New film and study guide

HeadHeartHand

God’s Technology is ideal for families, schools, and churches that want to help their children to use God’s good gift of technology in a God-glorifying way. And although it gives parents and teachers many helpful tools, it emphasizes that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the ultimate firewall for our children.

You can download the 40 minute film in high definition ($5.99) or standard definition ($4.99). The DVD should be ready soon and can be pre-ordered for $9.99. There is also a free study guide available here.

Texas Monthly Talks TED NUGENT

I found this video ever intriguing…

No Tattoos, Long Hair & Big Beards

Lev. 19:26-28 “You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes. You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord.“

Why do most people look down upon tattoos but getting your haircut & shaving your beard is what’s expected of you? Better yet… you better order that steak well-done!

If you are going to use Lev. 19:27 against tattooing, you should better use it with a 2-foot beard, side burns that have never been touched and eat only well-done meat! Right?

The Dewalts Blog

Really looking forward to blogging along side my wife over at another online home called TheDewalts. The blog is going to set out to a be a daily place were Emily and I place….

• our thoughts
• our stories
• a text
• quotes we like
• videos we enjoyed watching
• vlogs we make
• favorite pictures

The blog is made mainly for the purpose for our families to read. However if you care to get a laugh from time to time and wanna check in on our online house, please do!

Follow us on Twitter or RSS the blog.

What Caused the Fall of Adam?

Every evangelical knows of the fall of mankind, but what did that have to do with you or me? Why would have Adam’s fall, better yet how could have one single piece of fruit have such infliction and such vengeance on the whole of human race. John Calvin helps explain exactly what happen at the fall and its implications to humanity saying;

As the act which God punished so severely must have been not a trivial fault, but a heinous crime, it will be necessary to attend to the peculiar nature of the sin which produced Adam’s fall, and provoked God to inflict such fearful vengeance on the whole human race. The common idea of sensual intemperance is childish. The sum and substance of all virtues could not consist in abstinence from a single fruit amid a general abundance of every delicacy that could be desired, the earth, with happy fertility, yielding not only abundance, but also endless variety. We must, therefore, look deeper than sensual intemperance. The prohibition to touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a trial of obedience, that Adam, by observing it, might prove his willing submission to the command of God. For the very term shows the end of the precept to have been to keep him contented with his lot, and not allow him arrogantly to aspire beyond it. The promise, which gave him hope of eternal life as long as he should eat of the tree of life, and, on the other hand, the fearful denunciation of death the moment he should taste of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, were meant to prove and exercise his faith. Hence it is not difficult to infer in what way Adam provoked the wrath of God. Augustine, indeed, is not far from the mark, when he says (in Psalm 19), that pride was the beginning of all evil, because, had not man’s ambition carried him higher than he was permitted, he might have continued in his first estate. A further definition, however, must be derived from the kind of temptation which Moses describes. When, by the subtlety of the devil, the woman faithlessly abandoned the command of God, her fall obviously had its origin in disobedience. This Paul confirms, when he says, that, by the disobedience of one man, all were destroyed. At the same time, it is to be observed, that the first man revolted against the authority of God, not only in allowing himself to be ensnared by the wiles of the devil, but also by despising the truth, and turning aside to lies. Assuredly, when the word of God is despised, all reverence for Him is gone. His majesty cannot be duly honoured among us, nor his worship maintained in its integrity, unless we hang as it were upon his lips. Hence infidelity was at the root of the revolt. From infidelity, again, sprang ambition and pride, together with ingratitude; because Adam, by longing for more than was allotted him, manifested contempt for the great liberality with which God had enriched him. It was surely monstrous impiety that a son of earth should deem it little to have been made in the likeness, unless he were also made the equal of God. If the apostasy by which man withdraws from the authority of his Maker, nay, petulantly shakes off his allegiance to him, is a foul and execrable crime, it is in vain to extenuate the sin of Adam. Nor was it simple apostasy. It was accompanied with foul insult to God, the guilty pair assenting to Satan’s calumnies when he charged God with malice, envy, and falsehood. In fine, infidelity opened the door to ambition, and ambition was the parent of rebellion, man casting off the fear of God, and giving free vent to his lust. Hence, Bernard truly says, that, in the present day, a door of salvation is opened to us when we receive the gospel with our ears, just as by the same entrance, when thrown open to Satan, death was admitted. Never would Adam have dared to show any repugnance to the command of God if he had not been incredulous as to his word. The strongest curb to keep all his affections under due restraint, would have been the belief that nothing was better than to cultivate righteousness by obeying the commands of God, and that the highest possible felicity was to be loved by him. Man, therefore, when carried away by the blasphemies of Satan, did his very utmost to annihilate the whole glory of God.

