Christian Life with Michael - Journal

Open Spaces [Go to article]

Good News Is Not News [Go to article]

A Sign [Go to article]

Back in this post I introduced something I've been thinking about for some time now... whether it is "correct" to believe God because of "signs" or not. Should miraculous occurrences form an essential number of the threads that make up the cloth which is my faith? Jesus often seemed to make statements to the contrary:

Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation. -Mark 8:11-13

It seems like the temple authorities were fixated on demanding a sign from Jesus, but then He kept performing miracles and they still wouldn't believe in Him (see John 12:37-41 for an example and explanation from the Old Tesatment). However, verse 42 makes it clear that some of the temple authorities believed, and the regular people clearly had no trouble believing in Him because of the miracles. Jesus sometimes seemed annoyed with the idea that people would not believe in Him without miracles (notice verse 48), but in this passage we find Jesus saying:

If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father. -John 10:37-38

It seems to me that we all, almost without exception, require some sort of sign in order to truly believe. Most people seem to at least have an emotional experience at the time when they accept Jesus as their Savior. I realize this is an internal "sign," but it is a sign nonetheless. And if Jesus performed miracles then, in part in order to demonstrate His Divinity, then what is to make us think that God would do less today? God never changes, and Jesus also said His Church would do "greater works" than the ones He did. (I won't even begin to speculate on what He meant by "greater works" in this post!) I just have to conclude that God does indeed intend for His children to allow Him to prove Himself today through miracles.

Eternal [Go to article]

The new Ben Stein movie Expelled is about how "intelligent design," belief in which is similar to but not the same as belief in Biblical creation (creationism actually falls under the category of intelligent design theories), has been marginalized by the atheistic intellectual elite. Christians believe in intelligent design by a creator we call God. Other religions believe similar things about similar deities. Some people believe that life was placed on Earth by an alien intelligence (I'm serious, and so are they).

The alternative to ID is of course evolution, which says that the things that exist are not the product of a designer but of chance over time. Given enough time, the theory basically goes, the right conditions will eventually occur and life will begin to exist. There may be fits and starts, but we are theorizing that we have plenty and PLENTY of time, here.

Have you noticed that all of those theories have something in common? The common factor is something eternal. For the person of faith, that thing that is eternal is a deity. For the alien theorist, presumably the aliens either have been around forever, or something created them and something created that. For the evolutionist, maybe the universe has been around forever... although sciency types will generally tell you that the Universe started with a Big Bang, but before that bang there was something that went bang. So that something is, for all intents and purposes, eternal. Or maybe they'd say that time is eternal, or the laws of chance are eternal. But something goes on forever.

Now, if you notice, the longer you think about things like this and the further back you go, the more like the Judeo-Christian God it all starts to look. God is eternal and He is the creator of everything. Now, in some aspects things are different... God is not from another planet (He made them all) and He is not mindless and random. But the more closely you examine just about anything, the more God you will see in it.

I wonder who the aliens think created them?

Commanding Winds [Go to article]

Free Will [Go to article]

Chickens Out Of Control [Go to article]

Surrender [Go to article]

Are you sure? [Go to article]

Early on in the book of Mark, Jesus' listeners notice something unusual about Him:

And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. - Mark 1:22

When Jesus spoke, His words had power to them. He clearly knew what He was talking about, and everybody could tell. Also, the regular teachers at the synagogue clearly lacked this authority, although presumably they were were well-trained in the Scriptures. It makes me think of some of the Christian writers I have read lately... they seem to have no real answers, although they are very open to listen to and engage questions. It's important to be open-minded, but where is the credibility that Jesus had?

Then I think of my own life, which seems sometimes to be riddled with uncertainty. A good bit of the time I feel like I'm muddling through things without really knowing what's going on or what the best course of action would be. Sometimes when I'm getting ready to pray for something, I have no idea what to say after "Lord..." So where is the authority in my own life? Where is the certainty?

I've come to realize that uncertainty is completely natural in the Christian life. In fact, you might even consider it essential to a healthy Christian life. If I always knew everything and had complete understanding of every situation, where would faith in God come in? After all, faith is all about knowing that things you can't see exist. But apart from faith, I have no assurance, no confidence, no evidence of those things. Faith is the key, and it needs to be central to our lives.

