JOLLYBLOGGER

Jolly - Before and After

Way back when, someone mentioned that I should do a before and after here on the blog to document my weight loss.  I wanted to wait a bit to make sure I kept the weight off, and now I'm at a point where I'm pretty satisfied that I'm keeping the weight off.

I wish I had dates on all of these but the before pics are all somewhere between 2003 and 2006.  The after pics are all from fall 2007 till a few weeks ago.  The pics aren't good quality but they do give an idea of how much weight I've lost.  From now on I will refer to the before pictures as "David with a beachball under his shirt" and the after as "David minus the beach ball."  I also thought this would be a good follow up to the preceding post on the effects of a high fat - low carb diet on the body.

Before

 

After

This is what happens to your body when you eat a diet high in fat!

No, I'm not turning this into the Jolly Good Cosmo-GQ blog, but I thought I would share a couple of pics I have come across recently in the low-carb-osphere that show the dramatic effects that eating a diet high in fat can have on your body.

The guy is Mark Sisson, he's 54 years old and here's a description of how he eats.

2,458 calories, 58% of which was from fat; 165 grams of protein (1 gram per pound of body weight) and 114 grams of carbs. Now some might say that eating less than 2500 calories is too low for a moderately active man, but there are two points to make here. First, I am never really hungry. On this Primal Blueprint eating style, I eat when I want to and stop when I no longer feel hungry. Pretty simple. If I skip meals, I don’t get light-headed or famished. I don’t ever feel like I need more calories or that I am missing out on anything or “sacrificing” some guilty pleasure. I get plenty of protein to spare muscle and add to protein turnover. I get plenty of fat for fuel – sometimes 65% of daily calories.

Second - and this goes to the heart of the Primal concept – when you eat fewer carbs, your body readily accesses dietary and stored fat for fuel. Even at 8% body fat, I still have 46,000 calories of stored fat, at least 25,000 of which is available to use as fuel at any time. Theoretically, you could walk 250 miles on that. It’s a beautiful thing when you direct gene expression to “want” to burn fat instead of always storing it. You certainly don’t need cardio to produce the full effect (you can if you want, within guidelines). As we often say here “80% of your results come from how you eat.” Conversely, eating more carbs drives up insulin, drives carbs towards fat storage, decreases fat-burning by prompting fat cells to hold on to stored fat and makes you hungrier for more carbs. I could burn some or most of all that off again by doing tons of cardio, but that only makes me hungrier for more carbs and perpetuates the cycle. It’s like digging a hole to put the ladder in to wash the basement windows.

The lady is Kat James who runs a website called Informed Beauty. Jimmy Moore introduced an interview with her this way:

Kat shares the cold hard facts about why fat consumption in conjunction with a low-carb diet is an awesome way to take care of your body and make yourself truly beautiful inside and out.

I'm telling ya - don't feel guilty about bringing out the bacon, the butter and the eggs, and don't worry about the fat in the burgers - it's the bun, the fries and the condiments that are killing you - not the meat (well, unless the meat is diseased).

Josh and Gregg Harris on Education

I can't tell you how much I appreciate the things Josh Harris is saying these days about education options.   Josh has a post with video on Gospel Unity Among Educational Camps and today he posted a comment from his dad, Gregg, on the subject.  Here's the comment from Gregg Harris:

Hey Josh, this is your dad. Just for the record, I heartily agree with what you have said so well in this video clip. Educational choices have always been a matter of parental responsibility, not of some extra-biblical standard. Every householder should make an informed decision before God. All should research their local schools, public and private and become fully convinced in the way in which he (or she) decides to use his God-given liberty under the Lordship of Christ to bear the best and most abundant fruit he can for the glory of God.

The only moral issue at stake is whether we are willing to walk in the obedience of our faith in God and His will as we understand it from the Scriptures. Though wisdom and foolishness are called into play, there is no moral superiority to be found in any one educational option. Though dilligence is required of all three options, only our labor in Christ will not be in vain. Then, as the relative fruit of each option is put on display in time, may we all be humble enough to change our ways as needed in order to bear even better fruit for God.

