Once there were two Irishmen, Sean and Patrick, who were the best of friends. During one particular night of revelry, the two agreed that when one of them passed on, the other would take and spill the contents of a bottle of fine, Irish whiskey over the grave of the dead friend. They set a particular bottle aside, and as fate would have it, Sean would be the first to pass. Patrick, hearing of his friend’s illness, came to visit his dear friend one last time.

“Sean,” says Patrick, “can you hear me?”

Sean replies faintly, “Yes, Paddy, I can hear ya. Thanks for coming.”

Patrick pauses a moment, and then starts off, “Do you remember our pact, Sean?”

“Aye, Paddy, I do” Sean whispers.

“An’ you’ll remember that I was to pour the contents of a fine old bottle of whiskey over your grave, a bottle we’ve been saving for, going on 30 years now?” asks Pat.

“Yes Paddy, I do,” says Sean.

”It’s a very old bottle now, you know,” continues Patrick.

“And what are you gettin’ at Patrick?” asks Sean, a bit more briskly.

“Well Sean,” says Patrick, “when I pour the whiskey over your grave, would ya mind if I filter it through me kidneys first?”

Then there’s iMonk’s list of A Few Study Bibles Coming Out Later This Year and BW3 on Preaching to a Bear…

Oh, and what about Driscoll on Stay at Home Dads… oh, wait. He was serious. Somebody needs to send him a copy of The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible (Live From Catalyst: McKnight on Bad Bible Reading is a bit of a preview of some of that material) so he might stop quoting that verse in the Bible that says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed to first century Greco-Roman cultural norms, that you may prove what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.” Oh, wait. It says something different? Geez, Mark… you “don’t want to be legalistic”, you just want to lay it out in black-and-white terms to say that any man who is a stay-at-home dad isn’t a man, but is straight-up worse than an unbeliever? Like stay-at-home dads are all going to Hell? Glad you’re not into legalism or anything. Good to hear you have an open mind. Is it open enough to understand that saying you’ve “read the whole book” and there’s “nothing in there” about men staying at home is an argument from silence, which is logically worthless? Hmm. Didn’t think so. Well. Poor Jared.

1. I answer “no”, we do not need a Christian Twitter clone. Can Christians come up with anything original? Sigh.
2. ASBO Jesus gets political
3. Sarah Palin or Tina Fey: Can you tell the difference? — I only got 70% on this quiz.
4. Rafi reports that he flew up to SF to catch the N.T. Wright / Bart Ehrman debate on The Problem of Evil yesterday, and he has the full audio of the evening (and a few pix) up at Parables
5. The Church as Sent: Five Important Thoughts from David Bosch
6. Trevin Wax interviews Justin Taylor on the ESV Study Bible: Part 1 / Part 2
7. Brant Hansen suggests how to neutralize Al-Qaeda. He’s mostly joking, but some of what he suggests was put forward seriously in The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
8. Teresa of Avila: Let nothing disturb you — I love this prayer where it occurs in the Daily Office that we use.
9. Powerful stuff on how to vote.
10. Chore Wars — a D&D-like online game which, according to the website, is designed to get every member of the family doing household chores. Each chore accomplished gains you experience points for the adventure that you’re on. Anybody use this?
11. Earth From Above exhibit of aerial photographs by Yann Arthus-Bertrand (via)
12. Things you can do with $700Billion: “You could literally buy the world a Coke. One 2-liter bottle per week for a year.” (But why?)
13. You’d think that with stat’s like these, obesity would be less of a problem. Wanna ask yourself what that says?
14. Spousal addiction? Wow.
15. I thought there were a few occupational hazards that were pretty much extinct, but apparently not all of them.
16. “Mary” is staying grafted into the vine instead of plugged into a church. Hear, hear.
17. WSJ reports: The Mystery Worshipper : “To try to keep their flocks, churches are turning to undercover inspectors, who note water stains, dull sermons and poor hospitality.” The article discusses “a new breed of church consultants aiming to equip pastors with modern marketing practices.” (via Justin Taylor) You shouldn’t even have to ask what I think of this from a spiritual standpoint. From a business/marketing standpoint, it makes sense to find a lucrative new niche like this. I think I could be pretty good at offering nit-picky criticisms of shiny megachurches… especially for money. Where do I sign up?
18. Kathy Escobar recalls, “whatever you do, don’t work for a church” & other lingering notable quotables… quite a good post. What words of others from the past echo in your mind as inspiring or haunting? (This would make a good meme.)
19. It’s the System, Stupid I want the bumper sticker too.
20. Not sure what it is about it, but I really like this photo.
21. I think I forgot to link this last week: goodly parenting (yep, that’s two o’s)
22. Make Affluence History

Well, that’s a wrap for another week. Enjoy!