Family Vacations?

One of my favorite people on the planet is Dennis Prager. I love listening to his radio show and download his podcasts on a regular basis. He talks about everything in life and is a clear and fair thinker.

Last week he spent an hour on the topic of family vacations. His initial question was do you take family vacations with your kids? The follow-up questions evolved around whether you would rather take a vacation with your kids or just with your spouse? He was not asking about which you feel you SHOULD do, but which would you WANT to do. He continued to clarify the question that you had to pick one or the other, since for most families that is the reality.

This is a particularly interesting topic for me, having a young family. With limited funds and limited time, what do you do? On the one hand, you want to do things with your kids as a family. On the other, you want to maintain a relationship with your spouse.

What do you think?

Dave Ramsey on TV!

Dave Ramsey will be hosting a show during prime time on the new Fox Business Network set to launch on Monday, October 15th. Set your TiVos!

Next Study Series

I know I haven't finished posting my notes on the study we did on eschatology, but I only have time for a short post. I'll try to finish the notes soon.

We did finish our study of eschatology. It was good. It's not a subject I am typically very interested in, but I did enjoy it more that I expected. Our next study series is going to be on the New Testament book of James.

20 Great Nuggets of Personal Finance Advice

I recently found Get Rich Slowly and really like it. They had a great post yesterday on 20 Great Nuggets of Personal Finance Advice. I thought I would pass it along. Enjoy!

The Study of Last Things - Part 2

As I mentioned in my last post, there are several aspects of eschatology that all orthodox Christian teaching agrees on. With the help of Grudem's Systematic Theology, here they are:

(A) The sudden, personal, visible, bodily return of Christ

"So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." (Matthew 24:44, NIV)

"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:3, NIV)

"“Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”" (Acts 1:11, NIV)

"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first." (1 Thessalonians 4:16, NIV)

"so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. " (Hebrews 9:28, NIV)

"You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near." (James 5:8, NIV)

"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare." (2 Peter 3:10, NIV)

"Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2, NIV)

"Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen." (Revelation 1:7, NIV)

"He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus." (Revelation 22:20, NIV)

(B) We should eagerly long for Christ's return

"He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus." (Revelation 22:20, NIV)

"It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ," (Titus 2:12-13, NIV)

"But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ," (Philippians 3:20, NIV)

"If anyone does not love the Lord—a curse be on him. Come, O Lord!" (1 Corinthians 16:22, NIV)

"So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." (Matthew 24:44, NIV)

(C) We do not know when Christ will return

"So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." (Matthew 24:44, NIV)

"“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour." (Matthew 25:13, NIV)

" “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come." (Mark 13:32-33, NIV)

"You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”" (Luke 12:40, NIV)

(D) The final results of the return of Christ (*I'll have to come back to this in more detail later)

1. Judgment and punishment of unbelievers
2. Judgment and reward of believers
3. Believers living with Christ in a new heaven and new earth for eternity

I'll cover the areas of disagreement next time.

The Study of Last Things

Currently our Bible study group is studying eschatology, or the study of last things. To be honest, this has never been a topic I have been incredibly interested in. For one thing, it is very confusing. Secondly, it is a non-salvific issue (what you believe about this issue doesn't impact your salvation), which automatically makes it at least a secondary issue in my book, so it hasn't been high on my list of priorities. However, there were enough people in the group interested in the topic to do it.

I must begin by saying that Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology has been an incredibly helpful resource. It is a book I think all Christian homes should have on hand, along with a good concordance and Bible dictionary. The notes we have been using as an outline come almost exclusively from his section on The Doctrine of the Future.

It has been very interesting to learn which aspects orthodox Christianity agrees on and which it does not. It has also been very interesting to see the relatively few verses that all the different groups are arguing over and how unclear much of it is. It should certainly give all sides a level of humility and "holding-loosely" to their positions.

Basically, there are three main orthodox positions: Amillennialism, Postmillenialism and Premillenialism. I have heard of another view, Preterism, which believes that everything happened about 70 AD, but I haven't read enough about it to know if it another orthodox option or some form of heresy. FOr the sake of our study, we have excluded it.

I will give a description and some of the highlights of the positions in a future post.

Skippyjon Jones

I am a bookworm. I love books. I love to read and I absolutely love reading to my kids. However, my kids tend to get stuck on a book for awhile and want to hear the same one or two every night for a week or so at a time. This makes it even more important to find GOOD books to read.

A friend of ours from church recently gave the boys a new book: Skippyjon Jones. I laughed out loud the first, second and third times I read it to the boys. It is about a very imaginative little Siamese cat who likes to pretend he is a sword-fighting Chihuahua. It's great. If you have little kids, go buy it. You'll be very happy you did.

Baby Claire

Wow. Many things have happened since my last post, most importantly the birth of my little girl Claire. That and a surgery for Claire at about 4 weeks of age to correct something called Pyloric Stenosis. She is doing great now.

Here is a link to my wife's blog, Frantlings. She posts lots of pictures of the kids. The name comes from a great game of Balderdash we had with Matt and Shannon Blackwell many years ago before we had kids. I don't even remember what the word really means, but I remember we laughed for what seemed like hours at the definitions we came up with for the word.

Are You LinkedIn?

Are you LinkedIn? Have you heard of this this yet? I think I am way behind the curve on this, but LinkedIn is an on-line networking service that I recently joined. I am still trying to get the hang of things, but it seems really cool. It has allowed me to get in touch with some people I haven't talked to in awhile.

It's free. That's good. They also are pretty strict on privacy, so no one is going to be able to see anything you don't want them to see without your permission. You can adjust the types of invitations and things you receive, so if you only want to get in touch with former classmates and colleagues, you can do that and avoid job offers or inquiries.

I'll post more as I learn more about it.

Apple iPhone

This is going to be sooooooo cool... I am usually not much of a gadget guy, but this might be an exception.