Timmy Jones Concert

My good friend playing his first show; it was one of the best shows I've seen in town in a very long time...

My Girl... Prettiest One in the Land

The pouty face that gets her what she wants (sometimes)...






Scared of falling off a cliff...

Meeting the Searcher on Their Terms

I've discovered this semester, and espeicially the past few days, that Christianity has a bad name. Just in the past two days, my pastor has been called an a** hole by someone who waitressed for him last week, my church has been ridiculed, and a philosophy professor told me that the intrinsic value of a human being has become so widely held that no one needs to justify why they believe it anymore. Therefore, the ends justify the means in morals.

It has come to the point where you can no longer talk about God first. I'm not talking about the Bible, I mean just God in general. You must now start at the existential aspects of life like love, being human, and so on. You must address the here and now before you can talk about God. You have to link their beliefs or their tensions in life to God. It's a scary world out there, full of hopelessness and searching. And its tearing me apart. I spent a good time this morning praying to God to show me how to talk to these people, and help their search.

I'm searching too. All I know right now is that it is sad that you cannot say what church you go to because it turns people away. I guess that isn't too bad though. Nowadays, to talk to a non-Christian who has learned you are a Christian, you have to ask them to suspend their preconcieved ideas about Christianity. It's not looking good for Christianity in America; makes me want to move to Far East.

Animal Rights and Objective Ethics

How should we treat animals? Should we use them in experimental labs? Should we support modern factory farms?

I've been faced with these questions through reading a few articles for a class. The most interesting article I read was by Tom Regan. We is for animal rights to the point that they are equal to human beings. What I though was really interesting about his articles is he developed a ethical system called "The Rights View". This view is simple: every human being has worth regardless of race, gender, disabilities, or anything else because the are subjects of life, or participants of life. He then moves to the basis that animals, being participants and subjects of life, also have the same rights as humans.

This strong view is hard to justify and ultimately it is unsound. But I'm not focused on that really. My concern is that he never justified why he thought that humans should have moral worth. It was a given to him. This is the greatest question that is begged in our culture today - we assume that humans have worth. I am all for this of course, but we never really see if our worldview can justify such a statement. In all my studies in the university and on my own, I have yet to hear any cogent, coherent, or strong enough basis for the justification for inherent human worth outside of God. It falls apart without a transcendent referent.

So how does a believer in God deal with animal rights? Well a Christian can look to St. Francis of Assisi as a start. He or she can also realize that God created man in His image, but nonetheless gave man the responsibility to be stewards of His creation. These different roles do not neccesitate inequality, but the essence of man does. Man has a glory, likeness to God, "divine spark" that no other has. This does not mean to dominate, but the very nature of this spark is to love, care, and be responsible stewards. We must not neglect God's creation; we must take care of it and respect it.

This obviously means to treat creation humanely. At the same time, we must realize differences in moral worth from the rest of creation and humans. By this I mean that it is better for someone to kill my dog than it is for someone to kill my brother or neighbor. This also means that is possible to have animals in experimental settings that treat them as humanely as possible because it is better for an animal to be the first experiment than a human being.

I say this loosely though, realizing that there are always exceptions. What I am saying means that when a human life is at risk than an animal life would be better taken than a human life. For instance, in the disease of AIDS, it would be worthwhile to test animals, as they did when they tested for a cure for polio, for cures than to just let it continue. This assumes, of course, that no other option is viable or as effective. However, when it comes to testing superficial things such as beauty products, or other such things, we should not even feel the need to endanger lives over such trivial things. But when life, disease, and disability is in concern, I see a moral window (although very small).

Finally, in regards to modern factory farms, they are just horrible. This, however, has to do with reform of the system and not eating animals at all (although I have sympathy to the vegetarian and/or vegan lifestyle). I think it would be smart to find any possible way out of supporting large factory farms that treat animals inhumanely. Unfortunately, this is a hard thing to do, especially in bigger cities. It is important though, and something I'm looking into.

The Saints

Yes, I'll follow the tracks that the saints have trod
By the grace of God
I'll walk in the rain of His mercy
Let it soak me down to the bone
And I'll splash in its puddles
And dance in its streams as I go
And, Lord, I'll walk in the rain of Your mercy
All the way home

- from "All the Way Home" by Andrew Peterson
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

If there was one thing I could ask some the Saints like Thomas a Kempis, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, Brother Lawrence, and others it would be" "How does your devotion persevere?" Now obviously the Scriptures and even these Saints give us an idea and principles to follow. But to sit with them and talk to them about their day to day lives would be different I would imagine. It would be a priceless conversation.

I struggle with my devotion daily. I do not expect to be perfect, but I do expect to become closer to God everyday. Sometimes it does not work, and I know that is fine. We all have bad days; my frustration is not with my sin but with my devotion. I think God is more concerned with my devotion than my sin as well; they are very closely related mind you. The Andrew Peterson lyrics above show it clearly: it is by His grace and mercy that I am able to follow the path that the saint's have trod.

What would you ask the saints?

Zoo Day pictures

Savannah and I went to the zoo yesterday and she graciously let me play with her new toy. Here are the few good ones I got:

Faith

Earlier this year, a documentary was released called "The Lost Tomb of Jesus". It purported that an archeology team had recently found a tomb that had a man named Jesus in it. If this was the Jesus of the Bible this would have been the greatest discovery in the history of the Western world. Unfortunately it came up well short as every well-credentialed archeologist said it was nothing of the sort. Jesus was a common name and the tomb did not fit where Jesus would have been buried or the income level of Jesus' family. What shocked me however was that the documentary makers made a revealing and stunning comment to soften the public blow on Christianity - they said that the discovery shouldn't hurt Christianity at all. I was screaming in my head, "What?! How do you get that idea?"

The only possible way you can make sense of such a comment is to think one of three things: Jesus' resurrection was spiritual, Christianity is not about facts but faith, or he had no idea that Jesus' death and ressurection is the backbone of Christianity. I would guess that they would not be so niave to believe the last one. It is possible that they are familiar with the debate on Christ's ressurection being spiritual or bodily. But I would guess it was the middle one because that is a common view in today's world, especially the academic world.

But this view of Christianity is become a "Christian" mindset as well. As christians, especially in the west, have begun to lose their identity in the intellectual realm, they have not fought this but actually are now encouraging it. There is a movement happening in the evangelical crowd. It's moving to emotionalism, cliche phrases that have no honesty left in them, and even a lite form of fideism. The reason why is because the Christian worldview, throughout most of the 20th century, had no true, cogent answer to the growing western world. As It lost its indentity in as compitent, reasonable worldview, it drifted into what it was comfortable with. The result is a group that are copycats to culture, mindless in worship, and ignorant in thought. Anyone who has grown up in an evangelical church has heard the verses "God's ways are greater than my ways" and "how unsearchable are your ways oh God" taken out of context at least once. We have come to the conclusion that faith equals not asking questions and not trying to work things out. I wonder what they would do when they realized that Job, Habakuk, Abraham, and the disciples all asked questions.

Christianity has become a religion that is based on leaps in the dark and not truth. These "leap in the dark" moments are called faithful moments. Is this faith?

