Blog | Reproach of Men

Recoding the Website

What a day. Ten hours worth of changing the underlying code of all the mainpages to make a more readable layout that is both robust and easier to update. All this was done to prep for the addition of several new pages that are dedicated to the rest of the ministry.

Now, all I have to do is update the code behind the existing article pages and update the Spanish and German websites and it will all look and function the way it is supposed to. Unfortunately, today’s endeavor was also an interesting struggle with the effects of the browser wars. I originally designed the pages to look good in Opera, and then tested them in Firefox and IE 6. What looked good and worked in Opera, fell apart in IE 6 and didn’t quite function in Firefox. I had to go back and revise some of the code for Firefox and (of course) have an entirely different stylesheet for IE 6. I even looked at it in Safari after the changes, and it looked pretty good there as well.

Now, I know there are folks out there who will look at the site and comment that it is a simple site as far as design is concerned. However, accessibility is the primary aim of this site, with aesthetics not so much a concern. There are two reasons for this:

First, when visitors come to the website, if they are tickled with “eye candy” they will not take the content seriously. Moreover, those who are interested only in having something novel to look at are not really interested in where they stand with the LORD God. My interest is the state of the soul of the visitor. My desire is to see those who do not know the LORD come to know Him, and those who do know the LORD personally; see them grow in the knowledge of the LORD Who saved them.

Second, My Lord and Savior was not “attractive,” and neither was the tabernacle that represented His work to come. Rather, in Isaiah it plainly states that “he hath no form nor comeliness that we should desire him.” Moreover, the tabernacle of the Old Testament was not at all attractive. In fact, it was covered with badger skins with all the beauty of it only seen on the inside (which is the way it is with Christ). Even so, the design of this site should focus the visitor on its content and the subject of that content – the Lord Jesus Christ.

With that, I pray that the new coding makes visiting the site more of a blessing.

Himself

Occasionally, when I add a hymn to the Hymns page I note it here, particularly if it is a hymn that really ought to be considered as to the message it contains. The hymn, “Himself” is a hymn worthy of just such notice.

This hymn is a contrast, and what a contrast it makes! It contrasts the difference between the “hope so, maybe so, I had an emotional experience” salvation, to the real salvation that is in Christ Jesus. Perhaps this is why it was dropped? After all, how many people out there who profess Christ as Savior also tell of a “I had an emotional experience” salvation? How many, when pressed about their assurance of salvation, cannot be absolutely certain that Christ saved them utterly? How many only think, saying “I think I’m going to heaven. I hope I make it.” that they are truly going to be with the Lord when they die? How many experience no change at all at “salvation” and are just like they were before they were “saved?”

You know, if your salvation was one of those “I had an emotional experience” events, and your assurance consists of “I hope I’m going to heaven,” then I invite you to truly learn of the Lord Jesus Christ, and come to know Him personally. You will never meet a more gracious, more lovely person. He is, as the Song of Solomon says:

His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. (Song of Solomon 5:16)

And, after you come to know Him, place all, not some, but all without reservation, your trust in Him as the full payment for your sins; knowing that His shed blood on the cross paid for your sins once for all. Trust totally that He was raised from the dead the third day, as the Scripture says. Trust totally that God the Father sent Him and His offering to God is a fully sufficient, acceptable sacrifice for sins, once for all. Trust completely that all the Old Testament testifies of Christ to come, as the Lord Jesus Christ explained in rebuking His disciples on the road to Emmaus:

Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:25-27)

If you do know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, I pray that you are blessed by the hymn “Himself” and the rest of the hymns on the Hymns page. May you be strengthened in the Lord, and walk steadfastly in Christ.

A busy month

Well, this month has flown by. Due to teaching and other ministry items I have had no time to update this blog, make comments on events, or add articles to the website. I was able to build a website for an independent Baptist Aviation ministry. The site is for Faith Baptist Church of Harrison and the Aviation ministry run by Bro. James Watt. The website is Faith Baptist Aviation Ministry.

Bro. Watt is also the missionary I am working with to establish a fundamental, unaffiliated, Baptist church in Washington County, Arkansas. Temporarily, Ebenezer Baptist Mission is located in the 402 Building on S. Thompson in Springdale.

Perhaps next month will be more amenable to writing and posting. But first, I have to recover enough to be able to type with both hands. I am recovering from the second surgery on my arms in 4 months. In August the doctor operated on the left elbow. On the 21st of Dec. he operated on the right elbow and wrist. It should be about 2-3 more weeks and I will be typing with both hands again.

Were the Pharisees Fundamentalists?

I am certain that many will disagree with my analysis of whether the Pharisees were fundamentalists or not. Primarily due to that fact that my analysis runs counter to the most popular and common definitions of what fundamentalism is, which is not at all what the dictionary says it is.

You can find the article here.

www.reproachofmen.org updated

I have updated and revamped the Statement of Faith page and all the Article pages. There are now 25 articles in the Statement of Faith. I am particularly delighted to have been moved to post the Liberty of the Conscience article as this is a very old Baptist doctrine that have never really been put on paper. It has been openly declared by true Baptists for a very long time, and insures that true Baptists never persecute anyone for their beliefs.

Please enjoy the articles in the Statement of Faith. I pray they are a blessing.

Updates to ReproachofMen.org

Due to many interruptions I have been unable to update the website as much as I would have liked over the last few months. However, I have finally begun to revamp the way the main pages are coded and am in the process of a major rework of the Statement of Faith page. The rework of the page will include the addition of a brand new article titled Liberty of the Conscience (which is a very old Baptist doctrine) and a resequencing of the articles themselves.

This rework is in preparation for additional articles to the website, before recoding would become a major headache. The end goal is for all of the website to be coded in XHTML and CSS.

Updates to oprobiodeloshombres.org

Finally, all 24 articles of the Statement of Faith (Declaración de Fe) are posted with the passages from the Scripture. The difficulty of this portion of the Spanish website lay in the fact that there is not a right Spanish Bible. A simple check of the number of verse passages that have the word modificado (modified) after the Scripture reference illustrate this point rather well. The verses in the Spanish Bible (Casiodoro de Reina en 1569) had to be changed to match the 1611 King James Version, 1769 Edition. Otherwise, the Statement of Faith would have been unworkable in Spanish as the verses would not have matched the synopsis.

Updates to reproachofmen.org

I have added a custom error page for 404 errors (page not found) and finally created form e-mails for contacts and website error reporting.

This should make the site considerably more user-friendly.

Updates to reproachofmen.org Hymns page

I have added 6 new hymns to the hymns page. They are:

How Hurtful was the Choice of Lot
The Love of God
Lord Thy Word Abideth
At the Name of Jesus
A Clean Heart
Abba Father, We Approach Thee

I have also corrected an error in the code of “Holy and Reverend is His Name” which allowed the midi file to start twice. It sounds considerably better having only one instance of the midi file running.

Updates to websites

The article “Of Angels and Men” on oprobiodeloshombres.org now has all the footnotes in Spanish. Also, both reproachofmen.org and oprobiodeloshombres.org have links to spottderleute.org.

I should have El Mandimiento Imposible (“The Impossible Command”) and “Qué Hay de mal La Pasión” (“Why I Will Not See the Passion”) formatted in HTML and posted on oprobiodeloshombres.org before the end of Saturday.