Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls were found between 1947 and 1956 when a young Arab shepherd boy was searching for a lost goat. He threw a rock into a cave only to hear the sound 
of breaking pottery. Ancient manuscripts were found in that vase, leading to an excavation that
would carry this discovery. Among other manuscripts (hymns and some pseudopigrapha) were found many
OT and some NT manuscripts that are dated around 200 BC. These were some of earliest found of their time and they validated the AD 900 manuscripts that we used for our Bible of the time. It was a joyful discovery
for evangelical Christianity!

It may also interest you to know that we have over 1,300 manuscripts that helped to construct the OT we use today and over 5,300 for the NT, yet some secular works that are read often in public schools across America have only 3 manuscripts and those are accepted as truth (or at least reliable) over the Holy Bible. The sad truth of it all is that even though this is irrefutable evidence for the thinking mind, it's not enough to penetrate the hearts of a fallen humanity. Only God's gospel used by God's Spirit can rescue the souls of men and women.

So I've been noticing trouble in the area of personal discipline in my life and it bothers me quite a bit. I remember the days when I would pop right out of bed when the alarm clock went off and couldn't understand those people who hit the snooze button 2-4 times. Now I've become one of them, although I'm getting better I suppose. More than that though, I used to be so much more disciplined in many areas of life. 
I'm wondering if this whole grace perspective thing is unbalanced in me somehow. 

Anyway, no news from Moody yet. I'm still in prayer regularly about it. I've pretty well decided that if I'm accepted and just put on the waiting list that I won't take online classes next semester so I can just work my butt off to save money instead. I would regroup and see where I was at at the end of next semester. It doesn't make 
sense to spend over $600 and have to work less (therefore save less) when, if I do get in at some 
point, I'll be able to take almost as many classes as I want for free. The challenge is paying for
room and board, so I think my efforts should focused there. Although I could take 1 class...?

We almost have an entire other family living with us now (a mom and 2 teens). I've witnessed to the son and plan on witnessing to the others in the near future. While it's nice to have ministry opportunities at home, it's also challenging. I'm wondering if my dad may be being taken advantage of as well. There 

seems to be all kinds of reasons why no one in the family can work and it's been at least a couple months 
now. It's nice to have someone to help cooking and doing household things so I can focus on school and
my dad can have a break, but even that is slowing down.

It's taking some faith to pray and trust God for His provision and I don't wanna "ultimately" trust Him. I want to thoroughly and practically trust Him on 
every level. The other day they were interviewing a guy that may be an Asst. Produce Mgr. somewhere. 
I don't know if it's at my store or not. If it is, I found myself wondering... what will happen if I'm not accepted? 
Also with the family living at my house, will my dad be able to help support me if I'm in Chicago? Then I
remember how big God really is.

Evangelism has been going well. I may have mentioned travis bought a sound system. Please pray God provides for him financially on that. It wasn't cheap and he has a decent sized family. I also picked up some free resources on witnessing to Mormons and JW's. I got a tract booklet from Mount Zion that's better than the one I have now on the Trinity. It just lists many of the verses for support. While some of them are repeated and not direct... it should prove to be a good resource.

There's probably more, but this blog posting thing is SO annoying right now!

Prayer...

-Moody: acceptance for Spring and provision
-Discipline this week and next in classes. I have a Midterm this week and Csm has asked me to do 2 Evangelism training sessions. Both will require double timing on my normal studying.
-Witnessing courage and easy open doors w/those in my home
-Discipline overall in life
-Mental struggles and temptation



IF ANYONE KNOWS HOW TO FIX MY PROBLEM OF THE WORDS RUNNING
OFF THE PAGE... PLEASE HELP! i DON'T HAVE TIME TO FIX IT...

Moody, Work, and Witnessing

I may or may not have mentioned it, but I got my first check from someone to help w/college. God is good. The last reference was received last Thursday morning... 4 days before the deadline of Oct. 1st. It's time to pray. Also, I'm finding it difficult to study and memorize for school at the moment. I spent about 2 hours studying for a 10 question quiz and still missed 2 questions! It was rather frustrating. As I studied, I noticed that some of the support verses for certain things either weren't direct or didn't seemingly have a lot to do with statement next to them. It also gave a huge list of references to memorize with certain contexts. I was studying how the Bible is supported through Archeological findings and documentation as well as through prophecy. These are interesting topics, but something told me there were probably better examples than the ones given. Remember... I had to memorize the references, not the verses themselves. Johnny tried to quiz me on them and it was so much that I would forget after 10 minutes of quizzing! Is it even worth studying that much? Maybe it was just the references...

