On the odd chance that anyone has noticed, I have not been posting much in the last couple of weeks. I've been occupied with a few other things, one of which your tired eyes might appreciate. I'm working on a new template for the blog. I've gone through several ideas and discarded them, but I think I've settled on one that I will actually complete. It's going to be an entirely new theme, trimmed down and prettier. After 2½ years, it will be the first total makeover I've done. So look for The Thirsty Theologian 2.0, coming soon (soon being a relative term).

I know I'm a sucker for providing free advertising like this, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to pass on this bit of encouragement to my fellow bloggers.

A comment apparently left by the Russian mafia:

If you want do delete your site from our spam bases - just email us with domain of your site:

abuse-here@inbox.ru

thank you!

I ain't no fool. I wasn't born yesterday. I also didn't just fall off the turnip truck. That happened years ago.

Tim Challies wrote yesterday on 10 Tips to Read More and Read Better. It’s a helpful article; I especially liked his final point:

Tim Challies, along with Monergism.com, is offering the best book giveaway I've seen in a long time—

How many of you remember entering a book drawing at the beginning of last month? Well, on Sunday, at about 7:30 PM, deep in bowels of the Thirsty Theologian Complex, behind closed doors, amid hushed whispers and anxious nerves, two winners were selected to receive a copy of Assured by God: Living in the Fullness of God’s Grace. They are:

This is one of those blog posts about blogging that I rarely read when others post them. Your time would be better spent clicking through.

Jonathan Moorhead has tagged me to identify my worst and best post, a post on which I have changed my mind, and my most-commented-on post. So here they are:

Is it possible to know for sure that you are saved, that your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, that you will spend eternity with Christ in Heaven? If so, you want to know, don’t you? Yet, many Christians struggle with doubt concerning their salvation and miss out on the joy God intends for them in knowing their salvation has been secured for them by the blood of Christ. At the same time, many unbelievers have been given a false basis of assurance and believe they are saved when, in fact, they are not.

Crystal, of the Biblical Womanhood Blog (No, of course I don't read it! I'm much too manly! I just, um, happened across this by accident.), is giving away a wonderful set of beautiful books that your kids will love. You might even like them yourself. And I just bought these a couple of weeks ago. Go here to learn how to enter. The deadline is Saturday, 3:00 p.m. CST, or 2:00 p.m. here in God's Country, so you'd better hurry.

As promised, the winnerof Iain Muray's Revival & Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism, 1750–1858 was drawn yesterday morning by an entirely impartial set of seven-year-old fingers. The winner is:

. . . but I'm blogspotting this guy because he says I should, and because he apparently considers Chevy aficionados to be "misguided." He obviously has the gift of discernment. Also, because it's the weekend and I've got nothing else anyway. So go visit Chez Kneel. He's presently recycling posts on Leviticus, which is more interesting than you might expect.

Update: new, improved explanation.

I'm no computer tech nerd. My web skills are really quite basic, gained largely through trial & error and by clicking "view page source" on web pages with interesting features. But I'm a fiddler and a tinkerer, so I can seldom just leave a newly-discovered function alone without customizing it. That's not always a good thing. I've messed up a lot of perfectly good code by trying just one more modification. Sometimes though, I have a genuine "Eureka!" moment when I figure out something really good. Today, I want to share one of those "Eureka!" moments. The techies out there will be mostly unimpressed, but perhaps some of you will find this useful.

I am still accepting entries for Book Give-away I, and will be through the end of the month. However, because of the volume of entries, I can't reply to your emails. Rest assured, however, that if you entered by email according to the instructions, I have received your entry and you are in the drawing.

Don't be alarmed. It's just a picture. The actual book I'm giving away is much better. Well, the cover art is not as good, but the content will be much more satisfying. Here is how this will work this time. You email me by clicking here. Say whatever you want in the email, like maybe how brilliant, handsome, and charming I am, or make suggestions and offer constructive criticism, or say nothing at all if you prefer. Just include your name and make sure the subject line says "Book Give-away I," and you'll be entered in a drawing which will take place the first week in July. I am opening this first give-away to all who wish to enter. In the future, I may limit it to residents of the U.S. if shipping costs get out of hand.

