I have to tell you that I am ver y worried about the way that people behave in the here and now while calling themselves Christians.
For those of you who are not Christian I would ask you that you would give those who are the benefit of the doubt. Just like many of you are trying to do with Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus or… See just like it was a small subset of Muslims who attacked and destroyed so much on September 11 it is a small but obvious group of people who call themselves Christian who give the rest a black eye.
Many of these people have no clue what it really says in the bible. They never read theirs though they may have 5 or 6 in their homes.
Some of us try to read our bibles but get easily distracted. And some of us manage to get into the word of God regularly. It does not help when people who are NOT Christian try to tell everyone what is in the bible when all too often it is taken out of context.
How would you like it if I told you all about your favorite idea/s but never really learned what those ideas really were?
So give the Christians you know a bit of a break. They are not perfect they are people too just like you, they make mistakes just like you. And while some of them might seem to be a little quick to hold things over others, haven’t you done the same thing once or twice?
As it says in Roman’s “all have sinned and fallen shirt of the glory of God.” Even those who are Christians.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
Predestination or not?
There is a debate out there about whether we get to choose God or does God choose us. There is some difficulty that people have with the things that God has in his book.
For example, God tells Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let the Israelites go free. But then God tells Moses but Pharaoh will not listen for “I will harden his heart”.
How do we reconcile this?
Did God choose who will end up where before we were born? Are we stuck? Or do we get to choose our own paths.
And if it was God’s choice then doesn’t that absolve us of sin? It was God’s choice not mine. That makes God capricious and cruel.
If it was “my” choice then doesn’t that mean that when I choose to follow God it is not by any action on his part? And doesn’t that, by inference, mean that he is a weak God who can be ruled by MY whim?
Well I do not see the God of the bible sitting around wringing his hands going “gosh I sure hope they pick me.”
At the same time I know that God’s nature means that he is NOT cruel but a loving God. And my “sense of fairness” means that I think it would be wrong of anyone to force someone to commit a crime and then punish them for it. (“If you who are sinners provide good things for your children, won’t God, who is perfect, do more so?”)
So how do we reconcile this?
In my humble opinion it comes down to "free will" (again this is my opinion).
I believe that God wants us to freely choose to obey and follow him. Else why put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden with Adam and Eve?
As a parent I know that it pleases me when my children choose to obey me rather than when I have to "make" them do what I want/need them to do.
Sometimes in order for them to learn the lesson of obedience I have to allow them the chance to disobey.
If God is our perfect heavenly father then how much more is it the same way with him?
Of course the Fact is that God, as I understand it, is omniscient. ("I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.") He transcends time and knows what will happen in all times. (Thus the ability to give people the gift of prophecy.)
So he knows already what choice/s we will make he has seen it. But because he has given us the option to choose he cannot correct it.
By the way when I say he cannot correct it, what I mean is that while he is the creator of the heaven and the earth and all that exists he cannot go against his own rules.
It seems to me to be very dangerous to make blanket type statements. IE: there isn't anything that He cannot do or accomplish.
A simple (ridiculous) question shows that to be a difficult position to maintain. "So then can God make a rock that he can't move?”
If you say no then obviously he cannot "accomplish" anything. He cannot make a rock he cannot move.
Then again if you say yes, then he cannot accomplish "anything" because there is a force in the universe greater than he is. (The hypothetical rock).
God will not go against his nature, his rules. Therefore since one of his rules seems to be to let people choose for themselves whether they will serve him or not (Joshua 24:15) he will not interfere in that. But because he has the ability to know the choice we will make, he can "call" those who will choose him.
Which, by the way, also means that since he is the one actively seeking us, it is by his mercy through his grace that we are saved so that Paul was able to say "we might not boast".
For example, God tells Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let the Israelites go free. But then God tells Moses but Pharaoh will not listen for “I will harden his heart”.
How do we reconcile this?
Did God choose who will end up where before we were born? Are we stuck? Or do we get to choose our own paths.
