Just found out today that the Clinicals for the last two school years in the Nursing Program here at SPU (which I have not yet even completed prereqs for, much less been admitted to) are 15hrs per week, on top of 10 more hours of class time, not counting homework. That's 26 hrs/wk. I also work 40+ hrs/wk. Now, I know all things are possible with God, but I wonder if all things are prudent. I don't want to neglect my family any more than I already do. (Well, I'd rather not neglect them at all...)

I believed and still believe this is where the Lord's leading is, or at least that I've not had any restraint 'til now - which coupled w/ an initial desire seems to be the mechanism by which I'm normally led - so I'm going to keep going for it.

If this (Nursing) falls through I don't know what else I could really do in the way of securing solid training for future employment that would also provide me with enough free time to plant a church here. I've seen enough churches fall apart or fall on hard times not to want to rely totally on the generosity of God's flock for provision for my family, who all enjoy having roofs and beds and food and such things. At least Paul had tentmaking as a fallback or supplement, and he was single. I am not single, I'm not even double. I'm quintuple-no, Brandy's pregnant, make that sextuple. So with this small tribe relying on me for sustenance, I DO desire (and I don't think this is lack of faith) some sort of resilient qualifications of the sort that could allow me to provide said sustenance. A Classics degree doesn't exactly fit that bill.

Prayers appreciated.

So, media round #2, the audio portion. Audiobooks don't count, so these are all lectures/debates/sermons.

...Now that I've got all these up here, I realize that all of them have neat accents. Except Tozer, who sounds like an ornery great uncle, but even he's unique sounding enough to be interesting.

Gerald Bray's "Church History I"
You may have to create an account with BiblicalTraining to access these, but it's free and very much worth it. This is the absolute best Church History survey I've found. He's engaging, fun to listen to, makes good connections between subjects, and makes you think about how the decisions made early on affect what we believe today. He's really bright and well-respected, and also prays before every lecture. Move on to Church History II if you finish!


Ken Spiro's Crash Course of Jewish History. You have to scroll all the way down to the bottom for the MP3s. They're free on this site, but they cost a pretty penny on his personal site. Really helpful for everything between the return from exile to Jesus' birth, and then for everything up to the present. I wish I'd listened to this before having gone to Israel. Ken Spiro's also fun to listen to. Caveat Auditor, he does not like Jesus or Christians, although I emailed back and forth with him for a bit and he accepted me as a friend on Facebook.

N.T. Wright audio. Especially his stuff on Jesus and the Resurrection. Scroll down to the "Audio/Video" section. Even if you don't agree with everything, you will learn a lot, and will raise your ceiling of understanding re. the significance for both Jesus and His resurrection.

A.E. Wilder Smith. Some of the audio quality is terrible, but the content is great. I definitely recommend "Cause/Cure of the Drug Epidemic", The Great Debate: "Evolution or Creation", "Time & Creation", "Logos in Biology: Introduction", and "Is Man a Machine?"

John Lennox's Conversation with Richard Dawkins Really good stuff. And they're for the most part civil. I hope to be as loving in conversations as John.

A.W. Tozer's sermons. Tozer is even better heard then read. (I would recommend Schaeffer's audio but unfortunately the opposite is true for him.) There's a sea of stuff here, so you may have to dig to find something to match your interest, but most of these are golden. Challenging, powerful, and scriptural. I can't think of any sermons I like to listen to as much as these.

Os Guinness cut his Chops at L'abri with the Schaeffers and moved on to become a sociologist. Really insightful messages and critiques on big picture issues.

Ravi Zacharias, Meaning of Life or you can wade through RZIM . There's no one like Ravi, he touches on just about everything, and manages to get you to take it all seriously.

Greg Bahnsen debate with Gordon Stein. The clearest example of the truth of presuppositional apologetics. Nothing makes sense without God.

Laguinia
Macrina

Above are the links to my two big final papers. I completed them at 4:30AM. I realized the morning after that they have several spelling and grammatical errors. I also realized I did not have any motivation left to correct them. If you'd like to read them, please do! but "Caveat Lector".

Beyond that, I'm on spring break, of sorts, so I have time to write a Blog!

I'm still in process of studying to figure out what I believe about Eschatology. I've ruled out "covenant" theology as best as I can understand it, since it's supersessionist (believes the church kicked the Jews out of the "Israel" driver's seat and are now the real Israel). There's no way I could reconcile that with Scripture. So that leaves me with Premillenialism. The main issue for me in all this is really the Rapture, as ever since I became a believer and started reading my bible, it always seemed like the rapture was referring to us meeting Jesus on his "Final descent" like fighter jets going to escort a Bomber to the landing strip. This would make the "rapture" not refer to a secret coming of Jesus to whisk us off to the balcony to watch while He throws molotov cocktails at the rebels down below, but rather it would be the same time as the second coming. There is a lot in scripture about how he'll protect us from His wrath when it comes, and a lot about how we'll face a lot of wrath and persecution from the world before that happens. These seem to me to be the plainest readings of Scripture, which don't seem to jive with the classic pre-trib rapture I've been taught.

