Ten Moments of 2007

My good friend, Mark Webb, has a blog entitled Converging Heritage on which he posted 10 memorable moments of the last year. I always enjoy reading Mark's blog (and I would encourage you to take some time to read through his thoughts) but I thought I would copy his post. This is always a good exercise - to look back over the year and think about its impact. If you are reading this, consider yourself "tagged" and create your own "Ten moments of 2007" and post the link in the comments. I would love to read about your year. 1. Our family's trip to...

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The Funniest Thing I Heard Today - 12.18.07

I can buy a lid!I can buy the flap on the lid!Jessica and Rhonda discussing what they could buy with a $2.00 Starbucks giftca...

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The Funniest Thing I Heard Today - 12.17.07

I want an official, Red Rider, carbine action, two-hundred shot, range model air rifle...oooooo.Ralphie, on a commerical for A Christmas Sto...

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Digging Into the Burial of Sarah

For my final post on the chiasms found in Genesis, I want post more of an assignment rather than just posting information. I would like to challenge you read Genesis 23 and identify the chiasm there and the find the focus of the passage in this section of Scripture. This chapter records the burial of Sarah by Abraham. It is an interesting story. Spend some time looking at this passage. Attempt to find the chiasm by identifing the word pairs in parallel to each other (they are easily identifable in the English translation). After that, you can read...

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The "Point" of the Tower of Babel Story

In the series of post concerning Genesis, I have introducing the topic of poetry and chiasm so that I could share about the tower of Babel story. To begin with, allow me to say that while the tower of Babel story is written in a poetic form, I do believe that it is a true story. Just because something was written with poetic style does not mean that the story is myth. It is just a creative way for the author to convey the story. The Tower of Babel...

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The Emphasis of the Image of God

In the previous post, I was discussing poetry, chiasms, and interpreting in Genesis. Continuing on the same topic, I want to post another example of a chiasm to show what a chiasm is and the significance of the structure when interpreting Scripture. This example is found in Genesis 1:27, which says, God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. In the English versions, one can sense there is...

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Structural Issues in Genesis

In a previous post in the series I have been posting on Genesis, I mentioned that one of the more fascinating aspects of the Old Testament literature is the artistry with which it was written. Hebrew poetry is an interesting and enlightening study for the Bible student.In short, the basis for Hebrew poetry is the word pair or parallelism. Parallelism presents itself in many different forms. One of the more interesting forms is called a Chiasm. First, the word Chiasm (key'-as-um) comes from the Greek letter chi (key) which is written like an "X"...

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Narrative and Poetry in Genesis

It is interesting to note that when one is reading through Genesis there are "tags" which indicate something important just happened. These tags are poetry. In English, the basis of poetry is rhyme. In the Japanese form of poetry called Haiku, the basis of poetry is syllables. In Hebrew poetry, the basis for poetry is word pairs. Thus, various forms of parallelism make up poetry throughout the Old Testament (a great source with which to gain a better...

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The Origins of Public Schools

It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by persuading from the use of tongues, that so that at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded and corrupted with false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers; and to the end that learning may not be buried in the grave of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors. It is therefore ordered that every township...

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Orthopraxy Requires Orthodoxy

It is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality, unless they are prepared to take their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology. It is a lie to say that dogma does not matter; it matters enormously. It is fatal to let people suppose that Christianity is only a mode of feeling; it is vitally necessary to insist that is first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe. It is hopeless to offer Christianity as a vaguely idealistic aspiration of a simple and consoling kind; it is, on the...

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The Key to the Structure of Genesis - Toledot

As I indicated in a previous post, I am teaching through Genesis for our Sunday School class. As I have been studying I have become more and more awestruck with how intracately the book has been written. This becomes evident when noticing the main structure of Genesis. Most Old Testament scholars hold that the key to Genesis structure is a Hebrew world toledot (pronounced toll-uh-dote). This is the word translated "the account of" or "generations"...

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I Was Born With It

When was the last time your name made the top 1000 baby names? And when it did, what did it rank. Strangely enough, my name never rated high and fell off the charts sometimes in the 1950's. CLICK HERE for a visual representation of how unpopular my name is. CLICK HERE to gloat how popular your name is. Go ahead and post your link the in posts so I can see how normal your name is and I can continue to wonder what my parents were thinking. Have fun. And I am just kidding. I love my name. Really...

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