Opus 2025-554: Paul’s Timing

I’m thinking that Paul’s trip to Rome was well planned as far as the timing goes.  Paul was one of those type A personalities that seemed to really be able to change the world around them.  Those of us who are not type A don’t understand what it’s like to be locked into that kind of motivation and self assurance.

I think that the biblical gift of apostle would be better translated missionary, and by missionary I don’t mean someone who goes to an established field and teaches theology.  I’m talking about someone who goes into a pagan environment and carves out a church.  It requires a kind of drive that most of us don’t have.  A lot of missionaries should have stayed home and run VBS.  I think of a dynasty in my denomination that went to Africa and served for two generations and made no converts.  I salute their commitment but not their wisdom.  I heard stories of two different “missionaries” who went to Japan and came home after one tour because they could not penetrate the culture.  That showed a proper sense of humility.

In modern times I think of someone like Mark Driscoll when he was at Mars Hill.  Years ago I used to listen to his podcasts as I would go walking.  He claimed it was the most unchurched area in the United States and I can believe that.  In that atmosphere God allowed him to build a large church on multiple campuses.  I have my theories about what brought him down.  It may have just simply been God’s time for him to move on.  He was definitely a type A personality like the apostle Paul.

I read the journals of John Wesley.  Wesley was one of the great men of God.  He was used by God to bring about revival in England, which preserved the culture and kept the country from dissolving into revolution and chaos.  At the same time I don’t think I would have enjoyed spending an afternoon with him.  He was intense to the point of being obnoxious.  If he felt something was right, nothing would keep him from moving forward.  God has a special place in his heart for people like this.

Down through history I think there have been many people like this.  Be thankful for them.  At least be thankful for the ones who were willing to be submissive to God’s guidance so they could advance righteousness in the world.  This type of personality, misusing the gift, probably also came out in the evil of tyrant and warlords.

I think Paul had to constantly fight this in his life.  He was on a crusade to destroy the church.  He was steeped in biblical knowledge, or at least in the rabbis’ interpretation of it.  He had a heart for God.  At the same time, he was so sure of himself that he didn’t spend as much time listening as he should have.  That’s why God had to deal with him severely on the road to Damascus.  That’s why Jesus had to appear to him personally and teach him personally.  Paul was not the kind of person who would listen to others, but he had the gifts that God wanted for the task ahead.

Paul went into pagan areas and was used of God to found churches.  I think the longest period he stayed was Ephesus for three years.  Other than that he would come in, preach and teach for a while, appoint elders and pastors, and move on.  He had been called by God to go to the Gentiles.  If you read your New Testament, you’ll find that in spite of the fact that he kept broadcasting that call he always started with the Jews.  He would go to a town, visit the local synagogue, be accepted as a rabbi, and start teaching.  After a while, he would make some converts and the rest would throw them out.

He would move on.

What brought me to this at the beginning was observations I made from reading the opening chapter of the book of Romans.  You’ll notice that he is anxious to come to Rome.  His reasons? Basically it comes down to the fact that he feels like they’re not as spiritual as they should be and he wanted to raise them to a higher level.  He completely ignores the fact that the church was established without his input, and as far as we know, was doing quite well without his assistance.  In spite of that he felt like he had a need to get in the middle of it.  Thankfully, God used this to provide us with the book of Romans.  But you noticed that somewhere in his involvement with Rome, he was arrested and eventually executed.

We also find I think three places where he starts talking about “my gospel”.  I don’t think he was aware of what he was saying there.  It was not “his” gospel.  It was the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I think he would have admitted that.  At the same time being such a forceful personality, he personified everything.

We have to go on tradition and legend at this point.  We don’t know that Paul was actually executed in Rome.  If he was, he was still in the prime of life.  He still had many years left if God wanted to preserve him and his ministry.  Instead, God brought it to an end.  We often wonder why people die when they do.  In reality, the only God knows, but I think He has a good reason for His timing.  Paul performed an invaluable service to the church and the kingdom.  It was time for him to step aside, but people with his personality don’t have a tendency to do so.  So God promoted him.

Now it’s your turn to do your part.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-553: Advent Calendar: Day 4, Micah

When the Wise Men appeared before Herod the Bible scholars were called for.  The question of the day was, “Where is the expected king to be born?”  As you and I would expect, there was an answer, and it was found in the Bible.

(Mic 5:2 KJV)  But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

The key to this prophecy is in that last phrase which points out this is not just a regular ruler but an eternal one.  I am guessing that was more than Micah was asking for.

As you go through this Advent season you will have situations.  You will have questions.  You will need to make decisions.  Make sure one of the sources you check is your Bible.  You may find that something you have read many times suddenly comes to life under the current need.

Merry Christmas.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-552: More Jellybean Philosophy

I sometimes wonder why people can’t see the inconsistency in their thinking and the application of their thinking.  My focus is on theology, but it would apply to just about any discipline.

Last Sunday in our Sunday school hour we were looking at Romans chapter 4.  The apostle Paul is discussing the relationship of faith and the law.  I had to sit on myself because the nuances that I would have wanted to go into could not be explained in that format.  The simplistic statement that all you need is faith was repeated again and again.  At its heart, that is a correct statement.  Faith, belief stating that you were on board with Jesus, is an essential element of salvation.  You can’t argue with that.  The problem is that everybody ignores the rest of what the Bible says.

But that’s not the inconsistency I’m talking about.  That’s just having a focal point of a lesson and emphasizing what is important.  Where it came home was an hour later in the sermon, by the same leader, in the same building, too many of the same people, the theme was making the right decisions in daily life.  Again, decisions are important. But when 2/3 of the sermon focuses on fornication and alcohol abuse I start to wonder, what happened to the faith being the only thing needed?

I am aware of these two requirements presented in the Bible.  We must have faith in order to be saved.  The problem with that statement is the Bible also makes it clear that we are to walk in righteousness.  It is not optional.  The way they were presented on Sunday made them mutually exclusive.  Anyone paying attention would’ve asked themselves, “What?”  They can be explained.  They can be brought together.  The problem is that requires a little deeper study and a broader application of scripture.

Somehow, I think we have the same problem in the areas of science, the pseudosciences such as psychology and sociology, economics, you name it.  People have their themes.  They have their thought at the moment.

And here’s where I get to my title.  I think most people’s thinking is like a bag of jellybeans.  Every jellybean has its own distinct flavor.  Every jellybean is separate from the others.  There might be a little bit of a coating wiped off on another, but they are still unique.  You might put several in your mouth and chew them up at the same time and get a totally different flavor.  All that time the jellybeans are kept separate within themselves.

We should have more of an approach of a nice beef stew or a clam chowder.  Perhaps a whole grain bread would work.  We need to get to where we take all of the ingredients in our intellectual pursuits as well as in our cuisine and realize that they work together for the finished product.

It’s not cynicism. It’s needed skepticism. It’s not naivety, but wisdom.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-551: Advent Calendar: Day 3. Abraham

We can follow the idea of the seed down through the ages, but Paul summarizes it when we get to the book of Galatians.

Galatians 3:16 (KJV) Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.

Jesus was the promise that was given to Eve.  Each generation would assign one person to carry the promise.  If you look at the genealogies of Matthew and Luke, you see a list of how this was passed down until it came to Jesus.

Christmas was the fulfillment of a millennium old promise given by God in the garden of Eden.  It wasn’t a later addition.  It wasn’t an adaptation.  It wasn’t an afterthought.  When sin entered the world God provided the promise for a cure.  Christmas is that promise.  Jesus is that cure.

Rejoice and merry Christmas

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-550: Advent Calendar: Day 2, Replanting the Seed

Yesterday we saw that God had established the promise of the seed.  You could take this to mean a general sense of being a descendant about him and Eve.  As we continue reading, we find that this term is meant to be selective.  Jump forward a little bit and you’ll find that after Cain killed Abel, God again communicates something to Adam and Eve.

A new child was born and notice what the Bible tells us about that child,

Genesis 4:25 (KJV) And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.

Cain was still alive.  In the literal sense the seed of Eve was still being passed on, but noticed that God specifically bypasses him and goes to Seth.  We will see this pattern down through the years.  It’s not that every descendant of Eve is considered in the path of the seed.  That would mean the entire world is the Messiah and we know it was only Jesus.

Keep in mind that God plans ahead and, even though some people deny the possibility, He can adjust His plans to meet the ways in which human beings respond to His overtures.

Merry Christmas. Be grateful that Seth stepped up to the plate.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-549: BIG TRUTH, little truth

I’m sitting here thinking about how serious, honest people of good faith can differ on their understandings of things.  My reference of course is theological, but I see this in politics in economics and just about every area.  How do we know what is true as opposed to what we want to be true?  I know I’m quite capable of seeing how other people do not grasp the big picture.  What comes back to haunt me is the question of whether I actually see the big picture.

Is truth simple or complex?  That’s another one of those questions which you answer, “Yes”.  It’s almost pointless to try and break down the question itself without specific examples.  So let me give you an example.

