He looks so happy with his head rub…
Author: Nathan Campbell
Nathan runs St Eutychus. He loves Jesus. His wife. His daughter. His son. His other daughter. His dog. Coffee. And the Internet. He is the pastor of City South Presbyterian Church, a church in Brisbane, a graduate of Queensland Theological College (M. Div) and the Queensland University of Technology (B. Journ). He spent a significant portion of his pre-ministry-as-a-full-time-job life working in Public Relations, and now loves promoting Jesus in Brisbane and online. He can't believe how great it is that people pay him to talk and think about Jesus. If you'd like to support his writing financially you can do that by giving to his church.
Fork Criticism: Understanding Biblical scholarship through cutlery…
If you feel like you should be on the cutting edge of Biblical scholarship, or if you just want to get the point… here’s a visual guide to various scholarly approaches to the Bible, applied to cutlery. For your edification and education…
We begin with what we have. A fork. It is a very clever implement. Great for stabbing food and carrying it to one’s mouth. It has the perfect number of prongs; one less and small food would escape, one more and the fork would be ungainly.
The foundational assumption in higher criticism is that this fork is a development of history. It is unlikely, given its perfect suitability for the job, that there were not previous, primitive versions.
These versions may have been the result of a series of communities, each with inadequate eating utensils (form criticism)…
There may also have been a “genuine” original tradition, that others have built on, adapting the fork to their own communities and types of food – if you don’t just eat a big hunk of meat, then you need multiple prongs… There might be different metals involved in the handle and the prongs… there might be a brand name stamped on the fork… there are myriad avenues for speculating about the various forms that have combined in this one utensil.
Or they may have been the result of somebody sitting down with various eating utensils and combining them (source criticism).
Source criticism is also pretty useful when you’re dealing with a complex and evolved version of a fork – when we already have a version of the fork to compare things to… We can conduct “Spork Criticism”…
Or, for the more highly evolved, Splade Criticism…
Things start to get a little bit more complicated as the cutlery gets more complicated…
Maybe the final form it the result of somebody bringing a bunch of different utensils together.
Or maybe it represents one tradition’s approach to cutlery and efficient design.
One of the interesting things about this level of complexity is that sometimes sources and forms collide… sometimes what one group saw as a “tradition” actually turns out to be from two different sources.
Either way… what we have is a final form fork. And we can speculate about its compositional history.
Sometimes this allows us to study the previous types of fork, and draw conclusions about the people involved, and their diets. Sometimes we can see the seams where new prongs were welded on. This excites some people more than others. This process – either in source or form criticism – is called Redaction Criticism…
If you do redaction criticism with the final form of the fork you can understand the community who put it all together… This is close to the traditional view of fork scholarship, one might call it a Canonical approach.
Some people are just born skeptical – they have doubts about the fork, our hands are natural, the products of science and stuff, so we should eat with them. Fork users are gullible, and if there is a fork, it’s probably a symbol of the hand anyway, used by powerful people to control the eating habits of the masses. This is “Radical Criticism”…
Sometimes it just makes more sense to see the fork for what it is – a cleverly designed implement that serves a purpose. All this studying of forks sometimes gets in the way of just using the fork for what it is made for. Eating. This is the “traditional” view.
Marcel, the Shell, with shoes on…
This is great. Really brightened my Greek filled day…
At least by keeping me from Greek for four minutes.
Today’s Study Music: Gomez, Whatever’s On Your Mind
Gomez is one of those bands who consistently produces good music, I don’t think there are any other bands in my itunes collection with as many albums of such consistent and cohesive quality.
I’m really enjoying their new album.
This is my absolute favourite.
But this one is good too…
They’ve put up some cool clips on YouTube.
So have other people…
This isn’t from the new album (obviously).
And neither is this…
Hip Hop Dressage
A Danish Dressage guy named Andreas Helgstrand apparently performed a dressage routine at the 2006 World Equestrian Championships that wowed the crowds (see below).
Somebody decided that routine would be better with hip-hop.
There’s a language warning in this song (I seem to be posting lots of language warnings this week).
The original, in case dressage is your thing…
A cool song from an ad… and other musical adventures
I tried to find this song (unsuccessfully) a few weeks ago. And yesterday. Success.
It seems that it was written by the Myrtle Street Connection, who are some musos who hang around at an art studio, for the purpose of the Canon ad it was used in.
The guy it “features,” Aidan Roberts, performs as the Maple Trail, and is kind of cool…
And also part of a band I had actually heard of, called Belles Will Ring, who I always thought sounded like an Australian version of the Dandy Warhols. But not really.
Appropriately Titled Study Music: Where Is My Mind (Maxence Cyrin on Piano)
Loving this.
Maxence Cyrin – Where is my mind (The Pixies piano cover) from Maxence Cyrin on Vimeo.
A Ping Pong song…
This is just a song. This is just a song. This is just a song using ping pong (balls).
Not to be confused with the song about ping pong. Because it’s very different (and much more cleverer).
Three posts today have had ping pong, or pong, references. That has to be a record.
Pythagasaurus: The mathematically correct dinosaur
What do you get if you cross Bill Bailey, a short animation, mathematics, and a dinosaur. I’m still not sure. But this made me laugh.
