In the early 1980s, my dad brought home our first personal computer, a TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo, for short).  A cassette tape help programs that could be loaded (over time) and run on the TV to which the CoCo was connected.  It had 16K (yes, K) of memory and no hard drive.  In fact, for a year it didn’t have a floppy drive (remember those?).

I learned to program BASIC on that computer.  I loved programming.  In fact, I wrote a program for Dungeons and Dragons and wrote the company that published the role-playing game to offer my application to them.  In return I received a letter from their attorney threatening to sue me for copyright infringement.  That was the end of my programming.

I’ve owned some type of computer since then.  All of them running some version of Windows (except for a short time when I ran OS 9 and OS 2).

Fast-forward to a night at my home in 2008.  My church history class had come over to enjoy some time together.  While playing Rock Band with a student and her husband, he mentioned that he worked at the Apple store and I should really consider making the move to a Mac.  I scoffed, as I had some six or seven PCs around the house.  I had built them, programmed on them, and even ruined some of them fiddling around with their guts.

But I had spent some time with a Mac from a friend, Scott Hildreth.  So I agreed to go to the Apple store and look around.  Wow.

I took the red pill.

In my home today there is a MacBook, an iMac, three iPods, four iTouch, and an iPhone.  Just after midnight tonight I’ll order an iPhone 4S for my wife.

I am no more productive with my Apple products than without them.

But there is one thing I admire about Apple more than non-Apple: Form is function.

As a Christian theologian I am regularly reminded that as Christians we proclaim the Gospel in both word and in symbol.  The Gospel is delivered once and for all through the written text of Scripture.  But our shared proclamation of that written Gospel is via written, spoken, and lived means.  “Beauty” is not simply an aesthetic quality for Apple.  “Symbol” (e.g. baptism) for Christians is not simply play-acting; it is the proclamation of and participation in the Gospel of Jesus.

I want to take symbol as seriously as Steve Jobs took beauty.  After all, the world created by the Gospel is far superior to that created by Apple.

And how I enjoy them both.

My friend and fellow Aberdeen graduate, J. V. Fesko, has an interesting piece on the plethora of Bibles in the market. John, a former Southern Baptist and Southwestern Seminary graduate, is now a professor and pastor in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

An interesting comment that gets at the heart of his message: “Sometimes I think it would be a very good thing for Bible sales to drop, not because people should not buy Bibles, but because they should read the Bibles they already own.”

Which, if any, niche Bible(s) do you own/use?

I had a number of exceptional teachers through school, university, and grad school. One of them was Charles “Puddin’” Davis, a professor at Mississippi College. He passed away a few days ago. He will be missed by more than is wife, daughter, and grandchildren. He’ll be missed by thousands of former students.

At MC, several of us who loved Greek wanted to learn Hebrew. MC didn’t offer a class, but Dr. Davis agreed to meet with us and teach us this language of Scripture. His efforts helped me learn to love the Hebrew Bible and its Story of God’s work to make a people for himself from all nations.

I loved his infectious laugh. I think that laugh, as much as anything else, helped me through Hebrew!

He told the story once of turning down the chance to play in the NFL with the Los Angeles Rams (when LA had an NFL franchise) because they played on Sunday. He chose to play in Canada instead. That’s commitment.

When I was growing up, Dr. Davis’ daughter, Dana, was a dear friend. In ninth grade, she and I played the lead in the school play. I spray-painted my hair gray. She was my wife and had the most memorable line of the play: “HEEEEEENRY!” She was a much better actress than I was an actor.

After I moved away from Clinton during high school, I lost touch with most friends there, including Dana. Even returning to Clinton as a student at MC didn’t reconnect me with those friends (with the exception of Donnie Kennedy, Blake Gee and Warren Perilloux, I rarely had any contact with former Clinton friends). But little did I know that I would connect with Dr. Davis, and learn so much from him.

Every week I have the privilege of teaching students. I think some of them are hard-headed and have no motivation to learn. When I am tempted to dismiss them, I remember the punk kid who had never once made less than an A in school, but in college thought he knew more than everyone else. I’m glad Puddin’ Davis taught me, when he could have been doing something else. When I talk about the Grand Narrative of the Hebrew Bible next time, I’ll think about where it all started for me, with Dr. Charles “Puddin’” Davis.

Until the resurrection, dear teacher, until the resurrection…

April 4 is a day that lives in infamy for those who despite racism.

The Gospel narrative is that God created one man. That one man and his wife lived in a place made especially for their enjoyment of God’s presence, the Land. In the Land was Life.

When that one man sinned he and his wife were exiled from that place to wander in the wilderness, a place where death prevailed.

EVERY HUMAN BEING is a descendant of that one man, and wanders in the wilderness dead in sin. There is only one race, the race of that man.

Then, another man was born. He was descended from that man, just like everyone else. He was subject to the same terrible conditions, including the sentence to die in the wilderness. This man, like that man, did in fact die.

But whereas that man was a living being, this man was the life-giver. He was God, who had chosen to live a human life in order to die a human death. In his dying he took on the sin of that man and all of his descendants. Then, that man–God Incarnate–overcame death and was raised from the dead. In his death and his resurrection this one man started a new human race. No longer must men and women remain in the race of that man, Adam, now they can be reborn in the race of this man, Jesus.

Racism pits one group of men and women against another. It supposes that my “race” is better than another. But for Christians, the story includes all people in the race of Adam. All are in the wilderness. All are in need of reconciliation to God and the restoration to Life and the Land.

When Adam disobeys God he sees his skin, and is ashamed. If we judge on the basis skin, we should be ashamed as well.

Racism is a skin disease whose cause is the sin disease.

One Man came, in the Name of Love, to be the one mediator between God and humanity: the Man Jesus Christ, God Incarnate. Through faith in him, the skin disease and the sin disease are abolished.

My colleague and friend, Bruce Ashford, has posted a series of articles on the Gospel and Culture over at Between the Times, that I highly recommend.