ABC's "The Path to 9/11"

ABC's mini-series "The Path to 9/11" is getting some good press from Hugh Hewitt for being very fair and non-partisan. I plan on watching it and hoping it is half as good as the National Geographic series I watched Sunday night.

ABC's series is supposed to broadcast Sunday, 9/11 and Monday, 9/11.

Prager About Who and Why

Dennis Prager has a good, brief article at Townhall.com on "Just a Reminder About Who and Why We Are Fighting". Read it.

Remembering...

I sat up until 2 am in the morning last night completely enthralled with National Geographic's Inside 9/11. I could not move away from the TV. It was not only the images, but the background, the stories, the calls, the interviews...

A very well done series. If you have DirectTV or cable, look for it on the National Geographic channel. If you don't, consider purchasing the DVDs or see if they have them at your library or local video store.

If I Were Wiser and More Disciplined

Wisdom and Discipline. I want more of each. The problem is that I have some of each, but enough to frustrate me that I don't have more. If I had less I probably wouldn't know any better and would be much less frustrated. Does that make sense?

Specifically, there are these things in my life that I KNOW I should be doing or not doing. Things that 10, 20, 30 years from now I will be wishing I had done. I know I will and I will regret not having done them and I will wish that I could travel back in time and tell the 33 year-old me that I should do them. But that's just it, I don't need the 63 year-old me to tell the 33 year-old me to do these things because I already know that. I need the discipline to actually do them.

So here is a list of some of the things that I KNOW I should be doing, but am not currently doing:

Drink more water
Drink less soft drinks
Eat more vegatables (or at least some vegatables)
Eat less junk
Count my calories daily
Go to bed early, regularly (10 pm?)
Wake up early, regularly (5 am?)
Planning the next day before I go to bed
Run regularly (I have been pretty good about this, except the last few weeks)
Lift weights regularly
Save more money
Read more
Watch less TV (this is a post in itself)

I am sure there are more things that I could add to the list, but those are some obvious ones that seem to constantly gnaw at the edges of my conscience. Perhaps pointing these out publicly will help push me to do them. Let's hope so.

Blog Update

I have spent the last 3 hours trying to figure out how to get the expandable posts feature to work on the blog. I finially got it to work, but because of the time, this is the post you are getting for today. Sorry. I had planned on solving the Middle East Conflict between the Jews and Palestinians, but I guess that will have to wait until tomorrow...

By the way, the expandable posts feature means that I can show only the first couple of paragraphs of a long post on the main page and include a "Continue reading..." link to take you, the reader, to the rest of the post. You can check out some of my previous posts to see the update.

Matty B

I feel sorry for those of you who don't know my friend Matt Blackwell or "Matty B" as some of us call him. Matt has been a great friend (and still is) and an accountability partner of mine for several years.

He used to be the Senior High youth pastor of our church, but recently moved down to beautiful Austin, TX (or "God's Country" as many of us UT alumni call it) to become the College Pastor at First Evangelical Free Church.

He is a fantastic pastor and his sermons will now be available on-line. If you go to the ECHO website (that is the name of their College ministry) and then click on Resources at the top, you will see the sermons. I would suggest doing it on a regular basis.

In the Name of Jesus, part 2

What does it mean to pray, "in the name of Jesus?"

Let me begin by saying that the Bible clearly instructs us to pray in the name of Jesus (John 14:13, 16:23-26, Eph 5:20, Col 3:17, Heb 13:15), so I am not arguing that point. What I am questioning is what it means to pray in the name of Jesus.

Continue reading "In the Name of Jesus, part 2"

Does it mean to simply say the words, "in the name of Jesus" at the end of our prayers? I don't think so. Although I don't think there is anything wrong with saying those words at the end of your prayer, I think the instruction to pray in the name of Jesus means something different.

In the Bible the names of God and the names of Jesus are more than just titles, they are clues about who God is and what He is like. They are glimpses into His nature. Whereas "Scott" only tells you the noise to make to get my attention, the names of Jesus tell us about who he is and what he is like. The names of Jesus include, the Alpha and the Omega (Rev 1:8), the Bright and Morning Star (Rev 22:16), the Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:4), the Good Shepherd (John 10:11), Emmanuel (Isa 7:14), Wonderful Counselor (Isa 9:6), Mighty God (Isa 9:6), Everlasting Father (Isa 9:6), Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6), Faithful and True (Rev 19:11), the Horn of Salvation (Luke 1:69), the great I AM (John 8:58), King of the Jews (John 19:19), King of Israel (John 1:49), King of Saints (Rev 15:3), King of Kings and Lord of Lords (1 Tim 6:15, Rev 17:14), King of Glory (Psalm 24:7-10), King of Zion (Matt 21:5), Lamb of God (John 1:29), Light of the World (John 8:12), Living Bread (John 6:51), the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Rev 5:5), the Root of David (Rev 5:5, 22:16), the Root of Jesse (Isa 11:10), the Son of God (Matt 14:33), the Son of Man (Matt 16:27,28), the Son of David (Matt 9:27), the True Vine (John 15:1) and the Word of God (John 1:1, Rev 19:13).

