Opus 2025-175: What Did You Call Me?

My sensitivity was first roused when a friend called me names during a discussion of eschatology.  I think the first time it went over my head but he kept repeating it until it registered.  It registered that I was being labelled and put in a box and I didn’t know what the box was.  I still don’t.  I think I just laughed at him.

If you are in a graduate level theology debate using some of the big words might save a lot of time.  When you are a normal person seeking understanding of another normal person’s crazy ideas they only confuse the issue.  Do you know the difference between modalism and molinism?  I do but not under those names.  I would need to look them up.

My friend likes to accuse me of spiritualizing.  My feelings were hurt.  That had to be something really bad.  When he explained what he meant by it I began to see it everywhere.  When I looked it up I started to realize he meant using allegory or any kind of figurative interpretation.  Once I understood that I embraced the term and now when he uses it I just say, “Thank you.”  Politically I have learned to treasure the moments people call me a Fundamentalist, a right winger or narrow minded.  They bring a smile to my face.

A book I read recently liked to accuse people of Latitudinarianism.  Again it has a range of meanings.  The author meant it to be anyone who had any flexibility.  To him it meant such things as accepting people as Christians who don’t believe in the trinity.  Even worse, someone who did not use the KJV.  That second thing I made up, I think.  By his definition I would be a latitudarian because I accept people into the fold who eat fish on Friday or baptize infants.  I am willing to give people latitude on things I don’t see as essential or that are not addressed in the Bible.

Be thick skinned.  Be patient.  Don’t be afraid to ask, “What does that mean?”  You will be surprised to find out that a lot of times people use terms and don’t know how to define them.
Above all, be kind.  I don’t think there will be a vocabulary lesson at the final judgement.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-174: Unusual Blessing

There are things in the Bible that I read which just make me scratch my head.  Maybe that is why I am going bald.  Look at this,

Deuteronomy 33:24 (KJV) And of Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil.

The basic blessing of the children is easy to understand.  The same with his family relationships.  What is this bit about dipping his foot in oil?

This is one of those rare cases where I feel a need to look at the comment section of my software.  The only explanation I can get is that this means “may you have so much wealth that you can wash your feet in olive oil.”

In looking at suggested cross references I found this,

(Job 29:6 KJV)  When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil;

Unfortunately that does not deepen my understanding, just my confusion.

Cultural differences can be entertaining.

May you dip your feet in oil.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-173: The Optimism of Children

One of the bits of Clickbait I saw this morning focused on China withering away because of it’s low fertility rate.  That’s one of the common memes that we see about how world population is declining and we are going to have a crisis over that.  People love a crisis.  They have to have something to obsess over.

I think the population situation is a good way to evaluate how we look at the future.  Some people want to have children.  Some people shudder at the thought.  It tells you a lot about their values and their priorities.

Are some people having children a mark of their optimism of the future?  They believe there is going to be a future.  They want to be a part of that future through their descendants.  They want to make the world better by contributing to that.  So they have children  They don’t just have children.  They invest themselves in those children.  That makes a big difference too.

Another sign of values expressed by having or not having children is the reason why people chose not to.  Often it is because they want to live high, party and have a great time and they feel children will get in the way.  This is called narcissism.  This is a self-centered attitude towards everything and it is a poison in our society.  Like many poisons we can handle a small amount.  Warfarin, if you take it in the right amount, will help thin your blood if you have issues that need thin blood.  In larger concentrations it becomes rat poison.

Which will it be?

Some of us are beyond the stage of having children.  We’ve done our thing and we are sticking by it because there’s nothing we can do about it.  However, I noticed that I am surrounded by more and more people who are celebrating life, having children, and investing in the future.  My daughters church is full of people who have six children.  My brothers were very productive.  Alas, I only had two and one of mine never married but I still rejoice in them, and I still rejoice in the fact that I have two grandchildren.

So if you are done having children, celebrate life by being supportive of people who are still in the process.  Sometimes that may involve taking some of that food you have stored under your bed and donating it to a family with many mouths to feed.  If you do it with the right attitude, and with joy, they will except it in the same attitude.

Have a blessed day and a blessed future.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-172: The New Chosen

If you look at the Old Testament, you find a lot of references to Israel as a nation. We consider them the chosen people.

All of that changed at Calvary.  No longer is God dealing with us as a nation or a large organization.  He has no blanket promises to those who are citizens of America or any other country.  He is now dealing with us as individuals.  It a sense He always has dealt with individuals, but the theme of the Bible is about Israel preparing the world for the coming of the Messiah.

So Calvary changed everything.  I have a friend who accuses me of being guilty of something he calls “replacement theology”.  I didn’t even know the term when he first brought it up.  When he gave me his interpretation of the title I rejected it.  The problem is the more often he accuses me of this and I look at what the Bible is telling me, the more guilty I am of a heresy, his definition not mine, I never thought of committing.

God is not dealing with a chosen people now so much as he is dealing with chosen persons.  What that does to Israel is that each member of that nation is responsible for personal decisions.  No longer is there a blanket pardon or one-size-fits-all blessing.  If you are selling red heifers or have a piece of the new temple stored in your garage that might upset you but you can still rebuild a temple if you want.  Just don’t plan on fitting it into Revelation because it ain’t there, as the apostle John said,

(Rev 21:22 KJV)  And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-171: The Glorious Wipe Out

I was watching a meme that had some motion to it, and it showed a skier on a truly awesome slope going through an even more awesome wipe out.  He bounced, he twisted, he shot up into the air, he slammed into the ground.  At the end, he raised his hands in victory signifying the fact that he was still alive.

