James's Weblog

Anybody interested in fractals: Version 3.2 of Mandelbrot Explorer came out at the weekend.

I've recently been experimenting with a technique known as HDR Photography, short for High Dynamic Range.

Here's the idea: Not long after I arrived in Kemsing, I took a photograph of the interior of the church to use on some printed materials. I used an ordinary digital camera, and took a single photograph. The result is below:

We are forever looking for things God has done for us for which we can give him thanks. Things he has done for us and for no other people. That could be a temporal thing - we want things he has done for our generation and not for previous ones. That could be a spatial thing - we want things he has done for our village / town / county / nation and not for others. It could be both at once - things he has done for me and me alone.

Psalm 105 is a total contrast. It starts

Oh give thanks to the Lord;
call upon his name;

I find Motyer (paid link)'s proposed structure of Exodus 32-34 more convincing at some points than at others, but it definitely contains some useful observations about how the section as a whole is working:

A1      Moses doubted (32:1-6)
      B1      Covenant under threat. Moses’ intercession (32:7-14)
            C1      The broken tablets (32:15-19)

“It is most fitting that the Sabbath be the sign of this covenant. Israel, as we have noted, is a new creation. This is a new people of God, whom he intends to use to undo the work of the first man. Also, the tabernacle is a microcosm of the created order, a parcel of edenic splendour established amid the chaos of the world. The Sabbath is not just a reminder of the original creation in Genesis 1 and 2, but a reminder of God’s re-creation of the cosmos in the tabernacle.”

“To put it another way, the tabernacle is holy space. The Sabbath, by contrast, is holy time. By building the tabernacle and setting apart one day in seven, God is truly recreating heaven in space and time. Weekly Sabbath worship is on holy ground in holy time. There is no more holy spot on the face of the earth than the tabernacle on the Sabbath… By entering the tabernacle, Israel entered God’s house; by keeping the Sabbath, Israel entered God’s rest.” (Peter Enns (paid link), pages 544-546)

A bit of background information for those who are interested. This coming Sunday I will be preaching on Exodus 25-31. Desmond Alexander's book, From Paradise to the Promised Land (paid link) has some very helpful things to say. Below are some excerpts

I'm delighted to see that The Proclamation Trust has recently launched a new blog entitled The Proclaimer. It's looks like being a useful source of input to help with the task of faithful preaching from God's Word.

Steve Leighton has a fascinating post about Day 3 of his recent trip to Machacarmarca farm in Bolivia. That was the day he spent picking coffee with the other farm workers, and seeing first-hand how the methods used on this farm result in the quality you get in the cup.

The ten commandments are framed as negative statements. Does that mean that they are negative in purpose, and restrictive of freedom? Not at all:

“A negative command is far more liberating than a positive one, for a positive command restricts life to that one course of action, whereas a negative command leaves life open to every course of action except one.” (Motyer (paid link), page 215)