The small group with the men from church seems to be going alright. There are already some disagreements on politics. In a way it's good to know they are real people and we have real differences.

Work is getting more and more stressful, while I probably haven't seen the peak of it yet. Yesterday I stayed an hour over just to get the basics done. Sales have been so unpredictable lately that the manager and I face a hit and miss when we order. Sunday was so busy unpredictably that the tables were blown when I came in. I had to take a break from normal stuff to fill up big empty holes. Then came the meeting that lasted for over an hour long. This Thursday there will be another meeting and the Produce Merchandiser said he'll be sitting in on it. He likes things to be done earlier than we ever get them done so I'll likely go in earlier and leave earlier that day. Hopefully that'll be possible. If God decides to send me to Moody, I'll be so grateful because I likely won't have the amount the responsibility and headache at work that I have now.

This past weekend was an awesome weekend for street preaching, while I'm always reminded of what Travis and I tell eachother quite often... every night is a good night. It's not good because we got a good response from the hearers, it's not necessarily a good night because we had a lot of "good" conversations, but it's always a good night because the biblical gospel is sent out. Last weekend Travis was spending time with his son for his son's birthday and I ended up with prayer and my Bible. It's actually been awhile since I was alone out there (in a human sense anyway) and I kinda enjoyed it. I had a conversation with a group of youth and a young couple (but they might have been brother and sister). I also had a skeptic Agnostic "debate" me. He said believing in God was like believing in a Pink dragon. I reasoned with him with logic for a bit and began taking him through the law. It's been a while since I've had someone justify themselves to the degree he did with each commandment. It's amazing the degree depravity runs. He even broke in his own logic and said he had the authority to do so. May God use His law to penetrate the man's heart. As he left, his Lutheran friend shook my hand.

There was PLENTY of encouragement that night as well. I was surprised really. Numerous people shook my hand as they walked by, a teen who used to attend a church near mine was encouraged, a couple gave me a few dollars, and a woman and her daughter said it was a very biblical message and they appreciated it (they were from Michigan and loved Moody), and another woman stopped and seemed to be inspired. It's interesting how God sovereignly brings others to encourage and be encouraged with or without my preaching partner.

Well, time to do some morning study before I hit the homework...

Prayer and a hymn portion for you...

Construction began Sunday on the store for our remodel. It's already starting to look torn up. As the time draws nearer and nearer for the possibility of Moody, I begin to see the onset of the "I'm quitting syndrome." While I'm not quitting, I would only be transferring and while I still have yet to hear from the school... I still see this phenomenon in effect. Sometimes when people know they're quitting or leaving a job, a kind of laziness comes over a person and I really hate it. Currently I can't tell if it's all in my head (many things are) or if it's true. When I try to work harder to combat this, I only get worn out though...?

Today I picked up my studies in Romans again. I realize that if I take the side-road and study spiritual gifts, I'll be studying them forever because the amount of time I usually have in the mornings is so limited that I can't usually go as deep as I'd like. Maybe I'll write a paper on them someday and have to hammer it all out. I still have some notes I can refer back to and know where I left off. Anyway, this computer is running slow and I have to restart it so here are some prayer requests if you are so inclined.. it at least tells you what I'm praying for on a personal level...

-Am I lazy at work? I don't want to be the statistic of those who do a poor job as they're leaving.
-Acceptance to Moody
-Financial provision to get into Moody and maintain 3 1/2 years there to finish.


Here are some lines from a hymn that warmed my heart as I read it from John MacArthur's commentary today. It's by A. B. Simpson...

Once it was the blessing,

Now it is the Lord.

Once it was the feeling,

Now it is His Word.

Once His gifts I wanted,

Now the Giver alone.

Once I sought healing,

Now Himself alone.

A "Moody" Report

***Did you know that Muslims are beginning to evangelize in America? Apparently it's common in other places already... like Europe. TV and radio commercials are now playing that encourage you to look into Islam and quoting the lighter passages of the Quran only to replace "Allah" with the American "God." Are you sharing YOUR faith?

The Quran was a book written by ONE man over a 23 year period in his life. The Holy Bible was written by about 40 different authors over a period of about 1500 years! Woe to us if we do not preach the gospel!



--- Moody Bible Institute ---

What a wonderful trip Johnny and I had! I could spend all night writing about it, but bedtime has to come sometime...

