Links & Quotes

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Some good reading & watching from today…

“Avoid relations with unbelievers in which your relation endorses the unbelief or consequent sins, and avoid the kinds of relationships that involve the interweaving of deep personal values (like marriage). On the other side, don’t avoid relationships where you can have clear testimony to the truth and are allowed to stand on Christian principles, even if you are sometimes criticized for getting too close.” —John Piper

Nick Roen has a very thoughtful post that every Christian should read: Orienting On Homosexual Orientation.

One of the all-time favorite Detroit Tigers was Ty Cobb. This is a great post about Ty Cobb versus Babe Ruth in home runs.

Yes! 4 Ways To Use Failure Well.

Jen Wilkin has a good post for parents: Help Your Kids Say ‘No’ To Porn.

This is a great way of looking at this: True Patriotism Is Axing Taxes To Keep Companies In The USA.

[VIDEO] “Where have we entered when the Bill Of Rights is a partisan matter?” Watch Sen. Ted Cruz defend our First Amendment rights.

10 Quotes From “C.S. Lewis In A Time Of War”

In A Time Of WarI loved C.S. Lewis In A Time Of War by Justin Phillips! It appealed to my interests in World War II history, old-time radio, and one of my favorite authors: C.S. Lewis. You can read my book review by clicking here. Below are 10 quotes from this book which will give you a little of the flavor of this work.

“In a time of uncertainty and questioning it is the responsibility of the church—and of religious broadcasting as one of its most powerful voices—to declare the truth about God and His relation to man. It has to expound the Christian faith in terms that can be easily understood by ordinary men and women, and to examine the ways in which that faith can be applied to present-day society during these difficult times.” —James Welch, the BBC director of religious broadcasting responsible for getting C.S. Lewis on the air

“It seems to me that the New Testament, by preaching repentance and forgiveness, always assumes an audience who already believe in the law of nature and know they have disobeyed it. In modern England we cannot at present assume this, and therefore most apologetic begins a stage too far on. The first step is to create, or recover, the sense of guilt. Hence if I gave a series of talks, I should mention Christianity only at the end, and would prefer not to unmask my battery till then.” —C.S. Lewis

“Having seen more of his original manuscripts than probably anybody else, Walter Hooper observes that there is next to no evidence of rewriting or of copious changes. The manuscript of The Screwtape Letters is a case in point. There was only the one draft.” —Justin Phillips

“A charitable trust was set up called The Agape Fund, using the Greek word for love. Until his marriage in 1957, two-thirds of all Lewis’s royalties went into this fund to help those in need—normally under the cover of anonymity.” —Justin Phillips

“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.” —C.S. Lewis

“Walter Hooper had discovered a calculation made by Warnie [Lewis] in 1967, described in his diary some four years after Jack’s [C.S. Lewis] death, that by the time the typewriter was finally packed up Warnie must have written at least 12,000 letters on it on his brother’s behalf.” —Justin Phillips

“Any amount of theology can now be smuggled into people’s minds under the cover of romance without them knowing it.” —C.S. Lewis 

“But if you will go to God just as you are, fully admitting that you care about Him very little, and put yourself in His hands, if you’re even ready to be made to care and leave Him to work, He’ll do the rest.” —C.S. Lewis

“All I am in private life is a literary critic and historian, that’s my job. And I am prepared to say on that basis if anyone thinks the Gospels are either legends or novels, then that person is simply showing his incompetence as a literary critic. I’ve read a great many novels and I know a few amount about the legends that grew up among early people, and I know perfectly well the Gospels are not that kind of stuff. They are absolutely full of the sort of things that don’t come into legends. Take one simple example. The passage in which Our Lord is scribbling in the dust before He gives His answer about the woman taken in adultery. Nothing whatever comes of it, no doctrine has ever been based on it, it has no point at all; there’s no conceivable reason why anyone should ever have written it down, unless he’s seen it happening. From first to last the things strike me as records of fact. And, in my opinion, the people who think that any of the episodes in the Gospels are imaginary are the people who have no imagination themselves and have never understood what imaginative story-telling is.” —C.S. Lewis

“Numbers vary, but in the year 2000 some estimates put worldwide sales of Lewis’ books at over 200 million copies in more than thirty languages.” —Justin Phillips

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

“Let there be a method in our giving, so that the poor may not go away empty nor the subsistence of the needy be done away and become the spoil of the dishonest.” —Ambrose

“Passion for the glory of the Lord is the key to making a difference all out of proportion to who we are. It is not the prerogative of old or young, intelligent or simple, men or women. This passion can flame up in the heart of any saint. Do we want it enough to seek it?” —John Piper

“Of one thing we are very sure. There will be a full restoration of the apostolic gifts and the full power of Pentecost before the coming of the Lord….” Read more of this quote from Dr. Charles S. Price from over 75 years ago.

[INFOGRAPHIC] A very cool timeline of the book of Acts.

Dr. Tim Elmore shares One Antidote To Male Disillusionment. Very helpful for anyone working with young men.

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading & watching from today…

[VIDEO] John Maxwell gives us a good reminder of what mercy is.

