Robert James Fischer, 64

ahooNews today says Robert James Fischer has died.He’s one of the greatest chess players of all time. Learned to play chess at six, became the youngest national junior chess champion at thirteen, the youngest senior champion at fourteen. At age 20, he set a record nobody had done before: 11 wins in 11 games. At age 29, defeating the title holder Boris Spassky of the USSR, he became his country’s first world champion.

In 1975, another Russian, Anatoly Karpov, challenged him. Karpov wanted the title back for Russia. But it was a match that never came. Bobby Fischer refused to defend his title.

Dr. Max Euwe, Fide’s president, could not conceal his disappointment. “We have sent Karpov a telegram informing him that we have awarded him the title, and congratulating him.”

Karpov, who became a title holder by default, could not understand why Fisher refused to play the match. “I wanted this very much to take place. I think he was just not ready to play.” The truth is Fischer wanted to change the rules of chess games. For example, he objected to the rule that limited the championship matches to 24 games, to which Fide agreed. But Fischer demanded further concessions to which Fide would not agree. So Fischer refused to defend his title.

Back in Fischer’s village, his countrymen were equally disappointed. “It’s tragic,” said Col. Edmund Edmundson. “Tragic for Fischer, for world chess, for Karpov. Poor Fischer won’t have his title, Karpov will have a paper title (which won’t mean anything), and the world won’t have its match. We’re all losers” (The Times Report on the World Chess Champion, 1975, in Microsoft Encarta Premium Suite 2005).

Fischer’s reputation as a chess genius is eclipsed, in the eyes of many, by his idiosyncrasies. “His extravagant life and scandalous statements did not contribute to the popularity of chess,” Kasparov was quoted as saying to the Associated Press. Fischer occasionally made erratic and often racist remarks against the Jews, although his mother was Jewish. Every now and then he would emerge on radio stations in Hungary, Iceland, the Philippines and Switzerland, ranting belligerently excessive remarks against his perceived enemies: the US and Israel. (Posted Ed Maquiling) Read more>>>

A Second Look at the Doctrine of the Indwelling Spirit – 2

In this discussion, I take a different approach and for a different reason. My purpose is not to win an argument. I look at the question and the facts in front of me, hopefully, without my colored glasses on, without my preconceived notions, without my set of beliefs.

A missionary of the Lord’s church, who equated “being indwelt by the Spirit” with “being filled by the Spirit” (a conclusion which we have just proved to be lexically and etymologically wrong, see series 1), seeing from the Scriptures that only inspired men had been “Spirit-filled,” concluded that the indwelling of the Spirit had ceased with the death of the last inspired writer. There is no Spirit-indwelling today, he said. He was wrong.

In approaching the question, I try to look at ALL the facts related to it and based on a good number of reasons, I may make my conclusion. But, that conclusion is subject to further investigation and examination. The reason I do this is because I am not an inspired man and neither have I a hotline connection to the office of the Deity.

This doctrine is like a puzzle, and I am trying to find the pieces that fit. Like any specimen in the lab, the Bible too may be examined, by us, and by those who are very critical of it. The facts about that specimen, its character and nature– they do not change–and if those facts are printed and published by machines configured only to print and publish what they see, these facts would come out the same. But in the eyes of men whose hearts have been configured to believe only what they want to believe, you would hear different conclusions.

This study is an invitation to you to learn with me.

Does the Holy Spirit dwell in us through the Word? The proponent of this theory argues that “the Holy Spirit dwells in the Christian indirectly, that is, through a medium,” which is the Word of God. Citing Romans 8:1-2, he says that the “Holy Spirit has a law that set us free from the slavery we were under, from the law of sin and death,” and that law is “the word of God, the good news of Jesus Christ.”

The paragraph in Romans 8 begins with a “therefore,” or “consequently,” an inference drawn from the argument which Paul made in Romans 7. That argument shows that in Christ the disciples are delivered from sin and from the curse of the Law. Since they have been delivered, they are now in Christ, and since they are now in Christ, they are no longer under condemnation or punishment. Romans 8:2 literally reads, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ FREED you from the law of sin and of death” (Alfred Marshall’s translation). “Freed” is from the Greek, eleutherosen, which means “liberated,” aorist indicative active of eleutheroo, to liberate. As this law liberated Paul and other Christians of long ago, it too could liberate anyone from the law of sin and death today.

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Things That Never Get Outdated

Today I bade goodbye to Penny. Three years ago, she became mine for a measly price of P2,800. Now as she grows older, and SLOWER, her upgrading price has gone up, while her usability has gone low. But she is one machine I’d learned to love. She watched me grow from one who knew nothing about Microsoft Word to one who knew something somewhat in some way, like hacking CPUs, memories, disks, legacy and I/O devices. Our three years journey was one most fruitful, because she had honed my skills to the utmost. I had adapted to her ways (”Checksum error”), her idiosyncrasies (”Try Safe mode”), her habits (”Your computer maybe at risk. Click here to update”) and her tantrums (”Could not find boot ini.”). Because she’s grown tired of Windows 98, she shacked up with Windows 2000, but finally settled with Windows XP. No one, definitely no one understood her more than I did; no one lovingly cared for her more than I did. You could say that today our parting was a tearful one. Penny it was who kept me company in my early blogging days. But I have to move on. Since she refused to be upgraded, rather, she could no longer be upgraded, I gave her away, and took on a new laptop.

My youngest daughter was too happy to get Penny the Pentium 2.

Things in this world get old or outdated. I thought about it last night too as I talked to a fellow preacher who’s on his last semester in a graduate school. He and his fellow students are on the cutting edge, the laptop-carrying generation, not just the ordinary laptops, mind you, but the Dual Core Centrino, 1 gig RAM, 180 gig hard disk, Windows Vista OS. Because they’re groomed to be counselors, teaching and lecturing became common affairs, and the DLP (”digital live projector”) became the common gadget they attach to their Neo Emprivas. The suns of modern technology definitely shine so brightly in the classrooms.

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