I’ve started making some loops and beats with Sony Acid. Some are original, some are just mixes and remixes of the loops included with the program. Have a listen to my beats!!
June, 2008
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Jun 08
Little Explorers
The best part about being a teacher is getting to spend summers with your own children. Ours has just started and we’re off to a busy one — doing nothing but chasing the little one around the house as you’ll see in this video:
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Jun 08
The Unanswered Questions
Many have said that when they get to heaven, they want to ask God certain questions. I cannot personally think of anything I want to ask God — at least not at this point in my life. Perhaps I will one day feel the need to ask Him a question in heaven, but for now I am content to leave questions unanswered.
Applying the unanswered questions theme to Calvinism and Arminianism, each theological system has such questions. For Calvinists, the two questions are thus:
- Exactly how God can ordain that we do evil willingly, and yet God not be blamed for evil?
- Exactly how God can cause us to choose something willingly?
Wayne Grudem says of these two questions,
“To both, Calvinists would say that the answer is somehow to be found in an awareness of God’s infinite greatness, in the knowledge of the fact that he can do far more than we could ever think possible. So the effect of these unanswered questions is to increase our appreciation of the greatness of God.
On the other hand, Arminians must leave unanswered questions regarding God’s knowledge of the future, why he would allow evil when it is against his will, and whether he will certainly triumph over evil. Their failure to resolve these questions tends to diminish the greatness of God–his omniscience, his omnipotence, and the absolute reliability of his promises for the future. And these unanswered questions tend to exalt the greatness of man (his freedom to do what God does not want) and the power of evil (it comes and remains in the universe even though God does not want it). Moreover, by denying that God can make creatures who have real choices that are nevertheless caused by him, the Arminian position diminishes the wisdom and skill of God the Creator. (Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, 350-1)
Grudem hits the nail on the head with the essential difference between Calvinism and Arminianism — the emphasis on the greatness of glory of God rather than the greatness of man. Something to think about.
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Jun 08
The Way Is Hard
This is a passage of Scripture that rarely finds its way into many pulpits on Sunday morning. Jesus is telling us that the only way to eternal life is through the narrow, or confined gate. This narrow gate that he speaks of is the gate of the true gospel and a life of discipleship.
I have often said that modern evangelicalism makes it too easy to be saved. Come to the altar, say a prayer and sign a card, and boom, you are now born-again and on your way to heaven. This method of evangelism seems to be at odds with the message Jesus gave us in these two verses.
Christ draws a comparison between the narrow gate and the wide gate, the hard way and the easy way. Two other little words show up in these verses: many and few. We are told that many will find the broad and easy road to destruction, or hell, but only a few will find the narrow and hard road to eternal life. He uses the word “many” again in verse 22:
The message here becomes clear after reading the whole chapter. There are many who will take the broad road and find eternal suffering in hell and there are few who will take the narrow road and find eternal life. Jesus even tells us that there will be many who thought they were on the narrow road, but really were on the broad road (verse 23).
Add it all up and you get one of most frightening passages in all of Scripture. It is simply not easy to be a Christian. In fact, everything we read in the Bible leads us to the opposite conclusion — that being a disciple of Jesus Christ requires radical commitment and brings with it suffering, persecution and a life of self-denial. This is the polar opposite of the modern message of evangelical Christianity — that God wants to give us our “best life now” through shallow repentance and lukewarm commitment.
Matthew 7:13-23 should disturb us to the point that we seek only to re-commit ourselves to the gospel and at the same time make our calling and election sure. It offers a simply clarity to the gospel that should cause us to draw even closer to our Savior.
HD