08 December 2005

Lunch with the dawgs

Lunch with the dawgs

The closer to Christmas we get, the busier I am and the harder it is to post anything of substance. Today, rather than post nothing at all (as I did Tuesday), I'm going to write one of those insipid "Where I Am Now" posts.

Forget about getting normal office work done this week. Today is the one opportunity I will have all week to answer mail and deal with whatever is urgent in my e-mail or on my "to do" list.

Yesterday we had a luncheon for about 150 volunteers who serve weekly at Grace to You. The annual Grace to You Staff Christmas activity (at Disneyland) is tomorrow, and the GraceLife Christmas get-together is Saturday night. On Sunday afternoon Darlene and I will leave for a week of vacation. (I must use one more week of accrued vacation by the end of the calendar year or lose it.) So I'll be blogging next week from the east coast—and probably somewhat sporadically.

I still intend to get back to the thread I started about private revelation, but I can't do it right now.

Lunch with the dawgsTuesday was an interesting day. Among other things, I finally got to meet two of the Fide-o guys, Scott and Jason.

It may surprise a lot of readers to hear that I did not know the Fide-o Dawgs before Tuesday. A few people have practically blamed me for them, as if I stirred them up and unleashed them on the blogosphere. Not so. I wish I could take credit for that, but it wasn't my doing.

They are a couple of Southern Baptist pastors who are involved in a church-planting ministry about an hour and a half from where I live. Although we have nearly always agreed on controversial issues, we never actually met before Tuesday. (No, wait. Jason said I met him at a Shepherds' conference once. But I don't remember it.) They have a mostly-silent blogging partner, Bret Capranica, who married my secretary a few years ago when he was fresh out of seminary. He's probably the least mischievous of the three. But I don't even know Bret very well, and he didn't come with Jason and Scott on this trip.

Anyway, Jason and Scott had e-mailed me last week to say they would be in my area and wanted me to go lunch with them. Having never met them, I wasn't quite sure how to picture them. It was hard to resist the mental picture of a couple of tattooed miscreants in motorcycle leather.

Turns out, they are winsome and amiable—the kind of guys you'd love to spend the day fishing with. They're both from the deep south, funny, fun-loving, effervescent, and interesting. The story of the church they are planting is fascinating. I hope they blog about it one of these days.

Anyway, they both had salads, no red meat. No barbecue pork. We talked about Psalm 22 and the doctrine of penal substitution. (Jason answered well the questions I had raised about his controversial post on that subject.) We compared blogwar wounds. They told me what they really think about Frank Turk. We agreed that homeschool moms are probably the next generation's best hope. And we talked about the kind of stuff pastors always talk about over lunch. The time went too quickly. I hope we get to do it again.

But not today. Today I have two 10-inch stacks of paperwork I have to get through.

Phil's signature

26 comments:

Chris Meirose said...

Only twenty inches of paperwork to get through? Whimp. I think I have 20 inches yet to write. The end of semesters in Seminary are never fun. Especially not if you are planning your wedding (22 days out as of this posting) and you have just purchased some new propeties (rentals) and are trying to find a job as a pastor. I'll swap you Phil, you write ten of my inches, I'll go through 15 of your's. Sound fair? I'm all for it. Enjoy your vacation, I'm looking forward to your getting back to semi-regular blogging (I refuse to call you regular...he he he). And if nothing else, keep pumping Dr. MacArthur for the good stuff. We mind it much less when you are on hiatus and he/you post his thinkings. We are the unruly mob, and we demand posts!

Big Chris
Because I said so blog

Colin Maxwell said...

Seeing you've so little to do :-) can you give us a of-the-top-of-your-head view on John 3:16

Is the "world" God so loved in this text each and every man without exception (including reprobates)or all men without distinction i.e. only the elect scattered within the world? I know taking the latter need not necessarily deny the overall Biblical doctrine of common grace.

Randy said...

Hey if you cant' find time to blog while you are on vacation, see if you can get that other guy (what's his name?) oh yeah, John MacArthur to fill in again. :-)

Kim said...

We agreed that homeschool moms are probably the next generation's best hope.

I knew there was a reason I liked you.

Savage Baptist said...

I like home-schooling moms, too. Especially when they bake cookies like my wife did yesterday.

Fred Butler said...

