Let's face it. No one is all that excited that I'm actually posting again.

So here I am sitting down at the computer listening to Tennessee Ernie Ford warble something or other about 16 tons of something....I'm not even totally sure what, and I've listened to it several times in a row.

Now that we've established my randomness...again...let's do a quick catch up. 

1.  If you're vaguely aware of my existence, it's possible you know that I have a blog.

2.  If you occasionally check said blog, you might know that the bro, Aaron, got married.  (On the other hand, I never said much of anything about it on here.  That's really disturbing. My brother gets married and I post almost nothing about it.  That being the case, you may well not know that.  Well, you do now.  Skip to 3.) Sorry Aaron and Marcia...

3.  If you actually know something about me outside the blog, you may know I've been preaching lately.  If you did know this, I'll just mention that I'm speaking again at Carmel Village on Oct. 26 on the Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector.  So...I'm excited about that.  Also am signed up for the Shepherd's conference in '09, which was a huge blessing last year and I hope it will be again.

4.  If you go to Warner, you may know that SWORD has started again.  2 weeks ago we killed Kevin off from our Hill Family series (come to think of it, unless you've seen any sword skits, you probably haven't a clue who the Hill Family is).  Speaking of Kevin...

5.  He has now moved off to the greenest state in the land of the free a'courtin'.  More on Kevin in a bit.

6.  Sounds like the brass is going to be playing at Aaron and Marcia's church in San Diego in...November?  I think the current plan is in November.  I may have some pics from that in about a month. 

C'mon.  Admit it.  You didn't really expect any posts sooner. 

7.  Given that Kevin was leaving, we all went on a quick desert trip before he left.  Got pictures, will post.  Seriously, Kyle, you should adopt that line.  No one besides him will understand the reference (and maybe not even him), but anyway...think about it. 

Okay, pictures...to avoid making this post a word fest (too late), herewith...pictures.  (Brilliant sentence, that last one.)

This gesture is meant to signify that no matter how far away Kevin goes, we will always hold him close in our hearts.  Actually, I haven't a clue what it signifies...that was just the most plausible thing I could think of off the top of my head.  This was the last time we saw him before he moved.  Basically, we killed of his recurring character in our skit series (prompting tears from many watching.  At least we gave him a cool goodbye role - I actually managed some moist eyes for the skit.  Don't believe me?  Ha.  I got witnesses.)  We hung out all together and talked for awhile.  The next day he left.  Man...Kevin courting...Aaron married.  Love is in the air.  <snifs>  I wonder if randomly listening to Tennessee Ernie Ford songs is an early sympton.  (For the slower ones out there, I'm totally kidding.  See, kids, this is how rumors get started.)

I could remark something about Kevin being the glue that holds our group together, but I won't.  I'll instead note that Kyle and I have the exact same expression on our face...at least that's how it looks from this distance.  And just so no one asks (yeah, right), my collarbone was not bothered a bit by this.  Thanks for caring. 

Right...desert trip.  Thisis supposed to look like a cool shot of me staring out the window with sunglasses on.  Instead it looks like I'm on my way to a test with thick paned glasses.

Kevin and me chilling (laugh).  (...Thanks to the one person who did).

Everyone getting the guns out.  Me relaxing. Ah, the joys of vacation.

Bang.  'nuff said.

Since all these pictures came from Drew, I'm obligated to post a cool picture of him.  ...Nice gun.

"Okay, guys...no one shoot at the target until I get back."  I actually don't remember why Stephen was holding the target right then.  A more pressing question is, what took us so long to start using chairs while waiting for our turn with the shotgun?"

Skeet shooting, relaxing chairs...all we're missing is popcorn.

Later that day, we hiked up Opal Mountain.  We drove up a bit of the way, but ditched the jeep a ways back.

