The Conservative Resurgence

In the middle of the last century, Southern Baptist Convention leadership and academicians strayed from God's truth into heresy. If left unchecked, the entire convention, including the people in the pews, would have eventually followed. Dr. Al Mohler summarizes the conservative resurgence, which led the Convention back to truth, in a review of a booklet by Dr. Paige Patterson. If you're not familiar with the resurgence, this is a quick and interesting overview of the last 26 years.

Greek

I've finished three days of koine Greek, which is equal to three weeks of Greek in a normal semester. Now it's getting hard. Greek is a fully-inflected language, which means they change the endings of both nouns and verbs in order to show things like the case, gender, and number. So for example, the verb "lego" means "I say," but it changes to "legomen" to mean "we say." You have to memorize all those endings. Similarly, the noun "ha doulos" is "the servant" if it's the subject of the sentence (e.g., The servant pokes.), but it changes to "ton doulon" if it's the direct object (e.g., I poke the servant). If you change that to the plural (e.g., I poke the servants), it changes again to "tous doulous." You have to memorize all those endings as well. Of course, it's actually much harder than this. I gave you the transliterated version (Roman alphabet); we have to learn it all using the Greek alphabet with all sorts of extra funny marks to denote things like accents and breathing marks.

Sample Greek lesson

Learning Greek's not impossible, but it certainly is hard work. But I'm really enjoying it. This will allow me to studying the New Testament in the original languages, something that's very important for pastors to be able to do. One job of the pastor (literally shepherd in the Greek) is to protect the flock from doctrinal errors; to do that well, you have to know the original language the Bible was written in.

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences

Last week we took the kids to the see Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh. It was a nice, four-story museum with lots learn about animals, plants, weather, dinosaurs, and so on. It was very well done, had many hands-on stations, and best of all was free! It was well worth our time.

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences

Memorial Day

This was a family day for the Garriss clan. The ladies took Brandon and Emmy to a park to play and have a picnic lunch.



Dad and I took Jacen fishing out in the Chesapeake Bay. We were fishing for flounder, but mostly caught croaker -- 25 in all! Jacen caught one all by himself. When we got home, Dad cleaned the boat while Jacen and I cleaned fish; I taught him to scale them. Much fun.



For dinner Karen treated us to a delicious meal at her house, which we topped off with a game of Tongiaki. It was a very nice holiday, over all too soon.

Scooter

We went home to Dad's for the Memorial Day weekend, which gave Uncle Eric and Aunt Karen a chance to give Emmy her birthday present -- a new scooter! Needless to say she gave it a spin right away.

New lesson posted

I've just posted a second lesson from 1st Corinthians. It could be helpful to use in a personal quiet time.

Finals Begone!

Well, I've survived my first semester in seminary. I took my fifth and last final exam this morning, and I'm glad to be done. I may have gotten all A's, depending upon how well a couple professors liked my papers. To celebrate we had a 7-player Halo 2 deathmatch in our living room this afternoon. Nice! Next on the calendar: 6 weeks of death-by-Greek.

No more classes

Yesterday was the last day of classes! The only thing left is final exams; I took one early yesterday, and the other 4 are next week. Overall I have thoroughly enjoyed my first semester of seminary. There is so much to learn, and most professors are really good at forcing me to re-examine God's Word to determine what I really believe (absolute truth cannot be determined experientially). Most of what I believed has been reaffirmed by my studies, but some viewpoints have been altered. There have also been a number of issues I just never considered before (e.g., what does it say if a seminary student preparing for the pastorate decides to accept welfare?). Next on the menu after finals: death-by-Greek! I'm taking 6 weeks of Biblical Greek (the original language of the New Testament) during summer school. Can you say "firehose?"

StudyMatch

A lot of the tests here at Seminary are short answer tests. One common way to study is to buy a pile of index cards, write the question on one side and the answer on the other, and then flip through them repeatedly until you learn them. Being the fiscally conservative (read: cheap) kind of guy that I am, I decided to write a piece of software that does this for me. For those who don't know, I used to write a fair amount of software while working at my previous employer, The MITRE Corporation. I wasn't a great programmer, but I was good enough to write this.

"StudyMatch is a simple application that mimics flash cards, where the question is on one side and the answer is on the other. It supposed to help you study for tests and quizzes, and it lends itself best to matching, true/false, short answer, and short list types of questions."

Download StudyMatch from my new software page.

Read the readme file; it will explain everything. If you have suggestions for improvements, please let me know: james @ garriss.org

Emmy's Birthday

Emmy turned four last weekend; my how time flies. We had a small party at a nearby park with some of her friends. Below she's opening some new accessories for her favorite bear, Peggy.

Dr. Al Mohler's Radio Program

I've recently discovered Al Mohler's radio program. Dr. Mohler is the president of Southern Seminary, as well as a theologian and cultural commentator. The program is billed as "your place for intelligent Christian conversation about the issues that matter." He makes some comments on current news, then tackles a current cultural issue from a Biblical point of view. You can listen online or download the program as a free MP3.

His website
His radio program

1 Corinthians Study Guide

I've started a study in 1st Corinthians. As I've studied, I've prepared a study guide with reading and questions (and even answers). If you're looking for something to help you study and learn God's Word, feel free to use it. I'll post a new guide every other week or so. Look for the link under the "Bible" section or click here.

Across the River

I wonder how many parents find themselves across the river from their children.

"This mother expressed it well when she said, 'It is as if we are standing on opposite sides of a river from them, and are looking across and desperately longing to be together'...Parents and children share a house, but live separate lives with separate activities, separate entertainment, separate work, and separate goals. Parents confine their children, constrain their children, and control their children, but fail to fellowship with them."

If you want to know how to fellowship with your children, read this excellent article (particularly the first half) from Michael Pearl.

Living Parallel Lives in the Same Space

Boring Church?

Is attending the worship service of your church boring? Perhaps your church isn't the problem; perhaps your worship of God is. Read Drawing Near to God, an article by John MacArthur on worship.

Adoniram Judson

Adoniram was the first US overseas missionary. I just finished reading his biography, To the Golden Shore by Courtney Anderson. The book is a wonderful read, tracing his story from his father (a pastor) through to his death in Burma. For those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ, Adoniram's story forces us answer a question: what am I willing to give up to tell someone else about Jesus Christ? Adoniram's first and second wives and several of his children died on the mission field, yet he never quit the work God called him to. That is the stuff true believers in Jesus are made of. I highly recommend this book.

To the Golden Shore (CBD)