Who Tends the Fires

Burdens of a Pilgrim

2010-03-23T02:10:00.003-05:00

This post originates from an email conversation Denita had with someone recently. Some of the things brought up have been swimming around in my mind since and their implications bring me to a point where the burden cannot be caried silently anymore.

Brothers and sisters, as Children of God, we are called to follow in the steps of our Big Brother Jesus. What burdend Him, should also weigh heavy upon our hearts. What was His overarching goal in His incarnation? It was to bring glory to His Father, who through adoption, is now our Father.

As children of the Father, should we not seek the same as our Brother?

What did our Brother do in His ministry to bring glory to our Father? Seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10).

Brothers and sisters, that is what I seek to do with this post.

Our Father is jealous of our love for Him, He will share it with no other, but I fear that there are many out there who claim to love our Lord and Saviour Jesus, but in fact are splitting their love and loyalties. This splitting comes in a way that they are blinded to, something that they probably do not realize.

Lord, please open their eyes (and do not let me close my eyes to this fact)!

Many out there have proclaimed, either out loud, or in their hearts only, that they love Jesus, but do not feel the same thing towards the Father. That they love Jesus, but have problems with loving the God of the Old Testament.

Brothers and sisters, know this if you feel this way...

You are walking in sin and are flirting with heresy.

God the Father does not change (Psalms 102, Numbers 23:19, James 1:17, Malachi 3:6). Jesus Christ does not change (Hebrews 13:8). Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature (Hebrews 1), when asked "show us the Father" He replied "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." (John 14)

Brother and sister, when you say that you love Jesus, but not the God of the Old Testament, you are not loving the Jesus of the Bible, you are worshiping a Jesus of your own making because "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him." (1 John 5:1)

If you cannot love the Father, you cannot say in truth that "Jesus is the Christ". It is only in the love of the Father you can proclaim this in truth by the Spirit, for the Spirit is sent by Jesus, from the Father (John 15:26).

Salvation only comes through faith in the Jesus of the Bible. That Jesus was, "the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1) If I was to name my son Jesus, I cannot be saved by placing my faith in him...

If Jesus is God, then you cannot love Jesus, but not the God of the Old Testament, for they are one in union (John 14:11).

Please brothers and sisters, hear this truth and repent if you find your heart pointed in this direction.

Something to Chew on

2010-02-11T08:21:00.003-06:00

*Ruffled Feathers Warning*

There has been something churning around in the back of me head for awhile and I needed to get it out.

When it comes to "American Christianity" I really feel like an outsider looking in most of the time. I am wired differently and spend a lot of time scratching my head when it comes to some of the things that people fight over within the "American church". We have seen battles within our own local church regarding worship style (music, service order, *gasp* the pastor is playing with the worship group... etc).

The thing that has me most puzzled are those who think that our job as Christians is to take over the government and legislate Christianity.

I'll be blunt and honest... the Spanish Inquisition is OVER and never was a Christian undertaking!

That might seen harsh, but really, where in the Bible does it tell us to take over and rule?

Matthew 28 in no way states that were are to conquer and subjugate. We are to make disciples. This implies a willingness to learn on the part of the other person. It implies our training of the other person, not bludgeoning them into behaving by our rules.

Ambassadors carry messages from their home country to a foreign one. They should not try to impose their laws upon another country. Now, they can use the example of their lives and their country to try to influence another country.

What really brought this to a head was all the stories regarding the "outrage" over the removal of Christ from Christmas by stores, local governments, etc.

For some reason, last year, this situation started to gnaw away at the back of my brain and I could not figure out why. After spending quite some time trying to figure out why, it finally dawned on me...

*Extreme Ruffled Feathers Warning*

Why are we forcing a holiday that the church decided to celebrate (as opposed to the God ordained celebrations like Passover, the Feast of Booths, the Day of Atonement [which are no longer required due to Christ's finished work on the cross]) on non-believers? Why are we so offended when someone who does not recognize Christ's authority, chooses to ignore our holiday?

Are we really showing the love of Christ when we reach for the pitchforks and torches when one who is blinded to the truth dares to take "Christ out of Christmas"? Are we to break out the thumbscrews when someone says "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas"?

I know this post comes at a strange time, since it has been over two months since Christmas, but the principle behind this remains 24/7.

One last question. If we are so offended by Christ being taken out of Christmas by non-believers in December... Why are we not offended when we take Christ out of Easter and replace Him with a rabbit?

Further Proof that I’m NOT Normal

2010-01-01T16:49:00.001-06:00

This was what Amazon’s suggestions were for me!

Something to chew on

2009-11-20T10:14:00.001-06:00

Christian in the West, has you ever stopped to ponder why things seem so lost in the church? Do you search the Scriptures, seeking YHWH’s face? Do you earnestly seek Jesus, to walk in the path of righteousness?

Take a moment to read Amos 8. After you read it, let me offer a translation for today. Please, examine your heart if you see similarities in your life. Ask yourself, “what do I place as important in my life as compared to what is truly important in this life”?

Coming Day of Bitter Mourning
8:1 This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. 2 And he said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the LORD said to me,
“The end has come upon my people Israel;
I will never again pass by them.
3 The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,”
declares the Lord GOD.
“So many dead bodies!”
“They are thrown everywhere!”
“Silence!”
4 Hear this, you who trample on the needy
and bring the poor of the land to an end,
5 saying, “When will services be over,
that we may go eat lunch?
And the Sermon,
that we may get home to watch football,
that we may make God small and the game great
and deal deceitfully with false priorities,
6 that we may buy the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals
and sell the chaff of the wheat?”
7 The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
“Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
8 Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who dwells in it,
and all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?”
9 “And on that day,” declares the Lord GOD,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your feasts into mourning
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on every waist
and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.
11 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD,
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the LORD.
12 They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD,
but they shall not find it.
13 “In that day the lovely virgins and the young men
shall faint for thirst.
14 Those who swear by the Guilt of Samaria,
and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’
and, ‘As the Way of Beersheba lives,’
they shall fall, and never rise again.”
The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society. Bold is author’s adjusted translation

For those who say the Bible has no relevance these days, I humbly ask you to reread the above and reconsider where your heart is in relation to God, repent of your arrogance and turn back to the only one who can sustain you in this world, Jesus.

Our God is a jealous God (Exodus 20:4-5), He remains the same; past, present and future (Hebrews 13:8). Do you not think He is offended by our halfhearted worship (Isaiah 1:10-17, Revelation 3:14-22)?

No, He is NOT your "boyfriend"

2009-11-19T01:03:00.002-06:00

I'm sorry, but the trite, overused phrase "Jesus is my boyfriend" makes me twitch. But don't take a puny armchair theologian's word for it. Let's see what D. A. Carson has to say regarding our "friendship" with God.

Then the passage explicitly harks back to John 5, which we have been thinking through. Jesus says, “You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (15:14–15).
Observe that Jesus makes a distinction between slaves (δοῦλοι; not “servants”) and friends. But the distinction initially surprises us. We are Jesus’ friends if we do what he commands. This sounds rather like a definition of a slave. Certainly such friendship is not reciprocal. I cannot turn around to Jesus and thank him for his friendship and tell him he is my friend, too, if he does everything I command him. Strange to tell, not once is Jesus or God ever described in the Bible as our friend. Abraham is God’s friend; the reverse is never stated.*
Carson, D. A. (2000). The difficult doctrine of the love of God (41). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.

*Emphasis mine.

Riddle me this...

2009-11-01T20:48:00.003-06:00

People constantly look at Christians like we are crazy for believing that a Jewish man named Jesus was really God incarnate, was murdered by the Roman government and then rose to life three days later.

Why do we get that reaction, but things like this do not have people's jaws hitting the ground?

Tulsi, which is Sanskrit for "the incomparable one", is worshiped throughout India, most often regarded as a consort of Vishnu in the form of Mahalakshmi. There are two types of Tulsi worshiped in Hinduism—"Rama Tulsi" has light green leaves and is larger in size; "Krishna Tulsi" has dark green leaves and is important for the worship of Vishnu. Many Hindus have tulsi plants growing in front of or near their home, often in special Tulsi pots. It is also frequently grown next to Vishnu temples, especially in Varanasi.

In the ceremony of Tulsi Vivah, Tulsi is ceremonially married to Vishnu annually on the eleventh bright day or twelfth of the month of Kartika in the lunisolar calendar. That day also marks the end of the four month cāturmāsya period, which is considered inauspicious for weddings and other rituals, and so the day inaugurates the annual marriage season in India. The ritual lighting of lamps each evening during Kartika includes the worship of the Tulsi plant, which is considered auspicious for the home. Vaishnavas especially follow the daily worship of Tulsi during Kartika.

Vaishnavas traditionally use japa malas made from tulsi stems or roots, which are an important symbol of initiation. Tulsi malas are considered to be auspicious for the wearer, and believed to put them under the protection of Vishnu or Krishna. They have such a strong association with Vaishnavas, that followers of Vishnu have long been called "those who bear the tulasi round the neck".

Just further proof of the fallen nature of mankind. And further shameful proof of how poorly we have stewarded the Gospel and how hard we have let our hearts get when it comes to the desire to share this precious gift of Christ with others.

Article taken from Wikipedia.

Something to meditate on

2009-10-06T17:15:00.002-05:00

Rejoice Christian, for each new day YHWH gives us without the return of Christ. For it means that there is at least one more soul out there whose name is written in the Book of Life that has not heard the voice of the Great Shepherd.

Repent Christian, for this new day without the return of Christ may be our fault. For our actions, walking not with YHWH, but with the World may have spooked that lost sheep.

How often we lose sight of YHWH and spook members of the flock by our sojourns outside the narrow path.

A Little Levity in the Storm

2009-10-04T01:13:00.004-05:00

Things have made an difficult turn in our family recently as we are currently living through Matthew 10:34-39 / Luke 12:51-53.

It is times like these that strengthen our faith, but also bring some interesting thoughts to mind...

Like, the fact that I think that there must be something fundamentally warped about the way my mind works, that I find the writings of Jonathan Edwards and John Owen to be much easier to follow than most modern authors (either fiction or non-fiction).

Questions from the Mirror

2009-07-29T02:11:00.003-05:00

Christian, what altar is central when you go to church services?

Is it the altar of the Most High God, where the blood of Jesus blots out all record of your sins, where you can fall to your knees in gratitude and love for what He took upon Himself?

or is it your altar of "I can/will only worship to certain music"... "I will only accept a certain style of preaching"... etc.

Excepting teaching of false doctrine, your opinions regarding how church services go mean nothing. If you take the time to get to know God, any puny notions of "your needs" should burn away like leaves in an incinerator. Your only need is God and you can only reach the Father through the Son. The only thing going through your mind during church services should be, "I get to worship God and I desire to!" Any thought below this shows a lack of knowledge of God and what happened on that cross almost two-thousand years ago.

God save us from our puny view of You!

Another Way of Looking at Things

2009-07-19T21:13:00.003-05:00

There are many out there that look at the way the Doctrines of Grace and Election are explained by John Calvin (ie.: a Calvinist position) and state that this view cancels any desire for missionary work.

I look at it this way: God knows where His sheep are located. He has graciously invited us to take part in a "scavenger hunt". If we do not join in, He will NOT leave one of His flock lost, someone else invited will be sent after them.

But how sorrowful will be that day when you Stand before Him and if you even have the strength to speak, have only this to say: "Even though the invitation came from the Creator of All, my time was more important for my tasks than to take part in some "silly scavenger hunt"."

Ubuntu, almost two weeks in

2009-06-10T02:32:00.003-05:00

Well, the laptop has been running Ubuntu Studio 9.04 (64bit) for almost two weeks and so far the verdict is: Bye-Bye Vista!

The improvements in the laptop's performance using Ubuntu vs Vista is quite noticeable. The biggest difference has been the heat. I recently had to go out and get one of those cooling pads for the laptop due to the excessive heat. Running Vista for longer than about thirty minutes would make the bottom of the laptop almost hot enough to cook eggs on. The cooling pad was the only thing keeping the hardware from locking up from excessive heat and keeping me from having a broiled lap. After unstalling Ubuntu, the laptop runs so cool, that there is almost no noticeable change in the temperature of the bottom of the laptop even after being on all night (this is without the cooling pad)! Note, I have seen several forum posts mentioning the exact opposite, so actual results may vary.

Another improvement seen is in hard drive speed. I partitioned the drive using ext4 and let me tell you, ext4 is very peppy as compared to NTFS. Microsoft really needs to seriously look into updating the file system its OSes are using. One of the things that drove me to Ubuntu was the horrendous file transfer speeds I had in Vista (and XP after SP2). When I was backing up media files before this switchover, I transferred about 57GB from an external drive to my desktop computer (much more muscle and HD speed compared to the laptop), it took Vista 8 hours to transfer the files! With Ubuntu on an ext4 drive, it took just over 1 hour!

Unfortunately, I cannot break all Microsoft fetters from the laptop. One of the programs I will not go without cannot (and according to their support people, will never) run under Linux (either natively or through emulators like WINE), and that is Libronix (which I use for most of my Bible study). This being the case, I pulled out my dusty copy of XP, installed VirtualBox and setup a 20GB virtual drive for XP, Libronix, Bibleworks 7 and iTunes. Unfortunately, VirtualBox only supports 1 core, so I lose half of my horsepower, but honestly XP runs just fine for these applications with the one core and only 512MB ram dedicated to it (need to upgrade to 4GB on the laptop when finances are available).

The biggest surprise in the switchover has been Denita. She has not complained once! While she is not a novice when it comes to computers, she is only used to Windows systems and previously when I had experimented with other OSes, her ire was tweaked rather quickly. This time around, she seems to have settled into the new environment without a hitch.

