I have seen this commercial several times on television in the last few weeks.  Follow the link and take a look at it.  I will wait for you...

...Is is it just me, or is it telling us that people who drive mopeds to work and take human powered vehicles to run errands (skateboards in this instance) are crazy and that they should instead shop at Wal-Mart and continue to drive their cars and keep paying $3.00 a gallon?  Of course, Wal-Mart sells the gas too, so for them it is a win/win! 

Apparently it is in my best interest to keep up our dependency on foreign oil AND shop at a place that sells mostly goods from China that may or may not be poisoned with lead, melamine, or glycol, that are produced with labor that is mistreated and underpaid, that are made in factories with no environmental controls and benefits a government who has an official policy to oppress, arrest and even kill my brothers and sisters in Christ? 

A few weeks ago I investigated the possibility of having a Christmas that has nothing made in China and discovered that this is almost impossible to do anymore!  Last year I went to buy some strawberries that were on sale for a dollar a bag and when I flipped the bag over I discovered that the strawberries were made in CHINA!  What kind of twisted economics makes it possible for a place to sell strawberries for DOLLAR that were grown and frozen halfway around the world, shipped across the largest ocean in the world, unloaded on the west coast and trucked to the middle of America?  Something tells me that there is either something very wrong with the strawberries or that some poor soul is really getting a raw deal out of those strawberries.  There is no such thing as a free lunch.

What can we do?  Are there any real alternatives?  I cannot afford to shop at the Whole Foods store down the street, I don't have the time to hunt down the country of origin on all of the items that I buy and the stores certainly do not make it easy on you to shop American.  Back to the original statement, I do not think you are CRAZY to want to drive alternative vehicles (and I am not talking about hybrids see this post) and I do not think that you are crazy if you want to buy products that are safe for your family and don't exploit someone in a third world country.

My Christian history class with Dr. Tom Nettles has moved on into the meat of the subject after dealing with foundational presuppositions and methodology.  The first and second century church rose up in an atmosphere rich in philosophical, legal and political dialogues and the first Christian writers had to come to grips with these various philosophies.  There is a long standing argument among Christian thinkers about what Jerusalem has to do with Athens, but it cannot be denied that much of Western Christianity has been influenced by the methodology of philosophy if not its content.  To me, this is a personal issue and today's class awoke thoughts that have laid dormant for many years.

When I first heard the gospel, I was a philosophy student at Southern Illinois University.  Before I was confronted with Christ I had built up a solid base of knowledge, especially in the area of the pre-Socratics, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.  At the time of my conversion I was immersed in Soren Kierkegaard and other "pre-existentialist" philosophers (like Nietzsche).  In the early days of my faith I spent considerable time and and thought upon reconciling the philosophies of men with the Gospel of Christ.  Any student of Plato would react positively when he read 1 Corinthians 13:12.

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."

My first thought when I read this verse for the first time is that it reminded me of Plato's allegory of the cave.  I also read Romans 1:19-20 and saw a mechanism by which God's general revelation could render Plato correct, at least in some things.

"For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made."

After a time of maturing in the faith I realized that my attempt at reconciling philosophy with the scriptures was just an attempt to gain acceptance and legitimacy among the community that I was involved with in Carbondale.  Theology is not the "Queen of Sciences" that she once was and my pride lead me to seek out any scraps of Christian truth that I could find among professors, other students and the western philosophers of the past 2,000 years.  Not coincidently,  my first few years as a Christian also involved an attempt to reconcile my sinful lifestyle with my new found faith.  At the same time I was trying to bring Plato and Socrates along for my Christian walk, I was also trying to bring along "wine, women and song" as well.  (a veiled description to say the least)

I am much further along in my faith now and have put aside any need that I once had for "legitimacy" among academics.  I believe it is also time to reinvestigate some of these issues with older eyes and a wiser spirit.  For example, I have been continually confronted with the idea that the Doctrine of General Revelation allows for those who are dead in their trespasses to have a complex and nuanced understanding of the One True God.  What is the mean, mode and extent of Romans 1:19-20?  How is this General Revelation from God reconciled to and affected by total depravity?  I believe that Romans 1 clearly defines this relationship and the limit, but there are certainly a lot of folks around using General Revelation as an explanation why secular philosophies can have a great deal of truth in them.  I think this will make for a great end of term paper in systematic theology.  I might also have the opportunity to revisit my old friend Soren Kierkegaard and see how I react to his writings as a more mature Christian.  Ole Soren gets a lot of bad press 'round these parts and some examinations of "Christian Existentialism" might make for some profitable research in light of the modern church's preoccupation with experience. 

