Various Interesting Facts

Yes, I know that I am behind on posting. I decided that I would relate some interesting facts that I have learned from microbiology:

• The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are around 10 billion cases of infections around the world every year – more than the population of the world
• Since 1969, about 25 new ‘infectious agents’ have been identified
• lithoautotrophs, a category of microbes, are able to survive totally on inorganic substances, such as minerals. In other words, these creatures could potentially live inside of a rock, without any access to organic carbon sources or oxygen!
• In a recent lab session we analyzed how many bacteria live in one milliliter of pasteurized milk. Answer: about 25,000. This is significantly less than you would find in fresh, unpasteurized milk!
• Scientists are able to ‘cut’ a bacterium’s DNA into fragments, take a fragment out, and put that fragment into another, different type of bacterium.
• Refrigeration and freezing do not kill microbes, they only slow down their rate of metabolism and reproduction
• The population of a colony of bacteria can double every twenty minutes. Yes, that means that your chicken sandwich that had only 10 bacteria on it 7 hours ago now has 20,971,520 bacteria (almost 21 million!)
• The bacterial endospores (a very hardy form of bacteria) of some bacteria are able to survive for almost 2 hours at a temperature of 121 Celsius in dry heat. 
• MRSA, a type of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, is invading American hospitals. It has no reliable known cure and kills about 20% of its victims. You can get it just by scraping your finger on the wrong surface. One-half of all hospital workers are suspected to have a dormant version on them.

We are often amazed when we look at huge and vast wonders such as mountain ranges or oceans. I am amazed when I look into a microscope. When I make slides, I take a tiny, pin-prick sized amount of bacteria and smear it on a slide. When I look at it on a microscope, I will see in one second an amazing number of bacteria, maybe several thousand. There is no doubt that in that one pin-prick sized sample of bacteria, there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of living organisms. In the test tube of bacteria, there are certainly hundreds of millions of tiny living creatures that God has made! In order to maintain a sanitary, disinfected environment in the lab I often practice incineration, where I hold the tip of my wire instrument over a bunsen burner to kill the bacteria that are on it. It only takes 2-3 seconds, but I kill millions of creatures. The nations are counted as a “drop of a bucket, and…as the small dust of the balance (Isaiah 40:15)” to the Lord. How easily could the Lord destroy sinful man just as I destroy those bacteria! But the Lord is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy! (Psalm 103:8)”

P.S. – In case you didn’t see the previous post, I am using this blog to let you know about what it going on in my daily life, and to share thoughts. Strictly Bible-related posts can be found at Christ Et Ecclesiae.

ARISE!

Arise, O God, and judge the earth
And all the nations claim;
Arise, O God, and judge the earth
And magnify thy name!

Very funny…

Click this link and view the two videos…

http://www.founders.org/blog/2009/08/calvinist-vs-arminian-evangelism.html

Bible Study Update – August 28th

Well, the Bible study is now officially underway. We began this Tuesday. Each week we have two meetings – one on Tuesday at 1:30 PM, and one on Wednesday at 11:00 AM. The same subject is covered both times, so students who can’t make the Tuesday study can come to the Wednesday one, and vice versa.

We decided to split the semester into several studies. The idea is that we will take several weeks (4-5) per study and during that time will choose one topic. The current topic is the question, “Who is Jesus?” We are studying what the Bible says about Jesus versus what man says about Jesus. I hope to have time soon to talk with students by asking them this question and seeing what answers they give.

In the recent board meeting we began to prepare for the semester by determining dates for some special events. One thing that we decided to do was go out next Tuesday afternoon and throw a frisbee around, or some game like that. Hopefully some students will want to join us, and then we will be able to get to know them more.

Bible Study Update

You may remember from an earlier post that I am in a Bible study on the campus of the college that I go to. What has been happening recently?

I put up posters.

For several days I racked my brain for poster ideas. Finally I came up with several. One had very faint lines of writing across it with the important information in big, bold letters; another had a brilliant, crisp blue banner running through it. After coming up with the designs I needed to show the other board members and have them approve it. After doing that, I decided (on second thought) to use no background out all. A printed ten posters on blue cardstock and then took them to the office on campus.