Not all options seem to be equally fruitful thus far. But as a long-time home-schooling father and Christian home-schooling advocate I can honestly say that every option, including home schooling has its problems (as you well know). So, pick your problems, and by the grace of God deal with those problems as they arise. Our family has chosen the problems that come with home schooling. But, as you have said, we pray for all of our fellow parents and their children that God will mercifully bless their efforts to be faithful. We are all one in the body of Christ and that should allow us to support one another wholeheartedly in spite of our differing convictions on how to educate our children. Good job, Josh. I am so pleased with you and your service as a father, a pastor and just as my son. I love you. - Dad

Those who are familiar with the history of the homeschooling movement in the U.S. may remember that Gregg Harris was one of the early and most influential movers and shakers in the movement.  When I was in college, 25 years ago (wow, time flies) I was listening to Gregg Harris tapes and going to hear him speak.  I was in a community that was deeply committed to homeschooling so even in college I was preparing to homeschool.  And Gregg was the man.

As time went on, I gravitated toward a "home-school-is-the-only-educational-option-for-a-real-Christian" crowd and I became quite the, . . . um, . . . well, . . . unpleasant and unlikeable person about it.  Over the years I softened.  We homeschooled and found out there were huge challenges and difficulties with it.  Also, working in youth ministry I got to see that some of the most mature and spiritually healthy kids came out of a public schooling environment and some very dysfunctional kids came from homeschool environments.  At the same time I saw the reverse - some very mature and socially well adjusted homeschool kids, which countered the conventional wisdom that homeschool kids are socially inept.  I also saw plenty of public school kids who fell into all of the things the homeschoolers feared.

Overall, I began to see that there was far more to this whole thing than what school you sent your kids to.  My old pastor and mentor, Rod Whited, had a stump speech about education that he gave to everyone that went like this:

God has given parents the responsibility of educating their children.  Some will choose to fulfill this through homeschooling, some through public schooling, and some through private or private Christian schooling.  We will support these parents in whatever they choose.

This is what Gregg and Josh are saying here and I do so appreciate their stance for gospel unity in these matters.

Explain this Theologically and Practically

Kottke has an interesting story about the City Cafe Bakery in Ontario which lets customers add up their own bills and put the money into a box and make their own change.

"I liked the idea of simplifying things and ... the honour system made a whole lot of sense," Bergen says. "What irritated me about going into Tim Hortons, for example, was waiting in line for something as simple as getting a donut and a coffee. So the thought was, someone can pour his own coffee, grab his own bagel, cut it himself, throw the money in, and walk out. We don't touch 60 per cent of the transaction."

"Everything is rounded off to the nearest quarter with taxes included where applicable," he says. "So every desert is $1.50 (tarts, brownies, and date squares), every pizza lunch is $5, every beverage is $1.25, every loaf of bread is $2.75 (Italian sourdough, multi-grain, and raisin bread on weekends), croissants are $1 each, and bagels are three for $2 (plain, sesame, and multi-grain)."

The bakery conducts audits every six months and Bergen says only once did things come up short.

"Our theory is that two per cent of our sales are being ripped off. 'Ripped off' in the sense that there are people who forget to pay or they make a mistake in paying, and then there are people who deliberately don't pay. And every so often we have to kick somebody out that we know hasn't been paying," he says. "But at the same time we figure we're being overpaid by three per cent. Some people come in and want a $2.75 loaf of bread, but they see we're busy so they throw $3 in and walk out. Or, although we discourage tips, some people still give them to us. But because the staff is paid well (the average wage is $15.50 an hour), the tips go into the general pot."

In other words, the honor system basically works in this situation.  So how do we explain this theologically?  If "total depravity" is the fundamental defining mark of humanity then this shouldn't happen.  If "innocence" is the fundamental defining mark of humanity then this also couldn't happen because it wouldn't explain those who do rip the store off. 

