ESV Again and other ramblings

The popularity of the ESV is a matter of discussion again - see Better Bibles Blog for some of the latest. It is fascinating how so many have jumped onto the ESV bandwagon - myself included. As one of the commenters on the aforementioned blog notes, the ESV seems to fit the niche between the NASB and the NIV. Now if Crossway would only come out with a thinline large print no-red-letters version!

I am not preaching on Sunday, so I've planned to use a bit of vacation time to just veg for a couple of afternoons this week. Yesterday I watched Gods and Generals. The prequel to the film Gettysburg had been given to me as a Christmas gift. It's not as gripping as Gettysburg, but decent nonetheless. The faith of Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee was evident in the film. I'd give it a B- and recommend it for history buffs. A few of the scenes were in Lexington, Virginia. Milton Stanley - did I see you walking around that corner? (grin)

Al Mohler's daily blog today covers the area of the necessity of preaching. IMHO, one of the sure signs that the church is off-course is when we begin to minimize the importance of teaching God's Word. The answer to the "ineffectiveness" of preaching is not to do it less, but to do it better. The previous post on Dr. Mohler's blog has to do with reformation in the Southern Baptist Convention. Interesting reading.

On a different subject (maybe not) if you use Powerpoint, visit SermonCentral and see some of the nice backgrounds that they have available. Another good source of Christian graphics for Powerpoint is Oxygen Multimedia. If we're going to use Powerpoint, let's do it well. These places offer some decent graphics.

If you are looking for a good series of videos for a Sunday School class, I would recommend the new series on Assurance of Salvation by RC Sproul. We saw the first of 6 sessions on Sunday and it was right on. Ligonier has just acquired Soli Deo Gloria Publications, and is now selling the book next on my list of to-reads: Feed My Sheep: A Passionate Plea for Preaching.

My brother generously gave me a 20-gig iPods last fall as a gift and I love it. I'm listening to some outstanding teaching as I meander around the track a couple of times a week. Ligonier is now selling them filled with RC Sproul teaching. iPods are cool.