At the time when this video was shot we were one week away from picking up our two kids from Ethiopia. I think you can see how excited we were, and how pretty my wife is . . .

It’s a lot of fun if you like history and libraries! Jefferson’s study is the only one that I’ve visited:

I’d much rather visit Teddy Roosevelt’s trophy room!

My ESV was particularly miserable. I had silver duct tape around the sides to keep the binding together. Now it has a clean calfskin cover.

With Ace Bookbinding, even though you can choose from many colors, they can also match the color of the original, as in my Greek New Testament:

I never did like the title, “A Reader’s Hebrew and Greek Bible,” so I asked them to leave “Reader’s” off the new cover:

This is probably the Bible that gets most wear and tear, so I’m thankful and excited for the new binding. Since it is a bigger Bible (in terms of thickness), Ace provides the option of adding more ribbon dividers, so I now have four ribbons instead of one.

As you can see, the pages are sown instead of glued for each Bible, so I expect them to last a very long time:

Many thanks to Ace Bookbinding for their good work! If you need a Bible or a big book rebound, I encourage you to check them out. I think they did a fantastic job.

Josh,

We love you more than words could ever express. God has blessed us immeasurably by giving us the gift of YOU as a husband and father. Thank you for working hard every day for us, thank you for leading our home in integrity and wisdom, thank you for loving Jesus most of all.

I don’t deserve you. But I’m so thankful God has been gracious to allow me to be married to you!

It’s a joy (and an easy thing!) to celebrate the day God made this world a better place by putting you in it.

Can’t wait to see you later on today!

Happy Birthday, Daddy! from Jennifer Philpot on Vimeo.

And then we played in water all day…

At Kenwood we have three scripture readings during our main worship service: a Call to Worship, an Old Testament reading and a New Testament reading. This past Sunday (6/27) we had a hiccup in the service. One of our elders (who will remain anonymous) didn’t realize that he was scheduled for the Old Testament reading. So, when we finished singing “A Mighty Fortress,” and I noticed that this anonymous elder was not walking to pulpit, I began to get a little nervous. But you must understand why I’m nervous at this point: I’m the one responsible for the worship service. If someone is not walking to the pulpit it’s really my fault! So I scramble through hymnals and papers around the piano looking for a Bible, somehow hopeful that I can get to the pulpit and do the reading myself without making it look like I’m unorganized (pet peeve, by the way). I look over at Jim Hamilton seated in the second row, and he’s looking conspicuously around the room for that same anonymous elder who should be at the pulpit reading the Bible by now. He strikes back an inquisitive but partly accusing look in my direction, as if to say, “Haven’t you organized the worship service?” I send back a shrugged shoulder, hoping that he gets the message that the anonymous elder is supposed to be reading. Jim gets my drift, and true to his character (he’s great at spontaneity), he marches quickly up to the pulpit, ready for the task. And this was the result:

Isaiah 44:24-45:7

We  have all been in worship services where our concentration is broken by some distraction. It’s either a high screeching microphone, a baby crying during a prayer, or an anonymous elder forgetting that he’s scheduled to read and pray during the service. We know this well and its amusing to some degree. But each week I try to organize a worship service that might limit our distractions and instead cause all of our efforts to focus on the greatness of God in Christ. Indeed, the whole elder team labors to do this, not simply because we think it’s the right “mood” for worship, but because we want to worship God rightly; that is, in a way that would bring him the most glory. Limiting distractions, I think, is helpful to meeting this goal.

So Jim marched to the pulpit without having read Isaiah 44:24-45:7 and without having prepared a prayer. But afterward, instead of being distracted and instead of feeling some disconnect, Jim helped draw our attention to the greatness of God by reading the Bible with emotion, vigor, sincerity and enthusiasm. And I think his response helped everyone in the congregation, not least myself. In the end, our minds and hearts were once more focused on magnificence of God, and on the awesome privilege we have of worshiping him freely.

I think that Jim should consider a Bible audio book, no?