If I would walk out beside the road and pick up an object from the ground and show it to you and ask you, “Is this a rock” you would be able to answer me in most cases yes or no.  If what I picked up was a leaf you would say obviously that’s a leaf not a rock.  It was a piece of well worn concrete you might not be sure.  But ultimately, it would be easy to determine if this was a rock or not.

Is that truth?  Is that simple?  Is there more to it?

And then I might ask you OK, what kind of rock is this?  If you’re not into geology, you might have no idea.  I know that there’s limestone and granite.  I know that there are geodes that have beautiful colors inside when you break them open.  I know there is volcanic rock.  I know just enough to be dangerous.  I know just enough to know that there are deeper truths to the question of what is a rock?

One of these will be TRUTH, and the other will be truth.  Life is like that.  There always seem to be deeper levels.  When we have disagreements, we have to decide how deep a level we’re going to go to.  In the discussion of rocks, we have to come to a basic understanding of what the generic term rock means.  After that, we can start breaking it down and look for deeper meanings.  We can get down to the chemical composition, what elements are in that rock.  We can ask ourselves does it contain gold?  But we have to agree on what the basics are before we can go deeper.

It always amazes me how I can talk to people who will look at Donald Trump, agree with everything he’s done, think that he has been a positive force on America, recognize that the world has responded positively towards what he’s done, and refused to vote for him no matter what because “Orange Man bad”.  And yes, these people exist.  You have massive numbers of young people who are excited about socialism and communism.  The evidence of what these systems produce is clearly demonstrated by history.  They don’t care.  They are literally saying, don’t confuse me with the facts.

I guess we just have to keep stating the truth loudly and strongly.  We need to keep checking our facts to make sure that they aren’t talking us into delusions.  We have to build relationships with people by being patient and kind and courteous.  We have to hope that somehow the latent intelligence that’s buried deep under the layers of indoctrination can breakthrough.

Keep talking. Keep listening. Keep praying.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-548: Advent Calendar: Day 1, The Protoevangelium

The coming of the Messiah was not a last minute project.  In fact it begins right inside the garden of Eden as Adam and Eve are about to receive their eviction notice.  This verse has a fancy name which you saw in the title.  Break it down.  The proto is the first design as in prototype.  The second part is our word for evangelism which means “good news”.  This is a prophecy about the relationship between the serpent and the seed of Mary, Jesus.

(Gen 3:15 KJV)  And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

God plans ahead.  If he were living in Texas today He would already have His shopping done.  The message was that Jesus was coming.  For us it is that He is already here.  Merry Christmas.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-547: Whom Do You Blame?

I’ve been listening to a Matt Fradd interview with David Wood?  It is three hours long but it might be worth your time.

In the conversation they were talking about Muslims who converted to Christianity and the question was asked what percentage of the Muslims who leave Islam when they find out the deceptions and false teachings move to atheism instead of Christianity?  Wood said it was a good question and he did not really have any statistics on it, but he knew that it was a good portion that did not embrace Christianity, that went on to reject all religion.  What got me interested was that their reason is the conviction if one religion lies to me, then all religious lie to me.  That’s my paraphrase.

What would happen in our world if we took that same attitude toward everything?  Now being one who doubts what climate change scientist tell us, I would be one who would simply ask if we can prove that the climate scientist are lying to us does that mean that we discount everything that all scientist say?  Some cynics would say yes.  Some skeptic you say yes.  Some open minded people might even say yes, but most of us would realize that that’s not really a fair analysis of the situation.

Move on to politics.  If we’re convinced that one politician is corrupt, does that mean that all politicians are corrupt?  As you can see this comes from the other side because most of us would tend to say yes.  But that’s not a fair comparison; not a fair way to look at things.

So we need to be looking into each situation ourselves instead of just taking other people’s words for it.  One reason I think that many people move to atheism instead of embracing Christianity is that the truth of Islam, or the false Islam, was right there in front of them.  All they had to do was read the Quran.  If they were really concerned, they could go into the Hadith.  The evidence was there, it was documented, and if they simply believe what somebody told them in the face of other people claiming it was not true, then whom does the blame lie on.

If you tell me that my favorite apples are on sale at the local grocery store and I go and order a big box of those apples, when I get the invoice and find out the actual price is not a bargain, but it’s full price, whom am I going to blame.  Am I going to blame you because they were on sale yesterday when you were there?   Am I going to blame you because you made the whole thing up?  Or am I going to be honest about it and say, “I should have looked at the price myself.”

Ultimately, the choices we make, and the direction we may go in life are based on our own personal decisions.  Yes, there are other influences and sometimes we’re forced into things we don’t want to do, but most of the time we have more to say about things that we want to admit.

So man up. Or maybe we should say person up. Above all grow up.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-546: What Did the Disciples Preach?

I think this may be one of those TL:DR posts.

I get asked this question at least once a discussion with my King James Only friend.  He does not really want an answer because he will immediately follow it up with, “Did they preach the death, burial and resurrection?”  He has an agenda and follows it religiously, if you will excuse the expression.  Usually I just say, “We don’t know.”  This time I decided that was not a good answer.

If you are not a Bible student, Jesus sends His twelve disciples out to preach in Matthew chapter 10.   Matthew has 28 chapters so this is early in His ministry and the Disciples still have a lot to learn.  Since Jesus has not mentioned His death at this point they obviously could not preach on that.  What did He tell them,

(Mat 10:7 KJV)  And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

That is about all He says in regard to the preaching.  That would make for a short sermon.  I had this brilliant insight:  There are nine chapters before this.  Could it be that Jesus taught them some things that they could preach about?

So I did some Bible study.  That is not a bad idea when you have a question.

Chapter 1

Did the disciples know about the birth of Jesus?  Did they know what the Angel told Moses about Him saving His people from his sins?  Were they aware of the quote from Isaiah?  We don’t know.  It’s possible this might’ve been part of their message.

Chapter 2.

Nothing.

Chapter 3

You have the preaching of John the Baptist.  That would include his announcement that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.  It would include his prophecy that the Messiah is coming.  It would include his interaction with Jesus.  It also could include the voice of God coming from heaven, and declaring that Jesus was his beloved son.  Who knows what else John touched on.  He had the entire Old Testament to work with.  Good material for a sermon.

Chapter 4

You have the temptation of Jesus by Satan.  He might’ve shared this with the disciples. It doesn’t have him talking about it in the chapter, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t come up somewhere along the line.

You also have Jesus declaring the need to repent because the kingdom of heaven was at hand.  So we have repentance, similar to what John the Baptist was talking about.  If you go to Paul in front of Agrippa, you’ll find him also talking about repentance,

(Act 26:20 KJV)  But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.

So this is not just some Old Testament reference.

Chapters 5 - 7

The Sermon on the Mount.  This is loaded with teaching.  This would give the disciples all kinds of things to talk about.  These are practical matters, dealing with every day living and how to live an upright life.  Tie these lessons with the concept of repentance and you have plenty of sermons to last you for your first journey.

Chapter 8

Jesus told the leper to follow the law and go to the priest.  This was more than teaching the law.  Lepers were required to see a priest to be declared cured.

Then we have the centurion coming to Jesus, and we see first of all that Jesus was going to go to his house, and that violated the law or at least the law as taught by the Rabbis.  Then He equated the faith of the centurion as being superior to that of the Jews, and you have the final passage where He basically says that the children of the kingdom will be replaced by people coming from the east and west.

Then you have some statements about what it means to follow Jesus, the cost of discipleship.

Then you have Him quitting the storm and making them wonder about Him..

You have the demons calling Him the Son of God.  And you have Him casting out demons.  Good sermon illustrations here

Chapter 9

You have Him forgiving sins.

You have a statement about how He wants compassion rather than sacrifice.

You have that interesting passage about new wine skins.

You have a woman healed and He tells her that it’s her faith that healed her.

He healed some other men based on their faith.

Do you have enough material yet to preach?

Chapter 10,

And now He sends out the 12 disciples.  His recorded directions are rather brief:  Cast out demons and heal diseases.  At this time they’re told to stay in the Jewish area and not go to the Gentiles or Samaritans.

His teaching goes on through chapter 10 and He doesn’t actually send them out until chapter 11.  There’s a lot in here.  What I’m not seeing up to this point is any lesson upon the fact that He’s going to die and rise again.  That will come later, but at this point there is no death, burial or resurrection to be taught because He hasn’t taught them that yet.

I feel like that answers the basic question of what did they preach.  It doesn’t seem to be a secret.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-545: The Interlude

Having grandchildren around is not the most intellectually stimulating event of the holiday season but it is certainly emotionally satisfying.

Imagine being attacked by a Lego spaceship with unlimited ammunition and only having the Space Tickle Monster to defend yourself.  Add to that an inspiring version of O Holy NIght in the background and you have the day after Thanksgiving at my house.

