by Bret Capranica | Jun 22, 2006 | Personal
My wife, Kelly, and I arrived this evening at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for my final DMin seminar. It was a long day, beginning around 4:00 a.m. this morning and we finally arrived this evening around 7:00 p.m. Ten days of fun and excitement!! I will try and post each day and give a few updates on what we’re...
by Bret Capranica | Jun 17, 2006 | Personal
As if I had to say anything. I’m in the throes of finishing work for a DMin class I will attend beginning next week. So, I’m buried in book reviews, project writing, and a bit more reading to do. I’m also trying to begin a series on the book of Romans this Sunday evening. What a book – what a slow process of inductively studying the whole thing at once, which is my aim this week. I would appreciate any prayers you could...
by Bret Capranica | Apr 19, 2006 | Personal
Here we go once again! I made the move to WordPress a number of weeks ago, utilizing their free hosted site. However, in order to use the full features of WordPress and customize it yourself, you need your own domain to host the blog. So, with a ton of help from the company that hosts our church site, I moved The Capranica to a more permanent address. Welcome, and let me know what you think of the new look and features. Of course, I will continue to work on it – it’s been a good distracting hobby. Again, HERE, the new feed for the...
by Bret Capranica | Aug 3, 2005 | Personal
Posting is poor this week due to my involvement in the Inland Empire Southern Baptist Association‘s Kids’ Camp and due to finalizing paperwork for The Capranica Villa. What is the Villa? Watch for some picturesque posts in the upcoming days. The Capranica’s are moving shop to a new location, an Italian Tuscan Villa – in Hemet! For posts from Kids’ Camp – see Fide-O this week – posting live from Wolf Lodge. Though there is little to post, I did think that an Op-Ed in the New York Times was interesting this morning – how Ghana and Japan have better broadband service than the U.S. Though the U.S. no doubt dominates in posting useless blogs, we do so with a slower and less available wireless network than fifteen other nations in the world. Not much theological here, just...
by Bret Capranica | Jul 27, 2005 | General Theology, Personal
Just for fun, over the next few weeks, I’m going to post a few thoughts regarding why I am a Baptist-flavored Christian. I did not begin as a Baptist baby. I was actually christened into the methodical liberalism of the United Methodist Church; therefore, my initial hatred for Baptists was birthed through weekly attendance in a religious culture antithetical to any Baptist distinctives. Then came conversion. Not mine, but my parents. Yes, my parents came to Christ under the gospel preaching (expository preaching, mind you) of a Baptist pastor and church. I was steeped in self-imposed hatred for the church following fourteen years of watching weekly examples of religious hypocrisy. My hatred for the church was directly confronted by the new joy and zeal I witnessed in my parents. Though I uselessly fought them as they (almost literally) drug me to our new Baptist church (I can’t speak to their ministry now), I was convicted week after week by the preaching of God’s Word and the people converted to Christ. I would watch as people zealously and reverently worshiped Christ in song, prayer and attentive intake of the expository messages. It caused me to secretly study my Bible. I had a Baptist hang-up though. I knew, if I were to give in to the conviction of Christ, I would have to go swimming in their narrow pool, located prominently in the back wall of the sanctuary, high enough so all in the audience could see. I just knew that the only prize these baptistic zealots desired was another notch on the their gospel gun gained through my public soaking....
by Bret Capranica | Jul 11, 2005 | General Theology, Personal
My wife, Kelly and I have begun reading John L. Dagg‘s Manual of Theology. Dagg, writing in the late 1800s, produced the first systematic theology by a Southern Baptist. Tom Nettles perhaps overstates his applause for Dagg, but says, “For clairty, cogency, and sincerity of expression, no theological writer of the 19th century surpasses John L. Dagg. . . . He died in June of 1884, as one of the most respected men in Baptist life and remains one of the most profound thinkers produced by his denomination.” Here is the opening quote from his Manual. The study of religious truth ought to be undertaken and prosecuted from a sense of duty, and with a view to the improvement of the heart. When learned, it ought not to be laid on the shelf, as an object of speculation; but it should be deposited deep in the heart, where its sanctifying power ought to be felt. To study theology, for the purpose of gratifying curiosity, or preparing for a profession, is an abuse and profanation of what ought to be regarded as most holy. To learn things pertaining to God, merely for the sake of amusement, or secular advantage, or to gratify the mere love of knowledge, is to treat the Most High with...