My Very Bad Awful English

I remember when I first had to start writing on a regular basis, it was my 3rd grade year with Mrs. Burns that made her class journal once a week. It was here that I found out that I was awful at writing. But yet at the same time I was somewhat fast if I read to myself, and I could remember anything that I read into my mind from a book, the newspapers, the back of sports cards, to magazine’s, etc. Whatever I read with my eyes, stayed in my mind.

What bothered me more than anything as a 8-year old boy was that my english was awful, I could not understand grammar at all, and worse off I simply did not understand how to journal my thoughts in an english sentence let alone write about what I had remembered from my readings. It was bad, so bad that by the 5th grade I needed and english tutor and by 7th grade I was basically thrown into english classes that were two and three years behind the actual grade I was in. This did not help my future. My 9th grade english class I don’t really know how I passed, and by the time 10th grade came luckily english and grammar class had changed to literature class which I loved and hated. I loved reading it, I hated having to write about it. By my junior year in high-school I was sleeping so much in literature class that the teacher made a deal with me. One, I had to stay awake 2 out of the 5 days a week, and Two, I had to teach once a week his class on literature. It was then where I enjoyed relaying the information I had studied during the week by myself to my peers. I at the time never wanted to teach in the future is because that only meant I needed more schooling after high-school, and that was not in my plans. Thankfully my senior literature class was cake and I was able to graduate high-school, barley though with a 1.3 GPA.

Fall of 2002 I started college at a small Bible school in upstate New York called Word of Life. Since then I have been writing constantly for class after class almost on a weekly basis for the past 8 years, even summers! However it was finally when I was out of my home town and in an accredited institution that it came to hit me that my grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and writing was a train wreck. The only reason I was able to graduate from Word of Life after one year was because of testing. I remembered everything I had ever read or been told in class, and when the test came I had no reason to study because I just threw up back on the page what I had been reading for classes or had heard from the professor. It was the essay and writing of small papers that murdered my grades. Murdered them so that I passed my freshman year with only a 1.8 GPA.

Fall of 2003, I from some reason (which I had thought at the time I knew, but God only knows now) went further in college, transferring to Baptist Bible College in Clarks Summit, PA to work on a bachelor degree. There I meet Dr. Long – almost the death of my college career. By midway of my first semester in college there Dr. Long pulled me aside letting me know that it was impossible for me to pass his class with below a 20%, and I might as well stop coming to it. He was right, for the next year I failed both English 101 and English 102 amazingly, so amazingly that Dr. Long proceeded by telling me that in his 39-years of teaching at the college level that I was by far the worst student that he had ever encountered with the english language that actually came from an english speaking country. Dr. Long was not going to stop me, for I enrolled back in his class the following year both in english 101 and 102 and this time failed with a 60% in both classes! I remember his words on the last day of his 40-year career as he failed me yet for the 4th time in a-row within 2-years, “I’ve never seen a student so bad at grammar in my life, good-luck.” The next year Dr. Long had long and retired and I had hired a tutor, and meet with my new professor at least once a week and actually passed with C’s. Finally I thought english was done in my life and I would no longer have to worry about it in my future. My last semester at BBC I did not exactly know where I was headed, but the longer I was in Bible College, the more I enjoyed studying theology, church history, and the Bible. So I applied to seminaries around America and decided to look at M.A., M.A.R. and M.T.S. programs.

