Like Luther

Posted By admin on December 26, 2009

Most Churches, and certainly all I’ve ever attended, preach a lot about the importance of forgiving – forgiving anyone and everyone who has aroused our ire or resentment. Considering the number of times we are told, through the New Testament, one wonders why we should even need to be told about it again from the pulpit. Like:

Matt 18:21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but, seventy-seven times….(NIV)

Jesus then tells the parable of a debtor who is forgiven his large debt owed the king, but who then goes out and refuses to forgive, but punishes terribly, a man who owes him only a small amount. When the king hears of it he revokes the forgiveness he had just given that debtor, and cast him into prison. Lest the connection be missed, Jesus makes it eminently clear, explaining:

Matt 18:35 This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.(NIV)

And there is “The Lord’s Prayer”.

Luke11:2 He said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be your name…. (4) Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us…(NIV)

Pastors, usually teach us these sorts of things by showing us how it applies/works or our own life experience. I imagine a lot of you have more than once seen a bag full of rocks used to illustrate the burden that unforgiven hurts and resentments (like rocks) can be in our lives. Psychologists pretty much agree. Almost all counseling therapies emphasize finding out what unforgiven injuries we are still hiding or harboring in our souls, and how we must drop them by the wayside, forgive all those who have trespassed against us, if we are get on with healing and growing in life.

So that’s the power of forgiveness. If you’re a Christian, I’m sure you are familiar with it. You’ve had the teaching and read the Scriptures. And as you grow, you discover, just as the world, through science and psychology has discovered, forgiving is one of the cornerstones of healthy lives, and the only way to reach that “peace that surpasses all understanding” that God promises.

What’s not so well explored, or taught, is the power of unforgiving. Oh, we’ll not be left ignorant about the “other side of the coin”. That’s pretty obvious. Forgiving frees us, takes a load off. Unforgiving hurts us. But we hear little about the power of unforgiving that carries over to and affects another. To the object of our (former) resentment and hating. Scripture actually teaches that our unforgiving doesn’t just hurt us, but hurts the other person(s), even if they are unaware of our feelings! That’s something we need to know about as well.

You get a hint of it, in some churches, when the Pastor tells us we should not take part in certain liturgies and sacraments. In my churches, its common to admonish us not to take communion until we make certain we don’t still hold on to any grudge or unforgiveness. Many churches include baptism and confirmation as conditional upon having a heart unburdened by unforgiveness.

Some churches will even advise against putting your offering in the collection plate or box. That’s an admonition well-founded in the Scripture:

Matt 5:23,24, If you are offering your gift at the alter and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the alter. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift.(NIV)

This comes closer to showing the exact nature of the power of unforgiving. It tells you that God is not even interested in your offerings if you are unforgiving of another, or, even if some other person has not, or not been able to have, forgiven you and you know it! There is truly power! The power of unforgiving! From either side of a grievance, unforgiving disrupts your relationship with God!

This point, that unforgiving is a power unto itself, came across to me just the other day as I was reading John. It’s one of those I’ve-read-it-a-thousand-times, even underlined the whole passage, and-never-saw-that experiences. It’s in John 20:

21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.
22 And with that He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
23 “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

That, my friends, is the real power of unforgiving. And it explains why Jesus put so much emphasis on forgiving. Forgiving is part and parcel of the never-ceasing command that must all love one another, do all that we can to avoid disputes and disagreements, do all we can - in the most discrete way we can (first go to your brother alone, then with one or two others, then with the elders…) - to settle problems, to be always messengers of peace, and take our peace (which is the Peace of God) with us wherever we go.

(Playing “Pastor” here), look at how it works in the “natural”. Unforgiveness disrupts your relationship with God, in no small way. It angers, hurts, and usually causes a like resentment in the other person, and so disrupts his/her relationship with God as well. So it is one of the most serious stumbling blocks we can put before anyone. We disrupt their ability to have communion with, to pray to, to put offerings before, and may even block their ability to develop faith and belief in, God. We break their peace, cause them all those sorts of psychological and spiritual pain and damage we talked about before. Unforgiving is a wicked power, a power unto itself, which we are bound, for our own salvation, to give away and refuse to touch!

Category: Life Applications, Theology | No Comments »
Tags: Bible, Book of John, forgive, forgiveness, Jesus, John, Lord's Prayer, New Testament, teaching, unforgiving

Posted By admin on September 26, 2009

“Why do you believe in God?”. That’s the question Michael Shermer, America’s Skeptic in Chief, asked of some 10,000 of us.** I think he hoped to show it was because we are not too bright, that we simply “cling to religion” to assuage our fear and anger and insecurity. To his surprise, the survey showed that most of us have much more intellectual and reasoned motivations for believing in God. But to my surprise, at least, it also showed that we tend to think like Shermer as to why other people, our fellow Christians, believe in God!