In my mind the theological explanation should go something like this - this shows the glory and depravity of man.  Man is made in the image of God but because of sin has become totally depraved.  The "image" leads to altruism, the depravity leads to theft. 

But in this case altruism wins, the image wins - not without a fight - but altruism and the image wins.  The altruists overcompensate for the thieves and the bakery profits.

I have a few more thoughts after the jump.    

Regret in Heaven?

I'm gonna have to go with Phil Gons over John Piper on the issue of regret in heaven.  Discussing the second chapter of Piper's book Life as a Vapor, Gons says:

Piper reasons that since we will spend eternity praising Christ for ransoming us (e.g., Rev 5:9), we’ll certainly remember our sinful condition from which we’ve been ransomed. And those memories will yield feelings of regret.

It is inconceivable to me that we will remember our sin for what it really was, and the suffering of Christ for what it really was, and not feel regretful joy. . . . It does mean that regret will not ruin heaven. There will be kinds of joys, and complexities of happiness, and combinations of emotions in heaven of which we have never dreamed. (20)

Piper feels some tension leading him to speak in terms of “regretful joy.” He addresses Revelation 21:4, but concludes that he doesn’t think that it “rules out tears of joy” or “regretful joy.”

With all proper deference to John Piper, who is one of the great saints of our age, I have to agree with Phil when he says:

I’m having trouble being convinced. Regret is defined as “a feeling of sorrow, repentance, or disappointment” (Concise OED), “a sense of repentance, guilt, or sorrow, as over some wrong done or an unfulfilled ambition” or “a sense of loss or grief” (Collins English Dictionary), and “sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond one’s control or power to repair” or “an expression of distressing emotion (as sorrow or disappointment)” (Merriam-Webster’s).

Revelation 21:4 speaks of the permanent removal of mourning (πένθος), crying (κραυγὴ), and pain (πόνος). BDAG defines πένθος as “sorrow as experience or expression, grief, sadness, mourning” (795), κραυγὴ as  “outcry in grief or anxiety, wailing, crying” (565), and πόνος as “experience of great trouble, pain, distress, affliction” (852). It’s clear from a passage like Isaiah 65:14 that πόνος can refer to emotional pain (πόνον τῆς καρδίας) as well.

I struggle to see how the elimination of these leaves room for genuine regret (i.e., sorrow, disappointment, grief, guilt, distress). But since Piper never defines regret or “joyful regret,” it’s hard for me to know exactly what he has in mind. I’m really having a difficult time getting my mind around the concept of “joyful regret.” And if our praise of Christ for His work of ransoming us will be unceasing, and that praise requires that we remember our sin, then it would seem that our regret would be as constant as our praise.

Is it even right for believers to feel regret when recalling past sin?

I think one of the determinative passages on this is Jeremiah 31:34:

“People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me. For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” says the Lord. “For I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done.”

If regret involves remembrance of past sin, and if God commits to not remembering our past sin, then how can we remember (regretfully) our past sin?

That last question that I quoted by Gons is one that I have given some thought to - aside from and before the question of regret for sin in the eternal state, should believers even feel regret for past sin while on this earth?

I will say that I am surprised at the determination of many I meet to live with a sense of guilt.  I meet many Christians who are fully committed (or as my friend Glenn Lucke says, they are "all in") to hanging on to guilt.  No amount of teaching or persuasion regarding the merits of Christ's work can convince them that they are free from guilt.  True, they may accept and be thankful that they are free from legal guilt, but experiential guilt is something they believe they must hang on to.

John MacArthur once said that the process of sanctification is the process of making our practice match our position.  In other words, we are positionally righteous before God, so we ought to make it our ambition to be practically righteous.  We understand that, because of indwelling sin, we won't do it perfectly in this life, but we still seek it.

Doesn't the same go for guilt?  We are positionally free from guilt because of the work of Christ.  Shouldn't we treat "experiential guilt" as an enemy the same as the other things for which the death of Christ paid the penalty?