When Jesus coming into a town, some servants of a Roman centurion came to him and asked him to heal their masters greatest servant from a deathy sickness. Jesus agreed to come the centurion's house. As he came closer to the house, the centurion sent out his servants again and the servants said that their master did not need Jesus to come out of his way for him but that Jesus just needed to say the word and he would be confident in the healing of his servant - for has the centurion had authority to tell people to do things so did Jesus have authority to do what is in his power to do. Jesus said that he had not found such faith in anyone else he had encountered and that the centurion's servant has been healed. What kind of faith did this man have in Jesus? It was definitely not a leap in the dark.

The centurion obviously knew of Jesus and his power. He based his belief on what was true. He heard the testimony of Jesus' miracles and understood Jesus' authority. This is the very opposite many see Christianity today. Many people see Christianity in the light of: their faith makes it true for them. However, this is not how the Bible sees faith. The Bible sees it this way: truth makes their faith reasonable. Truth precedes faith, not the other way around. The centurion heard of Jesus and knew of his power, and based his faith in Jesus on the evidence given to him.

The word for faith in the new testament is "pistis". This greek word is probably best understood as having trust in something that is reliable. It is the idea of trusting in something that has been well tested. It is not a leap in the dark where you are trusting anything, whether reliable or not. Faith, in the Christian sense, is not this. As the centurion trusted in Jesus and his authority because of knowing of Jesus and his works, so do Christians trust in God. The Christian idea of faith is dependent on truth and evidence. They have yet to find Jesus' dead body and I believe they never will because the evidence does not point to his grave but his ressurection. The evidence for the resurrection is obviously not 100% and that is why faith comes in. But I have faith that Jesus did raise from the dead because the evidence points that direction. Faith is not the absence of thought or reason, it is the trusting in the conclusion that the evidence points to.

Obedience

When I was younger, and even into my late teens, I was under the impression that obedience was a necessity to having favor with God. I heard all my life that Jesus loves me, and coupled that was usually the phrase “If you tithe, Jesus will bless you.” Within the fabric of my worldview was this tension that I never liked. But I always stayed in it because the danger of denying good actions at the time was the movement of denying goodness at the same time. It was the movement that said that what matters in honesty and God is okay with your faults and doesn’t expect you to really get over them. Or we’re human and God realizes that – he cares about you loving him and not you obeying his impossible demands. This “honesty” seemed even more deadly – at least my way I was still doing good things. So I chose the approach that if I do good things, then God is in favor with me and blesses me, but if I do bad things, he will chastise me. This is in the Bible, but it is not all there is.

This thought pattern is common too. Many people I have met have this idea that we must have favor with God through obedience, or that my good works will get me one more crown in heaven, or, for the non-Christian, that my good works will get me heaven. The problem here is our view of morality. In his book “The Grand Weaver”, Ravi Zacharias points to a definitive fact that really helps us shape our view of morality: “In every religion except Christianity, morality is a means of attainment.” He goes on to explain that the Hindu and Buddhist use morality to shape and offset their karma, and how the Muslim follows his strict moral code to obtain favor with Allah and hopefully heaven, if Allah so chooses. Christianity doesn’t see morality as a way to attain anything.

But there is more. Zacharias makes a very profound statement about that cracks the door on what morality means to a Christian: “Here the Hebrew-Christian worldview stands distinct and definitively different. Redemption precedes morality, and not the other way around.” We see this in the giving of the Ten Commandments, as Zacharias points out. In Exodus chapter twenty we find a qualifier for the Ten Commandments that not only states God’s authority over law-giving but also states a very indicative statement about the Israelites. Before God gave the commandments he told them, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” Here God sets before them that they should do good not because they need to attain anything, but because they are redeemed.

And this is the same in the New Covenant. In the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus looks at his disciples and says,

“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. . . Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Notice that Jesus said, “You ARE the light of the world”. This is very important because it is an indicative statement. He is not saying, like many evangelists do, that you should be the light of the world and that you must work hard to become it. Jesus says you are the light of the world, which means you are redeemed, that you have a new nature.

Paul pointed this out too when he said, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Once again we see that good actions do attain anything but redemption gives validation to our good actions. As Zacharias says so well, “Jesus did not come to make bad people good but to make dead people alive.”

So what is morality to a Christian? I was at this point as I kept asking myself, “Why am I being obedient?” It is a valid question. If my salvation is not based on what I do, but on what I have become then what role does obedience have? If I’m made holy as the Bible says then why do I still mess up?

These are questions that I still struggle with. One thing that has really helped me to start to make sense of these longings is to realize the purpose of obedience, thankfully, is not about attaining anything; it is to honor and glorify the one who did redeem me. This is why we are light so that we may glorify our Father.

My obedience is also a very important part of my relationship with God – the Creator/creature, Father/son relationship. My obedience is in direct correlation with my closeness to God. The Bible is very clear that God never leaves you nor forsakes you. You push yourself away from Him. This is what happened in Eden. As we read Paul’s words from Ephesians, he makes a wonderful statement about how we were created in Christ Jesus (made new through redemption) for good works. We are made new so that we can once again glorify and honor our Creator. We do good because of who we are not because of what we want to become. This is obedience: submission to the nature God has given us.

Sex: The Need for a Context

Annie Dillard, in her book "Living by Fiction", said that when we lose our context, we lose our meaning. In this work of hers, she dicusses postmodernity's effect on literature then shows how it has moved to our very lives and has effected our lives in the exact same way. She starts with this gripping phrase on losing our context. What is a context? It is the pre-understood circumstances in a certain situation or issue that helps certain aspects of the situation make sense. When we read in a book, "Susie opened the door," we usually have an understanding where she is or at least the circumstances that lead up to opening the door - there is a strange noise behind the door, or she is going to bed. Without this understanding, the fact that Susie opened the door has no meaning or sense to it. In Scripture interpretation we use the context of the chapter, book, covenant, and eventually the entire Bible to understand the verse. For instance John 3:16 without the rest of the Bible is an empty, nonsensical statement, but, within the context of a Creator God who made humans who denied their place as creature as well as multiple prophecies, events, and theologies, it makes much more sense. So if we are to understand what something means we must first understand its context.

From the beginning of time, man has been trying to change the context by which we live. When this happens, we pervert the meaning of life. For instance, Hitler tried to change the context of race and ended up killing many Jews and other races because of this. Hitler said race or blood was the same as the soul; and a "dirty" race meant a "dirty" soul. He made the attributes of a person equate to the person himself. By changing the context of race and soul, he destroyed the very meaning of life itself.

And we do this everyday in our lives. I was thinking of the movie "Wedding Crashers" earlier today. I have never seen it but I was thinking of how we laugh at and celebrate our shame in this culture. Think of the movie (I'm getting the summary from the trailer and from friends who have seen it): two guys sneak their selves into weddings and try to hook up with the girls who are all emotionally charged from being at a wedding. Think of the way woman are treated in that film; they are prey for the sexual appetite of these two men. But even a more staggering thought, think of audience watching this film and laughing at this - think of the women who sat through it and laughed at it, and did not make the connection to that and the guys who harrass them and pinch their butts as they walk down the street. The context of a woman's worth has been destroyed by this culture through this type of entertainment where women become objects that satisfy instead of people to respect and cherish. When we sit there and encourage this behavior are we not admitting its legitimacy in our own lives? Remember the context is how we interpret the meaning of a statement or action. If we see women being treated this way and we see people react in such a way towards it, then the meaning of a woman's worth has been perverted. It is though Hitler has walked into the room and said, "A woman's worth is according to how well she can satisfy." Attributes once again establish the meaning of a life.

