Rap is not for everyone. However if you’ve listened to rap music in the past and you love theology, guys like Shai Linne will greatly encourage you.

If you were to compare the word count of rap lyrics compared to your traditional chorus music you’ll quickly notice that the rap format accommodates a greater number of words. And you know what, words matter! I would rather have full and sound words ringing through my mind than many of today’s “Christian” music.

Here’s a song by Shai Linne called “Expository Preaching” – hear the words:

This verse right here is for the congregation,
This is what you all need to be listening for.
Yeah let me explain what I mean, it’s not too complex,
It’s preaching God’s Word in its proper context.
As you listen be discerning, what you have to determine
Was the point of the passage the point of the sermon?
If not this problem must be confronted today
Cause he just used the Bible to say what he wanted to say
And even if it’s delivered with fire and intelligence
That’s basically making what God has inspired irrelevant
Instead of applying the Word’s realities
A lot of pastors rely on personality
But gifts of communication can never be a true replacement
For the Holy Spirit’s illumination
Without exposition you’ll lack major profit
All you’ll get is tradition and the pastor’s favourite topics
And that can be a slippery slope
The Word should be giving you hope
This dude is just giving you jokes.
That won’t help you love Christ
That won’t help your obedience.
We need more expositors
Not more comedians.
That’s right.
Expect for true labor in the text
then faithfully connect you to the Saviour
then wait for its effects
God gives the increase the word
Holiness loves unity
The word faithfully preached builds up the whole community
If not your Sunday meal will not last
and you’ll have to supplement it with the podcast.
(Podcast.)
Don’t entertain us, that won’t sustain us
(Preach the word, preach the word)
Careful instruction, not a big production
(Preach the word, preach the word)
We don’t need theatrics and man centered tactics.
(Preach the word, preach the word)
We’re on the brink of eternity, please speak earnestly.
(Preach the word, preach the word)

Check out the entire album or listen to portions here.

Chorus
We’re cursed from our birth, sinning from the beginning
The womb to the tomb, depraved to the grave
Astray every day, every breath brings death
In Adam all die, In Adam all die

We’re rebels like the devil, scheming like demons
Prideful with our idols, disgusting with our lusting
Twisted and sin-sick, selfish and helpless
In Adam all die, In Adam all die

Verse 1
Everybody knows that they’re guilty
Our conscience condemns us, shows us we’re filthy
Truth be told, we really have no answers
For why we fall short of our own moral standards
The evidence for God is simply bountiful
And it’s illogical to think we won’t be held accountable
A universal day of judgment approaches
Any rational notion of justice would presuppose this
And deep down inside, everybody knows this
But we disregard it because our deeds are atrocious
We prefer the vicious, our words are malicious
Our slurs pernicious, we find the absurd delicious
Depraved in our appetites- the things we crave are lacking light
Because sin’s got us enslaved and shackled tight
And if we are to understand the fruit
We need to go back and examine the root

Chorus

Verse 2
The world we live in wasn’t always like this
The early days had perfect righteousness and bright bliss
Man and woman under God-ruled government at first
Bubbling with mirth, immersed in loving with no hurts
God gave what theologians call the covenant of works
Forbidden fruit- the day you eat of it you’ll be cursed
Husband wasn’t alert; wife lacked discernment
Entrapped by the serpent and that was the first sin
The consequences were monumental
In fact, I’m not convinced they had a clue of what they’d gotten into
Their eyes were opened more- truth in the lies
To their surprise, they didn’t get the prize they were hoping for
They see their nakedness and now regret it
They tried to cover their guilt and then blame shift- how pathetic
And it’s a true story- you want some evidence?
We’ve been doing the same thing ever since

Chorus

Verse 3
We talk Adam and Eve, cats think we’re “throwed off”, really
They don’t think it relates to thugs in North Philly
But it’s like Switchfoot said- we were meant to live
But in the garden Adam was our representative
So when the Judge executed the sentence
Adam’s guilt was imputed to his descendents
Global calamity
Major debt, pain, regret, the reign of death- total depravity
And yes, I’m aware that cats were not there
Which opens the door to charges of “that’s not fair”
But God is not subject to fallen notions of fairness
Besides, when it comes to God’s glory, most could care less
We can’t measure how we chase sand treasures
And banned pleasures- similar to our ancestors
So instead of saying if you were there what you would do
Seek your refuge in Adam number two

Chorus

Speaker:
Dr. Timothy Tennent

Seminary

This course is an introduction to the religion of Islam. There are 24 separate lectures totaling approximately 16 hours. These lectures were given at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. There is also a summary course for this class.

Course Description

The purpose of this course is to provide an introductory study of the structure, beliefs and practices of Islam. Special emphasis will be placed on a study of the theology of the Koran. The student will read and study the entire Koran along with important selections from the Hadith, Shari`a material and Sufi writings. The actual historical manifestations of contemporary Islam will be explored with a special emphasis on Islam in the African context. Throughout the course there will be a concern to demonstrate how Islamic thought is different from Christian thought and how the gospel can be most effectively communicated to members of the Islamic faith, the second largest and fastest growing religion in the world today.

Islam | BiblicalTraining.org.

Here’s the failed part:

You can order your part at Marcon supply – appliance, cooling, and property.

[Update] – Lots of info online such as ‘Furnace Maintenace’ by HowStuffWorks.com

Essentially it will organize all your photos into a neat directory structure with the date as the name of the directory. For example if you took a picture in December 24, 2007 it will create a directory ’20071224′ which is in the format of ‘YYYYMMDD’ where YYYY is the 4-digit year, MM is the 2-digit month of the year, and DD is the 2-digit day of the month.