Rolling Stone Goes Undercover with the Christian Fringe

I've been wanting to comment on the "Jesus Made Me Puke" story from Rolling Stone.  Fortunately, I don't have to because the blogosphere's two top Jared's have done my work for me and done a better job than I could have done.

In the latest of a burgeoning sub-genre of journalism called "undercover with the Christian right," Rolling Stone sent their man to get the scoop on one megachurch that is "representative" of the rest of evangelical Christianity.  Lo and behold, this reporter found a plethora of weirdness.

Jared Bridges rightly points out where the Rolling Stone reporter went wrong, but he acknowledges that the guy (unfortunately for evangelicals) got some things right.

When a writer for Rolling Stone can recognize that your preaching is more pop-psychology than biblical truth, you’re in trouble. Sadly, much of the evangelical landscape shares this wholesale adoption of talk-show therapy. It’s a practice the Apostle Paul might well refer to as conformity to the world.

Jared Wilson points out how the Rolling Stone writer rightly points out the troublesome privileging of jock culture in evangelical circles:

Some quotes, some thoughts . . .

One of the implicit promises of the church is that following its program will restore to you your vigor, confidence and assertiveness, effecting, among other things, a marked and obvious physical transformation from crippled lost soul to hearty vessel of God. That's one of the reasons that it's so important for the pastors to look healthy, lusty and lustrous — they're appearing as the "after" photo in the ongoing advertisement for the church wellness cure.

I found that observation really interesting, and generally true. Taibbi spends some time on the import of the macho, coulda-beena-contenda military/sportsman leaders, and it's an interesting perspective. As a guy who grew up in a youth ministry culture that propped up all manner of Christian ex-athletes, I always wondered if our youth ministers even cared that they were implicitly favoring jock culture with these endorsements, that many (most?) kids don't care that Jesus helped third string quaterback Brock Throwmeister get over losing that big game that one time.

My two comments are that unfortunately, some of what the article says is right and unfortunately, with this being John Hagee's church, it is representative of a significant minority in evangelicaldom.

My second comments is that Hagee, his followers and their ilk are still a minority in evangelicaldom and this article once again proves the prescience of James Davidson Hunter in his epochal work - Culture Wars.  Hunter points out that the culture wars are, by and large, fought by extremists on both sides, or I should say it is the extremists who get noticed by the press.  While it is true that not all who take a side are extremists, it is equally true that only the extremists get noticed by the press.

I wish these folks would send an undercover journalist to follow the folks at one of the ordinary, run of the mill, smallish churches of America, like mine.  And I wish they would follow the folks for a few days in their normal everyday lives.  What they would find is that most evangelical Christendom is made up of ordinary people, living ordinary lives, doing their best and trying to please God in the midst of it.  I have no doubt a reporter would probably uncover some sin and some greatness, but for the most part he wouldn't uncover much weirdness.  Then again, I guess such a story would probably be too boring to sell.

The Gospel in Ephesians 2

I'm preaching on Ephesians 3:14-21 - Paul's great prayer - this weekend.  Verse 14 begins with the words "for this reason," which tells you that what follows is predicated on what came before.  However, when you look at what came before you see the same Greek word in 3:1 that is also translated "for this reason" in the NIV.  This lets you know that, to understand the rationale behind what is said in those two sections (3:1-13 and 3:14-21) you need to look back into chapter 2. 

Without going into too much detail here I'll just say that Ephesians 2 gives a great description of the gospel.  And I thought I would share a few of my notes on this one for your review and study.

Here's a quick gospel outline from Ephesians 2

1. The Gift and Implications of Salvation - Ephesians 2:1-10

a. Our sin - Ephesians 2:1-3

1). Sinful nature - verse 1 (dead in trespasses and sins)

2). Sinful practice - verses 2-3 (followed the ways of this world, etc.)

3). Penalties of sin (children of wrath v. 3 - see also vv. 11-12 - exclusion from covenants of promise,without hope and without God in the world.

b. The remedy for our sin - Ephesians 2:4-10

1). The remedy for our sinful nature - verses 4-8 (made alive with Christ) - by implication this is contingent on the cross and resurrection).

