Opus 2025-339: Interpretation Tangents

I was sitting meditating on the nature of God and how He communicates.  I was thinking about his attribute of patience.  Somehow that took me to Genesis 1:1.  As I looked at the first verse in the Bible, I asked myself how would we analyze this and break it down for understanding.

(Gen 1:1 KJV)  In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

At first, it would seem to be pretty simple.  It is a literal statement.  Then I got to looking at the second half where it talks about the heaven and the Earth.  That could be literal.  It could also be a figure of speech expressing something more dynamic.

It’s got me off on a tangent of how different people interpret things different ways and I was looking for the labels to put on it.  Literal is pretty simple.  If I say that my God is a rock, He is a big stone.  I don’t think that’s what David meant when he talked about God being a rock.  I think he meant that God was mighty and strong.  He could have met that God is unchanging.  He could have met many different things.  He did not mean it literally.  What is a good inclusive word to encompass all of the different types of non-literal expressions?

“Literal” and “un-literal” lacked imagination.  I decided to experiment with the two different expressions of “literal”, and “literary”.  Literary can mean many different devices to enrich communication.  When you ask someone, “Cat got your tongue,” you can do it understanding that everybody knows you’re not talking about a feline sinking his teeth into your mouth.  The Old Testament especially is full of these kinds of expressions that are used again and again.  I think of things like, “the whole world”, “forever and ever”, and even such simple terms as “always” and “never”.

I may come up with a better term.  I may forget all about it tomorrow. But for now, as I look at biblical expressions and things I read in politics and history, I am going to think in terms of literal and literary.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-338: I Can’t Avoid It

It seems like everywhere I turn I run into people who think that the KJV is the cats meow.  I have a friend who is a KJV only man.  He spends most of his time trying to convince me how it is the most accurate and influential Bible in history.  When he’s not doing that, he’s attacking the historical figures who translated other versions and trying to put them in the camp of Satan.

My pastor is not that rabid, but he loves the King James Version.  I have no problem with that.  He was raised on it.  He was converted under it.  He consumes it on a regular basis. I am sure he memorizes verses out of it.  It is part of his blood.  He is joined by millions of people around the world.  Glorious.  I think that’s wonderful.  I also know that in the days of my life when I was expected to read the King James, I didn’t.  The language was so archaic that the effort to understand it just wasn’t worth it.

That is still my problem with this translation.  I have never said it was a bad translation.  I’ve never said it is corrupt.  I’ve never made a big deal about the fact that it used inferior Greek and Hebrew manuscripts...unless you asked me.  It’s not worth dividing the kingdom over such things.  And 1611 this was an awesome project that was completed by some great scholars.  The problem is it was 1611.  Just as many people have a mental block against reading Shakespeare, the KJV is beyond their comprehension.

Now I get on my soapbox.  I’m thinking that perhaps the King James Version is now becoming the Latin Vulgate of a certain branch of Christianity.  The Latin Vulgate had become a barrier to everyone from understanding the Bible.  They were forced to depend upon the priest to tell them what it meant.  I don’t know Latin.  I can still take parts of the Latin mass and figure out what it’s talking about simply because of the roots but I can’t sit down and read it and understand it.  It would require a Latin scholar to tell me what it means.  That was the role of the priest.

Fast forward to our modern age.  One of the books I’ve been reading, given to me by my King James Only friend, when asked about the issue of archaic language was perfectly fine with it.  In some twisted way the author felt like it wasn’t important to actually understand the words.  Our pastor doesn’t go that far, but I noticed something.  Because I wanted to be supportive of his love of this translation I bought one that was a parallel publication to my New American Standard.  It had the same Greek and Hebrew helps and tools like that, so I was familiar with its format.  That in itself is not important.  What was interesting to me when I started following along as the pastor read was that the pastor would paraphrase, interpret, explain what the KJV was saying.  He would do it almost automatically without thinking.  At times he would tell you he was doing it but most of the time it was just happened.  He had become the priest who was telling the persons in the pew what the Bible said because they could not understand it.

I have no problem with the King James on the whole.  I use it in my blogs regularly.  When I have the opportunity to preach or teach at church I use it out of respect for the pastor.  I have no problem with this.  It is still not my preferred translation because I get tired of spending time looking up words to trying and figure out what they mean.  And I always wonder how many words that I think I know what they mean in reality have changed their meaning since 1611 and I just don’t notice it.

If you’d love it, use it.  Bless you.  Just don’t curse me because I am going down a different road in my Bible translations.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-337: Headlines: Nothing to See Here

When Dan Bongino looked into the camera and said the tapes had been reviewed and their was no evidence of foul play in the death of Epstein I was willing to listen.  Since I know that enthusiasm and being sure that Hillary did it are very powerful emotions and that Fake News knows no political party, I listened and said, “Okay.”  I had never seen any hard evidence.  I could swallow that...when I first heard it.

Now we have Pam Bondi looking into the camera and with great sincerity saying there was no list in the folder that was on her desk.  She seemed so sincere.  The problem is that we have seen the list with its redactions before.  Why wasn’t it in the folder.  Maybe she was telling the truth because she had an aid take it out and put it in a drawer.  Of course that brings up the question of why it takes three months to discover that there is nothing in the folder. That could have been revealed after a 15 minute examination.

This also brings up the difficulty of understanding why Epstein would kill himself if there was no evidence of wrong doing.  Why does it take three months for an agency of thousands of employees to review a few hours of tape?  Keep in mind that they only had to start at the last time he was seen alive and go to the body being removed from the cell.  All they needed was a couple of hours.  And why did what’s her name go to jail if there was no trafficking?  It isn’t adding up.  I am hoping that Trump will wake up and smell the swamp.  I am hoping that the forces of darkness have not found a way to neuter Donald Trump. We were promised a lot of transparency and so far the cataracts are growing.  We were promised arrests and justice and so far the only ones that stand out to me are the people who vandalized Teslas.  

I was willing to move past Trump pushing the vacine.  I bit my lip at the pork in the Big Beautiful Bill.  This is an issue that cuts to the core of the ruling classes and shakes out hopes that Trump represents.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-336: Chic

I am starting to really like modern fashion, or should I say lack of fashion.  There’s certainly a lack of class and a sense of pride.  Modesty is also missing.  What I like is you can do anything and be considered cool.

I am off to travel a bit.  I will be gone about four days.  I am not sure l will not be able to respond during that time.  I’m sure you’re wondering what that has to do with anything.  At present one of the great questions of my life is, “how many pair of socks, do I need to take along?”  It’s really not a serious question to worry about because in today’s modern style if I run out of socks, I can just go without them.  People who just glance at my feet, first will need to find a life, secondly, will think that I’m wearing those cute little socks that don’t come any higher than the edge of my shoe.  Others who are more into feet might realize I had no socks on and be perfectly good with that because that also fits in with modern fashion.

Think of it, they now have shirts “designed” to be worn untucked.  I would never buy them because they’re a little short for me and I’m not big on plumbers crack.  They are slightly rounded to look like a tuck in shirt but that’s not what they’re designed for.  I of course can wear any of my shirts now untucked because not only am I gaining weight but I can look really cool in the process.  Socks don’t match?  No problem.  You only have an old pair of pants with holes in them?  No problem.  You don’t know how to tie a tie?  No problem.  You look like a fool?  No problem.

Every once in a while I see those short little segments with Clickbait that try to get me to look at a Paris fashion show.  The problem is I am laughing so hard at what I see that I can’t get my finger coordinated enough to push the link.  My loss.

One advantage of posting on a blog is that people can’t see what you’re wearing.  It’s not even like Zoom where you can leave your pants off and still look professional.  My keyboard doesn’t care what I’m wearing. Usually neither do I.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-335: What Fun

It would be very easy for those of us who are not involved in rescue operations and who don’t have a big Lookie-Lou problem to conclude that the flooding did not affect us where we live.  I have been one of those.  I have driven across a road near us that has a lot of dips with warnings about flooding and posts that measure how deep the water is and I’ve seen no evidence on my first couple of trips of any flooding.

There was no dirt or rocks scattered across the road which is typical of flooding.  Everything was clean and pristine, I thought

But I noticed something different today that I hadn’t seen before.  Some of the low places have guardrails along the side and I started noticing that there was a lot of debris piled up against these rails.  That debris could not have gotten there unless there was significant amount of water moving across the road.  In fact it seemed to have been cleaned up and the debris pushed aside by workers.  They must have been out early.

The rescue work continues.  I hear there are other floods in other states.  Pray for those who are in the thick of it and or some miracles along the way.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-334: Course Correction

As we look at each one of the great teachers in the Bible, each dispensation if you would, they are not giving a totally new teaching, at least that’s not the point.  The point is that the people who are supposed to be following God, are wandering off on a tangent, and need to be brought back on task.

