Friday, September 17, 2010

Great Quote from "The Princess Bride"

Vizzini

: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE.

Inigo Montoya

: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Great Quote from "Roots"

"There's gonna be another day... you hear me? There's gonna be another day!"

-- Fiddler to Kunta Kinte, after Kunta Kinte has been whipped to the point of breaking and forced to confess his slave name "Toby". From the 1977 TV miniseries based on the book by Alex Haley.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

P. T. Forsyth: The Worst Sin is Prayerlessness

The worst sin is prayerlessness. Overt sin, or crime, or the glaring inconsistencies which often surprise us in Christian people are the effect of this, or its punishment. We are left by God for lack of seeking Him. The history of the saints shows often that their lapses were the fruit and nemesis of slackness or neglect in prayer. Their life, at seasons, also tended to become inhuman by their spiritual solitude. They left men, and were left by men, because they did not in their contemplation find God; they found but the thought or the atmosphere of God. Only living prayer keeps loneliness humane. It is the great producer of sympathy. Trusting the God of Christ, and transacting with Him, we come into tune with men. Our egoism retires before the coming of God, and into the clearance there comes with our Father our brother. . . .
 
Not to want to pray, then, is the sin behind sin. And it ends in not being able to pray. That is its punishment — spiritual dumbness, or at least aphasia, and starvation. We do not take our spiritual food, and so we falter, dwindle, and die. "In the sweat of your brow ye shall eat your bread."("The Soul of Prayer," in A Sense of the Holy, p. 137)
 

Monday, May 17, 2010

Thought-Provoking P.T. Forsyth quote on hell / eternal punishment

From http://cruciality.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/who-said-it-4/

Who said it?

It's been around six weeks since our last 'Who said it?' competition, so probably time for another round (not that we need an excuse or anything). Here's one from the archives:

'Can it be just that God should bring beings into the world unprotected by an infinite armour of foresight against the infinite chances and temptations to wrong, and yet hold them liable to infinite punishment when they had gone wrong? … Punish a man for his sin, that is just; punish him for ages (if in that other world you can reckon time), that may be just; but make no end of punishing him for that sin, reduce him from a man to a devil and keep him there, let him become for ever vile, mainly because he was ignorant to start with, that is not just … Preach the eternal, unappeasable wrath of God upon lost souls and you offer men a devil to worship'.

So, who said it?

30 April, 2010 at 9:51 pm | #5

The answer is PT Forsyth.

 

Friday, May 07, 2010

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Six Million Dollar Man opening

"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. We can make him better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster."

Friday, March 12, 2010

Carl Trueman on bad sermons or bad listening

How many of us, I wonder, when we hear what we think is a bad sermon first ask ourselves if the problem is with how we listened rather than with the man who spoke?

Monday, March 08, 2010

Open source aids for Classical Greek & Latin

The Alpheios Project has released the first beta version of a set of free reading aids and learning tools for Classical Greek and Latin. The source code is also freely available to developers. The tools are intended to provide unusually convenient lexicographical and grammatical support for anyone wishing to read HTML versions of original Greek and Latin texts, whether online or on a local computer. Pedagogical modules are currently being added for those who wish to learn the language. We are also making available prototypes of several related tools, including a graphical interface for treebank editing that can easily be adapted to different annotation schemes. The reading tools and the initial pedagogical modules can be downloaded from http://alpheios.net The other resources and prototypes currently in development can be accessed at http://alpheios.net/content/resources-under-development It is hoped that these tools can facilitate consultation of original texts by scholars in other fields, provide customized options for students who wish to learn the language through the study of specific texts, and generally promote appreciation of the unique legacy of the classical world. An important feature of the tools is that their architecture was designed to facilitate the rapid addition of other resources, such as lexicons, grammars, and reference materials, and even other languages, especially highly inflected ones where the value of such tools seems especially compelling. To illustrate this flexibility we are also making modules available for Arabic and Chinese; but our design goal was to create an infrastructure that would make the creation of similar tools for any language as easy as possible. We would greatly appreciate comments, suggestions and criticism because the tools are still in active development Yours very truly, The Alpheios Team

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Great quote: "Lord of the Rings" and "Atlas Shrugged"

I don't know the source of this quote, but it's great:
 

"The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged: one is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Great JMS quotes

 
 
At conventions and elsewhere, I've always said that if there's anything at all to be learned from me -- and I'm not entirely sure there is, but let's make that assumption now just for the hell of it -- it's that if you hold onto your dreams, if you follow your passions, it doesn't matter where you come from, or what school you went to, or how old you are, you can do it.  It's possible.  That's the lesson.  Not that you will, but that it's possible.  Which is all most of us ever really need to know, to strive for what we want, what we believe in.
 
