Yay SWBTS…

They’re proving Solomon built Gezer.., again…

Better than the report are the adverts that fill the page…

Lordy…

Peter Lang: Studies in Biblical Literature

Quote of the Day

Hans Hübner – “Der glaubende Christ ist der denkende Theologe.”

Deplorable

The cabinet is expected to declare the Gaza Strip as enemy territory. A senior Israeli official said the decision would mean that Israel would not be liable for damage incurred to residents of the Strip as a result of Israeli actions during Operation Protective Edge.  The resolution on the decision was posted to the website of the Prime Minister’s Office Thursday afternoon, but a few hours later it was decided that it would not be brought for a vote at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.

We’ll decimate your land and leave you homeless and without infrastructure and then call you an enemy so that we don’t have to help you recover.

If you don’t want to help rebuild that’s your business.  But to evade responsibility on the pretext of a declaration is just one thing: deplorable.  It’s sickening.  And it sure does make it look like the only thing Israel cares about is money.

Never Miss Another Post, Ever (Bryan Bibb et al)

Much to his dismay and sorrow young Bryan Bibb missed a post yesterday.   So I’ve fixed it so that he and you all never have to suffer that horror again.  Yes, friends, now you can get an email anytime anything is posted.

Go ahead, you know you want to.  The little thing at the top of the nav panel on the right that looks like this

Click follow and you’ll never miss another post ever again forever Bryan Bibb et al.

Because Now We’re Too Lazy To Peel a Banana…

But who will get the banana out of the plastic wrap? Surely that’s as ‘difficult’ as peeling it…

via NZZ

Farel’s Letter to Geneva After he Was Banished

‘Cherish, in your hearts no rancour,’ he said to his former flock, ‘no root of bitterness, no anger. Do not reproach this man nor that man, but let each one reproach himself: lay all the blame on yourselves and say nothing but good of others. Let God’s holy will be your rule, and not poor man (the natural man), and what is in him.’

He does not hesitate to rebuke his friends. ‘You have not obeyed God wholly, but have halted and swerved to one side and the other.’ Then he earnestly exhorts them to repentance. ‘You, great and small, men and women, cast yourselves humbly before God, with all earnestness and love, beseeching his grace, and praying him to turn away his anger from you. Yes, cast yourselves before him with sobs and tears, with fasting and prayer, like the king of Nineveh and his people. Cry, weep, lift up your voices; that your cry going forth from the depths of this terrible calamity may reach the ear of God.’*

Given the situation that Farel and Calvin faced and the mistreatment they endured, Farel’s remarks are remarkably charitable.  Who says Calvin’s followers are all judgment and harshness?  I mean besides the people who don’t know what they’re talking about.

____________________
*D’aubigné, J. H. M., D. D., History of the reformation in Europe in the time of Calvin (Vol. 6, p. 542).

Landon Donovan is Retiring At the End of the Year

From his facebook page-

After careful deliberation and after many conversations with those closest to me, I have decided that this will be my last season as a professional soccer player.

I don’t write these words lightly and this day carries mixed emotions for me. I am sad to leave a profession that has brought me so much joy. I will miss all of the teammates who helped me create so many incredible memories on-the-field, and who I have shared many wonderful experiences with off-the-field. I will miss my coaches, at both the club and national team levels, who have helped me develop throughout my career and helped make me the player I am today. However, after spending half my life as a professional soccer player, I also am excited to begin a new chapter and pursue other opportunities that will challenge me and allow me to grow as a person.

There are so many people I want to thank who have inspired me, guided me and helped me on this incredible journey. I simply could not have accomplished what I did during my playing career without an overwhelming amount of support from my family, my friends and many others. I plan to express my gratitude to everyone in a more detailed manner at a later date; however, for now, I want to single out the fans. You are the lifeblood of this sport and, without you, none of us would be fortunate to call ourselves professional soccer players in MLS.

I feel incredibly blessed and lucky to have played a role in the remarkable growth of MLS and US Soccer during my playing career. And while my career as a player will soon be over, rest assured I will stay connected on many levels to the beautiful game.

As we enter a transformative time for the sport, I will do everything I can to help the continued growth of soccer in the United States. I look forward to making a difference, pursuing my passions and meeting all of you along the way in this next phase of my life.

With gratitude,

Landon

He’s a great player.  And I wish him all the best for his future, but I sure wish he had continued to play.

Iraq: The New Rwanda

Mr Obama, it is your moral obligation to do something.

The Yazidi wish to inform you that tomorrow they will be killed with their families. Actually, it may not be tomorrow. The 40,000 members of Iraq’s most ancient sect, who are currently huddling on the side of Mount Sinjar, might have a bit longer. If they stay there it will apparently take a few days, maybe a few weeks, before they die of thirst, malnutrition and sickness. If they don’t, their deaths at the hands of the butchers of Isis who have surrounded them will be quicker. Though not that quick.

Five hundred of their number have died in the last week alone, 40 of them children. Unfortunately the Yazidi don’t appear to have had access to iPhones, so you won’t have seen the harrowing images of their dead.

