« January 2004 | Main | March 2004 »
February 29, 2004
My wife
Proverbs 31:10-11 An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, And he will have no lack of gain.
Posted by jhyink at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)
New arrival
But the graduation is not the most exciting part of our weekend. Friday was a long day travelling 4 hours one way to get to Steve's graduation. Saturday was quite busy, recovering. Laurie also got some shopping and other housework done. We took a walk to the library (about a mile total) and finally ended the day by having a friend over to watch Of Mice and Men (great movie). In the end, all that activity got Laurie's body going. By 1:00 morning, she was having contractions about 5 minutes apart. We didn't want to be hasty and be sent home from the hospital because of going prematurely (like with Benjamin), and so we waited until about 4:00 to go to the hospital. Well, we didn't get there any too early because when the nurse checked her, she was already dilated 7-8 cm! At 9:09 this morning, the LORD graciously blessed the Hyink household with a very beautiful baby boy. We have named him Micah Increase. Its pretty neat that he was born on February 29, because he will celebrate his birthday on his birthday only every 4 years! Laurie went through all of labor totally naturally, without any pain medicine or an epidural, and she did remarkably well. When the doctor finally came, he couldn't believe she didn't have an epidural because she was so calm. The nurse said that Laurie's was the best natural childbirth she had ever seen. Yes, I'm bragging on my wife. I'm her biggest fan! Because of the uniqueness of the day, the local TV news wanted to do a story about a baby who was born on February 29 and so called the hospital to see if anyone would be willing. The hospital staff was so impressed with Laurie that they asked her if she wanted to, and, of course, we said yes. So the crew came and asked a few (dumb) questions and got Laurie's responses. She looked so great (only 3 hours after giving birth)! Here's a picture of the family.
By the way, not many famous things have happened on Leap Day throughout history. Look at the events here. This may be the first: birthday of Micah Increase Hyink.
Posted by jhyink at 10:03 PM | Comments (2)
My brother's graduation
This weekend was extremely momentus for the Hyink family. The first exciting event was my brother Steve's graduation from basic training in the army. Although he has always been bigger and stronger than I, he has taken that gap to a whole new level. He looks great. He's all muscle, grit, and discipline. I even think that his voice is deeper. For those of you who know him, here are some pictures so you can see for yourself.
Posted by jhyink at 09:23 PM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2004
Review of Rich Dad, Poor Dad
When Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki was recommended to me by some friends, I was immediately skeptical. I tend to think that typical books about money have several problems. They seem to imply that money is the cure to most or all of life's problems. They promote making money as if money is the ultimate goal in life. Or they promote a very narrow method of making money, which, it is assumed, is the best method for everybody. None of these problems exist in Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
Kiyosaki's main point is to teach people a mindset that helps them get out of the "Rat Race." People in the rat race have a nice, comfortable job that earns them a nice income that pays all their bills. They adjust their lifestyle to the level of their income. Debt keeps them from having much money left over, but when there is some, they put it in a nice, secure (low interest) mutual fund. They keep up but don't move forward. Chapter one introduces the concept hinted at in the title. Kiyosaki had two father figures, a poor one (his real dad) and a rich one. His poor dad promoted the idea: "Study hard so you can find a good company to work for." For him, talk of money was bad. Risk was bad. He argued that one's company is responsible to make sure all his needs were met. Finding the best job with the best company that offered the best benefits, to him, was best. His rich dad, on the other hand, encouraged talking about money around the dinner table, to teach the children how to think. He encouraged managing risk, rather than avoiding it. He argued against reliance upon an employer and for "total financial self-reliance" (16). Of course, Kiyosaki's book promotes the mindset of his rich dad.
The book breaks down into six main lessons, which help the reader understand the mindset rather than a method. Lesson #1 is "The Rich Don't Work for Money." Though that may sound startling at first, his point is simple. Rather than spending one's life working for an employer (and making him money); rather than always being at the mercy of the job market, the economy and one's skills; a person must find ways to make his money work for him. When a person depends entirely on an employer, he is not prepared for unforeseen events. It is here that he introduces his repeated theme that money itself is not the most important thing in life. Lesson #2, probably the most contrary to the status quo, simply encourages financial education. Most people stay in the rat race because they do not understand the basic concepts of managing money. The most basic (but unfortunately most rarely understood) financial rule is the necessity of understanding the difference between an asset and a liability. Something is truly an asset only when it puts money into your pocket. A liability takes money. Thus, your house is not an asset. Naturally, "the rich acquire assets and the poor and middle class acquire liabilities" (60). The missing element in the education of even most educated "is not how to make money, but how to spend money" (67). Thus, more money is not the solution. Financial intelligence is. He ends the chapter with a brilliant observation concerning the definition of wealth. "Wealth is a person's ability to survive so many number of days forward… or if I stopped working today, how long could I survive? ... Wealth is the measure of the cash flow from the asset column compared with the expense column" (80). Someone is truly wealthy only when his income from his assets matches his expenses from his liabilities.
