Bible Envy

Crossway recently released the ESV in a Personal Size Reference Edition. I found out more than I ever wanted to know about it from this review -- which has me looking more closely at bindings and page designs than I ever have before. But it sold me on the TruTone cover over the stiff leather. I ordered one, and it really is great. It's especially nice to read the Psalms all spread out with room to breathe on the page. Much better than the cramped double-columns which break the lines of poetry down to indentations and sub-indentations.

And now the ESV Study Bible looks incredible! I like the design for the most part, especially the Tan TruTone. But more importantly, the list of contributors really is outstanding. And it's good to see Covenant Seminary so well represented.

• Hans Bayer on Mark (his area of specialty),
• Brian Auker on Joel, Micah, and Haggai,
• David Chapman as NT Archeology Editor, on Hebrews, and several articles,
• Jack Collins as OT Editor (which he also did for the original ESV translation) and on the Psalms and Song of Solomon (I use his notes from "Psalms and Wisdom Lit." a lot -- excellent class!) plus some of the articles,
• Dan Doriani article on How to Interpret the Bible,
• Kenneth Lalng Harris on Exodus and Proverbs (listed as a CTS visiting instructor, but I don't know who he is, and he isn't on CTS's site)
• Jay Sklar on Leviticus (he did his Ph.D. on the clean/unclean laws),
• Andrew Stewart also on Song of Solomon,
• Robert Vasholz on Hosea,
• Greg Perry on OT time lines...

So I'm guessing Dr. Collins was able to pull some strings. :) But I'm glad he did.

Now... how about I read the Bible(s) I have before I keep buying more. I'll probably get the ESV Study Bible for reference, and I am glad I got the Personal Size edition. But at the end of the day, consumerism with a pietistic veneer is still consumerism. One well-read Bible is infinitely better than fifty nifty editions that sit on the shelf and look cool.

"Greediness of study"

That's one sin John Owen lists in The Mortification of Sin. And it stopped me dead in my tracks. Busted! We all tend to make time for that work we most enjoy doing, and I love to read. But even the best things can subtly become distractions from what ought to be done at a given moment. That's how idols function. And idols, like dragons, need slaying -- no matter how majestic, and strong, and important they may seem. To paraphrase Owen, "Be killing greedy study (with Gospel weapons) or it will be killing you."

Sorry you lost...

I'll be speaking at UNC's RUF large group tonight. I'll try not to mention the game last Saturday, although one NC State fan suggested I wear a red shirt just to make them mad. Probably not the best way to win a hearing. It's all about a preacher's ethos right?

Sharon Begley points out the differences between collectivist and individualist cultures. Show a group of three pictures -- a monkey, a panda, and a banana -- to folks in Japan and to folks in Great Britain. Ask them which two go together and you'll likely get different answers. The British Westerners tend to think in terms of classification, so they put the two mammals together. But the Japanese see a functional relationship between the monkey and the banana. It's classification vs. relationship. And the differences seem to be related to climate. I.e., the closer to the equator you get, the more group-minded the societies get; while the colder climates host more individualistic cultures. Now some researchers think it all might be related to the prevalence of pathogens in warmer climates, and the survival-need to form close groups which shun outsiders.

A horrible kind of freedom

"The existentialist finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven…. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself…. We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free."

Jean Paul Sartre, "Existentialism is a Humanism"

A Salute... and a Handshake

Laurel and Hardy

mnftiu

Drinking Like a Man

"Going to an adult bar, far from having the dangerous effects that so many pillars and pillaresses of the community were prone to assume, altered this man's drinking habits for the better. He said:

"I also discovered how to drink at Schultie's. I already knew how to chug-a-lug. I knew how to get puking drunk and passed-out drunk but I didn't know how to drink a couple of enjoyable beers and go home clear-headed. My first couple of beers at Schultie's went down quick. I never let go of the bottle until it was drained. The older fellows would let their beers sit off to the side for several minutes at a time. When the talk was lively, they seemed to forget the beer altogether. They'd sip a little during the lulls and there weren't many lulls. Those guys taught me how to relax, or at least they tried. In the adult tavern, many a young man learned to detach himself physically from his bottle or glass with quickly diminishing separation anxiety--learned, that is, to drink less like an infant and more like an adult."

Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place

Gerard Manley Hopkins

The title for this blog comes from Gerard Manley Hopkins, a favorite poet of mine. I love the concrete reality of the physical creation conveyed by his phrase "the air things wear."


In the Valley of the ElwyI remember a house where all were good
To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:
Comforting smell breathed at very entering,
Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.

That cordial air made those kind people a hood
All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing
Will, or mild nights the new morsels of Spring:
Why, it seemed of course; seemed of right it should.

Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales,
All the air things wear that build this world of Wales;
Only the inmate does not correspond:

God, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales,
Complete thy creature dear O where it fails,
Being mighty a master, being a father and fond.