bierkergaard

Acts 20:35 "Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive." I have seen a trend in the Church. It is a spirit of expecting resources for free. We will download sermons, read articles on the web about the faith, and etc. We don't give much of a though of who just paid for us to do that. I call it Christian Socialism. It is part of a larger trend of how the internet has really changed the rules. The demise of the newspapers has been the result of people being able to get the same information elsewhere for free. "Why pay for it?" is a common response. It used to be that the newspaper was one of the few sources of information. That was also back in the day when people probably never traveled more than 100 miles from their house, worked the same job for life, and had no other sources of information than nosey Mildred down the way who made it her business to be in the know of others' lives. Today, if the newspaper i...

John 21:18 "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not." Before Jesus ascended, he had a breakfast meeting on the beach with Peter and the boys. Then, there was a little 1-1 between Jesus and Peter, Jesus is asking Peter if he loved Jesus. After Peter says three times that he does love Jesus, replacing Peter's three denials, Jesus tells him the statement of the verse above. I love how Peter then points to John, "How about him?" Jesus tells Peter to worry about himself. Good advice in general. Make no mistake about it, when we fail--Jesus or other people--it is more often than not because of a lack of love. There may be other secondary issues like fear, but the lack of love does much to explain causation. Then, Jesus really zeroes in on what it means for Peter...

Luke 7:2 "And a certain centurion's servant, who was dear unto him, was sick, and ready to die." Mark Driscoll has been preaching a series on the Gospel of Luke. I have no need to repeat most of what he preaches here in his sermon on "Jesus Heals a Centurions Servant." One thing that did strike me about this sermon was the relational depth among the major actors: the Centurion, Jesus, the Jews who came to Jesus on the Centurion's behalf, and the servant himself. Driscoll does a great job making these personalities three-dimensional in regards to their realities...what they are thinking and feeling. The Centurion is sorrowful over the impending death of his servant. The pathos is real and Driscoll tells of some personal situations with illness, death, and dying, that he is experiencing presently. We have all seen carboard life-size cut-outs of famous people like Stallone. And tourists pay $$$ to get a picture taken with it. When the picture is developed, it ...

1 Cor. 13:8 Love never fails.... If a young lad or lady were to inquire of me about whether he or she should pursue Ph.D. studies, I would try and ascertain their intellect, their will, and their heart. To earn a Ph.D. obviously does take a modicum of smarts. It is not all that it takes but it is one solid log to throw on the fire. The second attribute I would try to assess is how driven the person is; it takes a lot of discipline to earn a Ph.D. I sat in the chair of my study nearly every Saturday for eight long years for 8-10 hours doing school work associated with my doctoral studies. That was the least I would do, some weeks it was often a lot more, while working full-time for the better part of a decade. When my students whine at school that a class is hard and takes a lot of work, that does not elicit much maternal compassion from me. My equation is hard=good. There is no need to make things harder than they need to be but our proclivity to dodge difficulties just makes us only ...

While in sunny Philadelphia for Commencement (mine), Lina, Dad, and I walked quite a bit. Although we did take the grimy yet effective Broad Street Subway North to South and South to North to reduce trotting time to do something much more enjoyable...to eat and drink beer at the City Tavern . North Philadelphia to Center City is pretty much a long walk with not much to see. The City Tavern, if this be a tourist trap, let me get caught. There, a rebuilt structure, the wait staff dress in Colonial garb and serve dishes from that era. I had the Meat Pie and I have to say it was major yumm. I particularly enjoyed my ale sampler served on a paddle of sorts...the recipes were from the Founding Fathers themselves. Nice, let freedom belch! Our waiter was also refreshingly frank about what was good and what was lame food-wise. He steered me away from Martha Washington's Turkey Pot Pie...although an authentic recipe, it was nothing to die for. The Ales, however, were quite delish. Here is th...

I pray that your day consists of contentment in the chaos....a realization that while your work is important, it is not everything. Rest and reflect on the grace that allows us to not move and acquire but to stay still and receive.

Well, you have probably heard of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. How about Chairman Mow's Little Red Book...some of my most liked posts are about my battles with grass and groundhogs. My wife gave me a special dispensation on the dissertation "no blogging" rule. Frankly, I have enjoyed not writing for a spell...but I have done plenty of dumb things with profound meaning since I last wrote, so it is not like I have run out of material (metaphorical grass to mow) Went out to finish mowing the yard and to take a bit of a break from writing the Diss. Grass was getting long and I didn't want it to rain and delay mowing for a day or two. Plus, I wanted to work on my tan. I found out why the lawnmower shut off last night when I was mowing. The spark plug cord became unattached from the spark plug. Did not see this at dusk...only became apparent in the light of day. No matter how long or hard I would have pulled the cord, the mower would have never started. There ...