Odds and Ends

So this is the first installment of this on HoldFast (although I've been doing it for several weeks over on my Xanga). Here's what the deal is: Tim Challies' A La Carte is one of my favorite places to go every morning to try and find something interesting that I otherwise would not have found. So I thought I'd put together my own. These are links to articles, videos, news flashes, and other such things around the blogosphere that I have collected over the week. This first installment is pretty hefty--there was a lot of good stuff this week! Enjoy.

Serious:

• I'll tell you what: I was going to get an iPod for graduation, but maybe I'll just get one of these babies. Here's a good press release for it, too. Will Mac's wonders never cease? (HT John Benefiel)
• Calvinists and Arminians argue about "Limited" versus "Unlimited" atonement, but Trevin Wax explains why they both miss the point. (HT Tim Challies)
• Mark Lauterbach at GospelDrivenLife has decided to stop viewing himself as a sinner. Wait, what? Before you judge, he has a very good point. Hear him out.
• If any of you missed Bush's address to the nation about Iraq a few nights ago, Justin Taylor has a very helpful breakdown of the speech into Q&A.
• Tim Challies meditates on accepting our "zealous immaturity" in the same way we accept a gift from a young child.
• The Thirsty Theologian posts his thoughts on what free will is and whether we have it. What he has to say lines up exactly with Jonathan Edward's definition: "the ability to do what one pleases." Excellent for those struggling with this issue.

Other:

• Dan Philips, like myself, has little use for John McCain, but this video he posted is both hilarious and makes a great point. Props to McCain!
• My favorite humor blog posted these nation mottos that made me laugh out loud. "France's motto: At least we have good food." HA!
• I knew women had good memories, but a perfect memory? This kind of creeps me out, actually. (HT Justin Taylor)
• After watching this video, I feel totally prepared to go be a better golfer.
• And Funny Class Notes (yes, they make a lot of appearances here) has posted two very funny and very convicting articles: Up with the Mission, Down with the Troops and Raising the Minimum Wage. Boy are they good.

Quotes:

• I read a marvelous essay by George Orwell this week called "Politics and the English Language" for my English class. The crux of the essay, which I'd encourage you to read in order to understand how politicians are able to twist language to their purpose, is contained in these two short sentences. Read and be enlightened:
  
  "What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender to them."
  
• Once again, Mark Dever strikes close to home in his chapter on 1 Samuel.
  
  "Some people desire to impress you with themselves....Others leave you impressed with their God."
  
  Am I like Saul, trying to impress everyone? Or am I like David, trying to make everyone impressed by my God? It's something to really think about.

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."