If you enlarge this picture, you'll see me a ways back.  If you strain your eyes, you may see the jeep even farther down.  I think this was near the top.  Jimmy kept me company.  In my defense, I forgot my tennis shoes in Drew's car, so I was stuck hiking in cowboy boots. 

The next couple are shots from the top.  It was a pretty stunning view.  Sadly, you can't really get a good idea without being there.

The Magnificent...Eight.  Me attempting to look cool in the middle.  Not having a belt sure cramps my style. 

I know this looks posed, but I had no clue I was getting my picture taken until I saw the pictures later.

Going downhill with boots is even harder than going up.  The end of the boot inverts and it cramps the toes up. 

Kevin.  We miss you, dude.  (Not to spoil the sentimental moment, but would you believe we fit 8 guys in that jeep!)

That was actually only while offroading.  Driving up we had two cars.

Kyle.  I figured since I posted one of Kevin and Drew I might as well get one of Kyle...

This is the worst example of the roads we were on that I could find.  Unfortunately, we didn't get too many pictures while driving, so I don't have any of the nasty ones. 

I'm in a manmade cave thingie. 

I'm telling you, that thing looked incredibly like a house from a distance.  We knew it wasn't, but it was weird how much it looked like one.

Okay, so that's it.  (Best.  Ending. Line.  Ever.)

Man...I gotta write a post about the bro's wedding?

Ok...so, I don't really have any pictures at the moment.  I'm working on that as we speak, but you're going to have to forgive me if they don't make it up by the time I post this. 

Friday, the guys - Mitch, Aaron, Kevin and I; Jonathan, Kyle and Drew (the imports from Alaska); and Brent and Ryan (Aaron's brothers-in-law) went down to San Diego to play football.  Technically, Brent and Ryan are already down there, I think, but that's irrelevent.

Aaron and I went down early to clean up move things into his apartment.  We played football and yours truly broke his collarbone.

I know what you're thinking.  That's a really boring way of telling the story.  "I played football and broke my collarbone."  I mean, I might've at least said that I broke my clavicle.  Right.  So, today, I went to work for the first time since it happened.  I toyed with the idea of putting up a sign, "Broken collarbone - football accident" to stave off questions, but that seemed lame.  So instead, I just invented a dozen alternate stories to make it sound more interesting.  For instance: When asked, "What happened to you?" I replied,

"I was driving late and saw two headlights in front of me.  Thinking they were two motorcycles, I tried to squeeze between them."

"I got into a little scuffle...and the other guy lost."

"I forgot to duck."

"I fell down and went boom."

One lady stared at me in shock and asked what happened.  I replied, "Oh, you know...same ol', same ol'..." 

I did, however, after the initial laugh, admit to all that it was in fact a football accident.   I had a lady come in while I was shifting in discomfort over the inability to stretch my arm out.  After listening sympathetically, she gave me her card which identified her as specializing in spa and facial treatments - she told me she did massages.  So, if my shoulder needed a massage...I smiled politely, raised an eyebrow as she walked away, and filed the card in my pocket.

From time to time, I'd remark that the injury was convenient because my arm was forced into a bent position.  And since I was an usher the next day at Aaron's wedding, I already had my arm glued in the right spot. 

Anyhow, if anyone else has any ideas for injury explanations, I'm open.  The same answer gets old really quick when you have to tell it over 100 times in the same day. 

The wedding was cool.  Frankly, I think it might be counterintuitive to discuss weddings on my blog.  But anyway, I liked most of how it went.  Typically, most weddings I go to have something or other that...well, I wouldn't do at mine.  Oddly enough, my own brother does the closest to my ideal.  Go figure.

I may throw a few pictures up later.  For now, you'll have to suffer without them.

...It's alive!

...It seems like I've been gone for ages.  Actually, I think it's been several weeks.  Nearly wrote up a random post a week back, but I found more appealing things to do.  Running around the house backwards with a blindfold on, for instance.  Maybe not. 

While I'm here and my brain is fresh, take down a link.