Our stand-by flights got us 1st Class seating both ways (new experience for me). I'm so thankful to Jacquelin for her help with our flights. We got there Thursday afternoon and left Saturday afternoon. Two very awesome guys hosted us in their room while we stayed and another guy even helped out, which I'll soon explain. We rode the subway train, which was a new experience also and walked quite a bit down there too. It's a walking state for the most part. Before we even checked in at Admissions, we had a homeless guy ask us for money. Johnny and I were skeptical because he seemed a bit drunk. Out of the 3 times we were approached by the homeless community, we bought them food twice.

Hannah in Admissions was awesome and very gracious to us. One of the things that stood out to me the most is the brotherhood nature of the guys in the dorm and the environment surrounding that. Our dorm was not big enough to fit 4 guys in it, so one of the guys offered to give up his bed for Johnny and he slept ona cot somewhere else. Another guy a few rooms down gave up his bed for me and he slept in a recliner someone else had. One thing we noticed pretty quick was that the people there are REAL people... there isn't some kind of facade of holy conservativism among the dorms. At least there wasn't in ours. the guys acted like guys for sure. The lounge had an eaten bowl of salsa and chip crumbles on the table, an empty bottle of Snapple on the floor, an old chair with holes in the cushion, and an organ with broken keys. The guys on a higher floor moved a desk out of their room, put it in the lounge, and put turntables on it. The guys stayed up late in theological (and more) discussions, the community bathrooms had everyone's toiletries in little baskets out in the open... it was awesome.

Thursday we mostly just got to know the guys, went out for Chicago pizza, and met with the Asst. Mgr. of the grocery store I'd be transferring to if I got in up there. It's about a 10-15 min. walk from the campus. He asked how long I'd be there and said (with a chuckle) he could put me on the schedule the following day! That Produce dept. is HUGE.

Friday we had our tour, and presentation with other prospective students. The others were all high school students with their parents. We got to sit in on a class, attend a chapel worship service, and have free lunch. I chose to go to Winfred Neely's class on Evangelistic Messages. Apparently he's the head of the Biblical Exposition are of emphasis so I thought I'd say hi to him. It was an enjoyable class. Afterward, we visited the bookstore. There is a Lifeway connected to Moody and downstairs is where you buy textbooks and Moody related items. Johnny and I together spent over $160 on clothes and gifts to take home as a memory of our trip.

Thursday I did my best to get info on the student outreach group that goes outside for street ministry. Moody is located so that you could almost literally walk outside the door and start preaching there in downtown. I joined their group Friday night of about 20-30 students, had a 30 minute time of prayer, and we walked to the busiest area of downtown. They use all Way of The Master tracts, but the presentation is a different message and style. They use paint as a visual aid and a black light. There was even a professor that preached the gospel there in the streets. That was SO encouraging! Tim, the current leader even let me preach at the end! It was so cold out there that by the time we got back my nose was red and my hands were freezing. I could certainly tell the difference when we arrived back in Texas. I won't get to wear my hoody for at least another month or so here!

We had breakfast with one of our roommates and headed out Saturday morning. We already were making friendships and I now have a few more facebook friends because of it. I found out it costs $10,000 a year to stay in the dorms with a meal plan. That's 4 times what I thought it was. Please pray that God makes provision if I'm accepted, as I believe He will. My father is very skeptical and concerned about helping to pay for everything. I'll be doing what I can in the next few months to save as much as I can. I'm sorry I don't have photos for you... they're on facebook. I can't figure out how to put them on here though....?

Visiting Chicago

Well, classes are going alright. I barely finished a quiz the other night and slid through. I'm still getting a feel for the workload. I estimate that if I had 2 whole days off in a row with nowhere to go, I could finish that week's classwork all in those 2 days. That really helps in time allocation.

Johnny and I are planning a trip to visit Moody in Chicago in exactly a week from today. This has taken quite a bit to set up. I'll be buying the plane tickets tonight or tomorrow. I helped the manager do the schedule for next week and I'll be working 30 hours in 3 days! I had to bargain and work about 12-13 hours this Monday. I'll be there from open to close with a 2-3 hour lunch in the middle. That will give me time to relax and do homework. I think I'll go rest at the Starbucks in the same parking lot. I'll be pushing it next week to get my studying and schoolwork done.

Good news though... apparently I got Employee of the Month for August! they gave me a $25 gift card. Someone gave me the idea to use it to buy another gift card for a store I preferred, so I did. I think I'll use it to buy the Hawk Nelson CDs I've been thinking about.

So, did you know the word "alphabet" comes from the first 2 letters in the Greek alphabet? They are "alpha" and "beta."