5pointers

Today is Reformation Day, and so it seems fitting to post the party pic, and link you to Jadeejf’s post on it here. (I had always thought it was JadeElf, but it’s ejf. I’m geekier than I thought…) I think everyone had a good time and learned something, if not about the reformation and Luther, than about each other – specifically Nat. 🙂

Some other cool Reformation day items are this post by ENielsen, this post by Isaiah543, these Justification book recommendations, the 95 theses, and here’s the Resource Sheet and 95 Theses from the party if you are interested (in PDF).
Finally, the trivia question we couldn’t answer, and I hope you answer in the comments is: In what language were Luther’s originally posted theses? (German? Latin? Engligh? ah, yeah, citation requested!) Oh, and if you think of it, what is your favorite thesis? Mine is #62. 😉

I don’t like political controversy and campaigning and all of that, but I do think this political fact check looks like something to keep at the ready in our browsers. I think it wouldn’t be necessary if we had more robust political discourse (i.e. not just sound bite politics.) But with all the mudslinging I’ve seen in my local state senate race (yeah, state), this looks like a good thing to know about and check back to.

Also, Justin Taylor posted a link to a presidential interview on foriegn policy that was very interesting. We could have a lot of commentary on this, but I’ll see what develops.

My wife and I recently watched “Crimes and Misdemeanors”, a Woody Allen film. Below I’ve left some things I’ve noted as they relate to God and ethics. I found the film hilarious at times, heartbreaking at others, and insightful throughout. Sadly, what Allen needs most, Allen misses most.

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For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

Romans 3:28 (ESV)
VS.
You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
James 2:24 (ESV)

OK, which verse wins the match? Hmm… I think I’m going with… (more…)

You guessed it, I had my first Greek midterm last night. I found it surprising how much I did actually know considering that I’ve only had concentrated study of the material for about two months.

But something troubled me with my translation methodology. You see, my engineering undergrad taught me to learn enough to get through the test, not to learn the material for it’s own sake. So difficult exams would involve all manner of processing the information given, and sparsely remembered, to produce the most points.

How does this affect Greek? Well, instead of translating a Greek phrase or sentence, my engineering conditioned mind tries to decode it. The instant some phrase sounds like a Scriptural caption – ZING – I write out the rest of the verse! What nonsense! Instead of using the Greek I know to translate into english, I find myself relying more heavily on english translations to reverse engineer the Greek! Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this mind of death?!

Fortunately for me, God is gracious and I am actually learning some Greek, and the exam wasn’t that much of a tragedy. And the good news is that with these catagories, if the test went well, it will be a comedy.