Goodreads Comment (11.10.2009): Muslim and Chinese Social Networking for Western Culture (“The Next World War,” James Adams)

Here is a comment I made on Goodreads regarding James Adams’ data on the emergence of Muslim and Chinese social networking for Western culture in his book The Next World War: Computers Are the Weapons & the Front Line is Everywhere (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003).

American Isolationism, China, and Muslim Social Networking in James Adams’ ‘The Next World War’  

Bible Quiet Time Notes (11.10.2009): Though We Have Not Seen Him, It is Through Witness that We Love Him: Apostolic Witness, Evangelism, and Suffering in Jesus’ Ministry

Bible quiet time chapters for this morning: 1 Pet. 1-2

Passage for reflection:

“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, who having not seen you love.  Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith – the salvation of your souls.”  (1 Pet. 1:6-9)

Emmanuel Sermon Notes (11.8.2009): No Way Out

This blog article contains my notes taken from my pastor Scott Seaton’s sermon from this past Sunday for Emmanuel Presbyterian Church (PCA).  Scott’s sermon was meant to highlight our need to trust God as our Chief Shepherd during circumstances in which we’re fenced in from our natural self-sufficiency and our abilities to take care of ourselves.  God strips away our pride and self-righteousness, and our self-made ways of success, in such a way that God magnifies Himself as the God worthy of shepherding a peculiar people, and the God worthy of judging self-sufficient sinners.  And in the Gospel foundation, we are to trust in Jesus as the true and better Moses, the true Deliverer of our souls from bondage to false fears, our false places of self-worship, in this life, so that we know real grace and peace with God as our comforting Father.

Goodreads Comment (11.6.2009): “The Bean Trees,” Barbara Kingsolver

As part of my experimentation with Goodreads for this blog “New City,” I share in this blog article a comment I made on my initial reading of Barbara Kingsolver’s book The Bean Trees (New York: Harper, 2003).  As far as Bible quiet time notes go, I read Esther 9-10 as my quiet time chapters from the Bible this morning.  There are a lot of things I would like to go over from these chapters, especially regarding holidays, or “holy days,” especially as Thanksgiving and Christmas roll around.  I decided that the breadth of the subject deserved a more formal essay length blog article rather than the quiet time notes I’ve produced in recent articles.

Here is my Goodreads comment for Kingsolver’s book. 

“The Bean Trees,” Barbara Kingsolver      

Bible Quiet Time Notes (11.5.2009): Fighting Idols and Resting in the Name of Christ with the Lord, and Praying for the Lord’s Deliverance of His House

Bible quiet time chapters for this morning: 2 Chron. 13-14

Selected passage of the aforementioned chapters for reflection:

“Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God, for he removed the altars of the foreign gods and the high places, and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the wooden images.  He commanded Judah to seek the LORD God of their fathers, and to observe the law and the commandment.  He also removed the high places and the incense altars from all the cities of Judah, and the kingdom was quiet under him.  And he built fortified cities in Judah, for the land had rest; he had no war in those years, because the LORD had given him rest.  Therefore he said to Judah, ‘Let us build these cities and make walls around them, and towers, gates, and bars, while the land is yet before us, because we have sought the LORD our God; we have sought Him, and He has given us rest on every side.’  So they built and prospered.  And Asa had an army of three hundred thousand from Judah who carried shields and spears, and from Benjamin two hundred and eighty thousand men who carried shields and drew bows; all these were mighty men of valor.

Then Zerah the Ethiopian came out against them with an army of a million men and three hundred chariots, and he came to Mareshah.  So Asa went out against him, and they set the troops in battle array in the Valley of Zephathah at Mareshah.  And Asa cried out to the LORD his God, and said, ‘LORD, it is nothing for You to help, whether with many or with those who have no power; help us, O LORD our God, for we rest on You, and in Your name we go against this multitude.  O LORD, You are our God; do not let man prevail against You!’ ”                           (2 Chron. 14:2-11)

Bible Quiet Time Notes (11.4.2009): God the Conqueror of Armies of Idols, and God the Author of New Rest

As my follow up to my blog article yesterday, here is my initial experiment of writing out my Bible quiet time notes for blog readers, hopefully to be done on a regular basis.  Similar to the way I wrote out my quiet time reflections on Twitter, my intended format for these quiet time notes is that they are written out in brief thoughts, so that the gist of my quiet time reflections is given without too much exhaustive detail.  And in the interest of time for these quiet time articles, I only intend to cover a small section of the passages of the Bible that I actually read for quiet times in the mornings.  This is especially true for when I read four chapters of the Bible per day under Robert Murray McCheyne’s Bible reading plan next year.

Tinkering with the Monster (Just Don’t Say “Glue” in German Around the Horses)

As the title indicates, I had a blast this past Halloween weekend by encountering Mel Brooks’ classic movie Young Frankenstein as a diversion of sorts from the suffering I alluded to in my blog article last Friday.  You just don’t see movies made with that kind of comic genius these days.  Anyway, I have decided to tinker with this blog “New City” in the interest of getting more articles posted in a more economically friendly manner, not in the sense of money and greed being good, but in the sense of getting short articles regularly posted.

Emmanuel Sermon Notes (11.1.2009): Stir Up One Another

This blog article features notes from my pastor Scott Seaton’s sermon from this past Sunday, for the preaching series that Scott was doing out of the “one another” passages of the Bible for Emmanuel.  I had mentioned in my previous blog article of sermon notes that the sermon discussed would be the last sermon for this preaching series.  It wasn’t.  Scott and the session of elders of Emmanuel have discussed this matter carefully, and have decided that they will graciously allow me to share in a spaghetti dinner with them before they do business with me by the docks.  (This prompts one of my female friends in Emmanuel to humorously reply, “What is it with you Presbyterians and the mafia?!?”  Strictly business, ma’am.  Nothing personal.)

Gospel-Rooted Suffering and Reformation Day

Tomorrow is Reformation Day, the day that classical Protestants celebrate Martin Luther’s posting of the Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517.  Reformation Day is typically celebrated as a contrast to Halloween (and as a contrast to All Hallows Eve in traditional Roman Catholicism).  Truth be told, I’m not huge on either Reformation Day or Halloween.  I would prefer to focus more on the Protestant Reformers’ spirituality than on their formal legacy.  Their spirituality was a Gospel-rooted conviction that we are to enjoy justification in Christ alone by faith, and we are to enjoy real one to one living grace relationship, real communion, in the foundation of Christ with the Lord, God the Father.

Emmanuel Sermon Notes (10.25.2009): Forgiving One Another

I include in this blog article here my notes from my pastor Scott Seaton’s sermon concluding the preaching series on the “one another” passages of the Bible for Emmanuel Presbyterian Church (PCA).  Scott used this sermon to have us go deeper on the issue of forgiveness expressed among the members of the church as we know Christ’s first forgiveness for our lives.  What is forgiveness; what is it not?  Do we have a good motivation for expressing it among each other?  As we look at the Bible’s teachings on forgiveness, we understand a fundamental standard for gathering together as a community known as the church in our cities and our cultures.  In Emmanuel’s case, this means that my friends and I have a deep foundation from God above for how we are to interact with each other and enjoy each other’s camaraderie and fellowship, and bear each other’s burdens, and gather as a church in the city of Arlington.