If you’re interested in the Intelligent Design movement and the work of Dr. Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute, I’d highly recommend that you take the time (about 45 min. total) to view these five videos.  Sproul and Meyer discuss a range of topics related to design, science, and the origin of the universe.  I found these discussions between two gracious, godly intellectual giants incredibly stimulating and edifying.

HT: Justin Taylor

Each month Christianaudio.com offers one free audio book for download.  The last couple of years I’ve gotten some great books free and this month’s offer is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classic The Cost of Discipleship.  The book can be found here.  The coupon code to enter is “MAR2010″.

I actually pulled this book off the shelf a couple of weeks ago with the intention of working back through it again, so I’m very happy to get the audio version free.

The other night we caught a Tarantula near one of the apartments here at the Center for Pioneer Church Planting.  Check it out.

For other pictures of us with Tarantulas, see my earlier post.

Here’s another video of my buddy, Matt Wilkinson, holding the same spider.

In case you haven’t seen it, I’ve posted an update on my May trip to PNG on our ministry website.  Included is a list of trip objectives.

Follow me @drajgibson.

Another great  Don’t Waste Your Life video from Desiring God:

This helpful post on rules of grammar from Iain D. Campbell at the Reformation 21 blog is worth a read.

some basic rule’s of grammar to which we would all Do well to adhere, to:

26 Golden Rules for Writing Well

1.Don’t abbrev.
2.Check to see if you any words out.
3.Be carefully to use adjectives and adverbs correct.
4.About sentence fragments.
5.When dangling, don’t use participles.
6.Don’t use no double negatives.
7.Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
8.Just between you and I, case is important.
9.Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.
10.Don’t use commas, that aren’t necessary.
11.Its important to use apostrophe’s right.
12.It’s better not to unnecessarily split an infinitive.
13.Never leave a transitive verb just lay there without an object.
14.Only Proper Nouns should be capitalized. also a sentence should begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop
15.Use hyphens in compound-words, not just in any two-word phrase.
16.In letters compositions reports and things like that we use commas to keep a string of items apart.
17.Watch out for irregular verbs that have creeped into our language.
18.Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
19.Avoid unnecessary redundancy.
20.A writer mustn’t shift your point of view.
21.Don’t write a run-on sentence you’ve got to punctuate it.
22.A preposition isn’t a good thing to end a sentence with.
23.Avoid cliches like the plague.
24.1 final thing is to never start a sentence with a number.
25.Always check your work for accuracy and completeness.

The last couple of years Jesus’ words in Luke 14:26-33 have been rattling around in my head, wreaking havoc on my preconceived views of discipleship, the Christian life, and following Jesus.

In this passage Jesus says that unless:

1. I hate my family and myself,
2. take up my cross and come after him (on the road of suffering), and
3. renounce all that I have…

. . . I cannot be his disciple (3x).  Powerful.  Sobering.  Radical.  Scandalous.  Reckless.  Dead serious.  And very different from the Christianity that I was nurtured in the first 30-some years of my life.  I think I have a long way to go before I really understand the implications of Jesus’ ultimatum.

While we’re on this subject, if you haven’t been there yet check out Jesus is Worth it .com.

Few preachers I’ve heard echo the sentiment of Jesus’ words in this and other passages better than John Piper.

Here’s another one along the same lines:

Moving photos from the devastation in Haiti.

Maranatha!

HT: Justin Taylor

Or to put it another way, horizontal reconciliation begins with vertical reconciliation.  I enjoyed Michael Oh’s testimony at Urbana last week.  He shared what the gospel has taught him about loving those he’s expected to hate.