Example: a friend of mine from college spent 25 years of her life working in a cubicle for a faceless master on a distant mountaintop.  There was very little of her in the work, and she called one day to say what am I doing it for?  I've never done anything I wanted to do and it's too late now.  Nonsense, I told her.  What do you want to do, what are you passionate about?  She didn't know.  I asked what she likes doing.  I like my cat, all pets, she said, and I like taking photos, but I'm not a pro.
 
"So combine what you enjoy.  Start taking pictures of pets.  For free to start, then for money.  Point is, follow what gives you joy."
 
She did.  And now she works three days for the faceless master, and two days a week doing what she enjoys, and making a living at it.  Within the next year, if she keeps it up, she'll be working full time at what she loves.
 
Follow your passion.  The rest will attend to itself.
 
If I can do it, anybody can do it.
 
It's possible.
 
And it's your turn.
 
So go for it.  It's never too late to become what you always wanted to be in the first place.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Karl Barth's Clarity

Excellent quote about Karl Barth from Joseph Mangina, in Karl Barth: Theologian of Christian Witness, , p. 22-23. From http://dogmatics.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/barths-clarity/.
 
While acquaintance with the structure of the Dogmatics is useful, it does not prepare one for the actual experience of reading the text. A main reason is that Barth does not adopt the familiar persona of the impartial academic. He writes not impartially, but as a partisan; he writes as one who is passionately engaged in the very subject matter under discussion. Barth seeks to foster this kind of engagement in the reader as well. He draws the reader into a movement of reflection, examining a theological puzzle from different angles, at times leading him or her down false roads (only so will we understand why they are false), always pressing us forward to some resolution of the problem at hand. Barth will never say in the manner of textbooks: 'Here are two ways of looking at the topic, take your choice.' The nature of what the church proclaims demands clarity. If anything frustrates him in modern theology, it is the tendency one sometimes sees to celebrate doubt and ambiguity for their own sake. Barth believes the Word of God to be an ultimate mystery, but he does not see it as opaque. Because God has spoken clearly in Jesus Christ, we can actually arrive at answers to theological questions. To be sure, our answers — being human — are always contestable; but the best way to see where we have gone wrong is to express our thinking as clearly as possible. This is a key reason why Barth wants to embrace the modern term wissenschaftlich, 'scientific', for Christian theology. All this makes for the curious blend of passion and objectivity one finds in his writing. As Hans Urs von Balthasar writes, Barth is 'passionately enthusiastic about the subject matter of theology, but he is impartial in the way he approaches so volatile a subject. Impartiality means being plunged into the object … And Barth's object is God, as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, to which revelation Scripture bears witness' (The Theology of Karl Barth, Ignatius, p. 25).

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Kevin DeYoung's "IDEA" on Preaching

From http://blog.9marks.org/2010/01/one-thing-i-remember-from-preaching-class.html by Rev. Kevin DeYoung

When you come to a passage there are four things you can do: illustrate, defend, explain, apply. I rearranged the order from seminary class so the four points make a convenient acronym: IDEA. Most young preachers, and probably most preachers in general, gravitate toward "explain." We do best at studying the text and communicating what we learned to others. If the passage is especially obscure or controversial, it makes sense to land heavy on the E. But sometimes the passage is relatively simple. In this case, don't spin your wheels on endless word studies that basically repeat with synonyms what everyone can see immediately in the text.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Lou Holtz on Talent, Motivation, Attitude

"Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation determines how much you're willing to do. Your attitude determines how well you do it."
 
- Lou Holtz

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

QUOTE: Don Carson on The Pastor as Scholar, the Scholar as Pastor

 

From Pure Church by Thabiti Anyabwile by Thabiti Anyabwile on 1/15/10

Don Carson quoting Francis Bacon in last April's address at "The Pastor as Scholar, the Scholar as Pastor."

"Reading maketh a full man; speaking maketh a quick man; writing maketh an exact man."

The Pastor As A Scholar – Don Carson from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

Quote: "Church pews should come with crash helmets and seatbelts"

From http://twentytwowords.com/2010/01/10/as-annie-dillard-says-church-pews-should-come-with-crash-helmets-and-seatbelts/

Why does a Christian radio station bill itself as "safe for the whole family"? Whatever else Christianity is, it certainly isn't that. As Annie Dillard says, church pews should come with crash helmets and seatbelts.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

LINKS: Classical Greek & Latin Grammars, Texts, etc.

 
 

Excellent advice for moving from NT Greek to Classical (Amazon List)

Link: http://amzn.com/sy/HLURRO039Q1V
 
So you'd like to...

read ancient Greek outside the New Testament

A guide by S. Blackwelder "fountain pen daily user"
(REAL NAME)   

Products sampled from this guide:
Starting Greek in the New Testament is useful, fairly quick and healthy for both paid and unpaid Christian church leaders. If you've never learned to do a "declension" before, choose your teacher carefully.

The Greek of the Septuagint (LXX) is then readable with a lexicon like the excellent new one by J. Lust, E. Eynikel and K. Hauspie in two volumes (ISBN 3438051257 and 3438051267; one, not both, stocked at Amazon as of 02/27/2002).

