Robert Jacoby > Recent Status Updates

TIL that Eusebius (writing around AD 320) recorded the martyrdom of James the Just, brother of Jesus, who was executed in Jerusalem around AD 62. Eusebius drew on accounts written by Hegesippus (c. AD 170) and Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 190–200), and cited Josephus (writing c. AD 93–94) as independent confirmation that James was executed.

I'm only two stories in (of ten total), and I'm incredibly impressed. I bought this book based on reading one story online, "Somebody Is Going to Have to Pay for This." I haven't been this impressed with a short story writer since reading Breece Pancake. And if you know Pancake, well...
I'll need to take my time with this collection and savor each story, because they're that good.

Chapter 9. Finally getting to a list of spiritual disciplines. I love Dallas Willard and his writing, but if I were his editor I'd have advised him to put the list in the first chapter just to...you know...get people hooked on what you'll be talking about in chapters 1 through 8.

He's making so many connections from so many different sources, it's challenging to keep up. Highly recommend this read.

I had to stop at this sentence:

"Encountering the resurrected 'Christ crucified' always and everywhere implies 'cruciformity,' because those who confess Jesus as the crucified Messiah are now, through faith and baptism, 'in' him, and he, by the Spirit (received through faith and baptism), is in them, enabling a sort of nonidentical repetition of his salvific and paradigmatic story."

Wow.

This is why I'm reading Plato: "...the first book of political philosophy ever written, and the most important... Over the course of these ten books, Plato discusses the varieties of human character, the nature of justice, family and gender relations, the dangerous power of poetry, the definition of truth, and the calling of the philosopher."

Haidt, a liberal, inadvertently tells the truth about Democrats when he asks: "Why do rural and working-class Americans generally vote Republican when it is the Democratic Party that wants to redistribute money more evenly?" Um...because they're not communists?

Haidt, a liberal, tells the truth about Democrats by mistake: "Why do rural and working-class Americans generally vote Republican when it is the Democratic Party that wants to redistribute money more evenly?"

"Murder often seems virtuous to revolutionaries." Was he writing about Antifa?

Good read so far. But he has his moments of research laxity, either from ignorance or deliberate omission. For example, "The Koran, for example, is full of warnings about the duplicity of out-group members, particularly Jews, yet the Koran does not command Muslims to kill Jews." This is a silly statement, and I think Haidt knows it. Just google "Antisemitism in Islam."

I'm sorry I'm nearing the end of my journey of this version of the New Testament. It's been a very enjoyable and enlightening trip.

This type of mindless lack of self-awareness is even worse nowadays: "The Republican Party was (as we saw it) the party of war, big business, racism and evangelical Christianity. I could not understand how any thinking person would voluntarily embrace the party of evil, and so I and my fellow liberals looked for psychological explanations of conservatism, but not liberalism."

It took Haidt to page 126 to acknowledge his liberal viewpoints (and moral superiority). He grew up Jewish in the suburbs of NYC. "Being liberal was cool; being liberal was righteous." It's commonplace. "Liberalism seemed so obviously ethical." That's the problem right there.

"Generally it is much more important to cultivate the *quite, inward space of a constant listening* than to always be approaching God for specific direction." p. 200

Only one more story to go, and I'm relishing it. This is one of those rare books that you're both happy and sad to have end. Marvelous writing and storytelling.

There is so much practical and heart-piercing wisdom in this book that it's hard to read sometimes. It cuts to the quick. "The doleful reality is that very few humans really *do* concretely desire to hear what God has to say to them. This is shown by how rarely we listen for his voice when we are not in trouble or when we are not being faced with a decision that we do not know how to handle."

Marvelous so far. A bit over the top in spots.

"You cannot believe a blur or a blank, and the blanks in our understanding can only be filled in by careful instruction and hard thinking. It will not be done on our behalf." (p. 193)

"For just as openness to and hunger for God leads naturally to the Bible, if it is available, so the eager use of the Bible leads naturally and tangibly to the mind of God and the person of Christ." So simple, direct, and profound.

This book hurts my head. In a good way.

1 Timothy 6:12 Fight the noble fight of the faith; get a firm grasp on the life of the coming age...

"This wasn't war; it was ancient history." If you enjoyed Storm of Steel, go see the film 1917, on the big screen, playing now.

The villages we passed through on our way had the look of vast lunatic asylums.

Compelling. I've read a lot in one sitting!

Well into Pauline letters. What a refreshing translation.

First I read the text of Art of War. Now I'm going back and re-reading it while also reading the facing notes pages.

I am consistently amazed at how Dallas Willard presents his material so clearly, so concisely. He's a joy to read.

Ugh.

So many beautiful passages and turns of phrase in this version. Wonderful!

Good read, but starting to get repetitive.