In the interest of promoting Christian education, and to expand my practice of promoting other people’s work, I’ve decided to do a periodic book give-away. I haven’t decide how often, but I am tentatively thinking it will be quarterly, or monthly, at most. Now, I need your input. I will probably begin with a simple drawing, but I would like to try something more creative, like a contest. However, I want it to be fair, and I haven’t thought of a contest that I could judge fairly. I would appreciate any clever ideas you might have.

I’m going to kill two birds with one 12-gauge light target load. First, Jen posted a quote from G.K. Chesterton that highlights a sad literary truth: “The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.” Hard to believe, isn’t it? Sure, there may be a verse or two on cheese hidden away somewhere in a Shel Silverstein book, but I’m afraid this beautiful gift has been almost entirely, inexplicably, overlooked by the poets. I aim to rectify that.

I've been working for the past 2+ weeks on my wife's computer, which, in technological terms, can best be described as a Girl's Computer®. It serves its function quite well, but it is definitely a weaker vessel compared to my Manly Machine®. Worse than the absent muscle is the desk setup, which is very uncomfortable for me. Anyway, I've been putting off fixing mine for reasons of time and economics. I have been busy trying to get some home remodeling done prior to the fast-approaching graduation shindig for my eldest daughter. That should explain both the time and economic constraints.

I'm sitting at my wife's computer, cursing technology--or, rather, my dependence on technology that fails. After six years of mostly faithful service, my computer has crashed. Hopefully, I'll get it fixed fairly soon, but until then, I'll be mostly off-line. While I'm gone, take a look at The World from Our Window. Ken Fields is working on a sidebar links thingy similiar to my On the Web links.

Note to Jonathan Moorhead: Stop gloating. I will not be getting a Mac.

How do you accept a commendation for something that you do mostly for your own benefit and really put very little effort into? Yes, that is a poor sentence, but it is how I feel at present. Four times in the past few days I have been given a prestigious blogger “award.” I am actually not sure how prestigious these meme awards are, but it truly does mean a lot to me know that my feeble efforts are appreciated. I am not a fan of memes or awards, but I do not take lightly the esteem of my peers and readers.

Loki will not be bringing us a Saturday Stupidity post today. I could make excuses for him, such as that he has been very busy while on sabbatical in Iceland working on his Doctoral dissertation (Pickled Herring in Nordic Theology), but the fact is that he is growing tired of it. He has suggested that I fill in for him, but I am really not that funny. We might revive regular Saturday Stupidity posts sometime in the future, but for now Loki might just pop in occasionally on a Saturday, we might fill in with something else at times, or we might just let the blog sleep.

Have a nice weekend.

Steve Weaver has listed the books he read in 2006 (Shocking discovery: the Bible is not on the list!). Steve’s list got me thinking about my own reading, and the reading plan that I’ve been planning to plan for 2007, but have not yet planned; but I’m still planning on it.

In case you didn't notice, the last couple of posts have been filler. Don't expect much more than that until after New Year's. I will be much too busy making merry, and you ought to do the same. Ho ho ho.

Bloggers who have nothing to say write about their cats. At least that is what I have observed. Today I am writing about my cat. Draw your conclusions as you will.

Once again I am reminded of my own mortality. I guess I should have expected it, but when my "King for a Week" status stretched out to a fortnight, I suppose I began to settle into the throne a bit too comfortably. I began wondering what I had done to deserve my removal, but then I remembered that I hadn't done anything to deserve the crown in the first place, so I guess it's all fair. It should remind us all, though, that we can't put our trust in earthly kingdoms.

Matthew Sims, one of the eminent writers at The World from our Window and proprietor of Under Sovereign Grace has offered a collection of John Piper sermons on CD for free. All I have to do is post a link his websites and to my favorite John Piper book, and a top ten list of my favorite theologians and books. So here you go, in no particular order:

What, me, a king? Well, actually, yes. Even before Tim Challies, Pope of Christian Blogdom, crowned me King for a Week, I was predestined to the throne. Consider these facts:

I stumbled onto this link somewhere, and... well, I don't normally do things like this, but after my eschatology post last week, I thought maybe I should stick with something more on my level. Anyway, it was kind of fun for about five minutes, and it turned out about how I expected.

