The Centrality of the Gospel

 Bible and Hermeneutics  No Responses »
Jul 312008
 

Lee Irons has a nice post about 1 Cor. 15. Here are a couple of highlights.

What is the gospel?” Paul answers the question by pointing to the central reality of substitutionary atonement (”that Christ died for our sins”), as well as his burial and resurrection on the third day, confirming that his sacrifice of atonement had been accepted. The prepositional phrase in the death-formula, ”for our sins” (ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν), is critical, because it identifies the death of Christ as a penal substitution. That is, he died the death that we deserved for our sins.

This is also relevant for us in helping us to decide what our relationship ought to be with broader evangelicalism, and indeed with all professing Christians. They may be confused about many matters. They may have a low view of the church and the sacraments. They may be too quick to reject the traditions and creeds of the church. They may hold to something less than a purely monergistic soteriology. They may think baptism must be preceded by a profession of faith. But if they have received, stand firm in, and preach this gospel, then they are to be received as brothers in Christ and to be encouraged to continue in the gospel, even as we also discuss other matters with them (just as Paul does in his letters to the Corinthians).

Read the whole post.

Posted by Tommy at 8:50 pm  Tagged with: ,

Sharing Large Files

 Software  4 Responses »
Jul 312008
 

A friend and I recently ran into a little problem: we wanted to share files with each other, but the files in question were larger than could be sent via email. Sure you can mail a CD, or meet up for coffee with a USB drive, but those options require both time and trouble.

Enter Drop.io. It’s a simple, private, password-protected file-sharing service that allows individuals or groups to exchange data quickly and safely over the internet. You “drop” your data in a folder with either a randomized name, or a name of your choosing, then send the link to whoever you want to access the data. You can set password protection, automatic deletion dates, and a variety of different permissions (view, view/add, or view/add/delete). Furthermore, drop.io provides a variety of different interfaces by which you can interact with its services: Web, email, phone, fax, and even a desktop widget. Even Twitter-integration is provided for those seasoned in the Web 2.0 world.

You can create as many drops as you like, though individual drops are limited to 100mb at the moment. All drops are anonymous (that’s right, you don’t even have to create an account!). Upgrades are available at $10 per gigabyter per year.

Posted by Tommy at 2:59 pm  Tagged with: , , , ,

Update on Changing Times

 Software  No Responses »
Jul 312008
 

For those who found my previous post about Microsoft and business models interesting, here is an article of interest. Microsoft is developing a new non-Windows operating system designed to meet the demands of Cloud Computing. Don’t expect the death of Windows anytime soon, though; it takes a long time to transition to new technology (Microsoft’s NT system was around for a decade before Microsoft merged it with Windows XP).

Posted by Tommy at 10:46 am  Tagged with: , ,

The Little Mysteries

 Christian Theology and History  1 Response »
Jul 292008
 

Van Til reminds us that our life as creatures is full of mystery, both regarding God and the world he has created. I found this article a small reminder that it’s OK to say “I don’t know.”

Here is an excerpt. I’m not sure whether the scientist quoted is being intentionally ironic or is blinded by his own arrogance.

Peter G. Wolynes, a professor of chemistry at the University of California, San Diego, thinks he essentially solved the glass problem two decades ago based on ideas of what glass would look like if cooled infinitely slowly. “I think we have a very good constructive theory of that these days,” Dr. Wolynes said. “Many people tell me this is very contentious. I disagree violently with them.”

Little mysteries, like our fundamental ignorance concerning the nature of glass, are a reminder that our world is designed by an incomprehensible God. We can confidently proclaim “I don’t know” because he alone understands all things perfectly, and that perfect knowledge grounds and secures our imperfect knowledge. So here is a quote from Van Til:

It is exceedingly dangerous to confuse the orthodox concept of the incomprehensibility of God with the ultimate mysteriousness of the universe as held by modern thought. Modern thought in general, and modern logic in particular, holds . . . that God is, at most, an aspect of Reality as a whole. Hence, God is himself surrounded by darkness or mystery, just as man is surrounded by darkness or mystery. In other words, modern thought believes in an ultimate irrationalism, while Christianity believes in an ultimate rationality. It is difficult to think of two types of thought that are more radically opposed to one another. It is the most fundamental antithesis conceivable in the field of knowledge. . . . The very foundation of all Christian theology is removed if the concept of the ultimate rationality of God be given up.(Introduction to Systematic Theology: Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1995, p. 13).

