Mike Wittmer

Category: miscellaneous

  • everyone has a sense of humor

    I just read the sample cover page entry in the Turabian style book, and I was surprised to see that Turabian entered the sample student as Robert Loblaw.  Anyone who has ever seen Arrested Development knows that this name shortens to “Bob Loblaw” (say it out loud and you’ll know why it’s funny).  This just goes to show that…

  • what’s wrong with this picture?

    My five year old daughter loves taking pictures, so this Christmas we bought her a Playskool child’s camera so she could take as many pictures as she wants.  When we downloaded her pictures on to my computer, I noticed that many of them were shots of noses, chins, and sides of faces. I was about…

  • what’s so great about being a pastor?

    Today is my 42nd birthday, which means I am two years past the date when I said I would re-evaluate whether to remain a professor or look to shepherd a church. I always planned on being a pastor, ever since I was a junior in high school. So I earned a pre-seminary degree in college,…

  • can you cheer for Cleveland and remain a Christian?

    Christian sports fans in Northeast Ohio will hit a new low this weekend.  The AFC championship game features the two teams we hate the most:  the Pittsburgh Steelers, our long-time rivals before we lost our team, and the Baltimore Ravens, who are that team we lost.  It’s obvious now that the Steelers-Browns rivalry never really…

  • why the auto bailout is partly my fault

    Unfortunately for Detroit, I have been driving the same car for 15 years—a 1990 Honda Civic CRX SI, which I bought used in 1993.  Before that I had a 1983 Ford Escort, which despite leaving me stranded on several occasions because it wouldn’t start, served me well until the passenger door fell off.  I tied…

  • just another Wittmer Christmas

    Every Christmas the Wittmers play a game of backyard basketball, and every Christmas the game ends pretty much like this.  That’s my older brother, Tim, lying on the ground after taking an inadvertent elbow to the sternum.  As you can see, he is pretty dramatic.

  • student funnies

    I was grading my way through 35 papers on baptism when I came across a paper that began with this truism:  “The issue of baptism is as old as itself.”  That reminded me of the numerous funny quotes that I have collected over the years from my students’ papers.  Here are the best quotes, with…

  • liberia

    I’m on my way to Monrovia, Liberia, to teach a class on early church theology to about 30 pastors and Bible college teachers.  It’s a special privilege to teach this class to Africans, as most of the leading figures in this period–Augustine, Cyprian, Tertullian, Clement, and Origen–were Africans.  So I get to give back to them…

  • Gone Fishing–at ETS

    I’ll be gone for the rest of this week, fishing for friends, new books, and theological insights at the annual Evangelical Theological Society in Providence, Rhode Island.  So if you write a comment this week, it won’t be posted until after the Ohio State-Michigan blowout on Saturday.  Meet me here for the post-game celebration.