There are two basic approaches to learning Greek in the seminary.  The first approach is to spend an incredible amount of hours to pass the standardized Greek test at the end of the semester, or spend an incredible amount of hours to pass the standardized test, plus a few more hours to actually gain a mastery of the language.  I have met several students who have taken the first approach and I cannot help to think that this is a huge waste of time and effort.  I have decided early on that I am going to go the extra ten percent to push my Greek knowledge past the tipping point between knowing and knowing. (hearers of my sermons and teaching will be familiar with this seemingly subtle difference)    The difference, in my mind between the two different approaches is the difference between translating a Biblical text and reading a Biblical text.  I want to move toward reading Greek for pleasure instead of being glued to a lexicon for every other word.

The most obvious reason is that a Pastor can benefit with an ability to read the original languages.  Secondly,  mastery of Greek will help me learn Hebrew since much of learning a language is increasing your understanding of your own language's grammar.  When I take Hebrew, I will have already gotten over the hurdle of re-learning the grammar of English.  It is not entirely the fault of English speakers that we do not know our grammar.  Many languages, like Greek or Latin, are inflected and the grammatical structure is much more transparent since words have different endings depending on how they are used in the sentence.  "Chair", for example, is always Chair no matter if it is the direct or indirect object, but Greek words change endings when they are used as the direct object or indirect object.  English depends on word order for this distinction. 

There are some modern languages that I will need to learn in the next few years as well.  I will need some modern language skills for any PhD work that I want to do (probably German) and I am not going to go to Iraq without some  knowledge of Arabic.  As a matter of fact, I think that some Spanish would be handy too (for use at the Olive Garden).  Anyway....

Now I want to write about my approach to learning Biblical Greek.  Like most people, I have had some false starts in language learning (Do YOU remember your high school French?) so I am trying to draw from those quasi-failures in my latest attempt.  First of all, learning Greek is different than learning modern languages in that you cannot go to a "Greek Club" and have conversations with native speakers or advanced students.  There are disagreements about how the language was spoken out loud and it is for this very reason that Greek is the perfect language for the scriptures since it has stopped changing through use.  This lack of conversational Greek limits the sort of passive absorption that we use to learn languages (especially when we are young).  There is also limited use in translating from English to Greek since you have a limited vocabulary (although in college we translated sentences like "touch that sword and you will die where you sit!")  For these reasons,  I have adopted a strategy that is based more upon writing than speaking. 

My first step is to learn the raw vocabulary and the most basic meaning of the words.  For example "agape" (transliterated) means love. I make flash cards and learn these meanings thoroughly.  I have an extensive Greek vocabulary from being exposed to the language for 15 years, so I have a head start in this area.  If I did not have mastery of this level, then when I add in other layers of information such as tense, voice, mood, number, gender, etc.  I would have multiple layers of information to recognize.  If I do have mastery of the meaning of a word, I can then spend my mental energy trying to recall the higher orders of information.   After I have the meaning I can then add on the layer of how the word changes in a sentence.  For example agape is also agapes. agapie, agapen, agapai, agapon, agapais, agapas depending on how it used in the sentence and depending on if it is plural or singular.  Once I have this declension down (using flash cards and writing it out multiple times) then I can then break out each form onto its own card and write the parsing on the back.  I use these parsing cards to quiz myself on recognizing the word form outside of the declension chart.  After this I move on to contextual recognition in sentences.  This is where the exercises in the Greek book come in handy.  My only wish is that I could find some more exercises to work through than the book provides.

