Mariah Carey is a Calvinist?

Too busy studying and counseling to do much real blogging these days...I thought this was pretty funny. A little monergist humor for you:

WWJMD? (What Would John Macarthur Do?)

Well, he wouldn't shop at the Stuff Mart. I have that on authority, for all you who are interested.

Have you visited the "People of Walmart" gallery yet? This is the funniest (and most accurate) skewering of redneckiness gone amok I've seen yet: http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
The thought crossed my mind, "I bet John Macarthur is someone you'd never bump into in a Walmart". I checked with his editor and associate pastor, Phil Johnson, who was speaking at the Shepherd's Conference at the very moment I was engaged in such banal humor.

Here's his response:















Apparently he enjoys shopping about as much as I do, which isn't a whole lot - I'd rather be home reading one of his books. I bet Dr. Macarthur would laugh at People of Walmart, too, if only he used a computer.

********************************************************************************

Since we're talking about Macarthur and Phil Johnson, here's a great excerpt from his address last night at the Shepherd's Conference (presumably before he responded to my query on Facebook):

Pulpit Highlights - Phil Johnson from Grace Community Church on Vimeo.

You Just Might Be a Hyper-Calvinist if....

I've been planning a serious post on monergism (and why you don't have to be a 5-pointer to embrace it) for some time now, but lately have been insanely busy between work and my book revisions. It will be forthcoming....as will the promised review of Don Kimrey's "God's Comeback Kids". Until such a time as we can ponder these gems of the Gospel and savor the riches of the Reformation, enjoy a little theo-geek humor...courtesy of the guys at purgutario.

Help! I'm Going Hyper!

25 warning signs that you might be obsessing about Calvinism:

1. For romantic occasions, you prefer to give/get

instead of

2. You hear some people talking about the new Johnny C. movie and you instantly think

not

3. You leave your Conservative Reformed Baptist Congregation to start a house church after hearing the Pastor use the word “Choose” in a sermon.

4. You have a picture of

on your

5. You know what a “remonstrant” is.

6. You used to love this guy, but these CDs are now in your “Do Not Play Until God Grants Them Repentance” box:

7. Without me giving last names, you still know who I’m referring to:

John
John
John
John
John
Jonathan
John
John
John

8. Whenever you try to persuade people about the “Doctrines of Grace” all they hear is a

-or-

9. When people tell you they’re “Four Pointers” you already know they are stuck on the

10. Every book you read is endorsed by:

11. You’ve seen this avatar repeatedly in the comment section on your blog:

12. Your yearly personal Bible-Verse Memory Program consists of Romans 9, again.

13. Someone tells you they go to

and you think they’re going

14. You attach an extra “Lord Willing” onto your original “Lord Willing” just in case.

15. The word “Puritan” appears as a required character trait in your profile on

16. You’ve vacationed at

17. You hear a news story about some criminals being “reformed” and your first thought is to wonder how many criminals are arminians.

18. Your browser’s home page is set to the

19. On at least 4 different blogs, you end up in extended wars with arminians arguing about God’s Sovereignty. Your final comment always being a variation of

20. Over 75% of your personal library is published by

-and-

21. No matter what conference you go to one or more or all of these guys is/are speaking:

22. You’ve washed your little kid’s mouth out with soap for saying “iMonk”

23. You’re looking under your big kid’s bed and find

and you are way more upset then the time you found

24. All your kids can recite

25. You’ve just deleted PURGATORIO from you Blogroll

Hermeneutics in Everyday Life (Humor)

Being the astute student of hermeneutics that I am, I thought this was hilarious (and surprisingly spot-on!):

The Meaning of “STOP”

Hermeneutics in Everyday Life
by Tim Perry, Durham University.

Suppose you’re traveling to work and you see a stop sign. What do you do? That depends on how you exegete the stop sign.

1. A postmodernist deconstructs the sign (knocks it over with his car), ending forever the tyranny of the north-south traffic over the east-west traffic.

2. Similarly, a Marxist refuses to stop because he sees the stop sign as an instrument of class conflict. He concludes that the bourgeois use the north-south road and obstruct the progress of the workers in the east-west road.

3. A serious and educated Catholic rolls through the intersection because he believes he cannot understand the stop sign apart from its interpretive community and tradition.

Observing that the interpretive community doesn’t take it too seriously, he doesn’t feel obligated to take it too seriously either.

4. An average Catholic (or Orthodox or Coptic or Anglican or Methodist or Presbyterian or whatever) doesn’t bother to read the sign but he’ll stop if the car in front of him does.

5. A fundamentalist, taking the text very literally, stops at the stop sign and waits for it to tell him to go.

6. A seminary-educated evangelical preacher might look up “STOP” in his lexicons of English and discover that it can mean:

1) something which prevents motion, such as a plug for a drain, or a block of wood that prevents a door from closing;

2) location where a train or bus lets off passengers. The main point of his sermon the following Sunday on this text is: when you see a stop sign, it is a place where traffic is naturally clogged, so it is a good place to let off passengers from your car.

7. An orthodox Jew does one of two things:

a) Take another route to work that doesn’t have a stop sign so that he doesn’t run the risk of disobeying the Law;

b) Stop at the sign, say “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, king of the universe, who
hast given us thy commandment to stop,” wait 3 seconds according to his watch, and then proceed.