You see, the answers to “Why do YOU believe in God?” broke out like this:

1.The good design/natural beauty/perfection/complexity of the world or universe (Intelligent Design, essentially)
……….28.6%
2.The experience of God in everyday life
……….20.6%
3.Belief in God is comforting, relieving, consoling, and gives meaning and purpose to life (for emotional more than rational reasons)
……….10.3%
4.The Bible says so
…………9.8%
5.Just because of the need to believe in something
…………8.2%

but when the same people were asked “Why do you think OTHER people believe in God?”, their answers were:

1.Belief in God is comforting, relieving, consoling, and gives meaning and purpose to life
……….26.3%
2.Religious people have been raised to believe
……….22.4%
3.The experience of God in everyday life
……….16.2%
4.Just because of the need to believe in something
……….13.0%
5.Fear death and the unknown
…………9.1%
6.The good design….. etc.(I.D.)
…………6.0%

There’s more than just irony, here. Apparently, even when our own beliefs and faith are on solid ground, when we ourselves have considered the evidence of our own observations and personal experiences and reached a conscious, “intelligent and reasoned” decision to believe in God, we don’t so often feel that others have! We’ve come to share the critics’ attitudes: we, too, suspect that most people do not believe in God for particularly  “good” ( intellectual, reasonable – even personal experience with or of God in our lives) reasons, but do so out of weakness or lack of intelligence (i.e., they are “clinging” to religion, as Obama said in his 2008 campaign, and Karl Marx intimated when he called religion the “opiate of the masses”). We, like them, won’t even believe the testimonies of people who say they’ve actually encountered or experience God in their own lives.

The culture wars have taken their toll, won quite a bit of ground, and left us in a serious state: we don’t respect, or trust, or believe our own Christian family! We have become skeptics of each other, become one with the culture of the other side! We, whom God has given us the ears to hear, the eyes to see, and hearts to believe, we have been encultured, co-opted, all too persuaded to the naturalistic, scientific, and skeptical attitudes of the atheistic world!

That’s what I read into Schermer’s survey. 50% of us think our beliefs are sensible and intelligent, rooted in experience and rational inference from the universe we live in. (Not to to mention, of course, our reading of Scripture and what it tells us about the creation and how God speaks and relates to us.) But we do not so evaluate or respect others’! Is that really right?

Where better might I start than with my own thoughts and attitudes? Looking critically at myself I find validation of my surmise! I have to admit that I am susceptible to doubting testimonies others give about experiences with God. I don’t doubt my own, but… ! And I’m not unique! I hear many others, even pastors, immediately question – with obvious and oft-intimidating skepticism in their voice – anyone, on TV or face to face, who says “I heard God say”, or “God …. (did something)” to us. Sure, we should be wary of false claims and charlatans, anti-christs, as John would say. It’s called discernment. Wisdom. Those are good. Necessary. But that’s not exactly what we’re seeing here. I think we’re seeing something not so constructive or wise. We’re seeing a pervasive skepticism that is weakening our faith. Weakening our fellowship. Undermining our church. A certain hypocrisy that suggests we are becoming swayed by the relentless drumbeat of “the other side”.

Why? They, the atheists, are not that numerous. Sure, they are many and loud, buttressed by degrees and credentials, aided by like-minded media and a Pharisaic government … yet, all in all, they are a rather small minority. Even 30 to 40% of scientists are believers. At least 80% of the world’s peoples are believers, though not necessarily of our own faith or religion. We have no shortage of literate and talented artists and scholars and writers and … even neighbors. So why are we so … skeptical of other believers? I don’t have much in the way of answers. I can hardly presume to know whats in your mind. But I do know that it is important we look at the questions raised, here, and each take stock of our own thinking.

I do have one answer for someone who might wonder why we are so skeptical, and so easily persuaded away from belief in God. During my former atheism, that atheism, and my ability as a scientist and college teacher to undermine the faith of Christians, was largely rooted in my disbelief in Genesis 1 and 2. And after I had become a Christian, I still had a terrible time getting past Genesis. The conflict with what modern science has so ably and thoroughly argued is the history of creation was too much. I, and a lot of other well-educated (especially in the sciences) Christians, always tried to look past it, but ignoring the first two chapters of the Bible, and it’s case for God as the Creator, left us on rather shaky ground.  As it does millions of us. So I was led to re-translate Genesis 1 and 2 into modern language and in light of what we all know now of history and creation, and uncovered the unknown truth of Genesis. And at least hundreds of believers have personally expressed to me that they are relieved, encouraged, and able to enjoy, now, a peaceful co-existence with science. I encourage you to visit:www.theunknowngenesis.com

**In “Why Darwin Matters”, Henry Holt and Company, 2006. I am writing a couple of posts in my blogs in response to that book. “Why Darwin Matters … or Not” is one such.

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Tags: belief, faith, genesis 1 2, God, Michael, Shermer

Posted By admin on August 26, 2009

“…Unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Jesus, in Matt 18:3, NKJV)

Got this in an email today:

A Little Boy’s Explanation of God

It was written by an 8 year-old boy (name withheld) in Chula Vista, CA. He wrote it for his third grade homework assignment, “Explain God”.

EXPLANATION OF GOD

“One of God’s main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die, so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth. He doesn’t make grownups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way he doesn’t have to take up his valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. He can just leave that to mothers and fathers.

“God’s second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on since some people, like preachers and things, pray at times besides bedtime. God doesn’t have time to listen to the radio or TV because if this. Because he hears everything, there must be a terrible lot of noise in his ears, unless he has thought of a way to turn it off.

