Category Archives: Random

Heresy

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Jeff Foxworthy’s Redneck Dictionaryher·e·sy (her΄-ә-sē), n. and v. the visual perception of a mass of filamentous epidermal outgrowth. “Y’all better get me some Rogaine, what with all the heresy.”

[Jeff Foxworthy, Jeff Foxworthy’s Redneck Dictionary, (New York, NY, USA: Ballantine Books, 2006), 63.]

Not my bad.

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About half-way through this past school year I decided to ban my sixth- and seventh-grade English students from using that mea culpa of the new millennium, the phrase “my bad,” to admit to any kind of mistake or failure. This came right after I banned them from using the word “like” as if it were a kind of verbal punctuation mark (as in the typical middle schooler sentence: “Because, like, you know, like, I don’t, like, really like like him—I just kinda’ like, like him.”).

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Three friends die in a car accident,

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and they go to an orientation in heaven. They are all asked, “When you are in your casket and friends and family are mourning you, what would you like to hear them say about you?

The first guy says, “I would like to hear them say that I was a great doctor in my time and a great family man.”

The second guy says, “I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and a school teacher who made a huge difference in our children of tomorrow.”

The last guy replies, “I would like to hear them say…‘Look, he’s moving’!!”

Pretty Good Joke Book (2000)[Mike Danforth, et. al., and Garrison Keillor (Introduction), A Prairie Home Companion Pretty Good Joke Book, (St. Paul, MN, USA: Highbridge Company, 2000), 64. The book is now in a fourth edition.]

I’m not addicted; I just have to have it.

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Coffee - Is the planet shaking or is it just me?I think that I shall never be
Fully awake without coffee.

A cup my ready mouth does drink
Without which I can hardly think.

That java comes from God is true.
Why have a cup when a pot will do?

With ice in summer it’s so rare
That I should ever think to share.

And even though I’m far from snow
I want my steamy cup of Joe.

Blogs are made by goofs like me,
Who couldn’t write without coffee.

[Apologies to Joyce Kilmer (1886-1914). Image from VisionWorks.]

Wrong Number

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martincruelshoessmall.jpgOne day I called someone up and got the wrong number. I apologized profusely but then realized just an apology was not enough. I offered some money as partial compensation and then threw in some stocks and bonds at the last minute. Then I thought, perhaps if I could take their address and send them everything I own, then take a journey to Tibet to acquire wisdom, I could then inform them of the truth, something money could not buy. Naturally they were still indignant, but were at least convinced of my sincerity in wanting to make it right. They suggested that after I go to Tibet, I kill myself, thus offering my last breath as penance. This seemed slightly out of line, but not being a good businessman, I agreed.

So now I’m in Tibet, standing on my head on a llama, thinking ’bout the day I got dat wrong number.

—Steve Martin, “Wrong Number,” from Cruel Shoes, (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1979), 61-62.

Old question

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Thirty-six years ago (in 1971), in a series of three lectures that he delivered in Mittersill, Australia, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones asked the question, “What Is an Evangelical?” (You can read them in Knowing the Times [Edinburgh, UK & Carlisle, PA, USA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2001].)

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Is Trichotomy a theological threat?

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I posted the following comment to a post titled “Trichotomy–A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences” at The Riddleblog today at about 9:30 a.m. (U.S. Eastern Time):

James Montgomery Boice advocated the trichotomist position in Foundations of the Christian Faith,” revised in one volume, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 151-153, and 201-204. On 204 he showed the implications of trichotomy for his doctrine of man when he wrote: “When Adam sinned, the spirit died instantly, with the result that all men and women since are born with what we may call dead spirits. The soul began to die. In that area the contagion may be said to be spreading, with the result that we are increasingly captivated by sin. The remaining part of human nature, the body, dies last.” As I see it, that was about the extent of trichotomism’s impact on his theology. I don’t find it sending him off into the kinds of unbiblical views you cited in other trichotomists. Continue reading →

Must Counter-Cult Lay Apologists Also Become Cross-Cultural Missiologists?

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I posted the following comment (with a typo corrected) to a post titled “Cross-Cultural Hermeneutics Course Aims: Why Are They Missing Elsewhere?” at John Morehead’s blog today at 12:59 p.m. (U.S. Eastern Time):

John,You wrote: “These goals represent those common in missiology. To what extent do we see them desired, emphasized and utilized among American evangelicals working in the area of new religions and alternative spiritualities in the West? I don’t see much of it. Why is this the case?” Continue reading →