BiblicalAgrarianism.com

The Bunky Awards

Still taking Bunky Award Nominations...

8/25/08 - 2nd Day - Midday. Now, I'm serious about y'all nominating agrarian blogs for the new and coveted Bunky Awards. All you regular readers should be nominating blogs so we can hand out awards and exquisite Mesquite Coffee to the winners. Remember, the purpose of this is 1) to have fun, and 2) to drive traffic to these blogs, so people can read the really neat stuff going on out there in Agrarian Homesteading land. We have had several nominations, both through the comments section and through email... here again are the categories, along with the nominations we have received so far (oh, and if the nomination was not an AGRARIAN blog, then I disqualified it... sorry!):

1. Best All-Around Agrarian Blog.
The Deliberate Agrarian
A Process Driven Life
Tabletop Homestead

2. Most Educational or Informative Agrarian Blog.
The Deliberate Agrarian
The Process Driven Life
The Sifford Sojournal
Dry Creek Chronicles

3. Best Newcomer Blog.
Country Mom
The Sifford Sojournal

4. Blog most likely to make you look up words in the dictionary and to challenge your brainal functuosity.
A Process Driven Life

5. Best Looking Blog.
Ante Family Agrarians
Debylin's Weblog
R&V Farmstead

6. Best Blog most people have probably never read or heard of.
Journeys of a Pilgrim
Debylin's Weblog
Promised Land
Darkwood Farm

7. Greatest Agrarian Posterboy Blog.
The Sifford Sojournal
The Deliberate Agrarian
A Process Driven Life

8. Best Children's or Young Person's Blog.
Growing Up Agrarian

9. Blog most likely to have its owner and author arrested and/or summarily executed by the Government.
A Process Driven Life

10. Best Feminine Blog.
Country Mom

I didn't put multiple nominations on there. Ok, so these are the nominations we have received so far. I will leave it open for YOUR nominations, then I have decided to put a voting poll up on the blog for each category until we have picked the winners. So, we're still waiting for your nominations, and then we'll start the fun part. Also, remember if you post the nominations on your own blog (like Danielle did), please remember to let me know so I can add your nominations to the list.

Thanks y'all,

Michael Bunker

Ergonomics

By Bill Peck

Titus 2:14

Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

Just doing a little looking into the the Greek meaning of the word 'works' here, and this is what I found....

What the Farm Labourers Can Do and What They Cannot Do

by C.H. Spurgeon

"And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come."—Mark 5:26-29.

HERE IS a lesson for "labourers together with God." It is a parable for all who are concerned in the kingdom of God. It will be of little value to those who are in the kingdom of darkness, for they are not bidden to sow the good seed: "Unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes?" But all who are commissioned to scatter seed for the Royal Husbandman, will be glad to know how the harvest is preparing for him whom they serve. Listen, then, ye that sow beside all waters; ye that with holy diligence seek to fill the garners of heaven,—listen, and may the Spirit o God speak into your ears as you are able to bear it.

Submitting Articles - Please Read

Greetings BiblicalAgrarianism.com readers. As most of you may have noticed, we have not been posting many articles to the main page lately. Here are the reasons:

This morning I had 25 articles in the articles queue. 90% or so of those were the gloom type news articles or opinion pieces. None were Agrarian how-to or informational articles. A couple were Spurgeon articles or sermons, and several were posted that were too long - and the person submitting the article hadn't previewed the article to see that it was cut off at the end. So in short, I need you all to participate by submitting useable articles. We need a good cross-section of Christian and Agrarian interests covered in the submitted articles. I am going to empty the queue and hopefully we can start over. I have before asked that every regular user of this site submit at least 5 articles a month. There is no reason why YOU can't do that, if you value this site. The articles can also be articles you have written yourself.

Please help,

Michael

The first way to hell, discovered.

From - The Works of John Flavel Volume 3 - Pneumatologia: A Treatise of the Soul of Man (Continued) Section 4 - Of the Human Soul More Valuable than the Whole World: Its Blessedness when Saved, it’s Irreparable Ruin when lost:

Matthew 16:26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall I man give an exchange for his soul?

[This is the first paragraph introducing this section on page 153_ ed]

DIFFICULT duties need to be enforced with powerful arguments. In the 24th verse of this chapter, our Lord presseth upon his disciples the deepest and hardest duties of self-denial, acquaints them upon what terms they must be admitted into his service: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me."

[This is the first of 12 ways to hell and remedies thereof by Mr. Flavel as found on pages 183 through 225 _ ed]

The Sluggard's Farm

Farms Sermons
by C.H. Spurgeon

"I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction."—Proverbs 24:30-32.

