Jonah vs. Park Squirrel

I was just talking on the phone with my wife and apparently our two year old son Jonah had a little too much fun at the park today. The story plays out like this:

Jonah sees semi-tame squirrel.

Jonah approaches squirrel.

Jonah tries to pet squirrel.

Erin grabs Jonah out of fear of rabies.

Time passes...

Moments later Jonah finds the same unsuspecting squirrel

Jonah kicks squirrel.

The end.

I imagine it looked something like this...

Introducing Jude Paul Pavlik

I haven't written in awhile for a few reasons. One of those reasons is that my wife and I have been gearing up for our second child. Jude was born December 3rd, 2008 and he already thinks he owns the place. In light of his "the world revolves around me" attitude, I went ahead and gave him his first reading assignment.



Pray for my new son. He's got one crazy daddy.

Signing Bibles: The Apex of Christian Celebrity?

I've only seen this in person a few times, and I am just not sure what to think of it. In fact, I am really rather confused by the whole idea of it. I know that the "Celebrity Culture" exists across the Christian landscape and that it has only become more rampant since the Internet has grown.

Nationally, many Evangelicals consider Rick Warren to be "America's Pastor". In fact, considering his global influence some even refer to him as the Pope of Evangelicalism. While I think that is a ridiculous idea, many Christians treat him as the end-all be-all of Christian leadership. How did he get to this point? He sold a few influential books, most notably the Purpose Driven Church & Purpose Driven Life, grew a massive church, and probably most important was the use of The Purpose Driven Life in the kidnapping of Ashley Smith a few years ago. He is a perfect example of a Christian Celebrity. Evangelical pastors want to be him, and many Evangelicals want to follow him. The question is, are they following his love for Jesus, or his celebrity?

It seems that we have brought this on ourselves. Has John Piper become the Michael Crichton or Tom Clancy of the Christian world? Do we buy his books because his name is on it, or because we expect to be shown the wonders of God and the joy of following Jesus? It would seem that Dr. Piper intends the second, but I wonder sometimes if we really buy the books he writes for that reason. Maybe it's a little of both. I can definitely see that in myself a little, and I recognize the danger of it.

Why is it dangerous? The only celebrity in Christianity is God. He is the only one who deserves to be famous. I fawn over certain authors as much as the next person, and I would like to think that it is all because of what they write, but I would be dishonest in saying so. How many of us have gone to conferences and have purchased a book because we recognize the author but in the meantime we pass over many diligent and helpful saints who are not as well known? I have. How many of us have gone to conferences for the speakers and just convince ourselves that we like the theme of the conference as well? I have done that too. However, even with my own motive issues, those books and conferences have proven invaluable. The question I suppose I need to always ask myself is, "Am I buying this book or going to this conference because I want to bring more glory to God?" There can be many motives that seem good, but blot out that "Glory Motive". Where do your motives lie when a new book comes out, or when your denomination holds a conference? Is it because of the celebrity factor or because you want to glorify Christ?

So this brings me to the point about signing Bibles. I have seen men I respect do this and it just seems strange. A recent story about J.I. Packer sums it up well:

"After I had my my book signed, many more pressed him. He signed books as he answered questions. The insight he provided into the Puritans in those few minutes still have a lasting impact on me. During the conversation, a young man (my age) approached Packer with a newly purchased ESV Bible (of which Packer was a general editor). Excitedly, he asked Packer to sign it and handed it to him. For a few moments Packer held the Bible in his hands, and quietly returned it to the young man. He said, "Son, this is God's book. If you want it signed you will need to ask him." - Josh Gelatt (Ephemeros blog)

It seems to me that J.I. Packer has the right idea. Something about asking a preacher you admire to sign your Bible just reeks of the Celebrity Culture. Granted, as some of you know I had my picture taken with some of the speakers at T4G. Honestly, most of my reasoning was because I wanted to get my picture taken with someone I greatly respected. I wanted to have that memory. And seriously, if C.H. Spurgeon were walking around and you had a camera, you know you would want your picture taken too. Regardless, even in my desire to have that memory, I think that I promoted the Celebrity Culture in Christianity.

All in all, I'm not sure I agree with signing Bibles, but at the same time it isn't a deal breaker for me. With all of the writing of books and great conferences out there the Celebrity Culture is inevitable. I see it nationally, and I even see it in the group of churches I belong to. Oddly enough, many of the old dead guys that we all love to read so much never gained fame or prominence until hundreds of years after they died. Maybe it should still be that way.

