Between Two Worlds Has Moved

Justin Taylor's "Between Two Worlds" blog has moved, and is now located at the Gospel Coalition. The Gospel Coalition has their own blog and plans to add more blogs. TGC's website as a whole is a terrific source for all sorts of gospel-centered ministry resources. If you haven't yet, I'd encourage you to check it out and bookmark it.

Chuck Norris

I always enjoy some good Chuck Norris jokes:

• When taking the SAT, write “Chuck Norris” for every answer. You will score over 8000.
• Chuck Norris kicked Neo out of Zion, now Neo is “The Two”.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t get wet, water gets Chuck Norris
• Chuck Norris always knows where Waldo is. Chuck Norris is the reason Waldo is so hard to find.
• When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris
• Every year on his birthday Chuck selects one lucky child to be thrown into the sun.
• Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table, because he only recognizes the element of surprise.
• When Chuck Norris Does Long Division there is Never a Remainder
• When an episode of Walker Texas Ranger was aired in France, the French surrendered to Chuck Norris just to be on the safe side.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t need to swipe a card at an ATM, He just stares and the ATM empties itself.

THESE JUST IN!

• In fine print on the last page of the Guinness Book of World Records appendix it notes that all world records are held by Chuck Norris, and those listed in the book are simply the closest anyone else has ever gotten.
• When Chuck Norris had surgery, the anesthesia was applied to the doctors.
• Chuck Norris can touch MC Hammer.
• Chuck Norris ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one.
• Chuck Norris keeps a pillow under his gun.
• Chuck Norris plays Russian Roulette with a full CLIP and wins.
• Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird.
• Chuck Norris can fry ants with a magnifying glass. At night.
• Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water AND make it drink.
• Only Chuck Norris can prevent forest fires.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t love Raymond.
• Superman has Chuck Norris PJs.
• Chuck Norris can make a snowman. From rain.

(HT: Vitamin Z)

Thoughts On Parenting

Vitamin Z shares some thoughts on parenting while observing a little girl and her mom in an airport. After telling the story and his first thought on the details of the story, he writes the following:

2. Kids are crying out for discipline. It's almost as though this little girl loves the give and take dance of her lashing out and her mother quietly trying to tell her to sit down. I believe that kids instinctively know that they need to be lovingly disciplined. It shows attentive care for them. You can see it in this little girl's eyes when she freaks out at her Mom that she is just waiting for her Mom to do something and continues to push it until she get some sort of reaction.

3. Kids will take as far as you give them. Sin runs deep in all of us and if we don't model God's disapproval for sin we do them a grave disservice. "Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him." Prov. 22:15.

4. The way to keep your child in check has to start at the home. If you want to manage your children well in public you had better be sure to manage them consistently at home, especially since you might get slapped with a lawsuit if you attempt to spank your child in public. I am not comfortable with spanking my kids in public, but my children know for sure that Dad will follow through when we are in the appropriate context. Your kids have to know that your words mean something. If you never follow through with what you say you are going to do then you simply become a liar in their eyes.

Read the whole post here.

Saved By The Bell Reunion

It's been a while since I blogged about ... well, anything. But this was just too good to pass up:

The Murder of Dr. George Tiller

Some wise words from Albert Mohler and Robert George on the recent killing of Dr. George Tiller:

First, from Mohler:

Abortion is murder. What goes on in those clinics is institutionalized homicide, often for financial profit. Abortion is a moral scandal and a national tragedy and a blight upon the American conscience.

But violence in the name of protesting abortion is immoral, unjustified, and horribly harmful to the pro-life cause. Now, the premeditated murder of Dr. George Tiller in the foyer of his church is the headline scandal -- not the abortions he performed and the cause he represented.

We have no right to take the law into our own hands in an act of criminal violence. We are not given the right to take this power into our own hands, for God has granted this power to governing authorities. The horror of abortion cannot be rightly confronted, much less corrected, by means of violence and acts outside the law and lawful means of remedy. This is not merely a legal technicality -- it is a vital test of the morality of the pro-life movement.

