Sola Scriptura

Fine Evening

2012-01-09T16:17:00.000-08:00

Dear Folks,

I just got back from a walk with my second son and my daughter. The evening was splendiferous, wet with moist air, cool from the winter season. We did not need jackets, but long sleeve sweatshirts seemed about right.

I read from a book just now, Theory of Paster's Wife, by D.D. Kim Hung Whan, a South Korean woman. Her book was published by 생능출판사 (Life & Power Press). ISBN 89-7050-516-4. Fourth Edition 2005.

Granted, it is easy to see how modern women from South Korea, Land of the Morning Calm, will quickly judge this woman to be lacking in wisdom relative to themselves (even though these modern women will probably never write anything relevant to Christ which a person will copy into his weblog decades later...), not only because of the woman's incomplete acquisition of English (She was born in 1928.), but also because of some of her statements regarding the submissive role of women, which these women would rather not adopt.

I will quote the astute elderly lady here below:

Beginning on page 22

5. The Posture of a Pastor's Wife

"A wife of noble Character is her husband's crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones (Prov 12:4)."

The pastor's wife's position is very complex in that she can always give a good or bad influence on church members. Church members naturally tend to accept the pastor's wife's behavior, and in response imitate her in their lives. Imitating good behavior is desirable but imitating bad one can be destructive to a church, especially when the unbecoming behavior gives direct impact to the members regardless of her intent.

6. The Pastor's Wife Responsibility

Pastor' wife has major responsibility to show good example in the church. Let us read Esther Chapter One and examine carefully what it teaches. Have you ever thought about the consequences of disobedience?

1) Woman:

She is not in the leading role but a submissive role. She is not in creating roars, but arranging it. She is not in teaching others, but in learning from others.

2) Let us learn obedience through Abraham (Gen 22:1-19)

(1) Abraham did not ask for reason, logic, nor seek any kind of discussion with God. Asking these is a sign of disobedience.

(2) He acted immediately. God's will demands immediate response.

(3) He did not complain (murmur). Complaint is provoking God.

(4) He did not worry. He trusted God, by believing him in all situation.

(5) He pleased God. He fulfilled the demand of God's will and completed the requisite for obedience.

3) One can learn in the Bible about submissive relationship between men and women.

(1) Obey even it is difficult (Gen 22:1-10).

(2) Obey even it is easy (2Kings 5:11-14).

Verse 13 is the recorded statement of Naaman's servant. "If the prophet had told you some great things, would you not have done it?"

(3) Obey at any time (even in a deep sleep at night) (Matt 2:13-15)

(4) Obey without condition.

Abraham: "Even though he didn't know where he was going" -- He obeyed (Heb 11:8).

A Centurion: "For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me; and I say to this man, Go and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my servant, Do this, and he does it" (Matt 8:9).

* There is no husband on earth who does not follow his wife.

In the time of Japanese imperialism, my uncle was a principal, and he went to Japan, and he received Japanese military drill. One morning a military commander said to the soldiers, If anyone follow the counsel of his wife all the time, Stand right side of the flag, and if anyone follow not the counsel of his wife, Stand left side of the flag. Then almost all of the soldiers rushed into the right side of the flag, but only one person moved to the left side. The military commander was surprised and came down from the platform, and gave a greeting to him, and told him "[Japanese phrase]", that means, You are a respectable person. The commander asked him, How can you not follow your wife? But this man said, "No, that is not like that, My wife said to me this early morning, Because I had some strange dream last night, Please do not go to the crowded place, That's why I did not go to right side." The commander heard and said, "[Japanese phrase]" There is no man on the earth who do not follow his wife.

4) Women should elevate their husbands and serve them like heaven.

There is a slight difference in Chinese character, describing husband(夫) and heaven( ).

Chinese character for husband(夫) is different from the character for heaven( ) slightly, by adding one stroke upon the heaven. This slight difference between heaven and husband makes it necessary for the women to submit to her husband like heaven.

This was the word from the Rev. Bea Min Su who served as a Minister for Agriculture long ago. He was the first agricultural minister in South Korea, whose meritorious deed in introducing farming life in the rural area was applauded by many, and he also established a school of farming in Daejeon -- South Korea. He initiated a new movement called "New life boiler, House Heating System."

Get a Job

2011-12-19T03:26:00.001-08:00

Dear Folks,

People need to read the Bible, sing praises to the Lord, get a job and stop drinking hootch. I know of no other way to be a morally responsible man in modern society. Sure, a long time ago, there was no hootch. That does not excuse modern man from his whiskibility.

I met a woman a week ago at the student center on my campus. She was there merely for an awards banquet for the Home Schooling Football league. She told me that the first use of foul language results in the automatic ejection of a player from a game. That is as it should be. She also told me that there are over three thousand home schooling families in each of Wake and Johnston Counties, and the numbers are growing. I like that. The higher the percentage of home schooling and private schoolers we have, the fewer there will be to vote for the continuation of public schools. That would be a godsend to American society, to get a more moral structure to government.

Love, Nathaniel

The home schooling herald's husband runs a website that seems interesting: www.raisingrealmen.com. She said we were lucky that we moved here, as this was probably the best place in the U.S. for homeschooling, with much extra-curricular and academic support in this area. They have a full orchestra for home schoolers, a chess team, and a history club which competes in debates nationally.

I would like to start a padook team, math and logic club, and prayer circle with the same members for all four activities. We would need to consider a name to represent all of the activities.

Private Schools and Business

2011-12-17T14:41:00.000-08:00

Dear Folks,

It is good to see growing respect in our society for unborn babies. I would like to have a few more children, but my wife is tired and does not want to go through the post-partum period, when she has difficulty walking for months. That's fine with me. I just hope I will not have resistance from her regarding my freedom to teach other children, the poorest in this area, on the other side of the railroad tracks. I first met them in 1990, when I lived here and delivered pizzas for the then-new Domino's Pizza Joint on White Street.

I miss delivering pizzas and always enjoyed it very much. It is a splendid thing to drive around all evening listening to good classic rock and roll and taking pizzas to people who very much want to have them. Walking up to their doors and ringing the bell is great, too, as you know they will greet you with genuine glee. A man could do a lot worse for income, to be sure. It's not even like you're working ... just bringing people a hot pizza or two. What's wrong with that?

I just checked the prices for study at two Christian schools, and even with the discounts, it seems to be too much for my wife to want to fork over. Raleigh Christian Academy and Neuse Christian Academy. It would have been better if we had purchased a home about 5 miles South of Wake Forest, rather than 3 miles North of town. That would have put me just about a five minute drive from these two schools. With my discounts from attending their churches (10%), and being a seminarian (maybe 20%), plus the 500 dollar reduction for each subsequent child, it comes out to be affordable, in my eyes at least. I wouldn't mind starting a business, if necessary, in order to pay for it.

My older sister recommended we start a mini-warehouse business, which would work fairly well for our situation. I would be happy sitting there waiting for people to come in and rent a space to store some stuff, so long as it is not anything like dead bodies, counterfeit monies, illegal drugs, contraband, and thus and such.

My oldest son would have space to grow his birds, particularly if we were a bit outside of town, with some farmland surrounding the lot for warehousing. We could raise some goats and make cheese, something I have long wanted to do. I would also like to grow some grapes on a slope (for drainage). That is about the only way to get good enough drainage here in all this red clay soil. But you can't start this sort of thing without some farmland. I believe it would need to be zoned commercial, too, in order to run the warehouse business there. We will pray about it, and see where it goes.

I need to finish up some papers for my two ethics classes. Studying at the seminary has been a golden experience for me these past few months. I hope to have a continuation of that charm this next Spring if not before. They have a winter class term offered in what you might call a "condensed experience," attending every weekday for anywhere from three to five hours.

Love, Nathaniel

Pretenders to Sophistication

2011-11-13T13:13:00.000-08:00

Dear Folks,

We are pretending to be fancy today. We bought some brie for $4.97 a pound. It tastes good, but is usually out of our price range. We are smearing the brie on some free whole grain bread which we got in Sharing Shop & Manna Ministry, of my seminary. We don't really have class, but it sure is fun pretending with my children.

Last night, I took my children to an international dinner function at the Ledford Center, a social activities center in our school. I enjoyed it, but my daughter did not. Because of the way the noise of the gratuitously loud music grates on her, we will not do such a thing again.

It took all of three hours to get through. There was a lot of good food, which always sits well with me, even though I did not get to eat much of it, as I was attending to David and Christopher throughout the time we were together, and they keep my hands full, which, if you're not a father, I can highly recommend as a means of keeping you out of trouble.

Just now, I hear my two middle boys behind me playing, each with a padook board and some stones, making noises of armies colliding and weapons sounding off in the heat of battle. Occasionally, you hear the voices of commanders radioing information and the issuing of commands to their underlings, mixed in with terse utterances of dismay at being seemingly overwhelmed by the sheer size of the enemy forces descending on them at the moment, ensuring a battle of epic proportions.

My thematic question is this, "Why must mock battles in the minds of boys always be epic? Why can they not at least some of the time enact an imaginary battle wherein the two sides engage only in light skirmish ... or better yet, meet, have a parley, and decide to come to terms of peace, obviating any need for bloodshed on that day?" Soldiers could then engage in a pick-up football game, or if they don't know how to handle a pigskin, then perhaps they could enjoy a round or two of soccer.

After that, they could settle down to some tea and biscuits with blueberry jam and apple butter. It's always good to have at least two distinct flavors of jam available for your guests, in my humble opinion.

I started a new rule in my home last week, and that is this: The whole family must eat supper together at 7:00 p.m. every day. The International Dinner disrupted the embodiment of that rule for the first time, and I do not now believe it was worth the opportunity to meet people from different nations and eat a goodly variety of different foods, even with the music and dances thrown in the bargain.

When it comes to family time, little can trump a good, steady family meal together. Given the paucity of recipes mastered by either me or my wife, we pretty much eat the same stuff every time, but that's perhaps part of the enduring beauty of our experience.

Formerly, we rarely ate a meal together. In fact, in keeping with the triathlon training grazing routine I had been accustomed to following over the past few decades, we pretty much ate a little here and there all day long.

Though that seemed to work well, and served us well indeed when I we were all so much busier, especially with me working in excess of 60 hours a week of teaching English. It is wonderful to have the whole family sitting around a table. I will upload a photo of the first day we did that, about six or seven days ago.

Love, Nathaniel

Gutter Mind

2011-09-11T18:37:00.000-07:00

Dear Folks, 11 September 2011

Well, whose mind is in the gutter? I just sat down at the computer upstairs, a Toshiba laptopper which has Korean fonts and a Korean operating system. We can use it to connect with our bank accounts in South Korea. My oldest son had been up here using the computer. I glanced at the title of the website he had in the front open browser, duplicated for the comfort of my dear reader below:

1. Dart Frog Breeding Questions

Perhaps you see this at a glance, just as I saw it. My mind was immediately concerned, reading "Dog Fart Breeding Questions." So then, again I ask, "Who's mind was in the gutter?"

I should face it; I have good kids. They have good manners in public. I feel blessed to have spent so much time with them. Too, I believe any child, with adequate loving attention will be what we generally think of as "a good kid." By no means does that ensure his ticket to heaven.

For the record, here are the other sites my son had open in his browsers:

2. Alternatives For Raising Obligate Egg-Feeding Tadpoles

3. The Wonderful World of Keeping Poison Dart Frogs.

In my Sunday School class today, our teacher, Steve, said that our church, Faith Baptist Church, is better understood as "a hospital for sinners than a hotel for saints." I like that very much. Jesus said he came to heal the sick, that the righteous had no need of him. But then, you have to ask, who is truly righteous? Answer: Nobody. We have all fallen short of the glory of God, in our sin.

My wife is playing the piano now. She has been playing for over an hour, while I cleaned the dishes, schlepped out the trash and compostables, and before that, cut little David's hair as he slept.

I can't wait until I can take Hebrew. I do not know when that will happen, but it seems now that it may come to pass. I was in danger there for a week or two, as my wife seemed determined to buy a couple of small homes (3 bedroomers) and rent them out for a bit of income here. We do not work. I have worked all my life in one capacity or another. So truly, I work now. However, as I age, I have revised my perception of work. Of course I never want to retire. Any healthy sincere Christian should never desire retirement.

Update: 18th September 2011

Public Services in Social Welfare:

I met a woman named Cheryl today at church. We talked for nearly an hour after Sunday School. It did not seem like an hour, but our Sunday school class gets out at 9:15, and it was 10:34 when I drove out of there. She deplored the state of our welfare system today, noting that the system should be primarily for older people, those who are unable to fend for themselves properly. I assume she would also include the truly handicapped. Anytime you forcefully expropriate property from citizens in the way we tax, and then seek to dole it out, you are going to have to make rules for limitations.

I told her that I believed the fault of such a system lies in those who advocate and/or vote for it. If we want, we can vote solely for a system which benefits the elderly and handicapped. I believe that you cannot fault individuals for accepting money to which they are legally entitled. I agree that developing a state wherein we foster "entitlement thinking" is wrong. However, the Bible is clear that Christians must submit to the governing authorities (Romans 13), and I believe the submission includes a corresponding right for the Christian citizen to avail himself of every legal benefit for which he qualifies so long as he that service is Biblically sound.

If you can show that accepting the services of public schooling or public welfare, then we should not be receiving those. Currently, I believe that it is immoral for one to advocate public schooling, and as well to vote for the expansion or maintenance of such.

Generally, that which is legal stands a much better chance of being morally acceptable, at least if you focus on the Ten Commandments, and their narrow proscriptions. I believe it is morally acceptable for parents to allow their children to be educated in the public schools if they so desire -- not only for the undeniable asymmetrical power relationship between the individual and the state. I feel the same way for public welfare.

Regarding the source of funds, I can see no qualitative difference between the public school system and the public welfare system. Both have the government as the primary provider, moving in to occupy a huge portion of the whole industry, skewing costs and quality standards, greatly impairing the ability of the private providers to compete fairly and to use their own standards of value to decide how, when, for whom, and where to provide the services. This diminishes their capacity to behave as responsible moral agents over the resources they "own." In fact, such deprivation of control marks a diminution of ownership. Socialism is collective ownership of the means of production.

Free Services and Their Value in My Life:

I have been tossing about a theme in my pumpkin head for the better part of a decade. I have come to acknowledge that the greatest value I render society is not necessarily that which flows from my paid labor, or other normal economic activity, such as my passive income from stocks or savings and thus and such. Hence, I have become ever more comfortable with the consideration of a future wherein I engage the world far less, as a percentage of my time, with paid labor and the paid use of my capital (bank interest, et cetera).

To wit, I let a fairly big chunk of my money sit in a South Korean bank at zero interest, when 4.5% was available, merely because I did not concern myself with eeking out every bit of income that I could from that source. In the process, I "Lost" several thousand dollars, but felt that fine in that I was able to focus my mind on other, unpaid, concerns in society and within my family (which is verily a subset of society). The online command to switch the funds from a zero-interest account to several one and three-month CD's would have taken probably an hour or so. My lack of concern with this "opportunity cost" is an excellent example of the increasing value I have come to place on my time as devoted to other, non-paid concerns.

I only wish that I had focused more fully on volunteer work and other careers which garner less pay earlier in my life, and I heartily encourage other, younger Christians to do so. One thing is sure: generally, the less time you spend chasing a paycheck in the U.S., the more social welfare you will be qualified to receive, and the more time you will have to devote to areas which you deem God highly values, teaching the Word, sharing communion with other Christians, and thus and such. Granted, this requires a greater degree of confidence and reliance upon God to provide for your needs, but God will come through. He clearly has for me when and wherever I elected to make myself more vulnerable and needy. Praise the Lord!

To be sure savings and stock ownership are valuable services inasmuch as bank savings clearly lower the cost of borrowing by increasing the supply ... and for stock, the greater demand to own stock supports prices, while ownership of stock supports the production of goods and services in the society, without which we would be hard put for goods and services upon which we all depend, diapers, desks, dictionaries, and thus and such.

I notice that my smiles and joy to others foments greater joy in the commons. I also notice that my life of not working for labor, which began rather recently, with our move to the U.S., has been quite valuable to society in my judgment, certainly not less than was my work prior to this. Merely raising children well is a valuable asset to society, and not only in producing future tax payers who should be ready and fain to pay back all the money we have allocated to our American European-Styled Welfare State (Hereafter AESWS).

