Phil Gons

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The Nativity Story (2006)

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The Nativity StoryI bought The Nativity Story for my parents for Christmas (along with Planet Earth and Blue Planet) and remembered that I had never posted about it here. Shanna and I watched it last spring when it first came out on DVD. It’s not fresh on my mind, so I can’t give a detailed review, but I do remember enough to know that I enjoyed it and would recommend it.

It was very faithful to the biblical accounts. While I wasn’t convinced that all of the ways they acted out the story were the best, those issues were minor and their interpretations were generally within the bounds of viable options. I was initially disappointed with how abruptly the movie came to an end, but then I remembered that it was a movie about Jesus’ birth, not His life. Though The Nativity Story isn’t my favorite biblical movie, it is one that I would recommend and will probably watch again.

Other Reviews:

  • Peter T. Chattaway’s review at ChristianityToday.com
  • Al Mohler’s review at AlbertMohler.com
  • David DiCerto’s review at CatholicNews.com
  • Dale Mason’s review at AnswersinGenesis.org
  • Steven Isaac’s review at PluggedinOnline.com

PureText

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[rate 5]

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

Theological Journal Library to Add BibSac 1–90

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tjl.jpgIf 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:

[Read more…] about Theological Journal Library to Add BibSac 1–90

David Instone-Brewer Reviews SESB 2

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sesb.jpgDavid Instone-Brewer (also here and here), the Technical Officer and Senior Research Fellow in Rabbinics and the New Testament at Tyndale House, has posted his review of version 2 of the Stuttgart Electronic Study Bible (SESB).

Here are some selections from his section “Overall Usefulness: much better than paper”:

[Read more…] about David Instone-Brewer Reviews SESB 2

Windows Live SkyDrive

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For those of you who don’t have a website with access to FTP and have an occasional need to share with others large files too big for email, you may want to consider Windows Live SkyDrive. It’s free and easy to use and gives you 500MB of space, handling up to 50MB individual files. Gmail allows up to 20MB attachments, but anything beyond that can be difficult to share over the web.

SkyDrive gives you three types of storage: personal, shared, and public. You can create as many different folders as you want.

[Read more…] about Windows Live SkyDrive

More Bahnsen Debates

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Greg BahnsenNote: The site hosting the MP3 files below no longer has them up, but Archive.org has them cached. I’ve updated the links. Make sure to right-click and select “Save link as” to download them.

I recently stumbled across and listened to two other free Bahnsen (Wikipedia | Theopedia) debates:

They aren’t quite as good as the debate against Gordon Stein (Pt 1 | Pt 2 | Pt 3 | transcript), but they are still worth listening to.

[Read more…] about More Bahnsen Debates

Dave Wike’s New CD: “Still Waters”

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Still WatersDave Wike. Still Waters. LightTouch Records, 2007. 47:30.

[rate 4.5]

My friend and coworker Dave Wike just recently released his second fingerstyle guitar CD entitled Still Waters (CDBaby | Amazon | iTunes). You might recall my blogging about his first CD, Waiting (CDBaby | Amazon | iTunes), back in January.

Still Waters is all instrumental and makes great study music. Here are my reviews of Dave’s two CDs:

I’ve listened to Waiting hundreds of times and love it. It makes great background music for reading or studying. I highly recommend it.

I’ve listened to Dave’s first CD, Waiting, hundreds of times and love it, but Still Waters is even better. I just got a copy today and have been listening to it for hours straight. It’s great background music for when I’m reading and studying. I love it and highly recommend it.

Visit DaveWike.com (also CDBaby | Amazon | iTunes) to hear samples.

[Read more…] about Dave Wike’s New CD: “Still Waters”

Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul | Guy Prentiss Waters

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Justification and the New Perspectives on PaulGuy Prentiss Waters. Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul: A Review and Response. P&R, 2004. 273 pp.

[rate 3]

I just recently came across Perrin’s evaluation of Waters’s Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul (WTSBooks).

“Whatever the merits of Justification and the New Perspectives as a primer on twentieth-century Pauline scholarship, the author has been less than successful in his interaction with the NPP. Indeed, assuming that Waters’s primary goal is to construct a convincing argument against the NPP (and N. T. Wright in particular), the book must be judged to have failed at a fundamental level.”1

[Read more…] about Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul | Guy Prentiss Waters

  1. Nicholas Perrin, “A Reformed Perspective on the New Perspective,” WTJ 67:2 (Fall 2005): 381-89. [↩]