Monthly Archive for October, 2003

Stanford Martial Arts

Published
by
Glen
5 years, 3 months ago
in Of Random Interest
. 0 Comments

I was on campus today when all of a sudden the greenspace between Tresidder Union and White Plaza became a combat zone.

It was pretty cool.

The martial arts clubs were out recruiting by demonstrating their slickest moves.

I learned something important today–don’t mess with the Kempo Karate club at Stanford. They scare me.

The other groups were pretty impressive too, especially the Wushu Club.

Side note: people sometimes wonder why there are so many Christian organizations on your typical campus when they all agree on the basics. One might as well ask why there are so many martial arts organizations when they all focus on the same things (wearing funny clothes and fighting one another). We disagree on some techniques and a few philosophical premises. Differentiation is not a big deal, nor is it unique to religious organizations.

The Vicissitudes of Organizational Life on Campus

Published
by
Glen
5 years, 3 months ago
in Of Random Interest
. Closed

In Campus Collisions, Christianity Today tells the story of the recent troubles Christian organizations have had on campuses.

The lead paragraphs: THE HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE COUNCIL was working its way through a night of routine business last November when sophomore Jason Lurie, an officer of the Harvard Secular Society and a member of the council, dropped his bombshell. Did the Undergraduate Council realize, he asked, that it was approving grants to openly discriminatory organizations?

The organizations were the more than 50-year-old Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship (HRCF) and the much newer Harvard Asian Baptist Student Koinonia (ABSK). Clauses in their constitutions specified that their leaders—though not their members—must affirm an evangelical Christian statement of faith.

Really well-written article by a former InterVarsity staffer.

Disreputable Jesus

Published
by
Glen
5 years, 3 months ago
in Spiritual Growth
. Closed

While I was preparing for this week’s message I came across this paragraph which I don’t think is going to make it in (doesn’t fit the flow), but it was so good that I feel compelled to share it with you:

Dorothy Sayers in her book Unpopular Opinions wrote:

Setting aside the scandal caused by His Messianic claims and His reputation as a political firebrand, only two accusations of personal depravity seem to have been brought against Jesus of Nazareth. First, that He was a Sabbath-breaker. Secondly, that He was “a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners” — or (to draw aside the veil of Elizabethan English that makes it sound so much more respectable) that He ate too heartily, drank too freely, and kept very disreputable company, including grafters of the lowest type and ladies who were no better than they should be. For nineteen and a half centuries, the Christian Churches have laboured, not without success, to remove this unfortunate impression made by their Lord and Master. They have hustled the Magdalens from the Communion-table, founded Total Abstinence Societies in the name of Him who made the water wine, and added improvements of their own, such as various bans and anathemas upon dancing and theatre-going. They have transferred the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, and, feeling that the original commandment “Thou shalt not work” was rather half-hearted, have added to it the new commandment, “Thou shalt not play.”

So there.

Now that I look at it again it may make it in after all… come and find out!

By the way, this week we’re continuing our “Jesus Is Asking You…” series of messages with the pivotal question Who Do You Say That I Am?

Our New Apartment

Published
by
Glen
5 years, 3 months ago
in Personal News
. 0 Comments

We just signed a lease on a new apartment! We’ll be moving this month–I’ll update our contact information soon.

For now, you can see some photos we took of the new pad.

It’s a great place–3 bedrooms, 2 bath, nice patio, and a fireplace! The best part is that the rent is the same as what we’re paying now. Woohoo!

Daily Bible Readings

Published
by
Glen
5 years, 3 months ago
in Geek
. Closed

I woke up early this morning and had this thought about daily Bible reading plans (namely, that it would be good to have one on our website).

So I added it on the top left of the screen. Just wanted to draw your attention to it.

I figured it would be pretty easy to set one up using PHP and MySQL, but I didn't want to have to do a ton of data entry. Rather than reinventing the wheel, I searched for an online tabulation of Bible readings. I found a good one at Bible-reading.com.

I copied the plan into Word and used the search and replace features to format all the readings into 364 SQL INSERT statements (the number of readings in this plan). I added two more (thereby insuring that the database always has the data that I query for even in a leap year. Side note: I picked these somewhat at random and they're probably not great choices, especially the Matthew reading).

Then I created some quick PHP code to take the current day of the year and look up the corresponding reading. I took the output and made it compatible with Bible Gateway and voila--an easy online Bible reading plan!

The code was very straightforward:

PLAIN TEXT
PHP:
  1. $date=getdate();
  2. $day=$date['yday'];
  3.  
  4. $link = mysql_connect(*put your own info here*);
  5.  
  6. mysql_select_db(*your database*);
  7.  
  8. $sql=sprintf("SELECT * FROM bible_reading WHERE day='%d'",$day);
  9.  
  10. $result=mysql_query($sql);
  11.  
  12. $line = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_ASSOC);
  13.  
  14. $passage=$line["passage"];
  15.  
  17.  
  18. mysql_close($link);
  19.  
  20. $URL=sprintf("http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&passage=%s&version=NIV",urlencode($passage));
  21.  
  22. printf("Bible Reading for %s",date('l F jS'));
  23.  
  24. printf("<a href='%s'>%s</a>",$URL,$passage);

That's pretty much it. It turned out to be a piece of cake!