At the office, I was told that the lady who approves posters was not available at the moment. I left and headed to the Science and Technology building, where I met our club sponsor. (I thought that I might need him to approve the posters as well). After meeting with him it was time for class, so I headed to my class room for three hours of microscopy and prokaryotic cell structure. With that finished, I headed back to the office to get the posters approved. The temperature was getting warm outside, as it was about the middle of the day.

The posters had been approved, so now I needed to post them. But first, I had to decide where. The campus has about 12 buildings – and I had only ten posters. What should I do? After thinking about it, I decided to post the information in the four most-frequented buildings. I headed first to the Business building; then the Liberal Arts; then the Campus Center; and finally the Science and Technology (if my memory is correct). When I had finished putting up the last poster I headed back to the main conglomeration of buildings. By now I was sweating profusely from the heat and my heavy backpack.

But who ever heard of 10 posters being enough? So today I came back with 15 more. I headed again to the office to get them approved, and then I began placing them in the Campus Center. After that it was back to the business building. Up stairs, down stairs, down long halls, deep into the bowels of that building I proceded, strategically stapling posters to the most prominent spots. Then I headed to Liberal Arts. By the time I had finished there, I had plastered each of the most important posterboards and stairways with my posters. I was finally ready to end in the Science and Technology building. Here I battled my way through dense crowds of students waiting to study geometry, trigonometry, calculus, chemistry, biology, microbiology, and botany.

Posters are time-consuming, but I trust that the results will be well worth the effort.

English Choir

The most interesting thing that I have done recently is sing in an English Renaissance Choir. Bryan E. organized it, and we call ourselves the Tallismen (because we sang some of Thomas Tallis’ songs).

If yee woodst defire too beholden oure fongs, clicke yee onn thye lynkes:

If ye love me
Psalm Tunes
Blessed are those that be undefiled

Christ Truth Seekers

This semester (fall 2009) I will be leading a Bible Study (called Christ Truth Seekers) on the campus of the community college that I will go to, if the Lord wills. Yesterday the bookstore on campus opened, so literally hundreds of people stood in line waiting to buy books. I was able to set up a table with some materials on it, including a flyer with some information about the study and a message on John 14:6. About 30-40 people took flyers and messages, and basically every single person waiting in line passed our table. Hopefully interest was stirred! I will continue to post updates on the Bible study throughout the semester.

What I’ve been doing…

On the 23rd of this month (July) the summer semester ended, and I finished my anatomy and physiology class. In less than two months I was able to get six credit hours out of the way. Then on Monday I took a CLEP (College Level Examination Program) test in English Composition. I don’t have more score back yet, but I think that I passed the test. If so, I will have six more credits out of the way.

Since classes don’t start again until August 18th I have quite a bit of time to do as I please, but I’m certainly keeping busy. I have started to study Latin intensively. I had studied the basics of the noun system some time ago, but I certainly didn’t know the language. Right now I am going through Wheelock’s Latin, 6th Edition. Today, after seven hours of study, I concluded chapter ten (no, I didn’t spend seven hours on that chapter alone). If you happen to walk into my room you might notice some peculiarities. My eraser has the letters ‘erasura, -ae’ written across it. My pencil has the letters ’stilus, -i’ engraved on its side. My door has a sign that reads ‘claude ianuam, amabo te! salve ad cellam hanc!’ (for those of you who know Latin, give a translation of that as a comment!) My goal is to be through chapter 30 by the 18th of August…

NEW BLOG!

Today I am ‘officially’ launching a new blog, Christo et Ecclesiae! Here is the new plan for my two blogs:

Christo et Ecclesiae will be the site where I post articles, study notes, etc. To find out about what I have been learning in my own Bible study, please visit this site.

Sing Unto the Lord will no longer be the site where I post articles, but it will instead be where I update you about what has been happening in my life – what I’ve been doing, where I’ve been, what I’m planning on doing, etc. Most of you know that I am interested in foreign missionary work, so I will also use this blog to keep you up to date on how I am preparing for that.

