vassal of the King

Blurb for Winter Retreat Flyer : Pornography, sexual immorality, and confusion has raided our modern culture. Our young people are introduced to sex in many different forms younger and younger. In a recent survey last year, 90% of young people ages 8-16 have viewed pornography online. Additionally, in a survey conducted in 1996, 46% of all 15-19 year olds in the US have had sexual intercourse at least once. By age 15, 13% of teens have had sex, but by the time they are 19 years old, 7 our of 10 teens have had sexual intercourse! Furthermore, at 13.3 billion, the 2006 revenues of the sex and porn industry in the U.S. are bigger than the NFL (=football), NBA (=basketball) and MLB (=baseball) combined . Worldwide sex industry sales for 2006 are reported to be 97 billion. To put this in perspective, Microsoft, who sells the operating system used on most of the computers in the world (in addition to other software) reported sales of 44.8 billion in 2006. Is ther

Don’t let John Wesley see me! John Wesley went a little far in his applications when he “expressed doubts about the spirituality of anyone who spent less than three hours each day in personal prayer!” Yikes. But it is, nevertheless, a humbling reminder of where our priorities should be.

A secular idea of: The Key to a Happy Marriage? A Younger, Smarter Wife (and Sex) AOL News today: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 The practice of "marrying up" might be looked down upon by some, but when you're talking age, it might be the key to a happy marriage. A recent study showed that the couples who were happiest and had the lowest divorce rate were those where the woman was at least five years younger than her husband -- and when she's better educated. But it doesn't work both ways. The same study claims that when the wife is older by five or more years, the couple is three times more likely to break up than if they're the same age. (We're looking at you, Demi.) Does this mean that men with younger wives are destined to be happy? Perhaps. Another factor might be that we're getting better at staying together; at least that's what a different poll conducted by The Times of London stated: 54 percent of those polled ha

Praise God for the ministry of Joni and Friends

One of the greatest things I’ve learned today in my Greek class is the difference between semantics and pragmatics when it comes to Greek linguistic study. What I mean is this. The lexical, grammatical (=unchanging, uncancelable) form of the verb is the semantic category. It cannot change. This grammatical form of a verb may have “meaning” but it is impossible to know what the verb really means a part from a context. This is where pragmatics fits in. In my class today, we heavily hit this issue and observed how the Greek verbal form (semantic lexeme) is used in a particular context to denote a particular meaning (pragmatic value). This is how we find out the meaning of a verb form—not inherent within the form itself but in its usage in the context. If I were to walk up to a complete stranger and say “I got it!” he would have absolutely no idea what I’m saying. But if I were to answer a question you asked me: who will go to the grocery store and buy milk and I answer: “I got it!” it mak

I made it safe to Baptist Bible Seminary last night after a long day of acquainting with the Newark airport en route to Scranton. I am here for the week for my doctoral seminars. I’m taking two courses: advanced theological method and New Testament Greek studies. Today was my first day of PhD classes. But before my classes started, I had a 3 hour orientation/colloquy with the dean of BBS and the director of the PhD program—Dr. Stallard. It was great. In fact, I’ve never had someone sit down with me and go through the seminary’s doctrinal statement point by point as he did with me today. And I thoroughly enjoyed our discussion. His heart for the local church and for scholarly men to love and shepherd people in the local church permeated the discussion and were cause for comfort. I will be transitioning back and forth between classes this week while meeting one on one (yikes!) with Dr. Stallard (my theology prof.) for interaction outside of class time. (Today we had lunch but much of our

In response to a question recently asked of me: who is your favorite theologian and why , I responded as follows: Well, I’d have to say that my favorite theologian has come to be Louis Berkhof. I must post my caveat up front that I know he’s covenantal in hermeneutic and that he’s a “baby-baptizer” in ecclesiological practice, and both of which I wholeheartedly disagree with and find no Scriptural basis for, but nevertheless I’ve come to really appreciate a number of things about Berkhof over the last month that has given me a deep respect for and a great indebtedness to this man. (Also, it may have something to do with the fact that I don’t know if there’s another theologian out there whose material I’ve read more of than Berkhof.) First, his commitment to the sufficiency of Scripture is worthy to be modeled on many fronts. He absolutely rejects the humanistic, rationalistic, existential philosophies of secular minds (or frankly, religious minds for that matter). His sta

some of geoff’s thoughts this week. Since I’ve been sick and (completely) out of action the last few days, I’ve had some time to think, read, study, and write. Here are some thoughts I’ve had: I read a new story about a man who was shot and killed in the country of Somalia for smuggling Bibles in to a town to give to an underground house church. The man boldly was silent when they questioned him and it cost him his (earthly) life. Sadly, I thought: I wonder how so-called Christians in America would handle this situation if, at gun-point, someone questioned them regarding their faith? Is it any wonder that Satan doesn’t seem to be attacking the American “church” (as much) because, I think, he probably doesn’t need to—he’s already won them over? I’m doing a paper on Louis Berkhof. I’ve been tremendously encouraged and edified in reading this brilliant theologian. I agree with nearly everything he says until he gets to the topic of the covenants and covenant the