Well, I’ve finally chosen a new host. Actually had them picked out for a week or two. I’ve been dragging my feet because this is likely to be a big pain. I’m going to have to re-install MT and all my plugins, upload the other files (images and stuff) and then upload the MySQL database. If my current host used cPanel, this would be much much easier. But they do not.
Thanks for all the suggestions a while back, I looked at both pair.com and ixwebhosting.com. Pair is actually a MT Hosting Partner, but they were also pricey. The most comparable plan to what I’ve got now, in terms of disk space, bandwidth and functionality was over $21 per month and that did not include the $6.95 per month MT add on. Too much. Ixwebhosting was a bargain, but I was not convinced that they knew MT at all, let alone enough to help me if I had issues.
So I’ve decided on Total Choice Hosting. I’m getting unlimited email accounts, MySQL databases and FTP logins, 850 MB of disk space (I’ve got 500 now), 20 GB monthly data transfer[UPDATE: I haven’t even posted this yet and I find out that they are about to upgrade the bandwidth and disk space on all plans. Cool.] and 2 domains registered for less than $6.50 per month. They’ve got MT instalation instructions on their site as well as an active Family Forums with plenty of TCH representatives who quickly respond to questions. They’ve also got a good reputation at the MT support forums, which is where I learned of them.
I’m not going to get into the thick of the changeover until next week, although I may do the actual sign up sooner. I’ve also decided to purchase a new domain, salgoud.net, since it seems spelling Douglas backward isn’t as easy as I had thought it would be.
Salguod.net: Friend of mis-spellers and bad typists alike.
Month: April 2006
[Ephesians] – Chapter 2
There’s a distinct contrast in Ephesians 2:1-10 between the then and the now. Once dead, walking in sin, children of wrath, sons of disobedience. Now alive in Christ, raised up, seated with Christ in heavenly places. It’s a reminder of where we’ve come from and where we are – and why: By grace, through faith. “And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” Ephesians 2:8, ESV. We have nothing to boast about, we could have done none of it without God.
Ephesians 2:11-22 carries a common theme of Paul’s writings, the common salvation of both Jew and Gentile. He points out that before Christ, the Gentiles were separate from Go and His promises, “having no hope and without God in the world.” But then points out that Jesus destroyed that division, “that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two”. No, both Jew and Gentile follow the same path to God through Jesus. We are joined together, unified on our journey to God. The message of the cross is a message of reconciliation and unification on many levels, not just God to man, but Jew to Gentile as well.
Paul goes beyond just being friends or being nice to each other. He makes a point at several places in this passage to call the Jew and Gentiles together “one”. Not two men standing together, but “one new man”. Not two bodies of believers walking together, but “one body.” It’s not a truce or even a treaty, it’s a merging of nations into a new nation, “a dwelling place for God”. It’s a powerful thought and one we would do well to meditate on and pursue.
The Freeway Wayback Machine
The life of a car is interesting, at least to me. When new, even the lowliest Hyundai or Kia has a certain appeal. After all, it’s new, it’s under warranty the odometer has all those zeros and it has that new car smell. But depending on the car and it’s appeal, the novelty wears off. For some cars it wears off faster than others, but somewhere between 10 and 15 years old, it’s just plain junk. No one wants it, except for the most desirable of the desirable. Later, between 20 and 25 years old, the nostalgia factor starts kicking in and most cars start to appreciate.
So there’s a no man’s land in the 15-20 year old zone where no one cares if the car disappears from the roadways forever. (Although in the latest issue of Auto Restorer magazine, someone wrote in for restoration tips on their 1984 Ford Escort. Huh?)
In the light of this consider the following sights on the Columbus highways on my way to work and back in the past couple of weeks:
- Early 80’s Chevy Cavalier Hatchback The first few years of the cavalier were the last few of America’s first love with the hatchback. The Cavalier hatch didn’t last long as hatches went out of fashion until just recently.
- Mid 80’s Cadillac Cimmaron Basically a 4 door Cavalier with leather seats and and a Caddy crest on the front.
- Late 70’s Ford Thunderbird This one is actually on the upswing into collect ability. Still odd to see driving around as someone’s daily driver.
- Mid 80’s Yugo GV Wow, there’s still one running!
- 3-5 year old Ford Explorer with a giant “Iron Maiden” sticker on the back. OK, it’s not an old car, but seriously, Iron Maiden? Someone is still enthused enough about Iron Maiden to put a 4 foot long sticker on the back of their SUV?