I remember reading an article about the changes in Russian society after the moved from socialism to a free market economy, long about 1990, as it were. The article seemed to focus on representing the educated class, professors and intellectuals. Quotes had people lamenting the loss of time they had for long dinners with friends, drinking vodka, eating good food and much talk. Sincere adult discussion has much value, even if people are not always willing to pay for the full value of it.

The best single indicator of value a person contributes to society through his work (certainly his paid work) is perhaps the money voluntarily given in exchange for the products and services his efforts generate (as in a paycheck, or gross revenues of a business he owns), and this figure would be an even better estimate if one could remove the demand dampening effects of taxes on such products or services.

Had he grown up in Germany or France (which have much higher rates of government consumption relative to GDP) Bill Gates would scarcely have produced so much with Microsoft (if he even were to have toyed with the idea of giving his attention to founding such a company, and dropping out of Harvard). More likely, in these more thorough social democracies Bill would have merely remained in his college to finish a degree, deeming that proven route the best means of surely providing well for his future family. And who could really blame him?

Sciatica Versus Cognitive Stimuli

2011-08-03T05:14:00.000-07:00

This photo is of me in front of my padook teaching board. I hope to use this in a church program to reach out to indigent boys (and some girls, those who are interested in this sort of cognitive challenge).

Amtrak seems to be the best way for my family to travel. I have some sciatica trouble in my left buttock and do not expect that to lessen with age. A trip this past weekend to Hickory, with me driving the whole way, has left me in much pain. For two days, I have not been able to sit or stand in any position which is comfortable. It seems that driving long distances is out for me henceforth.

I had the same problem back in 2009, when I was teaching fairly many hours in my home, plus sitting fairly much while completing the homework for a computer programming course with NCSU, that feisty, intrepid, little "high-tech'er" university lying not thirty minutes South of us. She tenders great service to the local community, to be sure. You couldn't ask for a better high-tech university to help the citizenry stay abreast of the latest technological trends, as it were.

So, as it was, I availed myself of their sterling pedagogical services and seemed to come out a winner in every way save that insufferable, ailing left buttock, which all too often had me on the verge of throwing in the proverbial towel, hanging up my spikes and seeking another avenue for adult education, cognitive stimuli, staying off dementia.

Padook is a great cognitive challenge, and for my children seems to instill invaluable qualities of humility, as well as equanimity regarding victory or defeat. Playing padook is good in that one is forced to think at super high levels of cognitive intensity (that is, if he wants to win ... my daughter beat me yesterday by 31 stones, and I was proud ... of her), but each game lasts no more than an hour or so, usually just 20 to 30 minutes, given how lackadaisically we play in our family.

I have an older sister in New York. I would like to take my children there to perform as jugglers on the street and witness to the Lord. I need to get them up to speed as jugglers and performers first, but that should not be too much of a problem, considering all that I have done in that way in the past. Plus, the experience would be very good for my children.

For one adult, it costs only 189 dollars one way, double that for a two-way, round tripper. It looks like a 10 hour 18 minute trip, which would be fabulous, chock-full of adventure and whatnot. Perhaps I could go up there with two children at a time beginning a few years in the future, after my wife and I are gainfully employed. That would cost double the rate for a single adult, as children are half price. I could take the two older ones first, then on another trip, bring the two younger ones. There is a limit of two children per supervising adult for passage.

We could kill two birds with one stone by doing some witnessing far from home, as well as visiting my sister, their auntie. It could even be three birds if you count the drama skills development for my children from the street performing they do.

Love, Nathaniel

Pleasure Crafts

2011-07-24T12:16:00.000-07:00

Dear Folks,

Church:

We have been to the same Baptist church for the past three Sundays. We did three Sundays in a row before that, and though Ashley was developing friendships at another church, my wife decided we should try the one closer to our home. She relishes these aspects in descending order of priority:

1. Proximity: It is close to our home, 2 or 3 miles.

2. Children's program: It has a great program for children and youth, and our children like it.

3. No Screaming: The preacher does not scream so he is easier to understand for a second language user of English. He is reasonable and hence even easier to understand.

4. Less pretense among the fellow worshipers. It seems more obvious that the congregants are there to worship and not so concerned about pretense, or their appearances. My wife senses this and feels that this particular church has a more genuine atmosphere. We call that "The Genuine Article to a T."

Park:

We have not been to the park near our home in a long time. It is odd that we live so close, and thought we would go there often once we moved here. Maybe we will after we get moved in more fully.

Busy At Our New Home:

We have been busy organizing our new home, planting trees and shrubs. My wife badly wants a border along the road on the side of our home to give us some privacy. She is less concerned with the front side of our humble abode, content to allow people to view the home from that perspective.

I suppose the back yard is for airing one's laundry. Too, one day, we hope to get a dog, and in this subdivision, we are neither allowed to let dogs run free nor to have the kept on a chain. They must be free to run, either indoors or outdoors in an enclosed area.

Visiting My Mother:

On the first weekend of August, we will be visiting my sister, brother and mother in Virginia. My older sister has a birthday on the same day in August as my 7-year-old. We will celebrate together even though it is not the exact day. My mother is 82 now. She seems to be handling ageing OK, actually relaxing and enjoying life more. She seems to have a better sense of humor. I hope I enjoy my old age as much as she has been enjoying hers.

Visiting Jim Keaton and Kurt Barkley:

This next weekend, I will entertain an old childhood friend who will be travelling in from Washington State. He will bring his three boys and wife. We used to be training partners for long distance running, a few decades ago. I have not seen him in 15 years.

The next day, the 29th, I will go to visit another training old partner from my youth. He has four children, three boys and a girl, and lives in North Carolina. We will go to sleep at his home and swim in his backyard pool, maybe even get to go out in his boat and ski. These are all things my family has a never done before. In South Korea, it is rare that a family would own a pleasure craft such as a boat, and go skiing. I knew of no one who had such in our neighborhood. It would have been truly odd.

It is not that they do not have lakes, nor is it illegal, per se ... it is just that they do not think that way. They are focused on survival economics. Money seems to override many other decisions such that they miss out on understanding the purpose of life. The highest educational goal is for their children to earn much money.

In Christ, Nathaniel

Punch Packing Tea

2011-07-04T08:16:00.001-07:00

Above you see me and two sons of mine planting a tree. We inherited a satellite dish along with the house and should probably dig it up to get it out of the picture. We do not need such things and have heard there is no secondary market for them. Just another eyesore.

Idolatry:
In our move from South Korea to Wake Forest, North Carolina, we lost a lot of possessions, and I find that I am happy to be rid of some possessions where were somewhat dear to me. They were not essential, and their pull on my affection was not what I wanted. I liked them too much. One was a bas relief sculpture of Da Vinci's "Last Supper." I had used it for more than a decade in the teaching room of my home. It was good for my students to see, hanging centered above our study table. I gave it to a friend here, and felt fine with that.

Our Debt to Christian Culture:

I felt the sculpture, a wood carving from Indonesia or Thailand, imbued the room with a strong and abiding awareness of the Christian nature of the fundament of our culture; South Korea's existence depends intimately upon two colossal military interventions by the U.S. There is no reason to believe the U.S. would be recognizable today if it were not a Christian culture from the get go, let alone any compelling reason to believe such a large, powerful nation would set us free from Japan in WWII and then save us from the enslavement of North Korean Communism in the Korean War, and subsequently encourage us to self-governance and autonomy.

Sacrifice & Enemy Love:

Historically, large powers just do not invest such military effort and then not take control of the land and peoples they have conquered. This is strange, kind of like "Love they enemy" was a powerful operating principle underlying the mentality of the leaders and populace of the intervening nation. And so it was, with their deeply embedded Christian influence. For what principles is Christianity more widely known than sacrifice and love of one's enemy? The list should be short indeed.

Home Life at the Long Abode:

Incrementally, the interior design of our home is improving. Each day it seems, my wife has made some addition to the design, hanging a few more photos or paintings, building a bookshelf, arranging furniture, putting away children's clothing, and thus and such. She is a good wife. I would not trade her for a 2-year-old mule.

Memorable Tea:

I am relishing a mug of hot tea. I make this tea from a couple of chunks of unsweetened baking chocolate, Great Value brand decaf coffee, and blackstrap molasses(당밀(糖蜜) ((원료에서 설탕을 추출한 후의 잔액))). It not only packs a fabulous punch and is loaded with beneficent nutrients, but this concoction leaves a lingering taste worth its salt. Normally, I include brewer's yeast, but I am out of that at the present.

I played a game of padook with my daughter this morning. She is better than I at 사활(life and death) considerations, but needs help with her 초반 (beginning board) understanding. We need to study 포석(opening configurations) together, and we will. She does not want to, but I require it as a part of her education. I intend for her to be able to beat her old daddy with ease when she is a teenager. She cannot do that without better study of opening theory.

Intuition and Creativity:

She is full of delight when she kills a group of mine by her superior life/death analysis ability, but this is restricted to use in a local area and of little utility in whole board analysis. The right brain is intimately and thoroughly involved in whole board consideration, particularly the middle of the board. I aim for her to gain cognitive development in her intuitive and creative faculties in this pursuit of excellence in padook. One could do a lot worse, like watching Bugs Bunny all day, eating twinkies and drinking cola. We don't do that.

Here is a trusty link to an article in The Economist Magazine describing the game of padook. My three older children got ample exposure to this game in their childhood in Daejeon, South Korea, Land of the Morning Calm.

Love, Nathaniel

Learning Proclivities

2011-05-10T17:13:00.000-07:00

Dear Fellow Seminarians:

I am still much warmed by the sharing atmosphere here at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. There is an entity on campus called "The Sharing Shop." It is a place where volunteers work to organize food, clothing and household items that are donated for needy seminary students. The whole thing is housed in a duplex, and is open to takers on Tuesday evening and Saturday morning.

If we had known of this, we could have saved a few thousand dollars in shipping costs for a bunch of old worn-out stuff. My wife thought it cheaper to send the stuff rather than buy new. Nonetheless, we indeed gave away a whole lot of our possessions prior to coming to the United States.

I heard a good sermon in Chapel today. Dr. Akin, our fearless leader, preached on Jonah, comparing Jonah's resistance to making any effort to evangelize Nineveh to our current racism and nationalism sentiments which were to some degree exposed in the apprehension and killing of Osama Bin Laden. I was sorry they killed the old man, and I would much rather they had merely put him in jail and let some of us missionaries try to save his soul.

That was the basic point I got from the sermon today, that we should not put nationalism above God, and we should feel as God does, that every lost soul is worth no end of effort to bring to salvation and subjection to God in Christ.

My two oldest sons went with me to Chapel this morning. Having woke up at 4:30, I felt that the time for Chapel came rather late in the day. Afterwards we went out on the lawn and juggled, stretched and climbed some trees. I thought about the value of being in a different place.

Recent research in education shows that children learn more effectively when they vary their study location. I could not get my boys to learn to juggle in my home. However, sitting there on the lawn with nothing else to do, after hearing a sermon in Chapel, they gave no resistance to me offering them three beanbags a piece and telling them to juggle. Each picked it up fairly well. Juggling is a good way to meditate and give your mind a break from the rigors of studying in seminary.

Right this here moment, my wife is fiddling with our brand spanking new VCR machine and TV, which we got from the Sharing Shop. Actually, they are old machines, and we got them used, but they are brand spanking new to us, and if my wife can get them to working, why we will have a new item resident in our humble abode. She handles that sort of thing far better than I, if only because I lack the indwelling interest, not to deny the value of such items; I know well how they can serve as interim babysitters in a pinch. Just settle the little guy down, give him an ice cream sandwich and pop in Barney, Franklin, Roly Poly Olie, or Thomas the Train Engine and before you know it, he is as happy as a clam.

It seems that the video machine may not work. Dunno.

I have corn chips now. Corn chips do not make me feel so bad, as food is not easily sent from one nation to another, but when I buy something that I do not certainly need, or when I cling to possession of something for which I do not have any clear use in the coming six months, then I feel guilty and need to seek out someone who could make better use of it than I.

In Daejeon, we just kept stuff, and much of it was towards the potential to start a hagwon, to serve learners of English. I had a large audience because of my teaching, and always thought it would be better to get that out of my home and in a proper vehicle for the large volume. Too, I could better serve all by focusing my time on training others to teach South Koreans, who are not identical to any other group on earth, regarding their learning proclivities and cultural baggage.

Love, Nathaniel

At Southeastern

2011-05-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Fellow Seminarians Galore,

It is morning. I am in the library at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. It is almost difficult to believe that I am here, so long have longed to be here, with my entire family safely ensconced in a good home. We live in university housing and my wife is looking for a house to buy and make it her permanent dwelling. She says she will sell only when she is too weak to care for herself anymore. (She blithely assumes I will die first and leave her behind to fend for herself, being fourteen years advanced. We'll just see about that.)

I hope, rather, that she buys the home I most favor, the old Brewer Home at 229 N. Main Street, and that we keep it in our family. Surely, of five children at least one will be interested in preserving this historic landmark. It is the oldest home here, at 170 years of age, and its peculiar structure makes it less feasible for most family needs. It has five bedrooms spread out on three floors, two on top, one in the middle and two on the ground floor.

What that means is that she does not plan to accompany me on future mission work. I have hopes of going to two places, North Korea and Sweden. These two may sound as if they comprise an odd collection, and while they do, they seem to fit with my distinctive competencies. I have experience in both nations and I speak some of the languages, Swedish and Korean.

The paucity of people who have had much word of Christ in North Korea draw me, as does the utter ignorance I found among the desperate teens in Sweden, with whom I hung out, teaching juggling, in the summer of 1993. Two of those jugglers came to visit me for a month in 1994 in Boone, NC, and then for another month in Daejeon, South Korea, in 1998. They are the essence of modernism, well educated, but greatly lacking in any spiritual fundament. Hence, they drink. And carouse, chide one another, and dance about avoiding sincere subjection to Christ.

To me, it seems that in America, young people who reject Christ generally have a much closer approximation of just who Christ is. Sadly, in Sweden, there seems to be much depravity in knowledge of Christ, though He lives in churches and the few Christians there. Perhaps it is the considerably lower percentage of Christians, accounting for this disparity. I am not sure. But the difference is palpable.

Whenever I brought up the topic, or even casually interjected certain Christian bases for my behavior or opinions on some popular political or quotidian topic, they were almost bewildered, unable to see the connection, or theretofore incapable. However, they listened and understood, unhindered by previous weaker arguments. It was in a way, all fresh to them, the application of Christ to contemporary problems in culture. This was, as you can imagine, electrifying to me, A Christian yearning to affect others towards Christ, however marginally, even just planting seeds, but real seeds with salient potential.

These teens were bright, and respected my Christ-in-me kindness and my status as a juggling teacher to them. I was "cool," if dorky and about 10 years their senior. I felt God had a special place for me there, and flirted with the idea of seeking a post in teaching English then. But, I lacked any clear ESL qualification, qualifications which I later earned upon completing my MBA studies at Appalachian State University. I merely postponed graduation after finishing all my credits and took more student loans for the Spring and summer semesters of 1995, filling them with ESL courses, earning a certificate in that area. It was a wonderful curriculum, taught by a retired Baptist preacher, Richard McGarry, who later went on to get a Ph.D. in ESL at Gainesville.

Rick was very enthusiastic and encouraging, and from his Christian background, very tolerant and sensitive to cultural differences. He had worked in Africa and could speak Swahili. I was very inspired by him in my preparation to go and serve in another culture. That, and I got all A's, something I had not done in any field since high school, to the best of my memory. Dunno.

Speaking of A's, It seems clear I will not get an A in my hermeneutics course, which is fine by me; I have learned so very much. It is not an easy course, am while I write fairly well, I am certainly in the weakest quadrant of my peers in this course regarding exegetical experience. Exegesis is not easy, in that you need a fine and comprehensive knowledge of the Bible.

And that knowledge does not really count just casual readings of the Bible, from personal Bible study, as in my experience. Rather, you must remember specific details for later comparison, and you need to have memorized many verses with their verse and chapter numbers, for subsequent reference. I don't have that, though I have read the Bible in large blocks throughout my life.

I have a feel for the Bible, which has developed over time, and it informs my life, governing the way I live and treat others. However, I cannot put my finger on specific verses so well as my peers, and I must work hard these next few years to remedy that weakness. I wonder, though, how Christians read the Bible before it was divided into verses. Perhaps they read larger blocks, not having a convenient stopping point. And surely they read the epistles in single sittings. How else should a letter of love be read?

