Phillip D. Jensen and Tony Payne. Guidance and the Voice of God. Youngstown, OH: Matthias Media, September 16th, 2012. 183 pp.
This work is an expanded and revised edition of a book on God’s guidance and the will of God. I received this book from the Shepherd’s Conference and didn’t realized I had it until I found it again in my book shelf as I was working on a series for my church on the sovereignty of God. Talk about providence and what the book called “God’s behind the scene” guidance! I found this book quite helpful and refreshing since the authors stressed the Bible as the means of knowing God’s will and they go against the grain of some of the books and speakers out there on seeking the plan of God that is man-centered, mystical or down right weird.
Here are the top 10 posts here on our blog, Veritas Domain, that was written in 2015. I noticed there’s a lot of apologetics responses pieces or resources that dominate the top 10.
Again thank you guys for reading our blog, sharing it with others and commenting your thoughts!
Did you remembered any of them or were blessed by them?
May the Lord use it all to exalt His glory, to edify God’s people and to evangelize the lost.
I appreciate the interaction with all of you online here.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 140,000 times in 2015. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it.
This is a two part lectues series that was done by Christian apologist Sam Shamoun over at Calvary Chapel Pacific Coast in 2011. Sam Shamoun is also known as the “Assyrian Encyclopedia,” a nickname Dr. James White have mentioned in his Dividing Line Radio Show.
This resource is valuable in our day and age with the rise of Islam and radical Islam on the news. So here’s the two videos from Youtube:
This is a children’s book on the book of Job in the Bible. The book is really a poem by Douglas Bond for kids on the story of Job and his suffering. I was surprised at how much the author was able to rhyme while also retaining the structure of the book of Job. I read this to my children who are all four years old and under and I think they were able to follow along though I think this book might be intended for elementary school age kids.
I don’t really watch much movies let alone movies with superheroes but when I do, I do think about worldviews. Here I want to look at X Men: First Class and it’s theme of God, evolution and ethics.
We’ll start with the movie’s opening scene.
The movie’s opens with a rainy moment where the first thing viewers see are some feet walking in the mud and the rain. Whoever those feet belong to, they certainly were not walking in confidence or in a hurry to get out of the rain. One can’t tell whether it’s day or night; nor does it matter, since it is meant to invoke nihilistic and hopeless feeling to the viewers. Nothing captures the symptom of nihilism and hopelessness as the losing track of time and where one’s external environment no longer matter. A few seconds into it, you see the backside of a soldier manning a machine gun post with the unmistakeable Nazi shape helmet, and a caption that says “Poland 1944.” Here everything on the screen tells the viewer that the setting is in a holocaust concentration camp, with a line of people marching. As the movie continues, attention focuses on a young boy and his father and mother. The Nazis separated the child from his parents, with one party going one direction and the other another. With the mom crying and looking back, the young boy ran towards the direction of his parents, only to have one soldier, then two and eventually four soldiers pulling this young boy back. All the while, the young lad has his hand stretched out to the gate that blocks where his parents has headed towards. If that does not call the viewers attention to the incredible power this boy has, the scene with the Nazis soldiers looking at the twisted gate now makes the viewers realize that this child has super power (and for those familiar with the X-Men story, this would make fans immediately realize that the young child is Erik Lehnsherr who later becomes the villain Magneto).
Those who take part in “geeky events” are more likely to have an “elevated grandiose” level of narcissism, according to a study conducted by the University of Georgia.
Psychologists examined the personality traits of those who turn to “geek culture”, developing a Geek Culture Engagement Scale and a Geek Identity Scale to help quantify the figures.
It was found that those who scored highly on both scales were more likely to narcissists.
As part of our Christian worldview series on Superheroes and the Comics, in this post we will look at Jonah Hex and reflect on the topic of masculinity.