I felt like I was in High School again.
Throw Out Your Rule Book
Go read the latest from Keith at Blog in My Own Eye. He writes about our obsession with getting it right in Christiandom. And condemning those who don’t. He thinks weve got it all wrong and I think he’s right. There’s a lot of great quotes, but in hoping you go read it in it’s entirety I’ll give you this snippet:
The point, to me, is that a lot of our self-devised rules are pretty arbitrary. They serve to separate, not to unite. They do so by creating castes of “I’m better than you” folks who can live by those rules and look down on those who don’t; who can preach them into hell for their infidelity. They create super-apostles versus lesser believers who can never feel confident of their faith. They foster an “I’m right and you’re wrong” attitude that is totally inconsistent with the truth – that we are all wrong, and only Jesus is right.
You see, I’m not sure that Matthew 18 is entirely about the proper procedures for handling conflict between brothers.
I’m thinking it might also be good tongue-in-cheek advice for how not to impose your fifty-volume perfect-bound personal rule book encyclopedia on someone else: Just leave them alone. Let them struggle through their own challenges, not yours. Because if you love them, you can’t possibly excommunicate them forever, based on your imperfect knowledge and your imperfect judgment.
C’mon. Can you really picture Jesus saying, “… treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector” without a hint of a smile playing at the side of His mouth? The One who came from heaven to redeem pagans and to call tax collectors to follow Him?
Jesus came and he overturned more than jsut tables, he flipped the entire way of viewing God and his rules. But we quietly go back after Jesus and place the tables – and our understanding of God – right side up again. We need our rules and regulations, we need to have laws to obey and to be able to identify others who are ‘right’ as well. But that wasn’t Jesus. He assoiated with the wrong people and acted in the wrong ways. He ticked people off because he didn’t fit within their notion of what it was to be Godly. he just wouldn’t paly by the rules.
Are we too afraid to do the same?
[Ephesians] – Chapter 1
As I prepare to read, I want to remember the background. Paul is writing from prison, he’s writing merely to encourage them and to share his heart with them. Having spent 2 years and a few months with them, he cares for them deeply. That is clear as well from the charge he gives their Elders when he meets them on his way to Jerusalem.
These are people who have turned from their old lives, perhaps live steeped in years of superstitious worship of Artemis or another God, to this new offshoot of Judaism. They are trying to follow this new way, a way not familiar at all to them, or to anyone really. Paul had taught them and he is reminding them in this letter of what they should stay true to. I can imagine hearing these words they were reminded of the man who came ans showed them the love and grace of God that had transformed their lives.
I wonder how foreign the words in Ephesians 1:3-10 were to them? Blessed, chosen, predestined, redemption, forgiveness. Grand, lofty, idealistic concepts that Paul is proclaiming as reality.
In Ephesians 1:13-14, after this grand description of what God has given us in Christ, Paul makes a point of reminding them that “In him you also, … “. He did not want this to be just lofty ideas to them, no, “you also … were sealed”.
Ephesians 1:16-17 – You are still on my heart, and I’ve heard of your faith and love and I can’t stop thanking God for it. I image, from Paul’s perspective, that he leaves a place and he wonders if he’s done enough, Will they hold onto what they’ve learned? So when word gets back to him about the strength of the saints in Ephesus, he’s overjoyed and this inspires his letter.
Ephesians 1:15-21 is one of those amazing Pauline run on sentences where he can’t seem to put too many words of praise for who God is and what he has done through Christ. It seems obvious that Paul is enthralled with Jesus and he’s trying to make the Ephesians see what he sees. “Do you get it?” he seems to say, “Do you understand what an amazing God we serve, who has given us all this in Jesus?!?! No, no, really, do you see?!? ‘The eyes of your heart enlightened’, ‘Glorious inheritance’, ‘immeasurable greatness’.
I wonder, is my enthusiasm for God’s working in my life through Christ, the riches he’s given me through my conforming to his will, am I this excited to have this amazing relationship with God? Perhaps I don’t understand it like Paul did. I bet, if he were here, he’d implore me and our churches to ‘get it’.
