution was albeit time consuming, easy. All he needed was a lil' bit of my fine motor skills which thanks be to God is still intact, somewhat. He could have hired someone to do it- and I am short on time (always short on time). But it was so nice to spend time with my brother, my brother from the same mother. Thank you God.

New Leviathan Whale Was Prehistoric "Jaws"? (Pictures)

2010-07-04T09:08:00.001-07:00

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/06/photogalleries/100630-leviathan-mellvillei-sperm-whale-fossils-science/
---

Eye on Ecuador

2010-07-03T22:11:00.000-07:00

Ecuadoreans, DEA seize drug-smuggling submarine - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100704/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_narco_sub_seized
============================================================
Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/

A Cautionary Tale

2010-07-03T14:24:00.001-07:00

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/The-sad-tale-of-Ray-Williams-10-year-NBA-vet-no?urn=nba,253262
============================================================
Yahoo! Sports - http://sports.yahoo.com/

Conclusion of a Chapter (FTS)

2010-07-02T17:26:00.000-07:00

Damn I'm gonna miss this place... (I still have to be back in September to turn in some paperwork) But still, damn. I mean gosh darn it.

The last class I took was MH542, Korean Church History with Timothy (Ki-ho) Park. (man pictured with the watch on) It was enlightening. I am proud to be Korean, I am proud to be a Korean Christian.

History

2010-07-01T10:03:00.001-07:00

Hideyoshi

Some Important Figures in Korean Christianity

2010-06-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

유관순
이기풍
광혜원
김대현
김영학
김영훈
김장호
나부열(S. L. Roberts)
마포삼열
주기철:

금강산 기독교수양관 전경:

First portion of Pastor Joo's sermon during The Pastor's Retreat of 1936 (April 30th to May 4th of some 200 in attendance): A rough translation

"To be a pastor signifies spiritual leader, a title for the spiritual leader of the people. The pastor's calling is comprised of prophet, priest, apostle, pastor, overseer, and elder that are recorded in Scripture.
In the world is a person who lives for his nation, a person who lives for his people, as well as a person who lives for society, us pastors are assigned directly by God to live for His glory. The world may misunderstand the pastor and have ones who call him a nationalist, the world may misunderstand the pastor and call him a socialist, but the pastor surpasses these parameters, living only for His glory, His name, and His Kingdom, as the angel of God.
Behold! the true prophets like Moses and Elijah and Nathan and John the Baptist. They delivered God's message as is, with disregard for death. Overshadowed in the face of today's church, pressed by the authorities, through the cheap occupational image, is the deplorable situation of the calling that has disappeared. The Pastor's essence are not such things. When God calls, no matter when, no matter what, no matter in what situation, to whomever it may be, the person to convey the message is the Pastor. It is the Pastor who remonstrates the emperor, and it is the Pastor who admonishes the president. Therefore the Pastor is the spokesperson who stands before God."

평양 산정현교회 (the fourth church in Pyong Yang, planted by C. F. Bernheisel)

노춘경
박태로
배위량(W. Baird)
서경조
손양원
이선광
이승훈
이만집
전덕기
주문모
최관흘
한경희
길선주: 해타론(懈惰論)

The Father of Documentary Hypothesis

2010-06-29T10:02:00.000-07:00

1) Was Moses the author of the Pentateuch?

2) What does the Pentateuch say about its own authorship?

3) Does it matter?

6.25

2010-06-25T18:25:00.000-07:00

A KPCA Lectionary?

2010-06-21T21:14:00.000-07:00

I was surprised to find a lectionary-type of devotional material for our denomination, KPCA [Korean Presbyterian Churches Abroad (formerly "in America")] Here is the entry for Tuesday, June 22, 2010.

1 John 3:10-16 (NIV)

¹⁰This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.
¹¹This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. ¹²Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous. ¹³Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. ¹⁴We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. ¹⁵Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. ¹⁶This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord

2010-06-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries* broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.’

You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.’
How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.
You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.
So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets.

Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors.
You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?
Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

See, your house is left to you, desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

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*Phylacteries: (Gr. phulakteria; i.e., “defences” or “protections”), called by modern Jews tephillin (i.e., “prayers”) are mentioned only in Matt. 23:5. They consisted of strips of parchment on which were inscribed these four texts:
(1.) Ex. 13:1-10; (2.) 11-16; (3.) Deut. 6:4-9; (4.) 11:18-21, and which were enclosed in a square leather case, on one side of which was inscribed the Hebrew letter shin, to which the rabbis attached some significance. This case was fastened by certain straps to the forehead just between the eyes. The “making broad the phylacteries” refers to the enlarging of the case so as to make it conspicuous. (See FRONTLETS.)

