Jeff Ragan > Recent Status Updates

"Worn down by six nights of siege...they were bitter and discouraged. Yet they hung on. Partly because, bound together by common peril, none dared to be the first to give in. But another reason lay even deeper. They simply could not shake the conviction that here, above all, was the place to stand. Sooner or later everyone would see it. Meanwhile they must hold out till the rest of Texas woke up" (123).

"Father, I pray that [Jeff & Janine's] children hearken and listen to You, that You may teach them the fear of the Lord. May their children keep their tongues from evil and their lips from speaking deceit. May they depart from evil and do good. May these children seek peace and pursue it, in order that they may have life and length of days, and that they may see good" (241).

"For the next two or three hours we drifted slowly across the mouth of the fjord until some rock skerries loomed out of the darkness to leeward. In an effort to sail clear we got the stays'l up & we might have succeeded had not a floe got under the lee bow & stopped her. Her heel caught on a ledge & she spun round to be pinned by wind & waves against the rock...I told the crew to take what gear they could..." (772).

"The Spirit of God acted concurrently with the Word of God to bring about creation at the direction and for the glory of God the Father. The Spirit of God dismisses the chaos as the Word of God brings order and purpose to creation" (485).

"What shall I do? If I retreat behind these walls, Polydamas will be the first to heap reproaches on me, for he advised me to lead the army back to the city on that dread night when Achilles rose up. I would not listen...my better part is to face him for life and death. Either I shall kill him and return in triumph, or I shall die with honor before the gate" (257-8).

"Heureux l'homme qui ne marche pas selon les conseils des mechants, qui ne va pas se tenir sur le chemin des pecheurs, que ne s'assied pas en compagnie des moqueurs. Toute sa joie il la met dans le Loi de l'Eternel qu'il medite jour et nuit. Il prospere comme un arbre plante pres d'un courant d'eau; il donne toujours son fruit lorsqu'en revient la saison." - Psaumes 1:1-3

"Long before the reader has arrived at this part of my work, a crowd of difficulties will have occurred to him. Some of them are so serious that to this day I can hardly reflect on them without being in some degree staggered..." (80).

"...this passage helps to tie together several items in the letter , especially the theme of joy in suffering and Paul's reasons for the narratives about Christ (2:6-11) and himself (3:4-14). At issue throughout is living a cruciform existence, discipleship marked by the cross and evidenced by suffering on behalf of Christ" (363).

"The van whipped around the Fusion on the driver's side looking like it would pass them...but it skidded to an immediate stop right beside them. 'What the hell?' sputtered the driver. The side door of the van slid open. Two men & two women were inside, aiming semi-auto rifles. They opened fire, shattering all of the windows on the driver's side. The driver himself took the first round through his forehead..." (273).

"I pray that [Jeff and Janine] delight themselves in You, Lord, for You will give them the desires of their hearts. You know their days, and their inheritance will be forever. They will not be ashamed in the time of evil, and in the days of famine they will have abundance" (236).

"Crockett turned on the tested charm that had never failed him yet. His favorite device during these dark days was to stage a musical duel between himself & John McGregor. The Colonel had found an old fiddle somewhere, and he would challenge McGregor to get out his bagpipes to see who could make the most noise...while the men laughed and whooped and forgot for a while the feeling of being alone" (117).

"Christianity stands or falls with the bodily resurrection of Jesus. The whole of New Testament faith and teaching orbits about the confession and conviction that the crucified Jesus is the Son of God established and vindicated as such 'by the resurrection from the dead according to the Spirit of holiness'" (471).

"Once you find leaders, drawing them in can be very difficult. They are entrepreneurial and want to go their own way. If you try to recruit them, they want to know where you're going, how you plan to get there, who else you're planning to take with you - and whether they can drive! What you're doing has to be more compelling than what they're already doing without you" (270).

"Je sais que tu peux tout, et que rien ne sautait t'empecher d'accomplit les projects que tu as concus. Qui ose...obscurcir mes desseins par des discours sans connaissance? Oui, j'ai parle sans les comprendre de choses merveilleuses qui me depassent et que je ne connaissais pas. Ecoute, disais-tu, c'est moi qui parlerai: je vais te questionner, et tu m'enseigneras...maintainant, me yeux t'ont vu." - Job 42:2-5

"'Look here, Earthshaker: you could not call me a sane god if I were really to fight you for the sake of mortal men. Poor things, they are like the leaves of the forest...grow up full of fire & eat the kindly fruits of the earth, then wither away & perish. Come along, let the others fight & we will keep out of it.' So [Apollo] turned away, for he felt shy of coming to blows with his own father's brother" (252-3).