I am not sure I won the battle but the spaceship captain has been distracted by parts falling off.  He is celebrating an undeclared unilateral truce while he gets all the vital tech back in place.  We had to search for an essential yellow star that had mysteriously disappeared.  He was not satisfied with the suggestion that the Space Tickle Monster ate it and he claimed he had not eaten it either.  Finally the Mysterious Space Muse made it appear in the middle of the rug and life when on.  Whether the battle will continue or the spaceship will depart for parts unknown is still undecided.

If you never hear from me again, I lost the battle.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-544: Click Bait: Those Nasty Republicans

The click bait presented by my browser said something to the effect that the Republican plan for redistricting could backfire.  The picture called for no more gerrymandering.  As I kept looking I noticed that the story came from the New York Times.  Well, duh.  I think I can assume that the gerrymandering going on in California would not be mentioned or, if it is, it will be on page 20 in small type.

I keep wondering if anyone reads these DNC mouthpieces.  Then I realize how all the polls show almost half of the country are still unhappy with Trump.  On Thanksgiving we shared with our son-in-law the recording of the woman who called in because she wondered why they were putting all the deer crossings in heavy traffic areas.  Why not put those signs somewhere that it would be safer for the deer to cross?  

The recording went viral on the internet and somehow in the process people got her telephone number and e-mail.  I don’t know how long it took for her to figure it out.  There is a follow up recording where she called back in.  She was a good sport about it.  I guess she felt pretty dumb.  What was interesting was in the discussion it came out she was some kind of medical professional.  She was either a doctor or a  nurse.

What do you do when even the highly educated medical people can’t think?

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-543: Thanksgiving Plus One

On our weekly Zoom call the old geezers got off on organ recitals.  It wasn’t about our organs but the struggles that others were going through.  It started with a young man related to a friend who was only 51 and was already facing a life of vigilance against infection.  It went on from their.  Often I would get bored but today it made me think of the people struggling in my church.  Instead of boredom I found myself being encouraged.

First, I am encouraged by the attitudes expressed by those suffering.  I won’t bore you with all the things shared at church but my awareness of the many things waiting to get me has vastly expanded.  At the same time the joy of the Lord is very apparent.  These people may not be able to “walk it off” but they will continue to walk in joy and the light of His presence.

Second, I was reminded of how blessed I am.  I am thankful on a daily basis.  Every time I go out to walk I thank God for another day of mobility, freedom from pain and the balance to make it safely down the stairs to the street.  This organ recital reminded me of how blessed I really am.  One of the topics that came up was falling.  I compared my recent wrestling match with the trash can on the way to the street to what they shared about people they knew.  I lost my match.  I went sprawling.  I hit the grass instead of the concrete and managed to miss all the rocks sticking up in our yard.  It still took me a month to get over the shake up.  That was a month of thanking my guardian angel.  I sometimes make him earn his paycheck.

Yesterday the nation stopped to be thankful.  We are only aware of the tip of the iceberg that represents our blessings.  Start to think about it.  Start to be thankful.  I hope you know the One that we are to be thanking.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-542: An Example of Attitude

It always amazes me how much difference the attitude chosen makes in facing life’s situations.

Let’s take something that has not happened yet, at least not this year, about an issue that I really couldn’t care a lot about.  Let’s say that as you gather together for Thanksgiving dinner, the family member who was assigned to bring the cranberry sauce arrived without his contribution.  As I said, this is not an issue for me since I never eat any of it.  It is, however, any issue for some people.

There are different ways that you can respond to this.  My way would be to try to establish it in family folklore.  This could be the year when Skesicks forgot the cranberry sauce.  The tale would grow better every year.  Details might vary, but the lack of that Red stuff would be central to all of it.  Dinner would proceed and a good time would be had by all.  Whether you never had him bring the important condiment again, or whether you made it his perpetual burden would be up to you as a family.

Some families have that one person who is personally offended by the lack of cranberry sauce.  Their life is ruined.  Thanksgiving will never be the same.  It isn’t Thanksgiving if you don’t have cranberry sauce.  They make sure that everybody knows how unhappy they are.  They belittle the person who forgot the sauce, not in a humorous, good natured way, but in that way which is designed to show how inferior they are.  We don’t have one of those in our family, but I’ve heard about them.  I hope none of our blood ever morphs into such a creature.

So attitude can make a big difference.  In both families, the cranberry sauce was not on the table.  One family made it an item of family bonding and legend creating.  The other made it a divisive and destructive issue.

I guess the key is that we have the choice of what our attitude is going to be.  We have the choice of whether this holiday season is an opportunity to build memories or a time of destroying bonds.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving.

And don’t forget that now we can say, “Merry Christmas.”

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-541: Thanksgiving Countdown

There are certain things that I can count on today.  It starts with getting up and being thankful, but that’s something that happens every day with me.  It’s part of my morning worship routine.  Thanksgiving day is wonderful, but it’s just where I take my habits and focus on them a bit more.

The next thing I have to do is make sure that I am out of the kitchen.  I don’t remember this being a problem when I was younger and more frisky, but at that point, my wife was younger and more frisky too.  In addition, the kids were there.  Now, she wants me out of the way.  So by this time I have already had breakfast I’m going to leave and settle into my corner.

Eventually, the smell of things cooking begins to float through the house.

Family begins to arrive.

We sit down around the table and begin our Thanksgiving rituals.  The one that stands out is the passing of the corn, or rather the corn container.  Each person finds two kernels of corn on their plate.  We go around the table twice and for each kernel as we put it in the basket, we are to be thankful for something.

And of course, then we actually eat.

And of course, the culmination of the eating is the desserts.

And then comes the final, awesome moment.  We can now turn on the Christmas music.  Thanksgiving isn’t really over, but the season of advent and the incarnation begins.

I thought it would never get here.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving and don’t forget to start saying, “Merry Christmas.”

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-540: Lord’s Day or Sabbath

I don’t think it really matters which term you want to use.  Christians have a habit of calling Sunday the Sabbath.  It isn’t.  The biblical Sabbath starts at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday. 

(Lev 23:32 KJV)  It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.

It is the seventh day of the week.  At least that’s what they like to tell us when they want to show their intellectual superiority by telling us that Sunday is not the Sabbath.

I haven’t done a lot of research on the Sabbath, but when you think about it, who is to say what the first day of the week is.  That is arbitrary.  It’s just like the New Year.  The biblical new year is a lunar calendar and has to do with the interaction of the sun and the moon.  It changes every year.  Who is to say the Sabbath isn’t the same thing.  This is especially true when you look at modern pocket calendars.  They now start the week on Monday and you’ll notice Sunday becomes the tail end.

The issue though is a day of rest.  The issue is taking one of seven and setting that aside to stop work.  The original Genesis account doesn’t say go to church or synagogue.  It simply says stop working.  So the Sabbath is a day of rest.  It still makes a difference, but you don’t notice this as much if you live in the city as you do out in the country.

I could go out in the morning at 5 o’clock and tell you which day is Sunday.  I might get it a little confused with Saturday but generally speaking there is still a difference.  How can I tell?  Are the animals lined up facing the rising sun?  Is there a glow in the Earth?  No.  On Sunday, as a general rule, the larger part of the population is not going to work.  Although this is changing a lot in modern culture, there are still large numbers of people that don’t work on Sundays.  They may do sports.  They may go shopping.  They may work in the garden.  But they don’t go to work.

What that means is that the road about a half mile from my house is generally empty and quiet on Sunday morning.  You might have an occasional car driving by on their way to grandma’s house or to the local coffee shop but in general, nobody is going to work.  It is obvious that the day is different.

I would encourage you to take seriously the command to work six days and then take a day of rest.  If you go to church on Sunday, that often involves a lot of work.  You might want to take Saturday the way it was originally established as your day of rest.  Either way, although we’re not under the law, God has reasons for His standards.  I would suggest that we take them seriously.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-539: I Didn’t Say It

A couple years ago we had a contractor in our house who was standing next to me.  I can’t remember if he was actually working or just doing an estimate, but he turned to me and said you are the most patient man I have ever seen.  It may not have been those exact words, but that was the idea.  I had a hard time accepting what he was saying, but then I got to thinking about it.

Patience is one of the fruits of the spirit.  Patience is the first things listed when Paul is describing love and in I Corinthians 13.  The root meaning is a compound word meaning long suffering.  When I thought about what the man was responding to and why he said it, I could see how maybe I could qualify for at least a bit of patience.

What occurred to me today as I was thinking about other things was that if I am patient, it’s obviously not to my credit.  My patience is not a result of some deep-seated character strength that I have.  I don’t think of myself is being patient.  I love the microwave.  I always like to find something else to do if I have to wait for something in the oven or on the stove.  But at the same time as I look back over the years and the things that I have endured, I can see a lot of patience.

This is not to toot my own horn or claim that I am any more patient than anyone else.  I would guess that most people who would have the time to read this have gone through even more than I have, and it’s possible that without even thinking about it, they have exhibited patience.

I think we need to understand that this patience that we have comes from God.  We may have a little bit somehow built in, but when those situations hit where we are devastated or raging or totally numb it is only the grace of God extended to us that gives us that extra spiritual fruit that we need.

