Posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
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A package came in the mail today (actually a couple of packages). Because I love books and purchase a lot of books from Amazon I get about one or two books a week from Amazon, but today I received a bigger box from Logos software. Because of my increased preaching and teaching duties I had to wait until I arrived home to install it on my laptop. I can only say that “Amazing” is the first word that comes to mind. I am only able to use the very basic features, yet already I am finding helpful pieces for my message on Sunday. I don’t get paid for advertising any software so this is simply a New Testament scholar’s opinion. Logos is a great, great tool. It is a wonderful way to build a library and be able to keep track of your books, find exactly what you need without digging around for two hours. I will be telling you more about what kind of great things the software can do in the Greek and Hebrew searches. I have already seen some amazing searches based on syntax rather than just words or morphology. Check it out, logos has packages for all budgets and levels of study. See them at http://www.logos.com. Tell them samlam sent you.
Posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
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Like many of you, I speak to many people who think that it is my job to answer every question that they might have about the Bible. There are some of these people whom I feel called to spend a great deal of time with. There are others whom I feel that it would be better if I saved my breath.
That may go against the training that many of you have had and you may think that we all have an obligation to spend as much time as any person is willing to listen. I tend to feel otherwise. There are some people who are simply not being drawn by the Holy Spirit, and no matter what I say, or what argument I put forward, there will be no conversion without the calling of the Spirit. I realize, of course, that I don’t have a pipeline to heaven and the Spirit is not always making it clear to me whom He might be working on and whom He might not be drawing at that particular time.
I have a tool that I use, given the fact that I have limited time and that there are those who would spend days doing nothing but arguing with me, yet have no real desire to accept Christ even if all of those objections were answered. The tool that I use is this. I try to center the questions about the truthfulness of the Bible on the resurrection of Christ. This is the central miracle of the Bible, and the most important event in the history of the world.
After asking the “argumentative soul� if we can center on one issue, and make that issue the resurrection of Jesus I use the answer to help me decide whether they are really serious about questing for truth, or just like arguing. If they are willing to center on this one issue, I am happy to continue the conversation. If they are not willing, but want to bring up a different argument every few minutes, I save my breath. I know that they are not seeking truth but seeking argument and that no-one is argued into the Kingdom of God.
If they are willing to center on this one issue, I spend a few moments giving them two or three of the best arguments for the resurrection. I will try to post a small one page outline of some of these arguments, but most of you are familiar with them and they are available in any standard apologetics textbook like Scaling the Secular City
Then I ask them if I could answer whatever problem or question that they had about the resurrection would they be willing to turn their lives over to Christ. Many times you will find a “no, I am not willing to make that commitment.� At that point I ask if they would be willing to read a book that would show strong arguments for the true bodily resurrection of Christ. If they are unwilling to commit to reading a book, I feel that it is time to save my breath.
I save my breath because there are other people whom the Holy Spirit is working on and who need to be spoken to. I cannot let my fleshly nature (I have to “win the argument�) overcome what is the best use of my time for the Lord. I can only trust that the Lord will guide my decisions and help me to use my breath at the right time and save it at the right time. Our job is to be “wise as a serpent, but harmless as a dove.�
There are a lot of great books on the resurrection. They range all the way from suitable for doctoral philosophy students N. T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God down to middle school students The Case For Easter. A middle of the road book written by a good scholar, but not so technical that it cannot be understood by your average reader is The Weekend that Changed the World
Happy Fishing,
DrSamLam
Posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
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Jesus Camp! Everyone who grew up in the South as a Christian went to church camp. Last night I watched, for the second time, with my whole family, a movie about a particular church camp. The film is called Jesus Camp I watched it again because after watching it once because I thought, this can’t be real. There must be a Christopher Guest in here somewhere. Where is Parker Pusey when you need her?
Before going off on a rant about the movie, let me hear from you if you have seen it. I’ll give you a couple of days to respond and then give you my unvarnished thoughts on this film. All I can say is that I am glad that it was a limited release, find out why in a couple of days.
Posted on Saturday, January 27th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
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I have been informed that I will be preaching in the morning services at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church from now until Palm Sunday. This is a very large responsibility and while I am honored to be asked, I am also frightened by the awesome task that is in front of me. I would appreciate your prayers. Next Sunday I will be preaching two sermons called Jesus Looks up to the Little Man and Jesus Straightens Out the Bent Woman. These are both charactors from the book of Luke. The following Sunday I will begin an exposition of the book of Matthew. I will be posting the sermons here in case anyone is interested in listening to them.
Thanks very much for your prayer support, it means a great deal to me. I have been reading Philip Yancey’s Book on Prayer. I have often felt the need to put the book down and pray. While I do not agree with all of his theology, it is a book that magnifies God and encourages me to pray. For that I am thankful.
Pray Hard, but don’t give up studying for the test!
DrSamLam
Posted on Saturday, January 27th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
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Slide Show for Chapter 23 23.ppt
Posted on Thursday, January 25th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
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Today started a new semester here at Knox and like most professors I know, I am excited to be back in the classroom. I miss my students, the interaction over the issues in class, and the discussions where I learn as much as the students do. I hope that this will be a great semester for all students and professors everywhere. I pray that the Lord will bless his word as it goes forth in power and in might.
I will be teaching a class on preaching (I know, I feel very inadequate, but I do feel that I can point out some of the dos and don’ts of the art and craft). I will also be teaching Greek and a class on the genre of comedy in which we read some comedy from Jesus (listen to my ETS paper if that thought stuns you) as well as early Greek comedy and what is perhaps the greatest comedy of all: The Divine Comedy by Dante. This, my Sunday school class and my preaching load should keep me pretty busy. I will do my best to keep putting up my notes both from the classes and from the Sunday school class on the life of Jesus. I few new sermons will be uploaded soon so if anyone has been waiting for anything (though I can’t imagine why) it won’t be long now.
If you are a teacher, a student, or both, I hope that you have the best semester ever!
Study Hard
DrSamLam
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