“Archaeologists have unearthed Neanderthal graves containing weapons, tools and the bones of a sacrificed animal, all of which suggest some kind of belief in a future world that was similar to their own. The Neanderthals may have told each other stories about the life that their dead companion now enjoyed. They were certainly reflecting about death in a way that their fellow-creatures did not. Animals watch each other die, but as far as we know, they give the matter no further consideration. But the Neanderthal graves show that when these early people became conscious of their mortality, they created some sort of counter-narrative that enabled them to come to terms with it. The Neanderthals who buried their companions with such care seem to have imagined that the visible, material world was not the only reality. From a very early date, therefore, it appears that human beings were distinguished by their ability to have ideas that went beyond their everyday experience.”
-Karen Armstrong: A Short History of Myth
Psalm 139:13-14
13For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb.
14I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.
We were each custom made by God, but more importantly for God. Man was created with the intrinsic understanding of his creation by a superior being, and the myriad of implications that would render. No human being can escape His presence. How does man cope with his own blatant disregard of inherent knowledge? The answer to this question explains many events throughout history. Man cannot. The answer is as simple as that. There is absolutely no way of dealing with a personal refusal to yield to a deity that is omnipresent in the world around us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Nature never spares the opium or nepenthe; but, wherever she mars her creature with some deformity or defect, lays her poppies plentifully on the bruise, and the sufferer goes through life, ignorant of the ruin, and incapable of seeing it, though all the world point their finger at it every day. The worthless and offensive members of society, whose existence is a social pest, invariably think themselves the most ill-used people alive, and never get over their astonishment as the ingratitude and selfishness of their contemporaries.”
Everyone knows that annoying kid who always thought he was “mad cool.” That, is the essence of man. Without God, we cannot possibly cope, so we are faced with two choices: spend the rest of life in submission to this deity, or spend the rest of life convincing ourselves that there is no such ultimatum. If man rejects God, it is imperative that he devalues the significance of his choice; this is man’s only chance at sanity.
Romans 1:17-32
17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH."
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
20For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
21For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22Professing to be wise, they became fools,
23and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
24Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.
25For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural,
27and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.
28And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,
29being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips,
30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
31without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful;
32and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
Who understands human nature in more depth than the being who created it? He knows the implications of rejecting Him. This is where is gets scary… He is very active in man’s rejection of Him. Verse 24, “Therefore God gave them over,” verse 26 “For this reason God gave them over,” verse 28 “God gave them over to a depraved mind.”
Psalm 81:9-14
9"Let there be no strange god among you; Nor shall you worship any foreign god.
10" I, the LORD, am your God, Who brought you up from the land of Egypt; Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.
11"But My people did not listen to My voice, And Israel did not obey Me.
12"So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart, To walk in their own devices.
13"Oh that My people would listen to Me, That Israel would walk in My ways!
14"I would quickly subdue their enemies And turn My hand against their adversaries.
God’s longing for us to find joy in Him is not a notion to be underestimated. He gave His Son up to die for us. He desires to fill our every need and to comfort us, but when that offer is rejected, he allows our hearts to be calloused and confused. This principle applies to Christians as well. Just because we go to church and claim to follow Jesus, does not protect us from ensnaring ourselves. This is where introspection becomes so vital. We must fight everyday to see through the opium and nepenthe of our lives, because seeing ourselves as we really are is the factor that keeps our souls breathing. Being His children does not infer that we are immune from God giving us over to the desires of our hearts. We are completely free, able to choose between God and ourselves every second of the day. We are also filthy and decrepit beings, forced to overcome ourselves in order to see God every day. This collaboration is the most frightening aspect of life. If there is a particular area that we refuse to yield to God, it will grow. The more we choose this area over God, the closer we creep to the point where God gives us over to that area. He will cry and plead, but He will only hold on for so long, in order to preserve our free will. Delusional Christianity is dangerous. Consider Mathew 7:19-23: 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20"So then, you will know them by their fruits. 21"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22"Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' 23"And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me; you who practice lawlessness.” Believing in God is not enough. James 2:19 mentions how even satan believes in God. It is Surrender that God seeks… complete surrender.
The minute we refuse to submit even the minutest point of life, we turn down the volume of God’s voice in our hearts. Mathew 13:14-15 says that the heart of people has become dull because of our unwillingness to see and hear God, but states that if we returned, He would immediately heal us.
In the words of our Lord Jesus, “Keep watching and praying, that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41) We must stay on top of ourselves with the most excruciating attention, and pray daily that God will show us our weak points. God forbid we find ourselves in a place where we look for God, but do not remember where to find Him.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Kant and Epistemology
Kant promoted in his first major philosophical work, Critique of Pure Reason, that anything that could not be seen or touched could not be considered truth. According to Kant, truth was something that came pre-organized in the human mind. On this issue, he directly opposed Hume and Locke, who saw the human mind as an empty chasm waiting to acquire enough experiences to begin formulating knowledge. The implications of his position were that it left no room for religion. As far as Kant was concerned, religion was suitable for sensory expeditions, and even provided insight and explanations for human condition, but was incapable of achieving reliability. Essentially, religion was a mode of understanding, not a path to absolute knowledge.
Through this writing, he hoped to analyze and refute the popular notion that all knowledge comes from experience, and show how human experiences and instincts differed in the production of knowledge. In order to do this, he made a case that absolute certainty of knowledge is impossible if all knowledge comes from sensation. In his mind, as he later stated, he was rescuing God from skeptics trying to force the notion of God into the boundaries of reason, but according to his contemporaries he had destroyed the case for God, because an immortal soul and a good God could never actually be proven by reason. He effectively made the situation he was attempting to rectify even worse.
This led to his second major piece of philosophical writing entitle The Critique of Practical Reason. He retraced his steps and claimed that morality was inherent, we are immortal, and thus, there must be a God. He advocated that “Since religion must be based not on the logic of theoretical reason, but on the practical reason of the moral sense, it follows that any Bible or revelation must be judged by its value of morality, and cannot itself be considered the judge of a moral code.”
It is amusing how difficult it becomes to understand the concept of an omnipotent God through the resources of human logic. Kant’s search for truth is similar to the servant who demands that his master travel to his house to issue him the master’s orders.
Through this writing, he hoped to analyze and refute the popular notion that all knowledge comes from experience, and show how human experiences and instincts differed in the production of knowledge. In order to do this, he made a case that absolute certainty of knowledge is impossible if all knowledge comes from sensation. In his mind, as he later stated, he was rescuing God from skeptics trying to force the notion of God into the boundaries of reason, but according to his contemporaries he had destroyed the case for God, because an immortal soul and a good God could never actually be proven by reason. He effectively made the situation he was attempting to rectify even worse.
This led to his second major piece of philosophical writing entitle The Critique of Practical Reason. He retraced his steps and claimed that morality was inherent, we are immortal, and thus, there must be a God. He advocated that “Since religion must be based not on the logic of theoretical reason, but on the practical reason of the moral sense, it follows that any Bible or revelation must be judged by its value of morality, and cannot itself be considered the judge of a moral code.”
It is amusing how difficult it becomes to understand the concept of an omnipotent God through the resources of human logic. Kant’s search for truth is similar to the servant who demands that his master travel to his house to issue him the master’s orders.
Monday, January 25, 2010
The Jesus of the Gentiles: Charting the History of how God Brought Salvation to the Rest of the World
The Jesus of the Gentiles
Acts 6-10
Ephesians 3:5-10 says, “5which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; 6to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, 7of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God's grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. 8To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, 9and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things 10so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.” When Jesus came to earth, He opened the Gospel to everyone, Jew and Gentile. Although this window was immediately opened, it took time for the church (composed by people of Jewish descent) to overcome the entrenched traditions and notions they mentally depended on, and to accept these Gentiles as brothers in Christ. In describing Jewish sentiment towards Gentiles during the time period Acts was written, Barclay writes that, “at their worst, they (Jewish People) declared that God had created Gentiles to be fuel for the fires of hell; at their mildest they believed that someday the Gentiles would become their servants.” (Barclay 53) Chapters six through ten in The Book of Acts can be viewed as a history of the construction of the bridge that God directed built between Heaven, and all corners of the earth.
Acts chapters six through ten illustrate God’s complete understanding of man by the gentle way in which He primes the Jewish church to accept Christians of all different ethnicities. Toward this end, there are three major cornerstones within the five chapters: Stephen, who articulates a God of all cultures; Saul, who is converted to Paul and raised to be the Gentile’s greatest missionary and advocate; and Peter, who breaks ground at the house of Cornelius, and represents God’s first wave of assault on Satan’s stronghold, the Gentiles.
Stephen was selected among a group of seven (considered to be the church’s first deacons) to resolve a dispute between Hellenist Jews and Hebrew Jews. [i] The Hebrew Jews considered themselves “purebred” and took great pride in their heritage, which led to the discrimination of the Hellenist Jews who spoke mainly Greek and were looked at as half Jews. This is extremely important to understand, because God confronts Judaism’s pride slowly, essentially stating “Hebrews and Hellenists are equal.[ii]” Stephen’s character emerges through the settling of this dispute and he becomes viewed as a leader, teaching and preaching Jesus in the Synagogues, even performing miracles. (Acts 6:8) His emphatic teaching leads to him being setup, arrested and sent to trial by the Sanhedrin. Many theologians consider Acts seven to be “Stephen’s defense,” but it reads nothing like a defense. While he was speaking, he knew that his words could only result in his death. His speech was not in defense of himself for whom he apparently had no regard, but in his God that he followed and for whom he desired to die rather than to have people misunderstand. He used Abraham[iii], Joseph[iv], Moses[v], and The Tabernacle[vi] (God) to construct his argument and condemn their mindset. His three main points to the Jewish religious leaders were: they were resisting the Holy Spirit as they had always done; they were persecuting and killing prophets as they had always done; and they were breaking the laws of Moses as they had always done. (Boice 125) Using Jewish heroes like the father of their race, and the savior of their people to incriminate them, they went berserk and murdered Stephen. Barclay notes that the Sanhedrin had no authority to put someone to death, so this was a lynching, not a legal death sentence. (Barclay 61) The gist of what Stephen was trying to communicate was simple. He advocated a God so big, that he could not be confined to one nation, one people, or one building. His ideology seems a little more progressive then that of his companions, and he should definitely be viewed as “the voice in the wilderness” for open Christianity.
Stephen’s death elicits massive persecution of the Church, presumably led by Saul. The Christian community was comfortable, and had no reason to disperse and spread the gospel. These events show the hand of God, as He merely sends His people out on missions to all corners of the globe.[vii] Among those to disperse was a man named Philip, who was selected along with Stephen as one of the seven to absolve the issue between the Hellenist and Hebrew Jews. He travels to the Samaritans to perform miracles and preach Jesus in what the scripture indicates as a massive revival.[viii] (Acts 8:5-8) This marks another example of Jesus reaching out to people who the Jews considered abominable. They were “half Jews” as well, but because of religious affiliation more than heritage. God is still busy preparing the world for His radical change, and puts one more piece into play here. After starting a revival, the Holy Spirit transports Philip to go talk to an Ethiopian Eunich. Blaiklock points out that Philip was obviously very bold and in tune with God to be getting rides around the universe like that, and compares him to an Old Testament prophet. (Blaiklock 79) He baptizes the eunich (another Gentile) and again gets carried away by the Holy Spirit.
Next, God picks out the man to pioneer His agenda to the world. A massive and daunting expedition, His representative would have to be ambitious, ideologically stubborn, and extremely passionate. Who better then Saul? God waits until Saul is on the tail end of a long journey implying too much time to think, then confronts him. Immediately, he is obedient, almost as if God literally lifted a veil off of Paul’s heart. God audibly tells him, in what Boice declares the summation of all Christianity, to “go into the city and be told what to do.” (Boice 107, Acts 9:6) By combining Acts chapter nine with Galatians chapter one, we can surmise the events of Paul’s conversion and sanctification. From the Damascus Road where he met God, he was taken in by Ananias, recovered, learned, then started preaching in Damascus. The recipients of his message tried to kill him, and he went off to Arabia by himself[ix] to study God. Three to five years later he returns and continues teaching in Damascus. Newly converted and immediately out on his first preaching mission evoking the crowds to attempt to kill him… God found his guy. (Acts 9:20-23)
Everything is in place for God to start his mission. Peter has been traveling around preaching, healing, and raising the dead through the Holy Spirit when he is led to settle down in Joppa is the residence of a man named Simon, who is a tanner by trade. (Acts 9:31-43) A tanner would be considered permanently unclean by the Jewish because of the constant presence of dead animals that the trade requires. (Numbers 19:11-13) Peter’s decision to stay at his house shows the progressiveness in which Peter is growing in the Lord. (Barclay 82) While abiding here, God sends Cornelius, a Roman Centurion, a vision that results in him sending messengers to Simon the Tanner’s door to retrieve Peter. While the Centurion’s messengers are on their way, Peter has three consecutive dreams of God telling him to eat what can simply be described as Gentile foods. (See Leviticus 11) Peter objects, stating to God that he has never eaten anything unclean, to which God replies “What I have cleansed, no man can call unclean.” Peter gets the message; no man is common or unclean. Peter’s understanding and application of this is imminent. When the centurions men arrive they stop at the door because they know its forbidden for a Jew to have unclean men in his house, but peter invites them to enter. (Barclay 82) The men bring Peter back to their master’s house. While Peter is preaching, the Holy Spirit descends on the Roman people. The significance here is vivid. Throughout the book of Acts to this point, the Holy Spirit was bestowed on men by God through the apostles and baptism. In this case, there was no baptism or laying on of hands as of yet for these Gentiles. God simply reached out and visually chose them.
