Discipleship | A People for His Name

Better Vision through Progressive Relaxation

October 5, 2011

For several years now, I have been working on learning progressively how to relax muscles throughout my body. I have especially targeted all my eye muscles, both intrinsic and extrinsic.

In the last year or so, I have seen noticeable improvement in my nearsightedness. While it is still far from perfect much of the time, I have been having an increasing number of brief periods when my vision is almost as good without my glasses as it is with them. A few times, it has been even better than what it is with my glasses on.

For quite a few months now, I have consistently been doing without my glasses for long periods of time on Sundays and on Wednesday nights. Even though my vision has not been normal during many of those times, I am encouraged that it has been increasingly getting better for longer periods of time on these days.

Even with all my efforts to relax my eye muscles on various occasions, I am amazed at how much tension I still find in my eye muscles on a regular basis. As God allows, I hope to learn to be able to relieve all tension in my eyes readily.

My expectation is that when I am able to do so, my vision will be consistently near normal. Lord willing, I hope that one day soon it will be so and that He will see fit to answer my many prayers for my eyes to be healed fully.

In Health

Mnemonic Aids for Learning Hebrew Vocabulary

October 3, 2011

This semester, I have been tutoring a student who is taking first-semester Hebrew. Today, he needed to learn ten function words and nine words for numbers (for his quiz tomorrow).

When he told me that he had not studied these words much at all so far, I told him that I thought he was in trouble. As we began to work on the words, however, mnemonic aids came to me that made the task much easier for him.

Here are the ten sentences/phrases that we came up with to help him learn these words. These provide the Hebrew vocabulary words in a part-transliteration, part-pronunciation scheme that I use.

Numbers)

Ri Aleph-Shon – “first”; Sheni – “second”

Echad – 1 [Masculine]; Achath – 1 [Feminine]; ShƏnayim – 2 [Masculine]; ShƏttayim – 2 [Feminine]

Meah – 100; Ma Aleph-Thayim – 200; Eleph – 1000

In the race, Ri Aleph-Shon finished first, and Sheni was second.

Number 1, Echad, married Achath.

Number 2, ShƏnayim married ShƏttayim.

A meah is 1/10 of an eleph.

A meah is ½ of ma aleph-thayim.

Function Words)

Lifney – “before”; AchƏrey – “after”; Min – “from”; Nyad – “as far as”

El – “toward”; Nyal – “on”; Nyim – “with”; ¯Eth – “with”; Koh – “thus”; Beyn – “between”

Before Lifney and after AchƏrey; from Min as far as Nyad

Toward El on Nyal; Nyim with Eth Maqqeph

Thus Koh is between Beyn

In Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Languages

1000+ Sheet Music PDFs for a $2 Donation!

October 2, 2011

I received an e-mail request the other day from a website asking me to donate $2 to help keep the site going. Because I had downloaded a fair amount of free sheet music PDFs from the site in the past, I decided to help out.

When I made my donation, I was thrilled to learn that they were giving to everyone who donates a free zip file of more than 1000 PDFs of public domain sheet music. Looking through the music that I received, it is clear to me that I will be able to make great use of this free additional music.

Praise God for this unexpected blessing!

In Music, Testimony

Praying for My Favorite Sports Teams

September 29, 2011

This has not been a good year for my favorite teams in professional sports.

In football, the New England Patriots lost to the New York Jets in the playoffs. In hockey, the Chicago Black Hawks, after winning the Stanley Cup in 2010, lost their opening round playoff series to the Vancouver Canucks in Game 7 in sudden death overtime.

In basketball, the Boston Celtics lost to the Miami Heat in a series that I believe the Celtics were cheated by the officials in at least one game. In baseball, the Boston Red Sox missed the playoffs on the last day of the season by losing to the Baltimore Orioles in their final game.

In spite of all my teams have disappointing endings to their seasons, I remain a loyal fan of each team.

This morning, after learning of the Red Sox loss, God gave me a perspective about supporting them that I do not think that I have had before. I found myself hoping that God would use their loss to turn each Red Sox player to Himself.

I plan to pray to that end.

May God use these losses to work mightily in the heart of each player on my favorite teams to save those who are not saved and sanctify further those who are saved.

In Prayer

Learning the Hebrew Alphabet through Greek

September 28, 2011

Like many other seminary students, I learned NT Greek before I learned Hebrew. When I was given the Hebrew alphabet, I was taught to pronounce it by hearing it spoken and by reading English renderings of the names of the Hebrew letters.