One of the great advantages of serving a living God is that He keeps an eye on us and makes sure that when the chips are down that we have the winning cards.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-538: Monday Pulpit: Ho Hum

I am a terrible listener when it comes to sermons and Sunday School lessons.  There are some who can keep my interest but my mind tends to wander.  Maybe “wander” isn’t the right word.  It may be that I am paying too much attention and my mind takes leaps into the possibilities.

Today I was straying into an inner inquiry on why I was straying.  Why did the closing verses of Romans 3 not hold my attention?  Maybe it was because so little of what was being said was based on Romans.  At one point I got my hopes up.  This verse was read,

Romans 3:30 (KJV) Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.

The teacher asked what the difference was between “by” and “through”.  I did a quick look and saw they were different words in the Greek.  By the time I got back from that quick look they had already decided that they meant the same thing.  No.  They don’t but that was all we got on it.

The last phrase in the chapter implies that our faith establishes the law.  I didn’t have the nerve to bring that up.

So much of the preaching and teaching I am exposed to is primarily cliches, vignettes, platitudes, memories, well worn Bible verses, boilerplate, and what ever pops into mind.  It is a good thing I am learning to keep my mouth shut.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-537: Similarities

I have been reading in the prophets lately.  I read in reverse order the minor profits and now I’m starting with Isaiah moving forward through the major profits.  They definitely have different styles and deliveries.  I’ve often wondered why I don’t like to spend a lot of time with them.  This morning I noticed a similarity that might explain it at least to me.

Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel are like your roaming evangelist.  They may dress it up with slightly different language, they may add different points here and there, but their major thrust is you need to get right with God.  That is an important thrust.  It is a necessary thrust.  The problem is after a while it gets a bit repetitious and puts me to sleep.

It’s hard to find someone who is willing to put in the study, contemplation and risk presuming original preaching.  The difference between Isaiah and Malachi is very wide.  It occurred to me that Isaiah is probably a series of sermons he preached around Judah.  There was one major theme.  You have sinned.  God is mad.  God is gonna get you.  He’s willing to extend forgiveness if you repent.  Malachi on the other hand progressively goes through God conversing specifically on weak spots in the life of a priest.  There is an intelligent dialogue.  In a sense it still has the same points of Isaiah, but it shows a little bit more touch with the reality of life.

It also explains why I find it so easy to go to sleep during a sermon.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-536: Blowing in the Wind

As I was sitting this morning in the dark on my porch, rejoicing in the presence of God in his magnificent creation, I noticed something I hadn’t heard in a long time, the approach of the wind.  If you live in the city you may have never actually heard this.  It’s often covered up even by such a quiet sound as a well muffled car driving on a road half a mile away.  It’s the rustling of leaves over a wide front as the air moves majestically through a forest covering.  It is a distinctive sound.  It’s a benevolent sound that embraces us in a sense of rightness in the world.

The place that stands out in my mind before this was a camp site we had in the high Sierras of California.  We had a small half acre lot in the middle of an old homestead that had been developed into half acre lots. We could be up there surrounded by the national forest on 160 acres with only a handful of people sharing that spot with us at the time.  I would take my guitar and a chair and go up where I could look out over the meadow and just sit sometimes and listen.  You could hear the wind approaching through the forest from mountains away.  I could just sit and listen to that for a long time.

The only other place that I can remember experiencing this was on the beach in Hawaii.  We used to own a condo there and in our best year we spent six weeks.  Usually it was only two weeks, but I had a habit of getting up, without an alarm, around 4 o’clock in the morning, making a big jug of coffee and waddling down to the shore where I sat in my folding chair with my guitar, my coffee and my Bible until the sun came up and the flies started biting.  It was also quiet.  There, I could hear the waves gently breaking on the shore and the wind blowing through the palm trees.

It’s good to have a moment in Texas that takes me back and reminds me of the history of blessings that I’ve had in my life. I hope the creator is reaching out to you today.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-535: Is TDS Congenital?

I’m seeing more and more people who are expressing their latent Never Trump attitudes in just about everything they do.  I have a couple of websites that I have gone to consistently because they were generally conservative and seemed to keep their finger on the pulse of what was happening in the world.  One that I still check every morning is populated by people who never really came out of the closet, but are Never Trumper’s in their hearts.  I’m seeing other people who kind of give backhanded compliments and subtle insults.  I think that TDS maybe something which goes deeper than just political opinions or current emotional myopia.  I think it may be genetic.  Congenital is a medical term for conditions that are genetic rather than environmental.

I’m wondering if over the years we haven’t had a process of micro-evolution going on where people who have this TDS gene, been drawn to each other, produced children and perpetuated this trait.  I wanted to call it a disability but that seemed unkind.  Think of it as if people who are colorblind would be drawn to other people who are colorblind and over the process of generations, they would produce a population where most people were colorblind.  A mental attitude that refuses to accept Trump could be expressed in other areas of life, and we just didn’t notice it until the catalyst appeared.

I’m wondering if this genetic material is still at work in the psyops that we see going on all around us.  I’m watching people attack Tucker Carlson and Candice Owens because they have express opinions that were critical of Israel.  I don’t follow either one of them so I can’t really comment, but I will do it anyway.  What little I have heard that they’ve said over the years has been very solid.  It used to be this was considered the exercise of free speech and debate.  Now it’s the heresy of stepping outside of orthodoxy.

The country is being divided.  It’s nothing new.  It’s happened before.  I think it’s time for something to shake us up so that we again start crossbreeding.  Things like color blindness exist all around us.  I would be willing to admit that some of that color blindness results in some of the obnoxious styles and fashions we see, but generally speaking it’s spread out enough that it doesn’t make any significant difference in our culture.  It would be nice if we could breed the TDS gene out of our system also.  It’s too late for our opinions of Donald Trump, but it might make a difference 100 years from now, assuming we’re still here.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-534: New Lego Pieces

One morning my grandson, who was spending the night and most of the day with us, called me in because he was having a problem.  There was no note of crisis or panic, but obviously he needed my great wisdom and insight to deal with a difficulty.

I proceeded into the living room and sat down beside him and asked, “What’s the problem?”  He was playing with his Legos and he pointed down into the box and asked a question, “What’s that?”  Legos now come in so many variations it could have been a real mystery.  Now my first vision was to see a piece that looked like a corner of a castle, but he would know that.  So I looked closer and there was this dark shadowy object beside the castle corner.  When I got even closer, it turned out to be a hornet.  Fortunately, it was a dead hornet.  Fortunately for us, I’m not sure the hornet appreciated his condition.

I proceeded to extract the carcass, check to make sure that the boy didn’t want to keep it for something, and then took it to the trash can.  Mission accomplished.  I had removed something that didn’t belong there.  I fulfilled my purpose for the morning.

Of course you know I’m going to make some kind of spiritual application out of this.  It seems to me that often times there are bits of theology or tradition that exist in our basket of Legos.  To anyone who is paying attention it should be obvious that they don’t belong.  Sometimes people aren’t paying attention, or should I say most of the time.  When they do notice a problem, they tend to feel they need to call someone else to work it out.  Could my five-year-old grandson have removed the hornet?  Probably. If it had been my granddaughter she probably would’ve picked it up with some tweezers and run around and chased her brother with it.  But he wanted to sit by and let me take care of it.  Since I’m a grandfather and need to be needed, I was OK with that.

But what happens when the person who should be removing dubious material on their own refuses to take that step?  What happens when you read something in Sunday school material or a book somebody lent you or on some kind of billboard?  Too many people just automatically accept it and work it in as part of their world view.  What often happens also when they call someone else to come and straighten it out?  That person is part of the conspiracy and tells him no, that belongs there.

So when you have someone questioning the physical resurrection of Jesus, you need to quickly get rid of that hornet.  It doesn’t belong in any Christian’s library.  When you hear them talking about a divine spark within them that they need to reach on their own effort to raise themselves to divinity, after you get through looking at them with that look, tell them you’ll pray for them in their misguided thinking.

You don’t need the professionals to tell you what the Bible says.  And with a good dictionary, you won’t need them to tell you what it means either.

God gave us the word so that we could learn and research on our own.  He sent the Holy Spirit to help us tell the difference between a dead hornet and a castle corner in our spiritual Lego world.  You make the application.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-533: Organic YouTube

Even if you’re not aware of it, you are struggling with the invasion of YouTube videos by AI.  Sometimes it’s relatively obvious.  All those cute little babies that have the expressions of celebrities with mouths that are matched perfectly with the dialogue?  They can’t be real.  That much is obvious.  At other points I find myself listening to what would be instructional videos and after a while, I realize that this is not a human being trying to communicate with me.

In the future, the AI is going to continue to get more sophisticated.  That in itself is not the end of the world, but it certainly could influence the value of what we’re hearing.

