Bodwin

My devotional reading often begins with the widget on my Mac "Of First Importance" from firstimportance.org. Every day, this site is updated with a Gospel-centered quote, which is usually a portion from a book or either a Scripture passage with subsequent comments. I have found that even if I preach the Gospel to myself on a daily basis, I am still in need of someone else to preach the Gospel to me. I need the perspective of another brother/sister. I need them to see my life and arrange the pieces so that my attitudes and thoughts line up with Gospel realities. The piece from today was taken from the Heidelburg Catechism, Q/A 60: “Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God’s commandments and of never having kept any of them, and even though I am still inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, without my deserving it at all, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as

Tomorrow, I begin the Fall semester to continue my M.A. in Theology at Bob Jones University in Greenville. Here's my course line-up with professor and curriculum included: New Testament Introduction | Dr. Brian Hand | An Introduction to the New Testament (Carson, Moo) Hermeneutics | Dr. Kenneth Casillas | The Hermeneutical Spiral (Osborne) Christian Discipleship | Dr. Jim Berg | Changed Into His Image (Berg) I'm only taking 6 credits this semester, but I think all 3 classes will be good, given the instructor, course and curriculum.

Duke basketball released their schedule for the '08-'09 season today. I've been waiting for this at least two weeks now. I've been to a Duke home game the past two years at Cameron Indoor Stadium. I'm be shooting for the 3-peat in 2009, as well as trying to get down to Clemson on Feb. 4th to see that game.

If the idea of Preaching the Gospel to Yourself is new to you, read The Gospel Primer. This is an official book recommendation. If you are familiar with Preaching the Gospel to yourself, you still need to read the book. A couple of Brief points to make: - "Primer" is pronounced 'primmer,' in the same vein as "The New England Primer" that you learned about in elementary school. - The book is not designed to be read in a couple of sittings. It was designed to be a guide to stimulate Gospel-centered thought as you interact with God through prayer and your own Bible study. Leave comments if you've read the book.

You gotta get a load of this. A Raleigh, NC teen dropped out of school with his parents' consent to go pro with Guitar Hero, albeit he's never actually played a real guitar. Read the News & Observer story.

Get it while it's hot! From Green & Cheese to Gangrene. The Favre-Packers debacle is a story of moving on. Although I don't think the Packers handled this flawlessly, I do respect them (even though they waffled quite a bit) for choosing what is best for the franchise, both at the present and the future. I'm an Atlanta Braves fan. In my opinion, the Braves sacrificed the future of their franchise to ride a dying wave of greatness that really peaked between 1996-1998, even though they won the World Series in 1995. I think the same thing is true of Penn State Football. A relationship that could only be retold in terms of romance between a college powerhouse and her beloved coach -- Joe Paterno. He can still win, but it's games and not championships. Let's face it, not many people keep track of individual games. Joe's a great coach still, but he's done. The relationship needs to end. The Packers chose to sever a dormant relationship, which became active agai

How would the USA follow up a disappointing showing against Turkey in 2006? "They had great technique, great effort, and defensively they were much better than the World Championship team of two years ago, and they are definitely in better shape than they were two years ago, and they use a team system -- not a star system," said Turkish coach Bogdan Tanjevic." What a difference a good coach makes. I just hope this doesn't lure the college hall-of-fame coach to the pro ranks. Granted, he wouldn't be coaching a team full of all-stars. Here's to the gold!

Coach K has landed his 3rd straight 5-star recruit in as many classes by getting a solid verbal commitment from Andre Dawkins, a 6-5 shooting guard from Chesapeake, VA. Check it out.

No shock here! The South has retained it's "fried-n-fat" reputation. Thankfully, North Carolina, my home state, wasn't indicted here .

It has been announced that Billy Packer and CBS will part ways. Packer, one of my least favorite color commentators, had been working the Final Four for 34 years. His replacement will be CBS studio veteran Clark Kellogg. Packer's legacy in my mind is the combination of his "Keys to the Game" and subsequent vindicatory comments as the game progressed. How many times did I hear, "Just like I said Jim..." or "Look at that! What did I tell you?!" Packer says he will be pursuing other sports projects. Good Luck with that. Maybe he could tag-team with Bill Walton to do all Luke's games after midnight on the East coast. Better yet, he could commentate on his own commentary on ESPN Classic for games he in which he was in the booth.

He's a hometown guy who played his high school ball in Raleigh, NC at Athens Drive, which is about an hour from my hometown of Rocky Mount. I've known how good he was since I was in 6th grade, having a friend whose brother played with Josh occasionally. His story contains unequaled potential (He was drafted in 1999 ahead of Josh Beckett and Barry Zito), substance abuse, and hitting rock bottom. He credits the grace of God for his changed life and for his newly-found hope, with or without baseball. Read his story here and here .

Several former students have launched a campaign of sorts for the purpose of persuading Bob Jones University to apologize publicly for racially insensitive comments made by past presidents and other institutional personnel. These students have created a Facebook group as well as launched Please-Reconcile.org to facilitate interaction between past and present BJU faculty/staff and students for the purpose of creating positive conversation and petitioning the school to apologize for its past comments and institutional stances of an offensive nature.

Switched.com, by engadget, is reporting that women are now spending more on electronics than on shoes. Read here . Granted, Apple costs more than Payless.

...so quoted Matthew Hoskinson, Pastor of Ministry Vision at Heritage Bible Church in Greer, SC, at the outset of his AM sermon on 6.1.08. I hate to use superlatives, especially in describing things that are oft-produced or performed (books, sermons, songs, etc.). However, I can confidently say this was one of the most apt sermons to my life at the time it was preached. The sin to which he refers is the Fear of Man. His text was Proverbs 29:25. Listen here . It would also behoove you to listen to the PM sermon, where the Gospel was applied to the dogged struggle against the fear of man.

There was a great explosion at the Planet, a data center in Houston, housing thousands of servers. (read article here ) The explosion was said to have blown through 3 walls. Though no servers were reported to be physically damaged. So, needless to say, many companies were without service during the days that the Planet's power was down. The Worthwhile Company (where I work as a Web Strategist) housed a main server there. However, since all Worthwhile's servers are backed up here in Greenville (where our other main servers are housed), we were able to get our customers' sites back up in a timely fashion, while other companies' sites were left stranded on servers without power. Just a plug. Make sure your company is Worthwhile! (Visit us at Worthwhile.com)

Sometimes it might just be better to be 'let go.' I mean, kid, take a hint. Read story here .

Relocate-America just named its 2008 Top 100 places to live. Being from the South (NC, SC) I was excited to see two NC cities (Asheville, Charlotte) and Greenville, SC in the top 10. Ironically, these three cities are all within an hour and a half driving distance. See the story here . As a permanent Greenville resident, I fully support Relocate-America's decision.

It has just recently been announced that Chuck Norris -- yes the Chuck Norris about whom more jokes have been cast than "your mom," will speak at Liberty University's graduation exercises on May 10. Read the article here .