April Fools
Since some of you were dissapointed that I had nothing for April Fools, go check out ICOCinfo before Tuesday morning when they take down their spoof. UPDATE: The spoof is now here. Here’s the best quote:
SOME KEEP PLANTING With only 19 baptisms in its first 20 days, the newly planted Chicago International Christian Church made room this week for the planting of the Chicago Intercontinental Christian Church. The team, to be sent from Oregon, adopted the now familiar plant-first-then-discuss-co-existence-later strategy:
We along with disciples from Georgia, Kiev, Phoenix and our sister church in Eugene will join a group of even more totally “ultra-mega-sold-out” disciples to plant the Chicago Intercontinental Christian Church. This is not a replanting of the Chicago International Christian Church. We have contacted the leadership of the Chicago International Christian Church to try to set up a meeting to discuss how we can mutually co-exist.
Funny stuff.
[Ephesians] – Introduction
A variety of thoughts from various sources:
Acts 18-20
- Priscilla and Aquilla were tent makers, Paul worked with them
- A year and a half in Corinth.
- Sosthenes – Look where else he turns up.
- Paul from Corinth to Ephesus (with Priscilla and Aquilla) to Antioch.
- Priscilla and Aquilla stay in Ephesus?
- Apollos arrives in Ephesus, Priscilla and Aquilla set him straight on baptism.
- Apollos to Corinth, Paul heads back to Ephesus. The timeline here is less than clear.
- Acts 19:1-7 – These 12 Ephesians that Paul meets are confused about the Holy Spirit because of their confusion about baptism. Surely these folks were not taught by Priscilla and Aquilla, for they would have taught what Paul taught. Perhaps they were taught be Apollos, prior to their arrival.
- Over two years in Ephesus, “so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.” Acts 19:10, ESV
- Many miracles, it was here that we learn of Paul’s miraculous hanky and the sons of Sceva who tried to invoke Jesus’ name with no faith in him.
- Riot – A two hour chant!: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”
- On through Macedonia and into Greece for 3 months. Back through Macedonia to Troas.
- Headed to Jerusalem, avoiding Ephesus (he does not want to get distracted from getting to Jerusalem, maybe?). Went through Assos, Mitylene, Chios, Samos and Miletus via ship.
- Sends for he Ephesian elders from Miletus.
- Paul warns them to watch out for division
- Written by Paul in Rome about the same time as Colossians. About 4 years after Acts 20 and his charge to the elders.
- Not written from special circumstances (refuting false doctrine or dealing with a specific problem), but merely out of Paul’s love for them.
- Paul seems “to set forth the ground, the cause, and the aim and end of the church of the faithful in Christ. He speaks to the Ephesians as a type or sample of the church universal.”
- It seems that this letter was meant to be circulated. The words “To the Ephesians” are not in the more reliable manuscripts.
- “The apostle’s real object in writing this epistle is to set forth the believer’s union with Christ “
- “While it is not the longest of the Pauline Epistles, Ephesians is the one which best sets out the basic concepts of the Christian faith. “
- “the Queen of the Epistles”
This is my first time, except for one chapter books like Jude and Philemon, for me to read an entire book in one sitting. I must say, it was a little tiring and I felt myself getting distracted at times. On the other hand, I was able to piece together a bigger picture theme of the book and better appreciate the flow from one topic to another.
Reading it with the knowledge that Paul was not speaking to refute false doctrine or to correct false teachers, but was instead speaking form his heart to theirs out of his love for them gave the text a little different meaning as well.
The Dialog Begins …
Today the leadership of the church, Evangelist, Deacons and house church leaders, had our first discussion on the Unity Proposal. It was a very fruitful and encouraging time.
I’ll answer your first question right off the bat:
I don’t know if we will sign or not, and it would be inappropriate to speculate at this point, so don’t ask me to.
I will say this, I was very encouraged by the meeting. Not because I thought things will go ‘my way’ (see preceding paragraph), but because of the open, respectful dialog that was present. Not only that, but the plan for moving forward with this decision. The leadership team will have at least two times of discussion on it (including our discussion today), and there will be two additional times for the church to voice their thoughts as well. This will take us through this month, at least. We want to make sure everyone is heard and no one feels left behind.
Our minister has said that the way we make this decision is more important than the decision we reach. I think that is a profound and mature statement and speaks to how far we have come as a church. The days of leading by ‘strength’ and force are over, and humility, respect and love have been put in its place. That is why I am very encouraged. I am very confident in the process that we’ve put in place for this.
Don’t get me wrong, this is still going to be a challenging road. There was a pretty wide range of opinions on the proposal in just the leadership group. There will be plenty of opportunity for hurt and division. However, I think by proceeding carefully, respectfully, openly and prayerfully believe we can avoid those opportunities.
Time will tell, but I believe we are on a very good path. It’s a good thing.
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