Consider Moses updating the message of Abraham.  Abraham was called and given a promise that his seed would be a blessing to the world.  There wasn’t much more at that time except the ritual of circumcision.  I would suggest that Abraham was aware of Noah and the basic expectations of what has come to be known as the seven laws of Noahide.  The problem emerged when the children of Israel moved to Egypt and spent 400 years.  During that time they became slaves and my theory is that they forgot all about the God of Israel.  Moses had his work cut out for him.  That is why God gave him the law.  There were the moral and theological aspects of the law such as are found in the Ten Commandments.  There were also instructions on how to live like civilized human beings such as the banning of marrying your sister and basic sanitation.  Consider the difference between Christian culture today and pagan culture when it comes to the value of human life.  The groundwork was laid in the law.  

The lessons of Moses were constantly ignored until you get to David and Solomon.  That brings us the teaching that is done in the Psalms and Proverbs.  David is constantly praising the law.  He refers to righteousness and the loving kindness of God.  He prepares the way for Solomon to build the temple.  People seem to need physical things and now they had a place to worship Yahweh.

After David you had Solomon who started well but degenerated back to the level of the Canaanites by the time he died.  The history of the Northern Kingdom of Israel is one failed king after another.  In the South with Judah you had a mixed bag but the general tenor seemed to be that the people were constantly going back to the pagan gods and rejecting the standards of God.  The message of the prophets was a constant attempt to get them back on track.  The captivity got them to focus but they turned to legalism and ritual rather than the living God who called them.

Then we have Jesus.  Note that Jesus said he did not come to destroy but to fulfill.  We hear that but we don’t understand what He was facing.  Judaism had become Rabbinical.  The Rabbis were very serious and disciplined but they were locked into the Talmud rather than the scripture.  The oral law was superior to the written law.  They knew what the law of Moses said.  They knew about David.  In spite of that they kept adding new nooses to the law by adding to the Talmud with their interpretations.  We see it today in the fact that practicing Jews reject the idea of a cheeseburger.  Why?  Because the Bible says not to cook a baby goat in its mother’s milk.  What does that have to do with a cheeseburger?  In reality nothing, but in Rabbinical Judaism, everything.  

Jesus called Israel back to God and claimed to be the Messiah who would fulfill the law and the prophets.  As a reward He was crucified.  The church was born on Pentecost and began the journey of faith again.  Then we come to Paul.

Consider Paul with his teaching on grace.  He wasn’t negating everything before that.  He did not come up with something totally new.  He was getting the church back on track.  There was almost immediately a trend back to embracing the law instead of living by faith.  A group of Christians called Judiasers were teaching that Gentiles needed to be circumcised.  If allowed to continue it would have expanded to the whole law again.  Paul and the others we have in the New Testament could not allow that.  They were refining, and focusing what it meant to believe, and the eternal God and His son Jesus.

And all of my prior teaching, he said, focused on the Resurrection, because without the resurrection everything was empty.  We are now on the other side of the cross, the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit.  We now have it all.  As the angry parent yelled to his rowdy children down stairs, “Don’t make me come down there again.”

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-333: Ignore the Mosquitoes

How many times have you been planning on doing some thing and a minor potential irritation kept you from proceeding?  You heard there was going to be an exciting Christmas presentation and you didn’t go because you heard about the big crowds and that parking would be hard to find.  I’ve been there.  Sometimes we’ve gone.  Sometimes we’ve stayed home.  I remember one event we went to recently where they had re-created the city of Bethlehem and you had to stand in line for almost an hour just to get inside the gates.  We stood.  It was worth it.

How many times have I missed a blessing because I was worried about the mosquitoes?  Think of the great activities available.  You can go camping.  You can go fishing.  I can sit out on my front porch in the morning.  I can take a walk in the forest.  What keeps me from doing these things?  Sometimes the mosquitoes.  Sometimes nothing but my imagination.

Our lives are full of mosquitoes.  They take different forms.  We stay home from church because there’s going be a missionary speaker.  Don’t tell me you’ve never done that.  We don’t vote because the line is too long, the ballot is too complicated and our vote won’t matter anyway.  We don’t weed our garden because the sun is too hot.  We don’t go to the revival service because we might get convicted.  We have millions of excuses.

Next time the mosquitoes threaten to scare you away from an experience with your family or friends ask yourself if maybe a little bit of scratching is worth it.  Results may vary.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-332: Methods of Communication

How does god speak to us?  I remember reading an article online about how God speaks, and it went into levels beyond just the fact that we read our Bibles and God talks to us through that.  My mind continues on that suggested path.  God speaks to us in many ways.  God uses his inspiration and revelation to get across to us great truths, and to be honest, small truths.

Let me give you an example of the kind of nonsense that this can lead to.

If we were walking through the forest and I was examining the ground as we walked, and suddenly I stopped staring at a specific spot, and then I turned you in says, “An owl has been here.”  How would I know that?  What type of inspiration would bring this bit of truth to me?

You could suggest that I heard the voice of God, speaking to me, and God said, “There was an owl here.”  You might assume that the Holy Spirit had brought to mind a scripture that talked about owls in the forest, and specifically noted the place that we were at.  You could accuse me of making it up.  You could come up with all kinds of ways in which I might make that announcement.  Each one of them could be considered a way in which truth has been communicated with me.

So, if we stretch this to the point of ridiculous and talk about me being inspired to announce truth, how did I know an owl had been here?  It’s a matter of taking facts that I know, thinking, and applying it to the reality around me.  I see an object on the ground.  I take a closer look.  I recognize the bundle of refuse as owl pellets that has been deposited there by an owl.  If I had enough facts in reserve, if I paid attention in my biology class, if I’ve been looking through the encyclopedia, and remember the pictures, I might tell you exactly what kind of owl dropped this.  It wouldn’t be what we would consider classical inspiration or revelation.  It would be a matter of taking truth that I knew, and using my mind, and my reason to come to a conclusion.  I would accept that as one form of God, speaking to me, or being aware of the revelation of God.

I know that stretches things a bit and takes the absurd and tries to make it divine but you get the point.  God speaks to us in many ways, and He uses the fact that we are created in His image to communicate to us through our natural facilities.

An inspiring thought.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-331: Grateful Not to Be an Extrovert

I am an introvert.  As I get older, I learn more about what that means.  I used to think I was shy.  I used to think that I just didn’t like people.  I used to think all kinds of things, but now I realize that I am just an introvert.

I am grateful to be an introvert.  It is a great balance to have.  Introverts don’t need people the way extroverts do.  That means that when no one is around you’re happy as a pig in the mud.  That might not be a good illustration, but you get the point.  I can be happy by myself sitting on the porch, talking to my iPad.  At the same time, strangely enough, I can have people over to dinner and enjoy the conversation.  Of course I’m glad when they leave, but I enjoy the time they are here.  I may dread the coming event.  I still I am happy to see them.

When the phone rings, I shudder.  I contemplate not answering.  I force myself to pick up the receiver or punched the button.  And then I happily go down a two hour conversation with someone I haven’t spoken to you in a while.  That is what it is to be an introvert.  You enjoy the peace and quiet and not being bothered by other people and having to listen to their opinions.  You enjoy contemplation.  You enjoy thinking.

One disclaimer I might make is that I always am aware of the presence of God.  I don’t know if that waters down my introversion or it’s just an excuse, but it is true.  I guess one of the things is that God doesn’t force me into conversations.  He doesn’t share nonsense.  Part of that is because I’m always addressing Him.  I’m not waiting.  Part of it may be the fact that as an introvert once I get into a conversation I do fine and since I am always in conversation with God, it’s not like He’s interrupting.

If you’re an extrovert, I’m sure you could have a different spin on all this and you are welcome to it.  If you can catch me with my guard down, I would even listen to what you have to say and enjoy the conversation.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-330: Monday Pulpit: Counting Your Blessings

Sunday we spent our Sunday School hour in prayer for the victims and first responders of the Texas floods.  The carnage was close enough that several people had some contact with suffering families.  People who are Texas natives know about the destructive power of the flash floods on the Guadalupe River.  I know that when we were looking at houses we researched the flood plains and ended up on a ridge.  What adds to the pain is that many of the parents of the children lost may have made the same provisions but didn’t think about the low level of the camp.

In my times of prayer my mind also roamed to the places further away.  We tend to focus more when it is close to home but I thought about the Christians in Africa who had been butchered by Muslims in the last few weeks and how it was an ongoing threat in their lives.  I thought about those being killed in Israel and Iran.  As we lift up the local tragedy it would do us well to remember other places that are also suffering.

My grandchildren are over for the night and I am very much aware of how blessed I am.  I am hugging them more often than usual.

May your guardian angels be working overtime.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-329: The Depths of “I Am”

This Bible is not a document produced by a perfect computer, with all of the limitations of a computer as opposed to a person.  It was not a document printed for a bunch of programmed robots.  Nor was it produced for a bunch of robots, half of which were programmed to respond, one way and the other half the other way.  I think we can understand those concepts because we live in a computer age.  We have a tendency to believe that computers don’t make mistakes, which is wrong.  We may think they are programmed wrong, which is more common, but they are capable of somehow making mistakes on occasions.  One of the reasons I like using the word processor and my printer is that once I have things the way I want them they theoretically don’t change.

Compare that to what happens when you dictate to the software on your iPad or iPhone, and even after you have proof-read it and corrected it.  I am willing to guess you find that the application has made some changes that you weren’t counting on.  That’s more along the lines of a real life.

