Reminiscence

Blogging has helped me grow in many ways and I figured it would be good to end this blog in a "looking back" kind of way. I'd heard many opinions of Blogging or otherwise sharing ones thought online. Some consider it almost to be part of a new communal consciousness; others consider it extremely dangerous to share any kind of information online. To me, this is an experiment of no true cost to myself and at the same time great gain as well. What have I gained…?

Well, having my inner thoughts and views subject to the scrutiny of any passing eye has lead me to act and think in a way that straightens a once crooked road, if you get my meaning. I certainly do not want to be thought of as irrational, uncaring, ignorant, hypocritical, or arrogant.

Additionally, this has refined my thoughts and the process I think by. It has helped in my vocabulary, my spelling (a little), and how I express myself on a number of wide range topics. In a way, all this thinking and writing and being accountable for my thoughts has helped me mature by making me very aware of how I think, which I’ve noticed is something that many people don’t really attempt to learn.

Anyway, as much as I might love to do this it has to end eventually and I really have slowed to a crawl lately. So that is it for now, I'm signing off; it has been fun, thanks for playing, I hope you enjoyed it.

The archive on the left side of page will remain open to anyone who wants access to those 300+ posts. I will be checking back from time to time and comments will find their way to me, but a new chapter is beginning elsewhere...

Tough Talk (part 1)

In the last two weeks we have been addressing youth relationships in Sunday school. It is proving to be an eye opening process. We are not playing into the who should you date and what you should do on a date angle. Instead we are ditching the cultural dating of America for the historical and biblical model of courtship. This is likely going to be rejected, but they will be aware of the right way and why they ought to do it. The truth is that both the idea of “dating” and the idea of “adolescence” stem from evolutionary foundations and do not occur in any culture aside from the past 200 or so years. These two ideas have generated so much destruction in our culture in that time period and can be attributed with the some of the reason behind the horrid stats of divorce, abuse, teen pregnancy, and more in this country.

Simply put, adolescence was supposed to be the time in between childhood and adulthood where a child was allowed to partake in adult activities on a limited basis to learn adult things. But if a child does not need to accept the responsibility in order to gain access to adult things why mature? You can see as well as I that in our society the age range of adolescence has expanded as generations have been considered adult by their ages and not their maturity; they are able to act, but to not act as adults should.

This leads into the dating scene in America which is truly godless and selfish. In today’s dating world we teach that one should test the waters, gaining experience, and learn by trial and error. This has created a love’em and leave’em mentality and plenty of broken families or broken hearts.

The biblical models for these things are different and it pains me that the church has forgotten. The right way is not to think a child is ready before they are. You would not give your child a stick of dynamite and tell them to learn by doing, but you give your child the ability to enter into relationships without understanding and then encourage them to light the fuse? Where is the love in that methodology?

This brings me to a long lost topic below...

Tough Talk (part 2)

Not long ago I spoke with some people on a topic that has always been with me. In the past marriage and divorce have been topics to avoid here on the blog, but today in America divorce is something that effects the vast majority. With a topic like that how can you speak without addressing nearly all the hearts touched by it? Still, since the blog is closing down all bets are and some things ought to be stated despite the risks.

As with the earlier addressed topics of “adolescence” and modern “dating”, the topic of divorce is one that God’s people ought to take seriously, even if the godless world could care less. Yet, this is not the case all around me. It is fair to say that before a person was saved they may have married, divorced, and re-married. But it kills me that what seem to be rock solid Christians who are enjoying what the bible calls adulterous relationships. Let me glance over this for any wandering eyes.

Genesis 2:24 tells us that God created marriage to be between one woman and one man and even gives minor attributes to the state of marriage.

Mark 10:3-9 tells us that marriage is a life-long union and that Moses’ divorce concept does not override Gods works, marriage is life long.

Romans 7:1-3 tells us that marriage is a bond until death and we should treat it as such while claiming Christ

Matthew 5:32 tells us that divorcees can’t hold extra-marital relationships without invoking adultery as the original union remains

Luke 16:18 tells us that people who divorce must remain single or cause adulterous relationships.

1 Corinthians 7:10-11 tells us again that divorce is not to be done, but if it is done reconciliation abstinence is the only remedy.

Hebrews 13:4 tells us that marriage should be honored and kept pure as it was created and those considered adulterers (marriage corrupters) will be judged accordingly as it is a sin.

Unfortunately, people today misunderstand what divorce was and who created it. In this way they turn to the only allowable reason for divorce, which is unfaithfulness (Matthew 5:30-32). So today society thinks that divorce is a free pass, a clean start, but the divorce that Moses created was actually more like today’s legal separation; the vowels were still active, but the two parties didn’t have to deal with each other. The key point here is that the vowels are still active.

The point being, that while the church and the secular world both seem to think divorce is a clean slate, that is not how God sees it. A person can get a divorce according to God under one instance, but even then the union is still active until death. As sad as it may be for a divorced person to not be able to re-marry, ever, it is sadder still to think of the masses committing a life long adultery in the name of love because they failed to understand God’s true view of this heartbreaking topic.

Dragons and Unicorns

A lot of mocking follows where the bible believer goes these days. People attack the biblical pastor, biblical student, and biblical political figure with little discrimination. The reasons are varied and yet with all that variety one thing shines true; under a hint of scrutiny the reasons are steeped in confusion (often strengthened by emotion), not based in truth. Over the years I have developed a keen eye for interpretations, presuppositions, and other assumptions and it is wonderful, in a way, to be able to see the mistakes people make in reasoning. Still, I imagine if the people who reject the bibles account really knew that the bible held accounts of unicorns and dragons (some that breathe fire) they would all the more attack it under the assumption that such creatures are mythical because they were raised in a world that believed so.

To these mockers I imagine that Hollywood movies and special effects would flood their minds as they chuckled at the bible believer. Yet all the Christian needs to do is ask, “why not?” They might say that such animals are impossible or mythical, but the Christian could say “why” again. Point of fact, the Narwhal (uni-horned white whale), which has a single elegant horn on its head and the bombardier beetle which can squirt a chemical concoction from its backside which is both stinky and explosively hot. So it is fair that the bible believer asks why these creatures (large lizard creatures and uni-horned horses) which are spoken of in scripture are assumed mythical. Is it because they truly couldn’t have existed or because the unbeliever automatically rejected the scriptural account on baseless reaction from rebellion? It is a fair and provocative question.

In reality, a trustworthy eye-witness account such as the bible is not to be assumed as false without reasoning, even by the staunch unbeliever. In reality, animals such as the “electric eel” do not show signs of their special shocking gift in their bones so why would a fire breathing dinosaur? In reality, dinosaurs (“dragons”) walked with men from the beginning. And the possibility of a single horned horse is more than possible. Truly, our world is filled with wondrous things, but we must be careful to keep our assumptions and our facts separate.