The UmBlog

Exodus 20:8-11 Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Work six days and do everything you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God, your God. Don't do any work - not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maid, nor your animals, not even the foreign guest visiting in your town. For in six days God made Heaven, Earth, and sea, and everything in them; he rested on the seventh day. Therefore God blessed the Sabbath day; he set it apart as a holy day. (Message) God sets the example in the creation. He makes the whole word in 6 days and then stops. I read this morning... Genesis 2:3 God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he ceased all the work that he had been doing in creation. (NET) I like that the NET uses ceased instead of rested. it's not that God stopped because he was tired. The word has more than the idea of rest. in their note on Exodus 20:8 they inform us, "The word “Sabbath” is clearly connected to the v...

There's this curious story after the Noah's flood story in Genesis 9. 20 Noah, a farmer, was the first to plant a vineyard. 21 He drank from its wine, got drunk and passed out, naked in his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw that his father was naked and told his two brothers who were outside the tent. 23 Shem and Japheth took a cloak, held it between them from their shoulders, walked backwards and covered their father's nakedness, keeping their faces turned away so they did not see their father's exposed body. 24 When Noah woke up with his hangover, he learned what his youngest son had done. 25 He said, Cursed be Canaan! A slave of slaves, a slave to his brothers! 26 Blessed be God, the God of Shem, but Canaan shall be his slave. 27 God prosper Japheth, living spaciously in the tents of Shem. But Canaan shall be his slave. (MSG) It is so curious that there are too many interpretations of it. I'm sure the insight lightbulb for me this aftern...

i was on vacation at home all week with my son. i thought i'd be blogging all week but the boy kept me busy. i still need to work on the 10 commandments, resuming with number 4, Sabbath. i've been turning it over and over in my mind and when i think i can write a post i realize i'd need a hundred posts. it's a big theme in the Bible. tomorrow, i'll be done with my 2nd 90 day read through the good book. i have a new order of books to try for the next 3 months. i read the first 3 Harry Potter books all week. i'm getting ready for the Deathly Hallows. Sabbath is good.

update July 2009. Since the Half Blood Prince came to the theater, I've been getting several hits to this post. Understand this, he isn't. That's what makes Rowling such a great writer. Original post.... There is a great discussion on whether Snape is actually good or bad at the Hogwarts Professor . Said Professor, John Granger, wrote an essay last year suggesting that Snape's murder of Dumbledore in the Half-blood Prince is an elaborate deception and that they were still in partnership. His latest post is about his reconsideration. I made a suggestion on the story trajectory modeled after the gospels. My comments are waiting moderation approval so they may never appear, hence I'm copying them here... I don’t claim to be the sharpest tool in the shed, and I also acknowledge that I am out of my league. However, since no one knows the right answer until the DH appears I want to offer a cent or two. These theories on Snape have been very stimulating. In fact, I have tr...

great stuff at the Gospel Driven Life The Gospel is glorious because it is not about what we do. It is not even a message that tells us to “ask Jesus to be your savior and you will be forgiven.” That is not the Gospel, it is a response to the Gospel. The Gospel is news about what Jesus has done. We subtly distort the Gospel when we make it about us. The Gospel is more than “God loves you as you are.” It is God saves you as you are. The Gospel is news about Him not about us. It is the description of what he has done. We are the beneficiaries, but God is the One who has acted to save us. We should dwell often on his person and work and less on ourselves... When this truth – the life and death of Jesus the Messiah – is no longer at the center of our lives and preaching and counseling, I am likely to create a caricature of God. I like to think of Gospel centrality as the Sun in the middle of the solar system – it is over 98% of the mass of the entire solar system, and its mass keeps all...

This is not the genre of reading I look for when I visit the local library. However, at a picnic I mentioned my reading about dictators, conquerors, and war, specifically, Genghis Khan . The host of the picnic had his memory stirred and recommended an adventure writer he greatly enjoyed, Clive Cussler. Subsequently I left the picnic with his copy of Treasure of Khan , which I dutifully read. To what can I compare this novel? An Indiana Jones screenplay perhaps. It's not that I'm averse to the occasional thriller , but Clancy and Grisham are a notch or three above this work. There are interesting occupational details of pilots and divers that add an authentic feel, but this work is the equivalent of a cartoon, not even a soap opera and far short of literature. As far as cartoons go, though, this is one that exceeds. Literary cartoons occupy an important niche, light reading, better than television, time filler. As long as the reader adjusts expectations accordingly, this novel ...

Exodus 20:7 "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. (NASB) i've had a real hard time wrapping my brain around this one, and as i'll show, i'm not much worse off than the commentators. i consider my opinion no better or worse than theirs. a couple immediate observations. 1-the Lord's Prayer begins with the positive response to this commandment, " hallowed be your name " 2-the punishment is not pronounced on subsequent generations but on the offender. i think there is a rich vein to mine here on why the idolaters are punished to 3rd and 4th generations but the vanitizer/diminisher/devaluer is punished solely. but i'm not smart enough for that one. can someone compare and contrast this for me? i do think it negates arguments of God did things one way then changed later on. it seems he had restraint in the verse after the one He seems in our modern perspective less...