Human nature on display, no. 4

Here’s a news item that is not only instructive but also deeply ironic.

Hebrew writing is really old, after all

…which means parts of the Old Testament may be really old, too.  Cool.

Human nature on display, no. 3

A Kansas City McDonald’s patron wasn’t satisfied with her order.  The store offered to replace it; she demanded a refund.  What followed was an apt illustration of my conviction that most adults are just oversized pre-schoolers with a thin veneer of maturity.

It turns out

…that Jews were living in Nazareth during the time of Jesus after all, which presumably comes as something of a surprise to this guy.

So how’s that minimalist approach to the New Testament working out for you?

John MacArthur lets TBN have it

…and the results are well worth reading.  Check it out.

Human nature on display, no. 2

A 98-year-old nursing home resident in Massachusetts is in hot water for allegedly murdering her 100-year-old roommate.  From the AP story: “Lundquist [the alleged killer] also told Barrow [the victim] she would soon get her bed by the window because she would outlive her, Sutter said.”

Human nature on display

One of the reasons it’s a little hard for me to take Ayn Rand seriously as a philosopher is because the question of human nature is such a fundamental issue, and I think she got it completely wrong.

She once said that the notion of “man as a heroic being” was a cornerstone of her belief system.  I’m afraid that “heroic” is too generous a term to describe a great deal of human behavior.

Take this, for example.

It would appear to be my time

A friend and I stepped into a bookstore the other day and found, somewhat to our surprise, that it was our time.  “It’s my time,” my friend noted aloud, with some interest.

Now, under normal circumstances, this would be cause for some concern.  Generally speaking, if someone came up to me and said, “It’s your time,” then I’d assume I was about to cross the Styx and take a long dirt nap.  Fortunately, however, this news came from Joel Osteen, a fellow who can usually be counted on to bring glad tidings.  (He’s not unlike Ed McMahon in that respect.)  And indeed, it seems he’s convinced that my best days are in front of me.

Until quite recently, I would’ve been skeptical.  I’ve never put much stock in Osteen as a theologian.  Besides, I’d long assumed that my best days were most assuredly behind me, especially since reading this discouraging news about the uncertain fate of a fourth installment in the Jurassic Park film series.

We all know what Deuteronomy 18:22 says about prophetic credentials: “When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.” 

So for your sake and mine, Joel, I hope that fourth JP movie pans out.

The reason I like John Piper

…is because he tells it like it is, whether you like it or not.  Check this out.

Let it go, already

Americans tend to have really short memories.  Take the movie Black Hawk Down, for example.  It opens with a prologue explaining why American troops were in Somalia—and it came out just a few years after they were there.  The filmmakers apparently assumed that everybody had already forgotten about the whole thing, so they had to remind us.

That’s one of the reasons this post over at the Alpha & Omega Ministries blog strikes me as really, really weird.

It’s not that I think a critique of Roman Catholic doctrine is a bad thing.  I get that part, although I always wish these exercises could be carried out with a good deal more charity.

What I think is weird is the reference to the Catholic Church as “the individual church that has brought so much shame upon Christ’s name (remember the Pornocracy?) and has dipped its hands in the blood of the saints for centuries….”

Dipped its hands in the blood of the saints for centuries, huh?  And here I thought the Vatican had gone out of the heretic-burning business.

Five centuries is a lot of water under the bridge.  Could all you full-time apologists do us Protestant laymen a favor and give the Catholics a pass on the whole Inquisition thing?  It’ll save us the trouble of pretending not to know you at the next auto de fé.