“God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere, which keeps him pretty busy. So you shouldn’t go wasting his time by going over your mom and das’s head asking for something they said you couldn’t have.

“Atheists are people who don’t believe in God. I don’t think there are any in Chula Vista. At least there aren’t any who come to our church.

“Jesus is God’s son. He used to do all the hard work, like walking on water and performing miracles and trying to teach people who didn’t want to learn about God. They finally got tired of him preaching to them and they crucified him. But he was good and kind, like his father, and he told his father that they didn’t know what they were doing and to forgive them and God said ‘O.K.’

“His dad (God) appreciated everything that he had done and all his hard work on earth so told him he didn’t have to go out on the road anymore. He could stay in heaven. So he did. And now he helps his dad out by listening to prayers and seeing things which are important for God to take care of and which ones he can take care of himself without having to bother God. Like a secretary, only more important.

“You can pray anytime you want and they are sure to help you because they got it worked out so one of them is on duty all the time.

“You should always go to church on Sunday because it makes God happy. And if there’s anybody you want to make happy, it’s God.

“Don’t skip church to do something you think will be more fun like going to the beach. This is wrong. And besides the sun doesn’t come out at the beach until noon anyway.

“If you don’t believe in God, besides being an atheist, you will be very lonely, because your parents can’t go everywhere with you, like to camp, but God can. It is good to know He’s around when you’re scared, in the dark or when you can’t swim and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids

“But you shouldn’t just always think of what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and he can take me back anytime he pleases.

“And that’s why I believe in God”

I tell you truth, if you think like this young man, you will have no problem with God, or enjoying the blessing of your faith! A lot more, for sure, than all those adults who quarrel or fret about theological fine points and denominational nuances. Or whether or not they are “saved” or not. Even so, if you think about it, there’s a lot of very excellent theology, as well as good righteous lifestyle, packed in this boy’s “Explanation”. Jesus loves the little children just for faith such as this!

Category: Fun and funny, Theology | No Comments »
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Posted By admin on July 4, 2009

The following was originally published in The Unknown Genesis. We felt it was worth sharing here.

We don’t need to go to Genesis to get some powerful testimony about the Creation, and find more evidence for the translation and interpretation of Genesis which we offer here, and scientific support for the Biblical account of creation. We can go to Hebrews, Chapter 1.

As in John, we are told that the Son, whom we call Jesus, was the actual creator, that He made the Universe: “…and through the Son he created the universe.” Heb 1:2, (NLT)

In my book* I compared this manifestation of the Trinity to the way Microsoft creates software: God the Father is the creative genius, the Intelligence, the Designer and Authority behind the creation, setting forth the nature and shape and rules/laws of operation of our universe, and the Son as the one who did His bidding, who actually executed and carried out the creation. At Microsoft, Bill Gates sets out how he wants his product to look and work, and tells his engineers what he wants and is fully confident they will execute his words, and create Windows 7 (within the limits of human capacity and foibles, of course).*

As we’ve pointed out so many times before, this declaration that there was a beginning, that the universe has not been here eternally but came into being, and for some reason took on a very intelligent, and orderly, and lawful design, was not something science believed or accepted until this last century. Indeed, the beginning, which scientists call/designate the “Big Bang” was a very contentious “theory” for many years, mostly because it allowed there was a point of creation, and most reasonably a creating power and creative order/plan which atheists had all but denied with their claim the universe was eternal, having no beginning or origins. The Bible, therefore, knew something science had to discover.

Hebrews also tells us that it is by God’s design, the laws of physics and astronomy He has ordained for this universe, and the efficacy of Jesus, that this universe stays, continues to exist, and will continue as long as he is faithful to the father (and so we rest easily, right?): “… he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.” Heb 1:3 (NLT)

This is something scientists are still uncertain about. Einstein was so convinced that the universe was stable and certain to go on forever that he amended his own mathematics and theory of relativity because his formulas found too many scenarios in which the universe could/would end in either an awfully slow explosion or inevitable implosion (back into the point - “singularity” - of the orginating Big Bang). But soon astronomers discovered the universe is expanding in what appears to be an ever-accelerating expansion (that slow explosion Einstein first foresaw but could not believe). And they are still trying to figure that out. It makes everything ridiculous: a perfectly designed, beautifully designed universe simply wasting itself away into useless nothingness. To cope with such apparant inanity (they might find comfort in understanding God and having faith that Jesus will not let that happen, but…) the scientists are always coming up with new ideas. They are usually pretty wild and hardly “scientific” or reasonable theories, like multiverses or multi-”greater places than space” that can create ever more and ever new universes. But that’s not all that bad. At least the scientists, in the process, only prove to themselves is just how unique, and intelligently designed THIS universe really is. And without God doing just as the Scripture says, how it shouldn’t exist!

But here’s where Hebrews really says something that may seem a rather little point, but really is a huge, prescient observation that scientists have only been discovering and studying in recent times:

“You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
11 They will perish, but You remain;
And they will all grow old like a garment;
12 Like a cloak You will fold them up,
And they will be changed. Heb 1:10-12 (NKJV)

Or as the NIV says it, “They will wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed.“

Here we have a text written two thousand years ago, by a very nonscientist person, who has no idea of what this planet, or the stars and galaxies are, but should, if anything, given his beliefs about God - and like most scientists before Einstein - assume they are fixed and eternal. Yet here he is, still, writing that they are not! Paul writes that the stars and galaxies (the heavens) are just like a garment. They have a limited “lifetime”. They will each come to an end, wear out like a garment will, and then be discarded and replaced with a new garment! “They will be changed“!

