Goodbye Thunderbird. This summer I switched from Microsoft Outlook to Mozilla Thunderbird for all my e-mail, calendar, etc. needs. I enjoyed using what seems to me at least to be a much better and friendlier application. Anticipating the day when I will return to school, I realized that I need to get my PocketPC back into the fray, since it has been sitting idle during the (comparatively) non-busy summer. That means that I had to switch from Thunderbird back to Outlook if I want to sync my e-mail, address book, calendar, and tasks. No longer will I be plagued by Thunderbird’s ease of use, security, RSS support, flawless LDAP support, flawless IMAP support, speed, gravatar support, smart spam filters, intelligent address book, iCal support . . . Instead I will be blessed by Outlook’s slowness, stubbornness, and frequent error messages. And I got to spend far too much time making Outlook work again. Until the day that Pocket Thunderbird appears (may it be soon), so it must be. But if you are at all able, get Thunderbird for yourself:

That paragraph may have sounded like a complaint. Actually, having my personal secretary back to help me will be well worth going back to Outlook. And Outlook does have some good features that Thunderbird just can’t match (yet). Especially beneficial is that Outlook and Novell Groupwise (the standard at BJU) seem to be much more compatible now. I don’t how that is (a benison upon the BJU IT department), but it takes away one of my major difficulties in working with Outlook. So I guess I’m an Outlook fan after all.

More substantial posts about Brockton, church history, and maybe the apostolic fathers coming soon.

Tomorrow the teenagers and I leave for North Baptist Church of Brockton, Massachusetts to do kids’ clubs and a vacation Bible school. Please pray this week. Since I believe God wants us to be specific when we pray to Him, I’ll be specific in asking for these prayer requests:

• Pray above all that people would accept Jesus as Saviour.
• Pray that the Holy Spirit would be working in the spirits of those to whom we talk. Pray that He would be working in our spirits as well.
• Pray for the spiritual growth of those who have already accepted Christ.
• Pray that our minds will always be on serving Christ, not on ourselves.
• Pray that the teenagers and I would teach and preach clearly and accurately and Scripturally.
• Pray that we would be an encouragement to the people and pastor of North Baptist Church.
• Pray that the weather would be good for the outdoor clubs and that the managers of the neighborhoods would allow us to stay.
• Pray that in everything we do Christ would be glorified.

This is an aerial photo of the thousands of people who live less than one-third of a mile from the church. Pray for them:

Ever since I learned what one is, I have wanted a wiki. I could install the MediaWiki software on this site, but there is one problem: I have no need for a wiki. Therefore, I am offering a reward to anyone who can come up with a viable reason for me to have a wiki.

Tonight in the Bible doctrines class Mr. Dearth asked about the relationship between the use of the word salvation in the New Testament and its use in the Old Testament, specifically how the concept of salvation seems to be affected by progressive revelation. This paper doesn’t answer that question directly, but it does relate to the use of the word salvation in Acts and the Septuagint (a translation of the Old Testament into Greek). [Read more »]

Silly? Yes. But fun? Absolutely. Check out Google Moon. When you’re done there, check out Google Earth, which is now free. Also of interest: Google Sets (which is much smarter than I am); Google Scholar.

This is a satellite photograph of the church from Google Earth:

A fair number of fundamentalists / evangelicals are familiar with such books as Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ or John Stott’s Why I Am a Christian. Such books detail the conversions of those who have accepted Christ.

The books with which we may not be familiar, however, are such books as Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian. [Read more »]

Today the Church Fathers came via UPS: The Ante-Nicene Fathers, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series One, and The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series Two. They were given to me by my father. It will probably take me at least until I’m done with graduate school to finish all thirty-eight volumes. “Why bother reading them?” you ask. [Read more »]

Tomorrow morning I will be preaching on the providence of God. My sermon will be an adaptation of a paper that I wrote last winter for a class at BJU. My hope is that the sermon, being intended to apply Bible truth and not just analyze Bible truth, will have the greater impact. Nevertheless, I include the paper for those who choose to read it. A sermon is not a paper, and a paper is not a sermon, so perhaps the sermon and the paper can complement one another.

“The Providential Direction of God in Post-Exilic Judaism”

I would also like to include the poem by George Herbert entitled “Providence.” Perhaps the poet can explain the truth of God’s providence in a way that I cannot. [Read more »]