The heart of God is exposed through these five chapters by the methods He used to evoke His will. The Creator of the universe could have easily shook things up and obliterated traditions and cultures in order to get His message to the Gentiles, but He chose to work slowly, tweaking the heart of man, and carefully navigating around cultural boundaries to achieve His will. This demonstrated both His indefinite knowledge of man, and His patient love for man. In chapter six, He shows the Jewish people (the chosen people) that people born of a different heritage that share their faith should be equally accepted; not as Hellenistic Christian Jews and Hebrew Christian Jews, but as fellow believers. Then for the first time in history, chapter seven displays the first recorded speech derived from the notion that God is too big to limit to one group of people. Their pride still remaining perfectly intact, the Christian Jews must then accept the Samaritans, who shared their heritage but not their customs. God was slowly leading His people through this radical change sensitively, in baby steps. While simmering the hearts of His people, He chooses Paul to represent Him and spearhead His message to the Gentiles. While Paul is being trained, God initiates a skirmish at a Roman centurion’s house, and the spiritual war that had been raging for thousands of years was suddenly opened to all corners of the earth. If this cannot portray the love and intricacy of God, then nothing can.
[i] Every Friday two collectors would go house to house to receive a collection of both money and goods for the poor to be distributed later in the day. This was called the “kuppah” meaning “basket.” Also, a daily collection was taken at the synagogue called the “tamhui,” meaning “tray” for families too poor to wait for the weekend. (Barclay 51) The Jewish people understood this as their natural civic duty, but were often chastised by Old Testament prophets for neglecting this. (Boice 112) In this case, the complaint was that the Hellenist widows and poor were getting left out when these goods were distributed.
[ii] Note that at this time, many priests were being converted to Christianity. (Acts 6:7) One cannot help but wonder what role this played later on in the book of Acts as the tension between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians increases. Few Jewish people would be more fundamental and traditional in their beliefs then a Jewish priest.
[iii] Stephen points out that god visited Abraham before He lived in Haran. This is a similar argument to the one he makes about Moses, both illustrated that God has worked and appeared in places other than the “holy land.” Wherever God is present, the land is holy. This point Stephen makes informs us about and event that the Old Testament does not depict. (Boice 121) He also points out that Abraham always considered himself a pilgrim. (Hebrews 11:10) This analogy was meant as a slap in the face to the religious officials that were so comfortable and settled in on earth that they had allowed God’s temporal blessings to eclipse their sense of God’s presence. (Boice 122)
[iv] Joseph was mistreated, sent into a foreign land, and became the Savior of his people. Possibly an inference to Jesus.
[v] Moses was the sacred lawgiver and cornerstone to Judaism, but Stephen points out how he was twice rejected by his people. He also talks about how God personally goes to talk to Moses in Midian, another indication that Jerusalem was not the only “Holy Land.” (Acts 7:30-31)
[vi] The Jewish tabernacle was both the source of, and pet of the immense Jewish pride prevalent in that time period. He compares this magnificent gold-plated building to wilderness tabernacle, which was basically a mobile tent, and states that there is no significant difference between them. He quotes Isaiah 66:1-2 where God asks, “what kind of house can man build for God?” Essentially, the time of the temple had passed, and what they worshipped was nothing more then a few walls and building materials.
[vii] Noteworthy for reflection: The passage talks about a mass exodus of Christians fleeing for their lives, but Jesus’ apostles stayed and preached unharmed. They deserted Him once at Gethsemane but learned their lesson and courageously held fast. These were clearly very changed men.
[viii] Acts 8:13-25 Is one of my favorite passages of scripture. It tells of how the church receives news of the revival amongst the Samaritans, and quickly sends Peter and John to give out the Holy Spirit and minister to the new Christians. They call in the “big guns”
[ix] Paul went to be alone with God. A man of intense Old Testament knowledge, Paul learned about God from God. Not from others explaining God to them. This is a facet of our faith we often overlook.
*I have more of an expositional commentary written about these events and this time period if anyone is curious, or questioning the validity of what is written.
Acts 6-10
Ephesians 3:5-10 says, “5which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; 6to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, 7of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God's grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. 8To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, 9and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things 10so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.” When Jesus came to earth, He opened the Gospel to everyone, Jew and Gentile. Although this window was immediately opened, it took time for the church (composed by people of Jewish descent) to overcome the entrenched traditions and notions they mentally depended on, and to accept these Gentiles as brothers in Christ. In describing Jewish sentiment towards Gentiles during the time period Acts was written, Barclay writes that, “at their worst, they (Jewish People) declared that God had created Gentiles to be fuel for the fires of hell; at their mildest they believed that someday the Gentiles would become their servants.” (Barclay 53) Chapters six through ten in The Book of Acts can be viewed as a history of the construction of the bridge that God directed built between Heaven, and all corners of the earth.
Acts chapters six through ten illustrate God’s complete understanding of man by the gentle way in which He primes the Jewish church to accept Christians of all different ethnicities. Toward this end, there are three major cornerstones within the five chapters: Stephen, who articulates a God of all cultures; Saul, who is converted to Paul and raised to be the Gentile’s greatest missionary and advocate; and Peter, who breaks ground at the house of Cornelius, and represents God’s first wave of assault on Satan’s stronghold, the Gentiles.
Stephen was selected among a group of seven (considered to be the church’s first deacons) to resolve a dispute between Hellenist Jews and Hebrew Jews. [i] The Hebrew Jews considered themselves “purebred” and took great pride in their heritage, which led to the discrimination of the Hellenist Jews who spoke mainly Greek and were looked at as half Jews. This is extremely important to understand, because God confronts Judaism’s pride slowly, essentially stating “Hebrews and Hellenists are equal.[ii]” Stephen’s character emerges through the settling of this dispute and he becomes viewed as a leader, teaching and preaching Jesus in the Synagogues, even performing miracles. (Acts 6:8) His emphatic teaching leads to him being setup, arrested and sent to trial by the Sanhedrin. Many theologians consider Acts seven to be “Stephen’s defense,” but it reads nothing like a defense. While he was speaking, he knew that his words could only result in his death. His speech was not in defense of himself for whom he apparently had no regard, but in his God that he followed and for whom he desired to die rather than to have people misunderstand. He used Abraham[iii], Joseph[iv], Moses[v], and The Tabernacle[vi] (God) to construct his argument and condemn their mindset. His three main points to the Jewish religious leaders were: they were resisting the Holy Spirit as they had always done; they were persecuting and killing prophets as they had always done; and they were breaking the laws of Moses as they had always done. (Boice 125) Using Jewish heroes like the father of their race, and the savior of their people to incriminate them, they went berserk and murdered Stephen. Barclay notes that the Sanhedrin had no authority to put someone to death, so this was a lynching, not a legal death sentence. (Barclay 61) The gist of what Stephen was trying to communicate was simple. He advocated a God so big, that he could not be confined to one nation, one people, or one building. His ideology seems a little more progressive then that of his companions, and he should definitely be viewed as “the voice in the wilderness” for open Christianity.
Stephen’s death elicits massive persecution of the Church, presumably led by Saul. The Christian community was comfortable, and had no reason to disperse and spread the gospel. These events show the hand of God, as He merely sends His people out on missions to all corners of the globe.[vii] Among those to disperse was a man named Philip, who was selected along with Stephen as one of the seven to absolve the issue between the Hellenist and Hebrew Jews. He travels to the Samaritans to perform miracles and preach Jesus in what the scripture indicates as a massive revival.[viii] (Acts 8:5-8) This marks another example of Jesus reaching out to people who the Jews considered abominable. They were “half Jews” as well, but because of religious affiliation more than heritage. God is still busy preparing the world for His radical change, and puts one more piece into play here. After starting a revival, the Holy Spirit transports Philip to go talk to an Ethiopian Eunich. Blaiklock points out that Philip was obviously very bold and in tune with God to be getting rides around the universe like that, and compares him to an Old Testament prophet. (Blaiklock 79) He baptizes the eunich (another Gentile) and again gets carried away by the Holy Spirit.
Next, God picks out the man to pioneer His agenda to the world. A massive and daunting expedition, His representative would have to be ambitious, ideologically stubborn, and extremely passionate. Who better then Saul? God waits until Saul is on the tail end of a long journey implying too much time to think, then confronts him. Immediately, he is obedient, almost as if God literally lifted a veil off of Paul’s heart. God audibly tells him, in what Boice declares the summation of all Christianity, to “go into the city and be told what to do.” (Boice 107, Acts 9:6) By combining Acts chapter nine with Galatians chapter one, we can surmise the events of Paul’s conversion and sanctification. From the Damascus Road where he met God, he was taken in by Ananias, recovered, learned, then started preaching in Damascus. The recipients of his message tried to kill him, and he went off to Arabia by himself[ix] to study God. Three to five years later he returns and continues teaching in Damascus. Newly converted and immediately out on his first preaching mission evoking the crowds to attempt to kill him… God found his guy. (Acts 9:20-23)
Everything is in place for God to start his mission. Peter has been traveling around preaching, healing, and raising the dead through the Holy Spirit when he is led to settle down in Joppa is the residence of a man named Simon, who is a tanner by trade. (Acts 9:31-43) A tanner would be considered permanently unclean by the Jewish because of the constant presence of dead animals that the trade requires. (Numbers 19:11-13) Peter’s decision to stay at his house shows the progressiveness in which Peter is growing in the Lord. (Barclay 82) While abiding here, God sends Cornelius, a Roman Centurion, a vision that results in him sending messengers to Simon the Tanner’s door to retrieve Peter. While the Centurion’s messengers are on their way, Peter has three consecutive dreams of God telling him to eat what can simply be described as Gentile foods. (See Leviticus 11) Peter objects, stating to God that he has never eaten anything unclean, to which God replies “What I have cleansed, no man can call unclean.” Peter gets the message; no man is common or unclean. Peter’s understanding and application of this is imminent. When the centurions men arrive they stop at the door because they know its forbidden for a Jew to have unclean men in his house, but peter invites them to enter. (Barclay 82) The men bring Peter back to their master’s house. While Peter is preaching, the Holy Spirit descends on the Roman people. The significance here is vivid. Throughout the book of Acts to this point, the Holy Spirit was bestowed on men by God through the apostles and baptism. In this case, there was no baptism or laying on of hands as of yet for these Gentiles. God simply reached out and visually chose them.
The heart of God is exposed through these five chapters by the methods He used to evoke His will. The Creator of the universe could have easily shook things up and obliterated traditions and cultures in order to get His message to the Gentiles, but He chose to work slowly, tweaking the heart of man, and carefully navigating around cultural boundaries to achieve His will. This demonstrated both His indefinite knowledge of man, and His patient love for man. In chapter six, He shows the Jewish people (the chosen people) that people born of a different heritage that share their faith should be equally accepted; not as Hellenistic Christian Jews and Hebrew Christian Jews, but as fellow believers. Then for the first time in history, chapter seven displays the first recorded speech derived from the notion that God is too big to limit to one group of people. Their pride still remaining perfectly intact, the Christian Jews must then accept the Samaritans, who shared their heritage but not their customs. God was slowly leading His people through this radical change sensitively, in baby steps. While simmering the hearts of His people, He chooses Paul to represent Him and spearhead His message to the Gentiles. While Paul is being trained, God initiates a skirmish at a Roman centurion’s house, and the spiritual war that had been raging for thousands of years was suddenly opened to all corners of the earth. If this cannot portray the love and intricacy of God, then nothing can.
[i] Every Friday two collectors would go house to house to receive a collection of both money and goods for the poor to be distributed later in the day. This was called the “kuppah” meaning “basket.” Also, a daily collection was taken at the synagogue called the “tamhui,” meaning “tray” for families too poor to wait for the weekend. (Barclay 51) The Jewish people understood this as their natural civic duty, but were often chastised by Old Testament prophets for neglecting this. (Boice 112) In this case, the complaint was that the Hellenist widows and poor were getting left out when these goods were distributed.
