Matt Jones' Random Acts of Verbiage

I heard about this a few weeks ago, but refused to believe it. The 100-Minute Bible was launched on September 21st in England and at the risk of being sacrilegious, St. Paul is rolling in his grave… so to speak.

The 100-Minute Bible is primarily intended for people who have an interest in Christianity but not the time (nor tenacity!) to read the whole Bible. As the title indicates most people will only take 100 minutes to read it, making it ideal for an upcoming rail or aeroplane journey. [the100-minutepress.com]

What the hell? Seriously. This both says something about Christianity and society at large. I do believe that Christains need to be relevant to today’s society (although I am not so sure the Emergant Chuch has it right either), but there are appropriate ways to do this. In post-modern times this can be difficult, but needed. And it is still quite possible to retain tradition and more importantly Truth while still being relevant.

The way I see it the 100-Minute Bible is aimed at two groups: those interested in Christianity but don’t want to read the loooooong Bible AND Christians who don’t want to actually read the Bible but want to remain Christian. Let me discuss both groups.

For those that are interested in Christianity, I can understand that the Bible can be somewhat intimidating, it is, indeed, long. You have many options though. If someone is interested in Christianity, great, one of the first things you should know is that the Bible is considered sacred scripture and its authenticity is something that Christians try to hold in high regard. As such, any sort of modification to that text tends to be suspect. This is why Bible translation is such a difficult and important field. Bible translations attempt (some better than others) to capture original intent, meaning, and Truth. Any time a translator deviates from that, there are problems. If you have interest in Christianity, please respect the fact that the Bible exists as a whole and any sort of abridged version does not maintain the quality that is expected of a solid translation. Also, don’t feel you have to read all of the Bible if you are looking to find out more (that can come later). There are appropriate passages and sections that can be focused on (without having to throw out the rest), especially the Gospel of John. Another option would be to read books about the Bible that will let you know what is going on, the context, and theology to be found in the Bible without claiming to be the Bible. Gordon Fee’s How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth is a good introduction to what the Bible has to say. And many of C.S. Lewis’ books would be good reading for an introduction to Christianity (including the Narnia series). I just ask that you recognize that the Bible is a complex piece of literature that draws on many genres and can be read in pieces, but a truncated version is distinctly different.

To the second group (please see my post, Judge not…, before you jump all over me!), my brothers and sisters in Christ, I just have to say this: don’t be a lazy ass. You are short on time? That is the lamest excuse ever. Everyone has time, even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself. If you are reading this right now, you have time. No one ever said you had to read the entire Bible all at once, it would be stupid to suggest that you do (which is actually another thing the 100-Minute Bible does). No one even said you had to take your entire Bible with you everwhere you go. Take 5 minutes, read a Psalm. Take 15 minutes, read Phillipians. Whatever, just do it. Now of course, as a Christain, you should be wanting to grow in your faith and therefore would also want to meditate on the Word and that will often take a bit more time. But so what? You are (I am assuming) an adult, act like one and stop making excuses for displacing the practice of your nominal faith.

Just because society is set on being fast paced, doesn’t mean that religion has to be the same way. I think people should be able to come to Christianity as a breath of fresh air. Christianity should not act counter to what it is just because society acts that way.

UPDATE: Matt Gumm has a nice post on the 100-Minute Bible that offers more explicit suggestions for beginning Bible reading that will not deter from the whole Word.

Resources and articles:
The 100-Minute Bible Website, A sample of Matthew
New page-turner Bible is launched – BBC News
Speedy but spiritual: British cleric unveils ’100-Minute Bible’ – Yahoo News
’100-minute Bible’ is launched – CNN
Vicar launches ’100-Minute Bible’ – Times Online (UK)

Ή χάρις του κυρίου ημων Ίησου Χριστου μεθ’ υμων.

This isn’t exactly current, but I had really wanted to post some pictures from Chad and Meghan’s wedding. Chad and Meghan have been two of my close friends for the past four or five years and I had the honor of being in their wedding at the end of August (wow, they have been married over a month now!). It was a wonderful wedding that started in lovely Washington August weather and as soon as everyone was under cover, it started pouring down rain. It was a great time of seeing friends and sharing in the joy and blessing of the union of Chad and Meghan.

Now enjoy some pictures! (Clickable for larger versions)

Chad’s bachelor party – he truly was a princess.

“Dead man walkin’” I should also add that the bachelor
party was MUCH more tame than the girls’ bachelorette party!

Get 2 drinks in Jae and he can actually play poker.

Meghan, Chad, and Greg (who married them) at rehearsal.

Mmmmmm lamb…..and Korean…

Such beautiful skies!

David, Me, and Jae – stylish, eh?

