If your looking for a good song by a contemporary Christian artist, look no further than Sweetly Broken by Jeremy Riddle. Great song, great lyrics, great theology...who would have thought it could be done? The album of the same name is by Vineyard Music. You can get a copy of the song for $0.99 or the entire album for $9.99 using iTunes. If your still buying your music on CD's or if you use something other than iTunes you should just quit doing that.

I have signed with the Logos Bible Software Affiliate Program. I am not interested in making money, however I do strongly recommend the Logos Bible Software. If you should decide to purchase the software I will pass on the 15% commission to you as a discount.

The following is an excerpt from Mark Driscoll's blog at The Resurgence. He made these comments in response to Ted Haggard's recent gift to the Evangelical community. Driscoll's intent was not to come down hard on Haggard, but rather to give some advice that will help others avoid similar mistakes. Good stuff!

• The only way to stay away from sin is to stay close to Jesus. Colossians says that we are prone to making a lot of rules but that if we don't deal with the issues in our heart, we are fooling ourselves; holiness cannot be obtained by the sheer force of white-knuckled will power. More than anyone, a Christian leader needs time with Jesus in repentance, for their own soul and not just to make them a better leader or teacher. Death comes to every Christian leader who goes to Jesus and Scripture for purely functional and not relational purposes.
• Most pastors I know do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and liberties with their wives. At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this. It is not uncommon to meet pastor's wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband's sin, but she may not be helping him either.
• Every pastor needs a pastor. Too often the pastor is seen as a sort of little God and his wife as some glorified First Lady. Every pastor needs a pastor with whom he can regularly have accountability and the confession of sin. Every pastor's wife also needs a godly woman chosen for her maturity and trustworthiness.
• No church should tolerate sexual sin among its leaders. Christians cannot be guilty of playing plank-speck with non-Christians on matters of pornography and homosexuality and be guilty of going soft on sin in their own leadership. As Paul says, nothing can be done out of partiality or favoritism.
• Pastors should have their office at the church and their study at home. There is no reason a pastor should be sitting alone at the church at odd hours (e.g., early morning and late evening) to study when anyone can drop in for any reason and have access to him. Instead, a pastor should come into the office for scheduled meetings and work from home on tasks such as emails, planning, studying, sermon preparation, etc. I spend the vast majority of my time working from home. Some years ago when I did not, I found that lonely people, some of them hurting single moms wanting a strong man to speak into their life, would show up to hang out and catch time with me. It was shortly thereafter that I brought my books home and purchased a laptop and cell phone so that I was not tied to the church office.
• Pastors have the right to protect their own home. This means that if someone keeps dropping by unannounced and is unwelcome, or a flirtatious woman shows up to a Bible study at the pastor's home, the pastor and his family have the right to request that they never return. The pastor's home simply cannot be viewed as yet another piece of church property that is accessible to anyone who desires it. Rather, the pastor's home must be a safe place for the pastor and his family without the wrong people rudely calling and dropping by.
• Churches should consider returning to heterosexual male assistants who are like Timothy and Titus to serve alongside pastors. Too often the pastor's assistant is a woman who, if not sexually involved, becomes too emotionally involved with the pastor as a sort of emotional and practical second wife. I have been blessed with a trustworthy heterosexual male assistant who can travel with me, meet with me, etc., without the fear of any temptations or even false allegations since we have beautiful wives and eight children between us.
• Pastors need to protect their email and have it screened for accountability. For me, this means that no email but an email from one of our pastors comes directly to me. This also means that I leave my email account open at home and my wife regularly checks it to get schedule information, etc., because I have nothing to hide. I also do not have a secondary email account from which to build a secret identity.
• Pastors need to carefully protect their cell phone number. If that private number gets out, too many of the wrong people have access to the pastor. Not only should the cell phone number of a pastor be given out to only a few people, he should also consider eliminating his voicemail and simply have calls forwarded to his assistant. In this way people will not become too informal with the pastor and if the pastor knows someone is trouble (e.g., a flirtatious woman), he can see that on his caller ID and simply refuse to answer the call or have to deal with a voicemail.
• Pastors must speak freely and frankly with their wives about their temptations. Without this there really can be no walking in the light and sin always grows in darkness.
• Pastors must not travel alone; the anonymity and fatigue of the road is too great a temptation for many men. A pastor should take his wife, an older child, an assistant, or fellow leader with him. If this cannot be afforded then travel should not be undertaken.
• Any pastor who is drifting toward serious sexual sin should have the courage, love for God, devotion to his family, and respect for his church to simply fall on his sword and resign before he goes down in flames. He must get the professional help he needs without fear of losing his position as a pastor. It is much better to be an honest Christian than a wicked pastor.
• Lastly, the big issue is a love and fear of God. Only a man really knows his heart and whether or not he loves and fears God above all else. Without this a man will fail to live for God's glory, and it is only a matter of time.

My seven-year-old son was inadvertently indoctrinated into the world of alcohol--by the church! We were visiting my Mother-In-Law's church last Sunday, and participated in the Lord's Supper. Little did we know my son took wine instead of grape juice by mistake. It was quite interesting to see the look on his face. Apparently the grape juice is placed on the inside of the tray, while the wine is on the outside. Of course we are not members of this particular church, so we had no idea until it was too late.

I love to read--maybe too much, and audio books are just another way to cram in some more reading when I'm inspecting brass, driving, or just giving my eyes a rest. I recently discovered LibriVox, a website that coordinates the reading and distribution of public domain texts found at Project Gutenberg. While I cannot speak to the quality of the reading as a whole, I can highly recommend Alex Foster's reading of The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells. Audio books can be very expensive, and it is hard to find good free recordings, but this is certainly worth a listen.