Faith is not "blind," though, despite what popular sayings may lead you to believe. Faith has something as its basis: the Word of Christ. If you know what the Word of God says about something, you can bank on that thing... even if everyone else is a liar, God is truthful. So I guess the key is to know what the Bible says about something, go in prayer to God and get revelation about it if you need more detail, and then with great humility knowing that we are imperfect creatures who don't see things clearly and we often do not fully understand even what we do know, we should act confidently, knowing that if we are messing up because of a lack of understanding, the Holy Spirit will guide us to that understanding and will not leave us hanging.

Lost Ark = Found? [Go to article]

The Lost Ark of the Covenant: Solving the 2,500 Year Old Mystery of the Fabled Biblical Ark by Tudor Parfitt is an extremely entertaining book. Mr. Parfitt's storytelling style is immediate and entertaining, and the adventure takes him across a number of continents and into contact with any number of fascinating people over the course of 20 years. It is Raiders of the Lost Ark in real life (and without the Nazis). There are things that bother me about the book... not the least of these being the conclusion. But we'll get there in a minute.

A number of things in the narrative strike me as factual errors. For example, speaking of the Ark, on page 14 Mr. Parfitt writes that the stories say that "Anyone who as much as looked at it would be blasted by its awesome power." Throughout his research Mr. Parfitt consults not only Biblical texts but also extracanonical historical material, so there may well be some source he is referring to that I am not familiar with, but the Bible does not, to my knowledge, say that anyone was punished by God or the Ark for looking at it. Touching it, yes. Possessing it if you were not God's chosen people, yes. Innocently looking at it, no.

On page 30 it says that the Ark "...was said to have generated some kind of energy that blasted a dry path across the River Jordan." I don't see anything about a blast of energy in the account of this in the book of Joshua. (Apparently this statement came from some oral traditions that I was not aware of before now.)

In another place, he ends a chapter by describing a time he dreamed about "A bellicose Moses [who] was dreaming of bloody revolt and war." This seems to me to be a misinterpretation of the character of Moses, who unless I am mistaken only killed with his own hands once, to protect his kinspeople, and who far from being quarrelsome was initially intimidated to even enter the presence of the Pharoah, in whose house he had been raised as a grandson. Another place where I think Parfitt misunderstands a Bible character is the section where he characterizes King David as doing a lewd dance holding the Ark, actually thrusting into the ark as he danced, which seems like an odd thing to do to an object of such holiness that you can't even "look at it" (according to Parfitt) without being blasted to smithereens (Biblical account is here). I guess looking at something is what, less holy that placing one's sexual organs into it? King David was clearly no choirboy, but I do think he had more reverence for God than that.

I did enjoy some of the stabs at humor in the story. There is a chapter that refers to an Indiana Jones-esque fear of snakes, and I loved this line, spoken to Parfitt by his native host: "'Nothing will get into your room. Except possibly...' his voice trailed off." A few times, however, what seems to be intended as humor struck me as borderline offensive, particularly his use of the word "Copt" as almost a derogatory term. He explains early in chapter 4 that a "Copt" is an Egyptian of particular racial and religious derivative, but then he constantly uses the term for his friend Daud only in derogatory statements, such as "you excitable little Copt," "you ineffably daft Copt," "You loathsome little Copt," "you dirty-minded Copt." It's almost as though he has turned the innocent word into a racial slur... it began to annoy me every time the word turned up on the page. Probably intended as humor, and usually I "get" the British sense of humor just fine (Parfitt is British), but in this case it seems to my American ears to fall flat.

I was also uncomfortable with the use several times of the word "cult" for religions that the text implies might be forms of Judaism. What is the difference between a "religion" and a "cult?" As best I can tell, the difference is that a "religion" is considered acceptable by the person using the word, and a "cult" is not. I imagine that to some people, my own religious beliefs would be considered a "cult." To me, it doesn't seem particularly scholarly to repeatedly use a word with negative connotations when perfectly good language without those connotations is available.

Before I give you my objections to Parfitt's conclusions, I'd better include a


This book is in large part a detective story. If you read the next few paragraphs, you'll know whodunnit. You have been warned; stop here if you don't want to know the ending!


Now that that's out of the way... in the course of Parfitt's research, he thinks over several things. One is that there were at least two Arks of the Covenant. The textual basis for this claim is that in one place it says that Moses made a wooden ark to contain the tablets that God gave him, and in another place it says that a craftsman named Bezalel made a more ornate ark which is described like we generally picture the ark today (the "Moses ark" is not actually described at all, except that it is made of wood). This is a view held by more historians than just Parfitt, but I'm not really sure if this constitutes indisputable evidence; just because something is not described in detail in one place and then it is described in detail somewhere else does not mean that it is not the same thing. And saying in one spot that Bezalel made it and in another spot that Moses made it doesn't to me rule out the two incidents being one and the same. If I hire a contractor to build a house and then tell a friend about it, don't I say "I'm building a house" even though I probably won't nail a single nail with my own hands?

