At last, a use for concordances

Like most pastors, I use a Bible program to help with Greek and Hebrew (in my case, Accordance for the Mac OS). Since it includes a dozen or so English translations, its quick and powerful search engine makes it much more useful than the print exhaustive concordance I bought back in college a couple decades ago, and hence never use. Nonetheless, today I found another use for my old concordance.

Commas

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/78087

There was a ravioli-shaped hole in my heart

Earlier this week my wife and I took a few days off to vacation in Grand Junction, on the other side of the Rockies. One evening we ate at Bin 707 (http://www.bin707.com/), and I had the meat ravioli with "italian salsa"/creme fraiche sauce (accompanied by a glass of the house tempranillo). I did not know I had been searching for the perfect ravioli, but I found it that night. By all means, if you're going through Grand Junction (and if you stay on I-70, you will), stop in for dinner at Bin 707. This is the ravioli of a lifetime.

At long last, the ravioli-shaped hole in my heart has been filled.

Lord's Day April 27, 2008

This Sunday at Park Hill Presbyterian Church, I'll be preaching on John 14:15-21 ("Not Orphans") at 11 a.m., and Luke 19:41-48 ("Hate Him or Adore Him") at 5 p.m.

Lord's Day April 20, 2008

This Sunday at Park Hill Presbyterian Church, I'll be preaching on John 14:1-14 ("That Where I Am, You May Be Also") at 11 a.m., and Luke 19:28-40 ("The King Comes") at 5 p.m.

The Presbyterian Curmudgeon in the news

The first time I appeared in the Denver newspapers was about six years ago when a traffic stop in front of the Church of Christ across the street turned into a shootout; a police officer was wounded and the gunman was killed. A Denver Post reporter interviewed me over the phone; I believe my published quote was something profound like, "I heard some banging, and then every cop in the world showed up."

My next appearance was in the Rocky Mountain News of Monday, April 7, 2008. Apparently, there are still lowly cub reporters assigned to flip through the police department's case reports in search of something newsworthy. This time out, said reporter discovered the misfortune which had befallen my truck.

Lord's Day April 13, 2008

This Sunday at Park Hill Presbyterian Church I'll be preaching on John 9:1-7 ("The Light of the World") at 11 a.m., and James 2:8-13 as a a catechetical sermon on Westminster Shorter Catechism #40 in the afternoon, after our monthly fellowship meal.

While we're on the subject, you'll notice from the links on the left of this page that Park Hill Presbyterian Church is now on SermonAudio.com. The selection is small at the moment, but our helpful sermon elves are busily at work editing and uploading more.

Gnostic preaching

  Throughout Against the Protestant Gnostics, Philip J. Lee moves back and forth between liberalism and evangelicalism as he explores manifestations of gnosticism.  Interestingly, he does not clarify which of these two Protestant traditions he has in view in this comment on preaching, which in my experience applies equally well to both.  "These various secular attempts at line-blurring, which have largely been prompted by a gnosticized Protestant thought, ironically are now indirectly exerting an effect on church life itself.  ...A typical Protestant sermon is a verbal essay on a contemporary theme, sometimes employing biblical illustrations in support of the essayist's point of view.  The preacher who is bound to the text, confined to what he or she perceives as the biblical point of view, is a curiosity."

My sad obsessions

  As all right-thinking people agree, Abraham Lincoln was the greatest rhetorician in American history, saving the Union with words alone.  (Okay, and the Union war machine.)  And as anyone who survived the 80s would agree, t-shirts are the finest vehicle available for communicating important philosophical concepts to one's community.  

  Now the fine folks at woot.com have pressed all my buttons with this portrait of Lincoln rendered in the text of the Gettysbury Address.  So tell me that you love me for only $15 by going to http://shirt.woot.com/Friends.aspx?k=5229.

Social Darwinism as Calvinist heresy

  Boy howdy, do I like Against the Protestant Gnostics.  From page 202:  "In the United States, this parallel movement of spiritual individualism and economic individualism was aided by the popular understanding of Darwinism and its 'survival of the fittest' philosophy.  'This anti-social teaching,' [Martin] Marty explains, 'individualized the old Puritan-evangelical ideas about "election," ideas which were previously seen in the context of a covenanted community, and used them to justify personal economic competition.'"