He is Sufficient

Robert at Weird Thinkers tagged me with the latest meme. Here are the rules:

Rule 1) List three reasons for your blogging.
Rule 2) List these rules.
Rule 3) Tag three others with the thread.

Ok, my three reasons for blogging:

1. This blog began as a place for me to document my search for a “modern” Bible translation after 20+ years of primarily using the NASB. My initial focus was comparing individual verses across four mediating translations (HCSB, TNIV, NLT and REB) in a sort of cage match to see which translation’s use of language I preferred. I think I stalled out after four or five lengthy posts, with my studious preferences pointing to the TNIV. Ironically, one of those posts (Isaiah 40:31) is presently the most viewed post on this blog (virtually tied with my ESV/HCSB comparison of Romans 7:13-25); both have nearly double the number of post views of the next most-viewed posts. My search “ended” recently with the decision to use both the HCSB and REB as my primary Bibles, though I have to be honest and say that I haven’t opened the HCSB in over a week. At this point, I’d say the REB is my primary translation choice, with the HCSB as my preferred alternative.
2. Blogging has been a modestly healthy way for me to communicate about many of the topics that I think about in a fleeting manner. As an INTP (on the Myers-Briggs personality chart), I tend to look at a topic long enough to get a sense for the arguments involved, but I rarely stop and explore it fully. I like being an “idea guy”; the cold reality of implementation is not my strength. Blogging is a way to give some permanence to my explorations, so that I can return to topics as they come up again, or just so that I can say, “yes, I did think about this” at some point in time. (Ironically, I just deleted a paragraph that organically spun out of this “reason for blogging” because it started to be a blog post of its own – I’ll have to flesh it out and post separately.)
3. My last reason is related to the second inasmuch as it’s related to my personality as well. The “I-ntrovert” of my INTP is strong and I don’t naturally seek out people to “hang out with” to get energized. Part of that is being exhausted as a young parent (my boys are 4 and 2), but I’ve never naturally been “a people person” (which is not to say that I can’t have a good time with friends; I just don’t seek to create those opportunities). There was a round of posts on personality and Bible translations last fall, with an unsurprisingly large number of INTs coming out of the woodwork. I love the conversations that bloggers have and the wealth of ideas and topics covered is incredibly stimulating, but most importantly is that I can control how and when I interact with those ideas. If I were in a face-to-face setting and presented with the diversity that comes out of blogdom, I’d probably be in the corner of the room trying to absorb it all. Here I can pick and choose what to respond to and when I do so.

Now, for three victims… I would like to tag Gary Zimmerli, Iyov and Bryan Lilly.