Scientists were at first upset to discover that stars and planets, etc., come and go, that they serve their time and then are ended, to be replaced (recycled) into new ones, to adorn God’s heavens with even greater glory! But today one of the biggest tasks of astronomers and physicists is to observe and describe, and hope to figure out those very “life cycles” of the things in the heavens. Until we could study them with our telescopes and satellites, we pretty much thought just the way Paul should have, that they are absolutely fixed, eternal parts of the universe, those twinkling lights that have been there in the skies forever. But Paul had the word, the knowledge of a greater wisdom, and told us otherwise!

* Hey Mom, What About Dinosaurs?“

Category: Bits & Pieces, Theology | No Comments »
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Posted By admin on June 3, 2009

The debate began...

So it started simply enough. I’ve got no idea why the Catholic church thought to put that on their street sign, but I’m more surprised the Presbyterians got so uptight (self-righteous?). Anyway, comes Monday and the Catholic church steps up to the plate, and…

OK. So lighten up!

But our Presbyterians didn’t get the humor. And the Catholics almost succumbed to the interfaith rivalry, but kept their sense of humor in their answer. Come Monday, they got their mojo back. With but the slightest flavor of that interfith rivalry, they came right back with a great “so….?” Too bad the Presbyterians couldn’t.

Don't know 'bout your religion....

Sadly, those darn Presbyterians just couldn’t get “religion” off their minds. Well, OK, so some of you guys, out there, see their point, right? And this is, after all, a battle for the souls of the town…. and “flock count”, maybe?

Anyway, not daunted, those Catholics come back with one of the funniest riposts I can imagine:

OK, you got my vote. I'll convert to Catholicism! (My dog said that!)

But our Presbyterian friends kept their stony demeanors and refused to budge. And upped the stakes! “All in”, in Texas Holdem parlance!

But our Catholics won the hand, I’d say…

OK. The signboard debate was fun (for many of us, at least) and serious (obviously, for some). For me, I must admit, it was both. That’s why it got here. Fact is, the issue is serious for a lot of people. I wish I (we) could actually give a definitive answer.

If you are a Mormon, your church’s theology says that our pets (and, I assume, other animals) will there to spend eternity with us. But they’re the only church I KNOW actually has such a certain answer. In the signboard debate, the “Protestants” denied it, saying only souls get to heaven, and animals don’t have souls. I won’t take up that argument, but will point out, at least, that apparantly horses are in heaven. Or at least, the Scripture says Jesus returns riding a horse. Right? And in the signboard debate the Catholics started out (perhaps with no intention of being “theologically” serious) saying that our pets (or dogs … which are rather unique among our animal companions) saying they will be. Whether that’s official theology, I don’t know.

But the question is not a silly or trivial one. I work with “seniors”, people from their 60s to their 90s. As they get older, they lose their friends and family. Death or distance often leaves them quite alone. And all they have, too often, is a dog or cat. And they love them. And whatever their faith or denomination, many (very many) hope that their animal companion with go with them into eternity. All the more so when children and grandchildren either abandon them or get lost too. So, the question is one they often ask me. I wish I could say for certain. Instead, the best I can do is point out there will be no sorrow in heaven. That much Scripture tells me for certain.

Though I don’t want to have pointless, endless debates here, I do welcome your (good spirited) comments.

PS

No sooner had this gone to publication than my attention was drawn to THIS:

Looks like some dogs are trying!

You be the judge as to whether this comment (in kind, no less!) carries any weight in the debate.

Category: Fun and funny, Life Applications, Theology | 1 Comment »
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Posted By admin on May 30, 2009

The Bible tells a tale of two wicked cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. They’d become so rank and evil God decided to destroy them. But before He did – and this is one of the most remarkable aspects of the whole story - God elected to tell Abraham about His decision, and then allows Abraham to intercede and question Him – in fact, to debate and negotiate with Him.

 

Of course, through this we learn a few things about God. We learn that God will allow us to question Him, even argue with Him, and that such an exercise is not pointless or mere pro forma. It is meaningful, it carries weight with Him, the Creator and Sovereign of the universe! We also learn that our intercession, in even a huge matter, can be meaningful.

 

We learn that God will spare even a city (or … a people?) for the sake of just ten righteous souls! Now, there’s an answer to those who question or deny God’s “goodness”, who might lose eternity for the lie that God is unfair or unjust, too ready to judge and punish, an angry deity with insufficient mercy in their eyes. “How can God….?” is a question we are all too accustomed to hearing, and that unanswered is a barrier to too many souls finding the grace of God.

 

But the most serious problem for most modern readers comes later in the account. And I can assure you, this is where we lose many sons and daughters. The wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah and their destruction is OK, but what happens to Lot’s wife brings up a couple of “unacceptables” to modern morality and scientific (read “naturalistic”) sensibilities.

