Mark Driscoll videos online
Mark Driscoll announces that they have released a number of videos of his sermons online. This is a great thing. I encourage you to watch all of them, Driscoll is a great preacher.
blog January 2006 entries
My room
Here are some pictures of my room in Boston. Enjoy.
The big picture
This weekend I started reading According to Plan by Graeme Goldsworthy. It is a great introduction to Biblical theology. In it Goldsworthy explains the benefit of seeing the big picture of the Bible.
When you are close to the ground it is often very hard to see exactly where you are in relation to other places. A few trees, a dip in the ground, a couple of buildings or some other natural or man-made feature can prevent us from getting our bearings. That is why poeple build observation platforms on high buildings or on mountains, and why aerial photography became so important in war or in peace-time making of maps. The bird’s eye view enables us to see things and places in relation to other things and places. A map is a representation of a bird’s eye view of a particular part of the earth’s surface. It reduces an area that is too big for us to see at a glance to a model that is small enough for us to see all at once.
Seeing the whole is so important to understanding the individual parts. It is all to easy to misinterpret a passage because one neglects the large whole in which it is found.
Recently I came across a great link for gaining a better understanidng of the whole Bible. It is a series of sermons preached by Mark Dever at Capitol Hill Baptist Church . During his time as pastor of that church he has preached an overview sermon of every book of the Bible. I think that he does a fabulous job of clearly and comprehensively explaining large sections of the Bible in a short period of time. To help support his new book on the message of the New Testament; his church has posted the audio versions of all of the New Testament. I would highly recommend listening to at least his sermon on the message of the Bible if not the whole series. It is a wonderful resource.
Technology Tuesday: My main web apps
Technology Tuesday returns! Recently I decided to make a switch from using a desktop mail client like Outlook to only using GMAIL. After having made this switch I realized that most of the apps I use all of the time are on the web. This is great because it doesn’t matter what computer I am using, I always use the same applications with the same settings, with the same data. Whether I’m at work, on my mac, on my pc, on my roommates laptop, on a public computer or 1000 miles away at home, I can always use the same working enviroment for my main applications and I don’t have to have a laptop. I’ve found that this is a really a great thing. There is now a separation between the applications that I use and the machine I use to access them. Here are some of the web applications that I use most often which I highly recommend:
GMail
Gmail is by far the best webmail client out there. I love all of the fancy interface features that they have; especially labels, shortcut keystrokes and limited page reloads. Recently I also came across some great Greasemonkey scripts at userscripts.com They add even more functionality to make gmail my only mail client.
LINK: gmail.com
Basecamp
Basecamp is a great project management tool. It lets you collaborate with a bunch of poeple around a certain project using messages, to do lists and milestones. Currently I use it to manage a website that I created for StudentBody and the sunday school class that I teach.
LINK: basecamphq.com
Backpack
Backpack is similar to Basecamp but on a smaller scale. It is designed for making simple one page webpages. The pages can have notes, lists, images, etc. You can also set up reminders that will send you an email and a text message on certain dates when you are supposed to do things (like pay the bills).
The other great thing about both backpack and basecamp is another app that they both have called Writeboards. Writeboards are basically just simple text editors on the web that you can use to write, store and share text. Now that I have writeboard I don’t even remember the last time I used MS Word.
LINK: backpackit.com
del.icio.us
del.icio.us is my online bookmark management tool. I have all 700+ of my bookmarks online and with me whereever I go.
LINK: del.icio.us
FeedLounge
FeedLounge is an online RSS feed reader. I love its user interface and it is just as fast as a desktop client. But the best part is that if I check a feed during lunch at work, it will be marked as read when I look at later at night at my apartment. Before when I used a desktop application for reading feeds I would have to mark something as read twice; once when I read it at work and then again when I read it at my apartment. Having a great online application is much better.
LINK: feedlounge.com
All in all, I really like having all of my main applications online. I feel much more portable now and best of all, I don’t have to carry a laptop around with me.
Which web applications do you find most helpful?