Blue Like Jazz

My friend, David Heska, just sent some quotes from Blue Like Jazz and I really liked this last one he sent:

"I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me."

So maybe it's not quite fair because we are made in the image of God and the pancake is not made in the image of us but it gets the point across! (Just don't use that as an excuse to not dive in deep and read some great theology by the likes of Wayne Grudem!)

Blue Like Jazz

My friend, David Heska, just sent some quotes from Blue Like Jazz and I really liked this last one he sent:

"I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me."

So maybe it's not quite fair because we are made in the image of God and the pancake is not made in the image of us but it gets the point across! (Just don't use that as an excuse to not dive in deep and read some great theology by the likes of Wayne Grudem!)

euguene peterson quote

We try to get [joy] through entertainment.... Society is a bored, gluttonous king employing a court jester to divert it after an overindulgent meal. But that kind of joy never penetrates our lives.... When we run out of money, the joy trickles away.

Convergence

A little while ago, I read a book by Sam Storms that I'd like to put some quotes from up here for anyone to think about. The book was called "Convergence: Spiritual Journeys of a Charismatic Calvinist".

“This raises the delicate question of why someone who does not believe the Bible teaches cessationism would not, in turn, actively pursue spiritual gifts and happily welcome their use in the context of the local church.” – page 20

“It’s important to make clear that I didn’t reject cessationism because of some spiritual experience or miracle I witnessed…. I rejected cessationism because, in the solitude and safety of my study at Christ Community Church, I became convinced that the Bible didn’t teach it.” – page 31

“We began obeying the Scriptures concerning our responsibility to pray for the sick. It wasn’t a question of who or how many did or did not get healed. It was a question of whether or not we were going to be obedient. I embraced the perspective of John Wimber who once said, “I would rather pray for one-hundred people and see only one get healed than not to pray for any and see none get healed.” In other words, I finally reached a point at which I refused to allow the fear of failure to justify my disobedience to the Word.” – page 45

“I hope we can agree that if a biblical command is worth obeying it is worth obeying wholeheartedly and with abandon.” – page 103

“First, we’ve misunderstood the nature of New Testament prophecy if we think of it as primarily predictive in nature. The purpose of the gift is less foretelling the future than forth-telling the heart of a God for a particular person.” – page 180

“If your heart needs joy, and whose doesn’t, dive into God’s word. Immerse yourself in its refreshing, sin-killing, joy-energizing power.” – page 189

“Prohibition is always easier than regulation. It is always easier to legislate against something than it is to repair it and make it useful for the people of God.” – page 213

“Satan is happy with either error. He would as much have us fall into a lifeless formality as he would that we were stirred and energized by affections [emotions] unrelated to truth. We must never forget that whereas there is more to true spirituality or religion than affections, ‘yet true religion consists so much in the affections, that there can be no true religion without them’ [quoting Jonathan Edwards].” – page 229

Blogging On

If it starts to seem like I'm not posting quite as much anymore there will be two reasons.

One: I moved into my own apartment (my first apartment woot woot!) yesterday and will no longer have the Internet at home since I live next to the church and can save money by just using it during the day while I'm in the office and in the odd evening when I feel like coming over to use it.

Two: I'm very involved in The 832 Blog and do some postings there. My post there today was about how I'm a Christian Hedonist and was an article that I wrote for the newspaper.

I will keep going on this blog too though, especially for book quotes and for stories about depressing emo music, so all three of you that read it - keep checking it! :)

This is your brain, speaking in tongues

This is a really interesting article on the subject of speaking in tongues. (A subject that I feel everyone should at least look into a little bit...see 1 Cor. 12:31; 14:1; 14:39!)

This is your brain, speaking in tongues.

"Our finding of decreased activity in the frontal lobes during the practice of speaking in tongues is fascinating because these subjects truly believe that the spirit of God is moving through them and controlling them to speak. Our brain imaging research shows us that these subjects are not in control of the usual language centers during this activity, which is consistent with their description of a lack of intentional control while speaking in tongues."