Jesus Feeding the Thousands

I wish everyone a happy start to the holiday season. My family and I watched a movie entitled 'Joshua' last night. It was great. It has a story line where someone walks into a small town and he just starts helping everyone around. And through his work and help, others join in, and through this he starts transforming lives. It is billed as a movie about Jesus' Second Coming, but it is not anything like what this connotes. Instead, it is a great example of what lives with faith looks like. We recommend it!

Today's topic is a discussion of the different Greek words used for 'baskets" in the Gospel stories on Jesus feeding the thousands with loaves of bread and a few fish. Yes, this is the sort of family I have, where a Thanksgiving celebration often brings up a discussion involving the Bible. And this year, my cousin's husband Bob brought out that in the miracles of Jesus feeding thousands with a few loaves and fish, that different Greek words were used for the 'baskets' used to pick up the left over portion afterwards. In the miracle of 5,000 being fed with 5 loaves and three fish (described in Matthew 14:20-21, Mark 6:43-44, Luke 9:14-17, and John 6:10-13), there were 12 'baskets' of leftover food that was gathered. The Greek word used in the story of the 5,000 being fed is kophinos – which means large baskets. While in the other similar miracle of 4,000 being fed (described in Matthew 15:37-38 and Mark 8:8-9) with seven loaves and a few fish, there were seven 'baskets' left over and gathered. Here, the Greek word used by the Gospel writers is spyris – which means large hampers. This is the sort of a hamper large enough to hold a person. See, Acts 9:23-25 - (ESV), where Paul is lowered in a spyris (or a large hamper to escape): 23 When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, 25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. Thus, the Gospel writers were showing that even though fewer people were being fed in the story of Jesus feeding 4,000 people, there were larger baskets / hampers of food left over. This use of different words used was later kept when Jesus spoke to the disciples about the two different miracles in Mark 8:19-20: (ESV): 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets (i.e., kophinos) full of broken pieces did you take up?" They said to him, "Twelve." 20 "And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets (i.e., spyris) full of broken pieces did you take up?" And they said to him, "Seven."

Here is how one commentator describes the difference:    … The distinction between the feeding of the four thousand and of the five thousand is emphasized by the Gospel writers' use of Gk. Kophinos (Strong's Greek #2894) for basket in the former miracle (Mt. 14:20; 16:9; Mk. 6:43; 8:19; Lk. 9:17; Jn. 6:13), but Gk. Spyris(Strong's Greek #4711) in the latter (Mt. 15:37; 16:10; Mk. 8:8, 20). Both words denote a hamper, kophinos appearing elsewhere in a Jewish context, and spyris, in which Paul was lowered from the wall of Damascus, being the larger (Acts 9:25…) from, A. R. Millard, New Bible Dictionary (3rd ed.) (125). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.

There was also another comment that I thought was worth passing along from J. H. Smith, comment on the feeding of the 4,000 in the 'New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge':

This was another incontestable miracle—four thousand men, besides women and children (Mt 15:28), fed with seven loaves (or rather cakes) and a few small fishes! Here there must have been a manifest creation of substance—for they all ate, and were filled.

I liked this Comment not only because it stresses the importance of the miraculous nature of the creation of the food enough to feed thousands (more than 4,000 (because the women and children were not counted.) But also because instead of using 'loaves' J. H. Smith thinks 'cakes' is a better description of what Jesus actually used. To me, 'cakes' seems something smaller, and again emphasizes the amazing nature of the miracle.

From these stories I praise Jesus who is concerned about making sure that our needs are met. May God bless you this week in the sure and increasing knowledge of His love for you. /s/Tom Wolff

What Does God Want of You?