(features a couple of minor rude words)
Galactic Timelapse
We all like a good timelapse. Well. I like a good timelapse. Here’s one from outer space, looking at earth from a satellite.
Earth | Time Lapse View from Space | Fly Over | Nasa, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.
Ping Pong Robot…
One day I will have a robot servant. Even if all he does is play table tennis with me…
And he won’t just one of these boring robots who serves the ball and nothing else…
No. He’ll be a fully functional opponent (this gets impressive at about 2:36… well, it’s impressive the whole way through…)
We all “like” sheep…
This is simply indescribably amazing.
The best thing on the internet ever. And 15,000,000 people agree (maybe).
Preaching Idol: How not to fill the vacancy on your mega church preaching roster…
Curiouser, and curiouser. Things are going further down the rabbit hole at Mars Hill. Mark Driscoll is having a holiday, and to figure out who will preach when he’s not, Mars Hill is holding “Q” School. Because it would be horrible to have each campus have a different preacher… you know… somebody there in the flesh.
“Tuesday, November 15th from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., we’ll be hosting our first ever Preaching Qualifying School (Q School) at Mars Hill Ballard. This event will be a pressure-cooker preaching competition a la American Idol between 3 Mars Hill elders with the prize of being part of our preaching rotation to fill the pulpit on weeks Pastor Mark is out of the pulpit. “
Via the Facebook Event Page…
It might be a joke, but if it’s a joke, it’s bad. It’s like the Pressy Church’s trials for license, but put on show, for everybody to watch, and it’s a meritocracy. They’re judging preachers by who the “best” is, and 1 Corinthians 1 says no.
10I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. 11My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephasa”; still another, “I follow Christ.”… 17For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
It seems to me that filling that sort of gap in the preaching schedule should be done behind closed doors, and shouldn’t be done by pitting brothers in Christ against one another, whatever the “spirit” of the event is… turning it into some bad rip off of a reality TV show cheapens the pulpit, and cheapens the ministry of the losers.
Here’s some more on the day, from Driscoll’s blog… which contains some gems on preaching, and highlights just how bizarre Driscoll’s ministry is becoming – in many ways he’s a great model for how to engage with culture and point people to Jesus. But…
“Only three men will preach this round, but there will be other rounds forthcoming. This round’s contestants will be Pastor Thomas Hurst of Mars Hill Bellevue, Pastor Scott Mitchell of Mars Hill Everett, and Pastor AJ Hamilton of Mars Hill Albuquerque. They will have 30 minutes each with a shot clock and buzzer. They can bring only a Bible with them on stage.
This will be fun…for some of us. For our Mars Hill version of American Idol for preachers, I’ll play the part of Simon Cowell, minus the deep v-neck and British accent. Joining me on the judging panel will be Dr. Justin Holcomb who runs Resurgence, Pastor Scott Thomas who runs Acts 29, and Pastor Dave Bruskas, the executive elder who oversees all our churches. “
So you can only preach from a Bible? That’s guaranteed to produce some pretty tightly thought out oratory.
Some of Driscoll imposing himself on the process (the other 14 tips are pretty good), these ones are mostly good…
“Look like someone who has it together from clothes to haircut to overall presentation. You don’t need to be a model, but you should look presentable. If you have bed-head, your fly open, keep losing your place in your notes, your shoe is untied, your mic battery dies, and you say, “Um,” a lot because you’re unprepared, I may feel sorry for you but I’m not following you because you don’t seem to have a clue where you are going.”
I understand where he’s going with that one – our presentation shouldn’t be a stumbling block… but untied shoes? Seriously?
And of course, Driscoll’s Discern-o-meter will be the difference between a pass and a fail… he’s looking for preachers who have the X Factor. Who have “it”…
“It” is the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in you and through you. I’m looking to see if you have it. I can’t explain it, but I know it when I see it.”
How about “it” just be what was “it” for Paul…
20Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength…
1When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.a 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
Words I hate that should never be used in any form of media…
I need to write this so that I can move on. If I had a therapist I’m sure they’d tell me this.
There are two words, well, three actually, but two phrases, that make my blood boil, my eyes bleed, my ears steam, and my hands beat furiously against whatever surface is nearby.
The first is a radio bugbear of mine. It’s a totally unnecessary, superfluous, tautologous, heap of annoying annoyingness. You know. It is horrible. It is completely redundant. You know. I’m listening to you talk, and if I know what you’re talking about there’s probably no reason to be talking. You know. From football players, to coaches, to chefs, to reporters, the “you know” rate, when you notice it, can be up to four or five a minute.
But that pales in comparison to my reality TV bugbear, the idea that as soon as you enter into a competition, with prize money, because you’re essentially a show pony, you are on a meaningful “journey”… the idea that you then must refer to your journey at every opportunity as a journey, while having the narrator talk about your journey, and the hosts asking you about your journey, is putting your audience through a journey. A journey of hackneyed, and cliched, writing of the highest order. Please stop. That is all. You know.
Let your fingers do the parkouring…
This is surprisingly fluid, and a little bit dizzying.
Via Stellar.