Recently, I read through Lamentations in the LXX and noticed that the verses in the first four chapters began with the letters in the Hebrew alphabet rendered in Greek. Most of these are exactly what I was taught when I learned Hebrew, but a few vary somewhat.

I think that I would have learned the Hebrew alphabet faster had I been given these Greek renderings along with the English.

This table has the Hebrew alphabet in Hebrew, English, and Greek. It may be of help to some future students who try to learn it.

In Biblical Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Languages

Answered Prayer! – September 25, 2011

September 27, 2011

This Sunday, God answered a prayer request that I have been making for some time now. Having taught adult, non-credit guitar classes for several semesters a number of years ago, I have been praying for some time now for another opportunity to teach a guitar class. Although I have made considerable efforts to arrange for such an opportunity, I have not had nearly as much success as I would like to have had.

After I came home from church on Sunday evening, I received a phone call from a pastor of a local Spanish church. He had gotten my number from someone else and called me to ask if I would be interested in meeting with him to consider the possibility of teaching a guitar class for some people in his church.

I met with him yesterday to discuss his burden. It seems that he wants someone to do for his church what I have wanted to do in a ministry context for quite some time now—teach a guitar class for people wanting to use the guitar for ministry!

Praise God that there is a good chance that I will soon get to teach another class to people who want to learn to use the guitar for ministry!

In Testimony

"A Creative Element in Judgment"

September 25, 2011

Whether through the agency of men or not, Yahweh’s judgment is a process which sifts men. It separates the righteous from the wicked and thus makes the ‘remnant’ to appear. This points us to a creative element in judgment. We must not think of it as merely negative and destructive. It has, it is true, negative and punitive aspects. But what emerges as the result of judgment is, so to speak, all clear again. It is the beloved community, and we cannot imagine how this could possibly appear apart from judgment.

Leon Morris, The Biblical Doctrine of Judgment, 23

In Interpretation, Quotes

Barrett on the Canaanites and God's Justice

September 24, 2011

Those that defend the Canaanites as innocent victims of Israeli savagery fail to recognize the theology of extermination. To charge the Old Testament as being sub-Christian because of this divine order to kill all the Canaanites is to deny the holy justice of God. . . . In addition to the manifold evidence of the Old Testament about the heinous sins of these doomed people, the book of Hebrews gives some insight that silences every accusation against God and any defense of the inhabitants of Jericho: they perished because the did not believe (Heb. 11:31). What Rahab heard and believed about the God of Israel all the city heard (see Joshua 2:9-11). What they heard, however, they did not mix with faith. From every perspective they were without excuse before the Lord. . . . God’s judgments are always righteous; no sinner, whether from ancient Jericho or modern America, can claim innocence before the most holy Lord.

—Michael P.V. Barrett, Complete in Him: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Gospel, 277

In Apologetics, Quotes

MacArthur on Preaching the Word

September 23, 2011

     Let’s face it—right now preaching the Word is out of season. Humanity is experiencing God’s wrath as He gives people over to consequences of sinful choices . . . . Society may be feeling this divine abandonment in our age more than ever before. And the decline in preaching in the church can actually contribute to people’s sense of helplessness. . . .
     But the market-driven philosophy currently in vogue says that declaring biblical truth is outmoded. Biblical exposition and theology are seen as antiquated and irrelevant. “Churchgoers don’t want to be preached to anymore,” this philosophy says. “The baby-boom generation won’t just sit in the pew while someone up front preaches. They are products of a media-driven generation, and they need a church experience that will satisfy them on their own terms.”
     But Paul says [2 Tim. 4:2ff.] the excellent minister must be faithful to preach the Word even when it is not in fashion. . . . Paul was speaking of an explosive eagerness to preach, like that of Jeremiah, who said that the Word of God was a fire in his bones. That’s what he was demanding of Timothy. Not reluctance but readiness. Not hesitation but fearlessness. No cool talk but the fire of the Word of God.

—John F. MacArthur, Jr., Ashamed of the Gospel: When the Church Becomes Like the World, 33

In Ministry, Preaching, Quotes

"All Things Bright and Beautiful"

September 22, 2011

Melody, guitar chords, and first stanza for All Things Bright and Beautiful in my format.

In Music

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