There was an interesting segment on radio host Dennis Prager's "Ultimate Issues" show today. He discussed the Bible being the most wisdom-filled book in human history, and showed this by pointing to a famous Bible verse that explains in a clear picture what God wants from us. Here is the Bible verse Dennis Prager talked about today on his radio program:

He has showed you, O man, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8 (this is from the NIV, which is the translation he used.) See, Hosea 6:6. What does God require of us? The spokesperson Micah explains that it is -To act justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly before God. As background, in case you are not familiar with him, Mr. Prager, he is a practicing Jew, who is also very supportive of Christians. And so, it is not surprising that he would look to an Old Testament verse as being so important. To explain why this is so important to him, he emphasized that he does not care if a person is religious or not. Instead, he looks at one's actions toward him and to others –he says that if your religion does not make you a better person, then it is worthless. Dennis Prager calls his view "virtues based", where virtues of good actions from others is all that is important to him.

OK, so it should not be surprising to us Christians that a Jewish teacher / radio host would be focused on actions (or could we say, works?) But can we argue against the importance of being a good person? Of course not! When we want justice or mercy in our lives, we want a person's action to respond to our need. I don't care where if I was in need, whether the person who helped me was a religious person, an atheist, a pagan, or a follower of Cthulu. It is their response that I need, and Christians certainly do not have the market cornered on being nice people. See Jesus' Parable of the Good Samaritan. And this was Dennis Prager's point, it doesn't matter what you believe (or have faith in), it is only actions that other people look at and see.

As a Christian, I reflexively objected to what Dennis Prager was saying. Actions are more important than faith? For Christians, faith in Jesus is the beginning and end of what we believe. Our actions have no eternal significance, but faith in Jesus does. But does faith in Jesus make our actions unimportant? As James the brother of Jesus writes in the New Testament, faith without actions is dead (James 2:17). Our actions are obviously very important. So how should we piece this together?

Let's look at Jesus' teaching on the two Greatest Commandments we have: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-38; see, Leviticus 19:17-19). So the greatest Commandments are to love God and to also love our neighbors. So here is my take: The first and greatest Commandment to love our God with all of our heart, soul and strength, is what we know of as Faith. We trust in God and His promises to us, as set out in the Bible. And when we receive this gift of faith from God (Ephesians 2:8-9), and we reflect back this love to the Creator, we are then empowered to love others. For me, the transformation in my life took place when I started seeing God doing things in my life. This led me to begin reading the Bible, and taking what was written there seriously. Next, I saw my sinful and broken condition before a Holy God (perhaps the last part of Micah 6:8). But then I also started beginning to turn the focus off of me and my life and I was for the first time, realizing the needs of others around me. So the connection in my life was that God's love caused me to love Him, and His love then helped me to love others. I think this is what Matthew 22:37-38 means when Matthew writes saying that loving others is "like" loving God – that loving God is tied to loving others. In my case, loving God first enabled me to start seeing and then love others.

My final note is that for the most part while your actions are more important to me than your faith or religion, but for me, my faith is the most important part of my life. Again, this makes sense in that once I received my faith and the salvation offered by faith in Jesus, I no longer was an enemy of God, under His anger. What gratitude joy and peace I received on that day – have you heard the song "Oh Happy Day"? This gratitude, joy and peace I have towards God allows me to be part of other's lives and to walk alongside them in their battles and trials, and to help them if I can. I now understand that what happens to others is really important, and I want to help them in their needs, and rejoice with them in their victories. So Dennis Prager is partially right – actions are important for others. But for me (and from your perspective also) faith is by far the greatest gift of all.

May God bless you this week with growing insights, financial provision, and the Lord's shalom peace, in Jesus' name, Amen. /s/Tom

Skepsis

Our Church at Hosanna in Lakeville, Minnesota is running a new program called 'Skepsis' which I have found to be truly unique and interesting. 'Skepsis' I am told is a Greek word that means looking at a truth statement from all different angles, similar to the way one would look at a diamond's different facets from different angles. From the Greek Skepsis, we get our English word skepticism. There are many things that make Skepsis unique for a Church, but the main one seems to be that it is not trying to convert its attendees to believe like Christians do. Instead, it is designed to make us all be more open minded in our thinking.