Love, Nathaniel

Ordering Finances

2011-04-07T23:11:00.001-07:00

Dear Fellow Seminarians,

Things have been topsy-turvy here lately, as my wife parries with the government on tax issues. She needs to gather many documents to show that we are above board and beyond reproach in every legal respect.

I trust she will get it all squared away. She has a knack for that sort of thing, and like a terrier, she latches on and hangs on until she obtains the object of her task. Sometimes that degree of attention is necessary when dealing with the government.

I am doing my best to keep the children entertained and educated, fed and content, while my wife works to get our finances in order to prepare for our move to America.

I spent a long time with David, my 2-year-old, today, following him around with his three-wheeled kickboard, and then playing in the playground. He is not old enough for me to just sit down and read a book while he plays. Rather, I must be behind him when he climbs up the ladder to the 6-foot-high platform that is the playground equipment structure.

He loves the slide, and he gets into a routine, doing the slide, then running to the seesaw, then back around to the platform to go out to the extent of it and back before sliding down again.

Love, Nathaniel

The Anvil

2011-03-28T16:39:00.000-07:00

How much is too great an emphasis to place on the self? Would Jesus purchase a laptop computer? I would guess that He may merely use one, but not purchase one. Should a Christian use laptops? I have a laptop, which I got a couple of weeks ago. It is a fine and amazing machine. I believe it cost about 800 dollars, enough to send me to an African village, where I take with me the Bible and let them bury my bones there. Which would have been worth more to the Lord?

"Thankfully" for me that choice has pretty much been made, as I have five wee ones, my progeny, depending on me to raise them, educate them in English. And I have a wife to care for now. She is afraid of living in a poor nation, or a cold one (her arthritis). The fear of a poor nation may be largely due to her desire to raise her children in a safer place. Beyond that, we may have more freedom. She grew up rather poor, in the lower social class of a developing nation, South Korea in the 1970's. Her father was an enlisted man in the army for 20 years. Her mother did not go to high school.

Looking back, I feel that I should have packed up and headed out to a village without any more preparation. Yes, I could have used some preparation, and seminary has been even more useful to me than I had expected, and I expected a lot, knowing that I had a lot to learn. But, the bible has it all. Even if I were never to have learned Greek and Hebrew, I should have been OK. Even though I was blithely reading and greatly enjoying the works of allegorical interpreters ... despite all this, I have confidence that the power of the Holy Spirit guiding me in my learning and the sincerity of my heart (yes, even then, in my early twenties, not yet finished an undergraduate degree in college) would have ensured my success.

All of this is the past, but I was just thinking about this now, and am surprised at how easily I can accept this, when before I did not know what was best for me to do. My grandfather, a Southern Baptist preacher in the Carolinas for 63 years, inadvertently advised me against becoming a preacher, when he said he would not go into preaching field unless he felt so called by God as if it were like an anvil falling from heaven to hit him on the head.

Well, the anvil has fallen, and it didn't hurt. So much for that bogeyman. Living and serving (leading English Bible study groups and preaching on a fill-in basis) here in Taejeon, South Korea, has removed fear and uncertainty from my senses. Yes, there are perhaps dramatic cultural differences, but still, they are just people. And they are sensitive to salvation, having a vested interest in it.

I am content to study now, as a part time student at seminary. I see that I am making great gains in my understanding of the Bible, thanks to the faculty and guest speakers here in Chapel. But, I see a time coming when I graduate, maybe 7 years later, and my youngest child is no longer dependent on me so much. He is now two. If we adopt no children, I would be free sooner. My wife wants to live in the same house for the rest of her life. I will pray that she will come with me, but I believe God wants me to go back out to a place which has a low percentage of Baptists, and start a church.

Love, Nathaniel

Love of Technology

2011-03-10T20:44:00.000-08:00

A Cute Story from the Internet:

MOSES AND THE RED SEA

Nine-year-old Joey was asked by his mother what he had learned in Sunday School.

“Well, Mom, our teacher told us how God sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. When he got to the Red Sea, he had his army build a pontoon bridge and all the people walked across safely. Then he radioed headquarters for reinforcements. They sent bombers to blow up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved.”

“Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher taught you?” his Mother asked.

“Well, no, Mom.. But, if I told it the way the teacher did, you'd never believe it!”

My Thoughts:

This boy is under the impression that a technology solution to a difficult problem is intrinsically more credible than a divine solution.

How badly do we need so much technology? Though we should not, do we sometimes love it more than The Word? Is love best understood as that to which we give our most frequent and abiding attention?

Could Christians not live in closer community, sharing large communal homes, thereby reducing our per capita consumption, freeing ourselves for more time in prayer, Bible study, and service?

Love, Nathaniel

Washing Clothes

2011-03-10T18:22:00.000-08:00

Dear Fellow Seminarians:

I received a recipe for washing clothes from a friend, via e-mail. The point was to help us reflect on "how good we have it," with our automatic washing machines, and by extension, other labor saving devices.

The price of oil has continued dropping steadily as a unit of human labor for many decades now. We Christians know that God expects us to work. Our entitlement society has grown a fairly large segment of idle people, in addition to a fairly protected class of workers in public unions.

In the past, work was not optional, in the sense that it is today. If you are homeless for a year, that greatly aids your application for psychological disability. Food comes more easily now, from the Green Revolution of the 1940's. We can get fat with less effort. With all of our free time, we have a duty to make our own work, and the work of prayer and fasting is perhaps one of the best usages of our time.

Love, Nathaniel

************************************

"Washing Clothes Recipe"

Years ago an Alabama grandmother gave the new bride the following recipe:

This is an exact copy as written and found in an old scrapbook - spelling errors and all.

WASHING CLOTHES
Build fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water. Set tubs so smoke wont blow in eyes if wind is pert. Shave one hole cake of lie soap in boilin water.
Sort things, make 3 piles
1 pile white,
1 pile colored,
1 pile work britches and rags.
To make starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth, then thin down with boiling water.
Take white things, rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard, and boil, then rub colored don't boil just wrench and starch.
Take things out of kettle with broom stick handle, then wrench, and starch.
Hang old rags on fence.
Spread tea towels on grass.
Pore wrench water in flower bed. Scrub porch with hot soapy water.
Turn tubs upside down.
Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with hair combs. Brew cup of tea, sit and rock a spell and count your blessings.
================================================
Paste this over your washer and dryer the next time when you think things are bleak, read it again, kiss that washing machine and dryer, and give thanks… First thing each morning you should run and hug your washer and dryer. For you non-southerners - wrench means, rinse.

Wine Diatribe

2011-02-22T21:32:00.001-08:00

Dear Fellow Seminarians:

I am probably one of the weakest in our class regarding background information. Yet, listening to these lectures has blessed me with a most felicitous unending impetus to acquire more knowledge of the historical context from the time of Jesus' Earthly ministry. In other words, I'm dying to get on with the study of the historical context ... um, while at the same time, I need to abide by my promise to my penurious wife that I will buy no more texts until we get to America 22nd April -- lest we get incur the 35-dollar cost for shipping each text to South Korea, higher than Amazon's cost to ship to other cultures. Hence, I would appreciate any websites that you, my peers, can recommend, having used them enough to know they are based on inerrancy and plenary scholarship.

I do know that just in my short life, I have borne witness to wide distortions in my ability to understand things when perceiving them from a different time period. Poetry I wrote thirty years ago is unrecognizable by me, as if it came from a different person's pen. I even wish now that I had known to take both Greek and Hebrew courses prior to beginning this class in hermeneutics, for which I yet five weeks into the course harbor this inexplicable urge to spell as "Hermaneutics."

I have little to add (and forgive me if the brunt of what I give is preaching to the choir or beating a dead horse for you), but would like to repeat and add to some of what Dr. Akin said in one of his chapel sermons and in one of his lectures (lecture 13 if the numbering is the same on the lectures Distance Learning sent me... a fact I have come to doubt in my class notes versus lectures confusion).

Wine:

Wine is not the same animal today, but a horse of a different color. No one seriously argues you cannot infer the proscription against other mind-altering drugs (from Ephesians 5:18), but people still feel content to drink a little wine here and there, with their meals (yes to be sure, pinky extended, as is de rigeur among those in the know), elegant surroundings, fine music, and feel cultured, but astonishingly, not remiss in any moral manner, rather, resting smugly confident on their cursory, "ahistorical" readings of:

1. Titus 1:15 ( To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.) and

2. 1st Timothy 5:23 "Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.." (Maybe I am wrong, but to me that sounds medicinal, and specific to the individual, Timothy. I don't have frequent illnesses. I am 49 and I bike to work every day, 35 minutes each way. Exercise, as I see it, is not only generally good for my health, but as well, may indeed undergird the buttress the fortuitous constitution which permits me to consume together with my burgeoning brood a bag of corn chips galore at times with a certain measure of impunity.J)

I have read that wine was mixed with water long ago. Also, wine was not fortified, leaving it with a lower percentage of alcohol, even before it was commonly cut with water. Taking that and the obvious fact that distilleries abounded not 2000 years ago into consideration, I still recognize family and community structure as being the most salient differences affecting alcohol consumption. Please bear with me, as I clearly recognize my argument is not so scholarly, and largely conjectural, seat-of-the-pants, with me weighing in as an upstart armchair anthropologist.

Without birth control families were larger on average. Without political correctness people could be nosier, and social norms, including shame, could be more freely exercised to curb unwarranted behavior. Yes, older pariahs probably did not care so much anymore what society thought of them, and were somewhat tolerated in the community, but I bet a huge majority of teens more likely toed the line, lest they lose all opportunity of securing a decent marriage. If they had had distilled alcohol then, I feel sure elders would have instated a social control system with women leading enforcement, to the effect that children could only taste a smidgeon, and then only on holidays.

Teens could not lock themselves in their rooms, or sneak out to an unknown section of the city to purchase illicit goods at a convenience store. When I had but one child, I was more doting, and less likely to counter an aberrant tendency. The more children you have, the more natural immunity you get from spoiling one child. Back when families were larger, fathers would break a door down if they suspected something amiss, say some nefarious under-aged drinking were afoot. Today, nuclear families are smaller, grandparents do not live with their grandchildren (losing one more source of wise monitoring), and teens have much more (too much I think) unmonitored independence to make choices about alcohol.

Even not considering alcohol, teens are apt to make some really stupid choices at times, left utterly to their own devices. That is just part and parcel with being a teen. It goes with the territory. I'm sorry, but I believe teens need no better than today's low level of adult monitoring in their daily lives about like I need another hole in my head.

BIGGEST CULTURAL DIFFERENCE:

But the biggest difference I see is in the mega-marketing campaigns that multinational brewers are able to throw in our faces through TV, movies, and other mass media. Mass media did not exist back then, so small groups who wanted to make a buck on any product just did not have anything comparable to the marketing tools and reach that we have today, meaning they had incredibly less incentive to invest much time and resources in putting together such incredibly luring advertisements.

If, 2000 years ago, a bunch of scantily clad girls came dancing into my home for 30 seconds in a dynamically, well-rehearsed show revolving about the singular purpose of getting my children to start drinking their kind of alcohol once they come of age, while I hope I would not kick them to the curb, I would definitely have a problem with that. Today, such invasions are a culturally accepted piece of cake.

What's more, who is to say that the average Joe father may actually want to see the girls dance about in his living room, safely ensconced on the screen (Hey, it's not his fault they suddenly popped up on a family friendly program, is it?), dressed no more fully than Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, and think it worth the risk to just let the TV continue droning on.

Young people (say, 10 to 25) may well sport the quintessential stage of human beings most worthy of meriting the dubious dubbing "Most Impressionable," and a TV cannot be accurately described as any less than an incorrigible invasion of the sanctity of one's home. Neither are modern day working mothers at home so much anymore, to censor and then censure TV commercials. There is a huge cultural difference in marketing, and we ignore that at our peril.

The greater the cultural difference, I say the more prudently we should rely upon the principal of inference to reasonable caution regarding proscription of dangers to sin.

Thirty seconds of Superbowl ad time went for about three million dollars this year. I saw one article which calculated that as a deceptively great deal, with the actual value being perhaps ten times that, considering the value of residual presence on the web, beyond the one shot performance in "real time," when all eyes are glued to the TV.

Many young people cite the great correlation recent medical research shows for reduction of dementia and stroke and longer life associated with moderate alcohol use, and this is true. But what is often left out of news reports of this sort of research is the ineluctable fact that regular aerobic exercise still contributes considerably more to maintenance of the ole noggin than anything else, producing new brain cells, reducing stress and thus and such.

But, I realize, exercise lacks pizzazz; it is a tough marketing ploy to position the act of huffing and puffing about your neighborhood for thirty minutes at the crack of dawn each day as an electrifying alluring trend that you just must get involved in, and pay the latest rates.

Love, Nathaniel

In the final analysis, no, I would not require a teetotalers' alcohol abstinence pledge from members in order to join my church, but everyone there would know just how stupid I think it is to not speak out, but to sanguinely (and tacitly in one's tepid passivity) pay lip service to the current social norms which casually permit the college drinking culture to flourish as it does, wherein 1 in 12 who take their first sip become alcoholics. That is just plain stupid. By what noble metric do you calculate the lost value of one life destroyed by alcohol?

Beer Stinks. Rebekah Faith Wright Hampton, on old Baptist Mountain lady from Boone, NC, a dear friend of mine, with whom I used to sit and while away the afternoons (when perhaps I should have been studying better on my MBA course) in her government subsidized apartment above The Curiosity Shop, across the street from The Jones House, once told me when I asked her what she thought about beer, "For all I care, they can just put it back in the horse!" Amen to that. She's got my vote for mayor, or University president. Only, she has passed on to be with her Heavenly Father about eleven years ago. She was not educated past about middle school, but she left me with many kernels of wisdom.

Note: I feel quite differently about the consideration of allowing the medically approved (in each case) allocation of one glass of 6-8 percent wine for lunch each day in an old folk's home. This would be for people who were already moderate drinkers when they came into the home.

Coed Wrestling

2011-02-19T16:38:00.000-08:00

Dear Fellow Seminarians:

I am having a wonderful time studying in my hermeneutics class. It is all pretty new to me and the content is at once challenging and wonderful. I have listened to some lectures twice and hope to listen to all lectures twice. I came to seminary expecting to improve my ability to bring the Gospel to others. It did not occur to me that the study of the various courses would improve the quality of my life so much as it has. Now, I would attend seminary even if I never expected to work in the field.

We had a busy two weeks getting our home ready for sale. My children seem to be happy. They enjoy studying on their own, but life should change for them once they move into a school in North Carolina. They have never been in an English-speaking school before.

Here is an article which mentions a young man who, for his Christian faith elected to forfeit a wrestling match to a girl. I applaud his integrity, making a decision which cost him a shot at the state championship. I believe he made this decision out of respect for the female body, thinking the sexual difference a sacred one, not to be tampered with by the hands of man.

Record-setting Iowa female wrestler's state tourney run ends

Here is a quote from the young man's father, who is a volunteer army chaplain : "I don't believe there are any specific pieces of Scripture that address this particular issue," Jamie Northrup told the Register. "But as men, the Bible talks to us about loving our wives, protecting our families, being there, as an older brother, just to protect his home and his sisters.

"And so, I would say that's more of a principle that we're following. We just don't believe that in a combat sport, a boy should be going against a girl in this manner." End Quote:

The Fireman's Carry: is a move that I learned from my juggling partner, Tom Gabriel (who turned down a wrestling scholarship to The Citadel). This move requires an arm shot through the crotch of the opponent. I cannot do that to a woman unless perhaps she be my wife. And then, I had better definitively win or plan to gently lose, as per usual -- no sitting on the pot like some pathetically effete aesthete who honestly cannot decide whether there truly exists an absolute moral precept that he might use to best guide his life and keep him from greater peril, as it were.

This is a touchy subject, I realize, in the sense that one does not want to regress on the truly positive gains which have been made for females, or gains in which it seems clear the Christians should have a strong interest in securing and maintaining. And, do not I wish to present myself as some chauvinistic fuddy-duddy who is ever out-of-step with the times. Hence, I strongly believe my sons should have the freedom to decide for themselves whether they might wrestle against a female when they go to high school.

