Archive for December, 2007...
Filed under books, life
And now on to my favorite books of the year. If you’d like to review my Un-Recommended Books, scroll down a few posts and check them out. But this post is about the ones that shouldn’t get away from you.
The first two are directly impacting my health right now.
Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss, by Joel Fuhrman
If you don’t like “diet” books, you probably won’t like this one. If you like meat and cheese, you definitely won’t like it. But it might just improve your health. It’s improving mine.
The China Study, by T. Colin Campbell
The same objections apply here, but it’s especially scary for the meat/cheese eater because the author backs it up with solid science. Bottom line: Want cancer? Got meat/milk? Want heart disease? Got meat/milk? Want MS, diabetes, and everything else bad you’ve ever worried about? Got milk/meat? I don’t want any of those things, so I’ve decided not to eat much of that stuff anymore. And I’m lovin’ it.
No more diet books…I promise!
Filed under books
If you’ve never read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship, I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s actually one of those rare books that I’ve never finished but still know it’s essential reading. I’ll finish it this year (honest, I will!). If you want a taste, read this comparison of Cheap Grace and Costly Grace:
Cheap Grace:
Instead of following Christ, let the Christian enjoy the consolations of his grace! That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner who departs from sin and from who sin departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow upon ourselves…Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Warning, the grace you’re about to read about is costly…
Filed under bible, my favorites
There are some Christians who will go to the mat telling you that you should always interpret the New Testament by using the Old Testament. This actually makes a ton of sense. After all, the Old Testament was written first, and the whole New Testament is built upon the old. So, yeah, that seems to make sense. Unless, of course, you think the New Testament writers were, you know, inspired or something.
Basically, it boils down to who we should count on for interpretations: the men who received prophecies they didn’t always understand (1 Peter 1:10-12), or those whose minds were “opened to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45)?
What passage are we talking about?
Comments (0) Posted by Seth on Saturday, December 15th, 2007
Filed under announcements, books, life
It’s that time of year when I take a whole post (or three) and dedicate them to bragging about how many books I read. I know there are many out there who read *more* books that I do, but most of my friends seem to think I’m strange for reading as many as I do. So I choose to be proud of it.
I don’t actually have my total for the year yet, but I can project it with a small bit of accuracy. Right now I’m sitting at 50, and I will definitely finish my Bible and my “How to Read the Bible” book. I’ll also definitely finish the Koontz I’m reading, the Asimov short story collection, and probably one or two minor books I haven’t started yet. So I’m going with:
And you thought I’d tell you without making you click?
Filed under announcements, life
Given my current inability to get over this silly cold/sinus thing I have, I’ve decided to take up a new motto:
Expectorate the Unexpected!
Like it?
Filed under bible, my favorites, rants
So in my Bible Read-Through group, I put this question to one of the guys:
“Reading Revelation 1:1-3 (below), what do you make of the words ‘things which must shortly take place’, and ‘for the time is near’?”
Revelation 1:1-3 (NKJV, emphasis mine):
1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw. 3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.
My thing is, I want to take things literally when they seem to be intended as literal. These words seem to have been written to ancient Christians, for the purpose of telling them something about their near future. Otherwise, what good were they?
My friend gave the common response of, “I’m not sure what ’shortly’ and ‘near’ mean to God…”
Okay, but God was trying to communicate *something* to those early Christians. Again, why use words if they don’t mean anything?
Where am I going with this?
Filed under bible, my favorites
There’s a passage in Daniel that I’ve seen interpreted in some interesting ways. Here it is:
Daniel 7:13-14 (NKJV):
13 “I was watching in the night visions,
And behold, One like the Son of Man,
Coming with the clouds of heaven!
He came to the Ancient of Days,
And they brought Him near before Him.
14 Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom,
That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
Which shall not pass away,
And His kingdom the one
Which shall not be destroyed.”
(more…)
Filed under life, rants
I know I shouldn’t post angry, but I’m doing it anyway. But bear with me…I have something I think is funny. But first….
Comment Spam has driven me to try several solutions. Nothing has worked. And now, as of this moment, I don’t seem to be able to even *leave* comments. Which means that although I can still get the spam, I now can no longer receive comments from actual people. Not that I get many. But it’s nice sometimes…
Don’t give up. Honestly, there’s something funny here