Many of you may have noticed that the site was unavailable some of the weekend. This was due to a change in our name servers. Since you are here reading this, you may be confident that the change was successful!
On the surface Theoblogian.org looks much as it always has. The biggest change is in how you make comments. You must log in before you can make comments, and in order to log in, you must first become a theoblogian.
In my eagerness to eliminate spam in the comments (web-graffiti) on Theoblogian, the site is up minus some features. The archives will be added back in soon, and various others odd and ends will be corrected too.
This means that over the next several weeks, you may find the site temporarily unavailable as new things get moved out. Updates will take about 15 minutes, so if you find the site unavailable, please try back a little later.
]]>You may have been noticing a lack of activity here at Theoblogian this month.
My excuse is that I have been reprogramming the website. We have been getting about 8 spam comments a day for the past three weeks. So I decided to upgrade my knowledge of ASP.Net to version 2.0 and eliminate the possibility of the spam at the same time. Consequently I haven’t had a lot of time for writing interesting stuff.
If any of you are burning with curiosity you may go and see the upgraded site, but the visible differences are very minor. The biggest difference is that you will need to log in to make comments. I am interested in any suggestions or comments that you may have. Please leave any comments here, but if they start with “Nice Site,” “Cool site,” or anything Italian, I may think it is just more spam.
]]>Well clever isnât very satisfying if Iâm just plain wrong so I decided to take a closer look at the differences that I thought I perceived.
]]>Context. Context. Context.
What good is context anyway?
According to Merriam-Webster, it is: â1 : the parts of a discourse that surround a word or passage and can throw light on its meaningâ
What is does for most of us is to limit meaning.
Almost any isolated statement may have a fabulous range of meaning. For example a politician taken out of context can sound even wackier. But when we have context even a politician may sound reasonable. With context meaning is constrained, and we have confidence that we understand what a person really meant to say.
In Scripture we usually have context. Occasionally, though, the context is missed and statements are misinterpreted. Jesusâ statement about Nathaniel is one example of this. I had always considered Jesusâ statement concerning Nathanielâs character to be an example of Jesusâ deity showing. Jesus genuinely knew Nathanielâs character because he was God. But reading the statement in context, I think that it is a bit more ordinary, more human, and a more humorous conversation.
]]>Everything else is going well as well. Recovery is progressing at a break-neck pace (that is not the same as a cut-throat rate), and in only four weeks I will be able to pick up my children again. That is going to be the toughest part of convalescence. My three-year-old loves to be âwalked to sleepâ a ritual in which I walk around our yard with his head resting on my shoulder. This is ritual we both enjoy, and often it results in him falling asleep.
]]>The interpretation of scripture transcends what we bring to the text. Authorial intent does not change. Some discard authorial intent as an impossible standard. It may appear subjective. One may claim to find authorial intent with only a cursory examination of the text. Another believes that his speculations about the circumstances of the author establishes a better authorial intent. Neither trusts the text of the scripture they wish to interpret. Mistakes in interpretation are much easier to perpetuate in isolation. The community of faith is a guard against such misinterpretation.
]]>This biopsy came back diagnostic, and the diagnosis was cancer. If you were told that you were gonna get cancer, but you got to pick which kind...this would be a good choice. It doesn't metastasize (spread and kill all of you), but it is cancer, and it will be cut out.
The exorcism is July 19th. So I have three weeks. And I have committed these three weeks to a reflection on life vs. sin & death and my role in this conflict. Sidelines are non-existent in this conflict so I really have no idea where I have been sitting.
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