Academic workflows on a Mac
Over at the Macademic blog there is a list of good software on the Mac that is particularly useful for academics, teaching, writing, etc. I’ve used most of the software on this list (or at least experimented with a lot of them), but everyone’s workflow is different. Some of these will only frustrate your writing experience, especially if you’re diving into a big project like a dissertation that has unparalleled citation and formatting demands. So tread lightly and don’t make an impulse purchase, if that is your temptation. When I began writing my dissertation I had hoped to use something other than Microsoft Word, but I quickly found out that other applications would be unacceptable for submission. I wrote my prospectus in Scrivener, but I had to spend a couple of days after it was completed just converting the file into a .doc for review. That process was a real pain, particularly with in-text citations and footnotes. The writing experience in Scrivener is excellent, however, just not suitable for the parameters of a dissertation.
What software do I really need for academic work on Mac? | Academic workflows on a Mac
A. General tools
LaunchBar – a launcher and an automator (€24) /alt: Alfred, check here for comparison
TextExpander* – Mac typing shortcut utility (€35)
1Password* – password, identities and other sensitive information management (€40)
Dropbox* – file sharing (free) /alt: Box
B. File and e-mail organizing and managementHazel – file management automator, indispensable for managing reference files (€20)
Papers – managing scientific articles, also used for annotation, citation and bibliographies in writing (see D); check Macademic reviews (€60) /alt: Sente, Bookends
Foxtrot – a professional search engine; “goodbye haystack, hello needle!” ($40 or $130 for the professional version) /alt: Leap, DevonThink, HoudahSpot
MailTags – tagging mail messages in Apple Mail ($30)
Mail Act-On – processing and organizing email with keyboard shortcuts in Apple Mail ($25)
C. Calendar, task and project managementFantastical* – natural language calendaring, part of the Macademic Ninja Kit (€16)
BusyCal – professional calendar management (€40) /alt: Mac’s native Calendar
OmniOutliner* – outlining for brainstorming and project planning; also used for writing outlines (see D) ($50 or $100 for professional version) /alt: MindNote
OmniFocus* – unparalleled task management app extensively reviewed on Macademic; however tempting it is, don’t try to put all your life in there! ($40 or $80 for the professional version /alt: Things, TheHitList, TaskPaper
D. Note-taking, research and writingNValt – plain text and markdown no-frills note-taking (free) /many alternatives
Evernote* – capturing text notes, documents, images, photos and screenshots and sharing them including on iOS devices (free with some paid features)
Ulysses – a rapidly evolving software for taking and organizing notes using searches, tags and folders; I use it extensively for teaching (€37) /many alternatives
OmniOutliner* – writing outlines, also used for project management (see C) ($50 or $99 for the professional version) /many alternatives
Byword* – simple and efficient text and markdown editor for Mac (€8) /many alternatives
Scrivener – writing software, especially suitable for theses and other complex texts ($45)
Pages* – Apple native word processor producing beautifully formatted documents, features sharing through iCloud (free with OS X) /alt: Mellel, Nisus
Microsoft Word for Mac – very powerful word processor, a standard for many publishers and in the Windows world, sometimes irreplaceable but should not be over- or misused (various pricing models) /alt: Mellel, Nisus
Papers – citation and bibliography management, article annotation, also used for managing scientific articles (see B) (€59) /alt: Sente, Bookends, EndNote, Mendeley, Zotero
E. Data processing, presentation and graphic design
Microsoft Excel for Mac – an extremely powerful electronic spreadsheet (various pricing models) /alt: Numbers
OmniGraffle – vector graphic software for diagrams and other illustrations ($100 or $200 for the professional version) /alt: Adobe Illustrator, iDraw
Keynote* – the most powerful presentation software with amazing possibilities (free with OS X) /alt: Microsoft Powerpoint, Prezi
PDFPen – editing pdf files ($60, $100 for the professional version) /alt: Adobe Acrobat
Interview with Bibliotheca’s Adam Lewis Greene at the Bible Design Blog