[ii] Note that at this time, many priests were being converted to Christianity. (Acts 6:7) One cannot help but wonder what role this played later on in the book of Acts as the tension between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians increases. Few Jewish people would be more fundamental and traditional in their beliefs then a Jewish priest.
[iii] Stephen points out that god visited Abraham before He lived in Haran. This is a similar argument to the one he makes about Moses, both illustrated that God has worked and appeared in places other than the “holy land.” Wherever God is present, the land is holy. This point Stephen makes informs us about and event that the Old Testament does not depict. (Boice 121) He also points out that Abraham always considered himself a pilgrim. (Hebrews 11:10) This analogy was meant as a slap in the face to the religious officials that were so comfortable and settled in on earth that they had allowed God’s temporal blessings to eclipse their sense of God’s presence. (Boice 122)
[iv] Joseph was mistreated, sent into a foreign land, and became the Savior of his people. Possibly an inference to Jesus.
[v] Moses was the sacred lawgiver and cornerstone to Judaism, but Stephen points out how he was twice rejected by his people. He also talks about how God personally goes to talk to Moses in Midian, another indication that Jerusalem was not the only “Holy Land.” (Acts 7:30-31)
[vi] The Jewish tabernacle was both the source of, and pet of the immense Jewish pride prevalent in that time period. He compares this magnificent gold-plated building to wilderness tabernacle, which was basically a mobile tent, and states that there is no significant difference between them. He quotes Isaiah 66:1-2 where God asks, “what kind of house can man build for God?” Essentially, the time of the temple had passed, and what they worshipped was nothing more then a few walls and building materials.
[vii] Noteworthy for reflection: The passage talks about a mass exodus of Christians fleeing for their lives, but Jesus’ apostles stayed and preached unharmed. They deserted Him once at Gethsemane but learned their lesson and courageously held fast. These were clearly very changed men.
[viii] Acts 8:13-25 Is one of my favorite passages of scripture. It tells of how the church receives news of the revival amongst the Samaritans, and quickly sends Peter and John to give out the Holy Spirit and minister to the new Christians. They call in the “big guns”
[ix] Paul went to be alone with God. A man of intense Old Testament knowledge, Paul learned about God from God. Not from others explaining God to them. This is a facet of our faith we often overlook.
*I have more of an expositional commentary written about these events and this time period if anyone is curious, or questioning the validity of what is written.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Of Trials and Hopes
Romans 5:3-5
3 And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance;
4and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope;
5and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us that God will not allow us to face more then we can endure. Keep this in mind.
Tribulation makes perseverance
Perseverance makes character
Character makes hope
Hope gets us through our tribulations (does not disappoint)
When problems arise in our lives, we can take comfort in the fact that God gave us the answer key inside of the problem. The solution is created by the problem! Hope's progenitor is tribulation. We serve an amazing God.
3 And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance;
4and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope;
5and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us that God will not allow us to face more then we can endure. Keep this in mind.
Tribulation makes perseverance
Perseverance makes character
Character makes hope
Hope gets us through our tribulations (does not disappoint)
When problems arise in our lives, we can take comfort in the fact that God gave us the answer key inside of the problem. The solution is created by the problem! Hope's progenitor is tribulation. We serve an amazing God.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Christianity's Greatest Error
Last night I went to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting to celebrate my friend’s full year without drugs party. I have never seen anything like it before in my life. There were no handshakes in this room, just hugs often followed by tears. The love and support they shared and showed to one another was unbelievable. New comers were immediately accosted by caring individuals hugging them, giving them books, and telling them “hey man, I did this. I did this. I’ve been clean for four months now bro, and if I can do it, then I am going to make f---ing sure you do too.” If there was a member missing, everyone took a moment of silence to pray for that person, than the phone calls and texts would follow urging that person to fight to stay straight. “Hey… we are all in this together.” One of the men told a story about one particular night where he was in bad shape. The guys in his group figured it out, literally kicked his bedroom door in, and spent the entire night sitting with him on his floor crying and trying to outwait the urge to use together. These men attend meetings six, sometimes seven, times a week. They carpool from New York City to Delaware, Connecticut, anywhere they can find the comfort and love that these NA meetings provide. They have this saying, “all you gotta do is show up. Just keep showing up man… one day at a time.”
That is when it struck me; these men could never find this kind of love and support from a church body. For some, NA becomes as addicting as the drug habit they fought. (Not physically obviously, but most definitely mentally.) “The group” becomes a deity in the sense that it offers salvation, protection, acceptance, and love to anyone that walks or stumbles into whatever four walls are hosting them. Churches have adopted the attitude that non-confrontational Christianity is the easiest way to fill pews, and it probably is. Where does that attitude get us?
Please; think about this for a moment.
The Mormon Church is the number one most giving religion in America. Nobody ministers to the poor and homeless as much as they do.
Jehovah Witnesses focus on evangelism more than any religion in the world. As Christians, we believe that everyone else will spend an eternity in torment, burning in hell, yet it is the Jehovah Witness that spends his spiritual life taking his message door to door.
Jewish children grow up learning Hebrew so they can read the Torah in its original translation. How many Christians can read Hebrew and Greek?
Islamic followers strap bombs to themselves literally dedicating their lives to their faith. How many of us Christians would give up our jobs, money, or cars? Forget that… how many of us are willing to give up a full hour a night to read our Bibles and pray?
Drug addicts can offer a loving and unconditionally accepting community that America’s modern Church cannot rival.
What the hell are we doing? Really. Forget denominations or disagreements about the role of tongues today. We believe the same principle message. We believe that Jesus came to earth to die for our abominable sins, opening the only doorway to heaven. We claim to have “the one true faith.” Why is it that we cannot act out one aspect of that better then the religions we consider to be cults, or just plain lost?
That is when it struck me; these men could never find this kind of love and support from a church body. For some, NA becomes as addicting as the drug habit they fought. (Not physically obviously, but most definitely mentally.) “The group” becomes a deity in the sense that it offers salvation, protection, acceptance, and love to anyone that walks or stumbles into whatever four walls are hosting them. Churches have adopted the attitude that non-confrontational Christianity is the easiest way to fill pews, and it probably is. Where does that attitude get us?
Please; think about this for a moment.
The Mormon Church is the number one most giving religion in America. Nobody ministers to the poor and homeless as much as they do.
Jehovah Witnesses focus on evangelism more than any religion in the world. As Christians, we believe that everyone else will spend an eternity in torment, burning in hell, yet it is the Jehovah Witness that spends his spiritual life taking his message door to door.
Jewish children grow up learning Hebrew so they can read the Torah in its original translation. How many Christians can read Hebrew and Greek?
Islamic followers strap bombs to themselves literally dedicating their lives to their faith. How many of us Christians would give up our jobs, money, or cars? Forget that… how many of us are willing to give up a full hour a night to read our Bibles and pray?
Drug addicts can offer a loving and unconditionally accepting community that America’s modern Church cannot rival.
What the hell are we doing? Really. Forget denominations or disagreements about the role of tongues today. We believe the same principle message. We believe that Jesus came to earth to die for our abominable sins, opening the only doorway to heaven. We claim to have “the one true faith.” Why is it that we cannot act out one aspect of that better then the religions we consider to be cults, or just plain lost?
Monday, January 18, 2010
Why my feet are here
This is a speach i had to write for class. It is the first speach I have ever written, and I had a hard time trying to write how I would talk. Here it is:
Why My Feet are Here
You mentioned the other day that you disliked talking about yourself, and I agree, there is certainly something narcissistic about subjecting others to listening about what one thinks of themselves. Today I would like to talk about where I am, not who I am. When I sat in this class last week, I couldn’t help but ponder the different walks of life and ethnicities represented in this room. I do not really control where my mind goes, but for whatever reason, I have been researching Judaism a lot lately. I could not help but reflect on the fact that from the time of Abraham until a little more than two-thousand years ago, we were all considered gentile dogs. With very very few exceptions, God’s redemption and the salvation message was not meant for us. It was our ancestors that held God’s people captive, destroyed their cities, and were wiped out and judged because of that. But two-thousand years ago, one man’s death changed that for us, and salvation was opened to all who would receive it. That is the real reason that we are all here today as a group, but each individual here has a side story; their personal component to this classroom. I see the age differences in this classroom, and it amuses me that although our feet have surely been planted in all kinds of unique and vastly different places, that they are all on the same carpet right now. I would like to tell you about the path that I took to get here, standing before you in the same room with you guys today.
I often wonder about the decisions we as people make, and how God uses them and works His will despite them. Some people seemingly have their life on track, slip up once, and are never heard from again. Others God chases down like a sadistic hunter, refusing to give up His pursuit despite our greatest efforts to escape. Like the story of Jonah I am sure you are familiar with. The story of Sergeant Alvin C. York, a WWI hero also comes to mind. He was a drunken country boy, who had absolutely no interest in the things of God. One drunken late night while riding home through the rain he was slowly trotting past a full church when lightning struck his rifle, completely splitting it in two pieces and sending him and his horse flying. He stumbled up unscathed and suddenly sober to check on his horse. His horse was completely fine too. He left his horse, walked into that church, and thus began one of the most famous nineteenth century relationships between God and man. Yet every day, our neighbors die indignant and begin an eternity of torment. Where is their lightning?
God has a specific plan for each one of our lives, but our stories are riddled with our attempts to get in our own way and mess things up. He takes that in stride like a jujitsu master, using our own momentum to swing us back on track. Where I stand now, I would have been standing five years ago if I kept out of God’s way. He tells us that He is the master craftsman, the man who shapes us in our mother’s womb. One thing I learned from being a carpenter is to never get in a craftsman’s way. I wish I had figured that out sooner, but at the same time, I do not.
Five and a half years ago, I picked out my favorite hockey jersey (a Jason Blake jersey in case anyone is wondering) and had my picture taken for my first ever college ID card. I was psyched. Out of my parent’s house and into the dorm of a Christian college. I had a full time job secured to help me pay for my aspirations and enough confidence and optimism to have gotten the French army to fight in World War Two. Finally I would make friends that shared my faith and passion for God. While I was preoccupied with being adequately prepared for what I considered “real life” I was completely blindsided and sacked by what many refer to as “Christian hypocrisy.” I use that term in quotes because sometimes the best way to convey a series of events is to choose a term everyone can relate to. In retrospect, I would like to point out that I do not believe there is such a thing as Christian hypocrisy. When it comes to people, there are two types; degenerates, and degenerates who, through God’s grace, try not to be to varying degrees- all failing. Anyway, instead of a safe-haven, I found that I resided in a warzone. See, at eighteen years old, I was naïve enough to believe that earth could offer anything but a warzone. (We live on a planet we sold to Satan for an apple.) I watched and experienced people mistreating each other in ways I did not think possible in the midst of a Christian community. These events I witnessed destroyed me. I resented Christians, refused to be identified with them and had no desire to go to church. On Sundays I would pack my Bible and guitar into whatever beat vehicle I was driving at the time and head to a deserted beach. I called it “the church of frank.” Many tried to invite themselves, I have no idea why. This probably seems like such a trivial issue, but it is something that I struggled with for a very long time. I could not bend my head around the fact that I worked with men who in their own words “didn’t give a damn” about religion, that loved people more than the Christians that I knew. Wasn’t the whole point of the gospel love? I left college after one semester.
The other major hurdle that I thrust into my own way was a girl. Again, I know this is seemingly trivial, but the ramifications of an event or sequence of events gets its ability to impact from the individual. I have been through many tough situations in my life, people swearing to maim me, living in my car for a few months and the list goes on, but the two biggest foes I have ever faced were Christians, and a girl. I know right, not necessarily the toughest icons. Life is entirely about who you are becoming, and although who you were and where you have been has an enormous impact on that, it is the direction that a person is taking their life that ultimately defines that individual. It is also a fact that you will become like the people that you surround yourself with. This is especially true in dating; never ever date a person unless there are many aspects about that individual that you would like to emulate. Well as emphatic as I may now sound, I had absolutely no grasp of this a few years ago. My friends used to call me “superfrank” because I would try to help people with different serious issues they were going through and eventually date them. I had some deranged superhero complex. With this girl, she was pretending to be a Christian to get to me, and I knew that, not even deep down, I just knew it. She was poised to be a horrible influence on me, another fact that I was more than aware of. Sometimes we make choices and afterwards have the luxury of looking back and understanding the implications. In this case I knew the implications while in the throes of making the decision to date her. I was on fire for God, walking to the right, she was headed off somewhere to the left in the complete opposite directions. The clarity in which I saw the situation made me angry during retrospection. Simply put, I had to choose between the attention of this girl, and continuing the walk I had with God which was starting to take a specific direction. It took me eight months of dating her to unravel my spiritual self, realize it, and end the relationship. It then took about twice that long to retrace my steps and get back to the place on that path where I walked away from God and left Him standing there to wander around in the woods.