I bought a book on early Christian Eschatology called "Hope of the Early Church" which documents through all the significant church Fathers 'til the 600's and explains their take on what happens when we die/when Jesus comes back. The author (Brian Daley) writes impartially, but confirms that the Fathers of the first two hundred years were almost without exception premillenial. None of them seem, though, seem to believe in the "rapture" as the first part in a two-part coming.

On another interesting note, seeing as how universalism's so hot right now (with the Rob Bell book), the book I'd mentioned also touches on that too. Of the church fathers who wrote about this kind of thing before 250, the following ones believed the punishment of unbelievers was "everlasting fire": Justin Martyr, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Hippolytus and Cyprian all believed this in a "literal" way.

Clement of Alexandria (who thinks of himself as a Christian "gnostic") suggests that everyone gets saved in the end 'cause hell is remedial, and Origen follows suit. Then in the mid to late 300's Gregory of Nyssa agrees in large part with Origen. Origen often talks about how the simple majority can't handle the "higher, spiritual" meaning of these sorts of things, indicating that the majority of believers he had converse with wouldn't have agreed with him. Origen belittled literal interpretations of the Millennium, calling them "Jewish".

It seems like where a lot of these doctrinal swerves come in is by divergences from "Jewish" ways of understanding things. It makes sense, really, since the writers of Scripture were all Jewish (w/ the possible exception of Luke), to do our best to figure out how a first century Jewish person (as much as that's a generalization) would've understood what the Bible is saying.

Of course, I don't believe the final word is the Fathers. Even the Fathers would say that the final word is the Scripture, the "apostolic teaching". However I do think it's helpful to see how the early disciples read the bible and understood it, especially the first couple centuries as they were that much closer to the apostles themselves. It's also helpful to see how we got where we are today and realize which things are peculiarities of our time and place and which things are (at least nearly) universally held by Believers.

But I'm sure to most of you this is all a big fat tranquilizer, so I'll clip it off here and get on to less obscure thoughts.

OK, so after a day at TJ's disassembling the car I determined that it wasn't the ball joints, and had to take it in to the shop where they told me it was the wheel bearings. And it was expensive. Thankfully we had enough to scrape together to pay for the fix and we have great family that helped out too.

I'm registering for classes tonight, Latin II, Belief Morality and the Modern Mind, and either Independent readings in Classical Greek, Medieval Philosophy, or History of Post-Reformation Christianity.

Yet more tests tomorrow, seems like we've got one every week.
Thanksgiving's fast approaching! It's my favorite "Get together" holiday. It's got a good premise, low commercialism, and it's to the point: friends, family, food, fun. No mandatory present buying, no mandatory decoration, no covetous insanity pulling at the national heartstrings. Thank God for Thanksgiving. We're planning on going down to my granny's/aunt's place in Centralia to celebrate, they're out in the quasi-boonies, far out enough for woodsmoke to be a common smell. Centralia also had a 3.9 earthquake today.

You know, I'm sure there are all sorts of interesting things to post, but very little's coming to mind right now....let's see.... we've started a home group, so far it's just TJ & Destiny coming, though I've invited some more ppl who've expressed interest. We still don't really have anything in the way of worship. Trying to make my way through Siegbert Becker's "The Foolishness of God" on the relationship of reason to faith in Jesus Christ in Martin Luther's writing.

Oh, yes, there is some massively large news (that at the moment is very small) but I'm not at liberty to divulge it yet.

We have the van back!

Its Babylonian captivity is over. I went to write a review of "Premier Transmission" and found quite a few scathing reviews from the past month or so written by other customers/victims. After having read some of the reviews I became much more certain that our situation wasn't a fluke, and felt a lot better about writing a "never go here" review.

Thankfully, TJ & Destiny (friends from work) have been kind enough to lend us their Toyota 4runner (nice car by the way) for the past two weeks, so we've at least been able to get around.

Still trying to get a home fellowship off the ground. The meeting time for HF 'leader training' is Sundays, (2 in a row) 12-4pm. If I were to go, I'd be going to work Sat. night at 9pm, getting off at 7:30am, going to church, staying til 4pm, and going back to work for another 10hr grave shift at 9pm Sun, and starting classes as soon as I got out of work at 7:30am Monday morning. Sooooooo, I don't think I'll be doing that. Lord willing it'll work out so I don't have to, I spoke to Pastor Jack down here at the Wallingford campus and he sympathized with my situation. If they end up not letting us do the HF for that reason, I figure I'll just start a bible study out of the house and start inviting ppl from school/work/apartment.

Pastor Wayne spoke out of Luke today, where Jesus says "A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" and goes on to tell the parable about the rich man who wanted to build bigger barns. I felt convicted about that, as I've been developing a buyer's impulse with my student Amazon.com account. It gives me free two-day shipping, and that's been such an incentive that I've found myself searching Amazon for "needs" that qualify for the aforementioned free shipping.

