Consider the following translations of the same verse, Psalm 92:4:

NLT – You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me!
I sing for joy because of what you have done.

ESV – For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy.

In Hebrew Exegesis Dr. Magary made us cite various other translations as we translated our passage. The one translation that always got a laugh out of me was the New Living Translation. It seemed like nearly every verse was infused with a particular theological position before it was translated. The example above is the kind of thing I saw. Literally, the verse reads: “Because you cause me to rejoice LORD in your work in works of your hand I sing for joy.” Notice that there is no first person pronoun connected to God’s work in this passage. The Psalmist is simply thrilled with the work God has done, whether it be for him or not. The NLT presupposes that the Psalmist would rejoice only because God did something for him and so they insert the personal pronoun.

This isn’t an example of someone who studied Hebrew for a few years critiquing a bunch of scholars who really know better than him. Well, it is but I don’t think I’m guilty of zeal without knowledge on this point. As I consider other translations I don’t see any others making the same translation choices the NLT has. From the more literal (NASB or ESV) to the more paraphrastic (NIV or The Message) no one else makes the choices the NLT does.

Folks, the NLT is “readable” but frankly it is a poor translation. I would recommend staying away from it. You’re not getting the Bible, you’re getting a particular slant on the Bible and not always a good one. Again, the example above slants the verse towards a more “me centered” reason for worshiping God. It is what he has done for us. But the Psalmist had a broader view. It was simply the works that God has performed that elicit praise from him. Yes, later in the Psalm he will praise God for defeating his enemies (11) but even there it is only because they are God’s enemies (9). I fear that using this translation even for devotional purposes may make us Americans more narcissistic than we already are. We need an unblunted sword edge to pierce to the division of spirit and soul and to lay bear our hearts. The NLT’s edge has been dulled.

Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him – Job 13:15a KJV
God might kill me, but I have no other hope. – Job 13:15a NLT

I just downloaded this game for the TrÄ“o and it is pretty neat! The game overlays a shoot ’em up over a live image from your TrÄ“o’s camera. You have to move to aim. It tracks the real world pretty well but it works best if there is a lot of randomness in the image. I tried it in the restroom at work and the tracking was poor. When I first tried it I had my bookshelf as the background. Worked great there.

The Hebrew root of the word ‘Sabbath’ is shvt. In the verb form it often means to cease or cut off or rest. The root appears only five times in the book of Psalms; in 8:2, 46:9, 89:44, 119:119 and in the title of Psalm 92. Interestingly enough only once in each of the five books of the Psalms. In nearly every instance it is a cutting off of something bad. In 8:2 it is God’s foes. In 46:9 it is war. In 119:119 it is the wicked. The places that are not cutting off bad things is 89:44 where David is cut off and the title of 92 where it is explicitly the Sabbath day.

When I get my income tax refund I’m buying a desk. I’ve been using one of those little compressed wood “computer desk’s” for about 10 years (probably more) and the wood is finally coming apart. There is a big crack in the top right where the mouse goes. I’m getting a solid wood one this time.

Gordon Smith’s book Beginning Well has a very interesting premise. How a person is converted to Christ sets the tone for their spiritual life. A similar thought got kicked around at Mike Shea’s blog. I wish I had remembered Smith’s book when that topic was still hot. By the way, it is an interesting book. Worth a peek.

This whole US Attorney firing thing in Congress really has me miffed. Those attorneys work at the President’s pleasure. That means he can fire them for whatever reason he wants. So the Democrats who have spent the last 8 years (or however long it was) getting kicked to the Congregational curb by the Republicans are now investigating what was not a crime. That’s stupid. Then Alberto Gonzales gets hauled in to testify before Congress for not doing anything wrong and he apparently lied! Does no one in our government have a spine? Or a brain stem? I am fed up to the ear lobes with hearing about this.

Speaking of Congress, I am also really cheesed that they stuck a timetable for pulling out of Iraq in the budget. They don’t get to play Commander In Chief just because they want to and they did NOT get a “clear mandate” from the people by getting voted in. Americans were upset with the war but were also upset with the corruption that the Republicans were regularly found guilty of. I want us out and I (now) think we should have never gone in and I think Bush is not doing even a decent job in Iraq but putting a timetable on our withdrawal is stupid.

MagiCal is an excellent little Mac add on. I turned off the system date and time display in the Menu Bar and replaced it with MagiCal. It gives you a little calendar when you click it and has a cool little iCal kind of icon for the date.

I downloaded and installed Quicksilver last night on my PowerBook. Oh. My. Word. I pointed Benjamin to it and he said that he now lacks a head because Quicksilver blew it off. :) I’ve heard people ranting but never paid much attention till I saw a write up on Lifehacker.

