Back in March I wrote the below little article for Australian Presbyterian. It is on the topic of the Christ in the Psalms, and the basic thrust of it is that the Psalms are more typological/Christological than we naturally expect. Now, how do I upload a file again?

AP March 2011 (pdf)

Partitioned my hard drive, and installed Ubuntu (dual booting with Vista), Open Office, Thunderbird (email) and Zotero (to replace Endnote). It’s a bit of a learning curve, and Linux still isn’t for the faint hearted, but with a little bit of computer knowledge, it’s brilliant. It’s free. There are free, good quality apps for everything (DTP, photo editing, etc). It’s quick. It isn’t as demanding on system resources (my 3 gig of ram that I needed for Vista eats up Ubuntu). It seems to be more stable than Windows, and when a program crashes (especially when trying to run Windows programs in Linux), it recovers really well. It reads my external hdd and usb key no probs. Getting my pocket pc syned is the only thing I haven’t managed to do yet.

With the ‘Wine’ program, I can still run MS Office 2007 (not that I want to, although I reckon that Open Office is about 5 years behind where MS Office is at). I can also run Acrobat standard and Endnote (but it doesn’t integrate with MS Office or Open Office).

I haven’t tried running Logos/Libronix yet, but I have got BibleWorks 8 up and running. With Wine, I installed Internet Explorer 7 (in a Win XP bottle), and put all dll settings as at http://www.wine-reviews.net/wine-reviews/applications/ie-7-on-linux-with-wine.html. Then I installed BibleWorks, and almost all of it works.

The toolbar didn’t work, but I changed “comctl32″=”builtin” to “comctl32″=”native”, and that fixed it. Without the above dll changes, not all resources/lexicons opened, but with the changes, they all opened and could be read. Some resources will not let me resize the window, and pressing the x button to close them causes the program to crash. The only workaround I have is to not resize the window and don’t close it (leave it open, and it will close when BibleWorks is closed). Hope this helps someone.

I don’t have a clue what foxes do in July. I gather that foxes wag their tails when they’re happy, but from Wishart’s following words, it is something about being false.

This is the charge in the second article against him at his trial:

“Thou false Heretic did say, that a priest standing at the altar saying Mass, was like a fox wagging his tail in July.

The Answer.
My Lords, I said not so. These were my sayings: the moving of the body outward, without the inward moving of the heart, is not else but the playing of an ape, and not the true serving of God; for God is a secret searcher of men’s hearts: Therefore, who will truly adore and honor God, he must in spirit and verity honor him.

Then the Accuser stopped his mouth with an other Article.”

Door Knocking

Out of 878 doors we knocked on, 555 were not home (63%), 240 said no thanks (74% of those who were home), and 83 conversations were held. In other words, about 1 in 10 spoke to us. Of the 83 conversations, 56 answered the questionnaire, and 27 included discussion of the Gospel. I’m not quite sure how those stats work, but I suspect that the 27 also answered the questionnaire (so that 83 actually did the questionnaire in total). Bit confused.

Conclusions: there is in doorknocking some useful community contact, but it would probalby need to be done with some regularity to have any extensive exposure. I think the candidates quickly discovered what I had found from my own experience – door knocking can be frustrating just from the sheer number of people not home.

Busstopping

I found the stats for busstopping more confusing, but I think the gist of it is that there were 148 conversations held, which includes the answering of the questionnaire 130 times, and 55 Gospel discussions. We didn’t collect stats for how many said no thanks, but anecdotally it seemed that more people were willing to talk to us at the busstop than in their homes.

I confess that I forgot to tell the stats man my figures for the last day (sorry, Adam), and by the time I remembered I had forgotten, the stats had already been published. I didn’t have the heart to tell Adam, so I thought I’d confess to it on the internet.

Conclusions: busstopping gave much better contact than doorknocking. It was interesting that on the first day of the mission, almost no-one put their hand to go to the busstops. Doorknocking was seen to be the much safer option. However, one we tried both, most did not want to go back to doorknocking. Busstopping actually provides a more encouraging experience, and provides for more personal, one on one conversations, on neutral territory.

Totals

Combining doorknocking and busstopping, 186 questionairres were completed, 231 conversations were held, and 82 Gospel discussions were held. No, I haven’t checked if all the figures add up.

Conclusions

Do we like the idea of keeping stats? Are they accurate? Do they measure what we are really hoping to achieve? Do they tell us anything we didn’t already know?

I think doorknocking has a significance that the stats do not show, but perhaps for a busy pastor who is looking for a way to speak directly with his community, grab an elder or the minister from the adjacent parish, and go to your local bus stops.

For the doorknocking and busstopping, we did the old questionnaire routinue:

‘My name is…. and this is…. We’re from/representing Hume Presbyterian Church. Just doing a quick questionnaire – got time to answer 6 quick questions’. Etc.

The questionnaire looked like this, on a piece of paper about 1/5 of an A4:

__________________________________________________

Community Questionnaire

1. What is your greatest concern at the moment for this community?
2. Are you part of any religion or do you currently attend any church?  
   -      If so, where?  
   -      How often?
3. If you could ask God one question, what would it be?
4. Do you think the church prepares people for life after death?
5. If you were to die tonight, where do you think you would go?
6. If God said to you “Why should I let you into heaven?”, what would you say?

