My Desktop Photo 5: Little Pasque Flower

Photo by Andrew Stark 

The crocuses aren’t out yet, at least not around my house, but it’ll be soon.

Gas Up: May 1

Here’s what a litre of gas costs at my neighborhood station this week. That’d work out to be $5.14 per U.S. gallon.

Youngest son worked at this gas station last summer. He was following in both his parents footsteps, because my first job was at a Fas Gas station, too, and that’s where I met my husband, who was my co-worker. I’m almost certain they are completely unrelated companies, even though the Fas Gas company I worked for had a similar green and white logo.

The price in 1973 when I pumped gas? A whopping 39.9¢ per gallon. And it was full service; I washed your windows and checked your oil. But it was the summer of the gas shortage, and 39.9¢ was a shockingly high price. It was also the summer of the big grain export to Russia, and there was a constant stream of grain trucks fueling up as they travelled from North Dakota to the port of Duluth.

What are you paying for gas this week? You can let us know in the comments of this post or, if you prefer, you can post the info on your own blog and send me the link.

Update on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 3:56PM by rebecca

• Ellen B paid $3.77 per gallon yesterday at Costco in Oxnard, California, but that’s 10¢ cheaper than it is at most other stations.
• Alan paid 1.39 per gallon, but you’ll have to read his comment to see how he finaggled that.
  

Update on Saturday, May 3, 2008 at 9:47AM by rebecca

• And here’s what Dorothy paid for gas in Crystal Lake, IL.
  

Update on Saturday, May 3, 2008 at 7:18PM by rebecca

• From Karen: I just paid $3.41 a gallon for regular this morning to fill up in Texarkana, Texas - prices range from $3.41 for regular up to $4.13 for plus.
  
• Mummymac in Northern Ireland tells us,

  I’ve just been for a fill and our prices are unbelievable at the moment - everyone is complaining especially as about 2/3 is tax.
  
  

  We run on Diesel (sorry to be so different). I’ve just done all the conversions litres to gallons and pounds to US Dollars and we’re working out at $8.84 per gallon for diesel. For unleaded it would be roughly $8.10 per gallon!!!!”

  Wow!
• Missmellifluous, our Australian lass, is waiting before she fills her tank.

  Fuel was $1.50/ litre here this week. I did not fill up. I wait for it to go down to $1.45 - usually on Tuesdays which seems to be the cheapest day to fill up - and get $20 worth. This is the most expensive it’s been in ages.

Update on Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 10:16AM by rebecca

This is the last follow-up to this post. All future comments will go on the next Gas Up post.

• Jaunita is paying $1.239/litre for gas in Alberta.  
  
• Jenn gives us a report from middle Tennesee, including a link to a site that helps you locate the cheapest gas in your zipcode.
  
  

Romans 8:18-39: A Few Questions Answered

Yesterday I mentioned that I was going to do a series of posts producing an interpretive paraphrase of Romans 8:18-39, with the aim being to show one way to go about doing this sort of Bible study. I’m starting the whole thing off by answering a few questions that might be asked about this planned series of posts.

 

Why do an interpretive paraphrase?

Because I think that producing an interpretive paraphrase is probably the best way for the ordinary person to do in-depth personal Bible study. 

 

What is an interpretive paraphrase?

Short answer: It’s explaining, in one’s own words, what the author meant to communicate to his original audience. The paraphrasing step comes only after careful study to determine what it is the author intended to say.

 

What tools will you use?

I am going to pare my tool supply down to what I think most of those reading along would have easily accessible and would be able to use well. I’ll be using

 

• Four translations of the Bible for comparison—the NASB, the ESV, the NLT, and the NET Bible (mostly for the spiffy translation notes). I’ll get my text from Bible Gateway for the the first three translations and Bible.org for the NET. (You might be surprised to see the NLT on the list of translations I’m using. I always use one commitee-done thought-for-thought translation when I do an interpretive paraphrase. That’s about the only time I use one, but I do find a dynamic equivalent translation useful for this purpose.)
• Strong’s Concordance.
• One commentary intended for the lay person. Mine happens to be The Epistle to the Romans by John Murray, which is from The New International Commentary on the New Testament.

Here are a few other tools that could be used:

 

• The Greek text of Romans, if you are competent. I have a Greek text, but I wouldn’t be able to muddle through Romans.
  
• A Greek lexicon, if you have one and know how to use it. I considered using my lexicon, but decided against it, because many people find a lexicon confusing to use, and I’m not sure most people have a good lexicon available for personal study, anyway.
  
• A Bible dictionary, like Vine’s, for instance. I don’t like Vine’s much, but some people do. It could be helpful, I suppose, especially if you keep in mind that it has a theological bias that shows in some of the definitions.
  

Why that passage from Romans 8?

Because for the last two Sundays, it’s been the scripture read in church, and both very different sermons, by two different men, have been based in it. And I like this passage a whole lot.