Many people I know have eerily similar stories, almost exactly. Most people that grow up in church and head off for college never seem to find that church again, and those that do often come stumbling in scarred up and maimed. Jehovah Rapha means “the Lord heals.” God calls Himself the healer of men’s bodies, souls, and hearts. We are so lucky that He is there to put us back together piece by piece no matter how long it takes Him. He showed me that my disdain for Christians was at the very least exactly as judgmental as I accused them of being, probably worse. That was a very humbling realization, and the propellant that have my feet here today. My heart goes out for Christians, especially the ones that God calls “luke-warm.” The American church needs missionaries today, just as bad as any other part of the world, and I feel that that is where God has me headed.
I would like to urge you guys to be extremely careful of what you say and do, because it really does affect the people around you. We represent Christ wherever we go. Take Pat Robertson for example. (Explain Pat Robertson’s Comments) Secondly, be careful who you associate with. It is hard trying to fashion our lives after Christ. We should concentrate on controlling what we choose to surround ourselves with as much as possible. We are in the world, and obviously we cannot control what happens to and around us, but we must learn to master those factors that are within our grasp, like who we choose to date and hang out with. Thirdly keep your feet moving. (Hockey anology.)
Thank you all for your time and attention.
Why My Feet are Here
You mentioned the other day that you disliked talking about yourself, and I agree, there is certainly something narcissistic about subjecting others to listening about what one thinks of themselves. Today I would like to talk about where I am, not who I am. When I sat in this class last week, I couldn’t help but ponder the different walks of life and ethnicities represented in this room. I do not really control where my mind goes, but for whatever reason, I have been researching Judaism a lot lately. I could not help but reflect on the fact that from the time of Abraham until a little more than two-thousand years ago, we were all considered gentile dogs. With very very few exceptions, God’s redemption and the salvation message was not meant for us. It was our ancestors that held God’s people captive, destroyed their cities, and were wiped out and judged because of that. But two-thousand years ago, one man’s death changed that for us, and salvation was opened to all who would receive it. That is the real reason that we are all here today as a group, but each individual here has a side story; their personal component to this classroom. I see the age differences in this classroom, and it amuses me that although our feet have surely been planted in all kinds of unique and vastly different places, that they are all on the same carpet right now. I would like to tell you about the path that I took to get here, standing before you in the same room with you guys today.
I often wonder about the decisions we as people make, and how God uses them and works His will despite them. Some people seemingly have their life on track, slip up once, and are never heard from again. Others God chases down like a sadistic hunter, refusing to give up His pursuit despite our greatest efforts to escape. Like the story of Jonah I am sure you are familiar with. The story of Sergeant Alvin C. York, a WWI hero also comes to mind. He was a drunken country boy, who had absolutely no interest in the things of God. One drunken late night while riding home through the rain he was slowly trotting past a full church when lightning struck his rifle, completely splitting it in two pieces and sending him and his horse flying. He stumbled up unscathed and suddenly sober to check on his horse. His horse was completely fine too. He left his horse, walked into that church, and thus began one of the most famous nineteenth century relationships between God and man. Yet every day, our neighbors die indignant and begin an eternity of torment. Where is their lightning?
God has a specific plan for each one of our lives, but our stories are riddled with our attempts to get in our own way and mess things up. He takes that in stride like a jujitsu master, using our own momentum to swing us back on track. Where I stand now, I would have been standing five years ago if I kept out of God’s way. He tells us that He is the master craftsman, the man who shapes us in our mother’s womb. One thing I learned from being a carpenter is to never get in a craftsman’s way. I wish I had figured that out sooner, but at the same time, I do not.
Five and a half years ago, I picked out my favorite hockey jersey (a Jason Blake jersey in case anyone is wondering) and had my picture taken for my first ever college ID card. I was psyched. Out of my parent’s house and into the dorm of a Christian college. I had a full time job secured to help me pay for my aspirations and enough confidence and optimism to have gotten the French army to fight in World War Two. Finally I would make friends that shared my faith and passion for God. While I was preoccupied with being adequately prepared for what I considered “real life” I was completely blindsided and sacked by what many refer to as “Christian hypocrisy.” I use that term in quotes because sometimes the best way to convey a series of events is to choose a term everyone can relate to. In retrospect, I would like to point out that I do not believe there is such a thing as Christian hypocrisy. When it comes to people, there are two types; degenerates, and degenerates who, through God’s grace, try not to be to varying degrees- all failing. Anyway, instead of a safe-haven, I found that I resided in a warzone. See, at eighteen years old, I was naïve enough to believe that earth could offer anything but a warzone. (We live on a planet we sold to Satan for an apple.) I watched and experienced people mistreating each other in ways I did not think possible in the midst of a Christian community. These events I witnessed destroyed me. I resented Christians, refused to be identified with them and had no desire to go to church. On Sundays I would pack my Bible and guitar into whatever beat vehicle I was driving at the time and head to a deserted beach. I called it “the church of frank.” Many tried to invite themselves, I have no idea why. This probably seems like such a trivial issue, but it is something that I struggled with for a very long time. I could not bend my head around the fact that I worked with men who in their own words “didn’t give a damn” about religion, that loved people more than the Christians that I knew. Wasn’t the whole point of the gospel love? I left college after one semester.
The other major hurdle that I thrust into my own way was a girl. Again, I know this is seemingly trivial, but the ramifications of an event or sequence of events gets its ability to impact from the individual. I have been through many tough situations in my life, people swearing to maim me, living in my car for a few months and the list goes on, but the two biggest foes I have ever faced were Christians, and a girl. I know right, not necessarily the toughest icons. Life is entirely about who you are becoming, and although who you were and where you have been has an enormous impact on that, it is the direction that a person is taking their life that ultimately defines that individual. It is also a fact that you will become like the people that you surround yourself with. This is especially true in dating; never ever date a person unless there are many aspects about that individual that you would like to emulate. Well as emphatic as I may now sound, I had absolutely no grasp of this a few years ago. My friends used to call me “superfrank” because I would try to help people with different serious issues they were going through and eventually date them. I had some deranged superhero complex. With this girl, she was pretending to be a Christian to get to me, and I knew that, not even deep down, I just knew it. She was poised to be a horrible influence on me, another fact that I was more than aware of. Sometimes we make choices and afterwards have the luxury of looking back and understanding the implications. In this case I knew the implications while in the throes of making the decision to date her. I was on fire for God, walking to the right, she was headed off somewhere to the left in the complete opposite directions. The clarity in which I saw the situation made me angry during retrospection. Simply put, I had to choose between the attention of this girl, and continuing the walk I had with God which was starting to take a specific direction. It took me eight months of dating her to unravel my spiritual self, realize it, and end the relationship. It then took about twice that long to retrace my steps and get back to the place on that path where I walked away from God and left Him standing there to wander around in the woods.
Many people I know have eerily similar stories, almost exactly. Most people that grow up in church and head off for college never seem to find that church again, and those that do often come stumbling in scarred up and maimed. Jehovah Rapha means “the Lord heals.” God calls Himself the healer of men’s bodies, souls, and hearts. We are so lucky that He is there to put us back together piece by piece no matter how long it takes Him. He showed me that my disdain for Christians was at the very least exactly as judgmental as I accused them of being, probably worse. That was a very humbling realization, and the propellant that have my feet here today. My heart goes out for Christians, especially the ones that God calls “luke-warm.” The American church needs missionaries today, just as bad as any other part of the world, and I feel that that is where God has me headed.
I would like to urge you guys to be extremely careful of what you say and do, because it really does affect the people around you. We represent Christ wherever we go. Take Pat Robertson for example. (Explain Pat Robertson’s Comments) Secondly, be careful who you associate with. It is hard trying to fashion our lives after Christ. We should concentrate on controlling what we choose to surround ourselves with as much as possible. We are in the world, and obviously we cannot control what happens to and around us, but we must learn to master those factors that are within our grasp, like who we choose to date and hang out with. Thirdly keep your feet moving. (Hockey anology.)
Thank you all for your time and attention.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Rebuttal to the “indefectibility of the Catholic Church”
“OT Messianic prophecies refer to an unending covenant between God and His people (by extension the Church, led by Jesus Christ) and the unvanquishable Kingdom of Christ:”
God’s People are referred to as His Church, and He will go to great lengths to defend and protect His people. Agreed. However to state that this implies doctrinal perfection in any church denomination would be robbing mankind of his freewill. Human nature is corrupt and unchanging. While man (through Christ) can be sanctified, his human nature is something that must be squelched and battled every single day. Isaiah 64:6 states that at man’s holiest, we are but filthy rags. When looking at church history, it is hard to come to a conclusion that God directs the Church’s motives and endeavors. There have been priests convicted of child molestation, homosexual pastors invited to pulpits, crusades, and all kinds of other obscenities conducted under the name of Christ. If the notion that God manages and conducts a doctrinally perfect group of people, that would immediately alienate and possibly even condemn every denomination and sect of Christianity with the exception of one. So which one would that be? (You propose Catholicism.) The problem is that man is decrepit, and everywhere he travels his ugly footprints mar the earth. There is no blameless religious establishment. Evangelicalism is apathetic, and increasingly banal, just like all the other related denominations. Catholicism has its issues too.
The other issue about the notion of a doctrinally perfect denomination that contradicts with the character of Christ, is that fact that Christ is unchanging. Hebrews 13:8 says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is not bound by time, and his attributes and personality have never wavered. If there were such a thing as a “chosen denomination,” then one would assume that the doctrine of those churches would be unchanging, just like the God that directs them. The Problem is, that no such church exists. You wrote (in red responding to what was written in blue):
“The additional element is what we call indefectibility. It is a root assumption of apostolic succession: that the truth will never be lost; it will always be preserved.
(I agree that with the principle “God’s truth will never be lost and will always be preserved.” I think the discrepancy I have, whose responsibility it is to preserve that truth, is a major one. You suggest that man can uphold and preserve that truth. (through God.) I feel that this idea elevates man to a level that he cannot possibly ascend to. II Timothy 3:16 states that all scripture is inspired by God, and John 2:27 clearly says that since God has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit, “you do not need anyone to teach you.” He is not discrediting pastors, popes, ministers, and teachers, but telling us that once God put His Word in print, and bestowed us with the Holy Spirit, we do not need to rely on man {or institutions of man} to tell us what is right or wrong.)
A church that's doctrinally correct today could be doctrinally incorrect fifty years from now.
That is usually the case in Protestantism, yes; WHILE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE REMAINS THE SAME. So Jason's analysis surely applies to Protestants on a large scale.”
Essentially, you propose that the Catholic Church can withstand the scrutiny of time, but I do not see that it does. None of the Christian religions can say that their doctrine has not changed since Christ walked the earth.
This list was composed from various Catholic Church history books written by Catholics. (The principal book I used was “The Teaching of the Catholic Church” by Josef Neuner, S.J. and Heinrich Roos, S.J.) The numbers represent the year these changes were introduced.
· 300 Prayers for the dead
· 300 Making the sign of the cross
· 375 Worship of saints and angels
· 394 Mass first instituted
· 431 Worship of Mary begun
· 500 Priests started dressing differently
· 526 Extreme Unction (anointing the sick)
· 593 Doctrine of Purgatory introduced
· 600 Worship service in Latin
· 600 Prayers directed to Mary
· 607 Boniface III made first pope
· 709 Kissing the pope’s feet
· 786 Worshipping of images and relics
· 850 Use of holy water begun
· 995 Canonization of dead saints
· 998 Fasting on Fridays and during lent
· 1079 Celibacy of priesthood
· 1090 Prayer beads
· 1184 The inquisition (court to discover and punish heretics)
· 1190 Sale of indulgences
· 1215 Transubstantiation
· 1220 Adoration of wafer
· 1229 Bible forbidden to laymen
· 1414 Cup forbidden to people at communion
· 1439 Doctrine of seven sacraments
· 1439 Doctrine of purgatory decreed
· 1508 The Ava Maria approved
· 1534 Jesuit order founded
· 1545 Tradition granted equal authority with the Bible
· 1546 Apocryphal books put into Bible
· 1854 Immaculate Conception of Mary
· 1864 Syllabus of error proclaimed
· 1870 Infallibility of pope declared
· 1930 Public schools condemned
· 1950 Assumption of the virgin Mary (taken to heaven)
· 1965 Mary proclaimed mother of the church
I am in no way trying to conduct an assault on the Catholic Church. Doctrinally, there are a few issues I would tend to disagree with (as with any other denomination) but I respect the Catholic Church a lot more than other brands of Christianity because of their tendency to cling to their fundamental roots. Personally, I choose not to affiliate with a denomination, because I would like people to see me as I am (a twenty-three year old doing everything possible to chase after Christ and study His Word) without being held accountable for other people’s dogmas and actions that I neither condone nor support. Does this mean that because I am not under the Catholic Church that I err, and no matter how hard I try or how much I sacrifice because of my love for Jesus that I am working on my own, out from under His will? What about the countless missionaries who toil their entire lives (some with no religious affiliation) who are sometimes speared, beheaded, and poisoned for trying to show others Jesus’ love? Some return to their homes with crazy stories of miracles and testimonies of things Jesus did for them. Why would God perform miracles and actively support people who claim to be doing His will, but really are not because they are delusional and affiliated with the wrong denomination? Ok, so maybe they are lying, but I am extremely scared to rush to that assumption condemning all the acts of salvation or all the miracles that people experienced apart from the Catholic Church.