And if it was God’s choice then doesn’t that absolve us of sin? It was God’s choice not mine. That makes God capricious and cruel.
If it was “my” choice then doesn’t that mean that when I choose to follow God it is not by any action on his part? And doesn’t that, by inference, mean that he is a weak God who can be ruled by MY whim?
Well I do not see the God of the bible sitting around wringing his hands going “gosh I sure hope they pick me.”
At the same time I know that God’s nature means that he is NOT cruel but a loving God. And my “sense of fairness” means that I think it would be wrong of anyone to force someone to commit a crime and then punish them for it. (“If you who are sinners provide good things for your children, won’t God, who is perfect, do more so?”)
So how do we reconcile this?
In my humble opinion it comes down to "free will" (again this is my opinion).
I believe that God wants us to freely choose to obey and follow him. Else why put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden with Adam and Eve?
As a parent I know that it pleases me when my children choose to obey me rather than when I have to "make" them do what I want/need them to do.
Sometimes in order for them to learn the lesson of obedience I have to allow them the chance to disobey.
If God is our perfect heavenly father then how much more is it the same way with him?
Of course the Fact is that God, as I understand it, is omniscient. ("I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.") He transcends time and knows what will happen in all times. (Thus the ability to give people the gift of prophecy.)
So he knows already what choice/s we will make he has seen it. But because he has given us the option to choose he cannot correct it.
By the way when I say he cannot correct it, what I mean is that while he is the creator of the heaven and the earth and all that exists he cannot go against his own rules.
It seems to me to be very dangerous to make blanket type statements. IE: there isn't anything that He cannot do or accomplish.
A simple (ridiculous) question shows that to be a difficult position to maintain. "So then can God make a rock that he can't move?”
If you say no then obviously he cannot "accomplish" anything. He cannot make a rock he cannot move.
Then again if you say yes, then he cannot accomplish "anything" because there is a force in the universe greater than he is. (The hypothetical rock).
God will not go against his nature, his rules. Therefore since one of his rules seems to be to let people choose for themselves whether they will serve him or not (Joshua 24:15) he will not interfere in that. But because he has the ability to know the choice we will make, he can "call" those who will choose him.
Which, by the way, also means that since he is the one actively seeking us, it is by his mercy through his grace that we are saved so that Paul was able to say "we might not boast".
Where does God want us?
Some people see the title of today’s blog as a real question. I mean in a locational sense. (yes I made up a word with locational.)
The thing is that God seems to not be worried about location of our physical selves it is with our SPIRITUAL selves that God has issue.
Oh sure he will lead us to a physical location sometimes. He will do that through desire and circumstance. After all look at what he did with the Israelites when he led them out of Egypt. But God is most concerned with the heart.
To that end we ought to seek to read his word. I myself have immersed myself in the Bible recently and I have found some interesting stuff.
I found, for example, the relationship between Abraham and Lot. I found some interesting points about Noah and I found several people who had the same name… I never really thought about how there were two Lamechs…
Anyway. There is more to it than that And I hope that you will join me in this journey. Open your Bible/s and learn.
Learn where it is that God wants you.
The thing is that God seems to not be worried about location of our physical selves it is with our SPIRITUAL selves that God has issue.
Oh sure he will lead us to a physical location sometimes. He will do that through desire and circumstance. After all look at what he did with the Israelites when he led them out of Egypt. But God is most concerned with the heart.
To that end we ought to seek to read his word. I myself have immersed myself in the Bible recently and I have found some interesting stuff.
I found, for example, the relationship between Abraham and Lot. I found some interesting points about Noah and I found several people who had the same name… I never really thought about how there were two Lamechs…
Anyway. There is more to it than that And I hope that you will join me in this journey. Open your Bible/s and learn.
Learn where it is that God wants you.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Bible versus world views
Well, well, well… this one’s gonna rock the boat.
I heard a pretty good sermon recently. I ALSO heard a very… interesting response.
