Wedding Day

I'm getting married today at 2pm
Everyone is invited
Sorry for the late invites :)

Power Rankings 7

The Super Bowl Caliber Teams
1. NY Giants- Champs may be the best again
2. Tennessee Titans- Big win over Pitt earns #2
3. Pittsburgh Steelers- Should make it to final 4
4. Carolina Panthers- 8-0 at home. See above
5. Indianapolis Colts- Red hot. Hard to keep at 5

The Hard to Beat Teams
6. Baltimore Ravens- Only losses are to top 5
7. Philadelphia Eagles- Snuck into playoffs
8. Atlanta Falcons- Great turnaround
9. NE Patriots- Opponents glad they missed
10.Miami Dolphins- Did what they needed to do
11. San Diego Chargers- Great turnaround

The Average Teams
12. Minnesota Vikings- May be able to win @home
13. Arizona Cardinals- See above, but less likely
14. Dallas Cowboys- Terribly overrated
15. Tampa Bay Bucs- Choked. Big time.
16. NY Jets- See above
17. Chicago Bears- Couldn't win weak division
18. New Orleans Saints- No defense
19. Houston Texans- Bad start cost them

The Bad Teams
20. Washington Redskins- Bad 2nd half
21. SF 49ers- Glimpses of potential late
22. Buffalo Bills- 5-1 to 7-9? Disaster
23. Denver Broncos- See N.O. comment
24. Green Bay Packers- Losses are losses
25. Jacksonville Jaguars- Very poor season
26. Oakland Raiders- Showed some late promise

The REALLY bad teams
27. Cincinnati Bengals- Tiny turnaround at end
28. Seattle Seahawks- Just not much talent
29. Cleveland Browns- See Dallas comment
30. Kansas City Chiefs- Really bad
31. St. Louis Rams- Really really bad
32. Detroit Lions- Really really really really bad

Christmas Toys

2 Questions

What was your favorite gift this year?
What was your favorite gift as a kid?

Teaching Stats

My quest to teach through the entire Bible in 12 years is well ahead of schedule. I have completed 5.5 years of teaching and am just over 65% completed. I'm currently teaching through Judges and Matthew

65.1% of the Bible

64.5% of the Old Testament
75.4% of the Pentateuch
43.4% of the Historical Books
92.2% of the Poetical Books
50.4% of the Prophets

67.3% of the New Testament
62.0% of the Gospels/Acts
59.8% of the Pauline Epistles
91.1% of the Non-Pauline Epistles

What's Left:
Deuteronomy, parts of Joshua, parts of 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1 & 2 Chronicles, some Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nahum, Zephaniah, John, 1 & 2 Corinithians, Ephesians, 1-3 John

Pagan Christmas

Lots of message board chatter, this Christmas season, about the pagan origins of Christmas. This is not surprising given some recent books and the contemporary hatred for all things institutional. Truth be told, a 12/25 celebration does have pagan origins. In the 3rd and 4th century world, that date was, pretty much, a universally celebrated pagan holiday (they believed it was the winter solstice, for one thing, among others). There are basically three positions to take when confronted with this information:

1) What!?! Jesus wasn't born on 12/25? Christmas has pagan origins? We should stop practicing it right now! God must be really mad at us! I can't believe I've been practicing paganism all these years! I'm so sorry! I am now going to become a crusader against Christmas. I must let other Christians know how sinful they are being!

2) Good idea! I think the early Christians were smart to replace pagan festivals with Christian holy days. After all, I was once a pagan and God redeemed me. I happen to think God is in the redeeming business. We're not told when, or even to, celebrate Jesus' birth. So we're free to be creative!

3) So what? Contemporary Christians don't know the pagan origins of Christmas anyways. The day is as 'Christian' or as 'Pagan' as each individual makes it. We can use it to celebrate the incarnation or we can not use it at all. The main question should always be "What is it now?" Is it a Christian celebration of incarnation or a pagan celebration of consumerism? Hmm.