Saturday, after almost five months of neglect, I updated the 2Corinthians10:4-5 section of the left sidebar. This time, in addition to posting links under the appropriate categories, I posted all of the new links at the top under the clever heading of Newly Added Links. That way, I don't have to mark them "new" individually and then go back and unmark them when they are no longer new, and readers don't have to sort through the old to find the new. Such efficiency should go a long way in our constant fight against global warming, don't you think?

I have not abandoned ship. My internet connection went out on Friday, and I didn't get it back until today. Now that I'm back, I'm sorry to say I've got nothing - nothing but a couple of ideas, anyway. See you later.

Memes – who started this? Well, I’ve been tagged with one. Normally, I would ignore it, but today I am just tickled pink to be noticed by Eminent Canadian Philosopher and Theologian® Daniel that I simply must comply. So here it is.

1. One book that changed your life (other than the Bible):

I had intended to have part 3 of my current series on alcohol posted this morning, but it was not to be. I should have it up tomorrow morning or possibly later this evening. Thanks to links from Challies Dot Com, Between Two Worlds, Evangelical Outpost, Daddypundit, Fill Up, Moore Thoughts and Views, and Gratuitous Advice, traffic to this site has increased four-fold, so apparently, this is a hot topic. Thanks for reading, and I'll continue ASAP. In the meantime, check out these fine blogs or click some links in the sidebar. Have a nice day.

Giddy with joy over having won an award today, I am going to hand out an award of my own. Well, it's not really an award, as there is no title or trophy. Call it a commendation.

This commendation goes to Julie R. Neidlinger for making a point with wit and brevity.

See for yourself.

From the day this blog began, the most valuable content has been in outgoing links. There are a lot of people on the web who are either smarter than I am, or better communicators. As James Spurgeon would say, "Can I get an A-men?" OK, not so loud. Well, I'm smart enough to read them, and reading them is making me smarter every day.

One year ago, on June 4, 2005, the first Saturday Stupidity was posted on our old blogspot site (our first post was on May 31). We are celebrating that momentus occasion by retelling that first story here today. Ladies and gentlemen, return with me, if you will, to days of yore, to a magical time when the Thirsty Theologian was young, when... OK, yes, I'm recycling an old joke, just like your weird Uncle Bob always does. Look at it this way: how many of you have weird uncles who manage to go a whole year without repeating a joke? I first heard this joke from a rather odd but genial neighbor when I was a kid in Montana. It is actually one of my favorite varieties of jokes, a "shaggy dog" with a pun-ch line. My good neighbor moved away before I did, so neither of us is still there. So thanks, Rick, wherever you are. I hope you're still making eyes roll. I know I am.

Last week I posted a link to an National Post article stating that Iran was looking at passing a law that would require minority religious groups to wear colored patches, much like Jews were required to wear in Nazi Germany. It appears to have been untrue.

Thanks to Krisina Hansen of The Daily for the tip. On second thought, it's the least she could do, since I got the original link from her, too.

I said I wasn't blogging, and I'm not; but Ken Fields has written something that deserves more attention than just an link. Married To The Ministry ... When Families Suffer As Casualties Of Neglect is a topic that is very near to my heart. If you are a pastor, you need to read this. If you aspire to be a pastor, you need to read this. If you have a pastor, you need to read this.

I've been reading Pastor Field's blog, The World from Our Window, long enough, and linked to it often enough, to give him a permanent place on the blogroll. So, there you go. Click away. I'm leaving now.

I'm taking a blogbreak (see post title for proof). I need to catch up on some personal stuff, and this is one thing I don't really need to do. I'll probably still post a few links, but don't look for anything in this column for a while. I'll still monitor the comments, so if you have anything to say, I'll read it and respond if needed. I don't know how long I'll take, but I'll be back when I'm back. In the mean-time, visit the fine folks in our sidebars. Thanks for reading.

This is one of those "about this blog" posts that I loathe. If you're looking for something interesting, click on a sidebar link, or just shut off your computer and actually do something, but don't read this.

This is kind of cool. Make a map of where you've been worldwide or within the U.S., Canada, or Europe. Here's mine (click map for a larger view).

OK, I confess. I haven't been anywhere. These are the countries that visitors of this blog have come from.

This is where I've been within the U.S. (click map for a larger view). Add two Canadian provinces to that, and I'm a real Cosmopolitan.

(HT: На Даче)

Today is my wife's birthday.