However, you may already have discovered that if you want to read ancient authors in Greek outside the Bible, whether Jewish, pagan, Christian or philosopical, basic NT/LXX Greek is far from enough. For motivation to read in Greek and teach others to do so, read Hanson and Heath, Who Killed Homer?: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom.


Go back to where the ancients started in Greek literature:
Homer! The Iliad and Odyssey will enjoyably help you better understand almost everything written later in Greek. You've already learned the basics. Homer's language is almost as easy as the New Testament's; the Athenian Golden Age literature is the hardest place to start. What's more, Homer was to Greek and Roman literature as Shakespeare and the King James Bible are to English literature.

Once you're confident in NT Greek, start right into Pharr and Wright's Homeric Greek: A Book for Beginners for a quick, thorough introduction to Homer's Greek. Caution: get used to Homer's "ho, he, to" not being the definite article!


Enjoy reading the Iliad and Odyssey.
Yes, I said to enjoy the Iliad and Odyssey before going on. They're interesting! Most if not all Greek-language authors have assumed that their audiences knew these stories well.

Build your vocabulary using Owen and Goodspeed et al, Homeric Vocabularies: Greek and English Word List for the Study of Homer, to ease reading. The quickest dictionary to use is Autenreith et al, Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges. The most authoritative Homeric lexicon in English is Cunliffe, Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, which is inexpensive and complete, but a bit hard on the eyes.

The Iliad is rather long; for the best 4900 lines, lots of language help and summaries of the other lines in English, use Benner's Selections from Homer's Iliad.

The Loeb editions of the Iliad and the Odyssey in Greek are

The Iliad: Volume I, Books 1-12 (Loeb Classical Library No. 170),
The Iliad: Volume II, Books 13-24 (Loeb Classical Library No. 171),
The Odyssey: Books 1-12 (The Loeb Classical Library, No 104)
and The Odyssey: Books 13-24 (Loeb Classical Library, No 105).


Step forward through ancient Greek literature.
Next, read selections from the Homeric Hymns and all of Hesiod, together in Hesiod: The Homeric Hymns and Homerica (Loeb Classical Library #57). These are also in the Epic dialect. Read the Homeric Hymns selections first; you already have the vocabulary. Read Hesiod's "Works and Days" before his "Theogony."

To help you read any author after Homer and outside the New Testament, get Morwood's quick-reference grammar, Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek. (Smyth et al, Greek Grammar, is still the "gold standard" in English; even Morwood says so). Also, get a general dictionary or lexicon for classical Greek. The best pocket-sized one is Pocket Oxford Classical Greek Dictionary. For more authority and detail, you'll need to spend more money, either on the mid-sized, older Liddel-Scott An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon: Founded upon the Seventh Edition of Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon or on the huge, newer Liddel-Scott-Jones A Greek-English Lexicon, Ninth Edition with a Revised Supplement.

Now you can move forward in Greek. The following list is based on comments by Hanson and Heath, and on Smyth's history of dialects and authors.

Herodotus' entertaining Ionic-dialect prose is now an easy step. Use Barbour's anthology, Selections from Herodotus, which has special language helps for students who started Greek in Homer.

After Herodotus, read selections from the earlier Ionic poet Archilochus before going on to the Athenians. Archilochus was a vile curmudgeon, so guard your heart, but pay attention to his insights into Greek culture.

Skip the lyric poets for now. You can come back to them later.

Attic, the dialect of classical Athenian literature, was a separate branch of Ionic. Skip Aeschylus for now; your easiest slide into Attic is through the poet-playwright Euripides. Read his "Bacchae" and "Suppliants."

After him, read his colleague Sophocles'"Ajax" (a.k.a. "Aias" or "Ajas") and "Antigone," in that order.

Then, read lots of Plato. His writing style was between "earlier" (harder) and "later" (easier).

After Plato, step back to some more challenging passages by Thucydides.

With all that background, you can get the jokes by the later-style comic poet-playwright Aristophanes. Also, read the orator Demosthenes' "First Philippic."

After him, read selections from Xenophon's "Anabasis." He's easy to read, but don't read him until now! Otherwise, you can't understand his attitude and nonstandard style as well as you need to.

After Xenophon, read some Aristotle.

Aristotle's student Alexander "the Great" led the multi-dialect army that conquered the empire that produced the Koine dialect by necessity. Koine soon replaced almost all other Greek dialects, in formal literature too.

Here are some Koine authors. Read selections from several:



Theophrastus,
Polybius,
Apollodorus (or was that Pseudo-A.?),
Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
Strabo,
Diodorus Siculus,
Diogenes Laertius,
Plutarch,
Philo,
Epictetus (Arrian's summaries of lectures & discussions)
Josephus,
Arrian,
Lucian
and Cassius Dio.

Now that you've read some New Testament and this list, all non-modern Greek is yours!