Number One Reason Not to Play Ball in the House

Let's just say it involved a rubber ball, an overhead light globe, one mother out of the house for the evening and one fairly non-reactionary child. Results are obvious.

Five cuts total. Nothing too serious. This could have been FAR worse. Thank you, Lord.

All cleaned up and happy. Not Momma. That's a different story. This will probably be my last babysitting job for a while.

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So I'm Weird...

I can't stand it when people send me...wait I'm going to save that for one of my weird things.

Ben Robinson has "tagged" me. This is not the first time that I have been tagged nor will it most likely be the last. Though to my knowledge, never have I ever responded to said tag. I may have inadvertantly responded without knowing it (that's part of the charm of being me) or I may have responded in my sleep (again, charming) but I cannot honestly recall being interested before.

I am not interested now either but because Ben has tagged me and publically called me out on it in my comments, I will demur. I guess this is the point where I am supposed to "tag" others: Jonathan Oue, Brian Moats, Jonathan Henson, Jeremy Hodges, and Derek Hughes. I'm sure this will fail miserably.

Here we go:

1. I hate it when people send me obnoxious little stuff like those emails that have all the pictures of birds flying and mountains and kittens and kittens eating birds on mountains. I'm not against kittens or mountains but I hate how a lot of people find "inspirational" emails worth their time. I hate listening to the midi file that's attached to these emails (like some version of How Great Thou Art that sounds like its being played on a $12 keyboard from Big Lots), and I hate the little admonitions at the end that promise death and destruction to anyone who does not "pass this blessing on". Do tags fall into this category?
2. I still get panic striken in water because of the movie Jaws. When I was little my dad used to read me a book from the library called "Real Life Shark Attacks". Yeah, it was. Now, whenever I'm in water I can convince myself that there is a 2000 lbs. behemoth lurking just beneath the surface ready to chew me to death. This makes swimming in the ocean a virtual impossibility. Lakes are better although if the boat doesn't come and get me in about 3 seconds after I fall over skiing, you're going to see a brother do some modern-day walking on water. There are even times in my own swimming pool where I have rushed violently to the side and pulled myself from the water because he was coming. I may need therapy. Thanks Dad!
3. I know that my other blog reached 93 on WordPress' Blogs of the Day: Growing Blogs on January 22, 2007 but I don't know my wife's cell phone number. Class, can you say narcissism?
4. It takes about 3.72 seconds for someone to meet me and call me a jerk. I am particularly good at getting girls in waitressing positions to call me a jerk. I think that it says something about a person when they can get a total stranger who is depending on their tip for a living to open her mouth and say the words, "You're a jerk." I had a friend lately explain my existence to a man I didn't know as "Adam's entire reason for being is to put other people in increadibly awkward situations." Yeah.
5. I frequently participate in extremely geeky behavior. I play video games sometimes to 3 or 4 in the morning. There's nothing like winning your seventh straight national championship game at 4:43 a.m. when you have somewhere to be at 6:00. I also collect comic books. There, I've admitted it. I collected comic books when I was in high school and for the last year I have been doing it again. I told myself for the longest time that it was only going to be a few titles. I think I may have said that to someone recently. "No, I don't collect. I just buy a few titles." Look, when you say the word "titles" in reference to comics and you look up comic stores in the yellow pages when you go to a new town, you're a collector. I also respond to "tags".

There, now that wasn't so bad. And here I thought that you stopped playing "tag" with boys when you graduated 4th grade.

Christmas and Beyond

Connor always wanted to be a Super Hero. Charles just wants to be Connor.

A very Bishop Christmas. The entire family together on Christmas Eve.

Let it be known among those of the free world! Charles hates Christmas.

Well War Eagle! to you too, honey.

It's probably illegal to have this much fun somewhere in the world. Connor giving me my Christmas present. He built and painted a wooden War Eagle boat.

Yeah! Git 'er done, bubble butt.