Either God is powerful enough to present different things to different people according to their understanding, or truth is bound to those privileged and educated enough to be fully indoctrinated in the one truth. To declare allegiance to a God of the privileged and educated is counterintuitive to the way Christ has explained His intentions through the gospels. Mathew 9:11-13 says that it’s the sick and confused that Jesus came to minister to. Christ came to the world to save us. He shook the system up and revolutionized the way we look at life. In my opinion, He came to this earth to deliver us, and to battle two different things; sin and religion. Religion can be distracting at times. In Jesus’ day the Pharisees were so concerned with legalities and tradition that they were completely oblivious to the fact that the answer to all of their Old Testament Prophecies was walking and teaching right in front of them! Anyone willing to put the research into their writing the way you and some of your readers do is obviously extremely passionate about their faith. It is my prayer that none of us will get to a point in life where our passion for Jesus and the things of God are compromised by the parameters of religion or anything else seeking to quench the fire that God ignited inside of us. Personally, I hope that the momentum my walk with Christ generates is never used against me to push me away from where God wants me.
Frank
To read Dave Armstrong's full essay, and other interesting and in depth studies check out:
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/
God’s People are referred to as His Church, and He will go to great lengths to defend and protect His people. Agreed. However to state that this implies doctrinal perfection in any church denomination would be robbing mankind of his freewill. Human nature is corrupt and unchanging. While man (through Christ) can be sanctified, his human nature is something that must be squelched and battled every single day. Isaiah 64:6 states that at man’s holiest, we are but filthy rags. When looking at church history, it is hard to come to a conclusion that God directs the Church’s motives and endeavors. There have been priests convicted of child molestation, homosexual pastors invited to pulpits, crusades, and all kinds of other obscenities conducted under the name of Christ. If the notion that God manages and conducts a doctrinally perfect group of people, that would immediately alienate and possibly even condemn every denomination and sect of Christianity with the exception of one. So which one would that be? (You propose Catholicism.) The problem is that man is decrepit, and everywhere he travels his ugly footprints mar the earth. There is no blameless religious establishment. Evangelicalism is apathetic, and increasingly banal, just like all the other related denominations. Catholicism has its issues too.
The other issue about the notion of a doctrinally perfect denomination that contradicts with the character of Christ, is that fact that Christ is unchanging. Hebrews 13:8 says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is not bound by time, and his attributes and personality have never wavered. If there were such a thing as a “chosen denomination,” then one would assume that the doctrine of those churches would be unchanging, just like the God that directs them. The Problem is, that no such church exists. You wrote (in red responding to what was written in blue):
“The additional element is what we call indefectibility. It is a root assumption of apostolic succession: that the truth will never be lost; it will always be preserved.
(I agree that with the principle “God’s truth will never be lost and will always be preserved.” I think the discrepancy I have, whose responsibility it is to preserve that truth, is a major one. You suggest that man can uphold and preserve that truth. (through God.) I feel that this idea elevates man to a level that he cannot possibly ascend to. II Timothy 3:16 states that all scripture is inspired by God, and John 2:27 clearly says that since God has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit, “you do not need anyone to teach you.” He is not discrediting pastors, popes, ministers, and teachers, but telling us that once God put His Word in print, and bestowed us with the Holy Spirit, we do not need to rely on man {or institutions of man} to tell us what is right or wrong.)
A church that's doctrinally correct today could be doctrinally incorrect fifty years from now.
That is usually the case in Protestantism, yes; WHILE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE REMAINS THE SAME. So Jason's analysis surely applies to Protestants on a large scale.”
Essentially, you propose that the Catholic Church can withstand the scrutiny of time, but I do not see that it does. None of the Christian religions can say that their doctrine has not changed since Christ walked the earth.
This list was composed from various Catholic Church history books written by Catholics. (The principal book I used was “The Teaching of the Catholic Church” by Josef Neuner, S.J. and Heinrich Roos, S.J.) The numbers represent the year these changes were introduced.
· 300 Prayers for the dead
· 300 Making the sign of the cross
· 375 Worship of saints and angels
· 394 Mass first instituted
· 431 Worship of Mary begun
· 500 Priests started dressing differently
· 526 Extreme Unction (anointing the sick)
· 593 Doctrine of Purgatory introduced
· 600 Worship service in Latin
· 600 Prayers directed to Mary
· 607 Boniface III made first pope
· 709 Kissing the pope’s feet
· 786 Worshipping of images and relics
· 850 Use of holy water begun
· 995 Canonization of dead saints
· 998 Fasting on Fridays and during lent
· 1079 Celibacy of priesthood
· 1090 Prayer beads
· 1184 The inquisition (court to discover and punish heretics)
· 1190 Sale of indulgences
· 1215 Transubstantiation
· 1220 Adoration of wafer
· 1229 Bible forbidden to laymen
· 1414 Cup forbidden to people at communion
· 1439 Doctrine of seven sacraments
· 1439 Doctrine of purgatory decreed
· 1508 The Ava Maria approved
· 1534 Jesuit order founded
· 1545 Tradition granted equal authority with the Bible
· 1546 Apocryphal books put into Bible
· 1854 Immaculate Conception of Mary
· 1864 Syllabus of error proclaimed
· 1870 Infallibility of pope declared
· 1930 Public schools condemned
· 1950 Assumption of the virgin Mary (taken to heaven)
· 1965 Mary proclaimed mother of the church
I am in no way trying to conduct an assault on the Catholic Church. Doctrinally, there are a few issues I would tend to disagree with (as with any other denomination) but I respect the Catholic Church a lot more than other brands of Christianity because of their tendency to cling to their fundamental roots. Personally, I choose not to affiliate with a denomination, because I would like people to see me as I am (a twenty-three year old doing everything possible to chase after Christ and study His Word) without being held accountable for other people’s dogmas and actions that I neither condone nor support. Does this mean that because I am not under the Catholic Church that I err, and no matter how hard I try or how much I sacrifice because of my love for Jesus that I am working on my own, out from under His will? What about the countless missionaries who toil their entire lives (some with no religious affiliation) who are sometimes speared, beheaded, and poisoned for trying to show others Jesus’ love? Some return to their homes with crazy stories of miracles and testimonies of things Jesus did for them. Why would God perform miracles and actively support people who claim to be doing His will, but really are not because they are delusional and affiliated with the wrong denomination? Ok, so maybe they are lying, but I am extremely scared to rush to that assumption condemning all the acts of salvation or all the miracles that people experienced apart from the Catholic Church.
Either God is powerful enough to present different things to different people according to their understanding, or truth is bound to those privileged and educated enough to be fully indoctrinated in the one truth. To declare allegiance to a God of the privileged and educated is counterintuitive to the way Christ has explained His intentions through the gospels. Mathew 9:11-13 says that it’s the sick and confused that Jesus came to minister to. Christ came to the world to save us. He shook the system up and revolutionized the way we look at life. In my opinion, He came to this earth to deliver us, and to battle two different things; sin and religion. Religion can be distracting at times. In Jesus’ day the Pharisees were so concerned with legalities and tradition that they were completely oblivious to the fact that the answer to all of their Old Testament Prophecies was walking and teaching right in front of them! Anyone willing to put the research into their writing the way you and some of your readers do is obviously extremely passionate about their faith. It is my prayer that none of us will get to a point in life where our passion for Jesus and the things of God are compromised by the parameters of religion or anything else seeking to quench the fire that God ignited inside of us. Personally, I hope that the momentum my walk with Christ generates is never used against me to push me away from where God wants me.
Frank
To read Dave Armstrong's full essay, and other interesting and in depth studies check out:
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/
Friday, January 15, 2010
Haiti in Crisis
By Dave Watson
The 7.0 magnitude earthquake in the republic of Haiti has left the Capitol city of Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas devastated. Because Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world, and least able to help itself, this disaster is more tragic than any words could describe. The pictures that we have seen over the internet and on our televisions tell only a fraction of the story. The damage on this Caribbean Island of over nine million people has been described as “Biblical” in proportion. You, like me, have probably asked yourself why God would permit such a natural disaster to happen. I will readily admit that I don’t know exactly all the details of God’s master plan. I also am quite sure that it is not because of a curse on Haiti because of a pact with the devil, as a certain televangelist has alleged. The referenced pact is disputed by many. In addition, if it did occur (it was supposedly made in 1791) it is ludicrous to think it would somehow be binding on the people of today. In addition, we do well to remind ourselves that numerous founders of the United States of America were alleged to be Free Masons; a secret organization that many feel is at its core, demonic. Are all our problems to be blamed on the past sins of a few? At times like these I remind myself that we live on a fallen planet. Romans 8:22-23 tells us that the whole creation groans and travails for the redemption of God’s people. We also note that the book of Revelation speaks of events far worse than this. Thus, I tell myself that in a broken world everything is broken. Haiti’s woes sadly illustrate this point to the max. This doesn’t mean that God could not have prevented the earthquake. But for reasons we won’t know this side of heaven, He chose not to. It seems far too easy for me from this distance to say we must trust Him. I pray my Haitian brothers and sisters in Christ will, by God’s grace, be able in this dark hour to claim His promise in Romans 8:28 that all things work together for good to those who love God and are the called according to His purpose. I pray that they will be comforted by the words of Romans 8:38&39 which tell us that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, not height nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Because we are now focused on Haiti it might be good for us as believers to inform ourselves about this small country that shares an island with the Dominican Republic. Haiti was founded via a slave revolt against the French in 1804. It had been France’s richest colony. It has had a difficult history marked by exploitive and tyrannical leaders. The most recent of these leaders were the Duvaliers (Papa Doc and Baby Doc) who ran the nation from 1957 to 1986. In 1994 the United States helped the country to hold democratic elections. It has valiantly struggled in recent days to put aside the dismal past and develop a hopeful future. Haiti is primarily a Catholic country, though freedom of religion is one of it tenants. Along with their Catholicism many Haitians practice Voodoo, a development of West African Spiritism. Thanks to God’s grace and recent evangelistic efforts, evangelical Christians now make up over 25% of the population. There are presently nearly 500 evangelical missionaries working in Haiti in a variety of vocations from healthcare to church planting. Still, why would God allow this to happen? I don’t claim to know the answers to that question. Allow me, however, to suggest a few things we know right now that God would want us to do. 1. Pray for Haiti. It is now on our spiritual radar screens. We should be praying for our brothers and sisters there and hurting as they are hurting. We should be praying for the missionaries there and the unbelievable task before them. We should be praying for many to find Christ in the wake of this disaster. We should be praying for the relief these people so desperately need. We should be praying for the stability of the country and the government, especially President Rene Preval. 2. Give for Haiti. They need our money in addition to our prayers. Truly if having given to the least of these we have given to the Lord, so having given to the restoration of Haiti we have given to the Lord. In the next few months, our church, Calvary Chapel will have a fund that you can give to. All monies received will go to a ministry or ministries that will provide physical relief and a spiritual message to these hurting people 3. Go to Haiti. Let’s get serious. In the next few weeks we’ll be making you aware of short term ministry opportunities with reputable agencies. If enough of us are moved by God to go we will form our own team and go together with one of the agencies. 4. Learn from Haiti. Sometimes when we read the Scriptures and end times prophecies we look at it as a fairytale. Sadly, the disaster in Haiti illustrates the fact that immense devastation can occur in a very short time. This should sober us as it relates to what the Bible says about the end of the age. 5. Care about Haiti. It is my prayer that this horribly tragic situation will cause us to turn our hearts to this nation and its people.