 

When not even ten righteous people can be found in Sodom or Gomorrah, God still has mercy on the four who do live there – Abraham’s brother Lot, and his wife and two daughters. They are warned by two angels of the immanent destruction and sent running to the hills to be sheltered from the wrath:

 

“With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.” When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them. As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!” Genesis 19:15-17 (NIV)

They escaped the destruction …“But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.” Genesis 19:26 (NIV).

 

Though she was told “Don’t look back” by none less than God’s own lieutenant (the angel), it seems a harsh punishment to people who have a hard time, nowadays, accepting the death penalty for a serial murderer, mass murder for political ends, even a sexual abuser and mutilator of children. There’s little I can say to such sensibilities, but I can perhaps offer two other interpretations that might circumvent them.

 

First, for whatever difference it might make, Lot’s wife was more than just curious, more than a victim of a moment of “rubbernecking”! A more thorough look at the possible meanings of the Hebrew texts reveals that her looking back was less innocent than the traditional interpretations imply, and more something that would offend God.

 

God was not eager to destroy the cities. He had tolerated them for a long time. He allowed the intercession by Abraham. He bargained away His pending judgment if only ten amongst the thousands could be found righteous. He sent two angels to search for those few, angels who were themselves nearly victims of sexual abuse (and no mere rape, at that) by all (every one) of the men of the city. Only after that last example of total depravity, was the judgment ordered. This is hardly a God (“not wanting anyone to perish” 2Peter 3:9 NIV) rejoicing in the deaths of anyone.

 

So, what about Lot’s wife? She did not merely glance back over her shoulder. The verb used in verse 26 is the Hebrew nabat: “to look intently, regard with pleasure”. She was watching, and taking pleasure in the destruction she saw there. And, we might assume, spending some time watching the horrific rain of “burning sulfur” that destroyed not just the two cities, but “the entire plain, including all those living in the cities – and also the vegetation in the land”. Even more, the verb I translate “destroyed” includes in its connotative domain, “overthrow, overturn, upturn”, which many interpreters take to signify there was an earthquake. Altogether, one could argue the cities were destroyed by asteroids! It has been thought.

 

At any rate, Lot’s wife wasn’t likely running for her life and guilty only of a fearful backward glance. More likely, if we understand the text and the terrain where it is maintained that she died (there is a pillar of salt that stands tall above the site said to be where the cities lay, called “Lot’s Wife”!), the refugees had reached a place of relative safety, or at least some shelter. Lot and his daughters may well have run deeper into the cave while she turned and watched, even gloated at the disaster being visited upon the cities. Which brings us to my second point. It comes from a study just published in the journal, Biblical Archeology Review (How Lot’s Wife Became a Pillar of Salt, May/June 2009, pp38 – 44, 64.)

 

The author is Associate Professor of Geography, Amos Frumkin, director of Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Cave Research Unit. Dr. Frumkin has quite thoroughly studied that pillar of salt standing high above the plain of Sodom, at the southern edge of the dead sea, actually called “Lot’s Wife” for at least several millennia.

 

His studies certainly tie the pillar to the scene of her demise. It’s geographical location is right, just off and above the place most think was where the cities would have been. He’s carbon dated the creation of the pillar to about 4000 years ago (2000 BC). Historical records (including Josephus’) tell us that the people living there at least 2000 years ago were calling it “Lot’s Wife”. But his scientific analysis tells us something else about the pillar’s nature and origins. Something he thinks invalidates the Biblical story, but I think only does the opposite!

 

Briefly, Frumkin concludes the site was a huge cave already carved/dissolved out of the salts that had thrust up from beneath the local earth’s mantle, covered and protected by a much less soluble cap of rock. He believes that an earthquake (a common occurrence, here) caused the roof of the cave to collapse, leaving this pillar of salt standing, with it’s own small rock cap protecting it against millennia of subsequent rains. A particularly severe cluster of earthquakes is geologically recorded in Dead Sea sediments at about 2100 to 2000 BC. The strongest, about 8.0 on the Richter scale, occurred about 2050 BC.

 

Take Frumkin’s determination that there was a huge cave looking out across the Sodom plain at the time the Bible says God destroyed the cities. That Lot and his family fled to the hills to avoid the destruction. That the destruction visited upon the whole plain was huge and violent, even to the point of “overturning” or “upturning” the cities (as the ancient Hebrew language in the Torah’s text can be read). That this cave, a likely place for Lot’s family to have run to and taken shelter, then collapsed. That Lot’s wife, stopping to watch the scene below, was suddenly buried beneath the salt and rock roof above the outer (weaker, less supported) mouth of the cave. That she did not “become” a pillar of salt, but became buried beneath/within a pillar of salt! And we have validated, not refuted the event described in the Bible!

 

Does the language of the Bible support this relatively minor reinterpretation of the text? Yes indeed! Note, first, it does not begin to say that God, or some supernatural action by God, converted her into salt. That is, what happened happened, but was not done to her. And if we look at the Hebrew language, we find that the Hebrew verb, hayah, can also read “finished”, “remained”, “continued”, “was left”, or “came to be in” a pillar of salt.