So, instead of being given to Gospel for Asia or needy acquaintances to 'make friends that will welcome me into eternal dwellings', my filthy lucre's been poured out in sacrifice to the inflamed lust aroused by free shipping. Lord forgive me.

I almost went down to the front for prayer after service, but there was only one guy praying and a man who looked even needier than I was in the process of voicing his requests, so I went out and helped Brandy herd the monkeys instead.

Tis the season when the blogs lose posts like trees gone autumn streaking, when the cold demands of academia force expression back into hiding.

But I'm gonna try to go for evergreen.

After approaching a friend with an old grievance, which no matter how hard I'd tried I couldn't just remit as a better man might, we got reconciliation. Insert something about Olive oil dribbling on a Hight Priest's facial hair here. I've felt so freed, the skies have opened up, and thoughts for the future have been making their way up through the crust like crocuses.

Emailed our pastor re. Pastoring, planting a church, being sent, and was told to serve or go to CCBC. CCBC I believe would be super-duperfluous, but we're already in the works for hosting a HF.

Along those lines, began reading a book "Love Acceptance and Forgiveness". VERY good book thus far, but I first tried to read it in the tired times after getting off grave shift and after the subsequent church service. I'd been up for 24 hours and the opening story about a pastor who had an affair and was then welcomed back into fellowship and "restored to ministry" proved too much for me and I threw it over to the nightstand and rolled over into sleep.
The rest of the book thus far is all clean water, fast flowing. But the first part really got my noggin & soul in a twist.

I need to figure out for myself for sure what God says about remarriage after divorce. I've for a long time believed from my reading of scripture that there's nothing but celibacy, lifelong celibacy for anyone divorced. But since I've yet to meet anyone in the nowadays church who agrees with me, I suppose I need to go over it again. Considering the condition of christianity in America, if I do eventually become a pastor that particular issue will likely be a common one, and I'll need to have some sort of solid answer.



Taking Latin, Ancient Civ, and Christian Theology this quarter. As of now I tend to agree in general with the author of "Love Acceptance & Forgiveness" that ppl who've grown up in the church should go to secular colleges, in part 'cause these theology classes don't really teach me much. We're reading through Augustine's "Confessions" (which I've read twice already on my own). Not that I don't like the Confessions, it's actually a very edifying and well-written book, but it seems silly to take a class to read it again. (Okay, that's not the only book we're reading but I'm just saying.)
Yet I go to a Christian College. But I think I have a specific mission here, and it's not just to enjoy the nice "christian" environment, so I think my presence here is legit.
Plus, the guy who wrote "Love Acceptance and Forgiveness" graduated from Seattle Pacific University too, so I think I'm OK.

You who answer desperate prayers, to you all flesh will come!
Even those desperate enough to play bible roulette,
and find that in order to "watch ourselves"
we must rebuke our brother who sins
and wait for a chance to forgive
on the grounds of repentance
and if not to that end
than at least, hopefully,
it was all a mistake.

Ruslan, a friend of mine at SPU invited me to teach at his church this past Thursday. Ruslan's been a good friend during my time here, he's a younger guy I met in Biology class during my first quarter. He was the only one to support me when I questioned the idea of common descent we were being taught in class. Since then he's always sought me out at the collegium or wherever he happens to see me and we have some good conversation. He's a refreshingly excited believer and usually by the end of our conversation I end up praying silently for a portion of his zeal.

Anyway, over many conversations he found out that I believe I'm called to eventually be a pastor, and so he invited me to come teach at his youth group.

It was a youth service for Ukranians, (Ruslan, as you may have guessed from the name, is Ukranian too. I looked it up and found that it's actually of Turkish derivation, and is another way of saying "Aslan" - lion) mostly second generation kids from not just Ukraine, but Kyrgystan, Romania, and that night some from Germany. A good friend from SPU invited me, since it's his church and he's very active in it. When I arrived the Youth leader expressed surprise because he had thought that Ruslan (my friend) had invited a Ukranian. I hope I didn't put him out too much, and let him know that according to my Y-Chromosome, I share a male line descent mostly with Eastern Europeans. Got to use the extent of my Russian, (dobri diyn=good evening)and taught out of Philippians Chapter 2.
It went really well. I had many people praying for me during my preparation and during the sermon (primarily Brandy) and I felt really at home with the people I was sharing with. Most of them had thick accents but spoke English fluently.

The service was very interesting. If it weren't for every other song being sung in Russian, I could have been in an Assemblies of God church for much of the service. Even the songs in Russian were ones I recognized by the tunes (i.e. Lord I Lift Your Name on High).

The only part that got really confusing was whenever the person currently leading the service would say "Let us pray", they meant it literally. Everyone broke out in their own prayers, I heard russian, english, tongues, and sometimes the Leader praying over the microphone at the same time. I'm used to a person with a microphone saying "Let's Pray" and then they pray, while we wait for them to finish (hopefully assenting in our minds) and then we all say "Amen" when they do. I actually liked their Ukranian way better, but I entirely forgot about it when I got up to teach, and so when I said "look, I haven't done this in a while and I'm going to pray for God's blessing on it and help" I expected that I was going to pray and they would say "Amen". Not so. The room erupted with sympathetic tongues and for a moment I was so surprised I forgot to pray myself. I think by the end of the service I had the hang of it though.