I’m addicted after about 5 minutes of use. The installer is about the coolest installer you’ve ever seen. After that is done the application is so helpful and intuitive that I kept thinking, “Well duh, this is nothing! Its too obvious and simple!” ¹ Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon the paper, but his eyes upon my companion.

“How, in the name of good-fortune, did you know all that, Mr. Holmes?” he asked. “How did you know, for example, that I did manual labour? It’s as true as gospel, for I began as a ship’s carpenter.”

“Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger than your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more developed.”

“Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?”

“I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that, especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you use an arc-and-compass breastpin.”

“Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?”

“What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where you rest it upon the desk?”

“Well, but China?”

“The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of tattoo marks and have even contributed to the literature of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes’ scales of a delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch-chain, the matter becomes even more simple.”

Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. “Well, I never!” said he. “I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it, after all.”

“I begin to think, Watson,” said Holmes, “that I make a mistake in explaining. ‘Omne ignotum pro magnifico,’ you know, and my poor little reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I am so candid. Can you not find the advertisement, Mr.Wilson?” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, The Red-Headed League. This is the sign of a well executed idea. In fact it is so cool and so helpful we can look for Apple to rip it off and include it in latter versions of the Mac OS, a la Konfabulator and Dashboard.

What is Quicksilver? Simply stated, it is an application launcher on Spotlight growth hormones. The default keyboard shortcut is ctrl-space. Quicksilver then pops up in the middle of the screen. Next, you start typing the thing you’re looking for. An application, a file, a website, whatever. In the first panel the thing you’re looking for shows up. Tab to the next panel and you select what you want to do with it. Open it, open it with a specific program, etc. That’s as far as I have gotten so far but there are a number of things that can happen at that point.

The search function is better than Spotlight’s. As of late Spotlight is getting sluggish on both the iMac and PowerBook. I had it reindex the hard drive ²You tell it to ignore your hard drive, wait a moment and then tell it to include the hard drive in the search and it rebuilds the index and that only marginally improved the response time. That may be because my machines are getting a little long in the tooth but still Quicksilver is much faster.

I use Windows XP at work all day and I have to say that the two Mac only apps that Windows desperately needs are Exposé and Quicksilver. I haven’t played with Vista yet and it looks like they’re getting some of the Exposé functionality in there but someone needs to port Quicksilver. It really helps the OS stay out of your way and Windows really needs that.

I heard about this book on NPR a few weeks ago and kept waiting for it to show up at my local Borders. I got a gift card for Borders and this seemed like the thing to spend it on. The authors discuss ideas that survive and ideas that don’t. They use as an example an internet rumor about a ring of kidney thieves. I remember this one. When we first got e-mail in the Air Force a squadron commander forwarded a version of that rumor that took place in Las Vegas. That idea “stuck”, it lasted. Next they quote a vision statement from a non-profit agency or something. It is as technical and dull as you can image but accurate and good. So why does one stick that isn’t true and the true one not stick? The introduction is worth a read.

The brother researched this and came up with six principles that make ideas sticky. They’re listed on the back cover of the book if you want a quick summary, but don’t miss reading the book. They make it fun and interesting avoiding the non-stickiness they skewer in the process.

The reason it grabbed my attention was two-fold. First, when we preach we need to help people remember what is being taught. We certainly don’t want to resort to being cute or clever in our preaching but we do want Biblical truth to stick. Also, when leading a church plant you need to help your people catch the vision and remember the vision. One way is to repeat it over and over; but consider what the Heath boys say about that:

And, finally, there’s the most common refrain in the realm of communication advice: Use repetition, repetition, repetition.

All of this advice has obvious merit, except, perhaps, for the emphasis on repetition. (If you have to tell someone the same thing ten times, the idea probably wasn’t very well designed. No urban legend has to be repeated ten times.)

There is wisdom here but it is incomplete. Repeating a bland vision statement might be the only way you’re going to get people to remember it. But repeating a “sticky” vision statement might not be what it takes to make it stick, but it can help people understand that this is something very important. I think of John Piper’s motto: We exist to spread a passion for supremacy of God in all things, for the joy of all peoples in Jesus Christ. That is somewhat sticky and easily remembered but John says it all the time. It is important to him. So don’t rely on repetition but don’t abandon it either.

I’m not very far in the book yet. It is recreational reading right now but what I’ve read so far is good and helpful. This is one I think other church planters should take a look at.

