Theology should never be reactionary.  If we design our theology in reaction to contemporary ideas, we will inevitably be shaped by the ideas to which we are reacting.  We must instead seek always to be true to the Scriptures.  We must let the Scriptures dictate our perspective, our world-view, our emphases, and our modes of expression.

These days are just sieves, leaking time.  The sand of time flows through, and I wonder where it has gone.  Here and there a moment lodges in my memory - a moment I can account for.  I can say, "I know how I spent that nugget," or, "I remember how that shard sliced my hand."  But what happens to the rest?  It spills upon the ground and mixes with the dirt.

I'm noticing that people get eprops and comments jsut for writing about their own miniscule lives.  I've been considering taking up the practice, but not much falls under the rubric "My Life."  (And, no, any thoughts you may be having do not need to sink to the level of questioning whether or not I have a life.)

Today I heard John Frame lecture about apologetics.  He didn't say anything much that I hadn't heard before, except that he hinted at the possiblilty that apologetics is not so much to argue and convince people as it is to apply the truth of the Bible to their worldview -- exposing ways in which their worldview is in error.  I'll have to ponder that concept.  I tend to lean toward Gospel-only apologetics.

Like how I said that?  "I tend to lean toward..."  Sitting in on Frame's lectures, I pondered the whole world of Christian academia.  Here we were, swarming to here a man.  We all wanted to know what he thinks.  We all wanted his answer to our questions.  I noticed Dr. Wellum in the room, and I couldn't help wondering what he thought of Frame's presentation.  No doubt he will be asked many times in the coming days.  If this were all that I noticed, I perhaps wouldn't have been so intrigued.  I noticed something else, too.  A lot of the students (including myself) were attending the lectures as separate, independent, critically-thinking individuals.  We were not there to automatically accept whatever Frame was saying.  We were demanding that he convince us.

What's my point?  When viewed from a certain perspective, even Christian academia is a remarkably human exercise.  We want to know where the "big guns" fall on "the issues."  But then again, we also consider ourselves to have a certain amount of authority to affirm or reject the ideas of the "big guns."

On the other hand, the Bible attributes to some men more Spirit-given wisdom than to others and also says that all Christians receive the Spirit.  Perhaps the only proper biblical perspective is to try and maintain the balance between the "great" thinker and the "individual."  Perhaps it is the only way to maintain a proper view of the external, objective authority of Scripture and the role of the Holy Spirit.  But it does run the risk of anthropocentrism.  In the end it may just be a matter of attitude -- an attitude of prayerful dependence on God.

I guess I've done my usual thing and gone too long.  I've noticed that most people try to keep their blogs short.  Not that it really matters, since no one reads mine anyway. 

And this is why I don't write about my life.  I can't give facts without getting too over-analytical.

I don't think that the answer that as we delight in God our desires are conformed to His is the complete picture.  I think that the idea is that we have desires that move within in us.  Sin convinces us that those desires are a perversion of what they truly are.  So we are trained to think one thing when we are actually wanting something else.  God has what we truly want, but we are perverted into thinking that we want what He thinks is wrong.

Does that seem a better way of expressing it?