I backed the Bibliotheca project after about 10 seconds on the Kickstarter page. I was excited about it from my first glance at the page, and the video only make me my excitement grow. I’m interested in this project not only because of the possibility of having another high-quality Bible, but also because the 4-volume format. Since I’m a firm believer in the threefold division of the Hebrew canon—Law, Prophets, and Writings—I was smitten and had to back the project. As long as things progress well I should have it in my hands by the end of 2014. The project caught fire across the internet very quickly and has already $120,000+ in pledges from people like me. Another blog I follow, the Bible Design Blog, has an interview with Adam Lewis, who created the Bibliotheca project. Check it out here: Interview with Bibliotheca’s Adam Lewis Greene: Part 1 – Bible Design Blog
Christ the Educator
One of my former professors, Jonathan Pennington, has an excellent article at the Gospel Coalition on Christ the Educator:
Among many other reasons, Jesus is beautiful because he is multi-faceted; he is not a flat character or a one-dot-on-a-white-canvas piece of minimalist art. He is multi-dimensional. We begin to glimpse this glory through the diverse titles the God-man bears and holds—Christ, Messiah, Anointed One, Savior, Friend, King, High Priest, Creator, Pantocrator (Almighty), Lord, Crucified One, Risen One, Son of God, Son of Man, Son of David, New Adam/Second Adam/Last Adam, King of the Jews, Man of Sorrows, Light of the World, Hope of All Nations, Wonderful Counselor, Almighty God, Prophet, Apostle, Bread of Life, Rabbi, Paraclete, Lion, and Lamb. In this many-layered variety we get a hint of what Jonathan Edwards called the glorious juxtaposition of divine excellencies.
But there’s another title Jesus wears, even though few Christians today have uttered or considered it. He is Christ the Educator.
Rest the rest here.
The Mass Delusion of Transgenderism
Regardless of the question of whether he has had his genitals amputated, Cox is not a woman, but an effigy of a woman. Sex is a biological reality, and it is not subordinate to subjective impressions, no matter how intense those impressions are, how sincerely they are held, or how painful they make facing the biological facts of life. No hormone injection or surgical mutilation is sufficient to change that.
Genital amputation and mutilation is the extreme expression of the phenomenon, but it is hardly outside the mainstream of contemporary medical practice. The trans self-conception, if the autobiographical literature is any guide, is partly a feeling that one should be living one’s life as a member of the opposite sex and partly a delusion that one is in fact a member of the opposite sex at some level of reality that transcends the biological facts in question. There are many possible therapeutic responses to that condition, but the offer to amputate healthy organs in the service of a delusional tendency is the moral equivalent of meeting a man who believes he is Jesus and inquiring as to whether his insurance plan covers crucifixion.
This seems to me a very different sort of phenomenon from simple homosexuality (though, for the record, I believe that our neat little categories of sexual orientation are yet another substitution of the conceptual for the actual, human sexual behavior being more complex and varied than the rhetoric of sexual orientation can accommodate). The question of the status of gay people interacts with politics to the extent that it in some cases challenges existing family law, but homosexual acts as such seem to me a matter that is obviously, and almost by definition, private. The mass delusion that we are inculcating on the question of transgendered people is a different sort of matter, to the extent that it would impose on society at large an obligation — possibly a legal obligation under civil-rights law, one that already is emerging — to treat delusion as fact, or at the very least to agree to make subjective impressions superordinate to biological fact in matters both public and private.
As a matter of government, I have little or no desire to police how Cox or any other man or woman conducts his or her personal life. But having a culture organized around the elevation of unreality over reality in the service of Eros, who is a sometimes savage god, is not only irrational but antirational. Cox’s situation gave him an intensely unhappy childhood and led to an eventual suicide attempt, and his story demands our sympathy; times being what they are, we might even offer our indulgence. But neither of those should be allowed to overwhelm the facts, which are not subject to our feelings, however sincere or well intended.
You can read the whole thing here.