Think of the Hotel Rwanda. Or the Dutch UN compound in Srebrenica. That’s Mount Sinjar this morning.

The Iraqi army, who have the responsibility for protecting the Yazidi, are nowhere to be seen. Kurdish Peshmurga troops, regarded as a more potent fighting force, have also been forced to withdraw.

And where are we? “Everybody is retreating to their corners,” Ali Khedery, the former longest-serving US official in Baghdad, told the Guardian. “And there is no credible international actor that I can see that is trying to bring it together again. It definitely is an existential threat to the Iraqi government and I think it represents yet another manifestation of the disintegration of Iraq as we know it.”

This is intolerable.  It is immoral.  It is evil.  IF we do nothing, we are responsible for their deaths because, if we wished to, we could stop ISIS. We can kill them before they kill the innocent.  And we should.  Today.  I agree utterly when our author writes

“What can we do?” is the cry so often heard as we cast our eyes across these distant battlefields. And as I wrote yesterday, the answer is nothing. Because we choose to do nothing.

As we chose to nothing in Rwanda. As we chose to do nothing in Srebrenica.

Mount Sinjar is not downtown Baghdad. Or even downtown Gaza. Here is an instance – a very rare instance – where the good guys and the bad guys are very clearly defined.

Isis are out in the open. So are the Yazidi.

We can do something. Now. Today. This hour.

We can start to airdrop emergency aid. We can provide arms to the Yazidi and their defenders. We can provide air support to drive Isis form the immediate area. We could, heaven forbid, provide ground troops to construct an impromptu safe haven.

All of those things are in our power. But we chose not to do them. Why? Because we are paralysed by our perverse new morality. “We killed innocent people in Iraq,” we say to ourselves, “so to atone we must stand back and let innocent people get killed in Iraq.”

For once, just for once, can we actually do something? The UN, Nato, the US and the UK. It doesn’t really matter whose umbrella its under. For once let’s demonstrate that the billions of pounds we spend on the most powerful military forces in human history can actually stand up to a bunch of petty hoodlums with machetes, or AK47s, or Toyota 4x4s.

My Skillful Daughter and Her Knitted Works

Rachel loves to knit.  And she enjoys making different sorts of things.  Baby blankets, socks, scarves, hats, that sort of thing.  She also enjoys making Christmas stockings and she’s asked me to post a few pics for her- so I’m glad to.

If you’d like her to knit you a Christmas stocking, or anything else, just contact her directly via her email address-  rmwest21@gmail.com.

I’m Urging Logos To Add This to the Zwingli Collection

It needs to be included.

It Pains Me To Say This, But ISIS Needs to Be Eliminated: Mr Obama, Kill Them

They are nothing more than a gang of brutal murderers and they need to be executed, eliminated, done away with, killed off.  However you wish to put it.

Stranded on a barren mountaintop, thousands of minority Iraqis are faced with a bleak choice: descend and risk slaughter at the hands of the encircled Sunni extremists or sit tight and risk dying of thirst.

Humanitarian agencies said Tuesday that between 10,000 and 40,000 civilians remain trapped on Mount Sinjar since being driven out of surrounding villages and the town of Sinjar two days earlier. But the mountain that had looked like a refuge is becoming a graveyard for their children.

The Islamic State’s takeover of Sinjar, the first major setback for Kurdish forces protecting the country’s north, sent about 200,000 people fleeing, according to the United Nations. Some 147,000 have arrived in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, flooding refugee camps.

Most of those stranded on Mount Sinjar had run out of battery life on their cellphones by Tuesday, but the few that still could communicate gave grim updates.

On Tuesday, 10 children and one elderly woman died, while on Monday, seven children had perished, said 23-year-old Shihab Balki, who was trapped with his mother, sister and four brothers. “I saw their bodies with my own eyes.”

Mr Obama, now is the time to demonstrate the might of the US Military.  Bomb ISIS into oblivion and save the world from their demonic evil.

Putin the Hypocrite

The NZZ reports

Aufrufe für mehr Autonomie in Sibirien erwischen den Kreml auf dem falschen Fuss. Während Moskau in der Ukraine Separatisten unterstützt, verbietet es in Sibirien Proteste für mehr Selbstbestimmung.

It’s a great essay highlighting the hypocrisy of Putin in relationship to his interest in eastern Ukraine and his disinterest in ‘separatists’ elsewhere in Russia.

#Fedex, You’re Just the Worst

I honestly don’t know how Fedex stays in business.  Their customer ‘service’ is awful, they hardly deliver anything directly anymore- everything goes to the Post Office, and when they do deliver to the Post Office- they deliver to the wrong one!  Come on!!!

Luther’s ‘Nein!’

Quote of the Week

A word to the wise for grad students and recent Ph.D.’s: writing snarky book reviews is really not a good way to make friends or to impress either your peers or more senior colleagues…it’s great that you think you know everything, but you don’t. Rather than tearing down others, your career would be better served if you write your own article or book on the same topic and show your superior intelligence and vast knowledge that way. – Eric Cline