Frontlets: occurs only in Ex. 13:16; Deut. 6:8, and 11:18. The meaning of the injunction to the Israelites, with regard to the statues and precepts given them, that they should “bind them for a sign upon their hand, and have them as frontlets between their eyes,” was that they should keep them distinctly in view and carefully attend to them. But soon after their return from Babylon they began to interpret this injunction literally, and had accordingly portions of the law written out and worn about their person. These they called tephillin, i.e., “prayers.” The passages so written out on strips of parchment were these, Ex. 12:2-10; 13:11-21; Deut. 6:4-9; 11:18-21. They were then “rolled up in a case of black calfskin, which was attached to a stiffer piece of leather, having a thong one finger broad and one cubit and a half long. Those worn on the forehead were written on four strips of parchment, and put into four little cells within a square case, which had on it the Hebrew letter called shin, the three points of which were regarded as an emblem of God.” This case tied around the forehead in a particular way was called “the tephillah on the head.” (See PHYLACTERIES.)

"Meek"

2010-06-08T16:03:00.000-07:00

ענו n.m. poor, afflicted, humble, meek; (Num 12:3; Isa 29:19; 32:7; Pro 3:34; 14:21, 16:19; Zeph 2:3; Amos 8:4; Job 24:4...etc.)

תַּאֲוַת עֲנָוִים שָׁמַעְתָּ יְהוָה; תָּכִין לִבָּם, תַּקְשִׁיב אָזְנֶךָ

1. poor, needy Pr 14:12

2. poor and weak, oppressed by rich and powerful Am2:7

3. poor, weak, afflicted

4. humble, lowly, meek

(BDB, p.776; Accordance scan "meek": Psa 1:17, 37:11; Isa 11:4, 29:19, 2Esdr. 11:42 Matt 5:5)

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πραΰς, πραεῖα, πραΰ (Hom. +; Crinagoras [I BC / I AD]

in Anth. Pal. 10, 24, 4; 16, 273, 6; PGM 4, 1046; LXX; Jos.,

Ant. 19, 330; SibOr 4, 159 with v.l.) gen. πραέωσ (a Pt 3:4;

cp. W-S.... etc....

Mt 11:29 v.l.) pert. to not being overly impressed by a sense of one's

self-importance, gentle, humble, considerate, meek,...

unassuming

1 Pt 3:4 1Cl 13:4 (cp. Is 66:2); B19:4; Hm 5, 2, 3; 6, 2, 3; 11:8

(Leutzsch, Hermas 452, n.122). Among the qualities required of church

officials D 15:1. πρὸς τὰς ὀγράς αὐτῶν ὑμεῖς πραεῖς gentle in the face

of their wrath... Mt 5:5

(BDAG, p. 861)

Nathaniel Anthony Ayers

2010-06-03T22:30:00.000-07:00

60 Minutes: "Playing that music in that tunnel, with the cars, the exhaust and God knows what... why there?"

Ayers: "It seemed orchestral, the commotion, the calamity, and the, and the, and the, sounds,"

60 Minutes: "You are the part of the symphony in the big city."

Ayers: "well, uh schizophrenically, yes."

Another man who plays with less than six strings.
And...

1Sam. 16:23 And whenever the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand, and Saul would be relieved and feel better, and the evil spirit would depart from him.

Ensenada

2010-05-14T15:15:00.000-07:00

Morrie Schwartz on Triumphalism, Competition, and Group-Think

2010-05-06T12:37:00.000-07:00

It is 1979, a basketball game in the Brandeis gym. The team is doing well, and the student section begins a chant, "We're number one! We're number one!" Morrie is sitting nearby. He is puzzled by the cheer. At one point, in the midst of "We're number one!" he rises and yells, "What's wrong with being number two?"
The students look at him. They stop chanting. He sits down, smiling and triumphant.