Chad and Meghan doing all their photo stuff.

Yes, Jae was wearing white socks.

There is nothing like a good sheep hearding at a wedding!

David (and Leann) give the toast to the new couple.

The Guys!
Greg, Jae, David, Chad, me – such a great time!

God bless you two in your marriage and thanks for letting me be part of the event!
Ή χάρις του κυρίου ημων Ίησου Χριστου μεθ’ υμων.

I should be studying Hebrew, but I figured I haven’t really posted anything random in a while. Since I am a nerd at heart it is always fun to learn about cool technologies. OLED technology has been out for some time now but hasn’t been developed too much as of yet. It was first developed by the Kodak Company quite a few years back (1987). OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode and is based on Electroluminescence which is when a substance emitts light when an electrical current is passed through it. In the case of OLEDs, that substance is usually an organic molecule (I couldn’t find what molecules are usually used) or a polymer (which is usually cheaper to use). If you want to know how the OLEDs work, see my reference links at the bottom of the post.

What is really cool about OLEDs are the applications (although the science behind them is pretty amazing as well). Not only can you make big tvs that have a better contrast and resolution that the now standard LCDs, but you can also make amazingly think display screens. The image at left (from Universal Display) is a conceptual design for a display that has been unrolled from a pen. Cool, eh? Kodak has also used OLED technology in their LS 633 digital camera. The OLED screen allows for brigher, clearer picture that can be viewed and wide angles – something that LCD screens have problems with. Hopefully we will see more production of devices using this technology in the near future (although I imagine I will have to wait a few more so I can afford any of it…).

One of the more fun applications (and there has been discussion relating to the legitimacy of this product – especially at Slashdot) is a cool russian keyboard called the Optimus. This keyboard idea/conceptual design/prototype uses a bunch of individual mini OLED screens, one for each key. This is a great idea for customizations as far as which programs are launched for certain buttons as well as indicating special functions for programs like photoshop or video game control. Now these might seem somewhat trivial (which they are), but this could also be used to help multi-lingual families / buisnesses / libraries / internet cafes / schools / etc. With a simple command the entire keyboard could be switched from english to spanish (accents and such) to greek to russian to chineese. How amazing would that be? Of course I would just be using it for the trivial features (well ok, if I was actually doing my Hebrew right now, I suppose it would work well for that).

Cool technology based in cool science! Be on the lookout for it in your local Sharper Image. Heh

Resources:
Russian company designing the Optimus
English information on the Optimus over at OhGizmo
Another English site about the Optimus
Sites with information and explanation of OLEDs: Answers.com, Wikipedia, and Howstuffworks.com

Ή χάρις του κυρίου ημων Ίησου Χριστου μεθ’ υμων.

The 90th Christian Carnival is up over at Attention Span. I have contriubted my post on St. Ignatius: Holy or Insane? So head over to Christian Carnival XC – A Three Hour Tour to read all the latest posts from around the Christian blogosphere! If you would like to catch up on any previous posts, head over to my Christian Carnival Archive. Next week I will be hosting the carnival! I wonder if I will be ready…

The internet at home isn’t working again so that kinda sucks, hopefully it will be fixed soon!

I have been hit with a lot of spam comments lately (older posts so no one but me probably noticed) so I decided to add a new plugin to WordPress. Spam Karma 2 seems to be a really popular and well designed plugin so I will be trying it out. If you post a comment but it doesn’t get through (doubt that will happen though), just let me know! Back to reading Calvin’s Institutes!

I am secure enough in my blogging that I can, once again, bring you Space Saturday on Sunday. This week I bring you Jupiter!

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Jupiter is the fifth plane from the sun and the largest in our solar system. Jupiter has some 63 natural satellites (or moons if you will) with the four Galilean moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto) being the largest. Jupiter is by far the most massive planet at about 320x the mass of the Earth (1.899×10^27 kg). The composition of Jupiter is mostly gasses (hydrogen and helium) so the boundry between planet and atmosphere is somewhat difficult to define. One of Jupiter’s most well known objects is the Giant Red Spot (pictured left from the American Museum of Natural History and in large image at top). The Giant Red Spot is a storm that is at least 340 years old and could fit two or three Earths inside. It was also discovered that Jupiter has some faint planetary rings caused by dust from its surrounding satellites. There have been numerous explorations by Jupiter including the Cassini-Huygens mission on its way to Saturn. The Cassini flyby captured the most high resolution images of Jupiter to date. The image at top is one of those pictures and should be clicked to see the beautiful detail of the planet in a larger image.

To see more astronomy photographs, check out my Space Saturday Archive.

I have my car back! Whoo hoo!
Ή χάρις του κυρίου ημων Ίησου Χριστου μεθ’ υμων.