“There is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them. It is arrogance in us to call frankness, fairness, and chivalry ‘masculine’ when we see them in a woman; it is arrogance in them to describe a man’s sensitiveness or tact or tenderness as ‘feminine.’ But also what poor, warped fragments of humanity most mere men and mere women must be to make the implications of that arrogance plausible. Marriage heals this. Jointly the two become fully human. ‘In the image of God created He them.’ Thus, by a paradox, this carnival of sexuality leads us out beyond our sexes.” —C.S. Lewis

“The highest kind of liberality is, to redeem captives, to save them from the hands of their enemies, to snatch men from death, and, most of all, women from shame, to restore children to their parents, parents to their children, and to give back a citizen to his country.” —Ambrose

John Piper says, “We are supposed to let our light shine before others that they give glory to our Father. But in my experience shining with supernatural, divine light from another world is the very essence of non-regular.” Read the rest of his post: I Do Not Aspire To Be A “Regular Guy.”

It nauseates me when I think that my tax dollars are funding this sort of irresponsible, atrocious behavior at Planned Parenthood! Read more about the latest lawsuit against Planned Parenthood.

Praying for the peace of Israel in light of the newest Hamas attacks.

[INFOGRAPHIC] Research into the lifespans of biblical people in Did Adam Really Live 930 Years?

A Mathematical Quote From Gerald Schroeder In “There Is A God”

There Is A GodAs I said in my book review of Anthony Flew’s There Is A God, the real value of this book is in the arguments which contributed to Flew’s shift from atheism to theism. You can read my full book review by clicking here.

Frankly, it’s hard to share a lot of the quotes because the context of the full argument would be lacking, but I’ve been sharing a few of them over several posts. To continue, here is an extensive quote from mathematician Gerald Schroeder, which is set up by a quote from Anthony Flew.

“Schroeder first referred to an experiment conducted by the British National Council of Arts. A computer was placed in a cage with six monkeys. After one month of hammering away at it (as well as using it as a bathroom!), The monkeys produced fifty typed pages—but not a single word. Schroeder noted that this was the case even though the shortest word in the English language is one letter (a or I). A is a word only if there is a space on either side of it. If we take it that the keyboard has thirty characters (the twenty-six letters and other symbols), then the likelihood of getting a one-letter word is 30 times 30 times 30, which is 27,000. The likelihood of getting a one-letter word is one chance out of 27,000. Schroeder then applied the probabilities to the sonnet analogy. ‘What’s the chance of getting a Shakespearean sonnet?’ he asked. He continued:

‘All the sonnets are the same length. They are by definition fourteen lines long. I picked the one I knew the opening line for, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” I counted the number of letters; there are 488 letters in that sonnet. What’s the likelihood of hammering away and getting 488 letters in the exact sequence as in “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” What you end up with is 26 multiplied by itself 488 times—or 26 to the 488th power. Or, in other words, in base 10, 10 to the 690th. 

‘Now the number of particles in the universe—not grains of sand, I am talking about protons, electrons, and neutrons—is 10 to the 80th. Ten to the 80th is one with 80 zeros after it. Ten to the 690 is one with 690 zeros after it. There are not enough particles in the universe to write down the trials; you’d be off by a factor of 10 to the 600th. 

‘If you took the entire universe and converted it to computer chips—forget the monkeys—each one weighing a millionth of a gram and had each computer chip able to spin out 488 trials at, say, one million times a second; if you turn the entire universe into these microcomputer chips and these chips were spinning a million times a second producing random letters, the number of trials you would get since the beginning of time would be 10 to the 90th trials. It would be off again by a factor of 10 to the 600th. You will never get a sonnet by chance. The universe would have to be 10 to the 600 times larger. Yet the world just thinks the monkeys can do it every time.’”

  • More quotes are forthcoming.
  • You can read some direct quotes from Anthony Flew by clicking here.
  • Some Albert Einstein quotes can be found by clicking here.

Links & Quotes

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Some interesting reading from this weekend…

A very informative piece on the history of Israel.

Some ministers today preach only a positive message. To hear them tell it, every Christian is getting instant answers to prayer and receiving miracles; everybody is feeling good, living well; and the whole world is bright and rosy. I like to hear that kind of preaching because I really desire all those good and healthy things for God’s people. But that is not the way things are for a great number of very honest, sincere Christians.” Read more in David Wilkerson’s post At The Breaking Point.

[PHOTO] 100 random acts of kindness almost anyone could do.

Judgment is God’s job. To assume otherwise is to assume God can’t do it. God has not asked us to settle the score or get even. Ever!” Read more in Max Lucado’s post Judgment Is God’s Job.

Pretty cool: researchers are discovering ways to restore brain function after an injury.

You may have seen the headlines that claimed children with same-sex parents fared better than children in traditional homes. Hold on a second: the research was flawed.

Regis Nicoll asks a great question: How Should Churches Receive Same-Sex Couples?

These kinds of atrocious reports about Planned Parenthood’s irresponsibility make me angry! Any why are my tax dollars funding this?!?

