Jeff Ragan > Recent Status Updates

"'I'm gonna tell you all...one time only,' Langer said. 'If I see any of you around here again, I'll shot you. You understand?' The dozen PR bureaucrats stared in horror, silent. 'We're not playing & negotiating...You ain't welcome here anymore, & I'm giving you fair warning so you can leave & go back wherever the hell you came from. If you come here again...I'm going to put a bullet in you. You all feel me?''

"If you can deliver on small pieces of the vision while continuing to demonstrate good character and ongoing commitment, you have a chance to regain people's buy-in" (186).

"...I want Apollo to breathe courage into Hector again...and send him back to the battle. The Achaians are to be turned again in headlong flight, and to fall back on the ships of Achilles; he is to put up his friend Patroclos; and Hector is to kill Patroclos under the walls of Ilios, after he has killed many other fine fellows...Then Achilles in revenge for Patroclos is to kill Hector" (175).

"Lorsque Salomon eut termine sa preiere, le feu tomba du ciel at consuma l'holocauste ainsi que les sacrifices, et la gloire de l'Eternel remplit le Temple. Les pretres ne pouvaient penetrer dans le Temple de l'Eternel, car la gloire de l'Eternel avait rempli l'edifice." - 2 Chroniques 7:1-2

"Exaggerated or not, the reaction [to the abundance of Texas] was immensely significant. It meant that at last these restless people had found what they wanted. Old sorrows were forgotten in the discovery of this great new land, and from the very beginning, they were determined never to lose it again" (25).

Of Jerusalem: "Eighth to sixth centuries were most important historically and biblically in nation's history. We have 'an unambiguous stratigraphical and chronological sequence: stratum 12 must be assigned to late eighth century BCE, stratum 11 to early seventh century BCE, and stratum 10 to late seventh and mainly sixth century BCE" (675).

"One is often asked what is the attraction of Greenland & the reply would be, where else would a man who desires both hills & the sea want to go. Where, within a month's sail from home, he can see mountains that are Alpine both in character & stature & glaciers vastly in excess of Alpine stature...finally, & best of all, the austere beauty of a summer's day off the Greenland coast, sea, snow mountains..." (736).

"Puis David dit a Salomon: 'Mon fils, prends courage, tiens bon et mets-toi au travail! Ne crains rien et ne te laisse pas effrayer, car l'Eternel Dieu, mon Dieu, sera avec toi; il ne te delaissera pas et il ne t'abandonnera pas jusqu'a ce que tu aies acheve tout le travail a effectuer pour le Temple de l'Eternel.'" - 1 Chroniques 28:20

"Certainly no clear line of demarcation has as yet been drawn between species and subspecies - that is, the forms which in the opinion of some naturalists come very near to, but do not quite arrive at, the rank of species..." (28). Shockingly, Darwin seems to completely ignore the ability of being able to reproduce fertile offspring as the clear line between any two species.

"The underlying theology in all of this is God's own character, as that is now reflected in his children who bear his likeness as we live out the life of the future in the present age. Only as we reflect God's own likeness will our evangelism be worth anything at all, both in terms of its aim and of its being successful" (258).

"A person whose mind is girded with truth will be strong and vigorous with mature spiritual insight, and will reproduce the Word of God for His glory...TRUTH is the teaching presented in God's Word, embodied in Jesus Christ, revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. WE GIRD OURSELVES WITH TRUTH when we embrace and uphold God's revelation to us and walk in agreement with Him" (132).

"Do-Rag was a couple feet behind his boss, smiling broadly, when he saw Will Collins move his hand behind his back. Where Do-Rag came from, that's where you kept your gun, and he reacted instinctively. Do-Rag swiveled and leveled the AK, firing a burst that caught Will Collins in the chest and sliced into his wife Sarah, blowing out her eye" (161).

"Satan is a creature; he is no match for the Creator. Satan is powerful, but not omnipotent. He can hinder, but he cannot prevent. The master of deceit can convince the prayer warrior that his or her prayer has not reached the Throne. Your strength is to remember that Satan is a defeated antagonist. To accredit it to him otherwise is to allow Satan supremacy over you" (135-6).

"Too many leaders are like bad travel agents. They send people places they have never been. Instead, they should be more like tour guides, taking people places they have gone and sharing the wisdom of their own experiences" (173).

