Phil Gons

Bible & Tech

Bible Geography Meets Google Earth

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The folks at OpenBible.info have done a real service to the Christian community by tagging every identifiable location in the Bible for Google Earth. You can download the KMZ file and explore any place in the Bible. They even give you all of the passages where each location occurs—hyperlinked to the ESV. I love being able to see the places about which I’m reading, and being able to zoom in and interact with them in a 3D environment beats a 2D map or image as far as I’m concerned, though being able to preview and link to these locations in Google Maps is still pretty cool. Here’s an example of all the locations in Galatians. And here’s a neat post that traces the locations in the Bible through six historical periods. I’m hoping Logos will implement my suggestion and use this data to link to these locations from within their software.

OpenBible.info and Google Earth

For more info visit:

HT: ESV Blog

Update: This blog post gives simple instructions for using the data in Google Earth.

Free! Mark Dever’s Book on Polity

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PolityMark Dever’s Polity: Biblical Arguments on How to Conduct Church Life (also online) is available as a free download from Doxa Digital Press for the WORDSearch/Bible Explorer/Bible Navigator engine. Also newly available is the 2005 Founders Journal (4 issues), which is edited by Thomas Ascol. If you don’t already have WORDSearch, Bible Explorer, or Bible Navigator, you’ll need to download Bible Explorer 4 (free) in order to use these resources.

See my related post: FREE eBooks!

Update: It’s no longer available, and Doxa Digital Press no longer exists.

Herman Nicolaas Ridderbos

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Herman Nicolas Ridderbos
Herman Nicolaas Ridderbos

The late Herman Nicolaas Ridderbos (1909–2007), who went to be with the Lord last Thursday, March 8, 2007, at the age of 98, was one of my favorite modern theologians and has had a profound impact on the way I read the New Testament—particularly because of his emphasis on Heilsgeschichte. I became acquainted with Ridderbos a few years ago when I selected him as my theologian to study in Advanced New Testament Theology. See the links below for the PowerPoint presentation I gave, a list of his works, and some audio and video.

[Read more…] about Herman Nicolaas Ridderbos

Welcome to My New Blog

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I’ve been blogging with Google’s Blogger for several months and have enjoyed it. It’s a great tool, and the new Blogger has added several helpful new features. But having used WordPress for the last couple months at work, I was compelled to make the switch. Since WordPress is open source and has hundreds if not thousands of free plugins, it is a much more customizable tool and has many advantages to Blogger.

Theological Ruminations is now officially closed. Please remove it from your blogroll and subscribe to my new feed. If you care to hear what I have to say, this is the place to come!

Tip for Safer Surfing

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I’m getting downright tired of the junk on the web. I’ve been frequenting hundreds of blogs and news sites each week at work to find helpful material for our new PastorBlog. I’ve been disgusted with all the stuff you see on major news sites—obscene immodesty and sometimes even complete nudity (apparently the standard of what’s acceptable is lower in the UK). Amazingly, even some Christian news sites and blogs have this kind of σκύβαλον. That really burns me up, but I digress.

Well, I’ve found another good use for the Web Developer extension for Firefox. I hit five key strokes, and all the images on the page disappear: alt-t-w-i-n. Alt takes you to the toolbar menu. T takes you to the tools category. W takes you to the web developer tools. I takes you to images. N makes all images invisible. It even conveniently spells a word so it’s easy to remember and type! (Alt-t-w-i-m and alt-t-w-i-r both work as well, and the latter might be most useful in that it replaces the image with its description, but twin is the easiest to remember and type. Take your pick.) You can undo it with the same keystrokes, and it will be applied only to the current page. The one downside is that it doesn’t disable flash. Anyone know a way to do that?

[Read more…] about Tip for Safer Surfing

Don Garlington’s Commentary on Galatians—Free!

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Don GarlingtonI just found out that Don Garlington‘s commentary on Galatians is available as a free PDF from the Paul Page. It appears to be his contribution to the forthcoming volume 11 of the revised EBC rather than his 2002 Galatians commentary or his revised 2004 commentary, since it has citations from sources in 2006. I’m not positive on this, but it seems fairly likely. Regardless of which one it is, it’s worth downloading for future reference. For those who aren’t aware: Garlington supports the essence of the new perspective.

HT: Matthew D. Montonini

Update: The Paul Page is rather sporadic. It took me numerous attempts before being able to access the page and the PDF. It appears they are upgrading their server software or having problems. In the meantime, you can download the PDF from my site.

Update 2: See my updated post Garlington’s Galatians Commentaries.

Westerholm on Righteousness and Covenant

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Perspectives Old and New on PaulI love this selection from Westerholm’s Perspectives Old and New on Paul.

To this point I have discussed Paul’s usage of the dikaio– terminology with scarcely a reference to “the covenant.” So astonishing an omission can only be accounted for by a narrow preoccupation with the Pauline texts, which never link the vocabulary of “righteousness” with mention of “the” (or even a) covenant, and a consequent neglect of recent Pauline scholarship, which connects the two constantly. The oversight must now be redressed (286–87).

It’s no wonder that Barclay, Thielman, Gathercole, and Schreiner all comment on Westerholm’s “shafts of humor,” “winsome sense of humor,” “sparkling humor,” and “wit.”

The Grace of Cancer

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We heard a powerful testimony last night of how God has graciously given cancer to a man in our church who was in rebellion against God and estranged from his wife. With the news of his impending death, God also granted him a renewed heart of repentance. It was sweet to hear his present tenderness to the Lord set in contrast to his past hardness and impenitence. Of course hearing news like that brings mixed emotions: both joy and sorrow. But the joy far outweighs the sorrow. If God had left the man in his sin, but not given him cancer, he may have perished eternally. How gracious of God to give him cancer as a means of bringing him to repentance–even if it means his life may soon end. We pray that God would spare his physical life, but we especially rejoice that God has granted him spiritual life!