(p.159, "Tuesdays with Morrie")

Twelve Makers of Modern Protestant Thought (in the West)

2010-05-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

a revised and expanded version of Ten Makers of Modern Protestant Thought. (ed. George L. Hunt)

Some highlights

Karl Barth - "When man is confronted by God, there is collision, crucifixion. The cross is seen to be the supreme and unique event of the meeting between Holy God and sinful man, and at the cross all the subtle attempts of man at self-deification and self-aggrandizement are exposed. That is particularly true of religious man, for it is primarily religious man who is the sinner. It was, after all, religious man who crucified Jesus! And yet the incredible, breathtaking fact about the cross is the sheer grace and infinite love of God, which tears away from man his rags of self-deceit, and clothes him with the righteousness of God in order to stand him on his feet again as a child of the heavenly father... This is the stage in which Barth's theology is dialectical in form. His searching questions have led him to the point where he thinks about the contrasts of Holy God and sinful man. Creator and creature, grace and judgment, God's Yes and yet God's No." (49)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer - "Exactly where spiritual discipline still has a traditional definition, 'situational ethics' is a dirty word. Yet this same Deitrich Bonhoeffer, who understood so specifically, so forcefully, so biblically the cost of discipleship, is inarguably also a father of situational ethics, of the kind of Christian morality which is not satisfied to memorize biblical injunctions and try to retrace them, but which also remembers the God met in Jesus Christ, assess the possibilities in the situation demanding decision now, and improvises a moral activity which is as appropriate as possible at this moment to the eternal will of God." (95)

Martin Buber - "In the Bible, Buber came to see, God confronts man in an intimate personal relationship in which there is a kind of conversation or 'dialogue,' a real give-and-take. From this comes a new understanding of faith and of religious truth or knowledge. What I believe or know is, in this sense, what happens to me when I meet with and respond to another in the fullness of his being as a person. This is precisely what the Bible means, says Buber, by revelation. It is not a set of propositions about God and man but a series of encounters between God and men. Faith, consequently, is not a matter of saying 'yes' with the mind to certain 'articles of faith' but a positive response of one's whole being to God who confronts him with a personal demand. The call of faith is not 'Believe that certain things are so' but 'Choose ye this day whom ye will serve,' or 'Come, follow me.'" (86)

Rudolph Bultmann - "According to Bultmann, the Bible should be read as any other piece of literature. If this is true, it could save Christians a great deal of trouble. They would not be involved in the endless hassle over the extent to which the Bible is a special kind of book. But how should 'any other' book be read? One should enter into its point of view in such a way as to read it from the perspective of the book itself. One should ask the questions of the book which the book itself is answering." (76)

Martin Heidegger - "In Being and Time, Heidegger offers a detailed phenomenological analysis of human existence. His analysis begins with everyday existence; that is to say, the mode of existence which runs along the familiar routine paths. H. believes that his mode of existence is for the most part inauthentic. Man does not really become himself in such existing, because instead of choosing and developing his possibilities, he finds that these are already chosen for him. In everyday existing, man conforms to patterns already laid down and adapts himself to the tasks that are already determined. If human existence is constituted on the one hand by possibility, this possibility is always qualified by facticity. By 'facticity' is meant the element of givenness in existence. No one ever confronts a wide-open field of possibility." (114)

Søren Kierkegaard - "So also with the proof for God's existence. As long as I keep my hold on the proof, i.e., continue to demonstrate, the existence does not come out, if for no other reason than that I am engaged in proving it; but when I let the proof go, the existence is there." (42)

Jürgen Moltmann - "After Auschwitz and as a German, Moltmann refuses to speak cheaply of hope. He likes to describe his theology of hope as an open theology of questions rather than a closed theology of answers. And he emphasizes that the point of his theology is not merely to interpret the world differently but to help to change it."(121)

Reinhold Niebuhr - "For Niebuhr, a true view of the ethical situation of man must be grounded in the Christian understanding of human nature. Niebuhr's discussion of this theme in the first part of The Nature and Destiny of Man is perhaps his greatest contribution to recent thought. To many, his analysis there of man's responsibility and sin seems the most original and creative treatment of the matter in all modern theological literature." (60)

Walter Rauschenbusch - "he felt he must live literally by the teachings and spirit of Jesus.... it was with this spirit of commitment that he accepted the pastorate of the Second German Baptist Church in New York's tough West Side, not far from the region popularly known as Hell's Kitchen. His was a congregation of working people, and the earnest young pastor soon became acutely aware of their different struggles against poverty and disease, especially in hard times. Their suffering forced him to confront social problems. As he put it, his social view 'did not come from the church. It came from outside.' It came through personal contact with poverty,..." (34)

Albert Schweitzer - "Born in 1875, he grew up in the little town of Günsbach in the then German, now French province of Alsace. His father was pastor of the Evangelical congregation. At the age of thirty A. S. resolved to give his life to some task of service to humanity as an expression of his stewardship to Christ. After considering various projects, he found his call in an advertisement of the Paris Missionary Society for a medical doctor to serve in French Equatorial Africa. He had already earned doctorates in philosophy, theology, and music. To these he now added a fourth in medicine. Then he offered his services to the Paris Society." (25)