"Here is the offer of friendship; they may freely disagree with him at points - on many matters - and if any matter counts for something, Paul trusts God to bring them up to speed here as well. What both the immediate and larger contexts of this letter...disallows is that 'something differently' can refer either to their living a cruciform lifestyle or to the vigorous pursuit of the heavenly prize" (359).

"Carl wanted in. 'You're too young,' Dale Chalmers had told him. Carl had shown up at the office after school and demanded to talk to him alone. Dale had no idea how the kid had figured out that he was part of the resistance, but the fact Carl did was impressive. Still at seventeen, the kid was too young to be running and gunning, as Turnbull had put it. But there were other things teens could do..." (249).

"Father, You declared that no weapon formed against them shall prosper, and every tongue that accuses them in judgment they will condemn. For this is the heritage of Your servants, and their vindication is from You" (226).

"Having sailed through the belt of floes without hitting any of them very hard and having reached open water, I felt satisfied. After more than three weeks at sea it would be pleasant to be at anchor in a Greenland fjord even though it was not in Scoresby Sound" (771).

"Acknowledging the enigma that remains, the tension that all exegetes experience when attempting to provide credible explanations for the electing providences of God and at the same moment to account for the pervasive assignment of human responsibility throughout the Scriptures ought to engender a level of humility not frequently found in such debates" (468).

"If Bowie was conciliatory, he still was determined. After ending his note [to Santa Anna] with the salutation 'God and the Mexican Federation,' he suddenly crossed it out and wrote instead, 'God and Texas." On this most basic of issues, Jim Bowie too was committed to independence" (102).

"Ai-je place ma confiance dans l'or? Ai-je dit a l'or fin: Tu es mon assurance? Ai-je tire ma joie de ma grande fortune ...? Quand j'ai contemple le soleil dans toute sa splendeur...mon coeur s'est-il laisse seduire secretement, leur ai-je envoye des baisers? En agissant ainsi, j'aurais commis un crime passible de justice, car j'aurais ete traitre envers le Dieu de ciel." - Job 31:24-28

"He who believes that each equine species was independently created, will, I presume, assert that each species has been created with a tendency to vary...so as often to become striped like the other species of the genus, and that each has been created with a strong tendency, when crossed with species inhabiting distant quarters of the world, to produce hybrids..." (78). No. Different species can't cross breed.

"Paul finds life meaningful precisely because he sees he future with great clarity, and the future has to do with beginnings - the (now redeemed) realization of God's creative purposes through Christ the Lord. There is no other prize; hence nothing else counts for much except 'knowing Christ,' both now and with clear and certain hope for the future" (350-1).

"Only the right action at the right time will bring success. Anything else exacts a high price. No leader can escape the Law of Timing" (257).

"I pray, Father, that [Jeff & Janine] forget what lies behind and reach forward to what lies ahead, pressing on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (219-20).

"On went Achilles: as a devouring conflagration rages through the valleys of a parched mountain height, and the thick forest blazes, while the wind rolls the flames to all sides in riotous confusion, so he stormed over the field like a fury, driving all before him, and killing until the earth was a river of blood" (244).

"'I'm a CPA,' Turnbull replied. 'And why are you here in Jasper?' 'I'm CPAing,' Turnbull replied innocently...' 'He's doing accounting for my insurance agency,' Dale said. 'The new reparations taxes, you know.' 'He's 1/16th Chippewa,' Turnbull said. 'So, we have to factor that in and it's complicated.' 'You're telling me you're an Indigenous Person?' the detective said to Dale. 'Well, yes,' said Dale...'" (244).

"If God simply announces forgiveness of the sinner by fiat, then the problem of justice remains unaddressed; but since the wages of sin is death...Jesus' death on the cross provided the just payment for sin, enabling God to be true to his own nature and yet still provide justification for the sinner. This justification in turn gives believers peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ" (452).