(Via Justin Taylor)
Thomas Watson on Meditation
“Labour to remember what you read [cf. Matt. 13:4, 19]. . . . The memory should be like the chest in the ark, where the Law was put. . . . Some can better remember an item of news than a line of Scripture; their memories are like these ponds, where frogs live, but the fish die. . . . In meditation there must be a fixing of the thoughts upon the object. . . . Meditation is the concoction of Scripture: reading brings a truth into our head, meditation brings it into our heart: reading and meditation must, like Castor and Pollux, appear together. Meditation without reading is erroneous; reading with meditation is barren. The bee sucks the flower, then works it in the hive, and so turns it to honey: by reading we suck the flower of the Word, by meditation we work it in the hive of our mind, and so it turns to profit. Meditation is the bellows of the affection: ‘while I was musing the fire burned’ (Ps. 39:3). The reason we come away so cold from reading the Word is because we do not warm ourselves at the fire of meditation.”
Thomas Watson, Puritan Sermons, vol. 2, 61-62
Westerholm on Justification
I recently read Stephen Westerholm’s new book, “Justification Reconsidered: Rethinking a Pauline Theme.” It is only 100 pages and easy to digest. Westerholm assesses all of the data in the New Testament on justification/righteousness and settles on the traditional view of justification by faith (as articulated by Augustine, Luther, Calvin, et al.), even in spite of recent challenges from N. T. Wright and James D. G. Dunn. In fact, I came away from the book with the thought that Westerholm is simply arguing for the plain sense of the relevant passages about the doctrine of justification. There is no need for revisionist interpretations. His final paragraph is very helpful:
“[The traditional view of justification by faith] cannot be dismissed by the claim that the ancients were not concerned to find a gracious God (how could they not be, in the face of pending divine judgment?); or that it wrongly casts first-century Jews as legalists (its target is rather the sinfulness of all human beings); or that non-Christian Jews, too, depended on divine grace (of course they did, but without Paul’s need to distinguish grace from works); or that ‘righteousness’ means ‘membership in the covenant’ (never did, never will) and the expression ‘works of the law’ refers to the boundary markers of the Jewish people (it refers to all the ‘righteous’ deeds required by the law as its path to righteousness). Modern scholars are correct in noting that Paul first focused on language of justification in response to the question whether Gentile believers in Christ should be circumcised. They are right to emphasize the social implications of Paul’s doctrine of justification (what it meant ‘on the ground’) in his own day, and are free to draw out its social implications for our own. But the doctrine of justification means that God declares sinners righteous, apart from righteous deeds, when they believe in Jesus Christ. Those so made righteous represent the new humanity, the people of God’s new creation (rom 5:17-19).”
The “Total” in Total Depravity
Paul makes the point repeatedly that humans lack both the inclination and the will to do what God requires of them:
Rom 3:9-11—”Both Jews and Gentiles are under sin, as it is written, ‘There is none righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks God.'”
Rom 3:19—”Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.”
Rom 5:6, 8, 10—”While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. . . . While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. . . . While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.”
Rom 5:19—”As by the one man’s disobedience [Adam], the many were made sinners.”
Rom 6:20-21—”When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at the time from the things which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death.”
Rom 7:18—”For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.”
Rom 8:7-8—”For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
Totally depraved, indeed. Salvation, therefore, can only be by grace alone apart from human works:
Rom 3:24—”Being justified by his grace as a gift, though the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
Rom 4:4-8—”Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.'”
Rom 5:15,17—”But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass [Adam], much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. . . . If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in the life through the one man Jesus Christ.”
Rom 11:6—”But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.”
Face the Music
Mike Wittmer recently posted a nice reflection about worship styles in our church services that I found encouraging:
Read 1 Corinthians 11:17-34
So, my dear brothers and sisters, when you gather for the Lord’s Supper, wait for each other (v. 33).
The wise pastor told his new worship director, “There is one style of music I hope you never play in our church.” She grabbed a pen and asked, “What is it?” He replied, “I will never tell you. If we all insist on getting our own way, we will never sing anything.”
Few issues are more controversial in church than music. Some churches solve the problem by providing two worship options, a traditional service for older folks and a contemporary one for those who enjoy more upbeat music. This often keeps both groups happy, but at some cost.