Lesson #3 is "Mind Your Own Business," which encourages people not to spend all their time working for an employer. Rather, everyone must take the time to work for himself. Kiyosaki says, "Keep your daytime job, but start buying real assets, not liabilities or personal effects that have no real value once you get them home" (89). Thus, he also encourages delayed gratification. Lesson #4 outlines the tax benefits of owning your assets within a corporation. The main advantage is that one can spend the income before it gets taxed, rather than after. An employee can spend his money only after the government gets its share. A corporation pays taxes only on income that is left over after expenses have been paid. Lesson #5 is oddly called "The Rich Invent Money" and promotes using the imagination to generate ways to make money. There is not single best way. Within certain guidelines assets can generate income many different ways. Finally, Lesson #6 repeats an appeal he makes repeatedly throughout the book: "Work to Learn – Don't Work for Money." In this chapter, Kiyosaki exposes the danger of overspecialization. Rather, a person must continually work to make his knowledge as broad as possible.
To close, Kiyosaki makes suggestions about how to begin. First, he combats the five main reasons people stay in their current life-style: fear, cynicism, laziness, bad habits, and arrogance. He then gives ten steps to begin this new mindset. I will mention just one. He says, "Pay yourself first" (172). By this, he means that people need to set a portion aside from their income every month to put toward assets, and they need to take that portion before all the other bills are paid. Rather than promoting irresponsibility, he encourages self-discipline. The key is simple: "Don't get into large debt positions that you have to pay for. Keep your expenses low. Build up assets first" (176). For most people, this book is needed for one of the biggest paradigm shifts they could make. It contains the truths necessary to escape rat race for now and for generations to come. And perhaps unwittingly, he advocates the very Christian ideas of delayed gratification, giving, inheritance, and wisdom. A great, quick read.
Posted by jhyink at 03:13 PM | Comments (1)
February 14, 2004
Review of Amusing Ourselves to Death
Here is a book review for my church's monthly publication. The topic is on books and reading, so I thought this book would be appropriate.
Neil Postman's thesis in Amusing Ourselves to Death is simple. In his eye-opening work, he demonstrates "how forms of public discourse regulate and even dictate what kind of content can issue from such forms" (6). In other words, the way something is communicated controls what is actually being communicated. The forms of media are not merely neutral channels through which facts and ideas flow. Those forms themselves either taint or enhance the message. Based on this premise, Postman demonstrates the dumbing influences that the television has had upon modern American minds. By doing so, he contends that a culture based on words is superior to one based on pictures. The book is an apology for reading. Though it was published in 1985, it has equal, if not more, relevance to us today.
To begin, Postman argues that every medium of communication carries with it an epistemology, a theory of knowledge. For instance, "'Seeing is believing' has always a preeminent status as an epistemological axiom, but 'saying is believing,' 'reading is believing,' 'counting is believing,' 'deducing is believing,' and 'feeling is believing' are other that have risen or fallen in importance as cultures have undergone media change" (24). He demonstrates that the Jewish concept of God, with their application of the second commandment, taught them a very high form of abstract thinking. The reader must persevere during the first two chapters because his reasoning, though tight, can tend to be somewhat thick.
Beginning with chapter three, Postman gives a historical survey of America's way of thinking, as dictated by its forms of communication. America began as a typographic society. Reading and writing were valued greatly for many reasons, not the least of which was that people could read the Bible. All people recognized the value of knowledge. As a result, people would gather in droves to hear lectures and debates. For instance, people in the 1860s were captivated for 4 or 5 hours at a time by the meticulously reasoned debates between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. Frequently, they even lasted for more than one day! Postman shows that "a language-centered discourse such as was characteristic of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America tends to be both content-laden and serious, all the more so when it takes its form from print" (50). A transition began, however, with the telegraph, which "made a three-pronged attack on typography's definition of discourse, introducing on a large scale irrelevance, impotence, and incoherence" (65). Hence, there arose "context-free information," mouth-sized bytes of information with no true relevance to one's life.
Along came television, which makes the "three-pronged attack" upon America's mind even fiercer. The vast majority of communication on the television has as its one underlying purpose entertainment. "No matter what is depicted or from what point of view, the overarching presumption is that it is there for our amusement and pleasure" (87). For the remainder of the book, Postman demonstrates that entertainment is necessary for the television's communication of news (even the most tragic), religion, politics, and education. In each area, information is greatly simplistic and decontextualized and requires no prior knowledge of anything. America has defeated herself like a tyrant. "Tyrants of all varieties have always known about the value of providing the masses with amusements as a means of pacifying discontent. But most of them could not have even hoped for a situation in which the masses would ignore that which does not amuse" (141). Postman's solution to the problem lies mainly within the realm of education. As believers, we must also combat our situation within our homes and churches. We must put off the temptation to keep our children quiet by just plopping them in front of a television (only to fight the battle of what they are watching). And we must put on practices like family reading times. We must understand what the television is, "for no medium is excessively dangerous if its users understand what its dangers are" (161).