I loved being around people from the other half of the world. Well, believing people. A bunch of the younger guys came up and introduced themselves to me after service, they were all very respectful, and during the service/worship even their goofing off wasn't bad (I caught conversations where they were lamenting the wasted intelligence of poorly behaved guys in their high school, etc..., where normally I'd expect conversation about girls or why so and so is so stupid and hated by all.) It was really a blessing and I'd love to go back. Some of the girls wore headscarves, like E. Orthodox women do.

Halfway through the message, my throat got so dry I was in danger of a coughing fit, and Michael the youth leader ran and got me a cup of water. May the Lord remember him on the last day! Despite what seemed to be initial disappointment at my non-Ukranianness, he was very graceful and friendly and we had some good edifying conversation before and after the service. (so much so before the service I began to worry that I wouldn't have a chance to visit the urinals - my teeth were swimming! But I think he saw it in my face because he told me where to find them when our conversation finished.)

They also prayed for the world at large during the service, things like the N/S Korean conflict. I was really impressed by that as well.

Michael said they'd like to have me there again, and said next time they'd feed me too. Now that's Christian love.

Then I went to my cousin DeLynn's place, where Brandy and the kids were (it's only 5 minutes from the Church I was at, but both are about an hour's drive from our house.) There we talked about documentaries and DeLynn and her husband Moses warned us about air travel in S. Africa and DeLynn made us coffee before we headed home.

Just finished the better part of my finals, we'll see how I did. I know I got at least one question half wrong in Christian Formation, and in BIO I have a handful of ones that I had to guess on. But all as the Lord wills. It's over now, and "what I have written, I have written".
The final for Greek is in two days! I'm really happy with how much Greek we've learned in 1 quarter. Looking forward to more.

It's been a lot of fun, and It's hard to believe the first quarter is over already. I'm very much looking forward to having time off to play with the kids and Brandy, and to read non-assigned books, and to sleep from time to time. Brandy's been really great letting me sleep and study in preparation, we're both really pleasantly surprised with how do-able school/work/family has been so far.

I'm in the collegium right now, its swarming with students studying for or recuperating from finals.

On an interesting note, both my last section of Christian Formation and our pastor's study have been through the sermon on the mount. I've been reading through it a lot the past couple of weeks. One of the questions in Christian Formation was "Which of Jesus' teachings do you see the need to implement now"? I answered "Do not Judge" and Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness". It seems with all this time studying I have let my prayers lag more than usual, and as always it seems like I make up for my lack of real fellowship with Jesus with moralism and by attempting to appear more spiritual around friends and acquaintances. (using more christianese, commenting on the sinfulness of friends' activities). The odd thing is that I really do feel a desire to BE more "spiritual" (in the scriptural sense) but when it comes out so cold and awkward I'm pretty sure that it's not out of love for Jesus, but out of love for a godly facade. Lord, please help me.

Jesus, you're always helping me. Thank you that I can count on your grace and that your Spirit is really in me, please stir Him up and wake me up. I don't want to fall asleep.

Well, time to go home and take my contacts off!

"Pie in the sky when you die". It seems that a large chunk of Christendom is feeling the buises from these sticks and stones, and avoiding the idea of after-death promises of scripture in favor of the world's vision of "Pie right now, before you die."

Though, I don't see what's wrong with pie in the sky after you die. If you get pie right now, you end up with death - hardly satisfying. In the mocked Christian version, your life doesn't end with death, but has its final realization in "pie". I'd prefer to end with pie, rather than death, thank you.

The other day at the goodwill I finally broke down and got a copy of Luther's smaller catechism. I wanted it for a short reference to go over with the kids as a primer on Christian Doctrine, and I've looked through it multiple times over the years and have always considered it good & clear christian teaching. I remember when I was little at church we were heavy on story but not so much on doctrine-nothing was really well defined. So I figured I'd do them a favor, plus I was reading through Ephesians where he tells dads to raise their kids in the instruction and admonition of the Lord.
So anyways...
Today I slept until about 2pm and when I got up felt the need to do something edifying. So naturally I called Josiah and Jaelle over and pulled out the copy of Luther. It starts out with the ten commandments, and by the time we got to four I thought something wasn't right with the numbers, and then I realised, 'Ole brother Martin numbered the commandments like a Catholic! (Catholics blend out the "graven images" into the first, and it shifts the numbers down. They get #10 by splitting coveting into two: houses & the rest. Odd how houses get their own no-covet commandment and wives are stuck with donkeys.)But I figured the kids will forget the numbers anyway, and I can re-number them later. I wanted it for a guide more than anything, since I need something to go over all the basics, and I can embellish beyond that. By embellish, I don't mean make stuff up, but expand on.