But then Parfitt goes on to theorize that there may have been dozens of arks, and that scribes went back later and cleaned up the text so that it didn't show that, forgetting that one inconsistency. I can't imagine why scribes who would leave in things like their most celebrated king, an ancestor of their promised messiah, forcing sex on the wife of one of his officers and then having the officer killed in battle to cover it up, but then turn around and change the text over a gold box. It doesn't make any sense to me. It makes sense to Parfitt.

He also seems to believe that the whole idea for the ark was borrowed from similar religious relics already being used by the surrounding ethnic groups (for example, ark-like relics found in King Tut's tomb) and that this somehow gives less validity to the Ark's divine origins. I would counter with the idea that God speaks to people of individual times in terms that they can understand. Jesus' parables are not about jet airplanes... most of them are agricultural or just about plain people. I think it is highly likely that God had His people build a gold box for Him because they were aware that other religions had gold boxes for their own gods. The big difference is that where other boxes of the kind had a statue of the god himself sitting between two creatures, the Israelite ark had two creatures and between them was... an empty seat. Which would say something about that particular god to whoever saw it. Is this god so mysterious that they don't know what he looks like? Is he too holy to be personally rendered in gold? Since we're not ancient Arabs we probably will never know, but just because other religions may have boxes on poles among their relics does not invalidate this one.

Finally, Parfitt concludes that the ark was (the arks were?) a bowl-shaped drum called a "ngoma" which was used to create music, to carry objects, and which was loaded with primitive gunpowder and ignited to create flashes of fire and great noises. The enemies of the Israelites, he postulates, may have been given some mild poison to weaken their hearts, and then when the ngoma was ignited, the loud unexpected sound would have been enough to overtax their hearts and kill them. He believes that he has found the "original" Ark/ngoma in a museum in Zimbabwe... at least as original as it gets, since the Ark of Biblical times has since been destroyed and this one was built using the remains.

It's an interesting idea, but I don't buy it. To go that way you first have to assume that the Scriptures were intentionally altered to make a round drum look like a rectangular Egyptian box, and then you have to assume that it was not the holy power of a holy god that emanated from the Ark, but the ordinary power of low-grade gunpowder. Basically, you have to ignore the written canon of Scripture and substitute ideas gleaned from oral traditions, texts rejected centuries ago as inaccurate and inauthentic, and half-forgotten rumors. I am of the camp that chooses to assume that Scripture basically means what it says, and I don't really see a compelling reason to assume that just because we haven't found a gold-inlayed wooden box with metal rings on it that it doesn't exist somewhere, or at least didn't exist somewhere at some point in history. It makes for fun reading, but the ending didn't strike me as conclusive.

If you like Harrison Ford movies, by all means, read the book. It's fun to think about. I would caution you, though, to not easily abandon faith in Scripture, whether you are a Christian or a Jew, for something that calls itself scholarship. If Tudor Parfitt convinces you, that's fine. Maybe I'm wrong, but he didn't convince me.

First Adam [Go to article]

For some reason, this morning I've been thinking about Adam. You know, the Adam. The First Adam. I won't tell you exactly where I was when I first started to think of Adam this morning, but I was wondering if Adam ever had to... you know, CLEAN himself. Like, if his body fully processed every part of his food and thus there was never a not-fresh moment for Adam before the fall. Presumably God created Adam and Eve perfect; if Jesus' resurrection body was basically a return to Adam's pre-fall state... but we don't really know for sure from the Word if Jesus' resurrection body needed food (although we know He could and did eat, we don't know if He had to) and likewise we don't know for sure whether Adam's pre-fall body needed food, although clearly he was able to eat. Maybe eating was for enjoyment only. At any rate, even if he had to eat, maybe the pre-fall body was so efficient and/or the food was so pure that there was no waste product.

The reason I was wondering this was because if that indeed was the case... if the pre-fall body did not produce waste... then either God gave us those body parts that expel waste afterward, or God in His mercy thought ahead and gave us the proper plumbing before we need it. Wouldn't that be just like the love and grace and care of God for us?

