Welcome to Nerd Heaven the internet home of Sam Powell, a seminarian at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Visit this site for Mac news and tips, theology, sports, and even the occasional political reference.
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Posted By admin on March 11, 2010
Just so my blog readers know this is what I am taking this quarter:
This is going to be a great quarter all around. The classes and professors are superb. There is a boatload of reading, but it should be manageable.
Posted By admin on February 15, 2010
The day after thanksgiving I picked up a Brother HL-2140 Laser Printer at Office Depot for $50. The deal was too good to pass up. I was tired of refilling ink cartridges and the hassle of an inkjet.
When we got back to St. Louis I moved one of our inkjets out of the way and setup the Brother. Setup was a snap. I put the printer on the desk, installed the toner cartridge, plugged it in to power, and connected the printer via USB to our Airport Extreme. All I had to do was add the printer in OS X and I was up and running. I didn’t have to use any of the install disks or instructions that came with the printer.
After almost three months here is what I have to say: the printer is fast and it just works. I’ve had zero problems with paper handling, print quality, or speed. The only complaint is that the printer is loud when printing and it takes some time to go to sleep. If you are in the market for a small laser printer check out the Brother HL-2140.
Posted By admin on January 31, 2010
I don’t much care for Phil Michelson. I never have. However, I don’t think he is a cheater like some have said.
Golf is a sport with tons of rules. Some of them can benefit you and some of them can hurt you.
For example, if you play a non-comforming ball in a tournament you can be disqualified. You can be assessed a penalty for grounding your club in a hazard.
At the same time you can also seek relief from certain situations if you know the rules well. For example, when I was helping with the golf team while I was student teaching one of our golfers got in a dispute with a golfer from another school. Our golfer argued that because an area was “staked” (marked) a certain way he was legally allowed relief without penalty. He was right. He knew the rules well and it benefited him that day.
Phil Michelson knows the rules of golf and knows them well. The other golfers can argue all they want about the “spirit of the rule” and whatever that means. What I do know is that Phil knows the rules and if they benefit him in this particular situation, fine by me.
Posted By admin on January 25, 2010
Besides my posts today I haven’t put anything on my blog since October. Have I given up blogging? Have a joined the circus? The answer to both question is, “No.”
The fact is that I have been busy with the end of vicarage and school starting back up again. With that came a move from Wisconsin to Missouri, visiting with my family, Thanksgiving with Lisa’s family, and prepping for being a student again after a year of “work.” Then classes started up again after Thanksgiving. Christmas was with my family and then New Years was with Lisa’s family. We also made a trip up to Wisconsin to visit friends and my vicarage congregation. Now classes are going again (fast and furious) ending in a few weeks.
I make no guarantees about how much I will post in the coming months. Hopefully I will through up some stuff from my classes. If you want to see more of a real time stream of what is happening, check me out on Twitter.
In case you are curious, here is what I’m taking:
Posted By admin on January 25, 2010
Pastor Esget from Alexandria, VA posted recently on Luther’s Small Catechism and how it should be the structure for our lives as Christians.
He says:
The Ten Commandments preach repentance, i.e., they show us our sin (2nd use of the Law, as a mirror), revealing to us that we are idolaters, misusers of God’s name, Sabbath breakers, people who dishonor parents, murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, and covet.
The Apostles’ Creed is just the opposite of the Commandments; the Commandments show us what God demands, while the Creed shows us what God does, gives, promises. So the Creed preaches faith, trust in God and His salvation.
The Lord’s Prayer, then, is our response to the faith preached to us in the Creed. In the Lord’s Prayer, we ask, in essence, that God would keep us in the pure teaching of His Word and help us to lead holy lives according to it (see the explanations to the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer in the Small Catechism).
This brings up a major problem in catechesis today. Many choose to split the catechism in half and cover one half one year and the other half the next. To break up the catechism removes the flow that Dr. Luther designed. To simply cover the sacraments one year without the 1st half does a disservice to our catechumens by removing the emphasis on the Christian life. In the same way, covering the Christian life and not moving through the Sacraments is dangerous as well.