2). The remedy for our sinful practice - verse 10 (created in Christ Jesus to do good works).

3). The remedy for the penalties of sin - verse 6 (seated in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, see also verse 13 - "brought near").

2. The Benefits of Salvation - Ephesians 2:11-22

a. Brought into citizenship in Israel, i.e. the kingdom of God - 2:13-20

b. And thereby heirs of the covenants of promise - verse 13

Excursus - what are the covenants of promise?  These are the promises to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, Genesis 15:4-7 and Genesis 17:3-8.  A quick summary of these promises:

1). A kingdom - Abraham promised to be the father of nations, the father of kings, we are members of the royal family in this kingdom.

2). A family - Abraham promised a seed, offspring - we are his offspring, we have a new family relationship.

3). A land - Abraham was promised the land of Canaan which Jesus expands to include the whole earth - we are the inheritors of a new heaven and new earth for eternity.

4). A mission - to be a blessing to all the people of the earth.

I found this helpful and expansive in thinking about the gospel.  Sin is defined more broadly than mere action - it is our nature.  The work of Christ pays not only the penalty but crushes the power of sin, thus it has day to day relevance to Christian practice.  And the benefits of the gospel are so much more than just forgiveness of sin or eternal life.

It might also be a useful discussion to ask if being "on mission" is an inherent result of believing the gospel.  In other words we understand that being a member of the people of God is a necessary result of believing the gospel, having eternal life is a necessary result of believing the gospel, so wouldn't "being a blessing" to the nations be a necessary result also?

(And let me offer a commercial here - I mentioned a few days ago about my new found love for Logos software as a result of going to Camp Logos.  I don't claim that any of what I just shared is earth-shattering, just hopefully helpful - but Logos has some pretty cool syntax analysis tools which are helping me see connections and relationships in passages I didn't see before, and some of that has come into play here).

So where is the most "strategic" place to live?

But before you go any further in this post let's get something straight - I am not necessarily disagreeing with Tim Keller, or Hugh Hewitt, or Os Guinness or Rodney Stark or other people like that who have pointed out the vital importance of taking the gospel to the power centers of our world.  I might be disagreeing, but then again I might not . . . I'm just saying.

As we were discussing these guys all have a point - it can be fairly easily shown that the apostle Paul took the gospel to the great city centers of the ancient world.  This turned out to be good strategery, because as the gospel captured the cities it filtered out to the countryside.

Still, you have to admit that Will Willimon has a point.  Now again, I'm not trying to start something here, and don't hold it against him that he's a methodist (shh!) and please don't tell the folks at presbytery that I am having cyber-fellowship with a guy who's an arminian, maybe even a wesleyan-arminian - but he kinda makes sense when he says:

One might have thought that Jesus would do something effective.  If you want to have maximum results, don't waste your time talking to the first person whom you meet on the street, figure out a way to get to the movers and the shakers, the influential and the newsmakers, those who have some power and prestige.  If you really want to promote change, go to the top . . .

But Jesus?  He didn't go up to the palace, the White House, the Kremlin, or Downing Street.   (Jesus never got on well with politicians.)  Jesus went outback, back to Galilee.

Why Galilee?   Nobody special lived in Galilee, nobody except the followers of Jesus.  Us.

The resurrected Christ comes back to, appears before the very same rag tag group of failures who so disappointed him, misunderstood him, forsook him and fled into the darkness.  He returns to his betrayers.  He returns to us.

Feeble attempts at humor notwithstanding - Willimon raises some issues worth pondering.  I do think that some of the best kingdom work being done today is being done in city-centers like New York and other places like it.  And I do buy the rationale of Keller and others who point to Paul's example for their emphasis on the city.  At the same time, the example of Jesus suggests we ought not to write off the potential of those out of the way places.