But on to my second musing about Adam, which occurred in a less sensitive location (whew!). I was thinking about things that make me feel sad... loss of loved ones, social injustices that occur daily across the globe, children being abused and taken advantage of. All those terrible things that we all know about but try not to think about very often because if we do, we make ourselves miserable. And it occurred to me how true it was that Adam's sin would bring death on mankind. Although Adam kept breathing and walking around, in truth he had experienced a death. And a tinge of that death touches each of us every time we encounter tragedy or evil. Thank God that Jesus has brought LIFE back for us! Just like that first Adam's heart was still beating even though death was present, those who have accepted the free gift of the Second Adam still live in a world being consumed by death even though the life of God is present inside of them. It doesn't make it easier to experience those things that were born when sin entered the world, but it does mean that we can rise above death and experience life in the middle of it!

Barnacles! [Go to article]

I love Spongebob Squarepants. It's a silly cartoon that doesn't ever get too gross, although I admit lots of times they push the envelope. Well, at Christmas my son got a Spongebob music CD called The Best Day Ever. It has lots of fun and funny songs on it, and he (and his parents!) really enjoy it! But today one of the songs came up in my random playlist and it gave me pause:

We all know that the alphabet has 26 letters... count 'em!
You can mix and match to make many nouns and verbs
But if you say the wrong one to your mama, it may upset her
So in Bikini Bottom, we have a word that's preferred

We just say "barnacles"
It's a word that's okay to scream
When you want to let off some steam
And say what you really mean
We just yell "barnacles"
And go on our merry way
Barnacles is the way we say what they say we can't say.

A cute lyric, isn't it? The music is cute, too... click here to listen to a clip. The only problem is that Jesus made it clear that evil comes from the inside, and although it may be displayed on the outside, the evil is really in the heart. I don't actually see anyplace in the Word where it specifically says that some words are evil, but I do see that it says anger (which is not of the "righteous" kind) is evil. So if I shout "barnacles!" in anger, is that any better than shouting "s**t!"? Sure, the word "barnacles" is less likely to offend those around me, but if the anger is there, the anger is there... and that's where the sin lies.

The reason that the song gave me pause today is that it struck me as a good way to teach children to swear at an early age. Once you are used to releasing your anger through speech, it's that much easier to start doing it with real profanity later. I won't take away my son's CD... I don't think it's inherently malevolent (well, except for Plankton, but that's his job!) , but it's one more thing that as parents we might have to deal with later. Thank you too much, Nickelodeon.

Laughing in the Dark [Go to article]

Not too long ago, after a series of financial challenges, I realized that I was suffering from a pretty severe depression. I looked up "clinical depression" on Wikipedia and a few other sites, and discovered that I was experiencing all of the classic signs of clinical depression with the exception that I was not gaining or losing weight, and I did not want to kill myself (I honestly wonder if the latter was the grace of God sparing me that turmoil). I immediately began to make plans to see my doctor, and then I promoted a book from my "read-it-someday" list to my "read it NOW" list: Laughing in the Dark: A Comedian's Journey through Depression by Chonda Pierce. I had watched one of Chonda's comedy DVDs a few months before, and I don't remember where I first heard that she had gone through a period of depression and written a book about it, but it may have been that DVD.

Anyway, my episode of serious depression ended abruptly one Sunday during worship time at my church. I consider it a miracle healing; I was seriously depressed in a way I have never been before. There is being depressed, and there is clinical depression, and they are similar in name only... clinical depression is far beyond just being unhappy. But even though I believed I had received healing from the Lord (and I still do believe that and I still feel OK!) I went ahead and read the book anyway, and I was not disappointed. Chonda is open and honest about her experience, which was much worse than mine (she had physical symptoms that resembled a heart attack, and was medicated for many months afterward), but in every chapter she is able to add just enough humor to keep things light without becoming flippant. Every chapter focuses on something that was a major stage in her recovery... getting the diagnosis right, getting the medication right, getting back to work (as a depressed comedienne!), getting off her meds too early, and on and on. Each chapter ends with an email sent to Chonda by a fan who heard her talk about her ordeal from the stage, and then a few pages of more detailed information related to the chapter from a psychotherapist. I enjoyed all of the book, but I have two favorite parts. One of my two favorite parts is a section where Chonda learns that just like a sunset is still beautiful whether it affects you emotionally or not, God is still there whether you feel His presence or not (it's the last 8 pages of chapter 4). My other favorite part is a quote from a master of dry humor. This is the quote, which is the lead-in to chapter 8:

I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it.
?Groucho Marx

I found the book enlightening, informative, encouraging, and enjoyable. (And every word in that list started with a vowel and the letter "n" woo-hoo!) I was able to identify with all but the worst of her symptoms, and I believe I have a much better understanding of serious depression than I ever had before, after experiencing my own short battle with it and reading about Chonda's longer battle.