In His Service,
Pastor Dave Watson
The 7.0 magnitude earthquake in the republic of Haiti has left the Capitol city of Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas devastated. Because Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world, and least able to help itself, this disaster is more tragic than any words could describe. The pictures that we have seen over the internet and on our televisions tell only a fraction of the story. The damage on this Caribbean Island of over nine million people has been described as “Biblical” in proportion. You, like me, have probably asked yourself why God would permit such a natural disaster to happen. I will readily admit that I don’t know exactly all the details of God’s master plan. I also am quite sure that it is not because of a curse on Haiti because of a pact with the devil, as a certain televangelist has alleged. The referenced pact is disputed by many. In addition, if it did occur (it was supposedly made in 1791) it is ludicrous to think it would somehow be binding on the people of today. In addition, we do well to remind ourselves that numerous founders of the United States of America were alleged to be Free Masons; a secret organization that many feel is at its core, demonic. Are all our problems to be blamed on the past sins of a few? At times like these I remind myself that we live on a fallen planet. Romans 8:22-23 tells us that the whole creation groans and travails for the redemption of God’s people. We also note that the book of Revelation speaks of events far worse than this. Thus, I tell myself that in a broken world everything is broken. Haiti’s woes sadly illustrate this point to the max. This doesn’t mean that God could not have prevented the earthquake. But for reasons we won’t know this side of heaven, He chose not to. It seems far too easy for me from this distance to say we must trust Him. I pray my Haitian brothers and sisters in Christ will, by God’s grace, be able in this dark hour to claim His promise in Romans 8:28 that all things work together for good to those who love God and are the called according to His purpose. I pray that they will be comforted by the words of Romans 8:38&39 which tell us that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, not height nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Because we are now focused on Haiti it might be good for us as believers to inform ourselves about this small country that shares an island with the Dominican Republic. Haiti was founded via a slave revolt against the French in 1804. It had been France’s richest colony. It has had a difficult history marked by exploitive and tyrannical leaders. The most recent of these leaders were the Duvaliers (Papa Doc and Baby Doc) who ran the nation from 1957 to 1986. In 1994 the United States helped the country to hold democratic elections. It has valiantly struggled in recent days to put aside the dismal past and develop a hopeful future. Haiti is primarily a Catholic country, though freedom of religion is one of it tenants. Along with their Catholicism many Haitians practice Voodoo, a development of West African Spiritism. Thanks to God’s grace and recent evangelistic efforts, evangelical Christians now make up over 25% of the population. There are presently nearly 500 evangelical missionaries working in Haiti in a variety of vocations from healthcare to church planting. Still, why would God allow this to happen? I don’t claim to know the answers to that question. Allow me, however, to suggest a few things we know right now that God would want us to do. 1. Pray for Haiti. It is now on our spiritual radar screens. We should be praying for our brothers and sisters there and hurting as they are hurting. We should be praying for the missionaries there and the unbelievable task before them. We should be praying for many to find Christ in the wake of this disaster. We should be praying for the relief these people so desperately need. We should be praying for the stability of the country and the government, especially President Rene Preval. 2. Give for Haiti. They need our money in addition to our prayers. Truly if having given to the least of these we have given to the Lord, so having given to the restoration of Haiti we have given to the Lord. In the next few months, our church, Calvary Chapel will have a fund that you can give to. All monies received will go to a ministry or ministries that will provide physical relief and a spiritual message to these hurting people 3. Go to Haiti. Let’s get serious. In the next few weeks we’ll be making you aware of short term ministry opportunities with reputable agencies. If enough of us are moved by God to go we will form our own team and go together with one of the agencies. 4. Learn from Haiti. Sometimes when we read the Scriptures and end times prophecies we look at it as a fairytale. Sadly, the disaster in Haiti illustrates the fact that immense devastation can occur in a very short time. This should sober us as it relates to what the Bible says about the end of the age. 5. Care about Haiti. It is my prayer that this horribly tragic situation will cause us to turn our hearts to this nation and its people.
In His Service,
Pastor Dave Watson
Help Haiti
Anyone interested in contributing please contact me. We are coordinating (hopefully) massive amounts of medicine and food to be flown in to missionaries and missionary organizations in the immediate impact area.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The progression of philosophy
________________________
Thoughts on the origin of worldview
"Nature seems to exist for the excellent. The world is upheld by the veracity of good men: they make the earth wholesome. They who lived with them found life glad and nutritious. Life is sweet and tolerable only in our belief in such society; and, actually or ideally, we manage to live with superiors. We call our children and our lands by their names. Their names are wrought into the verbs of language, their works and effigies are in our houses, and every circumstance of the day recalls an anecdote of them. The search after the great man is the dream of youth and the most serious occupation of manhood. We travel into foreign parts to find his works, -if possible, to get a glimpse of him. But we are put off with fortune instead."
Uses of Great Men, Ralph Waldo Emerson
What is it about man that we find it so easy to obsess over ourselves? The biggest obstacle a man will ever face is the confines that he will impose on himself. The irony is that man's greatest self-imposed confine is himself. The depths of man inherently know that a higher power is omnipresent in his domain, and he tends to loathe it. On the one hand, we refuse to submit to anything attempting to claim lordship of our innermost thoughts and subtle actions, but on the other, we sell our souls for the permission to identify with certain thought processes and popular sociological trends. A particular rocket scientist could reject all thoughts of a creator or god in an attempt to “liberate” his mind, and simultaneously fall prey to the same social restrictions that ensnare high school girls when selecting an outfit and brand names to wear for a night out.
Every culture adopts and raises a distinct cornucopia of principles and ideas with which they choose to identify. These principles govern all who find themselves enveloped within its jurisdiction. For Europeans before the reformation, this social order was constructed around the dictations of God mainly through the Pope. Their lives were simple, and they relied on God for everything. A farmer would come to the dinner table with his sons after a long day at work in the fields, and he would bow his head to pray for rain for the crops they just planted, and continued health and protection for the members of his family. For the people of his era, life was completely out of human control or prediction. It rained only when God made it rain and for however long He saw fit. Disease was prevalent, but He bestowed protection on whom He wanted to when He wanted to. Life was extremely matter of fact. Imagine the implications to such a society when someone starts predicting the weather. Weather patterns become charted, germs get discovered, preventative measures are concocted, and God’s job description gets redefined. The situation snowballs, and mankind’s dependence on its progenitor is obliterated during a hectic rapid development of a society spawned by trust in man.
Corrupt Popes fused with advances in technology propelled thoughts away from God and into outer space or on massive ships surveying the globe. Mankind was unstoppable. Instead of demonstrating this vertically like their previous attempt to build a tower to touch heaven, they expressed this notion horizontally. Ideas and inventions spread like fire through mentally dry lands. Was man limitless?
It is ironic that the corruption of a few religious leaders served as a catalyst to corrupt human thought in general on the opposite side of the pendulum. It seems that when human nature and philosophy interact the consequent irrational actions produced are often followed by harsher reactions. We are a people that travel between scarlet letters and complete sexual perversion without any contemplation of the existence of a middle ground. In any case, religion dispersed as kings and popes faced off against each other. With mankind’s advancement, and subsequent self-reliance, the power of the church cracked. Man no longer needed a pope to bridge the gap between God and man and felt confident enough to interpret the Bible for himself. Denominations were born as a result of people feeling like they could say and think what they wanted. In Germany, Luther declared that the Eucharist was the actual body of Christ, and is later excommunicated from the church after writing a divisive paper called the “Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms.” In Switzerland, massive amounts of people started following John Calvin’s interpretation of the Bible. Erasmus declared himself a humanist Christian (today an explicit oxymoron) and started criticizing doctrines, even re-writing certain sacred texts. The Christian order was in disarray. Catholicism faced off against the Protestants, and the church of England at the time adopted a crossbreed of the two. True Humanism had its foothold and the notion of an absolute truth was dealt a fatal blow, although it would take a few more centuries to bleed out. Today, Europe is agnostic and atheistic in its values.
*to be continued*
Thoughts on the origin of worldview
"Nature seems to exist for the excellent. The world is upheld by the veracity of good men: they make the earth wholesome. They who lived with them found life glad and nutritious. Life is sweet and tolerable only in our belief in such society; and, actually or ideally, we manage to live with superiors. We call our children and our lands by their names. Their names are wrought into the verbs of language, their works and effigies are in our houses, and every circumstance of the day recalls an anecdote of them. The search after the great man is the dream of youth and the most serious occupation of manhood. We travel into foreign parts to find his works, -if possible, to get a glimpse of him. But we are put off with fortune instead."
Uses of Great Men, Ralph Waldo Emerson
What is it about man that we find it so easy to obsess over ourselves? The biggest obstacle a man will ever face is the confines that he will impose on himself. The irony is that man's greatest self-imposed confine is himself. The depths of man inherently know that a higher power is omnipresent in his domain, and he tends to loathe it. On the one hand, we refuse to submit to anything attempting to claim lordship of our innermost thoughts and subtle actions, but on the other, we sell our souls for the permission to identify with certain thought processes and popular sociological trends. A particular rocket scientist could reject all thoughts of a creator or god in an attempt to “liberate” his mind, and simultaneously fall prey to the same social restrictions that ensnare high school girls when selecting an outfit and brand names to wear for a night out.
Every culture adopts and raises a distinct cornucopia of principles and ideas with which they choose to identify. These principles govern all who find themselves enveloped within its jurisdiction. For Europeans before the reformation, this social order was constructed around the dictations of God mainly through the Pope. Their lives were simple, and they relied on God for everything. A farmer would come to the dinner table with his sons after a long day at work in the fields, and he would bow his head to pray for rain for the crops they just planted, and continued health and protection for the members of his family. For the people of his era, life was completely out of human control or prediction. It rained only when God made it rain and for however long He saw fit. Disease was prevalent, but He bestowed protection on whom He wanted to when He wanted to. Life was extremely matter of fact. Imagine the implications to such a society when someone starts predicting the weather. Weather patterns become charted, germs get discovered, preventative measures are concocted, and God’s job description gets redefined. The situation snowballs, and mankind’s dependence on its progenitor is obliterated during a hectic rapid development of a society spawned by trust in man.
Corrupt Popes fused with advances in technology propelled thoughts away from God and into outer space or on massive ships surveying the globe. Mankind was unstoppable. Instead of demonstrating this vertically like their previous attempt to build a tower to touch heaven, they expressed this notion horizontally. Ideas and inventions spread like fire through mentally dry lands. Was man limitless?
It is ironic that the corruption of a few religious leaders served as a catalyst to corrupt human thought in general on the opposite side of the pendulum. It seems that when human nature and philosophy interact the consequent irrational actions produced are often followed by harsher reactions. We are a people that travel between scarlet letters and complete sexual perversion without any contemplation of the existence of a middle ground. In any case, religion dispersed as kings and popes faced off against each other. With mankind’s advancement, and subsequent self-reliance, the power of the church cracked. Man no longer needed a pope to bridge the gap between God and man and felt confident enough to interpret the Bible for himself. Denominations were born as a result of people feeling like they could say and think what they wanted. In Germany, Luther declared that the Eucharist was the actual body of Christ, and is later excommunicated from the church after writing a divisive paper called the “Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms.” In Switzerland, massive amounts of people started following John Calvin’s interpretation of the Bible. Erasmus declared himself a humanist Christian (today an explicit oxymoron) and started criticizing doctrines, even re-writing certain sacred texts. The Christian order was in disarray. Catholicism faced off against the Protestants, and the church of England at the time adopted a crossbreed of the two. True Humanism had its foothold and the notion of an absolute truth was dealt a fatal blow, although it would take a few more centuries to bleed out. Today, Europe is agnostic and atheistic in its values.
*to be continued*
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Biblical Evidence for the Nature of Saving Faith (Including Assent, Trust, Hope, Works, Obedience, and Sanctification)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/
Written by DAVE ARMSTRONG
Topics Include:
I. Trust as an Aspect of Faith and Discipleship
II. Believing God: Implying Trust or Hope, and Faith
III. Faith in God, In the Sense of Implying Trust or Hope
IV. Hope in the Lord and in Salvation
V. Confidence in God, In the Sense of Implying Trust and Faith
VI. Waiting for God, Implying Trust and Faith
VII. The Lord as a "Rock": Implying Trust and Faith
VIII. The Lord as "My Strength" or "My Stronghold"
IX. The Lord as a "Refuge": Implying Trust and Faith
X. Absence of Fear as an Aspect of Faith and Trust in God
XI. God as a "Shield"
XII. God as "My Help"
XIII. "Seeking the Lord" as an Aspect of Faith
XIV. "Looking to the Lord" as an Aspect of Faith
Check him out
Written by DAVE ARMSTRONG
Topics Include:
I. Trust as an Aspect of Faith and Discipleship
II. Believing God: Implying Trust or Hope, and Faith
III. Faith in God, In the Sense of Implying Trust or Hope
IV. Hope in the Lord and in Salvation
V. Confidence in God, In the Sense of Implying Trust and Faith
VI. Waiting for God, Implying Trust and Faith
VII. The Lord as a "Rock": Implying Trust and Faith
VIII. The Lord as "My Strength" or "My Stronghold"
IX. The Lord as a "Refuge": Implying Trust and Faith
X. Absence of Fear as an Aspect of Faith and Trust in God
XI. God as a "Shield"
XII. God as "My Help"
XIII. "Seeking the Lord" as an Aspect of Faith
XIV. "Looking to the Lord" as an Aspect of Faith
Check him out
Friday, January 8, 2010
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle
Often, I find myself critiquing the actions and motives of the people God put in my life. "Sal thinks he has it so tough. The kid is a joke, his parents still pay for everything. He has no idea what life is like, I have been on my own financially since I was sixteen." Then of course there are people who in turn see my life as a cake-walk as they cuddle up under cars to grab a night's sleep. The fact of the matter is, life is about perspective and vantage. World War II, for example, left countless people homeless and fatherless, widowed and desolate, but it also made some people's fortunes and left the nations that were unscathed poised for prosperity. Different peoples inherited different situations following this catostrophic event in history. Many would ponder this and interpret that life bestowed kindness on some, and cruelty on others. Misunderstanding life in this way is a common error that we all make. Life is life. The doses may be different, but we all endure pain and hardship, happiness and triumph, dissapointment and calamity. A rich kid growing up with everything he could want being immediately handed to him is ensnared by life just as much as a poor kid who has to work to support his family and cannot go to college. Homeless people have issues, so does Donald Trump.
