World Class Apologists

iBible- the bible for the 'future'

The next time you wish you could trade you paper bible for an electronic version....

The Best Christian Blogs all in one place!

My Christian Blogs is a website that links some of the best Christian blogs on the Internet, and in the words on the 'About' the website page it sates that it is "a new way to track all the best blogs for Christians in one place." A good idea indeed. So check it out. And you can also apply for your blog to be linked on the site as well!

The BioLogos Foundation

Website:
The BioLogos Foundation

Description:
This is a website fostering discussions on faith and science and founded by Dr Francis Collins who wrote "The Language of God". The website is seeking to "promotes the search for truth in both the natural and spiritual realms, and seeks to harmonize these different perspectives", which I find commendable because rarely do we see the engagement of faith and science converging together. One of the things that caught my attention (which is the first place i click on a website) is the resource page. There you can find links to online journals and essays, websites on science and faith, lectures and presentations, resources for those who want to teach on the subject as well as a list of relevant books on this field of study. All in all a great website.

Resources on Atonement

I find these resources/articles on atonement to be of great help for information and also helping us construct some valuable thoughts on atonement. Just click on the link.

THE UNLIKELY DISCIPLE: A Sinner’s Semester at America's Holiest University

This book by Kevin Roose sound interesting. The book is entitled, "THE UNLIKELY DISCIPLE: A Sinner’s Semester at America's Holiest University", which i should add does has the capacity to catch our attention. I enjoyed the video and if there was a possibility I'd get my hands on the book for sure. I'm just curious. You can check his website.

InterVarsity Press interviews Wright and a book

I was browsing InterVarsity Press' web page searching for book and I stumbled on this interview that N. T. Wright had with the publishers on his book "Justification". You can check the book out on the web page by clicking here and you can download free sample chapters from the book as well.

And while I'm on this, i might direct your attention to this book entitled "The Next Evangelicalism" by Soong-Chan Rah. What caught my attention was this piece of information about the book, "In this book professor and pastor Soong-Chan Rah calls the North American church to escape its captivity to Western cultural trappings and to embrace a new evangelicalism that is diverse and multiethnic." Scot Mcknight blurbed about the book as well (although i don't think that it would cause any commotion like the one he did for Wright). So, anything that McKnight endorses is worth reading. For more information go here.

Another Notable Blog: Our Reason For Being

Here is another blog that I think you would like. The blog is an exposition of reflections on the whole book of Ecclesiastes! I haven't read everything yet but I thought you all might find it helpful. The blog is Our Reason For Being.

A notable Blog

I thought you might like this link to a blog that i found very interesting although the subject matter of the blog is way over my area of expertise I should state. The blog is called "Narrative Ontology".

Uncertainties and the rumbles inside

Uncertainties can become a perplexing time period in life. It become the strain and the pull that mimics the tides that hit you every time you want to get up. Some recover but then some never do. It is at these junctures where people need help the most, it's where they need community, where they are vulnerable, where they want people to just accept the thoughts and fears that they have. The vulnerabilities deplete as soon as they are people who try to douse the flames of perplexities with unsympathetic God talk. Sometimes i think this is unnecessary to a degree. Counseling the emotional state is a daunting task to say the least, but we do need more compassionate listeners as well as wisdom, for them to be able to give direction. Well anyway just some random stuff that I'm thinking about.

Eating For the Glory of God

The picture you are seeing above is a local delicacy among Malaysians (at least in Borneo); chicken feet. Me and my dad were cooking dinner and one of the main dishes was chicken feet, prepared by deep frying and after that thrown into the pressure cooker for a couple of minutes so that it's nice and soft. I usually frequent other blogs that display food that were bought and rarely food that were cooked. Have you ever tasted chicken feet?

Anyway while eating I remembered the time when I was in bible school and at the end of each semester we were posted to different places in the state, mostly rural areas. There was this one time, during my first year, I was sent to minister in a oil palm plantation area. I stayed with the pastor who was ministering among the people there for three weeks. I got a few shots at preaching in Bahasa Malaysia (our national language) although people there preferred another local dialect (Iban).

The highlight of the three weeks of ministry was where I had to 'eat for the glory of God'. Although being Malaysian, I can't say that I eat everything a native Malaysian eats. I got a chance of trying out a monitor lizard dish. And like I always hear in TV about how stuff taste like, the lizard tasted like chicken. (the picture below was not the actual picture of the lizard).

OK, I had no problem eating the lizard but the challenge came when some Indonesian workers prepared a special dish for me. Prepared with spices, cooked to look like a Malaysian dish called rendang (see the picture below to see how rendang looks like; usually people cook rendang using beef or chicken but for )...


...So the Indonesian brothers in Christ made it clear to me what they were going to prepare; an Indonesian dish prepared that had the 'rendang' look only differing in substance used. Instead of beef or chicken they used dog meat! According to them a dog with infected skin disease is the perfect candidate for the pan but thankfully the one they prepared had none of that, I think (I never saw how exactly they prepared it or the dog). What they did was beat the dog to death after putting 'man's best friend' in a sack. Cruel.

