one-handed catch up

While I am laid up, I’m going to try to catch up on a few things I have noticed but not given any commentary on over the last few months. These comments are going to come in the order that they appear in my Bloglines reader.

First item: a little something from 9marks back in October, Three Books Church Planters Should Read, and A Lesson in Not Following Instructions. The point of interest to me in this post is Dever’s recommendation of J. I. Packer’s Fundamentalism and The Word of God. Packer’s thesis concerning fundamentalism in this book essentially goes this way: “Fundamentalists were useful idiots in their day, but thank God, this isn’t their day.” So much for the hopes of influencing conservative evangelicals towards fundamentalism.

Brian has an interesting post from just two days ago, “Mark Noll, Biblical Literalism, and Slavery“. Brian exposes the bigoted evangelical viewpoint towards normal hermeneutics in this post. Of course, Brian is much more polite than I am.

Scott Dean gives us this excellent quote from Judson:

Let us depend upon it, that nothing but real faith in Christ, proved to be genuine by a holy life, can support us at last. That faith which consists merely in a correct belief of the doctrines of grace and prompts self-denial – that faith which allows us to spend all our days in serving self, content with merely refraining from outward sins, “and attending to the ordinary duties of religion – is not faith at all. – Adoniram Judson

Scott Aniol is possibly the most prolific writer on music philosophy these days, especially from a Fundamentalist viewpoint. He offers a 20 page paper entitled “Correcting Categories: The Bible, Music, and Emotionhere. I have only skimmed this article, but it looks well worth reading to me.

Tim Ashcraft posts a list of offerings for Christmas here. Most of these are collections of sermons regarding the Christmas season. They look to be excellent resources for those of us who love to preach special Christmas series (more here, scroll down). An excellent list already making a siren call to my wallet…

This one is a curiosity. “Scientists Say Copernicus’ Remains, Grave Found” — I remember using Copernicus as an illustration in freshman speech … one of my few memories from a class I try to block of my mind! [Not the teachers fault!]

An article from NASA, “Solar Wind Rips Up Martian Atmosphere” reminds us of what a truly unique and hospitable place the earth is. Of course, the NASA scientists attempt to find naturalistic explanations for what they observe, but what they do observe reminds me of “What a Mighty God we Serve”.

Dr. Michael Haykin provides an audio presentation concerning John Milton with readings from some of his works.

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well, there you have it — catching up on things that interested me over the last few months. All one-handed, with the aid of Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

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