We need to understand this. John 13:34-35 says "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." It is difficult to love people we do not understand. In order to understand people, we must be cognizant and acceptant of the fact that "everyone you meet is fighting a battle." -Plato. (Another version of Plato's quote went "Be kind for everyone is enduring their own personal hell) People are going to have hardships, whether their life situation appears to be severe or not. I once dated a girl that would get extremely stressed and depressed whenever she did not excell on a test. Her approach to perfection made it difficult for me to respect her. It seemed absurd to me that she made school into such a big deal, especially since one of my friends had just died in a car accident. I learned that if something is truly a big deal to a person, then you should respect it for what it is. Maybe failing a test was the worse thing to happen to this girl, but regardless, that represented her pinnacle of fear and anxiety. The degree of a person's emotional state is more important to focus on than the events that transported them there. We must respect and sympathize with people according to where they see themselves.
We need to understand this. John 13:34-35 says "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." It is difficult to love people we do not understand. In order to understand people, we must be cognizant and acceptant of the fact that "everyone you meet is fighting a battle." -Plato. (Another version of Plato's quote went "Be kind for everyone is enduring their own personal hell) People are going to have hardships, whether their life situation appears to be severe or not. I once dated a girl that would get extremely stressed and depressed whenever she did not excell on a test. Her approach to perfection made it difficult for me to respect her. It seemed absurd to me that she made school into such a big deal, especially since one of my friends had just died in a car accident. I learned that if something is truly a big deal to a person, then you should respect it for what it is. Maybe failing a test was the worse thing to happen to this girl, but regardless, that represented her pinnacle of fear and anxiety. The degree of a person's emotional state is more important to focus on than the events that transported them there. We must respect and sympathize with people according to where they see themselves.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Reflections on Psalm 95
Psalm 95
1O come, let us sing for joy to the LORD, Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
2Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
3For the LORD is a great God And a great King above all gods,
4In whose hand are the depths of the earth, The peaks of the mountains are His also.
5The sea is His, for it was He who made it, And His hands formed the dry land.
6Come, let us worship and bow down, Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.
7For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand Today, if you would hear His voice,
8Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
9"When your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, though they had seen My work.
10"For forty years I loathed that generation, And said they are a people who err in their heart, And they do not know My ways.
11"Therefore I swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My rest."
"Massah" is hebrew for "testing"
"Meribah" is hebrew for "quarrelling"
These names were given to the place God, Moses, and the Isrealites squared off, as recounted in the book of Exodus, chapter 17.
Exodus 17:1-7
1Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Sin, according to the command of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink.
2Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, "Give us water that we may drink " And Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?"
3But the people thirsted there for water; and they grumbled against Moses and said, "Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?"
4So Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, "What shall I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me."
5Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.
6"Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink." And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
7He named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the LORD, saying, "Is the LORD among us, or not?"
1O come, let us sing for joy to the LORD, Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
2Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
3For the LORD is a great God And a great King above all gods,
4In whose hand are the depths of the earth, The peaks of the mountains are His also.
5The sea is His, for it was He who made it, And His hands formed the dry land.
6Come, let us worship and bow down, Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.
7For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand Today, if you would hear His voice,
8Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
9"When your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, though they had seen My work.
10"For forty years I loathed that generation, And said they are a people who err in their heart, And they do not know My ways.
11"Therefore I swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My rest."
"Massah" is hebrew for "testing"
"Meribah" is hebrew for "quarrelling"
These names were given to the place God, Moses, and the Isrealites squared off, as recounted in the book of Exodus, chapter 17.
Exodus 17:1-7
1Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Sin, according to the command of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink.
2Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, "Give us water that we may drink " And Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?"
3But the people thirsted there for water; and they grumbled against Moses and said, "Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?"
4So Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, "What shall I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me."
5Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.
6"Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink." And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
7He named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the LORD, saying, "Is the LORD among us, or not?"
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Notes on Wisdom
This morning I asked my pastor to define "wisdom." He replied, "wisdom is knowning how to live skillfully. You get it by fearing the Lord." He continued, "now the key to fearing the Lord is seeing God as He is, and seeing myself as I am, and respecting that gap." I found his statement interesting. Introspection is an essential part of our attempt to follow Christ. (2 Corinthians 13:5 bids us to test and examine ourselves.) If I can get to a place where I can truly comprehend the differences between myself and God, it seems I would have no choice but to fear Him... whether I had a personal relationship with Him or not. My interest is officially piqued by this. Topical study is brewing... but for now, here are a few verses to ponder concerning wisdom.
Proverbs 1:7
7The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 1:20-22
20Wisdom shouts in the street, She lifts her voice in the square; 21At the head of the noisy streets she cries out; At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings: 22"How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing And fools hate knowledge?
Proverbs 2:3-7
3For if you cry for discernment, Lift your voice for understanding; 4If you seek her as silver And search for her as for hidden treasures; 5Then you will discern the fear of the LORD And discover the knowledge of God. 6For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding. 7He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
Psalm 111:10
10The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do His commandments; His praise endures forever.
James 1:5 and Matthew 7:7-8
5But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
7"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
8"For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
Proverbs 1:7
7The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 1:20-22
20Wisdom shouts in the street, She lifts her voice in the square; 21At the head of the noisy streets she cries out; At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings: 22"How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing And fools hate knowledge?
Proverbs 2:3-7
3For if you cry for discernment, Lift your voice for understanding; 4If you seek her as silver And search for her as for hidden treasures; 5Then you will discern the fear of the LORD And discover the knowledge of God. 6For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding. 7He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
Psalm 111:10
10The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do His commandments; His praise endures forever.
James 1:5 and Matthew 7:7-8
5But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
7"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
8"For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Jehovah Jireh The Accountant
The problem: Consumerism has consumed us.
Human nature is unchanging. Man's cultivation of greed and impulse of self-preservation provide the fuel to life in our modern concrete jungles in the same manner that it provided life's motive for our progenitors. Although technology changes with the times, this concoction that acts as a respirator for too many has walked with mankind since our genesis. Lets face it... life is expensive, and at times daunting. At twenty-three years of age, most people's basic bills include; rent, car insurance, health insurance, cell phone, student loans, and possibly car payments. These are considered necessities by society. One could argue that today, television and internet bills are deemed necessities as well. Then add a few credit cards, food, clothing, etc... Our lives are consumed by working and working trying to sustain and purchase. Some of us have to add a kid or two to the mix as well. It becomes mesmerizing. I believe that America today is no different than it was in our colonial stage in the sense that mankind is linked by the fear of providing sufficiency for tomorrow. Maybe a few centuries ago Indians posed a bigger threat then debt collectors and blackberry bills, but hey... anxiety is anxiety.
The problem here is that we become consumed by tinkering with our individual puzzles of how to fit which paycheck to which bill; it is pathetic. We waste our lives trying to survive, and we exhaust our energies playing in the wrong game. As individually created beings, we are called to follow Christ, and to focus on the "eternal." We are given a simple choice between submitting to this calling, and damnation. How can we be freed to follow Jesus when we are enslaved to our consumerism and consequent debts? The distraction is dangerous.
If it weren't for my unwarranted fear of Christian acronyms, here would be the point in this essay where I would post a cute picture of a frog. Seriously though, we must dig deep to find this entrenched fear of "having enough," (whatever that means) and, in faith, submit that to God.
Mathew 6:19-34 says "
19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20"But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22"The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. 23"But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other You cannot serve God and wealth. 25"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26"Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27"And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28"And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31"Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' 32"For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34"So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
God's desire for us is that we worry about Him... that's it. Period. God calls Himself "Jehovah Jireh," which literally translates to "The Lord Will Provide." It comes from the root Hebrew word "to see" or "foresee" like a prophet. He sees our needs well before we even do. (Psalm 139:13 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb.) We were made to serve and to worship Him, anything in our lives that rises to interfere or distract from our purpose is not of God. All Our Provider wants is for us to have clear access to Him. That is the entire reason that He bothered to create us. If God in His omnipotence does not have the daily contact with us that He so desires, then we are gravely amiss in the direction of our lives. Why do we sometimes feel that we are stranded in our situations? God has parted seas and wiped out nations for the comfort of His people. 1 Peter 5:7 instructs us "casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you." He wants nothing more than to help us to find our way to Him.
How can we learn to relax in God, and pursue what He wants us to pursue?
In order to solidify our dependence on Christ, we must work daily at keeping life in perspective.
In Ephesians chapter five, verses three and five states that greedy and covetous men have no place in the Kingdom of God. Verse five indicates that covetousness is idolatry. "5For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. " Do not allow yourself to want what other people may have. Greed posseses poor people in the same manner in which it possesses the rich. We need only to be consumed by God.
Hebrews 12:1-3
1Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
We cannot serve God and money. Since we were born into sin, and are stuck with our sinful human nature, we must actively fix our eyes on Jesus, because our natural tendency is to chase self satisfaction.
Proverbs 23:4-5
4Do not weary yourself to gain wealth, Cease from your consideration of it. 5When you set your eyes on it, it is gone. For wealth certainly makes itself wings Like an eagle that flies toward the heavens.
If we feel that money has too great a hold on us, we must let it go.
Mathew 18:7-9
7"Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes! 8"If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire. 9"If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell.
These are some serious words uttered by Jesus, the man who owned only one tunic when he died. Whatever the cost, do not bow down to money and materialistic things. The more money has a hold on your life, the more you should give away. 1Cor 9:7 says that "the Lord loves a cheerful giver," so give freely expecting nothing in return.
Please, let us not be distracted by the worries of tomorrow. Let us instead be so caught up in God that we are too distracted to feel anxiety. Tithe, even at the end of the month, and turn down that extra Sunday morning shift when it is offered at work. Trust that Jehovah Jireh will reward faithfulness with His company.
Duet 4:23-35
23"So watch yourselves, that you do not forget the covenant of the LORD your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything against which the LORD your God has commanded you. 24"For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. 25"When you become the father of children and children's children and have remained long in the land, and act corruptly, and make an idol in the form of anything, and do that which is evil in the sight of the LORD your God so as to provoke Him to anger, 26I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will surely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed. 27"The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD drives you. 28"There you will serve gods, the work of man's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29"But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. 30"When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the LORD your God and listen to His voice. 31"For the LORD your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them. 32"Indeed, ask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and inquire from one end of the heavens to the other Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it? 33"Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived? 34"Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35"To you it was shown that you might know that the LORD, He is God; there is no other besides Him.
Let us strive to get to a place in our lives where, like Paul, we can honestly say, "I have covered no one's gold or silver or clothes." (Acts 20:33) Pray that God will enable us to eradicate our distractions, and actively seek Him; He will take care of everything else.
Human nature is unchanging. Man's cultivation of greed and impulse of self-preservation provide the fuel to life in our modern concrete jungles in the same manner that it provided life's motive for our progenitors. Although technology changes with the times, this concoction that acts as a respirator for too many has walked with mankind since our genesis. Lets face it... life is expensive, and at times daunting. At twenty-three years of age, most people's basic bills include; rent, car insurance, health insurance, cell phone, student loans, and possibly car payments. These are considered necessities by society. One could argue that today, television and internet bills are deemed necessities as well. Then add a few credit cards, food, clothing, etc... Our lives are consumed by working and working trying to sustain and purchase. Some of us have to add a kid or two to the mix as well. It becomes mesmerizing. I believe that America today is no different than it was in our colonial stage in the sense that mankind is linked by the fear of providing sufficiency for tomorrow. Maybe a few centuries ago Indians posed a bigger threat then debt collectors and blackberry bills, but hey... anxiety is anxiety.
The problem here is that we become consumed by tinkering with our individual puzzles of how to fit which paycheck to which bill; it is pathetic. We waste our lives trying to survive, and we exhaust our energies playing in the wrong game. As individually created beings, we are called to follow Christ, and to focus on the "eternal." We are given a simple choice between submitting to this calling, and damnation. How can we be freed to follow Jesus when we are enslaved to our consumerism and consequent debts? The distraction is dangerous.
If it weren't for my unwarranted fear of Christian acronyms, here would be the point in this essay where I would post a cute picture of a frog. Seriously though, we must dig deep to find this entrenched fear of "having enough," (whatever that means) and, in faith, submit that to God.
