Thursday Link List

Saint-Michel d’Aiguilhe chapel in Le Puy-en-Velay, France. Not exactly visitor friendly. Where the pastor’s parking space?

My dog ate my homework.

Seriously, I couldn’t think of anything original today. I keep having this bad habit of posting great stuff in the summer on Saturday and Sunday when nobody’s online reading; and then the well runs dry during the week…

• After he slashed her neck, a woman spent 90 minutes sharing her faith and reading her Bible to her attacker before heading off to the hospital for 20-25 stitches and staples.  
• If your church website says “missions” is a core value, and yet the music ministry budget is four times as big as your missions ministry, your church culture doesn’t line up with your stated values.
• I promise you, you’ve never heard How Great Thou Art performed like they do it at World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. This is a must watch!!!
• No, seriously, ya gotta watch that video.
  
• We can receive insight into the living by looking at how they treat the dead… This is what happens when the bodies of refugee asylum seekers are left floating off the Australia coast.
  
• Francis Chan is one in a series of eleven high-profile guest speakers in the Follow Me series of Saddleback Sundays. I really enjoyed (needed) this message.
• There’s a goldmine of great worship songs and modern hymns in the catalog of Keith and Kristyn Getty. Enjoy The Perfect Wisdom of Our God.
• Evangelicals tend to look askance at the deuterocanonical or apocryphal books, but here’s a solid argument for accepting the alternative version of The Book of Esther. 
• Twelve stressors that missionaries face pare paired up with questions you can ask to bring issues to the surface.
• Randy Alcorn’s thoughts on the afterlife turn up in Eternity, a 120 page graphic novel.
  
• A Kansas church finds a stash of Bibles in many languages in mint condition… but what they really need is new church restroom.
• Here’s the unofficial results of an unscientific survey in which pastors — albeit subjectively — reported how long their average sermon runs.
• Finally, from our sister blog, Christianity 201, a look at how when we turn back to God, He runs to meet us where we are.
  

Well, we could do this all week, but…

Wednesday Link List

This is the link list that the other blogs get their links from after we got them from them in the first place.

It’s a safe bet that neither party purchasing space on the above billboards were aware of the other’s presence.  Or is it?

• Ravi Zacharias responds to the Boston tragedy and all the issues it raises.
• And did you read about the Boston Marathon Saint; the guy who gave away his medal?
  
• In New Zealand you can name your baby girl Faith, Hope, or Charity, but not Justice. It’s one of a number of banned names.
• It’s got endorsements from Eric Metaxas, Ann Voskamp, Paul Young and Russell D. Moore. But is The Little Way of Ruthie Leming a title that would be considered a Christian book?
  
• It’s not every day that a Christian school science test makes the pages of snopes.com, but then again you haven’t seen a test like this one.
  
• Wanna know more about the Apocrypha, those extra books in the Roman Catholic Bible? Check out this podcast. (Click the link that says “Play in Pop-Up.) (Technically these are the deuterocanonical books, the term apocrypha can include other writings.)
• And after adding that I found an article of a type that many of us would never see: A Roman Catholic blogger’s apologetic for the Catholic canon of scripture. (Which is by default very anti-Protestant canon.) 
• If you read Christian blogs, you know the word ‘missional.’ Now here’s a reading list of the top 40 books on the subject.
• Usually writers have to push their publishers for cool book trailers. This 2-minute video for Jon Stuff Christians Like Acuff’s book Start was a gift from a reader.
  
• Quote of the week: “I knew what abortion was before I knew where babies came from. ” ~ Rachel Held Evans writing about a prominent US news story about an abortion doctor that isn’t playing much here in Canada or on the news elsewhere.
  
• Also at RHE, Jennifer Knapp responds to some great questions from readers with some great answers. Sample: “I think it’s often overlooked, is that CCM’s genre is not a style of music, but rather it is a very specific message.” Quotation of the type you’re probably more interest in: “‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ can be an acceptable working environment for some, but has also been used as legitimate financial weapon at times to enforce individual silence in exchange for job security.”  (Also, JK previously here at Thinking…)
• And going three-for-three with RHE (it rhymes, too) here’s an interview she did with Christianity Today.
  
• And for something much shorter than those articles on Rachel’s blog: Greg Atkinson on what pastors can learn from country music.
• Here’s a pastor’s nightmare: When your small church is essentially a one man show.
• Is your church looking for a pastor? Here’s ten signs your search isn’t going well.  Sample: Average time between sending in application and receiving rejection notice: 5-7 minutes.
  
• Catholics are borrowing a page from Mormons, JWs and Evangelicals and doing door-to-door ministry. Advice to participants: Trying to provide too many facts about the Church may cause misunderstandings.
• Here’s a fun 5-minute video for pastors wanting to develop their homiletic skills using a technique called preaching by ear. (A sales pitch follows.)
• And wrapping up our ministry links, should a pastor know how much individuals give financially?
  
• At a certain point (i.e. after the second chorus) this Eddie Kirkland song always reminds me of Coldplay.
• Going to a summer wedding? You might want to look around at a critical moment so you don’t miss the best part of the processional.
  
• Tony Jones loves Greg Boyd (no, not that way) and thinks you should also.
  
• From the people who brought you the Top 200 Christian Blogs list, The Top 200 Christian Seminaries.

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Currently Reading: The Book of Tobit

The Old Testament deuterocanonical book of Tobit is fourteen short chapters and may be read in under 15 minutes.   I’d read a number of these books a couple of decades ago, but took advantage of not being the driver on a short car trip to read this one again.

Most of the story centers on Tobit’s son Tobiah and his soon-to-be wife Sarah, and an incognito angel named Raphael.    Tobiah is cooling his feet in a stream when a fish grabs hold of one foot and the angel advises him not to discard the fish because cooking some of the organs can expel demons and heal eye cataracts, which is key to the resolution of the plot.

This aspect of the story seemed to me to be the one which sets Tobit apart from other O. T. books which are part of the 66-book Protestant canon.   But then I thought about that other fish story, the book of Jonah with its regurgitated prophet, and wondered how we would react to that if it were not part of our heritage (or how the unchurched react to the creation narrative with its talking snake and seemingly magic tree.)

Tobit contains a couple of Psalm-like chapters of worship to God’s greatness and provision.   There is nothing in the story which directly conflicts with Protestant belief and it is historically and geographically rooted enough to suggest that the characters are real.    God’s dealings with Israel in the O.T. were both weird and wonderful by contemporary standards, and I haven’t studied enough on this book to dare to suggest it never happened.

As Tobit was part of the original 1611 King James Version, you can read that online here.    If you’re curious however, I’d prefer to recommend reading it as I did in the New American Bible.   It’s also in the Catholic NRSV and Catholic Good News Bible.