Hello and welcome to RayFowler.org. If you are new here, please take some time to look around. If you enjoy your visit, be sure to bookmark the site or subscribe by email or feed reader so that you don't miss any future posts. You can also check out the Top Posts page to get a feel for the site. Thanks for visiting!
Pulled from a variety of concerts, festivals, TV appearances, these performances are not just an artist singing songs: when you hear Keith live, it’s an experience. Captivating, challenging, funny, virtuosic, and always engaging, Keith Green - The Live Experience is one you will never forget.
This special edition includes The Live Experience CD along with a DVD containing over 2 hours of additional content, including live performances from TV, festivals, concerts and more - all never before seen. Also included is the 60 minute documentary “Your Love Broke Through,” which tells Keith’s life-story from his early days as a child recording star to the spiritual journey that led him to faith in Christ.
Disc One:
1. You Put This Love In My Heart
2. Because Of You
3. Soften Your Heart
4. Oh Lord - You’re Beautiful
5. Your Love Broke Through
6. Asleep In The Light
7. How Can They Live Without Jesus
8. Piano Prelude/Create In Me
9. Easter Song
10. I Can’t Believe It
11. If You Love The Lord
12. When I Hear The Praises Start
13. There Is A Redeemer
14. I Want To Be More Like Jesus
15. Make My Life A Prayer To You
16. My Eyes Are Dry
Disc Two:
1. Over two hours of live concert performances
2. 60 minute documentary Your Love Broke Through
3. Bonus Features
I received Tim Keller’s The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism last night as a late birthday present. I have read many good reviews of this book which provides reasons for faith in God and have been looking forward to reading it. I got a kick out of the opening quote in the book, as did my boys — who are big Star Wars fans themselves.
I find your lack of faith—disturbing. (Darth Vader)
Evangelicals are not just white, despite media perceptions.
Evangelicals (in general) hate anti-Semitism.
Evangelical culture values education highly.
Evangelicals help the poor.
Evangelicals help hundreds of thousands with severe personal problems become productive citizens.
Those are just the main headings. Reynolds elaborates on each of these points further in his article. Do you think Evangelicals suffer from stereotyping? Do most people today know these five things about Evangelicals?
Albert Mohler describes the process of theological triage in part two of his article: The Pastor as Theologian.
The pastor must learn to discern different levels of theological importance. First-order doctrines are those that are fundamental and essential to the Christian faith. The pastor’s theological instincts should seize upon any compromise on doctrines such as the full deity and humanity of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of atonement, and essentials such as justification by faith alone. Where such doctrines are compromised, the Christian faith falls. When a pastor hears an assertion that Christ’s bodily resurrection from the dead is not a necessary doctrine, he must respond with a theological instinct that is based in the fact that such a denial is tantamount to a rejection of the Gospel itself.
Second-order doctrines are those which are essential to church life and necessary for the ordering of the local church, but which, in themselves, do not define the Gospel. That is to say, one may detect an error in a doctrine at this level and still acknowledge that the person in error remains a believing Christian. Nevertheless, such doctrines are directly related to how the church is organized and its ministry is fulfilled. Doctrines found at this level include those most closely related to ecclesiology and the architecture of theological systems. Calvinists and Arminians may disagree concerning a number of vital and urgently important doctrines–or, at the very least, the best way to understand and express these doctrines. Yet, both can acknowledge each other as genuine Christians. At the same time, these differences can become so acute that it is difficult to function together in the local congregation over such an expansive theological difference.
Third-order doctrines are those which may be the ground for fruitful theological discussion and debate, but which do not threaten the fellowship of the local congregation or the denomination. Christians who agree on an entire range of theological issues and doctrines may disagree over matters related to the timing and sequence of events related to Christ’s return. Yet, such ecclesiastical debates, while understood to be deeply important because of their biblical nature and connection to the Gospel, do not constitute a ground for separation among believing Christians.
I find this three-fold distinction helpful. How about you?
Well, I am back from my study retreat. (Last week I took a three-day study retreat to prepare for the next message series at church.)
Wednesday morning I drove up to my parents’ home in Kennebunk, Maine. It was about a three-hour drive, so I began my retreat on the road by listening to some of my favorite music that helps me focus my heart on God. I arrived just in time for lunch (how convenient!) and spent some time catching up with my parents over a meal before settling in to study for the afternoon.