Well I’ve been using it and found a bug after 6 years!! It will overwrite existing files. So this new update will not overwrite but instead append. In case you’re interested download the latest Ruby Photo organizer script here.

USA beats Algeria

If you’re a Soccer fan all the World Cup games are replayed.

UPDATE: In order to view your ISP must be part of the ESPN3 program.

Some people say, “Well, the Bible is not a science book; it’s scientifically incorrect, and it doesn’t use scientific language. Why does the Old Testament say that the sun stood still? Now we know that the sun didn’t stand still. In fact, in the old times they thought the sun was going around the earth instead of vice-versa. That’s just a typical biblical flaw.” But what happened is that the earth stopped revolving, and it appeared that the sun stood still (Josh. 10:13). You see, some people try to analyze the statement scientifically, but they just see what appeared to have happened. We all do the same thing. When you get up in the morning and look toward the east, you don’t say, “Oh my, what a lovely earth rotation.” No, you call it a sunrise, and you understand what you’re saying. Likewise, you don’t look to the west and say, “What a lovely earth rotation.” No, it’s a sunset. When someone asks you if you’d like another helping at dinner, you could say, “Well, gastronomical satiety admonishes me that I have arrived at a state of deglutition consistent with dietetic integrity.” Or you could say, “No, thanks, I’ve had enough.” You see, you don’t always need a scientific answer for everything. Sometimes, just pure observation is sufficient. The Bible says some things that are from the viewpoint of human observation, but on the other hand, whenever the Bible speaks about a scientific principle, it is dead accurate. In fact, let’s examine three areas the Bible addresses more closely.

a) Rainfall

In Isaiah 55:10 it says, “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not there, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater.” Isaiah spoke centuries before the hydrological cycle was ever discovered. He said, “The rain and the snow comes down and don’t return again until they have watered the earth.” But it’s only been in modern times that hydrology has been understood. That is what happens: the rain falls down on the land, it waters the land, it runs off into the streams, down to the rivers, into the sea, and from the sea it returns again to the clouds; then it is taken over the land and dropped again. The ever constant hydrological cycle, and Isaiah 55:10 laid it out.
Now some might say, “Well, a blind pig can find the slop once in a while—maybe Isaiah just took a lucky guess.” That might have been a possibility if it weren’t for the fact that the same thing is discussed in several other portions of the Bible. Job 36:27–29 comments, “For he maketh small the drops of water; they pour down rain according to their vapor, which the clouds do drop and distill upon man abundantly. Also can any understand the spreadings of the clouds, or the noise of his tabernacle?” Once again a discussion of rain. Compare also what it says in Psalm 135:7: “He causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain; he bringeth the wind out of his treasuries.” Another discussion of this wonderful sequence of rain and the ascending vapors from the sea to plant the water again in the clouds.

b) Fixed orbits

The Bible also comments on the fixed orbits of the heavenly bodies. Jeremiah 31:35–36 (NASB*) discusses this, and Psalm 19 also talks about it. I really feel that as you get into the Bible you will find incredible things about science that reveal the truthfulness of God’s Word. You never need to be ashamed of the Bible. You’re never going to run into a problem in the Bible which you can’t solve in one of two ways: first, by looking through the rest of the Bible and understanding how to interpret it; second, by realizing that you’re never going to understand it until you meet God. There are some things we don’t understand or know, but the truth is that we’re not going to run into an error in the Scripture—not even scientifically.

c) Balance

Within the science of geology there is a study called isostasy, which is fairly new. Isostasy is the study of the balance of the earth, and it says that equal weights are necessary to support equal weights. So, land mass must be supported equally by water mass. But they really haven’t discovered anything actually new. If we go back to good old Isaiah again, who was not a scientist but simply a prophet of God, we find in Isaiah 40:12 that it says: “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and measured out heaven with the span, and measured the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?” God knew all about isostasy. It’s just incredible when you come to the Bible and start to study it even scientifically.
They said of Herbert Spencer, who died in 1903, that he had discovered the greatest thing about the categorizing of all things that exist in the environment of the universe. He said everything could fall into these categories: time, force, action, space, and matter. Five classic scientific categories, and he said everything fit into those categories. The world hailed him as a great scientist, a great man of discovery. But do you want to know something? All five of those categories are in the first verse of the Bible: “In the beginning (that’s time) God (that’s force) created (that’s action) the heaven (that’s space) and the earth (that’s matter). Genesis 1:1 shows us that when the Bible speaks, it speaks accurately. So, science is a good way to show the authority and the validity of Scripture.

– MacArthur, J., Jr. (1996). How to study the Bible. John MacArthur’s Bible Studies. Chicago: Moody Press.

With that in mind I thought about the passages in the New Testament that give comfort to suffering people. For example a popular passage is: Rom 8:28

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

In times of trial or suffering we hear that verse and we can easily snap back at the brother or sister trying to encourage us and say, “how can you say that things will work out for good?!” Well the verse is speaking from God’s perspective and from God’s design. From His perspective he can make that comforting statement that things are working for good, that is His view of good. Our view of good is, “I want relief now!” While we view the hippo as a mistake and in similar fashion our trials, God is the only one that can declare from His unique perspective and say that they are good. As Christians we can take comfort that we have a gracious God who has unique perspective where He can truly say that all things, including our suffering, are causing all things to work together for good.