Ah Phil, I wish you had brought them over to the ministry so I could had met them. The Fide-O guys are like blogging celebrities.

fred
Hip and Thigh

FX Turk said...

And now I know why you haven't called me in a week.

... lousy fide-o babdists ...

Me, Myself and I said...

you should check your policies. I was told in California you can not loose vacation. I therefor have to take 2 day's vacation before the end of the year, because while you can't loose any you can stop accruing any.

Carla Rolfe said...

"We agreed that homeschool moms are probably the next generation's best hope."

That was a really nice thing to read Phil. Thank you. I'll take the encouragment where I can get it.

SDG,
Carla

WF: dxabofyi = the sound Frank makes when he whines & stomps his foot because Phil hasn't called him in a week.

FX Turk said...

I have frequently aspired to curmudgeonlyness only to find myself getting older and more irascible. It's like the only philosophy trick where the arrow always has to go half-way before it reaches the mark: one is never actually a curmudgeon but only half-way to where one intends to strike at the mark.

Think of what a completely instransigent and lippy blogger I will be when I finally attain the fine old age the Phil Johnson is sporting around. I'll have nothing to lose at that point.

FX Turk said...

I would add that "dxabofyi" is not a legitimate Scrabble word, and therefore Carla attempting to use it to defame me is Armstrongesque.

What? You say "Armstrongesque" is not either a legitimate Scrabble word?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrongesque

Wikipedia disagrees.

Carla Rolfe said...

Is it just me, or is Phil's head in that picture, getting bigger each time I load the main page?

Daniel said...

Someone named Delerium deleted the Armstrongesque wiki entry. Sigh.

I still think it would be a good scrabble word - especially if you could get the Q on a triple letter score...

Phil - as a homeschooling parent, it is good to hear some encouragement in that direction - thx.

Lockheed said...

Phil... where do you find the time to make all those amazing graphics? I get paid to do graphic design and I'm constantly amazed at what I find at your page. Not only are they cool, but some of your photo/graphics where you toss the pyro logo in are really well done!

Neil said...

Continuing the recent trend of kissing up to homeschool moms, eh? Spill it, how did you get in your wife's bad books, and how much more repenting about homeschoolers will you need to do to redeem yourself?

(and I agree with you about homeschool mom's being the best hope (i want to eat tonight))

wordsmith said...

(tongue in cheek)

Phil, you heathen! Do you actually deign to patronize that champion of "alternative lifestyles," Disney? For shame!!

Oh - wait a minute...you're not one of *those* "babtists" - I guess I don't have to revoke your membership card...

(/tongue in cheek)

Kim said...

bugblaster, it's obvious you weren't homeschooled, because your punctuation is off, and there shouldn't be an apostrophe on "mom's"

Yes, you'll be eating tonight.

David said...

Homeschool moms? What about homeschool dads? You don't ridicule us, you don't praise us... don't you love us?

pgepps said...

Hey, I think *I* know Bret!

Best wishes on the end-of-year madness. Got mine, too, but your stack has to be worse.

Cheers,
PGE

Neil said...

Carla,
I believe our host wasn't wearing sunglasses earlier in the day, but later donned shades. That might be what you found different in the picture. I could be wrong though.

Kim,
How is my punctuation? No dictionary for you this Christmas.

Ann said...

Disneyland?! When did this annual tradition start? Obviously it was after I left my GTY post all-those-years ago! That's just so not fair! (Can't you just hear the whine in my voice?);)

Have fun, and have a wonderful and relaxing vacation with Darlene!

Terry Lange said...

Did you go to lunch at Bob Morris's??

Carla Rolfe said...

For the record, this is one HS mom that doesn't cozy up to the Mormons. I also managed to stay out of Marla's cat fight this go around. I'm very proud myself.

:-D

Phil Johnson said...

Marla: "Could you please tell your homeschooling moms to stop cozying up to the Mormons?"

Happy to oblige. Look for a post on this topic soon.

Carla Rolfe said...

Actually Marla, I stayed out of the fray publicly only. Got some other things on the burners here on the very same subject. Now, if you'd be so kind as to stop posting my thoughts publicly before I have a chance to proof-think them, I'd appreciate it.
;-)

The Fantastic Daughter-In-Law's Spouse said...

RE: Homeschool

That's just terrible...I feel like I don't know you anymore. What happened to my father, bring him back...