Incidentally, the Talmud has the following comments on this passage: Rabbi Meir says: He who does not stop shall not live long. R. Hillel says: Cursed is he who does not count to three before proceeding. R. Simon ben Yudah says: Why three? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. R. ben Issac says: Because of the three patriarchs. R. Yehuda says: Why bless the Lord at a stop sign? Because it says, “Be still and know that I am God.” R. Hezekiel says: When Jephthah returned from defeating the Ammonites, the Holy One, blessed be He, knew that a donkey would run out of the house and overtake his daughter, but Jephthah did not stop at the stop sign, and the donkey did not have time to come out. For this reason he saw his daughter first and lost her. Thus he was judged for his transgression at the stop sign. R. Gamaliel says: R. Hillel, when he was a baby, never spoke a word, though his parents tried to teach him by speaking and showing him the words on a scroll. One day his father was driving through town and did not stop at the sign. Young Hillel called out: “Stop, father!” In this way, he began reading and speaking at the same time. Thus it is written: “Out of the mouths of babes.” R. ben Jacob says: Where did the stop sign come from? Out of the sky, for it is written: “Forever, O Lord, your word is fixed in the heavens.” R. Ben Nathan says: Where were the stop signs created? On the fourth day, for it is written: “Let them serve as signs.” R. Yeshuah says….[continues for three more pages]

8. A Lubavitcher rabbi (Pharisee) does the same thing as an orthodox Jew, except that he waits 10 seconds instead of 3. He also replaces his brake lights with 1000 watt searchlights and connects his horn so that it is activated whenever he touches the brake pedal. He also works out the gematria of shin-tav-pey (S-T-(O)-P) and takes it to mean that the Rebbe Schneersohn, of blessed memory, will be resurrected as the Messiah after he has stopped at this intersection 780 times.

9. A scholar from the Jesus Seminar concludes that the passage “STOP” undoubtably was never uttered by Jesus himself because being the progressive Jew that He was, He would never have wanted to stifle peoples’ progress. Therefore, STOP must be a textual insertion belonging entirely to stage III of the gospel tradition, when the church was first confronted by traffic in its parking lot.

10. A NT scholar notices that there is no stop sign on Mark street but there is one on Matthew and Luke streets, and concludes that the ones on Luke and Matthew streets are both copied from a sign on a street no one has ever seen called “Q” Street. There is an excellent 300 page doctoral dissertation on the origin of these stop signs and the differences between stop signs on Matthew and Luke street in the scholar’s commentary on the passage. There is an unfortunate omission in the dissertation, however; it doesn’t explain the meaning of the text!

11. An OT scholar points out that there are a number of stylistic differences between the first and second half of the passage “STOP.” For example, “ST” contains no enclosed areas and 5 line endings, whereas “OP” contains two enclosed areas and only one line termination. He concludes that the author for the second part is different from the author of the first part and probably lived hundreds of years later. Later scholars determine that the second half is itself actually written by two separate authors because of similar stylistic differences between the “O” and the “P”.

12. Another prominent OT scholar notes in his commentary that the stop sign would fit better into the context three streets back. (Unfortunately, he neglected to explain why in his commentary.) Clearly it was moved to its present location by a later redactor. He thus exegetes the intersection as though the sign were not there.

13. Because of the difficulties in interpretation, another OT scholar amends the text, changing the “T” to “H”. “SHOP” is much easier to understand in context than “STOP” because of the multiplicity of stores in the area. The textual corruption probably occurred because “SHOP” is so similar to “STOP” on the sign several streets back, that it is a natural mistake for a scribe to make. Thus the sign should be interpreted to announce the existence of a shopping area. If this is true, it could indicate that both meanings are valid, thus making the thrust of the message “STOP (AND) SHOP.”

14. A “prophetic” preacher notices that the square root of the sum of the numeric representations of the letters S-T-O-P (sigma-tau-omicron-pi in the Greek alphabet), multiplied by 40 (the number of testing), and divided by four (the number of the world–north, south, east, and west), equals 666. Therefore, he concludes that stop signs are the dreaded “mark of the beast,” a harbinger of divine judgment upon the world, and must be avoided at all costs.

Complementarianism Through the Eyes of a Six-Year-Old

My three-year-old was just chattering on about how she wants to have "TWO BABIES" (holds up two fingers for emphasis), "because that will be easy to feed", then adds, "AFTER I get married. That's what I'm gonna do." Good, I tell her; that sounds like great fun and I'll come over and babysit.

At this point, my six-year-old son comes over to me with a very serious expression and thoughtful look in his deep, brown eyes.

"Mommy, is it the boy's job to chase the girl, or the girl's job to chase the boy?" (Did he overhear something I said to the twelve year old? Ya think? )

Bearing in mind that kindergarteners think very literally, (and can get suspended for physically tackling one another on the playground), I clarified: "Well, actually, no one really CHASES anybody or grabs them. But if the boy's job to...well, say he's a young man, and he likes her, he could ask her out to dinner or something."

Stefan's eyes lit up and he grinned sheepishly. Looking at the floor, he says, "Good, that's what I thought. That's what I want to do with Kiera." Kiera was his best friend in preschool and they were inseparable. Two years later, he still remembers how much fun they had playing Superheroes.

As our pediatrician once declared, "I don't care what the Supreme Court says. Boys and girls are different, and they know that they're different from the time they're born. No one has to tell them!" Maybe this is why my three-year-old daughter, who is up daily at the crack of dawn, makes her own bed, dresses herself, and neatly folds her Curious George pajamas while my sons can't put their own socks away without forgetting where they're going and why. Let anyone mess with their sisters and they'll meet fists of fury, however.

Viva la difference.