The picture and the quote above come from the Mitchell Park Conservatory in Milwaukee. Ben, Gillian and I went there on a field trip. Gillian got the picture of the flower in the dome that had the rain forest environment. After we visited in all the domes for a while the Conservatory had a class for the kids. As I sat in the classroom I noticed the above quote printed on one of the windows and my only thought upon reading it was “what an unsatisfying answer.” This is the best that naturalism can come up with? The answer is only utility, never beauty. But consider Sherlock Holmes’ refection on the matter:

There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion. It can be build up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers. – Sherlock Holmes in The Naval Treaty

Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. – Luke 16:18

If you do a study of divorce in the New Testament, but especially in the Gospels, you’ll soon notice that what Jesus said about it is not consistently reported. In Matthew 5:32 Jesus includes one reason for which divorce is permitted: adultery. So why did Luke leave it out? I mean he is clear that he has researched these things and if the exemption is included in Matthew the most likely Luke was aware of it, right? To compound the matter, Luke 16:18 seems out of place. Jesus isn’t discussing divorce and, unlike in the other gospels, he isn’t asked about it.

Don’t decorate yourself with people. Jesus never did.Generally, when things don’t fit you’re missing something. There are very few cases where texts are probably not where they belong (i.e. John 7:53, 8:11 and Mark 16:9-20). There is no textual evidence that Luke 16:18 doesn’t belong there so the question is, “Why did Luke cite this teaching where he did?”

Well, one of the nice things about reading through Luke in a year instead of sticking with the reading plan I have used is that I can slow down and spend some time meditating on something like this. That’s just what I did and here’s what I’ve come up with. All of this is currently subject to revision and review.

The context Read On…

See the photo? Sad isn’t it. The hinge on my Powerbook jammed and when my daughter tried to close it, it snapped. My options? Well, I checked with the company that repaired it when I dropped it and broke the hinge last time. Turns out it was three weeks out of warranty. They said they understood and offered to consider it when they performed the $250 repair. Again. I decided to pass. Another website had a do-it-yourself deal on the hinge for $99. That site usually has excellent detailed instructions with photos. They said that the hinge replacement was too advanced and didn’t recommend doing it yourself. My only other option was eBay. I found a hinge there for $40. Installed it today and I’m back in business.

To be fair, I did find instructions on line from some other brave soul who did it his self also. It was easy but very nerve wracking. I kept wondering if I was going to break the display. The trim is still loose so I need to find a good adhesive but the work itself was pretty easy.

I got a TrÄ“o 650. It isn’t WiFi capable. I get to pay Verizon $40 a month for that privilege. No. Thank. You. I’ve already whined about this.

But! I did find a way to share my Mac’s internet connection with my TrÄ“o via Bluetooth. Which is pretty cool. I’m copying comments posted at MacDevCenter.com but I’m also adding a little detail. This works. It allowed me to surf the net, check email and even sync Avantgo (who STILL don’t have a conduit for the Mac, thankyouverymuch.) Any way, here’s how you do it:

1. Pair your PDA via Bluetooth to your Mac; after that, the Bluetooth discovery option in both devices can be set to “off”
2. Open a terminal window on the Mac (Applications->Utilities->Terminal)
3. Run the following command. Just copy and paste it (all on one line), it will ask for your password, that’s what sudo does. Enter an admin password when prompted:
   sudo /usr/sbin/pppd /dev/tty.Bluetooth-PDA-Sync 115200 noauth local passive proxyarp ktune asyncmap 0 persist :10.0.1.105
4. Enable IP forwarding by pasting this into the terminal window as well:
   sudo sysctl -w net.inet.ip.forwarding=1
5. Setup your PDA for a new bluetooth connection; the device should be setup as “pc connection”, 115200 speed, and a fixed IP (in our case 10.0.1.105) and DNS same as the one on your Mac. Here’s how you do that:
   • Preferences ->Network
   • Click Modify to unlock the settings.
   • Click Detials…
   • Click Modify to unlock the settings.
   • Click Advanced.
   • Uncheck IP Address Automatic and enter the IP address as above.
   • Uncheck Query DNS and enter the DNS IP address your Mac is set up to use. That’s in System Preferences under Network.
   • Click OK
   • Click OK
   • Click Connect

Keep in mind that I tried this on a G4 iMac running Mac OS X 10.4.8 with a cheap Bluetooth dongle and a Trēo 650 and it worked fine. I might try it again with my old Tungsten T3.

UPDATE: No luck with the Tungsten but I’ll have to try it again. Had other problems. Also, once you redirect the internet through the Bluetooth you can’t sync with Bluetooth. I’m waiting for my sync cable so that is a problem. Right now the only way to undo it is to reboot. Blah. I’m looking in to a better answer to that too.

UPDATE 2: This will only work if you are connected to the internet via a PPP connection. I have an iMac connected to a DSL modem that uses a PPP connection. It works on that. I share that internet connection via the iMac’s Airport. When I try this hack on my Powerbook, it doesn’t work because the Powerbook is not connected via a PPP connection. The iMac takes care of that. I need to fish around and see if there is a way to share another type of internet connection.

UPDATE 3: Something I keep forgetting is that you have to go to HotSync Manager -> Connection Settings and uncheck bluetooth-pda-sync-port before you do the steps listed above. Once I remembered to do that I was able to sync the Trēo and the Tungsten,