HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATE

Not many people read my blog, but I know Nathan does (when I infrequently post).

Happy Birthday, Nathan. It happens to be Nate’s Golden Birthday today.

As I was looking through a million stupid E-cards (couldn’t find a stinkin’ one) my wife asked me how Nate and I met. I couldn’t believe that I’ve never told her the story. So I thought that would make a great birthday card.

When Shawn met Nathan
(Shawn’s side of the story)

Shawn had just moved to a new town and was going into the 8th grade in a new school. His cousin, Jim, was having a birthday party and some of Shawn’s new classmates would be there. Nathan was one of them. As soon as Nathan met Shawn, he sized him up and considering that Shawn would not jump him or anything if he made fun of him, he began the tormenting. He picked on Shawn for everything that day, his clothes, his glasses, the way he played games, etc.

Though Shawn was used to growing up in the city, this new place was a smaller town surrounded by large acres of country. In this new place, they passed down a tradition of “cow tipping”. Shawn had no clue what that was, or why it would be fun, but he went along with it, because he really wanted to make new friends.

So the way it was explained was that you go up to a sleeping cow, push it over and run. Supposedly the cow wouldn’t be able to get up. Hahahaha ha ha ha … ha. Yeah it sounded stupid, but what’s a teen to do with peer pressure and all. So off they go down the dirt road, looking for some innocent cow to knock down. They find one field, with a fence (not sure if it’s electric), with a house sitting at the edge of the field. The boys were so engrossed in deciding who was going to go, that they didn’t notice the dog barking at them near the house. There was some name calling and such, and finally the host, Jim, and 2 out of town kids said they would do it, one of them being Shawn. He had more work to put into his new reputation, especially because this Nathan kept trying to make him look bad.

The 3 throw a jacket over the fence, climb over and start walking towards a cow. Meanwhile, Nathan hears the dog barking and starts crying, “Doughnuts! Milk! Guys let’s just go back to the camp. We could be eating doughnuts and milk and cookies!” Everybody tells him to shut up. All of a sudden, someone from the house throws open the back door. “HEY!” The boys all freeze. Had they been caught? Did that Nathan give them up? “SHUT UP YOU DUMB DOG!” Phew! They hadn’t been caught.

The boys from the road really couldn’t see what was going on in the field. The 3 really didn’t feel confident in what task lie ahead, so they plotted, made some noise and started running back to the road. They faked tipping the cow over, pretending to be great heroes, when in reality they didn’t have the guts to do it.

The boys decided to walk for a few more miles down the road. They tried to get into all sorts of mischief like destroying lawn ornaments, running through corn fields (ouch), and other stupid things.

Shawn was not enjoying himself. He missed the city, and was not making many new friends. He started walking ahead of the group. Shawn’s cousin was not happy about this. If he got back to the camp and woke the parents up, they would be in trouble. So he started throwing apples at Shawn – great way to get him to come back to the group. Soon the others started throwing apples too. Shawn just kept walking, but stopped at the edge of the camp waiting for the boys. He wasn’t into getting anybody in trouble.

When they all got back there were doughnuts and milk and juice for the group. They were rough housing with each other, someone got a gallon of milk poured on them, and people started turning on Nathan. Shawn sat by the fire, poking at it with a stick. Soon Nathan joined Shawn. He looks over at Shawn and says, “Those guys can be mean, huh?” What a great line!

The rest is pretty much history, we were heathens together. Nathan introduced me to many bad things, like smoking tobacco, and then smoking pot, stealing, how to make fun of people, and other such crimes. But the LORD used Nathan to introduce me to many great things too.

Nathan did many things first. He had his own job first, had his own car first. Nathan quit smoking pot first, and when I asked him why, he told me that he wanted to be more serious in his relationship with Christ. I was a pluralist so I didn’t mind, “whatever works for you”. Nathan knew Christ first. And then Nathan introduced me to one who could share the Gospel with me, Mary Clausen.

Nathan did many other things first. He left for college first, but never lost contact with me, and soon I too was growing in the Christian faith, and had a friend that was closer than a brother. Nathan would go to a Christian college first, and would introduce me to Reformed Confessional Christianity. I remember when he read the Heidelberg Catechism question #1 at a funeral for one of his relatives, seeking to share the gospel with his family.

Nathan got an apartment first, and invited me to move out to GR with him, where I found myself growing much in the Christian faith. Nathan also got me my first and second jobs in GR. And when I couldn’t make rent he was always there to help me out.

Nathan had his own house first, to which he invited me to move in as well, along with my brother. We share a list of great memories from Wendler Ave..

Nathan and I both became members of a Reformed Church at the same time, grew in our convictions of the Reformed faith, both wanted to learn how to teach others about God’s Truth.

Nathan was married first, and had kids first, teaching me in practical ways how to be a godly husband and father.

Nathan has always been more responsible than me, and even though I am a month older, has always been in some way an older brother, helping me along where I have tripped, or needed maturity.

Now when Nathan joins me and says, “The world can be mean huh?” I know he is sincere, and that he is willing to stick by me as I am willing to stick by him.

We sized each other up the first day we met, but it has taken years to get to know each other. And I look forward to the years ahead, to see more of Christ in Nathan, and less of Nathan.

Happy Birthday, brother.

Feel free to leave Nathan a birthday message.

Rutherford Seminar

So, yeah, it appears that my blog is dead. The reality is I have been busy working on digitizing books.

This takes a lot of work, from cutting up books, to scanning the work, to reading with an OCR program (ABBYY) to then editing the work.


I get bored working on one book so I have been doing three works.

1) The Interpretation of Prophecy - Fairbairn
2) The Selected Works of Robert Rollock
3) A Free Disputation Against Liberty of Conscience - Rutherford.

As to the last book I thought I would take a minute to explain a seminar that we are starting up here.

http://reformedlayman.com/FreeDispHtml/ConvertedDisputation.htm
- We are meeting once a week (Saturdays 9am-11am) to go through one of Rutherford's works (mainly because we would not necessarily pick up and read Rutherford on our own - so accountability encourages). We also are seeking to go into higher education and so this should provide an avenue to develop skills, such as lecturing, outline development, advanced theological comprehension, etc.

- There will be a time of Lecturing, Discussion, and Outline comparision.

- Each of us 4 (Edgar, Tony, Ben and I) will take turns lecturing and the outline for lecturing (40 minute time limit) follows:

1) Introduction

2) Positive Postion
- Articulate Rutherford's position in the chapter.

3) Objections and Rutherford's Answers
- State the arguments that Rutherford gives against the argument, then address the answers Rutherford gives.

4) Conclusion
- Is there a critique to Rutherford's stated position?
- Is there a more precise way of stating the position?
- Is there a present day application to the principle stated?

- The lecturer will then lead the group through a list of questions that they prepared.

- The group will then be able to respond the the lecture content, as well as give their own thoughts as to what content they would present (if nor addressed)

- Finally, another goal is for the lecturer to present their own outline of the chapter, and then for the group to compare/critique, based upon their own outlines, and the hope is that we can
1) develop the skill of comprehension which will be shown by our outlines gradually becoming more consistent with each other.
2) to have a working outline of a Rutherford book, and if this continues other books.

- There will also be time (say every 5th week) to use the set aside time for critique of presentation, so to help develop that skill of lecturing and manuscript development, etc.