So what do you think? Should church leaders sign Bibles or not?

***DISCLAIMER: I must say that I believe many of our national leaders to be pursuing the gospel first with no thought to their own fame or celebrity, but it would appear that some toss their weight around more than others...

26 years ago...

I was born. Happy birthday to me!

A Christian's First Song

Last Sunday I surprised my mom by driving down to Colorado Springs for Mother's Day. She was happy, then she cried, and then smiled again. It was strange being back home without the rest of my family with me. My wife was in California with my son, so it almost felt like driving home from college, alone.

After a delicious bowl of cereal, we drove around for awhile and then grabbed lunch at PF Changs, which was again, delicious. Now when we got back to the house I decided to ravage through my old bedroom closet for any fun toys that I could take back. You see, when Erin is not with me I can take anything I want. She is the wiser one of us, so without her voice of reason I grabbed some dumb things that I will probably never use, but the nostalgic quality is high so that is how I will justify what I brought back home. I found a marionette/puppet thing that I thought Jonah (my son) would enjoy, but in all reality it will probably scare his little pants off. I found some old computer games that a friend at church and I were discussing weeks ago that will probably just turn to dust in my modern computer. I also did what every son does, I grabbed some of my dad's old clothes.

On my way out the door I decided to look one last place for any old stuff that I absolutely "needed" to take home. Providentially, I found something that I had almost entirely forgotten about. I found a recording of the song I wrote the day after I was brought from death to life. Amazing.

It is funny to hear myself all those years ago, but more importantly it is a powerful reminder of the power of God to change a sinner's heart. I would not have said any of things I said in this song a week before my salvation. So, as a fun treat I thought I would let you all hear the first song I ever wrote as a child of Christ. Enjoy! ( Oh yeah, and don't expect perfection or anything...this recording was almost 7 years ago)

The Man Cold

Ok, I'm not one to blog about every funny thing I see on the internet. However, due to the amount of times I've been sick already in 2008, I felt that I had to post this video. You could say that I was 'compelled' to post it...

And now for an accurate assessment of what happens when a man gets sick. I give you, The Man Cold.

The Man Cold

The Blank Bible

I am not exactly sure how I came upon the 'Blank Bible', but I think it has to do with the fact that I am currently reading the book Meet the Puritans written and compiled by Joel R. Beeke & Randall J. Pederson. For one reason or another I was googling the title, and came across a blog that had labeled Meet the Puritans as book of the year. While the review was interesting, what was even more intriguing was the "Do It Yourself: Blank Bible". Rather than go into all of the details I will just give you the link to the blog and you can see for yourselves. If you thought Wide Margin bibles were useful...it is time to have your eyes opened. It takes a little work, and my first attempt turned out worse than I had hoped, but now that I know the steps and have an idea of what I am doing I will most likely make another Blank Bible in the near future. Here is the link to the DIY: Blank Bible. It's an amazing idea that came from Jonathan Edwards. Check it out.

DIY: Blank Bible

Also, there appears to be a great series called "Humble Calvinism" on the same blog. It is not audio, but rather a series of blog posts that explain Calvinism. I haven't been through the entire series, but the first few seemed very informative and helpful. Here is the link to the series if you like.

Humble Calvinism

For fun, here are some pictures of my Blank Bible...


(I purchased a classic reference ESV hardcover bible, sawed the binding off, added a blank piece of paper between each page of scripture, and the bible grew from one book into five!)



(Here is another view showing the beautiful spiral binding courtesy of Kinkos. Everything looks just as it should on the outside. I just wish that the inside looked just as good...)




(Here is what it looks like from a distance on the inside. Original bible page on one side, blank journaling page on the other. Sorry that the photos are backwards. It's late and I didn't really care if it looked perfect or not.)



(And here is what some of the inside looks like. Unfortunately when I cut the binding off, the glue went so deep into the bible pages that by the time I had rid myself of all of the glue there was hardly any bible left. This made binding a problem, but I decided to cut my losses and get it done anyway. Most of the Old Testament is great, but the New Testament (bummer) and some of the Old has binding that covers words. Oh well. It is still useful, and not bad for a first try. I can still take notes just fine, but the perfectionist in me is not happy. I WILL learn to get over it however, and I am still determined to fill this baby up with notes galore!)

Here is the financial break down for the whole project give or take a few bucks.