It was during this time in my last semester at BBC of 2006 before graduation that a my good friend Dan Cruver told me to start blogging. At first I wanted nothing to do with it, and thought it was only going to be humiliation. But he challenged me to start one and maybe, just maybe my english, writing skills, and grammar may happen to get better. So I started a blog, I still remember my 1st few post, some book reviews, some speeches I had given, and some Bible lessons I had taught at summer camps. No one read them, and I was quite happy that no one did. I graduated BBC and moved back to the great midwest to attain seminary and pursuing my M.A.R degree.

I decided to attend Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, where they felt obliged to place me on academic probation because of my transcripts of failing english not once, not twice, but four times. Although english class did not and does not exists in seminary, little did I know what I was in store for. English was to have been mastered, and spending the last 8-years finally getting MLA down, I then had to learn the turabian style. I felt like I was doomed for sure, but reading the turabian handbook more than my Bible my 1st semester I came along alright. The blog though came along quite well too, matter of fact, I started enjoying blogging so much I didn’t care if I had one reader, 10 or 100, I just wanted to blog because it helped me progress in my writing skills, or the lack there of.

I still know that I am not that great at writing, although because of blogging I have learn to love it more than I did in my younger days. With the number of papers and writing two thesis in the 3 1/2 years of seminary, I have learn that writing for me takes time, patience, and a work ethic. I continue to blog until I find something better that helps my english skills and hope that you can either enjoy it or at least get a kick-out-of  my writing.

Does the Spirit only work in the PR Denomination?

Did You Know that the Spirit of God is Only Working in one Denomination of the Reformed faith? Either did I! However this past weekend I came across a rather unique book description in a publication catalog by the Reformed Free Publishing Association.

The Book: Always Reforming: Continuation of the Sixteenth-Century Reformation, part of the Protestant Reformed Biblical Studies.

Editor: David J. Engelsma, is emeritus professor of theology at the Protestant Reformed Seminary, Grandville, Michigan.

And here is where either A.) I do not understand, or B.) is simply just stupidity at its best. I have bolded below exactly my issue.

Book Description: “A church reformed and always reforming, according to the word of God” means that the truly Reformed church continues to live by the word of God from age to age, applies it to every aspect of her life, maintains the sound doctrine of the creeds from generation to generation; resists every threat to the Reformed faith, and develops the truth of the Reformed faith.

Always Reforming demonstrates that the Spirit of Christ has carried on the reforming work of Christ in the sixteenth century in one particular branch of the church of the Reformation. A successor to The Sixteenth-Century Reformation of the Church, this book traces the continuing reformation in the Netherlands in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and in the Protestant Reformed Churches in North America in the twentieth century. The fivefold division of this book recognizes the ongoing reformation of these Reformed churches as having taken place in the five distinct and doctrinally significant controversies.”

I want to comment on this, but for the sake of my sanity I think I will leave it up to you to ponder and enjoy thinking about… and I quote, “Spirit of Christ has carried on the reforming work of Christ in the sixteenth century in one particular branch of the church of the Reformation.“

Smell Like an Old Theologian

A friend sent me this picture, I found it funny.

Can We Call John Calvin a Biblical Theologian?

Philip Schaff speaking on John Calvin,

“was the founder of grammatical-historical exegesis”; “My readers must now be requested not only to pardon me for abstaining from subtle speculations, but also themselves willingly to keep within the bounds of simplicity.”

My Favorite Books Published on Calvin in 2009

#5 The Calvin Handbook, by Herman J. Selderhuis, published by Eerdmans. Research on French theologian John Calvin is flourishing around the world today, and Calvin’s quincentennial this year has lent such research even greater momentum. The Calvin Handbook is designed to support and stimulate this research. An international team of renowned scholars here offers a comprehensive view of Calvin’s biography, his theology, and the history of his reception. The Calvin Handbook is a uniquely helpful resource on Calvin for readers of every interest level.