Earlier I mentioned that Greek is not really a conversational language, but this does not mean that it is not profitable to speak it out loud.  Greek is much more phonetic than English so it has less strange spelling rules.  If you can say a Greek word (correctly) then you can probably spell it.  I have a few pronunciation CD's in my toolbox of Greek resources, so I play these in the car over and over again.  After following this pattern of adding layer upon layer of knowledge (not moving on until I master the lower level) then I start being able to "intuitively" find mistakes in my flash cards or in my writing.  Intuitive is not the best word for this situation since this kind of intuition comes from A LOT of hard work.   When you get to the point where you can do it "without thinking" then you know that you are on the way from just translating to actually reading like a native speaker. 

On a final note, I think that every single school in America should teach Latin or Greek.  This is not for religious reasons, but rather to provide a base of knowledge that will increase our knowledge of our own language and for the learning of foreign languages in the future.  My mother took Latin at Mattoon High School back in the fifties and I have to wonder why they ever got rid of the program.  At 36, I wish that I had learned these languages as a child so that I could now be focused on higher order learning instead of learning the basics!  I realize that the kids will say, "What am I ever going to use this for in the future?", but from what I have seen, kids say this about Algebra, History, Geography, English and practically every subject taught in school!   Kids do not know any better, that is what makes them kids!

Two weeks ago, Dr Cook of Ninth and O Baptist church brought a fantastic sermon.  There was one point, however, that struck both my wife and I simultaneously (I have been teaching her the scriptures for 12 years now and she has actually listened). Dr. Cook was teaching about the persistent widow in relation to prayer, and as expected, he brought the example of 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

One of the most basic lessons from this passage is that sometimes the answer to a prayer is "no."  Dr. Cook went on to say that  with Romans 8:28 in mind...

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who^, have been called according to his purpose.

... that Paul "surmised" that this situation is God's will and it was for the good.  The problem with this is that God spoke directly to Paul and told him exactly the purpose of his current trial and there was no guesswork involved  (note: I am not implying some great error on the part of Dr. Cook, it was probably just a gaff or oversight.  I did this from the pulpit all the time and was terribly annoyed by those who did crosswords when I was preaching but were quite excited to point out some misstatement that I made in a sermon).  Why is this important?  The importance of this point is that we do not enjoy the kind of special revelation that Paul received and when Christians enter into the speculation game about the specifics of their suffering there is no way of verifying one's theory without this kind of direct revealing from God.  The end result is that we suffer great disappointment when our best imagined scenarios do not play out.   In a convergence of topics, Dr. Moore made the point in his last lecture that Christians will often misuse the Romans 8:28 passage to justify that the good that God speaks of will find its fruition in our lifetime instead of in the larger narrative of history.  For example, when Tracy was pregnant with Kaiser, she almost lost him in the first trimester.  During this time many good intentioned Christians said to us that they were praying for us (a good thing) and that "everything was going to turn out fine."  By "fine" they specifically meant that we would not lose Kaiser.  On what basis could they make this claim?  According to the scriptures, I have absolutely no promise made to me that my wife would never lose a child.  In fact, there are various passages point to great difficulties for those who are in Christ. 

Job's friends enter into the same speculation when great tragedy befell Job and his family.  With the exception of Elihu,  who did not offend God with his comments, they were all wrong.  Job's other friends, in short, said that these great tragedies came upon him because of his sin.  We know from the prologue to this account that this was not the case at all.  It is as if we enter into some sort of strange divination to discern God's will (looking for signs, wonders and omens) instead of looking to the plain and revealed Word of God.  Do terrible things happen to Christians? Do they suffer injustice?  Do they get sick?  The answer to all of these is yes and one can either trust that this is part of God's providence and purpose or you can run yourself ragged trying to chase down all the lose ends of this plan of God. I had absolutely no assurance that we would not lose our son before birth (or will not lose him in the future for that matter) but I do have assurance that God's sovereignty will bring about His own glory through those circumstances...someday.  

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

God's answer to Paul is good enough for all of us.  Is this a cop out? no, this is an exercise of living faithfully when time are hard and you have not got a clue about what God is up to in your life.  Its OK not to have a clue, this is what having faith is about.  You do not understand all of God's activities, but you understand His nature and that is good enough for us.