One of the interesting points of commonality between Willimon here and Keller and others is their decisive "non-power" orientation.  Willimon makes the point that Jesus didn't go for the power centers.  The same methodology works for Keller and the others in New York.  They are counter-cultural in that they live in the power-centers and refuse to make power-grabs.

Maybe the "strategic" issue is not so much the location where you live but the orientation by which you live wherever you live?

Thoughts anyone?

Just Reading the Bible, eh?

Stop me if you've heard this one before:

“My theology is simply what I read in the Bible.”

Sure it is.

“What I believe and practice is simply what the Bible teaches and nothing else.”

That's how Michael Spencer started this post, which deals with those who claim to read the bible as a blank slate, minus any presuppositions.  Michael also says this:

If I ever tell you that all I do is just read the Bible, then believe and do what it says, you have permission to laugh at me. Pay a small fee and you can smack me and say “What’s the matter with you?”

I’m an iceberg, an onion, a mystery. I’m complex and rarely insightful into myself. Thousands of experiences co-exist in me at the same time. I’m a library of presuppositions and passively accepted versions of the truth. When I write a post, preach a sermon, respond in a conversation or give advice to a student, I am anything but simple. I’m complex and only partially aware of that complexity.

This doesn’t mean I can’t understand the simple statements of the Bible or believe and act on them with integrity. It does mean that I need to stop talking about myself as if I am a blank slate, and begin accepting myself as a human being.

Michael rightly argues that those who say such things don't understand human nature.  I think we can go a few steps further and say that the bible itself gives us reason to believe that no one comes to the bible as a blank slate.

Here's a few biblical reasons why no one "just reads the bible."

1. The noetic effects of sin.

"Noetic" is a fancy word from the greek word "nous" which means "mind."  This means that sin affects our minds, thus our ability to comprehend truth is marred by sin.

2. The finiteness of man

Think of God as a big box full of stuff and man as a small box.  You can't get everything from the big box into the small box, the small box is simply not able to contain it.  Thus man's can't hold all truth.

3. The blur

I Corinthians 13:12 -  For now we see in a mirror indirectly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known.

4. Perspectivalism

I'm borrowing this term from John Frame and am probably using it in ways he wouldn't.  But think of the gospels - the same story of the same Jesus told from four different perspectives.  We know that Jesus was one person who lived one life, yet this one life is recorded in four different ways, with each recording bearing the marks of the individual author.  These marks include personality, vocabulary, social/cultural setting and intended audience among others.

So if the process of writing scripture is influenced by the personal experience of the author, why should it surprise us if we insist that the understanding of Scripture is influenced by the experience of the reader?

This doesn't negate the truthfulness or trustworthiness of the Scripture in any way, but it does negate the pride of the "Scripture reader" who thinks he comes to the Scriptures with a blank slate and is thus more "pure" than the rest of us.

Would You Rather Record Your Experience or Experience Your Experience?

Here's an interesting post by Kottke that expresses a dilemma I have experienced from time to time:

Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen occasionally asks his readers to suggest topics for him to write about. Stump the polymath, as it were. I posted a suggestion that I'd been wondering about recently:

Is taking a photo or video of an event for later viewing worth it, even if it means more or less missing the event in realtime? What's better, a lifetime of mediated viewing of my son's first steps or a one-time in-person viewing?

and he answered it today:

If you take photos you will remember the event more vividly, if only because you have to stop and notice it. The fact that your memories will in part be "false" or constructed is besides the point; they'll probably be false anyway. In other words, there's no such thing as the "one-time in-person viewing," it is all mediated viewing, one way or the other. Daniel Gilbert's book on memory is the key source here.

I've had the same question and I am not sure there is a one size fits all answer.  Cowan's point is correct and well taken.  I believe the book by Daniel Gilbert he speaks of is "Stumbling on Happiness," and it is well worth the read and will support Cowan's point that our memory isn't all we remember it to be.

At the same time, when you take a picture, either a still photograph or moving video, you focus on a frame, which means you select a small segment of reality to capture and crop out a good deal of reality.  To see the beautiful or the interesting in one frame necessarily means you will miss much that is interesting or beautiful from outside the frame. 

