KevinPurcell.org

The family and I went up the Blue Ridge Parkway to Mt. Mitchell.

The link below is an The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon – Thurs 11p / 10cMike Huckabeethedailyshow.comDaily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorJason Jones in Iran" target=_blank>interesting debate between Huckabee and Jon Stewart on the Daily Show on the topic of abortion.  Sadly, when human life is devalued because of selfish reasons like economics, inconvenience, or emotional strife (all of the  primary reasons why women have abortions), the result is that human life in general is worth less.  Well now it seems that a human life is worth less than a really bad Mike Meyers movie.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a man was sentenced to 6 months for pirating the movie The Love Guru with Mike Meyers.  I didn’t see the movie and am probably more healthy for it – fewer destroyed brain cells and all.  As one blogger at Gizmodo says, “It might have been worth it for …” a better film like the recent Star Trek movie.  But when the man (Jack Yates") pirated the movie by lifting the DVD from work (he makes promos for movies) and distributed vie the Internets.  Now here is the sad part.  He blamed Grandma.  He showed it at her birthday party and then she gave it away to a friend who gave it to a friend who uploaded it.  So now he’s going to the pokey for 6 months.

Maybe he deserves it.  I think he should not have stolen the flick.  And it really doesn’t matter what he stole.  But what is so offensive to me is when you compare this infraction to that of Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte Stallworth and then see the resulting penalties for their crimes, it shows how little value our society places on human life.  Stallworth was driving drunk when he hit and killed a man in Florida.  He got 30 days.  One month for killing a man while doing something we all know is not only illegal and immoral but really stupid.  He should be getting at least 6 months.  I would say much longer.

You may not agree with my connecting this with the devaluing of human life as a result of abortion.  But at least we can agree that human life is worth more than a ridiculous comedy film on DVD.  How much?  That is not something I can calculate, but I know it’s worth more than one sixth the value of a DVD.

Here’s an idea.  To punish Stallworth further we can give him the six months and make him continuously watch The Love Guru.

I saw this clip on the web and thought it was a fair minded and even handed debate on the topic of abortion.  Huckabee shares the pro-life side in a wonderful way.  Sadly you have to put up with Jon Stewart, although he is not that bad.  Warning that some might find it a little offensive, but it is worth it to see a believer in Christ sharing his biblical view in a modern day Mars Hill.

Obama says no.  What do you think?

I use both Bibleworks 8 and Logos 3 everyday (or almost every day anyway), but I just learned of a great way to connect the two.  I have a lot of works in Logos that are not available for BW8.  So, one way to help wed the two together is the complicated External Link Manager in BW8.  But a simpler way is to create a note on a verse or chapter in BW8.  Then go to the reference or book in Logos.  From there make sure the book is the live document by clicking on the title bar for that book.  Then copy the location of the info you want to link to by either clicking in Logos FAVORITES –> COPY LOCATION TO CLIPBOARD or by pressing on the keyboard CTRL+ALT+C (the keyboard shortcut of the above menu item).  Then go over to BW and select some text in the note on whatever verse you are referring to.  Click on the link button on the Notes Editor toolbar.  It looks like a chain link and then select in the template drop down box COMMAND… and in the Link Text paste the location you copied from Logos.  Click INSERT IN DOCUMENT and the text should become a hyperlink.  Click it and the book should open in Logos.  Later, ever time you click that link it will open Logos to that book and that location.  Great way to link to commentaries or word study info that you don’t have available in BW.

What is a life vision?  Another way of saying it is worldview.  What is your worldview?  I picked life vision because I think the term worldview is so over used or misunderstood, that I wanted to make you think about it.

So what is a worldview or life vision or whatever you call it?  Simply put it is the way you look at the world, or the way you see life.

I was reading and viewing a DVD study in Rick Warren’s magazine Purpose Driven Connection at www.purposedrivenconnection.com.  In the most recent issue there is a 6 week DVD based study featuring a discussion between Rick Warren and Chuck Colson about worldview.  Rick asks Chuck to answer what is a worldview.  He said it is framed by your answer to four basic questions.

1. Where did all of this come from?  The origin question.
2. How did it all get so messed up?  The problem of evil.
3. How do we get out of this mess?  The salvation question.
4. What do we do now?  Our purpose question.

As I was thinking about that I shared this with someone that I am witnessing to.  We discussed it and I said, you have to determine your answer to those questions.  We agreed that God created it all and that people messed it up with bad choices.  The questions is, how do we fix it?  That was his issue.  But he is a young person so he is also dealing with the issue of knowing his purpose.  But the truth is, unless you answer the first three questions, it doesn’t make sense to even try to intelligently answer the fourth.  A lot of people are fulfilling purposes without even knowing why.

So if you are talking to people and want to share with them your worldview, ask them those four questions.  Knowing where they are struggling is the key to knowing where to take them.

It is sad but true.  There are places like China where Christians have to register with the government to legally gather for the purpose of studying the Bible.  And if they don’t they can be cited by the officials.  Thankfully we don’t live in such a country.  Or do we?  According to this article this is happening in San Diego, CA.

The article explains that when an attendee accidentally hit the car of a neighbor’s guest, the guest informed the county.  An official came out to the home of San Diego Pastor David Jones and informed him that he did not have a permit to hold a home Bible study and if he did not cease and desist he could be fined $1K.

There is one problem with the county’s order.  It’s called the First Amendment which reads as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

We are plunging head long into something we all were fighting against in the mid to late 20th century – an Atheistic Socialist Government.  Its just now we have to fight it in our own country instead of the Soviet Union and China.

I just installed the beta of Laridian’s  PocketBible for the iPod Touch or iPhone.  It is amazing how mature a 1.0 beta program can be when the developers are talented and careful.  This thing is going to be a great program and is already the best Bible app on the platform.  There is a little work to do and like most betas.  But it will be great.  For now, follow the link above for how you can use their web interface while you wait.  The picture is from the Laridian Blog.

If you have a Windows Mobile or Palm device, they have a great program available for those platforms as well.  The cook thing is that you buy a book for one platform and you can download the same book for all the other platforms as well.  I love this.  Also, you can sync your notes, bookmarks, etc. between the device and the Windows version of Pocket Bible.

Marthas Park-4, originally uploaded by kerussojc.

This is our little “cousin” Kaleb on the swings at Martha’s Park. You can see Michael’s hand and foot in the side. I thought about coning them out to remove the distraction. But chose not too. I like it.

The song is called “God of This City!”  Found it thanks to a college friend posting it on Facebook!