This is where the point hits. We have changed the context, which means we have made it something it was not meant to be. If the context gives legitimacy and meaning to the object, person, situation, event, issue, or whatever else, then to fall away from its rightful context is to fall away from it's very nature. Therefore the context of something is the way it is meant to be. Notice the word "meant" in that last sentence. Context gives meaning, and when we lose that context we lose the meaning.

So how was sex meant to be? What is the context for sex? I would suggest that few people actually believe, or can actually live out the belief, that sex is merely for biological reasons. If this is the case, then "Wedding Crashers" really destroys their argument. You can take this either way. If you have a problem with the way it portrays women then you admit that sex does not have a pure biological context because the worth of the women transcends the need for sex. If you want to look at it the other way and say that the portrayal of women is not wrong whatsoever, you dig yourself an even bigger whole (the Hitler hole). So sex's context is bigger than biological reasons, although it does have a part in biology (reproduction, etc).

Now the common idea of sex's context nowadays is that if the two people truely care and love for one another than it is okay to have sex. In this case no one is being taken advantage of, they both understand the responsibility, and they both are actually invested in the other. This sounds very responsible, and it is much closer to a stable context but it's not quite there. Here's why: to understand the context you must go back to the way we were made as human beings. If sexuality is a part of the human make up we must understand why it is here and the meaning of it.

The caring/loving idea has its own problems; it does not have any ground to stand on. Where did this idea come from? How does love and caring for a person legitimize sex? Who said those are sufficient qualifiers? You may say that it is a natural succession to love; meaning that when you love someone then it eventually comes to the point where sex is wanted as a natural expression for love - kissing, hugging, talking, cuddling, spending time together are all ways you can express love too so why not sex as well?

Here is what I think has happened, and it is a clever trick. We have taken certain aspects from the true context, which does have grounds, and made these aspects the ground rule. It is making something that looks similar to the original, but not the original. It is a knock off brand. It takes out certain qualities and only leaves in the ones we all like and calls it the same. This view has actually cheapen sex from its proper context. I'm a guitar player so, to me, it's like taking eric clapton's guitar and making that knock off you find at wal-mart that looks the same but costs a lot different and the quality is much lower. This is an invalid move.

The proper context for sex is marriage. The reason is not because "God said so". The reason is because that is how it was meant to be. This is the only way we can have sex fit its very nature. When God created man and woman, he created marriage. And he said that the man should leave his parents to become one flesh with his wife. Sex is the physical consumation of the marriage. It is priviledge and kept sacred for such a union. The purpose of sex is not just biological reasons, and it is not just to express your love to someone, although it is both. Sex is reserved for marriage because it has a link or relationship with it; we cannot assume they are unconnected.

Sex is reserved for marriage not because God said so but because he created it so. There is a difference. He did not create sex and THEN say you can only do it in marriage, as if a mother says to a child you can have your cookie only after dinner (this is purely a rule). This assumes a separation between the two that is not at all necessary. God created marriage and then gave it its own unique expression that demonstrates the connection only shared in marriage. It is like the cookie's purpose was to be eaten after dinner. This doesn't mean cookies don't exist until after dinner, but merely that the purpose for them is after dinner and to change that context is to lose the meaning of having a chocolate chip cookie (this points to order and the nature of sexuality, not a merely a rule). This way, sex has grounds not just in that there is male and female, but that there is marriage. God created it this way and it is not empty like the faux loving/caring sexual context that has no grounds as to why that is right. Sex is made for marriage, and to change that is to change the whole reason why sex is existent.

Shame

"Through levity of heart and carelessness about our faults, we do not see the pitiful state of our souls, but often idly laugh, when in reason we should weep." - Thomas a Kempis

One thing God has shown me in the past year, through many mistakes of watching many of the wrong movies and tv shows as well as making many wrong jokes and laughing at many wrong jokes, is one of the Enemy's greatest weapons in todays culture. The Enemy has been able to get us to laugh at our shame. Look at the shows and movies we watch: Jack Ass, Borat, anything with Will Ferrel, the Office, and much more. I own a Will Ferrel movie, I own the second season of the Office. I've seen Will Ferrel on the Tonight Show in his underwear and having everyone laugh at him. I agree with Kempis, we should weep over these things or at least feel some sorrow for the "human condition" (a term orignally used to show that man has faults in a negative light, and now we use the term to celebrate film makers because they show this "honest" and therefore beautiful depiction of our imperfect nature; man has grown to love his imperfection). Intsead we laugh. And once we laugh at our shame, we open the door to acceptance and celebration of this shame.

In Eden, Adam and Eve for the first time experienced shame when they realized they were naked. Why then? The "human condition" settled in and they found that they could no longer view their nakedness in the way it was intended. Once they decided to define things, they could justify anything and that is the reason why they couldn't justify their nakedness. Shame hits when we realize things are not as they intented to be. When we laugh at our shame we lose the way we should look at our shame, and thus we not only lose realization of things being wrong but we lose the possibility of that realization. Its a good trick, a horrible trick, a deadly trick.

Divine Revelation

This is the last and probably shortest of this series. The reason is that it does not rely on much reasoning or hard thinking. It is the most common type of revelation to be found in the Bible, but the hardest to believe or grasp. Divine revelation is simply when God shows himself without any means of Christians. It is the burning bush, Isaiah's vision, the Damascus road where Paul saw Jesus, it is the dream that Afarin experienced (the book Persian Springs gives accounts on how God reached out to Persians through dreams, visions, and even speaking to them; its not a book that proves things but it is a book that demonstrates things), and many other real events where God has spoken to man directly.

Now how do we know this reliable? How do we know its not a mere illusion? You can go through Alston's defense through religious experience, but that is not very appeasing, although helps think through these things. Divine Reveation does not rely on the actual events but on the person of God. If the God of the Bible truely exists then there is no reason not to believe these things. Is Divine Revelation proof that God does exist? Most certainly to the individual who experiences it, but I do not think that the purpose is to convince everyone. It is not a normal event because it is more important for God to make sense for your life instead of Him giving you a cool experience. Almost everytime Divine Revelation has been used it was to reach out to someone like Moses or Paul or many of the people who still are reached today by these miraculous events. And these people most definitely turned to God by the attention that God had through these miraculous events, but God wants us to understand propositions and realities in our normal lives that can only make sense through Him. God equally shows his existence in the way he gives meaning to our lives unlike any other worldview can do. A lot of times we like to take the unusual and make it the norm and say that Divine Revelation proves God exists (and that is valid to a point), but it is more helpful to say that God's existence validates the Divine Revelation.

So Why doesn't everyone experience Divine Revelation if it has such a good track record of turning people to God? Why doesn't God write in the clouds that he is there and that the Bible is true? As Dale Fincher puts in his book, "Living with Questions", God does not want to overwhelm us. It is in that moderation between silence and overwhelming us that God best reaches out to us. As Dale said, we would freak out if these things happened to us. It is in the propositional truth of the gospel that God reaches out to us with because it is solid truth that gives meaning of who you are. I know for myself I would much rather have God get my attention through giving me ideas, propositions, and truth that puts the peices together than having a totally emotional experience that, in and of itself, brings even more questions of reliability and so on. God reaches us best when he gives us things that real to us, the norm, and not the unreal or the rare exceptions.

