Purpose Driven Field
This is funny...or is it?
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THe Purpose Driven Field - LarkNews.com
Purpose Driven Field
This is funny...or is it?
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POC Blog
The random technotheolosophical blogging of Reid S. Monaghan
Purpose Driven Field
This is funny...or is it?
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Logos: HomePage
Google Earth Community: Paul's 1st Missionary Journey
vine & branch: Not without the presence of God
For all who love Theology, Doctrine...goooood advice from my friend Sandy - vine & branch: Not without the presence of God
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CNN.com - Transcripts
CNN.com - Transcripts: "Debate Over Gay Marriage"
A good read
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TWIT is funny this week
Challies Dot Com: Book Review - Choosing A Bible
Tim Challies reviews a book on choosing a Bible. This is a helpful review: Choosing A Bible
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Review of Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005)
When I was a college student at UNC many of my friends would take New Testament from Bart Ehrman. We spent many good hours together discussing his view of things.
Ehrman is a skeptical biblical scholar who loves to aim his guns at orthodox Christian beliefs. His recent book is provocatively titled and puts for the idea on how the manuscript of the Bible has been nefariously changed by political forces and scribes with agendas.
Daniel Wallace has a good review of it here:
Review of Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005)
I also wrote a bit on one of Ehrman's works a little while back
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50 Most Influential Christians in America?
The Evangelical Outpost has some good commentary on one list of "The 50 Most Influential Christians in America"
Not sure what to think but I get this in feeling in my gut when I see many faces on this list: "HELP!"
It is funny to look at the different kind of pictures people have for the press shots...I get a kick out of McLaren's "face shot" - he looks so nice. Can't say I am a fan of his work - but he looks nice.
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Great Prayers - Asa
Asa King of Judah...2 Chronicles 14:11, 12
Then Asa called to the LORD his God and said, "LORD, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. O LORD , you are our God; do not let man prevail against you."... --------
Prayers of the Old Testament...
I think there are great prayers throughout the Old Testament which do well for the soul...I may pull some of these out over the next few days.
Jehoshaphat – 2 Chronicles 20
5 Then Jehoshaphat stood up in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem at the temple of the LORD in the front of the new courtyard 6 and said: "O LORD, God of our fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. 7 O our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? 8 They have lived in it and have built in it a sanctuary for your Name, saying, 9 'If calamity comes upon us, whether the sword of judgment, or plague or famine, we will stand in your presence before this temple that bears your Name and will cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us.' 10 "But now here are men from Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir, whose territory you would not allow Israel to invade when they came from Egypt; so they turned away from them and did not destroy them. 11 See how they are repaying us by coming to drive us out of the possession you gave us as an inheritance. 12 O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you."When you don't know what to do... ... --------
Lion whips the Monkey even overseas
VS. 
Link - Box Office Mojo > News > Around the World Roundup: 'Chronicles' Conquers 'Kong' Overseas
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Mark Driscoll's blog | Resurgence
Mark Driscoll has started blogging - sort of. It looks like a new cooperative network of evangelical theologians and pastors is forming who desire to hold to the historical gospel, engage missionally in culture, and get some cool hang time together if forming.
Driscoll - thanks for not going down the Pelagian finger painting roads that many emerging people are slopping around in.
My next generation sisters and brothers, get in the Resurgence and pass on emgergent. Here is the call...
As another generation comes of age, the Gospel of Jesus Christ must resurge to meet the needs of people and their continually changing cultures. The time has come for the church to move forward into the time and place for which God purposed us, and to meet our day with unchanging, vibrant, unabashed Truth.Thanks for the capital T in truth - I feel you dog...praying for resurgence Link - Mark Driscoll's blog | Resurgence ... --------
vine & branch: Meditating in dryness
A good encouragement about meditation from my friend Sandy over at Vine and Branch.