One of the basic propositions that supposedly makes evolution work is that things remain relatively the same over long periods of time. Yet here is another scientific study telling us that things haven’t remained the same.

“The people with the calculators have seen the problem, but they have not seen God. They have figured things out, but they have not figured God in.” —A.W. Tozer 

5 Quotes From Albert Einstein In “There Is A God”

There Is A GodAs I said in my book review of Anthony Flew’s There Is A God, the real value of this book is in the arguments which contributed to Flew’s shift from atheism to theism. You can read my full book review by clicking here.

Frankly, it’s hard to share a lot of the quotes because the context of the full argument would be lacking, but I’ve begun sharing some of them over several posts. To continue, below are some quotes from Albert Einstein.

“I am not a positivist. Positivism states that what cannot be observed does not exist. This conception is scientifically indefensible, for it is impossible to make valid affirmations of what people ‘can’ or ‘cannot’ observe. One would have to say ‘only what we observe exists,’ which is obviously false.” —Albert Einstein

“The man of science is a poor philosopher.” —Albert Einstein

“I want to know how God created this world. … I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.” —Albert Einstein

“I’m not an atheist, and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.” —Albert Einstein

“Every one who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.” —Albert Einstein

More quotes are forthcoming. You can read some direct quotes from Anthony Flew by clicking here.

Where Are The Churches Of Courage?

EinsteinI am becoming more and more concerned about pastors and churches who will not take a stand. So many seem apathetic to what is happening in our world, seldom taking a stand or speaking out against unbiblical cultural trends or the misdeeds of evil.

If not Christians or churches, then who will speak up for truth?

“Being a lover of freedom, when the [Nazi] revolution came, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but no, the universities were immediately silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. … Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and moral freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.” —Albert Einstein

Pastor, are you standing “squarely across the path” of the things “suppressing truth”? Are you teaching and arming your congregations to do the same?

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading for today…

What you do with television in your home will help determine whether you and your family will be dumbed down. Let me suggest that you not watch (or let your kids watch) shows that play to the lowest common denominator in humanity… shows that are written and produced for, yes, I’ll say it…dumb people.  You might think they’re harmless and amusing, but are they really the best use of your time and, more importantly, your brain?” Read more from Mark Atteberry in his post The Dumbing Down Of America.

A great question: Where is the outrage over the bombardment of civilians in Israel?

David Wilkerson reminds us of the loving heart of Jesus our Shepherd.

A really cool story about the Cadbury family (who founded the Cadbury Chocolate company).

Tim Elmore shares the good news and bad news in his post Teen Trends.

9 Quotes From “Sidelined”

SidelinedSidelined was a book I could hardly put down: such a compelling story of love, and family, and overcoming adversity! You can read my full book review by clicking here. Below are some quotes I highlighted in this book, unless otherwise noted all of the quotes are from Coach Pagano.

“We can! We will! We must! By any means necessary—we have no choice—we will win.”

“We were determined to create a culture where guys couldn’t wait to come to work. We wanted people who would be excited about getting up in the morning and being here. … We wanted a workplace where people are honest and forthright with each other. We wanted open communication to be practiced daily. We wanted every person in the building to be treated with the dignity that every human being deserves. Sure, we’re tough guys, and we like to joke and trash talk sometimes as part of our fun. But there has to be a limit to that kind of behavior, and we wanted everyone to respect each other more than anything else. A joke’s only funny if we all share in it together at no person’s expense. And when we make mistakes or do something wrong, we don’t deny it. We want a place that if we are going to eat crow, we are going to eat it while it’s hot!”

“…My condition will not determine my position. I understand the condition, but choose to focus on my position. That is to stay positive and serve….” (part of a letter to his team before the Green Bay Packers game)

“Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.” —William Barclay

“You brought the spiritual plane. That’s why your leadership goes beyond coaching. You set an example as a spiritual leader, and that’s what inspires people.” —Kevin Elko

“Coaching is a profession of love. You can’t coach people unless you love them.” —Eddie Robinson

“People sometimes ask me what we look for in a player—how we know he’ll be a good fit for our program. It’s a hard question to answer because there are so many variables. … We also go beyond all the facts and stats and determine if these are what we like to call ‘horseshoe guys.’ The horseshoe emblem of the Colts shows seven nails or studs. Each one represents a quality we want in a player/leader for our team—smart, tough, dynamic, physical, character, integrity, and respect. … Players who want to be a part of something bigger. Something great.”

“Part of the reason I couldn’t remain disappointed after our lost to the Ravens [in the playoffs] was that I knew we had built our foundation on solid rock. We had established something that wasn’t going to dry up and blow away in a matter of weeks or months. Our team was committed to building a program for sustained success. We called it ‘building the monster.’ We wanted to take our building blocks of athleticism, talent, and skill and bring them to life with our commitment, character, and determination.”

“Cancer can take away a lot—your hair, your appetite, your energy, and, yes, sometimes your very life. But cancer cannot take away the love that passes between you and the special people in your life. It can’t take away the support and encouragement, the creativity and beauty, the connections and relationships to others who are fighting alongside you. No matter how hard it tries, cancer can never contain the human spirit or diminish the power of faith.”