Posted by Tommy at 11:19 am  Tagged with: ,

Heed the Warning

 Bible and Hermeneutics  2 Responses »
Jul 282008
 

My work in Hebrews (and the General epistles) has lead to frequent side-tracks into the nature and necessity of perseverance in the Christian life. Here are a couple of quotes from an excellent article by Thomas Schreiner.

No genuine believer will ever apostatize. Nonetheless, the warning passages in the Scriptures are addressed to believers, and they are threatened with eternal destruction (not loss of rewards) if they commit apostasy.

We must pay heed to the warnings in order to be saved on the day of the Lord.

The label “Poison!” on a bottle seizes our attention and awakens us to the peril which awaits us if we swallow its contents. Thereby we take special care when handling such a container and do not put it in the same cupboard with soft drinks. The warnings in the scriptures are also intended to arouse us from lethargy and propel us onward in the pathway of faith. They provoke a healthy fear (Heb 4:1!), so that we are not casual and relaxed about entering the heavenly rest. Of course, this fear is not the same thing as the paralyzing fear which suppresses all activity (1 Jn 4:18). It is the same kind of fear which causes us to put on our seat belts when we drive and which causes us to place railings where a fall would be deadly. Fear in these instances does not paralyze us but actually contributes to our confidence when driving or climbing. Similarly, hearing and obeying the warnings in scriptures does not sap us of confidence and assurance. It is the pathway for full assurance in the faith.

Some protest that this is works righteousness, but such an objection fails to see that such perseverance is the fruit of faith and grounded in God’s sustaining and electing grace. Yes, works are necessary to be saved. No, this is not works righteousness, for the works are hardly meritorious. The grace of God is so powerful that it not only grants us salvation apart from our merits, but also transforms us. Christians are not only declared righteous but also experience observable and significant change in their lives.

Read the whole article here..

Several of Schreiner’s books are currently on sale at the Westminster Book Store.

Posted by Tommy at 10:21 am  Tagged with: , ,

The Times, They are a-changin

 Software  1 Response »
Jul 272008
 

Several factors have contributed to a recent surge among big-name companies in supporting open-source software. Chief among these is the increasing importance of interoperability in a Web 2.0 world. This is true across the board, from big-business capitalism, to the little-guy blogger, to governments around the globe–the world needs its data in transparent patent-free formats.

Microsoft is slowly responding. From Windows Live
 to OOXML, to a partnership with Novell, and now a recent announcement that they will financially fund Apache, its biggest open-source competitor in the server market (this blog runs on an Apache server). Read more here.

This is all welcome news, but it is going to require a corresponding change in business model, one which open-source friendly companies like Novell, Red Hat, Sun, and IBM have been pioneering and perfecting for years. It is the move from a product-based model, where one tries to differentiate their product from its competition in order to sell the most items, to a service-based model, where you are selling your ability to help others.

In any case, the future will be interesting. In my opinion, Microsoft is on the right track. The sooner it moves to a service-based business model the better, for us and them.

Posted by Tommy at 3:59 pm  Tagged with: , , , ,

Every iPhone Captive: Poythress on Technology and Christianity

 Tech/Gadgets  1 Response »
Jul 192008
 

The most recent iPhone iteration (yes, there are still lines at Apple stores nationwide) has apparently inspired Vern Poythress to offer up some reflections about science and technology within a Christian worldview. Really interesting stuff, particularly the positive connection between technology and dominion, and the negative warning against technological messianism.

Posted by Tommy at 12:18 am  Tagged with: , , ,

Summer Greek Reading III: Learning Vocabulary Effectively

 Biblical Greek  1 Response »
Jul 162008
 

by WordleReading Greek will never be fun or effective without a basic knowledge of the vocabulary in the NT. Many specialists in linguistics have reflected extensively on the best model for selective vocabulary learning (also see here and here.

My own opinion, not based on any scientific evidence, is that once you have memorized all the words that occur 20 times or more, it’s time to be more selective. Remember: reading Greek is the best way to learn Greek, so the sooner you get into the NT the better. This is not to say that memorizing words that occur 10-19 times is unimportant, only that it is lower on the priority list.

So how can you be more selective? First, get the UBS’s Reader’s Greek NT and start reading. Read fast, read broad, read out loud, and don’t look up every word. Just read.