Then Josiah asked why we should "fear" God (since Martin prefaces every commandment with the reason we should obey it-"fear and love of God"). That was a tough one to answer. I kept thinking about George MacDonald telling his childhood story of when he found out about hell, "predestination" etc..., and broke down crying, wondering how God could be more cruel than his earthly father, and how that thought eventually led to him becoming a Universalist. I didn't want to give Josiah that impression, so I tried to explain it by asking if he was scared of me, and he said no, and I said how about when I catch you doing something you're not supposed to, he said yeah, and we took it from there.
Then we all had a short fighing free-for-all, and I read a book with Enoch (who was listless and alone on the couch with a fever) until Brandy called us to the table for chicken soup.


Now I'm @ Work and my co-worker just found a giant dead rat at the entrance to the bertona modules. There are all kinds of wild (and not so wild) life around here. Yesternight I was checking Robbins and a large Opossum was at the south entry door. When I opened it, she just stared at me for a couple seconds before waddling off. 'possums always seem a little slow in the head.

It has been the fifth conversation with a ministry leader who's asked you to lead a home fellowship and said they would call the people who would come - and they don't. After that happens three times, you ask if you can call them. By this time the list you're given has shrunk to 3, one of whom is the HF coordinator. Your name is finally on the HF list, but your wife's name's misspelled as a man's name. You talk to the families, and they say there must've been a mistake because 1. they were told they were in another HF, and 2. Your HF isn't on a day they signed up for. This is all very embarrassing. You ask the Ministry leader what's going on, they say they'll take care of it and call you. 2 weeks later, they ask you how the home fellowship's coming along (they never called). You say it's not. They ask if you will come to theirs. You say yes, with relief that it's over and with restrained annoyance that it's taken so long to come to this.

"You" is me. I am trying not to be annoyed. The only thing of comfort that came to mind is Joseph to his brothers: “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good"

So if Joseph can say that to his brothers, who sold him & meant it for evil, then I how can I be angry @ a brother who didn't mean his unreliability and cluelessness for evil at all?

May God help me have an attitude like Joseph.

School starts in a little over a month.

We've been having a family church service Wednesday nights (the church we're going to now doesn't have a Wed. Night service). Brandy plays some worship songs, and I teach. I've been teaching through Colossians and I think it's been getting better because last night's service didn't put Josiah to sleep. Last week he succumbed. As did Brandy, almost.
Thank God for coffee. At least I enjoyed it (the teaching).

Today I visited the "Q Cafe", a christian coffeeshop a couple blocks off campus. It's owned by a church right next to it, and upon entering it reminded me quite a bit of "Sojourner's Cafe" the old coffeeshop in St. Paul. Some of my best memories are from that coffeeshop. Isn't it odd, one would think that a person's best "spiritual" memories should be in church or at a retreat, but the coffeeshop wins hands down.

Read an Oscar Wilde quote the other day, it goes: "Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future". It's an interesting quote, and seems to echo the sentiment of most people in that it focuses on the past of the saint, and the future of the sinner.

Why is it that conversion stories are the most interesting? It seems like in all the stories a character gets saved, or gets married, and then the curtain falls, 'cause 'it's over'. The main character may as well have died.

I don't think that's really the case for the saint. Maybe it's because a saint dies to his/her old life, and begins over again. Maybe because as far as the world's concerned, the saint it dead, and that brings in the finality. Now the only interesting thing about him is his past.

But they love stories of a sinner's future, too. At least most people do. It has suspense, climax, and drama.

Even the story of the prodigal son runs like that. The most boring character in it is the "older brother" - the saved guy. I wonder if his character would've been more interesting if he'd gone in search of his younger brother, and used his own inheritance to track him down through all the pigsties and brothels to bring him back. But would that even have been possible? If it were, wouldn't the Father himself have gone?

Unless it's like a Cain/Abel thing. "Am I my brother's keeper"? Cain asked that, and the answer's implied. God didn't stop Cain from killing Abel either. Ultimately, God is his children's keeper, but he seems to expect us to take up that role, and usually is pretty hands-off (at least observably).

So what would have happened? I think it would have been a good story. Maybe that's what Jesus meant when he said "As I am, so are you in this world".

I think that makes for a good storyline too.