For the retreat I spent my mornings and afternoons in study and prayer. I spent Wednesday afternoon just reading through 1 Samuel 1-7, lingering in the text, taking notes on various themes and looking for connections. The next several days I spent blocking out the sermon texts and themes while interacting with several commentaries. I took breaks for meals and in the evenings to enjoy time with my parents.
It is amazing how much you can get done with large blocks of uninterrupted time. Time management experts say that even a five-minute phone call can disrupt your concentration and easily cost you 30-40 minutes of productivity. The computer with email and internet access can also be a source of small interruptions during the day. To guard against this, I did all of my studying away from the computer, writing out my notes longhand on lined paper in a notebook. Hopefully, I will be able to read my own handwriting as I reference these notes in the coming weeks for sermon preparation!
All in all it was a great study retreat. Thanks to my wife and children for graciously letting me take off for several days. Thanks to my parents for hosting me at their home. Thanks to my church for letting me take the time away from the office for this extended time of study. And thanks to my blog readers for being (mostly) nice in the comments while I was away.
I love baptisms! In fact, I have often said if I were driving down the road and saw a sign outside a church advertising a baptism service, I would pull over and attend, even if I did not know any of the people involved. It is a beautiful thing to witness a person’s profession of faith in Christ through baptism.
We baptized four people during our morning worship service yesterday. Congratulations Peter, Breanna, Christian and Kara! Instead of a full sermon, I gave a brief introduction to baptism, explaining how and why we baptize at our church. Each person who was baptized also shared Scripture and a testimony. You can read my remarks on baptism at the Sermons page under the heading, Baptism Service.
I am off this morning for a three-day study retreat in preparation for our next sermon series. I don’t often get to do this, so I am looking forward to some uninterrupted time with God in his Word in a different setting than at home or at church.
Needless to say, the blog will be on vacation while I am gone. I should get back to posting on Monday. In the meantime, here is a fun little commercial from the Discovery Channel that has been making the rounds. Enjoy!
Discovery Channel: I Love the World
(Video length: 1:00)
Comedian Eddie Izzard plays the voice of talking mouse, Reepicheep, in the upcoming The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian movie. Izzard had this to say about his character:
I realized that he has always been recorded in a high, slightly camp voice because of the overt language that he uses and his chivalrous nature, but actually he is a murderous little so-and-so of a mouse. I see him as the Mad Max of mice.
Bill Feltner at Pilgrim Radio recently interviewed me about my blog series: Taming Technology in the Home. Pilgrim Radio serves over 100 cities and communities in Nevada, California, Wyoming and Montana, as well as listeners online through their website. They provide a mixture of adult, contemporary Christian music along with Bible readings, Christian instruction, and interviews on a variety of topics.
The 25-minute interview will be aired Wednesday, April 23 (my birthday!) during the His People segment. The show will air three times during the day: 2am, 12pm and 9pm Pacific Time (5am, 3pm and 12 midnight Eastern Time). If any of those times are good for you, feel free to tune in to Pilgrim Radio on Wednesday to hear the interview. (Click here for Pilgrim Radio home page.)
Ideal for Hebrew students and pastors, A Reader’s Hebrew Bible saves time and effort in studying the Hebrew Old Testament. By eliminating the need to look up definitions, the footnotes allow the user to read the Hebrew and Aramaic text more quickly, focusing on parsing and grammatical issues.
A Reader’s Hebrew Bible offers the following features:
Complete text of the Hebrew and Aramaic Bible using the Leningrad Codex (minus critical apparatus)
Shaded Hebrew names that occur less than 100 times
Footnoted definitions of all Hebrew words occurring 100 times or less (twenty-five or less for Aramaic words)
Context-specific glosses
Stem-specific glossed definitions for verb forms (Qal, Piel, Hiphil, and so forth)
Ketib/Qere readings both noted in the text and differentiated appropriately
Marker ribbon
You can view some sample pages from Genesis here. This looks like a helpful resource for anyone with an intermediate knowledge of Hebrew.
Pulled from a variety of concerts, festivals, TV appearances, these performances are not just an artist singing songs: when you hear Keith live, it’s an experience. Captivating, challenging, funny, virtuosic, and always engaging, Keith Green - The Live Experience is one you will never forget.
Recent Guest Comments