Divine Revelation is real although rare. It is the most bizarre and unsure way that God reaches us, but it is very effective. And this is the end of this little series of Revelation. I learned a lot through it and now it is time to move on to new and exciting things.

Things to come...

So I'm almost done with study on Revelation. It needs some revision but this is merely a getting thoughts out, not so much writing a book. I'm waiting for a book called, "Persian Springs" to deal with the last part of the Revelation series. But until then I have already lined up two more studies.

The first of the two will be on sex. After reading "Sex God" by Rob Bell and thumbing through other books on sex and Christianity, I have found that no one really deals with this stuff dead on. I was very disappointed with "Sex God" because Bell just never seemed quite there and seemed more concerned about making controversial statements that makes the starbucks crowd (who I am one of) go crazy (which it did not for me). I'm hoping to deal with some of the following questions (as well as any other questions someone might want to insert): Why is sex limited to marriage? Why is it such a big deal? Why is "because God said so" a sufficient reason, if it is one? Hopefully I can get through this as to why sex is important, why it is costly, why it exclusive. I just can't wrap my head around it at the moment, it seems like the whole topic is vague and weak at best in Christianity; so we'll see.

The second study will be on Faith. The more I've been studying it the more I realize how little I have. I'll talk about what faith really is, and how it effects every moment and aspect of our lives; so much so it scares me. So I hope this all works out. It should be fun to think these things through and see how real they really are.

One last thing I'll mention in passing. It amazes me in my own life and everyone else's that I have seen how much we have, in this generation especially, seperated truth from life. Our beliefs have become privatized severly as I am failing to see many christians letting their beliefs effect the way they live. Simple example: everyone speeds. No one goes the speed limit anymore. If that is the law and it is not in contradiction to God's law then we should follow it. Every time I see an SUV speed by me with a fish emblem or a Christian sticker on it, I feel ashamed. I'm not saying I don't fail in this because I do in almost every area and that is the problem. I do not recognize the need to have what I belief about my life and the actually living to be connected. This is a big problem in my life, I needs to be dealt with.

General Revelation (Natural and Moral Revelation)

I want to discuss the next two revelations together because when you put these two together they greatly aid in the answer a very perplexing soteriological question: “What about the people who have never heard?” Whenever I hear a sermon on the gospel that focuses on the universality of the gospel (anyone who wants it can have it by accepting its message – not to be confused with exclusivism and universialism of salvation that states that all people of all worldviews will eventually be saved), they seem to skip over this question. Now I understand this to an extent because the people who have heard do not need to worry about this in a direct way. But this is important to acknowledge and discuss for the sake of the integrity of the gospel. If this is not answered, then we have millions upon millions of people ignored by this central matter in Christianity. Therefore, the natural revelation and the moral revelation (both are known together as general revelation) play an important role in God’s revelation to man.

The once championed atheist, Anthony Flew, stunned the philosophical world when he declared his recent turn to theism. He said he made this move because of the perplexing matter of not having an intelligent being behind such a complex universe. He recognized that there is someone who has to be at beginning of this all. I remember back in high school my friend was studying the first people to inhabit what is now the U.K. and these people apparently worshiped the creator god, who brought everything into existence. These all speak of a few of verses in the book of Psalms:

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech nor language
Where their voice is not heard.
Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.” – Psalm 19:1-4 (NKJV)

There is a language that the world speaks to man and which every tongue can understand. This language speaks of purpose, design, beauty, and harmony that need a mind behind it. This is God’s revelation to man through nature. It does not preach the gospel, does not even preach about God’s character; but it does preach that there is a God. How does that justify anything since the gospel is not even known? I will get to that in a minute. First we must understand that there is a natural revelation of God, and that this revelation is enough to assume such the existence of a creator God:

“For since the creation of world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even is eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because although they know God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” – Romans 1:20-21 (NKJV)

Here we see a difficult thing to grasp. Nature has shown God’s power and His Godhead (Godhead meaning his divine nature and thus greater than man). And many, unlike the above mentioned settlers of the U.K., did not glorify God and be thankful (this understood mostly as giving homage to God for understanding that he created everything and thus your life). Now this still seems harsh considering how many cultures started worshipping cats, elephants, and other natural things instead of making the logical connection that the originator of the world could not be from the system of the world. This is why the above verses mentioned people becoming futile in their thoughts. Man is therefore without excuse or without a defense in light of nature before them. Now again, this will better make sense and more just later. For now, let’s just understand what the natural revelation is, how it works, and what it reveals.

Immanuel Kant said that there were two things that always left him in awe: the starry heavens above and the moral law within. He recognized from mere sight that the starry heavens above are much greater than what he knows on earth. Moreover, he realized that man is naturally born with an idea of right and wrong and he could not grasp how this happens. Kant was a devote churchman his whole life and understood where this moral law came from. But for man who has no revelation from God cannot attribute this moral law to the Christian God. Once they here the gospel they can realize it but there is no connection there until then. The moral revelation is that the natural sense of right and wrong, of conscience is a revelation of God. This is a very indirect revelation however. This revelation does not necessarily make a connection to morality and a higher power, but it does make a connection from morality to judgment:

“For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.” – Romans 2:13-15 (ESV)

I like the Message paraphrase of these verses; they give a clear understanding of what all is implied here:

“Doing, not hearing, is what makes the difference with God. When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong. Their response to God’s yes and no will become public knowledge on the day God makes his final decision about every man and woman.” – Romans 2:13-15 (The Message)

Here is the implication of the moral law: that when man follows the natural moral law they affirm God because it is not something imposed upon them but something innate within. It is in their very essence to see right and wrong, and while this does not automatically make you think of a higher power it does make you indirectly affirm that God is needed. I believe that someone who follows the law that is written on their heart would love the Christian worldview. It makes perfect sense why we are moral when we learn we made in God’s image. So the moral revelation of God is not necessarily revealing an affirmative belief that God is existent, but it does affirm, by submitting to this moral law within, that there is a God that made you that way. The way you live affirms God’s existence in this case. This is not the place to go into the argument from morality for the existence of God because it does not really matter in this case. The bottom line is that the law that God gave to Moses and the Israelites was based on his very nature and goodness. So when we follow this unaware of the law of Moses we are none the less excused by acknowledging this law as real and innate by the way you live.

Now this does not say much still does it? We still have people not knowing of God, their sinful nature, Jesus’ replacement on the cross, and his resurrection. So how can these people who just see nature and say, “Well no one I know could have made this happen. It must be someone greater than I am,” or follow this moral law that is natural to them get into heaven if they do not recognize their hopeless state?

“Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.” – Romans 2:1-2

Here we find a very important qualifier - God judges according to truth. The word truth here can be better translated as evidence. What this is saying is that God judges according to how much he has given you. As the old parable says, “To whom much is given, from him much will be required.” (Luke 12:48) The people who never had the opportunity to hear of Christ will not be damned for not hearing it, but will be judge by what was given to them through creation and the moral law. Now no one knows exactly what is taken into account and how much weight does a certain revelation hold, but God will not be unjust since he will judge you according to how much he has given you. God is very concerned with the people who will never hear as well:

“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples built by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.” – Acts 17:24-27 (ESV)

God is very concerned with every human being and has prepared each persons time and place on earth in history so that they would be able to seek him better. He is a sovereign God who has put care into every individuals place in history so that they might be able grope after him if they chose to. There are many theories that can go into this in detail but the important thing to realize is that God has not neglected anyone but has actually tried his best to draw is free creations to Him. As God said to Abraham, “Shall not the judge of the earth do right?” We trust God to be just, not blindly, but in the light of what he has revealed to us and the justice he has showed in every aspect in our lives and in his relation with man. I have no doubt that everyone who has been judged by God will feel that either they have been fairly judged or God has been to gracious to them. God has reached out to every person who has ever lived through the Scriptures, a Christian, nature, the moral law within, or through divine revelation, which will be discussed next. And people will be judge according to how much evidence or how much has been revealed to them by God. He has put each person in a specific place in history not to neglect them but to draw them to him, and we trust God to be just in his judgments because he was proved himself trustworthy. General revelation (natural and moral revelation) is very real and spoken of in the Scriptures, and it helps us understand God’s call to the lost much more completely.

The Living Revelation

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

“If you Christians want me to believe in your redeemer, you will have to look more redeemed.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

There are five gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian. And some people will never read the first four.”
- Gipsy Smith

“I have met a lot of purported Christians in my day, and while there are a large number who are genuinely kind people, there are an equally large number who are paranoid, hateful, despicable abominations of human beings. I know not to fight fire with fire, but a part of me deep down inside is deeply, fiercely angry with these people. How dare they claim to be followers of a loving God when all they do is hate? How dare they profane such a perfect concept with their pitiful, petty, ignorant complaints? How dare they try to tell me that they are better people than I?”
“One of the biggest tenets of Christianity is that all people are equal before God… Nobody is better than anybody else. And yet, so many followers are full of pride and hubris and the honest belief that they are somehow better than everybody else. How can they justify this? How do they? Have they ever actually thought about anything, or are they actually the brainless robots I perceive them to be?”

I found this last quote on a blog. It’s interesting and eye-opening, and leads us to the second part of this series of God’s revelation to man. Jesus warned us of this multiple times in the gospels. He warned us that if we do not connect truth to the way we live, the gospel to the way we carry ourselves the very thing we believe becomes deniable. The realities of the gospel must reach our everyday lives – our moment-by-moment lives – or we lose our greatest influence in this world today. This postmodern generation needs more than any other generation in history a living example of God and His work. It is not that we now deny beliefs as worthless, but we do deny beliefs that do not practically affect our lives as worthless. This is the second revelation God gives to man, and the most influential in these times: Christians. We are the living revelation to man.

Jesus said: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love for one another.”
- John 13:34-35

Here is where it starts, the way treat one another gives people the right, which is given by God, to judge Christians. As the blogger said hurtfully above, Christians are not acting like Christians. I travel a lot playing music for youth camps and conferences and one of the saddest things I hear too often is that the youth groups are worse than any other group that these camps and hotels host. They call them spoiled, selfish, careless of others in the hotel and even the property, and many other complaints. What we find then are people looking at this and saying, “If that is a Christian then I don’t want to be one nor let my children be one.” Christians like to point the finger at the devil and “sinners” for pulling people away from the church and away from God, but I think we need reexamine this and look at the sinners from within the church that have pushed people away by the way ignore their beliefs and not apply them to their lives. Jesus goes farther though:

“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”
- John 17:21

Now Jesus really starts to show the true responsibility of Christians. If the Christian is not in unity with his fellow Christians, people can begin to look at the church and say it is all fairy tales. From my own experience I have found that the church has somehow hurt the people who are hateful towards the church. This is not always, but more times than not this is the case. The way we live directly affects the gospel message and the credibility of it; that is a scary thought. We need to realize that what the Bible says has direct impact on the very way I live moment-by-moment. And from there, the Bible is very clear that the way I act has a direct impact on the way the world views, not just me, but God Himself. Christianity is not a vacuum that we leap into that is completely separated from life in the real world.

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden . . . Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:13-14, 16 NJKV)

Notice that Jesus said you ARE the salt and light, not should be but are. It is an indicative statement. That is who the Christian is, not who he should be. This is our nature that we must follow and live up to. We are to be the light among the darkness. We are to show that Christ is real in our lives and the result is that men will be able to see God in his glory. Ravi Zacharias, who is one of the most influential Christian apologists today, has admitted that his biggest struggle with Christianity and the hardest question for him to answer about Christianity is why so many Christians do not live with this supernatural transformation that they claim. Christians are losing their reputation and prestige much like Israel did when they began to forget that their lives reflected God on earth (Amos 5:2). The Christian is the living revelation that God has to man; Jesus was clear about that. God has declared his followers as evidence to his gospel’s reality, as his message to the world of how he is real, and as his very word in practical, tangible form. The living revelation to the world is what is killing Christianity right now. We must stay strong and obedient to God to show the world the reality of the gospel. God has given man his word through the Scriptures and gave man a propositional, testable, and powerful revelation in these Scriptures. Christians are the ones that show this revelation in living, tangible form. When we fail in this area we fail in showing God to be relevant to us. The Scriptures are relevant to this world whether or not we live it, but if we do not live it Jesus said himself that the world will not be easily acceptable to it. The living revelation of Christians is what will snatch a searcher long before he is able to think through the theology. C. S. Lewis said theology is practical; it is livable, and if we cannot demonstrate it then the world sees no real power in Scriptures, unless they spend the time to take it on without taking on its followers. Who wants that?

I do want to add that this is not hopeless. I know many Christians who truly show the power of the gospel through their lives. To the skeptic I want to say that while there are Christians who live inconsistently with the Scriptures, you must not take that as the final word. Augustine said that we must not judge something by its abuse. Take Jesus on and see how he lived and what he said. I believe if you do that you will find that the behavior of some purported Christians is completely inconsistent with what Jesus really says. A Christian, as the Gipsy Smith quote at the beginning implied, has a burden upon him to be that first testimony but the Christians is far from the truth. Jesus is the truth, the best a Christian can do is demonstrate this truth. The Christian truly is the living revelation to man, but he is at best a revealer and at worst a roadblock - never a falsifier.

The Written Revelation

If you ask a religious scholar what a revelation means in religion, he would most likely say something like:

“A revelation is when a higher power communicates to a mortal (most likely human) through a vision, dream, trance, miracle, inspiration, stream of consciousness, meditation, prayer, reading a “holy book”, or maybe even simply a natural object or action that relates something much more meaningful to the observer.”

The Christian would agree with this academic definition, although reluctantly. Any devote follower of any worldview hates to hear their experiences and beliefs expressed so coldly, but let’s not fight that frivolous battle. This is the study of how the God of the Bible reveals Himself to man. This is for the Christian and non-Christian alike. Through this little series, the Christian will find better understanding of his beliefs, and the non-Christian will hopefully find answers to questions about Christianity and its followers.

The first and most authoritative way God reveals Himself to man is through the Scriptures. Christians should rely on the Scriptures more than experience, worship, or even prayer. It is the basis for every belief. It is how we know who Jesus is and what He has done. This why it is important to start with the primary revelation of God to man because we sift every other revelation through the Scriptures to judge all experiences and actions according to what we know as truth. Scripture is not just stories; it is propositional and up for scrutiny. The Koran is above scrutiny, but the Bible is open to all who wish to challenge it, and it has yet to lose this 1500-year fight.

