Baby Dabbs!

Just in case anyone stops by here we just had a baby boy last week! His name is Jonah and he is a real cutie! For more info come on over to wordpress and have a look.

Wordpress

Things are moving along nicely at Wordpress. When you get a moment head over to my blog at its new address - mattdabbs.wordpress.com

I hadn't posted here since the move so I wanted to stop by for a bit. I hope you are having a wonderful day!

Changing to mattdabbs.wordpress.com

Well, I am finally making the change to Wordpress. I have finally given in to all the hype and after playing around with the tools there I have decided that it is a better fit for me. There are so many more options and ways to organize things that it makes this blog seem extremely inefficient. So please venture over there and have a look and keep up all of the help you have been to me over the past year! I want to thank you for all your visits and for your comments. Everything has moved so quickly and it really makes me feel blessed because I feel like I have certainly grown in some areas spiritually through blogging this past year. This blog will stay right here for a long time so feel free to still use it as a resource but most of the tools have been duplicated at the new blog. God bless and hope to see you over at Word Press.

If you have linked to this blog could you please update your link to mattdabbs.wordpress.com

Thank you so much for everything.

What Language Will We Speak in Heaven - 2

In the story of the Tower of Babel the people unite for a common purpose that is not centered on God but it focused on making a name for themselves. As you probably remember, the name of God and being the people bearing his name is a pretty important part of the Old Testament and the New Testament. As a result, God brings their project to a screeching hault by confusing their language. God scatters them all over the earth.

"In the last days the Lord's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills and all nations will stream to it." - Isaiah 2:2. In Isaiah 35 we have a picture of the return of God's people to Zion. The people return whole. The lame are walking and the blind see. The dangers and obstacles are all removed allowing God's people to approaching Zion. Zion is a place where all nations are welcomed in.

And I wonder that if the people at Babel were disperesed due to a plan that was not focused on God but on building a name for themselves that if when all nations are reunited and the Babel experience of dispersing the people from Babel into all the world is reversed, will the languages be reversed as well? Our plan will be refocused on God and those from all corners of the earth will stream into Zion, certainly our language barriers will be torn down as well and we will come full circle and the Babel experience is undone.

Gmail Offer

I wanted to offer a courtesy to any of my readers who would like a gmail account to let me know and I will send you an offer. Gmail is a great service and a wonderful way to do email. I can only give one to the first 50 takers and we will see from there. Here are some links to check out.

Rob Bradshaw has a 3 part full text of F.F. Bruce on Gospel.
Bob Bliss contemplates better ways to incorporate scripture into worship.
Bob Cohoon talks about being pro-life.
Dee Andrews gives thanks in all circumstances.
Mark Elrod celebrates 10 years of blogging and 200,000 hits.
Mark Goodacre talks about the discovery of Herod's tomb.
Bobby Valentine continues his thoughts on heaven.

I hope you have had a blessed day!

What Language Will We Speak in Heaven?

There are several questions that I have about heaven. One of them is, what language will we speak in heaven. I think that is a far more relevant question than asking God about UFOs or who shot JFK. If we are going to be in heaven and in community with people from all different countries and generations it seems like it is going to be pretty important to communicate with one another. Now, what I am about to say is pure conjecture but see what you think and let me know what ideas you have about it.

In the Bible God reveals himself to people in their native language. He speaks to Moses on Sinai in Hebrew. God, Jesus, and the angels reveal themselves to John in the book of revelation presumably in Greek or Aramaic. Obviously, God can use whatever language he wants because He knows it all anyway. But what about our communication with each other in heaven?

1. 1 Corinthians 13 talks about the tongues of men and of angels so there seems to be a possiblity of other languages that could be used in heaven that we are not even aware of yet.
2. In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit comes upon the apostles and they begin to speak in tongues to the crowd of Jews from all over the world. Acts 2:6-8 says, "When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?"God grants the apostles the ability to speak other languages. Presumably when Peter alone addressed the crowd he spoke in Greek so that everyone present could understand him.
3. There is no scriptural example of this but I often wonder if when we get to heaven we will all speak our own language and hear each other in our own language. So I speak to Paul in English and he hears Greek. He replies in Greek and I hear his Greek response in English. I am probably going way out on a limb here but I think it is kind of fun to think about how this will work. That would allow us the full range of expression of our native language.
   
4. We could all know one language - Hebrew, Greek, etc. This would take away that old scholarly joke about those who know Greek & Hebrew will be the only ones who will be able to have conversations in heaven with those from the Bible.
   
5. We could all understand all languages present.

God has used language in a miraculous way in the past and it makes me wonder if there is something coming down the pipe that will blow our minds. Maybe there is an outside the box explanation that there will be something new that blows away everything that we have ever experienced here. We may not know for sure but certainly one day we will. Maybe we will sit around and talk about these comments and see who was closest ;)

Any way you cut it, it is miraculous. Whatever way God works this out I will certainly not take issue with. What ideas do you have?

Creation Sometimes has Teeth

One of my favorite past times is playing disc golf. If you have never tried it you are really missing out. I have gotten to do some interesting things with disc golf including talk with this guy who was recently on Conan O' Brien (Conan actually does pretty well in this video) who is a former disc golf world champion. However, here in Florida there are a few things that you have to be careful of.

The first thing I figured out you have to be careful of are bees. I had a run in with some bees last summer and I think they won. I had an allergic reaction that was just a little bit scary especially when my face started to swell up and my entire body broke out in hives. Here is a lovely picture of my face about two hours after that attack that should probably go on my profile.

Today I learned another valuable lesson. Not only do you stay away from bees here in Florida but you should also probably avoid the gators too. I was playing the lovely hole pictured here this morning. Notice the sign that warns you not to swim and has the little red gator pictured on it. Well, as you can see you throw over the water and hope to land on the shore about 350 feet away. My friend and I both landed in the water. We walked over and stood on the edge of the water looking down for his disc. About five feet out an alligator surfaced and gave me a look. Thirty seconds difference and there may have been a different result. He wasn't huge but a 5 foot gator can still hurt you pretty badly. I have blogged before about the beauty of creation. Today I want to add to that a note to self - creation is beautiful but it also has teeth sometimes. Here is a slightly smaller sized gator I snapped a picture of on campus at the University of Florida.

Maybe I should take an early retirement from disc golf before it kills me.

New Link - Bible Maps

http://www.biblemap.org/

I have just added this great site to the sidebar. It is a great tool to use on powerpoint in a Bible class or just for your own study. It combines a verse search of the Bible with links on the locations mentioned. The links take you to google earth satellite images of that location that are interactive. It is really pretty fascinating.