The One You Need

I've recently started listening to Shane and Shane and I am impressed. They are awesome. I love this new song they've come out with especially in the context of looking at having a daughter soon!

The Jesus Inquest

Book Review

Title: The Jesus Inquest

Author: Charles Foster

Pages: 370

So, I'm pretty embarrassed to say how long I've had this book. I signed up on a website called BookSneeze.com where you can get a book for free as long as you post a review of it. My first one was The Jesus Inquest and I've had this thing forever. I would read a little at a time and it would get pushed away for a while. Then, read. Then, pushed away. But, I'm glad to say it's finally done. Here is the review I posted on Amazon:

This book definitely covered a lot of bases. It gives the view from two sides (X and Y), one for and one against the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I definitely love that it not only gives the opposing arguments, but does so with credibility to the other side. I thought Foster did an excellent job of allowing credibility to both sides and leaving the decision of whether or not to believe in the resurrection up to the faith and discretion of each reader. On top of that, it is completely full of information regarding the resurrection. If you have seen a theory for or against it, it's probably in this book. Foster did an excellent job with research.

As far as keeping my attention...I had a love/hate relationship with this book. There were times where I couldn't put it down. The topic would be relevant and the writing right down my alley. Then, I would get to certain sections and be ready to collapse from boredom. And, if you stroll through life with an "average Joe" vocabulary like myself, you'll find yourself in the dictionary pretty often with this one. But, overall, I thought it was a great book. I got it through the BookSneeze.com program.

Let me also add the disclaimer about my first paragraph...I think it's obvious that I don't believe someone comes to faith in Christ through an everyday book. My point in saying that about faith and discretion was to emphasize the author's non-bias approach to the arguments.

Now that I'm done with the review, I'll leave you all with this gem from the book that I thought was a well thought out, yet simple argument. In this point, the opponent (X), is arguing the fact that people dying for a cause (the resurrection of Christ) doesn't add any evidence towards it. He then says,

"many of the early Christians, including those who were supposed eyewitnesses of the death and resurrection of Jesus, were martyred...people are prepared to die for all sorts of beliefs. We do not take the death of a suicide bomber in Iraq as proof of the validity of the reactionary Islam that has made him immolate himself."

To that, (Y) makes his rebuttal that you can't compare eyewitnesses to those who aren't eyewitness--

...There is no parallel with the suicide bombers. They are in no position to know whether or not the cause for which they die is true. They simply believe it passionately and pathologically. To die for what you believe to be true is one thing; to die for what you know to be untrue is quite another. These early martyrs, remember, were the witnesses of what they were preaching. If the tomb was not really empty, they knew. If the resurrection appearances did not occur, they knew. If the resurrection appearances "occurred" only in a subjective sense, inside the heads and psyches of the individuals, they knew. If Christianity was bogus or evidently shaky, they knew.

Should Be a Girl! An Energetic One!

You might ask, "Should be a girl? What does that mean?"

Well, let me explain. We were scheduled a little too early for the ultrasound and the tech said that she thinks it's a girl, but can't be entirely sure. So far, that's the best we have until next month. But, it sounds promising to be a girl, which we're excited about!

The most amazing thing was seeing her..even through the ultrasound. The last time we saw her, she was just a tiny peanut with a heartbeat. Now she's formed so much. Yesterday, when we first saw her, she kept bouncing up and down. I asked what was going on and Kim said that the baby would do it when she was breathing in. The tech said that wasn't the case though, but that the baby was just moving around. As we kept going she moved and flipped every which way.

Baby

This picture is a bit late as far as updating the blog, but here it is! We're on the verge of being parents. It's pretty crazy to think about considering how often I don't feel like I'm that grown up. But, we feel as prepared as we can be. Obviously, we'll figure out just how much we don't know once we have the baby, but we're still crazy excited! We should find out soon whether it's a boy or girl. Can't wait!

Picture Updates

It's been a while since the last update, so I thought I would add a few pictures to show what's been going on around here.

Today is one of the first decently cold days we've had so far. The pups love having their fire to keep them warm!

Kim always decorates a wreath each holiday and I thought she did a pretty awesome job on this one for fall!

I built this for the children's church game room. Just cut some holes in the ply wood, built a frame, then put burlap under each hole. Makes a nice little bean bag toss game.

This is the work bench/cabinet I built for the garage. I put wheels on the bottom and made it level with the other work bench. Kim's grandpa let me use his router for cutting the cabinet doors and they turned out pretty good.

This is my last project. I have a music stand for when I play guitar for our youth, but it has a huge railing on it. My notebook has a one button feature for opening the 3-rings and I couldn't open it with one hand because the rail was so big on the other stand. So, I built this with a smaller rail and now when I'm needing to open my notebook with my guitar on me and holding my pic, I can open it with one hand.