These names speak of His humanity, His divinity, His eternality, His power, His glory, His love and protection for us, His goodness, His mercy, and His role as the promised Messiah. His names tell us, in part, who He is.

When God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, instructing him to go to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let His people go, Moses was worried that Pharaoh and the Israelites would not believe him. He asks:

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ (Ex. 3:13, 14)

Moses asks God his name and God's reply is with a name that tells of his divine and sovereign nature. He is completely self-existent and eternal. He is.

Therefore, when the Bible tells us to believe in the name of Jesus (John 1:12), does it makes sense that we are to believe in the actual name? Is there some kind of saving power in the combination of those five letters? Of course not. It means to trust in who He is and what He has done on our behalf.

And exactly how is someone to be baptised in a name (Acts 2:38) or act in a name (Col 3:17) if what is meant by name is the sound? What these instructions mean is to be associated with the family of God by the power and work of what Jesus Christ has done for us. It means to identify ourselves with Him. It means to act according to the will and nature of Jesus Christ; to act on His behalf, as His ambassador.

Returning to our original question: what does it mean to pray, "in the name of Jesus?" It means to pray according to the will and nature of Jesus. It means to ask for and want the things that Jesus wants. And, that doesn't require saying the words, "in the name of Jesus" at the end of your prayer.

In the Name of Jesus?

What does it mean to pray "in the name of Jesus?"

That is the question some co-workers and I are discussing right now. It started when I was recounting a story involving my oldest son. We were saying our prayers one evening and I ended by saying simply, "Amen." My son corrected me saying, "No daddy. In Jesus name, Amen."

Continue reading "In the Name of Jesus"


I told my friends that I didn't think it would make sense to try and explain to a three-year old that the words, "in Jesus name" were not some kind of magic phrase like "Abracadabra" that you say to make your prayers come true, so I just said, "You're right. In Jesus name, Amen."

Well, that got some interesting responses from a couple of my friends. They argued that we need to end our prayers with "in Jesus name" and that we are instructed to do so in the Bible. I agreed that we are instructed to pray in the name of Jesus in the Bible, but that what that means is not simply to tack on those words at the end of the prayer. Instead, I thought it meant to pray according to the will of Jesus. In other words, I can pray in the name of Jesus without including the words, "in the name of Jesus" at the end of my prayer just as someone can conclude their prayer, "in the name of Jesus" and still not be praying in the name of Jesus.

They didn't buy it.

Now let me clarify that I certainly don't think there is anything wrong with including those words at the end of your prayer. Quite the contrary, that is where my son learned it because he has heard me and my wife say it so often. I simply don't think that you have to include it, nor do I think that is what is meant by the instruction.

I am working on researching this in the Bible now to see if I am right or wrong. I'll post on what I find later. Peace.

Spelling Bee

Well, my oldest son can now spell his forst word, thanks to the Toy Story animated movies.

There is a scene where Woody (Tom Hanks) is trying to explain to Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) that he, Buzz, is not really a Space Ranger, but a child's toy. He gets so frustrated that he eventually screams,

"YOU ARE A TOY! T - O - Y, TOY!!!"

After having seen that about 37 times, my son now knows it by heart.

"Cade, how do you spell toy?"

"T - O - Y - Toy!"

Thank you Pixar and Disney. Thank you.

Movie Review

As planned, I went and saw The DaVinci Code movie at the dollar theater last night. Well, actually, it was the $1.50 theater. Anyway, the movie was well worth the price of the ticket. I enjoyed it.

For all of the talk about how bad Tom Hanks' acting was, I thought his performance as Dr. Robert Langdon was fine. Not as good as some of his work, but it wasn't bad. The others actors were OK too, but Ian McKellen as Sir Leigh Teabing was outstanding.

