Finished reading Yancey; Now on to Horton

Figured I would throw up a couple of quotes from the introduction to Michael Horton's book A Better Way for you to reflect upon:

We cannot simply defend positions with either the this-is-the-way-we've-always-done-it assumption or the new-is-better assumption. Even if the practice of the past is correct, each subsequent generation needs to rediscover that for itself. On the other hand, dismissing the past by slavishly embracing the culture of modernity can lead in the end only to something other than Christianity. Neither assumption is faithful; neither assumption can restore our unity as the people of God from all nations and generations in the presence of God.

(p. 13)

Are our market-determined, therapeutic, and entertainment-shaped views of worship parallel in some ways to the clamor of Israel in its moments of apostacy for the gods of the nations? Even if they are nothing more than the attempt to make worship relevant for those who no longer understand the Bible "straight-up," will they end up reaching the lost or losing the reached?

(p. 16)

Trying to find a place to rent != fun

Well, I spent Saturday phoning around to try to find a basement suite, and (even for places in the paper that very day) either they had already been rented or I ended up at the tail end of some rather long queue.

Apartment dwellings around here seem to be going for somewhere in the neighborhood of $650+ for a studio or 1 bedroom, and that's even if you can find one (I phoned about 5 or 6 complexes between classes this afternoon and only one place had a single unit available in the $800 range).

Tomorrow comes another round of phoning apartment complexes looking for space, although I'm not feeling overly optomistic. Just wondering if I should be digging around in the shared accomodation listings, given that I've had no luck finding roommates to split the cost thus far.

I'm not totally sure what to think of Yancey, but at least he's got some good quotes


If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is no such thing as your own business. The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified. The world says, Drive carefully - the life you save may be your own - and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. The world says, Law and order, and Jesus says, Love. The world says, Get, and Jesus says, Give. In terms of the world's sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy too is labouring less under the cross than under a delusion. "We are fools for Christ's sake," Paul says, faith says - the faith that ultimately the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men, the lunacy of Jesus saner than the grim sanity of the world.

- Frederick Buechner (cited in Rumours of Another World by Philip Yancey)

I think that I may be switching Bible translations

Those who have read Rotundus for some time will quite likely be aware that one of my pet peeves is the restrictions placed on the usage of Bible translations by the copyright owners (I'd like to see as close as possible to a public domain license here).

While it's licensing terms are not ideal, the NET Bible (which I've written about on here before) is one translation that tries to take a more open approach to copyright and seems to have a translation team with reasonable credentials. Anyways, I figured that it was about time that I put my money where my mouth is and so forked out the money a week or two ago for a printed copy of that translation, which arrived mid-week in the mail. While not dubbed a "study bible" this thing does have an impressive number of notes included (60,932 to be exact)

One thing that I noticed after getting this thing in the mail was just how much additional content their website, Bible.org has. They have a series on the canonization of scripture (etc.) that sounds like it'll be worth a listen.

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