lunes linkage

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Did Moses Write the Pentateuch?

A list of Scriptures that name Moses as the author from True Paradigm

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Bringing Marriage Back to Earth

by Brian Tallman, Ligonier Ministries

Common critiques of contemporary marriage in the West often include the recognition that marriage has become too sentimentalized. In light of Calvin’s comments, I wonder if the church isn’t guilty of making marriage too spiritual.

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50 Things the Holy Spirit Does

What follows are 50 things the Holy Spirit does according to the New Testament. If you find this list helpful, share it on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Via Adrian Warnock

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Why aren't we calling it the "royal fetus"? by Denny Burk

What is the difference between this “royal baby” and the unborn child in the womb of a mother in the waiting room of an abortion clinic? There’s no intrinsic difference in terms of their humanity. The only difference is that one is wanted and the other is not. Thus, the one gets the status of “baby” and the other is euphemized as a fetus, blastocyst, or blob of cells.

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Microwave Suffering by Mike Leake (Borrowed Light)

It seems to me that some believers—myself included—think that suffering is like the second type of microwave meal. When we are put into the furnace of suffering for a season we assume that we will come through the other end chiseled and no longer in need of suffering. It confuses us when the Master has to toss us around and then put us back into the kiln.

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We owe as much to God the Holy Spirit as we do to God the Son - Charles Spurgeon Quote, via "of First Importance:

Let us ever remember that Christ on the cross is of no value to us, apart from the Holy Spirit in us.

In vain that blood is flowing, unless the finger of the Spirit applies the blood to our conscience; in vain is that garment of righteousness wrought out, unless the Holy Spirit wraps it around us and arrays us in its costly folds.

The river of the water of life cannot quench our thirst, till the Spirit presents the goblet and lifts it to our lips.

All the things which are in the paradise of God could never be blissful to us, so long as we are dead souls — and dead we are, until that heavenly wind comes and breathes upon us, that we may live.

We do not hesitate to say that we owe as much to God the Holy Spirit as we do to God the Son.

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Tim Keller on Evangelism Best Practices...

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R.C.Sproul - What is the Rapture?

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On the "crime" of circumcision:

This is a bearing on another conversation I'm listening in on about infant baptism...this paragraph:

Along with many other religious people, they regard children as members of a community that precedes individual decisions and outlasts them — a community created by a covenant, not a choice. Circumcision is the outward sign of this spiritual reality.

Denny Burk adds:

Modern liberalism is upside down. On the one hand, it supports the right of a woman to kill her unborn child in utero for whatever reason or no reason at all. On the other hand, it opposes a parent’s prerogative to have their baby undergo a safe procedure that incorporates them into a community of faith. Does that make sense to you? Me either.

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Women as "Kingdom Warriors, Too..."

If Adam must think, decide, protect, and provide for the woman, she actually becomes a burden on him – not much help when you think about it. The kind of help the man needs demands full deployment of her strength, her gifts, and the best she has to offer. His life will change for the better because of what she contributes to his life. Together they will daily prove in countless and surprising ways that two are better than one. (pg 114-115).

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What Does Your Church’s Statement of Faith Protect?

 As we discussed the statement Saturday, the conversation turned to the importance of the statement of faith in protecting various aspects of the church and its ministry.  As I’ve noodled on that conversation, it seems to me that a local church’s statement of faith should protect five important things...

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"We Are at a Turning Point" by Judge Andrew Napolitano

Hence, we have laws that force us to be charitable to those whom the government designates as worthy of our charity, that limit the amount of salt that restaurants can put into our food, that permit the government to watch us on street corners and subways and in the lobbies of buildings, that let the president fight wars of opportunity, that permit the Federal Reserve to print money with no value and inflate prices and destroy savings, that allow the government to listen to us on our cellphones and use those phones to follow us wherever we go, and, according to CIA Director David Petraeus, that let the government anticipate our movements inside our homes.

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UK: Creator of children's character "Fireman Sam" detained at airport for noting that a veiled Muslim woman passed through security without showing her face

Nuff said.

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Ultrasounds Already Part of VA Planned Parenthood Abortion Procedure

Excuse me.  If a woman already has her feet in the stirrups, waiting for all the instruments that are used doing an abortion - is she really (REALLY????) going to equate an ultrasound with "rape"?  What a slap in the face to all of the women who have truly gone through the trauma of rape.

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Ouroboros: "Hate Speech" Worse Than Infanticide?

my favorite line?

[Cough] If I knew at the beginning it was this easy to take his family jewels and put them in a thimble, I wouldn’t have bothered reading his defense.

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Trashing Tricare - because our military doesn't sacrifice enough already.

The Obama administration’s proposed defense budget calls for military families and retirees to pay sharply more for their healthcare, while leaving unionized civilian defense workers’ benefits untouched. The proposal is causing a major rift within the Pentagon, according to U.S. officials. Several congressional aides suggested the move is designed to increase the enrollment in Obamacare’s state-run insurance exchanges.

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The ‘Taxpayer Subsidized Clean Energy Company Losing Money and Laying Off Workers While Execs Get Raises’ Story of the Day.