I want to add a message to anyone reading this who has been in a depressed fog for more than a week or two. Don't wait to go see your doctor. If you have been depressed every day for all or most of the day for more than a couple of weeks, call right now and make an appointment. Don't be embarrassed, don't be nervous, and don't let yourself feel stigmatized. And don't put it off because you think you can handle it on your own. In recent years I have known two people who fell into the dark pit that had opened up inside of them and took their own lives, rocking the lives of their family and friends and, in one case, apparently inspiring the suicide of a loved one. Clinical depression is very treatable, either via counseling or medication or both, but if you don't see a professional you won't get the care you need. Don't play with your life; get help from someone. I know if I ever enter the fog again, I'll call my doctor right away. If you think you might be there but aren't sure, pick up a copy of Chonda's book. Her prologue description of the gray hotel with the "talking light" may help you get your mind around your own feelings and help you make the decision whether you need to seek treatment, or just a little bit of sunshine and your favorite song on the headphones.

Nature [Go to article]

From this article at ABC News (emphasis mine):

This evidence of an innate revulsion toward incest, coupled with the general avoidance of incest in most cultures around the world, suggests that the taboo may be nature's way of helping us avoid the multitude of problems that come with inbreeding -- which include rare genetic diseases and defects.

Question #1: When did "nature" become a personality that could have a "way?"
Question #2: Doesn't the sentence make just at much sense if you replace the word "nature's" with the word "God's?"
Question #3: When did nature become God, anyway?

Dichotomies [Go to article]

Lately I've been thinking about two dichotomies.

NUMBER ONE
In Sunday School we've been reading and discussing a book called When Heaven Invades Earth. One of the main ideas of the book is that the supernatural move of God in miracles is absolutely essential for a complete Christian life. I've also been studying the Gospels, particularly John and Matthew, and it seems like a major theme in Jesus' earthly ministry was manifesting miraculous "signs" so that people would know He was the Son of God. But then at the very end of the book of John, Jesus turns around 180 degrees and says "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." So: if signs are necessary for belief, how can the ones that believe without seeing be more blessed than those that believe after seeing? Is faith based on experiencing the supernatural inferior to faith that arrives some other way? And, what else do we have that can generate faith other than experience (if not physical experience, then emotional experiences or at least intellectual stimulation)?

NUMBER TWO
If a healthy tree bears good fruit and cannot bear bad fruit, and if a fig tree can't bear olives/a grapevine can't produce figs/a salt pond can't yield fresh water, how is it that Christians are perfectly able to sin (and most of us do on a daily basis)?

I'm sure these two topics are being hotly debated in a seminary classroom as we speak. Please discuss and elucidate.

Oprah: New Age Enthusiast [Go to article]

A friend sent me a link to this video. Take a look, understanding that I don't know anything about the book advertised and I am generally quite leery of that sort of fringe-published stuff:



I'd say that just shows to go ya what happens when you take ignorance, and add to it more ignorance. Oprah apparently didn't bother to find out what God being a "jealous God" means... not that he wants something that Oprah has but He wants Oprah. He jealously guards His people. Because she lacked understanding, she decided to try and figure things out another way. Paradoxically, she realized that she couldn't figure out the God that was being preached, so she decided to figure out some other god, and discovered that the other god is not figure-outable either. Apparently that didn't bother her at all. <sigh>

I read some of the YouTube comments too... someone tried to smooth things over by saying that maybe the pastor said God is a "zealous God." Only problem is... the Bible doesn't seem to say that. Although it does say He is a "jealous God" in at least a half-dozen places, including the Ten Freakin' Commandments!

When we reject the real God because there are things about Him that we can't understand, and then we embrace a god that is so nebulous that there is nothing to understand, that's just stupid. "Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." (Rom. 1:22-23) Oprah doesn't even apparently have the sense to worship a bird... just a beam of light.

Too bad masses of people appear to be doing it right along with her.

Time for a new refrigerator [Go to article]

Saturday my refrigerator died.