So when we think of the Bible don’t think of a book of charts and tables.  Those things exist.  I don’t know if I’m ever seen them, but I think there used to be a whole book of logarithms and you would be able to look things up.  When you have these kind of books they are cut and dried.  If done correctly, there are no mistakes, and the answers never change.  They are intended to be taken as presented and inserted into the slot they are designed to go in.  It can be in a computer, a formula, or any other place where the scientist or mathematician believes they belong.  There’s no debate.  There is no variation.

That is not the God of the Bible.  That is not the Bible.  The Bible was created, written, edited, and re-produced in an interpersonal relationship between a personal God and individual independent persons.  As such it is full of literary devices.  As such, it will be confusing at times, and will require some real study to understand.  It’s kind of like a personality.

Don’t try to squeeze the communication of a living God into the box you got your computer in.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-328: The Theology of Singularity

I would doubt that many of you who are reading this were thinking about the concept of singularities when you sat down and began to look at the words.  Let me refresh your memory a little bit.  I’m not claiming that my scientific or mathematical knowledge it’s up to the task but I’ll give you my understanding.

Singularity is a concept, which is literally beyond human comprehension.  You can write up some really nice mathematical formulas and come up with some awesome scientific principles, but when push comes to shove, there’s no way we understand it or even come close.

However, we can at least grab hold of the concept as a whole.  The theory is that at the beginning of time and creation, whoops excuse me, time and space, all that is or would be was squeezed into a tiny little spot, so small that you couldn’t see it with the human eye.  In fact, it was so small that you probably couldn’t see it with our finest microscopes.  Picture everything that is being discovered by the most advanced telescopes and by the most overwhelming microscopic machines, everything, was squeezed into this one location so small that you can’t even comprehend it.  It was all there.

Believable?

Probably not but that’s the best they can come up with.  In spite of the fact that it is beyond our comprehension and the massive formulas used to describe it, we have to take it on faith.  Science still seems to believe in this theory.  There may be other theories that are in the same bag.  I am not aware of them, but again that doesn’t mean much.

So we have scientists who can believe that all that is was once this tiny little speck.  Why do they have such a hard time embracing the idea of a God who is even more powerful and bigger than all that?

We can describe God.  We can make lists of attributes.  We can do all the things about God that they do about singularities, except that the formulas necessary to describe Him would be even beyond the wildest imagination of the wildest mathematician.  That doesn’t stop them from believing in singularities.  The question is, why does it stop them from believing in the possibility of God?

At this point, I wouldn’t even demand the acceptance of the God of the Bible.  I would be satisfied with enough open minded honesty to even consider such a thing without an automatic response that brings to mind a child closing his eyes, shaking his head and saying, “I can’t hear you.”

Maybe I will live to see the day.  Maybe not.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-327: Too Soon?

Has the Muslim invasion of Europe gotten serious too soon?

If you look historically at the times where Islam has tried to conquer Christendom you find that each time they’ve been backed by massive centralized governments with all the armies and resources that you can imagine.  In the West they when the French turned them back at the back of Tours an empire backed the armies of Islam.  They continued to fail as the Christian armies of northern Spain push them south back across the straits of Gibraltar.  In the East in the 1600s the armies of Islam tried to conquer Vienna and were turned back by the timely we arrival of the Polish Winged Hussars.  Again they had all of the resources of the Ottoman Empire at their beck and call and they still are not able to do it.  That was 1683.  Read that date again.  That was after the KJV was written, the Pilgrims and just before the Glorious Revolution in England.

The flames of conquest are being stoked again.  We see violence in France, Germany and other areas.  The rabble-rousers are pushing.  They are upping the ante and going for broke.  But is it too soon?

As far as I can see for all of their military might when it comes to bombing Israel there are no nations rooted in Islam that are strong enough to take on the countries of Europe.

I guess the real question would be, “Is Europe ready to surrender and be turned into a Muslim enclave or will there be enough people who refused to go along with that?”  Examine what’s happening in England.  The people are just rolling over and playing dead.  Will all of Europe follow their example?  Will the United States?

Interesting times.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-326: To be, or not…

America has been, is, and hopefully long will be that great “city on a hill” that Governor John Winthrop  hoped it would be.  I’m not even going go recite that trite mantra about how we aren’t perfect.  Since no one is perfect, that’s just a silly excuse.  It’s an attempt to seem noble to the America haters.

Anyway, you want to slice it America is a shining city on a Hill.  As far as I know, it’s the only country in the world that people are seeking to get to because it’s such a great place to be.  There may be refugees fleeing to other countries because of persecution.  There are armies of Muslim infiltrators flooding into Europe with a desire to destroy it and bring it down.  Those people are after us too.  At the same time, there are those that look at us as the world’s last great hope.  When the communist and socialist try to tell us how wonderful it is in Sweden, they don’t call on Sweden to come and bail them out when things go south.  They look to America.

The stories of immigrants coming wanting to become Americans and live the American dream are numerous and available if you look for them.  Of course, our educational system and government coerced media ignore those stories and emphasize the criminal darkside established and reinforced by the left, but the stories are still there.  The reality is still there.  America is a place where you can come, start with almost nothing, and with hard work find success for you and your children.

You won’t find me out in the street, shouting and waving my flag as I walk back-and-forth.  That’s not how I respond to life.  I could be at a World Series game with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the third with Willie Mays coming to bed, and still sit there calmly, nodding my head and smiling.  That’s who I am.  Outwardly, I am smiling, maybe, but relatively calm.  Inwardly, I am shouting, “Glory.”

I like those buttons that young Christians used to wear that had a group an acronym and what the words meant were “Please be patient. God is not finished with me yet.”  I think we may be need to put one of those buttons on the Statue of Liberty.  I’m sure we need to put those in the hearts of all Americans.

Let’s pray that our best days are still ahead.  Much of that will depend upon us and whether we follow God’s lead toward righteousness, or fall into the trap of materialism.

Let the people shout, “Glory!”

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-325: It’s Party Time

I constantly hear people ranking on the tendency of Americans to take every special day and turn it into a party.  It expresses itself in many ways.

Take for instance, the way in which we have taken sacred moments like memorial day and move them to a Monday.  Why?  Is there some kind of sacredness about Mondays?  No.  Moving the observation to Monday means that we now have a three day weekend in which to party and recover from the party.  Think of all the holidays we celebrate on Monday.  Others I’m sure will eventually be moved if they endure as holidays.  It is part of the evolution of red letter days.

The major exceptions would be the most significant holidays. two of those are celebrations of Christians:  Christmas and Easter.  The other that comes to mind is the Fourth of July.  These all are celebrated with parties, which is a part of the tradition.

I think about the Christmas holidays.  They are days celebrating  what could be interpreted as depressing moments or at least great struggles.  If you’ve ever been around a baby being born, you know that it is not a time to have a party.  I wasn’t partying when my first was born.  All I was doing was having a cup of coffee.  I’m still hearing about my cavalier attitude.  I’ve heard of women who, as they’re approaching the moment of delivery, declare that they are not going to have his baby and they are going to back out of this whole project.  That attitude changes dramatically when the baby is placed in their arms, and from that point on there is great celebration.  Noticed that we don’t celebrate the labor.  We celebrate the delivery.  Great pain becomes a time of celebration.

Or take a look at Easter.  This is the day the Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the grave.  He went to the grave from the cross.  He went to the cross from a time of great torture.  Then came the breakout.  At first disciples hid in their upper room and cried it out, “Woe is me.”  Eventually the celebration emerged and has endured through this day.  Yes, we commemorate good Friday,  but we celebrate the resurrection.

July 4 is the same way.  The great bloodshed had not been started at that point, but we don’t celebrate those days.  We celebrate the Declaration and recognition of freedom.  It is an American tradition that is rooted in Christian tradition.  We didn’t have pessimistic view, rooted in the fact that we have read the book and we know who wins.

So put on the hotdogs, shoot off the fireworks, enjoy your family and celebrate.  The optimistic expectation of the future is part of the American tradition.

Opus 2025-324: Growth Potential

Is it possible for church to grow beyond the level of the pastor?

Can a church rise higher than the spiritual standing of the pastor?   I am thinking of the growing number of churches that are rejecting the orthodox teachings of Christianity as revealed in the Bible.  For that matter, many are rejecting the Bible.  What are the chances of finding truth in an atmosphere dedicated to falsehood?  Some people commit to staying in a church that is going apostate and hope to be a force for revival.  Does that ever work?

Suppose the pastor accepts the teaching of scripture but remains what Paul would call a “babe in Christ”.  What if he lacks and is not seeking spiritual maturity?  Can a church move beyond spiritual maturity of the pastor?  If he doesn’t have any discipline, exercising any spiritual gifts, spend time in personal study and worship, will the church ever be able to develop behind that?

What if the pastor isn’t real smart?  What if he is deficient intellectually and has no desire to learn more?  What if the pastor doesn’t see anything beyond superficial and refuses to study and broaden his understanding?  Will the church ever go beyond the superficial?