Freedom of Conscience:
If for example, one of my boys, as a young man in his high school wrestling program, meditates deeply for several days and decides from the depths of his heart that he should extend a welcoming hand to the opposite sex, as a sincere gesture of his desire to support the equality of the sexes and reduce sexual discrimination (or for any other noble reason), and thereupon elects to wrestle against a female opponent -- then by golly he can sleep in the yard and eat at the dumpster behind Harris Teeter until he sees the error of his ways and apologizes to his mother and sister ... not that I have anything against him thinking independently and with the deepest sincerity and all.

It is just that you can entertain the most noble thoughts on earth and be flat wrong, and in your error cause untold harm to manifold souls. That, and I also believe that a father who knows better and neglects to make his opinion indelibly clear to his children on a significant moral issue can be guilty of paternal malpractice.

Expert:
If I am anything, I am not a genius. I have no Ph.D. and have no reason to expect I will ever be an expert in anything. Besides, my earthly father always told me that experts were overrated, "An expert is just a little pert away from home."

Bless his heart. I shall stop now for thirty minutes to call his wife, my mother, and keep her company. She has Alzheimer's so she does not remember my phone call from yesterday, or the day before. But, she always remembers me. I will read to her from the Psalms, and we'll do the Lord's Prayer together, using the original King James version.

Wrestling is a great sport, I think, even if you do catch more skin diseases than in other sports. I want all of my boys to wrestle. Besides that, they cannot avoid wrestling and boxing in their first year of physical education if they go to a military college.

Separate but Equal:

I also do not see why girls cannot wrestle in their own league, just like they do in basketball, softball and other sports, if they are so keen to wrestle. My daughter would make a good wrestler, so strong is she. I helped her do pull-ups from the time she was very young. She is descended from the Mongolian warriors who conquered this land under Ghengis Khan. They, too, were pretty good wrestlers.

Text Paucity:
I cannot write long now, as I should listen to more lectures. We will get to NC on the 23rd of April, later than we had expected, but necessitated by our sales contract, as the buyer has to have time to sell her other home first in order to be able to pay us.

The upshot is that will continue to study with a paucity of texts. I need to buy some reference books to help me with my exegesis. Dr. Akin says we need at least 6 to 8 sources, at a bare minimum, for our papers. My wife does not want me to order any more books from Amazon, because I pay 36 dollars in shipping each time I order one.

Love, Nathaniel

Sins of the Grandfathers

2011-02-06T17:25:00.001-08:00

Why do I love this news article, "Sins of The Grandfathers"? I love it because it confirms my faith in God's Word. The Bible tells us that sin carries on down through the generations. As an educator, I have seen the truth of this in a psychological sense, and I am pleased to see it confirmed in a very physical sense.

I believe it very important for fathers to be home with their children and read the Bible to them, as well as play with them, taking them outside to play, and being with them, enjoying life together with them, even if that means families earn less money, and can afford less supplemental education.

I believe children end up needing less supplemental education if fathers give ample time to moral education, which cannot be abbreviated.

Here is an article stating that world-wide obesity rates have doubled since 1980. No one would claim that to be grossly overweight is God's intention. We have a better understanding now that excessive fat on a human body is not only uncomfortable to carry and debilitating to one's dating calendar and marriage prospects, but also detrimental to one's physical health in a major way.

Christians need to lead the way towards healthier lifestyles, wherein we keep a clean outlook towards worldly passions, eating not for pursuit of pleasure to the extent of ignoring a sense of prudence regarding which foods and quantities are appropriate for optimal health. I believe only Christians are able to maintain a lifelong focus on moral improvement, inasmuch as they have the proper tools to continually reduce their participation in sin. I believe the Bible expects this much of us, moral growth, so much so that it appears to others that we verily lose our evil preference for sin so little do we choose it anymore.

Love, Nathaniel

Self Introduction for Hermeneutics Class

2011-01-25T21:17:00.000-08:00

Dear Fellow Seminarians:

While I am genuinely worried about the difficulty of this class and whether I can handle it, I am excited to be enrolled in it. I have a bachelors of science in liberal arts. I have taught English in Taejeon, South Korea, for the past fourteen years.

I am an MDiv student in Christian Ethics. I have preached some here in South Korea, on a volunteer fill-in basis and I lead English Bible study groups. I feel a strong need to get help in my study of the Bible, to become a better preacher. I expect to get much help from my experience at Southeastern.

Having lived apart from the U.S. for half my adult life, and having been isolated from Southern Baptists for that long, I feel strong sentiments when I realize the fullness of the beauty that remains in my mind regarding the culture to which I am on the cusp of returning, a culture which to me is a bastion of believers who share my feelings on inerrancy, something that is not at all common here in South Korea, where all too many of my Christian friends and students claim to be “Christians but…,” meaning they can agree with ninety-some percent of the Bible.

What is that? It is not inerrancy, while it is the dominant environment of the culture in which I have lived and taught English for the past fourteen years. The one salient aspect missing, the thing that sticks out so much for me emotionally, has been the paucity here of the “Spontaneous Inerrancy of Ma and Pa Baptist” that was so common in churches from my stomping grounds, the foothills of North Carolina. Christianity here is relatively new and seems to be strongly correlated with material acquisitiveness.

Watching Chapel videos and reading my texts are poignant to me, in the autumn of my life, given the warmth I feel anticipating a return for formal study of God’s Word, an environment which stands in stark contrast with the difficulties I have experienced at times, living somewhat as a “stranger in a strange land.” Than within this current situation of my transition to the lifestyle of a seminarian in residence, I don’t know that I have ever had such positive anticipation in my life, so warm and eager are my feelings. I expect to be surrounded by vibrant, sincere Christians on all quarters for the next few years, all who speak English well.

And I don’t mean to gloss over the bumps and rough places, idealizing the culture of my youth. Of course I realize all is not always gravy in the Bible Belt, Land of grits, country ham and red-eyed gravy. I am sure I will be tempted to add to my beltline once I return to the land of my youth next month. I will have to make a conscious effort to watch my waist with assiduous care, now that I am considerably older and less capable of just “exercising it off” at the drop of a hat.

Please pray for my family to have a smooth transition with a minimum of culture shock when I bring them to the U.S. I just got news this morning that we successfully received a Green Card Immigrant Visa for my South Korean wife. Now, we merely need to sell some property to have something to live off of while at SEBTS, pare down possessions, pack our belongings and arrange for shipping that which we cannot carry with us on the plane.

Love, Nathaniel

Moving to Campus

2010-12-21T20:11:00.000-08:00

Dear Fellow Seminarians:

I am nearly finished with this semester of teaching at Hannam University. All along, despite problems with apathetic students who refuse to do homework or prepare for tests, even when I merely pluck the same questions from their grammar book to serve as test questions, I have taken comfort in the primary goal of Hannam University, which is as follows:

The primary goal of Hannam University is to educate competent leaders who will serve their nation and their church based on Christian principles.

Having this goal provided me with considerable liberty to comfortably require students to treat each other according to The Golden Rule, which often rubbed them the wrong way. I look forwards to moving on campus. I expect we will live in 511 Rice Circle. Stop in to say hello if you have time and the inclination. We will be glad to see you.

Love, Nathaniel

My Gentle Mother

2010-11-08T05:15:00.000-08:00

Above you see my wife and her mother reading Holy Scripture before the grave or my father-in-law, here in Taejeon, South Korea, Land of the Morning Calm. My father-in-law was lost all his life, until his death bed confession, a recitation of the Nicene Creed in Korean language, repeating after two nuns who came by the hospital. That was the greatest present he could have left for the two women in this picture. That man loved his wife and daughter.

I do not know whether it would be better for me to take two courses or three next semester as an intrepid seminarian.

If I take only two courses, I suspect it might better enable me to be flexible with regard to the needs of my children as they move into a new society, begin English based public school for the first time ever, start Church youth activities, such as choir, hand bells, et cetera, and

I suspect it will be a welcome breeze for my family to adapt to life in a much larger home on a farm, with each child having his own room. We expect to raise goats for milk, if feasible, and have a king-sized garden. Putting my children to work in the dirt should be a divine experience for them.

My gentle mother saw God's handiwork in the garden we kept each year. She loved to go out after a rain and pull up roots by the weeds, shake the clinging dirt from their roots, and lay them aside to bake in the unforgiving sun and die as they should.

I have been enjoying reading from Walter Kaiser's website recently, since he gave the Chapel message at SEBTS a few weeks ago. It is a great pleasure to read his contributions on our understanding of the authority of women in the church. It may be that women are not required to be silent in church. That would open new vistas for Southern Baptist women, permitting them to stand and speak in Church.

We have First Timothy 2:11-12: Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

¹²But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

My children are at peace now. No one is arguing. At least one of them is watching a DVD in one of the back rooms. I can hear just about everything from my office cum classroom. I have taught more than 32,000 hours here, and am preparing to leave it in two or three months.

If I take three courses at seminary this next semester, I could advance more quickly, and enjoy the stimulus. I could be preaching sooner, perhaps within a year or two, if there be some countryside church agreeable to hire me.

I wonder whether, though, I would feel that I should not leave them, if I follow the Lord and preach as well as I possibly can, and become thoroughly involved in the church, helping her to grow and reach out to those in Her surrounding community. I do not think it is appropriate to think of preaching at a small countryside church as a temporary job while one finishes seminary, just to begin "bringing home the bacon."

I will continue to pray for direction on the number of seminary courses I should take this next spring. My father pointed out to me once that I have a tendency to get too many irons in the fire. I should be careful to avoid that, taking on more than I can handle. I am fortunate that I have enough money to hold me steady for awhile, probably not needing to work until I graduate.

However, I will be doing a lot to care for my children, and I have five so far. I will be the primary child care provider and home educator, it seems, continuing a job I have performed here for the past decade, while my wife studied and got her English abilities up to speed. She is about to finish her second master's degree (in ESL, at Shenandoah University, VA), and should be qualified to teach in a NC public school before too long. That should help some on our income.

Israel Evangelism

2010-10-25T20:25:00.001-07:00

I am enjoying my seminary studies more now. I learn much from the chapel messages. I wish there were a more lively discussion going on with the chapel messages, among students. I have not seen postings from another student. It may be that I merely do not know how to navigate the site, and comments can be viewed somewhere, though I know not yet where.

I had a thought today. I would like to serve God in Israel. How many Southern Baptist missionaries are there in Israel? One site I checked had an ongoing discussion wherein some posters reflected a belief that it was illegal to evangelize in Israel, while another poster said that it has been legal since 1996.

I thought I could perhaps get my foot in the door as an English teacher. I would hope to join a Baptist church there and offer to teach Sunday School and preach at the English services they have, if I can find such an opportunity. We'll see. For now, I am delighted to be a seminarian, and have several years ahead of me. I just can't help but wonder sometimes about where I will be serving in the future. I am sure God will open those doors when the time comes.

I cannot study full time (15 hours a semester), as I am a father of five children, ages 2 to 12, and they need me much, given that my wife is a South Korean who is studying hard to acquire English now. We will move to Wake Forest, NC, in February of next year. She depends heavily on me to help care for our children. I love the time I have with my children.

I will include a photo of us together in a local park here in Daejeon.

Love, Nathaniel

Studying On Campus

2010-09-07T23:16:00.000-07:00

Dear Fellow SEBTS Students,

I just heard a good sermon from Robert Gallaty, entitled "When a Divine Appointment Meets a Desperate Situation." He spoke on the following:

1. The Sovereignty of God

2. The Humanity of Christ

3. The Distress of the Disciples

4. The Authority of Jesus

5. The Identity of Jesus

I enjoy listening to Chapel messages. Living in South Korea, I am at a disadvantage, not being able to engage in face-t0-face communion with other students and professors. I miss that.

I started college in a school in North Carolina. I greatly enjoyed that time. The campus had large oak trees scattered on large grass lawns, and ivy running up the sides of the classrooms. The whole place had a special feel of scholarship to me. That was a good while ago, 1979.

Now, I soon expect to be in college again. I yearn for the in-class experience. Studying distance learning, while a wonderful experience, is just not the same for me, as being in the same room with my peers and professors. I expect it will be some sort of heaven on earth for me, particularly once my wife becomes gainfully employed, as she worries about this sort of thing.

I do not worry. I feel confident that she will eventually get employment, but she is much younger than I, and has never worked in the U.S. My wife is South Korean. She is finishing up a master's degree in ESL at Shenandoah University. She has completed 27 hours of a 33 hour program. She hopes to teach ESL in a North Carolina public school.

Love, Nathaniel

The Results of Unloving Feminism

2010-08-04T22:16:00.001-07:00

I just read, "Have you turned your man into a hermaphrodite?"

Quote: "Many of us are so focused, decisive and assertive, that the only role left for our husbands is one where they comply and let us take charge – traditionally feminine traits. But the irony is, we don't actually want men like that, and we end up eventually resenting them for not being more dominant and fearless."

I am a big fan of feminism wherever it does not perfunctorily vitiate Truth, Love and Beauty, Justice and thus and such, and I write this not only because I have a daughter and wish to see her grow in a culture that does not inadvertently impair her potential to grow as a fully feminine child of God. I pray that my daughter, Charlotte Ashley, will continue in the same vein she has traveled this past decade, and maintain feminine virtue, contrite towards God, empathetic to every living creature, loving towards her family and friends, beautifully concerned with the emotional and aesthetic aspects of her surroundings, to a degree greater than any of her four boisterous brothers.

I have always loved feminism (and being an inveterate bibliophile, dutifully collected a formidable array of classic books on the topic, from the early years, when, really, the movement was most interesting) because it purports a concern for that which is feminine, or should, at any rate. Unloving feminism is a sad substitute for the responsible love of the feminine.

The truth, as in all things, is that an intimate understanding of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is an essential prerequisite to any social works or movements that may be hoped to achieve their fullest, most enduring value. Without this, you are shortchanged not only in love (For God is love.), but as well, in your ability to apperceive moral value.

This hasn't changed recently. It is not a new concept, but it is one which eludes too many young writers who would try to build something of lasting social value. I am pleased with my daughter's growth in Christ. She takes her turn reading the Bible at night and joins gladly in our prayers. I aim to enable her to become like the Virtuous Woman of Proverbs 31:

¹⁶She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.

¹⁷She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.
¹⁸She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.
¹⁹She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.

As such, I have worked to help Ashley become good at pull-ups, to where she is a formidable arm wrestler for her age and size. Too, she can beat me at pah-dook, considered by some to be the most challenging cognitive game. Baduk is great for the mind, I believe, and given that we have lived here in South Korea without access to English based schooling, coupled with the fact that my children lack sufficient Korean language skills to profitably engage the formal learning process of public schools here (and avoid ridicule and bullying, which are ubiquitous among the common populace), I have elected to supplement their elementary education with a variety of skills which I deemed high quality vis-a-vis their pedagogical import, and at the same time, relatively cheap and accessible in respect to the quite divergent skills which I confidently expect should be more readily available -- so much that we might verily say, "be at their beck and call" -- in the public educational outlets in our little nook of America, once we move there in February of 2011. In this, I have tried to coordinate the straddling of two cultures, and pluck the best value of each for my children's education, under trying conditions where both my wife and I have striven to provide for the material needs in our first culture, while beefing up our educational qualifications for our prospective, second culture, that and properly raising our burgeoning brood of Ashley plus four rambunctious boys.

Not to make an abject tobacco spitting tomboy of her, yes, I have guided her with assisted pull-ups and consistent encouragement to develop the strength of her body. Nonetheless, concurrently, for her emotional development and potential for anything approximating a heavenly marriage, I have consistently impressed upon my daughter the importance of "being submissive to her husband in all things," (Ephesians 5:24) without which, it goes without saying, she could scarcely ever fulfill her destiny to become a fully mature female, to manifest the feminine potential seeded by God within her.

Love, Nathaniel

Pray For Us in Our Church Search

2010-03-13T19:35:00.000-08:00

Dear Fellow Seminarians,

After reading Student Loan Chutzpah on the Wall Street Journal's website, I found myself feeling ever more grateful that out school does not cooperate with the nationally subsidized program.

We lost our native speaker preacher at the church we were attending at the end of February. That was Joong Moon Baptist Church. They had a special "English only" Sunday School taught by Patricia Rocks (from California), the preacher's wife. Now we are bereft of a teacher for my children. Also, the church has not yet hired a pastor, and when they do, my wife predicts it will be a South Korean who studied in the U.S. at seminary. She says there is an abundance of such young men, who need a job.

However, my children cannot understand what South Korean adults say when they speak English, even in normal conversation. It takes a special linguistic skill, one that I have practiced much. Learning Korean helps you to fill in the gaps and reorder their sentences to get a good fit in English and approximate their intended meaning via guesswork.

