steven m. erickson is 27 years old and lives in boston, ma. he writes code, reads books, plays music, thinks deep thoughts and enjoys life.
who is smerickson
what i'm reading
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I just finished reading a great dialogue between a Calvinist (Michael Horton) and an Arminian (Roger Olsen) concerning the boundaries of evangelicalism, its relation to open theism and its future. It is a very helpful exchange for those who are involved in similar converstations.
Go download the new iTunes v4.5 It’s pretty nice.
For those of you who have never heard Dr. John Piper explain God’s passion for His glory and that being our greatest joy, I would encourage you to listen to the following message. Be warned though that this message is only for those who want to have their understanding of Scripture, God and the world be rocked. This message could change your life as it did mine.
God Glorified in His Providence: John Piper (right click and choose “Save target as”. Also this is an 11mb download so it’s probably only for those who have a fast ethernet connection)
GoDaddy.com has a huge sale on domain names right now. As cheap as $6.95/yr for .com You should go get your own and have it point to your ModBlog.
The summer is rapidly approaching and that is always a great time to do some reading. As such, I am trying to put together a list of books that I would like to read. Here is a list of some of those books which I am looking into picking up. If you have any suggestions of books that you think I should read, feel free to leave a comment; also let me know what you are planning on reading this summer, I would love to know. Recognize that this list is in process and I’m still trying to figure out what is the best use of my time and energy this summer.
Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood John Piper and Wayne Grudem
Deconstructing Evangelicalism D.G. Hart
The God who Justifies James White
The Glory of the Atonement Charles Hill & Frank James
Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates Mark Husbands & Daniel J. Treier
The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity Philip Jenkins
The Works of BB Warfield (I don’t plan on reading all of these but at least having them available)
The Justification of God John Piper
Let the Nations Be Glad John Piper
Inspiration and Authority of the Bible BB Warfield
The Death of Death in the Death of Christ John Owen
What Is Faith? J. Gresham Machen
Standing Forth: Collected Writings of Roger Nicole Roger Nicole
Standing on the Rock James Montgomery Boice
Well, I finally got some time to make a new design. The only problem is that I used png graphic files which do not display properly in internet explorer. To solve this problem, go get a real browser.
I just left from a class where an all out attack was launched against the inerrancy of Scripture. I fear that this is the case for many other places around the world as well. In an effort to provide some kind of Biblical grounding for those of you who read this site and care about God’s truth, I post the following links. Please read them. God’s truth as contained in His Word is too precious for us to treat it lightly! May we honor Him by honoring His Word.
The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy Monergism articles on the Bible
Update Many people are asking me what I meant by an “all out attack”. Really I just meant a dismissal of the doctrine. It seems irresponsible to me for a professor to go out of his way to raise the issue without then providing students with some kind of foundation upon which to ground their faith. The majority of the comments focused on three issues. The first went like: “well I believe in inerrancy, but I define it differently than has been traditionally understood.” The second was: “I believe that the Bible is true but I am skeptical of our ability, as fallible, finite human beings to get at that truth.” The third was to disregard the historicity of Scripture for a more theological understanding. To me, I don’t see how each of these revisions provides people with more hope than saying that Scripture does contain errors. I hope to offer more helpful comments on this in the coming weeks, but there is much to do this time of year and I am only one person trying to do all he can with just 24 hours in a day. But, we worship a God who is not bound by time. My hope is that we would be driven to our knees in prayer for the preservation and proclamation of God’s truth.
So, it’s getting near the end of the school year and I still don’t have a job for this summer. If you have any suggestions as to what I could do to earn some cash I would greatly appricate it. Until that gets sorted out I’m kind of starting to freak out. oh well.
Jesus Cast a Look on Me
Jesus cast a look on me,
Give me sweet simplicity
Make me poor and keep me low,
Seeking only Thee to know
All that feeds my busy pride,
Cast it evermore aside
Bid my will to Thine submit,
Lay me humbly at Thy feet
Make me like a little child,
Of my strength and wisdom spoiled
Seeing only in Thy light,
Walking only in Thy might
Leaning on Thy loving breast,
Where a weary soul can rest
Feeling well the peace of God,
Flowing from His precious blood
In this posture let me live,
And hosannas daily give
In this temper let me die,
And hosannas ever cry!
Yesterday, I heard an excellent sermon at Hamilton Congregational by Dr. McDonough from Gordon Conwell. He preached probably the most encouraging sermon on Revelation I have ever heard. Usually you don’t think of Revelation being a very encouraging or relevant book, but this is not the case at all. While, I will not seek to explain everything to you, I would like to convince you of this: Revelation is for today. If you are like I was before yesterday, you probably think that Revelation is alll about the end times and cryptically tells us how the world will come to an end. While this may be part of the story, rememeber that this is a letter. John was writing to encourage the Church. Therefore, if Revelation is solely about end times events, how does that encourage the believers that he was writing to? This letter was written that it might be understood and might bring revelation and encouragement to God’s people. Also, if we worship a fatihful God who remains the same yesterday, today and forever, then His word will reveal something to us about His character. And by better understanding His character we can come to know, love and serve Him more. So Revelation tells us, not only about end times, but even more about God’s work and character both past and present. This may seem like a simple point, but for me, it shed some light on what used to be a pretty confusing text. Therefore, I encourage you as the little children encouraged Augustine, “take it and read”. The Bible is meant to be read, studied, understood and applied. “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.” (2 Tim 2:7)
Here is an excellent link to an address given by Richard Mouw (President of Fuller Theological Seminary) at Wheaton College last spring. Would that we all would learn to live as he encourages us to do.
I’m going to see Derek Webb tonight in concert. It should be a good time. If you have not heard his CD, She Must and Shall Go Free, you really need to listen to it. It is an excellent prayer for the Church; both passionate in its concern for the Church as well as heartfelt in its encouragement. I’ll let you know how it is.
Today was a gorgeous day. Tomorrow is supposed to be even better. Aside from the weather being really nice, I was fortunate to be able to sit in on a very well done presentation on Open Theism today. I also got to congradulate my friend, Oliver, who recieved the Collegian of the Year award. Then I rounded out the day with a great friend at Starbucks. All in all, a great day.
Today, I came across an interesting interview with Rick Warren, the author of the Purpose Driven Life. While I’m not a huge fan of the book, I did find this interview to be helpful in better understanding Warren, where he’s coming from and what is goals are. You can read the article below.
I arrived back at school safely yesterday, after a great weekend at home. It again impressed upon me the value of strong friendships. I had a great time with those whom I got to see. Apparently Modblog thinks the same thing, so now I have a new addition to the site: a friends list. It will point you to current posts of other blogs which I read. So for example, you can see that [u-claytonius] recently posted an excellent little thing about the church. I see the formation of small communities of thought as a result of this nice feature. You can find the new friends section on the left side of your screen just below the poll.
I’m going home to Wheaton tomorrow morning. If you live in Wheaton, give me a call, I would love to see you. Otherwise, I’ll be back in Boston on Monday. I hope that all of you in college have a wonderful break. Enjoy the time of rest and relaxation. See you in a few days.
So, I’d really like to be able to play with the desing of my site more. Right now I’ve only been modding the default templates. Does anyone know where I can get some basic info about CSS and/or XML that I could then quickly apply to redesigning this site? Any links would be appricated. Thanks.
Alright!! So, if you’ve signed up for ModBlog, guess what? They just started supporting remote blogging. Which means you can update your blog from a desktop client intead of via the web. It’s pretty nice; I’m posting remotely right now! You can get all the details here
I have added to new links to my links section. Both reformation theology portals. There is some great stuff here.