On second thought, I'll just write it down.  You'd have a hard time hearing me unless you're in my room or on the phone. 

http://www.sermon-online.com/en/search.pl-lang=en&id=15276&title=&biblevers=&searchstring=&author=0&language=0&category=0&play=0.htm

There is a mp3 recording and a pdf file.  Personally, I'd suggest the pdf file, but take your pick. 

...It probably would be appropriate at this point to explain what I'm sending you off my blog to download.  So before following the link, read on. 

By way of explanation, I've been reading a lot of books lately, typically some form of theology.  Dad has a wonderfully large library, so whenever I want to know something, I can not only ask him, but read books on the subject.  If you've read previous posts, you might get the idea I like John MacArthur, and you'd be right.  But to move back, some time ago, I was reading an essay by Phil Johnson (director of Grace to You, theology blogger, editor of John MacArthur's books) on government.  He spoke on how to guide your congregation during political elections at the Shepherd's Conference.  In the essay, he was commenting on that a bit, and made reference to "Why Government Can't Save You" by MacArthur.  He referred to it as MacArthur's all time least popular book.  I found that tag to be my kind of reading.  I have an annoying habit of seeking controversial subjects, even while I don't particularly get a high out of discussing them.  I simply like to press those kinds of issues.

Anyway, Dad did have it.  Small surprise.  MacArthur doesn't shy away from controversy either - as can be noted by his statement in the introduction that the Revolutionary War was unbiblical - which is probably a part of why I like him: He's willing to go against public opinion for what he believes.  And while I'm not entirely sure I'd agree with him on the war (noted above), he's got a good point on it.  Personally, I like to read stuff that I disagree with now and then, because regardless of who is writing, they are at least somewhat biased.  And that bias tends to color what they, and I, and everyone write. 

It helps me to have a better understanding of something if I can do a basic study of the opposite view.  I'm fairly open minded, I think.  I'm sure I don't seem so, but honestly, I'm perfectly willing to change my mind, provided the argument is good enough.  Obviously, some things would need an incredible argument (which I don't believe exists) to convince me.  But typically, when you read only things that you agree with, it's too easy to lose the ability to think critically.  I know I'm that way.  It's the same reason I read C.S. Lewis now and then.  He tends to be a little more philosophical than I like - since I prefer a solid biblical basis for my beliefs (and philosophy, particularly that coming from Plato and his ilk, has had an unhealthy effect on bad theology throughout history) - but at the same time, Lewis helps me to think outside the box and look at things in new ways.

I was actually just reading Pilgrim's Regress by Lewis, recently.  I know that the way I'm talking makes me sound like I'm trying to be an intellectual.  Just so it's clear, on that book I had trouble understanding much of that book simply for lack of knowledge on a lot of the ideas he referred to.  The book is sort of a detailing of the road to Christianity as the pilgrim views and tries and subsequently rejects different forms of wordly philosophy (as opposed to Bunyan's more practical approach).  While I'm on this extended side-note, I'll just note that one thing that stuck out to me.  Basically, the concept was that if we have a desire that was given to us by 'something' outside this world and cannot be filled by anything in this world, the true fulfillment of that desire would remain ambiguous to our understanding. 

I'm probably misquoting it or misexplaining it, but I think that was the basic idea of it.  What struck me about that was the recollection of the story where Jesus met the woman at the well and offered her the living water which would never dry up.  Obviously, her interest showed that she had an empty spot in her life which needed to be filled, and which nothing on earth seemed to be able to fill.  Still, one might say that since she lived out in the boonies, she simply didn't have the ability to try everything in order to find the object of her desire.  Solomon certainly didn't have that problem.  He even wrote a book about that subject (more or less).  In Ecclesiastes, he seems to be documenting his search for the 'doughnut' to 'fill that empty place in his life'.  What struck me was that - although it wasn't a new thought - all that we do for ourselves will not satisfy.  The only satisfaction comes from outside the world; from serving God.  In His presence is fullness of joy.  John Piper expressed that thought in a wonderful sermon I heard by him tonight.  Possibly more on that later.