Posted by jhyink at 01:07 PM | Comments (1)
February 04, 2004
Parable of the Talents
On Wednesday evenings I go to a Bible study at my church led by one of our pastors. I have found it to be very helpful and convicting, especially for me recently. Tonight he spoke on the parable of the talents. My understanding of parables like this has deepened greatly over the last several months. We are studying the book of Matthew, which is focused specifically on the Jews’ rejection of Christ and the consequent transition of the kingdom away from them. This parable is located in the last great discourse of the book, and appropriately it concerns the second coming of Christ. In it, Christ addresses how people are to act until the judgment day as well as the basis of that judgment. I would like to make some of my own additional observations from this parable.
First, the main characters of the parable are a master and three servants. The master is obviously Christ, who gives the talents to his servants. The servants are His people, who are obligated to do His work. Notice, they are all really and truly servants. All have real and true obligations as well as real and true hopes for rewards upon faithful performance of those obligations. In other words, these people are related to Christ by covenant. They are members of Christ’s body, the Church. Although the unfaithful servant is by no means meant to be the norm in the Church, yet within the church, there are those who are still cast into outer darkness for their unfaithfulness. The New Covenant into which Christ has entered with the Church has not only blessings for obedience but also a true, eternal curse for disobedience. I find this truth also clearly taught in Christ’s parable of the vine and branches, where the obligation is the same (multiplication or fruitfulness) as well as the blessings and curse. If the New Covenant is exclusively spiritual, then passages like these are difficult to explain without being completely Arminian.
Second, until recently I have been accustomed to understand these servants exclusively as individuals. And certainly, all individuals who are Christ’s have these obligations. But I am pretty certain that these servants also may be corporate entities who are covenantally related to Christ. The last servant, Israel (Isa. 41:8, 44:1-2), was unfaithful and unfruitful, and so its "talent" was taken away and given to another servant (the Church) who would be faithful. Jesus is predicting the same thing that he predicted earlier in Matthew 22:43: "Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you [Israel] and given to a people [the Church], producing the fruit of it." I think this also may apply to ecclesiastical bodies or individual churches. For instance, Jesus warns the church of Ephesus of removing their lampstand if they do not repent (Rev. 2:5).
Finally, my pastor rightly pointed out that the talents represent the Gospel. The Church and each individual in it has a responsibility of spreading the Gospel. Israel was set up as a kingdom of priests to mediate the gospel to the world (Exod. 19:6). Now, in its place, the Church is a holy nation and royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9). Our responsibility is to take Christ’s teaching to all nations (Matt. 28:19-20). This parable gives us hope that we will be successful. In Christ’s teaching the talents (the Gospel) don’t grow suddenly and then diminish gradually into a very small portion when the master returns. Rather, the talents multiply in the history leading to the return of the master; and then comes the judgment. Christ gives us hope that investment in Gospel work can and will multiply through our faithful labor.
Posted by jhyink at 10:14 PM | Comments (4)
February 02, 2004
Tarriffs Unconstitutional?
Today I read a very thought-provoking article called The Unconstitutional Tax on American Exports by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, which makes a strong case for totally free trade. I told my friend, Joseph Markey, about it, and he has commented on it already in his blog. I echo everything he said there. As a northerner by birth, I seemed always to have been sheltered from many of the truths about the Civil War (or "The War to Prevent Southern Independence"). Before the Civil War, northern congressmen and senators pushed a protectionist tarriff to protect their goods. However, the southerners violently opposed it, voting against it (even calling one the "Tarriff of Abominations"). Whereas, the tarriff seemed to protect jobs in the north (with more manufacturing), raising the prices for our trading partners made them less able to buy our exports. Therefore, a tax on imports is by implication a tax (or taxing) on exports as well. And since taxing exports is unconstitutional, by natural consequence, so is a tarriff on imports.
At the time before the Civil War, exports had a huge role in the southern economy, exporting up to 75% of what it produced. Even foreign proponents of free trade supported the South's right to secede, claiming that the North's gripe in the war was predominantly economic. Until the income tax, the tarriff made up to 95% of federal revenues. Lincoln had a huge vested interest in the South's economy! And the South had an equally huge reason to resist. Applying these ideas to today, it just seems to me that the more the civil government tries to intervene in areas that the LORD has not give it jurisdiction over, the more it messes those things up.
Posted by jhyink at 10:23 PM | Comments (0)