I found this image at the Smithsonian Institute, and thought it was very cool. I've never seen this type of gun before, and I suspect that the breech was less than sealed. Still, very cool.

Photo by: Hugh Talman Provided by: Smithsonian Images American made sliding breech block which is also called a harmonica lock. It is a 5 shot, pill ignition. Inscribed "Houston." This rare Henry Gross rifle belonged to Sam Houston.

According to police, two men wearing masks invaded Allen Cooper's home and began robbing him at gunpoint. Cooper gave one of the masked men some cash but, unsatisfied, they ordered him to call back two people who left the house prior to the robbery. Cooper contacted Rhea McCary and James Robertson, who returned, but sensed something was wrong. When they arrived, Cooper bolted out the door yelling, "They've go guns!" The attackers began shooting, striking McCary in the arm, but McCary returned fire, killing one of the suspects. The second suspect fled and was still at large at press time. The State Columbia, S.C., 08/17/06

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According to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in 2005, 16,885 people were killed in alcohol-related crashes - an average of one almost every half-hour. These deaths constituted approximately 39 percent of the 43,443 total traffic fatalities.--MADD I wonder if those that are more than ready to remove firearms from the hands of Americans for the sake of our safety would also be willing to remove alcohol for the same reasons. The above numbers are well above the numbers of people killed by accidental gun shot each year, and even lower if you were to restrict the data to the same age group. Also available from the MADD website, among teens, alcohol was a factor in:

• 36 percent of murders
• 45 percent of rapes
• 44 percent of robberies
• 37 percent of assaults

Consider the following problems "caused" by alcohol... Fatal:

• Disease
• Traffic Accidents
• Violence (Hmm...)
• Fetal Death

Non-Fatal:

• Loss Of Productivity
• Fetal Injury
• Cost Of Treatment & Recovery
• Organ Transplant
• Litigation

Perhaps we should talk about tobacco related deaths and expenses? The point is that alcohol, tobacco and firearms are not what kill people, but rather it is those that do not use them responsibly that kill people. Furthermore, if America is no longer able to handle firearms responsibly, then surely America has never been able to handle alcohol responsibly. One last thing, firearms are used in defensive situation an estimated 2+ million times per year. When was the last time alcohol was used to save someone's life? There are two things driving the fight against firearms. First, individuals and governments that believe freedom should start with government rather than the individual. Second, those that are ignorant of the actual facts involved, and are driven by an emotional response to the spin that is spoon fed to them via the liberal media.

The inspiration of Scripture is the supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit who, through the different personalities and literary styles of the chosen human authors, invested the very words of the original books of Holy Scripture, alone and in their entirety, as the very Word of God without error in all that they teach (including history and science) and is thereby the infallible rule and final authority for the faith and practice of all believers.--Dr. Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology, Volume I

Note: When Dr. Geisler says the Bible is without error in regard to history and science, he is not suggesting that we use the Bible as a history or science book per say, but rather that what the Bible mentions in regard to these subjects is without error.

The Bible in our hands is the infallible and inerrant Word of God insofar as it has been copied accurately. And it has been copied so accurately as to assure us that nothing in the essential message has been lost.--Dr. Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology, Volume I

So long as your mind entertains any misgivings as to the certainty of the word of God, its authority will be weak and dubious, or rather will have no authority at all. [Further,] nor is it sufficient to believe that God is true, and cannot lie or deceive, unless you feel firmly persuaded that every word which proceeds from him is sacred, inviolable truth.--John Calvin in Geisler

Common Errors Of Those Seeking Errors In The Bible:--Dr. Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology, Volume I

1. Assuming That the Unexplained Is Not Explainable
2. Presuming the Bible Guilty Until Proven Innocent
3. Confusing Our Fallible Interpretations With God's Infallible Revelation
4. Failing to Understand the Context of the Passage
5. Neglecting to Interpret Difficult Passages in the Light of Clear Ones
6. Basing a Teaching on an Obscure Passage
7. Forgetting That the Bible Is a Human Book With Human Characteristics
8. Assuming That a Partial Report Is a False Report
9. Demanding That New Testament Citations of the Old Testament Always Be Exact Quotations
10. Assuming That Divergent Accounts Are False Ones
11. Presuming That the Bible Approves of All It Records
12. Forgetting That the Bible Uses Non-Technical, Everyday Language
13. Assuming That Round Numbers Are False
14. Neglecting to Note That the Bible Uses Different Literary Devices
15. Forgetting That Only the Original Text, Not Every Copy of Scripture, Is Without Error
16. Confusing General Statements With Universal Ones
17. Forgetting That Later Revelation Supersedes Previous Revelation
18. The Allegation That Grammatical Irregularities Are Errors

If we are perplexed by any apparent contradiction in Scripture, it is not allowable to say, "The author of this book is mistaken"; but either the manuscript is faulty, or the translation is wrong, or you have not understood.--Augustine in Geisler

Police say a burglar was terrified to find that his intended victim was armed. "The suspect rang the victim's doorbell several times, and when he received no answer, he kicked in the front door and went inside," said Sgt. Greg Minster of the Lancaster, Calif., Sheriff's Station. The resident, armed with a handgun, took aim at the suspect and ordered him to leave. The intruder dashed from the house, screaming for his accomplice who was waiting in a car. "[The suspect] appeared to be worried that he was being pursued," said Minster. Police blocked off streets and apprehended both men. Antelope Valley Press Palmdale, Calif., 07/22/06

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