Back to wherever I was...(goes back to look)...Ah, reading stuff I disagree with.  Well, honestly, I think MacArthur said more right than wrong.  I think he might carry some principles a little far at times, but the ones I don't totally agree with aren't really important anyway, since they don't affect his overall thesis.  His premise that he built around was, essentially, God commands us to be submissive to authority.  He doesn't say that authority has to be good, or righteous, or wise, or moral, or anything else.  The only reason we are given (that I recall, correct me if I'm wrong) to disobey authority is when they command us to act in a way contrary to the higher law which God has given us. 

Because we are, after all, strangers and pilgrims on the earth, and our citizenship is in heaven, a parallel might be made as follows: A man who goes over to a foreign country for a time would obey their laws except in a way that would contradict the laws of his own country, because he has a higher obligation to them.  Still, despite our inability to obey those types of commands, we can still attempt to be reasonable in our disobedience.  A command to deny Christ should not be met with a sword and a growl saying, "Come and make me!"  Rather, we should, even in refusing a command to deny Christ, be humble to the governing authorities because they are authorities.  Jude, which I studied recently for a sermon I did at Carmel Village, has a similar idea on this, speaking of false teachers who revile authorities.  Speaking back in anger is something the wicked do, not the children of God.

The other thing MacArthur focused on was the idea of how much we should be involved with the affairs of government and the culture at large.  I think most people would agree that their must be a balance, but the debate would be in regard to where that balance draws it's line.  MacArthur seems to feel that because we are citizens of heaven, not earth, we should not be overly focused on trying to fix the problems in the government and culture, but rather that we should be concerned with the business of God: That of reaching souls for Christ.  I'm not entirely sure how far he would go on the balance, but I suspect I would be slightly less isolated from politics and culture then he suggests.  Not as much, however, as many christians are today.

To get back to the link I posted (yeah, remember that?), it's a sermon by Charles Spurgeon, which MacArthur had in the appendix of his book (does that give you an idea of who Spurgeon agrees with?).  Utterly brilliant sermon.  The 10 pages or so that it encompasses are better than the whole book by MacArthur (and I liked the book!).  Every Christian should read that sermon, in my humble opinion, regardless of whether they agree 100% with everything said.  It has a lot of wonderful points and illustrations.  I was personally very blessed to read it today. 

http://www.sermon-online.com/en/search.pl-lang=en&id=15276&title=&biblevers=&searchstring=&author=0&language=0&category=0&play=0.htm

There's the link again, in case you forgot it.

Speaking of being blessed - now that I'm done with my explanation of that link, I can now move on - I've also heard two audio files recently that were a great blessing to me.  The first was a sermon by Phil Johnson (mentioned above) on "Divine Grace vs. Human Pride".  As a struggling egomaniac, the message was especially insightful to me personally.  It was based on 1 Corinthians 4:7, an excellent verse (which is why I downloaded the sermon in the first place).  If you get a chance, I would definitely recommend listening to it. 

http://www.thegracelifepulpit.com/philsermons.htm

If you want to hear it, that's the link there.  Follow the dates on the left sidebar down to "2007-06-10" and you will see the sermon next to it with the name I listed above. 