In the midst of such lies and half-truths it is refreshing to hear about Mosab Hassan Yousef, the author of the NY Times bestseller, “Son of Hamas.” Yousef is the eldest son of a founding member of the terrorist organization Hamas, and even participated in acts of terrorism and torture in his young adulthood. He eventually became a Christian and as a result had to seek political asylum in the US. I haven’t read the book yet, but I have it on my Amazon wish list and look forward to picking it up some day (Tim Challies reviewed the book here). Phil Sumpter linked the following videos on his blog recently, which I found fascinating. Although I have no doubt that Ergun Caner was raised in an Islamic home and converted to Christianity, the embellishments in his own story for self aggrandizement are disappointing to say the least. Yousef’s story, however, is of a different kind. His is a true story of a true terrorists and a loss he suffered for embracing the gospel. The videos below provide a glimpse into his life as a Muslim, struggling to understanding the love of God and how to communicate that to his family.

I Will Glory in My Redeemer

In Christ Alone

Amazing Grace

Before the Throne of God Above

Come Thou Fount

Holy, Holy, Holy

How Sweet and Aweful is the Place

Jesus, What a Friend for Sinners

My Jesus, I Love Thee

The Power of the Cross

Trust and Obey

I Surrender All

I had to minimize the files, so unfortunately the quality is not the best. Also, most of these were recorded on the first take so you may hear mistakes here or there (i.e. copyist errors…).

Consider the following passage from Judges 16 that Charles Halton pointed out in a recent article in JBL (“Samson’s Last Laugh” in JBL 128.1 [2009]: 61-64 ). This is, of course, the famous story of Samson and the Philistines. After being deceived by the promiscuous Delilah, Samson is tortured by the hands of his captors and forced to do hard labor. In 16:25-27 the Philistines desire to get one last laugh over  Samson, and it is here that we see the pun: “And when their hearts were merry, they said, ‘Call Samson, that he may entertain us.’ So they called Samson out of the prison, and he entertained them. They made him stand between the pillars . . . Now the house was full of men and women. All the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about 3,000 men and women, who looked on while Samson entertained” [ESV].

Halton shows that the majority of English translations miss the significance of the pun. The verb “to entertain” can also be rendered “to crush,” since the only difference in the Hebrew root is a sin (which would mean, “to entertain”) and a shin (which would mean, “to crush”). These two letters are indistinguishable in an unpointed text, so Halton suggests that the author of Judges makes a play on words; that is, the italicized text above means both “entertain” and “crush” to communicate two different things. And, of course, we all know how the story ends. Halton concludes,

“The author of this pericope used the ambiguity of the verb in Judg 16:25, 27 to articulate two points of view. The masoretic tradents follow the perspective of the festive Philistines as they vocalized shq to convey the notion that Samson’s captors brought him into the temple in order to entertain them. The second point of view is that of the narrator. The narrator injects an element of dark comedy into this account stating that the Philistines summoned Samson in order to crush themselves. Like other figures in the Bible, Samson destroyed a pagan sanctuary and crushed the cultic idols to bits. This time, however, the crushed cultic objects were the Philistine men and women.”

Fun stuff! In a sick sort of way…

1. Create a Zotero.org account here
2. Once verified, click on the Zotero icon on your Firefox web browser, then the “actions” button, and then “preferences“
3. Click on the “Sync” tab at the top
4. Type in your username and password for Zotero.org
5. Make sure “Sync Automatically” and “Sync Attachment Files in My Library using Zotero” are both checked
6. Open your other computer and type in your log-in information in Zotero “preferences” as before
7. Close the page and restart Firefox. Click on the Zotero icon again and either wait for Zotero to begin syncing automatically, or start the process by clicking on the “Sync to Zotero Server” button.

I did this on a Mac, so it may look a little different on Windows. The steps are essentially the same. Now every time I add a new source on my laptop it will show on my desktop as well, and visa versa.

Away with you, formatting demons! Be gone!