The data entry would have been horrible--but I was able to avoid that hassle. If you need the SQL statements for any reason, you can use these:

PLAIN TEXT
SQL:
  1. CREATE TABLE `bible_reading` (
  2.   `day` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  3.   `passage` varchar(255) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  4.   PRIMARY KEY  (`day`)
  5. ) TYPE=MyISAM;
  6.  
  7. #
  8. # Dumping data for table `bible_reading`
  9. #
  10.  
  11. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (1, 'Romans 1-2');
  12. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (2, 'Genesis 1-3');
  13. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (3, 'Joshua 1-5');
  14. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (4, 'Psalms 1-2');
  15. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (5, 'Job 1-2');
  16. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (6, 'Isaiah 1-6');
  17. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (7, 'Matthew 1-2');
  18. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (8, 'Romans 3-4');
  19. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (9, 'Genesis 4-7');
  20. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (10, 'Joshua 6-10');
  21. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (11, 'Psalms 3-5');
  22. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (12, 'Job 3-4');
  23. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (13, 'Isaiah 7-11');
  24. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (14, 'Matthew 3-4');
  25. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (15, 'Romans 5-6');
  26. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (16, 'Genesis 8-11');
  27. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (17, 'Joshua 11-15');
  28. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (18, 'Psalms 6-8');
  29. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (19, 'Job 5-6');
  30. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (20, 'Isaiah 12-17');
  31. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (21, 'Matthew 5-7');
  32. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (22, 'Romans 7-8');
  33. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (23, 'Genesis 12-15');
  34. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (24, 'Joshua 16-20');
  35. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (25, 'Psalms 9-11');
  36. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (26, 'Job 7-8');
  37. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (27, 'Isaiah 18-22');
  38. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (28, 'Matthew 8-10');
  39. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (29, 'Romans 9-10');
  40. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (30, 'Genesis 16-19');
  41. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (31, 'Joshua 21-24');
  42. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (32, 'Psalms 12-14');
  43. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (33, 'Job 9-10');
  44. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (34, 'Isaiah 23-28');
  45. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (35, 'Matthew 11-13');
  46. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (36, 'Romans 11-12');
  47. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (37, 'Genesis 20-23');
  48. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (38, 'Judges 1-6');
  49. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (39, 'Psalms 15-17');
  50. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (40, 'Job 11-12');
  51. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (41, 'Isaiah 29-33');
  52. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (42, 'Matthew 14-16');
  53. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (43, 'Romans 13-14');
  54. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (44, 'Genesis 24-27');
  55. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (45, 'Judges 7-11');
  56. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (46, 'Psalms 18-20');
  57. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (47, 'Job 13-14');
  58. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (48, 'Isaiah 34-39');
  59. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (49, 'Matthew 17-19');
  60. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (50, 'Romans 15-16');
  61. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (51, 'Genesis 28-31');
  62. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (52, 'Judges 12-16');
  63. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (53, 'Psalms 21-23');
  64. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (54, 'Job 15-16');
  65. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (55, 'Isaiah 40-44');
  66. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (56, 'Matthew 20-22');
  67. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (57, '1 Corinthians 1-2');
  68. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (58, 'Genesis 32-35');
  69. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (59, 'Judges 17-21');
  70. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (60, 'Psalms 24-26');
  71. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (61, 'Job 17-18');
  72. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (62, 'Isaiah 45-50');
  73. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (63, 'Matthew 23-25');
  74. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (64, '1 Corinthians 3-4');
  75. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (65, 'Genesis 36-39');
  76. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (66, 'Ruth');
  77. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (67, 'Psalms 27-29');
  78. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (68, 'Job 19-20');
  79. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (69, 'Isaiah 51-55');
  80. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (70, 'Matthew 26-28');
  81. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (71, '1 Corinthians 5-6');
  82. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (72, 'Genesis 40-43');
  83. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (73, '1 Samuel 1-5');
  84. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (74, 'Psalms 30-32');
  85. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (75, 'Job 21-22');
  86. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (76, 'Isaiah 56-61');
  87. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (77, 'Mark 1-2');
  88. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (78, '1 Corinthians 7-8');
  89. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (79, 'Genesis 44-47');
  90. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (80, '1 Samuel 6-10');
  91. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (81, 'Psalms 33-35');
  92. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (82, 'Job 23-24');
  93. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (83, 'Isaiah 62-66');
  94. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (84, 'Mark 3-4');
  95. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (85, '1 Corinthians 9-10');
  96. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (86, 'Genesis 48-50');
  97. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (87, '1 Samuel 11-15');
  98. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (88, 'Psalms 36-38');
  99. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (89, 'Job 25-26');
  100. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (90, 'Jeremiah 1-6');
  101. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (91, 'Mark 5-6');
  102. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (92, '1 Corinthians 11-12');
  103. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (93, 'Exodus 1-4');
  104. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (94, '1 Samuel 16-20');
  105. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (95, 'Psalms 39-41');
  106. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (96, 'Job 27-28');
  107. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (97, 'Jeremiah 7-11');
  108. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (98, 'Mark 7-8');
  109. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (99, '1 Corinthians 13-14');
  110. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (100, 'Exodus 5-8');
  111. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (101, '1 Samuel 21-25');
  112. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (102, 'Psalms 42-44');
  113. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (103, 'Job 29-30');
  114. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (104, 'Jeremiah 12-16');
  115. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (105, 'Mark 9-10');
  116. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (106, '1 Corinthians 15-16');
  117. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (107, 'Exodus 9-12');
  118. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (108, '1 Samuel 26-31');
  119. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (109, 'Psalms 45-47');
  120. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (110, 'Job 31-32');
  121. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (111, 'Jeremiah 17-21');
  122. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (112, 'Mark 11-12');
  123. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (113, '2 Corinthians 1-3');
  124. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (114, 'Exodus 13-16');
  125. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (115, '2 Samuel 1-4');
  126. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (116, 'Psalms 48-50');
  127. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (117, 'Job 33-34');
  128. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (118, 'Jeremiah 22-26');
  129. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (119, 'Mark 13-14');
  130. INSERT INTO `bible_reading` VALUES (120, '2 Corinthians 4-5');