Category: Interpreting, Theology | No Comments »
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Posted By admin on May 4, 2009

I wrote a book, some years ago, about the Rapture. Not to explain it, or sell it as doctrine, or advocate for it, but to search out every bit of evidence for it that one might find in Scripture. I never got around to publishing it, but the manuscript has reached many hands. Most have said it’s THE book, the most complete compilation of scriptural evidence for the Rapture anyone has done. I think that’s true. Other writers can claim better writing, and exposition, and “preaching”, but none have sifted out anything like that collection of scriptural evidence.

 

Until a few days ago, I thought it was complete. That I’d left no verse unturned. But, wouldn’t you know, doing my usual daily reading, I visited a New Testament passage I’ve read a hundred times. I’ve heard it preached from the pulpit from a myriad points of view, and as many purposes. But never as a shadow or predictor of the Rapture. At least, Google doesn’t reveal anything otherwise. I will tell you, the mysteries of Scripture are amazing. Hidden things we miss for centuries, even millenia. And I, for one, believe that is all part of God’s purposes, biding His time for the moment our eyes should see, our ears should hear.

 

Jesus explained this to us when His disciples asked Him why He spoke in parables:

 

¹⁰The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”

¹¹He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. ¹²Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. ¹³This is why I speak to them in parables:
“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand. ¹⁴In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
” ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
¹⁵For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’^[a]16But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. ¹⁷For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.(NIV)

He might as well also said, “And there are things which the saints, of times yet to come, they shall see and hear in their time, when it is right for them to understand, that are not yet for you.”

Of course Paul saw the Rapture:

⁵¹Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— ⁵²in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. ⁵⁴When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (NIV)

and,

¹³Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. ¹⁴We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. ¹⁵According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. (NIV)

 

So should I be surprised that this new revelation about the Rapture was hidden in a parable? Look at this, Matthew 20:1 – 16, commonly known as the Parable of the Workers in the Vinyard:

 

¹“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. ²He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

³“About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. ⁴He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ ⁵So they went.

“He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. ⁶About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

⁷” ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

⁸“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

⁹“The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. ¹⁰So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. ¹¹When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ¹²‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

¹³“But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? ¹⁴Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. ¹⁵Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

¹⁶“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”(NIV)

I hope it is not hidden from you, that your eyes see it and your ears hear it. But if you need a little help, let me interpret it for you.

The landowner, of course, is Jesus. The workers are His followers. We, you and I and all Christians of this day, are the workers of verse 5. We are the last to be hired, now in the eleventh hour. The last before the day of harvest is ended and He comes back to pay us our wages. The wages, of course, are eternal life. That is what He offered to pay the first who labored for Him. And that is what He offers to pay the last hired. And everyone who came to work in His vineyard. No matter when, or how much work was done, or how much each worker accomplished. He pays all the same.

Look, too, at how some of those who were hired first feel they deserve more. Even His disciples were guilty of that complaint. Jesus promises that your reward of resurrection into eternal life will be every bit as eternal as Paul’s. And how the Owner, Who leaves the workers to labor at the harvest while He goes out to find more (Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matt 9:37,38 NIV), at the end of the day, the harvesting is done, and He comes back to pay all their wages.

There is one question that greatly concerns many Christians, and is not answered in any of the scriptures I’ve quoted here. This question is almost always asked by those who do believe there will be a Rapture, but while endlessly debated, never in my opinion, is it answered. That is: Will the Rapture will be pre-, mid-, or post-Tribulation? In my book, “That Blessed Hope”, I believe I provide a very powerful scriptural answer to that question. Let that be something of an incentive for you to read it. You’ll find 100+ scriptural passages in evidence there. I’ve never published it (and in light of this new find, well, maybe that’s why) so I offer it FREE to you, in its manuscript form. Just look for the page:

Free Book: That Blessed Hope, in the Left Sidebar

That’s a link to a pdf. Download. You can donate, if you wish, or buy a CD or hard copy, but FREE is your first opportunity.

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Posted By admin on April 27, 2009

My first book was little more than analysis and some small amount of original interpretation of scripture. My second, a major work of interpretation and reinterpretation, made much use of science. Not surprisingly so, since it’s purpose was to understand, evaluate, and reconcile if possible, the multitude of apparent contradictions between the Biblical and scientific accounts of creation. Those contradictions have long kept a lot of people (I myself was one of those) from having much confidence in the Bible as truth, let alone as God’s own voice and exposition.

The chapters on creation, which I call the “creation account”, are often difficult to believe for the “educated” and scientifically literate nowadays. I, myself, as a teacher of university students, was usually able to break young Christians away from their faith by critiquing that account. As it reads in the KJV, and essentially every other English version (which really simply repeat the KJV, ignoring what four centuries of science have revealed), the creation account is easily ridiculed and hard to reconcile. But the science I used to break the faith of many proves a two-edged sword. It can turn linguistic translation into a forensic exercise and truly liberate the deep and profound truths hidden in the ancient Hebrew language so painstakingly preserved for this very time in our history. Now, I like to compare the revelations that the use of modern scientific knowledge can wring out of a text first writ some 3500 years ago by the scribe(s) who couldn’t begin to fathom, let alone express, what the creation involved, with the best of Biblical prophesy!