We will hence be looking for another church. It may be that we will end up going back to one of our old churches way across town, and go back to paying an arm and a leg for taxi transportation. We do not have a car. My wife is very sensitive to pecuniary matters, believing "a penny saved is a penny earned." And you can't easily blame her, as she was raised in a poor family, with a taxi-driver as a father of three. Too, she has five children of her own, who demand all the time we have.

I will post more later. Please pray for us now, as we are in a bind. I aim to find out the meeting times of the university church on the campus where I work in my new job, teaching English in the biotechnology department of Hannam University.

I am pretty sure that they do not have an English worship service, but would be happy to preach for them, if they were interested. I would need no income. To do that, I would merely need some church members to promise to look after my little ones while I preached. People have done that in the past, quite willingly.

Love, Nathaniel

A New Job

2010-03-04T22:09:00.000-08:00

Dear Fellow Seminarians,

The following verse I found posted on the President's page of my university. I am new to this school, at least as a full time faculty member, working in the biotechnology department of Hannam University.

"If God doesn’t build the house, the builders only build shacks. If God doesn’t guard the city,
the night watchmen might as well nap. It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late, and work
your worried fingers to the bone. Won’t you know He enjoys giving rest to those He
loves?"(Psalm 127:1-2)

He also wrote:
"I give this poem to the students who have been loved by God, Douglas Malloch’s ‘Be the best of whatever you are’."

If you can’t be a pine on the Top of the Hill,
Be a scrub in the valley – but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be bush if you can’t be a tree

If you can’t be a bush be a bit of the grass,
And some highway happier make;
If you can’t be a muskie then just be a bass
But the liveliest bass in the Lake!

We can’t all be captains; we’ve got to be crew,
There’s something for all of us here,
There a big work to do, and there’s lesser to do
And the task you must do is the near.

If you can’t be a highway then just be a trail,
If you can’t be the sun be a star;
It isn’t by size that you win or you fail
Be the best of whatever you are!

I thought this was beautiful, and noted it as unusual in this culture, to emphasize humility and acceptance of any position. Here in South Korea there is a pronounced emphasis on being a leader. Schools posit themselves as institutions for making "future leaders" in society. There is rarely any positive comment on the value of being a good follower. But here, Mr. Kim shows his understanding of that. Acquiring this understanding in this culture and having the courage to voice it bespeaks much wisdom on his part. I hope to meet him some day.

Love, Nathaniel

A Friend Leaving Town

2010-02-23T12:40:00.001-08:00

Dear Fellow Seminarians:

A friend leaves town today. I will miss him. He came over many Saturdays to join in a semi-regular ex-pat coffee-klastch we had at my home in the late mornings. He has a Pentecostal and Methodist family background, which we thought similar to my Baptist background, or more similar than that of our other coffee-klastch regulars, which included a few Muslims (from Pakistan), one Catholic (from New Zealand), one yogi (Australian), and an elderly lady from Tennessee and the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

I have yearned for association with more Baptists here in Daejeon, and while I knew one, from my first university posting here, at Mokwon University, I felt oddly semi-estranged by him, or just not warmly welcomed, so unlike all the Baptists I knew from my hometown, Taylorsville, and those of my college, UNC Chapel Hill. I saw him at church from time to time, when we went across town to the only English service we knew of at that time. He seemed pleased to see us there, but I did not sense any especial affirmation of our common belief as Baptists that extended outside the time in Church.

He has remained unmarried throughout the fourteen years I have known him, and expressed an interest in marriage in the abstract, whenever I mentioned it, but never any concrete plans or sense of duty to pursue marriage within any existing romance, which in a sense is fine, given that not all are called to that office. However, the perplexing thing is the fact that he indeed dates. He nearly always seems to be in a relationship, and I wonder if he is not just too picky, expecting "the perfect girl," and may just not realize how picky he is.

I believe that you marry to whom you feel God calls you, and that from there, you together allow God to continue His creation and perfection of you ... not that we will ever be perfect before heaven, but that we could expect to see evident signs of progress all along the way. And any persistent absence of such signs should be a warning to take some time out to contemplate and pray.

Love, Nathaniel

Reflections on Alcohol

2010-02-13T16:54:00.000-08:00

Dear Fellow Christians,

Today is a holiday in South Korea, the Lunar New Year. This is the biggest holiday, and as such is responsible for the most alcohol sales in the week leading up to this day. I believe South Koreans were number two in the world for per capita alcohol consumption, next to the Great Bear, Russia, where the women do a lot to help out with the numbers, meaning the men of Russia need not drink as much as the men here.

One thing is sure here in the Land of the Morning Calm; women who drink more than a modicum are not well-received. If only that were true of men as well, we would have a decent nation, following what I understand to be Christian principle. It does not take but a rather small amount of alcohol on a daily basis to move oneself into the categories which shine so well on research results which purport benefits to the brain, and specifically protection against dementia.

I do not drink at all, but I recognize that there is probably some physiological benefit to consumption of a small quantity on a daily basis. My father said an eighty-some-year-old female patient of his took a "toddy" every day, one tablespoon of whiskey. That was about thirty years ago, when he told me of that, and before research began to show so much benefit to the brain from moderate consumption. Even then, my dad said he did not advise her against it, as she was clearly in control, never drank more than that tablespoon in a day.

My father, a doctor in Taylorsville, NC, also told me that one in twelve people who take their first drink will become an alcoholic. More people die each year from alcohol abuse than all other drugs put together (excepting tobacco). Why would anyone want to risk something like that? Most say, "Well, I am not the kind of person to lose control." implying the one in twelve was doomed from the start not so much because of his genetic predisposition, but because of his moral failings, weak character.

However, a Christian is a person who has stood before God and most candidly admitted that he cannot handle his life on his own. That does not bode well for anyone about to dabble in mind-altering substances, does it? I don't know; I don't want to utterly judge all of our fellow Christians in other congregations, who regularly imbibe more than we.

I heard from my father that his father, a Baptist preacher, used to in jest call Episcopalians "Whiskeypalians." I have a high school friend who is Episcopalian, and drinks a lot, in the high class society of Salisbury, NC. He is a beloved and dear friend, and expresses sincere reflections on Christ, gleaned through his communion in his church. I only wish he were independent of alcohol, and could realize that his church's accepting culture enables his degree of consumption.

Too, I believe that many of the benefits of alcohol in protecting the brain may be available equally through other means, such as aerobic exercise.

It is time for me to take my children to the English children's service now. Have a happy Sabbath.

Love, Nathaniel

Sneaking Around

2010-01-29T00:20:00.000-08:00

Above, Jordan and Ashley are showing off a pair of "backwards taut-line hitches" I tied to make an adjustable binding for Jordan's toy hand guard.

Dear Fellow SEBTS Students:

Below is a photo of Mount Massive from Leadville, Colorado. I lived there for part of one winter and three summers. I worked with a youth group in the summer of 1987. We hiked up Mount Elbert, the neighbor to this mountain, just across a pass. Two boys, another counselor, and I went all the way up. It was well above the tree line, with just little animals, maybe marmots, darting around, and a few small flowers amid the rocks. And I suppose I remember there was lichen, too, on the rocks. I loved that sense of sparseness of life. I used to hike that and other mountains there alone.

I felt most close to God, back then, not being busy with quotidian concerns of caring for others as currently. And yet, I knew that I was not a complete man without a wife. I could feel intensely that God had plans for me to marry, and that my life would not be complete without me duteously following that plan of marriage.

I had no idea whom I would marry, and no idea where God would lead me to find the wife He had chosen for me before the beginning of Time. Sometimes it is a very fine sensation to dwell on this, how God considers so well each of us. If you cannot feel properly loved by contemplating the love God has for you, then you're never going to feel loved. You have too much against Love.

That part of the Colorado mountains was in the center of the state, forming a horseshoe shaped line of the continental divide looping around the valley in which was ensconced the sleepy town of Leadville. Only four thousand people inhabited that town back then, and I appreciated that the place had ample space amid Her citizenry.

Cleaning and Organizing:

Today has been a pleasant, but busy day. I welcome the chance to sit down here and just type. I have been cleaning and reorganizing. I need to sneak out and get my hair cut, as I will go before a committee of austere men this next week to sign a contract for work at Hannam University.

I have a full beard, and my hair is about 5-8 centimeters long, maybe 2 inches, which is too much for me, given that I am balding. I believe balding men look kind of strange if they try to grow hair and comb it over the top, from one side to the other. Invariably, you have to use some kind of grease, and that looks as fake as it is. Alternatively, without the grease, long hair on a man as bald as I looks scraggly, like he is some vagabond sleeping outside eschewing commitment to a place and group of people.

I'll sneak out now to a hair salon across the road, and be back in a jiffy. If my youngest son sees me leaving, he will surely demand to go with me. Well, I am back. I got out the door without much ado, and now I am sporting a better image, something that should not scare the neighbors when they pass me in the twilight.

Love, Nathaniel

Excitement

2010-01-06T18:19:00.000-08:00

Dear Fellow Students:

Excitability:
I am excited, in a rare way. I have finally saved enough money and arranged sufficient time to study a course in Church History with Dr. David Hogg at SEBTS. I chose his course over another that had an open seat because it is rigorous. Looking at his syllabus from last spring semester it seem clear that there is a much lesser chance that I can earn an "A," or even a "B" than in perhaps another course at the school.

Shipping Books:
However, I am delighted to be in the course. I have but one snag and I think the school administration is taking care of it for me, though it is taking awhile; it's now Thursday and I wanted to get registered and paid up on Monday so I could see this year's syllabus and order all the books I need from Amazon. The school bookstore (Lifeway) offers a discount of 20 percent which would help us, but they do not ship internationally. I thought about asking a Raleigh-based friend of mine to buy the books for me and ship them to me, but then realized that that would not really be fair, given that it would save only perhaps twenty or thirty dollars, and take him a couple of hours. No good.

A Frugal Wife:
However, that is exactly what my wife would do if she were to live in the U.S. while I were here. She cuts corners to save every penny. She sews my children's pants when they get torn, and given that we live in an upscale neighborhood (as dictated by my private teaching job), my children are the only ones with tattered clothing. We get a lot of free clothing from the South Korean equivalent of the Goodwill in the U.S. And that donated clothing is in great shape, different from that of the U.S., practically new in appearance and form. I believe the Lord has looked out for us here in so many ways that I could not enumerate them.

My Blessed Knees:
Even in the smallest ways, when I have an injury of sorts, God gives me just enough capacity to accomplish what I need. Right now both knees are bad, and the doctor said I needed surgery a couple of years ago, after a hit playing volleyball on one knee, and then this past summer from carrying my youngest son while hiking on the other knee. And I did nothing, even though surgery here is a small portion of the price for the same procedure in the U.S. And, lo and behold, I have gotten by these past two years just fine. I swim when I need exercise, and just make sure not to kick too vigorously, which brings pain in the knees.

The upshot is that I feel healthy as a pig and don't see any reason to get surgery, a procedure that while it may clean out some detritus and tie up loose ligaments, may actually reveal a need for a knee replacement. That's 8000 dollars and two operations six months apart here in South Korea, probably much more in the U.S.

Paradoxically, I feel closer to God with impaired knees. I depend more closely on Him, having seen with my own knees how I don't really need my body all that much, certainly not so much as I would have assumed in my youth.

And my father, a doctor, told me the same thing a few years ago, "Son, you don't need your leg to exercise." He was right. He died the next year, in a plane crash, but he understood God's sustenance and providence from his own life, I believe. And he was not loath to share that with me.

Waning Potential:
Through my life my potential for excitement has understandably waned with my ageing process. However, I have always been perhaps somewhat more excitable than is typical for my age. That may be related to my having remained a virgin in every respect regarding the sexual to such a very late age.

I hung out with writers in my college days, as I did a lot of writing. However, they lived a different lifestyle than I. They drank alcohol and coffee, and they got little if any exercise. I was into running, and did not want to pollute my body. They also had sexual relationships, and I never could understand why my male friends lost interest in their girlfriends, refused to commit to them in marriage. I never had a girlfriend until my wife so there was much I could not really understand, much that in retrospect seems clear.

I came to believe that my friends exhausted their capacity for excitement in their sexual profligacy. There is irony in this, and an unending sadness. They struggle with basic issues and miss out on joy, a joy that is so simple and undivided.

In Continence Therein:
I believe the only lasting sexual pleasure resides in raising children. The fullness of sexual pleasure is so much more than the fleeting sensation of a passing embrace. It involves gestation, nursing, walking about the house at night calming a baby, sitting beside children while they work on homework (We homeschool.), and learning to respect a wife's need to sleep in peace rather than engage in repetition of coital embrace, learning to be still and know who is who. This, too, is all a part of one's extended sexual pleasure. It may sound negative (and terribly dismal to all of my friends from college, the writer's group), but I see now how abstaining from sexual simulacra (activities using contraceptives, which do simulate coitus but which ultimately are designed to prevent fertilization) actually focuses the memory and one's mind on the beauty of one's growing children far better, or so it has been for me, and I find the greatest satisfaction in the embrace of my wife in continence.

Nonetheless, I find oddly that I am very excited now about studying Church History at SEBTS. I can't wait to get my textbooks. I ordered some of them from last year's syllabus, with the understanding that the requirements may have been changed a bit, such that one or two of the four books I ordered might be unnecessary purchases with respect to the course requirements, setting me up for a mild censure from my wife, who would probably rather I had waited to order once SEBTS administration got everything worked out on my SBC status, which they had changed without notification, surprising me with a much higher bill when I tried to register earlier this week, above a thousand dollars for but one course.

Southern Baptist Church Status:
When I went through the admissions process, the secretary in charge there sent me an e-mail assuring me that I would be regarded as an SBC student, and receive the lower rates of tuition, which was a critical factor for my wife and me, as the difference is considerable from our perspective.

I was raised Southern Baptist, in Taylorsville First Baptist Church. Then, when I did a graduate degree in Boone, North Carolina, I attended First Baptist Church of Boone, and even became an assistant to the youth director, Cathy Davis (from Duke Divinity). Even though I only planned to be in Boone two more years, I requested to have my membership changed, as that is where I was going to church full time.

A couple of years ago, when I was applying to SEBTS, however, when I tried to get a church recommendation form, I was told that First Baptist of Boone had no record of me. The entire staff (minister Stephen Carricker and others) had changed over the decade and a half. Too, given that I did not grow up in that church, older people did not remember me, either.

The director of admissions made an allowance for that, given my statement of intention to preach within the Southern Baptist tradition after graduation, and my assurance that I would join a Southern Baptist church when I return to the U.S. Now, however, that all is suddenly uncertain again. It may be that I must wait until I come to the U.S. to take this course. We will see. I cannot understand what is so uncertain about the assurance from the secretary, which I will post below, in blue.

I spoke with Shane and we will be able to consider you a SBC student. You will not need to submit a Church Recommendation form with your application.

This seemed very clear to me and I could not understand how anyone could read it any other way, than to recognize that it gives me the right to receive the lower SBC tuition rate. But, I am not an administrator, only a teacher and a student. So, there must surely be some things about administration which are beyond my ken, and I do believe this, like all things, is in God's hands. It will all play out for the best. [Update: It came out just fine; they respected their earlier decision. It just took some time, as people were out of the office during the vacation period.]

I am listening to Kevin Vanhoozer's Chapel message on drama, again. I heard it when it came out, and got so much out of it that I felt it appropriate to hear it again. I do that with other chapel messages, listen to them a few months later, and I believe I learn much more this way. I believe it would be good for all students to be required to take a test on the content of Chapel messages. We can learn very much from Chapel.

Vanhoozer says:
1. "If God is Lord, then everything that happens to us during the day is a kind of offer."

2. "Those who walk by faith have to learn to accept whatever comes as an offer from the Lord."

3. "Jesus fulfills God's promise, but in an unexpected way. There is creativity and there's fidelity because in Jesus Christ God is making good on his Word in surprising new ways."

4. "We need to be creative in new cultural contexts, but in ways that are nevertheless entirely in keeping with, faithful to, what went on before."

5. "To play our part[s] well, we need to play with others. We are members of an ensemble, the Body of Christ."

6. "I have been presenting theology as 'God-centered Biblical interpretation that issues in performance knowledge on the world stage to the glory of God.' To know how to display the mind of Christ in concrete situations is the sum of Christian Wisdom."