 Name:

 Phone:

 Would you like a visit on Saturday? Y / N

__________________________________________________

Lesson learned: the doctrines of the atonement, justification and assurance are still as vital and relevant as ever!

It never ceases to amaze me that most people think:

1. they are going to heaven – even the athiests;

2. they get to heaven by being good;

3. they have done bad, but the good outweighs the bad;

4. that God agrees with their view of things.

Welcome to my ‘new’ website/blog. It’s the same as my old website/blog, except that it’s hosted on a different server, and the address is slightly different. I’m paying three bucks a month to host my own websites and domains through justhost.com. Absolutely rapt with the deal. I’m hosting my own blog (http://jared.hoodfamily.org.au), my wife’s blog (http://cassiescuddles.hoodfamily.org.au), my parents’ site (www.hoodsbees.com – no yet operational), and a brand new site/wiki for the Presbyterian College – http://bibliopedia.ptcvic.org.

Bibliopedia is the most exciting development to come to the web, like, ever. It has bibliographies for various theological subjects, especially for use by students at PTC. B no longer stands for boring – it stands for Bibliopedia. So B all you can B, and look at Bibliopedia. Only PTC gives you the power to B. B yourself at PTC.

Hmmm. Returning to justhost.com, I have about ten email accounts operational, with unlimited email box sizes, and attachment sizes for email as large as I want them. I installed Roundcube for webmail. I have an ftp site for files I need ready access to (password protected, of course). I have unlimited disk space, and am currently using about 12 gig. As above, I have two blogs, using WordPress, and one wiki, using Dokuwiki. It’s currently hosting three domain names - I can host as many domains as I want, and have unlimited subdomains. All for three bucks a month - with one domain name registration included free! Speed is good, but not lightening fast, and I don’t get shell access, but I think I can cope with that. Justhost.com – excellent stuff – and I’m not even being paid to say it.

I grant the Covenant of works was then revealed and made knowne to the children of Israel, as being before almost obliterated and bloted out of mans heart, and therefore God renewed the knowledge of the Covenant of worke to them.

I grant also that the Law was given to them by the mediation of Moses, who was a Mediator betwixt God and them.

 

But I adde withal, that the Law though it contain the sum of the Covenant or works, yet was not delivered unto that people for this end, to stand between God and them as a Covenant of works, by which they should be justified and live, but onely as it was subservient and helpfull unto them, to attaine the end of the former Covenant of grace, which God had made with them in their Fathers; God had promises Abraham to be a God to him, and to his seed, but now the Israelites having been long trained up among an ignorant and idolatrous people, they little knew what need they had to fly to the promise of grace, and therefore the Lord now reeales his Law to them in that manner, to make them see by the terrors of the Law, that they cannot come neer unto God thereby; this was the Lords end in giving the Law unto them, and not to stand between God and them as a Covenant of life, by which they should live.

Bulkeley cites Galatians 3:19 to prove the point, which speaks of what we identify as the second use of the Law. With Ursinus, then, Burkeley has the covenant of works taught in the Mosaic covenant, but not reissued. The covenant of works is still in force, inasmuch as we have been condemned by it, and it is this condemnation that we need to come to know.

Burkeley continues to unpack this, and to deal with objections. What of Galatians 5:3, which says that the circumcised are bound to keep the whole Law? This was speaking of the abuse of the Judaising Apostles (p. 65). Still, the circumcised were bound to keep the whole law, in the sense not of trying to be justified by it, but to show themselves as a people separate to God.

He further argues that the Mosaic covenant could not have been a covenant of works, since it contained the ceremonial law. (p. 65). Further, the covenant of works was with all people, but the covenant of grace with select people (p. 66). The covenant with Moses had Moses as mediator, who was acting as a ‘type’ of Christ (p. 68). Etc.

Olevian, in his commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, says, ‘The law is a doctrine that God has implanted in human nature and has repeated and renewed in His commandments. … He also promises eternal life on the condition that I keep the law perfectly my whole life long.’ 

However, there is no such promise made to me! The works principle is taught to me in the Law, but no promise is made based upon my perfect obedience. God has condemned me already in Adam. He does not address me as not condemned, as though I were Adam.

Robert Rollock also has the covenant of works in the Mosaic law, not just in appearance, but in fact. ‘Therefore the greatest part of the Old Testament is spent in propounding, repeating, and expounding the covenant of works.’ He also says that the covenant of works has ‘two ends and uses’. The first and ‘proper’ end is ‘that men by it may be justified and saved, or otherwise condemned.’ This use it had before Adam, and after the fall also, for the ‘unregenerate, elect and reprobate’. 

In other words, the covenant of works continued after the Fall, not just to condemn, but to offer life.

This introduces the Lutheran hermeneutic into the Reformed world (in fact, it is worse than Luther. Luther only thought the greatest part of the OT offered temporal benefits in the Land upon obedience.). The ‘greatest part’ of the OT is about justification by works. Take out the Lutheran scissors, and chop out the bits that aren’t about justification by faith. They’re still part of the canon, but they’re not particularly helpful. This destroys the unity of the Testaments that Zwingli, Bullinger and Calvin had laboured for.