When a Christian says the Scriptures are God’s revelation to man they usually rely on the a verse in 2 Timothy to support this proposition: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. . .” (NKJV 2 Tim. 3:16a) This means that God has given the ideas and propositions to the men writing the Scriptures; these men did not make these ideas up but they were given to them by God. Now obviously you would think Paul here is speaking of the Old Testament and not the New Testament for this very writing is part of the New Testament and surely he did not consider his little letter to Timothy to be Scripture. However, this objection holds little ground when we look at another letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthians. A simple phrase sheds a lot of light on this matter: “Now concerning virgins: I have no commandment from the Lord; yet I give judgment as one whom the Lord in His mercy has made trustworthy.” (NKJV 1 Cor. 7:25) Here we have Paul saying that this time around he does not have a commandment from the Lord or he does not have anything on this matter that Lord has inspired him to write about. This simple clarification gives us the understanding that Paul was aware of God’s inspiration in his very writing. So to say that this verse excludes the New Testament is not coherent with other parts of Scripture.

The inspiration of the Scriptures is a hotly debated topic. This is not the place to go into every objection, but I will bring up a couple. With these couple of basic answers to objections on the inspiration of the Scriptures, you will see evidence outside of the Bible that gives reason to believe 2 Timothy 3:16. For it is merely circular reasoning to say that the Bible is God’s revelation to man because the Bible says so. This reasoning is only valid when outside reasoning and evidence can support it, or if the Bible itself is found blameless. Hopefully this will not make you think that I am denying faith for reason, but merely showing how Divine inspiration is experientially and empirically seen and verified.

One popular objection to the Bible is the exclusivity of some verses. Some verses are the only ones that say certain important things. The Gospels especially have many stories and sayings of Jesus that are not repeated. This is not much of an objection however. David Fischer said in his book “Historian’s Fallacies” that to prove the nonexistence of something you cannot bank on the fact that there is no supporting evidence; you must give an affirmative proof or evidence that it cannot or did not exist. Silence is not a proof of anything for so many obvious reasons. So to base that a certain verse is put in there for the author’s own reasons on no supporting evidence is merely assumption. Be very clear that I am not talking about the interpretation of the verse or story (most theologians will cross-reference verses for accurate and coherent interpretations), but whether or not the very existence of the verse can be legitimized as true and accurate, and not some invention of the author.

Another objection to Scriptures and their inspiration is the assembly of the canon in face with so many gospels and books to be chosen. The general rule that was used for the assembly of the canon of Scripture was aposticity. Aposticity is the property of a book as being written by an Apostle. With the Apostle’s were the Apostle’s doctrine (Acts 2:42) which was the doctrine they learned from Jesus directly. The fact that over twelve people learned this directly from Jesus gives a much greater buffer from inaccuracy than if Jesus had one follower. What we find is the only four gospels actually written by four of the original twelve share remarkable coherency. I do not have time to go into individual contradictions that come up and how these contradictions are dissolved by closer examination of the language, semantics, contexts, etc. For more on that read Blomberg or Bruce. Aposticity also dictates that the book must have been written within a hundred years of Jesus’ life. This gives even less possibility for error. In the Jesus’ time, he was called a rabbi and he used many rabbinic methods of teachings such as parables and so on. It is by most scholars understanding that Jesus and his disciples, being Jews, focused on accurate remembrance of teachings by way of the Oral Tradition. Most scholars say that the Oral Tradition in Jesus’ time preserved the teachings by four generations before the story started to deviate from the original. This gives plenty room for aposticity to be an accurate measure of Jesus’ true teachings. Furthermore, the New Testament has nine different writers who all wrote the same doctrine within the first hundred years after Jesus’ death; many of whom were his direct students under strict Jewish Oral tradition. We do not go through this so that we can make it look like that the Scriptures were divinely inspired; we do this that we can distinguish between false teachings and true teachings. We find, not surprisingly, that the gospels and books written later that the first century A.D. begin to be incoherent, and the Apostle’s were the purest vessels to use so as not to begin to corrupt what had been written. Christianity needed a strong foundation before it could stand so it needed its inspiration and guidance of God in the very first accounts and books, not the ones 200 years down the line.

This discussion can go on for much longer but this gives a starting point to understanding the written revelation God gave to us through the Scriptures. I am no expert in New Testament scholarship so to get a better understanding you should read Blomberg or Bruce. But this written revelation is vital for a Christian. It is the sifter and guide to all that is pronounced by people. It is God’s very word to man and is the first or primary source for God’s word to man. From here on out we begin with more experiential and existential ways God reveals Himself to man, but all of them are based in Scripture.

The Revelation of God

My next five or so posts are going to be on how God reveals himself to us on earth. Whether it is the full-fledged Gospel or just the fact that He exists, God has revealed himself in many different ways. I'm going to take each post to go through the five ways that God reveals himself to us: the written revelation (Scriptures), the living revelation (Christians), the natural revelation (nature), the moral revelation (moral law), and the divine revelation (dreams/visions/personal encounter). This will be fun!

Holiness in the Midst of Being Human

The "Proverbs 31" woman has either been praised or deminished by people because of the high, unreachable calling that it begs for. We see people at church who are always nice like they have no emotions and we just try and mess with them until they get mad and become "human" again. And then they are these guys who think they should be "real" and honest with others so they are very "human". Whether you like your plastic smile or you like your raw life, we have made the connection that holiness equates to being an emotionless machine. It means being a fake, or sometimes a prick.

These two extremes - the plastic smile and the raw life - both are trying to be "human" or what they should be. It is clear in the Scritpures that God created us to be holy and even fallen man is made to be holy, not happy or a life with no troubles, but holy. Holiness is a very human thing. The plastic smile makes me think of Screwtape Letters and how we can be fooled into apathy. It is not most natural to do the right things but be empty inside or have know true motive or desire inside. Equally it is completely unhuman to have passion for someone who you continuely disobey because you think he wants honesty before obedience. Humans are made to be holy and holiness is when attitude meets action in accordance to God's nature.

When we read the sermon on the mount we find a very passionate, yet unreachable lifestyle. We don't look at that sermon and see Jesus just telling us to love people, or just see it as Jesus saying to do the right things. It is both. Sometimes we look at what Jesus says all the time instead of looking at how he is saying it. We like to read the message but not look at the messenger. Jesus was holy and compassionate. Holiness is not being a emotionless machine that always does the right thing with the right smile. And holiness is not being all about people and being honest and caring with them regardless of how you act. It is doing having the right heart, which leads to the right things, and these "right things" are what the actions and passions that are in accordance to God's nature. Jesus hung out with harlot's but he never was one, and always encouraged them to be greater than how they lived. He accepted a tax collector and dined with him so that he could rescue him. To be human is to be holy; to be sinful is to be mess up - let's not switch those.

Now one thing needs to be made clear. A christian is already holy by nature once he accepts Christ and his salvation. But we must now continue to live up to this nature (Romans 6-8). A non-christian is not holy by nature because he has a sinful nature. Once saved, the person becomes holy by nature but we know very well that it is a daily battle for us to live up to the holiness we know have obtained. The Holy Spirit helps us, our conscience becomes ever the more sensitive, but we must will the final step. Ironically, the way to will ourselves is to submit to God. Holiness is living up to the nature we have obtained through God's grace, and equally important, it is being what we were created to be.