Finally, the last one I'll mention real quick is by John Piper.  Honestly, I find John Piper a tad weird for my taste, at least in his sermons.  He's a very emotional guy, which is my complete opposite.  I am not an emotional person, at least not outwardly.  He also uses a lot of interesting expressions in how he speaks, which don't quite work for me.  But he's usually pretty insightful and helpful on a variety of subjects, despite my personal misgivings about him.  He did a guest speaking thing at Capitol Hill Baptist Church (Mark Dever's church) on the subject of "Created For Joy".  I was on the CHBC sermon archive and ran across that.  In school with my writing classes, they used to talk about doing 'grabber' titles: titles that grabbed the reader's attention and drew them to it.  At any rate, I found that title to be something I'd be interested in hearing about, so I downloaded it and listened.  Thirty minutes last night and the rest tonight.  A lot of what he said was very encouraging.  It brought up what our purpose is and put the focus on God, rather than us - which is a concept that is reversed the majority of the time in the modern church; even conservative ones.  The link to that is:

http://www.chbcaudio.org/index.php?s=Piper

It's at the bottom of the page and the title is 'Created for Joy'.  That whole page, by the way, chbcaudio.org, has a lot of great sermons on it, if you like listening to sermons.

Given my loads of free time at work, this and school - I just started a paper last night, actually - have been dominating the majority of my time.  Especially since most of my buddies are absent for the summer.  Don't get the wrong impression though, I still waste tons of time.  I don't want to give the impression that I'm a nerd who does nothing but read all day.  I've got the sunburns from a day in the pool recently to prove that.  I still do like reading, though.  And as a citizen of heaven who wants to be filled by water that doesn't run out or dry up, I find studying the truth of God to be a good way to spend my time when not having fellowship with friends (or wasting time with games, movies, blog posts, or other completely meaningless activities). 

I know this post was boring.  But honestly, this is what I've been doing lately.  You can pity or cheer me on...or say nothing at all.  I don't care.  If you actually read this far, I'm impressed enough with you.  Hopefully more interesting things will be happening in a few weeks, so I'll have more to talk about.  Thanks for stopping by.

To close...As you might guess from this post, the more I read about the greater majority of the church lately, the more depressed I become over the bad theology (particularly man-centered theology) that is being taught these days.  I'm sure that sounds egotistical - "Justin thinks he knows everything" - or something like that.  But honestly, I'm not trying to heap up knowledge on myself so that I'll be thought of as theologically intellectual.  My chief desire is to understand the truth which God has revealed.  Particularly, not to shy away from that truth if it isn't as easy a truth to accept as I want it to be.  On Sunday, I was doing a search for verses on the glory of God (one of the few benefits of our modern era is that all the hard work of cross referencing has been done by others for lazy folks like me) and ran across Habakkuk 2:14, which describes something that warms my heart. 

Habakkuk 2:14, "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. "

I know my theology isn't right on everything and I look forward to the day when not only I, but all men will understand and know God and His glory.  The imagery depicted there is one that makes me look forward to that day.  (As a sidenote, since I wrote this up without reviewing it, I may have said something incorrect without considering it carefully.  Feel free to let me know if you spot anything so that I can correct it.)

Currently Listening I'd Rather Have Jesus By George Beverly Shea see related

CPK? Liars.

I don't feel like pulling the picture off my cell phone.  Besides, I think it was blurry anyway.  Lost?  Good.  Just call me Pathfinder.

...Where was I?

Oh, yes.  CPK.  California Pizza Kitchen.  So a week ago Tuesday (June 3rd for those keeping score at home), Dad, Mom, Mitch and I headed out for Nashville, by way of Phoenix and John Wayne Airport.  On our way through the Phoenix airport to our next gate, we passed by a little hole-in-the-wall (very)fast food joint called California Pizza Kitchen.  We have a somewhat larger one in California, only ours actually sells pizza.  No foolin'.  See, CPK's does offer food besides pizza...but this one didn't.  Offer pizza, that is.  They had salads and sandwiches, but no pizza at California Pizza Kitchen.  It wasn't even in California.  What a swindle station. 

To all those who voted on my last post, thanks and I'll mention more on that at the bottom of this post.