I think we could draw a parallel between the food we eat, and the ideas we consume.  One of the theories of the health nuts is that modern foods are causing the obesity, epidemic and contributing to general ill health.  It couldn’t be that we are eating too much and moving to little.  They would lay it on the additives and the GMO plot.  Processing takes the healthiness out of the food.  It makes it artificial.

And the food industry they have come up with things like “organic” and “free range”. The terms in themselves are relatively meaningless.  There is no federal legislation that binds you to give a definition of what is really organic and what isn’t.  I remember watching a video on free range chickens and it was rather amusing to see how little was required for that label.  It wasn’t much.  I remember somebody pointing out that grass fed beef pretty much can apply to anything on four legs that is not a pig or a lamb.  It would be hard to find a cow that had not eaten grass sometime in life.

Foods are theoretically labeled organic to help the consumer differentiate between what is healthy and what isn’t.

I might suggest that we have an organic title for YouTube videos.  In fact, the term organic might be good because it would imply that there was actually a living organism that contributed.  I don’t know how you would enforce this.  I don’t know how you would know for sure.  I still think it’s a good idea.

I would not want to forbid AI generated content.  I am for freedom of the press and freedom of speech, even for computer programs.  After all, they were originally written by humans and designed by humans.  At the same time I think we have a right to know the source of what we’re getting.

So how about a “organic” label for what you watch or for what you read?

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-532: Still Searching for Perpetual Motion

This morning, as I was using my iPad, I found myself doing something stupid and the iPad separated from the stand it was on.  My son has me set up with this new product where you have a keyboard and a protective cover that folds.  The iPad itself is attached to the top of the cover by magnets.  He shared with me how the magnetic technology had advanced to the point where these magnets did not mess up everything going on in the computer.  I was duly impressed.

But when the iPad itself became separated, I got to thinking about magnets.  Do magnets lose their charge over time?  If you put two magnets together in the proper way, they will stick together.  If you leave them sitting there, they will continue to stick together.  Will they eventually stop sticking?  If the loss of attraction takes place over 1 million years then it’s pretty meaningless.  If it takes place over six months then all my theories are gone.  But I like to speculate.

If this magnetism does not fade fast enough to be explained by the energy used to attract the other object, then we have a violation of the laws of physics.  At least it would seem that way to me.  This might be another one of those areas where research is already being done and I just am not reading that page in the newspaper.  It might also be an area that’s so obvious that no one is looking into it.  Or the research may have already been finished and I am preaching to the choir.

So many mysteries if we see them.  We only see them if we look for them.  Look for things that don’t make sense but happen anyway.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-531: The Divine Dewey Decimal System

As I read through different books of the Bible, I am struck by the different approach that God seems to have in each of them.  I’m trying to work through Revelation and make sense of it.  It is a real slog.  For some reason I started working backwards through the Old Testament.  I find Malachi very clear and very helpful.  As I continued going back, Zachariah went back to the Revelation style of literature.  We had horses of different colors patrolling the Earth.  I think there was mention of something with many eyes.  As I continued back, I got to Zephaniah and found it very straightforward and clear.

I got to wondering about this.  Why in the world would a God who could make things so clear in one book make them so confusing in another.  In a moment of humor I wondered if the book of Revelation was just something God threw together to entertain John while he was isolated on Patmos.  You know, it could be the revelation was The Star Wars movie of the day.  Somehow, I don’t think God works that way, but it did occur to me that just as different people prefer different styles of worship and choose their church because of that, it may be that some people are reached more effectively through one type of literature than another.

If you take me into a Pentecostal church, you may have to tie me down to keep me there.  I’ve been around enough wild and crazy Pentecostals to know that I can’t take them seriously.  When I’m not around them, I can accept the fact that they are worshiping God and that they are sincere.  When I’m in their presence, I question those thoughts.  At the other end, you have my stereotype of a Presbyterian.  You might wonder if they ever feel any emotion or ever get excited about the things of the Lord.

In my sober moments, I simply think that these are different types of people.  Some people are emotional.  Some people are intellectual.  That doesn’t mean that intellectuals don’t feel emotion or the emotional people don’t have serious thoughts, it just means that’s their basic personality type.  Some of us are introverts.  That doesn’t mean we don’t like people, it just means that we prefer our own company.

So it’s a thought I had this morning and I may even follow it up some more.  We classify books of the Bible as history, law, prophecy, and so forth.  It could be that there is a parallel classification that is simply a matter of God trying to get his message of salvation across to many different people.

At the same time I think that most of us can sing together,

Jesus loves me this I know,
For the Bible tells me so…

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-530: You Pick, part 2 of 2

Now, how do we go about change?  There’s a lot of unhappy people out there today and many of them are advocating violence.  We saw this in the murder of Charlie Kirk.  We see it in the riots and destruction caused by Antifa.  It’s considered quite acceptable by certain people to kill and destroy in order to achieve political power.  I personally think that they know they can never really win, at least in the United States, but they can achieve victory by provoking people on the other side to respond in the same manner.  That leads to Civil War, which is a form of revolution that overthrows the power structure by force.  The historic results of this type of approach are dismal.  The solution is usually worse than the cause.  The American revolution was the exception to the rule.  The French revolution was much more typical.

Then you have reform.  This is the gradual process of bringing about change.  Sometimes we see big steps forward.  I think of the battle of William Wilberforce and his allies to end slavery in the English empire.  He fought for 30 years before he saw the first movement.  It is possible to change things.  The problem is that most of the time the change ends up being for the worse.  Think of how we did away with senators being appointed by the state legislature and made it a popular vote.  That has not gone well.  We think of the income tax.  It was going to be a very small amount of money.  How is that treating you now?

And then we have revival.  This of course, has that religious aspect, which is familiar to Bible believing Christians.  I think if we went back in history, you would find that there were times when Israel went through revivals.  I think of King Josiah as he found the book of the law and tried to turn the country back towards God.  I think of the Wesley revival which saved England from a similar fate that France went through from its revolution.  I’m sure there are other examples.  This would be my choice as the direction we should go.  I, as a Christian ,would feel that this would require God’s people to get serious about being God’s people.

Which way will our country go?  The frightening thing to me is that I don’t see what used to be the Christian church standing up and confessing their sins.  I don’t see them being willing to repent.  But then revival often starts under the radar and takes time to develop.

Hind sight tells us how it went last time.  Foresight is an illusion.  All we have is hope.  If you are a believing Christian pray and live in obedience.  If you are not a believer then you better hope that the ones who are have the ear of God.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-529: You Pick, part 1 of 2

I don’t know if you’ve ever been driving through apple country and seen the signs that declare that you can pick your own apples.  It’s rather ingenious because they still charge you as much as the store, maybe more, but they don’t have to do the harvesting.  I guess it’s fun for some people.

But I’m more concerned about picking our future.  If you are paying attention, and I assume you are, you noticed that things tend to be going downhill in our culture and our society.  More and more we see what we could call a peasant class rising to the surface. It’s not a matter of cream rising; it’s a matter of the dregs being stirred up until that’s all we can see.  I am not talking about social or economic classes but a group with atrophied mentalities.  

We are constantly at a crossroads.  That’s part of the human predicament.  At the present I think we are going to have to pick one of three courses we follow.  I would suggest that the three are revolution, reform and revival.  There’s a bit of overlap and all insist that there must be change.  That’s nothing new.  Again it’s the human predicament.

If you look at history, there is no one political system that has survived the test of time.  There is no one economic system that continues to deliver.  What has survived is the basic human character of self-centeredness and shortsightedness.  There is a certain hubris built into the human mind and personality.  We see it in those claiming that real socialism has never been tried and at this time it will be different.  I’m not sure how many of them actually believe that or how many of them are simply convinced that they are more clever than their ancestors and will find a way to put themselves on the top of the heap this time.

There are three general approaches to government.  You have the general category of monarchy.  This is the rule by one strong man.  They embrace different titles.  You can have a king, a dictator, a tyrant, a president for life.  A second type is the rule by the elite or upper class.  I think oligarchy fits into that and the idea of having an aristocracy.  Then the third type is a general form that is often mislabeled democracy.  The word itself is good because it’s a compound word of “people” and “power”.  This has taken two general forms.  The first is a pure democracy.  We have never actually seen this, although some people think we have.  They point to ancient Athens as being a pure democracy.  Not so.  Only a limited number of people were allowed to participate in the process of voting and assuming power.  Still it was an attempt.  Then we have the concept of republic.  This was demonstrated in Rome.  Again, it was not perfect because it did not include everyone.

To be continued...

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-528: Brain Storming

Tonight (written Wednesday) I’m going to a meeting at church and the goal of the meeting is to brainstorm where we want to go in the future.  There are a number of things that will be on the agenda, if there is an agenda.  First will be a concern with reaching younger people and trying to get young people into the church.  The second one will be a building program.  That is needed.  Beyond that I’m not sure where it will go or what direction.

I will need to sit on myself quite regularly because I tend to talk too much.  I have a lot of ideas, and am too critical at what others come up with.  So my challenge will be to listen and if there’s something that I just can’t hold back to go ahead and suggested.

