Ray Fowler .org

Back to school. A 94-year-old Australian woman has become the world’s oldest person to earn a university master’s degree. Phyllis Turner began studying for her postgraduate degree at age 90 and received her Medical Science Master’s Degree from Australia’s Adelaide University earlier this summer. The great-great-grandmother completed her research paper on the anthropological history of Australia prior to European settlement. Degree supervisor Professor Maciej Henneberg said, “She has a lively mind.”

Tough crowd. A new Gallup Poll finds Congress’ approval rating the lowest it has been since Gallup first tracked public opinion of Congress with this measure in 1974. Just 18% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, while 76% disapprove, according to the August 13-16, 2007, Gallup Poll.

Fail safe. Last week 10-year-old Daniel Jancura accidentally locked himself inside a safe on display at Sam’s Club. It took firefighters and store employees fifteen minutes to get him out. This week a 73-year-old woman was trapped in a bank after employees accidentally locked her in the building while she was looking over the contents of her safe deposit box. She was discovered unconscious by a cleaning person six hours later. So, remind me, why do we call these things “safe?”

One of the pet peeves at our home is the “Everyone’s a winner” philosophy. Yes, I know, we are probably way too competitive, but for some reason this really annoys us. We groan when we see a bumper sticker that says, “Every child is an honor student at such and such a school.” We rebel against the idea that excellence cannot be recognized and that all efforts should be equally rewarded.

Our youngest son, Timothy, entered a reading contest at the library this summer. Every time you read a certain number of books, you put a ticket in the pot. The grand prize? Two brand new shiny bicycles – one for a girl and one for a boy. Timothy was really hoping for that bicycle, so he was very excited when my wife brought him to the library last week for drawing day.

Now this contest was not even based on ability or skill. This was a simple drawing a ticket from a box. And yet the woman in charge reminded all the kids before the drawing was made, “I just want you to remember, everyone’s a winner!” Timothy sighed, “Yeah, right!” If everyone’s a winner, then why doesn’t everyone ride home on a shiny new bike?

We were talking about this at the dinner table later in the evening. Of course the motivation is good, the adults don’t want any of the kids to feel bad, but our boys said that all the kids see right through it. And it doesn’t reflect real life when these same kids will later be competing for real jobs and scholarships and championships.

I asked the boys, “What if they ran the presidential race like this? What if they told all the presidential candidates, “It doesn’t matter whether you actually become president or not. Everyone’s a winner!” I liked my son Ramon’s suggestion, “You could give them all participation ribbons!”

No, Timothy did not win the bike. So what are your thoughts on “everyone’s a winner”? Feel free to disagree.

One of the local ministries our church supports is the Springfield Rescue Mission. The Rescue Mission is a Christ-centered helping agency located in Springfield, MA. They operate an Emergency Shelter and Transitional Living Facility for the homeless, a New Life Program for men, as well as many other ministries reaching out to the spiritual and physical needs of people in the Springfield area.

Yesterday several men from the mission came and shared with our church congregation during the morning service. Staff member Joe Manna shared about the mission’s various ministries. Then three men from the mission shared testimonies of how God has changed their lives. These are men who who have all struggled with severe addiction problems in the past. They are part of the Men’s New Life Program which introduces men to Jesus Christ and provides them with Bible teaching, group support, biblical counseling and valuable training in various life skills.

This was a wonderful worship service as we were reminded once again of the awesome power of God to change lives and our responsibility to reach out to others with the love of God through Jesus Christ. Here is the Springfield Rescue Mission’s purpose statement:

The goal of the Springfield Rescue Mission is to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the hungry, homeless, addicted and poor by introducing them to Christ and helping them apply the Word of God to every area of their lives.

We are happy to support the Springfield Rescue Mission as a church and glad to be a part of their mission to the people of Springfield.

Here are 10 Tips for College Students Getting Ready for Fall from college professor John Mark Reynolds. These are great tips for both entering and returning students.

1. Ignore advice to “remake” yourself the first day you get to college … Your family history and heritage matter … be wary of making big changes quickly.
2. Do something each week that puts you in contact with people older and younger than your peer group.
3. If you have a decent relationship with your parents keep it up. Remember that they are going through a tough transition too.
4. If you are going to college, then go. You are in college to learn … School is your full time job, put fifty hours a week into it or go home.
5. Find a faculty mentor during your first year. If you cannot, then your college is charging you for an education it cannot deliver.
6. Take classes that are hard from full-time professors that love to teach.
7. Secretaries and support staff are overworked, underpaid, and very powerful. You should be good to them out of virtue, but you must do it to thrive.
8. Books are not yet antiques. Go to the library. Talk to librarians … Spend hours a day reading.
9. Don’t be too quick to pick a major, but try to do so by the end of the first year.
10. Live like an adult in college which includes moderating your passions.

Those are just the main points. Be sure to read the whole article for more of John’s thoughts relating to each of the points presented above.

Chad Knudson at The Road to Emmaus blog has posted a helpful summary for each of the twelve minor prophets, including how their message points towards Christ and the New Testament.

I think some difficulty people have when learning the message of the prophets is the key themes and ways in which each book points to Christ. Thus, I would like to focus on the twelve minor prophets and provide a summary statement along with Scriptures of how each book points to and finds its fulfillment in Christ.

Chad runs an excellent blog with articles focused around the theme of Biblical Theology, or as Chad describes it: “the unfolding revelation of Scripture as it finds its fulfillment and consummation in the person and work of Jesus Christ (Luke 24:1ff).”