The one drawback to the whole thing was the initial setup. Standard Ubuntu has a very slick and easy to use installation interface when you first go to put the OS on your system. Ubuntu Studio has not gotten this feature yet. It still uses the old text based installation and the partition manager was not intuitive and took most of the install time getting the drive partitions correct. I would not recommend people new to computers or Linux to try to install Ubuntu Studio without help. Regular Ubuntu is another thing entirely, the installation interface there is even easier to use than Vista or XP's.

For standard computer use, I would highly recommend Ubuntu to anyone out there, especially if you do not wish to get caught in the Microsoft Upgrade Trap™. Ubuntu and the software that runs on it upgrade easily. In fact, if you use the built in package handler to handle installations, you can update your OS and all your other software at the same time instead of tracking down each individual update file for every program you own (think Windows Update for ALL your installed software).

Been playing around with Linux again

2009-05-31T00:12:00.004-05:00

I recently took the latest version of Ubuntu (9.04) out for a test drive and was impressed enough to migrate the laptop to it.

My favorite feature so far is the "throttle Windows" feature (my personal name for the feature).

Have you ever wanted to take your OS and just grab it by the throat and shake it like Homer does to Bart? If you combine Compiz and VirtualBox you can get the same effect. Just setup a virtual machine running the offending OS (for me it is XP [would be Vista except for the install size]), grab the title bar on the VirtualBox window and shake the crap out of it! Great fun for the whole family.

Seriously though, Microsoft should start looking over its shoulder...

A serious look at the latest from Ubuntu is coming soon.

A FREE Easter Gift from The Listener’s Bible

2009-04-09T11:20:00.001-05:00

For those who would like a copy of several of the Scriptures related to Jesus’ work to atone for our sins for personal edification or to share with others, head over to The Listener’s Bible website.

For a limited time, The Listener’s Bible is offering The Easter Story in MP3 download format for free.

Track Listing:

Introduction - Max McLean
The Triumphal Entry of the Son - Mark 10:33-45; Mark 11:1-10, 15-18
The Anointing of the Son - Mark 14:1-9
The Betrayal of the Son - Mark 14:10-26, 32-50, 53-65
The Trial of the Son - Mark 15:1-20
The Crucifixion of the Son - Luke 23:32-43; John 19:25-27; Mark 15:33-35; John 19:28-30; Luke 23:46; Mark 15:38-39
The Suffering Son - Isaiah 53:1-12
The Resurrection of the Son - Luke 24:1-8
The Conversation with the Son - Luke 24:13-32
The Son's Startling Appearance - Luke 24:33-49; Matthew 28:16-20; Luke 24:52
The Son's Redeeming Power - Colossians 1:13-20

A huge word of thanks to The Listener’s Bible for offering this to the world for free!

H/T to the Puritan Fellowship for pointing me to this wonderful recording.

Fallen & Flawed – Reader Dissent: Christ is not God response

2009-04-02T15:24:00.003-05:00

I normally do not make posts like this, but the volume of information I was wanting to convey in a comment (and the necessary HTML coding to keep things readable) pretty much required this.

I have been involved in a debate regarding the standard orthodox Christian view of Christ versus the Jehovah’s Witnesses view of Christ over at the blog Fallen & Flawed. The debate can be followed in the Reader Dissent: Christ is not God post.

Below is what I have to say in the debate following Comment #100.

For those who do not know, NWT stands for the New World Translation of the Bible and WTS stands for the Watch Tower Society. All Greek NT quotes have been taken from the Wescott-Hort Greek New Testament, which is the Greek text used by the WTS to make the NWT.

I have to admit, I was extremely surprised to find after looking through almost 100 comments that I had managed to answer almost all questions directed towards me. I do have one series of questions in a comment that I need to address, and then I would like to leave off with just a few of my own. After this, unless Jehovah guides me to specific passages during my studies, I will not add any new questions, I will just post rebuttals to any comments raised.

First, a word of response to Shawn. I’m sorry that you felt that I was being arrogant and condescending. However, seeing that you were either confused with the question regarding Isaiah and John seen through the lens of your hermeneutic, or were not willing to look seriously at the question, I thought it best to break things down bit by bit to make my point. If you are offended by my response asking Kellie about her ignorance of Scripture, then please note that, as I said, her passages had nothing to do with the point I was debating. I was debating the Savior and redemption of man’s souls not the physical saviors of men.

The remaining unanswered comment is this:

Don’t you think the scripture here: Proverbs 8:30: Then I was beside Him, as a master workman; And I was daily His delight, Rejoicing always before Him would seem to correlate with this one: 1 Corinthians 8:6: for us there is only one God, the Father, from whom everything came into being and for whom we live. And there is only one Lord, Jesus the Messiah, through whom everything came into being …AND all the others that prove he was a tool, an agent that His God and father used in the creation of all (yes OTHER) things? The word “other” is absolutely implied in Col ch 1 because we know he didn’t create either Jehovah or himself..so other is an acceptable word to bracket there. Jesus was possessed by Jehovah,a servant OF Jehovah, an agent of Jehovah and a son of Jehovah. Can’t dance around it.

Actually the WTS society adds the [other] in the NT passages regarding the creation of things to emphasize their doctrine that Christ was a created being. A curious note: [other] is strangely absent in John 1:3 – which states almost exactly what Colossians 1:16 says (why is the implied other so important in Colossians, but not in John?).

I must say that it was a nice dodge (or dance around if you want to call it that) on the created argument of Jesus in your statement of:

we know he didn’t create either Jehovah or himself..so other is an acceptable word to bracket there. Jesus was possessed by Jehovah,a servant OF Jehovah, an agent of Jehovah and a son of Jehovah.

The WTS teaches that Jesus is a created being, created by Jehovah. The wording of John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16 states that all things that were created, were created by Jesus. Of course Jesus could not create Himself, because he was eternally present with Jehovah in the beginning. Do you believe that Jehovah was created? To use Paul’s emphatic, by no means!

John 1:1-5 mirrors the literary construction of Genesis 1. In the beginning, Elohim (plural word in the Hebrew) created the heavens and the earth (Genesis); In the beginning, the Word was with God, and all things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence (John). Note the apart from him not even one thing came into existence (NWT) in the text. Not one thing that was created, was created outside of the work of the Word. This clearly proves that the Word was not created. If the Word was not created, then neither was Jesus, since He was the Word.

Now, as to Proverbs 8…

Wisdom throughout Proverbs is personified as a woman (see Proverbs 1:20). Is Jesus a woman? Again, by no means! Also, Proverbs 8 nowhere states that things were created through or by Wisdom. In fact, Proverbs 8 shows wisdom passively watching the creation, not taking part in it. Is Jesus wise? Of course! Is he the personification of Wisdom found in Proverbs? No, that is poor hermeneutics.

As to I Corinthians 8:6… Yes, there is only one Father, and only one Lord. In fact we have a Father seen in Isaiah 9:6, but you refuse to see the context correctly. Again, this begins to mirror the Savior argument. There is one Father like there is one Savior like there is one Lord.

I wish to address a few things Kellie brought up before asking my final question.

Kellie, you referenced John 1:18 in an earlier comment, and I find it interesting that an inactive JW (who stated that they wish to return to active duty) would go to a translation other than the NWT for their argument. Are you embarrassed by the NWTs handling of this text?

No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten god who is in the bosom [position] with the Father is the one that has explained him. (NWT)

There is a big problem with the teachings of the WTS and the Greek of this passage.

θεον ουδεις εωρακεν πωποτε μονογενης θεος ο ων εις τον κολπον του πατρος εκεινος εξηγησατο

Notice μονογενης θεος ο. We have a definitive article in this section which points to θεος. By the WTS methodology for translating ο θεος (and proper Greek methodology), this would be rendered “the God” (articles in Greek do not have to be before the word they reference, you have to check the gender, number, etc. to find the word the article references). We have “the” and we have “god” in the NWT, but what about μονογενης?

μονογενής, ές, Ep. and Ion. μουνογενής, (γένος) the only member of a kin or kind: hence, generally, only, single, παῖς Hes.Op.376, Hdt.7.221, cf. Ev.Jo.1.14, Ant.Lib.32.1; of Hecate, Hes.Th.426.

2. unique, of τὸ ὄν, Parm.8.4; εἷς ὅδε μ. οὐρανὸς γεγονώς Pl.Ti.31b, cf. Procl.Inst.22; θεὸς ὁ μ. Sammelb.4324.15.

3. μ. αἷμα one and same blood, dub.l. in E.Hel.1685.

4. Gramm., having one form for all genders, A.D.Adv.145.18.

Liddell, H. G., Scott, R., Jones, H. S., & McKenzie, R. (1996). A Greek-English lexicon. "With a revised supplement, 1996." (Rev. and augm. throughout) (1144). Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press.

We have μονογενης used in Luke 7:12, 8:42, 9:38; John 1:14, 1:18, 3:16, 3:18; Hebrews 11:17 and 1 John 4:9. The interesting things here are in the NWT translation notes. Every time this word is used for a normal person the following note is included (except for Hebrews 11:17, no note here): “Or, “only one.” Gr., mo·no·ge·nes′.

Note the root of the word μονογενης:

γένος, εος or ους, τό, race, stock, kin;

as opposed to:

γεννάω, fut. Med. γεννήσομαι in pass. sense, D.S.19.2 (but -ηθήσομαι Id.4.9): (γέννα):—casual of γίγνομαι (cf. γείνομαι), mostly of the father, beget, ὁ γεννήσας πατήρ S.El.1412; οἱ γεννήσαντές σε your parents, X.Mem.2.1.27; τὸ γεννώμενον ἔκ τινος Hdt.1.108, etc.; ὅθεν γεγενναμένοι sprung, Pi.P.5.74; of the mother, bring forth, bear, A.Supp.48, Arist.GA716^a22, X.Lac.1.3, etc.:—Med., produce from oneself, create, Pl.Ti.34b, Mx.238a.

Liddell, H. G., Scott, R., Jones, H. S., & McKenzie, R. (1996). A Greek-English lexicon. "With a revised supplement, 1996." (Rev. and augm. throughout) (344). Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press.

However, the times the same word is used for Jesus, no note is included until you reach 1 John 4:9, where you see something interesting: “Only-begotten.” Gr., mo·no·ge·ne′; Lat., u·ni·ge′ni·tum. Now the Greek has a different translation than used before by the WTS. Setting a standard on translation and then changing it (in the notes) is dishonest. Yes context factors into translation, but what is the difference in context for these passages?

To summarize: we have the only member of a kin, a unique: the god… or, more appropriate… the unique God in John 1:18.

Shawn, you stated in your blog post on John 8:58:

Now why, someone may ask, would the Jews get so worked up over Jesus' claim of being older then Abraham?
The answer is found in the Jewish view of Abraham. Abraham was so important to them that he was the equivalent of Christ for us. Abraham was so important to the Jews because they claimed that being children of Abraham was a special title reserved for them. For Jesus to claim that he was older then Abraham was sacrilegious to the Jews. When someone is older, they have more power and authority. In short, they are better then a younger person. To any Jew, Abraham would have been better then Jesus mainly because Abraham was older. For Jesus to say that he was alive before Abraham was alive would mean that Jesus was better then Abraham.

The problem with your argument is that the Jews were more than “worked up”, the Bible states: “they picked up stones to hurl [them] at him; but Jesus hid and went out of the temple.” (NWT)

Jesus was in the Temple, surrounded by not just your average Jews, but the scribes and Pharisees as well. The act of picking up stones to hurl at him was a statement that he had broken one of the Mosaic laws, where the penalty was death by stoning. Insulting or saying that you were greater than one of the patriarchs was not a breach of the Mosaic law, but blasphemy was.

If you do not see this in John 8:58, lets go to John 10:33, “The Jews answered him: “We are stoning you, not for a fine work, but for blasphemy, even because you, although being a man, make yourself a god” (NWT).

Again we have a problem with the Greek and the NWT.

απεκριθησαν αυτω οι ιουδαιοι περι καλου εργου ου λιθαζομεν σε αλλα περι βλασφημιας και οτι συ ανθρωπος ων ποιεις σεαυτον θεον

The translators of the NWT required the definite article (ὁ) to be present before they would render θεὸς as God (θεὸς was translated as “a god”, while ὁ θεὸς was translated as “God” [see the NWT rendering of John 1:1]). θεόν however, the translation committee translated as “God”. Except in a crucial place. They translated it as “a god” in a passage that spoke of blasphemy. Is blasphemy in the Mosaic law against “a god” or “the God”, Jehovah?

Leviticus 24:16 states: “So the abuser of Jehovah’s name should be put to death without fail. The entire assembly should without fail pelt him with stones. The alien resident the same as the native should be put to death for his abusing the Name.” (NWT).

A proper rendering by the NWT translating committee’s rules, and by handling the definition of blasphemy properly would be: “The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” (ESV)

Now moving on to a rebuttal of Kellie’s comment:

As for what you said about Christ not being an angel, he is actually called an angel in the septuagint at Isaish 9:6 and I think he was the angel of Yahweh in the OT. (that would harmonize with his being the “word of God”,as chief messenger) When Jehovah said those words to him,he wasn’t an angel.. and he certainly wasn’t a God-man. He was a miraculously conceived human being who was about to be exalted above his partners! Now let’s think about this for a minute.. who would his partners be? And if Jesus was Almighty God would it really be appropriate to say he has partners that Almighty God will exalt him above ONLY BECAUSE of his obedience and faithfulness and conquering of the world and saving man? And if one Almighty God exalts another Almighty God above his partners how many almighty Gods is that exactly? I don’t think Jehovah has partners.. I think he has servants and sons and subordinates. I don’t think Jehovah can learn obedience and be exalted, but apparently you do.

Jesus was “the second Adam”.. Now if one perfect man had the power to cause the fall of all men then another perfect man, on Jehovah’s scales of absolute justice, had the power to buy back the lives that the other had lost. Remember, as Maribel poignantly pointed out earlier, God cannot die and you are robbing us of atonement.. because you don’t believe Jesus REALLY died do you?Just a human nature but Jesus was REALLY alive siomewhere right? If Jesus,all of him,wasn’t dead for three whole days in that tomb,not only are you preaching a different Jesus,but your atonement is null and void.

