Farewell

We've had Katie, Christy's sister, living with us throughout the summer. She's been intending to go to Brazil... studying Portuguese, contacting missionaries, working to save money. But she's been here all summer. She's helped us watch the kids and given Christy and me opportunities to go on dates more frequently. She's turned us (Christy, therefore us) into vegetarians. Thank goodness desserts aren't made of meat. She's made it easier for Christy and me to exercise, staying home with the kids while one or both of us is out. She's watched kids on a regular basis for our Community Group. She's done a lot this summer. And it's been really good.

And now she's heading to Egypt. Cairo. With the pyramids and everything. She'll be teaching English. She's really excited. And we're excited for her. But she has stayed long enough now that it feels like she's supposed to be here. So we're really going to miss her. I haven't mentioned her a lot in my blogging, but I want to take the opportunity right now to let everyone who reads this blog (so far, not many) know that she's been great, she deserves tons of thanks, she's made our lives less stressful, and we're going to miss her.

Temple cleaning

Mark 11:12-19

I am so accustomed to this story of Jesus cleansing the temple that I sometimes read over it without taking any time really to think. I am part of a world that loves convenience more than God. I know that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and there is no longer a specific attachment between any building and holiness. But honestly, that makes this an even bigger issue. Jesus quotes, "My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers." If that was an issue when dealing with a physical temple, how much more so when dealing with my heart?

Is my heart a place of prayer? Or is it a "den of robbers"? Perhaps I am not scheming about how to rip people off. But I may steal the devotion that is rightly due to God by filling up my time with marketplace activities, my thoughts with business ideas, my heart with visions of personal glory. This cannot be permitted. The holy God has made me holy, His holy servant. I am utterly devoted to Him, and my activities, thoughts and heart are utterly His.

Cuteness itself

Emma and Michael have both been very cute recently. Just two days ago, I sneezed and Emma said in the sweetest of voices, "O, bless you, Daddy." And yesterday she sneezed and said, "Bless you, Emma." So funny and cute!

I've been getting to watch Michael more recently, too. And he coos and gurgles and smiles and laughs. He is one of the easiest-going kids ever.

If I can just say one thing: Christy and I have awesome kids. Praise God! They make life much more enjoyable, interesting and sweet.

King Jesus

Mark 11:1-11

We can certainly debate whether Jesus just knew that the colt would be there or whether He had planned this event in advance with certain men from the village to which Jesus sent His disciples. Regardless, we already know that Jesus is God. We don't have to have this passage in order to prove His omniscience. His omniscience won't fall if we allow the arguments and questions about His foreknowledge in the circumstances of this passage to be set aside.

What is important is that Jesus clearly intended to communicate a message. It looks as though He and His disciples spent the whole day communicating it, for when He gets to the temple in Jerusalem, it is already evening, and He simply turns around and goes back to Bethany. No, this was not just another mode of transportation into Jerusalem. This donkey on which Jesus rode into Jerusalem was more than a physical vehicle; it was a vehicle of communication. And it seems that the people got the message.

This action was intended to communicate the fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9:

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king¹ comes to you,
righteous and having salvation,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Jesus is the King, the Messiah! And He knows it! Zechariah tells us that we should be excited to see our King. How excited am I to know Jesus as my King? I have the most wonderful King in the world, a King overflowing with righteousness, goodness, love, gentleness! And yet I sometimes resent His call to service. How can that be? How lazy am I? How little do I recognize true greatness when I see it? True goodness? Real, genuine truth, beauty, glory? How great do I consider myself to be, that I am too prideful to bend my knees, spread my clothes on the road, and give all for the glory of King Jesus?

Seminary starts up again

This week seminary started again. I have three regular classes (OT Theology, Adv Church History, Intro to Missions) that I'll be attending throughout the semester. I also need to hold myself accountable for accomplishing my Graduate Research Seminar tasks. And I also am holding myself accountable to re-learn Hebrew on my own, using a book/workbook combination that I bought while I was still in GA. We'll see how it goes.

Sadly, I feel really pressured by school. I enjoy school, but part of the reason I haven't written a new blog in a while is the pressure I feel. But God has given me a new sense of grace, too. I don't expect much grace from the professors in terms of grading; their job is to assign a grade I deserve. But if I do worse than I ought to - or than I feel I ought to - in any of my classes, God isn't through with me. He's seeking to grow me in daily contentment, helping me to make people's needs a higher priority than completed assignments. Obviously, there's a balance. He's given me a job to do as I attend seminary, and I intend to do my best. But the assignment God has given me is not only seminary. It's life. It's marriage and family, church, service, neighborliness, part-time work ... and seminary. And it's living all these things out in godliness. It's so easy to think I'm here for seminary. But God reminds me of a bigger picture. And there's a lot of grace in that picture. I can't be perfect. But God is growing me and loving me in the process.

Research made easy (at least easier)

I've had a mounting suspicion that research papers - at least academic research papers - were supposed to be more authoritative than mine have generally been. I've been thinking that the best papers really ought to find all the sources on whatever topics they claim to be clarifying. Which is why dissertations are huge.

Well, this week I've been sitting in a Graduate Research Seminar. It could be called Research 101. And it makes research easy.

Not that real research is easy. It takes time and effort to find all the best sources and think through them, etc. But research is much more difficult when no one has given you any basic concepts on how to conduct research. I don't know why they don't teach classes like this in high school, college, or even in master's programs. The only reason I was required to take this class is that I am in an "Advanced" Master of Divinity program. The course is really intended for PhD candidates. By not offering the course to college students and master's students, though, they condemn us to hours and hours of teaching ourselves to research poorly.

I doubt anyone reading this will want a thorough treatise on good researching techniques. But I will recommend the two books I've read for the class so far. The first is written by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb and Joseph M. Williams and is entitled The Craft of Research. They give a lot of helpful pointers. But for a book that is specifically about the best methods for research, try The Oxford Guide to Library Research by Thomas Mann. I wouldn't necessarily recommend reading straight through the book (though skimming to get an overview would be good). But if you're trying to research well, I would follow the suggestions in one chapter until you're satisfied you did what he recommends. If you need more resources, try another chapter's recommendations.

For those of you I've bored with this talk about research, just remember that research doesn't have to be academic. This book could help you find the answer to all kinds of fun, interesting, and even worthless questions in almost any area of life. I think it will help a lot when I'm out of school.