Marva Dawn warns, “it is utterly dangerous for churches to offer choices of worship styles.” She says it divides the church, treats Christians as consumers whose tastes must be catered to, and robs us of the opportunity to serve our neighbor. We should rejoice when a tune is sung that we don’t like, for that is an opportunity to deny ourselves for the sake of our brother or sister (Matthew 16:24). When veteran saints try to learn a new chorus or young people sing an old hymn both are saying to the other, “This may not be my cup of tea, but I’m willing to make room for you. I will sing along for your sake, and the whole church will benefit.” Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor as ourselves. If we are unwilling to do this during worship, when do we think we ever would? (Mark 12:29-31).
God expects there will be variety in our worship services. He made us different, and He says that Spirit filled believers will variously sing “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs…making music to the Lord in your hearts” (Ephesians 5:19). Our great God deserves to be praised by the widest variety of worshipers and styles. Keep your preference, and keep it to yourself.
Tom Schreiner on the Differences between Biblical and Systematic Theology
In the new issue of Themelios, Tom Schreiner writes a response to Gerald Bray’s critique of his biblical theology, “The King in His Beauty.” In the first few paragraphs he offers a clear and helpful overview for how biblical and systematic theology differ but complement one another. He also lambasts Bray for totally misunderstanding his book. I was at the panel discussion at ETS last November where Bray’s review was presented, so I’m glad to see Schreiner’s rejoinder here. Many of the attendees at that presentation were likewise confused with Bray’s response. In Schreiner’s own words,
The fundamental problem with Bray’s review is that he misunderstands both my book and biblical theology. He seems to think that I am trying to write a systematic theology, for he emphasizes that biblical theology is only a prolegomenon to a systematic theology. Here’s the rub: I agree! Systematic theology is a culminating discipline that includes exegesis, biblical theology, historical theology, and philosophy. Bray critiques me as if I were attempting to write a culminating work, a systematic theology, and by doing so he veers off course from the outset of his review. I agree with Bray that Christian theology reaches its apex in systematics. I didn’t think anyone would read my book as if I were trying to compose an alternative to a systematic theology.
Nor is it evident that Bray understands what biblical theology is in distinction from systematics, or perhaps he believes there isn’t any place for biblical theology, because he doesn’t commend it in his review. We need both systematic and biblical theology, for in the latter the story of scripture is rehearsed, the narrative of scripture is unfolded for the reader. Such attention to the historical outworking of God’s plan (the establishment of his kingdom!) ensures that we are reading the scriptures contextually and canonically. For instance, Bray doesn’t devote much attention to the historical unfolding of God’s revelation in his book. But it is clear in reading the NT that the Mosaic covenant was an interim covenant, that it was meant to be in force for a limited period of time. We learn from this that it is imperative to read scripture epochally. We don’t offer sacrifices or wear clothes with only one kind of fabric since such regulations are part of the Sinai covenant, and we aren’t under that covenant since the new covenant has arrived in Jesus Christ.
To put it another way, systematic theologians need biblical theology, for otherwise they may make claims that violate the intention and purpose of the texts cited. Biblical theology as a mediating discipline supports systematics. Systematics may stray from the scriptures in constructing doctrines, and biblical theology serves systematics by tying us to the biblical text and by ensuring that we interpret the scriptures in its epochal framework. The structures and themes unpacked in biblical theology undergird (or should undergird) the work of systematic theologians. Biblical theology, like systematics, plays a vital role in our understanding of the scriptures. Let’s take one example of what concerns Bray. He complains that I don’t unpack the Trinity, but he misconstrues my book and biblical theology. The Trinity is central to Christian theology, and any systematic theology that doesn’t make the Trinity prominent is woefully deficient. But I didn’t write a systematic theology, nor am I claiming that the work of biblical theology is a culminating discipline. Still, biblical theology provides the raw materials for the doctrine of the Trinity by showing that the Father, Son, and Spirit are all divine, while also emphasizing that the scriptures teach that there is only one God.
You can read Schreiner’s review of Bray’s “God is Love” here. The contrast between the two reviews is startling.
Three things are never satisfied
Three things are never satisfied;
four never say, “Enough”:
- Sheol,
- the barren womb,
- the land never satisfied with water,
- and the fire that never says, “Enough.”
(Prov. 30:15b-16)
Josh Philpot 