First and foremost, if Christ was only a “miraculously conceived human being” as you claim, then His death could have only redeemed one other person… in his place. You see, the weight of sin a single man has is incredible. The choosing of something over God (which we all do on a regular basis) is treason against a Holy and Almighty God, in which the penalty is death (Romans 6:23). One sin is enough to condemn us to death.

As Psalm 49:7-8 states: “Not one of them can by any means redeem even a brother, Nor give to God a ransom for him; (And the redemption price of their soul is so precious That it has ceased to time indefinite)” (NWT). If Jesus was just a “miraculously conceived human being”, the only redemption you could have is a Tale of Two Cities style switching of places. [editied for labeling Psalm 47:7-8 instead of Psalm 49:7-8]

The offence of sin against God for the entirety of mankind is near infinite. If it requires being perfect in all aspects of God’s law to stand before Him and survive (Ezra 9:15 “O Jehovah the God of Israel, you are righteous, because we have been left over as an escaped people as at this day. Here we are before you in our guiltiness, for it is impossible to stand before you on account of this.” [NWT]), then Jesus, being just a “miraculously conceived human being” would be able to stand before God because of his perfect adherence to the Law of God, but stand alone. His righteousness would “pay” his way to stand before God in His full Glory, but being human only, his death on the cross (or stake as the WTS prefers) would not redeem anyone else. How could a mere finite man pay the price of almost infinite sin? His perfection only covers himself.

A soul of a man is worth the soul of a man, not more. For Jesus’ sacrifice to cover more than himself, he would have to be more than just a man.

Also, how could Jesus be just a “miraculously conceived human being” if he was the Word of John 1? The Word was in the beginning with God, yet the Word was born approximately 2000 years ago to a young woman in Bethlehem… Please explain how the Word could just be a “miraculously conceived human being”.

My final question is regarding a winepress. Remembering that Scripture cannot be broken… Who treads the winepress of God’s Wrath?

In Isaiah 63:1-6 we have this:

¹ Who is this one coming from E´dom, the one with garments of glowing colors from Boz´rah, this one who is honorable in his clothing, marching in the abundance of his power? "I, the One speaking in righteousness, the One abounding [in power] to save." ² Why is it that your clothing is red, and your garments are like those of one treading in the winepress? ³ "The wine trough I have trodden by myself, while there was no man with me from the peoples. And I kept treading them in my anger, and I kept trampling them down in my rage. And their spurting blood kept spattering upon my garments, and all my clothing I have polluted. ⁴ For the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the very year of my repurchased ones has come. ⁵ And I kept looking, but there was no helper; and I began to show myself astonished, but there was no one offering support. So my arm furnished me salvation, and my rage was what supported me.⁶ And I kept stamping down peoples in my anger, and I proceeded to make them drunk with my rage and to bring down to the earth their spurting blood." (NWT)

In Revelation 19:11-16 we have this:

¹¹ And I saw the heaven opened, and, look! a white horse. And the one seated upon it is called Faithful and True, and he judges and carries on war in righteousness. ¹² His eyes are a fiery flame, and upon his head are many diadems. He has a name written that no one knows but he himself, ¹³ and he is arrayed with an outer garment sprinkled with blood, and the name he is called is The Word of God. ¹⁴ Also, the armies that were in heaven were following him on white horses, and they were clothed in white, clean, fine linen. ¹⁵ And out of his mouth there protrudes a sharp long sword, that he may strike the nations with it, and he will shepherd them with a rod of iron. He treads too the winepress of the anger of the wrath of God the Almighty. ¹⁶ And upon his outer garment, even upon his thigh, he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. (NWT)

Again, we have a problem with the NWT when we look at the Greek text for Revelation 19:11-16:

11 και ειδον τον ουρανον ηνεωγμενον και ιδου ιππος λευκος και ο καθημενος επ αυτον πιστος [καλουμενος] και αληθινος και εν δικαιοσυνη κρινει και πολεμει 12 οι δε οφθαλμοι αυτου φλοξ πυρος και επι την κεφαλην αυτου διαδηματα πολλα εχων ονομα γεγραμμενον ο ουδεις οιδεν ει μη αυτος 13 και περιβεβλημενος ιματιον ρεραντισμενον αιματι και κεκληται το ονομα αυτου ο λογος του θεου 14 και τα στρατευματα τα εν τω ουρανω ηκολουθει αυτω εφ ιπποις λευκοις ενδεδυμενοι βυσσινον λευκον καθαρον 15 και εκ του στοματος αυτου εκπορευεται ρομφαια οξεια ινα εν αυτη παταξη τα εθνη και αυτος ποιμανει αυτους εν ραβδω σιδηρα και αυτος πατει την ληνον του οινου του θυμου της οργης του θεου του παντοκρατορος 16 και εχει επι το ιματιον και επι τον μηρον αυτου ονομα γεγραμμενον βασιλευς βασιλεων και κυριος κυριων

Breaking down the Greek we have:

καί, Conj., copulative, joining words and sentences, and; also Adv., even, also, just, freq. expressing emphatic assertion or assent, corresponding as positive to the negative οὐ (μή) or οὐδέ (μηδέ).

αὐτός, (Cret. ἀϝτός GDI4976, al.), αὐτή, αὐτό (also αὐτόν Leg.Gort.3.4, al.), ἀτός PHal.1.130 (iii b.c.), PTeb.812.9 (ii b.c.), SEG29.771 (Thasos, ii b.c.), reflexive Pron., self:—in oblique cases used for the personal Pron., him, her, it:—with Art., ὁ αὐτός, ἡ αὐτή, τὸ αὐτό (also ταὐτόν), etc., the very one, the same. [edited for missed color highlight at him,her,it]

πᾰτέω, Delph. βᾰτέω Plu.2.292e; Aeol. μάτημι [ᾰ] Sapph.54: (πάτος):—tread, walk, π. ὁδοῖς σκολιαῖς Pi.P.2.85; πρὸς βωμόν A.Ag.1298; ὑψοῦ π. walk on high, of a king, Pi.O.1.115; π. ἐπάνω ὄφεων Ev.Luc.10.19:—Pass., οἱ ἔχεις πατηθέντες Porph.Abst.1.14.

την lemma is: ὁ, ἡ, τό, the definite Article, the, to specify individuals

ληνον lemma is: ληνός, Dor. λᾱνός Theoc.7.25, IG14.150.5 (Syracuse): ἡ:—anything shaped like a tub or trough, Hp.Mochl.38; esp.

1. wine-vat in which the grapes are pressed, IG1³.422.189, 425.34, 426.148 (cf. Poll.10.130) PCair.Zen.300.15 (iii b.c.), Theoc.7.25, 25.28, D.S.3.63.

b. storage vessel for wine, POxy.1569, PFlor.253 (iii a.d.).

Liddell, H. G., Scott, R., Jones, H. S., & McKenzie, R. (1996). A Greek-English lexicon. "With a revised supplement, 1996." (Rev. and augm. throughout) (282)(857)(1045)(1194). Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press.

Where is the too or also in the original text? It does not exist, it was added by the translators. The correct translation of this section of Revelation 19:15 should read as: He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty (ESV). Now, who is the he in this passage… the Word of God.

Maribel, contrary to your statement: “He can share his glory with whom ever he pleases”, Isaiah 48:11 clearly states, “For my own sake, for my own sake I shall act, for how could one let oneself be profaned? And to no one else shall I give my own glory” (NWT)

Isaiah 63:1-6 contradicts Revelation 19:11-16 as to who treads the winepress. In Isaiah, Jehovah states that He will be the one to tread the winepress by Himself, but in Revelation we have the Word treading the winepress.

Scripture cannot be broken.

The only way to solve this contradiction is to bring things back to John 1 and translate things properly.

In John 1:14-18 we have the Word, who is Jesus Christ, who is the unique God in the bosom with the Father. We have the Word as the unique God. Who is the unique God in Scripture?

The Word is God.

Twist your scriptures as much as you want, you are denying the Truth if you deny this.

To be fair in ending, I will give Shawn’s page to everyone as a rebuttal to what I have posted in the original comments at Fallen & Flawed and here. Here he has posted 115 Scripture passages he states refutes the orthodox Christian view of who Jesus Christ is. I have looked through these Scripture passages before and I honestly do not have the time to go verse by verse and answer all 115 here. God brought me to the Greek texts for study two years ago (as a non-Christian) to bring my wife out of the WTS. So yes, to those who may want to argue, I have a bias, but the JWs debating this subject are just as biased.

I thank Shawn for taking the time to post all of these Scriptures, and I sincerely think people should look at them and let the entirety of the Bible speak to them. However, “sound bite” Scripture reading must be taken in context. Not looking at what is being said in the entirety of a section of the Bible that is being quoted can quickly lead to distorted interpretations of the Bible.

So please, for the sake of others in this debate, continue the comment thread at Fallen & Flawed not here. If you wish to comment here, please mirror you comment as well at the original post that started this debate. Any responses of mine to comments posted here will be made over at Fallen & Flawed.

I am not a professional apologist nor am I a pastor, elder or deacon. I am but a follower of my Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus and I humbly pray that in my writings, I have not besmirched His Holy name.

Jeremiah 25:4-7 You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although the LORD persistently sent to you all his servants the prophets, saying, 'Turn now, every one of you, from his evil way and evil deeds, and dwell upon the land that the LORD has given to you and your fathers from of old and forever. Do not go after other gods to serve and worship them, or provoke me to anger with the work of your hands. Then I will do you no harm.' Yet you have not listened to me, declares the LORD, that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm. (ESV)

Jeremiah 31:33-34 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'” (ESV)

John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. (ESV)

Mark 4:23 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. (ESV)

An Answer to my last Question

2009-03-20T15:55:00.002-05:00

Apparently a few people have gotten their feathers a bit ruffled by a recent article and its follow-up from Mark Dever.

People have forgotten, as Mark Dever has stated: “That a Baptist thinks infant baptism is wrong was no news to earlier generations of paedobaptists”.

While this should not be a dividing issue in the Church, it is something that should be thought about and discussed rationally.

Unfortunately, some of those who have taken issue with Mark Dever’s stance have ran to their Confessions as defense instead of the Bible. In order to not continue any Baptist/paedobaptists flame wars (because that is NOT the point of this post), I will not be posting links to those responses.

Now, while I concede that the Bible is not absolutely clear on the correct mode of baptism, I agree more with the Baptist stance (Mark 16:16).

The interesting thing is that this touches on another post I was thinking of writing on: how does your reading of Scripture change if, instead of having βαπτίζω transliterated as baptize, you translate it into what it means… immerse?

Questions from the Mirror

2009-03-16T20:58:00.002-05:00

Christian, what to you do when you hear or read something that challenges the teachings of your tradition?

Do you thoughtfully consider the point brought up and walk in the discernment given to you through the Holy Spirit? Do you head to the Scriptures to see what God has to say, or do you instantly run to the comfort of the teachers of your tradition and blindly parrot doctrine you may have not examined thoroughly?

Remember, all man's doctrine has flaws due to our fallen nature. The only perfect Doctrine was in Christ. Putting more emphasis on man's confessions over God's Word is a sure way to fall into apostasy.

Confessions and traditions are fine as long as they never place themselves over God's Word.

There are times when a writer should be forced away from their keyboard

2009-03-08T20:49:00.006-05:00

Denita sent me an e-mail the other day regarding some bible version surfing she was doing and passed on this "gem" from "The Message":

Romans 8:1-4

The Solution Is Life on God's Terms

^1-2 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

^3-4 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

My brain hurts just trying to read this. Christ's "being-here-for-us", "low-lying black cloud", "disordered mess of struggling humanity", "Band-Aid on sin"....

Sin and death are just low-lying black clouds?!?! Where/what is the offence of "low-lying black clouds"? Why should God feel wrath regarding "low-lying black clouds"? Why is eternal punishment a requirement for "low-lying black clouds"? Why is this author considered a Godly man if he removes the offense of our unrepentant existence before God from the Bible?

When we live in sin, we are a horrid stench before God. We are not like the old cartoons, just a bothersome rain cloud that hovers over the Almighty's head, occasionally irritating Him with a little bolt of lightning. Our very existence offends Him. He tolerates this only so that His Glory will be fully revealed to all in the end.

This watering down of the Word is 2 Timothy 4:3 in action. The more you pore over the style of writing in "The Message" you start seeing the man-centeredness of "The Message" as opposed to the God and Christ exalting message of the Bible.

Questions from the Mirror

2009-03-03T07:22:00.002-06:00

Christian, do you ever ask yourself the question, "Why me"? How often do you reflect on the fact that you were called and chosen by God, but others are not.

When this question comes into your thoughts, do you spend time churning it over in your mind? And when you churn it over, what answer do you arrive at?

If your answer has anything to do with you, then repenting of your arrogance and spending a long time in God's Word would probably be a wise thing.

One final question...

When you arrive at the answer, what does it motivate you to do?

Do these people get anyone to proof their articles?

2009-02-27T18:21:00.006-06:00

Being a Christian and well schooled in science, I cannot say I see any leg to stand on for someone arguing the point that life "evolved" from a series of completely random accidents.

Someone just try to argue that the complexity of this is from random chance:

But I digress, let me get to the real reason for this post...

It just makes me shake my head when "evolution" scientists in their own interview inadvertently admit that God setup the process.

Read this article in its entirety. Can you spot the admission? Highlight below for the money-quote.

"It's evolving. It's doing what we designed it to do," said Benner, a biochemist with the Gainesville, Fla.-based Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution.

All these guys are doing is proving that someone HAD to have setup the experiment. This is a perfect example of Romans 1:19-23.

This was going to just be a comment, but it became more as soon as I got to the keyboard

2009-02-26T08:08:00.005-06:00

Kat, Romans is what gets me out of bed in the morning and what gets me to sleep at night.