What is going to make it difficult is the feeling expressed by the pastor that they don’t want to change anything.  Now when it comes to doctrine and the emphasis on scripture, I have no problem.  That should not be on the board at all.  When it comes to style of worship, he is big on hymns.  I think that’s a positive point but it’s not just that he’s big on hymns; it’s that he doesn’t let us sing anything which is not in the hymnal.  I find the typical contemporary worship incredibly boring.  I don’t think it reaches young people.  But then that’s the opinion of old guy.  However, there is a fair amount of what you would call contemporary music, which is quite singable, theologically solid, and worth adding to our worship service.  It should be a mixture of both hymns and the good contemporary stuff.

Then you have the issue of people in positions of leadership.  We have a pianist, who is very skilled.  She is an excellent pianist.  I have a CD that her husband gave me of what she did one time.  I’m told she never had to go back and do anything twice except when a motorcycle went by and somehow got through there sound barriers.  She is really good.  Or I might say she used to be really good but her skills have been going down seriously.  She’s in her 80s.  She has always played slow.  And the choir mentions they regularly trying to get her to go faster and she just won’t do it.  I don’t know if it’s lack of ability or lack of desire.  I know that you can use hymns and they can really lift people up but only if you sing them at the proper tempo.

As far as the building program goes, yes, we need to do something because we are at that point where people will stop coming because it gets too crowded.  My background tells me that’s about 80% of capacity.  My suggestion before they start a building program, would be to go to double services.  I don’t think that they’re open to that.  We’ll see.

So tonight I’m going to try to get there.  I’m going to try to be positive.  I know that God wants to use this church.  We’ll see if we’re open to it.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-527: Adjustments

As I was putting on my shoes this morning I noticed the techniques that I had developed so that my old body could take care of all tasks.  Instead of reaching down and working the socks over my toes and up over my ankles in one smooth pull, I found that I got my toes into them, scrunched my foot down, grabbed the top and pulled the sock up in little increments.  I have the same types of things when I’m getting dressed with other items of my wardrobe.  I have adapted to my aging body, my stiffening joints, my sometimes questionable balance, and just general oldness.

I thought came to me what a trauma it would be if someone could take my 18 year-old mind And put it into my 78-year-old body.  I’m not sure that I could adjust.  If I did, it would take a bit of time.  When you’re used to standing on one leg with no problem to put your pants on suddenly if you were put in a position where standing on one leg had a tendency to make you sitting on one floor you have to adjust.

How many things in life have we adjusted to over the years?  I guess that’s one reason why we don’t get old immediately.  It takes time to learn all the little intricate maneuvers that make up for loss of youthful vigor.  I would imagine what goes for our physical bodies also goes for our mental capacities except I think that in many ways the experiences of life tend to add wisdom and understanding that make up for the fatigue.  We may fall asleep earlier, but we make more progress on thinking big thoughts than we could when we were younger.

I think that may be part of the reason why young people tend to be more liberal and older people more conservative.  Those of us who have reached beyond retirement age have enough experience to know that certain things just don’t work.  Doesn’t matter how much you wish or how hard you try, it’s not going to work.  Unfortunately, those lessons seem to be the kinds of things that we can only learn by experience.  I remember when I was working in the preschool Sunday school class.  A young man would come in the door, about three years old, run across the room yelling “Spider-Man” and throw himself against the wall.  My memory may be faulty, but I don’t think he ever stuck.  I’m not sure if he ever learned either.  Unfortunately that’s how some people are.

Rejoicing where you are in life.  Each step has its advantages.  Meanwhile, I need to put on my shoes.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-526: Wig Check

There are so many things that are none of our business and yet it would be kind of fun to learn about.  This morning, as I was in my wake up stupor, it came to mind that I could be interested in knowing how many people were wearing wigs.  It is none of my business.  It has no advantage to me or anyone else to be in possession of this knowledge.  It’s still interesting.

When I was a kid, the only people wearing wigs would be women.  My mother-in-law had a story of driving down the highway with her window down and the wind turbulence from a big truck going the other way pulled her wig off and it went bouncing down the road.  Good times, but nowadays there are so many men who are self-conscious about their hairline that I think a lot of them are indulging.  Then you have the comb-overs which get really ridiculous and you have guys who have hair stylist to make it look like they have hair.

That is a wonderful thing. Sometimes I guess it just makes you look better.  At the times, it’s a vain hope.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-525: Divine Poker

I really enjoy in depth discussions of theology and belief.  I guess a better way of saying it would be I love to argue about the things of God.  A lot of people are put off by that.  They don’t want to be forced to accept the there are people who disagree with them.  I think there’s a great fear that they might find they are wrong and they don’t want to change what they believe.  Of course that’s my biased view.  I could be the one living in a world of illusions.

For some reason, the Lord turned my thoughts to playing poker.  I quit playing poker years ago when I realized that I enjoyed it so much that I was on the verge of addiction.  I didn’t play it that long, but I played it long enough to sense it’s seductive power.  So although I remember enjoying it, I never can remember which is a stronger hand, a flush or a straight.  If you know instinctively, then either you’re not addicted or you played too much poker in your life.

I was thinking about the rounds of betting.  Everybody has to ante up, put in your chip or you don’t get to play.  You have to have skin in the game.  Then if I remember correctly, you go around and people have an opportunity to raise, see (meet someone else’s raise) or fold.  This goes on until everyone who is still serious is not willing to raise the bet anymore and then you compare your cards.

In poker at this point, you have one winner and everybody else loses everything.  If you’re having a theological discussion, it’s totally different because you might have a winner, or someone who thinks they’re a winner, but in addition to that everyone gets to keep everything that was thrown out in the pot.  If your mind is turned on, and your heart is open, everybody wins.  You may not like what you hear, but if the scripture that is offered is quoted accurately, you have the opportunity for the Holy Spirit to speak to you and cause you to grow spiritually.

One of the reasons I think that people don’t like to disagree on theology is because they don’t like to be made uncomfortable.  If your theology is right, if you are genuinely trusting in Jesus, as you should, then you lose nothing except the chance to grow.  If your theology is flaky, then you may need the offerings that others are putting out there.

So don’t look down on people who disagree with you theologically.  It will challenge your faith. It will cause you to grow.  And it might even get somebody saved.

Want to argue about it?

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-524: Discernment Watch: Beware of Experts

I just received a lengthy tome from my friend who has definite theological opinions.  By lengthy, I mean seven pages of 12 point font.  I think that qualifies as lengthy.  What makes it drudgery is that he just is repeating everything he said before.  I’m going to go over it again, looking for anything original and hope to find something.  If nothing else he makes me think and adds to my arsenal of scripture knowledge.

Disagreement has value because it forces us to look at our suppositions.  It makes us examine the foundation stones of our thinking.  That is always good.  Sometimes one of those stones needs to be changed or chipped away a little bit.

My concern though from this is, I’m thinking about definitions of words.  The one that keeps coming to my mind that people use, at least in church circles, is the word “grace”.  Christians love to talk about how they are saved by grace.  That is certainly true.  The Bible is very clear about that.

(Eph 2:8-9 KJV)  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  Not of works, lest any man should boast.

The problem comes when we define what grace means.  The popular definition that I’ve been hearing all my life is that grace is “unmerited favor”.  If you are a student of theology and have definite opinions, you can parse that so that it might be understandable.  You might even get it to a place where I could accept it along with a big pillow of salt.  My point here is that if I need someone to define a word and all they can do is give me other words that need to be defined even further, then their definition is pretty worthless.  What do we mean by “unmerited”?  What do we mean by “favor”?  The problem with such definitions is they fly in the face of most scripture.

I prefer a definition which is much simpler.  To me grace is “God’s love in action”.  Are there any words there that need to be defined?  Is there anything about that statement that is not clear?  It is a much better definition.  It is simple.  It is direct.  And it does not cause any conflict in the world of theology and understanding of the Bible.

Take this another step.  I am now working my way through Revelation, and I find that almost every word has to be to defined.  Starting in chapter 4 I find that there is nothing that is a simple statement.  You may have heard the term “apocalyptic literature”.  It’s a form of writing, which is nothing but images and literary devices trying to get across some hidden meaning.  That is the book of Revelation.

As I have said other places, I accept the book of Revelation as part of the Bible.  As such it is scripture.  As such it is inspired.  That does not mean that we understand it or can understand it.  Anything in the Bible that needs a commentary or a scholar to explain to me using other words that I don’t understand is something that should be put on a back shelf and gotten to later.

Usually, we don’t really need an expert telling us what it means.  If we continue reading, if we continue thinking, if we keep our mind alive as we look in other parts of scripture, we will find the answers ourselves.  The answers we find will be much simpler, much more direct, and to tell the truth, more accurate.

