Mile wide... Inch deep...

Blog has moved

John — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:07:05 +0000

I wasn’t really happy with the flexibility of the wordpress.com hosted solution (limited widgets, etc), so decided to move the blog to http://blog.balinsbooks.com/. Effective immediately, I will post all new blog entries, links, etc, to that new location. (All articles and comments have been transferred over.) Thanks!

BibleWorks 7: Excellent software

John — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:19:28 +0000

If you’re looking for a superb piece of Bible software, look at BibleWorks (http://www.bibleworks.com/). Pricey, sure, but you’ll never need another package. Tons of versions, aids, commentaries, etc. BAGD is available, as are Hebrew and Greek lexicons, instructional materials, maps, even sentence diagrams (in Greek!). Very cool! It’s all I use.

Where is the Biblical authority for preachers?

John — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:14:20 +0000

A few days ago, a friend asked me where the Bible authorized paid preachers. He is struggling with some history at his home church where they split because the preacher wouldn’t submit to the elders leadership (which is a separate problem). That whole event started him asking why we have preachers. Doesn’t having a preacher take (whether really or just implicitly) the responsibility we have of evangelizing? How many people say (again, whether consciously or unconsciously): “Why do I need to go here or there teaching? Isn’t that the job of the Preacher? Won’t he do that?”

There are a few places I thought of off the bat: preachers are “worth their pay” (Romans 4:4: “Romans 4:4 Now to the one who (a)works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. ” (NAU)), but my greatest concern is where this will lead… “Why do we need a church at all?” The questioner deserves a full response with clear logic. I’ll put that together soon…

Ideas? Comments? Suggestions?

New Livescribe SmartPen SDK released (0.8)

John — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:54:23 +0000

Livescribe just delivered version 0.8 of their Pulse SmartPen SDK (http://www.livescribe.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/LDApp.woa/wa/DeveloperOverviewPage). Looks very slick…

They’ve added a new environment: “Eclipse with Livescribe Plugins” that gives Eclipse two new views: “Pen Debug” and “Pen Info.” Haven’t had time to really jump in, yet, but hope it’s a solid release toward their more complete dev environment.

Oh, yeah, and they froze their API. Phew. That’ll help…

Gotta get going

John — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 03:30:15 +0000

I’ll need to develop more discipline… I have a lot of ideas I’d like to get down on “paper” — utilities I’ve found and use, programming ideas I’d like to develop, learning new things and how it’s going…

Stay tuned for more…

Christianity in a One-Storey Universe « Glory to God for All Things

John — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:36:45 +0000

Christianity in a One-Storey Universe « Glory to God for All Things