Archives For October 2009

Last Note from the Tilt-A-Whirl!

October 23, 2009 — 3 Comments

wilson.jpg

Nathan Wilson quotes Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative, then he invents an instructive dialogue between two students evaluating it:

Kant’s categorical imperative: Act only according to maxims which you can desire to be universal.

Student One: That doesn’t make sense. It’s a cheapened golden rule. Without a creating God imposing it, it’s entirely arbitrary. Logic can’t give you goodness, just validity. And if it could, how would a “rational” law achieve any actual authority in an accidental world?

Student Two rebuts: Think about bicycle theft. What if everyone stole bicycles?

Student One: We’d all have someone else’s bicycle.

—N. D. Wilson, Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl

In Books, Theology
 permalink

Can’t Stop Tilting

October 22, 2009 — Leave a comment

wilson.jpg

Nathan Wilson feels sorry for the philosopher who urged the good riddance of the weak, only to end up deranged himself, cared for by his sister:

I have never been irritated by Nietzsche, never annoyed. At his most blasphemous, at his most riotously hateful and pompous, I have only ever been able to laugh. But even then, there is something bittersweet about the laughter. I know his story. I know how his bluff was called, how he was broken. Again from The Anti-Christ: “The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it.” Spake the paralytic. The man fed with a spoon by those who loved him. “What is more harmful than any vice—Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak—Christianity. . . .” And yet, because I see the world through my eyes and not his, I have sympathy for Nietzsche himself. Bodies and minds are not all that can be botched in a man. Souls can be hollow, twisted, thrashing.

—N. D. Wilson, Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl

In Books
 permalink

BibleWorks and Your Hundreds of Hours Studying Greek

October 21, 2009 — Leave a comment

Rod Decker’s blog is definitely a must-subscribe for those who love the Greek New Testament.

I strongly amen the note he plays in this post, the same note played (on a saxophone, in this case) by Con Campbell, someone who is also very serious about Greek.

The upshot: BibleWorks and Logos give, and they take away.

In NTScholarship, Tech
 permalink

1Marks Interview Series

October 19, 2009 — 6 Comments

0912091800.jpg

At this year’s very enjoyable BJU Seminary retreat at the Wilds, Dr. Robert Bell kindly agreed to sit for the first interview in what I hope to make a series, the 1Marks Interview Series. (While other ministries can afford to hire multiple Marks, βλογάπη has only one, and he actually pays to work here.)

I apologize for the somewhat low audio quality; I made the mistake of adjusting the laptop (on loan from Grace & Knowledge) on two or three occasions, and loud, unpleasant sounds on the recording were the result! I have since purchased a nicer microphone to help with other work I do, so future sessions should be greatly improved!

Here are some of the questions I asked Dr. Bell:

  • How far along are you in your OTT? What does your beard have to do with it?
  • How would you summarize your approach to biblical theology, especially as it relates to systematic theology?
  • Whose approach has been most influential for you in this area?
  • What do you think of Bruce Waltke’s OTT?
  • Do you think fundamentalism needs more scholars?
  • Do you think Bible software has overall increased your productivity or decreased it?
  • I recently read David Gordon’s Why Johnny Can’t Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers.* His thesis is that media have shaped incoming seminary students by vastly decreasing their ability to interpret texts. Have you personally noticed such a decrease over your decades teaching?

*The questions I asked Dr. Bell actually contained no hyperlinks.

In ChurchLife, NTScholarship
 permalink

Pistis Faith

October 19, 2009 — 3 Comments

This entire post is balderdash. Though the Scripture verses certainly stand, the scaffolding I’ve erected around them is made of store-brand Q-tips.

But I’ve got a purpose in it all. This post should be like the definition of metaphor I once read: you take two things and place them close together, hoping that a spark will jump across the gap and illuminate them both. But I’m not telling you what the other thing is! You’ll have to guess! The guess will create the spark!

So let’s see some comments. What’s the point of my balderdash? Can anyone make it even balder? What’s the main thing I’m trying to illuminate? Only regular readers will likely figure it out…

•       •       •

"When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8 NASB)

The Greek word underlying the term "faith" in this verse is pistis, a word that denotes a faith in Christ without any modicum of physical sight. Pistis faith is a rich, doctrinal faith, because it’s the word Jude uses when he talks about "the faith once delivered to the saints." Faith, in fact, is not mere belief; it is doctrine.

