Yesterday’s message in the Life of Samuel series was called Father’s Day Advice from Eli, taken from several passages in 1 Samuel. The message asked the question: “If Eli were here, what Fathers Day advice would he have for us today?” Here is a brief outline of the message.

ELI’S FATHERS DAY ADVICE

1. Put God first in your life (1 Samuel 2:27-29)
    – Honor God above all things.
    – Deal with sin in your life.
    – Set the example for your children.

2. Discipline your children (1 Samuel 3:11-14)
    – Teach them God’s Word and God’s ways.
    – Encourage them when they do right.
    – Correct them when they do wrong.

3. Teach them about Jesus (1 Samuel 2:22-25)
    – Tell them what Jesus did for them at the cross.
    – Teach them about repentance and faith.
    – Teach them about confession and forgiveness.

4. The earlier you start, the better (1 Samuel 2:25)
    – Their hearts are more open when they are young.
    – You will save them a lot of trouble along the way.
    – Don’t put it off until tomorrow. Start today!

Note: Click on the Sermons tab at the top of the blog for this and other messages.

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Related post: New Illinois State License Plate (Fun)

It’s a girl! This amazing video of a beluga whale giving birth comes from the Vancouver Aquarium.

(Video length: 1:09)

Qila the beluga gave birth to her first calf at 4:28 PM Tuesday, June 10, 2008. The newborn beluga is about 1.5 metres long and weighs more than 50 kilograms (at birth). The beluga will be wrinkled for the first few weeks. Its color is slate grey, which will gradually lighten as it matures. You can view Qila and her new calf live on the aquarium’s Beluga Web Cam.

Here is a picture of Saturn backlit by the sun taken by the Cassini Spacecraft. Cassini is scheduled to complete its four-year prime mission on June 30th and will then enter its extended mission.

                        (Click on the picture for larger version.)

Visit The Big Picture for eleven more stunning photographs of Saturn taken by the Cassini Spacecraft.

Well summer is almost here, which means it was time for Danny D.’s annual summer haircut. Here he is in all his furry glory:

And here he is sporting his brand new field cut. It’s a lot cooler for him and a lot less hair on the carpet for us. He looks like he’s lost 20 pounds — which is pretty drastic considering he only weighs about 25 pounds to begin with!

Related posts:

• The Amazing Adventures of Danny D.
• Parable of the Prodigal Puppy

The Journey into Narnia: Prince Caspian Attraction opens this summer at Disney’s Hollywood Studios Theme Park at Walt Disney World Resort. The Aslan’s How structure used in the attraction was cast from the same molds as the one used in the film.

Your journey begins in the queue where you can test your knowledge of the Narnia stories. Next, either head into the soundstage or introduce yourself to Prince Caspian himself! Then experience a unique look at the epic story in Soundstage 4, where you can watch special behind-the-scenes footage featuring the film’s director, Andrew Adamson.

Pass through a rockwork archway, and you enter Aslan’s Stone Table Chamber, the underground vault where Aslan sacrificed himself in the first movie. You stand amidst gorgeous stone carvings in one of the most awe-inspiring sets in the series, which is also a pivotal location in the film, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

Multiple screens, dimensional sound and in-theater effects help you live the story of Narnia firsthand, as you explore this walk-through chamber in depth, guided through the tale of Prince Caspian’s courageous battle against the evil King Miraz to win back his rightful place on the throne.

Finally, conclude the journey with a close up look at the authentic concept art and storyboards that contributed to bringing the motion picture to life, as well as the actual props and costumes used by the film cast.

HT: NarniaWeb

Click here for more Narnia and Caspian related posts.
Click here for Countdown to Caspian roundup.
Click here for Narnia sermon series.

Born twice. Baby Macie Hope was born twice — once when she was six months old in the womb to have a dangerous tumor removed, and then again on May 3 when she was born into the world to stay.

House guest. A homeless Japanese woman lived inside a man’s closet for a whole year before being detected. When the homeowner noticed food kept disappearing, he became suspicious and installed security cameras. Police eventually found the woman in the top compartment of the man’s closet, where she had set up a mattress for sleeping and had lived for the past year.