I had my first class today, systematic theology with Dr. Russell Moore, and I sat there amazed that I have been given this opportunity.  The longer Dr. Moore spoke, the more assurance that I had concerning moving to Louisville and choosing SBTS.  This is all despite the nightmarish scheduling that my family is trying to work out.   K and Kaiser start school at 9:00, Danielle starts school at 7:45, I start school at 7:00, and Tracy goes to work (in an Indiana elementary school) at 7:15, Danielle gets out at 10:45 and needs to be at work at 1:00, I go to work at 11:15, Eleanor needs to go to the daycare center, and we only have 2 cars (which would not be such a problem if our teenage princess was not afraid to exert herself by bike or foot to get to work).  Ugh...

This is all in addition to the fact that the scheduling manager at the Olive Garden some how derived a 7 shift schedule from our conversation about how I wanted to focus on school by working only 3 or 4 shifts at the most.  This is a good example of restaurant math.  I have always had a hard time turning down work, but after today's class lecture, I clearly saw that the path to being a theology professor is not paved with 40 hours of waiting tables.  I love my job, but I am not the person that I was ten years ago and I know that service jobs can suck the life from you if you let them.  When you wait on tables, there is a certain server culture that goes along with it and it is easy to get sucked into the swirling vortex of tip addiction.  Once you get a wad full of money in your pocket everyday, it is easy to lose sight of what your ultimate goals are. 

 
 
Video: Eleanor is starting to walk

11 years ago I left the restaurant business and this week I have made my return.  As a part time job I have started to wait on tables at the Olive Garden.  My good friend Jason (an Olive Garden general manager in Champaign) did me a solid by recommending me to the Clarksville, Indiana Olive Garden and even called several other local Olive Gardens to see which of the service managers seemed as though they would be good to work with.  Jason's instincts were correct and it turns out that the Clarksville O.G. is a fantastic place to work.

last week was an extensive training session with a certified trainer and I spent over 20 hours in training before I ever got my own section.  I have been impressed with the quality of training and it is much better than the "hear is the coffee pot, here is your order pad" training that I have seen in most restaurants.  The Olive Garden gives a server every chance to succeed in their job.  As part of the training we had to sample everything on the menu and every afternoon at the end of the training, the trainer and one other trainee and I split 5 or six plates of food.  That was a real morale booster for a long week without making tips! 

As the week ended and I started to work real shifts (limited to 2 table sections for a week), I realized that I am not 25 years old anymore!  I have worked a couple of double shifts (lunch and dinner), and had to limp home with every muscle in my body aching.  Even with the food sampling feast I have lost 10 lbs in the last two weeks.  I am finally fitting into many of pants that I have not been able to wear for years.  This should help my bid to rejoin the National Guard if it does not kill me first.  I forgot how physical it is to wait on tables in a busy restaurant. 

I have found in the last 2 weeks that the Olive Garden is a well run company and I should be able to make good money.  The Clarksville, IN Olive Garden is the cleanest restaurant that I have ever seen and it is the first place that actually makes sick workers go home instead of spreading their illness to hundreds of people.  Fear and Trembling readers might be shocked to know how many other restaurants force their wait staffs to work even though they have the flu!  Olive Garden even provides sanitary wipes at locations all over the kitchen and server areas so we can clean our hands after handling used dishes, half eaten food, and glasses. 

Finally, the Olive Garden provides me with a connection to the world outside of the Seminary.  Living in a seminary dominated apartment complex, attending SBTS, and getting involved in local church could quickly land me in a sequestered world separated from those who are in the most need of ministry.  This is the same reason that I have spent so much time in coffee houses over the years.  A pastor has to be out in the trenches and not back at the headquarters if he has any hope of being an effective minister.

I realize that most of my readers would like to hear about some more church horror stories about our search for a church, but this week brings only good news.  At the last minute, I decided to forgo the SBC Flagship church, Highview, for a smaller local church named Ninth and O Baptist Church.  This church is certainly not small (700 people over two services), but it is smaller than Highview Baptist Church with 6 campuses! Despite the name, Ninth and O is not located on Ninth and O, but rather on Breckenridge, an easy drive from my home.