I'll go into more detail later.

Vulnerability

What does it mean to be vulnerable? The word seems to be synonymous with weakness. Not that vulnerability is a weakness or that what you are showing is weakness in yourself, but its that point where you become tender. When I cook steaks, I tenderize the meat to make it more vulnerable to the marinade. To be vulnerable is to be tender to another.

Men have always viewed vulnerability as weakness. Why? Because, in general but definitely not always, men see it as a lion attacking the vulnerable antelope. It is what we eat for thanksgiving. It is not being the top of the food chain, but it is facing up to the reality that you can be attacked and there is something bigger than you.

Whether it is pride, a person, or a proposition, man gets attacked and many times he or she can handle that. But there are some spots that are tender and the person getting attacked just can't take it there. It's like a tickle spot - everyone has one. It usually hits people at their uncertainties - their weight, height, personality, talents, etc. - or where they are most confident. It's either to get smashed down into the ground or merely just pulled down to it.

Vulnerability is to be tender to another. If that is the case, then Jesus was a good example. He never was weak but he did weep, and wash his disciples' feet to name a few of things. Weakness is not synonymous with vulnerability, strength is not synonymous with it either. Vulnerability is a small virtue that is not very popular, but the very thing that this culture needs to see most. Not a stupid vulnerability that resembles foolish souls based on feelings, but a wise vulnerability that balances itself with truth and understanding. It's hard to do.

Chapter 1 of something

She sat there on the porch of her favorite café in midtown. The café’s exterior looked like a small house. It was a dark red with generic, white lettering above the entrance spelling out, “Café”. The inside was a room and a half with a bar for coffee and homemade pastries, seating area, and a partitioned corner/room for smokers. The porch was made of wood, now grey from age, and a step or two above the sidewalk. The porch looked out onto the wide two-lane road and run down strip, which mostly consisted of a white drug store, a liquor store, a couple of businesses, and a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Angela was birched up on the porch at a small table with one foot in the seat across from her. Her short jet-black hair was tangled like she made a b-line from her bed to the café a couple of hours earlier, which is probably not too far off. She always wore simple clothes, “since I was a kid,” she insisted. Whether or not she had didn’t really matter beyond the image she wanted to be placed upon her. The fact is that she was living up to her word with her black short-sleeved shirt that followed her collarbone and ended just below the belt line of her green cargo pants. The rest of her appearance was complimented with her black sandals, a couple of bracelets, and a thin, black necklace that contrasted beautifully with her fair skin. She always smelled like cigarette smoke but had never smoked one in her life.

All of this is secondary to her face though. Her face told her story. Her smile was of a girl who had to grow up too fast. It was not new; it was clear that it had grown to become that way over time. Yet her cheeks were still innocent, like a man’s lips had never touched them nor a man’s hand ever slap them. But it was her eyes - surrounded by dark, but modest makeup – they were the last things keeping her honest. You can hide behind your tongue, let it make up stories and tell the sweetest lies. You can hide behind your appearance by letting stereotypes speak for themselves. You can even surround your eyes with smokescreens, as Angela above does. But you cannot pull a veil over your eyes for too long before your soul starts to whisper through them. You can suppress it for a while but in the end your eyes will always keep you honest. She was especially vulnerable due to the street noise and being alone at her own table; her eyes were screaming louder than the call of a crow.

Angela was playing around with a greyhound ticket in her hand. “Tomorrow, all my hope is in tomorrow,” she thought as her eyes stayed fixed on her ticket like she was in a starring contest with the greyhound logo. It was her way out and thus her way in. She spoke of this moment for at least two years now. Whenever someone would ask her where she wanted to go, she just replied “Anywhere but here.” All she knew was that where she was, her circumstances where she was have left her empty, unsure, lost, and, worst of all, stagnate. All Angela knew was that her life as is and as it has become has given her nothing to hold on to. The answers, the purpose and meaning of her life was not were she was at; it was where she most go. For her to see inside herself – to see her very soul face-to-face – she had to go out.

It was dusk and the orange glow made everything all the more surreal to her. It was a moment not easily forgotten, like she was about to storm the beaches of Normandy or trust a lover for the first time. These moments, as rare as they are in our lives, carry so much weight and it takes years to shed off the pounds. She had an early morning the next day but she had a hard time getting up knowing it was admitting one more step in the process. But she was determined. She was leaving tomorrow from the only town she ever knew and was not coming back until she truly found out who she was. As her foot left the chair across from her she heard a voice that she had not heard in a couple of years. It was a voice that you didn’t care to remember or forget, and right when she climbed into her memory deep enough to remember who’s voice it is, it was too late to make a move on either avoiding him or embracing him. “Angela?”

Field Trip!

I just bought the U.K. first edition of G. K. Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy” (amazing!). The way he tells his story of how Christianity began to make sense to him and the way he describes the attributes of it that appeal to him, makes you want to be a child again. His chapter “Ethics of Elfland” is singularly the most influential chapter of literature I have read (with the rest of the chapters right behind probably). It makes you think the only proper way to look at Christianity is through a child’s eyes.

As I was leaving school today, I saw a class of probably first graders - most likely on a field trip - crossing the street. Every three kids had an adult with them but it seemed merely as a security, not so much an actual presence. Some of them had interlocking arms skipping together, some had their hands tightly held by others (adults and children alike), others were bold enough to just stay near others. I saw little guys with smiles ear to ear and glasses too big for their faces (I could have sworn it was me at that age), other boys were looking around aimlessly, little girls had long, flowing hair in bows and were, even at that age, much more civilized but still too childish to know the difference. As the light turned red and the white man in a box told us we can walk (I could have walked before it turned red between the traffic surges but I felt like my reputation and testimony would be ruined to encourage such behavior), I watched them as two boys surged a couple of feet ahead trying to jump on each white line like the black street was hot lava. With each jump one kid yelled out “Hop! Hop! Hop!” I just had to smile! I wanted to follow them but I refrained thinking I would be considered some pedophile (how sad is it that you can’t enjoy the company of a kid anymore without weird looks?) It was a sight that will lighten up my next week!

I’m now listening to Joanna Newsom because she is a child. I told a friend yesterday off the top of my head that I can’t get out of my head. She said that she can’t find men, only boys. As I pondered that I just asked her, “Do you know what a man is? I don’t even know what it is.” I went on to say that I think being a man has little to do with being “grown up” or mature. Sure we should be mature in faith and so on (although Christ said that means to be like a child) but Christ did say if we want to be in His kingdom we must be like children. What that entails I’m not quite sure, but I keep thinking about it. I have a feeling it goes beyond having child-like faith. And what exactly child-like faith? It is not ignorance, so it is not knowledge-based. I have a feeling it is more perspective-based. But I am convinced that to be like a child is to be closer to God. Judaism doesn’t even regard children as sinful; children are a innocent and represent redemption. They are the most important age. Although I’m convinced that a child is not innocent in a state of morality or the soul; they are innocent in perspective. They have yet to find out “being bad” is in everyone else. They’re not skeptical yet – they see things as they are given to them, and understand and expect, for instance, that an infinite, all-powerful God will have a fish swallow a man. Why not? It is the “grown up” who will still be skeptical and find ways around that. I think this is a part of it but these are merely thoughts. I’ll look into it.