Speaking of swindles, while in Orange County airport, I stopped at McDonalds for a Coke to ease my headache.  Paying the ridiculous sum of $2 and change, I gave the lady a twenty dollar bill (being the only bill I had).  She handed me 12 dollars and change.  Amazingly, she somehow counted it back to 20 dollars.  As politely as possible, under the circumstances, I told the lady I thought she made a mistake.  She recounted it to the same total.  I replied that if the soda was 2 something and she gave me 12 something back, that only equaled 15.  That in turn meant that five whopping bucks had gone south.  After about two or three minutes of trying to explain it to her, I left with my five dollars and found that I still had the headache.  There's a moral in there somewhere.

On the first flight, Dad, Mom and I had one row (I got the aisle), with Mitch and the aisle across from us.  The flight from Phoenix to Nashville (the long one), Mitch and I headed back together and grabbed an empty aisle.  Despite the flight attendant blaring over the intercom that it was a full flight, Mitch sat in the window seat, and I sat in the aisle, hoping that no one would join us.  I figured if someone came, I'd just move into the middle seat.  But it seemed to me that there weren't a lot of folks who'd be too eager to sit between two long-legged guys.  I said a quick prayer to let the Lord know (remind Him, rather) that we'd really like it if that middle seat stayed empty so that we'd have move room (selfish, I know).  Just to save face, I did assent that if God wasn't feeling inclined that way, that that'd be okay, too.  So what happened?  No one sat down.  Thank you, Lord!  We had a nice row all to ourselves.

The flight attendant came on to read off the rules.  She'd obviously been watching the comedy channel too much, informing us that, "This is a non-smoking flight, because smoking is bad for you" and other similar quips. 

We arrived in Tennessee very late.  Local time was about midnight.  Add another hour for the drive, and we got in bed around 1:30 AM (which translated to 11:30 PM for us).  The Kilgours had already been there for about a week.  So the next day, I got to babysi....hang out with them at Chuckie Cheese's.

Afterwards, we went miniature golfing.  Poor Ruthie got dragged along.

That shot was posed...I think.  It was actually a funny story.  I gave Ruthie the camera as I was about to shoot on the hole before this.  I said, "Okay, I'll hit my first shot and then when I go up to putt, you can take a picture of me putting."  But I got a hole in one so there was no putting to be done.  Anyway.  Too bad the rest of the game wasn't that good.  I did pretty lousy the rest of the game.

Bowling wasn't much of an improvement.  Like I say - I play for the fellowship and humility....Lousy form on that shot.  That day I went with Dad, Grandpa and Mitch.  They all did better.

Uncle Dave came up from Alabama on Friday morning to golf nine holes with Dad and I.  Despite rarely going, I managed to get under 8 a hole for a total of 68!  ...Did someone out there laugh?

Another great form.  You go, J.

I love those glasses.  We went bowling again, this time with Lisa, Aunt Sharyn and Abbie.  Tiffany watched.  I hoped to get a picture of her bowling.  No luck, though.

Mitch helping Abbie out.  By courtesy of bumpers, her last game beat my first game. 

Me bowling again.  Exciting, no?

Mitch bowling.

Lisa bowling.  I doubt she'd want me posting this, but given the fact that there's no pins standing up on her lane, I couldn't resist.  Actually, there were some problems on that lane with pins falling over spontaneously (I know what you're going to ask, 'how is that a problem?'  Don't ask).  In this case, she just had to throw a ball down the lane so that it would register on the computer.  Pretty good form for a meaningless throw, if you ask me.

Lisa and Tif celebrating my latest strike, no doubt....or not.

Dad throwing.  Man, check out that form.

While hanging around town, we stopped at a Christian Book store.  I looked around for a copy of "The Gospel According to Jesus" anniversary edition with the new chapter for Dad on Father's Day.  No luck.  They had just about every other John MacArthur book...except that one.  I did, however, pick up a cd featuring George Beverly Shea, called, "I'd Rather Have Jesus".  Great cd, that.

Monday morning was my Uncle Dave's birthday (mine too, as a matter of fact), so Dad and I drove down to Alabama (the Beautiful) to golf 18 holes with Unc and 3 of his grandsons.