Is it wrong to intentionally humiliate your children when they don't know any better?
Connor wearing his birthday present.

Woot! Dad, this Little John album is off the chain fo' shizzle!

A New Home if Not a New Hope

For those of you wanting some guy named skywalker to swing in and save this blog from the evil clutches of the empire, I'm afraid it is too late. No amount of stretching out with your feelings is going to resolve this one.

However, I will continue to maintain use of this site to post family pics. If you want something with a more theological twang go here. But if you like cokes and jokes, stick around.

Brings a Tear to My Eye

Listen here. Very moving.

He's the Best There Is at What He Does...

Just When I Thought I Was Out...

"Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward."
Psalm127:3

The Alley Cat Speaks

I Feel So Old Testament

On Sunday, June 11 at 6:07 pm Connor, Marie and I welcomed Charles Luke Bishop into the world. Marie's water broke at 11:15 pm on Saturday and we arrived at Baptist Medical Center East at 3:00 am. After about an hour and a half they prepared her to start a Pitocin(sp?) drip. She progressed slowly but steadily throughout the day and was ready to push at 5:00 pm. Charles had drifted back up to a -3 station (which I'm told is high) so Marie had her work cut out for her in pushing. After an hour of work and a couple of pulls on the vacuum, Charles burst onto the scene. He didn't sing a song or dance or anything, but I could tell he was pretty excited.

Marie's family were there as well as almost every relative we have on my side. They were all hunkered outside the door listening to the last few series of pushes eagerly anticipating that first cry.

Charles was born healthy and strong at 8lbs 10oz. and 21'' and Marie did much better during this delivery than she did the first time around. Her recovery has been extremely good and she is feeling like a million bucks.

It should be noted that David and Katie Sullivan made a last ditch attempt to overtake us in the baby department. Katie's water broke on Sunday and they headed off to the hospital as well. And although David and Katie made a valiant effort, they came up short of taking the gold and had to settle for the silver, Rachael being born around 1:00am. Reminds me of Alabama football how they always come second to Auburn. Cool huh.

We will be at home this evening if everything progresses as it has been. We will be accepting monetary gifts no smaller than $100 to go toward the Connor and Charles Theological Education Fund. This fund provides educational material (books) for their father who will use them to put into a reserve (library) for their edification (family worship). You can send a check to our home address or simply bring it by in person as we would love to thank you for your contribution.

Thanks for everyones prayers. We are blessed indeed to have all of you as friends.

A Lord's Day Psalm

Psalm 121

I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
From where shall my help come?

My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.
He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, He who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is you keeper;
the LORD is your shade on your right hand.

The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
The LORD will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
The LORD will guard your going
out and your coming in
From this time forth and forever.

Giving Up and Giving In

Sitting in an assembly last night, I could not help but notice the large number of children making noise and causing disruptions. Some were sitting on the back of church pews forcing others behind them to move in order to see. Some were talking out loud the entire time. Some were walking around in the aisles during the program. Some were just bored and letting you know it.

My mind begins to wonder at times like these what my grandfather's generation would have done with their kids. What did the puritans do with their children in such assemblies? I'll bet it didn't sound quite like it did last night.

Lots of parents that I know foster this inane notion that such behavior is ordinary and cannot be controlled. Parents of this stripe are not flaming atheists or even uneducated simpletons. They are the people next door. This type of behavior is everywhere. All I have to do if I want to watch some kid tell his parents off in public or display some sort of reckless act of rebellion is step outside of my house. I have watched it at the park, in the grocery line, at schools, in parking lots, at my church, and even at Chic-fil-a.

Children are out of control.

That is not the most obvious observation however. We all know that children are out of control. Anyone who has ever given birth to a child or raised a child or had any interaction with a child whatsoever could tell you that children are out of control. That is their nature.

The most obvious observation about this is that the parents are out of control - literally. Parents have given up their God-ordained privilege and responsibility to control, train, instruct, and discipline their children. What parents miss in all this is that they are actually giving up their privilege and right to enjoy their children.

