A New Year's Resolution

Well, over the last four months since we started this blog, I have come to a conclusion: I am not Tim Challies. Not only do I not have the time or ability to write the lengthy articles that he is known for every day, I can't even post more than once a month. And since Josh went on a prolonged media fast in November, he hasn't been able to post anything either. For these reasons, I apologize for being a lousy blogger. This, therefore, is my New Year's resolution for this blog:

I hereby resolve to post something at least once a week.

No more with not posting unless the article could become a small book. I am committed to getting something onto this blog every week, preferably twice a week. With the way my schedule works, it appears as though the most likely times for me posting will be Monday and Friday. I don't know when the next time Josh will be posting is, but I hope it's soon.

One big thing I will be contributing is a feature called Odds and Ends that I already do on my Xanga. In the spirit of Tim Challies' A La Carte, I will link to interesting articles, videos, and other web content I've found over the week. I hope everyone enjoys them as much as I do.

Since I'm already running out of time for today, I'll leave you with this excerpt from Mark Dever's The Message of the Old Testament--Promises Made, from the chapter on Judges:

"When your state is genuinely desperate, it's good to know it. So once Adam and Eve had sinned and earned God's wrath, it was imperative for them to realize this. When God cast them out of the Garden, therefore, he was, in effect, mercifully giving them the opportunity to see that they could not save themselves. And as they saw their offspring die, they began to perceive that their own predicament affected all their descendents.

God then called Abraham to show Abraham and his descendents that he is a promise-making and promise-keeping God. But could Abraham's own faith save all is descendents? No, all the great patriarchs died.

God then gave the people of Israel his law and his priests. Did he do this in order to save them through his law and his priests? No, but he taught them more about his own holy character and their own sin. And he taught them that neither the law nor merely human priests and animal sacrifices could save them.

God then gave them judges. Did he do this so that these judges would save them? No, but these judges taught them more about God's power and authority. They also taught the people that a mere human judge could not save them.

After the judges, God would give the people what they would begin clamoring for in 1 Samuel: a king. Would he give them a line of kings so that the kings would save them? No, but eh kings would teach the people still more about God by foreshadowing the kind of rule God would ultimately assum with his people. And the kings taught them that a merely human king would never save them.

God would also give the prophets to his people. Would he do this so that he prophets would save them? No, but the prophets would teach still more about God and his words. And they would teach the people that a mere human prophet could not save them.

God would let his sinful people, who were determined not to rely on him, rely on every other possible means, until every other possible means was exhausted. Finally, they would learn that the only one who could save them was God himself, and then they would turn to him."