40!

My sister Jamie is 40!

I can't believe it!

Happy Birthday.  I love you, Sis!

The Millenial Maze

I have been raised in the faith by the best Bible teacher in the world, John MacArthur,who has taught me to love truth, to love doctrine, to have the highest view of Scripture (which is all sufficient), to understand the biblical teachings of God's sovereign grace and many, many more things.  One thing he has also taught me is what can be called a dispensational premillenial view of eschatology.  As a new Christian I assumed all believers understood end times this way and was shocked when I heard another trusted and beloved Bible teacher, R.C. Sproul, criticize the rapture.  After this I thought more about the rapture and became suspicious of it myself due to the vagueness of the verses used to defend it.  For many years now my questions on eschatology have multiplied and I have wanted to study it more in depth.  I decided last week now was the time to start that study.

I am trying to give all the eschatological views an equal hearing.  This is hard on one hand because I am used to a form of premillenialism so this one sounds most familiar and normal to me.  But then on the other hand I know excellent Bible teachers in each camp so if Sproul claims that the Bible teaches  postmillenialism and Sinclair Ferguson teaches amillenialism and Francis Schaeffer holds to historic premillenialism  and John MacArthur to dispensational premillenialism how can I fail to look into these things?  And the scarier question is how do I expect to be able to figure this out if the greatest minds cannot agree?  Well, I am looking into it anyway because I long to know and so I must try.

Here are some of the resources I have been using so far:

Finding Hope in the Millenial Maze Conference (14 audio messages)
Wayne Grudem's "Biblical Doctrine" textbook
John MacArthur Study Bible
R.C. Sproul Reformation Study Bible
Eschatology comparison chart

There is a good chance I may end up a "pan-millenialist" as they say (it will all pan out in the end!) at the end of this study but I must try and make sense of it biblically.  I will let you know how it goes...

But God Remembered...

Minnesota was dumped on with snow right before we moved here last month with one of their snowiest months on record.  I really wanted Matt to experience a good snow- even a blizzard before the winter was over.  I hoped it would come on a weekend so we could stay in and and watch it out the window, all snuggled up with hot cocoa.  A romantic snow-in so to say.  Last week we had some really nice days, with temps in the 50's even, so I was ready for spring.  But God remembered that I had wanted a blizzard...

Today my family planned to celebrate my sister Jamie's 40th birthday.  The snow started this morning while we were in church around 10 and by the time we left for Regan's house in the afternoon it had been snowing a few hours and the roads were a disaster.  We passed many cars in the ditch along the freeway on the way there and thanked God we were not one of them.  We had a wonderful time at Regan's with the family, all the while the beautiful snow was falling.   By the time we left  about a foot of snow had fallen.  We wondered if we were going to make it home the 16 miles we had to drive.  We didn't know how the Element would handle it.  We treaded slowly home.  The freeway had been plowed but all the other roads we drove on were not.  We saw many cars in the ditch again.  Amazingly we were able to make it down our road and into our driveway.  About three quarters of the way up our driveway Matt proudly proclaimed, "the Element will not be mocked!" And right then we got stuck in our driveway, about 15 feet away from being inside our garage!  We had to get out and shovel the remainder of the driveway so we could get our car in the garage.  And the snow is still falling...

Visiting... yes, that's right!

We have been enjoying some unseasonably warm days in Minnesota this week, temps in the 40's and 50's which, in February, is rare to say the least.  Well, we were feeling so good yesterday we decided to go out and buy a grill so we could enjoy the warm winter air while having a cigar and grilling out.  We picked up a basic little charcoal grill at Home Depot and on the way home we were rocking out in the car to some favorite Mexican music (see video below for song).  It was so warm we had to roll the windows down.  Then I leaned over to Matt and said, "What are we doing here? We belong in the desert!"  He looked at me and without missing a beat he said, "Visiting!"  GOOD ANSWER, HONEY!

MacLaurin Institute Lectures

One thing Matt and I consider exciting and fun about living in Minnesota is that we are living near a major metropolitan area.  We live in the suburbs of St. Paul and are just a hop away from downtown St. Paul and Minneapolis.  The Twin Cities, due to their sheer size, offer many things to do that Tucson does not- like major sporting events and concerts to name just a few.  We haven't gone to any performances yet but we did go down to the University of Minnesota over the weekend to hear some lectures and then over to Dinkytown for lunch.  For those of you in Tucson, Dinkytown is like University Blvd, with shops and restaurants and college students.  The University of Minnesota is a beautiful campus and I look forward to exploring it more this summer.  

The lectures we went to were put on by the MacLaurin Institute.  This is a Christian organization which endeavors to bridge the church and University.  They have different events all year round like lectures from visiting Christian scholars.  This weekend a professor of the history of science from Messiah College in Pennsylvania was the speaker.  He gave three lectures.  The first one was on the life of Christian Chemist Robert Boyle.  The second lecture was on the supposed warfare between science and religion.  The third lecture was on the life of Galileo.  All three were very interesting.  I look forward to going to more of MacLaurin's events.

Desiring God Pastor's Conference & Booty

My sisters and friend Cbass serve as often as they can at the Desiring God conferences put on by John Piper here in the Twin Cities a few times a year. Now that I live here I am able to join in the fun too. Last night my sisters, Cbass, and I welcomed the incoming pastors for this year's conference on, "the powerful l ife of the praying pastor." About 1700 Men came from all over the country and even a few foreign countries. It was such a blessing to welcome them and see their smiling faces, knowing they were here to be refreshed and encouraged in the word so they can continue in their personal growth and then go home to feed their flocks! We got to give them a bag of goodies (books!) which the volunteers also receive. Here is a picture of what the goodie bag contained plus the new Piper book I bought called "Think: the Life of the Mind and the Love of God." This conference housed an amazing bookstore with reduced prices and let me tell you I had to run through it as it was a dangerous place to be for me! If we are still living here next February I am hoping to house our Pastor from Tucson who would like to come to this conference.  You can listen to and live stream the conference at Desiring God.