That final sentence above in #6 is a strong, if attractive, assertion, and I do not feel fully qualified to assess its accuracy. I admire this man for his contribution to theology, introducing the dramatic aspect. I much enjoy his emphasis on the difference between ad-libbing and true improvisation. I was a juggler on the Manic Expressions Juggling Troop from 1984 to 1990. I learned much about life by this dramatic experience, juggling on the streets in New York City, Charleston, Miami, Key West, New Orleans, Boulder, Aspen, and in IJA competitions.

The Power of Drama:
Everything Vanhoozen says hearkens me back to those days, and stands as a vivid clarification of the pulse of my more salient experiences and the knowledge I gleaned from those experiences. He truly understands drama. Much that I learned by experience in pleasing crowds and maintaining their rapt attention was haphazard and could probably have been learned more efficiently with formal training. All the formal training I ever had was Drama 35 at UNC-CH, back in 1979 or 80. But I greatly enjoyed that class. I only took it because I needed an elective, never thinking that more drama training might help me in my future life spreading God's word more effectively and with the fullness of God's power in me.

Question: Vanhoozer at 36:30 "Exegesis here takes us only so far. Biblical scholarship is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the understanding faith sees(what word is this?)

[Update: "...for the understanding faith seeks..." Hat tip thanks to Mr. Vanhoozen. I should have been able to discern this from the video. Now it makes perfect sense. Sometimes my pointy little head takes a long time to come around to some very basic understandings.]

US Television

2009-12-12T16:39:00.001-08:00

My wife took her final exam this week to finish her seventh of eleven required courses for a master's in ESL at Shenandoah University, Virginia. We celebrated by watching some "Cheers," together. She enjoys that TV show, as well as "TAGS" (The Andy Griffith Show), "I Love Lucy," and "The Cosby Show." I also bought "Dick Van Dyke," one my mother enjoyed with us while we were young, and I don't know why she has not gotten interested in that one.

M*A*S*H was my father's favorite show, and my wife and oldest son enjoyed that fairly much. I never realized how effete M*A*S*H was until watching a few episodes with my family this past year. I saw it some in my youth, but then I never really got into TV all that much. Only now, with my wife's keen enjoyment of classic US TV shows, have I truly begun to enjoy TV, and I like it very much. It is hard to imagine that I ever would have been this way. We change very much throughout life.

I like "The Waltons," as does my daughter, but my wife, while she enjoys it to a certain degree, says that she wants to see comedy because drama just adds to her physical exhaustion. Having five children is not always a piece of cake, or, it takes continual vigilance, and if you're not accustomed to that, it can at times feel like a burden. So, she needs levity in her TV diet to help her get away from the sense of constant monitoring of our children to keep them from danger's way.

Television is good for my wife, as she acquires not only more English, vocabulary that I never use, but also exposure to U.S. culture, which should prove valuable in forming relationships after moving there next year.

I just got off a web site for Sally Mae student loans. I worked my way through the process, entering financial information, until they showed me conditional approval for a loan, and the rate was 12.39 percent plus Libor. Actually, it would work out to 15.39 plus Libor, given that there is a 3% fee upfront to initiate the loan. That's a very high rate of lending, to me at least. I think I could make a good living on a much lower rate that that, were I to manage my own lending company. But I am in seminary to make a preacher, not to make money, so this is not an alternative career option. Nonetheless, I will work my way through school, rather than borrow money at that rate. I wish they would have posted rates up front.

Well, let me take my children to the afternoon English Sunday school.

Love, Nathaniel

Moral Awareness

2009-11-18T15:44:00.000-08:00

Dear Brothers in Christ:

I just read in an article from my today's newspaper (The Wall Street Journal) which sustained that Christians are regularly persecuted in Mainland China. The article was entitled, "The China Obama Didn't See: Shuttered Churches Belie a 'Harmonious Society.'" The article gave a conservative estimate of 100 million Christians in China, in addition to the 10 million in registered churches where they must push an indoctrinated communist party line.

My family prays for Christians in China to gain more freedom of worship. We greatly appreciate our freedom to gather and worship however we please here in South Korea, Land of the Morning Calm. We realize we only have that freedom because American soldiers came here to fight and die for that cause.

I saw the first part of a film two days ago with my children, A Passage to India. In that film, there were several points where the film reminded me of the situation here in South Korea, where I teach morality and English as a second language in my home. The natives were especially excitable, unable to control their emotions, particularly when en masse. This was in marked contrast to the ease and maturity with which the British controlled their emotions.

In the film, the Indians made self-disparaging remarks about their native disarray, implying the need for an external manager for their nation. I have heard much of the same from South Korean friends and students of mine. My students express a strong desire to just leave South Korea and move to the U.S. for good. Forty some thousand do emigrate there each year, those with the means and courage.

South Korean friends of mine have confessed to me that many South Koreans dislike the presence of Americans (mostly American soldiers stationed here) because it makes them painfully aware of their own inadequacy as a people, unable to defend themselves, dependent on a greater power. One said it was like a constant irritant in their shoes. And they say it hits at the deepest level, the moral, causing them to feel morally inferior to this people who has twice saved them when they were up against forces they could not overcome: 1) Japan in World War II, and then again, 2) Communist China and North Korea.

They tell me they fully realize that were it not for the U.S., they would be speaking Japanese now, and the presence of their "big brother" is a constant reminder of the fact that they are not yet mature as a nation and thus capable of handling their own defense needs. It made sense, and was especially convincing under the evident strength of their conviction. You had to be there to get the full gist and salience of their point, but it was clear that they had put much thought and passion into it.

In the film, as in the way my friends tell me about South Koreans, they seem to operate under the assumption that the average level of moral awareness of a nation determines its ability to rise in economic and political power. The implication of this assumption, though, suggests that they are somehow stuck at a considerably lower level of moral awareness than that of their colonizers, which causes them to chafe at the bit and lose hope of rising to a higher level of moral awareness.

They can see no way out, feeling like moral ants before a magical race whom they simultaneously emulate and yet resent, if only because their presence among them makes them view themselves as somehow inadequate at the most basic level. My friends have told me that this best explains why so many South Koreans go about with a chip on their shoulders, carrying resentment at the continued presence of Americans here to teach them English, and to defend them from communist forces.

Hence, they feel shame, at not having "taken the gates of heaven" (risen to a greater moral awareness) on their own, from a source within their own cultural history. My interpretation is that for them blood lines are more important than any sense of solidarity or union through spiritual or cognitive similarities or points of agreement. And many South Koreans tacitly acknowledge as much, believing it of critical importance to continue the blood line of the Y Chromosome, with the continuity of the X's being relatively insignificant. This causes them to place other moral concerns (such as the life of a child in the womb) at a considerably lower level of importance. They abort more girls here. Too, girls receive much less funding for private tuition at hagwons (evening schools) and in-home tutoring.

What they fail to admit or realize is that we, people from the U.S. and England, too, base our entire moral awareness upon a gift from another culture, the Jews. We gained everything through Christ, and we are fully aware of this. I am a blonde-haired, blue-eyed descendent of Vikings, and yet I, along with other Americans never think to trumpet the moral superiority of Thor and his mighty "hammer of justice." That would be a farce. No, we gladly and fully acknowledge our eternal debt to God's Chosen People, which gave us the moral awareness without which we would never have risen to great political and economic power relative to other cultures.

In the film, one Indian asked his friend why Indians so much admired the British who were there to govern the colony, while they disliked the presence of the British among them.

Well, I may add more later. We are set to watch the final portions of "A Passage to India" this evening and tomorrow evening. It is required viewing for my four older children, and they are mesmerized by the landscapes of India.

Love, Nathaniel

Full Uses

2009-10-23T18:19:00.000-07:00

Dear Fellow SEBTS students:

I gave my third official sermon ever last Sunday, and it gives me ever greater conviction and confirmation that I am moving in the right direction in my preparations to become a more educated preacher and give my life to preaching, and try not to worry about how I might feed and educate my five offspring.

Actually, I do not worry so much about that, and have not in the past, either. Only, my wife does, and always has throughout our fourteen years together. I must love my wife, and temper my decisions with her in mind, so though I have worked hard to learn Korean language since coming here, thinking it right that God would one day have me in North Korea to serve spreading His Word, I have to realize that my wife's needs are not be ridden over in roughshod fashion.

This takes some doing, I think, for a man, to admit that he must alter plans of his which he thought worthy and good. I still study Korean, each Sunday morning, early, and it still feels good. And I just trust God that He will have a way (which is not currently evident to me) to use my ability in this regard. I do not feel that I am pig-headed in continuing to study Korean. Rather, it is done with much pleasure, and a sense of ease in freedom that I had not before.

I have been moved by President Akin's messages of late, where he has emphasized that we Southern Baptists need to move out of our Bible Belt realm, to cities in the West and North. He mentioned Phoenix being very underrepresented. Phoenix, AR, is dry and not too cold, which would be good for my wife, who is handicapped and cannot walk much due to early onset arthritis (exacerbated by giving birth to five babies). I thought then that may be a good place to raise our children up to the point where they are independent, before we move on, to North Korea, if that is in God's plans. I felt some comfort in that, as before I had felt that any bit of compromise I made on this issue, preparing myself to serve in North Korea would be undesirable, and somehow dishonest of me. But now I don't feel that way anymore.

I believe that God has full uses for me where I can also properly care for my wife and children. Getting the children a good English-based education has been a strong point for my wife over the years, and it has not been clear whether and where we might be able to afford that. Now it seems more likely, as soon as we can get funding to move to SEBTS, and thereafter, perhaps in a public school system where I serve, maybe even Phoenix.

Love, Nathaniel

Marriage Foundation

2009-10-07T21:12:00.000-07:00

Dear Fellow Seminary Students:

It was most comforting to hear Dr. Akin say in his 30th September chapel message, "The Bible has nothing negative to say about interracial marriage." That made me feel like he is on my team, in my corner, so to speak. Birds of a feather may flock together, but the Bible does not require it of a Christian. Rather, in this regard, we are free.

I have a South Korean wife. We have been married for fourteen years now. When we first met I pulled out a Bible and we talked for three hours. We agreed then that if we were to marry, we would use the Bible as our common basis for argument, to correct each other. Too, we agreed to use our marriage to the glory of God, in particular to take His first words to man seriously, "Be fruitful and multiply." So, to a certain extent, we have.

This degree of sincerity, wherein my future wife was able to tolerate me breaking out a Bible and reading and talking about scripture in depth on the first meeting, I had not seen in American girls, which may have helped to "keep them out of my hair," making me one who was lucky to have married his first and only girlfriend, and be spared the fruitless, debilitating experience of dating in uncertainty and then breaking up in despair over a lack of clear scripturally based definition at the outset of a relationship.

With the extended adolescence common in modern developed societies, it is unusual to marry one's first love. It may be unusual to be still going strong fourteen years later. But I expected nothing else, talking with my future wife that first evening we met. I had the same feeling about her, that she, too, had a strong sense of expectation and trust.

Furthermore, where else, but within the confines of holy scripture would a person embed his heart such that he may then live his life in the greatest freedom externally, in relation to others, and retain the fullest confidence that he will not be disappointed in the outcome of events in his life.

All things work towards the good when your heart is embedded in the Word of God. That does not mean all your friends live to a ripe old age, nor that your children remain free of every disease or pitfall. But it does mean that you will take all good things as gravy, and give God the glory. If a friend is taken early, you are grateful for having known him but a few years, in his youth.

Love, Nathaniel

Handling Suicide

2009-09-19T20:22:00.000-07:00

Dear Fellow SEBTS Students,

I just finished listening to the 65-minute forum on the suicide death of a fellow student. The forum was well run, with valuable insight. However, I felt that there was a gap between the wisdom and knowledge of the professors and the ability of some of the younger students to readily understand all that the professors were trying to get across.

It seems that in theology, often much is left unsaid, in a sense, as it should be. And this is understood by those who have experience to understand, who have stuck with the study of theology for years and here and there found fruit from the contemplation upon scripture, and also wise theological assertions. Yet, it is not only that frequently much of a message (its ramifications, implications for one's life and the tack he should take) is not entirely understood to the neophyte in theology, but that he is left feeling a huge chasm between the upper level of fuller understanding and his own meager position, with no clear understanding on how to navigate himself to a higher level of understanding.

I have more than 30,000 hours of experience in teaching young South Korean students English as a second language. I see the same reality here; a gulf between what they need to understand in their English readings, or listening assignments, and what they currently understand ... that, and a paucity of learning navigational tools. How do you get it across to them? One problem is that teachers fail at times to fully apperceive just all the little ways in which students fall short in understanding, despite having been there at some time in their remote past.

And too, it can be said that some of the better teachers, those with the best understanding at least, may never have been puzzled in precisely the same manner as some of their charges.
[to be finished later...]

Early Morning Slumber

2009-09-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Fellow Seminary Students:

It is morning and my wife and children are still asleep. This is the best time of day for me to write and read, listen to chapel. I just took a hot bath, which seems to help my arthritic back. In many ways I am blessed to live and work here in Taejeon.

But students are not hungry. They are not in close contact with the source of their nourishment.

Christopher just woke up. He is five. I set up a place for him to sleep behind me. He likes to come in and sleep where I work in the early morning.

I have my text, "One Sacred Effort," by my side, sitting on a tall, thin table by my homemade computer desk, a board suspended across the middle level of an erstwhile closet in the classroom where I teach in my home.

I worried for awhile about whether I could learn everything in my text well enough to pass the test. We get only 24 hours to review before taking the test for the second time. I was told on the phone by Mr. Lasseter from Distance Learning that every time you read a date or a name you had better write it down and remember it. I haven't made a list yet, but I have read over the first few chapters several times, underlining and drawing a small circle in the margin beside each significant event.

My brain is no longer young, and I seem to have more trouble remembering things, though I am delighted each time I read again a portion of text that I had forgotten. It is a pleasure to read and learn.

Basic concepts stick in me a lot better than names and dates. For example, I have received the distinct impression that the Presbyterians are perhaps the closest "relative" we have in doctrine, our formal attitude towards holy scripture. And I understand that Catholics stand quite far apart on some points, in their insistence that certain additions and deletions are valid and necessary.

I understand that early in Baptist church history there was much dissension on just how much to join in cooperative mission work. Too, I have gained a much stronger understanding of how important it is that each church be clearly defined, concerning who are its deacons and how church membership is formed.

Well, I will study some more now, write again later. In chapel a week or so ago, Dr. Nelson noted that you can have a flawless logical argument and still be wrong. That gave me great comfort. I don't always have the tools to argue well with some of the smart hotdogs of the popular press. But instinctively I know they are sometimes wrong, despite their rhetoric, as I sense they are far from, heedless of, the central message of the gospel.

Love, Nathaniel

Spousal Support

2009-08-25T01:32:00.001-07:00

Dear Fellow Seminary Students,

My wife just headed out the door for her daily bike ride. I wonder how many young seminary students help their wives (watching the children) to have time for regular exercise. I believe that would be a strong part of the import we get from Ephesians 5:25. I believe Mark Driscoll spoke at SEBTS this past spring semester in a chapel message about how Christian women "let their bodies go" and thus make it more difficult for their husbands to cleave to the straight and narrow and maintain a good relationship.

If women have a duty to keep their bodies clean and pure, like a temple, then we husbands have a duty to help make that possible, watching the children, while she goes out to exercise. I am doing that right this minute, as my one-year-old son peacefully sleeps across the hall. So, yes, it is easy now, while sometimes it is a bit more demanding. But that's OK. You deal with whatever comes up.

What Mark said kind of rubbed me the wrong way. And let me preface this expression of disagreement by saying that I agree fundamentally that he was right, that there is some effect that wives can perform in being "better sexual partners," more willing to "tame the inexorable male desire," with more regular, devoted care. However, I just believe that pointing it out is not necessarily the best way to inspire women to perfect their duties in this regard.

My father was true to my mother all of his life, and my mother was fat. Some people are just fat. That did not stop my father and me from urging her to get out and walk, do some daily exercise, try to trim that belly and boost her health and extend her life. Some people are just tubby, and are going to stay that way, it seems. I realize it is not ideal, but how much do you judge another, or shift blame to another?

So serious is marital infidelity, I can't help but believe that we need to be very careful when we propound any truth which may easily be distorted to lessen the possibility that each wayward wanderer, philanderer might quickly and clearly accept the full responsibility for his sin in infidelity.

A smoker once told me that there are umpteen reasons given by smokers who continue to smoke, for their continuance, while there is just one reason given by those who quit, as to why they quit: they just decided to give it up.