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The $4 Billion Obamacare Slush Fund for Progressives

To appease liberal Democrats pushing for the so-called “public option” (the full frontal government takeover of our health care system), the White House settled for the creation of a $6 billion network of nonprofit “CO-OPs” that will “compete” with private insurers. It’s socialized medicine through the side door. House Republicans sliced about $2 billion from the slush fund in last spring’s budget deal and proclaimed the program dead. Hardly.

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Disciplined for gossiping.  I'm guessing that there's more to this than is covered.  Probably not politically correct, even in church politics, saying that the pastor has "narcissistic personality disorder."

Roy Ortland on "the legitimacy of a church plant" (or any church, I'd guess)

 

President Obama's "God Factor" interview.

On Gingrich on Obama and gas prices.

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Two lesbians charged with a "hate crime" for beating up a gay guy.

PETA kills more than 95% of the pets in its care.

 

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Politics/religion - yes, this one does fit.

In my web wanderings, I either see or participate in debates where the lines are either drawn between Calvinism vs "something else" OR conservative vs. liberal (either politics or religion.  It's the latter I'm thinking about when I post "Obama's Nazi Straw Man:  an Old Alinsky Trick" - I read "Rules for Radicals" a while ago, to brush up for conversations at work

It hit me the other day that - whether meaning to or not - liberal Christians may use some of the same tactics in religious conversations.

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Gender and religion - on "Straw Women"

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Lutheran SATIRE - "What St. Paul Really Said" (youtube video)

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For those keeping up with Rob Bell and "Love Wins" - here's the chronology from Resurgence

and...Robbed Hell - a spoof...vimeo video

 

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I haven't done this for a while - when I'm blogging nearly daily, on Monday (lunes, from when I was taking Spanish classes) I gather all the open tabs from my blog reader and post what I thought were the most interesting ones.  (It has a purpose for me also - if I remember a post that I want to read again, if I put it here, I can find it.)

Fifty Fruits of Pride - a self-diagnostic; from Gospel Centric

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I've been doing reading on Genesis and the creation story -

The meaning of "expanse" in Genesis 1; from True Paradigm

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The Theology of Blame Shifting; from Jonathan Moorhead

No one is guilty of their sin anymore! It is always someone else’s, or something else’s fault. If it’s not your how your parents treated you, then it’s your genes, your surroundings, or maybe even the Devil made you do it. We are all victims!

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On the political side: Hero vs. Zero (one of a series - with lots to work from - from HillBuzz)

From the Advice Goddess Blog

Wearing Red On Friday Can Be Helpful...
...If you are, say, wandering into traffic while staring into your electronic binkie, it may help drivers stop soon enough as to only maim you instead of killing you.

(...)

@amyalkon Go naked on Friday to support anti-asshat-think. Wearing pink doesn't stop breast cancer, wearing red doesn't eliminate heart disease.

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blog update...as of 10:00 AM Sunday morning, I'm down to 983 uncategorized posts.

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On "The Private War in The Mind" from Reformation Theology

Yet there is a reality to spiritual warfare and it is something God certainly wants us to know about, or else He would not have revealed it to us in His Word. If we just stay with the Scripture, we will be on safe and sure ground. God wants us to understand the warfare, know our enemy and live a life free from his clutches.

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Hillbuzz on waking up Americans:

this paragraph is talking about why the Republicans don't seem to be all that interested in winning:

Maybe these men truly don’t know how to do that…but we think it’s more like the Washington Generals knowing they have a pretty good racket losing basketball games to the Globetrotters, so why start working harder and winning when the script their all following says they need to lose in the end (if they want to keep their cushy existence as the lovable losers).

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A good article on gay marriage by "The Gay Patriot"

If you feel a victim because the state doesn’t call your union what you want to call it, well, then you have really politicized your psyche.

He says that gay marriage (the union of 2 people) already exists, what they lack is state recognition.  If they went for the recognition of the union (without calling it "marriage"), they would have the rights of the state recognition of the union.

A commenter said,

Even for straights, a State marriage license is a thing created by State legislation (which I call a privilege); not a thing which morally precedes the State and exists apart from it (which I call a fundamental right).

Which is why, in certain circumstances, I would decline piece of paper that tells me that the state has given me permission to marry.

That's God's job, not the state's.

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Looking back at Tiger Woods

One of the "bad" things about reading blogs the way that I do is that I end up with a lot of open tabs.  The upside is that I end up with different perspectives and/or a running commentary from different sources.

Truth in Advertising (Parchment and Pen)

If You Can Find a Better Deal, TAKE IT! (Ann Coulter)

Climategate

There May Be More Errors- can we please stop calling them "errors"?  If you repeat a lie, it doesn't make it an "error", it makes a lie that you're repeating.

I Knew the Data Hadn't Been Verified - can we stop calling it "not verified"?

President Obama's pro-abortion record

(no, not "pro-choice)

On Haiti

What Pat Robertson Should Have Said

Who Will Be Left...? (I love the Hillbuzz guys!)

Doctrinal Issues (could be research paper fodder

Why I believe the Canon is Fallible and Am Fine With It (Reclaiming the Mind)

Case Studies...

Michigan Politics

In one of the worst economies in the country...our Senator Levin says that "unemployment has not been his focus."  Thanks for all the "help", Senator.

Tim Keller reviews "The Shack"

Yeah.