#4 Friends of Calvin, by Machiel A. van den Berg, Reinder Bruinsma (translator), published by Eerdmans. In two dozen short biographies of John Calvin’s friends — including some who turned into enemies — Machiel A. van den Berg paints an intimate portrait of the great Reformer’s life and circle that most of us have never seen. In these pages we accompany Calvin from his early boyhood in Noyon to his student days in Paris and Orleans, to his pastorate in and exile from Geneva, all the way to his deathbed. We meet his famous Reformer friends, such as Martin Bucer, William Farel, Heinrich Bullinger, Theodore Beza, and John Knox, but also friends whose names are more obscure: his cousin Pierre Robert Olivétan, the first translator of the Bible into French; René de France of French royalty; Laurent de Normandie, the mayor of Noyon who later escaped to Geneva; Pierre Viret, his “best friend of all”; and Idelette van Buren, his beloved wife during their brief but “blissful” marriage.

#3 John Calvin: A Pilgrim’s Life, by Herman J. Selderhuis, published by InterVarsity Press. Selderhuis draws on Calvin’s own publications and commentary on the biblical figures with whom he strongly identified to describe his theology in the context of his personal development. Throughout we see a person who found himself alone at many of the decisive moments of his life–a fact that echoed through Calvin’s subsequent sermons and commentaries. Selderhuis’s unique and compelling look at John Calvin, with all of his merits and foibles, ultimately discloses a man who could not find himself at home in the world in which he lived.

#2 Calvin, by Bruce Gordon, Published by Yale Press. During the glory days of the French Renaissance, young John Calvin (1509-64) experienced a profound conversion to the faith of the Reformation. For the rest of his days he lived out the implications of that transformation-as exile, inspired reformer and ultimately the dominant figure of the Protestant Reformation. Calvin’s vision of the Christian religion has inspired many volumes of analysis, but this engaging biography examines a remarkable life. Bruce Gordon presents Calvin as a human being, a man at once brilliant, arrogant, charismatic, unforgiving, generous and shrewd.

#1 John Calvin: Pilgrim and Pastor, by W. Robert Godfrey, published by Crossway. An introduction to the essential life and thought of one of history’s most influential theologians, who considered himself first and foremost a pilgrim and a pastor.

July 10, 2009, marks the five-hundredth anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. As controversial as he was influential, his critics have named a judgmental and joyless attitude after him, while his admirers celebrate him as the principal theologian of Reformed Christianity. Yet his impact is unmistakable-a primary developer of western civilization whose life and work have deeply affected five centuries’ worth of pastors, scholars, and individuals. What will surprise the readers of this book, however, is that Calvin did not live primarily to influence future generations. Rather, he considered himself first and foremost a spiritual pilgrim and a minister of the Word in the church of his day. It was from that “essential” Calvin that all his influence flowed. Here is an introduction to Calvin’s life and thought and essence: a man who moved people not through the power of personality but through passion for the Word, a man who sought to serve the gospel in the most humble of roles.

Honorable Mention: Institutes of the Christian Religion: The First English Version of the 1541 French Edition, by John Calvin, Elsie Anne McKee (translator), and anything in the “Calvin500 Series” (8 Volume set) by P&R Publishing.

Lessons Learned

[by Tim Challies]

It was just a couple of months ago that I celebrated my eleventh anniversary. That gives me an eleven-year jump on our friend Dewalt who celebrated his wedding just a few days ago. I know that eleven years pales in comparison to some who read this blog, but I think it has to be enough time to have learned a little bit of wisdom. On the event of my anniversary I spent some time reflecting on some of the lessons I’d learned and jotted them down for my blog. I’m going to go ahead and post them here once more. Here are a few lessons learned in the first decade-and-a-bit of my own marriage.

Be a Leader!. Leadership is not an easy task and, while God calls a husband to lead his family, at the same time the man has to learn how to lead and to prove himself worthy of the position. While it is a position he is given by God, it is a position he also has to earn. When I married I was young and totally unsuited for any kind of leadership. It took me years to come to terms with the fact that God wanted me to lead my family as the husband and father and a few years more to realize that Aileen really wanted me to lead as well. I was greatly encouraged when, just a few weeks ago, she shared with me how she has seen me grow as a leader, and especially as a spiritual leader. Anything I’ve learned in this area has come with difficulty and has come by God’s grace.