Paul Tillich - "Tillich's drive for synthesis determines the nature of his theological thought and the method which he follows. He calls this method 'the method of correlation.' In intention it is quite simple, although its basis and implications are deep and far-reaching. It swings upon two contentions: 1) that if theology is to be 'saving theology' it must speak to the situation of that man, his real, throbbing problems of life and death; and 2) that theology and philosophy are inseparable." (66)

Alfred North Whitehead - "He was keenly interested in the new physics and worked out a theory of relativity that may yet prove more precise in its mathematical predictions than that of Einstein. He moved on to a stupendous attempt to overcome the fragmentation of modern science and its separation from the inner life of man through a fundamental reconceptualization of reality... The actual world, he asserted, is made up, not of bits of matter or patches of sense data but of atomic happenings, events, or occurrences, which he called actual occasions. Both the subelectronic quanta and momentary human experiences are examples of such occurrences. Each is an acting, feeling subject in the moment it takes place, and each then becomes an object which all those that follow must take into account. The difference between an acting subject and a passive object is the difference between the present and the past. There is no actual thing that in and of itself is always merely an object, as materialists and dualists suppose, and similarly there is no unchanging substance to which things happen. Also, there is no underlying subject who feels and acts. There are only happenings, which are also feelings and actions." (131) What? Nooooooo! (Process and Reality, "his most important book" - some notable concepts: pure possibility, and the principle of limitation - "Novelty is needed not only when the past is bad but also when it is good; for a stale good quickly becomes evil." 137-138 Really? Nooooooooooooooo!)

A Tale of 3 Adolfs

2010-05-01T21:47:00.000-07:00

One's Adolf Schlatter (16 August 1852 - 19 May 1938) and the other is Adolf Von Harnack (7 May 1851–10 June 1930). One of my colleagues likes one but not the other. They were contemporaries, and they stood intellectually at odds with each other. One was "adamant about the manifestation of God in nature and in Jesus Christ,"and the other was suspicious of the Hellenistic influences of John's gospel, eventually rejecting its authenticity, limiting himself to the Synoptics. Both are still far better than that yet another Adolf, (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) who was neither theologian nor a liberal scholar of "higher criticism", but rather had an entire nation under a wicked spell. Pretty sure that the popularity of the name "Adolf" subsided drastically after the 40's...

From "tuesdays with Morrie"

2010-04-26T22:01:00.000-07:00

"The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn't the family. It's become quite clear to me as I've been sick. If you don't have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don't have much at all. Love is so supremely important. As our great poet Auden said, 'Love each other or perish.'"
"Love each other or perish." I wrote it down. Auden said that?
"Love each other or perish," Morrie said: "It's good, no? And it's so true. Without love, we are birds with broken wings."

p.91-92

The Tree of Life

2010-04-24T15:21:00.000-07:00

36º56'N 118º08'W

2010-04-23T16:45:00.000-07:00

바디샵

2010-04-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

SBUX Addiction

2010-04-11T23:08:00.000-07:00

Exegetical Fallacies (D. A. Carson)

2010-04-10T23:04:00.000-07:00

1. Word-Study Fallacies
1.1 the root fallacy
1.2 semantic anachronism
1.3 semantic obsolescence
1.4 appeal to unknown or unlikely meanings
1.5 careless appeal to background material
1.6 verbal parallelomania
1.7 linkage of language and mentality
1.8 false assumptions about technical meaning
1.9 problems surrounding synonyms and componential analysis (the infamous agapaw / philew debate Carson leans on their semantic distinction to be insignificant)
1.10 selective and prejudicial use of evidence
1.11 unwarranted semantic disjunctions and restrictions
1.12 unwarranted restriction of the semantic field
1.13 unwarranted adoption of an expanded semantic field (this being one of my personal propensities)
1.14 problems relating to the Semitic background of the Greek New Testament
1.15 unwarranted neglect of distinguishing peculiarities of a corpus (very common in many very good preachers heard on the radio)
1.16 unwarranted linking of sense and reference

