Pray for Mom

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Please pray for my mother.  I don’t have a pic on my laptop.  In 2003, she had a massive heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery.  She went to the ER tonight, and the doctors did an EKG they didn’t like the look of.  At this time (Thursday evening, Oct. 16), she is in a room for observation waiting to see her regular cardiologist tomorrow.

UPDATE: Thank you everyone that prayed.  Mom is back at home, there seems to be nothing wrong.  She is visiting her regular family doctor on Tuesday.  It turns out she had not felt well for a few days, so her symptoms may have just been from her illness, not signs of a heart attack.  BTW, Mom is 68, so we think it pays to be careful.  She does have 4 heart by-passes, after all.  Thanks again for your prayers, I would appreciate you mentioning her in prayer from time to time.  (Her name is Ellen Bunch.)

The Greatest Commandment

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In the Old Testament, God gave Moses the Law so that the Hebrews could be His people and He could be their God.  Most people are familiar with the 10 Commandments, but there were many others.  You can read page after page in Leviticus and Deuteronomy about what to do if your bull accidentally kills one of your neighbors sheep and other such unlikely events.  Many laws were simply about calling the Hebrews out to be different from the culture they lived in.  Every now and then, some well-meaning Bible teacher wanders into the Levitical law and comes out preaching a sermon about how God does not want us to eat catfish.  Some people make the argument that it’s all impossible to understand, and that we could never keep all of the law.  That conclusion would be exactly the correct one to reach. Continue reading →

The Villany of Christopher Columbus

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UPDATE: Columbus Day is coming up and that is always the busiest day of the year for this blog post.  I would like to offer a disclaimer; I realize the information presented here is one-sided.  My goal was to offset some of the hero worship associated with Christopher Columbus.  All the good stuff you’ve probably heard before.  I simply want informed readers to balance what they already know with these facts, which perhaps you are hearing about for the first time.

As a history teacher, I feel obligated to inform the masses that Columbus was a dirty old man.  I’m sure in the fifth grade, your history book had a little painting of Christopher Columbus, all smiles as he met the Native Americans, and they shook hands.  We celebrate Columbus Day to recognize his discovery of the New World.  Back that tape up in your mind, let me give you some more facts.

Continue reading →

Pornography and Masturbation

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Mark Driscoll, of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, is publishing a book online about pornography and masturbation.  Each week a new chapter is added, which you can read online and/or download a PDF.  The first five chapters are already available at Porn Again Christian, where you can also read a table of contents that lists the dates of upcoming chapters.  Continue reading →

A Scriptural Perspective on Economic Collapse and Financial Bailout

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We live in the richest nation on earth.  It may be borrowed money, and we may be about to pay the piper for it, but Americans are simply the wealthiest society ever in history.  We currently consume over half of the world’s natural resources.  The poverty line in the United States is higher than the per capita income of many nations.  My dog drinks cleaner water than about half of the world’s children.  We spent more money last year on ice cream than NASA spent in the entire space program.  That is the beauty of capitalism.  The revenues generated go back into fueling the system.  Carl Marx predicted capitalism would destroy itself, but you see, greed makes it work.  Our greed drives us to work harder, put in more hours, educate ourselves to get higher positions, etc.  And what do we do with all of that additional hard-earned cash?  WE SPEND IT, creating jobs and providing increasing salaries for our friends and neighbors.  So what went wrong? Continue reading →

RT’s Place

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After RT left a comment or two, I checked out his blog to get to know him better (I hope RT is a him.  If not, sorry girl.)  I found this post particularly amusing, comparing the salaries of teachers with those of state legislators.  He also asks some pointed questions about the requirements of both to keep a job.  Interesting stuff.  It’s good to make new friends, and we might soon be adding RT to the blogroll.

Dry Spell?

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I feel like I’m in some kind of a slump lately.  Maybe you call it a dry spell.  I don’t normally use this blog to talk about me and what’s going on in my life, but you may have noticed I haven’t used this blog lately for well, anything.  Is there a Christian writer’s block?  Continue reading →

New Page: The Best Of…

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I set out to make a short list of essential posts, my list of personal and reader favorites from all the material found on The Master’s Table. Writing a “short list” almost proved too great a task for me. The new page “Best Of” is sort of an anthology of my work here on this blog. I don’t expect anyone to go back and read each post, but the 18 posts listed almost form a working theology of everything I believe. Some of these probably deserve a repost, and I will actually be looking over some of them as I prepare sermon material in the near future.

Biden vs. Palin, VP Debate

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The debate is actually ongoing, so I’m not going to speculate who the winner is.  I’m sure the media is already prepared to announce Joe Biden won and tells us why, with the exception of Fox News.  I would like to point out the obvious to anyone carefully listening to each question and answer: neither candidate will answer the questions being asked.  Continue reading →

Come Visit Noah’s Ark

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Well, sort of.  This is a full size replica of the ark based on the dimensions given in the Bible.  The ark is 150 cubits long, 30 cubits high and 20 wide.  A cubit is about 18 inches.  Think of 2 cubits as 1 yard.  So an ark 150 cubits long would be about 75 yards in length, 2/3 the size of a football field.  A host of animals greet visitors as they enter, but the petting zoo is not quite finished on top.  (no joke)

To visit this ark, you will have to travel to the Netherlands.  Dutch architect Johan Huibers built the ark, and yes it appears to be floating in water.  Thank you Bethany Toranto for the story.  She has quite a few more pictures up as well.  Hey, I’d rather see the ark than the Creation Museum, but to each his own.