I was more frustrated in the movie than I expected to be. I knew about the historical mistakes, etc. and was prepared for them, but still, watching it in the theater I couldn't stop thinking, "Some people are going to believe this!!" And what is most frustrating is that it is simply bad history. Even non-Christian scholars panned the historical claims in the book as junk.

One thing I did notice about the movie versus the book was that many of the claims were toned down in the movie and Hanks' character, Langdon, was much more skeptical of Sir Leigh Teabing's theories than he was in the book.

All-in-all, though, both the book and the movie were enjoyable works of fiction.

The DaVinci Code

OK, so I might be a few months to a year late, but I haven't been blogging, OK? I read the book this past April and am about to go see the movie tonight at the dollar theater. I expect it to be good. I'll let you know afterwards.

For the record, I really enjoyed the book. It was a good story. Too bad so much of the history is bad. I know, I know, "but it was a fiction book." Well, I would have accepted that too, but for this little blip at the beginning of the book that said that all historical and art references were true and accurate. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Too bad.

Anyway, the book obviously had plenty of publicity and attention. I think it sold a gazillion copies or something like that. I decided to read it because I wanted to be able to talk intelligently about it when someone brought it up. I am glad I did.

Greg Koukl of Stand To Reason has a very useful article on the book. If you are not aware of many of the historical inaccuracies in the book, this will help.

Recently Read

Reading is one of my favorite things to do and I like to read lots of different things. Here are the last few books I have read and a few quick thoughts on each...

Continue reading "Recently Read"


1776 by David McCullough. A book about the first year of the American Revolution. If you like history, you will love this book.

How to Think Like Benjamin Graham and Invest Like Warren Buffet by Lawrence Cunningham is a very dry book, unless of course you really like financial stuff - which I do - and then it's wonderful. Benjamin Graham is the Father of Financial Analysis and the mentor of Warren Buffet. Warren Buffet is, of course, the second wealthiest man on the planet and he earned it all through good investment decisions. There is a lot to be learned from this book.

Yes, You Can Still Retire Comfortably by Ben Stein and Phil DeMuth was another financial book I read recently. I liked it. Very simple, which is what they recommend for the vast majority of people. It also does a good job of making the case that most Americans are in for a very rude awakening when retirement comes around and so it is best to make the necessary sacrifices now and get started.

How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart. This was really a wonderful book. I just finished it and am re-reading it. Not something I do very often. The authors teach, as the title states, how to read the Bible by considering the context, the type of literature of the particular book, the original audience, etc. It's basically an introduction to good biblical exegesis (discovering the original intended meaning) and hermeneutics (determining what it means to us now). I highly recommend this book to any Christians out there who want to get more out of their time reading the Bible.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I don't read much science fiction, but a good friend recommended this book as a sci-fi "classic". Wow! It did not disappoint me at all. I read it in two days!! I couldn't put it down. The basic premise is that the Earth has been attacked by aliens ("bugs") and in an attempt to prepare themselves for the next war are training little genius children to be military super-strategist by playing war games. The story revolves around a six-year old little boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggins, who is a genius among geniuses. Although there is a necessary amount of sci-fi stuff to classify it as a sci-fi book, it is more a character story about the social, emotional and mental struggles that this little boy goes through as he wrestles with his abilities and their consequences. I HIGHLY recommend this book.

I just started reading Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry today. An interesting jump from sci-fi to a western, but it will be a nice change of pace.

Still "Under Construction"

Be patient with me as I toy around with the look and structure of the blog. It will change a bit over the next several days.

What is in a name?

Apparently more than I realize. This is my second, or third, attempt at a blog. My second attempt lasted all of a few hours. I wanted the blog's name to convey that this was a place where I could express my thoughts. I wanted it to be whimsical. So, I came up with "Scott's Noodle". The first two people I told about it (who shall remain anonymous) both laughed and said it made them think of something other than my mind. Fantastic.

I can see it all unfolding now... thousands upon thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, come to read my blog, not because they appreciate my keen insight into important issues or my clear and direct writing style, but instead because someone asked them, "Have you seen Scott's Noodle yet? Ha ha ha ha..." or "Hey, go check out Scott's Noodle. It's on the internet. Ha ha ha ha..."

And so "Scott's Noodle" was to be but a very brief blip in the universe. Although it did not have time to grow in fame or importance (there was only a single post), it did give birth to this blog. Many of you might catch my allusion to Winnie the Pooh and his Thoughtful Spot. It's where he goes to think, think, think. And so this blog will be my place to do the same.

Peace.