All creatures short and squat
All things rude and nasty
The Lord God made the lot
Each beastly little squid
Who made the spiky urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did”
“Love often manifests itself in giving people what they can’t appreciate and don’t want, and
in demanding from them precisely what they most want to retain for themselves.” — Tom
“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena … Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
In a previous post I spent a few hundred keystrokes on the things of heaven, trying to point out how very ill-equipped the best of us is to fully comprehend them, even with the aid of the imagery of scripture, since “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.”
But our inability to fully apprehend everything about heavenly things is not a license to manufacture any old view of heaven wholesale. The only reliable source of knowledge about things outside current human experience is the word of God itself.
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“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8)
“To the earth Baal rained, to the field rained ’Aliy. Sweet to the earth was Baal’s rain; to the field the rain of ’Aliy.”
“In a dream of Beneficent El Benign, a vision of the Creator of Creatures, the skies rained oil, the wadis flowed honey. So I knew that Mighty Baal lives; the Prince, Lord of Earth, exists.”
“John Wesley said that he had a very poor opinion of Christians who did not spend at least 4 hours every day in prayer.”
“… that I am your servant.” Would another reason for such a request be that the authority of both the servant and his message must be recognized by those to whom he is sent, or what he says will be discounted and he will be perceived as just mouthing off; his message not taken seriously and God’s purpose in sending him frustrated? Paul used a good amount of ink convincing the Corinthians that he had credentials that were no less than those of the twelve [apostles], and was similarly concerned that Timothy’s youth not result in him being despised. Receiving the messenger as having full authority is necessary to receiving the message he delivers.Absolutely. Well said.
Just wanted to pass along a thought on the genealogy of Matthew 1. It’s obviously divided into three sections. A while back, I was impressed by the fact that the main divisions are related to the three main turning points in the kingship of Israel: (a) the first section ends with “David the king” – the first genuine king of Israel (since Saul was from Benjamin and was the “teach Israel a lesson” king); (b) the second section ends with the exile to Babylon – the end of the kingship; and (c) the third section ends with “Jesus who is called Messiah” – the ultimate king of Israel. All of this fits nicely with the fact that Matthew is presenting Christ as the king.
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Those of you who are a few years younger than I am, and most, if not all, of the men, can probably relate to that one. I don’t mean that you necessarily know the song, but you’ve almost certainly had the experience.“I was crazy for JackieI was almost ready to saywhen a boy in black leathercame and took Jackie away”— The Waterboys
“Science (from Latin scientia, meaning “knowledge”) is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.”
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“Not surprisingly, Tom, in light of what you have said so far, I started thinking whether or not there is a word in the Scriptures that describes this special kind of communication that Christians may have with each other. I believe there is. Doesn’t “fellowship” wrap it up neatly? That is, as long as we do not allow its Biblical strength to be diluted by the limited way unbelievers must understand the term, for Christian fellowship has to be experienced before it can be defined. In fact, I confess I find it difficult to define now though I think I can say I have “experiences” of it. But maybe I am looking at it too subjectively — what joy I get out of it. But isn’t that what happened on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:32)? I’m scrambling and hoping you or others will help me to unscramble my thoughts.”
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“And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”The words “hold together” here are most frequently translated “commend”, or literally “stand with”, and are used of a confirming testimony; that which supports or substantiates something that might otherwise be less solid or demonstrable. The KJV says, “in him all things consist”, which is fine, as long as we don’t conjure the image of the Lord Jesus as some vast being with everything else inside him, because that is not what the apostle is emphasizing here. Rather, he affirms here what is said in Hebrews about the Son; that he “upholds all things by the word of his power”.
(Colossians 1:17)
“… to suggest that there is no trace of anything good left in man at all is to contradict the Bible. The Bible teaches that we were created in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27). That isn’t a reference to our physical appearance, but to a variety of spiritual, moral, emotional, and intellectual attributes. Whatever else it means, it means that we can think, reason, create, love, etc. If “total depravity” means that man is as depraved as possible in every way, then it would mean that the image of God has been utterly obliterated and that an unsaved man retains none of it. This is patently untrue. Unsaved men can think, reason, and create. Unsaved men can even love. Although diminished and corrupted, vestiges of the image of God remain. It is for this reason that the Holy Spirit can say through Peter that Christ “called us by His own glory and excellence” (2 Pet 1:3).