But wait a second... let me back up in time a little bit. The refrigerator had been making death rattles for a couple of days, but we hadn't had time to go out looking for one. In addition, we didn't have the $1,500-$2,000 that most new refrigerators will cost you. In fact, we didn't even have the $300-$500 that most used refrigerators will set you back. We've been struggling financially for a few months because of some bookkeeping errors on my part, and at the time I was under the impression that when I paid all of the bills that needed paying, I would have something in the neighborhood of $0 left over to buy refrigerators with. That is not enough to buy a refrigerator, at least nowhere I know of in Tulsa. So anyway, at the time that we started hearing the loud unnerving sounds coming from our 35-year-old refrigerator, Cathy and I both prayed that it would last until we had time to go shopping for a new one.

So apparently, that time occurred Saturday morning. Cathy discovered that the stuff in the freezer had defrosted, so we took everything out that absolutely needed keeping cool and I shuttled all of it over to my mom and dad's house for temporary storage.

When I got home, Cathy was watching a program called Time on The Science Channel. It struck me as being kind of theoretical for her... she generally tends to be a very concrete-minded person and this show was all physics-y and space/time-y and I was honestly surprised she was putting up with it... apparently she likes science a lot more than I realized. When I got there and started watching, they were showing these white rats that had been trained to push a button. They gave one rat saline solution for a control group. He pushed the button in the normal amount of time. Then they gave another rat cocaine, and he pushed the button REALLY fast, and they gave another rat marijuana, and he pushed the button REEEEALLY slowly.

They went on to explain that it appears that different chemicals seem to be able to slow down or speed up our perception of time, and that time appears to be largely something that exists in our minds. Then why, they asked, does time only move forward and never backward? The reason they came up with is that it is possible for time to move in a reverse direction, but that we never see it happen because it is highly improbable... so improbable that there is virtually no chance that it will ever happen in the lifetime of our universe.

(Don't worry, by the way, because I actually am getting to a spiritual point here. We're real close... hang on for a little more time and I'll get you there. I'll get you back to the refrigerator too, you just watch!)

So I was thinking... this physicist on my TV who just spilled and un-spilled a cup of coffee (cool camera trick, there, Galileo!) is coming this close to saying that time is essentially an invention of our own minds and does not actually exist at all. And then it occurred to me that most Christians believe basically that God exists outside of time and that human beings are placed within time by Him... essentially that time was created for our benefit.

Strange how science always seems to loop back to Theology somehow.

So anyway, by that time we had to leave for my 7-year-51-week-old Mikey's soccer game, so we went to that and then dropped him and his infant sister off with grandparents so we could go fridge-shopping. We decided to take our time and head to a handy Lowe's and the Home Depot next door to it to see what might be available. On the way Cathy was like, I really want one with see-through trays, and this and that, and I was like, OK. We're in a financial bind right now, so my first reaction to that is to say, we'll take what we can get because we don't have the money to be choosy. But instead, let's go with my second reaction, which is to pray for God to lead us to just what we want at a price we can afford. So I asked her to pray, and she did. And so we progressed on to Home Depot.

Before we got to Home Depot we spotted a Maytag Outlet Store, and decided to look there if we didn't see anything else good. So we looked at Home Depot... nothing we liked. Nothing good in our range at Lowe's, either. So on we went to the Maytag Store, where we found two identical refrigerators in their "blemished" area. Now, appliances that are considered "blemished" sometimes have visible damage, usually minor, but in this case, there was no visible damage at all. And these refrigerators had the see-through trays Cathy wanted. And they were not smaller than the dead one, which was a concern of mine. And they were marked down from nearly $900 to under $600! Wow!

So we wanted to buy, but because of our financial struggles I was afraid that financing wouldn't happen this time. The most cash I could come up with immediately was about $150, and I didn't think they would knock that much off for me! I grabbed a credit app off their "90 days same as cash" display anyway and filled it out and gave it to our salesman... I figured in a pinch, I should be able to squeeze blood out of a turnip for three months and get that $200 each month somehow and pay it off in time so I didn't have to pay that 22+% interest. So the guy submitted our credit application, and not only did it come back approved (for a much higher credit line than we needed!), but it was approved for TWELVE MONTHS same as cash! And I KNOW I can come up with $50 per month for twelve months!

So one borrowed pickup truck and one helpful dad later, I had a brand new refrigerator at my house, all set up and ready to go. It was exactly what we needed, and probably a slight bit larger than the one it was replacing, especially in the freezer part. An answer to prayer? Clearly! God knew better than we did what we needed, and He provided it.

