Flooding in Ukraine

My last post for the night: Malcolm Stanley reports on flooding in Ukraine in the Lviv and Ivano Frankivsk area (which we visited last fall). Please pray.

Red River Raycer

The Red River Raycer has finished in 9th place in the 2008 North American Solar Challenge. It's a great looking car and a great looking finish. I'm mighty proud of my old college, and, in particular, its Mechanical Technology Department.

Ezekiel, Calvary, the Tomb, and the ESV Study Bible

Three interviews:
What Did Calvary Look Like? An Interview with Leen Ritmeyer (Part 1)
What Did Jesus' Tomb Look Like? An Interview with Leen Ritmeyer (Part 2)
Interview with David Reimer on Ezekiel in the ESVSB

See the ESVSB's website.

Some complementary links

Andy Naselli has an interesting interview with Andreas Kostenberger on his views on 1 Timothy 2.12 and women's roles in the church. Elsewhere, John Koessler writes

While I am not ashamed of complementarian theology, I am sometimes ashamed of complementarians.

I'm fairly confident that Kostenberger is not one of those complementarians.

Lennox versus Hitchens

First he debated Richard Dawkins. Now John Lennox will square off with Christopher Hitchens. I have no doubt that Lennox will be up to the challenge. The question is, will Hitchens. It is for him we must pray.

HT: David Reimer

We are more than conquerors

Some great quotes I came across recently in preparing a couple messages interacting with positive thinking.

On Romans 5.1-11

Douglas Moo

Sufferings, rather than threatening or weakening our hope, as we might expect to be the case, will, instead, increase our certainty in that hope. Hope, like a muscle, will not be strong if it goes unused. (Romans commentary, p.303)

On Romans 8.35-38

Chrysotom

Yet those that be against us, so far are they from thwarting us at all, that even without their will they become to us the causes of crowns, and procurers of countless blessings, in that God's wisdom turneth their plots unto our salvation and glory. See how really no one is against us! (Moo p.539)

John Stott

Our confidence is not in our love for him, which is frail, fickle and faltering, but in his love for us, which is steadfast, faithful and persevering. The doctrine of 'the perseverance of the saints' needs to be re-named. It is the doctrine of the perseverance of God with the saints. (The Message of Romans, 259-60)

2 Corinthians 4.17

John Piper

Affliction raised his sword to cut off the head of Paul's faith. But instead the hand of faith snatched the arm of affliction and forced it to cut off part of Paul's worldliness. Affliction is made the servant of godliness and humility and love. Satan meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. The enemy became Paul's slave and worked for him an even greater weight of glory than he would have ever had without the fight. In that way Paul—and every follower of Christ—is more than a conqueror. (Don't Waste Your Life, p.97)

Every Christian a Bible scholar; every scholar a Bible-lover

Dave Black puts in a plug for Erasmus, which, as it turns out, is also a plug for reading the Bible (especially in Greek and Hebrew). Here's Erasmus:

“I am now eager, dear Colet, to approach sacred literature full sail, full gallop; I have an extreme distaste for anything that distracts me from it, or even delays me…. Hereafter I intend to address myself to the Scriptures and to spend the rest of my life upon them.”

BTW, I recently listened to a message by Mark Driscoll that really encouraged me in the same way. That is, to read the Bible for myself, to read it lots, and to read it to find Jesus. He disclosed the six practical questions he asks of a text. I'm already working on adopting them for myself:

1. What does the Bible say in this passage?
2. What does this passage mean?
3. What is the hook in the passage?
4. Where is the resistance to this passage? (the apologetical question)
   
5. What is the significance of this passage (to me, to my family, to my church, to my city)?
6. Where is Jesus in this passage?
   

A backlog of links

Download Jonathan Edwards' The Religious Affections for FREE!

John Piper has an excellent article entitled Why God Doesn't Fully Explain Pain.

Scientists beware: the PC police do not like the term 'black hole'. (HT Denyse O'Leary)

A little exercise for young theologians: don't sing too loud when you're going through theological puberty. (While I might add a few qualifications to it, this post offers some wise advise to younger bloggers, writers and preachers like me.)

Actually, Doug Wilson has a number of books out/coming out in response to the evangelists of atheism.

In print to online, and online to in print

Books by David Gooding and John Lennox are available online for free at keybibleconcepts.org . This is huge; avail yourself of it.

Also, that debate I enjoyed so much between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson is now being published as a book. I love the Wilson quote on the front cover:

You gonna do something or just stand there and bleed?

It's rich my friends, oh it's rich.