2. Grammatical Fallacies
TENSES AND MOODS
2.1.1 the aorist tense: [generally punctiliar, but not exclusively so- examples: "so then my loved ones, as you have always obeyed" (Phil 2:12); "what you have heard from the beginning (1 John 2:24); "they lived and reigned a thousand years (Rev 20:4)]
2.1.2 the first person aorist subjunctive [deliberative subjunctive, (rhetorical) pseudodeliberative subjunctive]
2.1.3 the middle voice (a generalization that when this occurs that it automatically means reflexive)
"In particular, several authors have strenuously argued that the middle verb pausontai in 1 Cor 13:8 is exegetically highly significant. Prophecies will be destroyed (katargethesontai), knowledge will be destroyed (katargethesetai) but tongues will cease (pausontai)- that is, there is no need for tongues to be destroyed (passive) by someone or something, for the middle (it is argued) suggests that tongues will cease by themselves, because of something intrinsic to their very nature. This interpretation is sometimes linked with the view that tongues played a useful role in the church until the canon was complete (some take to teleion "the perfect thing" in v. 10 to refer to the canon); but from that point on, they are intrinsically obsolete and cease. The conclusion to be drawn is that there is no valid gift of tongues today." (p. 76)
VARIOUS SYNTACTICAL UNITS
2.2.1 conditionals
2.2.2 The Article
2.2.3 the Granville Sharp rule
2.2.4 the Colwell rule and related matters
2.2.5 Relationship of tenses (a particularly pastoral example provided below validates with some force, why the hair-splitting work of careful exegesis is a must for all preachers*)
"For instance, I. Howard Marshall interprets Heb 3:6b ('and we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast,' NIV) and Heb 3:14 ('We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first,' NIV) as if they say exactly the same thing, that 'membership of God's household is conditional upon perseverance.' In one sense, of course, that is correct; but close attention to the tenses in their context in Hebrew 3:14 reveals an extra ingredient in this verse. We have become (gegonamen)- past reference, I would argue- partakers of Christ if we now, in the present, hold firmly to the confidence we had at first. It follows from this verse that although perseverance is mandated, it is also the evidence of what has taken place in the past." (a nice piece of "Reformed" theology for us Calvinists... p. 84-85)

3. Logical Fallacies
3.1 false disjunctions: an improper appeal to the law of the excluded middle
3.2 failure to recognize distinctions
3.3 appeal to selective evidence
3.4 improperly handled syllogisms
3.5 negative inferences
3.6 world-view confusion
3.7 fallacies of question-framing
3.8 unwarranted confusion of truth and precision
3.9 purely emotive appeals
3.10 unwarranted generalization and oversimplification
3.11 unwarranted associative jumps
3.12 false statements
3.13 the non sequitur
3.14 cavalier dismissal
3.15 fallacies based on equivocal argumentation
3.16 inadequate analogies
3.17 abuse of "obviously" and similar expressions
3.18 simplistic appeals to authority

4. Presuppositional and Historical Fallacies
4.1 fallacies arising from omission of distanciation in the interpretative process
4.2 interpretations that ignore the Bible's story-line
4.3 fallacies that arise from a bleak insistence on working outside the Bible's "givens"
HISTORICAL FALLACIES
4.1.1 uncontrolled historical reconstruction
4.1.2 fallacies of causation (post hoc, propter hoc; cum hoc, propter hoc; pro hoc, propter hoc, reductive fallacy, fallacy of reason as cause, fallacy of responsibility as cause)
4.1.3 fallacies of motivation
4.1.4 conceptual parallelomania

5 Opportunities for even more fallacies
1. problems related to literary genre
2. problems related to the New Testament use of the Old
3. arguments from silence
4. problems relating to juxtapositions of texts
5. problems relating to statistical arguments
6. the rise of structuralism**
7. problems in distinguishing the figurative and the literal

* But I have heard under-educated pastors do fine with the Holy Spirit, ** structural exegesis will in time prove to be useful approach to cross-cultural issues in exegesis, which emerge especially in translation.

LA Skyline on an April Fool's Day

2010-04-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

Full Moon at a Montebello Starbucks

2010-03-29T21:31:00.000-07:00

Ten Myths Concerning Communication

2010-03-17T20:41:00.000-07:00

Myth 1: Hearing the gospel with one's ears is equivalent to "being reached" with the gospel.

Romans 10:4 speaks of hearing in relation to proclamation on the one hand and to belief on the other. But many Christians seem to have a far too simplistic view of what is involved in the hearing that leads to a faith response. They often seem to equate the hearing that denotes simply listening with the hearing that denotes understanding. Thus they often give mere presentations of unadapted information in church vocabulary to unbelievers with the belief that this will automatically, magically win them. Such techniques as "street-corner" preaching and superficial uses of mass media such as radio and literature (even among nonliterates) are among the preferred techniques of such people, for they work on the assumption that if we can simply get all the world's peoples within earshot of the gospel, the whole world will soon be evangelized.