Solomon's Views on Woodworking and Photography

The past couple of days I've been dealing with decisions. I bid on Lenski's commentaries on ebay, and I know I don't need them but I'll be glad I have them one day. I went to Home Depot to look at tools yesterday and today. I want to learn carpentry or woodworking; I need a bookcase for my commentaries. . . I've been looking at digital SLR cameras, I've been advised to get a Nikon D50. I've moved on pretty much from wanting guitar stuff and music stuff in general. I'm not sure if I'm looking at these other things to replace my desire for music or what. Photography, however great it is, isn't for me. I want it because someone else wants it. Woodworking takes up space and time and trial and error. . . it seems like something I'll take on when I'm older, but maybe not. So I'm at a crossroads: what now?

King Solomon said, "Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; and this was my reward for my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun."

What is "profit" to Solomon? He had plenty of material profit and I don't think he is talking about a desire for excess of profit. It is an immaterial profit Solomon is searching for. When he mentions the works his hands had done and the labor he had toiled over it makes me think of a craftsmen. I'm sure he was thinking of much grander things - maybe even building the Temple and a marvelous kingdom - but I think of him building a table. I think this probably because it hits me personally at the moment. I say this to say that I think Solomon wasn't just thinking of his grand achievements; he was thinking way too simple and thus way too profound. It's those little things that we do in our homes after the grand schemes of success or just living are over that make us really feel empty. Think about it; everytime we hear a story of a man with great success feel empty or commit suicide it is in the quietness of the simple things. Money doesn't satisfy; why? Because money doesn't effect the simple things in life. Sure Apple has a bunch of novelty products that make music more accessible and so on, but I'm not talking about that. If the simple things in life are merely the physical realities then Apple is the source of all meaning to me. But it is obviously not. We must remember the immaterial.

Immaterial profit is found in what is not under the sun - God. Now before you think, "Duh!" Let's see what this entails. When we chase after the material for meaning we find vanity because meaning is not material. My ipod is not meaning, maybe the idea of the ipod can give me meaning, but not it itself. This is why the Temple could have easily been meaningless to Solomon. What Solomon finds is that God gives meaning because He makes human beings make sense. It is amazing how something physical, like building a table, can bring so much spiritual satisfaction - much more than most other things we do with our minds, or hearts, or whatever. Why is this link so strong? Our image or likeness of God. God saw creation and said what? "IT IS GOOD!" Creation at it's heart is a good thing. When we "create" or form (much like what God did of man out of the dust), we are dwelling in the image of God. God created to please Himself (not in a perverted or slavish way, but in a very innocent way). We must never lose this pleasure of "creating" or we lose ourselves.

Solomon wasn't looking for God, he was looking for meaning. When we find God, we find meaning. God himself is not meaning, but His existence gives meaning. We find the meaning of love, communication, order, autonomy, and more in the fact that God created us. We gain the answer to the question, "Who am I?" in this realizatiion. Solomon says at the end of Ecclesiastes: "Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man's all." Or this is what makes man complete. When we find God, recognize his prestige, and obey him we are complete. To find and fear God is to realize who you are and who He is, to obey Him is to merely bring these realizations to living so that it is not just an idea but a way of life. When we find who we are - when we find our meaning in God - living itself becomes meaningful.

I didn' mean to say half of that but there it is.

My Default....

I installed a new web browser for my computer to try out. It is kind of complicated and I don't like it very much. It asked me as soon as I opened it for the first time on whether or not I want it to be my default browser. I chose no - I like my old browser thank you very much. We see this word a lot: default browser, web page, color, menu, etc. What are these for? Its the response to an action when nothing is chosen, or a preselected response to an action. Now we have encountered many people saying what our default worldview should be. A common view now of atheism is what most call negative atheism or what I call passive atheism. It is the view that until sufficient evidence says otherwise, we should believe there is no God. Lack of sufficient evidence brings reason to believe that the thing trying to be proved doesn't exist. Negative or passive atheism just says that the default worldview should be atheism - not theism or even agnosticism - when the evidence isn't in the favor of theism. Now this sounds reasonable but they mean this regardless if the atheistic position has positive arguments for its view. For the sole reason that the arguments that you have heard about theism, to you, are unsound you must automatically assume that God doesn't exist. What if there are other arguments? Better yet, what right do you have to say that something absolutely doesn't exist based on a few bad arguments?

This is the problem with atheism: in tries to defend an absolute negative. Regardless on whether you think you can positively prove the non-existence of God (which is impossible) or negatively prove it (just say lack of evidence is reason enough) you are still making an absolute negative claim. Negative atheism is merely agnosticism that tries to makes a decision that is ultimately blind. This default view is illogical in and of itself. Why not polytheism instead atheism? Most say that there is no evidence for polytheism either, but that is just digging a bigger hole. Atheism is still a position that must be proved for the very reason that it is a position. It is like Tom and Sandra standing in a room with three chairs. Sandra starts to sit in one and Tom says, "Don't sit there, it doesn't look sturdy enough." Sandra looks, agrees, and moves to the next chair but Tom stops her again and says, "That chair doesn't look good either." Sandra again scrutinizes the chair and agrees with Tom and goes to sit in the last chair. Before Tom can say a word she just looks at him in discontent and says, "I don't care how sturdy it seems, I have to sit somewhere." We all have to "sit" as it were but somehow negative atheism no longer has to go through the same rigors as the other two merely because its the only one left. You cannot prove you're car will work just because no one else's does. It doesn't make sense. When you chose a worldview you are chosing a positive action not a default.

So what should be the default worldview in regards to the existence of God? There isn't one. Everyone is biased. It's as simple as that. You will judge the question based on how you feel or have been taught or whatever. When truth is concerned only one choice is right so the default has to be the right one but that is what you are trying to find out so it is a moot concern alltogether and makes negative atheism even harder to follow.

Janurary post I never posted

It's amazing what will come out of mind that has abandoned its foundations. G. K. Chesterton rightly implied (he never said it but he gave the idea and people have merely shortened his idea) that when a man stops believing in God, he doesn't then believe in nothing, but he will believe in anything. Now I'm not going to go off on a tangent that so many people do and say that the world has lost its belief in God and therefore we are becoming a society who will believe in anything. This is true but said too much and is usually grossly overexagerated. I merely want to use this as a backdrop to what I really want to say. It is a biblical notion and common sense to believe in what you have always believed until proven or persuaded to deny it. So many christians will find question in a part of christianity and will immediately lose faith in that aspect even though they have yet to find an answer. Not only do they fail to see God's relationship as a tool for getting answers but they fail to see the difference between suspect and guilt. God has really never asked us to blindly follow Him but really has just asked us to prove Him wrong. Again Chesterton said that the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting but has been found difficult and left untried. Jesus said, "Come, follow Me." He said we must be like children to enter the kingdom of God. He was merely saying we must be humble enough to take Him on. He did not ask for an ignorant loyalty but a humble one. If He asked us to ignorantly follow Him, He wouldn't of spent much time talking to us in a such a way or performing miracles. He gave us plenty of weight behind His presence and merely asked us to take it on.