As we approached the church building, there were parking attendants like the pervious church and they found us a spot near the door (perhaps they sensed that were visitors,  is that a spiritual gift?) The building looked fairly new by Baptist standards and when we entered into the generously sized foyer, I noticed....nothing.  Nothing?  Yes, nothing.  There was nothing in the foyer that was screaming what church model affiliation that they ascribe too.  This was a good thing in my mind.  We were met by a women who was not an official greeter, but she quickly put us at ease with her genuine style and helped us find the classrooms and nursery for the children.  As we were signing up Eleanor for the nursery, the Pastor, who obviously has the spiritual gift of visitor identification, greeted us and we had a short conversation about our family.  I did not keep the man long since I understand the need for a pastor to get to his post before service starts.

The pastor is Dr. Bill Cook, a senior pastor and a New Testament professor at the Seminary.  Dr. Cook is an unassuming man with a understated demeanor.  He certainly did not strike me as the kind of preacher "superstar" that are often seen these days in churches of this size.  Again,  when I met Dr. Cook, I was not overwhelmed by some attempt to educated me on the church's zeal for any particular emphasis.  He was just a plain guy who greeted us and seemed genuine.

Tracy and I went into the service and sat near the front as is our custom.  The sanctuary was, WELL LIT, and I could even read my bulletin in contrast to last week's experience.  The Church has extensive instrumentation for their music and even had a drum kit, but the difference was that the band was in a "pit" and the music was just loud enough to lead the congregation in singing without becoming the main focus of the service.  The songs were a mix of hymns and contemporary praise choruses that were arranged in an upbeat, but restrained manner.  The words were projected onto the view screens above the platform and I don't think that they even had hymnals in the pews, but I am not sure about that.  The worship leader did not try to draw to much attention to himself and did a good job of leading the congregation along with several other singers on the platform.  I really enjoyed the worship time and felt myself worshipping for the first time since I left home. 

The sermon was delivered by Dr. Cook and I can actually remember, 4 days later, what he preached !  He preached about the persistent widow and her relation to our prayer life.  It was a solid exposition of the scripture, the only stories he told were about his personal life, and the only time that SPORTS were mentioned was an announcement about the church's soccer league!  Dr.  Cook obviously understands that preaching with power does not entail raising your voice, making the sermon relevant with cute anecdotes, or trying to make yourself "hip and cool."  Whew, I needed that!  I found myself guessing what verse he was going to use next and found that Dr. Cook and I think alike (for this sermon anyway!).   My only disappointment was that he seemed to shift gears when he went into the time of invitation.  There was a transition from sincere expository sermon to the standard Southern Baptist invitation spoken over several choruses  of an invitation song.  There was nothing substantially wrong with the invitation, but I was expecting something more than the rubber stamp after hearing his fantastic sermon.  It seems as though Dr. Cook grew up Baptist and he probably just went into auto-pilot when the invitation song started. 

Here is the main point of out visit to Ninth and O:  The Gospel is great and all churches have to do it not mess it up with our own cleverness.  Ninth and O is just a church, not a social statement or a church growth experiment.  The building was nice and efficient, but not overdone.  There was no bookstore, coffeehouse, or food court as is the case in many mega-churches.  The people were all at ease and genuine (with a variety of ages and races as well!) The worship service was lively and reverent without being a rock concert or a funeral parlor. Most importantly, the pastor was a plain guy with a Biblical sermon that understood that it is about God and not him.   Here is an important lesson about being a church:  Get out of the way and let the Holy Spirit do His work!  Ninth and O did not do anything to distract us from the workings of God and for that they are to be commended!  Young people do not need rock music to be reached, Older people do not need funeral dirges to be reached,  and  middle age people do not need banking and food services to be reached.  People need the Word of God through the Holy Spirit to be reached! It is really that simple!

P.S.  They have AWANA, which really kid's happy!

P.S.S.  If anyone from Ninth and O reads this, you need to put your service times on your front page of your new website, I had to find them under the "events" tabs.  It was kind of awkward.