Jeremiah is specific comfort for me right now. There are too many parallels with what is happening in this country.

We have the false prophets claiming that "All is well, just trust us to fix things".

We have the spiritual whoring, the rampant sinning and the fact that so many refuse to admit that what is happening is a glimpse of the Wrath of God to come upon all who refuse to repent and believe in Christ.

As much as people want to believe that America is a "Christian Nation" or was founded as a "Christian Nation", those are huge lies. Most of the founding fathers were deists, not Christians (a huge difference). Most people in this country have no idea who the God of the bible is. And the fault lies solely at our feet.

As Christians, we must ask if we really are following Christ if we are not following his example in Matthew 4:17.

As John Piper has stated: "Missions exist because worship doesn't". As Christians, we have been called to be a holy priesthood (1 Peter 2:5). While Christ sat down after his work was finished (Hebrews 10:12), we were not given that option.

Our option is found in Matthew 28:16-20.

Unfortunately, too many people who call themselves Christians in this country are like the servant with the one talent (Matthew 25:14-30). They have taken what was given to them, the Gospel, and have hidden it instead of "investing" it in others. The important thing to realize here is the final outcome of that servant:

So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 25:28-30)

The ones who call themselves a Christian but do not share the Gospel are not Christians. They are selfishly hoarding the Gospel as a "get out of Hell Free" card. They have buried the Grace of God, awaiting the time He arrives so they can present it back to Him, with no evidence of change in their hearts. They do not care about Christ, they only want the gift to save their own hides.

If the Spirit has truly moved, and replaced some one's heart, then they will realize how precious this gift is, and will be moved to let others know how close is the time when non-Christians will face the Wrath of God alone, and without any defense.

Now that I am finished with my soapbox here, I must step down and fall upon the ground and cry out "Lord, help me start behaving like I should! Let not the fear of man seal my lips! Let the realization of the cancelled consequences my former condition, through God's grace, spur me on in love of Him and others to proclaim the Gospel to those who walk in this world dead to God."

This was hammered home last night through the observations of a six-year-old boy.

Since my conversion, I have said many times, to many people, that I just don't feel alive unless I am talking about God, Christ or the Bible. During a conversation with Denita last night, we were discussing what our witness to Christ was like, something profound hit me...

I am dead when I am not talking about God, Christ or the Bible. When I seal my lips around others, I am no longer walking in faith. When my mind is not on the things of God, I have no purpose in this life.

I have my son to thank for how he always brings up his friends at school in conversations. His innocent love for his friends keeps them in his thoughts. And because of this love he talks about them all the time. The Spirit took this as a spiritual 2x4 and beat me about the head with the Truth.

How foolish we adults are, to let the world beat this expression of love out of us. The Gospel is an incredible gift, and for those who have been given this gift, how dare we deny the one who gave us that gift by not proclaiming the Gospel.

I believe, Lord help my unbelief! Remake my mind that I may rekindle this kind of love for You and Your Son, and that I will proclaim that love loudly! (Luke 18:16-17) Thank you for using my son to teach me this lesson!

Questions from the Mirror

2009-02-22T20:39:00.004-06:00

Christian, in the tough times in your life, where do you dive into God's word to find reassurance and comfort from your Father?

Psalms...

The Gospels...

a particular epistle?

Right now, many Christians in America are getting their first taste of just a small iota of God's discipline. We (I will admit, myself included) have squandered our blessings and gifts. God, in his infinite kindness and mercy, is using this economic downturn to strip us from some of the false idols we worship... comfort, gluttony; and move us back to the position of being a servant to others.

As to my answer to the question above, I am seeking the Lord's wisdom and love in the book of Jeremiah. Seeing the discipline given to God's People back then and knowing that He will be there to support me at any time, if I keep turned towards him, has been a great comfort. Knowing that there is nothing outside of His control helps banish those fears and anxieties that relying on my abilities instead of relying on His tends to bring.

My prayer for you is that you heed God's word in these times, draw closer to Him and be ready to explain to others the reason for our joy when it seems like the world is falling apart around us.

This world is not our home, we have a better one waiting for us, hold fast to that Promise. Let us finish our jobs as ambassadors well, being guided by the Holy Spirit as we are conformed to the image of Christ, so that the Glory and Love of God is proclaimed to all.

Attack of the RSV

2009-01-31T16:06:00.001-06:00

No, this is not a post regarding bible version wars… it’s about human respiratory syncytial virus.

Last Friday, Tabitha started getting a bit of a cough, considering the amount of dust and pollen in the air and the rest of the family (and county’s) issues with allergies, we did not think it was anything too bad. We kept her home, and ran the humidifier to help cut down on the dust and pollen in the house. By Monday however, this “innocent” little cough had turned into a horrible, gag inducing, phlegm-ball spewing illness. Denita had to call EMS out while I was at work to have Tabitha checked out.

By the time the EMTs had checked Tabitha out, her vitals were stable and she had calmed down. Denita called Tabi’s doctor first thing in the morning to setup a checkup for her. I got Tabitha to the doctor at about 2:00pm and her PulseOx reading was about 88%. They put her on an O₂ line and her PulseOx reading would go back up to 98%, but when the O₂ was taken away, her level would drop to 88% again. She also had a serious mucus buildup going on in her sinus cavities.

After a few breathing treatments and several attempts to remove the mucus with a bulb syringe, the pediatrician got the results back from the nose swab test… Positive for RSV.

For adults and older kids, RSV is just annoying, but for babies (especially those just over a month old), it can become life-threatening due to the mucus buildup leading to further complications like pneumonia. Tabitha’s pediatrician arranged transportation via EMS to Dell Children’s Hospital in Austin so there would not be any chance of her choking on mucus during the trip.

Thankfully, the infection had not reached the point of mucus getting into her lungs, so with just a lot of vacuum line work with her nose and overnight observation, Tabitha was able to return home Wednesday afternoon.

Since then, we have gotten some better air purifiers for the house (to cut down on the irritants in the air) and after just one hour of these things running, there was a noticeable difference to the air quality (in fact, I was actually getting a little light-headed from extra oxygen due to the fact that I was breathing easier than I probably had in years! [for those interested, the Therapure 201M is well worth the investment]).

Tabitha is now sleeping easier and able to keep down her food (Thursday, we almost had to take her back to the hospital because, while the mucus buildup was not as bad, she was still getting into coughing fits that would cause her to eject everything she had eaten). Things are slowly returning back to normal here at home. Tabitha will be confined to the house for a while as this virus runs its course. The doctor said that it might be 10 days or so before the mucus issue goes away, and it might be up to 6 weeks before the cough finally goes away.

Was it Really Just One Month Ago?

2009-01-20T16:40:00.000-06:00

Fun with Digital Cameras

2009-01-20T16:38:00.000-06:00

With a slow shutter speed, you too can have Demon-possessed family members!

Can Anything Good Come out of Nazareth Hip-Hop?

2009-01-14T03:12:00.003-06:00

For those out there that think that Hip-Hop is only evil, has nothing good to give to this world... take a listen to this young man:

One of the side effects of my recent fast was to awaken an even greater hunger for the Truth in my life. Especially in the things I listen to and watch.

Unfortunately, I have to say that I still find most modern, Christian themed music to be incredibly uninspired or lacking in creative talent.

Then, of all genres of music, I found Christian Rap!

Until just recently, I NEVER would have thought that I would like any rap song other than Anthrax's "I'm the Man". But listening to the Truth in the words of some of these rap artists (yes these guys actually do, through God's Grace, elevate rap to an art form), I am floored, and hooked.

The young man featured above is the rap artist Lecrae. What the Lord is doing in his, and other rap artists' lives is nothing short of awesome. Do yourself a favor, even if you do not like rap in the slightest, head on over to Reach Records or ReachLife Ministries and see the wonders of the Lord's power and Grace.

May the Lord continue blessing these Godly men in their mission to bring the Gospel of Christ to the inner cities.

The Problem with the Mountain

2009-01-13T20:52:00.002-06:00

I don't have a lot of time right now, but Denita wanted me to post this thought I had soon after finishing my fast.

Many religions state that God is on the top of the mountain and that there are several paths to the summit, all eventually leading to God.

Problem: God is NOT on a mountain, He is in Heaven. The top of the mountain gives mankind a place above man's workings, to survey all of his works... but it is still below the view of all of God's workings.

God HAS to come down to meet mankind!

If God has to come down to mankind, then God must choose where to meet man... Christ Jesus.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T11:53:00.002-06:00

I know New Year's Day is really just an arbitrary date, but having milestones in life help keep things in perspective. 2008 was a whirlwind ride for the family with blessing after blessing for us.

We had Denita's pregnancy and then Tabitha's arrival.

We had Denita's mom and my aunt and uncle being affected by Hurricane Ike. God provided strength for them to get through the worst times. Even though my family members are living in a FEMA trailer, still fending off looters, my aunt was able to visit her mother in New Braunfels for her 90th birthday celebration at Thanksgiving and was able to take the time to make a beautiful little dress as a gift for Tabi.

God continues to provide us support and love through the little church he brought us to.

And most importantly, God brought us closer together as a family, not just between Denita, Zane, Tabitha and I; but also bringing us closer to HIM as well.

May everyone realize that even in the worst of times, there are always blessings from God there to help us through the trials.

Happy New Year to all of you!

Recovering nicely

2008-12-21T10:40:00.002-06:00

Well, Denita snapped back so quickly that we were able to head home yesterday afternoon!

We are starting to settle into the routine of things (Zane gets back today, so that will make things a tad busier).

A big THANK YOU to all of you who have passed on their congratulations. We appreciate the outpouring of love and kindness we have been receiving.

May all of you have a wonderful Christmas, and check back every now and again and we should have some more pictures.

More Pictures!

2008-12-19T14:25:00.000-06:00

First Pictures!

2008-12-19T06:32:00.000-06:00

Damn, that was QUICK!

2008-12-19T06:16:00.002-06:00

Well, Tabitha decided that she did not want to wait for the "eviction notice".

Denita's water broke at 1am and we were at the hospital by 1:45am.

After just 4 hours of labor, Tabitha arrived at 5:20am weighing 8lbs. 9oz. and was 20.5in long.

Both Denita and Tabitha are fine. Tabitha came out a bit bruised, she started heading out face first but is healthy and fussy (she does not like the fact that her spa got drained without her permission.

Pictures will be forthcoming.

The Calm before the Storm

2008-12-18T14:42:00.002-06:00

I had meant to post the latest picture of Tabitha much earlier than this, but things have been hectic/crazy around here as of late. Trying to get all of the prep work at home getting the house ready for Tabitha, dealing with two unplanned hospital visits (one for Zane and a massive asthma attack [he's doing fine, don't worry] and the other for heart palpitations with Denita [don't worry, she and Tabitha were fine]) and all the other things life brings has kept me a bit busy.

So before things get any more crazy, here is the latest Tabitha picture:

You just have to marvel at modern technology. Thank you God for gifting people with the smarts to figure out how to do this.

Things should be much more interesting for the family by this time tomorrow. We head in to Austin to the hospital at 5:30am Friday if Tabitha has not made an appearance by then, so labor can be induced. Denita's been in a lot of pelvis pain (nothing to worry about, just signs pointing to the fact that due to her age, Tabitha will probably be her last child through the natural process) and in case of any unforeseen complications everyone feels that it would be safer for all involved to take care of things before the hospital goes to a low-staff schedule for the holidays.

I'll have cameras and the laptop with me, so if the hospital is WiFi equiped, we might liveblog for a bit. Else, expect an update Sunday or Monday depending on when she's released from the hospital and how everyone is feeling.

Until then, MERRY CHRISTMAS! And remember, Christmas is not at all about the gifts we give and it certainly is not about a fat guy in a red suit, it's about the greatest gift ever given... the fulfilled Promise of God through Christ Jesus.

Things will be quiet for awhile

2008-10-29T02:07:00.005-05:00

Ever since coming to Christ last year, I have been pouring myself into studying God's Word. Drowning myself in the Word has been surprisingly easy for me... or so I thought.

In the past few months one thing has become clearer to me and has become a burden I want and need to rid myself of.

This burden is the knowledge that Christ is not sufficient for me currently... Each day I become more and more aware of the fact that there are unnecessary things that I still feel controlling me. I get these feelings that I need, or worse, HAVE to do something to be happy. These are idolatrous hooks of my past life that I must nail to the Cross, lest they rise up and consume me.

These warring idols in my life mostly relate to entertainment that takes up too much of my thoughts and time. The deeper I dive into the Living Water, the more I realize that my time is NOT mine, it belongs to Christ. He has bought me with a price, and it is time that I start following him instead of salivating like a trained dog when something "cool and geeky" comes my way.

So, you may ask, what does this all mean?

Well, for a season, it means some spiritual fasting for me. This is going to be extremely difficult, but it is something Christ is calling me to do. What he has called me to do is to give up all of my entertainment for awhile... every bit of it.

Starting on October 31st (What better day than Reformation Day to start?) I will only rely on God's Word for satisfying those needs for "entertainment" that I feel. I am vowing to search out the hooks of idolatry in my heart that remove Christ from his rightful place in my life. Until I travel from start to finish in the Bible and Christ turns these "needs" into just things I can do, free from any feelings of compulsion, I will be parting ways with all of my other books, my websurfing (blog posting included), my music, my games and anything else I just "occupy time" with.

The only exceptions will be a once daily check of email (in case family and friends are trying to contact me), Tabitha updates here and time spent with Zane. This is a personal fast and it would be wrong to force this upon Zane.

Denita has also agreed to join me in this, so please be in prayer for her as well. This will be a difficult trial, but both of us believe that this is needed for our spiritual health.

