NIGHT WRITING IN THE MORNING LIGHT: Christian Essays

Second Greatest Event

2011-12-25T10:12:00.001-05:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS

I suggest you scroll down and turn off my music player before watching the video.

A Little Folding of the Hands...

2011-11-13T11:54:00.001-05:00

There is hanging on the walls of our home office paintings of cats. The ones clearest in the photo are of Big Cats, not lions in this case, but a tiger and a leopard. We've had these canvases for years; for decades. They are reasonably large, I suppose, three foot by two foot. They are not particularly heavy for they aren't framed. Well, I guess that isn't quite true, there is a frame of light wood over which the canvas has been stretched and fastened. See, we often look at something and admire it and forget what it may hide underneath. We forget there is a not-so-lovely wooden frame behind the image.

There is also, hidden, rather thin nails that hold these pictures on the wall. I can't see the nails, but I know they are there because I am the one who hammered them into the wallboard sometime ago. They are there, but I ignore their presence, not certain whether they have become bent with age or if the hole they occupy has wore. I have put out of mind that these pictures stand only as long as the pins that hold them remain straight and true.

The title of this post is taken from verse 33 of Proverbs 24.

Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:

Yes, I know in context this line refers to laziness. But there are many reasons for a little folding of the hands.

To pray is one, for many of us were taught to fold our hands while speaking with God. It's a sign of honor. Some even fold their hands to show respect and honor to others. There are a great number of people in Central Pennsylvania who could use some folding of hands in prayer at this time.

This is because of another purpose for a little folding of the hands, a representation of doing nothing when something should be done. There is probably a lot of folding of hands, or more precisely, a wringing of hands now by some or many who folded their hands and went to sleep over some recent years.

What happened at Penn State should be illuminating to us all. It should give us all pause.

Here we have a great institution sullied by one pin in its wall. A sin, any sin by any one, may have grave consequences for all. Eve took a bite of fruit and she shared it with her spouse and they tried to cover it up and look to where it led? A man became an icon and a VIP and he started a worthwhile charity (if perhaps not for so worthwhile motives) and he befriended people upon pedestals. But this man was a bent nail and when someone noticed the bend all the others folded their hands.

Now a legendary coach is dismissed and disgraced. A large university is rocked and socked and heads have rolled. The worthwhile charity is wavering, perhaps to fall as well, because of the bent nail at its foundation.

Do not think sin, big or small, of commission or omission does not have consequences in this world.

Proverbs 24 has other things to say. Verses 10 to 12:

If you falter in a time of trouble,  how small is your strength! Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,”  does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?  Does not he who guards your life know it?  Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?

Some men of stature saw a troubling thing and they did not take steps to rescue those being led away, those whose childhood and innocence was being slaughtered for the pleasures of a predator, much a wolf in sheep's clothing. Do you think they now see they are receiving their due according to what they have done?

Events in the Early Ministry of Christ: A Palsied Man

2011-10-14T14:43:00.002-04:00

PALSIED MAN LOWERED THROUGH A ROOF

The Palsied Man Let Down Through the Roof by James Jacques Tissot, c.1886-94

Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:17-20

Back in Capernaum

And after some days he entered into a ship, and passed over and came into his own city again. He entered Capernaum and it came to pass on a certain dayit was noised that he was in the house.

Jesus made his initial tour about Galilee and gained a good bit of fame as a result, enough so it has become difficult to move about freely. He couldn’t even find solitude in the wilderness; the people followed him there. After several days of this, he returned to his base city, Capernaum. He crossed the sea in a ship, possibly escaping notice briefly. Eventually word on the street grew that he “was in the house”. This is probably the house where Jesus was living, which many scholars believe was the home of Peter and Andrew. It had to be a house the people associated with Jesus being in town, since it was rumored he “was in the house”. The continue reading this piece, CLICK HERE.

Event in the Early Ministry of Christ: There Came a leper...

2011-10-13T06:59:00.000-04:00

HEALING OF A LEPER

Matthew 8:2-4, 4:25; Mark 1:40-45; Luke 5:12-16

A Town in Galilee

And behold it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, there came a leper, a man full of leprosy who seeing Jesus fell on his faceand worshipped him, beseeching him and kneeling down to him, besought him sayingto him, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”

This would be a man in a desperate situation. Luke, the physician, says he was “full” of leprosy. The Greek word used is πλήρης (pleres), meaning “filled up” or “covered in every part”. He must have been hard to look at and certainly unable to hide his condition. He probably had suffered a long time with it as well for it to develop to the point it covered every part. Most likely he would not have lived much longer in this advanced state.