Night at the museum. Art thieves defeated the security system at a museum in Canada by phoning security and telling them there was a problem with the system and to ignore any alarms that might go off. The security guards believed them, and the thieves went on to steal over $2 million worth of artwork.

I found the following diagram helpful in understanding the tensions that sometimes exist between science and Biblical faith.

                            Bible:theology :: Creation:science
              (The Bible is to theology as creation is to science)

The diagram distinguishes between: 1) Scripture and theology, and 2) creation and science. Scripture is God’s Word and therefore free from error. The physical creation is God’s work and therefore will never be in conflict with God’s word. However, theology is man’s study of Scripture, just as science is man’s study of creation. As such, theology and science are both susceptible to error and can be in conflict with each other.

Thus when science and theology conflict, we should not rush to judgment about which side is wrong. Rather we should continue to test our theology against the evidence of Scripture and our science against the evidence of the physical world. When we get our theology and science correct, there will be no conflict between the two.

I like this model because it affirms:
    1) the truth of God’s word,
    2) the order of God’s world, and
    3) the value of both theological and scientific endeavor.

Note: The diagram comes from David Heddle, associate professor of physics at Christopher Newport University. Heddle is currently teaching a Sunday School class on science and faith at Grace Baptist Chapel in Hampton, VA. He is posting his weekly notes online at GBC Sunday School. You can find an outline of the series here.

Related post: God’s Providence and Scientific Investigation

Updates from Todd Bolen:
    ● Earliest Church in Jordan
    ● Just Another Byzantine Church
____________________________________________________________

From the Christian Post:

Archaeologists unearthed in Jordan what they believe to be the world’s first church, according to a report Monday.

“We have uncovered what we believe to be the first church in the world, dating from 33 AD to 70 AD,” said Abdul Qader al-Hussan, the head of Jordan’s Rihab Center for Archaeological Studies, to The Jordan Times …

Hussan said his team has evidence to believe “this church sheltered the early Christians – the 70 disciples of Jesus Christ.” These 70 early Christians are said to have fled persecution in Jerusalem, particularly to Rihab, and founded churches in northern Jordan …

The underground church has been described as a cave with several stone seats believed to have been for the clergy and a circular shaped area, thought to be the apse – an area which usually contains the altar.

As a father of three boys, I really enjoyed Randy Stinson’s recent series of posts on Baseball, Biblical Masculinity and Godly Character. Here are eleven ways Randy uses the game of baseball in the lives of his two sons to build Christian character and cultivate biblical masculinity.

      1. Play Ball:  Umpires and Understanding Authority
      2. Take One for the Team:  Self-Sacrifice and Toughness
      3. Slide!  Obedience to Authority
      4. You’re Out!  Unfairness
      5. Strike 3!  Failure
      6. When You Can’t Find the Plate:  Humility
      7. Keep a Short Memory:  Resilience
      8. Winners and Losers:  Grace, Mercy and Honor
      9. Thanks Coach: Gratitude
    10. Shake it Off! Leadership and Encouragement
    11. Father, Where Art Thou? The Decline of Baseball

Those are just the bullet points. You will want to read the whole series to get the explanations for each. Here are the links:  Part 1;  Part 2;  Part 3;  Part 4

Yesterday’s message in the Life of Samuel series was called Can You Hear Me Now?, taken from 1 Samuel 3:1-21. The main idea of the message was that God wants to communicate with us, and we can hear him through his Word. Here are some of the applications we looked at from this passage.

1) God desires to speak to us. God did not just create the world and walk away. God desires to speak to man and to have a relationship with us. God has always taken the initiative in speaking to man. We just need to learn to listen.

2) We don’t always hear very well. Sometimes we don’t hear very well because we need instruction. For example, Samuel did not recognize God’s voice until Eli explained it to him. Sometimes we do not hear from God because we are spiritually sluggish. It took Eli three times to figure out what was going on. But other times we do not hear God’s word because we have closed our ears to God’s word and are disobedient. Eli’s sons were like that. God wants to speak to us, but sometimes we don’t hear very well.