For those interested, here are some passages that have been weighing upon me that turned my thoughts to this fast: Luke 14:25-35, Matthew 6:19-24, Romans 6:1-23, Romans 8:12-17, Romans 12:1-21, James 1:19-27, James 3:1-18, James 4:1-12, Ephesians 4:17-32, Philippians 3:17-21

Sometimes Morbid Curiosity Should NOT be Indulged

2008-10-18T03:31:00.003-05:00

Being a kid of the 80's, I hate to admit it, but I was a fan of some horrible TV shows.

When I heard that a moldy-oldie was being re-made, I thought it could not manage to be as cheesy/bad as the original was.

Boy was I ever wrong. I never thought I would say this... but BRING BACK THE HASSELHOFF! I'll take the horrible hair... At least the original had a few plots that could be followed. Who is writing this drivel????

I really don't get how this piece of horribly acted and filmed crap is getting 4 stars on Hulu... it boggles the mind. It really says something when I am longing for the 80's again.

*SHUDDER*

More Free Resources

2008-10-04T03:58:00.002-05:00

When will the free resources stop?!? My poor laptop cannot handle much more and a larger HD is out of the picture right now.

For those who might be interested, I ran across another Original Language study page.

You have to sign up for an account, but it's free and will allow you to save personal notes to go along with your studies. This will be a great way to continue my studies while at work.

The "Listen to this Chapter" feature contained a wonderful surprise... links to a free, downloadable Audio Greek New Testament!

John Simon (from Austin, TX) has been recording the Greek New Testament, Latin Vulgate and part of the Hebrew Old Testament and is offering them as free downloads (MP3s encoded to 160 kbps).

Greekbiblestudy.org has the GNT either as individual files or one whopping 1.2 GB file through the "Listen to this Chapter" feature (Acts 21-28 are missing).

John's site has the missing chapters from Acts (except for 28, it is still a work in progress), plus the Latin and Hebrew files.

To make room on my iPod and computer, I downgraded the encoding to 32 kbps AAC and it still sounds great (and takes up less than 1/5 the space).

I just HAD to share this one!

2008-08-30T20:26:00.007-05:00

Being geeks, we enjoy all things "Old School" Star Wars (don't get me started on any of the newer crap). A webcomic we visit regularly recently had a VERY cool joke on the Empire Strikes Back, and the author was kind enough to post the last panel as a wallpaper.

My inner-geek would not allow this great picture to languish alone in the web, and it commanded me to grace the laptop with it's "Butt-Slapping Awesomeness" (maybe it was just a "Jedi mindtrick").

The humor apparently was just starting with this image though... It looked great on the laptop, and then Denita borrowed the computer and when I rebooted, I came back to see this:

The placement for Digsby could not have been more perfect if I had tried. Denita almost fell over laughing when she saw this!

Thanks O, for a great comic!

Say Hello to the Kiddos

2008-08-25T08:19:00.001-05:00

Yea! Denita was able to find the new sonogram pictures of Tabitha! So here is the first one:

Thought I'd throw in a newer picture of the Zane-Monster as well.

Further details and pictures to come...

Questions from the Mirror

2008-08-25T08:02:00.001-05:00

Christian, when does the watering down of medicine become poison?

There is but one medicine that everyone in this fallen world needs, the Gospel given to us by Jesus Christ. This Good News allows us to be reconciled to a Holy God we have infinitely offended with our sins.

There are too many "teachers" these days who present God and Christ through the lens of "feeling", rather than from the truths of the Bible.

Christian, are you willing to contend for the Gospel (Jude 3-16), or will you sit still while Satan blinds pharmacist after pharmacist, diluting the message of the blood of Christ, until it is as useful as Kool-Aid for salvation and reconciliation?

Analog issues

2008-08-23T01:40:00.002-05:00

I know I promised pictures and an update on the baby, but the ultrasound pictures have disappeared.

So, until the new pictures show back up (or we get some of those cooly-cool "4D" pictures), I present you with the same picture as before, but with a twist...

Everyone, meet Tabitha Charis [insert last name here]!

Hopefully the newer pictures will surface soon (we have no clue what happened to them). In them you would be able to see that she has her daddy's chin and apparently her daddy's legs as well. Even the doctor was commenting on how long her legs were.

Zane was upset about not having a baby brother. He looked at us when we first told him Denita was pregnant and stated, "You WILL have a boy, and his name WILL be Max". He then spent about two months telling stories about how he and Max would play together. After a little talk, he got over his disappointment and agreed to being the protective big brother to a little sister (no bad BioShock jokes please).

And Now I Shall Rant

2008-08-20T03:02:00.001-05:00

RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT. RANT.

Sorry... it's been one of those weeks at work.

We Really Hate Rap Music...normally

2008-08-11T02:36:00.003-05:00

But Denita and I cannot help but really LIKE this guy's albums!

Start with "The Long Road Home" and then listen to "Here I Stand".

Reformation Rap.... never thought I would ever hear something like this.

More tracks can be heard here.

If you like, you can pick up "Progression" on iTunes or from Sovereign Grace Ministries. "The Process of the Pardon" can be ordered from Sovereign Grace Ministries as well (no iTunes in this one)

Thanks to Tony Reinke for posting on this!

December 21st Update 2

2008-08-11T02:33:00.002-05:00

I must ask your pardon. I need a bit more time to get the latest sonogram pictures ready for posting. Until then, I must ask you to wait a little longer to find out if Zane is going to have a baby sister or brother for Christmas.

Family members who already know, please don't spoil the suprise in the comments.

December 21st Update

2008-07-21T21:54:00.002-05:00

Well, Denita and the squirming one are both doing fine. Everyone passed the genetic screenings without any hiccups so no HUGE needle will have to go anywhere near them.

Denita heads in on August 7th for another sonagram, and we should know if Zane will have a brother or sister then.

Denita's been a trooper. She has had more fatigue issues this time around (having the living room and kitchen on the second floor "helps" a lot), but otherwise is much healthier than she was carrying Zane. She's been safely loosing her excess weight, and has just now passed her original weight before the pregnancy.

I'll post more updates as they come.

December 21st, 2008

2008-06-13T13:32:00.002-05:00

OK, I'll admit it... We are already peeking in the package to look at our Christmas Gift!

The quality is a bit fuzzy since I have still not found the power "brick" to the scanner, so I had to use the Shaky-Cam™ method.

The little one was dancing like the gopher at the end of Caddy Shack. So, until gender is determined, the baby's nickname is "Gopher" or "Scooter" (Muppet Show reference).

Denita and the little one are at the 12-13 week mark and Zane is through the roof with excitement. He insists that the little one is a boy, and will be named Max! Right now the only way he will accept the possibility of a little sister is twins...

The Curious Nature of the Human Ego

2008-06-09T02:45:00.003-05:00

or Observations of Fallen Man's Obsession With an Incorrect View of Free Will Fashioned from the Fallacy That Our Choices are Not Affected by the Fall.

Sorry, feeling a bit like a Puritan writer with the title.

Having a Lutheran upbringing with a little Presbyterian thrown in, there are some times when even though my upbringing was not strong in the faith, I find myself in a bit of "culture shock" at the little Baptist church that God has called us to (especially since I find myself agreeing with around 99% of the "reformed" views).

This is a "basic" Baptist congregation, ie.: Not Southern Baptist nor Reformed Baptist. That being the case, there are quite a few people in the church who have a much different view on "free will" and salvation.

With the studying I have been doing, I have to agree wholly with the reformers that we are chosen by God, for His own reasons. The "elect" have no consultation, no choice in conversion. It is all God, changing our stone hearts into hearts of flesh. Being dead in sin before this regeneration, our "free will" knew and wanted nothing of God (for those who have issues with this summary, please study the book of Romans before writing any screeds in the comments).

Now many at our church believe that the "elect" are given a choice, that they have a say-so in their conversion. Where the "culture shock" comes in is the fact that in one breath they say they have a choice in their conversion, and in the next breath, they firmly declare that no one has the power to convert others through teaching or preaching the Word of God, only God can convert someone.

The first time I encountered this, it took every ounce of willpower God would give me to keep my jaw from hitting the floor. Giving God full credit for someone else's conversion but holding onto some amount of control over their own conversion just makes my head hurt.

I take great comfort in God's promises and in the example of Bethlehem Baptist Church (pastored by John Piper) that after ten years of steady work by God, doctrine that was even more jacked up than what is found in our church was corrected.

The Truth cannot be completely snuffed out, for there is no stopping God's plans. We just need to learn to trust, and wait on God.

Questions from the Mirror

2008-05-23T13:00:00.001-05:00

Christian, do you speak about the Gospel to others because you feel you are required to, or is it because you "cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:20).

If you do not want to speak of the Gospel to others, than you may wish to examine your heart, for it is not "Good News" to you.

Reading List

2008-05-21T22:58:00.005-05:00

Just felt like sharing my current, recent and upcoming reading lists:

Current:

What Jesus Demands from the World
by John Piper

Read more about this book...

A Godward Life: Savoring the Supremacy of God in All of Life
by John Piper

Read more about this book...

The Holiness of God
by R. C. Sproul

Read more about this book...

Christian Doctrine
by Shirley C. Guthrie

Read more about this book...

(I am not enjoying this last one at all. The author claims to be Reformed, but leans too far towards "liberal theology" in some areas when I compare to Scripture. I'm continuing through this one just to keep testing my understanding of Scripture.)

Recent and recommended:

Hard to Believe: The High Cost and Infinite Value of Following Jesus
by John MacArthur

Read more about this book...

The Cross of Christ
by John R. W. Stott

Read more about this book...

The Truth of the Cross
by R. C. Sproul

Read more about this book...

Family Driven Faith: Doing What It Takes to Raise Sons and Daughters Who Walk with God
by Voddie T. Baucham Jr.

Read more about this book...

The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World

Read more about this book...

Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist
by John Piper

Read more about this book...

The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's Delight in Being God
by John Piper

Read more about this book...

Future Grace
by John Piper

Read more about this book...

Upcoming reads:

Systematic Theology - (3-Volume Set)
by Charles Hodge

Read more about this book...

The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God
by D. A. Carson

Read more about this book...

Word Studies in the Greek New Testament (4 volume set)
by Kenneth S. Wuest

Read more about this book...

The Religious Affections (The Works of Jonathan Edwards)
by Jonathan Edwards

Read more about this book...

Institutes of the Christian Religion
by John Calvin

Read more about this book...

Christian Theology,
by Millard J. Erickson

Read more about this book...

The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations
by Michael W. Holmes

Read more about this book...

The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions
by Bruce M. Metzger

Read more about this book...

Wish List:

The Works of Jonathan Edwards
by Jonathan Edwards

Read more about this book...

Spurgeon's Sermons (5 Vol. Set)
by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Read more about this book...

Humility: True Greatness
by C. J. Mahaney

Read more about this book...

Living the Cross Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing
by C.J. Mahaney

Read more about this book...

Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World
by C.J. Mahaney

Read more about this book...

Questions from the Mirror

2008-05-19T20:12:00.002-05:00

Christian, what have you done in this world because of Jesus the Christ?

Most people ask this question the wrong way.

Questions from the Mirror

2008-05-15T23:45:00.001-05:00

Christian, what gives you the right to be arrogant and proud when God lowered Himself to the position of servant?

John 1:9-14

Matthew 20:28 / Mark 10:45

John 13:1-20

Words to learn and understand:

1247 διακονέω [diakoneo /dee·ak·on·eh·o/]

1398 δουλεύω [douleuo /dool·yoo·o/]

3000 λατρεύω [latreuo /lat·ryoo·o/]

5256 ὑπηρετέω [hupereteo /hoop·ay·ret·eh·o/]

Strong, J. (1996). The exhaustive concordance of the Bible : Showing every word of the text of the common English version of the canonical books, and every occurrence of each word in regular order. (electronic ed.) (G1247). Ontario: Woodside Bible Fellowship.

Fun with JavaScript

2008-05-15T23:21:00.004-05:00

Well, more like "Fun with someone else's JavaScript code"

For those of you who are NOT running NoScript, or have cleared WTTF in NoScript you may have noticed a new feature in posts containing scripture links. A little popup window shows up with the scripture reference when you hover your cursor over it (if you allow JavaScripts that is). There is also a little "L" icon after the scripture link that will open the passage in Libronix if you happen to have it installed on your computer.

Example: John 1:1-5

Thanks to the Libronix folks for putting out the Bible Reference Tagger!

Ah, non-destructive Linux fun

2008-04-19T05:36:00.001-05:00

Being the tech geek that I am, I find myself constantly driving Denita nuts by tinkering with the computers at home.

One of my favorite things to do is mess around with is other O/Ses (Linux being one of my favorite to play with). Unfortunately, Vista does not often play well with dual-booting.

It seems that Micro$oft decided to completely change the boot/MBR files for Vista, making it a pain to setup dual-boots when Vista is already installed. This has seriously limited my tinkering fun... until earlier yesterday.

I ran across a video (bad me, I did not save the link) through Stumbleupon that took me to the Wubi website.

This little gem of a program makes installing Linux about as easy as it gets. You don't have to mess with setting up partitions, Wubi sets up Linux in a virtual drive on your standard Windows drive. You don't get the speed hit you can sometimes get running under virtualization software (such as VMWare) because the virtual drive is accessed at boot by Linux like a regular drive instead of running under Windows. Wubi also sets up a dual-boot menu through Windows so you don't have to even bother with boot loader program like GRUB.

However, Wubi is NOT for those who lack a high-speed internet connection. The install process downloads a Linux install CD-ISO and then quickly sets up the OS for you. The process is many times faster than a standard install from a CD. In fact, you should be up and running in Linux in about ten to fifteen minutes, after the ISO downloads.

You are limited to the Ubuntu flavored distributions however. Several build versions of Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu are available at this time, and it is just a matter of selecting which one you want during installation (and no, for the uber-geek, Wubi does not support simultaneous installs of multiple distros).

In all the time I have kicked around O/Ses, this has to be the smoothest installer I have ever used. All you need is a minimum of about 5 GB of free space on your drive, and you are good to go.