To continue reading about this man and what happened, CLICK HERE.

Note: A while back -- quite a while back - I started a journey to do my own Harmony and Commentary on the Gospels. It is a slow process and I really would like to introduce others to what I have written there. This is a recent entry on that journey and clinking on CLICK HERE above will take you to my take on this passage.

It you would like to start at the beginning of my Commentary, then go to HERE.

Figuring Figs

2011-09-06T20:26:00.002-04:00

I was thinking about fig trees again. This is probably because I am a nut. Now I know that figs are not nuts, but now a days we Christians are considered by the world to be nuts, at least, if we really mean it. It wasn't always so. When the picture of me as Mr. Peanut was taken, saying you were a Christian was perfectly acceptable. (The photo was taken in 1951, I was ten years old and just won a costume prize in a Halloween Parade. My grandmother had made the suit out of long underwear and a potato sack.)

I also know that peanuts are not nuts, but legumes. But that is beside the point. Frankly, I am not certain why being called a nut is an insult. Nuts are very nutritious and healthy. They are also something which grows and brings about new life. Isn't this part of the commission of being a Christian?

Anyway, I want to talk about Fig Trees and the End Times, and I know when we dare venture into this whole arena of Christ's Second Coming, we get branded as double nutty. Well, I'm not a date setter or any of that stuff, but I am somebody who believes that the Apocalypse is getting closer and it has something to do with a fig tree. So the first thing I want to discuss here is (wait for it) fig trees.

Let me present a harmonized version of Jesus with the cursed fig tree:

The next day early in the morning as they were leaving Bethany, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree by the road in leaf he went up to it to find out if it had any fruit, but when he reached it, he found nothing on it except leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to it the tree, “May you never bear fruit again! May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.

Immediately the tree withered.

When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked.

Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

Matthew 21:18-22 and Mark 11:12-14 Luke 21:29-31

(Now if you want a detailed look at this instance, then you can go to my series called, "Russelling the Fig Tree" consisting of several posts about it beginning with this one, Cliches and Round Abouts. )

I believe the fig tree here was a sign and a substitute for Israel and Judaism. When did this occur? After Jesus had entered Jerusalem to the cheering crowds waving fronds and calling him king, what we Christians call Palm Sunday. These people had blossomed along the road like leaves on the fig tree and it would seem there was the promise then of fruit, of the acceptance of their Messiah.

Yet, here was Jesus along with his Apostles kind of hiding out in Bethany after that event, not being welcomed into the Temple in Jerusalem by the leaders of the faith at all. He was keeping away because there were plots to have him killed. Instead of it being time for the bearing of the fruit of his ministry, it was time for him to die for mankind. He was coming down from Bethany for that purpose, for the Passion Week.

What happened to the fig tree with its leaves, but no figs? It withered and no one would eat its fruit again. This is exactly what happened to Israel after the rejection of The Christ. They withered and their people were carried away and dispersed across the world, the nation was no more and their Temple was torn down. Their religion could no longer be practiced as the Law of Moses demanded. It appeared they were done as a people.

But in that very week, Jesus spoke to his disciples about a fig tree as a sign of his Second Coming.

“He told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees when they sprout leaves. Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: you can see for yourselves and you know as soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things happening, you know that it, the kingdom of God, is near, right at the door.”

Matthew 24:32-33, Mark 13:28-29

The fig tree of Israel sprouting leaves again. How could that be? Israel was gone, its inhabitants gone. But again, Scripture had predicted Israel would arise from dry bones as a nation again, because God had made promises to Abraham and his descendants and Israel must exists for these to be fulfilled, which is why there have been so many attempts by the world to destroy israel. Yet in 1948 there it was again and today it stands where it stood and its people are back. But what does this mean? It means summer is near when the fruit will appear. It means Jesus is at the door.

But many other things were to happen when this fig tree appears and it will find itself encompassed about by all of the world, against it, ready to rip it out by its roots and cast it on a fire. And then we will soon see Jesus return.

I suggest we watch the end of this month, specifically September 28 through the 30th. No, I am not predicting dates for anything, just saying we should take note of these days in light of the world turning against Israel, a dangerous thing to do. On September 28 an United Nation vote looms on the status of Palestinian Statehood. Which ever way this vote goes, I think it will result in wrath against Israel.