If I could go back, I would counsel myself to be a better and more confident head of the household and to take this position earlier in our marriage. For too many years I led too little.
Invest Early, Invest Often!. This may apply to finances, but I am thinking of it here in terms of spiritual matters. As a poor leader, I invested far too little time, early in our marriage, to building a spiritual foundation. It has taken us years to feel truly comfortable with one another in sharing spiritual struggles and even in spending time reading the Bible and praying together (as just a couple—family devotions have come much more naturally). Like many men I’ve spoken to, it often seems that it’s easier to pray with a complete stranger than with my wife. If I look back in another eleven years, I wouldn’t be surprised if we are still learning here,

If I could do it all again, I would ensure that we learned very early on to spend time together before the Lord. I would be a better leader in investing early and investing often.
Prepare to Hurt and Be Hurt!. One of the greatest ironies and the greatest tragedies of marriage is that a husband and wife have more opportunities to sin against one another than against anyone else in all the world. Over the course of eleven years of marriage, I have hurt Aileen more than anyone else and have sinned against her more than I’ve sinned again anyone else. I suppose this means that marriage also offers unparalleled opportunities to extend forgiveness and to choose to overlook sin. While Aileen and I have had our share of struggles over the years, I truly believe that we carry no bitterness toward one another. Through God’s grace we have offered and received forgiveness time and time again. And through his grace we have overlooked many an offense. Yet there have been many occasions when we have hurt one another and when we have let this wounds fester for just a little too long.

If I could go back, I would prepare myself to be hurt and, even more, would seek to emphasize kindness and forbearance and grace so that I could hurt my wife far less often.
Be an Encourager! I can be such a jerk. As Dave Harvey said so well in When Sinners Say ‘I Do’, “the more you get to know me, the more you’ll admire my wife.” I find it so much easier to criticize than to encourage, to tear down rather than build up. For so many years of my marriage I spent far more time telling Aileen what she hadn’t done or who she hadn’t become instead of encouraging her for all the evidences of God’s grace I saw in her. Even today it remains a struggle as my mind always tends toward the negative (and because, somehow, all my nagging to this point has not produced the perfection I seem to expect). It has taken me a long time to become an encourager and even now I am prone to see evil sooner than I see good.

If I were to go back, I would counsel myself to seek to build encouragement as more of a foundation in our marriage. I would seek to learn more about encouragement and would seek to learn it much sooner.
Be Realistic! You knew that sex had to come into the discussion sooner or later. There is no doubt that sex is one of God’s greatest gifts within marriage and, probably for that very reason, it is also one of the greatest struggles. Having spoken to many others about this, I think it is safe to say that for a lot of couples, and perhaps even most couples, the majority of their fights or arguments or disagreements, especially during certain stages of life, will revolve around sex. The vulnerability of sex, the joy of sex, the uniqueness of sex, give endless opportunities for both joy and hurt. Anyone who approaches marriage thinking that sex will be all joy will be sorely disappointed.

If I could go back, I would counsel myself to be realistic and to learn this lesson sooner. And I would counsel myself to learn patience and kindness in this area.
Learn Her Language!. I’ve never read that book about “love languages,” but I do like the phrase it revolves around. Each of us have certain ways we tend to express love and certain ways we like to have love expressed to us. It took me far too long to learn that many of the ways I expressed love for Aileen were ways that she did not understand; often she did not even understand them to be expressions of my love. I loved her in ways I wanted to be loved rather than in ways she needed to be loved. In one sense this was my own naivete, but in another sense it was a kind of deliberate ignorance. I simply refused to find out how she needed me to express love to her.

Were I to go back, I would counsel myself to spend more time seeking to understand how I could express to her my love and affection; I would learn to speak her language sooner and I would learn to speak it better.