Mathew 6:19-34 says "
19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20"But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22"The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. 23"But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other You cannot serve God and wealth. 25"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26"Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27"And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28"And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31"Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' 32"For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34"So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
God's desire for us is that we worry about Him... that's it. Period. God calls Himself "Jehovah Jireh," which literally translates to "The Lord Will Provide." It comes from the root Hebrew word "to see" or "foresee" like a prophet. He sees our needs well before we even do. (Psalm 139:13 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb.) We were made to serve and to worship Him, anything in our lives that rises to interfere or distract from our purpose is not of God. All Our Provider wants is for us to have clear access to Him. That is the entire reason that He bothered to create us. If God in His omnipotence does not have the daily contact with us that He so desires, then we are gravely amiss in the direction of our lives. Why do we sometimes feel that we are stranded in our situations? God has parted seas and wiped out nations for the comfort of His people. 1 Peter 5:7 instructs us "casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you." He wants nothing more than to help us to find our way to Him.
How can we learn to relax in God, and pursue what He wants us to pursue?
In order to solidify our dependence on Christ, we must work daily at keeping life in perspective.
In Ephesians chapter five, verses three and five states that greedy and covetous men have no place in the Kingdom of God. Verse five indicates that covetousness is idolatry. "5For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. " Do not allow yourself to want what other people may have. Greed posseses poor people in the same manner in which it possesses the rich. We need only to be consumed by God.
Hebrews 12:1-3
1Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
We cannot serve God and money. Since we were born into sin, and are stuck with our sinful human nature, we must actively fix our eyes on Jesus, because our natural tendency is to chase self satisfaction.
Proverbs 23:4-5
4Do not weary yourself to gain wealth, Cease from your consideration of it. 5When you set your eyes on it, it is gone. For wealth certainly makes itself wings Like an eagle that flies toward the heavens.
If we feel that money has too great a hold on us, we must let it go.
Mathew 18:7-9
7"Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes! 8"If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire. 9"If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell.
These are some serious words uttered by Jesus, the man who owned only one tunic when he died. Whatever the cost, do not bow down to money and materialistic things. The more money has a hold on your life, the more you should give away. 1Cor 9:7 says that "the Lord loves a cheerful giver," so give freely expecting nothing in return.
Please, let us not be distracted by the worries of tomorrow. Let us instead be so caught up in God that we are too distracted to feel anxiety. Tithe, even at the end of the month, and turn down that extra Sunday morning shift when it is offered at work. Trust that Jehovah Jireh will reward faithfulness with His company.
Duet 4:23-35
23"So watch yourselves, that you do not forget the covenant of the LORD your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything against which the LORD your God has commanded you. 24"For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. 25"When you become the father of children and children's children and have remained long in the land, and act corruptly, and make an idol in the form of anything, and do that which is evil in the sight of the LORD your God so as to provoke Him to anger, 26I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will surely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed. 27"The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD drives you. 28"There you will serve gods, the work of man's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29"But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. 30"When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the LORD your God and listen to His voice. 31"For the LORD your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them. 32"Indeed, ask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and inquire from one end of the heavens to the other Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it? 33"Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived? 34"Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35"To you it was shown that you might know that the LORD, He is God; there is no other besides Him.
Let us strive to get to a place in our lives where, like Paul, we can honestly say, "I have covered no one's gold or silver or clothes." (Acts 20:33) Pray that God will enable us to eradicate our distractions, and actively seek Him; He will take care of everything else.
What's in a name?
THE NAMES OF GOD
Isa 43:1 But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Isreal, "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine!"
Names are important to God. Throughout the Bible, God plays an interactive and personal role in the selection of different peoples names, in a few instances even changing the names of people who experienced an epiphany with God. Names were often used to portray a dominant character trait of a person. The Bible provides many different names for God to help us understand some of the many different dimensions of His Character. The same God that smote cities and obliterated entire races of people, is the same God that says He personally attends to the flowers and birds of the earth. Researching the different names of God is the same as researching His different character traits and facets of His personality. Psalm 9:10 says "And those who know Your name will put their trust in You, For You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You." For me, the experience was very interesting, and at times, a form of worship. I do not understand Hebrew, and as a result, this study was fabricated by collaborating different scholars and researchers with the little I previously knew about the names of God.
Before we delve into the names of God, I figured it would be interesting to briefly visit what God says about His name.
Psalm 8:1 O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth, Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!
Psalm 148:13 Let them praise the name of the LORD, For His name alone is exalted; His glory is above earth and heaven.
Psalm 7:17 I will give thanks to the LORD according to His righteousness And will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High.
Psalm 9:2 I will be glad and exult in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.
Psalm 100:4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
Meditate on His name while reading through this, and praise His name without ceasing. Proverbs 18:10 The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are safe.
Run to His name throughout the day. He has provided (Jehovah Jireh) a stronghold for us to escape temptation and fear, it would behoove us to learn to use it.
Enjoy.
"JEHOVAH: LORD in our English Bibles (all capitals). Yahweh is the covenant name of God. Occurs 6823 times in the OT First use Gen. 2:4 (Jehovah Elohim). From the verb "to be", havah, similar to chavah (to live), "The Self-Existent One," "I AM WHO I AM" or 'I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE" as revealed to Moses at the burning bush, Ex.3. The name of God, too sacred to be uttered, abbreviated ( . . . . ) or written "YHWH" without vowel points. The tetragrammaton. Josh., Judges, Sam., and Kings use Jehovah almost exclusively. The love of God is conditioned upon His moral and spiritual attributes. (Dan. 9:14; Ps. 11:7; Lev. 19:2; Hab. 1:12). Note Deut. 6:4, 5 known to Jews as the Sh'ma uses both Jehovah and Elohim to indicate one God with a plurality of persons." - Lambert Dolphin
Isa 43:1 But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Isreal, "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine!"
Names are important to God. Throughout the Bible, God plays an interactive and personal role in the selection of different peoples names, in a few instances even changing the names of people who experienced an epiphany with God. Names were often used to portray a dominant character trait of a person. The Bible provides many different names for God to help us understand some of the many different dimensions of His Character. The same God that smote cities and obliterated entire races of people, is the same God that says He personally attends to the flowers and birds of the earth. Researching the different names of God is the same as researching His different character traits and facets of His personality. Psalm 9:10 says "And those who know Your name will put their trust in You, For You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You." For me, the experience was very interesting, and at times, a form of worship. I do not understand Hebrew, and as a result, this study was fabricated by collaborating different scholars and researchers with the little I previously knew about the names of God.
Before we delve into the names of God, I figured it would be interesting to briefly visit what God says about His name.
Psalm 8:1 O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth, Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!
Psalm 148:13 Let them praise the name of the LORD, For His name alone is exalted; His glory is above earth and heaven.
Psalm 7:17 I will give thanks to the LORD according to His righteousness And will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High.
Psalm 9:2 I will be glad and exult in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.
Psalm 100:4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
Meditate on His name while reading through this, and praise His name without ceasing. Proverbs 18:10 The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are safe.
Run to His name throughout the day. He has provided (Jehovah Jireh) a stronghold for us to escape temptation and fear, it would behoove us to learn to use it.
Enjoy.
"JEHOVAH: LORD in our English Bibles (all capitals). Yahweh is the covenant name of God. Occurs 6823 times in the OT First use Gen. 2:4 (Jehovah Elohim). From the verb "to be", havah, similar to chavah (to live), "The Self-Existent One," "I AM WHO I AM" or 'I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE" as revealed to Moses at the burning bush, Ex.3. The name of God, too sacred to be uttered, abbreviated ( . . . . ) or written "YHWH" without vowel points. The tetragrammaton. Josh., Judges, Sam., and Kings use Jehovah almost exclusively. The love of God is conditioned upon His moral and spiritual attributes. (Dan. 9:14; Ps. 11:7; Lev. 19:2; Hab. 1:12). Note Deut. 6:4, 5 known to Jews as the Sh'ma uses both Jehovah and Elohim to indicate one God with a plurality of persons." - Lambert Dolphin
- Ex 3:13-15, 1Chron 16:23-29
God is:
Jehovah Shammah- The Lord is There
- This name promises His presence; "where two or three come together in My name, there I am with them." Matt 18:20
- Deut 31:6, Ezek 48:35, I Cor 3:16, Isa 12:6, Matt 28:20, Rev 21:1-3
Jehovah Jireh- The Lord Will Provide
- From the root word "to see," or "foresee," like a prophet. This name tells us God is willing and able to meet every need of His people. He sees our needs before we even do.
- Gen 22:8, 13-14, Acts 14:17, Rom 8:32, II Cor 9:8, Phil 4:19, I Tim 6:17
El- The God of Power and Might, Prominant One (used 250 times in OT)
- Linguistically, it is similiar to the muslim god "allah" although the characteristics attributed to the name vary. In the Bible, El is used to describe pagan gods as well
- Exo 15:1-3,11, Deut 3:24, II Chron 20:6, Psalm 18:2-3, Psalm 89:5-8, Isa 43:10-13, Gen. 7:1, 28:3, 35:11; Nu. 23:22; Josh. 3:10; 2 Sam. 22:31, 32; Neh. 1:5, 9:32; Isa. 9:6; Ezek. 10:5
Jehovah Rapha- The Lord Heals
- He heals our bodies, but the emphasis here is that He is the healer and restorer of our spirit, our heart, and our soul.
- Exo 15:22-26, Deut 32:39, Psalm 103:1-4, Psalm 147:3, Isa 53:4-5, Matt 8:16-17
Jehovah Tsidkenu- The Lord is our Righteousness
- "There is no one righteous, not even one," (Rom 3:10) but we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense; Jesus Christ, The Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1John 2:1-2) the unblemished bridge between God and man.
- Jer 23:5-6, Rom 3:21-22, Rom 5:17-19, II Cor 5:21, Ezek 36:25-26, 1John 1:7,9
Jehovah Shalom- The Lord is Peace
- Rom 5:1, John 14:27, Judges 6:22-24, Eph 2:14-18, Isa 9:6, Col 1:19-20, Isa 26:3-4
Elohim- Creator, Preserver, Transcendent, Mighty and Strong (used 2,570 times in OT)
- Elohim is a plural noun (more then two; ie. reffering to The Trinity) When Daniel and Jonah write, they use Elohim almost exclusively
- Gen. 17:7, 6:18, 9:15, 50:24; I Kings 8:23; Jer. 31:33; Isa. 40:1
El Shaddai- God is all Sufficient, God is Almighty, God is Self Sufficient
- El Shaddai is used 31 times in the book of Job. I find this the most interesting of God's names, because He reffers to Himself as "El Shaddai," God self-sufficient, but refers to idols, and pagan gods as "sheddim." Sheddim simply means "not god," and later became a root for the hebrew word for demons. El Shaddai has no craftsman, no goldsmith, relies on absolutely nobody and nothing for His existance, and calls any other form of "god" Shaddim; not self-sufficient.
- Gen. 17:1, 2, Gen. 31:29, 49:24, 25; Prov. 3:27; Micah 2:1; Isa. 60:15, 16, 66:10-13; Ruth 1:20, 21, Rev. 16:7
Adonai- Master, Lord
- Adonai is plural, the singular would be "adon." It is always in plural form when reffering to God, and shows up as "Lord" in our Bibles. Not to be confused with "LORD" which is used to refer to "Yahweh" or "Jehovah." When is appears in its singular form, "adon," it is used to refer to a human lord or king. (adon is used 215 times in the OT to refer to men.)
- Gen. 15:2, Ex. 4:10; Judges 6:15; 2 Sam. 7:18-20; Ps. 8, 114:7, 135:5, 141:8, 109:21-28
- Exekiel and Daniel use the word "Adonai" alot
Jehovha Nissi- The Lord our Banner
- God on the battlefield, from word which means "to glisten," "to lift up,"
- Ex 17:15, Psalm 4:6
Jehovah M'kaddesh- The Lord Who Sanctifies
- "To make whole, set apart for holiness." The Lord says: "Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God. Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the Lord, who makes you holy." (Leviticus 20:7-8)
Jehovah Rahi- The Lord our Shepherd
- Psa. 23, 79:13, 95:7, 80:1, 100:3; Gen. 49:24; Isa. 40:11
Jehovah Sabaoth- The Lord of Hosts
- The commander of the angels and the armies of God
- Isa. 1:24; Psa. 46:7, 11; 2 Kings 3:9-12; Jer. 11:20, Rom. 9:29; James 5:4, Rev. 19: 11-16
El Elyon- The Most High
- Deut. 26:19, 32:8; Psa. 18:13; Gen. 14:18; Nu. 24:16; Psa. 78:35, 7:17, 18:13, 97:9, 56:2, 78:56, 18:13; Dan. 7:25, 27; Isa. 14:14.
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