Geoff's Miscellany

I just read the short story The Devil and Pierre Gernet by David Bentley Hart. I'm not sure that a short story has ever left me wanting to sit and talk to its author the way this one has. I'll post a review soon. Initial thoughts:

1. The book seems pretentious due to the vocabulary, but Hart just talks that way. If you can read it without a dictionary, the GRE or the LSAT would be a joke (I missed two on the verbal GRE and I had to look things up).
2. Hart's descriptions of the emotional life are spot on, which is unusual to find in a public intellectual.
3. Several of the themes of Hart's work come up, particularly aesthetics, materialism, and a sort of Trahernian mysticism that the demonic character mocks.

On the Twitter, Jennifer Guo pondered which books she should read before seminary. My normal response would be to remember that scene from Good Will Hunting about library fees and Harvard education. But on the other hand, seminary can be super useful and if you've counted the cost, so to speak, then I shouldn't attempt discouraging anybody. Guo seems, if her blog is any indication, to be well read and informed. So she doesn't need my recommendations. I won't recommend language books because I'll assume that people go to seminary precisely to learn the languages. But, if I had to recommend important books to read prior to attending:

When I was younger I used to train really hard. I still tend to do so. But when I was younger, I don't even remember why, but I decided that it would be important to test my ability to lift insanely heavy weights under psychological distress. To simulate that state, I did what I hate the most: I ran. I would run 1.1 miles in the windless, midnight heat of Texas (I got off work at 12am back then). I would time it so my roommate could try to beat my time next time he ran. Then I would rest for 3 minutes or 1.5 minutes depending on the day and do a 20-rep squat or warm up to a 3X3 squat. I would then do deadlift, bench, chins, and a single of clean and press for fun. I only weighed about 135 back then because I could only afford, on average, about 1300-1500 calories a day.

George Herbert has been one of my favorite poets since 2005 or so. One of his longer poems, the Church Porch, contains an interesting few stanzas concerning the vigorous or strenuous life that would fit right into a book by Teddy Roosevelt. If you aren't a fan of poetry, just read the bold lines:

Flie idlenesse, which yet thou canst not flie
By dressing, mistressing, and complement.
If those take up thy day, the sunne will crie
Against thee: for his light was onely lent.
God gave thy soul brave wings; put not those feathers
Into a bed, to sleep out all ill weathers.

Why you should read it:

1. It is one of the few "church Bibles" we protestants have. Even though it was produced by the state of England, at the time, that was indistinguishable from the Anglican Church.
2. It is an important piece of literature in Western Civilization.
3. It isn't under copyright.
4. It is the inspired writ, so reading it is just good for you.
5. Pulling a quote from the KJV has a poetic effect that is rhetorically useful simply due to our built in reverence for the king's English.
6. Due to the effort required to follow each sentence, if you're a lazy reader, you may find yourself reading it more carefully.

Why you should read other translations:

There is a method of Christian advice giving and sermonizing that is very popular today that essentially involves claims of this sort: Don’t try so hard to over come sin, you’ve got to stop trying and just let God do it through you!

It’s a persistent notion and I’ve over heard it given as advice in coffee shops, in hall way discussions in seminary, at chapel messages, etc. It often finds its iteration, for pastors and the like, in phrases like this, “I just had to get out of the way and then watch God work.”

 Commenting upon the phrase, "Praise the Lord, oh my Soul," Calvin observed:

Although his heart was truly and seriously in the work, he would not rest in this, until he had acquired still greater ardour. And if it was necessary for David to stir himself up to the praises of God, how powerful a stimulant must we require for a more difficult matter when we aim at the divine life with self-denial. As to the religious exercise here mentioned, let us feel that we will never be sufficiently active in it, unless we strenuously exact it from ourselves. As God supports and maintains his people in the world with this view, that they may employ their whole life in praising him, David very properly declares, that he will do this to the end of his course.
John Calvin and James Anderson, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. 5 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 285.

I really do believe that the best opportunity any human being has is this:

28 Δεῦτε πρός με πάντες οἱ κοπιῶντες καὶ πεφορτισμένοι, κἀγὼ ἀναπαύσω ὑμᾶς. 29 ἄρατε τὸν ζυγόν μου ἐφʼ ὑμᾶς καὶ μάθετε ἀπʼ ἐμοῦ, ὅτι πραΰς εἰμι καὶ ταπεινὸς τῇ καρδίᾳ, καὶ εὑρήσετε ἀνάπαυσιν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὑμῶν· 30 ὁ γὰρ ζυγός μου χρηστὸς καὶ τὸ φορτίον μου ἐλαφρόν ἐστιν.

Come to me all who are weary and weighed down and I will grant it that you should rest. Take my yoke upon yourselves and learn from me , because I am meek and humble hearted, then you will find rest in your souls. For my yoke is good and my burden is bearable. (Matthew 11:28-30)

The Four D's of the Christian Life:

1. Get your finances in order in three easy steps.
2. Have an extra sexy super duper sex life in three easy steps (with Bible verses).
3. Go to small group Bible study every week.

If you do these four things (Just remember: the four Ds!) you'll be a mega member of a mega church mega family.

Schreiner's criticism involves a claim to speak authoritatively for Paul and God, and thus for historical truth. Following such a remarkable methodological claim, one might expect his dismissal to be closely based on what Paul wrote—but it is not. To put this bluntly: Paul may well have been inspired to speak for God (which is not historically verifiable), but unless Schreiner claims the same inspiration for himself, he should accept that he is, like everyone else, limited to engaging in the interpretation of Paul's texts. Consider briefly each of the details of his summary description. - Four Views of Paul the Apostle, 58