Archives for September 2007

PureText

September 24, 2007 by Phil Gons

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Someone pointed me to a helpful little piece of software that I now use daily, so I thought I’d mention it here. The tool is called PureText. It allows you to paste text into any program or file without all the formatting. I use it frequently when working on a document in Word, composing an email in Outlook, or writing a blog post in WordPress. Instead of using the normal control+v to paste text, you use windows+v (or another combination of your choosing) to paste text without its formatting. It’s that simple.

[Read more…] about PureText

White Horse Inn: “Sin and Grace in the Christian Life”

September 17, 2007 by Phil Gons

Being under the weather for the last few days, I’ve had the opportunity to lie around and listen to MP3s. One I listened to was an episode from Michael Horton’s (Wikipedia) White Horse Inn entitled “Sin and Grace in the Christian Life” (Summary | MP3), dated 8/19/07. I think this was the first time I’d listened to Horton, and my previous exposure to him came primarily through reading his contributions to Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation—a good book, but not without some issues.

The topic of discussion in the radio program was grace and the problem of ongoing sin in the Christian life. Michael Horton led the discussion with Kim Riddlebarger, Rod Rosenbladt, and Ken Jones. I love gospel-centered theology and preaching, and I agreed with much of what they said. However, I found some of the discussion a bit disturbing and imbalanced—perhaps more what they didn’t say than what they did say.

The launching point for the discussion was a recording taken at a Christian conference of answers to the question, “What do you think happens if you die with unconfessed sin?”

Theological Journal Library to Add BibSac 1–90

September 14, 2007 by Phil Gons

If you don’t have the Theological Journal Library published by Hampton Keathley of Galaxie Software, you need to get it—period. These journals are without a doubt some of the best theological resources that you can get for the money. Volumes 1–9 are currently available, and Volume 10 should be coming out sometime in October (assuming Hampton is on the same schedule as last year). Each volume includes 50 journals (Volumes 1–5 are sold together and contain 250 journals), and the average cost per journal is just under $1 ($.67 if you buy the bundle).

Here’s what you get if you buy all 9 available volumes:

Hundreds of Free ETS Papers at RMM!

September 9, 2007 by Phil Gons

Reclaiming the Mind Ministries has just announced the launching of their online Theological Library, which contains hundreds of ETS papers from the last five years. The papers are (1) free, (2) fully searchable with selectable text for copying and pasting (most of them),1 and (3) available for viewing online2 or downloading and viewing as PDFs. There’s a wealth of helpful material there that I’m sure you’ll want to take advantage of!

I stumbled across one out of a couple dozen that didn’t have selectable text. It appears that the vast majority do. [↩]
They currently have a problem displaying superscripted text; an inch of blank space appears before every footnote. [↩]

Packer’s Forthcoming Systematic Theology

September 7, 2007 by Phil Gons

The Wikipedia entry for J. I. Packer says that “he is now at work on his magnum opus, a systematic theology.” This was the first I’d heard about this. I’d love to find out more. Can anyone verify that this is true and perhaps share some additional information like (1) the expected length, (2) how far along he is, (3) the expected publication date, and (4) the publisher?

A Google search didn’t yield anything concrete. The best information I found was from a couple of comments on Mark Dever’s blog post “Where’d All These Calvinists Come From? Part 7 of 10” (J. I. Packer):

Packer on the History and Theology of the Puritans

September 7, 2007 by Phil Gons

RTS Virtual at iTunes U just recently added J. I. Packer’s (Regent | Wikipedia) 16 lectures on the History and Theology of the Puritans. It looks like a great series of lectures. Packer’s adeptness in Puritan history and theology is evident in his helpful book A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 1994).1

This book is available for Libronix. [↩]

Google Reader Gets Search

September 6, 2007 by Phil Gons

For all you Google Reader users out there, you’ll be glad to know that you can finally search your feeds—both read and unread items! This is especially handy if you don’t tag an item and can’t remember where you read it. I use Google’s Web History to look up stuff like this, but it doesn’t work with feeds unless you actually visited the site. I will put this feature to good use.

The Merit of Faith: Genesis 15:6 in JPS

September 5, 2007 by Phil Gons

I just received the JPS Bible and Torah Commentary Collection (9 volumes) from Logos and started “thumbing” through a couple of the volumes. I’m glad I picked it up. It looks like a valuable series—primarily for what it reveals about modern Judaism’s understanding of the Tanakh.

As I expected, though, I’m going to disagree with many of the interpretations that it defends. Nahum Sarna’s interpretation of Genesis 15:6, for example, is disappointing on several levels.1

Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, The JPS Torah commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 113. [↩]