I don’t think he would I have tried that in the middle of summer.  He would have bounced once, broken half the bones in his body, bounced again and broken the other half, crushed his skull, and if he lived to tell about it, would not be able to walk to the microphone.  He was able to take the risk because of the cushion of the snow.  It was not a smart risk, but there was some chance of surviving.  Maybe he tried it first in his driveway.

Some people choose to ride roller coasters for the thrill.  You have seen the looks of terror on people in the first car when they come over that first downslope.  Some will run around to get in line again.  The reason for most of them is they feel they can trust the engineers who designed it.  They actually believe that the minimum wage employees who inspected the nuts and bolts to see if they were still tight came into work that day.  That is real faith.

Some people race motorcycles.  That is dangerous enough.  Have you seen those camera shots taken behind the foot of the rider as the sparks fly on a turn?  It is either awesome of incredibly stupid.  In the memes you occasionally see some of the stunts that bikers will do on the streets.  I enjoy the ones where they end up chasing their motorcycle down the street.

Life is full of challenges.  Some are required.  They are part of the package.  Would you have voted yes about heading down the birth canal?  Some we can avoid.  You don’t really need to do a wheely on the busy freeway.  

My trust in God  makes it possible for me to keep moving forward even in the face of adversity and struggles.  I have a confidence in Providence.  I don’t know that everything will go according to my plan or that I will always have money left in the check book of life.  I do know that God can work miracles out of seeming disaster.  

I always said I would get another motorcycle when my kids got old enough for me to die.  I never did.  The ground looks awful hard and I don’t heal as fast as I used to.  I am also wiser if not smarter.  Some things deserve trust.  Some things are a mirage.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-170: Discerning Deer

Looking out over my yard in the Texas hill country I noticed that there are several places where the grass has staged an early recovery from the frost in anticipation of spring.  In some places it’s growing well.  Most places are still totally dead.  Every once in a while, I will see deer grazing on the grass and I always wonder why they choose what they do and ignore others.  Now the big question I have with deer or that I’ve heard other people ask is why do they all seem to disappear when deer season opens?  I have a few suggestions:

It could just be some mystical force radiated by the deer gods telling them to go hide.  Never rule out the possibility of the supernatural.

It could be much simpler.  Maybe they hear gunshots over the next ridge and then put 22 and 22 together.  I used to see this kind of behavior at middle school.  Everyone was minding their own business doing whatever it is that middle school students do when no one tells them what they should be doing.  Suddenly someone yells “Fight”.  If it’s a real fight they sense it and they all rush toward it from all over campus.  If it’s just somebody trying to start a stampede, they sense that also and just stay where they are doing what they’re doing.  Reverse that with a deer, it takes about the same amount of intelligence.

It could be that they hear the sound of pop tops from the beer cans being opened on the back of the pick ups along with the raucous laughter of drunk hunters telling dirty jokes.  Again, it doesn’t take a lot of brain power to know they need to be somewhere else.

It could be the Daniel Boones of the twenty-first century sneaking through the forest and making enough noise to wake the dead.

It could be that the national weather service put out a warning about flash, floods, high winds, and hunter’s over the internet, which the deer picked up on their Fitbits.

Anyway, you look at it they’re not eating my grass today.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-169: Contrast

The law of the Old Testament stands against the blood of the New, not against grace.

Grace is present from Genesis to Revelation.  All depends upon the decision of God to extend his power in whatever realm it’s needed.  It can be the grace leading to salvation.  You can see the grace of Jesus growing in His knowledge and wisdom.  Witness the grace that saved us from Hitler and the Nazis in World War II.  Grace has always been with us.

What is different is the blood.  The Old Testament sacrificial system did not forgive sin.  Yes, it made atonement, but it did not remove the sin and cleanse the heart.  That was the role of the blood.  Sacrificing a bull and pouring his blood on the altar was a type.  A type is an activity, a ritual or thing which points down the road to something more significant.  I believe Hebrews tells us there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood.  That blood was poured out on the cross, it did not happen in the temple.  Yes, blood was shed.  But that blood that was shared in the temple was not adequate for all mankind.  That’s why John said, “Behold the Lamb of God Who cometh to take away the sins of the world.”

What got me started on this?  I was again looking at Deuteronomy 28.  The first 14 verses talk about the blessings from following the law of God and keeping the commandments.  The rest of the chapter. which is really long, on all of the curses produced by disobedience.  I just read the blessings today.  As I was reading, my radar was turned on looking for any promise of forgiveness of sin and eternal life.  I didn’t see it.  Maybe I just missed it.  Maybe it’s there somewhere.  I will check again.  But I don’t think so.

Every promise given in the first part of that chapter deals with boots on the ground.  One of the things that I think I keep seeing is that the purpose of the law was to give Israel the advantage in their cultural and civic living.  There’s a place earlier in Deuteronomy, where it says that as long as the law is kept it will help them to conquer the promised land.  The law has a place.  Any pagan culture could have adopted the law and it would improve the quality of life and standard living.  It would not bring them salvation, nor make them the chosen people.

Israel did not become the chosen people because they excepted the law.  They became the chosen people, because God pointed at them and said, “You.”

We are not the chosen people but we can rejoice in the standards and values shared with us by the law of God.

homo unius libri