Here's the rub, though. When we prayed, that fridge was already at the store. It was already marked down to the price we bought it for. Our credit score was presumably the same before we prayed as after. So if God provided it, He must have provided it days or even weeks before our old refrigerator went out, timing everything exactly right so that those fridges would be in that store, our credit would be in a certain state, maybe that specific salesman would be on duty to help us out, we would happen to spot the Maytag store on the way to the other stores... everything would be just right. If God lives outside of time, it doesn't matter if we pray today and the answer requires six months to happen... God knows what we will pray for, when we will pray it, and when we will need the answer.

(Bonus points: read the post again and see how many times you can spot the word "time!")

"My Trust in My Lord" [Go to article]

Look: I believe in Him. It?s that simple and that complex. I believe in Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the God Man who came to earth, born as a tiny baby and then lived over thirty years in our midst. I believe in what we celebrate this week: the scandal of the cross and the miracle of the Resurrection. My belief is total. And I know that I cannot convince anyone of it by reason, anymore than an atheist can convince me, by reason, that there is no God.

A long life of historical study and biblical research led me to my belief, and when faith returned to me, the return was total. It transformed my existence completely; it changed the direction of the journey I was traveling through the world. Within a few years of my return to Christ, I dedicated my work to Him, vowing to write for Him and Him alone. My study of Scripture deepened; my study of New Testament scholarship became a daily commitment. My prayers and my meditation were centered on Christ.

Thus begins one of the most eloquent and reasoned posts about the Christian faith that I have seen in a long time.

Did I mention that it was published jointly by the we-have-a-reputation-for-being-liberal Washington Post and Newsweek?

Oh... and that it was written by vampire-novel-author Anne Rice?

My Trust in My Lord

Which Bible character would you vote for? [Go to article]

I am crazy frustrated with the presidential candidates for the upcoming election. Ahhhh? Maybe you've already selected the "perfect" leader from what seems to be a very "imperfect" list, but I'm struggling.
...
So in a loving and irreverent nature, how about we push the envelope a little and ask "the forbidden question"? Limited to the candidates below, who would likely get your vote for president?

(List of the Bible characters being described is here... don't peek!)

All Your Needs [Go to article]

At 4am I was staring into the face of a baby. To all appearances, about 30% of the baby's face was open mouth. Out of the mouth came a very loud sound. This sound can best be described as "screaming." This screaming was, have I mentioned, very loud?

The mouth wanted milk in it. Or at least baby formula. I was the man for the job. I was the one who would provide the milk or at least formula. The baby was looking at me, and screaming for formula.

The formula was in the kitchen. So was the bottle, the delivery mechanism for the formula. The baby and I were headed toward the kitchen. Once I arrived in the kitchen, I would get the bottle, mix the formula with water, and then apply the formula to the mouth, which I may have mentioned, was screaming. Very loud. In my face.

Did the mouth stop screaming because I was on my way to the kitchen? The formula was available, and just needed to be properly prepared and placed into the bottle. The perfect person to prepare it and deliver it to the screaming mouth was actually on the way into the room where this would occur.

The mouth did not stop screaming. Because this is a BABY. And babies don't always understand these things, or sometimes they just get all freaked out and don't calm down until what they need is completely in their possession.

And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Have you done any screaming today?

King & King [Go to article]

After finding out about this news item via this Christdot news post, I wanted to see for myself if the children's book King & King (which ends with a gay marriage) was as bad as all that. I checked it out from the library and discovered that it is far more blatant and aggressive about homosexuality than I had imagined, while simultaneously being a very good example of poor storytelling and illustration. It is clear almost from the first page that the whole book is there as nothing more than a vehicle to present a marriage between two males as a legitimate, inevitable thing. The pictures are ugly, and the characters and story are wooden. There is no mention of why there might be a queen mother and prince but no king... did the king die? Was the prince adopted? Is the queen divorced? It's a completely fractured family from the very start... no wonder the poor prince is sexually confused. I would have expected gay activists to at least choose an engaging book to play up their ideas; using this book to promote gay marriage is sort of like trying to use a burned hamburger patty to convince people to eat more tofu.

Sometimes I make up stories for my little boy. I've made up better ones than this on the fly, half asleep and without anything in mind when I started but "Once there was a frog named Jed and... a Lizard named... um... Larry." And frankly, if my mother was as ugly as the queen is in the book, and if every woman I saw looked like the "princesses" that are presented to him as potential romantic objects, I'm not sure if I would have married a woman myself. Why the school system of Massachusetts would use such a forgettable, inferior book to try to "influence the listening children toward tolerance of gay marriage," I have no idea. I would expect this one to influence them the other way, if it influenced them at all.

