HARMLESS THOUGHTS

From Life's best photos of the week , here is the final Space Shuttle mission as it broke through the clouds. click to enlarge

In my daily Bible reading, I came across this passage of scripture in Numbers 15: While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. They put him in custody, because it had not been made clear what should be done to him. And the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.” And all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, as the Lord commanded Moses. I want to offer up a blog about this passage, a profound blog, but frankly, I am at a loss. I know that as I read this, the words of Francis Chan, from that video I posted a couple of days ago , came to me.  I don't have time to re-watch the video right now to make sure I am word-for-word, but I remember him saying something along these lines, "We have a tenden...

I am in the middle of receiving a triple (or potentially quadruple) punch combination from some of the books that I have been reading lately. I am being hit with various forms of the question, "What are you doing with your time?" The first punch came from the book Worldliness by CJ Mahaney and friends. It may have been several small punches combined, but I definitely received a wallop from this book. Especially the chapters dealing with various forms of media consumption. If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it ... if you want to get smacked in the face with some serious truth and relevant questions. The second punch is coming from my current Christian Audio book titled, The Next Story by Tim Challies. This book is dealing with the advances of media and technology and what affects it is having and could potentially have. It is a challenging book, and as he moves past the interesting, intellectual and instructional portions of the book, he brings it...

Excellent book trailer for a new book that is coming out by Francis Chan called erasing hell . If you have 10 minutes to spare in your life (which you do), then this would be a worthwhile use of those 10 minutes. ps. Anyone want to buy me this book? If you buy it for yourself, use my link so I at least get a percentage from Amazon.com ! :) [HT: Tim Challies ]

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Lord God of truth, is whoever knows these things by the fact pleasing to you? No, unhappy is the man who knows all this, but does not know you; happy is he who knows you, eve if he does not know such things. Indeed, a man who knows both you and these things too is not the happier because of them, but because of you alone is he happy, if knowing you, he likewise glorifies you, gives thanks to you, and does not become vain in his own thoughts.  A man who knows that he owns a tree, and gives thanks to you for its fruit, even though he may not know how many cubits high it is or how wide it spreads, is better than one who measures it and counts all its branches, but does no own it and does not know or love its creator.  It is thus with the man of faith, to whom all things serve, is as one having nothing yet possessing all things, although he does not know even the circles of the Great Bear.  It is folly to doubt that he is far better than one who measures the skies, and counts...

From the Doghouse Diaries : Click to view larger version. via 22 words

Tim Challies, over at Challies.Com , used to do a series of blog posts titled "Reading Classics Together."  While doing these posts, he would invite his readers to... well... read a classic together.  I always wanted to follow along with his posts, but I never had the book and/or I didn't have the time to add  another book onto my current reading list. A couple of days ago he posted again that he was going to start another classic.  He posted a poll for his readers to decide which classic to read, and the one that was decided upon was Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen. At first I was disappointed because I just don't have the funds to purchase another book, but at the end of his post he had a link to reformedaudio.org that has a free pdf version of the book and a free audio book version of the book.  ( Click here to go to the Machen page to download the audio book or the pdf.) Challies is planning on starting this book on June 2.  To...

I just finished preaching through the book of James at church.  It took me nearly a year to exposit my way through this amazing letter, but we made it.  Near the end of the letter you will find this command: "Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another..." (James 5:16a ESV) I don't have the whole verse here, and I have excluded the surrounding verses which are important for understanding the context of this verse, but they don't change the "punch" found in this command.  I'll put it to you this way... There are some men that I know (and I've been one of them) who have never... Never... been obedient to this command.  There are many other men who are so seldom obedient to this command, it might as well be disobedience.  In fact, there are men that I know who, at the thought of this command, will (voluntarily or not, I am not sure) roll their eyes at the prospect. We could talk about what it means exactly and how this wou...

I just finished the audio book , Worldliness by C.J. Mahaney with contributing authors: John Piper (Foreword), Dave Harvey, Bob Kauflin, Jeff Purswell, and Craig Cabaniss. The book begins with a challenging first chapter by Mahaney, wondering if the verse, I John 2:15, which says, "Do not love the world or anything in the world." is in Your Bible.  Is it?  What does this verse mean?  This is the basic premise of the book, God's call to be in the world, but not love the world or anything in the world. The following chapters deal with different areas of life and how to incorporate this command in a real way.  Chapter two deals with the media.  Chapter three focuses on music.  Chapter four challenges the place of stuff in our hearts.  Chapter five discusses clothing.  The final chapter of the book really brings it together with a discussion on how to love the world. As a whole, I found this book to be especially convicting.  The question...

I wanted to do a blog post about on this topic, but once again someone else beat me to it and did a way better job explaining than I would have... or could have. Here is a link to John Piper's answer to that question . (Found it via Randy Alcorn's quoting of it .) Piper's article begins with these statements: In response to Osama bin Laden’s death, quite a few tweets and blogs have cited the biblical truth that “God does not delight in the death of the wicked.” That is true.                                   It is also true that God does delight in the death of the wicked. There are things about every death that God approves in themselves and things about every death that God disapproves in themselves. There is much more to the article, but you will need to click through to see is explanation and Biblical support. Another great resource on this topic is Andy Naselli's blog post titled Don Carson...

I just finished the book Galileo by Mitch Stokes from the Christian Encounters Series .  I received this book from BookSneeze . I am going to start this review by telling you that I immensely enjoyed this book. I don't normally read biographies, but I was drawn to this one because I feel some small amount of kindred with all mathematicians.  I can't say that I had any specific curiosity about Galileo in particular, but all of the historical scientists and mathematicians grab some measure of my attention. As I started this book, I noticed immediately a couple of things about the author, Mitch Stokes.  First, I noticed the amount of work that must have gone into this book from the immense amount of footnoting.  The book ends with the 16 pages of referenced footnotes.  When an author goes to that much effort to validate what he is saying, you walk away feeling like you have read an accurate account and not simply one author's opinion. The second thing ...

What is the G.O.S.P.E.L.? G.O.S.P.E.L. from Humble Beast Records on Vimeo . via NHCC

In case you hadn't heard this yet, Bin Laden was killed during a raid into Pakistan.  Here is the White House press release: I had mixed reactions to this announcement.  What did you think when you heard it?