Yet simple hearing with the ears and intelligent understanding (hearing at a much deeper level) are quite distinct kinds of activity. And unless the hearers are already quite positive towards the message, deep-level understanding requires persuasion, a kind of communication not easily accomplished via such superficial uses of media. Those not already convinced or at least open to messages presented in a hit-and-run fashion by strangers who show greater commitment to the information they have to share than to the people with whom they share it. For such people usually turn them off or tune them out.

Such facts speak to the need of person-to-person, long-term communication of the gospel message as the norm, with more limited and specialized use of other vehicles such as mass media. Public communication (e.g., lecturing, preaching) and mass media (e.g., radio, television, literature) are effective when the receptors feel a great need for the message that is presented. When there is no such felt need, research has shown that those who listen are almost exclusively those who are already positive towards the message (Engel 1979:22). There is, therefore, no magic in the media, since understanding lies far deeper than exposure. God's basic method is incarnation. (p. 25)

Communication Theory for Christian Witness - Charles H. Kraft

Some more good theology

2010-03-13T13:31:00.001-08:00

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/485

Good Theology

2010-03-13T09:55:00.000-08:00

Baal

2010-03-06T22:29:00.000-08:00

The demi-urge of cost-effect
wears a three-piece suit,
strolls boulevards of commerce;
efficient, clean, and brute.

He measures all by number,
seeks a growing fame,
and two or three are never
solaced in his name.

- Penelope Duckworth

Practice

2010-02-20T13:55:00.001-08:00

Bent Bikes

2010-02-19T14:37:00.000-08:00

Luger who died told father he was terrified of Whistler track - Fourth-Place Medal - 2010 Olympics Blog - Yahoo! Sports

2010-02-15T00:25:00.001-08:00

Chul Hoe Koo (charliekoo73@yahoo.com) has sent you a news article
------------------------------------------------------------
Personal message:

Luger who died told father he was terrified of Whistler track - Fourth-Place Medal - 2010 Olympics Blog - Yahoo! Sports
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Luger-who-died-told-father-he-was-terrified-of-W?urn=oly,219592

============================================================
Yahoo! Sports - http://sports.yahoo.com/

On Art, Nature & Conservation

2010-02-08T14:52:00.000-08:00

Bowerbirds "In Our Talons" from Alan Poon on Vimeo.

The Clash of Civilizations? | Foreign Affairs

2010-02-07T22:31:00.000-08:00

The Clash of Civilizations? | Foreign Affairs

http://www.wesjones.com/eoh.htm#source

San Gabriel River Bike Trail

2010-02-03T21:38:00.000-08:00

Fight Science | National Geographic Channel

2010-02-02T23:22:00.001-08:00

Fight Science reveals the science behind Mixed Martial Arts, Special Operations, and Self-Defense. Scientists analyze the unique fighting styles and techniques of UFC fighters and special operations military personnel under the most adverse circumstances.

View >>

Cycling: Internal Brake Cable Routing

2010-02-01T11:23:00.000-08:00

Got a little bit of the bike fever again. The body craves oxygen, as oxygen is pretty good stuff... (in spite of oxidation?) The rear wheel's not true (for roundness nor straightness) but I really like this bike that I got from a guy for a great bargain, probably top three bargains of all me' life. I got it like when I was 15 or 16 and it's been hanging in the garage for like 20 years, being moved from space to space, in pieces- all until I met a homeless man who rides a bike, and once he called me for help to fix a flat. It wasn't until then that I got the idea to get back on the old pedalin' wheels again. All I had to do was to get some new tires and tubes. $30 total I think it was, at a friendly bike shop down in Lakewood. A little bit of WD40, and she was ridable again.
The wooden contraption below is something that I built in like half an hour with scrap particle board to secure the handlebars on while propping the bike upside down for minor tuning.

This same bike I saw online on Craigslist, listed as a vintage cycle which was introduced as an entry lever racer for around $425; this guy wanted $450 for his. For one that is in pristine condition, I would dare say, "not out of the question." Even back in high school I got it into my crazy little head, that it would be good to route the brake cables internally into the handlebars. I don't know why, probably because the original brake grips were already so badly worn, that I had purchased some dia compe grips that can accommodate both, internal and external cabling. Some twenty years later, I find myself finally trying it out- drilling holes into the aluminum handlebars. - if you have a fairly new bike, I do not recommend this at all- and read through this article so you do not make irreversible mistakes. (Handle bars are not cheap by any means) I do this strictly because the cables are so badly worn that I would replace them anyway, and the grips that I already have on the bike are equally fairly old. I do not know how much of the tensile strength is compromised by drilling holes into a tubular handlebar, which incidentally cuts through like butter with any ordinary wood bit.