"Faith" here is also not mere "trust." "Trust" (in Greek, peitho) is something anyone can have, Christian or not, because it is something based on evidence available to one’s physical sight. It was easy for Israel to "trust" in the military help of Egypt, for example, because Egypt’s army was a tangible entity that they could view with their own eyes (2 Kings 18:20–21, LXX). This kind of trust is a persuasion based on evidence. It is not saving, pistis faith.

Christians "walk by faith"—pistis faith—and "not by sight" (2 Cor 5:7). And pistis faith is something that only God’s children can have, because only they know the doctrine which pistis faith entails.

For example, when several men brought to Jesus a paralytic to be healed, He "saw their faith (pistis)," and He responded by saying, "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven." Jesus would not forgive the sins of someone who merely trusted in or was persuaded by the visible evidence that Jesus was a healer. The men who brought their friend to Jesus had pistis faith; they knew enough doctrine about Jesus—that He was Messiah, come to save them from their sins—that Jesus knew they had saving faith, doctrinal faith, pistis faith.

This is why Paul in Ephesians 2:8 can say that we are saved "through faith." Pistis faith is absolutely essential for salvation. Mere evidence-based "trust" alone would never be enough to save someone. And this verse reveals something else important about pistis faith: it is “a gift,” something divine in origin.

Without pistis faith, it is impossible to please God, says Hebrews 11:6. And that verse adds something very important to our understanding. It says that pistis faith is "necessary" (Greek: dei). The world is happy to "trust" in what it sees, but it is necessary for Christians to have doctrinal faith without sight, pistis faith.

*Stay tuned for the next post in this series, “Elpis Hope.”*

In Dissertation
 permalink

Save $100 on BibleWorks 8

October 16, 2009 — Leave a comment

I just received the following announcement from the BJU Campus Store, and I’m passing it on to BJU students as an FYI. (I used to run this program at BJU; you can now direct all inquiries to Joseph Markey as stated below.)

If your school has 10 or more people interested in BibleWorks, you, too, can save $100 on it. Contact BibleWorks here.

Special Savings on BibleWorks

The Campus Store is offering a special price on BibleWorks to qualified individuals through the BibleWorks Institutional Promotion Program (IPP).  For a limited time you can place an order to receive BibleWorks on DVD for $250 plus tax and/or shipping if applicable (regular price is $349).  Please note that BibleWorks is a Windows program and does not natively support Macintosh (please see this Bibleworks site for more information).

This special promotion is available only to Students, Faculty/Staff and Alumni of Bob Jones University and is limited to one item per qualified individual.  The deadline to qualify for this special promotion is November 13, 2009.  Orders will not be accepted after that time.  Please note that this group discount only applies to groups of 10 or more and will not be available if less than 10 individuals order.

Ordering Instructions: All order must include your name, e-mail address, phone number, and mailing address. Please e-mail your ordering information to Joseph Markey (jmarkey) and reference BibleWorks in the subject of your e-mail.  BibleWorks is also available on CD if needed for your computer.  The price for the CD version is $255.  Please specify in your order if you need the CD version instead of the DVD.

All IPP orders will be available at the Campus Store approximately 2-3 weeks after the November 13, 2009 deadline.  You will be notified by e-mail when your copy arrives.

To learn more about BibleWorks, come to my seminar at Heritage Bible Church, Saturday, Nov. 7.

In Books, Tech
 permalink

Media Are Not Neutral

October 15, 2009 — Leave a comment

I wrote the title above as I was progressing through this little counterpoint blog at the New York Times. And then I ran into this statement from Yale prof (and Unabomber victim) David Gelernter:

The tools (as usual) are neutral. It’s up to us to insist that onscreen reading enhance, not replace, traditional book reading. It’s up to us to remember that the medium is not the message; that the meaning and music of the words is what matters, not the glitzy vehicle they arrive in.

Amen.

More wisdom, this time from a child development professor at Tufts:

My greatest concern is that the young brain will never have the time (in milliseconds or in hours or in years) to learn to go deeper into the text after the first decoding, but rather will be pulled by the medium to ever more distracting information, sidebars, and now, perhaps, videos (in the new vooks).