Children who hiss and whine and hit and ignore are not enjoyable children. Parents of these children fall into bed exhausted at the end of the day and just long to go back to work. They cherish time away from their kids. You all know exactly the type of person we're talking about. The young mother who has kept her job outside the home because it is a haven of escape where she doesn't have the weight of dealing with her children. The father who would rather go out with his friends rather than spend time taking his children camping. Bad parents are the rule not the exception.

Marie and I have witnessed first-hand things that make our toenails curl. Stuff that we thought any ol' run of the mill parent would correct right away is becoming common place behavior. Connor is even sensitive to this. In observing a child defying his parents, Connor can become noticeably unsettled. Once, on a playground, Connor heard a mother yelling at her boys because they would not listen to her. His response was classic Connor, "That mom is being ugly. She doesn't understand."

Right son. Moms and dads who fail to discipline and love their children do not understand. Giving in to your kids and letting them do what they please is not understanding. Choosing to let a child get what he wants using inappropriate and blatantly sinful behavior is not understanding. Of course the bible tells us all about this. Romans 3:11 says, "There is none who understands." Parents turn out to be bad parents because they are sinful people who are not seeking the Lord. Christians turn out to be bad parents when they acquiesce to their sin and do not seek the Lord.

When I observe what I observed last night, it only makes me hurt for the families that are dealing with it. I hurt for the kids because they will grow up thinking that the universe revolves around them and will, if not for the intervening grace of God, forevermore be a pain. I hurt for the parents who rob themselves of so much joy and torture their children because they refuse to obey God. They just don't understand.

Yes, but what are his qualifications?

Yesterday, Baptist Press announced Ronnie Floyd as the person to be nominated (unopposed I assume) for the presidency of the SBC. The following are the stats listed in the article

• Floyd has been pastor of the Arkansas congregation [FBC Springdale] for almost 20 years. Under his leadership, the church grew from 3,700 members to more than 16,000 members and baptized more than 11,700 people.
• [FBC] has planted 17 churches in the U.S. and overseas in the past seven years.
• Floyd...earned a master's degree and a doctorate degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He and his wife, Jeana, have been married 29 years and have two married sons and one grandchild.
• FBC Springdale lists 819 baptisms [for 2005].
  
• The church gave $32,000 through the Cooperative Program and $189,000 to SBC causes distributed through the SBC allocation budget.
  
• [FBC] had total undesigning receipts of $11,952,137 and total mission expenditures of $1,637,503, including $54,261 for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions and $9,516 for the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions.
• FBC Springdale conducts an average of 12 international mission trips annually, and has started a total of 25 churches across America and the world since 1992.
  
• Floyd speaks daily on “Winners,” a TV ministry broadcast around America and the world by the Daystar Television Network.
  
• [Floyd] has written 17 books and another, "The Top 10 Lessons Every Minister Needs To Know," will be released later this year.
• Under Floyd FBC Springdale added a second campus, the Church at Pinnacle Hills.
  

In addition to this information, we are given a quick glimpse at his resume of involvement with other SBC committees and organizations. They include service with the Executive Committee, a member of the selected seven-member committee that restructured the Southern Baptist Convention, the search committee that called the president and chief executive officer of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, president of the 1997 Pastors’ Conference, and as a trustee of GuideStone Financial Services.

I don't know anything about Ronnie Floyd other than what I have just read. I assume that he affirms the Baptist Faith and Message. I trust Johnny Hunt, who is bringing the nomination, to make an informed nomination when it comes to basic Baptist doctrine.

While these are commendable accomplishments, there are other things that I would have liked to have heard in this article about Floyd. I imagine that most members of SBC churches and their pastors for that matter will find this information adequate to form their opinion of whether or not Floyd is suited to be the SBC president. I wish that when we were choosing our leaders we were given more than just a list of accomplishments. The truth of the matter is that none of the facts given are any proof of a biblical view of the church, the ministry, or the gospel. In our day of doctrinal and methodological laxity, stats alone cannot substantiate a biblical and Christ-honoring ministry. These same things could be said of T.D. Jakes and even greater numbers could be posted about Benny Hinn.