The sermon was talking about how, as Christians, many of us pick and choose what we want to believe. This has always been true mind you but the speaker was trying to make his point using recent studies, polls and reports.
According to his research (and the point he was trying to make) many Christians today will accept the “teachings” of other religions kind of like they were picking and choosing what they want to eat from a salad bar. They will fall into many spiritual errors because they don’t focus on the Bible and make it central to their understanding of God in their lives. (The Bible the whole Bible and nothing but the bible.)
The thing is… I agree! He was right. This has been going on for a long time. I think the most obvious example is Thomas Jefferson and the way he would actually cut out parts of the Bible that he didn’t agree with. But we are doing the same thing.
I enjoy martial arts. (Karate, Kempo, Tai Kwan Do.) But I learned very early on that I had to be super careful because all of these have a spiritual component. ALL OF THEM. Tai Chi, a slow stretching variation of a martial art, ALSO has a spiritual component, Seeking inner harmony through the manipulation of your body to open up your “Chi” or “Chakra”.
None of these are biblical! But Christians are following these teachings. We subscribe, as a people, to teachings that don’t exist in the Bible because we don’t read our Bible. (This is one of the points that the sermon I heard was getting at.)
The speaker stated that the Bible is the word of God given to us directly from God. I agree with him. I also think we need to know God’s word and follow it.
But here we find an interesting issue. I heard someone, a leader in a church themselves, from another denomination, who was upset with the sermon.
First this individual declared that the Bible was NOT written directly by God. (It may have been inspired by God but written by fallible men, who are prone to making mistakes.) That the Bible was not really that pure a book (it has been translated, again by men and Obviously errors had to enter in because of that fallibility.) and besides people who do Tai Chi have to be doing it ONLY to stretch they are not putting any “pseudo spiritual factors” into their practice.
O.K. as I like to do I will take the last point first.
As I said before I am very familiar with the realm of martial arts. And they ALL have a spiritual emphasis. They have to because they incorporate morality within their teachings. (“This is not to be used as an offensive tool Grasshopper.”) They ALL have some value or another that links directly to our spirituality. Tai Chi, the example used by both the original speaker and the denouncer, is specifically created to inspire “peace in our souls” through awareness of our body/ies and the holistic approach of opening up our bodies to inner wellness through allowing our “spiritual energies” to flow freely.
There are very few practitioners of martial arts who will make a claim that there is NO spiritual component. Let me try to explain that… There is the moral component as I said already, and there is the holistic wellness idea, in order for you to get out of your “training” what they want you to get you have to accept the spirituality of it, or it does you no good.
I have to pause here for a point of my own. Does this mean that Christians should just sit around and get flabby? No. Does this mean we should not learn to defend ourselves? No. the thing is we need to find ways of doing these things that are BIBLICAL. For example I found a Karate class that taught that our spirituality and “inner peace” came from God. Comes from outside us from the Lord and Maker of Heaven and Earth. Not from inside of us. Instead of breathing and opening our “Chakras” we would instead Pray to God.
We can look to sports and such like these to promote health and flexibility. But we have to watch for the invasiveness that comes from the spiritual components.
So the point of the speaker was that we need to KNOW the Bible! All of the Bible! So that we don’t fall into the trap of alternate religion/s(that is what I got NOT necessarily the point the speaker was trying to make.
Now as to the fallibility of the Bible. Here is an interesting point. According to my “opponent” in this debate, the Bible was Not written by God but by men who make mistakes. The thing is that Jesus himself was wont to use the old testament to prove his claims about being the messiah. If the original Word of God was wrong… then Jesus was wrong. But Jesus is supposed to be the incarnation of God here on earth. God himself in the flesh. He proved this by referring to the Old Testament and the writings of Moses.
“I come to fulfil the law AND THE PROPHETS”. He told us that we have to believe in him because Moses wrote of him. In other words the very point of whether Jesus is,
(a) The very son of God and therefore,
(b) The messiah, savior of the world, and as such,
(c) Able to pay the penalty for our sins
All these points depend on the Bible being 100% true through and through.