We could keep going down this road but the question remains.  I am one of those people who think that church splits and a general exodus can be healthy for the life of the real church.  A change can often bring new growth in individuals if it is done for the right reasons.  If you are a believer I would invite you to seriously think about the question.  Keep in mind that there is no perfect church and no perfect pastor.  Just because he doesn’t use the translation you like is no reason to go running to greener pastures.  I have learned to look for the insights in the KJV because that is what my church uses.  The positives might outweigh the negatives and we need to be sure that we are not one of the negatives.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-323: Plato Channels Buddha

In reading through Durant’s series The Story of Civilization I come across numerous places where I notice ideas that are common in other cultures than the one he’s discussing.  Right now I’m reading his analysis of Plato’s metaphysics and I came across this,

“The soul is the self-moving force in man, that is part of the self-moving Soul of all things.  It is pure vitality, incorporeal and immortal.  It existed before the body, and has brought with it from antecedent incarnations many memories which, when awakened by new life, are mistaken for new knowledge.  All mathematical truths, or example, are innate in this way; teaching merely arouses the recollection of things known by the soul many lives ago.  After death the soul or principle of life passes into other organisms, higher or lower according to the deserts it is earned by its previous avatars.  Perhaps the soul that has sinned goes to a purgatory or hell, and the virtuous soul goes to the Islands of the Blessed. When through various existences the soul has been purified of all wrongdoing, it is freed from reincarnation, and mounts to a paradise of everlasting happiness.” page 517

I don’t know if you are aware of what is taught in Buddhism but this seems to be very close to what they say.  You have Plato referring to reincarnation, karma and Nirvana.  I’m not an expert on Plato or Buddhism but they seem very close.

A couple of thoughts on how this could be.  How do these two people separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of years come up with the same ideas?

One is simple logic.  Plato wrote in the fourth century BC, I believe Buddha was in the sixth or seventh century.  There’s plenty of time for the ideas of Buddha to have been passed along by word of mouth or organized missionaries so that Plato in Greece could have actually heard what Buddha was saying in India.

A second idea is that God himself revealed this to both persons.  This doesn’t make a lot of sense because a God who is focused enough to reveal something this detailed to a human being would be teaching them to ignore his existence.  It’s kind of like a saddle maker making a lot of great comments about the new Model T.

The third is one that is discussed by Hugh Ross.  Ross said that one reason he became a believer in the Bible was because the things that he was reading there were beyond the imagination and the conception of human beings.  I would suggest that such ideas as being espoused by Plato and Buddha or just the common ordinary ideas that a philosopher would come up with when he has time on his hands.

Durant, Will.  The Story of Civilization:  Part 2, The Life of Greece.  New York:  Simon and Schuster, 1939,1966.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-322: Fix It

One of the important discussions that I had with my son when he was growing up involved the difference between “I need” and “I want”.  At times it’s hard to know the difference, but there are some basic characteristics that are just not the same.

A need is something which, if not met, could lead to serious consequences, such as death or massive destruction of property.  I want is something that you have an emotional desire for, and the emotion tends to overcome your rational processes.  That you may need breakfast or you won’t be able to work is probable.  You don’t need Sugar Frosted Flakes.  A need is something you make sacrifices of other important things to achieve.  For instance if it’s winter your children may need shoes.  If you lived in Hawaii, that might not be a real need.  It might just be a want.  If you live in Illinois, it’s definitely a need.  However the latest cool fashion in winter boots is not a need.  It is a want.  You might go without a new coat for yourself in order to get shoes for your children, but you wouldn’t do so just to get them the latest fashion.  Or maybe you would.  Your choice.  Your money.

I’ll take that idea and extend it into the world of government payments.  Let me really meddle and talk about Medicare.  I am on Medicare, so I am qualified to be critical.  I’m basically healthy so some might consider me insensitive.  That may be true but it doesn’t overrule the logic.

Think about the things that Medicare pays for that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.  I know one lady who went in and had her eyelids lifted.  Granted, it did not cost hundreds of thousands of dollars but when are droopy eyelids life-threatening?  The question is should Medicare have paid for it?  Or let’s get to something a little more serious such as a new joint of some kind.  If you’re 85 years old, well, let’s change that to 77 since that’s what I am, is it life-threatening to have to hobble around, use a cane, and lean on a walker?  If you were young father, trying to support a family it would be one thing but to be retired and just getting around the house it’s another.  One is life-threatening; one is certainly comfortable, but it doesn’t ruin your future.  Should Medicare pay for it?

Quality of life is a consideration but it is a slippery slope.  An example of that is the issue of abortion.  Most reasonable people are willing to allow abortion to save the life of the mother.  The problem for people advocating abortion is that with modern medicine the mother’s physical life is almost never threatened because of a healthy preganancy. The reason liberals like the argument is that they redefine the term to include “quality of life” not life or death.  Thus if a woman feels she will be depressed if she has the child, that is a quality of life issue and she should be free to kill the baby.  The problem with exceptions is that we tend to think we deserve them but the other guy doesn’t.

There will come a time when we will face that fact that we can’t afford every joint replacement and eye lift.  You might want to schedule your procedure before we reach that point.


homo unius libri

Opus 2025-321: The Danger in Dams

I think that we went through a time in history where our society thought that building dams to control the flow of water was a good thing.  Look at the advantages.  If you build it correctly, you can put in hydroelectric generators and provide power for your people.  You can regulate the flow to provide irrigation to farmers and ranchers and you can have the water to siphon off to cities instead of letting it run into the ocean. you can prevent floods with all the destruction that they often perpetuate.

I wonder if it isn’t time to rethink this to a degree.  I would accept that there are places where building a dam is nothing short of miraculous and beneficial.  I think of Hoover Dam and all of the blessings that is provided.  There are many other examples.  There are, however, times where I’m not sure that the blessings outweigh the curses.

And here I’m thinking of the Aswan Dam in Egypt.  Yes, it’s true that it probably generates electricity. And when they build it I’m sure that what they thought was they would control the flooding and stop the destruction of that flooding.  I’m not sure they considered what they were losing by stopping the flow of water.

If you are aware of your history, the Nile river would flood every year.  The benefit of that flood was that it spread a large layer of new, fertile soil across the fields of Egypt.  It saturated the soil with water, at least giving the farmers a head start on the long dry spell.  Those are just the obvious benefits which have been lost now that the dam is built.  Now it is a matter of fertilizer and more pumping of water than was historically necessary.

And think of the cultural benefits of that annual flood.  Geometry was developed.  Who knows what other intellectual advances were developed in order to deal with these floods.  It wouldn’t take a whole lot of planning to work around the damage that might be done.  If you know it’s coming every year at the same time, if you know how far the water will likely go, if you know when it will recede, you can make plans to come out ahead.

And think of what has been lost culturally by building the dam.  The area covered by the water was rich with archaeological treasures.  They rescued what they could, but what about the large number of remains that are irretrievably lost to our knowledge of history.  Was it worth it?

And then there’s times when we need to spiritualized on these lessons.  We look at the difficult times in life and the struggles that we have to go through.  We look at our tragedy.  Look at our failures.  If we focus just on them, it’s a gloomy picture.  If we look at the lessons learned and the strength gained and the hope for the future based on that, then it’s a different picture.  Much of it is based on our attitude and response.  If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, it gives you a perspective where Providence comes in, and your whole view of the potential of the future changes.  The government’s answer is to build another dam.   God seeks to make the soil of your life more fertile.

May the floods of your days enrich the soil of your life.  May you rise to the challenge and emerge triumphant.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-320: The Imperfect Hebrew Shepherd

As I was reading the 23rd psalm on the 23rd day of the month as a regular discipline, I paused a moment and asked myself, “What does the grammar show us?”  I know that’s a regular question that you ask yourself.  One of the clues that got my attention here is in the KJV the verbs at the beginning, at least, ended in “eth.  I’ve been told in the New Testament, which was originally in Greek, that ending means the present tense, which has the idea of continued action.  I’m finding in the Hebrew that ending is usually the imperfect tense, which has the same concept of continued action.

I quickly worked through the entire Psalm and I noticed this consistently.  Almost every verb in this Psalm is in the imperfect tense.  The one that stood out as not being in the imperfect tense was the anointing of the head with oil.  That seem to be a one time process, which would fit together with the idea of being anointed with the Holy Spirit.

What does that say about it a bit of scripture like this?  Does that underlying sense of the Hebrew grammar of continued action speak to us even when we are not aware of the Hebrew?  Is that one of the reasons why this is such a loved bit of scripture?

So much of the Christian walk is a process rather than a crisis.  In my circles, we talked about being saved as a crisis experience, it happens in the moment.  Many theological traditions talk about sanctification as being a process, growth, maturing.  This Psalm is about growing in the main part.  It is a continual lifetime experience.  It makes life into an adventure as we walk into the future by God side.

It’s quite a promise.  And I think as we’re looking at the grammar the promise becomes even more dramatic and more encouraging.