NO DOUBT Solomon was sometimes glad to lay aside the robes of state, escape from the forms of court, and go through the country unknown. On one occasion, when he was doing so, he looked over the broken wall of a little estate which belonged to a farmer of his country. This estate consisted of a piece of ploughed land and a vineyard. One glance showed him that it was owned by a sluggard, who neglected it, for the weeds had grown right plentifully and covered all the face of the ground. From this Solomon gathered instruction. Men generally learn wisdom if they have wisdom. The artist's eye sees the beauty of the landscape because he has beauty in his mind. "To him that hath shall be given," and he shall have abundance, for he shall reap a harvest even from a field that is covered with thorns and nettles. There is a great difference between one man and another in the use of the mind's eye. I have a book entitled, "The harvest of a Quiet Eye," and a good book it is: the harvest of a quiet eye can be gathered from a sluggard's land as well as from a well-managed farm. When we were boys we were taught a little poem, called "Eyes and no Eyes," and there was much of truth in it, for some people have eyes and see not, which is much the same as having no eyes; while others have quick eyes for spying out instruction. Some look only at the surface, while others see not only the outside shell but the living kernel of truth which is hidden in all outward things.

A Letter of Separation

By Bill Peck
July 29, 2008

This is a letter I just sent to the pastor of the small Fellowship we've been attending the past 2 1/2 years.

I admire Fred in many ways, one biggie being he doesn't like being called a pastor, reverend, or any title, because he's truly not a professionally trained "pastor" (but I don't know how else to describe him here), he's in his mid 60s and never went to any seminary. Much like Michael, in his late 20s he felt a call to preach after earlier being a police officer and printer during his early/mid 20s in his native Liverpool, England.

He also dislikes much of what he sees in the contemporary professing "church", and often makes mention of it during messages. I think he also runs a Biblically sound orderly service, with no plate passed, ever, nor appeals for money made. Also, only very old doctrinal hymns, many Biblically sound imo, are sung, no current "christian fluff" allowed.

So, there ARE areas of agreement and Biblical soundness to appreciate, but the following letter outlines the differences that have led Debbie and I to cease fellowship there.

Update and Fall Super Ranchfest 2008

Update and SUPER Ranchfest

8/12/08 - 3rd Day - Midday. Ok, so I know that many of you have had massive problems with the slowness and other access problems over at BiblicalAgrarianism.com. I am glad to announce that we believe that those problems are over. Our webmaster David Sifford has been able to hassle our hosting service into moving BA over to a new server. I don't know if it was our traffic, or the combination of all the other sites hosted on the old server, but BA had pretty much skidded to a stop. You will notice I haven't been updating the site with new articles for some time, and that was because I could hardly get access to the site myself, and when I did it was so slow that I couldn't take the time to read and post articles. So.... I welcome you all back to BiblicalAgrarianism.com and I invite you to participate as much as you can by submitting articles (via the article submission process you can read about on the front page) and by participating on the forum. Our apologies to all of you who were having such troubles with the site, and we hope you enjoy the new faster server.

The Carnal Christian by Ernest C Reisinger

The Carnal Christian

Ernest C Reisinger

Introduction

Many who regularly occupy church pews, fill church rolls, and are intellectually acquainted with the facts of the gospel never strike one blow for Christ. They seem to be at peace with his enemies. They have no quarrel with sin and, apart from a few sentimental expressions about Christ, there is no biblical evidence that they have experienced anything of the power of the gospel in their lives. Yet in spite of the evidence against them, they consider themselves to be just what their teachers teach them -- that they are 'Carnal Christians'. And as carnal Christians they believe they will go to heaven, though perhaps not first-class, and with few rewards.

Email Purge and Update

Hey y'all,

I did another email purge because I have not done one in awhile. If you did not receive an email from me today, then you are not on the list. Before contacting me, make sure your IP or your email system is not "junking" my emails.

I think if I started doing a one hour audio podcast, I could cut down my email and internet time by 3-4 hours a day. Y'all pray about what you think about that. It sure would be easier to do Q&A Fridays, which I love to do, but which take so long that I don't do them for weeks on end. Also, I could probably do a better job of explaining a lot of the things I'm teaching and talking about on the blog and BA. Also, I could take regular questions via email and then just answer them on the podcast rather than spend time with long emailed answers to only one person. Anyway, it's just a thought.

Blog stats...

Well, the blog is getting more and more traffic every day. When I wrote a couple of months ago that the blog was ranked at about 3.5 million (of 55 million blogs), I was hopeful that some day it might at least slip into the top million. As of this afternoon, A Process Driven Life is ranked #673,604 of all blogs on the internet. My congratulations to our own Elder David Sifford and his wife Susan, whose Sifford Sojournal is probably one of my favorite reads right now, and, I think, one of the most encouraging, thoughtful, and helpful blogs on the internet... the Siffords debuted this week at 920,161! Some of the other folks at the ranch here are probably doing pretty well too, but if you still have a "blogspot" URL then it is hard to get your actual stats... unless you get really popular like Herrick Kimball. Stats don't mean anything except that people are reading your stuff, and when more people are reading it, then that is good. Viva la Revolucion.

Peace!

Michael