Sunday, January 18, 2009

Boula-Boula

This recipe comes from The Joy of Cooking



BOULA-BOULA

Simmer in boiling water until tender:
2 cups of grean peas
Puree them through a fine sieve or in a blender
Reheat and add:
2 tablespoons sweet butter
Add:
2 cups canned green turtle soup
1 cup dry sherry

Heat --> but do not boil the soup. Spoon soup into heated cups. Top each serving with:
2 tablespoons whipped cream
Place briefly under broiler. Serve at once.


With a name so cool as Boula-Boula, I expected something great. To my dismay, turtles and 2 tablespoons of whipped cream were involved. Basically, you are eating fat and salt that is green and slimy. Therefore, for those of you who might gasp at the ingredients and consider the possibility of a turtle soup guzzling apostate. Consider it not so. I would like to present to you a reality that we may find useful. Namely, we Christians are a lot like Boula-Boula. We bear the name of the greatest servant of humanity that ever lived -- Christ. But we are often, upon closer inspection, only green slime. By God's grace, we can truly live up to our name and send an alternative recipe to the Joy of Cooking 2.0 that includes a more appetizing list of ingredients.

Friday, January 2, 2009

He Read An Awful Lot



"John Milton was probably the last person to read everything that was ever published."

Dr. David Calhoun of the St. Louis Covenant Theological Seminary.


Really good lectures, you can tell he knows what he is talking about. It is just like he is talking about sports, fishing, cars, butterflies =), or outdoorsing. In other words, it is very natural. A true master of his subject. He was trained at Princeton. They are free. They come from a Presbyterian perspective. Click the links to check them out.

Ancient and Medieval Church History


Reformation and Modern Church History

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Job

Below is a trailer about John Piper's book on Job. It is a powerful poem dealing with Job's story. I think of it as a powerful sermon.



The entire book is on You Tube. If you click on these links you can hear the book.
Part 1
I like part 1, because it makes a powerful statement about how the father was never present at any of the feasts that his sons gave.
Part 2
Part 2 was eyeopening, because it portrayed Job's wife in an entirely different way. It also was powerful to think that Job considered his prayer answered when his wife was not struck with a disease.
Part 3
The line I took away from this part was that proverbs in the mouths of fools are not beneficial.
Part 4
Part 4 is my favorite, because it talks about Jemima and how she was extra sweet. Her sweetness, surprisingly, is attributed to the trials of Job and his wife, "Beauty for ashes". It is always so. We can take our trials and become extra sweet or extra sour. Jemima exemplified the fruit of Job taking the former. It was also fascinating to see that Job actually needed those trials. Through those trials he depended solely on God and saw God deeper and more completely.

Perservere in Soul Winning



God requires a constant doing on the part of His people; and when they become weary of well-doing, He becomes weary of them.

Ellen White Early Writings pg. 268

Show Me Thy Glory




Nothing can make us stable Christians, but to behold his glory, a revelation of Him to us. No excitement, no intellectual acumen, no strength of logic, nothing can secure us but a revelation of God to our souls. We should therefore persevere and insist that this be done for us, that we see God's glory, and be fixed on Him. The church should pray for ministers and for candidates for the ministry, that God would reveal to them the deep secrets of his love and mercy; that He would open to them the ever flowing fountains of exquisite and perennial blessedness to let them drink therefrom and never thirst more. O do the churches think and feel how much they can do for their ministers, by praying the heavens open, and letting down on their hearts such rays of glory as shall forever enrapture and hold them in awful apprehension of God's presence and character, as that the spirit of the Highest shall come upon them, and the power of God overshadow them, and transform them from men of clay, to angels of mercy and power to a fallen world? Why do they not pray? Brethren, why do you not pray--pray that God would show you, would show the students here, the community, the whole church in the land, and in the world, his glory? Pray, and give God no rest, till He glorify his people before the nations?

For the whole sermon click on the sermon title
REVELATION OF GOD'S GLORY
December 20, 1843
by Charles Finney

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Thursday, December 11, 2008