Present system still has the cable tucked under the tape, and the tape was beginning to fray badly from weather and age. There are exit points that need about a quarter inch porting hole on both sides, just above the ring. For this you need to drill two holes one directly above the other. If you have a rotary tool, it helps to smooth out the edges of the exit ports, as well as to unify the two holes.

It is the same process for the entry ports just underside of the handle bar. If you are working with really old cables like myself, I would highly recommend replacing the cables altogether. It makes a great difference in the action you get. Cable condition greatly affects the return of the calipers- I find that my present cables have too stiff of an action, the spring tension of the calipers do not return well the brake handles to the original position.

Drilling the holes, I highly recommend taking measurements and marking where you intend to drill, as high-end cycling depends so much on precision- especially in light of step 4. I did not take my own advice- notice the false start in the photo below- no, I was not drinking when I did this, I don't do that anymore.
Drilling the holes is actually the easy part. The reassembly is a bit trickier. The feeding of the cable, especially if they have frayed ends can be a bit of a problem. Again, new cables are not that expensive, although you will be needing a cutting tool (which I myself do not have, which is why I didn't put new cables on yet)
So step by step, after the holes are drilled:
1) release the cables from the nuts that lock them into the brake calipers. (This end we will call "tail")
2) feed the "head" end through the entry ports and guide the cable out to the exit port with a small peace of coat hanger wire or a tiny hex key wrench. Now you can do this either with the wire and cable separately if necessary (2 steps for both front and rear) or together. I recommend together, if possible.
3) reattach the head piece (round, cylindrical metal tip attached to the wire) into the brake into its proper receiver.

4) reattach the brake grips to suitable riding position. (note: the vertical exit ports for the front of the handlebar is especially important at this point- you may want your grips to sit a little bit higher, in which case the lower hole should likewise, be drilled higher)
The finished result is, fully functional brakes with cables routed into the tubular aluminum handle bar. The only advantages are, a slightly neater appearance and when you grip the bar it is perfectly round as when the cable would arch over out of the tip of the grip and go down into its slots. I would have gotten ambitious and try to route it into the steel frame for the rear brake cable but that would render its present cable slots/hoists useless. At any rate, steel tubes are better not messed with, for if you drill holes you will really speed up frame corrosion. If you have an old bike and it weighs under or around 30 lbs, I highly suggest restoring it. Next to the light bulb and the toilet, I think that the bicycle is man's greatest invention (in terms of efficiency).

IX restores.

Yahoo! News Story - Bible Possibly Written Centuries Earlier, Text Suggests - Yahoo! News

2010-01-16T23:42:00.001-08:00

Bible Possibly Written Centuries Earlier, Text Suggests - Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20100115/sc_livescience/biblepossiblywrittencenturiesearliertextsuggests

============================================================
Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/