The Shepherd may be perfect, but the grammar is imperfect.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-319: Mommy, Kiss It

One of my recurrent areas of contemplation and meditation is based on the principle that I Corinthians 13 gives us an idea of what it means that God is love.  Today I was thinking about, what we call forgiveness and my mind went to that last phrase in verse five.

1 Corinthians 13:5 (KJV) Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

1 Corinthians 13:5 (NASB95) does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

1 Corinthians 13:5 (NLT) It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.

Notice the different understanding that the modern translation and paraphrase give that last phrase.  If my theory is correct, then that last statement tells us that God does not keep a record of our sins.  Now when we think about forgiveness we have no trouble with that but I’m thinking that it also reflects that God does not keep a record of our outstanding sins.

It isn’t a matter of ignoring them, or forgetting them.  It’s a matter of not needing to keep a list.  God knows that we are born in original sin and He knows that we have all sinned as Paul says,

Romans 3:23 (KJV) For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

For God to keep a tally of our sins would be like us going down to the ocean and continually checking to see how wet it was.

This is where the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross comes in.  We are forgiven by the free choice of God, call it grace or mercy, we are not forgiven because we have gotten enough merit to deserve it.  He makes that decision based on our believing that the sacrifice of Jesus was enough to pay for our sins.  It’s hard for us to comprehend this because we want to believe that bigger sinners are harder to forgive, and that we are just a little sinners so we are more deserving.  Not so.  We all fall short, and only God’s free, active forgiveness, enabled by the blood of Jesus, is enough for us to have salvation.

If the suffering Jesus went through and His passion were not so extreme we could almost think of it as something simple like how Mommy’s kiss heals our booboos.  He offers us the free gift of salvation and is waiting to heal us not because of how big the list is but because it’s the only chance we have.

That gives me a reason to rejoice this morning.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-318: What Grade Are You?

The Bible was written by human beings under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is called being inspired.  God has been working on it for at least 4000 years.

As you look at the Bible it is not a systematic theology. Think of it as an elementary school curriculum not a college text book.  The first few chapters are kindergarten.  They lay down the basics of God the creator and the type of world He wanted to see.  It introduces man, sin and disobedience.  With Noah and Abraham you go to second grade and the concepts of covenants.  By the time you get to the law you might be up in the third grade.  

The law was written for an ignorant people.  They lived in a culture where people married their sister and frogs were gods.  Keep in mind ignorance is based on a lack of knowledge.  It is not the same as stupid or even stubborn.   In their ignorance they were evil but they don’t know it.  At least they don’t know it by the letter of the law.  Romans tells us that they knew in our hearts.

As you continue to read you are exposed to more and are expected to integrate it into existing kowledge.  Remember the arithmetic you learned in elementary school.  You did not start with long division or multiplication.  You can’t do long division if you don’t know how to subtract and you can’t multiply if you don’t know how to add.  We forget how learning was a process.  I would not expect a second grader to know algebra no matter how smart he was.

We are introduced to the concepts of grace and forgiveness long before Paul expands our understanding in his letters.  We are taught about parenting, credit, hard work and sloth as we go along.  It is a long journey of discovery.  I’m not sure if Revelation is graduate level or back to kindergarten.

What grade are you at?  I would guess, if you are like the rest of us, that you might still be wanting to go to recess or participate in show and tell.  Only you know.  I encourage you to get on with learning.  It is okay to ask questions.  It is even better to learn how to find the answers youself, and you can do it.  I like to think of the process as preparing for eternity.  A small difference now can make a big difference over thousands of years.

Does eternity have make up classes?

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-317: A Question of Power

My grandson came roaring into the room wearing a mask and a cape while he waved a sword around.  I can’t remember if he was Bible Man or Zorro but he was some kind of super hero.  I was impressed with his imagination and enthusiasm but not so much with his wisdom.  He came in thinking he would win.  I let him think that for awhile but eventually the truth came out.

Grandpa powers trump super-powers.

That is hard for a child to understand.  In a way it is hard for adults to understand.  It still remains true.

We won’t discuss grandma powers.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-316: Applied Attribute

When thinking about how Proverbs 8 seems to imply that wisdom was at creation and involved in creation, I came to the conclusion that wisdom was an attribute of God.  As I said, looking at the oak trees in my yard, each one original and unique, each one similar enough to be identified, each one having genetic similarities, and yet each one is different.  I used to just think of the creativity involved in this.  I’m thinking about oak leaves developing now and I thought about the continued creativity of God.  Somehow wisdom plays into that.  When I think of creativity, I think of coming up with new ideas.  When I think of wisdom, I have the thought that there is a reason for everything and that all fits together.

That tells me that creation is not arbitrary, that everything has a real reason, and how it relates to everything else.  In quantum physics they talk about the butterfly effect.  In case you missed it, they speculate that a butterfly wings flapping in Brazil could affect a tornado in Texas.  It seems impossible, but when you get down to it, not so much.  Everything God does affects everything else.

Take that principle and apply it to things like the law.  The law is proclaimed good in Psalms and Proverbs.  Some philosophers, with time on their hands got together with some theologians who needed to do some serious study.  They came up with a question, “Is something good because God declares it so or does God declare it so because it is good?”  An interesting speculation, but it doesn’t change anything.  I would like to speculate on how wisdom applies the law that was given by God, in ways that affects everything in our lives in our culture.  There are laws that we don’t understand.  There are laws that seem to be nonsense.  That itself is nonsense, because God does not waste His time on nonsense.  Nonsense is not an attribute of God.  Wisdom is.  So all of creation and all of our Truth is based on the wisdom of God.

There are so many things that I don’t understand.  That gives me a bit of comfort and realizing that maybe someday I will and if not, I know it’s still for the best.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-315: The Curse of the Blessed

One of the paradoxes that seems to come out in the Bible is the contrast between the blessing that God has given to Israel and the rejection of God that seems to permeate Israel.

God promised to Abraham that He would bless the world through his people.

(Gen 12:2 KJV)  And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
(Gen 12:3 KJV)  And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

This could be interpreted many ways.  God can present His standards for civilization through the law.  I think the ultimate blessing of course is the Messiah to come from the house of David.  That is certainly a blessing for the world.  I think there’s also the blessing that the Jewish people have given the world and the gifts of their genius, creativity, and productivity.  So many blessings.

But I notice, while Abraham will be blessed, there is no statement that his descendants will be blessed.  We assume that.  Maybe we should but it makes me wonder.

While they were blessing the world, they seem to be committed to a priority of defying God and going the opposite direction that He has commanded them to go.  Much of the Old Testament documents this rebellious attitude.  And Jeremiah is told to search Jerusalem to try and find one righteous person, and he cannot do it.  It is incredible.

In this there is a lesson.

Those who come loaded with gifts tend to be overcome by hubris.  That is a great word that says so much.  It speaks of being filled with your own importance.  It speaks of being aware of how gifted you are, and how other people should be grateful for your presence.  It makes you so obnoxious that no one is grateful for your presence even though you bring great benefits through your skills and contributions.  I’m talking here of our “scholars”.  I’m talking about the great scientist who have made major breakthroughs.  I’m talking about political leaders who seem to be able to get things done.  There are many people who are incredibly gifted and they know it.

Education tends to confuse people in their self-worth.  They think that had knowledge makes them better than people who have not had their opportunities or who do not have their abilities.  Well, great coordination may make you a better athlete, it does not make you a better human being.  Great ability tends to drag people down.  We see this everywhere.

There’s not much we can do for people who think too highly of themselves.  All we can really do is examine our own hearts and minds.  All we can do is submit to the authority of Almighty God, who certainly is smarter and more gifted than we are.  I guess part of the problem is that some people whether through education, or just a natural ability to inflate their egos, think of themselves as superior to God.  That is the tendency that Satan played upon when dealing with Eve in the garden.  It’s something which we have to deal with every day as he tries to get us to think we are more blessed than others.  Along with that is the thought that we deserve it.

Be a blessing.  Make sure that as you are a blessing to the world and not a curse to yourself.   As the song and scripture say,

(Jas 4:10 KJV)  Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-314: Read with Your Eyes Open

I had two experiences this week separated by a couple of days.  The first took place on a zoom call.  We’re a bunch of us old guys were talking about whatever came into our heads.  Israel and its current crisis came up, and of course, that brings out the eschatology geeks who tend to think that they have it all figured out.  I didn’t bother putting my two cents worth in.  There are certain questions which can stop the discussion in its tracks, and they were having so much fun, expressing their views that I didn’t want to ask them in light of Romans,

Romans 11:26 (KJV) And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:

Just who is Israel?  Who is a part of Israel?  Another way of saying it is, “Who is a Jew?”

Then this morning I was reading in Jeremiah and I came across one of those passages which the eschatology nuts just love to ignore and act like they don’t exist.

Jeremiah 44:27-28 (KJV) 27 Behold, I will watch over them for evil, and not for good: and all the men of Judah that are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine, until there be an end of them. 28 Yet a small number that escape the sword shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah, and all the remnant of Judah, that are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall know whose words shall stand, mine, or theirs.