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I’m with Ted’s explanation; at the least there seems to be nothing in the immediate context to forbid it. Secondly, 1 Cor. 14:34-37 reinforce it, as does 1 Tim. 2:12. Thirdly, having spent some 50 or more years marriage counselling I have observed that much marital breakdown occurs when either a man fails to fulfil his role as a protector and provider or a woman competes with his leadership. She may do this by asserting her ‘rights’ or manipulating her husband into doing what she wants.
“Sing praises to the Lord, who sits enthroned in Zion!
Tell among the peoples his deeds!
For he who requires blood is mindful of them;
he does not forget the cry of the afflicted.” (Psalm 9:11,12)
“I’ve looked high and low, I’ve been from shore to shore to shore.
If there’s a shortcut, I’d have found it. But there’s no easy way around it:
Light of the world, shine on me, love is the answer.”
By any other name, would it smell as sweet? |
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“What sort of miserable, twisted personality seeks to rob another human being of all the emotional and lifestyle benefits that come with the Christian life for … for what? So the successful converts to atheism can hit the bars, brothels and the casinos and ‘eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’? So they can swell the ranks of the overweight, the suicidal and the terminally miserable? So they can help bankrupt the health care system? So they can cheat their employers, slack off and go on welfare because, hey, why not? So they can scream and wail and fall on coffins at the weddings of loved ones because that’s all, folks? So they can camp out in the cold with the Occupy gang and resent the rich and powerful because their only hope is in this life?”
“The Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
The Lord has heard my plea;
The Lord accepts my prayer.” (Psalm 6:8-9)
“Scepticism does not mean ‘I am dubious about X.’ It does not mean ‘I am going to convince you that X is better than Y’. It does not mean ‘I will only believe X if there is sufficient evidence to justify it’. It means: ‘I have no opinion about either X or Y, and if you assert that X is better, I will argue that Y is better in order to produce a contradiction of equal weight and thereby allow me to suspend my judgment.’ What virtually no one who talks about scepticism seems to understand is that for the sceptic, suspension of judgment is not the method or the initial approach, it is the objective.”I had not thought of this before, but it provides a good jumping-off point for looking at the issue of how people respond to the preaching of the gospel.
— Vox Day
“… the defining feature of Theism is the Theist’s experience of an infinite but intimate God; and this sets the Theist so far from abstract epistemic neutrality that she too has every justification for weighting most of the standard budget of problems for Theism found in typical philosophy of religion basically as interesting puzzles. The epistemic reasoner is certain that the world is real, on the basis of her experience; so her question about the sceptical argument is not “I wonder whether it is sound?” but “I wonder where exactly it goes wrong?”. The Theist is certain that God is real, on the basis of her experience; so her question about anti-Theistic arguments is not whether they prove that there is no God, but how exactly they fail to prove that.”
— Timothy Chappell, Theism in historical perspective
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“For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.” (Hebrews 6:4-8)This Passage does NOT Refer to Christians
“For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.” (Hebrews 6:4-8)Eternal Insecurity
"Like this, and this, and this."in which case it will be quoted in full. Usually when I post, from the English Standard Version.
“There’s more to be said on this subject: What would a situation look like in which human beings were fallen, but creation itself was not? Or what would a situation look like wherein evil type 1 (human evil) would be present but evil type 2 (i.e. ‘natural’ evils like earthquakes and cancer) were not possible?
Consider this:
A fallen humanity plus a protected creation means that while the knowledge of good and evil exists, only good can be actualized. It means a condition of ability-to-choose exists for humanity, but no ability-to-act-on-choice. Humanity can dream evil, but never put it into action; therefore, no actual freedom or choice is created, but humanity is constituted as inwardly wicked. Furthermore, since there would exist a permanent disconnect between inner nature and external action, it becomes questionable how a) sin could become recognized for what it is, and b) how salvation would be possible, since all we know about it suggests it is constituted by external events actualized within the world itself. Would humanity then be caught in a permanent condition of sin, with no remedy? Perhaps. But what is abundantly clear is that there would be no genuine ‘choice’ between good and evil, between God and sin, since no person could ever act upon such an inward impulse.
If this is right, then a fallen humanity necessitates also a fallen creation — since humanity must have a place in which to actualize its choices and a stage upon which the drama of redemption can be set. And if having sin be recognized as sin, and if having a stage that is flawed in such ways as to allow for that all-important drama to take place entails a few instances of chaotic evil, a few earthquakes or cases of cancer, is that really surprising?”
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The most recent version of this post is available here.