The Not-so-new Perspective on Paul

2010-01-12T09:46:00.000-08:00

Paul was cast in the role of the reforming Luther, and the Jews took the place of a legalistic Roman Catholicism. For Luther, then, and for those who have followed in his interpretive footsteps, Paul emphasizes justification by faith in order to counter the Jewish view of justification by works. Jews, in the traditional consensus, tended to base a right standing with God on the quantity of good works that a person was able to accomplish. Paul, in contrast, proclaims that a person can gain right standing with God only by an act of humble faith. Again, I suspect that many of us would readily identify this understanding of matters as the one we have been taught. Indeed, many of us have probably considered this way of looking at Paul and the Jews as obvious and unquestioned.
But suppose the Jewish people in Paul's day were not teaching justification by works? This is precisely the question that a significant number of scholars have begun asking in the last thirty years. The seminal figure is E. P. Sanders, who wrote a book in 1977 that systematically argued for a very different view of the ancient Jewish faith than had been customary among both scholars and laypeople. Essentially, Sanders claims that Jews in Paul's day did not believe that they would be saved by obeying the law, or by "good works." They believed that God had established a covenant with the Jewish people and that they would be saved because, as Jews, they belonged to that covenant. Salvation was based, then, on God's covenant election. To be sure, Jews made a great deal of obeying the law. They obeyed God's law, however, not to "get saved" but to "stay saved," not to enter into the covenant but to stay in the covenant. Sanders dubbed this way of understanding first-century Judaism "covenantal nomism" ("Nomism" comes from the Greek word for "law", nomos, and is a deliberate contrast to "legalism.") Although Sanders was not the first to argue this understanding of Judaism, his book came at the right time to create a significant shift in the scholarly consensus.
Many scholars now agree that Sander's covenantal nomism describes first century Judaism accurately. But how, then, should we read Romans? What is Paul's point when he claims, "No one will be declared righteous in his [God's] sight by observing the law" (literally, "by works of the law") )(Rom 3:20)? If Jews did not claim that a person had to do the law to be justified before God, why would Paul say this? Scholars have come up with quite a variety of answers to these questions. The most persuasive answers have come from James D. G. Dunn. Picking up from the first point above- about how Paul was most concerned with the "people" issue- Dunn argues that Paul's problem with "works of the law" was that they excluded Gentiles from God's salvation in Christ. Jewish devotion to the law was wrapped up in the covenant that God made with Israel. But that covenant was made with Israel and not with the other peoples of the world. So when Christ came to offer salvation to all, obedience to the law could no longer be the focal point of the people of God. This is where the Jews were making their mistake, Dunn thinks. Their problem, in Paul's view, was not that they were insisting that people had to obey the law to be saved. (Sanders had already shown that this was not the case.) Rather, their problem was that they were trying to keep God's salvation to themselves by clinging to the law as their badge of national privilege. The problem Paul had with "works of the law," then, was not so much the "works" part as the "law" part. With the coming of Christ, Paul was arguing in verses like Romans 3:20, being justified by God was no longer tied to the Jewish covenant but was freely available to everyone.
The kind of interpretation that Dunn argues has become widely accepted among scholars. Indeed, people talk about a "paradigm shift" in Pauline studies and speaks of the new perspective on Paul and on Romans. Why is it important to learn about it? Because it suggests a different way of approaching and reading Romans. Our understanding of many individual verses and paragraphs in the letter will be changed if we adopt the new perspective as the lens through which we read the book.
So we now have two different approaches to Romans on the table before us: 1) the "Reformation approach," with its focus on individual salvation and assumption of Jewish legalism; and 2) the "new perspective," with its focus on people groups and a covenantal nomistic view of Judaism. Which should we adopt? How should we read Romans?

Douglas J. Moo "Encountering The Book of Romans"

----------------------------------------------------

I'd say both.

Messages are Mediated

2010-01-07T11:45:00.001-08:00

"It is said that the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan, who built the fabulous Taj Majal of India, was overthrown by his son and then confined to rooms in a guarded palace a few miles away. The magnificent white marble building was visible from the balcony of his rooms, but Shah Jahan could not see it. He had become so nearsighted that any thing more than a few feet away was merely a blur of light and shadow. So he placed a mirror in a stone pillar of the balcony, positioned to reflect the image of the Taj Majal. He could then see the glorious monument to his wife by looking into the mirror. The mirror "mediated" the image so that Shah Jahan could see his beloved building instead of a confused jumble of light." ("Creating Understanding" Donald K. Smith)

βλέπομεν γὰρ ἄρτι δι' ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι, τότε δὲ πρόσωπον πρὸς πρόσωπον: ἄρτι γινώσκω ἐκμέρους, τότε δὲ ἐπιγνώσομαι καθὼς καὶ ἐπεγνώσθην.

ἡμεῖς δὲ πάντες ἀνακεκαλυμμένῳ προσώπῳ τὴν δόξαν κυρίου κατοπτριζόμενοι τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόναμεταμορφούμεθα ἀπὸ δόξης εἰς δόξαν, καθάπερ ἀπὸ κυρίου πνεύματος.

(1Cor 13:12, 2Cor 3:18)

Yahoo! News Story - Giant tuna fetches $177,000 at Japan fish auction - Yahoo! News

2010-01-05T13:50:00.001-08:00

Giant tuna fetches $177,000 at Japan fish auction - Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_giant_tuna_sold

============================================================
Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/

Lunatika

2009-12-26T22:02:00.000-08:00

CURRENT MOON

moon info

Hell

2009-12-18T00:52:00.000-08:00

Sheol or Gehenna, is expounded in cross-cultural settings. Consider these conceptualizations of hell, one from China (Daoism- which I believe can be redeemed if Dao is to mean "The Way"- an early term for Christianity [Acts]); and the more popularized western version from the Italian, Dante.