If you take the time to read this, you’ll notice, there are two statements which cannot both be true.  The first one says that all the men of Judah will die.  The second statement is it a small number will escape.  Now either Jeremiah had an editor who was drunk that day and didn’t see the discrepancy or we’re talking about hyperbole and other types of literary devices.  You see logic says that if everyone is killed there is no one left to escape and conversely, if there’s someone left to escape everyone is not killed.

This is just one of many places where we see this kind of thing in scripture.  We need to start off with an awareness that the people who wrote this knew what they were writing and, not being stupid, they were aware of the discrepancy.  They also were aware that if they saw an angry father chasing his child across the yard, yelling, “I’m going to kill you”, he didn’t mean it.  He knew he didn’t mean it.  The kid knew he didn’t mean it.  All the bystanders knew he didn’t mean it.  They didn’t have to write an explanation. They just knew what was obvious.

So when you get involved in these kinds of discussions, have a good time.  Stick a broom handle in the spokes.  Be the odd man out.  Who knows, maybe you’ll get them to think a little bit.  Who knows, maybe you’ll learn something.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-313: The Falls of Summer

At church there was another prayer request for someone who had fallen.  Cracked bones, possible bleeding in the cranium,  bruises and an abused body.  It sounds like in this case she will be able to soldier on, but I’m thinking of others recently.  Sometimes the falls are because people my age are climbing ladders that they shouldn’t be climbing.  Sometimes it’s because they’re not paying attention.  I wonder how often it’s because we’re doing stupid things.  I know my most recent fall was when I was taking the trash down the driveway and trying to shortcut the process.  I ended up sprawled by the side of the driveway on the grass.  This is when I get thankful for my guardian angels.

This last fall could’ve caused major damage.  I could’ve caught my leg between things and broken a bone.  I could’ve fallen on the concrete and who knows what the results would be.  I could’ve landed on top of one of the rocks imbedded in my yard.  I was even close to a piece of rebar which could’ve punctured me.  Instead, I had a soft landing on the grass.  I felt it for a couple weeks, but life goes on with no major hiccups.

I think of the last few times I’ve gone down.  For me it’s usually that I’m just not paying attention or I’m doing something stupid.  The time before this was when I was walking quickly through the house with no lights on in the middle of the night.  Somebody moved a piece of furniture.  I’m not pointing any fingers, but can you spell grandchildren?  Anyway, I should not have been cruising in the dark.  I should’ve been carefully feeling my way or turning on the light.  I rank this one to stupidity.

What I’m always grateful for are those guardian angels that seem to keep a hand on me.  I try to make it a regular practice to thank them for being there even though I don’t know how many there are.  I’m still thinking of putting out milk and cookies for them but I don’t know if guardian angels like milk and cookies.  I will find out in eternity.

Walk carefully.  Don’t daydream, at least while on the move.  Don’t walk quickly in the dark house.  Make two trips with the trash rather than one.  Above all ask God to make sure that your guardian angels are sharp and on the task.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-312: Interchangeable Parts

We often look at society-changing ideas and attributed them to the genius of the inventor.  No problem.  Give credit where credit is due.  Often, though what we consider genius is simply a matter of observing the patterns and principles that God is laid down and applying them.  It is original for us.  It is truly created for us.  An example would be heavier than air flight.  The principle was demonstrated by birds as long as their were birds but it took humans ages to discover the Bernoulli principle.  Or think of Eli Whitney coming up with the concept of interchangeable parts.  Revolutionary.  It changed the whole process of making things and advanced the industrial revolution.  It brought greater comfort and prosperity to people around the world.  And yet it’s just an application of ideas that God has already been using for millennia.

I’m thinking of God’s patterns.  Recently I read a discussion of spirals that have been observed in nature.  The technical terms are Phyllotaxis spirals and the Fibonacci sequence.  Fibonacci was a mathematician in the 13th century who came up with an observation that there is a universal principle of spirals.  He came up with the fancy name for it.  If you are a mathematician or a physics major, you may know it by heart.  But he noticed that the way in which a conch shell spiraled was duplicated precisely throughout nature.  I believe one of the illustrations had to do with the inside of a sunflower, and how the different seeds were organized.  It was applied to a hurricane.  The curves, the angle, the math was the same in all of them.

When God find something that works and is very useful as a building block, He tends to reuse it. I’ll transfer your thinking over to one of the arguments of evolutionists.  They compare the similarities in DNA between human beings and chimpanzees.  The estimates I could find ranged from 95 to 99.5% similarities.  Take any number.  It sounds really impressive but means little.

It proves nothing about evolution.  And evolution since it’s arbitrary, and if you were a chance, you would have to have all kinds of things changing to make a major difference.  You wouldn’t design all of your parts to fit together in multiple ways.  Enter God.  When God finds something that works he continues to use it.  Sometimes small differences can make significant changes when you plan ahead.  Sometimes small parts make a device totally useless or useful depending on how they’re assembled.

As an example, I remember once when my friend convinced me that he knew how to rebuild the engine on my Volkswagen bus.  We took it apart.  We put it back together.  We installed it.  It ran just fine until I got out on the freeway and suddenly the engine froze up.  What was our mistake?  We put in one of the bearings on the driveshaft backwards.  It was a small piece of metal.  It looked the same as the others.  It was a fraction of a percentage of the weight and mass of the engine.  All we did was simply turn it around 180 degrees.  It fit fine.  We brought the engine to a screeching halt.

Evolution tends to go to a screeching halt with minor variations.  I don’t know what the differences are between a donkey and a horse.  It seems to me that their DNA should be compatible, but my understanding is that when you breed a donkey and a horse, you come up with a mule which may be bigger than a donkey, and possibly stronger than a horse, but is incapable of reproducing.  It’s called a dead end.

God doesn’t design dead ends.  He designs bearings to go in a certain way and you must insert them that way.  It’s not a matter of 50% chance of being good.  It’s a matter of requiring 100% chance.

I’m sure there are holes big enough in my logic to drive a mastodon through.  Fortunately, we believe that mastodons are extinct.  That itself doesn’t mean there isn’t one wandering around somewhere up in Canada or in the Rocky Mountains but for our purposes, the argument is sound.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-311: A Moment of Song

Stop what you’re doing.  Clear your throat.  Join me in a line of a song addressed toward the Lord God Almighty,

“How sweet it is to be loved by You.”

That’s all.  That will remind you and bless the heart of God.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-310: Is Quantum the God Level?

I started reading a book on quantum mechanics.  It is a heavy slog.  I have a pretty good math aptitude but not a lot of formal training.  At one point they state that if you are not comfortable with calculus then you will never understand the math involved in quantum mechanics.  I accept that about the same way that I accept the claim of a Muslim that I cannot understand Islam unless I read the Quran in Arabic.  Neither one is going to happen.  Both have to be taken on faith.  Faith is a choice.

A layman’s summary of some of the concepts of quantum mechanics involves statements that most of us are familiar with.  They claim that when you get down to the quantum level, you can know where a particle is, or you can know how fast is moving.  You cannot know both.  If you observe its location, that changes its speed.  If you measure speed, it changes its location.  They claim that just the process of observing something changes that something.  Then they will say that you can never know when or where this particle will emerge.  Or is the particle a wave?

In a sense we are down to the level, where nothing makes sense.  We are beyond the ability of our finite human minds to understand what’s going on.  It must be measured in mathematics, which are largely full of meaningless symbols and involve formulas where you can stick in whatever value you want.  It’s like having a five year old be able to make up the rules for dinner.  You never know what it’s going to be but you know it’s going to be interesting.

I’m quite comfortable conceding that I don’t understand.  There are many things I don’t understand, but I have a level of feeling for.  When I think of what I can understand about quantum theory, I come up with paradoxes that are serious.  If we can’t know what is going to happen at the quantum level in the next moment then how can we know the laws of physics are reliable?  How can we know our math works?  The rules may change in the next moment.

One of my propositions against evolution by random selection is that if evolution is simply a matter of chance, then it would seem that the laws of physics are also a matter of chance.  That would seem to say that if I believe in evolution coming up with a new species then I also should be able to believe the physics will come up with a replacement for gravity.  I could write you a math formula to prove it as long as I used symbols you had never seen before, gave them fancy names, and allocated values that fit my mood.  How are you going to prove me wrong?

In spite of this, I’m not saying there’s nothing to the ideas of quantum theory.  It may very well be totally valid.  What they’re missing is that there will come a point where you can no longer simply say, “We can’t know where this particle will emerge.”  You either have to say there’s another level we go to to find the principles to control this, or there is a controller out there determining when things will pop out so that the universe doesn’t go splat.  What a horrible dilemma for a materialist.

Is all this nonsense?  Most likely.  Prove it.


homo unius libri

Opus 2025-309: Monday Pulpit: New to Me

Sometimes a phrase that I hear will stand out in my mind.  I try to record it for later reference.  Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I just can’t get what I heard.  Sunday the pastor threw in a phrase and just went on which is OK but I didn’t get a chance to ask him about it afterwards.  He was reflecting on our sinful nature, Adam and Eve and the need for forgiveness.

