A Piper Cub Lands in Philistia

A friend sent me a (bit of an inside) joke. I replied “< insert rimshot here >”. He replied with this:

In a recent review of Brad Whittington’s Living with Fred, I noted that the protagonist, Mark Cloud, “starts trying to ‘engage his culture’ decades before such a phrase was ever dreamed up”.

Case in point: He goes with his high-school buddies on a hunting trip, something he wouldn’t ordinarily be the least bit interested in. While part of his motivation may be general peer pressure and trying to fit in better, he also is truly trying to connect with these guys in a Christ-like manner.

As I also noted, Mark “messes up some times, crossing lines that he shouldn’t, but eventually recognizes these errors.”  One of these times occurs on the hunting trip, when his buddies crack open some cans of beer.  Mark is somewhat conflicted, but goes ahead and drinks.  Even as he’s doing it, he wonders if he’s going too far.  And when his father finds out later, he reminds Mark that — even laying aside any convictions or beliefs about alcohol in general — he is underage.

In short, Mark went out on a limb, went too far on said limb, and it snapped under the weight of his sin and error.

Elijah went out on a limb.  In 1 Kings 18, we read the story of the showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal.  After the prophets’ lack of success, Elijah taunted them wondering aloud if Baal was on a trip, or asleep, or seated on a porcelain throne.  Think about the Muslim reaction to the Muhammad cartoons, and the fact that verse 40 tells us that after Elijah was victorious, he “brought [the prophets of Baal] down to the Brook Kishon and executed them there”, and tell me that — if God hadn’t thrown down — they wouldn’t have killed Elijah, just for being a smart aleck.

He then goes further out on the limb and has 12 barrels of water poured on his sacrifice before asking God to consume it with fire.  Ask one of the guys on those shiny red trucks, and I bet he will agree that water is a very good fire-repellant.

Did Elijah believe that God was more than capable of providing enough fire to overpower that water? Certainly!

Did Elijah know that God would do just that? Not really.

Yeah, he knew it in the sense that “faith is … the evidence of things not seen”, but that’s more spirit than intellect.  From the most basic definition of “know”, Elijah did not know that God would do what He did.  But he trusted God to guide him.

Do we go out to the very tip of every last limb, presuming on grace?  No. Using Elijah’s example, I’m sure he had lots of ordinary days — or else 1 Kings would be a lot more than 22 chapters.

But we shouldn’t swing the pendulum too far the other way.

There are those who constantly scoff, sneer, and look with utter revulsion upon the concept of “engaging the culture”.  To beat the “out on a limb” metaphor into the ground, these people are clinging tightly to the tree trunk.  And ya know why?  Out of fear.  Out of a lack of faith.

The implication is clear:

Berkeley has nothing on these tree-huggers.

Living with Fred
Brad Whittington
(book 2 of the Fred, Texas series)

The author is probably going to be a bit disappointed in me. But the feeling isn’t at all mutual.

Brad caught my review of the first book in this series and called it “the best summary of the book [he had] ever seen”. When my cranial swelling finally went down, I started reading Living with Fred, the second book in this series. I liked it even more than the first book, but this review probably won’t be as good as the first one. Hence my opening paragraph.

Living with Fred continues the story of Mark Cloud, a Baptist preacher’s kid (PK) living in Fred, Texas — a town 5 miles on the other side of nowhere. Born in Fort Worth, but having spent his pre-adolescent years in Ohio, Mark is still something of a fish out of water in Fred as his senior year of high school approaches. The mere fact of him being an outsider is wearing off, but his very nature (partly formed by his “not from around here” upbringing) and the fact that he is a PK still conspire to keep him from fitting in completely with his peers.

A voracious reader, Mark comes upon a copy of In His Steps, and starts wondering the central theme of that book — what would Jesus do?  In one sense, Mark starts trying to “engage his culture” decades before such a phrase was ever dreamed up.  He messes up some times, crossing lines that he shouldn’t, but eventually recognizes these errors.

Let me be clear — there’s no less story in this second book than there was in Welcome to Fred.  Rather, it’s just that Whittington’s writing improves, both in the tightness of delivery and in his growing ability to weave weightier themes into the story.

In the introduction, Whittington notes that an editor advised him to “tell us more about [Mark’s] father”.  While the father’s role is somewhat increased directly in this second book (through Mark’s eyes, of course, since he is the narrator), the influences of the father are what appear even moreso through Mark’s thoughts and actions, continuing the “turning into dad” theme that Whittington started in the first book.

Living with Fred is an excellent continuation of the Fred, Texas series — working well with the first book, and yet even better.

[ http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=dietofbookwor-20

Illuminated
Matt Bronleewe

This was a fun book penned by one of the founders of Jars of Clay.  I got my hands on an Advanced Reading Copy several months ago, which I then promptly lost until recently — so much for being the first kid on the block.

I’ve heard this book compared to The DaVinci Code (minus Dan Brown’s wack theology), but not being familiar with that latter book, I can’t say for sure.  But if you’ve seen either of the National Treasure movies, then you have an idea of the feel of Illuminated.  Subsitute church history for American history, but keep intact the intrigue, puzzles, clues, and a good bit of the adventure.

August and April Adams are both book experts.  They are a separated couple with a son, Charlie.  August’s pursuits have devolved a bit, moreso obtaining and selling rare books rather than his earlier work of discovering and studying them.  Not all of his dealings are totally above board, nor are his clientele.  April is a curator at the Library of Congress in Washington DC.

A secret order, that is hundreds of years old, has stumbled upon information that Johannes Gutenberg hid clues to a huge treasure in the artwork (or illuminations — hence the title) of several editions of the Bibles that he printed.  Needing multiple copies, and knowing that August and April each have access to one, they strike both of them simulateously to acquire what they have access to, threatening the lives of Charlie and Grandma Rose (April’s mother, who helps care for the boy).