Link - vine & branch: Meditating in dryness
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Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th - who cares. Walk under a ladder, open the umbrella before going out into the rain, break a mirror, and make PETA proud and hug a black cat today..
Providentially yours...
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Arose Early this Morning...A Meditation on Silence and Solitude
I arose early this morning. This week that has been tough for me to do. I am spending a week on Eastern Time so rising at 6am here is 5am on my clock (which is still on Central Time). Yet, God gave discipline to go to be early and to awake refreshed. My plan was simple - go for a jog and prayer, come back for a time in the Scripture.
Overulled - thunderstorm booms outside the doors...what is a short fat guy to do. Well, I ran up and down the halls of the conference center (quietly I might add), did a bunch of push ups and sit ups...even some one legged squats on the stairs in the stair well.
Then I paused - thought about my life, my family, thanked God for my wife, and again my mind wandered back to decisions. Calling, direction - these have dominated my heart for many days. Yet, these days it has been a more peaceful meditation, though many days I just wished I had a perfect road map for my life rather than the lamp for my feet (Psalm 119:105). I confess this often as I know our good God gives, as Jim Elliot once said, enough for each day. So I am content this morning.
I have been wondering why Western culture flees from silence. We like to be alone...so much that we put on the headphones, place literal DVD cinemas in our homes, walk by ourselves, and many days go to sleep alone at night. Perhaps it is in the silence that we meet our fears. Our empty thoughts, the bigger questions of life which scream for answers. Perhaps we may have to face our demons, face our frackered and dare I say sinful nature. Perhaps there we would have to face our thoughts, empty thoughts without God. So we pump the tunes, keep on the televisions, go to more movies.
Psalm 10:4 - In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, "There is no God." Cast aside that thought... Psalm 13:2 - How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? Cast aside that thought...Turn then your thoughts towards God, receive his mercy, replace the fear, the anxiety, the anger with wonderful thoughts:
1O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
2You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
3You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
4Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
5You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. Psalm 139:1-5
Run no more, turn and receive grace and mercy - fear not God's invasion of your inner life. Fear not, his thoughts. His love is expressed in a broken body and spilled blood. Infinite love to all who will call on him. Even now. Now is an acceptable time...now is always good.
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2You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
3You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
4Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
5You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. Psalm 139:1-5
A Meditation on Colossians 3:4
Colossians 3:4 (ESV) 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Oh how easy it is for me to say “I am my own life” – So quickly to think MY life is about ME. Yet God, your word calls and sings to the soul a different tune. Christ, is your life.- All that is good about me is Christ.
- All that satisfies and brings forth anything of value in me is Christ.
- All that I long for and desire is found in Christ
- All my incompletion finds completeness in Christ
- All my brokenness and sin finds redemption in Christ
- All my impatience finds rest in Christ
Windows Vista
Xenografting – Are We to be Your Uncle’s Monkey?
The following is an exerpt from a paper I wrote a few years back...
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In a Christian ethic, the ends do not justify the means; the means must justify themselves. It is clear that there is a great need for organs for transplants patients, but they should not be acquired by any means necessary. Even if the medical science of xenografting were to achieve some success in the future, the question of whether it should be done must be evaluated. In considering xenografting there are three ethical question to be evaluated: 1) Is it ethical to kill animals to harvest their organs for human beings? 2) Is it ethical to place human parts, grown in animals, into humans? 3) Is it ethical to place animal parts in humans?