As far as I can say, the taste of the dish was like any rendang that I tasted (spicy) but I can't seem to get the thought of eating dog meat. Well for the sake of these wonderful Christian brethren who went to great lengths to prepare this for me I simply couldn't turn them down. Echoing the heading of the post, there are times where we simply have to eat for the glory of God!

Blog Worth?

It says here that this is how much my blog is worth. I probably have to work harder at it to make it worth more. Haha.

My blog is worth $2,822.70.
How much is your blog worth?

Stuff Worth waiting for...They will eventually arrive ...soon

King and Messiah as Son of God by by Adela Yarbro Collins & John J. Collins

Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision by N. T. Wright

Death by Paper Cuts

This article by Skye Jethani raises my level of respect for Rob Bell. I remember a few months ago I introduced my brother with this hip Pastor named Rob Bell. When I said introduced, it was in the form of introducing him to his material (wish it was in person though), two DVDs which I purchased ("Everything is Spiritual" & "The Gods aren't Angry"). I was glad my brother liked the guy and saw him looking him up in the internet. My brother was surprised why people are so critical of him. I explained some issues which people seem to poke him on but I must say some are quite harsh. I am not defending Bell here but I found the article above really explains the depth to this pastor. In the article you will find pastors can get hurt by criticism, Rob is no exception. You will also find how Rob deals with this.

Any thoughts about the article?

Proper Treatment of Monsters according to a 3year Old

Postchristianity.com

I was on the internet, surfing around and found out that a post of mine being on a post-christian site (you can see it here). Here is a little excerpt about the site

"Postchristianity.com exists to document the secularization of America from the perspective of former Christians. We believe this cultural shift to be natural and positive and see the recent shedding of our religious beliefs as an opportunity to form and unify our transitional generation."

There are some interesting stuff on the site. It is mainly a critique done by those who were apart of the christian scene on Christianity hence post-christian (for those who don't know about post-Christianity). I'm not promoting the site (so that you don't misinterpret me). But for those who want a feel of what former Christians are critiquing Christianity it's a place to discover their arguments.

Anyway I was just wondering how on earth one of my post out of the millions got picked. And for starters I'm not an American for them to reflect on my views (I'm not complaining though :) ). The oddities! Well, I will be on the site to generate some comments.

Bible Sofware Giveaway...(Meaning it's free!)

I just got this information from a blog on an great giveaway. Books totaling USD $ 6,100 which is compressed in the confinement of a software (USD $630.00) is being given away free in a contest from this blog link.

Here is what you need to do

1. Leave a comment of your favorite bible verse or passage (follow the link given above).
2. Blog about the giveaway in your blog.
3. Closing for the giveaway: "This giveaway will run until midnight on Saturday (12:00 am Saturday AM CST)"

For more detail simply follow the link. As for me the verse that I posted on the comment box was this:

My favorite verse (out of the whole host of verses): Jn 11:35-Jesus wept.This is probably the shortest of all the verses in the bible. It’s meaningful to me because this is where divinity wrapped in/with humanity showed the face of compassion, indignation, pain, anguish, and horror of humanity struggle with sin and death. I find this a constant reminder that God did have a face to show he cared…the picture of God feeling our anguish.

Anyway I hope you join in the giveaway!

Apple's 'No Keyboard' Laptop!

If you are an Apple fan you might know the release date of this cool / woeful product! A Laptop without a keyboard. Believe it...



Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

What was your stress level in 2008?

Got this stress level test from Troy Hamby's blog. Thought I tried my shot at it to see how last year scaled and sure enough I got my score 371! according to the test those who scored more than 300, the likeliness of being sick or getting in an accident is 80%! Good thing the year ended without those things happening. OK I got the occational flue and was down with a virus (the worst for me, took me about 4 days to recover!), but there were no accidents (Thank God...well there were moments but they didn't happen). Care to take the test?

The Voice (NT)

Just something I would like to recommend to you all out there. I bought this bible a few months back "the Voice (New Testament)" and found out that I really like this particular bible a lot. Not that the other translations are bad just that this bible t has a fresh approach to it.

Some of the features...

1. It has this new screenplay format that is just wonderful. Sort of like reading lines off a script for a play. See for yourself:

2. It has some short commentary boxes which are helpful. There are some neat facts or background details coupled with some devotional thought on a passage which I found helpful while reading a particular book (gospel, epistle).



3. It's a new translation. Not one that is literal but it's a sort of a "retelling" as ascribed by a reviewer of the bible on Amazon. (Brian Baute's gives a balanced review of "the Voice").

Anyway If you are considering to get a new translation of the bible which is readable (well this particular one is only in New Testament at the moment) the I would recommend "the Voice" as an ideal choice. As of now, I'm currently reading through Romans. It's good to have another addition to my bulky collection of bible translation. ;).

Check out the official website of the Voice as well, and download a sample: The Gospel of John in PDF!