]Let me give you an example. Last week we discussed the topic of "Exclusiveness". The main question asked was "how can you can you possibly claim that your religion is the one true religion?" Now understand that we are not opening up the Bible. We are not bringing out Bible verses that show why Christianity makes the claim that it is the exclusive way for people to receive salvation. No, it treats all religions on the same level, and that they all teach that they are the best way to understand the world around us. The authors suggest that there are three responses to religious claims and the bad things that religions are doing in the world today:

1. Seek to suppress and even stamp out religion;
   
2. Push to privatize and completely personalize religion – you believe what you want to believe and I will believe what I believe;
   
3. Accept that all truth claims are ultimately exclusive and ask: "which one is best"?
   

I hope this draws the philosophical nature of the "Skepsis" program. So the initial question is whether ALL truth claims are ultimately exclusive. You may have heard of the story of the blind-folded people touching an elephant, as an analogy of the world's different religions. One blind-folded person touches the side of the elephant and says God is like a big wall. While another grabs a leg and says God is like a tree trunk. Another person touches the tail and says God is like a rope, etc… The point of the Elephant story being God is too big for any one religion to accurately describe. They even showed at Skepsis this hilarious video of a Bayer commercial. But even this viewpoint suffers from a flawed assumption – "how can you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth unless you yourself have superior comprehensive knowledge of reality you just claimed that none of the religions have?" (T Keller).

Another thing that makes Skepsis different is that it breaks into small group discussions very frequently. So you get people from very different backgrounds trying to get their minds around some pretty heavy philosophical teachings. But again the objective of Skepsis is not to teach everyone to believe the same thing. Instead its emphasis is to view things differently. To show this, here is one of the discussion questions they asked the Table Leaders to ask the group: "Try to genuinely identify with where someone from the opposite perspective viewpoint is coming from. Why might they have come to this conclusion?" Wow! Most of the attendees would say they are Christians, though many come with varying levels of a skeptical mindset. But to ask them to think and understand what someone else believes who they disagree with is revolutionary for a Church program.

The final topic for last Thursday's topic dealt with the following question: "do you think it is possible for one religion to be "best" or "right"? Why or why not?" This is a fair question. What makes our religion better than any other? Or is everything just a different path up to the top of the mountain? No final answers were given, again showing the open-ended nature of Skepsis.

Hosanna Church in Lakeville is running this interesting and innovative program. It runs every Thursday up until Thanksgiving, from 6 p.m. until 8:15 p.m. Each week a different obstacle to faith is discussed, and next Thursday's topic is suffering. You will be blessed if you come and check it out.

Prayer – Led by the Spirit

It's been an eventful past few weeks. Asia has her driver's license. The kids have started school. We celebrated Asia's birthday. Elijah's flag football season has started. And Elijah and I went out to the TCF Bank stadium for the first time, as we watched the Gophers football team lose their home opener. I loved how when the Gophers scored, the announcer would say "that's six points in the Bank". It's a fun place to watch a football game. And this week is Burnsville homecoming, and both Asia and Maggie are going to the homecoming dance.

For today's post, I thought I would talk a bit more about the full Armor of God (Ephesians chapter 6) which protects believers from the enemy's attacks. More specifically, I wanted to talk about Ephesians 6:18's discussion that as part of believer's armor, we need to pray in the Spirit. Here is Ephesians 6:18:

¹⁸ praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication…

The Apostle Paul is not telling us that we should be praying at all times by speaking in 'tongues' (a gift of the Holy Spirit, see 1 Corinthians 12:10). Because speaking in tongues is a spiritual gift that only a portion of the believer's are blessed with, it would not make sense for Paul to tell us that everyone should be praying in tongues at all times. Instead, I believe he is telling us that our prayers should be led by the Holy Spirit. We do this through reading God's Word, taking the items that are on our heart, and asking God how we should pray about these things. By this, I mean that when something is causing us anxiousness, or even fear, then we should ask God what our prayers about this should look like. And God has always gently taught me through the something in the Bible, through something said by other believers, or by providing me with a new insight. Here is a short example of how this has worked for me. As our children starting going off to school, I didn't know how to pray for God's protection upon them. This is when an associate Pastor at Hosanna mentioned that for her children, she prayed a blessing upon them as they left for school. Her blessing was that God keep them "physically, spiritually and emotionally safe" this day. I love the conciseness and power of this blessing. And so, since then this has become a regular prayer for my children. This is how I think God leads us to pray being led by the Spirit (Ephesians 6:18, above) with things that are causing us stress in our lives. He loves us, He wants us to come to Him with our troubles, and He answers our prayers, in this case by putting someone in our lives to teach us how they deal with this same problem. God is great, and this has been a source of strength and peace to me every time I pray this simple blessing. This is an Ephesians 6:18 prayer in the Spirit.

So I want to see if my regular prayers may bless you, and if you are willing to share, how your regular prayers may be a blessing to others. Here are some of my regular prayers:

• I start the day praying the Lord's Prayer (Matt 6). I try and pray it 2 to 3 times a day (see, the Didache, chapter 8). It's the best prayer, and again I love its conciseness and power;
  
• I love the Apostle's creed (link here). I regularly pray this when my faith is running low;
  
• I regularly pray for the forgiveness of my sins and the sins of my wife and children. I sometimes pray for the forgiveness of my friend's sins;
  
• Once a week, I pray the physical and spiritual protection of my family and friends, co-workers and even clients. I ask for angels (cherubim, seraphim, arch-angels, angels and heavenly host) to be active in this protection, and the body of Christ (and for us to likewise bless and protect others). I pray for God's protection of us from Satan and his ally's and servant's attacks. I also pray against the enemy's camp with prayers that they be divided, even attacking each other. Finally, I pray that we are protected from the sins and negligence of others, and that we likewise not hurt others;
  
• I like to regularly pray Pastor John Eldredge's prayer from his book 'Waking the Dead. Link here;
  

So, if you have any regular prayers that you are blessed by, I hope that you will share them as a comment. Thank you, and I pr ay that the Lord bless you with His strength, wisdom and peace this week. /s/ Tom Wolff

Whole Armor of God

Congratulations to my sweet daughter Asia for passing her driver's license test today. Today's topic for this post is the Armor of God. Maybe you've seen the Halloween costume with the different pieces of the Ephesians 6 armor. To start, here are the verses:

Armor of God

¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. ¹¹ Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. ¹² For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. ¹³ Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. ¹⁴ Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, ¹⁵ and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; ¹⁷ and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, ¹⁸ praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. (Ephesians 6:10-18, ESV).

I am writing today about the Ephesians chapter 6 the whole "Armor of God" which Christ-followers use to defend themselves against Satan's schemes. Here are a few quick points about this armor:

• We are not to battle against other people. Instead, we are to fight the unseen enemies that are in the devil's camp (v. 12);
  
• The shield of faith is foundational. The New King James version states in verse 16 "above all, taking the shield of faith…" While the ESV says that "in all circumstances take up the shield of faith";
  
• A vital part of our armor is "praying in the Spirit" (v. 18) and keeping "alert" (v. 18). If you pray this prayer as a regular part of your daily petitions, remember to include these pieces of the armor as well.
  

 

Now, for the main reason why I am writing today about the armor of God. The Apostle Paul did not just pull this armor idea out of thin air. Instead, he pulled together a number of different Old Testament verses to show what we are to wear in fighting our true enemy. Here are the whole armor of God, Old Testament references:

• belt of truth (v.14); Isa 11:5 (Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.)
  
• breastplate of righteousness (v. 14); Isa. 59:17 (He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head)
  
• shoes having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace (v.15); Isa. 52:7 (How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns.")
  

  also, Nahum 1:15 (Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace!)
  

