January 8, 2008

The Bible makes it very clear that sin and its effects (sickness and disease) will reign on this earth until Christ returns.  Even Christ did not eradicate sin completely from the earth when he was here.  When people profess that God will heal them because they have enough faith, they contribute to a false security in the ability of man.  Man will not conquer sin and its effects.

Christians should beware of any organization which professes a utopia in this world and that includes the word of faith movement.

The other thing this belief system attributes to is a lack of volunteerism.  People are less likely to get involved when they believe the answer can be sending in money or just professing something to be.  This brings an attitude of laziness when one believes that all the power to accomplish the goal is within yourself in the way you think.  Why help a brother in need financially when you can just tell him to believe for the finances he needs?  This lets you off the hook from giving of your own money when you tell him to believe for money from God.

November 30, 2007

The very fact you know everything has a plan begs the question 'how do you know nothing is of chance.'  A lot of Christians accept or express this philosophy when it comes to God.  They use Jeremiah's scripture "God's ways are not your ways" to make God and humanity a mystery.  God is actually telling Israel about His specific future plans for them as they were being carried away to Babylonian captivity.  God was encouraging them after they broke His covenant and letting them know He would provide for their inability to keep His covenant.

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.