I do not want anyone to draw parallels between Floyd and Jakes or Hinn, but I for one would like to know a little more about our SBC president before I vote for him. I will take the time to find out what I need to know, but how many of our voters will do the same?

p.s. This makes that whole bru-ha-ha over Johnny Hunt at the Founders Website pretty funny now doesn't it.

A Lord's Day Psalm

A Prayer for Deliverance
Psalm 120

A Song of Ascents.

In my distress I called to the LORD,
and he answered me.
Deliver me, O LORD, from lying lips,
from a deceitful tongue.

What shall be given to you,
and what more shall be done to you,
you deceitful tongue?
A warrior's sharp arrows,
with glowing coals of the broom tree!

Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech,
that I dwell among the tents of Kedar!
Too long have I had my dwelling
among those who hate peace.
I am for peace,
but when I speak, they are for war!
(ESV)

Connor's Morning Routine

Evangelism Restored

Light is shed upon the heart once again. Clarity.

It happened that a young man was staying in Palmer's home in Savannah during a time of revival. Many services were being held and the young man's host let him know that he could pleas himself whether he attended or not. Having nothing else to do, he did attend and soon by his irritation revealed that he did not like what he was hearing. The crisis came on a Monday when, entering Palmer's study, the visitor protested, 'You preachers are the most contradictory men in the world; you say, and you unsay, just as it pleases you, without the least pretension to consistancy.' Palmer, who was working at his desk, has recorded what followed:

"Somehow I was not surprised at this outbreak; for though no sign of religious feeling had been evinced, there was a restlessness in his manner which satisfied me that he was secretly fighting against the truth. I thought it best to treat the case in an off-hand sort of way, and with seeming indefference so as to cut him off from all opportunity to coquette with the Gospel. Without arresting my pen, I simply, answered, 'Well, what now?'

'Why, yesterday you said in your sermon that sinners are perfectly helpless in themselves - utterly unable to repent or believe and then turned square round and said that they would all be damned if they did not.'

'Well, my dear E-, there is no use in our quarrelling over this matter; either you can or you cannot. If you can, all I have to say is that I hope you will just go and do it.'

As I did not raise my eyes from my writing, which was continued as I spoke, I had no means of marking the effect of these words, until after a moment's silence, with a choking utterance, the reply came back: 'I have been trying my best for three whole days, and cannot.' 'Ah,' said I, laying down my pen: 'that puts a different face upon it; we will go then and tell the difficulty straight out to God.'

We knelt together and I prayed as though this was the first time in human history that this trouble had ever arisen; that here was a soul in the most desperate extremity, which must believe or perish, and hopelessly unable of itself, to do it; that, consequently it was just the case of calling for Divine interposition; and pleading most earnestly for the fulfilment of the Divine promise. Upon rising I offered not a single word of comfort or advice...So I left my friend in his powerlessness in the hands of God, as the only helper. In a short time he came through the struggle, rejoicing in the hope of eternal life."

And again:

Some, indeed, would have man to do all, though he could do nothing; and others would have him to do nothing, because all was done for him. As long as I am told that I must come to God, and that I can come, I am left to suppose that some good thing, or some power of good remains in me, and I arrogate to myself what belongs to Jehovah. The creature is exalted and God is robbed of his glory. If, on the other hand, I am told that I cannot come to God, but not also that I must come, I am left to rest contented at a distance from God, I am not responsible for my rebellion. But if we preach that sinners can't come, and yet must come, then is the honour of God vindicated and the sinner is shut up. Man must be so shut up that he must come to Christ, and yet know that he cannot. He must come to Christ, or he will look to another, when there is not other to whom he may come; he cannot come, or he will look to himself. This is the gospel vice, to shut up men to faith.

