Some Interesting Links . . .

I agree whole-heartedly with Buster Olney's take on the Mitchell Report--a collosal failure to deal with the culture of PED throughout all of baseball.  What a waste of 50 million dollars!  I wish someone was willing to give me 50 million bucks for doing a bunch of google searches and interviewing a mere two witnesses, so that Bud Selig could do the ole CYA.  Click here: ESPN.com - Blogs - Buster Olney Blog; Click here: Mitchell Report Revealed Little Original Work - New York Times

Good on Andy Pettitte--not for using HGH, which was stupid and cheating--but for being the first one to come clean.  Click here: Blogging The Bombers - NY Daily News.  Andy's a stand-up guy and a professing Christian.

I still say this is a huge story for baseball fans--Scott Boras' stranglehold on MLB is probably over.  Hopefully, there will be no more 140 million dollar contracts for players like Barry Zito!  Click here: Blogging The Bombers - NY Daily News

Matthew Morgan has a good piece on N. T. Wright's monkeying around with the doctrine of penal/substitutionary atonement.  Click here: Berit Olam: The Wright View of Penal Substitution?

Richard Gaffin's essay on Theonomy and Postmillennialism is now available on-line. Click here: http://newhope2.timberlakepublishing.com/files/Gaffin%20Theonomy%20and%20Eschatology.pdf

Mark Steyn has a great piece on the mutual interests of the pro-choice movement and militant environmentalists--too many babies are bad for the earth.  Click here: Opinion: Children? Not if you love the planet | child, birth, homeless, year, percent - OCRegister.com

Finally, need some material for your home Bible study or Sunday School class?  How about a study of the "Seven Deadly Sins" based on episodes from Gilligan's Island?  My question is this: "does the episode on lust feature Ginger or Mary Ann?"  When I was a kid, every teenage boy had a crush on one or both of them.  Click here: A Little Leaven: Gilligan's Island and the Seven Deadly Sins "Bible Study" 
 

Comments

[Robin]

It goes beyond Gilligan. Here's a topic from the speaking portfolio
of "Entertainment Ministry" available for booking:

The Gospel of Hollywood
Discover the spiritual truth in celebrated Hollywood blockbusters. Whether classics (It’s a Wonderful Life, The Wizard of Oz), contemporaries (Star Wars, E.T., Titanic), recent releases (Matrix, Lord of the Rings) or the latest chart-toppers (Shrek 2, Spider-Man 2, Harry Potter). You choose—and uncover the truth you knew must be there. You’ll never watch your favorite movie the same way again!"

What's wrong with this picture? What about The Gospel - THE Greatest Story?

I bet this "teacher" doesn't get that these stories are all (except LotR) Law!

(It's a relief Tolkien made himself perfectly clear, at least. The Professor would be aghast at this!)

[Robin]

...Oh, and only seven sins are deadly? Does that mean seven of the ten Laws apply?

[Zrim]

Everyone had a crush, yes, but clearly, those with the scantest taste chose Mary Ann over Ginger: substance in pig tails over glitz wrapped in glamour any day. (No kids and plenty of lush, green trees on the Island…hmmm, I bet that was subtle conspiracy of the left-wing media elites slowly brain-washing us to hate babies and worship Gaya. Yikes, with paranoia like that, Steyn seems the contemporary version of McCartheyism.)

[Lance Roberts]

Gaffin missed the boat on a couple of points. Postmil isn't just about future completion, but also about present living in the victory already won. I think of it like progressive sanctification on the personal level. Christ won our position of righteousness for us, and now he is sanctifies us every day, until we reach glorification in the next life. Christ has won the victory and the Kingdom of God is here, now God is working out that victory (through our covenantal obedience), and whenever the time is right we'll have the second coming.

One point he messes up on is that he think postmil teaches a disappearance of suffering. We'll still have the suffering, it will just be more of the suffering Gaffin outlined in the article, us struggling against our own mortality and flesh, and less of the persecution type. Suffering is one of the tools that God uses to build the Kingdom.

[Zrim]

Lance,

"Christ has won the victory and the Kingdom of God is here, now God is working out that victory (through our covenantal obedience), and whenever the time is right we'll have the second coming."

I think the strength of Amil is that it recognizes this as well but defines the working out more to be through Word and sacrament than coventantal obedience.

[Lance Roberts]

I'm not sure what the difference between 'Word and sacrament' and 'covenantal obedience' would be. We can only obey what's in the word, the sacraments are also acts of obedience. Along the same line, perseverance through suffering is also obedience.

[Zrim]

Lance,

Sure, you can certainly read Word and sacrament to be acts of covenantal obedience. But the difference seems to be Who does what for whom and Who is covenantally obedient. In other words, you seem to assume us as the primary actors in this whole thing, whereas an Amil emphasis has God as the Actor and His people as His (fallible, sinful) responders. It sounds a bit like when a Baptist talks about who does what in baptism...