In terms of art that is ok - in fact that is a good part of what makes a good artist - the ability to see and frame objects in "artistic" ways.

But let's suppose you are at the beach and a beautiful sailboat leisurely glides by a few hundred yards off the beach.  As you grab your camera and do all the things you need to do to frame the perfect shot(s) you will experience the joy of getting a good photo.  But while doing this you will cease to contemplate and enjoy the experience of the warm sun beaming down on you, that enticing smell of the "salty" air, the melodic sounds of pelicans and the refreshing feel of the cool water on your feet.  To be sure, all of those other things still exist, but they don't register to you as long as you are so focused on getting the picture.  Your experience of the sailboat may be enhanced to the detriment of your "total beach experience."

Still, some things beg to be captured on film and this prolongs the joy, and as Cowan points out, may provide for more accurate memories in the long run.  We simply must make the choice in any given situation whether it is more valuable to capture the experience or experience the experience.

Camp Logos

Now as to where I've been these last several days and why I haven't been blogging.

Part of it is the same old stuff - life is busy and so on and so forth, yada, yada, yada.

But the good part of it is that I have been at Camp Logos.  What is Camp Logos you say?

Camp Logos is a program put on by a gentleman named Morris Proctor of Morris Proctor Seminars that teaches you how to use the Logos/Libronix Bible software.  I went to Camp 1 in Brooklyn, NY last week and am currently at Camp 2 in Philadelphia.  I can't come up with enough superlatives to describe how valuable this training has been and I can't say enough good about Morris, his wife Cindy and Morris's right hand man, Art.  The training I have received from them will pay off for years to come.

I have been using Logos and building a Logos library for over ten years now and have found it to be very helpful.  I do most of my sermon prep in Logos and a good deal of extra study.  But I doubt that I used 10% of it's capabilities.  I know this sounds like a paid commercial, but it's not - Morris has said, and I agree, that if you know how to use Logos software it will take you deeper into the bible than you have ever gone, and faster than you would believe.  Morris says that people get skeptical when he says this, but it is true.

In fact, Camp 1 was last Thursday and Friday.  During that camp I picked up a few tidbits which caused me to go back and re-write a good deal of my sermon this past Sunday, but I am glad I did - I preached on a familiar passage and was able to bring some things out of the text that I probably would have missed otherwise.  One of our long term members, who grew up in church as a pastor's son and who is very biblically and theologically astute told me he had never heard that particular passage opened up that way. 

So my Logos fanhood has kicked up several notches.  I strongly encourage anyone who studies the bible to get the Logos software, begin building a library, and then go to one of Morris Proctor's seminars as soon as possible.

End of commercial . . .

Carbohydrates are the only macronutrients we don't need to eat

It's been awhile since I blogged on things related to diet and health.  For those of you who may be new to the blog, my interest in this comes from my attempts to lose weight over the past year.  I've lost 55 lbs using the low carb approach and so I'm a big advocate of the whole low-carb way of life.

I realize there are some folks out there who can eat a moderate amount of carbs and remain healthy.  I spent over 30 years eating tons of carbs, became grossly overweight and had to take a little bit more extreme action.

Still, whenever I talk low-carb, the vast majority of people I talk to are skeptical.  Most folks are happy for me that I have lost weight on this approach but they also think it is basically unhealthy and that I am playing with fire.  This is why I keep close tabs on Jimmy Moore's Livin La-Vida Low Carb blog because Jimmy is the most tenacious low-carb researcher on the internet and the more he writes the more I see that there is a scientific avalanche of evidence supporting the health benefits of the low-carb lifestyle. 

Today I'll call your attention to a post he did on some Swedish doctors and researchers who have commented on the health benefits of a low-carb lifestyle.  The thing to note is that a diet high in (natural) fats and low in carbs is a preferred diet.  Here's a few pull-quotes from the post:

Annika Dahlqvist:  I recommend healthy people eat liberal amounts of natural fat. Then they automatically consume less carbohydrates because they have normal appetite regulation.