I guess there is a lot more I would say than all of this. I would reassure myself that in standing there, waiting to receive my bride, I was doing the right thing (not that I ever had any doubt) and that God truly was going to bless this union. Maybe I would whisper that all those things we had heard from the elderly couples in our church were actually true: that after a decade of marriage we would love one another more than even on our wedding day and that marriage truly is a great gift of God and that we truly would find great joy in it and that God would use this marriage to mold and shape us into his image.

And yet I know that even if I told myself all of these things, there would still be lessons I would have to learn a decade later. I suppose this is how God helps us grow; he teaches us a little bit at a time as we are prepared to receive and apply the lessons. And some lessons can only be learned by first-hand experience.

Judgment According to Works Bibliography

Mark Jones gives a Bibliography on “Judgment According to Works” saying,

“If you are interested in both old and modern views on how the Reformed orthodox have typically argued for a judgment according to works I think you may find the following references helpful in the first instance.  I’m not saying that the Reformed have always said the same thing on this issue.  In fact, I rarely ever say that.  Several of the first of ten references are going to form the substance of an essay I am writing on this theme in Reformed orthodoxy.”

See the list here.

West Cannon Baptist Church Pastor’s Conference 2009

West Cannon Baptist Church, is hosting a conference located in Grand Rapids, Michigan with Kevin DeYoung, Ted Kluck and Michael Wittmer as a all-day seminar on Tuesday, September 22.

Michael Wittmer says,

“It promises to be a provocative day of (mostly) sound theology that will encourage us to love and serve Christ’s church.  Registration ends one week from today, so if you’re in the Grand Rapids area and want a value priced ($35, lunch included) day of theological stimulation, come join us here.”

I’ll be there! Look forward to seeing you there!

Got a Flip, Wonder If I’ll Use This Thing or Sell it on Amazon

Yesterday when helping my Grandparents save $100 a month on their cable, phone and internet services, for signing up with Verizon’s bundle plan I received a Flip Ultra Series Camcorder. I am not sure how much I’ll use this thing, the older I get myself I see that trends come and go, and some fads take off, and some are only meant for those that they are directed towards.

In anyway, if your a video guru, like to have something compact and easy to use, this is it. I am not much into the video realm, nor do I make vlogs on my blog. But things might change, we’ll have to see just how much I use this in the next two to three months. If not, then I’ll be selling it on Amazon.

Product Description
The Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder is a revolutionary new way to shoot and share videos. Its portable, simple-to-use design makes it incredibly easy to create high quality home movies. The camcorder’s built-in software provides a convenient, seamless way to save and share memories: email videos, make custom movies, capture still photos from video clips, and upload videos directly to popular video-sharing sites, including AOL Video and YouTube. Flip Video Ultra is the ideal, affordable choice for capturing everyday moments that happen anywhere, and sharing them with family and friends everywhere. This next-generation version of the original Flip Video line features a new sleeker design, premium no-glare LCD screen, and improved video and audio quality. Flip Video Ultra comes with a TV connector cable, wrist strap, soft carrying case, two AA batteries, and a quick start guide. Specs: Flip Video Ultra incorporates 2GB of built-in flash memory which holds up to 60 minutes of 30-frame per second full VGA-quality MPEG-4 video. Compatible with Windows XP SP2 and Vista; Macintosh OS X 10.3.9 or later. Computer connection via integrated USB Port.

• Publish Online: Upload your videos instantly to YouTube, MySpace, AOL Video and many other websites, all with the click of a button. It’s never been this easy to publish online!
• Email Videos: Send your videos privately to friends and family, and select from a wide assortment of included greeting cards to personalize your message.
• Edit and Create Movies: Edit individual clips and create custom movies–complete with your favorite music. FlipShare even allows you to capture snapshots from your videos.

Please note: Flip Ultra Camcorders manufactured before November 2008 may be pre-loaded with an older version of software. However, if you own one of these units, you’ll be prompted to download FlipShare–free of cost–the first time you connect your camcorder to a computer that is connected to the Internet.