Since that work, 8 to 10 years ago, I have continued to develop a forensic-like approach to interpreting both science and scripture. I continually get richer understanding and appreciation of both forms/sources of wisdom, and what they can tell us about God and his nature. This incredible creation we live in that doesn’t just reflect his nature, but partakes in and expresses it. And I am convinced we can all benefit greatly by studying it. That is why I am building this blog, as a record and archive of the revelations and insights I feel God leads me to and blesses me with.

I used to worry I might overstep, perhaps even let my abiding love and confidence in (good) science mislead my interpretation of scripture. I don’t any more. Cautious, slow to conclude, I feel I’m like a good forensics investigator. And I wholeheartedly accept the declaration of Romans 1:19, 20:

“what can be known about God is evident among them (even godless scientists!) because God has shown it to them. From the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what He has made.” (HCSB) And I accept, as well, the conclusion of that verse: “As a result, people are without excuse (for not knowing or acknowledging God, and Him as Creator)!”

Science began as a fulfillment of that scripture. Only about the time of Darwin did it start to lose that foundation, as some saw in Darwin a chance to come up with an alternative to a Creator rather than a picture and explanation how the Creating might have progressed and been achieved. I, too, thought evolution was an alternative, a non-God theory. I was still of that persuasion when I signed off on the publication of my reinterpretation of “Hey Mom, What About Dinosaurs?” I don’t any more. I’ve seen that even should the history of life be as most scientists think it is, it cannot contradict God as its intelligent designer, the divine inventor of even such a method and process as that! And I’ve found many scientists (and theologians) think that way.

I’ve learned that both scientists and Christians want to understand better the Creator, and are quite capable of believing in both science and God. If there is anything that hinders them in doing so, it is because they isolate one from the other, often because of the partisanship of the culture wars of our society, and fail to take advantage of each in an interactive search for the truth they all so earnestly desire to apprehend. I no longer fall for that trap, that snare of hell. I do what I do, and I share it here with you!

Let me give you an example. I recently read this in an article in Christianity Today:

“It is not just those enamored with the prosperity gospel who have pursued health, wealth, and happiness as if they were divine rights and signs of God’s blessing. Or who have avoided adversity and poverty as if they were curses. But God’s ways are more mysterious than we perceive.

“God so governs the universe by his secret providence that while nothing happens apart from God’s decree, his hand remains largely hidden from us. What could be more natural than the changing seasons? Yet there remains such unevenness and diversity that every year, month, and day is seen to be governed by a new providence of God.

“Church father Basil the Great said that fortune and chance are pagan terms, and ones the godly should not use. But even though all things are ordained by God’s plan, for us they seem fortuitous – their order, reason, and necessity seem accidental. Yet in our hearts it nonetheless should remain fixed that nothing will take place that the Lord has not previously foreseen.

“Nothing will more effectively preserve us in a straight and undeviating course in this economy than a firm persuasion that all events are in the hand of God, and that he is as merciful as mighty. This should lead us to gratitude in prosperity, patience in adversity, and a wonderful security respecting the future.

“Prone to blame God in adversity and praise ourselves in prosperity, we murmur against God if he does not grant us quiet nests. We imagine that adversity can only come from Satan – as if he were a second god – and thereby fail to recognize that nothing happens, even when intended by Satan for evil, isn’t turned by God to the wider purpose of our salvation. Nothing can thwart God’s purposes toward us in Christ.”

There’s more than one thing in that theological perspective that can be helped by a bit of scientific theory. What first caught my attention was where the author runs up against the very long-debated matter (mystery) of God’s sovereignty and our free will. No less than the great divide between Calvinism and Arminianism hearkens to that issue. The question dogs the less discerning or questioning among both believers and those who might be but won’t – because they cannot resolve that “God so governs the universe by his secret providence that while nothing happens apart from God’s decree…” bit.

I find no problem, not even any contradiction in that mystery because of what I’ve learned from science. Let me explain.

Two of the most well-established and productive scientific paradigms of this modern nuclear-computerized-physics-astronomy-space-oriented world we live in are absolutely like that same perplexity: Quantum Mechanics and Relativity.

Relativity rules! It is the basis of almost everything you and I know about the world, and universe. Gravity, planets, rocket ships, how we bounce around (and break) in a car wreck, and everything we see with our eyes, obey the laws of Relativity. The world, all the things in it, from grains of sand to cannon balls, even galaxies and the light and other radiations that reveal them to us are very precisely predictable by the laws of Relativity. The big things, the things, as I said, we can see and touch and feel, will behave and “move and have their being” just as that scientific theory says they will.

But Quantum Theory says something else. It says that the tiniest things that the bigger ones are made up of, the atoms and electrons and even smaller components like quarks, and what they are all doing – even where they actually are (when it is so obvious those atoms are inside the marble or cannon ball or planet circling the sun) is absolutely not certain, not predictable, not capable of being located, or their behavior at this moment, be described. They seem to have VERY free will (had they consciousness). And Quantum theory is about as established and proven as Relativity. We build our computer-driven world, and explain even astronomical and cosmological doings and nature by it. At the small, too small for our eyes to see, things are not doing as we think they must. Almost as if God is not so totally in control. Almost as if He doesn’t care!

That is the nature of His creation! The behavior of a grain of sand, or cannon ball, or space satellite, or planet, all do do what we, or He, wants. They end up where we want them to go. Work as we want them to. Produce what we need. All the while the population of their individual parts are just sort of doing things without, ignoring, resisting, being crazy (maybe popping off into outer space now and then).

