Benjamin > Recent Status Updates

I got shamed into posting this because I forgot by 1/7 of my friends on this app.

For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.

We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

I’ve only got 1,000 pages left I’m basically done.

How am I 184 pages in and 12% done

400/575 pages. This book is a workout. It’s not necessarily “fun” to read, but I am finding it very helpful. With this much material on each position, you end up being able to predict what each position will say about a given passage.

SO much information. But, it is quite worth it so far.

For a long time, I’ve wanted to firm up my views on eschatology. This book is genuinely helping me get there by objectively presenting the four main takes. I’m finding it extremely helpful! Praise God.

So far, this is the most helpful work on eschatology I’ve read! … but I haven’t read that much.

This is a masterpiece.

I’m basically done...

"For the law of sin is the fierce force of habit, by which the mind is drawn and held even against its will, and yet deservedly because it had fallen willfully into the habit."

I know you don’t care about my progress on this book, but I’ve got to post these quotes:

"But let my soul praise Thee that it may love Thee, and let it tell Thee Thy mercies that it may praise Thee."

“You were always by me, mercifully hard upon me, and besprinkling all my illicit pleasures with certain elements of bitterness, to draw me on to seek for pleasures in which no bitterness should be. And where was I to find such pleasure save in You O Lord, You who use sorrow to teach, and wound us to heal, and kill us lest we die to You."

This is one of my favorite books and I’m very much looking forward to this re-read. Two quotes from today that stand out:

1. "For Thou has made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.”

2. "Let me see Thy face even if I die, lest I die with longing to see it."

"the magnitude of man's sin consists in the fact that he used God-given powers in the service of Satan."

This book is answering so many questions that I’ve held for so long.

So far, this is interesting. The authors are trying to explain how what we think of as “contemporary praise and worship” came to be. They do this by asserting that two different strains of thought, both arising in the 1940s, merged into the single movement in the 1990s. Essentially, one group wanted to restore biblical praise and worship and the other wanted to be relevant. Now, it’s one movement that’s everywhere.

Two quotes today:

"When we choose the fleeting pleasures of comfort and security over the sacrifices and sufferings of missions and evangelism and ministry and love, we choose against joy.”

"How many Christians do you know who could says, "The lifestyle I have chosen as a Christian would be utterly foolish and pitiable if there is no resurrection"?"

- “There are three levels of how to live with things. You can steal to get. Or you can work to get. Or you work to get to in order to give. Too many professing Christians live on level two.”

- "For self-interest is not the same as selfishness. Selfishness seeks its own private happiness at the expense of others. Love seeks its happiness in the happiness of the beloved."

"God is not looking for people to work for him so much as he is looking for people who will let him work for them. The Gospel is not a "help wanted" ad.... He will not surrender his glory of being the giver."

"No one is a Christian who does not embrace Jesus gladly as his most valued treasure and then pursue the fulness of that joy in Christ that honors him."

"I find in the bible a divine command to be a pleasure seeker--that is, to forsake the two-bit, low-yield, short-term, never-satisfying, person-destroying, God-belittling pleasures of the world and instead to sell everything with joy (Matt. 13:44) in order to have the kingdom of heaven and thus "enter into the joy of your master" (25:21)."

Did I listen to half the book in the car today? Maybe. And I have thoughts.

- I’m engaged

- I like the world building. It’s logical and satisfying.

- Sanderson likes world building too much and forgets to keep the story going

- It feels aimed at a younger audience than me

- oh look, a protagonist and older mentor trying to take down “the empire” with a mighty evil emperor… again

Currently this feels like Star Wars with more rules, less lightsabers, and a more depressed protagonist

Quite good so far.

Shockingly good