First, as noted earlier, the created world, including plant and animal life, are part of God’s creation available for people to use for their good. This would mean the practice of raising animals for human use, whether for food or medicinal purposes, is clearly acceptable from Scripture. Secondly, the issue of placing human organs grown in animals into human beings is a just slightly more complex issue than human organ transplants. If animals could be engineered to grow human organs in their bodies, if the immune responses of the person could be managed effectively, and if the process could be done without introducing dangerous non-human pathogens into the human population then the procedure would have little difference with human cadaver allotransplantation which is ethically acceptable.[7] Finally, and perhaps most exotic, is the consideration of transplantation of animal organs into human beings. Human beings and animals share a common make up and material; each is made from dust (Genesis 2:7), or in modern scientific terms, organized matter encoded with specified DNA. One thing that differentiates human beings from animals is that he has an immaterial mind/soul that plays out in his body; this combination of body and soul bears the image of God (Genesis
A few common objections might be made from a Christian perspective. Some of them are as follows: 1) God has clearly stated than man and beast are different and has even given man a certain type of body that is different from animals (1 Corinthians 15:39,40); 2) The body is to be regarded as holy – rejecting a Gnostic view of the flesh,[8] it should be honored as sacred and not “monkied” around with; 3) Human reduction to mere animals is usually associated with this research so it should be avoided.
First of all, God did say that we have different bodies than animals, but the passage in 1 Corinthians just says that there is a difference between men and animals. It does not say their parts should not be interchanged; this is a conclusion that does not follow from this passage. Second, in response to us “monkeying” around with the body, Mark Foreman professor of Bioethics at
The problem here is how far do you want to pursue this. Doctors and researchers "monkey" around with the body all the time. That is how medical advances occur. Remember that every medical procedure and treatment at one time was experimental. At one time aspirin was new and considered "monkeying" around with the body. People have always been accusing doctors and researchers of playing God - but if they had not pursued experimental procedures, then medicine would never have advanced. The question is what is legitimate and ethical and what is "monkeying" around. This objection begs this question and doesn't address it.[9]
[1] Robert E. Michler, “Xenotransplantation: Risks, Clinical Potential, and Future Prospects” Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2, no 1 (January-March 1996), 67.
[2] Arthur Caplan, Am I My Brother's Keeper? The Ethical Frontiers of Miomedicine (Bloomington, Indian Univ Press, 1997) 101.
[3] Peter Singer, “Against X Engrafting” Transplantation Proceedings 24, Issue 2: 718-22.
[4] Walter Truett Anderson, Evolution isn’t what it used to be: The Augmented Animal and the Whole Wired World (New York: NY, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1996), 84.
[5] PPL THERAPEUTICS PLC Press Release PPL Produces World’s First Transgenic Cloned Pigs
[6] Robert Michler, Xenotransplantation: Risks, Clincal Potential, and Future Prospects" Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2, no 1 (January-March 1996) 65.
[7] Norman Geisler, Christian Ethics, Options and Issues (Grand Rapids, Baker, 1989) 184,185
[8] The Gnostic held to a radical form of body/spirit dualism in which all flesh was deemed to be evil and all that was good reflected the spiritual dimension of life.
[9] Personal Correspondence
[10] This is precisely Peter Singer’s objection to the procedure. A radical view of animal/human equality will object to the research and the practice of xenografting.
I Do Not Like Them Sam I Am - The Fluorescent Green Pig
This little piggy went to market.
This little piggy stayed home.
This little piggy ate roast beef.
This littel piggy had none.
This little piggy got genetically
altered to glow in the dark.
Hmm...maybe finally I can eat that food from my favorite childhood Dr. Suees book. My Mom would put food coloring in the eggs, we never could quite get the Ham part to work.
Transgenic organisms have some potential for doing good things for human beings. Already, genetically altered plants and animals produce human (yes, human, not animal) proteins for medicinal purposes. Some day the idea is to produce human (yes, human, not animal) organs grown inside animals for transplantation purposes (See Xenotransplantation, also know as xenografting). This science could be rife with dangers, but the research has promise if cautiously pursued with the proper ethical considerations.
I'll post a post here soon about the ethics of xenografting...
Link - Taiwan breeds transgenic, fluorescent, green pig - Yahoo! News
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Hmm...maybe finally I can eat that food from my favorite childhood Dr. Suees book. My Mom would put food coloring in the eggs, we never could quite get the Ham part to work.