I took my daughter to a park today to read together. She wanted to do that yesterday, and attempted it on her own, only to fall and injure herself. I understood she was headed out the door with a friend. Today I went with her. We had a good time, and I got some good quality reading done on my course. Tomorrow if we go, we will need to bring our mosquito repellent, a spiral-shaped material which you burn here in South Korea to keep mosquitos away. It works pretty well.

Love, Nathaniel

Prayer for The King of Pop

2009-06-25T16:03:00.000-07:00

The news reports that Michael Jackson died today. He seemed angry to me, when he danced. I never watched him through a whole video, and may never have listened to his singing throughout an entire song, but having grown up in America when he was performing (2 years his junior), I could not avoid him entirely.

I hope he found peace with God in his final moments. I hope he was able to at times touch his children and feel the same degree of perfection of fatherly love that I have enjoyed these past thirteen years while living in South Korea, teaching English. And I wish he could have lived on and reclaimed a spot as "King of Pop," for what it is worth, with a new and larger group of avid fans, more worldwide than before where his following was largely concentrated in the U.S., if only that he would then hold again a platform from which to sincerely repudiate in the evident wisdom of his old age the folly of the lifestyle he was generally perceived as having followed. Everyone makes mistakes, but in Christ we find the opportunity for redemption if we humble ourselves in faith.

This humility may have been with Michael, but under human skepticism regarding a wide public perception of a nefarious past it does not generally show itself to the masses clearly until lived down, which takes time. I wish that time had been on his side, for him to do this, as I could see this as perhaps his greatest task, and gift to the world of youth, for whom else could they better trust to repudiate such a lifestyle, but one whom they may largely believe had tried the wayward way in some plausible degree approaching the ultimate? But this was not to be, as God knows best when to take each of us home. Just the same, I shall say a prayer for him, that God be gentle on him.

He grew up in a wicked time, when the public demanded (and well rewarded) petulant displays of unchastened anger. I can think of no greater handicap than having the talent to meet such demand. Let us all pray together, then, for his soul. We, the culture, certainly got our use (our "temporal jollies") out of Michael Jackson. It would not hurt us too much to take some time to pray for him now.

I cannot believe that anything about his life was easy, despite the degree to which he may have perpetrated unsavory myths and thus brought difficulties on himself (a game at which it seems we all have some experience in some extent, in the abject pride of our sin), and I can easily imagine that things became increasingly more difficult for him in his old age.

I believe Lottie Moon is purported as having said something like this, "The Christian is immortal until God decides to take him home." I love that sentence. I live in the Orient and have been much inspired by what I know of Lottie Moon. I would like to serve as a missionary in North Korea and/or China. I hear she went into the hinterlands of China. I believe that I, too, would be very satisfied working for Christ in a small village.

I recognize that I have many hurdles before that could transpire, but that desire has remained harbored in my heart. My wife seems to have some difficulty fully understanding the strength of that desire within me, and I recognize that she labors under the fear that such places, particularly North Korea, are not safe, and being fourteen years younger than I, perhaps has some difficulty trusting Lottie Moon's perspective on a believer's immortality while here on earth.

Then, she also seems to have difficulty understanding and fully believing that I would not perfunctorily "shelve" the education of my children, but would first do as she desires and get our burgeoning brood of five (and counting ... if my wife warms up to the idea of adopting) into American schools where they can gain the benefits of education in English, and too, a freer thinking sort of education than is readily available here in South Korea, where a rote-memory, one-size-fits-all education has long been preferred, for fear of delegating freedom to teachers to try anything daring. She may sense any expression of my desire to do mission work in North Korea as a threat to her long term interests in guaranteeing our children receive time to have a thorough education in an American school system, which is understandable. But that does not temper my desire.

Studying theology is a salve to my soul, as it is perhaps the most practical means of me securing a way to go there and do that work eventually. A degree from SEBTS would garner me much support, particularly if I do my best and flourish in my studies, gaining the glad endorsement of my professors. So this is my current task, while I labor under somewhat heavy burdens of supporting my family, with money to live on, and a heavy dose of emotional and educational support, given that I am not just the sole breadwinner, but also the "de facto mom" of our family due to my wife's compromised ability to fill that role.

Well, have a nice day in Christ, my fellow seminary students.

Love, Nathaniel

Celebrating the Birth of Christ

2009-06-16T23:26:00.000-07:00

Dear Fellow Christians:

Today I write in response to the SEBTS Blogspot query: Is there a mandate to celebrate the birth of Christ?

My father and mother had a strong interest in the Holy Land. They chose to live in that area while my father served as a physician in the US Air Force, stationed in Karamursel, Turkey, from 1960-62. On leave, they seem to have hit just about all the highlights of the Holy Land. Somehow, from the wealth of photos and perhaps also from the poignancy of photo subject choice, it seems they knew they would never return.

My father made a manger scene for us so early in his marriage that I never remember not having it. It was the shape of a rough concrete cave in a hillside, stretched over some newspaper over chicken wire, supported by a small wooden frame on a stage, with the whole thing sporting the appearance of a normal distribution curve from the frontal perspective. And, he had traditional, realistic figurines for the manger scene, including a donkey, a few sheep and one or two cows, in addition to the standard figures of the shepards, wise men, parents and baby Jesus. If my siblings do not show much interest in it, I would like to inherit that manger scene, and let my children grow up with it. There were two sheep which had legs broken off on one side, but which could therefore more easily stand on the concrete hillside above the cave.

What is a mandate? "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." comes to mind. But I feel that the Bible speaks to me with authority beyond the grammar forms which might surely claim a place as commands from God.

I do love the commands, as they are clear and keep me from much pain and wrong. However, I love guidance I receive in other parts of Scripture, and do not feel that I need to judge it less important to the conduct of my life than commands. I believe the Bible complete, meaning any abstraction of the story of the birth of the Christ Child from Scripture leaves the Bible somehow wanting, incomplete. The birth of Christ underlies the incarnation, a glorious mystery. And the way our family celebrated Christmas, the presence of Christ in our lives was only amplified. We had four stockings hung from the mantelpiece, one for each child.

While not commanded, were my parents to have excluded Christmas celebrations from my childhood, I can't help but think that they would have needed, vis-a-vis the power of Christ's birth in popular culture, in some way to have overlooked the story of Jesus' birth in Scripture. I say this because the culture was strong then, in the early 60's with celebration of that portion of the Bible, having taken a secular holiday, one born of heathen drunkenness, and transformed it into a splendid time for illuminating the birth of Christ, so much so that even Charlie Brown could not avoid getting involved, with a voice in Linus which resonates with me today, and the singing, the singing of Charlie Brown's Christmas, rings in me today. Then, secular culture was replete with reverence for the birth of Christ.

The only thing remaining for them to exclude it entirely would be for Christians to capitulate and "acknowledge" that Scripture does not mandate we celebrate the birth of Christ. But we know we live our lives by more than mandate, and that Scripture guides us in ways far too fine to be worded strictly within a set of rules or mandates. Jesus taught with parables, understanding the superiority of such a medium, for rendering truth we needed for the conduct of our lives, beyond that truth amenable to simple codification.

Too, human tradition in a Christian culture is not always entirely a bad thing, nor utterly antithetical to the Gospel message. In fact, such tradition may embody much inexpressible wisdom.

Humans, particularly children and older people, seem to yearn for ceremony, the rituals of holidays, marking the seasons of their lives. Eggs did not spoil Easter for me in my childhood. They did add to the allure of Easter Sunday. And along the way, while painting my eggs at home, I heard and thought of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

The context, set by my parents, was thoroughly Christian. Color did not dampen the Christian import, as I see it. We had no gifts, nor rabbits. Just eggs, and an egg hunt at church, Taylorsville First Baptist. I think we even ate the eggs afterwards.

Ultimately the birth of Christ is of importance to me beyond the sentimental, as without it, I would have no incarnate savior, or not in the manner chosen by God revealed in Scripture. God could have created a body for Christ by fiat, but He chose to use the Virgin Mary, in, I think, an expression of loving humility. The significance of that goes beyond my full ability to express in words.

I realize it is important to be vigilant that our holiday activities do not contravene, Holy Scripture. However, I cannot think of a more perfect or alluring story to amplify in our Churches and in the broader community, than that of the savior’s birth. If you take away my sense of Christmas, you risk eviscerating something very important from my childhood. I am a Christian and became one at age seven, when I invited Jesus into my heart and received baptism.
Even to me, it is not entirely clear why I opened my heart to Christ. All of my value lies in this early decision in my life. There are people who turn away from Christ. Why did I accept Christ and they did not? Well, there are probably many contributing factors, but I loved Him. He gave his life for me, for my eternal soul.

But I cannot tell you how important, or unimportant, having a childhood replete with beautiful images of Christians celebrating the birth of Christ in my home and community was to preparing my heart to rest transcendently in the will of God for me, not to take offense.

It seems that I could not easily live a life of faith and wholly ignore any outward expression of Luke's story of the Savior's birth. The incarnation of Christ and His reincarnation are part and parcel with His life. I would not parce them merely from an impulse to be more culturally palatable. Celebrations of Christ's birth are an ineluctable part of my Christian heritage and cultural expression of my inner beliefs.

The story of the birth of Christ are not only very attractive, but compelling to young non-Christians in my experience. To begin to think any celebration of it unnecessary for me brought up in and continuing in the tradition that was my heritage seems not just silly, but even potentially harmful, inimical to the expression of our love of Christ in our lives, something I cannot imagine the Holy Spirit advising me in.

Respect for Authority

2009-06-16T20:32:00.001-07:00

Above is a photo of two of my boys, the oldest, Nathaniel, and the younger, David. I want for them to learn respect for authority. In fact, I would like it very much this respect for authority exactly as well as my parents taught me. If they do not, it will be predominantly my fault.

You know, respect for authority does not hurt you very much, and takes perhaps less actual "work" than many people may believe, particularly after it becomes a well-formed habit. I can think of a lot worse habits to have clinging to my physical body and enmeshed within my psyche. Too, respect for authority does not deprive you of your conscience or free will to think; you are free to disagree with the decisions of those in charge.

In fact, in a society such as the U.S., you have perhaps more freedom to express dissent than given within any other society in history. I would recommend that a dissenter express his feelings in an appropriate manner, loaded with respect, and without trying to grab the limelight, which could only cast greater doubt on one's genuine respect for authority.

I do not remember whether I got a high school diploma or not, if diploma means only the piece of paper that goes with your degree.

I read in the paper this morning that there was a young student named Justin Denney at Bonny Eagle High School in Maine, who felt deprived for not having received his diploma, despite the fact that the superintendent withheld the diploma at the ceremony precisely because of the boy's inappropriate gestures to the audience on stage, where he comported himself in a manner which violated the demeanor expectations of the leaders of the school program.

The news service had a poll which showed that 91 percent of readers were dissatisfied with the superintendent's decision to withhold the diploma from the boy. What that means, as I understand it is that these people feel that the school superintendent Suzanne Lukas should not have the authority to make such decisions, evidently believing that giving the superintendent the authority to decide when a student misbehaves is a bit too much. I can understand their point, if that's the point they are trying to make, but I think this is the wrong way to express it, using a boy as an example.

For, that merely lends him moral support to believe that he is right and the superintendent (his superior in age, rank and educational experience) is wrong. I cannot imagine a greater handicap to bestow upon a boy as he heads out the door. Should he never do any more education than this minimum, he would be at an ever greater disadvantage for the fortification of his confidence that he need not respect authority, as his own moral compass is superior to that of society.

And let's not forget that society has legally given this lady, the superintendent, the full authority to decide appropriate student conduct for the stage during graduation ceremonies.

On a good note, it was heartening to see that while the boy's mother was described as being "livid," by the paper, the boy actually told his mother that the superintendent had given the warning that, "There's no fooling around up here." meaning the stage during the ceremony. Apparently, the adults in charge of conducting the graduation ceremony had standards of conduct in mind when they planned the program, and intended to use their legitimate authority to enforce such standards.

Too, it is all ceremony. None of this affects the legal fact of the boy having earned his degree. Furthermore, according to subsequent news reports, the lady decided to let they boy have his diploma anyway, and will give it to him in due time. The salient point, if allowed to sink in with full resonance, is that they boy cut up in a way he had been warned about, and his superior decided to do the simplest thing she could to teach him one last lesson before sending him on his way.

It helps to think of your own children, and what you would want them to get away with. In these more difficult economic times where many lose their jobs or go out of business, I believe a greater number of people would be sympathetic to one or both of two ineluctable economic realities: 1) the importance of using the Golden Rule in business, to treat the customer as you would want to be treated, were you in his shoes, and 2) the importance of having an ingrained habit of evincing sincere respect for authority.

I am glad my parents and teachers (Taylorsville Elementary, Junior High, and Alexander Central High) drilled and instilled that respect for authority within me very well. For graduating students, one part of showing respect to authority would be for them to comporting themselves with care to stay well within the bounds of behavior stressed to them during graduation practice, and of course, with warnings during the actual ceremony.

If I were in charge of the ceremony, I would be happy to relax standards significantly, and make the whole ceremony a more lively show, allotting perhaps one minute (with strict enforcement, having body guards to haul students off stage, prying loose the microphone) in which they could say and do virtually anything, provided they abstain from a prescribed list of cuss words and keep their clothes buttoned up well.

I say this for two reasons: 1) I enjoy entertainment, having significant street performing and stage experience with juggling and comedy, and I think most high school graduation ceremonies rather boring, especially college one's where you know only a few of the people and it takes all day to call out the names just for one department, and 2) because one reason I skipped my own high school graduation ceremony is that for the three previous years I had sat through two weeks of two-hours per day of practice in hot June weather, and had had enough of that sort of stuff, just no more feeling for it whatsoever.

I wanted to use my summer to go hiking alone on the Appalachian Trail, which I did, for a week. It was wonderful, a chance for me to engage in much prayer while I contemplated my life after high school and before college.

But the salient point here is that I was not in charge. It was not my show. If I want to set the tone for a high school graduation ceremony, I believe I should earn my stripes to get in that position of legitimate power.

I have been a teacher for the past thirteen years, teaching English in South Korea, and I understand children rather well, have come to love a few thousand in just this short time. I feel that I seriously impair their well-being and ability to function well in society if I lend moral support a student's decision to challenge authority in the manner described with this young man.

It is not just coinage which we should give to Rome, but also due respect, in consideration of Romans 13:1.

We should pray for this wayward student, that he learns greater respect for authority, which he may already have.

Love, Nathaniel

Mark Driscoll 5 Feb 2009

2009-06-12T18:32:00.000-07:00

Photo: My youngest son has a good time at the English Sunday school.

Dear Fellow Christians:

I just listened to an entertaining and positively informative sermon on the SEBTS website, from Mark Driscoll, which he delivered on the 5th of February 2009, wherein he delineates nine distinctions (antitheses) between the Gospel and religion. The Blue sections below indicate direct quotes from Mr. Driscoll. He uses the term "religion" in a novel way, and it seems to be primarily directed at eliminating the traditional use of the term, or robbing it of substantial merit.

I like to believe that I am religious in a way that is not necessarily entirely bad, or not at odds with the Gospel. I go to church, follow the precepts of my group, believe in the collective way, prescribed by our statement of beliefs for entrance to SEBTS. I am hesitant to attempt a radical reassignment for the meaning of the word "religion."

Once you accept Mark's usage of the term "religion," to mean a negative concept, one at odds with the Gospel, though, he brings to focus some salient points. I am fond of enumeration within sermons, and Mark uses this well here, with his nine points. Enumeration lends a stickiness to my deaf ears; concepts stick with me better.

1. Religion tells you in its various forms, "If you obey, then God will love you."
The Gospel says "Because Gods loves you, you will want to obey Him."

2. Religion is prone to see good people and bad people.
The Gospel does not see a person as to whether or not he is a sinner. The Gospel sees a
person in light of whether or not he is repentant.

3. Religion is about getting from God.
The Gospel is about getting God.

4. Religion sees hardship as punishment.
The gospel sees hardship as loving correction from a good Dad. God is not trying to harm them; He is trying to sanctify them.

5. Religion is very aware of other people's sins.
The gospel is very aware of my own sin.

6. Religion is focused on the external and the visible.
The Gospel is primarily concerned with your heart.

7. With Religion you're not certain about your salvation.
On the cross, Jesus said, "It is finished." The Gospel is about certainty. John, "I write these things so that you may know you have eternal life." I know that I am saved by the grace of God, through the person and work of Jesus Christ. I want to share my salvation. If I don't have it, I can't share it. Give your life to Jesus, there's certainty in that.