Meanwhile, a second order is trying to stop them, and also acquire the treasure for itself.  One of the characters eventually turns out to be something of a “double agent”, truly a member of one order but guised as a member of the other order — or then again, maybe not.  It’s not confusing, but it’s not a book to be read while watching TV, gardening, and cooking all at the same time.

Early on in the book, it is explained to August that much like a GPS uses three points to triangulate a location, so three copies of the Gutenberg Bible are needed to triangulate the clues and figure out where the treasure is.  This metaphor works well for the whole book, too, as pieces start falling into place and the mystery starts becoming clearer.

A movie that isn’t very heavy or life-changing, but is a lot of fun, is often described as a “good popcorn movie”.  Illuminated is the book equivalent.  It was a good bit of fun, and I definitely recommend it.

P.S. I understand that this is the first book in a series, with the second installment coming out next month.

Did you like the bumper music in my last podcast? I don’t mean “like” as in “I had to run out and buy the album”, but “like” as in “it didn’t make my ears bleed too much”. I actually created that myself online with JamStudio.

Unless you count clarinet in junior high and high school, I have no instrumental talent whatsoever, but with JamStudio, I don’t have to.  I played with the tool for about 15-20 minutes just getting familiar with it, and then created that little ditty in 5 minutes (most of which was spent finding the instrumentation that I liked best).

Basically, you give chord progressions (some musical knowledge is helpful), pick up to 8 instruments, each with dozens of riffs, and the ability to mix the volume on each.  You can set the tempo, and even change the key on the fly.  They’ve even got some sample artists, where the instrumentation and riffs sound like that artist.  I’m not very familiar with a lot of their samples, but the stuff created when you pick U2’s Joshua Tree sounds just like something that’d be on that album.

Most of the features are free, but for $10/month you get a bunch of extra riffs and skip-free MP3s.  This latter issue would be important if you wanted things to sound really good.  The nature of the web-based tool will cause some skips or slight delays now and then.  I had a few that I cleaned up in an audio editor in a couple minutes, but it’s still not perfect.

There’s a video tutorial on YouTube that describes this better than I can.  Note that the tutorial doesn’t always distinguish between the free stuff and the subscription stuff.  But there’s not much that isn’t free.

This is a fun toy for wasting lots of time online.  But it also can be a good tool for the aspiring songwriter with “no instrumental talent whatsoever”, like someone we know.

And in case you’re curious, here’s everything that went into my “song” (this is how it looked with all 4 instruments going):

Well, the name of the blog changed, so the name of the podcast has to change too.  Hopefully, this is the last time.  (If you’re keeping score at home, you’ll remember that I have changed the podcast name with every episode so far.)

In keeping with my “late to the party” theme, while I recorded the podcast tonight, the message in the Sermon Snippet is 3 months old.

 

 The Unknown Philistine #1 [15:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Yeah, I know — having just deleted two posts on my own blog, I can never use the verb “Schleuter’d” again. . . 

I’m changing the name of this blog. As most of you know, it was “Musings from Two-Sheds Gomer”. “Two-Sheds” is my Gomer name (as a member of Third Day’s fan club).  For reasons that I’m not comfortable going into right now, I need to distance myself from that name.

Let me be clear: It has absolutely nothing to do with the band.  They haven’t changed at all.  I still heartily recommend them and commend them for the work they do.  But I’ve changed.  And, at least for now, I have to drop the moniker.

So what’s with the new name?

I’m told that, because I align myself with several beliefs that John Calvin espoused, that this makes me a Calvinist.  This is rather unfortunate, as a large majority of the self-identifying Calvinists in the blogosphere are, er um, well let’s just say they’re un-Christlike.  Yeah, that’s the ticket.

But if people are gonna slap a label on me simply because I partially theologically align myself with some dude that’s been dead for 450 years, I’m gonna slap other labels on myself.

I really appreciate the teachings and writings of John Piper.  So, I guess this makes me a Piper cub.

My friend, Phil, is the one who turned me onto reformed theology.  I probably align theologically with him even more.  This would make me a Phil-istine.

So hence the new name for this blog:  A Piper Cub Lands in Philistia

This is a re-run of a 3-year-old post regarding an expression that my grandmother used to use (she went home about 7 months after I wrote this). I was reminded of it when reading an email from my aunt in which she mentioned that my grandfather used the same expression. I think this post bears repeating.

My grandmother has an expression that she uses — “God love ‘em”. Sometimes she uses it in sympathy (”Joe’s been sick lately, God love him”), sometimes in gratitude (”Mary was very encouraging to me, God love her”) and in other manners, too. I don’t remember her not using that phrase in my 38 years on this planet.

Sometimes when you hear something often, you don’t really hear it. Such is the case here. Recently, the profundity of that phrase hit me like a hammer:

God love ‘em

What greater desire could we express for another person, no matter what their circumstance or standing, than for God’s love to rain down on them?

Thanks for the lesson, Nana. God love ya.

I listened recently to a couple of lectures on lament that Michael Card gave at Southern Seminary. (HT: iMonk) Card pointed out two verses in the last chapter:

Interestingly, Job had really railed against God on several occasions. But God’s “wrath [was] aroused” by those who spoke wrongly of Him. This is what God considered foolishness (and demanded repentance from), not the rantings of a confused man.

Certainly, we should always strive to be respectful of God. But when we blow it, He’s big enough to handle it, and He doesn’t frown on that nearly as much (if at all) as He does on those who are full of respect, but speak wrongly of Him.