That means that it has to come from God, NOT man else all the prophecies concerning the messiah would be suspect at best and outright wrong more likely.
There is also the point that Jesus himself, while sired by God, was still born of a human. A FALLIBLE human and so if the WORD of God is suspect because of being opened to mankind through fallible people then isn’t the very Birth of Christ suspect the same way?
How about the translation point that my “opponent” raised? You know I like archaeology, sometimes I think how cool it would be to go back in time and see what life was like long ago.
Archaeology helps us to get a glimpse of those times. Thing is it also helps us to understand recent times. A few decades ago a shepherd was wandering around, for whatever reason, and he found a cave. Inside that cave he found relics, pots and scrolls, archaeologists presented with this veritable treasure-trove and soon dove into the find looking at “papers” that were thousands of years old. Some of those papers turned out to be old “copies” of the torah. What we call today the Old Testament. Thing is they were proof that the Bible, at least that part that they matched in those caves, is the same today, as it was thousands of years ago.
There were few, if any, changes to the substance of the works. In other words, if we brought a Hebrew guy up from the past, and showed him our Bible, after teaching him English, he would recognize the old testament and have no problems with the veracity or continuity of the word as we see it today.
I think that the arguments raised were really because the point hit home. I think that this was a natural and normal attempt by the person arguing against the point/s of the speaker, to justify the alternate spiritual activities of people today.
What we need to do. All of us. Is read God’s word, All of it, cover to cover, and try to understand it. I have said many times that The best way to argue in favor of your faith is to know your faith. We need to KNOW.
Please people read your bible/s understand the word of God, accept no substitute.
I heard a pretty good sermon recently. I ALSO heard a very… interesting response.
The sermon was talking about how, as Christians, many of us pick and choose what we want to believe. This has always been true mind you but the speaker was trying to make his point using recent studies, polls and reports.
According to his research (and the point he was trying to make) many Christians today will accept the “teachings” of other religions kind of like they were picking and choosing what they want to eat from a salad bar. They will fall into many spiritual errors because they don’t focus on the Bible and make it central to their understanding of God in their lives. (The Bible the whole Bible and nothing but the bible.)
The thing is… I agree! He was right. This has been going on for a long time. I think the most obvious example is Thomas Jefferson and the way he would actually cut out parts of the Bible that he didn’t agree with. But we are doing the same thing.
I enjoy martial arts. (Karate, Kempo, Tai Kwan Do.) But I learned very early on that I had to be super careful because all of these have a spiritual component. ALL OF THEM. Tai Chi, a slow stretching variation of a martial art, ALSO has a spiritual component, Seeking inner harmony through the manipulation of your body to open up your “Chi” or “Chakra”.
None of these are biblical! But Christians are following these teachings. We subscribe, as a people, to teachings that don’t exist in the Bible because we don’t read our Bible. (This is one of the points that the sermon I heard was getting at.)
The speaker stated that the Bible is the word of God given to us directly from God. I agree with him. I also think we need to know God’s word and follow it.
But here we find an interesting issue. I heard someone, a leader in a church themselves, from another denomination, who was upset with the sermon.
First this individual declared that the Bible was NOT written directly by God. (It may have been inspired by God but written by fallible men, who are prone to making mistakes.) That the Bible was not really that pure a book (it has been translated, again by men and Obviously errors had to enter in because of that fallibility.) and besides people who do Tai Chi have to be doing it ONLY to stretch they are not putting any “pseudo spiritual factors” into their practice.
O.K. as I like to do I will take the last point first.
As I said before I am very familiar with the realm of martial arts. And they ALL have a spiritual emphasis. They have to because they incorporate morality within their teachings. (“This is not to be used as an offensive tool Grasshopper.”) They ALL have some value or another that links directly to our spirituality. Tai Chi, the example used by both the original speaker and the denouncer, is specifically created to inspire “peace in our souls” through awareness of our body/ies and the holistic approach of opening up our bodies to inner wellness through allowing our “spiritual energies” to flow freely.