The Christian church has been forced by historical necessity to think through these issues again and again. The church has reached a basic moral consensus on issues of violence and governmental obedience, and this consensus requires that Christian citizens work within legal, judicial, and political means to persuade governing authorities concerning what is good, right, just, and honoring to God. Those who operate outside of this consensus and perform acts of violence are rightly understood to arrogate authority to themselves in a way that violates not only the laws of men but the law of God. Civil disobedience may be justified so long as the Christian is willing to suffer at the hands of the governing authorities, but is not justified if the citizen employs violence against the state or against other citizens.

In the case of Dr. George Tiller, the governing authorities failed again and again to fulfill their responsibility to protect all citizens, including those yet unborn. The law is dishonoring to God in its disrespect for human life. The law failed to bring George Tiller to account for what should have been seen as crimes against humanity. But this failure does not authorize others to act in the place of the government, much less in the place of God. The government must now act to prosecute and punish the murderer of Dr. George Tiller.

...

Murder is murder. The law rightly affirms that the killing of Dr. George Tiller is murder. In this we must agree. We cannot rest until the law also recognizes the killing of the unborn as murder. The killing of Dr. George Tiller makes that challenge all the more difficult.

And from George:

Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands. No private individual had the right to execute judgment against him. We are a nation of laws. Lawless violence breeds only more lawless violence. Rightly or wrongly, George Tilller was acquitted by a jury of his peers. "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord." For the sake of justice and right, the perpetrator of this evil deed must be prosecuted, convicted, and punished. By word and deed, let us teach that violence against abortionists is not the answer to the violence of abortion. Every human life is precious. George Tiller's life was precious. We do not teach the wrongness of taking human life by wrongfully taking a human life. Let our "weapons" in the fight to defend the lives of abortion's tiny victims, be chaste weapons of the spirit.

Misc Parenting Links

It's about time that I admit that I often use this blog instead of my internet browser's Favorites/Bookmarks - to save links for stuff I think looks interesting to read, but don't take the time immediately to read it. So while I haven't really read through all of these, I intend to come back to them. And I hope they may be interesting to you, too.

From LifeTogether:

• Do-able ... Big Truths for Young Hearts
• Do-able Devotions
• Practical Gospel Parenting

From Between Two Worlds:

• Big Truths for Young Hearts: An Interview with Bruce Ware

From Desiring God:

• Recommended Reading for Parents and Children's Ministers
• 7 Ideas for Teaching Toddlers God's Word
• Two Cautions for Teaching Kids

A Song For Earth Day

In honor of Earth Day (hope you didn't forget to get your wife an eco-friendly gift like a box of dirt or a bag of mulch), my all-time favorite environmentalist song, which I first posted back in June of 2007:

Take a listen:


Here are the full lyrics, if you want to play it again and sing along:

Please don't melt our glaciers
Please don't kill us all
Please don't destroy our atmosphere
The sun will kill us all

Global warming
It's not just a prediction anymore
It's not just a prediction anymore
It's true
Help

Bush is such an idiot (I know)
He won't sign the Kyoto Treaty
Why doesn't he care?
Why won't he help?

Global warming
It's not just a prediction anymore
It's not just a prediction anymore
It's true
Help

Icebergs are falling into the ocean
The ozone layer is thinning
Make good choices
Don't use so many resources
Every single day
Don't drive your car as much
Find alternatives
Don't be careless
Recycle
Don't use so much electricity
Don't use styrofoam
Be friendly to the earth
It will be friendly back

Global warming
It's not just a prediction anymore
It's not just a prediction anymore
It's real
Help

If that's not enough, I've got a fair amount of posts regarding global warming.

Unity Amid Differences

John Piper's latest "Taste & See" article is about his pastoral staff and unity amid differences. It includes six Biblical guidelines that I think the Church as a whole and individual churches in particular would do well to heed:

1. Let’s avoid gossiping.
2. Let’s identify evidences of grace in each other and speak them to each other and about each other.
3. Let’s speak criticism directly to each other if we feel the need to speak to others about it.
4. Let’s look for, and assume, the best motive in the other’s viewpoint, especially when we disagree.
5. Think often of the magnificent things we hold in common.
6. Let’s be more amazed that we are forgiven than that we are right. And in that way, let’s shape our relationships by the gospel.

Read the full article here.