I want to ask this question here because I think we have probably the most diverse set of voices in the blogosphere. Except maybe for CNET.

Recently I had a conversation with someone who was adamant that because our church used the New Living Translation of the bible in our pews we were somehow less “biblical”. Of course this person was arguing vehemently that the King James Version bible is the truest form of scripture. By no means is this person dumb or a KJV 1611′er by any stretch.

So I have to ask…Really? In my experience and my study the KJV version is probably the worst for translation accuracy. So I’m miffed why people fight so hard for this.*

Thoughts?

*THIS IS NOT AN ARTICLE ABOUT THE MESSAGE!

Tags: kjv 1611, people, thoughts?

I’m reading a wonderful little book by Mitch Albom. The book is called Have a Little Faith. Every now and again a book sort of creeps up on me and disturbs me…in a beautiful and wonderful sort of way. So far this book is doing just that.

I read this today and thought I would offer it up to you for your thought and consideration.

Albom is telling the story of being in class one day in 1974 when the teacher began discussing the Red Sea crossing by the just emancipated Hebrews.

“There is a Talmudic commentary here,” the teacher says. … “After the Israelites safely crossed the Red Sea, the Eyptians chased after them and were drowned. God’s angels wanted to celebrate the enemy’s demise.”

“According to the commentary, God saw this and grew angry. He said, in essence, ‘Stop celebrating. For those were my children, too’” (76).

Be blessed, my friends.

I’m sort of bothered that Christmas is gone already. It’s even worse as an adult waiting all year for Christmas and then having it pass by so quickly. That bugs me. But this year has been a lot of fun for a lot of different reasons and I am unhappy it is over so soon.

I learned a lot about Christmas this year. It’s been a long time since I was able to merely participate in a Christmas Eve worship. I did a little singing this year, but that’s about all. It’s a different thing to sit in the pews on Christmas Eve.

Anyhow, blah, blah, blah. I thought I would share this one last post with you since I’m certain there are other things planned for the not too distant future. There’s a really nice article posted at Credenda agenda that I thought you might be interested in reading. Find it here: How NT Wright Stole Christmas.

I am especially fond of this:

Several years ago, when The Passion of the Christ was making headlines, I realized that N. T. Wright has spoiled every Jesus film.  Once you’ve read Wright, you realize that none of the movies get Jesus right.  Pharisees and scribes are reduced stock villains with caricatured Jewish features.  Pilate has to make an appearance, and Herod, but we are given no sense that first-century Israel was the powder keg that it actually was.

No film ever gives us what Wright says we should be looking for: a “crucifiable” Jesus, a Jesus who does something so provocative to make the Jews murderously hostile.  In the movies, Jesus is a hippy peace-child, a delicate flower of a man, a dew-eyed first-century Jewish Gandhi.  Why would anyone want to hurt Him?  Maybe because He’s so annoyingly precious; but that’s not the story of the gospels.

Just this year, I had another realization.  N. T. Wright has spoiled Christmas too.

NT Wright excites a lot of different emotions in people when he writes, but one thing is for certain: He is going to be honest with his readers. Disagree with Wright we may, but we will never come away from reading his work without being challenged to honestly think about Jesus, Scripture, and how the two shape the faith we call ‘christianity.’

Be a blessing.

HT: Internet Monk

Every year my mom writes a Christmas poem that she and my dad use as their Christmas wishes.  Below is this year’s poem.

She has also written a book of 25 Christmas poems and family devotionals available here.

May you all be blessed by the words and wisdom of the most amazing mother a girl could have!

I saw this over at Boar’s Head Tavern and thought it might be fun here too.

Richard Dawkins recently wrote (I suppose he probably should have just quoted himself) that “Darwinian theory was the best idea of all time.” That may or may not be true.

The fellas at Boar’s Head are having some fun with it–someone even suggested Beer was the best idea ever and another the bacon cheeseburger.

What’s your take? What’s the best idea ever?

I’ll start by saying the dark chocolate M & M.

Interesting article on Internet Controversies.

From the article:

The Internet has been a breeding ground for controversy from the start. Part of this is a result of the fact that the Internet is the great neutralizer; it empowers everyone to have a voice.

Emphasis mine.

It seems that lately, I only post on Friday’s after the open thread (sorry Chris L). This stat was passed onto me yesterday via Facebook and I thought I’d pass it on to you here. I found it to be profound.

WARNING! This may involve picking your jaw up off the ground after reading. Proceed with caution… Rev. Clenard Childress, Northeast Region President of the Life Education & Resource Network… “The abortion industry kills as many Black people every four days as the Klan killed in 150 years. Since 1973, legal abortion has killed more Blacks than AIDS, cancer, diabetes, heart disease & violent crime combined.”

When I was in college everyone had to take a logic class. Quite frankly; I hated it, struggled to pass it, and was determined never to use logic again.

Then I started blogging and quickly came to realize that given the nature of blogging (quickly written arguments) that logic was often a “dead language”. It became evident that given enough time, or not enough time, any argument would disintegrate into ad hominem attacks on red herring arguments which in essence were only straw men.

Not really recalling much of my logic class from 10 years ago and struggling to keep up in the “fight” I determined to learn “logic” again. Wikipedia here I come.

One of the quickest things I learned was about the Sophist movement in Greece. People who argued every side of an argument without any real logical basis. Therefore everything they argued had shreds of truth but anything taken to its logical conclusion didn’t make sense.

So my point is this; after learning a fair amount about logic I’ve come to the conclusion that most christian blogs, that are so adamant about the “Truth”, are actually just Sophists.

Anybody care to argue? You can talk to the complaint department.

Tags: Blogging, logic, monkey

This just in; the real Jesus has opened a twitter account. His first five tweets…

@WomanatWell “Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

@ManontheRoad “”Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

@FishingSimon “”Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

@FastingPharisee “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse.”

@TaxingTree “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”

No sinners prayer, no repent, no you’re a sinner????? I’m not to sure that this Jesus is the real Jesus.

Tags: Jesus, twitter, words

I don’t like to do a whole lot of talking about Rob or Mars and the like here in the blog world. I’m going to bump up against that line with this post and tell you that I think you should go and listen to the podcast from 11.15. Dan Allender spoke and as that Sunday was also the first day of gun season I did not attend. I was just able to listen to the podcast today. It is phenomenal. You can find it here if you’re not a regular subscriber.