Related articles:

• Reading the Prophets (1)
• Reading the Prophets (2)
• Reading the Prophets (3)
• Blogging with Habakkuk series

Larry Norman in concert; Saturday, 8/4/2007
Calvary Baptist Church; New York City

Yesterday I shared some personal notes about the events leading up to the concert. (Click here for Part 1.) Today I would like to share some more about the concert itself. Can you tell I’m a fan? 🙂

The following write-up will probably make more sense to you if you are familiar with Larry and his music, but either way it should give you a good sense of what the concert was like. Larry talks a lot between songs, so I have tried to summarize some of what he said during the night. I have also included snippets from some of the songs in case you are not familiar with them.

Larry approached the stage slowly. He had difficulty climbing the stairs and looked like he was not comfortable physically. (Larry suffered a major heart attack a number of years ago and has had health struggles ever since.) He joked about how he played a concert here 35 years ago and never got invited back – until now!

He talked briefly about Christian persecution in other lands and then began with his song “Peace Pollution Revolution.”

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Here is a brief audio clip of John Piper answering the question: “How can parents help their kids memorize the Bible?”

The main thing for young people whether it’s two or twenty-two … is what they see their parents doing and loving to do. In other words, Mom and Dad probably can’t take a fifteen-year-old and out of the blue say, “Now start reading your Bible,” when the fifteen-year-old is not seeing Mom and Dad loving their Bible, reading their Bibles, individually and together.

HT: Desiring God Blog

Larry Norman in concert; Saturday, 8/4/2007
Calvary Baptist Church; New York City

Larry Norman is one of my favorite singer/songwriters. I first heard his music through my older sister, Sharon, back when I was a teen. If you are not familiar with Larry or his music you can read more about him at his official bio or at his Wikipedia entry. I will post some personal notes here, and then post a write-up of the concert tomorrow.

I saw Larry in concert several times in the 1970’s and 1980’s, but the last time I saw him live was in 1990. So when I heard he was coming to New York City, I was very excited. I live in Agawam, MA which is about three hours away, but certainly close enough for a Larry concert!

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How would you like to come home to this mess? The Hyde family of Lake Tahoe returned from a five-day vacation to find that three bears had moved into their home. Sounds like Goldilocks in reverse. Bear home invasions in Tahoe have become so common that the local newspaper runs a weekly report.

We don’t live in Tahoe, but we had a bear rip down the bird feeder in our backyard just 20 feet from the living room window. And my wife, Rose, encountered a bear on the street one day when she went out to check the mail. Fortunately, we haven’t had any bears in the house – yet!

SourceFlix Productions has put together an excellent 3 minute video interviewing five biblical archaeologists on site in Israel. Here are some of their answers to the question: “Is the Bible relevant to archaeology?”

“You can’t do archaeology in Israel without the Bible.” (Dr. Aren Maier)

“Serious scholars, even if they’re not believers, even if they do not think this is a sacred text, still consider it to be history, because things match up so well … As it’s coming together, there isn’t anything to contradict or anything to make me wary of the testimony of Scripture.” (Dr. Steven Ortiz)

“I can’t ignore the Bible because the Bible is our main text relating to the periods that we excavate … I need some texts to refer to, and the Bible is, of course, the main one.” (Dr. Amihai Mazar)

“You cannot exclude the Bible from archaeology in this part of the country, in this particular period. You can, but then you are missing a very, very important tool … And you are missing not only this, then you are dealing with pots and pans and bones and dust. You lose the soul.” (Dr. Amnon Ben Tor)

(Note: Dr. Gabriel Barkay is also interviewed.)

There is more on the video. If you’ve got three minutes, I encourage you to visit SourceFlix and listen to these men talk on site about their work in archaeology and the Bible.

HT: BiblePlaces Blog

The 2007 Perseid meteor shower will peak this Sunday night, August 12. Depending on light and weather conditions, you should be able to see 90-100 meteors per hour during the late hours of the night. This year’s Perseids coinciding with the new moon should yield especially spectacular results.

“It’s going to be a great show,” said Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. “The Moon is new on August 12, which means no moonlight, dark skies and plenty of meteors.”

Here are some suggestions from Space.com for best viewing:

1. Find a comfortable spot with a clear view of the northeast horizon, away from local lights. A dark rural location is best.
2. Lie back on a blanket or lounge chair and scan the entire sky. In the late evening, starting around 9 p.m. local time, sharp-eyed observers might see “earthgrazing” meteors that skim the northeast horizon.
3. Later and during the overnight hours, the shooting stars will be higher in the sky as Perseus rises.
4. Telescopes and binoculars are no help, as the meteors move too swiftly and are best observed with the naked eye.

Of additional interest:

• Top 10 Perseid Meteor Shower Facts

On Saturday, 8/4/2007, we (Rose and I, and our three boys) took a family trip to New York City. Our main reason for going was to see Larry Norman in concert on Saturday night. But we had never been to the city before, so we decided to spend a day in the city together before the concert. I didn’t know what I would think of New York, but I really liked the city and had a great time.

Saturday morning we made the three hour drive from our home in Agawam, MA to New York City. We arrived in Manhattan around 11:00 a.m. and drove down the Hudson Parkway to the south end. There we drove past the site of the World Trade Center. It was very sobering to go past the site of this great tragedy and to remember the events that took place here in 2001.

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