Trust your ability to read.  Trust the ability the Holy Spirit to interpret.  God wants you to understand the truth.  He’s not so much concerned that you find a commentary that will tell you what the truth is.  Keep in mind that most of what you read in a commentary is not definitions of terms and explanation of tenses.  It is the opinion of the author and to be honest, you opinion might be just as valid as his.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-523: On the Street: Shopping Trip

Part of my plan for today is to go to a local mall and just walk around and see if there’s anything I want to buy.  I’m not counting on it.  I can usually do an entire mall in about 15 or 20 minutes.  I don’t buy shoes.  My feet are too big.  I don’t buy jewelry.  I have too much common sense.  I don’t buy a lot of things, but I enjoy walking around every once in a while and seeing what’s there.  Last time I was at this mall, they had a sign as you went in.  That said they did not want anybody in the mall who was carrying a concealed weapon.  I turned around and walked out.  That was enough.  I knew they didn’t want me.  And I feel very insecure were law-abiding citizens are not allowed to arm themselves for their self protection.  As I drive through the parking lot, it looks like I’m not the only one that has this idea because there’s only one car in the parking lot and it’s possible that it’s been stalled there overnight.  I’m going to get out and go up and see if it’s still open.  I’m not sure that posting that sign was a good idea for their business.

If the sign is still up and there’s any opportunity to talk to management, I will point out to them that I can’t spend money if I’m not in the mall.  It’s kind of like playing golf when you’re putting.  You can’t get it in the hole unless you get to the hole.

...

The stores don’t open until 11:00.  It must be nice to have customers who have the leisure to sleep in.  I will move on.  Walmart will be open.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-522: Influence

I was walking and my mind goes all over the place when I do that.  Part of my routine as I walk is  a prayer map I follow.  I came to my grandchildren and my children and was thinking about influence.

I pray that my children would be the kind of adults that will cause my grandchildren to love Jesus.  I have some influence, but it is limited.  We’re about 40 minutes away, and I don’t see them as much as I would like.  But my thinking focused on how we still have influence.

Some of the old people that I hang around with tend to think that they’re all used up, that nobody cares anymore, that they’re just bidding time.  There is an aspect of that I guess, but I think we need to also look at the fact that we have influence that we give towards our grandchildren.  It may just be in the sense that God will bless them through us as we are faithful.  It could be the weight of our prayers.  It could be many things that we wouldn’t even think about, things we say, memories we share, things we do.  But we still have influence.

So don’t give up.  Don’t stop living in such a way that would encourage God to bless you and yours.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-521: What a Country

I’m in the dog food section at Walmart.  What a selection.  We have country stew, savory cuts with beef, bacon cheeseburger, filet mignon, T-bone, but no just plain dog food.  What ever happened to chicken?

I wonder how the dogs are going to get through with the EBT and SNAP cuts?

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-520: On the Street: Freedom Comes with Four Wheels

I am driving across the metropolitan area of Texas around San Antonio and I am in bumper-to-bumper traffic which is caused by road construction.  Instead of getting frustrated, which would be normal for me, I’ve been thinking about blessings and how God blesses all of us and I’m looking now especially at the blessing we have of the automobile.

When I sit out on the porch in the morning and hear people going to work, I am impressed with all that flexibility that the automobile gives people looking to better their lives.  As I look at the different roads and how they get really congested at certain times, I am glad I live in a world where I don’t have to walk or ride a horse everywhere I go.

We tend to forget the tremendous influence automobiles have on our liberty and our freedom.  We are capable of getting places on bicycles, I guess.  I heard one commenter on a YouTube channel commenting how when he got to where he could not afford a car he was fortunate to be in a place where there was public transit.  He used it while saving up for something better.  Well and good.  I have no problem with that.  That’s probably a good step forward in accumulating wealth.  If you’re in a position where you can have mobility without owning a car, go for it.  But for most of us a car is how we get to shop where we want to shop.  It’s how we get to the church we want to attend.  It’s how we get to vote.  It is an awesome key to flexibility.

Maybe you should build a little icon to Henry Ford.  After you get through thanking God for your automobile, you might think warm thoughts about Henry Ford for the idea that he had that made the automobile affordable for the lower and middle classes.  The elites, the upper class, the one world government people already had cars, and chauffeurs.  Instead of finding ways to pass on such benefits they are working overtime, trying to take away your freedom of movement.  The issues that bring the cost of driving up and drive cars out of the range of people put a sparkle in their eyes.  They love the regulations.  They limit your freedom.  Remember the Cash for Clunkers program?  What it really did was removed the access to inexpensive cars from poor people who could not afford something better.  How many million cars were removed from the market?  How much did the cost of an automobile go up?  How many people are now stranded because they can’t afford it anymore?  That’s all part of the plan from the elite.

Anything that makes it harder for you to afford a car, to pay for the gas you need and to maintain it should be fought with great vigor and enthusiasm.  One of the factors in liberty is mobility.  You hear about voting with your feet?  Well maybe we need to learn to vote with our wheels.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-519: Conditional or Unconditional

I am so fed up with people who cherry pick scripture to reinforce their theological traditions.  Take the following verse,

(Psa 132:11 KJV)  The LORD hath sworn in truth unto David; he will not turn from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne.

They will use this verse to try to say that God made a promise and He will never go back on it.  That works fine if you are one of their gullible disciples but if you take the time to do a little thinking you go looking for another guru.  More likely you ignore what you find.  If you would simply read the next verse you would find this,

(Psa 132:12 KJV)  If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore.

It is almost like the “if” word becomes invisible.  It is clear that the promise made was conditional.  If the descendants of David did not keep the covenant then the promise was revoked.

Guess what?  They did not keep the covenant.  Time to ask Amazon for a return label.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-518: Uncharted Revelation: 1000 Words Worth One Picture

We’ve all heard the statement that one picture is worth 1000 words.  I’m sure that that came up before we had Photoshop and AI.  Nowadays, the photo isn’t worth much of anything if you really want to know what something looks like.

Most of us have seen different artists impression of what Jesus looked like.  Most of them reflect the cultural background of the artist more than what reality would show.  If you want to speculate on what Jesus would’ve looked like in the flesh then find a young Palestinian and take a photo.  We do, however, have a picture of what Jesus look like, but it’s in words, not in pixels.

It’s found in revelation chapter 1.

Revelation 1:13-16 (KJV) 13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks [one] like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. 14 His head and [his] hairs [were] white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes [were] as a flame of fire; 15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. 16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance [was] as the sun shineth in his strength.

Notice that not only does it tell us what He looked like, but it tells us how He was dressed and what He sounded like.

I don’t expect a lithograph based on this description to start adorning churches and Christian homes.  Keep in mind this isn’t my description.  This is the one that the apostle John gave us.  If you don’t like it talk to him.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-517: Get the Book Too

We are reading more and more on our electronic devices like Kindle, iPads, computers, and there’re probably many others that I’m not thinking about.  That in itself, I don’t think is a big problem because you’re still reading.  I think though that it might be good when you read a book that speaks to you, seems controversial or might have information that someday the 1984 Committee will not want you to have, that you go out of your way to get it in hard copy and put it in your library you where you will have it.  You might even want to hide it because the Committee has long arms.  I’ve already seen how things are quietly edited with nobody making a big fuss about it.  I think I’ve already mentioned such things as the Hardy boys, the book written by William Wilberforce and even my hymnal getting edited without letting me know.  So I think it’s a good idea to get that hard copy and put it someplace where Amazon or Big Brother can’t get  hold of it.

Now if you’re reading science fiction or spy novels or anything like that and you enjoy them and want to get a hard copy that’s fine but it’s not all that necessary.  Although they probably will go back and edit some of these to make them more politically correct and more woke, it won’t affect your destiny or your understanding of the world around you.

I recently bought a copy of 1984.  I had read it on my Kindle and mysteriously it was removed without my knowledge.  They even got the mobi file I had on my computer.  The only reason I know I really read it was that I had put my notes in a file with a title the AI did not recognize.  This is the kind of thing we’re up against.  So if you find a book, whether it’s a reference or something controversial, see if you can get a hard copy and put it someplace where you’ll know where it is.  It might fit well in the back of your freezer.  You don’t need to actually read it itself, unless it disappears from the electronic media or is edited out of recognition.

This would go for things like the Bible, the Federalist Papers, philosophers and historians, just about anything that might be important to help learn to be a thoughtful citizen.

For that matter, it would also be good to have a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  Who knows what they’ll do with that if given the chance.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-516: Not a Mighty Oak

As I was thinking about God‘s blessings, I was searching for something new.  I go through a litany of things that I am so much aware that God has done for me but every once in a while, I stop and say, “What am I not thinking about?”

Today I got to thinking about all of the little contributions, the different people and experiences have me into what I am today.  I think of the guy who was a total atheist and yet it was discussions with him that helped me to think.  I think of the youth leader who was held in low regard by the parents in the church because he tended to be a bit crazy, but it was his immaturity, shall we say, that helped me to grow and develop leadership skills.  I think of Vietnam.  There are so many things that have made me what I am today.