If that is how God designed the creation, then that is a pattern He is well acquainted with. Comfortable with. Enjoys. And is still in control of – of the final (or intermediate, according to our eyes) outcomes. If that is “His invisible attributes”, that is how He might equally not worry about, need to be so sovereign over us, and our every deed and act and word that “nothing happens apart from God’s decree”. We can have free will, even while we are chosen, or He has a “plan for us”, and a plan for the rise and fall of nations, and the last day! If our computers can predict where a crazy mass of countless particles will go when launched into space, to within inches of our calculations, how much more can God’s mind, which is so big as to have created the universe as easily as a playhouse for your daughter, be able to leave us as much free will as we can comprehend, and yet know where we, or someone else, will accomplish each and every one of His purposes and plans?

See how easily science and scripture can explain, make sense of, remove seemingly mutual contradictions of each other? For both the believers and non believers?

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Posted By admin on April 8, 2009

In a letter to the church in Corinth, Paul wrote,

“Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. (2Cor 7:10, NIV)

Can you think of anything that could make the case for what Paul said any clearer than the steady stream of “mass killings” grabbing the headlines in newspapers and TV newsrooms this past month or two? An AP (Associated Press) article by reporter Allan G. Breed says at least 53 people have been killed. Jiverly Wong shot to death at least 13, and then himself, in a Civic Center catering to immigrants studying up for citizenship, in Binghamton, N.Y. Robert Stewart murdered 8 in a nursing home in Carthage, N.C. In Graham, Washington, a father executed his five children. In fact, during the past few weeks massacres of one’s own families seem to have become a cottage industry. And if there is any common denominator to be found, it is that every one of the killers were acting out of a self-pitying immersion in ”worldly sorrow”, and their worldly sorrow lead to a slaughter of innocents and suicides. Sorrow over what? A loss of a job, a divorce, even the failure to do well in his language studies in his citicenship classes. Bummed out, broken hearted, broke and frustrated or loss of self-esteem.

The AP reporter recognized the causes, the situations and events, but missed the real cause that lead to death, of themselves and the innocents. The AP reporter talked to a host of worldly “experts” and authorities. And remained puzzled at the massacres. Like one of his experts (a criminologist by the name of Levin) said, ”Many have all these symptoms but they never get the disease,” Levin said. “They may blame other people for their problems. They may be isolated so they have no support systems in place. And yet, they don’t hurt anybody.”

That’s because it’s not the problems, not the circumstances, not the breakups or the failures. Everyone has those. But some have nowhere to take them, no backup, no way they can see to rise above, get beyond, hope for a better future. So, just as Paul said, worldly sorrow leads to death. Physical death. Spiritual death. Even eternal death. It is what the god of this world wants, counsels, and triumphs in, always death!

And what is it that the other half of Paul’s equation says? He said, ”Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret.”  God, repentance, salvation, and no regret. How can you argue with that? By lacking belief or faith (confidence) in any of the first three. If they are there, if any of these poor souls had the first three, the last would be unavoidable, there would be no regret. By anyone. No loss of innocents, no sad and eternally regretful suicide, no murder, no weeping in any of the many homes destroyed by their sorrow. It’s so certain, it could be written with the absoluteness of a mathematical equation: God+repentance+salvation=no regret.

Believe in God and you take your sorrow, whatever the problem that causes it, to God. You give it to Him, you pray to Him, You ask Him to heal the hurt, get you past it, lift you up and get you to the next good thing in store for you in His plans for you (”For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11) Godly sorrow gets you past the hurt and dissapointment because it de facto gives you hope … in a better future.

Believing in God leads you, then, to repentance. That is not, as so many (even Christians) think, a “confession” of your faults or mistakes or sins, but a “turning around”. Maybe a confession would help, or a recognition and admission to yourself (or even some aggrieved part) about some mistake(s) you’ve made, or shortcomings you could remedy (like another English class and more effort). But really, the repentance is at bottom, changing your ways in a way that gets you somewhere new. Believing in God, and that He cares, loves, and has promised to to help you if you but ask and trust Him to deliver, de facto gives you hope … for a better future.

Believing in God, and the gospel of Christ, promises salvation. An eternal future of the fullest of joy, in the presence of God (and all the universe is His home!) … de facto the most blessed hope of the future, your future!

Believing in God gives one a Godly sorrow, and banishes all the worldly sorrow which condemned each and every one of these “mass murderers”, as Breed calls them, and all their victims. So there are no regrets.

The fact that the reporter and each of his experts and scholarly authorities could see the events and circumstances that created their sorrows, but could not understand why they could not overcome but resorted to the heinous acts is only testimony to the absence of God in their world and thinking too. And why we are having so many, in increasing frequency, these massacres. Its not povety, unemployment, divorce, or insults. These things have always been around, and everyone has suffered one or more … often time and time again. No, its the absence of God in our lives. In our society. For who, but the most stubborn unbeliever, cannot but admit that had any one of these killers believed in God, and the promises of God, and the gospel of salvation, they would not have been in the news. They would not have killed the innocents. And there would not have been all the weeping, would there?

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