For those of you who have been curious about Linux, but did not want to hassle with setting up partitions, this is a great route to take. Note, that Wubi IS beta software. Be sure to backup anything important before using it.

Also, if you have multiple systems with the same hardware configuration, you can just copy over the virtual drive file and not have to spend any extra time patching and installing beyond the base install. On top of the ease of installation, you can uninstall Linux through the Wubi uninstall program.

Starting a new feature

2008-03-09T01:45:00.002-06:00

With all of the changes recently in the TwoDragons household, bloging has been light. There really has not been enough free time to sit and work out a lengthy post. However an idea struck me the other day of short posts I could make, that were relevant to the changes we have been going through.

I'm having a fascinating time digging deeply into the Bible these days and I have been finding myself constantly examining my life and questioning many things within myself and I felt like sharing some of these.

The format I plan on using is a simple question and answer style, similar to a catechism. I know AJ will probably have a field day with some of these.

So without further delay, I give you:

Questions from the Mirror

I found myself asking this recently, "How do you use your soapbox?"

Before my change of heart, I would honestly say that I used it frequently as a perch, from which to stand above others to display my knowledge. I was driven by a desire to make sure that people did not think of me as mentally deficient in any way.

Now that I have begun to understand the truths within the Word of God, I have been trying to put that box to its proper use... to hold supplies I or someone else might need.

I am still quite opinionated, but with God's help, I will learn when my opinions do not matter in the slightest.

I'm Geeking Out here!

2008-02-23T03:08:00.001-06:00

For those of you who know us, TV is NOT an important part of our lives. In fact we haven't really watched TV since Zane was born.

But I do have a weakness for old TV shows, and I had no idea that CBS had done anything remotely as cool as this online...

Star Trek

Twilight Zone

Thank you Ars Technica for posting on this!

And now for the Online Resources

2008-02-23T02:51:00.001-06:00

My last post bombarded you with the software resources I've been using. Now I think I'll pass on several of the online resources I have been using as well.

Audio Podcasts

Websites

*denotes iTunes Podcast

Not Dead, just Reading

2008-02-21T08:55:00.001-06:00

Man, I've had to use the "not dead" header too many times around here.

But seriously, I've been spending as much time as possible reading and studying and have not had much "free" time. I wanted to break the silence by sharing some of the programs I have been using to help with my studies, in case any of you might be interested in them.

First off, the freebie e-Sword. This little gem gives you access to many translations of the bible (in several languages), commentaries and lexicon resources. The one drawback is the installation scheme. You have to download and install each resource separately. For users with Windows Vista, prepare to spend a lot of time setting this program up (UAC prompt to start install, install procedure, clearing "did this program install correctly" window for each and every resource installed). Beyond the installation hassle, the interface is rather clean, but I would love an easy way to toggle the display of Strong's Numbers and morphology tags.

Second freebie, the SWORD Project. This one is very similar to e-Sword. In fact the resource list is pretty much identical. The main difference is the install scheme and the program interface. All of the resources can be downloaded and installed manually, or you can use the built-in Install Manager to download the files you want. Makes for an easier install (if your connection to their FTP server does not stall, I have that problem on my connection). The SWORD Project also has versions for several operating systems. My favorite, for its interface, is BibleTime for KDE installs of Linux. The Windows version is a bit sloppy in the interface department in my opinion, but is still usable.

Both of these resources can give you the basics to start looking into more serious studies in the bible, such as examining the original languages. One complaint you might have is the fact that the NIV translation is missing. This is not the fault of the programs, but due to Copyright limitations. You can, however, purchase the NIV for these programs.

Now, if you are wanting to get deeper into studying the bible, there are two main programs that I use, BibleWorks 7 and the Libronix Digital Library System.

BibleWorks gives you a great number of resources in which to study the original language versions of the bible. There are Hebrew and Greek resources available so you can pick apart the original material to your heart's content. One word of warning though. The lexicons included are very good, but they are only abridged versions. If you want the full, unabridged lexicons you will have to purchase them separately.

For taking apart the original texts, BibleWorks shines once you get used to the layout and interface. Its main drawback is the fact that it is really only good for bible analysis. If you want to include more diverse sources for study, you cannot really do this within just the BibleWorks program.

This is where the Libronix Digital Library System shines. The LDLS allows you to use the program as an actual library, combining several diverse sources together for studying. Heading over to the Logos website (Libronix is the software, Logos handles the "books" of the library) you can browse through a large selection of "books". You can buy boxed sets (such as the various Logos 3 products), along with individual books.

The main drawback to going the Logos route is the fact that most of the books cost the same amount as the printed versions. The searchability of these electronic versions is wonderful, but I question the pricing, considering the lack of printing costs. The Logos 3 boxed libraries are a different matter entirely.

The boxed libraries can be a wonderful deal, especially if you are looking to get into deep studies on Christianity. The Scholar's Libraries (standard, silver or gold versions) contain so many books, that you would probably need a loan and a new room added to your house to have all of the printed versions. The Original Languages Library compares well to BibleWorks 7, but has a few more "teach yourself" resources for the extra $100 you will pay for it.

If you are looking into software for in depth biblical study, my advice is to take the time to seriously compare the products out there. If you are just wanting to look into the original texts and compare bible translations, BibleWorks might be the route for you. If you want to build a library over time then Logos might be the way. Both products have their strengths and weaknesses. I personally use all of the software I have mentioned here (but that route can start getting expensive quickly).

Oh, Let the Games Begin!

2007-11-01T21:30:00.001-05:00

Apparently, with my recent change in faith-view, I have uncovered a great love for apologetics. I have been spending most of my available time over the past three months absorbing/devouring as much information about Christianity as possible, and the Holy Bible in particular.

This gift for absorbing information started as a desperate defense to save my family from being ripped apart. I will not go into the full details in this post (details will be forthcoming soon), but it involves a VERY heavy influence from the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.

I was forced into a position where I had to become a non-Christian, Christian Apologist. I gave myself a headache just typing that sentence.

I went into deep bible studies with no interest in what was there for myself, it was just to counter the false teachings of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society that were threatening to destroy our family. In the end, while I had no desire to search for God, God and Jesus had chosen me, and I found myself filled with a faith that came not from me. This was the most powerful experience I have ever felt, and it is, as the Apostles stated:

Acts 4:19-20 But Peter and John answered them, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard."

This is why I recently tracked down a copy of one of the most "dangerous" and useful books available when it comes to the project I mentioned in an earlier post.

Today, a book that the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society would love for people to just forget that they ever published, was delivered to my mailbox. Within this simple, 1165+ page purple book, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society proves that their own translation of the Holy Scriptures is ~~flawed~~ purposefully mistranslated to further their goals. The book that they would love for the world to forget is The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures. They put out two versions before they realized that there was no way they could re-edit it to the point that their changes to the Greek texts would not be exposed. The first edition was a 500,000 copy run, printed in 1969 (what was delivered today). The text was then revised in 1985 before it was finally pulled from circulation.

For those who do not know what an interlinear translation is, I will let the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society explain what this book is:

"By Way of Explanation" on page 5

In the broad left-hand column of the pages of the main material will be found the original kioné Greek text as revised (in 1881 C.E.) by the renowned Greek scholars B. F. Wescott and F. J. A. Hort, and in between the lines of the Greek will be found the word-for-word English translation. In the slim right-hand column of the page will be found the twentieth-century language translations entitled "New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures," in its latest revision. The word-for-word interlinear translation and the New World Translation are arranged parallel on the page, so that comparisons can be made between the two readings and the accuracy of any modern translation can be determined.

The key phrase here is: so that comparisons can be made between the two readings and the accuracy of any modern translation can be determined.

When you actually compare the word-for-word translations below the Greek text and the NWT, glaring mistranslations/omissions can be seen. While the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society call Wescott and Hort, "renowned Greek scholars", they apparently believe that they are more studious when it comes to Greek, because in several places they felt that the accepted translations from these "renowned Greek scholars" needed to be changed.

Now, you may say that I have a strong bias against the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society and will just say what justifies my agenda. I will never claim that I am not biased against the "Society", but I will not state something that I cannot backup with concrete proof. Until I can get our scanner to work, here is a site that can give you a taste of "anomalies" between the original Greek text and the NWT.

--Listening to: Casting Crowns - Lifesong - Set Me Free

The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures quotes are from the First Edition Printing, copyright © 1969 by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Used pursuant to the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107

I Think I'm About to Vomit

2007-10-18T08:12:00.000-05:00

Aren't there laws regarding "contributing to the delinquency of a minor"? Because this really should fall under that category.

More for the Padded Walls

2007-10-18T06:45:00.000-05:00

What is Christianity?

Summed up in a very quick sentence, I'd say it is a relationship with God through the teachings of the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth.

Now then, where are the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth found... the Gospel, those series of books and letters that make up what we call the New Testament.

Now, if you are a pastor, claiming to be a Christian, what should you do?

I think the obvious answer is to actually talk about the Gospel, and not distort the message found within.

Unfortunately, there are many pastors out there who claim to be Christian, but distort the message of the Gospel, or do not even talk about it. With their "feel good" message speaking what you "want to hear" versus "what you need to hear", they are slowly but surely eroding the pillars of the Gospel within people. This can be seen in many "mega-churches" these days in the USA and quite frankly, it is disgusting.

The Gospel is not all "flowers and sunshine". There are many passages that state that things will be difficult following the path of the Christ.

The reality is this: truth causes strife. There will always be disagreements between people, and there is no way to please everyone all of the time. In the Christ's own words (from Luke 12:49-53):

Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, a father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.

Disagreements within Christianity are quite common, and can be quite healthy (the last thing we need in this world is a Thoecratic GodBot State running everything). But if you teach that the walk with the Christ is a path that should be without any hardships and struggles, you are setting up a lot of people to start hating God when they hit the wall of disappointment in life. Teaching that a "good life" is a right, due to the sacrifice of the Christ, will ultimately cast more people into darkness than bring them into the light of Jesus.

Let's let a man with a better way with words than I, touch on this subject:

My thanks go out to Mars Hill Church for posting their sermons online to share with others in this world.

I Really Need a Padded Wall

2007-10-12T18:42:00.001-05:00

...because pounding my head against sheetrock is starting to hurt.

As someone new to/returning to the faith (I was raised in a Christian family, but cannot really say that I truly believed until just recently), it grieves my heart to see the diminishment of Scripture in many parts of the Church.

One of these is the current row among Protestants regarding homosexuality.

Before anyone jumps all over me, let me state that I have no right to condemn anyone, and that is not what I am going to do here. I am a sinner along with everyone else in this world.

Exodus 20:1-17 And God spoke all these words, saying,
2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 "You shall have no other gods before me.
4 "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
8 "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12 "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
13 "You shall not murder.
14 "You shall not commit adultery.
15 "You shall not steal.
16 "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's."

I, along with anyone who reads this post, have broken many of these commandments in the past. I am no better than anyone else, therefore I cannot condemn anyone, lest I ask for condemnation upon myself (Romans 2:3).

However, without condemning, I can, and should, offer words of correction to fellow Christians who are not following God's commands (Leviticus 19:17-18, 1 Corinthians 5:12-13).

To the split within the Church regarding homosexuality:

Leviticus 20:1 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying
Leviticus 20:13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

According to Scripture, homosexuality is an abomination to God. However, with Leviticus 19:17-18 and Matthew 22:34-40 stating we cannot hate our brothers, but must love them, we cannot condemn them. But we are sinning if we do not confront them and point out what Scripture says in these regards.

If you allow an unrepentant adulterer, murderer, thief, idolater, etc. into a leadership position in the Church you are not following God's word (1 Timothy 3:8-13). Therefore, if you are following Scripture, an individual who is in an active, homosexual relationship, should be removed from any Church leadership position.

Anyone who unrepentantly disobeys the word of God must be removed from any position of influence in the Church. This is not my decree, but God's.

Matthew 18:15-17 If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Now, does Matthew 18:15-17 give us the right to just kick the homosexual sinner out of the Church, and wash our hands of them? I say no. It is our duty as Christians to still treat them with kindness and love and preach to them God's word, for is that not what the disciples did to Gentiles and tax collectors?

If you hear anyone profess to be a Christian, but also says they hate someone, know in your heart that person is not a Christian. Because of Sin, humanity cannot be trusted with hate. Hate for us can never be righteous, only evil due to the corrupting nature of Sin. If you feel that you must hate sinners, please do everyone a favor and take a LONG look in the mirror when you get up. There you will find the closest sinner to you to start hating.

Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

If you find something that you do not like in the Bible, the fault is not with God, it is with you. It is due to something within yourself that you love more than you love the word of God. For if all Scripture is breathed out by God (2 Timothy 3:16-17), what was an abomination in the beginning, is still an abomination today.

Going Through Changes

2007-09-10T08:55:00.001-05:00

Recently, the TwoDragons' household was thrown into a huge upheaval. Worry not fair readers, only good came out of this domestic earthquake, and it has given Denita and I a new direction in life.

Unfortunately, I do not have the free time available today to go into details , but Denita and I are starting to embark into territories we never imagined. The things we have both gone through recently have put us in a unique position, and we are compelled to put what we have learned (and are still learning) to good use.

I'll give you a quick peek behind the curtains on one of my projects: A VERY critical exegesis of the NWT.

Too many people have been duped by this translation, due to the fact that very few people who read this version of the Bible have knowledgeable access to the original texts used for this translation. While I have run across many other websites showing the translation differences, I have not seen one that has a side by side comparison with the original texts used. Comparing the NWT to the Greek and Hebrew texts is very illuminating.

This is a project unlike anything I have ever undertaken (especially since I have almost ZERO knowledge of Greek or Hebrew currently, but I plan on changing this), but given the recent events around our home, it is something that I feel must be done. Thankfully I have the help of a wonderful program, BibleWorks 7, a terrific Biblical Greek site and a pastor knowledgeable in Greek to help me with this.