3) God speaks to us primarily through his Word. God rarely speaks directly to people. Even in the Bible God rarely spoke directly to an individual. Samuel was the exception, not the rule. Most people received God’s word through a prophet attested by God. So we are more like Eli than Samuel. Eli received God’s word through Samuel the prophet. We primarily receive God’s word through the Bible, which is God’s written word given through men. We need to come to God’s word with reverence and expectation, saying like Samuel, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening,” and then let God apply his word to our hearts and minds.

4) God is patient with us. I love the way God keeps coming back to Samuel in this passage. Four times God came and called Samuel’s name before Samuel finally got it. God is remarkably loving and patient. If you approach the Bible with a sincere and listening heart, God will speak to you through his word. You may not get it all the first time, but keep coming back.

5) God has spoken to us through Jesus. The book of Hebrews says, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” (Hebrews 1:1-2) Do you want to know who God is? Look at Jesus. All the Old Testament prophets looked forward to Christ, and all of the Scriptures are fulfilled in him. When God sent Jesus, it was as if he said, “Can you hear me now? Good!”

Note: Click on the Sermons tab at the top of the blog for this and other messages.

LibriVox provides free audio books from the public domain. “LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books.” They have a pretty impressive catalogue so far with over 1,500 books.

Tim Challies shares 9 things he learned about God from Planet Earth. “While the films were not meant to draw attention to God, as I watched them I was continually drawn to marvel in the greatness of the Lord. As the films provided a tour of so many beautiful locations and as they gave close-up shots of such incredible creatures, I saw the hand of a Creator. I saw it everywhere.”

Seth Godin compiles a helpful list of 36 things to check before sending an email. Here are a couple of items from the list. “Am I forwarding someone else’s mail? (If so, will they be happy when they find out?) … Am I forwarding something about a virus or worldwide charity effort or other potential hoax? (If so, visit snopes and check to see if it’s actually true). Did I hit ‘reply all’? If so, am I glad I did? Does every person on the list need to see it?”

La Shawn Barber writes about a fascinating condition called “synesthesia.” Synesthesia is “a neurological and involuntary phenomenon in which people ‘see’ musical notes, numbers, letters, words, or other concepts in color. For some, these things have sounds, smells, or tastes associated with them … [There are also] other forms of synesthesia like spatial and conceptual. People with spatial synesthesia see numbers, days of the weeks, or months of the year in precise locations in space.”

Narnia scholar Devin Brown reviews the Prince Caspian movie. “Some critics have noted that Prince Caspian is a darker film than the first. It is. But since it is about a later time in the children’s lives, it is also more gray than the first and less black and white. And this is another way it is more like our world. Like us, the four Pevensies must spend much of their time and energy on this second adventure simply figuring out what they are supposed to do in a world that has grown more complicated.”

Craig Blomberg presents an underused argument for Jesus’ resurrection. “When a Jewish rebel leader was killed, one of only two things ever happened. Either the movement died out, or the movement’s adherents turned to a new leader, often a family member of the first one … What never happened … is that the rebel leaders’ followers continued to accept his claim about his identity, or the claims they had made for him … Suddenly, the first generation of Jesus’ followers stands out in dramatic, unprecedented contrast.”

Paul Krugman reflects on the new economics for creative works in the digital age. “If e-books become the norm, the publishing industry as we know it may wither away. Books may end up serving mainly as promotional material for authors’ other activities, such as live readings with paid admission … Bit by bit, everything that can be digitized will be digitized, making intellectual property ever easier to copy and ever harder to sell for more than a nominal price. And we’ll have to find business and economic models that take this reality into account.”

John MacArthur explains how the average person perceives post-modern culture. “When you talk about a postmodern culture, that’s an academic assessment of the culture. The average Joe doesn’t have any idea what that means. All he knows is he’s pretty much free to think and do whatever he wants. That’s how postmodernism filters down to the guy in the pew. It’s not a philosophy—it’s a lifestyle. The average guy just knows that the culture doesn’t care what he does. The movies he sees don’t make a moral judgment on anything except racism or somebody’s intolerance. So he’s free to do whatever he wants in the society, and nobody can tell him what to be or what to do, and the bottom line is that he should feel good about himself.”