Lars-Erik Litsfeldt: Carbohydrates are the only macronutrients we don't need to eat.

Andreas Eenfeldt:  It is my opinion that healthy persons who don't feel they need to lose weight should exclude sugar from their diet. The rest of the carbohydrates ought to be natural and not refined--that is carbs with a low glycemic index.

Johanna Söderlund: Many proportions can work well, but most people would get the best health if they had an intake of 40–60% fat, 20–30% protein and 10–20% carbohydrates.

Sten Sture Skaldeman: No, nobody can feel bad from eating a low-carbohydrate diet, except for the first two first weeks. When we are adapted to operating on fat for fuel, the need for carbohydrates is zero. (No, a low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) diet is not for everyone. It demands people have both willpower and intelligence.)

Read the rest.

Dan Phillips on Accountability

I'm pretty nervous about anyone trying to "reign-in" bloggers or provide extra accountability.  I frequently hear the complaint that anyone with a computer can say anything they want and this is a real problem - there is no peer review in the blogosphere, there is no way of vetting posts and opinions.  So, from time to time there are questions about how we can best filter posts.

Maybe I've gotten too enamored with the whole democratization thing, but suggestions like the above seem to me to be the wrong road. I think Dan Phillips hits the nail on the head on this whole thing.  He says that accountability for bloggers ought to come from the normal church authorities and channels and he mentions that the very public nature of the blogosphere provides a built-in accountability.  And ultimately, the fear of God is the greatest source of accountability.  Here's a few pull quotes worthy of your consideration:

So I think it would be perfectly appropriate for a pastor to read his sheep's blogs insofar as he is able to do so, or at least to check on occasion to make sure that the blogger is representing Christ faithfully. After all, as I mean to develop in another post, blogging is indeed a stewardship with some attendant formidable responsibilities.

Blog, and everybody hears you — or at any rate everyone can. It is right out there in public, all of it, for God and everyone to see, analyze, fact-check, pick over, misrepresent, treasure, slander, repeat, steal, discuss, debate, and any other appropriate verb you might choose.

I know that any fair-minded reader can examine what I said, and decide for himself — up, down, or sideways.

And if they're not fair-minded? Oh well; wasn't going to win them anyway.

If I did in fact say something foolish and/or irresponsible and/or stupid, they can tell everyone. Everyone. On this blog, on their blog, on anyone's blog. Forever, until I die or am hounded off the scene in shame, known only as "Oh-yes-Dan-Phillips,-that-pinhead-who-____." . . . How's that for accountability?

And besides, ultimately, if the fear of God is insufficient motivation, then we have a problem not soluble by committee.

I couldn't agree more - read the whole thing.

I'm a Millionaire!!

Hey big good news here. This kind of snuck up on me, but I just looked at my sitemeter stats and while I was out today I went over the 1,000,000 visitors mark. That is really cool!

Many thanks to all of you who have read and are still reading this humble blog of mine. I wouldn't have imagined this when I started blogging four years ago so again, I thank all of you who have taken the time to stop by and I especially thank those of you who have kept reading over the long haul.

I hope my contributions have brought some encouragement and jolliness to you, and you have brought much of the same to me with your comments and friendship.

Cheers to all!

Snuggles & Gus

When we were in West Virginia recently visiting my cousins, one of the best parts of the trip was playing with their dogs, Snuggles and Gus.  These are pics of Snuggles and Gus with a few of the rest of us thrown in.  Snuggles is the Sharpei and Gus is the boxer.  Our cousins mentioned that Sharpei's are known for having a less than friendly temperament and being very wiry, and not very cuddly. Snuggles never got the memo - she's about as friendly and as cuddly as a dog could be.  She played with us at the house and accompanied us on hikes in the mountains. Gus is a little more skiddish, but once you get to know Gus, he's great too.  He likes women more than men and he has a chair which he will share with you, whether you like it or not.  There's a pic in here of him and the Jollette.