Bread

Of all the good things God's given us to eat, I think I miss bread the most.

I miss all kinds of food: cereal, cheeseburgers, apples, devil's food cake, raw spinach, catfish, oatmeal, steak, pizza, pancakes, black-eyed peas, granola, cherry pie, pork chops, bananas, donuts, bacon ... but for some reason, I really want bread. I can spend hours thinking about it, from loaf bread to biscuits to pizza crust,

A better person (and a better writer) would tie this into how Jesus said, "I am the bread of life," and make some life-changing point. I'll just say this:

I miss bread.

Psalm 15

Who can dwell with God? The one who does what God says. That means a lot of people are in for a rude awakening.

You're not saved by works. But you're not saved just because you say you are, either. Your outward works reflect your inward beliefs. Besides, who'd want to spend eternity with a God with whom you disagree? It would be like an ant dancing with an elephant; no matter how careful the elephant is, it's not going to end well for the ant.

Review: THE DIVINE COMEDY by Dante Aghlieri

This is another of those great classics that I haven't gotten around to reading until the last couple of years. And I'm mostly doing it now so I can say I did.

Frankly, I didn't think it was worth the effort. The poetry did nothing for me, and since I don't care for Roman theology or 13th century Italian politics, there's not much else to pay attention to, and I don't recommend it.

Psalm 14

If not for God, the righteous would have no chance. In this psalm, David describes God's people as surrounded by evil men, but also by the protection of God.

And if you have the second, the first doesn't matter.

Review: THE PRAYER GOD ANSWERS by Eberhard Arnold

Plough.com has a great many books for free so as you'll see I've read a lot of Eberhard Arnold books.

Arnold was the founder of the Bruderhof movement, which has become a worldwide network of Christians living communally. This book looks at the relationship of prayer to such a life, and determines that the prayer God answers is the one that already matches up with his will.

Since Arnold made his living as a teacher, lecturer, and editor, it's not surprising that the book is well-written. It's also worth every penny I spent on it. I recommend this book.

Psalm 13

If God has always come through in the past, it makes sense that he would do so in the future. 

David starts by questioning God and ends by praising his faithfulness. This is only natural. The normal reaction to someone who's already proven himself trustworthy is to keep trusting him.

The seventh commandment

14 "You shall not commit adultery.

-- Exodus 20.14, ESV 

This is very simple. Adultery is just sex with someone you aren't married to. Therefore, don't have sex with with someone you're not married to.

That's black and white. Only people make it complicated.

Psalm 12

The phrase "purified seven times" is sometimes used by those who believe the King James Version is the only real Bible. Since the KJV was the seventh major English translation, they say, this is proof of their case.

This overlooks the simple fact that their "proof" is silly.

Review: CHAOS by James Gleick

I think books on math and physics are very interesting, especially the theoretical aspects. Unfortunately, I've never had any aptitude for those subjects, and I never learned to do the math necessary to really understand them. What this usually means is that I generally understand them until the equations come out, and then I get lost.

Gleick's books are different, in that he's not a mathematician or physicist either. What they may lack in precision -- which would be lost on me anyway -- they more than gain in readability. This book is particularly good in this regard, both because it's nearly 30 years old and because there are a great many illustrations of Mandelbrot sets, as well as many photographs and charts that make the text clearer.

Chaos may not have lived up to the rapturous expectations of the 1980s, but it has still proven to be an important concept, and this book does a good job of introducing it. I recommend it.

Psalm 11

Evil people can do what they like. God is still God.

They can scatter the righteous, slander them, and even try to kill them. In the end it just doesn't matter. God will always be God, and he'll always take care of his people.

What "Built for Glory" means

First, it comes from one of my favorite songs, "Built for Glory, Made to Last", by one of my favorite bands, the Lost Dogs. Go on and look it up. I'll wait.

Now that you've heard a good song, I'll continue. It also means that though we've adapted ourselves wonderfully to the world in which we live, it's not the world in which we were meant to live.. It's been marred by sin; it's hard and hostile, and while we survive here, we were designed for something else.

We were designed for a perfect world, and for communion with God. Instead, we're just strangers in a strange land, stumbling blindly behind him.

An announcement

The Bible Exchange has let me put something else up there. Here's the link.

Psalm 10

You're not getting away with anything, you know.

This psalm is both a prayer that God would see the deeds of the wicked and a promise that he will. God sees everything; that's what omniscience means. It's not like anyone can slip something by him.

Review: HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad

This is the book that took me the longest to read. I started it my senior year of high school, and finished it 17 years later. And it's not that it's long, either. A dead-tree copy is about 75 pages long, so it's barely a novella.

The fact is that I found it boring. I still do, and I don't recommend it.

Psalm 9

If God does something for you, tell people. The last eight psalms have asked God for justice, and here David is thankful for what he's received and what he will receive.

Like I said, if God does something for you, tell people.

Review: THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS by John Bunyan

This is without a doubt the most famous allegory in the world, and other than the Bible it's the most-translated book in history. But is it any good?

The first thing to notice is that this is an old book. Between the outdated spelling and vocabulary and the archaic punctuation, it can be a challenge to read. Because it's been in the public domain for so long, though, there are plenty of audio and modernized versions that pretty much eliminate that problem.

A second consideration is the story, which is divided into two parts. The first, the tale of Christian's journey to Heaven, is the best-known and better of the two, while the other, which tells about his wife Christiana and their children as they follow him, is both somewhat repetitive and less interesting.

Overall, this is a book that rewards the effort put into it, and which deserves its status as a classic. I highly recommend it.

Psalm 8

God is the one who made the universe, and that's who wants to speak with you.

We've sent spacecraft billions of miles. We've seen trillions of miles. Some of what we think are stars in the night sky are actually galaxies of tens of millions of stars. Everywhere we look we see the handiwork of God, even though he's that great he still cares about each one of us.

The sixth commandment

13 "You shall not murder.

-- Exodus 20.13, ESV 

While governments were given the right of capital punishment immediately after the Flood, and unintentional killing could be forgiven under the law, premeditated homicide has always been strictly forbidden. The murder of an image-bearer of God is extremely serious, and should be treated extremely seriously 

Psalm 7

Why do we think only evil can hurt us? Good can too, and when it has to be it's far more terrible than evil. If your enemy is Satan or one of his minions, you can pray to God for deliverance, but when God is your enemy,where do you turn?

After all, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Review: BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL by Friedrich Nietzsche

There are atheists, and then there's Nietzsche.

While our modern atheists tend to want the benefits of religion without a God telling them what to do, Nietzsche looked at a world without God and was horrified. When he had a character in another work say that God is dead, it was a cry not of triumph but of despair.

This book explores more of what it would mean to live in a universe where man is the only authority. Specifically, since morality tends to come from religion, without religion mankind would be beyond morality, too. While part of me thinks everyone should read this just to see what lies behind celebrity atheists like Richard Dawkins and Penn Gillette. Another part, though, knows it's pretty dull. Evil, it seems, really is banal.