Wait, is it WEDNESDAY already?

Crazy week, so far. We've been interviewing another candidate for our open Youth and Family Ministries position, so I've been acting as tour guide, buying dinner etc., PLUS teaching my normal classes, getting mid-term grades turned in, etc.

Lectures have gone well, although I HATE teaching the first few days after the spring time change. My students yesterday were comatose, much sleepier than normal.

In my 75 minute classes, I sometimes break about 45 minutes in to give people a chance to get up, go to the restroom, get a drink, etc. In my 9.25 class yesterday (Gospel of Matthew), I took the "get out of your seats and WAKE UP" break after about ten minutes. (They STILL were comatose.)

My 12.15 class (Biblical Theology) was much better. I was teaching about Jesus' preaching about the Kingdom of God. One of the things I said was that Jesus NEVER makes a simple offer of salvation, the offer is always for people to become part of the Kingdom of God. And what is necessary if you're part of a kingdom? You must acknowledge and submit to the King.

Which led to a good discussion of the whole Lordship salvation debate of the 1990's. Can you receive Jesus as your Savior without acknowledging and submitting to him as your Lord? I conclude that you cannot have one without the other.

As for the interviews, they've gone well. We have two good candidates. Prayer, deliberation, and phone calls dead ahead.

PS: my daughter got a ticket yesterday for running stop sign. Now: my daughter is beautiful, a gorgeous 18-year-old blonde.

Well, she tried to get out of the ticket. She batted her eyelashes at the police officer, and she cried, and he gave her the ticket anyway.

Serves her right.

My Daughter

My daughter, who celebrated her 18th birthday locked up in a hotel in Louisville (okay, snowed in, not locked up), has just informed me that she won 3rd place in the state of Kentucky HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America) Medical Terminology competition this last weekend.

She is also a state registered nursing assistant. She passed her test!

But now she won't leave my office and let me get work done!

Miscellania

1. My back is feeling much better, thanks for asking. Either I'm mending or I'm just so happy over the fact that I get to give a test today that my giddiness has driven the pain from my body.

I DO still have a general ache located somewhere above and outside of my left hip. That hip always hurts; I wonder if I'm going to have it replaced someday.

2. My eldest daughter is in Louisville for the Health Occupations Something Association convention, HOSA for short. We make jokes about some of the girls in her club putting the HO in HOSA. I'm proud of her; she's coming to KCU in the fall.

3. I have a whole day that I can devote to writing--well, only one lecture, and it's already done. So I'm busy finding excuses to do EVERYTHING but write. Damn (literally) that fallen nature!

4. I LOVE Burlap to Cashmere; right now, I'm listening to a looped playlist that's nothing but Ryan Adams and Burlap. Good stuff.

Back problems, new N.T. Wright book

I hurt my back yesterday; I was getting ready to go to Columbus, to give my lecture at East Pointe Christian Church. I was standing at a table, putting books and my laptop into my computer bag, and just happened to reach the wrong way while my back was just slightly twisted in the wrong direction, and MY BACK WENT OUT.

And of course, I had to spend six hours in a car right after that. Driving is the worst possible thing you can do if your back is out. And my daughter has her 18th birthday this week, so today we went to Lexington. So another four hours or so in a car, plus 90 minutes in one of those poofy chairs at Barnes & Noble.

It freaking hurts.

It's gone out before, but that was 18 years ago or so.

Speaking of Barnes & Noble: I bought the newest N.T. Wright book, Surprised by Hope. It's a readable explanation of Wright's views on the 2nd coming of Christ, eschatology, that "Left Behind nonesense" (you have to imagine Wright saying it, with that British accent), etc.

Wright has addressed these issues in other places, but in more scholarly (and dense) guise.

Wright is sometimes accused of being a preterist, or of not believing in the 2nd coming. Here he sets the record straight, in a way that American readers and students can easily access, comprehend, and evaluate.

And Who Is Perry L. Stepp, Ph.D.?

• Husband of 22 years to Elizabeth, father of Kayla Josh Anna.
• Christian, Conservative, Deadhead, (Dallas) Cowboy fan
• Dean of the Sack School of Bible and Ministry, Kentucky Christian University
• Associate Professor, New Testament and Theology
• Contributor to the scholarly NT studies blog, Pastoralepistles.com
  
• Author of two scholarly monographs and the forthcoming Reading Paul's Letters to Individuals in the Reading the New Testament series from Smyth & Helwys
• Coffee drinker
• Deadhead (5-8-77 Cornell, YO!)
  
• Eternal juvenile

Repost: Who / What is Theophilus Punk?

The name, "Theophilus Punk": it's a conflation of several plays on words.

When I was in Bible College (Dallas Christian College) back in the early 1980's, I wanted to get together a group of freaks like myself to play improvised heavy-metal-acid-jazz music--imagine REM meets Black Sabbath meets Grateful Dead meets In a Silent Way-era Miles Davis, and I wanted to call the band Theophilus Punk. Of course, WANTING to form a band is a lot different than FORMING a band, so it never happened.

Anyway: the plays on words: The first, of course, is a play on the name of legendary jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. Monk was the lyrical anarchist of bebop piano, who wrote such classics as " 'Round Midnight," "Straight, No Chaser," and "Blue Monk."

The second is a play on the name "Theophilus." Theophilus, which is an ancient Greek name meaning "lover of God," was the patron who supported the early Christian biographer Luke while he wrote the gospel and the book of Acts which we now have in the New Testament.

As for the "punk" part--well, you can probably figure it out on your own. I had a wide and deep rebellious streak when younger, and--though I've repented of all that and become wise and respectable--I still have a little edginess in my character.