Iain H. Murray, The Old Evangelicalism (East Peoria, IL: Banner of Truth, 2005) pp. 16-18

Books, Books, Books!

Here are the new acquisitions after the conference.

Conference Give-Aways
Pathway to Freedom - Alistair Begg
Getting the Gospel Right - R.C. Sproul
Give Praise to God - Ryken, Thomas, and Duncan
The Deliberate Church - Mark Dever
Counted Righteous in Christ - John Piper
God Is the Gospel - John Piper
Women's Ministry in the Local Church - J. Ligon Duncan
A Display of God's Glory - Mark Dever
The Reformed Pastor - Richard Baxter
Why One Way? - John MacArthur
Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God - C.J. Mahaney
Humility - C.J. Mahaney
Speaking the Love in Truth - David Powlison
The Holy Bible (ESV)
The MacArthur Study Bible (NAS)

Stuff I Bought
The Old Evangelicalism - Iain Murray
Reformed Dogmatics (3 vols.) - Herman Bavinik
A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith - Dr. Robert L. Reymond
Systematic Theology - Robert Duncan Culver
C.H. Spurgeon Autobiography (2 vols.)
Polity - Mark Dever

It Is Well

Not a good recording, but done from a cell phone. The men sang with GUSTO!

Fictional Fact

Edmund Morris is a well known, well educated, and celebrated historian and author. So well known in fact that he was commissioned in 1985 to write a memoir of President Ronald Reagan. The book this project produced was "Dutch", published in 1999.

I love a good biography. As such I spend a little bit of money on biographies from time to time. They are never cheap. However, I bought "Dutch" for $5.99 in a discount book bin. Why is that? Other Reagan biographies are much more expensive and rarely find themselves placed in with the bargain books. After all, Morris was given unparalleled access into the President's personal life as well as the White House. He attended meetings, summits, banquets, and private t.v. chats with Reagan in an attempt to capture the man from the inside out. Yet his biography was nothing more than hype for a few months and then faded into infamy.

The reason Morris' memoir was such a flop was that, in the telling, he incorporated himself into all of Reagan's life. He used a fictional character to walk into historical events and tell the story from the first person. This literary device was much eschewed by serious historians due to the confusing nature of such an account. Where did fact meet fiction? Or did they meet at all? Were factual events marred by the presence of a literary device and the storytelling it took to entwine that device into history?

I remember hearing one historian giving an interview for the book say that there was just no way to take the book seriously because the fictional character so deeply flawed the actual history that no good sense could be made of the story. There was simply no way to tell if what you were reading was fact or fiction.

Fast forward now to The DaVinci Code. This is a book that is confessed fiction by the author himself. Or is it? Dan Brown has repeatedly held that his book is a fictional tale based on solid historical fact. It's fictional history with the emphasis on history.

I find nothing inherently wrong with taking the framework of actual events and using them as the background of a personalized fictional account designed to entertain. However, there is something substantially wrong with an author weaving fiction into history in order to rewrite the story. The DaVinci Code and any other work like it are bad books because of what they purport to accomplish - namely the telling of historical events.

If Dan Brown wanted to unearth the hidden truth of Jesus' family life after the cross and the conspiracy to cover that life up, then he should have written an investigative report using actual facts. Instead, what we have is a novelist trying to be an historian. Serious scholars from both the secular and sacred world have pushed aside this novel like any other bad attempt at history. However, celebrity have heralded this book from the beginning and people across the world are buying into the lie.

The only thing historically accurate about The DaVinci Code is that this story has been told before. It is nothing new to Christ. Men have been suppressing the truth for years and such men never lack for willing hearers.

A New Resource

For all of you who like to peruse the shelves. Sometimes there is something that catches your eye for whatever reason that you may not necessarily want to buy. Here is a good resource for some Christian books summarized into a very readable and free format. Thought you might be interested.