• shield of faith (v. 16); Genesis 15:1 (After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.)
  
• helmet of salvation (v. 17); Isa. 59:17 (He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head)
  

  also, Psalm 140:7 (O Lord, my Lord, the strength of my salvation, you have covered my head in the day of battle.)
  

  
   

• sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (v.17); Hosea 6:5 (Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light.)
  

  
   

May God bless us all with His whole armor of protection against the enemy's attacks. In our Lord and Savior's name Jesus I pray, Amen. /s/Tom

Who (or What) is the Restrainer?

Do you feel like the world is spinning out of control? Now I am not just talking about a horrible week on Wall Street, starving people in East Africa, the threatened impending doom of Global Warming (it's been a hot summer hasn't it), everyone fighting with each other (let's see, we have the Minnesota Government shut-down, the NFL lockout, the NBA lockout, and the furor and animosity on both sides over the debate with the raising the federal government debt ceiling). Everything seems really crazy to me, like things are falling apart.

Which leads me to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, which teaches that at some point in our future a "restrainer" will be removed from the world. This connotes to me an even more lawless, uncontrolled world. Chaos will reign. In today's post, I want to review the identity of this "restrainer", and start by looking at 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. This chapter is fantastic reading because it has everything – it discusses the end-times, it talks about the Antichrist, and it talks about two mysteries – one of which is this "restrainer". Well, let's take a look at 2 Thessalonians chapter 2:

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, ² not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. ³ Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, ⁴ who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. ⁵ Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? ⁶ And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. ⁷ For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. (ESV)

Wow, this is a great set of verses filled with important information. So, from these verses we see that Jesus is going to return to Earth (His Second Coming), and that this has not yet taken place. We also see that before Jesus' return, there will be a rebellion, and that the "man of lawlessness" is revealed, and that he will seat himself in the temple of God. This man of lawlessness does not violate the speeding and traffic laws. No, instead he will be a violator of God's Law: he will not honor God, he will have a life of idolatry, placing other things (rather than God) as preeminent in his life, he will take the Lord's name in vain, and he will not honor the Sabbath Day (these are the first table of the 10 Commandments). And he will also violate the second table of Commandments: he will not honor his parents, he will murder, he will be an adulterer, thief, liar, and also be covetous of other's belongings. This is also where the second mystery is discussed – the mystery of lawlessness (v. 7). This "man of lawlessness", the Antichrist sounds like a despicable character, right? But how far are we from following these Commandments?

But I find the most interesting insight from these verses being the discussion of the restrainer in verses 6 and 7. The restrainer is restraining the Antichrist (v. 6). And his restraining will continue until he is removed, or until he is "out of the way". This sounds almost like a mafia hit, doesn't it? Guido says let's remove the problem, and his hit man responds by saying that he will make sure that "he is out of the way". I think this wording could be lifted from one of the Godfather movies. A couple of quick notes about verses 6 and 7 – first, in verse 6, the restraining is placed as a neuter (the ESV properly uses "what" here), while in verse 7 the author uses the masculine to describe "he who now restrains". One commentator says that the switching from neuter to masculine means that what is being described is an influence capable of personification. And second, Paul is being purposely unclear about the identity of the restrainer, and this is another key clue to revealing the identity of this mystery person or institution. In addition, remember that the Thessalonians would have understood who Paul was talking about.

The traditional explanation of the identity of the "restrainer is as follows:

• Tertullian taught that this was the governing authorities, or more specifically the Roman Empire – see, Romans 13;
  
• Some explain that this is the removal of angelic authorities watching over the nations, similar to what is described in Daniel chapter 10;
  
• And the most popular recent explanation is that these verses describe the secret rapture of believers from the world, which means that God the Holy Spirit is removed from Earth.
  

