Greetings to you all.
I apologize that it has taken me 14 days into the new year for the first
post. I also apologize because this post
is going to be a little longer to fill you in on everything. However, you are allowed to read it in chunks
if you do not have the time to read the whole thing in one sitting. I had an amazing Christmas break. I went home for to Iowa for the first
week. Nate, Kari and the boys came to
Mom and Dad’s on that Friday before Christmas and JoAnna came home Saturday
morning. We had Christmas for the boys
that Saturday because Sunday Nate’s family flew out to Denver to spend
Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Bell’s.
It was a fun day of watching the boys open their gifts and just spending
time together as family. Then on Christmas
Eve, JoAnna and her new boyfriend Steven, who will hopefully be a great
addition to the family, came home. We
all went to church and then opened gifts afterward. We spent that evening and Christmas day
eating, playing cards, drinking, playing ping pong, and playing other
games. It was just a fun relaxing couple
of days. Then I spent the rest of the
week sleeping in and seeing friends. I
headed to Nebraska on Saturday. I met my
buddy Bill in Omaha because he and his friend Jake were gun shopping.
We spent a
frustrating seven hours realizing you cannot walk into any store to buy an AR
15 right now. You cannot get any .223
caliber gun right now. You can’t even
find a .223 bullet on the shelf right now.
Since that day I have learned that everyone and their brothers are
buying these rifles like hot cakes because everyone is scared of new gun laws
being passed and banning them. I heard a
statistic last Friday that currently one million AR’s (assault rifles) are on
back order. Because of this huge demand,
these guns have sky rocketed in price and I think they will continue to keep
climbing in price. I have two
predictions about this event. These are
simply my thoughts with maybe not much logic but we will wait and see. I think first of all the new gun laws are not
going to outlaw AR’s. At most, they will
outlaw clips that hold more than five or ten bullets. So secondly, if they only change the law on
clip sizes, this will lead to a lot of brand new guns being sold privately for
cheap. I think that all these people who
are out buying these back ordered guns that are marked up because of high
demand during low supply, are putting themselves in debt, especially during the
holiday season, just to try to get these guns before the laws change. Once they realize the guns are still legal
and they put themselves in this deep debt for a gun they can still go to the
store to purchase at any time, they will be selling their brand new AR, which
may have not even been shot, for cheaper than what they bought it for. This now means private sale of a lot of guns
for cheaper than you can buy them in the stores. Now people who actually have the money to buy
guns can buy them unregistered since it is a private sale. This is secretly my hope of what happens so that
one day when I actually have an income from my first call, I can buy one of
these slightly used private sale AR’s with no paper work tracing it back to
me. However, for the mean time it is
slightly frightening to think about the sheer volume of guns being bought by
people who know nothing about guns. The
salesman at Scheel’s made the comment, “Nobody has sold as many guns as
Obama.” I laughed at that because it
will go down in the history books as the highest rate of gun sales during his
presidency. I love guns and plan on
owning several someday when I have money, but I am not so sure it is a good
thing that everyone is out buying them up like candy.
I will not
step off my soap box and continue on with my Christmas break. I spent the rest of the second week in
Nebraska. I got to hang out with college
friends most of the week, including New Year’s Eve. I helped Bill get some projects done around
the house. And I spent some time just
relaxing and lying around in front of the T.V.
I made it back to St. Louis on Sunday the 6th. Reality of homework hit very quickly and it
was right back into the routine of classes, work, homework, and the seminary
life for me.
However
this weekend was a special one. For
those of you have not yet heard, I now have a girlfriend. We have been dating for two months now. I had to wait until I told the parents in
person at Christmas until I could talk about her on here. Her name is Erin. She is originally from Pennsylvania, just
outside of Gettysburg. She is at Washington
University here in St. Louis now for the graduate program of Physical
Therapy. Part of her PT schooling is
four clinical’s. She is doing her second
clinical all of January and February in Indianapolis. She drove back this weekend though so we could
see each other again since we hadn’t seen each other since before Christmas. We
had a great weekend together and it was so good to see her. Friday night she drove back after work, so I cooked
supper for her. Then we just hung out
watching movies together in her apartment.
Then Saturday, we ran some errands together and then went to the movie
Lincoln. It was an excellent movie and I
want to see it again. Then Saturday
night a group of our friends went out to supper with us and then we went back
to one of their houses and played some games and just talked and had a good
time. Then Sunday, Erin and I went to
church. We were going to go out to lunch
with Pastor, but it was sleeting and some bad weather, so I wanted to make sure
Erin got going on her way back to Indy before it got any worse. She made it back safely thank the Lord.
I also
started my Bible study on the Psalms yesterday after church. I had some introduction stuff, but I had not
spent enough time preparing it. I felt
unorganized and it did not go as smoothly as I would have liked. However, the people who attended said it went
fine. I also do not like starting new
studies because all of the back ground and introduction stuff is best done
through lecture. I do not prefer lecture
in Bible studies but it has its place. I
am excited to come back next week more prepared and start diving into some
deeper material.
I have
three or four really cool thoughts for the day that I want to try to keep
posting over the next couple days. The
first one comes from Homiletics II class.
Dr. Schmitt was filling in for Dr. Lessing. We were looking at one of Dr. Lessing’s
sermon which used being buried with Jesus as the main illustration. We were looking at all the different things
you need to consider when choosing a controlling metaphor or illustration. The first thing to consider is historical
connotations. Dr. Schmitt asked us if we
knew any connotations to burial practices of the ancient world. I had taken an archeology class in undergrad
so I knew one of their practices was to bury the dead body in a temporary,
shallow grave just outside of the town limits.
Then after a certain amount of time they would dig up the remains which
would be basically only the bones. They
would put the bones in a bag and put the bag in the family cave were all the
rest of the family members’ bones were already laid to rest. I told this to the class. However, then Dr. Schmitt did what he does
best and brought some beautiful Gospel out of this example. He explained to us about how in our modern
culture being buried with Jesus doesn’t seem to have much significance to
us. We come from a culture where the
burial practices are to put the body in his or her individual casket, in his or
her individual vault, in his or her individual grave, marked by his or her
individual headstone. To think about Jesus
being in our casket with us, just seems silly.
However, when you stop and think about the ancient burial practices it
actually means something to be buried with Christ. This means your bones have been collected and
placed in His family’s tomb. It means
you are a member of His family and you will be for the rest of time. To be buried with Christ in ancient concepts
is good news and doesn’t seem silly at all.
This is why it’s important to consider all connotations of the illustration
and clarify the ones you want to be the prominent ones. I just thought this was such a cool thing
that would not make sense to us individual Americans but has beautiful Gospel
when looked at historically, that I would share it with you. All praise be to Him who does make us a
member of His family and brings us to the family plot to spend as our eternal
resting place, through the life and death of His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for bringing
us into Your family and making us Your own.
Please bless us all in the year 2013 just as you have always been with
us giving us our daily bread. Keep us
all in the one true faith, until you call us home to be buried with Your Son,
allowing us to live in Heaven with You.
In the name of Your Son we pray, Amen.
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