Fun with Names...

Wouldn't it be awful (and perhaps funny) if the person who changes the sign were to transpose just two letters in the pastor's name.

Can you hear some unfortunate vistor greet "Bro. Heresy?"

(By the way, this has absolutely nothing to do Free Will Baptists being theologically Arminian.)

Yum...

I made some Chex mix today. It's some really great stuff, but I can really only have it at Christmas.

Once a year...

Once a year my brother, the diehard University of Georgia Bulldog fan, will actually admit that he graduated from Georgia Tech.

Timberrrrr....

This morning we did a little bit of work on Christmas eve. We cut down a twenty year old pine tree from my brother's property line.

It was quite the little adventure. My brother-in-law climbed a thirty foot ladder to secure the rope to the tree. We needed the rope to pull the tree in the direction we wanted it to fall, just to make sure that it fell where we wanted it.

As you can tell, my brother's truck is well down the hill in the backyard. He was not able to see Pop tell him, "PULL!" (That is why the rope has slack in it.) Well, the tree did not fall on the neighbor's house. (Which arguably is a good thing.) But on the other hand, it didn't exactly fall where we wanted it to fall either. It fell about ten feet away from my brother's house! Some of the farthest reaches of the branches even swept over the edge of the roof and down the side of the house. Overall though, the house escaped largely unscathed.

However, not everything survived the affair...


This is a plastic chair that was destroyed.

Coming Soon ....

This is an actual picture of Baby Perkins!

We had a scheduled check-up with our Doctor today. She said that everything was looking good. We are about 10 1/2 weeks along, so we were too early to hear the heartbeat. But we asked her if there was anything we could do to know that everything was going ok, because Valerie has not been sick.

The Doctor reassured us that everything was looking good. Then she asked us, "If you don't mind waiting for the sonogram machine to boot up, I'll give you an early Christmas present." So, we got an early sonogram of Baby Perkins!

It's still a little early to tell the gender, but at least we know that the little guy/gal is in there. Baby Perkins jumped around and then pounced at us like a tiger. We got a few printouts. One shows Baby looking at us. But I've posted the profile picture. It's pretty clear that Baby is a Perkins. Just look at the size of that head!

Cool Christmas Gift...

My sister-in-law Michelle gave me a cool Christmas gift. It is a framed set of pictures of U2. The top picture is of the band from the All That You Can't Leave Behind era. There is also a smaller picture of Bono from the PopMart tour. (I can tell because of the buzz cut and red sunglasses.)

The album listing is a little off though. The Million Dollar Hotel is not a "U2" album. It is the soundtrack to the movie of the same name written by Bono. A few U2 songs appear, but it is not a true U2 album. Also, U2 Exposed: The Interview certainly is not a U2 album?!?!

Regardless, this is a great and thoughtful gift. 

Some Theological Musings Courtesy of Auggie

I read today in Augustine's Confessions: Book Three, Chapter 7, Paragraph 12 that "evil was nothing but a privation of good (that, indeed, it has no being)."

Would I be correct to understand Auggie to say that evil is the absence of good, like cold is the absence of heat, and like darkness is the absence of light?

If so, (and I think so), then is good/evil measurable across a continuum of 0 to infinity (like heat or light), instead of measurable as a binary function of 0 (evil) or 1 (good)?

How is this approach different to the Ultilitarian's view, in which one tries to express goodness as a mathematical function that can be operated on by calculus to determine the maximization of goodness.

(As an aside, I know that Man really screws up utilitarianism, but what about if God used utilitarianism? Hmm...Is this an underlying assumption of the Free Will Defense or at least in Plantinga's undercutting defeater of Mackie?)

"We don't need no education"....

Well, at least that is what Pink Floyd said. However, I would disagree. I disagree so much, that I have now spent 12 years of regular education, 4 years on a Bachelors, and 3 years on a Master's Degree. That's almost two decades!

I graduated earlier today with a Master's of Divinity with Biblical Languages from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my church(es), my friends, my professors, my pastor(s) and my family for their prayers and support. Above all though, I would like to thank my beautiful wife, Valerie, for making all of this possible. 

let it snow, err, ice...

We had a little bit of an ice storm here in Fort Worth today and yesteday. It was enough to get the schools to close early on Wednesday and stay closed all of Thursday. It gave Valerie and I a little bit of extra time together before our families arrive for graduation on Friday.

blog purpose statement...

I've been blogging now for a little over a month. During this span of time, I've finished classes at seminary, made a cross country trip by car, and found out that I'm gonna be a Daddy.

Looking back over my previous posts, I 've realized that most of the posts are really just little tidbits about personal life and a few random musings about college football.

In the future, I plan to continue to make posts about personal stuff. However, I'd also like to begin posting some more theological musings too. I'll have to figure out some topics to talk about though. I've thought about possibly doing a book review or something. I have heard quite a bit about the "emerging church," and would really like to figure out what is going on there. Perhaps, I will do some reading along those lines. Anyway, if anyone has some ideas, please let me know.

From embryo to fetus!

Baby Perkins is now a fetus according to www.pregancy.org. Apparently, all organs necessary to sustain life have formed.

Val Wins Again....

For the last 2 out of 3 years, Valerie won my college football pick'em league. And of course winning has not gone to her head...
she wrote a little victory song that she loves to sing to me repeatedly!