This is an Excerpt from a letter Written by Seraphim Rose (An eastern Orthodox Clergyman) to the Trappist monk Thomas Merton concerning Merton's call to "Christian Social Action/Social Justice". In the light of movements in the church at present, and after reading some of Merton's writings, I thought it was very illuminating and I agree with it wholeheartedly.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Modern idealism, which is devoted to the realization of the idolatrous "Kingdom of Man," has long been making its influence felt in Christian circles; but only in quite recent years has this influence begun to bear real fruit within the womb of the Church itself. I think there can be no question but that we are witnessing the birth pangs of something that, to the true Christian, is indeed pregnant with frightful possibilities: a "new Christianity," a Christianity that claims to be "inward," but is entirely too concerned with outward result; a Christianity, even, that cannot really believe in "peace" and "brotherhood" unless it sees them generalized and universally applied, not in some seemingly remote "other world," but "here and now." This kind of Christianity says that "private virtue" is not enough—obviously relying on a Protestantized understanding of virtue, since everything the true Christian does is felt by all in the Mystical Body; nothing done in Christ is done for oneself alone—but not enough for what? The answer to that, I think, is clear: for the transformation of the world, the definitive "realization" of Christianity in the social and political order. And this is idolatry. The Kingdom is not of this world; to think or hope that Christianity can be outwardly "successful" in the world is a denial of all that Christ and His prophets have said of the future of the Church. Christianity can be "successful" on one condition: that of renouncing (or conveniently forgetting) the true Kingdom and seeking to build up a Kingdom in the world. The "Earthly Kingdom" is precisely the goal of the modern mentality; the building of it is the meaning of the modern age. It is not Christian; as Christians, we know whose Kingdom it is. And what so greatly troubles me is that today Christians—Catholic and Orthodox alike—are themselves joining, often quite unaware of the fact, often with the best possible intentions, in the building of this new Babel....

Today I got some books, and a rug. Two books by G.K. Chesterton, and "The Veritas Conflict" and some book by Thomas Merton about "the East". I was on assignment to pick up a rug we'd found on Craigslist for our new apartment (which we haven't moved into yet) we need something to go under the dining table since the new apt. has a carpeted dining room.
And a used bookstore was near to the house where I picked up the carpet, so I had to stop in.

Working on a new tattoo design for Luke, my bro-in-law, it's good to be drawing again, esp. after admiring the artwork in "Fables" by James Jean, and talking to Dan from church who's a graphic designer/artist.

Speaking of tattoos, I've been getting a lot of questions on my tattoo, people wanting to know what it says, It's nice being able to say "Jesus Christ in Lord" in response to a question.

Yesterday we were @ some friends' house and one of them asked me "What has the Lord been teaching you" which is a nice question to get, but hard to answer sometimes. I haven't really been in tragedy mode for so long, we're so used to what many would call hardships that I don't really give them all that much thought, so It's hard to have to struggle with the Lord when you give in right away to Him, and if you do, then it doesn't seem as looming in your consciousness, at least not enough to pop to the surface when someone asks "What's the Lord teaching you." The one thing that did come to mind was that one of the kids (I think, I didn't see so I don't know for sure) stomped my Kindle and messed up the screen, so I got upset initally, and left the house for work without saying goodbye to the kids. I was waiting to get really angry, but I just didn't - so about halfway to work I realized that the only way I'd get angry about it was if I really wanted to be, and realized the Lord was giving me a way out, so I took it and stopped thinking about it. Then when I got to work I called Brandy and she told me she'd been praying for me not to be angry - so I have the Lord and my wife to thank. Then the next day I called Amazon and they're sending me another Kindle free, no questions asked. So thanks to the Lord, and to Brandy, and to Amazon. They (Amazon) may be evil, but at least they're nice.

So that, and the fact Paul/Holy Spirit brings out in Thessalonians chap 3 about the need for "establishing and encouraging" all round between believers.

Water and the Blood

So I was reading in 1 John and came across the part in chap. 5 where he says "This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree." This part has always been one of those passages I read over and am impressed by, but don't really understand. And as I thought about it it reminded me of another passage - you know that part in John's account of the crucifixion, how he says that when Jesus' side was pierced with the spear, "water and blood poured out"? John seems to think it's a big deal, and I never quite understood why. I mean, blood and water are big symbols in Scripture, but still I wasn't sure why John seemed to think that it was so important that he would say "And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe..." He says it was to fulfill the prophecy that Jesus' bones wouldn't be broken, and that "they will look on Him whom they pierced" But it seemed to me that it was significant beyond this. So today I looked into it and I found something that was very interesting. I was thinking how Jesus' side was pierced, and that got me thinking, there's something else about a side that's very important, isn't there?... yes! Adam! To make sure, I checked the greek word for "Side" in John 19, which is "pleuron" and then checked the septuagint for Genesis 2 to make sure that it doesn't use some different greek work specifying a rib bone or something. But, although most translations read "rib" the word IS pleuron - the same as in Jesus' case at the crucifixion! When God was going to make Adam a companion suitable to him, what did he do? He took Eve, Adam's bride, out of his side, so that Adam could say in complete truth that "This is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone." It was almost as if Adam in a sense gave birth to his wife, out of His side, through an act of God. In the same way, Jesus' side was "opened up" and let flow that which made the birth of his Bride (the Church, you and I) possible. Jesus, in the giving of His blood for a new covenant and for forgiveness for us who would become His church, and the washing with water through the word to make us blameless for himself:
"This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless."

In meaning this is also connected to the sacraments of Baptism and The Lord's Supper, both of which are the only things of a symbolic nature he told those who would follow Him to do. Symbolic of us sharing in Jesus' death and resurrection, and of taking in His life "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in Me, and I in Him"..."Having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead."

