February’s Free Audiobook @ ChristianAudio

Adopted for Life

They do this every month, but I thought I’d post the link to this month’s selection: Adopted for Life by Russell D. Moore. Anna and I have quite a few friends who have pursued adoption (and we’ve batted the idea around ourselves), and I thought this book looked like a helpful overview of the issues for Christians considering the same.

Check out a video interview with the author here.

Check out a helpful review here.

Download the audiobook for free from here.  (I’ll have a post in the near future regarding how to go about adding these books to a Kindle in such a way that the device recognizes chapter breaks, tags, etc.)

Hmmm…

So, this is teaser post Tuesday or something.  Keep an eye on the site as I’ll be putting up a posting detailing a recent project of mine: a blank Bible!  I saw a similar project over at Tony Reinke’s blog and decided it would be a good way to put a no-longer-used ESV to better use.

In the meantime, wonder with me at the reality of this Masonic Bible, discovered during a recent visit to Half-Price Books.

This really exists. I'm not sure how or why.

At least it had some excellent drawings of Solomon’s Temple.

Grace & Peace,
Dan J.

Challies Reviews Hawking

If you’re interested, Tim Challies has an excellent review of Stephen Hawking’s new work right here.  I highly recommend it–too many people think Hawking’s Grand Design is a stunning rebuke to Christian beliefs, when in reality it’s little more than freshly packaged scientism.  I particularly enjoyed the following summary:

Finally, p.180 does offer an explanation of spontaneous creation. The conservation of energy means that universes can only be created from nothing if their net energy is zero, with negative gravitational energy balancing out the positive energy of matter and radiation. This necessitates that a law of gravity must exist. Because a law of gravity exists it must and will of itself create universes out of nothing (no reasoning given).

So gravity is God.

Enjoy,
Dan J.

Stetzer Interviews Patrick

Cross celebrating delivery from a plague, Szentendre, Hungary

Ed Stetzer recently interviewed author Darrin Patrick regarding his new book: Church Planter. This looks like a good read, and one which will prove helpful to folks in many mission-minded contexts outside of the “standard church planting ministry” (as if such a thing exists).

The following comment struck me as insightful and needed for many churches today:

Stetzer: How is contextualization not compromise?

Patrick: Good contextualization is not bringing the gospel to people on their terms. That would be compromise. Biblical contextualization is bringing the gospel to people with their terms. That is why we take our language about the gospel and forms of church that declare the gospel and we adapt them to be understandable to the cultures in which we find ourselves.  (emphasis mine)

I think this distinction makes most of the difference.  When a church is willing to give up a long-held culture for the sake of the Gospel, it’s not out of a desire to appease, entertain, or placate a crowd, but rather out of an understanding that the intended audience will never hear the shocking Gospel as long as it is communicated in terms and forms that they just don’t understand.

Hit the link (here) for the rest of the brief interview.

Grace & Peace,
Dan J.

A Brief Note for Readers

Homer's Iliad, Summarized

So, graphic designer Jason Huff used the “Auto-Summarize” function of Microsoft Word 2008 to reduce the 100 most-downloaded public domain works into ten simple sentences.  ”Auto-Summarize” works as follows:

“Word has examined the document and picked the sentences most relevant to

the main theme.” – Word 2008

As you can imagine, this has delivered some humorous results.  I particularly like Homer’s Iliad, which is pictured to the right.  Head on over to his site to see the rest of the results.

Or, if you prefer to read many of the entire works.  Planet eBooks has prepared and formatted 80 classic works into free-to-download-and-distribute PDF formats.  You can find their entire catalog here.

Read on,
Dan J.

A Brief Note for Moviegoers

Grant Horner has a new book entitled “Meaning at the Movies” which looks like an interesting read.  Given my desire to encourage Christians to study art, particularly television and film, I’m looking forward to reading and reviewing it soon.

Crossway describes it as follows:

Meaning at the Movies: Becoming a Discerning Viewer

Hollywood produces, packages, and sells hundreds of movies every year. Many of these movies propagate a distorted sense of morality and ethics. Under the surface of immoral behavior and unlawfulness, however, there can be deeper problems in Hollywood’s messages. What are these stories telling the viewer about life, relationships, and God? What worldviews and ideas do they espouse? If Christians are to tread carefully at the theater complex, they need resources to help them.

This book is just such a resource. By exploring the relationship between Christianity and art, the theology of biblical discernment, and a brief history of filmmaking, as well as through analysis of popular films, Meaning at the Movies equips readers for careful discernment in the cinema. The book does not simply list criteria for judging film art; instead it encourages Christians to develop biblical and critical discernment in regard to not only film, but all aspects of culture.

Vitamin Z has a giveaway this month, where three lucky readers will win a free copy of this book, so don’t hesitate to head over there and sign up!

Grace & Peace,
Dan J.

A Brief Note for Reformed Authors

Okay, so this is another brief note related to books and literature in general. Tim Challies (along with two colleagues) has recently announced the establishment of a new publishing house. You can find more information at Cruciform Press, but if you have a book or two knocking about up in the old grey cells, this looks like a promising place to submit a manuscript.

Tim has some interesting work at his other two sites: 10MillionWords and Discerning Reader.  The second is his book review site; he’s generally balanced and helpful.  The first is his project to “learn about life and culture through the lens of all of America’s bestselling books.”  He offers reviews on these as well; his most popular so far is of Chelsea Handler’s recent offering.  He writes,

Of all the books I’ve read this year, and I’ve read plenty, this one is easily the worst. Frankly, I can’t think of a single reason I would ever, under any circumstances, recommend it. I can’t even understand why anyone, anywhere would buy it. It’s not sexual enough to titillate, it’s not clever enough to amuse, it’s not sophisticated enough to cause reflection. It’s an utter waste of time, money, effort and atoms. It is very clearly a cash grab, Handler’s attempt to make a few more bucks before her 15 minutes of fame comes screeching to a halt. And I say that this can’t happen soon enough.

Have fun with these!

Grace & Peace,
Dan J.

A Brief Note for Home Librarians

This is just a brief note to point out a small addition to our site, and to make a recommendation to those with large home libraries.  For the past year, I’ve been using LibraryThing as my cataloging solution.  My library isn’t the largest, by any means–some users boast well over 10,000 volumes–but I have more than I can track in my head.  But in any case, it’s a helpful way to keep track of what you’ve bought, what you’ve read, what you’d like to buy, and what you hated.  I started an account so I could organize my books more efficiently (I’m going with the Library of Congress system), but I’m using the system to help me spend my book budget more wisely.  If you’re interested, you can click through the link in this post, or through the widget down at the bottom right of each page.  Note: It’s free to add up to 200 volumes, but you can buy a lifetime membership for about $25.

Grace & Peace,
Dan J.