8. Religion is about self-righteousness. [9:20]
The Gospel is about gift-righteousness.
2nd Corinthians 5:21 The Great Exchange: My sin goes to Jesus, his righteousness comes to me.
Gift, imputed righteousness leads to humility.

9. Religion results in pride or despair.
The Gospel leads to a "holy happiness". God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.

Here are some more pertinent quotes that stuck with me:
"Heretics are people who don't preach or practice repentance." (From J.I. Packer)
You want your business to thrive, so you use God ... manipulating God to use Him to get what you want. God gives to you Himself. The Gospel is about God giving us God. [23:30] Religion is about manipulating God. [22:57] Religion seems to work for people until they don't get what they want.

Religion from TheFreeDictionary.com:
1. a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.Idiom:

I believe we can overplay the virtues of condescending when we preach, meaning we need not always try to make our message as simple as possible. Even the uneducated segment of our populace has enough basic sense to understand what we mean when we use more specific words to decry the abuses within religion, such as hypocrisy, self-righteousness. The Bible gives us plenty of examples, and theologians expound on that, with clarity.

Theology is not written solely for the eyes of theologians. I have read theology since my teen years as an avocation, though I always felt God could potentially use my growing knowledge vocationally. But the point is that I felt I gained in my understanding by my readings, without so much expert help. I did have professors along the way, and they were at times immensely helpful. But the bulk of my readings have been without such help, and yet, the Holy Spirit was with me, I believe.

I grew up in Gravel Hill, a poor rural Black neighborhood outside of Taylorsville, NC. We were the only White family. My immediate next-door neighbors had no electricity when we moved in, but got it two years later. They never had indoor plumbing, until the house was destroyed close to the turn of the century.

Despite their lack of formal education, I spoke to them the same way I spoke to my more educated friends, and they understood what I had to say. I spoke slowly and chose my words carefully, as if I were preparing some writing. That's how I enjoy conversation. They knew I was that way, and they understood me. Being in person adds much power to your message. So it was with us.

In Christ, Nathaniel

Little One Brushing Teeth

2009-06-12T01:48:00.000-07:00

I got a very good book a couple of days ago, for one pursuit of mine, game design. The name of the book is The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, by Jesse Schell. In the photo above my wife and youngest son are brushing their teeth together. He has only four teeth, but takes up as much time as she does. He mostly just goes through the motions, as best he can. He likes to imitate and do whatever we big folk do.

My four-year-old is much the same, but with greater intensity. If I wear a hat when we go outside, he has to have one, too, and the same type as nearly as possible. Right now he squats beside me while I type. I think of how Jesus says it would be better for us that we have a millstone around our necks and cast into the sea than that we should lead one of these little ones astray.

Christopher had a bicycle helmet on for the past twenty minutes or so. I asked him why, and he said for us to go biking. I had forgotten that I asked if they would like to go biking this afternoon. My wife was sleeping, and had David, the little one with her. I could not find Ashley, so I could not easily leave. I would first have to find her, and I thought she was at her friend's house, but was not sure.

Rounding them all up would take time, and my oldest son was watching TV in the back room (where we keep our TV monitor, though it is never hooked up to any kind of TV broadcasting device). He was watching M*A*S*H DVD's. It is not easy to pry Nathaniel loose from the old DVD's we have once he gets started watching.

I teach at 7:00 p.m. this evening, and finish at 9:00. Two hours a day is enough to sustain us, and I've done that for the past two years. But if we are going to make our trip to America next year, I'll need to work a little more to save up some.

My wife needs some help now. I had better help her.

Love, Nathaniel

Introduction

2009-05-30T21:38:00.000-07:00

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

It is early Sunday morning. My children are asleep. My wife sleeps with our youngest, Jonathan David, in the next room, a room we call "The Waiting Room," set aside for my students of English to use when they wait for classes.

I love waking up early. I get very little time to myself. I should call my mother, and I will, after writing this post. I am not very familiar with computer-related things, and I believe I have already "messed-up," with this one, as I gave the name of my web log the same as the title of "Sola Scriptura." In the registration process, I did not realize I would have another option to label the web log. I knew that I wanted "Sola Scriptura" for the name of the web log, but did not realize that there would be an option for including my own name. Live and learn.

In case I have no other opportunity to change the structure of my web log I'll introduce myself here. My name is "Walter Nathaniel Long III." I was born in Karamursel, Turkey. My father was a doctor, serving in the Air Force for two years as a volunteer (though, I think, he got paid). He always liked the idea of service. He died two years ago, in a small airplane crash over Hiddenite, North Carolina, 21st of June, 2007.

Although I had told him that I intended to study in SEBTS seminary upon my return to the States, his death fortified my resolve. His immediate response to my first comment that I was applying for study in the seminary was, "Well, we certainly need more good Baptist preachers in North Carolina."

I knew what he meant. He had told me about our home church, Taylorsville First Baptist, having to release from contract their preacher because he drank a beer at a youth function. I could not believe that happened. Well, I believed it, but I could not understand it, still can't. What does he think he is doing as a pastor, when he drinks beer at a youth function? I am 48, maybe older than he, and I don't mean to seem naive or old fashioned, but this is baffling.

What my father meant was that while we have plenty of pastors (at least one per church), we, North Carolinians, need more who are sincerely devoted to following Christ in every aspect of their lives.

Arrangements:

My wife and I have much to do to arrange for proper financing for seminary study, but I believe we will "sail through" that process without any problem. I have learned to become very thrifty these past few years, while raising an ever burgeoning family. We are up to five children now, and any more children will come via adoption, formal or otherwise. My father told me over the phone to adopt at least one South Korean girl, as he wanted to have a grandchild that looked like his daughter-in-law. He was always very fond of my wife, as they share similar values.

We hope to move to Wake Forest by October of next year, 2010, but much depends on our financial situation. If the Korean won remains relatively weak to the U.S. dollar, we may have to stay a bit longer in order to earn enough money to make the move, and retain and buttress the cushion we have saved up to get us through the period when I will be studying and neither I nor my wife will have a job.

My wife is on a trimester system at Shenandoah University, and she does one course per semester. She tried two once in her first term, and it was too much for her. We have five children, and as I work at home, teaching private lessons in English conversation, she must watch our children while I teach. Currently she is working on her sixth course. The school requires a total of eleven courses for the degree, and the final two must be taken in residence. Too, she cannot take a semester off, lest she lose her "half-price" deal, which is somewhat like a scholarship, but was available to all who began at the same time she did.

This sets a very strict limit on how long we can stay here in South Korea, and I like that. We hope to leave sooner, but financial constraints may keep us here. I do not mind borrowing money, and think that best, in order that we could go sooner, but my wife is very much opposed to that, and while we clearly settled on the day we met, 17 December 1996, our affirmation of her future role in our family as a helpmate, submitting in all things to me as the head of the family, I know that I must love her and Christ loved the Church, giving Himself up for Her. That is an infinite standard.

So as long as I can, I feel I need to meet her needs, including this fear of borrowing money. She was born in a developing country and was raised in a family with one parent Christian and the other a marginal Buddhist, her father, who was also an alcoholic. My father and mother were raised in similar economic conditions, born in 1932 and 1929 respectively. They were raised in the Great Depression, and throughout their formative years became inured to the necessity to use all resources wisely.

I am quite different, having been raised by upper middle class parents (Father a doctor, mother a high school French and English teacher, at Alexander Central High School, Taylorsville, N.C.), I enjoyed privileges that my parents and wife could only have dreamt of in their youth. Too, I did an MBA at Appalachian State University, and from those studies, and associations with my fellow students and professors, came away with a very comfortable attitude towards debt and investment. In a nutshell, I am most eager to borrow money, quit teaching in South Korea, and move to Wake Forest, where I can get on with a more intensive approach to my theological studies.

But I do not live in a vacuum. I realize I cannot push my wife like this. She becomes very unsettled about any financial risk. For her, a bird in the hand is worth any number in the bush. I am currently developing finalized rules for a board game which I created here in South Korea to use in my teaching. Young boys hated to study English, but their mothers forced them to study at my home, so they needed some kind of game which was of high interest to them, while requiring unlimited discussions regarding negotiations and strategy.

That acutely perceived need produced the game I made, and a friend of mine at NCSU is now working to create an internet version. He is a computer programmer. My wife was happy to agree to let him take 50% of all future revenue, rather than hire him to do the job at a fixed rate. She believes 50% of some pie-in-the-sky is fine, for us, and fine for him. Only, she becomes very uncomfortable when I buy two 14 dollar books on marketing and design of board games. So, I have learned that I need to respect her feelings and not push things like that, for her, anything related to cash going out of our home now, when she is not finished with her degree and has no job. She will never regret "losing" future income if it turns out that the game is very successful. She just doesn't want to see any money go out the door now, when we have very real needs. She is not greedy, in that sense, which is a thorough blessing.

Birthdays and Christmases have progressively become "cheaper affairs," at least from the materialistic point of view, but our photos are still rich with smiles and happy children bouncing about. I think we are better off for the discipline. And the past five years or so of me becoming increasingly more frugal have done much to make my wife feel loved. My father was always fond of the old Appalachian Mountain saying, "If Mamma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."

And I try to follow that as much as I can where it never takes me from my duties in following Scripture to a T. I realize I am the head of the family, and must take responsibility for all major decisions, but I must do so in a loving way. Sometimes that is like walking a fine line, a tightrope ... but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. And I love doing the right thing, finding it in my life, verifying it and continuing in it, with constant prayer for continued guidance. It beats any other kind of life. Age was necessary for me to come to this understanding.

Too, I know that the primary step to becoming a better student at SEBTS is not being there physically, though I yearn for that, and, rightly I think, expect it to bring a watershed of loving communion among fellowship with my peers, a bounty of love for my children and wife as well, I realize that the most important aspect is always right here in front of me, the Bible, and my texts. I have already bought several of the texts we use, even though I am taking only the first introductory course, which is just pass/fail: The Cooperative Program. We lack funds for me to take another course right now. So, if I want to feel "closer" to my SEBTS peers, the one thing I can surely do is devote ever more time and quality of focus to my studies. And I do indeed get that sense when I study, that I am part of a larger enterprise. It's a wonderful feeling.

My First Semester at SEBTS:

My study with SEBTS has not been an immediate or dramatic change in my life, but it is a very positive force, enacting steady change for the better, and I love it deeply. I believe God is moving me along well now, in a current of fine scholarship to enhance my preaching ability and my fundamental understanding of Holy Scripture.

The chapel messages which I hear online from SEBTS are wonderful, and I have watched a few of them twice. The second time is far better than the first time through. My memory is not so good at my age, so I am far more capable of retaining information on the second go-around. And already having familiarity with the message on a literal level, I am free to glean greater depth of meaning.

I wish our portal had the technological capability to "rewind," or go back in the chapel sermons online, by small interactions, or just a "tweak" of a back cursor, perhaps five seconds at a "click" or prompt. That would be a great study aid for me, as I do go back sometimes in order to write down a few lines that I want to keep with me, put to my heart verbatim. I write them in my calendar.

I have a 52 -page calendar with beautiful photos of South Korea. The larger format gives me space to write more. Still, I run out of space.

I look forwards to living in Wake Forest, and becoming a part of the Christian community there on campus. It is difficult to express how much I yearn for that. Given that I will be taking care of my children and doing two courses per semester, while my wife works as a teacher in a public school (according to our plan), I expect it will take me five years or more to finish my three-year degree. That does not bother me at all. When I was younger, five years seemed like a very long time. Now that kind of time flies by like water in a stream.

Rather, five years seems better than three, as it means I will have more time there to focus on my studies. I greatly prefer "over-studying," which is to have ample time available, working on fewer courses per semester. Too, I sort of need it, given the limitations of ageing. I know I need to read everything at least twice.

I suppose I had better close for now. I can hear my youngest son in the next room. He is 10 months old, just learning to stand, a bundle of joy. My wife was awake during the night, working on her master's degree in ESL (at Shenandoah University, Virginia). She will need to continue sleeping some more hours. I had better go get him now. Well, he's quiet now... maybe I'll have a bit more time. If he starts wailing again, I'll have to go.

Church:

Our church begins at 12:30 a.m., as we attend the English service at Joong-Moon Baptist Church in Taejeon. At 2:00 p.m. the pastor's wife, Patricia, teaches Sunday School. My children enjoy that very much, particularly Jordan and Ashley. She brings coloring pages for them to color while they listen to her read the Bible stories.

“Children’s Bibles”:

I read to my children every night, from "Children's Bibles." Of course, they are not really Bibles, per se, as they are only simplified renditions of the real text. But that is what we use predominantly. Lately, though, my two older boys have begun to call for the Bible to back up, or fill in more detail, stories we read about. That was the case with the death of Absalom, hanging in the tree. They were not satisfied with the cursory treatment of the topic in our simplified version. I will list the "Children's Bibles" which we use, and use Pink to indicate the top three for our family:

1. The Golden Children's Bible

(This is my favorite, by far, as it seems to hew best to the Bible, and though it's language level is a bit above the average of my children's abilities, it does not fail to retain their interest.)

2. The One Year Bible for Children by V. Gilbert Beers

(We use this one predominantly, as it's language ability level seems to hit the medium level of my children's current level.)

3. A Child's First Bible by Kenneth N. Taylor

(We used this text very much, when the children were younger.)

4. The Children's Bible in 365 Stories by Mary Batchelor

(For some reason, we just don't use this one much, though it seems fairly well written.)

5. God's Little Princess Devotional Bible by Sheila Walsh

( I got this for my daughter, and we use it only occasionally. It is kind of weak in catering to modern fashion, though it has a fine collection of hymns from the older tradition, which I enjoy. I am teaching my children hymns, all old style, as I find they stick closer to God, Jesus, and salvation. Plus, I appreciate music which has a beat, and that they do, far better than much of the wandering modern work I hear. I don't want to call it pure pablum, but I have difficulty remembering the lyrics when: A) they are not very focused on Christ, God the Father, or The Holy Spirit, and B) the music lacks a clear, resounding beat. Maybe I need to adapt, but I don't think so. I think it fine to remain "Just as I am.")

6. The First Step Bible by Mack Thomas

(So simple, so few words, that we do not use this one much.)

7. Jesus Loves Me Bible "Stories retold by Angela and Ken Abraham"

(This one we have read through several times, and greatly enjoyed. We connect with it easily, and I cannot say why it was so much better for us than the others at the most simple level. It is indeed one of the simpler ones, at a very elementary level of English. However, for that, it is rich in content, a master piece of work at getting the essence of the stories punched into a simple English format.)

It seems that we have too many "Children's Bibles," and we do, but as I could not peruse most of them before buying, shopping on Amazon, as it were, we bought a few relative "duds," and are stuck with them. I even hesitate to give the weaker texts to my Korean students of English, as I would only want to give them what I deem the best. For that, my wife would strongly oppose me buying a bunch of texts and having them shipped here to South Korea.

8. Children's Book of the Bible By Wallis Metts and Linda Causey

(This one raises an eyebrow in me every time. I wonder if an Atheist wrote it. This is really an unfair judgment, or "pre-judgment," as I know little about it, but every time we get it out, which has been rare, something rubs me the wrong way about it. To begin with, it is written like a history book from school, or an encyclopedia, with a lot of extra "historical" material thrown in. Oddly, that is why I bought it, thinking it would be a good supplement, but I like my "Bibles" straight, meaning even children's renditions of the real thing, for me, need to be told with empathy, from the narrator's point of view. For me, the narrator is our God, or the Holy Spirit, but not some human parser of phrases. Rather, if we are going to try to make stories available to children in easier English, I believe we have a duty to use the same method of telling the stories, and that is ensconced within story form, not abstracted and "explained" to the nth degree. I hope that makes sense. I am not an expert on "Children's Bibles," but we have read a lot of them, and settled on a few that seem to work much better for us. Interestingly, my children lean towards the same ones I do, though probably for different reasons. I believe that the ones which are more riveting may well be those which are more theologically sound. We'll see as I study more theology and gain in my understanding and ability to judge a text.)

9. Bible Wars and Weapons By Rick Osborne, Marnie Wooding, & Ed Strauss

(My boys like this one very much; however, I don't like reading it very often. The tone is too chatty and "cool." In fact, I change the wording as I read, to more normal English.)

In Christ,

Nathaniel