I think most of us like to think of ourselves is being mighty oak trees, or perhaps a piece of furniture made of solid oak.  In reality, most of us are more like particle board, or even worse, whatever that stuff is that’s made up of sawdust.  We are little bits and pieces that have been put together in a certain way to produce a certain result.  As much as we want to be awesome oak trees in reality, we will be that little bookshelf with the individual shelves that tend to bend with time and have to be turned over to compensate.

There’s a place for mighty oak trees.  I have a few in my yard.  I’m not sure I would call them mighty, but they are pretty nice.  One of the things that we tend to forget is that there are many types of oak trees, and some are good for nothing much more than holding the soil down, shielding the grass and looking good.  Others are good for building things.

There’s probably a place for partical board also.  There’s a certain humility in being made of little pieces and still being useful.  Think of how much of your furniture you would have to throw out if you required everything to be solid wood.  Of course there are places where it’s necessary, but that’s up to the designer and the architect, which is certainly not us.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-515: AI Virus

I wrote about an MIT study that showed using AI support causes damage to your ability to think.

I showed it to someone who worked in computer security and he said that he sees it in his managerial group and they are trying to push it amongst the ones who actually do the work.  It is spreading like wildfire and wildfire is malignant.  

The thought came to me that the AI programming may work very similar to a virus.  It may somehow move from person to person, causing brains to shut down, causing emotional and mental intellectual damage, and those people, because they don’t want anybody else to get by without the benefits that they’re getting, will force it on others, therefore spreading the destruction.  We need to develop a way to treat this illness.

As we move forward, society may divide into two groups.  One group will have their brains watered down by AI and will be tools of whomever controls the AI.  The other group will be like the Amish and will live a separate and parallel existence.  Whether they are allowed to live that separate existence is doubtful so they may have to find ways to fight the virus.  It may be to compete.  Some people will have to volunteer to be guinea pigs.

The guinea pig will be someone who understands what’s going on and who volunteers to use the AI tools, which we know will lower their IQ, and seek to find ways to block or counteract it.  It would be scientific research and these would be heroes of the human race.  If it can be done there is hope.

The parallel track would need to use AI to compete with the speed of contamination in order to counter attacks that they are using on the normal people.  Other than that, it wouldn’t be necessary.  Well, that and the fact that the AI group will not be satisfied to allow normal people to continue being normal.

If the machines take over it won’t necessarily be because they are smarter as much as the elites that control them have made sure that we are dumber.  Same difference if you are a cog.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-514: AI Sydrome

A friend directed me toward an article out of MIT that was investigating the effect that AI crutches had on the people that used them.  The research was frightening but not surprising.  They found that people who used ChatGPT had serious reductions in their ability to think and process.  There was a clear difference.

This made me wonder if reading the material produced by AI would have the same effect.  Do we get dumber when we read the product of artificial thinking?

I would suggest you might even take another step and ask yourself if reading kind of garbage literature that has been forced on kits for the past 20 years in public schools would tend to make a brain degenerate.  Muscles develop and maintain strength through resistance and effort.  The brain is the same.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-513: Covenant Languages

There are differences between the old covenant, or Old Testament, and the new covenant, or New Testament.  There are differences in teaching.  There’s a fuller understanding of God’s plan.  There’s a clear explanation of the place of grace and a highlighting of the need for faith.

I’m wondering if one of the reasons that we needed a new covenant also had to do with the fact that it came in a new language with different nuances.  I came to this in a roundabout way.  I was thinking about the differences between animals and human beings.  I don’t think animals experience like we do.  I think that they exist at different levels.  My first thought was with a bear ambling through the woods.  He was looking for grubs to eat, berries to munch on and possibly some honey for dessert.  He was getting ready for his long winters nap.  Did he think deep philosophical questions?  Did he ask the other bears about the meaning of life?  I doubt it.  At the same time he was somewhat aware.  If he was a small bear and a grizzly snuck up on him, he would know fear.

Go down to the other end of creation to the insect world.  Are they aware of fear?  I don’t think so, not in the way that we think of fear.  They may scramble or dodged to preserve their life, but that’s just a reaction.  I doubt if they have the cerebral cortex to allow them to be aware of what’s really going on.

Hugh Ross in his writings about creation, talks about a word that is used for the higher levels of animals.  That is in Hebrew I believe, nephesh.  In his theory, certain animals were created with this level of awareness.  These were the animals that are able to relate to human beings, such as dogs and horses.  You wouldn’t find it in the lower animals.

The ultimate of creation, of course, was humanity.  We were created in the image of God.  I’m wondering if one of the reasons we have the New Testament written in Greek rather than Hebrew is so that we could have a new word for what it is to have this life source.  It might be the word that we use for spirit in Holy Spirit, pneuma.

New Testament words, such as agape would have all of the nuance of the Old Testament, chesed but with added depth and understanding.  That tells us the concept of love that we get from God in the Greek is higher than the awesome thought of loving kindness in the Hebrew.

We serve a loving God.  In one sense He never changes.  But in another sense, He is constantly finding new ways to reach out and develop us in His presence.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-512: Terms That Manipulate

By now I’m sure that most of you have seen these video clips that have babies resembling a well-known person making comments and looking really cute.  They will take the voice of the actual person and have the baby moving their mouth and having the exact expressions of the person they are mimicking.  There are others where they’re just babies making funny comments.  I enjoy them up to the point where I start getting bored.  They’re a great addition to our entertainment industry.

Nowadays, we would say these are AI generated.  When we say things like that, it comes loaded with a lot of hidden meanings that have been pushed upon us and are being constantly broadcast.  When we hear about AI, we are often overcome with fear.  We’re afraid of it.  We think about how it’s going to morph into a creature that makes us obsolete and replaces us.  We think of machines taking over the world.  It’s a popular fantasy.  It’s not a new fantasy.  It’s been around for years in science fiction.  If you remember the movie, 2001 Space Odyssey, you have a picture of HAL taking over the spaceship and essentially telling the human he was unessential. 

No turn your mind back a few years.  Before everybody got used to the threat of AI they might’ve said that something was computer generated or Photoshoped or before that even airbrushed.  These terms we got used to and they did not have the threat factor in them.

Keep in mind that one of the reasons why people are making such a big deal about AI is because they want the government to step in and start passing rules and regulations that will “protect us”.  There are people out there that always want the government to protect us.  Be leery of people who want the government to start regulating anything.

One of the best ways to not be threatened by AI is to work hard in a skill that cannot be duplicated by a series of bits and bites.  Use your creativity.  Use your uniqueness.  Yes, computers can do things which don’t require real judgment.  They can drive cars.  If programed correctly, they may even design cars.  The problem is what kind of car would it design for a computer module?  It wouldn’t have air-conditioning and certainly wouldn’t need a stereo.

Keep in mind that phrase from FDR, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-511: Uncharted Revelation: And Willie Wonka

I just finished reading the book of Revelation again.  Like most times that I’ve read it before I have one big question generated by the reading. “Why?”  It’s not so much why did I read it.  It is in the Bible.  It is part of the inspired scripture.  It must have something to say.  The question of why really is why it was written.

Reading revelation is kind of like getting a giant bag of jellybeans from Willy Wonka.  It seems to me that he only made chocolate but bear with me on this.  Willy Wonka is not just going to give you a bunch of jellybeans in the standard flavors and colors . He’s going see how creative he can be just to lighten up your day and to exercise his creativity.

So you get this bag of jellybeans and the first thing you do is pick out the black ones because you hate licorice.  Then someone ask you, “Are you sure they’re all licorice?”  So you start looking at them again.  You sniff them.  You hold them up to the light.  Eventually you may actually lick them or put them in your mouth and you find out that no, just because they are black doesn’t mean they are licorice.  Of course, some were, but in no way are they all.  Some of them turned out to be dark chocolate.  Some of them turned out to be boysenberry with the blue so deep that it looks black.  Some turn out to taste like over-done steak.  No one ever said Willy Wonka didn’t have a sense of humor.

Another person picks out all the red ones because they love red jellybeans.  He pops one in his mouth and low and behold, it’s not just cinnamon, it’s cayenne.  Now there is an eye-opener.  There is something that will make you take your next red jellybean a little more cautiously.   Among the red ones you have raspberry, cherry, apple, pomegranate, cinnamon, and some things that you can’t identify.

You see where this can go.

The book of revelation is kind of like that.  Some people go through and pick out the things that they think they really like.  As long as they keep them in the bag and don’t taste them, they look wonderful.  If they actually tie it into some of their ideas, they may find out that it’s not quite what they thought it was at the start.  Some of the beans are unidentifiable flavors that you’ve never had before.  There are flavors that you won’t understand until eternity.  They’re still in the bag.

Anyway you want to cut it a bag of jellybeans is genuinely something reserved for dessert or times when you want a little treat.  Granted there may be a few vitamin pills mixed in and a few other nutrients.  Picture a green jellybean that taste like asparagus or broccoli.  But Revelation like a bag of jellybeans is a total hash filled with things that you can’t identify and should be reserved for after dinner.

I’m sure by this time you can tell that I am not a big fan of the book of Revelation.

homo unius libri