These explanations all have something going for it. But I came across a very good commentary by J H Smith in his New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (citing Vine), which adds a twist to the "restrainer" being the governing authorities, but also adds a complete refuting of the secret rapture explanation. Here is what J. H. Smith writes:

… This factor of obscurity immediately rules out the possibility that the reference is to God, the Holy Spirit, or the Church, for if any of these were what he meant, he could have unhesitatingly named any of them without risk. Grammatical considerations also remove God, the Church, or the Holy Spirit from consideration. In this passage two grammatical genders are used of the restrainer: neuter gender, and masculine gender. If the Holy Spirit were the intended reference, Paul would have consistently used the neuter gender. Since the Holy Spirit is omnipresent (Ps 139:7, 8), and does not merely indwell believers, the removal of the saints at the Rapture does not constitute his removal. His removal is not suggested here or elsewhere in Scripture. … If the Church were Paul's intended reference, Paul would have consistently used the feminine gender, for in Greek the word "church" is feminine in its grammatical gender. … But the masculine and neuter gender does fit the future government (neuter gender) and its king (masculine gender). This leaves human government as the only remaining choice of those given. But the reference is not to human government in general, for prophecy nowhere states that such government will cease just prior to the revelation of the Antichrist. Rather, Paul has a specific reference to biblical prophecy in mind, Daniel 7:8, 24, where Daniel speaks of the Antichrist defeating three kings which until that time restrained his power. That Paul's reference is to prophecy in the book of Daniel is confirmed by his reference to Daniel in ver. 4, and his statement in ver. 5, which indicates that when he was present with the Thessalonians he had been teaching them about Bible prophecy from the book of Daniel.

Wow, I like how this is explained. This means that because Paul uses the neuter and masculine gender descriptions for the "restrainer" in verses 6 and 7, that it cannot be either the church or God the Holy Spirit. The fact that Paul is intentionally not providing the identity of the "restrainer" means that it is likely that Paul was cautious in making sure that unnecessary persecution not result from his writing. Thus, Paul likely was referring to the Roman government as the identity of the "restrainer", which is why it is unnamed. But here is the twist, in the Old Testament book of Daniel there is a prophecy that the Antichrist will "put down" three kings on his rise to power (Daniel 7:24). Putting down rivals, eliminating the enemy? This sounds like my Godfather reference for 2 Thess. 2:7 that I started this post writing about. Taking out, or putting down enemy heads of state sounds like this is something the Antichrist will do. And so, the "restrainer" of 2 Thess. 2:6-7 might be three powerful country's leaders who are removed by the Antichrist. Think of how the world would look if this actually took place. Therefore, in thinking of the "restrainer", there is the possibility that it is more than just the world's governing authorities – it may be the heads of three powerful world countries or institutions (see, Daniel 7:8, :24).

Alright, that is enough thinking about the scary future for today. Remember for those who place their hope and trust in Jesus, He will be with us until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). May God bless you this week. /s/Tom

Scripture Memory - Memlok

Hi everyone. Peggy and I celebrated the wedding of Peggy's sister Theresa to Erik. The celebration took place yesterday at friends of Theresa's, who live in Wisconsin near the Apple River. So yes, Peggy's side of the family, along with Peggy and I and the kids were taken tubing on the Apple River, upstream from Sommerset. The tubing lasted about 35 minutes, no rapids, and the hosts provided boys to steer our group of tubers down the river. They drove us, provided the tubes, picked us up at the end, and drove us back to the farm where the party was taking place. It was a lot of fun, although Elijah and I are the worst victims of sun burn today. But despite the sunburn, it was a great way to celebrate the marriage.

Today's post is about my favorite Bible memorization program, which I can now whole heartedly recommend – Memlok. They recently updated their program so that it works with Windows 7, and the new program is better than ever. Memlok uses a picture to help you get started with the memory verse, then you can type in the verse, or play a word jumble, or fill in the blank. It uses the combination of the word picture and repetition to lock in these great verses. It works, it stretches your brain, but it is well worth it. The Family version costs $29.95. Try it, it's a great way to learn Bible verses.