May the Lord Jesus Christ go
before you to lead you;
beside you to encourage you;
above you to protect you;
below you to support you;
behind you to guide you.

May the blessing of God Almighty: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be with you now and remain with you always. Amen.

cut me, pierce me with thy light,

‘nd this thy battle will i fight

praise and thanks to thee i cry,

till teh day that i shud die

have me, love here am i

i am thine and thou art mine

grafted to thy sacred vine

it’s teh liturgy, stupid.

puts in a good word for u, behind ur back

“In the past, there was seemingly an unspoken rule between the video game industry and moral crusaders. The gaming industry pretended to care about exercising their constitutional rights in order to sell their games to you, while religious and political leaders pretended to care about defending your kids from these “smut peddlers” so they could sell their nothing to you. It was perfect. Both sides pretended to care about an issue so they could both get their hands on the only thing any of us care about.”

believing in sola scriptura makes one an evangelical, then sola scriptura must be faulty.

phenomneological perception is the most basic metaphor of wisdom, and as such it participates strongly therein.

life is a co(s)mic, musical drama played out on the precarious plain of being.

this blog is kinda lame now. i mostly blog on mixi, a japanese social networking site … kinda liek facebook. i rarely have nething2say in english nowadays. classes r bizzeh and life is busy.

i’m going to teh UK in teh summer to study at teh centre for medieval and renaissance studies …

i think teh fact that i’m not studying any philosophy atm means that i have very little to blog about.

only by grace, into union with Christ, do our works, joining and being transformed by Christ’s perfect work, merit us our salvation

a good deal of teh present US finanical crisis stems from a moral crisis wherein avarice is justified … and commercialized, and where debt is encouraged.

Ruth 1:6-13: Naomi Loses Hope

Though Naomi’s name means “pleasant” and signifies a blessed state, the state we find her in is the exact opposite. (cf. vv. 11-13) Naomi here declares that there is no more hope for her and her family. She lost her husband and her two sons.

Orpah makes the natural choice: she goes back to Moab. It is clear that this involved not only going back to Moab, but going back to becoming a Moabite and serving the Moabite gods. In contrast to this, Ruth takes a vow to follow Naomi and to join her people and serve her God. And Naomi, once she sees that Ruth cannot be dissuaded, does not even talk to her. She sees no hope even as she returns to the land of Judah. Naomi went out full and with hope for the future, but she comes back to die and to be forgotten. She tells people to call her Mara, not Naomi, since she has suffered bitterly.

The author of Ruth, however, is clearly not seeing things the way Naomi is. From the moment we see Ruth and her faithfulness to her mother-in-law, we know things are going to change. The worry that we have in vv. 11-13 is how God is going to be faithful to his promise and covenant. We immediately recognize the answer to that in vv. 16-17. Ruth’s faithfulness provides hope for Naomi (even though Naomi does not see it); but more importantly, Ruth’s faithfulness reveals the faithfulness of God to the Davidic line.

Finally, in this passage, the author notes that Naomi and Ruth came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest (April). Again, this is a sign of hope. It is a sign that things have changed in Bethlehem. The land was barren when Naomi left, but now it is fruitful. When she returns, she is bereft of her offspring, and she is barren and apparently her children are barren as well. But things are different, and the harvest–the changed situation–points to a hope.

What happens next in the story? What is this hope?

The faithfulness of God is not simply about blessing us. What do you think God’s faithfulness is about?

tehy wur expurts in teh liturgy …

i wonder wot most m.div. students in teh reformed world r expurts in. it’s certainly n0t teh lituryg.

at teh musical glasses :o

i only half believe it

chelsea looks liek both her parents …. i wish she wudn make headlines.

there is a certain kind of genius which cann0t be contained in a “book” very well. perhaps pascal and wittgenstein were of such genius.