If anyone has any helpful pointers or advice, please let me know through comments, or through the site email address: whotendsthefires at gmail dot com

This is going to be a very long project, but I hope to have regular updates posted here.

We're not dead...

2007-08-01T08:23:00.001-05:00

...just very busy reading.

And no I'm not talking about the latest Harry Potter madness.

Details will be forthcoming, please be patient. A site direction change might also follow the details, but this is not set in stone.

Zane has changed "Talk like a Pirate Day"

2007-07-04T21:24:00.000-05:00

Well, seeing that he was born on "Talk like a Pirate Day", he thinks that he has the power to bestow "Arrrs" upon any day he chooses.

He decided last week that this entire weekend (my weekend that is, not normal people's calendar reckoning) is "Pirate Weekend"!

Denita was kind enough to make the flag and treasure chest before I got off of work, and have been "Arrr-ing" to our heart's content.

Happy Fourth of July to everyone!

It's official... I'm a bad influence

2007-06-22T21:24:00.001-05:00

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

shit (4x)
hell (3x)
pain (2x)
screwing (1x)

Apparently the blogosphere is more corrupting than TV or movies, because it takes a helluva lot more swearing to get a R rating from the MPAA.

*Original link from the Queen of Piquant herself.

Ahhhhhh, Therapy

2007-04-02T00:11:00.001-05:00

ANNOUNCER: Oh, how long can trusty Cadet Stimpy hold out? How can he possibly resist the diabolical urge to push the button that could erase his very existence? Will his tortured mind give in to its uncontrollable desires?

(Announcer grabs Stimpy, forces him closer to the button.) Can he resist the temptation to push the button that, even now, beckons him even closer? Will he succumb to the maddening urge to eradicate history? At the MERE...PUSH...of a SINGLE...BUTTON! The beeyootiful SHINY button! The jolly CANDY-LIKE button! Will he hold out, folks? CAN he hold out?

Just push the damn button!

Thanks C&F, I needed that one.

The Longest Day

2007-03-30T23:59:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, but we've been spending the last few weeks helping Denita's mom get ready for her surgery.

Just before we found out that Denita was pregnant, her mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor. One brain tumor became four over the next few years... On behind her right eye, one in her right frontal lobe, one in her brain stem and one just above her right ear. March 30th was the scheduled day for her surgery.

Two weeks before her surgery, I took her to San Antonio for her per-surgery lab work. The lab work came back with her potassium levels flat-lined and the chest x-rays showed something very unusual with her heart. This Monday she went back to have more tests to see if her heart could handle the surgery. Thankfully, they were able to stabilize her potassium levels and the anomalies with her heart were able to handle all of the stress tests she was put through.

Thursday and Friday were the longest days we have ever had to deal with. We spent Thursday in San Antonio with the family and were waiting on pins and needles today at home, awaiting news. Denita's mom checked into the Methodist Hospital in San Antonio a little after 10am this morning and went into surgery at 1:30pm this afternoon.

Thankfully, we got the word that Denita's mom was out of surgery at 4:30pm and the doctor was very impressed with her vitals and responses during the surgery.

They were just going after the tumors behind her eye and in her frontal lobe (these were the most troublesome ones to her). When the doctor started looking around the eye, he could not find anything. After searching for quite some time, he concluded that the MRI scans were false for the one behind her eye (probably normal brain matter pushed into an odd position due to the pressure from the tumor in the frontal lobe). The frontal lobe tumor was removed without complications, and the biopsy showed it as benign. The doctors did not want to go after the other tumors at this time due to the sheer amount of skull they would have to remove to get to all of them at one go. The frontal lobe tumor was the one that was causing most of the problems for Denita's mom.

Denita got an update from her father around 8pm this evening that her mom woke up and was able to recognize Denita's father's voice and the voice of a friend of ours who works in the hospital (she still has her eye wrapped up and cannot see anything right now). As we were checking out of Wal-Mart at around 8:30pm, Denita's cell phone rang. When she answered it, she almost collapsed to the floor.

It was her mom!

She had about a five minute conversation with Denita and Zane, before the pain medication made it necessary for her to go back to sleep again.

We are all giddy with relief right now. While we know that Denita's mom is not out of the woods yet, we do know that the most dangerous part is over.

Denita's mom is expected to stay in the hospital for 5-7 days recovering, and I'll keep everyone updated as to how things are going.

F' You George!

2007-03-07T22:01:00.000-06:00

Check this one out, before Darth George tries to "Fox*" it...
*second definition

Thought I'd post a humorous one before the next serious one.

A warning for the technically challenged

2007-02-28T11:35:00.000-06:00

As a techie-geek, I spend a decent amount of free time helping others with their computer woes. In fact, I am the first person my supervisor calls (not the corporate IT guys) when something goes wrong with a computer on the floor. I am also the IT guy for several of my friends' computers, handling software and hardware upgrades and general computing advice.

I feel it is my moral obligation to post this story for everyone out there to read. Please, if you are not overly knowledgable about computers, do NOT waste your money going to these guys. Ask your local geek at work, or drop me a line here at whotendsthefires AT gmail DOT com, and I'll try to help. Don't let you get screwed like this poor computer user was.

Thanks to Blues News for the original link.

The Post I Don't Want to Make: Update 1

2007-02-15T13:31:00.000-06:00

Here are pictures of two of the cats. Jadis has decided to find some inaccessible place to take her afternoon nap.

From Cat Pictures

Underfoot, in all of her mellow glory.

From Cat Pictures

Elric, being his normal self (just imagine Kronk as a cat...)

Jadis looks a lot like her brother Elric. She is larger (food dish hog), has yellow eyes and has more of a medium length to her coat. I'll take pictures of her as soon as she decides to grace us with her presence.

For those of you who have been asking in the comments, Denita's currently on a regimen of Asmanex, Singulair and Albuterol. This combination seems to be doing wonders for her, but she is unable to pet the cats or have them in her lap (Elric is a demanding lap kitty) without setting off breathing difficulties.

Thanks to everyone for the great response so far, and more updates to follow.

UPDATE: Pictures have been fixed, and the Queen of the Cats made her appearance.

From Cat Pictures

Jadis is NOT a fan of the camera's flash.

Better pics to follow soon...

The Post I Don't Want to Make

2007-02-13T20:15:00.000-06:00

I know I'm off on my New Year's Resolution of at least one post a week, but I haven't had to heart to make this post, but I have to.

Just before February, Denita had a VERY severe asthma attack. Her rescue inhaler type (over the counter) had been pulled (either for re-formulation or for retirement.. reports are conflicting at this point) and we did not find out about this until she had ran out. When I called her from work to see how she was holding up, she gasped out that the EMTs had just pulled up to the house.

Thankfully, the quick response time from the local Emergency Response Team kept Denita from getting a deeper shade of blue than she was when they arrived. After two mega-doses of albuterol from the EMTs and another mega-dose at the hospital, her breathing was returned to normal. She has since gotten to a doctor and is taking a MUCH better combination of medicines to help her control, not just react to her asthma.

Here comes the hard part for us.

While the cats are not a true "trigger" for her asthma, for her health we need to find new homes for the furry ones. There are three of them all together.

Underfoot: a 2 1/2 year old spayed female tan and grayish colored shorthair. She is one of the most gentle cats you will ever run across. She gets along decently with other cats, once she adjusts to them.

Jadis: a 1 year old spayed female white colored medium-hair. She is the prima donna of the group and will dominate and set off fights with other cats (she really needs to go to a single cat home). She is also partially deaf. She is also a bit of a pig at the cat bowl. Once she warms up to someone, she is a rather affectionate cat.

Elric: a 1 year old neutered male white colored shorthair (Jadis' brother). Galoot is the best description of his personality. He is one of the most affectionate cats I have ever met, but not the brightest cat out there (but certainly not stupid). Also, like his sister Jadis, he is partially deaf.

All of them have been inside cats since we rescued them, and I don't think they would transition to being outdoor cats well (especially with Jadis and Elric being partially deaf).

I'm able to drive 100-150 mi from the Austin area to help with their relocation on my days off (with some advanced planning) if needed.

Right now I do not have any current pictures of them to post here, but I will fix that in the next day or two.

Those who are interested in adopting any of these guys, please drop an e-mail to us: whotendsthefires AT gmail DOT com

If we are not able to find new homes for them very soon, we will have no choice but to take Underfoot, Jadis and Elric to a shelter (a NO-Kill Shelter will be the only choice). We would much prefer that they went to a home of someone we know. Please help if you can.

Geekin' and Chillin'

2007-01-27T02:49:00.001-06:00

Well, the last of the holiday gifts was finally gotten this weekend. The stars finally aligned and a little bit of geeky-goodness finally was restocked at the local Wal-Mart (restocked for all of 6 hours maybe).

When dropping Denita off at work on Wednesday, a small section of the electronics section was still sitting all lonely and empty, as it has been since November. After running around getting some needed supplies, Zane and I swung back through the toy section to say goodbye to Denita and while walking away noticed the shelf in electronics was no longer empty.

Six, small, elegant white boxes were sitting on the shelf, beckoning me like the sirens to Odysseus. Not being strapped to the mast of my shopping cart, I was pulled towards them, having just enough willpower to pull away to get an employee to open up the display case and grab one.

Cackling madly, I scrambled home... to play with my Wii!

None of the other Wiis lasted on the shelf longer than Denita's shift...

Fast forward a few hours...

Already, I am suffering from Wii-shoulder. The silly little Wii Sports games really will give you a bit of a workout. Even though you don't have to move the controller a lot, you will swing the bugger like you were Casey, trying to make up for your arrogance in Mudville. Watching your little Mii hopping around the bases after a home run (like the guys from VeggieTales), is so funny and satisfying.

On a proud (and also ashamed) note, I must announce that Zane, at the tender age of 4 years, beat his dear old dad at Wii Bowling today 153 to 147 (little bugger got 4 strikes in a row in his first frames). He has turned into the Wii Personal Trainer for the household, telling us what Wii Sports game we should play next.

This thing is all the fun (and then some) that they advertise. Even if you are barely even a casual gamer, you might just want to think about getting one of these little gems, if you can find one.

Quick request from our readers.

2007-01-21T21:37:00.000-06:00

We are currently looking into ways to telling our local phone provider to go play in heavy traffic, but currently do not know anyone who is using a VOIP carrier (our only other option) instead of a standard telephone carrier.

Our local cable company does not yet offer VOIP service in our town, Skype is el cheapo, but sound quality seems to leave much to be desired when calling standard phones, so we must turn to you for advice on VOIP carriers.

If you have used/are currently using a VOIP carrier, please let us know what the quality of service is like (sound transmission, support, billing issues, etc.). Also, if you could let us know what upstream speed you have with your broadband service, that would help as well (we currently max at 128kb upstream and I would appreciate being able to compare sound quality by upstream speed).

Thanks.

I AM TWITCHING UP A STORM RIGHT NOW...

2007-01-12T17:23:00.001-06:00

...in a good way.

Seems that the other week, our dispenser of the Elixir of Life™ (espresso maker) decided that it no longer needed any of the handles that originally came with it. So it was decided to retire the dispenser (since using an armless espresso maker is a pain) and get another one (*playing Taps*).

Seeing that Denita and I do not drink enough coffee to warrant just switching over to the standard coffee maker the previous owners of the house left for us (plus the strength we prefer would take too much coffee for a standard coffee maker), I started cruising the internet to find a replacement.

I finally settled on a "real" espresso maker (pump-driven, not steam), instead of just getting another Mr. Coffee one (Mr. Coffee worked well, but is a bit too flimsy).

Mr. FedEx was kind enough to deliver the new espresso maker today and I am now on my fourth cup and I am in java induced nirvana. This sucker makes some tasty Elixir of Life™.

Then on top of it, I fire up the ol' newsreader and find out that I've been linked by Neatorama for my E.S. Posthumus post. *WHOOT!* Seeing that Denita has been spending her posting time over at Neatorama (their newest contributor) instead of posting here, I though it was kinda cool to get something of mine linked to by the guy that runs the site.

Now, everyone start giving Denita a hard time for not posting here at her home blog!

BTW: Here's what I'm like on four cups of the almighty Elixir of Life™ :

And this is considered an Accomplishment?

2007-01-11T16:40:00.001-06:00

While TTtSNB (where I work... The Thing that Should Not Be) treats most workers like mindless slaves, creatures only there to jump to the latest whim of management, apparently there is one group that thinks that it is a great place to work. TTtSNB was recently rated as one of the best workplaces by the HRC on behalf of GLBT.

Before anyone jumps all over me for being a horrible, evil bigot, anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I am one of the most non-bigoted people on this planet. I just am sick of all of the divisions people insist on creating. I could not give a flying shit about your religion, skin color, sexual preference, shoe size, underwear preference, etc. I boil everyone down to Human or Not-Human. You treat others decently, you get a thumbs up in my book.

Instead of working on creating a workplace where all employees think it's one of the best places to work, TTtSNB is apparently bending over backwards to make one group feel special, while treating others like the proverbial re-headed step-child. I wish I could smuggle in a video camera on my shift to have proof of how poorly those not within a "special group" are treated.

The Soundtrack Body Double

2007-01-08T04:21:00.000-06:00

You probably haven't heard of these guys, but you probably have heard them. Their work has been featured as the soundtrack stand-in for several movies (ie., the music you hear on a lot of movie trailers that you WISH was actually in the movie).

Crank up your speakers, and head on over to E. S. Posthumus' site and bathe in the aural bliss that awaits you (they stream most of their work from the site).

Thanks to the ol' wife for finding this one (she's got a post hidden up her sleeve somewhere about how she found them).

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T08:08:00.001-06:00

Here's hoping this year proves to be a richer and more fulfilling year for all of you than 2006 was.

To start off this new year, I'd like to call for some reader participation with this post. Let's have a bit of fun by airing some dirty laundry between all of us.