Second, pick a book you are interested in and read with focus. Check out Zhubert.com. In addition to providing an easy-to-use Greek NT system, that have some tools for memorizing specific words in specific books. Let’s say you’ve memorized everything in the NT that occurs 20 times or more and that you want to spend some time in the Epistle of James (hypothetically). Select James in Zhubert.com, select words occurring 20 times or less, and start a more focused vocabulary study. Such a focus will let you take those all important detours in syntax analysis and exegesis.

The point: you need a balance of both the broad and the narrow. Effective Greek reading requires both a range of reading, but also more focused attention on particular authors. The former helps you pick up the general features of a language, while the latter allows you to experience its depth and richness, not to mention the particular stylistic tendencies of different authors in the NT.

Posted by Tommy at 11:45 am  Tagged with: , ,

How to Type in Greek Part III: The Best Greek Fonts

 Biblical Greek  21 Responses »
Jul 122008
 

This is the third past in a series of posts about typing in Greek. The first post was about the the joys (and necessity) of Unicode character encoding. The second detailed how to set up a Greek keyboard. Now you need a good font. While up to this point we have been dealing with encodings and characters, the way in which an operating system matches the push of a key to a letter in a given language; now we are going to focus our attention on glyphs, the way in which different characters are represented by a particular font.

What do you want in a Greek Font?

Eye Candy: The most immediate qualification for a good font is eye candy. Seriously: this is important. The better looking your font, the easier it is to read, both for you and your audience.

Which do you prefer?Check out the image to the left. Which do you like better? The top glyph is what we call “sans serif” because it does not have the fancy shaping and decorative formatting that the bottom glyph has. Sans serif fonts are particularly common on the internet because they are the easiest to read, even if not the prettiest over all. Times New Roman, by contrast, is a serif font. If you write your papers using a serif font, your Greek should be a serif font as well (and vice-versa). This is usually just a matter of personal preference, but generally readers prefer serif over sans serif for extended amounts of text, and the opposite for presentations (PowerPoint) and Web pages.

A more specifically Greek decision involves accents, the most important of which is the circumflex. This again is a matter of preference, but I prefer the full semicircle over the tilde. Having said that, the font I am eventually going to recommend uses the tilde. Oh well…

Free: The second (and most important) qualification of a Greek font is that it should be free. There are two types of free: free beer and free speech. The former is probably the most immediate concern, but the latter is really the most important. A “free beer” font will be free to use and will not encumber you with licensing fees should you decide to publish your work using that font. The Microsoft fonts seem like they are free-beer fonts—at least you probably do not remembering paying for them—but in reality they are encumbered by a pretty strict license. They will be fine for basic personal use, but if you are planning to start a Greek-Verse-Greeting-Card business, or am online journal for NT studies, you might want to pick something else. At the very least, you want to use a font that is free for both non-commercial and commercial use.

You may also be interested in a “free speech” font. In addition to being free as in free beer, free speech fonts allow you to redistribute, modify, and have absolute control over all underlying mechanics. You can use them, change them, and distribute them, all without asking permission.

In short, you want a font that is licensed under an a so called “copy left” license. These are “open source” licenses. Applied to fonts, these licenses define the parameters by which you can use and modify the glyphs in question; they will be royalty-free (“free beer”) and also free-to-modify (“free speech”) under certain conditions. .

So what fonts should I use?
The following is a list of the best fonts available. Only Unicode fonts are included:

  • Gentium would be my first-choice recommendation. It is a serif font. The standard versions uses the tilde for the circumflex, though an alternative version (GentiumAlt) is now included in the download that uses the half-moon. It includes a full Latin set of characters, which means that in addition to being your Greek font, you could use it as a whole-sale replacement for Times New Roman, or whatever default font you use in your documents—a one-stop shop for all your Latin-based language needs. Additionally, it is fully open (both “free beer” and “free speech”), and is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, which is excellent. It includes installers for Windows, Mac, and Linux, as well as source code. The recent addition of GentiumAlt to the font family eliminates all my previous hesitations about recommending this font. It really is excellent, and its Latin characters are so nice that I have begun using it as my default serif font for all my documents.  Gentium is maintained by SIL, which has developed quite a reputation among linguists, and promises robust future development while maintaining an open licensing schema. (By the way, if you are using Ubuntu/Debian Linux, you can install from the command line: “sudo apt-get install ttf-gentium”.)
  • Galatia SIL is a serif font that uses a half-moon circumflex. It is “free beer” but not “free speech.” This is a slight problem because the font no longer appears to be actively developed, which is unfortunate because it is probably the best-looking Greek font available. A font that is no longer supported by those that made it can be problematic because errors will not get fixed, and errors might crop up as the rest of the computer world marches on.
  • Freefont. I have not had much experience with this font. It’s biggest claim to fame is its audacity: the goal of the project is to support every unicode character, which is pretty ambitious. It looks nice and is licensed under the GNU (pronounced GooNoo) public license, the best and original “copy-left” license. You can check out more information on the project here.
  • Linux Libertine and other OpenType fonts are available for Linux and other operating systems, including Windows, despite the name. A good choice. Fully open. But they are not the prettiest fonts available, and I’ve had issues with software compatibility (such as exporting a document to PDF).
  • Other SIL fonts. The Summer Institute of Linguistics specializes in languages, translations, and technological tools. There are many fonts available on their site, most of which provide Unicode support, many of which are licensed under their OFL. If you are in search of a different Greek font, or a font for a non-Latin character set (coptic, Hebrew, etc.), this is the place to start.
  • The Free Font Foundation has several Unicode fonts that are worth checking out.
  • Gentium Basic and Gentium Book Basic are not yet ready to deploy, as they do not yet support Greek characters. Nevertheless, they are the next “upgrade” to the wonderful Gentium font family, listed above. Gentium only builds regular and italic glyph-sets into its definition: no additional weights are included. This is not a problem for basic users; almost all Word Processors are able to automatically “add” bold weighting to any font, regardless of its internal definition (at least that is my understanding—I am able to get great-looking bold characters with the regular Gentium fonts listed above). Publishing companies, by contrast, will not want to rely on a particular Word Processor’s interpretation of a font, and will therefore require additional “built in” weights. So, to make up for this deficiency, SIL has split Gentium development. Both Gentium Basic and Gentium Book Basic are based on the Gentium glyph-set, but will include bold-weight characters, as well as some other features not included in the original Gentium (again, this is my understanding of their explanation, and I invite correction from anyone with more accurate knowledge). They do not yet support Polytonic Greek, however, though eventually they will support every character that Gentium supports. Keep an eye on these; when they are finished they could supply the biblical scholar and publisher with all their Latin-based-character needs.
  • Still looking? While the above fonts are, in my judgment, the best available, there are others. The above link provides some additional online resources. This site might also come in handy, though some of the fonts listed are either terrible or not free in any sense.
  • SBL has an collection of legacy fonts available at their site, none of which are included in the above lists due to their non-open license, and also because only a few of them include Unicode support.

What about Hebrew?

I have given short-shrift to Hebrew, and I apologize. There are reasons, however. There really is only one decent open-standard font that I know about for Biblical Hebrew: Ezra SIL. It’s fully open under SIL’s OFL, it supports every character used in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, and it’s easy on the eyes. You will need to download a special keyboard to get it working, though. Instructions for doing so are available on the download page, where you can also find a keyboard map of the layout. Also: you may run into small problems with Macs and in Linux, though nothing catastrophic. If anyone has other Hebrew fonts they would like to recommend, please do so in the comments.

Ros Clarke notes in one of the comments that SBL has a good Hebrew font available here. It is a very well designed font that includes Linux support. The only disadvantage is that it is not licensed under an open standard, though SBL does provide it free of charge for non-commericial use. Thanks Ros.

Conclusion

Don’t forget to check out my previous posts on Unicode and on setting up a Greek keyboard. All this might sound a bit intimidating, but it really will make your life easier in the long run.

Posted by Tommy at 9:28 am  Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Firefox 3 and the Colbert Bump

 Software  No Responses »
Jul 092008
 

According to Google Analytics, at least 5 people downloaded Firefox 3 due to my post. Apparently, however, my contribution to Firefox’s World Record was fairly meager. The fabled Colbert Bump had far more impact. The Mozilla Foundation (the company behind Firefox 3) has provided precise measurements of the effects of the Bump, but are apparently not the first to do so.

Included here is a video of the Bump in action, or you can go directly to Colbert’s site.

Posted by Tommy at 10:16 am  Tagged with: , , ,
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