Jeff Ragan > Recent Status Updates

"The senator continued. 'Remember the free market? Well, it works. And now we are seeing what happens when you replace it with a bunch of useless college professors, untalented artists, moronic movie stars, and San Francisco chardonnay sippers who think they can personally run every aspect of a country when they know absolutely nothing about haw a country works'" (144).

"You shall thus observe My statutes, and keep My judgments, so as to carry them out, that you may live securely on the land. Then the land will yield its produce, so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it." - Leviticus 25:18-19

"The apostasy of Israel, their trespass, loss, casting away, hardening were not universal. There was always a remnant, not all branches were broken off, their hardening was in part. Likewise restoration and salvation need not include every Israelite. 'All Israel' can refer to the mass, the people as a whole in accord with the pattern followed in the chapter throughout" (98).

"In Albuquerque a group of eligible bachelors had formed the Thirty Club and...I was one of the select thirty who were considered eligible as well. Once a month we held a dance at the Odd Fellows' Hall...The Club developed a reputation as a short cut to marriage-and if you squired a girl to dinner at the Alvarado Hotel before the dance it was tantamount to announcing your engagement" (88-9).

"So you shall keep My commandments, and do them: I am the Lord. And you shall not profane My holy name, but I will be sanctified among the sons of Israel: I am the Lord who sanctifies you, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the Lord." - Leviticus 22:31-33

"All of life is designed to show us our need to trust. Trust or faith is woven into every moment of our beings. We are surrounded by organizations, businesses, governments, and leaders who constantly ask us to trust them. Every map you ever read asks for trust. Every time you go to bed, you trust the sun will be there in the morning. The very nature of history demands trust" (150).

"Columbus is lucky. If he had landed on a nearby island, he would have been greeted by Caribs - a tribe of warriors - and might not have lived to tell the world of his discovery" (78).

"For as for the life of all flesh, its blood is identified with its life. Therefore I said to the sons of Israel, 'You are not to eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off.'" - Leviticus 17:14

"...get over your idealized view of Christian behavior. Don't be jaded but be realistic about your expectations. All Christians, including other leaders, are still sinners, and some will occasionally act out in the worst way. Accept this fact: Sooner or later you will face a situation that requires intervention It's going to happen so prepare for it long before the situation arises" (142).

"For I am the Lord, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God; thus you shall be holy for I am holy." - Leviticus 11:45

"A few years before, when the contrast between those from inside and outside of the various special sectors throughout the country became simply too embarrassing to ignore, the People's Republic imposed a new rule. Uniforms. Upon their arrival at work inside a security sector, the workers would change into a unisex costume of black work shoes, denim pants and light blue work shirts" (123).

"Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying,'This is the law of the sin offering: in the place where the burnt offering is slain the sin offering shall be slain before the Lord; it is most holy. The priest who offers it for sin shall eat it. It shall be eaten in a holy place, in the court of the tent of meeting.'" - Leviticus 6:25-26

"Souvnt lorsqu'ils parlaient ensemble de Paris, elle finissait par murmurer: Ah! que nous serions bien la pour vivre!" (306)

"...the provisions of God's redemptive grace for Jew and Gentile have their base in the covenant of the fathers of Israel. To use Paul's figure here, the patriarchal root is never uprooted to give place to another planting and thus it continues to impart its virtue to and impress its character upon the whole organism of redemptive history" (90).

"Diatoms are single-celled algae (aquatic photosynthetic oganisms) that live in glass shells. More precisely the cell walls of diatoms are made of clear, hydrated silicon dioxide. Each diatom has two shells, called frustules, that fit together like the Petri plates that are used to culture bacteria...one frustule is smaller, and nests inside the larger frustule, just as one Petri plate nests inside the other" (55-6).

"The rude, intemperate Southern Ocean is rich in bird life. Many more birds are seen here than in the Tropics, the Trades, or the Horse Latitudes. As we edged southwards so the bird-life increased...The various kinds of albatross were the most common and the most to be admired for their majestic, effortless flight; when sitting upon the water they look a little gawky and stupid" (470).

"What many modern professors are really saying is that they are better observers than people of Biblical times. They mistake so-called knowledge for wisdom. But really they don't want to trust because they want to exalt themselves over neighbors as well as over Moses, David, Paul, and you. It always comes back to pride doesn't it?" (140).

"'How long you think the People's Republic can hold up?' 'Shit, it could fall apart in a day or keep dragging on for a decade. I guess the bullshit stops when the people decide they've had enough of social justice and climate justice and economic justice and all the other kinds of justice except justice justice." (115).

"A genuine divine intervention always has one or both of these two results: God is glorified, and people are saved. When these moments occur, part of their validation and authentication as being from God is whether or not people are awed at God's power and drawn to faith in Jesus. These are the two primary results in these stories about Peter" (130).

"The institutions, customs, arts and morals of a people represent the natural selection of its countless trial-and-error experiments, the accumulated and unformulable wisdom of all its generations; and neither the intelligence of a philosopher nor the intellect of a sophomore can suffice to compass them understandingly, much less to judge them with justice" (934).

"'Connie,' she said with conviction, 'all those trimmings are sinful. You are hiding yourself behind a lot of gestures. If you're afraid to be you, son, you're throwing dust in God's face. He made you. If you have confidence in Him, you'll relax and be just what you are. You'd do better to pray about it than practice this.' Whereupon she walked off with my book" (77).

"There is no more amazing or portentous phenomenon in modern history than the way in which sleeping Japan, roughly awakened by the cannon of the West, leaped to the lesson, bettered the instruction, accepted science, industry and war, defeated all her competitors either in battle or in trade, and became, within two generations, the most aggressive nation in the contemporary world" (913).

"If you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and observe them faithfully, I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and the vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and live securely in your land." - Leviticus 26:3-5

"Leaders deal with complex situations. The more senior your leadership role, the more complicated the situations will be...There's often not a single Bible verse or passage that speaks to these kinds of complicated issues. Leaders must be able to use the Bible...interweaving texts to create a composite answer for thorny, complicated situations" (120).

"Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. You shall each revere your mother and father, and you shall keep my sabbaths; I am the Lord your God. Do not turn to idols or make cast images for yourselves: I am the Lord your God." - Leviticus 19:2-4

"And Rios-Parkinson learned about people. He learned that the students and the activists he had spent years with talking about revolution and action were prepared for neither. They were soft, sometimes even sentimental. He ushered them out of the...Battalion, preferring instead the homeless kids...and the petty...criminals who joined up...they had the edge the soft, suburban social justice warriors lacked" (108).

"One of the great tests of faith is waiting. That's why I emphasized it so. We all have to wait. The question is how to wait. Should we be complaining or waiting in expectation? Freud's thinking is not far removed from mine when he talks about delayed gratification as a sign of maturity. There are rich rewards for waiting. Some of those rewards we even get here on earth just when we need them" (130).

"Moses and Aaron entered the tent of meeting, and then came out and blessed the people; and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. Fire came out from the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the alter; and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces." - Leviticus 9:23-24