Click HERE to visit Christo et Ecclesiae.

If you have any suggestions or ideas concerning these two blogs, please feel free to comment about them in the comments section of this post.

Some Notes on the Book of Job

I recently started to study the book of Job, and below are some of my notes from this book. I thought this might be profitable since most many (myself included) don’t know much about the book. Note: I learned much of this from Albert Barnes’ commentary on the book.

Who is the author? The author is unknown, but Job himself could be the author.

Who is the audience? Again, I don’t know who this was written for, but most likely it is a historical record without any specific audience.

When did the events in this book occur? Although no one can pinpoint the exact time, several clues direct me to think that the events occurred around the time of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob). The clues that lead to this include:

1. The exodus is never mentioned, even though Job could have mentioned in many times, and his friends could have mentioned it many times. This seems to indicate that the exodus had not yet occurred.
2. The story is set in the land of Uz, not in Palestine. After the time of the patriarchs, the people of God were considered to be Israelites (that is, a believer in Jehovah was almost always a true Israelite). However, during the time of the patriarchs this was not true – there were people throughout the world who believed in Jehovah. Since Job is not an Israelite, but he is a believer in Jehovah, he must have lived during or before the time of the Israelites.
3. Job 42:10 says that the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before; verse 16 of the same chapter says he lived 140 additional years. If this number is two times his age at the beginning of the this book, then he lived to be 210 years old. Men lived to this age (they lived to be about 200 years old) around the time of Abraham or Terah.
4. Albert Barnes, in his commentary on the book, notes an interesting way that some men have tried to determine the timing of the book of Job: “A somewhat curious use has been made of thereference to the stars in the book of Job, by an attempt to determine the time when he lived. Supposing the principle stars here mentioned to be those of Taurus and Scorpio, and that these were the cardinal constellations of spring and autumn in the time of Job, and calculating their positions by the precession of the equinoxes, the time referred to in the book of Job was found to be 818 years after the deluge, or 184 years before the birth of Abraham. “This calculation, made by Dr. Brinkley of Dublin, and adopted by Dr. Hales, had been made also in 1765 by M. Ducontant in Paris, with a result differing only in being forty-two years less.” The coincidence is remarkable, but the proof that the constellations referred to are Taurus and Scorpio, is too uncertain to give much weight to the argument.”

Where did these events occur? The Bible only says that Job lived in “the land of Uz.” Although this land has not been definitely identified, it is most likely that Uz is located in the northern Arabian desert. There are several reasons why this is probable:

1. Albert Barnes wrote, “The word Uz…according to Gesenius, means a light, sandy soil; and if the name was given to the country with reference to this quality of the soil, it would be natural to fix on some region remarkable for its barrenness – a waste place or a desert.”
2. Several people in the Bible have the name Uz (Genesis 10:23, Genesis 22:21 where Huz = Uz, Genesis 36:28, 1 Chronicles 1:17, and 1 Chronicles 1:42), and it appears that each one of these has Shem as his forefather.  It is clear that Shem settled throughout the Middle East (Shem’s descendants lived in the fertile crescent and throughout Arabia), so Uz is probably in this general area.
3. Jeremiah refers to the land of Uz in Lamentations 4:21 as a land that Edom lived in. Jeremiah could be saying one of three things: either (1) Edom is the same as Uz, (2) some of the children of Edom moved to the land of Uz, or (3) Edom is a small part of the vast land of Uz. In light of the other clues that I have, number 3 seems most likely. Jeremiah also refers to this land in Jeremiah 25:20.
4. Job is spoken of as ‘the greatest of all the men of the east,’ and if Palestine is the point of reference then northern Arabia satisfies this well.

What is the historical background of this book? Since it is not easy to pinpoint an exact date, it is also not easy to say what was happening through the world at this time. However, two dates that are in this rough area of time include: (1) the confusion at the tower of Babel in BC 2247 and (2) the birth of Abraham in BC 1996. condron