This volume collects some of the 1970s issues on Jonah Hex, a bounty hunter operating in the old Wild West. There are various short stories of Hex’ adventures. This was the first comics about Jonah Hex and I was surprised that I really enjoyed them since I’ve never been a guy for anything Western. I like how each story is self-contained and you don’t need to know a whole lot from other issues in order to get what’s going on. I think I also liked the story of Jonah Hex as a manly gunslinger. Taking place in the 1800s when the West was far from tame, Jonah Hex must be a tough man to survive and capture the guys who are wanted.
Here’s some audios that looks at comics from a Christian worldview from a show that calls itself “Theonomy in Panels.” There use to be some Youtube videos of these shows but they have since been deleted. The following are what audios that can be still be found online:
11 for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is[e]Christ the Lord.12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a [f]manger.“
Establish the need: Some people get really grumpy this time of the year; they feel obligated to get gifts. They are stressed out wanting to find the right gifts for others. There is long lines everywhere. But we must ask why on the first Christmas were the Angels rejoicing?
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; 11 for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is [e]Christ the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a [f]manger.” 13 And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
This is a Western story of a tough as nail bounty hunter who roams the Wild West. This particular volume touches on Jonah’s past although I think the title can be misleading since the volume isn’t entirely on his origin per se and it goes back and forth in time and gives glimpses of his past rather than it being a linear story. One thing I noticed in this work was the frequent theme of fathers and in particular bad fathers. We see this in one of the story where a father was an alcoholic beating his son which gave Jonah Hex flashbacks to his own childhood and his own father. We also see this theme about son and father even with the story of Jonah Hex being given away to the Apaches by his dad and then the relationship of the Apache chief, his son and Jonah Hex. This volume also ended with Jonah Hex being a widow maker which is also echoed in the earlier stories in this book. In between these stories there is also the story of how Jonah Hex met Tallulah Black and her backstory. I found these stories a fascinating read.
Christian Reflection:
Paul in Ephesians 6:4 says “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” We see the detrimental consequences of this upon children, the effect in which we see even when they become adults. The correlation between those who have a bad or non-existent relationship with their fathers and crime rate can be seen by those who want to look up the statistics. As a Christian reading this volume, the death and killing of fathers left me gasping. But it made me think about the men I have ministered to who have issues with abusive and negligent dads and the pain and rage they have. Of course there must be a call to repentance but one must also understand just how detrimental is the effect of bad father figures are in people’s lives.
This is part of our short series on Superheroes, Comics and Worldview. The following are comics that I found intriguing in that they have a political overtone and message. Specifically they warn the readers of the danger of Statism.
V for Vendetta
Alan Moore. V for Vendetta. New York, NY: DC Comics, October 12th, 2005. 296 pp.
I read this nearly a year ago back in January and it still left a strong impression on my mind. I can only compare to this to George Orwell’s 1984. It is a 1984 with a superhero, if V could be called that. Originally written in the 1980s it is a story about a future England in 1997 and 1998 in which the government has become tyrannical and authoritarian with a sole dictator on top who is obsessed with his computer dictating to him things by chance. As powerful and smart as those within government think they are, one lone vigilante suddenly challenges all that. What’s incredible is that our hero goes about doing what he does while singing, rhyming and throwing out witty slogans. This shows the incredible genius of the writer Alan Moore and he even manage to alliterate each section of the book with the letter V. Incredible. As our hero carry his subversive campaign to undermine the evil government and cause the people to rise up we are also drawn into the story in learning more of the mystery of the origin of V and his motivation to fight the regime. Although the story does have a bit of the left leaning taste there is still a powerful lesson about the dangers of Statism.
Christian Reflection:
As I said earlier this book does have the same feel as 1984. This reminds us just how dark a tyrannical government can be and how the mass could simply let the government do the evils they do. While our hero is a lone revolutionary as a Christian we must not believe in vigilante justice or call for the rebellious overthrow of the government. This of course is different from the duties of the lower magistrate to disobey wrongful orders from their superiors. Christians must be very careful not to subscribe to the pagan ideology that chaos (revolution) will reproduce order.
NOTE: I did not watch the movie nor do I plan on reading it.
The Domain for Truth 