-ESV Classic Reference Bible: $2 (I had a gift card. You can get these for a measly $12 at Westminster Bookstore as well.)
-Removing binding/cover: Free!(If you have access to a table saw.) I think Kinkos will do it for about $5, just make sure they clamp it down or your Bible will be destroyed. Bible pages don't cut as neatly and easily as regular old paper.
-Ream of acid free copy paper: $4
-Cutting the copy paper to the dimensions of the Bible paper: $3
-Binding each book: $5/book. I had to break mine down into 5 books which made it $25.

TOTAL: $50-$60. This really isn't so bad considering most people pay this much for a leather-bound study bible. Plus you get to put a massive mount of notes inside of each page! You just can't get that anywhere else.

Well that's it for this post. I hope that whoever reads this takes a chance and tries to make one of these. It really is exciting...and almost totally insane. Who takes a table saw to a Bible anyway?

An Encounter with John MacArthur

Over the last few weeks I had the pleasure of spending copious amounts of time with both my family, as well as my wife's family. Much like every other married couple in America, we had to split up our time between both families. Fortunately, our families both live within two hours of us, so it really isn't as bad as it could be. No plane tickets.

My parents live the furthest away so we planned to spend four days with them first, and then spend four days with Erin's family. Thus our journey began.

Spending time with my family is always enjoyable. They have most every creature comfort that you could imagine, which my flesh reviled in. I am sad to say that I gave in to the temptation of laziness for most of my time with my family. The last few weeks I had been struggling with being committed to my time in the Word as well as prayer(to my shame), so this was just the icing on my cake of spiritual deluinquincy. Fortunately, God knows when one of his children needs an intervention.

In Colorado Springs we have a few malls that are comparative to most average malls in America. They are nothing spectatcular, but they serve their purpose. As my family and I walked around the mall we basically window shopped. I was content, and completely ignorant to what was about to happen. My parents were ready to go, but I was starving. Erin and my sister, Aimee, were off trying to figure out where Aimee could get her ears pierced so I was basically all alone, on a mission to Chick-Fil-A.

After ordering the largest serving of nuggets that I could along with a large lemonade, I made my way back to my parents so that we could leave the chaos of Christmas shopping behind us. While walking, I chomped down on a delicious nugget and turned my head towards one of the many shoe stores in the mall. At first, all I saw was a bunch of shoes, a clerk, and a white haired older gentleman looking at a pair of shoes. All of sudden my brain fired, and I did a double-take. Here is what occured from my mind's point of view.

Brain: "Is that John MacArthur?"

Me: "Not possible. He lives in California."

Brain: "I really think that it was him."

Me: "It's Christmas. He would not be in this mall. He would be with his family."

Brain: "Well, you could just go ask. If it's him, great! If not, no big deal."

Me: "Fine...Stupid brain."

So I walked up to the gemtleman who was now bending over, which by the way was incredibly awkward, and the following conversation ensued...

Me: "Pastor MacArthur?"

JMac: "Yes?"

(At this point I started shaking thinking that my greeting was probably theologically incorrect.)

Me: "My name is Paul Pavlik, and I am a HUGE FAN! (I didn't really say that).

Me: "I saw you preach at the Desiring God conference and I wanted to thank you for your ministry and all that God has done through you. It has been a true blessing."

JMac: "Well, thank you Paul. It is always encouraging to hear that."

Me: "What are you doing in Colorado?"

JMac: "My wife's mother lives here so we are here to spend some time with her."

Me: "Oh, well that's great. I didn't mean to scare you, I just really wanted to thank you again for your ministry.

JMac: "Thanks Paul. It was nice to meet you."

Me: "Thank you again (shakes hand) and God bless you sir."


There it was. God's intervention was John MacArthur. In person. What was most encouraging to me was that he was very gentle in his speech, quiet, and very friendly. He really did have the demeanor of any run of the mill pastor, and that gave me great peace and confidence that he really lived what he preached. He was just a man. Looking at shoes and buying shampoo for his wife. Needless to say I have had more time in the Word and in prayer as a result.

I must conclude by saying that this really did make my day. However, it was not because of the man, John MacArthur. While it was a joy to meet someone I greatly admire, it was more wonderful to see that God cares for me enough to bring one of his frontline warriors to our tiny mall, which in turn brought joy and encouragment to a down-trodden saint. Thank you Lord that you care about me so. And thank you again for Dr. MacArthur's ministry and how you have used it in my life and the countless lives of others.

Oh, and maybe next time you could use John Piper...

Just kidding.