It's been a long journey for me in finding the right mix of tools to aid my study of scripture. It started with Olive Tree's Bible Study app, eventually moved to Ulysses [https://thesweetsetup.com/how-to-use-ulysses-for-long-term-research/], and now, thanks to my exposure to the Zettelkasten system, Obsidian is now the home of my notes. This is one of those topics where each individual could have a slightly different setup than the next person. But tools like Roam Research [https://thesweetset…
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If you’ve read any of the newsletters I’ve sent in 2020, you know I have a lot of great things to say about Drew Coffman. He’s an awful smart chap, and seems to have that magical touch with whatever he makes (videos, podcasts, websites…). But he said something a few weeks back [https://twitter.com/DrewCoffman/status/1263944528005754881] that sat wrong with me. > A real bummer about not attending a church is that when you tell that to Christians they assume you’re a burnout. > What if you just…d…
Switching gears here, I enjoyed this interview on the Crossway blog. They talk to Dane Ortlund, author of Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers [https://www.crossway.org/books/gentle-and-lowly-hcj/]. The post resonated with me because I’m the kind of person who needs constant reminders of God’s love and affection for his children. I’m the kind of Christian who finds it far too easy to envision God as a stern heavenly father who is constantly correcting his flock (guess…
It’s taken a lot of years to improve on this, but I’m finally learning to turn to God as a first option more frequently. So often, when there is some kind of problem in my life, I would react and attempt to use my skills and resources to solve it. Some times this is enough; many times it is not. God has helped me change my thinking over the past couple of years. And truth be told, the more common scenario is not dealing with an actual problem, but the potential for a problem (for when something…
Alan Jacobs writes about Bibles in a recent newsletter. He mentions the Illuminated version of the ESV that was illustrated by Dana Tanamachi. That caught my eye as that’s the Bible I’m currently using (and thanks to an ordering gaffe, so is my wife — I bought two copies). He very briefly gets into how it can be hard to mark up these nice Bibles that are works of art. > I myself own some beautifully bound Bibles, but I am always slightly uneasy about them. They are precious, but that’s a word…
I’ve long had a love–hate relationship with some of Paul’s directions to the various churches he wrote to in the NT. The love is for the blessing of the words God inspired him to write, for the feeling that comes when I really dig in. But the hate comes from my inability to follow the instructions.
As my kids get older, the bedtime routine actually takes longer. Instead of trying to get a toddler to sleep, we spend our time in long conversations talking about all the hard things in life.
Being a Christian isn’t about “doing”, but you don’t have to attend church for long to know we’re all supposed to read our Bible, pray, and spend time in worship together. How do we go beyond the basics? I often find myself asking the question: am I doing enough?