What he said, was something to the effect that our sinful nature is the absence of God in our heart.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard it expressed that way before.  It makes sense.  It goes along with some of the thinking I’ve been doing, which of course makes me more open to it.  It isn’t so much a presence as a lack.  It helps to explain why we can know people who seem to be nice and yet at the same time they are lost in sin.  They may be good in themselves, but the core of their being is focused on themselves instead of being focused on Almighty God.

It goes along with my thinking that the curse of God is more the absence of blessing than an active destructive force.  It is like decaffeinated coffee.  It may taste the same to those of us without discernment and look the same but it doesn’t have the same effect.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-308: New Terms: Bluicide

Is this  good time to talk about secession?  I am not talking about Alberta.  I am not talking about California.  I am thinking about the blue counties of California.  Maybe it is time to let them go their own way.

Much of California is as sane as real Americans.  They care about their neighbors but plan on staying out of their business.  They go to work, pay their taxes, go to church, pay their taxes, go bowling, pay their taxes...you get the idea.  As a reward the crazies in the blue areas look for loopholes to happiness that they have missed.  We don’t need to say goodby to Riverside County or Shasta but LA does not deserve to be a part of us.

Let them go.

We can built tunnels with guard towers so that they can visit the Utopias they came from but let them go.  We could have testing in schools outside the cities and anyone who passed could be allowed to relocate inside a city.  We could call it bluicide.

Of course we could also just make the voting system honest and deport people who have no right to be here.  We could develop the courage to label treason as treason.  That way we could visit the cultural assets that used to make a visit to the city worthwhile but I would be willing to give up the Rose Bowl for the cause of liberty.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-307: Die Heretic

“Die heretic” is the punch line of one of the great all-time jokes.  If you don’t know it, try to Google it and see what you can find.  It’s funny because it’s based on truth.  We are so quick to demonize others on small issues.  There was a time in history when being called a heretic carried the death penalty.

We are no longer in a time like that. Does that mean that we should be free to use the term again?  I think so.

Why was heresy considered such a serious problem and previous ages?  It’s because people actually believed that having the wrong theology could send you to eternal damnation.  It wasn’t just a laughing matter.  It wasn’t just a difference of opinion.  It was eternal.

And one of the reasons why you were serious about getting rid of people who taught false doctrine was that they had the potential of polluting your children and your descendants.  It wasn’t to defend you.  You recognized heresy when you saw it.  You could take care of yourself.  Your children, however, often go through those times when they are susceptible to false teachings, whether they be theological, political, economic, or history.  If you doubt that, take a look at the kids coming out of school today, who are taught to hate America and how terrible this country has been in history when that is the opposite of what they should be taught.  It’s not a laughing matter.

So I would be willing to start using the term heresy again.  I don’t know that I’m ready to start killing people over it.  Even in Bible times, the death penalty was not administered frequently.  But it would certainly lend credence to the seriousness of the issues.

There are other serious words that we need to get back into using.  Treason and traitor come to mind.  How about pervert?  How about liar?  How about lazy?  For that matter we even could start using the word riot again.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-306: No Thank You

Long before we learned to feel our modern sense of inadequacy, communities were gathering together for mutual protection.  People relied on each other.  It was us against them.  With specialization some eventually excelled in the use of rocks and clubs.  In the age of muscles they became the chiefs and tried to tell everyone else what to do.

As society developed you had city states and eventually feudalism.  In feudalism the local baron was resonsible to keep you safe.  In return you became a serf and worked the land.  Things progressed and eventually we got to relying on the government for protection with standing armies and police forces.  They were there to keep us safe.

Now we’re down to the point where we want the government to protect us from feeling any kind of discomfort in our daily walk.  We have trigger warnings, safe zones and micro-aggressions.  We feel that big brother must keep all snowflakes from melting.

It is all to keep us safe.  Our food comes with nutrition labels and our cars with air-bags.  When you go to the doctor you fill out enough paper to denude a forest.  Think about all the things the government does to keep us safe.  

Be grateful that someone is watching out for you.  Where would you be if you did not have a coffee cup that warns you the contents are hot.  It is frightening beyond the imagination but not as frightening as it is becoming for people who want to live their lives without government regulations.  They become enemies of society because they don’t want to be as safe as the government does.

Sad.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-305: From Desperate to Hopeful

As I was reading in Psalm 13, I came across a sense of desperation and desolation in David’s heart and mind.  Consider this verse,

Psalms 13:3 (KJV) Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;

Sounds pretty desperate to me.

That made me think about how positive I am right now and how much I have to thank God for and how blessed I am and I ask myself have I ever felt this desperate?  When I think about it, the answer is, “Yes”.  I have known times of financial distress.  I’ve known times of emotional turmoil involving family and friends.  I’ve been in war zones.  I could make up a list if I wanted to, but unless I go digging for them, they remain buried in my past.  I know they’re there, but I don’t dwell on them.

From there I got to thinking about how often in different family relationships, and friendships we resort to forgiveness.  I got to thinking about how forgiveness is an expression of love, but then I ask myself, “Is forgiveness mentioned in the Love Chapter?”  My first answer was,  “No”.  But then I thought about it a little more.

The word forgiveness is not used, but there is a phrase that approaches it.

1 Corinthians 13:5 (NASB95) does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

I used a modern translation because the Authorized Version does not reach the depth of meaning here.  What it declares is that love does not keep accounts.  It does not have a profit and loss statement.  It doesn’t carefully document every output and input.  Love moves on.  You can think of this is a type of forgiveness but there is a subtle difference between classical forgiveness and love chapter forgiveness.

The difference I think is that in I Corinthians 13 forgiveness is not asked for, it is bestowed as a principal.  When you set things aside and move on, and don’t dwell on them and harbor them and respond based on how you have been wronged, it is a stronger form of forgiveness than just making a statement, “I forgive you.”

Classical forgiveness would involve a dialogue where two people get together and interact.  It might involve confession and asking for forgiveness.  It might involve admission of wrong and repentance.  I think of it, possibly as a conversation.

One of my thoughts on this chapter is that it needs to be considered in the context of the statement by John that “God is love.”

This chapter when it defines love defines attributes of God.  Think about how it starts about love being long-suffering.  What a perfect example of how God responds to us.  He is patience personified.  God putting up with us is the definition of long-suffering.  Think about how long he put up with the rebellion of Israel each time before He would lash out with punishment.  So God in a sense does not keep records.  We have verses that seemed indicate that God takes our sins and buries them someplace where He doesn’t refer to them anymore.  That is a good thing.  How well does it compare to the idea of forgiveness?

I’m thinking, and it’s just my thinking, that God has two levels of responding to our failures in our sins.  On one level are the every day shortcomings that we can’t seem to avoid.  I think of those moments of losing our temper in traffic or glaring at the crack in the sidewalk we tripped over.  I think that possibly God just kind of doesn’t keep an account of those.

On the other hand, we have the major sins of our lives, the open rebellion.  We have those times where we look at the known will of God and we consciously go the other way.  I’m speaking here hypothetically.  I’m sure none of us would ever do that.  However, when it happens, God is willing to restore us, but it requires repentance and confession.  It is not automatic.

So just as my mind wanders on this idea of hard times and suffering and moves to forgiveness, I try to define how God deals with us.  I am quite comfortable talking to God in the morning knowing that my behavior is not perfect.  I know that He accepts me.  I also know that I have a heart that has been touched by the Holy Spirit, and does not have any rebellion resistant to the world of God.

I hope it remains that way.  I hope you can say the same.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-304: What Potato Chip?

There are things that we know in our inner core being as wrong, and yet often we go ahead with them anyway.  I think of how when I’m on one of my glutton pilgrimages, I will sneak food into the house, tuck it away in the corner where no one will look, and eat it when I think no one will notice.  I can’t find anything in the Bible that says eating potato chips in the closet of my bedroom is a sin.  In an objective sense it’s not, but in a subjective sense I know that I’m doing something I’m not supposed to.

In the same way many of our bigger actions which are sins are covered up because we know what we are doing is wrong.  God seems to want us to tithe.  That is one of the reasons why we insist on secret giving and swearing the counters to silence.  It’s not because we don’t want people knowing how generous we are with God.  It’s usually because we’re being cheap and we don’t want them to know.  We forget that God knows exactly how much we made, and how much we gave.

Of course, you can come to some of the ultimate violations.  This could easily be having an affair with your neighbors wife.  It could be getting an abortion.  It could be cheating a customer on the contract that you had with him.  Sin comes in many forms.  In your heart you know they’re wrong.  That does not stop you.

Often it starts small and grows.  I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced a lab experiment using petri dishes.  You put the growth material in the bottom and just put it in one little speck of pollution and before you know it the dish is full.  In our moral lives we start small, but it grows very quickly.  I think that’s what Jeremiah is referring to here,

Jeremiah 19:5 (KJV) They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind:

I don’t think that the Jews started off thinking that they were going to take their children and throw them into the furnace, at least not at the beginning.  At first, it was simply a matter of being invited to a party in the next village.  It went from there to flirting with a cute little girl, who had a pagan father.  It might progressed to involve temple prostitutes or wild and crazy sexual exploits that were perfectly normal in that pagan culture.  And the slope gets deeper and more slippery with every step.