"While the Father lay motionless on the top of Gargaros, mastered by love and sleep, with his wife in his arms, Sleep ran quickly to the Achaian ships with the news for Poseidon Earthshaker. As soon as he came near enough he blurted out; 'Have your way now, Poseidon! Help the Danaans, give them victory just for a little, while Zeus is still asleep!'" (170).

"Chantez l'Eternel, et faites appel a lui! Publiez ses oeuvres parmi les nations. Chantez a sa gloire, et celebrez-le en musique! Racontez sans cesse toutes ses merveilles! Soyez fiers de lui, car il est tres saint! Que le coeur de ceux qui sont attaches a l'Eternel soit rempli de joi" - 1 Chroniques 16:8-10

"These men were all kinds...farmers, clerks, doctors...Very few were the frontier type, although one was indeed the greatest bear hunter in all the West. They come from Boston, Natchez...A few were from across the ocean...they had little in common - yet everything. For they were all Americans, sharing together a fierce love of liberty & a deep belief that the time had come to take their stand to keep it" (11).

"For my part it had been a good voyage, if not the most successful then certainly the happiest which is almost as important. Those who took part had more or less chosen themselves, so that I could take no credit for that, but only congratulate myself that for once I had sailed with an able and willing crew who thought only of the ship they served and the success of the voyage" (727).

"Several factors indicate that archaeology alone is an inadequate base on which to build our reconstructions of history. First, unless inscriptions or texts of some kind are discovered, it is impossible to garner specific information about events and people. Artifacts and strata can yield general evidence of the kind of life lived in a given site, but very little more" (655).

"'My name is Kelly,' Turnbull said. 'I'm Larry Langer. Pleased to meet you.' 'Langer,' said Turnbull. 'You're the one that got away.' 'Yes, sir, I got away. But I ain't going way, if you get my meaning. I'm just biding my time. I got accounts to settle, if you know what I mean.' 'I think I do. And I can't say I blame you'" (154-5).

"...it is not some kind of defensive posture that is in view (as in, 'hold the gospel fast so that the enemy does not take it away from you'), but evangelism, that they clean up their internal act so that they may thereby 'hold firm' the gospel, the message that brings life to those who believe" (248).

"It would, indeed, have been a strange fact, had attention not been paid to breeding, for the inheritance of good and bad qualities is so obvious" (19).

"Keeping a journal increases your faith as you come to realize that you really do hear from the Lord, especially when the things you have written down begin to come to pass" (105).

"The truth is that empowerment is powerful - not only for the person being developed, but also for the empowerer. Enlarging others makes you larger. Mark has made me better than I am, not just because he helped me achieve much more than I could have done on my own, but also because the whole process made me a better leader" (162).

"Yaebets etait plus considere que ses freres, sa mare lui avait donne le nom de Yaebets en disant: "C'et parce que je l'ai enfante dans la douleur." Yaebets invoqua le Dieu d'Israel en disant: "Si tu me benis reellement et si tu agrandis mon territoire, si tu es avec moi, si tu eloignes de moi le malheur pour m'epargner la souffrance..." Et Dieu lui accorda ce qu'il avait demande." - 1 Chroniques 4:9-10

"Such were the calamities which the two mighty sons of Cronos brought upon the fighting hosts by their conflicting wills. Zeus willed victory to Hector and the Trojans to magnify the name of Achilles; yet he did not desire the whole Achaian race to perish before Troy, but only wished to magnify Thetis and her heroic son. Poseidon was for the Argives; he slipt out secretly from the sea and supported them..." (155).

"It is precisely the degree of certitude attaching to the Old Testament as history that has occasioned the long-standing (and perhaps widening) divide between historians and literary critics of the Bible. While some would insist on the historical dependability of the Bible, others argue that the Bible cannot be relied upon as sober history" (642).

"...all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and on conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" (444).

"The believer is not one who has been begrudgingly 'caught by God'...so that obedience is basically out of fear & trembling...rather, being Christ's means to be 'converted' in the true sense of that word, to have one's live invaded by God's Holy Spirit, so that not simply new behavior is now effected, but a new desire toward God that prompts such behavior in the first place" (238).