My child is gone

I have lost a child. Not a real child but the type that people without real kids call children. These can take the form of pets or as in my case a machine. I didn’t lose my child in that I can’t find it. I lost it in that it is more or less dead. My 1985 Honda Shadow 700cc motorcycle has left and it served me faithfully for 9 years and for 40,000+ miles. I drove it to church to pick up some milk that I had left there the Sunday previous and when I returned to it it wouldn’t start. It seemed like the battery was dead so I just pushed started the bike. However, this was not easy. Since it was a Honda I hardly ever had to push start my bike but it isn’t a hard thing to do. I’ve owned a ’63 VW Bug so I’m used to push starting machines. So this was an indication of a larger problem. I was able to drive it for one block when it died just before taking me onto a busier road. I tried once again to push start it and it refused all my attempts. So, I began to work on my bike by buying some cheap tools at a Dollar General store and borrowing other tools at the church that was now a block away. I really thought it was only the battery so I worked on it for about an hour and realized that those bolts were just on too tight for the cheap tools that I had to get the job done. So, I pushed it to the bike shop just at the corner from where the bike shut off. The bike shop owner was a real nice guy and let me borrow some of his tools so I could get the battery out. I did so and asked him to fill it with water and charge it. He willingly did so and also checked the stator to see if it had gone bad. And it was.

So now I had to buy a $290 stator and leave my bike at his shop. Long story short I was picked up by some friends of mine and had to be brought back because I accidentally stole the tools he let me use to remove my battery. When I came back he showed me more of what my problem was with my bike. My voltmeter was also worn out and my wiring harness was burning up. It very easily could have caught fire on me at anytime during my recent travels, but the Lord is gracious. The repairs all totaled to be around $600-700 in just parts and with the addition of labor I was well over $1,000. So I decided to let her remain as she sat. It was a very strange feeling. It was very similar, but not identical, to the feelings I had when I had to put my 15 year old dog to sleep a few years ago. It was a very sad moment. The Lord is great because He allowed this bike to serve me faithfully in all kinds of weather and it never let me down. Then when it does break down it does so right in front of the only bike shop for miles. I only had to push it 25 feet. All in all a very sad day but God is very kind.

So I will be without a motorcycle for a few years and I will be resisting my desire to covet those bikes that others are riding.

Quotes

Is there any way to ever resolve the hermeneutical chaos and anarchy that exists within the Protestant church largely as a result of its adoption of radical individualism? Most Protestants do not seem to have taken this question seriously enough if they have considered it at all. If we proclaim to the unbelieving world that we have the one true and final revelation from God, why should they listen to us if we cannot agree about what that revelation actually says? Jesus prayed for the disciples that they would be one (Jn. 17.21a). And why did He pray for this unity? He tells us the reason, “that the world may believe that You sent me” (Jn. 17. 21b). The world is supposed to be hearing the Church preach the gospel of Christ, but the world is instead hearing an endless cacophony of conflicting and contradictory assertions by those who claim to be the Church of Christ. This is the heart of the hermeneutical problem we face in the Church today.

Keith A. Mathison “The Shape of Sola Scriptura"

sonic commercials

I don't watch television much (much less than 16 hours a day) but occasionally when I'm working someone will have the tube on and so I watch. I've noticed that there are numerous Sonic commercials that are really funny. I don't really have much commentary to add to them but if you have seen them then you would have to agree with me, and if you don't then I don't think you really know what I think is funny. I can't say that I'm a big Sonic fan (I've read Fastfood Nation, Why America is the fattest nation in the World and seen Supersize Me) but I do appreciate the low-key commercials. They don't even have the obnoxious half-naked people trying to hock their wears, just two guys in a car saying funny things. Their not even the high gloss faux-man that is seen in some other advertisements. These are just some ordinary guys who act and look much like I do. Maybe that is why I like them. For those of you who either have never seen me or can't remember what I look like (didn't look at the pictures on my website) I do not have blonde hair nor do I have brown skin. I look like these guys in that they aren't good looking guys but their not ugly either.