Posted By admin on January 25, 2010
I’m not going to post something of my own, because others have put together superb responses to the earthquake in Haiti.
You can read on the scene reports from Haiti Rev. Matt Harrison’s blog, Mercy Journey’s with Pastor Harrison.
Posted By admin on October 26, 2009
I grew up knowing only a few pastors. I knew my home pastor and I knew a few area pastors who my family knew through various church dealings. They were all called “Pastor” by my family. No confusion, no problems.
Going off to college at Concordia University, Nebraska opened up a whole can of worms. Suddenly there were lots of people with “Rev.” in front of their names. What to do? Some people just called them all “Pastor” and went with it. Some referred to them as “Dr.” or “Professor” if the situation warranted.
It all was put in perspective when during my sophomore year I was beginning my Christian Doctrine I course that was being taught by an area pastor. Someone asked what we should call him and he replied “Professor.” Someone asked why and he replied, “Because I’m not your pastor. You have pastors back home and you have a chaplain here at Concordia. I’m your professor.” Those few sentences by that professor really hit home for me. It bugs me to hear students call their professors “pastor” because they are not pastors. They are teachers and doctors of the church who have been called to teach the faith. While noble and necessary, they are not shepherds of God’s flock. This also goes for those who work in our synodical administration and organizations. They aren’t pastors. Period.
This has affected my personal practice. I do my best (and do often slip up) when referring to those faculty and staff members at the seminary by “Professor,” “Dr.” or Reverend. They have honorable callings and duties and I don’t want to detract from them, but they are not pastors and do not claim to be one, so why give them the title?
We have pastors and we should make use of them and honor them. Why detract from their noble callings by giving away their titles to those not serving a congregation?
Posted By admin on October 7, 2009
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Posted By admin on September 28, 2009
My wife has a wonderful recipe that she got from her wonderful mom. It is absolutely delicious… and incredibly unhealthy. The name comes from opening the cans of Pillsbury crescent roll dough. It always scared my wife as a child… thus… Exploding Dough Casserole. Enjoy!
Ingredients
Directions
MMMMmmmmmm nom nom nom
Posted By admin on September 23, 2009
The following quotes were sent out by my district president here in South Wisconsin, Rev. John Wille in his monthly e-newsletter.
“False doctrine is poison to the soul. An entire banqueting party drinking from cups containing an admixture of arsenic can drink physical death from its cups. So an entire audience can invite spiritual and eternal death by listening to a sermon that contains an admixture of the poison of false doctrine. A person can be deprived of his soul’s salvation by a single false comfort or a single false reproof administered to him. This is all the more easy because we are all naturally more accessible to the shining and dazzling light of human reason than to the divine truth. For ‘the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them’ (1 Cor. 2:14).
“From what has been said you can gather how foolish it is, yea, what an awful delusion has taken hold upon so many men’s minds who ridicule the pure doctrine and say to us: ‘Ah, do cease clamoring, Pure doctrine! Pure doctrine! That can only land you in dead orthodoxism. Pay more attention to pure life, and you will raise a growth of genuine Christianity.’ That is exactly like saying to a farmer: ‘Do not worry forever about good seed; worry about good fruits.’ Is not a farmer properly concerned about good fruit when he is solicitous about getting good seed? Just so a concern about pure doctrine is the proper concern about genuine Christianity and a sincere Christian life. False doctrine is noxious seed, sown by the enemy to produce a progeny of wickedness. The pure doctrine is wheat-seed; from it spring the children of the Kingdom, who even in the present life belong in the kingdom of Jesus Christ and in the life to come will be received into the Kingdom of Glory. May God even now implant in your hearts a great fear, yea, a real abhorrence, of false doctrine! May He graciously give you a holy desire for the pure, saving truth, revealed by God Himself! That is the chief end which these evening lectures are to serve” (Walther, Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm; Dau, William Herman Theodore; Eckhardt, Ernest: The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel: 39 Evening Lectures. electronic ed. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2000, c1929, c1986, S. 20).
