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Coffee Break – 01.22.2018

Your Monday Dose Of Inspiration

On this day in history: In 1874, a patent was issued to Samuel W. Francis for the spork. In 1901, Queen Victoria of England died after reigning for nearly 64 years. Edward VII, her son, succeeded her. And in 1930, excavation began for the Empire State Building in New York City.

Coffee Break

Today Is National Blonde Brownie Day!
You need to make some blondies, and come right on over!

How to Make Iced Coffee in a Chemex – My favorite method of making coffee is definitely my Chemex, but I typically use it to make a hot pourover. But did you know you can use it to make iced coffee as well? This article explains how, and you can grab a Chemex here.

Can You Identify These Cities From Their Light Signatures? – I got most of these correct. Can you?

The Awkward 17th-Century Dating Practice That Saw Teens Get Bundled Into Bags – Here is an interesting historical article about the practice of bundling, although it may need a bit of fact-checking. The article mentions the biblical book of Ruth, but doesn’t accurately depict what happened in it. Regardless, it’s an interesting perspective on a bit of history.

Every State In The US – This is a fascinating video that makes a connection from state to state to cover all 50. While it is essentially an ad, it’s still really interesting.

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Memorize Scripture: Psalm 119:5-8

Hiding God’s Word In Our Hearts

In the second half of the first strophe of Psalm 119, the writer describes his longing for God’s Word, and ends with a commitment of obedience. Take a look at this passage for yourself in Psalm 119:5-8.

Psalm 119:5-8

Most of the time, when you read something, you expect the author to build his case and then, at the end, present his conclusion. But Psalm does just the opposite. In this first strophe, we see the introduction to the entire passage in the first three verses, but we also see the crux of the entire thing in verse 8, where the writer, likely David (although Hezekiah, Ezra and Daniel are also possibilities), states his commitment to obedience to God’s commands.

Since the first three verses are the introduction, the rest of this stanza is directly connected to it. God has set the standard for obedience to his decrees, and the psalmist expresses his desire to comply. In order to do so, he realizes that there must be a strong will to obey. In verse 5, he wished his ways to be “steadfast” or “established,” which means to be prepared, to make firm, to be resolved to stand firm upon God’s commands.

Because of his integrity in this matter, the writer knows that no shame will result. And this is true: standing firm upon God’s Word, and holding tightly to his values will never result in shame, but praise and joy will be the result, just as we see in verse 7.

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Book Review – Unimaginable by Jeremiah J. Johnston

UnimaginableI have long been a history buff. And one of the genres I enjoy within the category of history is the “what if” idea, such as, “What if this had happened instead of that?” That is kind of the take on history that Jeremiah Johnston uses in his book Unimaginable.

First of all, I expected something a bit different than what Johnston presents here. I’m not sure what I really expected, maybe something more imaginative, more fictional, but that’s not the purpose of this book. Instead, what Johnston has done is look at history and show what it would look like if Christianity did not exist. What I did not expect, perhaps blindly on my part, is that he would draw from history those things which already point to what it would look like in such a world.

That sounds a bit confusing, and I’m not sure how to articulate it very clearly. Maybe an example would help. Without Christianity in our world, there would be no value to the human life. And if life holds no value, then things such as slavery, abortion, euthanasia, communism, fascism, and more would run unhindered. But we have already seen in history how those kinds of things have affected the lives of millions. Slavery is an institution we have fought for ages, around the world in various forms. Abortions occur in epidemic proportions. Communism and fascism have cost the lives of countless millions of people. And the list could go on.

It’s kind of depressing. Johnston shows what a world without Christianity would look like, and we see that it is our world.

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Coffee Break – 01.15.2018

Your Monday Dose Of Inspiration

On this day in history: In 1624, riots occurred in Mexico when it was announced that all churches were to be closed. In 1892, Triangle magazine in Springfield, MA, published the rules for a brand new game. The original rules involved attaching a peach baskets to a suspended board. It is now known as basketball. And in 1967, the first National Football League Super Bowl was played. The Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League. The final score was 35-10.

Coffee Break

Today Is National Hat Day!
It’s also Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so celebrate with a hat!

Nine Coffee Related Resolutions For The New Year – Coffee is a big part of life for a lot of people. Here are nine things you can resolve to do in 2018 when it comes to coffee.

Why Do Canadians Say ‘Eh’? – I went to college with a couple of Canadians, and this was always a question I wanted to ask, but never felt like I could. Now I know. And so do you.

Use A Balloon to Improve Your Pop Up Flash – As a photographer who prefers landscape photography, this isn’t going to be something I use much. But for those who take candids or portraits, this could be a handy thing to keep in their bag of tricks.

Primitive Technology – This guy builds a small “bed shed” where he can sleep, using nothing but what he finds in the woods. I found it pretty interesting.

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Memorize Scripture: Psalm 119:1-4

Hiding God’s Word In Our Hearts

With a new year comes a new memorization goal. For this year, I want to memorize all of Psalm 119. This week, we will begin with an overview, and the first four verses. Take a look at them for yourself.

Psalm 119:1-4

Psalm 119 is the longest of all the psalms, at 176 verses long. It is also the most complex of all the psalms, being written as an acrostic, with eight verses for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. There are twenty-two strophes to this psalm, corresponding to each letter, with eight verses in each, possibly as a connection to the eight different words used to convey God’s Word that are used within.

If you memorized the letters that break up the sections of this psalm, you would have the entire Hebrew alphabet memorized, and this could have been a literary device to help teach the written language in Old Testament times.

The key concept to Psalm 119 is God’s Word. There are eight different terms used to communicate this found in these verses. Let’s look at each briefly. Many of them overlap in English, and so it may be a bit confusing. But each term stands on its own in the original language.