Sola Scriptura

I’m reading a new book called “The Shape of Sola Scriptura” by Keith Mathison. It is quite good and it basically looks at the concept of biblical interpretation throughout history. Essentially he lays out the history of the church forming its view of interpreting the bible. This, ofcourse, has had lasting impressions on our world not only from the first century but also up to our present time. “There are those who continue to maintain that position of the early Church by insisting that, although the Scriptures must be interpreted by the Church and in the Church according to the rule of faith, they are the sole source of authoritative revelation--”Tradition I.” And there are those who maintain the existence of extra-scriptural sources of revelation equally as authoritative as Scripture--”Tradition II.”

“Martin Luther and John Calvin did not formulate a novel doctrine of scriptural and ecclesiastical authority. Like the ancient fathers before them, they asserted the Scripture as the sole source of revelation and denied the existence of equally authoritative extra-scriptural revelation. They asserted that Scripture was to be interpreted in and by the Church and that it was to be interpreted according to the ancient apostolic teaching of the Church--the regula fidei. Their complaint arose because the Roman church had completely forsaken the apostolic life and doctrine and had also theologically insulated itself against the possibility of ever being corrected by submitting itself to a higher standard of truth. By declaring herself to be infallible, Rome had, in effect, become autonomous--a law unto herself. The classical Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura is not a novel doctrine of scriptural authority. Its distinctiveness arises instead from the fact that it is the doctrine of Tradition I as expressed within the historical context of debate with an almost universally apostate and autonomous church.”

He goes on to define Tradition 0 as those who advocate sola scriptura but do so without a historical context. They do not want what the church has stated on a particular topic of scripture to ever bear any weight for the individual. These radical reformers want just the bible and the individual to determine what is biblical and what isn’t. Without any oversight this mutation has become the norm in our modern evangelical madness. With this thought one can deny the Trinity or the work of the Holy Spirit or a whole host of other denials of true Christian faith. “The second concept, advocated by many of the radical reformers, insisted that Scripture was the sole authority altogether. Not only were medieval “traditions” disregarded, but tradition in the sense of the regula fidei, the testimony of the fathers, the traditional interpretation of Scripture, and the corporate judgment of the Church were discarded as well. The interpretation of Scripture, according to this concept, was a strictly individual matter.”

This book is just fantastic and I’m only halfway through it. Every Christian should read this book and you should read it even if you aren’t a Christian as Christianity has impacted the world significantly and this book will allow you to get a view behind enemy lines. It goes well with O’Palmer Robertson’s books “The Israel of God” and “Christ and the Covenants”. These, combined with John Calvin’s book IV of his Institutes, and you have a nice jumbalya of theological food to savor for quite some time.

Told to do so

I have been informed that I should post a blog as not only is this a trendy thing to do (do you need any other reason) but also because as my friend Kershaw wanted to say but never did, "Your ideas chanllenge me". So, since a few of my recent thoughts and words have caused others to laugh and think I've been asked to make a blog. Now I can not say that I will be the most faithful person to their blog, as I've heard that these are time consuming hobbies, but I will post things that either make me laugh or things I've been thinking about recently. I hope you enjoy reading my thoughts.

This all seems a bit strange for me to be making a blog since I am one of the most computer inept people out there. I've just tried to spell check the last paragraph and the computer won't do it. I am either doing something wrong or the computer is named HAL and has developed a demented personality. If I spell words wrong please forgive me and you can even add some constructive criticism. I need to stress the word constructive. If while reading my stuff you see that I spelled taht in an incorrect order than just over look it. I atleast got all the letters in there. I just got in a bit of a hurry. Besides as of now I don't even know how to spell check my stuff, so one word wrong is pretty good. I'm typing these words as soon as they come into my head and I think one wrong out of so many is a pretty good average.

Anyway, I'll figure out more as I go along.