Charlie McElvy.com

I was fortunate to get a chance to teach through Genesis 22 this past week in Bible Study, and I had a *blast*!  One of the coolest things about teaching is the learning that comes with.

So, here’s the passage I got jiggy on:

“7 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here am I, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 Abraham said, n “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.”

So, Isaac asks dad, while carrying the wood for his own sacrifice (unknowingly), where’s the lamb we’re gonna offer up?  Dad’s reply, “God will provide the lamb”.  What faith!

They get to the top of the hill, set up the altar, and Isaac is bound to the altar to be sacrificed.  Just before plunging the knife into his son’s chest:

“12 He said, p “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for q now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.”

Cools!  So, God, through His angel (possibly the pre-incarnate Jesus — more on that another time), showed Abraham the ram that He placed in the thicket to be used as the sacrifice instead!  What’s really, really nifty about this scene is this:  Abraham went to sacrifice his son, Isaac thought they were to sacrifice a lamb, Abraham told his son that God would provide the lamb.  Then God provides a **RAM**.  Why?  Because the sacrifice of the Lamb was yet to come…

This is one of those “not yet” moments in the OT where God gives us a forward glimpse into the life, death, burial, resurrection & return to heaven of Jesus.  Everything in this passage points to Christ’s atoning sacrifice, from the only, beloved son being set up for sacrifice, to Isaac carrying his own wood up the hill, to the presence of the “angel of the Lord”… and finally to the promise of a lamb for the sacrifice, but “not yet”.

I get geeked out when Scripture shows stuff like that to me, hopefully that little bit of insight was cool/fun/neat/encouraging for you!

~Charlie~

Ok, I realize that I’ve been a downer lately, talking about politics (which blows) and dealing with Duke winning the NCAA Tournament (which blows worse), so I decided to take a different bend and talk about what I’m up to here.

First of all, I’m finalizing a book proposal about a subject that I enjoy greatly, and expect to be submitting this soon.  (what?  I can’t tell you what it is, just yet… be patient!)  I’m also working on producing a new Mutants & Masterminds Superlink project involving my current set of comic book characters, which is coming underway quite nicely!  I’m happy with the final layout design I’ve come up with, and the art I have to work with is produced by some really high-class guys, so it should rival the finest M&M products out there.  This will be released (upon approval) via download, at first, over at RPGNow.com.  I am already making plans to put this into print, so please keep an eye out for updates on it!

If everything falls into place, as I hope it does, the actual comic book should hit next…!

At the risk of ticking off everybody, which really doesn’t bother me too much, I’m going to talk about the sloth that has become our Congress.  I also want to address a conversation I had with a friend (who was joking) about my comments which sound like I’m an “Obama lover”, but also those that some would use to label me an “Obama hater”.  Which, unfortunately, makes me look like I might be a fence rider, but here it out all the way through before casting stones, people.

First of all, I don’t love or hate Obama.  I do respect that he is our President, and yes, for those of us who didn’t vote for him, he’s still “our” President.  It’s stupid to say things like, “I didn’t vote for him… he’s not *my* President”, to which I have to ask, “did you rescind your citizenship when you lost the vote?”  No?  He’s your President.

On the other side of things, this administration has abused its powers as much as the previous one did/was accused for in the entire previous 8 years — and it’s only been a year.  The lines between the three “powers” (that’s Judicial, Legislative & Executive, for those who forgot this from middle school) have been blurred to the point that the President, who should *only* be able to *make* laws under Executive Order, and that is technically very limited,  has been passing law after law and seemingly by-passing the system put in place to avoid such abuse.

Nonetheless, it is *our* representatives who have let us down.  The impotence, in-fighting, bickering, whining, 2-yr old attitudes have nullified the Congressional powers and almost handed them all over to the Presidential administration.  To make it worse, the same attitudes in Congress have filtered their ways out into the general populace, and now your either a Democrat or Republican, with no room for “gray space”.  While I generally vote Republican, I am not a registered Republican and have, indeed, voted for Democrat candidates in the past in various elections because I honestly felt they fit my overall “model” for that particular position.  That could mean an ethical, social, or economical model, but rarely has *any* candidate on *either* side met “all” of my desired criteria.  You’re probably really ignorant, or a flat-out liar if there’s a candidate with whom you agree 100% of the time.  Maybe there’s an exception, but those are certainly exceptional.  I could be wrong…  <<more later>>

Geek warning:  contains materials that may be way over your head, but it’s the current track I’m on for work.

I just finished a week in RHEL 5 class, on my way to getting my RHCE (and eventually my RHCT).  I love Linux, and I’ve taken to using it in a VM on my MacBook Pro.  So, I wanted to share some resources here for those of you interested.  All of the links are amazon.com links, and, yes they help support my site.  So, click, buy, study, learn, and get cert’d on RHEL!  Join my adventures!  I’ll post my experiences here as I go forward (good & bad) with RHEL, and hopefully have some insight to share with you that may be helpful someday.  In the meantime:

Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming, A (2nd Edition)

Fedora 10 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Bible (Bible (Wiley))

Practical Guide to Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, A (5th Edition)

Red Hat® Certified Technician & Engi​neer (RHCT and RHCE) Training Guide and Administrator’s​ Reference

and I just got this one, recommended by a colleague even though it’s an older book:

Red Hat Fedora and Enterprise Linux 4 Bible

(go get the used copy of that last one… pretty cheap, and worth the $5 or so to grab)

Best always!

Charlie

I say we scrap the Health Care Reform bill out there, and, instead, put the money into forming a new CCC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps) with the $1.2T, or whatever, providing new jobs to those in need of work and are yet “unskilled” workers today. The jobs will be to repave existing roads & highways, pave new ones, and lay ground for an infrastructure pipeline that includes broadband fiber for internet/telcom use. Then, “rent” back the lines to the telcoms, allowing them to use the gov’t lines and repaying some of the tax burden, and creating more jobs again. All the while, you create jobs, pave new roads, improve the national infrastructure, increase broadband saturation which will spur economic growth, put more disposable income in people’s pockets, which spurs economic growth, generate more tax dollars with more tax payers working, sell more cars for the new roads, which spurs economic growth, and require the CCC workers to have health care, which then ensures their families are covered, and puts the economy back on track so that everybody else is better able to cover their HC costs. And the program will pay for itself in a matter of years, and possibly even reduce the National Deficit.

The best part is this avoids pissing off the Republicans, and it works towards the ends that Democrats seem to favor:  more people are covered than before, and you could still subsidize those who aren’t (the unemployed, on welfare, etc.) by repurposing the income from the telcom line rental fees that Verizon, Comcast, Cox, BellSouth, etc. will now have to pay for.  This also opens up competition amongst the telcoms because anybody & everybody will be paying the same fees for line usage and are not limited geographically, at least not necessarily.

Charlie McElvy for Senate… no, PoTUS… in 2012!

So, what’s been keeping me tied up and not blogging?  Where have I been?  What’s occupying my time?

Stuff.

As in, working on novel cover designs for a friend, playing with my kids, designing characters for my comic book project, spending time with my wife, writing the draft & proposal for my action figure project, drafting a theology primer, putting together cabinets… oh, yeah, and I work at least 9-5 Mon.-Fri.!  :)

So, I’ll update you on more haps as they.. “hap”… Stay tuned!

Charlie

Just an FYI to my loyal readers — I’m in the process of updating this site, and will return to blogging very soon.  Please be patient!  Thx!!