Amen, and amen! Now Gloria Mark of UC Irvine:

My own research shows that people are continually distracted when working with digital information. They switch simple activities an average of every three minutes (e.g. reading email or IM) and switch projects about every 10 and a half minutes. It’s just not possible to engage in deep thought about a topic when we’re switching so rapidly.

And I end by going back to Gelernter on words. Perhaps his Jewish heritage conditions him to recognize that words are all-important. Our Christian heritage ought to tell us the same. It does matter how you train yourself to interact with words, because good reading (or listening) is a skill and an art—as well as a foundation for godliness.

The most important ongoing change to reading itself in today’s online environment is the cheapening of the word. In teaching college students to write, I tell them (as teachers always have) to make every word count, to linger on each phrase until it is right, to listen to the sound of each sentence.

But these ideas seem increasingly bizarre in a world where (in any decent-sized gathering of students) you can practically see the text messages buzz around the room and bounce off the walls, each as memorable as a housefly; where the narrowing time between writing for and publishing on the Web is helping to kill the art of editing by crushing it to death. The Internet makes words as cheap and as significant as Cheese Doodles.

Read the whole thing.

In Culture, Tech
 permalink

Technology Giveth; Technology Taketh Away

October 15, 2009 — 1 Comment

The line at the end of this paragraph is brilliant, brilliant! Thank you Lev Grossman of Time! This is a truth I’m convinced our generation of Bible students and pastors must get, or we’ll miss out on true riches. 

[Google] Wave isn’t actually an e-mail killer. In practice, it’s more like an insanely rich IM client. E-mail is asynchronous; you can wait an hour or (if you are, like me, a bad person) a week to answer it. But because Wave operates in real time, it demands immediate attention like an IM or a phone call or, for that matter, a crying baby. When Wave is up, it’s hard to focus on anything else. That isn’t a defect, but it does narrow the scope of its usefulness. Getting more information right away isn’t always the most efficient way to work.

Having 250 potential articles and excerpts fed to you by Logos’ Passage Guide is helpful only if you can maintain your focus on the question you originally asked. Sure, I enjoy the serendipity of running across a neat article on “Linguistics” while reading a dictionary article on “Love.” But rabbit trails lead to Rome just as surely as roads do! Follow that cute little bounding animal, and before you know it you’re standing in a 3-D Coliseum and your wife is saying it’s time for dinner. Your study time is done, and you never read a lick about love.

In NTScholarship, Piety, Tech
 permalink

BibleWorks Seminars!

October 12, 2009 — Leave a comment

You’re invited to a Greenville, S.C., area BibleWorks Seminar at Heritage Bible Church, Saturday, November 7. There are two seminars:

Beginner to Intermediate (9 am to 12 pm)

Go from ground zero to knowing everything you need to know for daily BibleWorks use in just three hours. Special focus on tools aiding exegesis, especially quick and accurate searching. Includes fun activities like the BibleWorks radio show!

Advanced (1 pm to 4 pm)

Review your intermediate BibleWorks knowledge and then learn what all those other buttons do, including the Advanced Graphical Search Engine. Presenter will include time for questions and remain for more, so come prepared!

Each seminar includes a brief philosophy of technology, the opportunity to install a simple electronic filing system, and as much personal consultation as possible.

Cost

  • $30 for each three-hour seminar; $45 for any two.
  • Student Price: $15 for each three-hour seminar.
  • (Free for Heritage pastors; $10 each for Heritage members).

Pay here or reserve a spot here.

In Tech
 permalink

A Google Voice Tip

October 9, 2009 — 1 Comment

If you have Google Voice like I do, you probably—like I did—took a look at its features and then quailed at the thought of alerting everyone to a new cellphone number. That’s quite a commitment, and, frankly, I don’t think I’m ready for that emotionally.

But I discovered a way to use some of GV’s neatest features without commitment! You can forward voicemail calls to GV, and it will send you an e-mail and or SMS with a transcription of the message. No more listening to the fifteen-minute voicemail intro!

If you have a Verizon phone, you can just dial *71 then your Google Voice number. Hit send, and you’re done. You can adjust settings in GV for how you want to be alerted when you get a call. Worked for me!

HT: Lifehacker

In Solipsism, Tech
 permalink