There are very few practitioners of martial arts who will make a claim that there is NO spiritual component. Let me try to explain that… There is the moral component as I said already, and there is the holistic wellness idea, in order for you to get out of your “training” what they want you to get you have to accept the spirituality of it, or it does you no good.
I have to pause here for a point of my own. Does this mean that Christians should just sit around and get flabby? No. Does this mean we should not learn to defend ourselves? No. the thing is we need to find ways of doing these things that are BIBLICAL. For example I found a Karate class that taught that our spirituality and “inner peace” came from God. Comes from outside us from the Lord and Maker of Heaven and Earth. Not from inside of us. Instead of breathing and opening our “Chakras” we would instead Pray to God.
We can look to sports and such like these to promote health and flexibility. But we have to watch for the invasiveness that comes from the spiritual components.
So the point of the speaker was that we need to KNOW the Bible! All of the Bible! So that we don’t fall into the trap of alternate religion/s(that is what I got NOT necessarily the point the speaker was trying to make.
Now as to the fallibility of the Bible. Here is an interesting point. According to my “opponent” in this debate, the Bible was Not written by God but by men who make mistakes. The thing is that Jesus himself was wont to use the old testament to prove his claims about being the messiah. If the original Word of God was wrong… then Jesus was wrong. But Jesus is supposed to be the incarnation of God here on earth. God himself in the flesh. He proved this by referring to the Old Testament and the writings of Moses.
“I come to fulfil the law AND THE PROPHETS”. He told us that we have to believe in him because Moses wrote of him. In other words the very point of whether Jesus is,
(a) The very son of God and therefore,
(b) The messiah, savior of the world, and as such,
(c) Able to pay the penalty for our sins
All these points depend on the Bible being 100% true through and through.
That means that it has to come from God, NOT man else all the prophecies concerning the messiah would be suspect at best and outright wrong more likely.
There is also the point that Jesus himself, while sired by God, was still born of a human. A FALLIBLE human and so if the WORD of God is suspect because of being opened to mankind through fallible people then isn’t the very Birth of Christ suspect the same way?
How about the translation point that my “opponent” raised? You know I like archaeology, sometimes I think how cool it would be to go back in time and see what life was like long ago.
Archaeology helps us to get a glimpse of those times. Thing is it also helps us to understand recent times. A few decades ago a shepherd was wandering around, for whatever reason, and he found a cave. Inside that cave he found relics, pots and scrolls, archaeologists presented with this veritable treasure-trove and soon dove into the find looking at “papers” that were thousands of years old. Some of those papers turned out to be old “copies” of the torah. What we call today the Old Testament. Thing is they were proof that the Bible, at least that part that they matched in those caves, is the same today, as it was thousands of years ago.
There were few, if any, changes to the substance of the works. In other words, if we brought a Hebrew guy up from the past, and showed him our Bible, after teaching him English, he would recognize the old testament and have no problems with the veracity or continuity of the word as we see it today.
I think that the arguments raised were really because the point hit home. I think that this was a natural and normal attempt by the person arguing against the point/s of the speaker, to justify the alternate spiritual activities of people today.
What we need to do. All of us. Is read God’s word, All of it, cover to cover, and try to understand it. I have said many times that The best way to argue in favor of your faith is to know your faith. We need to KNOW.
Please people read your bible/s understand the word of God, accept no substitute.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Ooopssie
I realize that there has been a hiatus from my blog/s of late.
I would like to apologize for that hiatus.
Really there were a number of contributing factors including the break down of all the computers in our house, and a lack of motivation on my part.
The good news is I am back; and while I may not be to strenuous about posting to my blogs for a while at least you know I am still here and I will be trying to get my words out there again.
I would like to apologize for that hiatus.
Really there were a number of contributing factors including the break down of all the computers in our house, and a lack of motivation on my part.
The good news is I am back; and while I may not be to strenuous about posting to my blogs for a while at least you know I am still here and I will be trying to get my words out there again.
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