November 19, 2007

The difference between a theist and atheist is, the latter ascribes awe to the universe's effects,  while the former ascribes awe to the personality behind the effects.  

October 18, 2007

I am a metaphor by my representation of the God who created me.  A metaphor is not exactly the same as what it represents.  I have the ability to love and so does my God.  I have the ability to show and desire justice for the poor.  My God desires justice for the poor.  However, I am not able to perfectly love as my God can.  Justice in our society is not based on a perfect absolute.  Our love for people closest to us is based on conditions no matter how deep our love.  So being a metaphor means I represent a reality other than what I am.  Yes, I exist, but I only exist as a representative of the God who is perfect in ways I only reflect metaphorically.

October 16, 2007

Last night PBS and Nova had a show on the incredible body.  The subject was the heart and the transplanting of hearts, which is called harvesting, and all that pertains to why people have heart transplants.

They showed a medical team, called the harvest team because they get the donated organ and bring it to the receiver.  I found it fascinating all the expense and undertakings spent on harvesting a heart from a car accident victim on the other side of the country.  

The team work was incredible, how just as the heart arrived to the receiver, the patient was ready to be implanted with the heart.  When they put the heart in, it had to be jump-started with an electronic shock because once the heart stopped, it can't beat on its own.  The heart, once cut from the donor, will not be any good after 4 hours.  It is put on ice and transported across the country and placed in the transplantee with just enough time to spare.

How interesting it was to watch all this fuss over an organ which cannot live outside the human body, and yet a fetus can live outside the body.  The fetus is called an "organ" and yet is not attributed with life.  A heart is an organ and it gets special treatment for its capacity to sustain life.  A fetus is life into itself living, and is not granted the special treatment of a heart.  Maybe we should start having harvesting life from the womb on donor cards.  We go to great lengths to harvest organs for those who are dying, and yet we cannot see the value in life becoming.  

Sept. 9, 2007

Determinism means God is the one who controls every event.  Some say we cannot respond to God's grace without Him first giving us a gift of faith.  This makes you totally at the mercy of God giving you this faith and somehow after you have received it, you must be able to know when it was given.

If I say I live in a cause & effect universe and God does not stop me from sinning or God does not interfere with my actions, am I being arrogant?  How do we separate free will to sin from God's perfect plan for our lives?  

If I start a church and it grows to impressive numbers, does God have anything to do with it?  Some would use the verse in Acts 2:47 to say God is always in charge of the membership in church.  If this is the case then we have to assume one of two possibilities.  If every member or attendee is God adding to the church, then who is responsible when the attendance drops?  Is God responsible for the one attending your church who later steals money from members?  

If we are going to be consistent, some determining factor has to get credit if man is not allowed to be free to attend whatever church he wants.  I have heard preachers say it is not by accident but divine appointment you are in this church, usually followed by a warning to take some action while you're there.

Deists say God made the earth like a watchmaker:  once all the parts were in place, God, the watchmaker, wound it up and left it alone.  I do not agree with this belief because the Bible is an historical account of God's intervention in history.  

If I accept the Bible's claims, I must see it as God's intervention in history.  I see a middle ground between Deist and Determinism.  If God controls all events then ultimately He allows man to kill himself by the shear fact He is in control and does not stop it.  If however, He places the laws of nature in place and sustains them but allows man to move in those laws' consequences, He cannot be be held accountable since the laws of nature were made to operate in a perfect world.  

Man is operating in a world of laws meant to govern without the effects of sin.  James 1:17 tells us every perfect gift is from the "Father of lights" which means  the creator of the universe gave its physical laws.  If Satan is the cause of evil events and has so much influence over the laws of nature, he is essentially using the laws God created to taunt God's very creation.  

August 30, 2007

Questions about the book of Job:

Why does God play dice with a mortal man to see if he will succumb to the temptation to curse God? 
Also, does it not seem strange to give Satan charge of the diseases when God has created a world to operate within certain laws of physics?  
Someone asked if Satan had the power to control natural disasters on earth.  I remember telling him 'yes' with the stipulation of how permission was given in the book of Job, which  really only avoided the real question of why a holy God would allow such juvenile antics.

All my life I have been led to believe this book historically happened and this is how Christians get the idea to blame Satan for certain events.  The book of Job is a Hebrew poem, not to be taken literally or as historical fact.  It was written in the post-Babylonian exile area when the Jews were asking the questions of why would God allow the righteous to be forsaken.  It's like a parable in the New Testament where the Good Samaritan does not and more than likely did not exist.  Jesus was making an overall point, not trying to tell us of an historical event.
The events in Job never happened because it is a poem asking a larger point.  

August 30, 2007

I find it fascinating that we can apply arbitrary standards to God's plans and direction.  This attitude is becoming affluent to many church leaders who want something bad to say against "traditional" Christianity.  It is allowing the rights of humans to become mixed with the plans of God.  To think God leads people to believe differently toward Him is to say God has no particular standard or belief.  These people are not interested in adhering to anything even remotely like a standard.  It is more obvious in their teaching of "doctrine."  They will talk of the love of God all day long and at the same time "poo poo" the doctrine from which that love comes.  Jesus died for you but let's not get into the sin which put Him on the cross.  They consider that to be man's idea of doctrine and not God's concern.     

Nov. 11, 2007

The meaning of the word 'condescend' is to voluntarily come down in humiliation to teach, not the connotation the word has today.  If I am now able to understand the Bible with clarity because of my persistent study, I am to condescend to teach what I have learned.  This means I am to learn to associate with others who may not study as much or know as much.  I am to look for every opportunity to witness to the truth of God's Word no matter who I am around.  I am not to avoid a certain class of ideologies necessarily because of their ignorance in full biblical knowledge.  I am the one exercising pride when I avoid a group of people because they do not study as much as one should, but profess Jesus Christ as Deity.  

August 28, 2007

What are we acknowledging when ending our prayers in the name of Jesus? Jesus is the promised servant in Isaiah and the promised seed in Genesis. When you say "in Jesus" you are acknowledging God's promise achieved. "In Jesus' name amen" means to say God's promise of salvation has been completed, and we submit and pledge our lives to God's purpose.

August 27, 2007

The movie Evan Almighty is a silly idea of Noah and the Flood. The teaching of the Bible on the Flood is man had gotten so far away from God in wickedness, he was to be destroyed. The account of the Flood tells us more about the history of man than just his tendency toward sin. We have a general idea of the changed environment of the earth, of man's lifespan; never mind that the ark and its measurements were the first example of any watercraft of that size of its time.

But the movie turns the whole event into a humorous myth of only symbolic meaning. Forget the historical evidence of reality of thousands of people dying for rebelling against a holy God.

It is amazing how we as Christians want to fit in with our current world. We use movies like this to separate those who are too serious about the teachings in the Bible and those the world can trust to be their friends.

August 27, 2007

I found myself in the doctor's office about to have my heart x-rayed. The suspicion was a possible enlarged heart. As I stood there, I thought about dying and the reality that I really would not die at all but actually just transfer into the presence of God. Of course there was some fear or anxiety with the thought of dying, but I have to admit there was a little excitement. I thought about who I was going to see. I would see the very God/man, JESUS, who walked the earth. He would be as Thomas had seen him. I would be able to see those very real scars in his hands myself. This is the reality and promise of the resurrection. We will leave these bodies down here for a while and will be reunited with them later. But I will still be aware of my surroundings. I will never really die. For a moment I did not fear death because of the hope of him waiting on the other side. This must have been somewhat like what Stephen experienced as he saw Christ sitting at the right hand of God while being stoned. I did not see anything, but had the assurance of victory over death.