First shot got me on the green in this hole.  ...........Okay....so it was like an 80 yard hole that I got lucky on.  If you can see the other two balls on the green, you'll see that I'm not the only one.  It didn't even help that much considering I ended up taking about 4 putts to get that annoying ball in the hole.

Me hitting the ball - What a brilliant caption.

Party time.  Tif giving out the 'peace' sign.  Or perhaps 'v' for victory.  I did blow out all the candles in one breath, by the way.

It was a wonderful trip and I got to spend time with Grandpa and Grandma, who I don't get to see very much.  Also, Uncle Warren, Aunt Sharyn, Uncle Peter and Aunt Dana were all there.  Especially nice is the fact that all of them will be coming out to CA in a little under two months.

On the flight home, I got the aisle again twice, and on the second flight from Phoenix to Orange County, we were fortunate enough to get another row to ourselves. 

Random note - John Wayne died 29 years ago today.  Didn't know that until after I took the picture at John Wayne airport today, but I thought it was an interesting trivia note.

So tonight I was at Walmart buying a game with my giftcard.  When I was walking to my car in the parking lot, I saw out of the corner of my eye a bumper sticker which caught my attention.  Turning to look at it, I saw that it said, "Jesus, He died to give the opportunity", or something similar.  I frowned and walked over to the car.  Opportunity?  What's with that?  Seriously.  I shouldn't be surprised, but it always depresses me how far 'Christianity' has fallen in the last hundred years.  People would rather make a god the way they want him to be rather than accepting Him as He is.  I've covered this subject more in my recent post on "Man's Inability Overcome by the Sovereignty of God" which I don't think anyone actually read besides my Mother.  But just to cover it briefly, let me quote from 1 Peter.

"who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed."

Certainly His death gave us an opportunity, because without it, the justice of God could not be satisfied except by our punishment.  But it's misleading as written.  It implies that the work of Christ on the cross was insufficient and needed something on our part.  He predestined us to adoption.  God knows those who are His.  And He bore our sins on His body.  If He bore our sins on His body, either some sinners are paying a second time for their sins or Christ did not die for them specifically.  The obvious interpretation is generally rejected today because the conclusion it suggests is unpopular.  But it's not our responsibility to bring our opinions into interpretation.  We simply accept God's written Word.  If the Word is compromised, we have no solid base for understanding God except personal experience, which is uncertain at best, given the deception of the devil.  We must be able to accept God's Word.  ...I'll hop off my soapbox now.  For a more indepth look, you can always reread my previous post which I named above.

For everyone who commented on my last post, thank you again.  Regarding the 'everyday stuff made funny by my unusual description of it' votes, that's kinda what all my posts are, given my rather dull life.  But I'll try and get to that at some point in the future.  Some of the others may get done later, too.  No promises, though.  I've got a lot of study which should, theoretically, take priority.

The Choice is Up to You!

This is a special blog post.  The reason it's special is that it requires commenting.  How?  Listen up.

Since I need to do a new blog post, I'm going to do a poll on what I should post next about.  Here's your options:

#1: Belated report on Memorial Day with stolen pictures.

#2: A future post on my forthcoming trip to Tennessee.

#3: An essay on divine immutability/impassibility (you even get two options on this one!)

#4: My thoughts on the Stanley Cup finals between Pittsburgh and Detroit.

#5: A comparison of various western songs by different artists and giving my favorite version and opinions on them.

#6: A random post that attempts to make dull things in my life sound interesting (c'mon, haven't you already heard enough of these?)

#7: Picture blog post of Justin's baby pictures (this one is a joke.  Do not vote for it.)

The choice is up to you!  Don't delay, vote today!  Simply add a comment to this post, giving your vote and why you are voting for that option.  (Note, you may also comment if you'd like me to not post at all).

This is my cunning scheme to acquire comments for my blog.