Timothy's Thoughts

A s I was reading a bag of Lay’s chips the other day, I saw a phrase that they put in bold so it would stand out. Farm-grown potatoes. Really? Sometimes I wonder about these marketing folks who write the copy on the products. Just where do they think they’re going to get potatoes if they aren’t farm grown? I can’t imagine where the other guys are getting their potatoes. You think Pringles is stealing potatoes out of someone’s garden or something? I wonder how many gardens that would take. Let’s see—if you have a couple of rows of potatoes in your backyard, you might get a couple of bushels. I’m not sure how many bushels Pringles processes in a day, but I’m pretty sure it’s a lot. If that’s what they’re doing, I bet they drive around in a Lay’s truck. If you see a Lay’s truck in your neighborhood being driving by a guy wearing a Pringles shirt, guard your potato patch.

O ur church has begun using EasyWorship presentation software during our worship services. The price isn’t bad, $379 for a site license, and from what I’ve seen of it, it has some nice features. I haven’t been actively involved in using it during the services, but in case you haven’t noticed, when you take on the task of being the church webmaster you are taking on the task of being the church’s computer helpdesk too. I suspect that as we see churches use more and more technology that we’ll see more of that kind of thing. I won’t say we’ll keep calling ourselves church webmasters in the future, but most medium to large sized churches will have a go to guy for technology. They may have a whole team of people. Anyway, the reason I got pulled in on the EasyWorship thing is because we’ve been using Power Point to put sermon notes on the screen. For that to work, EasyWorship has to import the Power Point presentation so that the projectionist can select which slide he wants on the scree...

I don’t lack for ideas. Some are better than others, but I can hardly see anything and not get some kind of story idea from it. But my favorite so far has been retelling the story of Hosea in a modern setting, which I did in For the Love of a Devil . Hosea’s life story is just one of those stories that works so well for that. Granted, it is hard story to read, but it worked very well. I would like to try that again with another Bible story. In some ways, Judges seems like an ideal place to look for a story like that, and yet it is less than ideal. The thing about Judges is that the protagonists of are flawed individuals who are used by God, but only after much persuasion. Then after he used them to accomplish his purpose, many of them make bad choices. We sort of like seeing happily ever after stories in which a flawed individual learns from his mistakes and changes his life. Another problem I have with Judges is that these are primarily war stories. The people were oppressed becaus...

L ately, it seems like the in thing is to have books about broken Christians and how they have grown in their faith. The books that come to mind are books like Blue Like Jazz and Evolving in Monkey Town (Not that I can convince myself to read either one.). We’re in an odd position because instead of listening to people who have done their homework, studied the Bible and developed answers to the tough questions, people are turning to people who are still seeking answers. That’s not to say that we must have all the answers before we write a book, because none of us have all the answers. The thing that is so dangerous about this situation is that people are making the assumption that just because they personally don’t know the answer to a question, other people don’t have the answer either. For example, Rachel Held Evans has raised questions about Genesis 1 and 2. She isn’t the first and won’t be the last, but she also makes claims that other people don’t struggle with doubts about wh...

C hip MacGregor has announced that he’s calling an end to his blogging. To paraphrase his reason, he has said all that’s worth saying. It goes without saying that this comes as a disappointment to his 250 daily readers, including myself. I think Chip’s blog is the first literary agent’s blog I followed and it is one of the few that I continue to follow. I understand the feeling that one has said all that’s worth saying. I had those feelings myself and I’ve wondered if some of the time I’ve spent writing posts would’ve been better spent doing something else, but I’m not sure it’s even possible to say all that’s worth saying. To quote from Michael Hyatt’s comment to Chip’s announcement, “You may think you are repeating yourself, but you are not. You are getting first-hand experience building a platform—something that is invaluable in terms of passing it on to your clients.” Michael Hyatt is only partly right. Yes, there’s much more that can be said, but a blog is more like a face to f...

F or today’s post I want to review Whosoever Will . I try to make it my policy to review only those books that I think people should read. This book is no exception. In fact, I would suggest that you don’t bother reading the rest of this review and go ahead and buy the book. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. If you are, something is wrong with you. Whosoever Will is a written as a critique of five-point Calvinism from by a group of non-Calvinists. I think it’s important to use the term non-Calvinist rather than another term because no other term seems to fit, unless we simply say they are Baptists. Often in the discussion of Calvinism there is an assumption that a person is either a Calvinist or and Arminian . The authors of the book don’t fit well in either camp. If you read nothing other than chapters 1, 10 and 11 then you will have gotten your money’s worth. Chapter one is a sermon on John 3:16 by Jerry Vines. In recent years it seems like we’ve seen a lot of people talking...

I n my spare time, I’ve been reading Whosoever Will from B&H Publishing. I was enjoying it immensely until I reached the chapter on limited atonement by David L. Allen. In many ways I agree with what he says, but I have struggled with the chapter because of how he defined atonement and sufficiency. His claim is that Christ’s death is sufficient to cover the sins of all men, therefore atonement is general, rather than limited. He makes the claim that if we accept a limited atonement then we cannot make the claim that all men can be saved. Here’s the problem I have with that. First, this is the only place where I’ve seen the word sufficient used in this way. If a hostess asks if she has sufficient dip for all of the guests, she isn’t asking if she has enough as long as we tell people they can’t have any. Neither is she assuming that every guest will choose to get dip. Sufficient doesn’t mean that dip will be on the plate of every guest. Likewise, just because Jesus’ death is suff...