It's also interesting to me that the early church fathers indicate that the significance of the water and blood coming from Jesus' side was indicative of "two baptisms" among other things. And they drank the Wine of the Lord's supper mixed with water.

So just as God through the living tissue from Adam's side produced a bride, So the new Adam, Jesus, gave out His own life to begin a new creation - and purchase a people for Himself, who would be zealous for good works. He gave birth to the church out of his side, a Bride that will be a fit companion for Him, just as woman is the glory of Man, so we will be the Glory of our Heavenly Bridegroom - "When He appears, we will be like Him, for we will see him as He is"

Encouragements and Exhortations

Due to the kindness of a friend from church who watched our herd of hobbits, Brandy and I were able to go out for an early Anniversary present almost a week ago now. We made it up to Seattle and enjoyed fish and chips up by the Ballard locks and walked through the garden near there. Then we went to a Tully's nearby and sat down to talk. It was especially good to have time to talk about our plans and hopes and thoughts. Before that day I really hadn't tried to organize them enough to present them in any sort of order, and here are a few.

I've had a sort of "drifting" feeling within the past months, of aimlessness - like I'm just existing. I've had doubts about the Lord's plans for us out here - maybe doubts isn't the right word, more like lack of interest. I've treated everything as it comes with indifference, like going to school, or my job, as a separate instance of life, not as a part of a greater unified plan.

Normally I hate planning, because it seems like things so rarely go to plan, and I don't like setting myself up for disappointment. But as I thought about it, I could definitely see the working hand of God in all that's happened with us over the past year. I am coming to believe that it's through my timidity in recognizing it AS the work of my Lord Jesus and the lax way I've talked about our circumstances and plans that have killed the zeal I should be burning with. "And without faith it is impossible to please Him". I had been asking God for specific things for the past three years:
#1. to send us somewhere, then receiving the word to Washington,
#2. I asked for a job, and believed I was being led specifically to the Job at SPU Security, and God not only brought us out here safely, but gave us a place to live, and out of many candidates gave me my current Job. When back in MN I looked at this job, I prayed about going back to school and in part applied with hope of getting tuition discounts.
#3. When I applied to go to SPU, I asked the Lord to give me a sign financially if I was to Go to school with his blessing. I got a full ride with grants and scholarships (didn't have to take out any loans) The amount I've been given to pay for school this year is almost exactly what it will take for a year @ SPU (almost 30K). If my Father hasn't done this, then who has? I could never have afforded this on my own. If it wasn't for my conviction that the Lord was taking us out here, I never would have thought to apply for the job @ SPU security, since they asked for someone with a B.A. in the listing, whereas I don't even have an A.A. .

God has given us a good church to go to here, with a pastor who is genuinely interested in us for the Lord's sake, and who takes the time to go through the "Men in Turn" leadership training with me and to keep me in the word and serving while waiting for God to move us up to the Seattle area. It's not many pastors who would be willing to give that time to someone they knew was only going to be in their congregation for a year. He also shelled out a chunk of cash to give me the resources for that program gratis, including the "Foundations for Pentecostal Theology" book and the Chuck Smith "Through the Bible" series. Because of his working with me I've memorized the first two chapters of Titus (which sadly enough is the first time I've ever memorized two consecutive chapters of scripture) and am now working on the 3rd. May God repay him for all he's done for my good!

Also, a couple nights ago I was kicking students out of OMH at about 2:30AM (it's the physics and mathematics building, so the students would stay there all night to do homework if they were allowed to). I started talking to one of the guys, and as we began talking he asked about my work, and I told him why I went to work here in part-to study classics to learn Greek and Latin and learn the background of scripture better. Then I pointed out that it didn't have any occupational value but was only for my own enjoyment (which is a lie, since I want to do it to Serve my God and His people, but I've said that so many times in an apologetic way as if I was ashamed for going to school for something not technical or "practical" to make money that I'd almost come to believe it) But this blessed kid says "Well, that sounds like it will open up lots of opportunities to minister and serve God" and I again pointed out that I meant unlike physics, which he studies, my degree will have next to no money value, and he replied, "Well, that's why I study physics, so I can support people like you!"

I shut my mouth, and for a second almost felt like crying. I'd convinced myself almost that no one values what I want in my heart and felt the call to - to teach and feed the Word of God to men, and to go to school to supplement this. And here this kid in one sentence made me ashamed of my shame and encouraged me to no end, to think that there are people who so value the word of God and the office of Overseer that they would work to support it! God forgive me. But what that kid said stuck with me, and I have felt its encouragement 'til now.

God help me to encourage others too, I've been reminded how much it's needed!

So I told all this to Brandy, and she told me she's been in the same funk of not feeling like we're doing anything, and like I was going to school just to go to school, and a feeling of unreality regarding us starting a church.

And the more I've been thinking about it, I know I've got to recover a passionate love for God, and a pursuit of Him, and an "Abiding in Him". That's where all these desires came from in the first place, and I can't recover passions created by the lifeblood of Jesus Christ without being plugged firmly into his Vine, and drinking in His life. All these dreams are just that without him, and will be impossible to pursue without Him in me to give me works, to will and to work his pleasure-with pleasure.

