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They beat Florida International 40-10.  The O-line looked a little shaky, but they’ll get it together.  The kicking game is going to give me a heart attack before the end of the year.  Next week they play a surprising Louisianna Tech team that beat Mississippi state 22-14.  Then we have the big game at #19 South Florida on the 12th.  By the end of that game we’ll know a lot about this team.

My Carolina Panthers begin the season Sunday at San Diego.  If we have to play San Diego I’d rather play them in week 1, before all the rust has been knocked of LT’s tires.  If Delhomme is truly healthy we have a shot.  As Jake goes, so go the Panthers.

Baseball

Well, my Dodgers decided to finish off August by losing seven in a row and dipping below .500.  They still have a shot because the only team they have left to play with a winning record is Arizona, the division leaders who are 2.5 game ahead of the Dodgers.  With a month to play 2.5 games is possible, but they have to start playing better.  Of course, then they would play the Cubs in the divisional series and I’m not too excited about that.

Politics

If you go look at some of my old posts you’ll see that I acurately predicted three out of the four presidential and VP nominees.  I called Obama-Biden and McCain-Huckabee.  McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin is not terribly surprising to me.  She is a strong conservative who appears more moderate than she is.  She will solidify the “James Dobson Republicans” and she has a shot at energizing women (a group McCain does poorly with).  She has a record of ethics reform in the corrupt Alaska political system and will be able to contrast her experiences with Obama’s failure to take on the Chicago political machine.

There will be some tabloid trash about her at the beginning because nobody knows her and so people will believe anything written about her.  I don’t think her daughter’s pregnancy is relevant or warrants media coverage.  Seventeen year olds make their own decisions, some of them good and some of them bad.  A parent’s job is to help the child learn to take responsibility for those decisions and hopefully help them make the better decision when possible.

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We must note that while Matthew says there were 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 generations from David to the exile to Babylon, and 14 generations from the exile to Jesus, this is not to be taken literally.  The Gospel author in using 3 sets of 14 was emphasizing that Jesus was from the line of David.  David’s number using gematria (a  common system of assigning numerical values to  an alphabet)  is  14.

It is also interesting to note that the gospel author ends the first group of 14 with David, the second group of 14 with Josiah, and the third group of 14 with Jesus.  David was promised an eternal kingship, this kingship was renewed during the time of Josiah by reforms which returned Judah to the worship of God, and the eternal kingship was ultimately fulfilled in Jesus.

Further, each of the individuals mentioned in the geneology deserve their own commentary, but we do not have the space for that here.

Moving on to the second half of Matthew 1, I was impressed with how much Joseph struggled over what he was to do.  1:20a says, “but after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream”.  When Joseph found out that his bride-to-be was pregnant he did not act rashly.  The passage seems to suggest that Joseph took his time in discerning what it was that he was to do. I imagine that Joseph was deeply hurt by the perceived unfaithfulness of his future bride.  However, Joseph considered the situation (and I suspect, althought the Bible does not say, he consulted the scriptures, the rabbis and prayed over the situation).

Too often in life I rush ahead of a situation without considering it.  I act before I pray, I speak before I listen.  I need to learn from Joseph and consider the situations I am faced with and wait on God to lead me in my actions.

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