The rules are simple:

In the comments let us know what one of your "guilty pleasures" happens to be (please keep this one relatively clean folks). For every 5 guilty pleasures added to the comments by readers, I'll add another one of my own.

Here's the starter:

I find Goth music to be insanely entertaining (not for the normal reasons though...) and actually have a decent sized Goth music collection.

This stuff is some of the funniest shit you'll ever listen to, if you remember to keep in mind that people actually take the lyrics seriously! The whole "life is but a torturous existence" theme that permeates Goth music will get me laughing on even my worst depressed days. Just try to get through reading these lyrics, without starting to laugh a little.

The truly scary thing is that a lot of Goth music is actually very impressive and technically difficulty to play, (then they add the lyrics, and I cannot stop laughing).

Help continue the mirth by adding your guilty pleasures in the comments (we will need the laughs soon...reason to follow shortly).

New Year's Resolutions

2006-12-30T02:36:00.001-06:00

I know that New Year's Eve is still a little bit away, but considering that I'll be working, I figured that I'd post this now.

My New Year's Resolutions, in no particular order:

Actually post at least once a ~~month~~ week at the site. I know that all of you with only believe this one once you see it. These past few have been a bit hectic. Getting used to the new home schedule (Denita and I only have every other Saturday off together now). Also, the absolutely crappy dial up service out here was putting a crimp on even checking the weather forecast. But life is starting to settle down into an almost manageable routine for me and Denita's family got sick of the busy signals while we were online, and hooked us up with a broadband connection... so I should be able to post more frequently.
Get a headset with mic for the computer to take advantage of insanely cheap VoIP calls (seeing that everyone we know is long distance). For those who know my Real Life™ name, you can find me at first name.last name on Skype.
Post more humorous contributions to life from Zane... pictures, videos and stories.
Come up with a damn moniker for the new town we live in... This has actually been a very tough one for us. TinyVille just popped to mind for the town we used to live in, but we just haven't been able to come up with a fitting one for where we are now.
Plug more cool shit I find online... such as Pandora.
Perform only one wipe-and-reinstall on the computer. Honestly, this one is in Bill Gates' court.
Keep in better contact with my relatives. I've never been very good at keeping in touch with anyone outside of those I see on a regular basis, and I need to get off my lazy butt and remedy this. My family deserves MUCH better.
Get back into occasionally writing letters and sending them to people, instead of typing out a sterile e-mail. There is something more satisfying (in my opinion), in getting an old-fashioned, written letter in the mail.
Finally, get a slide rule, and learn how to use it... just for shits and grins.

A little Christms cheer for eveyone...

2006-12-17T08:20:00.000-06:00

...for when you just cannot take another minute of Nat King Cole or Bing Crosby. And hearing "Santa Baby" makes you want to go into a homicidal rage...

*We are not responsible for any emotional damage this video may cause.

Settling In

2006-10-26T09:48:00.000-05:00

Well, now that the move madness is over, we've managed to start being able to enjoy the new house... beyond the "holy shit, we bought a HOUSE!" reaction.

I don't even know if pictures will be able to convey even a small sense of the peace and calm out here, but now that I think I know where all of the camera stuff is hiding, we shall soon find out (just give me a bit more time here).

Most of the boxes have been sorted (what needs unpacking within the next month vs. what can just find a comfortable place in the closet). Less than a quarter of our bedroom still has boxes stacked up. With the current lack of shelving for books, movies, music and such, there will still be a bit of a box pile for a bit longer (but when the room is about 15'x30', it is not that big of a problem). We still have to do the washing machine switchout (swap our compact one for the full-sized beast the sellers left), but that is the last of the heavy stuff... inside.

As to the neighborhood, you could not ask for better neighbors. The gentleman across the granite dome from us has already offered the use of his riding mower to help with the yard (definitely will take him up on the offer in the future... the yard is an all-day project with a standard push-mower).

Zane has settled in nicely as well. He's learning the boundaries of the yard quickly, and have almost zero traffic on our street helps set our minds at ease when he's playing outside. We still have his swingset to assemble, but other than that, he has no complaints.

We'll, that's about all for right now. Stay tuned for the next episode:

Darth Vader visits the local Home Depot

The Deed is Done

2006-10-14T23:26:00.000-05:00

Well, we finally got everything moved out to the new house (with the exception of a few cleaning supplies to clean up the old house tomorrow). Denita's mom has offered to help Denita out while I'm at work.

Now that the move madness is over, all I can say is... DAMN, I didn't know I had this many places that could ache at the same time.

We had several people lined up to help us move for the original closing date of September 19th, but everyone already had plans during the week following the new close date. It turned out the the bulk of the move was to be handled by Denita, her mom, her brother, her father and myself only. A kind friend from work would have helped out more, but ended up having a massive back spasm start up about a week before we closed, and he is still recovering (thanks for the plant move help Jeff, we appreciate it).

This last week has been hell, running back and forth between the two houses and work (about 130 miles of driving per day on top of a grueling 12 hour shift). It all was capped by a mad, 2 day U-Haul dash Friday and Saturday. I think all of us will have just one huge bruise covering our bodies for the next week or so (hell, even the tops of my toes ache like hell).

Now everything is here in the new house, to be unpacked at our leisure (thankfully all of the important stuff is already unpacked). Next weekend has been set aside to relax and get to know our neighborhood better. We have nineteen area parks to learn where they are located, and many new neighbors to meet. The neighbors we have had the chance to meet so far have been wonderfully friendly people, including a couple on a walk this morning (who had to be in their early sixties), who offered to help move the washer, dryer and freezer out of the U-Haul and into the house!

The peace and quiet out here cannot be matched. Already we have had several deer, skunks and grey foxes go through out yard, and coyotes can be heard calling in the distance. Zane is just beside himself with excitement.

As this next week progresses, I hope to have the digital camera unpacked so we can share more pictures with you.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

2006-10-03T16:51:00.000-05:00

One o'clock in the afternoon.

Friday, October 6th.

WARNING: Geek Rant

2006-10-01T02:01:00.000-05:00

Further proof that George Lucas is an ass and a liar.

From the original Theatrical Version of Star Wars:

Notice the lack of a reference to Episode IV or "A New Hope".

Seeing that I was weaned on Star Wars (the Star Wars madness started in '77 and I was born in '74), I have been thoroughly disgusted with the constant changes GL has made to the original story. It's one thing to clean up some technical issues and remaster the video and sound, it's another thing to completely rewrite parts of the story to fit a changed world view.

Thankfully GL is at least giving fans of the original versions (who don't have a laserdisc player) a digital version of the un-bastardized movies. Mind you, it's a somewhat low quality scan of the laserdisc versions, in Dolby Stereo (instead of the remastered Dolby Surround/Digital which was done for VHS before GL started screwing with things) and with widescreen display issues (with our widescreen monitor, you can see that it is formatted to a standard display and doesn't scale to a native widescreen display).

Until these versions were announced, I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to introduce Zane to the true glory and cheese that was/is the Star Wars Trilogy (don't even get me started on the so-called Episodes I-III *spit*). Thankfully, with the purchase of Star Wars this week, I was able to share with my son something that had a lasting impression on me. He LOVED it! Then he promptly asked to watch the original Gojira movie (Godzilla to most of you).

Thankfully, my disgust with GL's tinkering kept me from forking out money for the first DVD set of the Star Wars Trilogy, so I did not end up paying double for what my geeky soul craved. Now it is time to budget for The Empire Strikes Back (best of the series in my opinion) and The Return of the Jedi (Ewoks must die!) before the evil GL takes them away from us forever in December.

Crunch Time

2006-10-01T01:11:00.000-05:00

Well, Friday afternoon brought us a call from our realtor....

To find out what time of day would be best for us, to schedule a time this coming Friday with the title company!

It was too late in the day to call and confirm with the mortgage company that all hurdles had been officially cleared, but Denita will do that first thing Monday.

With that news, Saturday was spent packing some of the last miscellaneous things around the house. We are now at about 95% packed and it shouldn't take too long to get the last of everything thrown in boxes at the end.

The bad thing is that with closing on Friday (and me going back to work Saturday) we won't be able to stay in the new house until the following week.

Now on to what most of you have probably been waiting for (well, those who have been following the house stories)... More information and more pictures!

If you follow this link, you shall be rewarded with more pictures of the future Chez TwoDragons.

*begin announcer voice*

Chez TwoDragons is a lovely little two storey home located on almost a football field sized lot (actually 5 lots total, for a grand total of 25,000 sq. ft.). It's unique retro design reflects the decade of the 80's, when it was built. It's generous size of 1856 square feet contains only two bedrooms, but what bedrooms they are.

The ground floor consists of the bedrooms (taking up approximately, two-thirds of the space), a full bathroom, laundry room and nicely sized closets. A small foyer (if you could even call it that) off of the front door leads to the stairwell.

Taking the stairs to the top, you will be greeted by a generous sized living room that takes up almost half of the second floor. The half-bath, kitchen and dining room take up the rest of the floor.

There is an almost constant breeze off of the lake, which the East-West positioning of the house takes full advantage. A quick opening of the living and dining room windows brings a fresh breeze through the house on demand.

As if all of the room (inside and out) wasn't enough, the neighborhood has over 13 parks scattered throughout, including one with lake access about a ten minute walk away. Two and a half miles away is a park with a playground, fishing piers, boat launch and swimming area.

Another great thing is that we only have three houses total on our street and at least a third of the entire neighborhood is not developed so everyone's houses are not squished together.

Asbestos Underpants

2006-09-23T00:35:00.000-05:00

Well, round one with the house didn't go well... Word to the wise, don't trust ERA Mortgage...

Things are looking like you will be able to close two weeks early...

Eight days before close... DENIED!

On to round two... with a different mortgage company.

Flaming Hoop Tricks

2006-09-06T08:57:00.000-05:00

OK, it's finally time to break the silence on what's been going on around Chez TwoDragons...

We are currently working on the MOTHER OF ALL BIRTHDAY PRESENTS for Zane. Trust me folks, if all goes well, nothing should ever beat this gift...

That's right, we're currently trying to close on a house in the Hill Country of Texas.

Now, before you go off on a debt rant AJ, we understand what we are doing. We have very seriously considered your financial advice and weighed the pros and cons of this decision and I'd like to thank you for all of the advice you've given us.

As to the title of the post, we are currently in the "jump through the mortgage company's flaming hoops" stage of the process. It's down to clearing through the last of the paperwork, and we should be able to close by Zane's birthday on the 19th.

Unfortunately, we will be having to say goodbye to TinyVille if everything goes as planned. TinyVille is in the process of being crushed by unwanted development that is driving house prices to ranges well out of our means.

Rejected Bedtime Story

2006-09-02T10:40:00.000-05:00

You all have heard of "The Princess and the Pea"...

Well, we have "The Prince and the Raisins" going "Live-Action" here.

I walked into Zane's room to get things ready for him to go to bed (while he was munching on a tortilla and drinking some milk) and found his giant Thomas the Train floor-pillow covering his bed and raisins scattered all over the floor.

I hope he doesn't get it in his head to do a "Live-Action" interpretation of "The Three Little Pigs"....

More FREE Geek Toys

2006-08-31T21:51:00.000-05:00

It's nice to find sites like this when we are SERIOUSLY paring down what we are spending.

Lots of new toys for me to play with:

Notepad++ (finally, a neat and easy editor that supports .XML very easily (several programs I have been wanting to tweak use .XML and the previous editors I had were a bit messy when handling .XML))
PowerShell (already been playing with this one. Kinda like the standard cmd.exe shell crossed with a Linux shell)
TaskSwitchXP (eye candy for the ol' ALT-TAB)
Windows Desktop Search (BETA 3 finally works with x64 XP. Google Desktop sometimes hoses up Google sites in Opera)
Tidy Start Menu (priceless little gem that's FREE)
Launchy (cool little app/file launcher)
Run++ (another app/file launcher, takes up very little screen real estate)
InstallPad (handy auto downloader for OS tweakers like myself who tend to wipe and reinstall systems on a regular basis, or configure systems for others)
Foxit Reader (been using this one for a few months... Bye-Bye Acrobat!)
7-Zip (great little (and I mean little) archiver program. If you are still using WinZip... get this one, it handles all the major compression standards except for .SIT, .SITX and .ACE and compresses .ZIP smaller than most)
Process Tamer (great for those times that I have 50 million things running at the same time, license key process is free, but a bit convoluted)
Windows Live Writer (what I used to bash out this post (let's see how long it takes me to break this one... I killed the Vista OS Beta in less than a week!))

Chez TwoDragons is currently jamming to The Ballad by Testament

Real Word move update

2006-08-13T02:46:00.000-05:00

Well, it looks like we might have a move time frame.

Barring unforeseen complications, we should be moving out of TinyVille to and even smaller town (moniker undecided at this time) just after Zane's birthday.

Things are not fully finalized at this time, but so far it looks like everything will fall into place nicely.

The negative side it that we officially have about 4 weeks to get everything packed up for the move, which means that we must humbly ask that our friends who have been trying to make it out for the past several weekends bear with us until the move.

...Sorry HDD... One day the stars WILL be right and R'lyeh shall rise again.

The Move is Official

2006-08-10T07:24:00.000-05:00

Well, the old site has been placed in park and will be sent to the scrapyard after the 14th.

Hopefully, the server work at MuNu will go smoothly so we can restore all the drivel we have posted before. But until then, you've got what you see here.

Expect posting to be quite light for awhile as we go home hunting. Not that we have been posting with any regular frequency... Most of our free time in the coming weeks will be dedicated to this (and what time we have left over, will be spent packing).

New email address

2006-08-04T13:22:00.000-05:00

With the shutdown of the old site, we've had to setup a new e-mail for our blogging.

We can now be reached at whotendsthefires at gmail dot com.

Freebie Digs

2006-07-30T01:35:00.000-05:00

Well, time to start prepping this space to get it ready for when the main site comes down in August.

Please pardon the dust as we get ready for the move.