With the first step these Jews of ancient Israel knew that what they were doing had been forbidden, but it seem like such a small thing.  It’s just a party.  But they knew that party was forbidden and went anyway.  Somehow they thought they were smarter than God, and they began suppressing that inner voice that said this is wrong.

Sometimes that going ahead traps us into proclaiming that what we are doing is good when we know it isn’t.  We have the blatant parading of our second or third wife in fancy restaurants.  I speak not from experience, just observation.

I think this is where the modern church is.  For the most part they are teaching things that they know are not true and living lives that they know are rejecting God’s standards.  They may be able to suppress it.  They may surround himself with people who sing the same chorus and dance to the same tune.  If they were honest with themselves, they would remember that first step where they said, “I know more than God.  Don’t be a spoilsport.”

In the final analysis, we are only responsible for our own choices.  You cannot reform an entire country, a wayward denomination, or a local church that has sunk into pagan worship.  Often you will find no one willing to listen.  Make sure that you are willing.  Make sure that the one you were listening to is the Holy Spirit.  Make sure that the literature that your mind is absorbing is God’s word.

Remember that commercial talking about potato chips, which said, “I bet you can’t eat just one.”  You never thought of it as a theological statement.  Think again.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-303: Celebrity Quest

I just listened to a discussion between Michael Shellenberger and Zuby.  One of the topics that they discussed is one that I’m seeing more and more in the world of celebrities and scholars.  It is the show called Quest for Spirituality.  It’s never phrased as a return to the God of the Bible, or embracing Jesus, or becoming what God wants us to be.  It’s always phrased in general terms of “spirituality”.

Sometimes they will talk about how vital the cultural foundations of Christianity are to civilization.  Sounds serious.  What they leave out is the fact that Jesus is central to Christianity.  We’re watching a another case of redefining vocabulary.  For a long time we have talked about the materialistic world as opposed to the spiritual world of Christians.  Now the materialistic world is reaching out and embracing, or stealing, our concept of being spiritual and of the spiritual world.

Be aware.  Nothing is really changed.  What used to be called the materialistic world of the enlightenment was really a rejection of the things of God while embracing of the standards and values of Satan.  Satan is quite willing to disguise himself as an angel of light.  He is quite willing to co-opt a lot of the good things about our faith as long as he keeps people from embracing Jesus.

It’s still the same old story.  Anything but Jesus.  Anything but submission to the God of the universe.  Anything but removing us from being the center of our world and from thinking of ourselves as gods.  As long as we are at the center, Satan is happy.  He realizes that there are only two real choices.  We can introduce artificial ingredients, preservatives, GMO grains and all kinds of other things, but we never can get to the real thing because that would remove us from the center.  The Enlightenment was not about thinking, or being willing to consider facts.  The early scientists, who took us into the scientific revolution, were believers for the most part.  It was only when the culture of scholars rejected the centrality of God that the full enlightenment came on and started destroying western civilization.

Satan and his minions rejoice.  The answer to our problems is not celebrity spiritualization.  The answer is the same it has it is always been, submission to God and accepting Jesus as our savior.  It seems simplistic, but so is knowing which way to turn the faucet when you want the water to come out.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-302: Who not How

Days are not the issue.

As I was sitting and meditating on chapter 1 in Genesis the issue of creation versus evolution has a way of always creeping in.  In this case, my thoughts went to the real issue.

Young earth creationists get all hot under the collar when someone challenges the idea that God created the world in six 24 hour days.  In doing so they miss the whole point of the controversy.  The key difference between evolutionist and creationists is not the time involved but the cause.

I submit that if in someway the entire six days of creation were removed from the Bible, and we just went from verse two down to man being created in God’s image, we would lose nothing of significance as far as Christian theology goes, and the big gap between us and the evolutionist would still be there.

The difference is not the steps, the methods, the theories, the order of creation or anything else in those verses.  The controversy is in verse one where we claim God did it and they say there is no God.

I would suggest that you stop wasting your time arguing about whether it’s six days or 16 billion years.  The difference is not between six and however many days that would be.  The difference is between one or none.  The Gap between those is bigger than any gap that could be established within the realms of time and space.

Relax.  God created the universe.  God inspired the Bible.  Good science and good theology will always go together.  If there are bumps then buckle your seat belt and keep going.  You have nothing to fear.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-301: I Am Not Alone

Recently at a family dinner. I was talking with my son-in-law, and he shared his recent experience with lawnmowers.  I opened the discussion by asking if he was using the riding mower that he had picked up second hand.  That got him off on a new mower he had, given to him by a neighbor, which was working.  That seemed a little strange.

He shared with me how his old push mower was being mulish.  He had worked on the carburetor, made adjustments, made changes that I would have nightmares about and it still wouldn’t work.  This struck a resonance in me because I am totally hopeless when it comes to maintenance on the machines.

Why was this a big deal?  He is one of those guys who seems to be able to fix or build anything.  I would go to him for advice on how to get my lawnmower working.  All of his expertise did him no good.  It was very encouraging for me to know that, in his old lawnmower, he had met his match.  I’m not gloating.  I am not rejoicing about his difficulty.  I’m just rejoicing in the fact that I am not alone in submission to the world of mechanics.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-300: The Pacemaker Plot

In recent discussion about the invasive nature of technology into our lives, we talked about how the government is able to invade our computers, phones, TVs and other technology and listen to us when we don’t think they have a right to butt in.

There was discussion about what we can do about it.  How can we keep this from happening?  How can we turn off my phone?  Is it enough to turn it off or must we remove the battery?  And ultimately we came down to the special sleeves that theoretically block the radio waves and such.  All of the discussion is lost on me.

I’m afraid I have to laugh and point to my chest and simply say, “Pacemaker”.  My pacemaker radiates a connection to a unit in my home so that it is constantly being monitored when I am in range.  Anyone with a brain would realize that means no matter where I go the government can trace me.  I am a walking GPS for them.  I don’t know if it has a microphone but I would not be surprised.

Now do conspiracy theories.  It seems like just about everybody you run into now has a pacemaker or some kind of built-in technology.  It could be an obvious broadcasting unit or it could be something else like an artificial knee.  Do people really need all these things or are they being pushed in such away that more people fall under the observation that the government.

It’s too late for me to do anything about it.  You might want to think about you.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-299: Trump or Follow Suit

You should be familiar with a statement of Jesus found in the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 6:33 (KJV) But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

This is one of the key commands of Jesus.  How does that compare or contrast with one of Paul’s key statements,

Ephesians 2:8 (KJV) For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Is Paul trumping Jesus?  I don’t know if you play cards, but in many card games, there is either one card that will take anything or one suit which will overpower all others.  Under certain circumstances, if hearts was played first, if you don’t have hearts, you can play a spade, which if it’s trump will defeat a higher card of hearts.  Is this what Paul does?  Or is he just taking the lead of Jesus and explaining it in greater detail?

One thing that we need to understand about this is that Jesus was speaking to a Jewish audience.  He was assuming that they were a part of the nation of Israel.  And that since they did not need to enter into the covenant, they should’ve already been there.  Leave aside the individual aspect of salvation that we emphasize and just look at this command.

This is a statement of obedience and action.  It is a statement of priorities.  It is a statement made to explain the responsibilities of being a part of the kingdom of God.  Paul’s statement on the other hand was about how you were to enter the kingdom.  Neither one rules the other out.  Both are scripture.  They give the two sides of the salvation coin which would be counterfeit if it only had one.

So believe and seek.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-298: Pest Control

The weather is warming up and that tends to mean the bugs get to be more of a nuisance.  In the dark of the morning when it gets above 75 or so mosquitoes tend to come out.  This afternoon I was sitting on the front porch.  It was around 90, and the flies were starting to make my acquaintance.  There must be something we can do about this.  There must be something besides chemicals and pesticides.

One thought I had was drawn from the world of nature.  I think we’ve all seen pictures of alligators with birds picking their teeth and other animals, which would normally feed on these birds, sitting there calmly, while the birds rid them of pests.  Why could we not train birds to sit beside us and nail the mosquitoes as they came around?  It seems doable.  If you can train a dog to bring in the paper, why can’t you train a bird to eat what it normally eats only doing so at your convenience.

Or perhaps there might be some useful application of AI.  What about having tiny little drones or robots, armed with low wattage lasers that would circle around us and zap anything that came close?  It certainly seems possible, and if AI is a smart as they say it is, it could do the job.  Of course that highlights the problem we would run into if the AI drones went rogue and decided that we were a pest to be eliminated.  I understand it already happened when a group tried to turn off a robot and it didn’t want to be turned off.  The Clickbait has it attacked the people trying to turn it off.  I’m sure there’s more to it than that but it makes for a good story.  If you add to that the fact that the green movement feels that human beings are a disease that infests the world and needs to be removed then perhaps the Sierra Club and whoever’s ahead in the AI race could get together and start dealing with the superfluous population under the guise of pest control.  They might recruit Gaia also.

If you believe in evolution, then you might also believe that the mosquitoes would find a way to attack the robots. Maybe that’s a fantasy too far.

homo unius libri