I took the book back to the library within the same hour that I checked it out. I didn't want it in my house where my son might find it. I try to expose him to lots of story and art, and if this had been a good example of either I might have even considered looking at it with him to bring up subjects that parents need to address with their children. It was not worth my time to do so.

Mardi Gras: As Seen On TV (NOT) [Go to article]

A cousin of my wife's is a Lutheran minister in the New Orleans area. A few days ago he made a blog post about the Carnival season (what most people know as "Mardi Gras" although that term specifically refers to Fat Tuesday only) discussing the religious roots of the holiday and challenging the media's portrayal of the whole thing as being all about debauchery and excess. In fact:

Mardi Gras is fun, and overwhelmingly family-oriented. It is a Christian festival, as it is tied to the Church calendar, and is a part of the cycle of feast and fast (even the colors of Mardi Gras are the liturgical colors of Epiphany, Lent, and Easter). Families and friends gather to watch the parades, to talk, to sing, to dance, to eat scrumptious foods, to enjoy one another's company, and to just plain have a good time.

Don't miss the rest of the post here!

Come on over! [Go to article]

This morning my pastor was making a point about the word "overcome" in 1 John 5:4-5 and I noticed that it wasn't quite the same in my ESV as it was in the KJV he was reading from:

ESV: "For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world?our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?"

KJV: "For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?"

Notice that middle "has overcome" in the ESV? It reads that way in most of the modern translations. I think it's an interesting distinction that those who are born of God are already world-overcomers... that is their identity... and their faith is what has already overcome the world. It's an interesting distinction from the KJV way, which seems to indicate that the faith is still overcoming the world in the present.

New Word [Go to article]

And when it?s time to speak our faith/We use a language no one can explain/That?s no longer good enough - Michael W. Smith, "Live the Life"

Today I was reading an online biography of a local celebrity, and I choked on, or stumbled over, or smacked head-on into an almost sure-fire indicator that the person is a Church person: the word "blessed." Now, it's not totally unheard of for an unchurched person to use that word, but I'd consider it almost a calling card for the churchified. I was telling someone about it, how cheesy it was to find "Christianese" in an online biography, and suddenly a new descriptive term for it came to mind: Christiancheeze. A new made-up word! I'm so excited... it's SPIKETASTIC!

See? [Go to article]

This morning I was listening to Max McLean reading John Chapter 1 ESV, and something struck me from the final few verses:

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!" Nathanael said to him, "How do you know me?" Jesus answered him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." Nathanael answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" Jesus answered him, "Because I said to you, 'I saw you under the fig tree,' do you believe? You will see greater things than these." And he said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

-John 1:47-51 ESV, emphasis mine

As I listened to the passage, it occurred to me that Jesus, who was operating in His capacity as Man, had received a vision of Nathanael by the Holy Spirit, Who had descended on Him at His baptism earlier in the chapter. Then Jesus told Nathanael that he would "see greater things than these." It's interesting how Jesus' statement is broken up at the beginning of verse 51, "And he said to him..." as though Jesus were making a separate statement. I always assumed that Jesus meant that the "greater things" were the same thing as "heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man," but to me the way the sentences are written leaves that open to another interpretation.

This chapter, in my ESV, contains the word "see," "seen," or "saw" fifteen times, beginning with the idea in verses 14-18 that although no one has seen the Father, we have seen Jesus and thus have seen God's glory. Then we find out what John saw, what Jesus' soon-to-be disciples saw, then what Jesus saw. And when Jesus saw something, He immediately said that Nathanael would one day "see" greater things. It's almost like the point of Chapter 1 is to emphasize that God purposefully reveals things to people. Maybe Jesus was speaking of the day when His disciples would also be filled with the Holy Spirit and would be able to see prophetic visions like Jesus did (see Acts 2:17 and Joel 2:28). "Do you believe I am the Messiah because of a little vision? Even YOU will see visions one day!" Jesus seems to be saying. Receiving prophetic visions, apparently, is not a valid sign that you are the Son of God!

So what is the significance of verse 51? I looked it up in Matthew Henry, and his explanation is that Jesus meant that Nathanael would see more valid indicators that Jesus was the Messiah, which also makes plausible sense in context. I think there is a little mystery left there, a little bit of ambiguity. Maybe Jesus meant a little of both... that Nathanael would see valid indicators of His Messiahship, and also that Nathanael would one day see and understand things by the Holy Spirit. After all, Peter did, even before the Holy Spirit was given.