Well, now the van has been resurrected, It had died on the way to church, but after last Saturday when it started up, I drove it home and changed the fuel filter, and it's still running! Thank God. Also I used some mix-weld compound to fix the muffler, so now it doesn't sound like a 4-wheeler Harley Davidson anymore.

I'm listening to a couple of MP3's of "Kallistos Ware" An eastern orthodox bishop who's a big voice for the "orthodox" church. I'm listening out of interest because I've known a lot of fellow evangelicals who've gone orthodox, and remember my dad almost did for a while.

Also finished "Baudolino" by Umberto Eco, it was interesting but sad. Made me excited to look into Byzantine History more.

May 16th I'm gonna go sign up for classes @ SPU, that's also Josiah's birthday, so I hope to get it done and get out of there quick and easy.

We found out that apparently our lease is a year and 28 days, not just a year as we'd thought, so we have to wait to move for another month or so now. I was looking forward to moving sooner, but Rom 8:28 is still in full effect, so I trust it's for good reason.
I've finished memorizing Titus chapters 1&2 as part of the "Men In Turn" group @ Calvary Chapel South. This is the first time I've memorized two consecutive chapters of Scripture, (not the first time I've tried) and I was really happily surprised how easy it was! I guess in part it's because it's an assignment that I've been given, and there's an expectation of an authority (A Pastor) that I'll have a certain amount memorized every two weeks. It's sad that my own desire isn't enough to get me to memorize this quickly, that I need accountability to get it done, but it seems like it's like that with everything. For the past month or so, I've been working out and running with a friend from work every Monday and Tuesday morning - which I very likely wouldn't be doing if I didn't have someone who expected me to be there. I guess that accountability is like a means by which, If we're really serious about any sort of discipline, we'll reinforce our decisions. I remember when I first truly was saved, God impressed on me that I couldn't just lay around and expect God to sanctify me on the sly, If I wanted my eyes to be right, I had to get rid of my Maxim magazines, if I wanted to break out of my introspection and love people, I had to force myself to talk to people. If I was going to testify to Jesus Christ, I had to set myself up, by doing things like scripturally themed art pieces for school assignments to have a chance to explain them.

Well, I'm at work, and my break's up, and I guess that's all the thinking time I have.

I have been reading Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" after finishing "The Brother's Karamazov". Between those and spending depressing amounts of time uploading other literature onto my kindle, I have realized that I have hardly read the word of God at ALL!!!
God help me, no wonder I feel so fragile. It's no wonder that the spirit is the center of a man, and a weak spirit is as incapable of holding up a body as a weak spine. I've had more fears and anxieties to fight in the last couple weeks that I have in a long time, or at least it's the first time in a while I've been prey on their radar.
:::
Just got back from church, all better.

So, it looks as if I am going to school after all. I got a financial aid letter the other night saying that I'm getting enough grants and awards to cover almost all of my tuition. I wasn't expecting it, to tell the truth.
So, what this means is that Brandy & I (Lord willing) will be moving up closer to seattle, in the Magnolia/Queen Anne area.

Most of all though I want us to do God's will, I know he didn't have us come all the way out here just so I could go to school. My main prayer is that God will lead us where we need to go, and that he would help us to know when and where to start a bible study, and which church to get involved with up there.

The church here has kind of started to hold us at arms length, at least that's how I feel. The guy in charge of the youth ministry called me last week and said that due to pastor's orders he's taking over Relate again, since he's the Youth leader and all - apparently he'd never cleared handing Relate off to me with the pastor, and once the pastor found out he told Joe that shouldn't be happening. It's just as well since Joe's been taking most of the Relate sessions anyway, the ones that weren't vetoed by special speakers etc...
The pastor here was really encouraging me to start "Men in Turn" -his version of pastoral training, after some coaxing I agreed, and then after putting in all the paperwork I've been chasing him around the past month trying to set up an appointment to meet with him about it, since he said we have to meet first to start the training. I finally got a date from him, and it's going to be another week or so till we can meet to start this thing I filled the paperwork out for last month.
It almost feels like an old school CC St. Paul "Test".
He also kept dropping very strong hints that he wants me to stay here and not move, and become part of the ministry here in CC South, but I encouraged no illusions of that happening, and I think they've finally taken me seriously and are withdrawing...

But, this could all be me being pessimistic. I have a tendency to do that; for instance: if something of mine is missing for a couple days, I assume that it's been stolen and get upset at the hypothetical thief, only to find the "stolen" possession behind the couch or in my closet or wherever I left it last. Why do I think the worst of people?

I finally broke down and shelled out the money to get the (ridiculously expensive) Logos for Mac bible engine, so that I can open up my Oswald Chambers and Francis Schaeffer CD's and hopefully load them on the Kindle.
All this reading... Reading through Brother's Karamazov again, but I just read a quote of John Wesley that struck me:

Beware that you are not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.
- John Wesley


Sigh.