September 29 is Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, the time it is thought the Hebrews were freed as slaves in Egypt and also the time in is believed that God created the world. Certainly a date for new beginnings. It also is believed according to Jewish tradition that it marks the time when God decides who will live and who will die.

It may be interesting to see how this month plays out for the fig tree.

From Hero to Obscurity

2011-08-21T14:28:00.000-04:00

Words often have many meanings. We hear hero we may each draw a different picture in our mind. It is the same with the term obscurity. Erase what you may be thinking for these are the synonyms I want you to accept, hero as celebrity and obscurity as inconspicuous.

This is the case with twelve men Jesus selected to be Apostles. Some stood out and today we might call them stars -- Peter, John, James. Others hovered in the background on the border of anonymity -- Simon Zealotes, Lebbaeus, James ben Alphaeus. The rest occasionally stepped to center stage and had their 15 minutes of fame, then retreated again into the background. One gained eternal infamy.

Of course, the "stars" we know quite a bit about. They are all over the Gospels and even wrote some books of their own. The "obscurity", not so much, which is why they are obscure. You can Google these fellows and maybe find a lot of verbiage about each, long entries in Wikipedia perhaps. But if you read carefully, as you should, somewhere in the articles will be the phrases, "According to tradition" or "the legends say". For my purpose here I prefer to stay only with what the Gospels and Book of Acts tell us.

I just want to talk about Jesus' meeting these guys. So for the moment, let's settle back in our seats, with our popcorn and juju fruits and watch a film or two or three portraying the "calling".

The scene begins with this Hippie-looking guy, long hair and beard flowing in the sea breeze, blue eyes reflecting the water, strolling down the beach. He is all sunshine and flowers. He looks over and sees several fisherman fooling around with their nets. He waves and calls out, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men!" The men immediately drop their gear, dash across the sand and off they go, a jolly band.

Next scene, Jesus traipsing across a hill side in silhouette against the sun with twelve men single file ambling behind.

Wow, that Jesus had some charisma! What did he do hypnotize those fishermen?

As usual the Hollywood take and the public perception of Biblical events is a wee off.

First of all, that calling by the Sea of Galilee only involved four of the twelve and it wasn't Jesus' first contact with them. (Read what really happened at "Jesus Calls His First Disciples" in Nitewrit's Own Companion and Commentary of the Gospels.)

The four men Jesus called to follow him that day were two sets of brothers, Simon Peter and Andrew, and James and John. Three of these Jesus had met about a year earlier and he had probably spent a good deal of time with them over that period. John and Andrew were the two followers of John the Baptist, who had pointed Jesus out to them after Jesus came out of the wilderness. Andrew fetched his brother Simon and they spent the rest of the day with Jesus. (Read John 1:35-51.) James is never mentioned as being there, one of the few times in the Gospels where James and John aren't mentioned together. Perhaps James had stayed home to tend the business. Probably John filled him in when he got home and both brothers spoke with and traveled with Jesus during the coming year.

It was in Bethany at this same time that Jesus met Philip of Bethsaida and Nathanael Bartholomew of Cana. We do not know what Philip and Nathanael Bartholomew did for a living. Bartholomew is the Greek for the Aramaic "bar Tolomy", so his name was Nathanael son of Tolmay. Tolmay might have been his father's name. Tolmay also translates as "furrows; thus Bartholomew can be "son of the furrows", thus his occupation might have been farming. We know he was from Cana from later Scripture, after Christ's resurrection when Jesus meets five Apostles along the sea. These four are listed (John 21) as the two sons of Zebedee (James and John), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee and two others. One of the others is quickly revealed to be Simon Peter. The other is not identified. Perhaps it was Peter's brother Andrew or maybe it was Philip. Nathanael and Philip seemed to be close friends.

It is very likely these four men had traveled to Bethany together to be with John the Baptist. It is plain from the text they were seeking the Messiah, so they had a common purpose. This also indicates these were devout Jews who knew Scripture and prophesy. They knew the time was ripe for the appearance of the Messiah. Philip lived in Bethsaida and so did John and Peter. Nathanial lived not far away in Cana.

When these four (assuming James was not there with John) accompanied Jesus back to Galilee, their first stop was at a wedding in Cana. Some have even speculated this was the marriage of Nathanael, but that would not fit the wedding customs of those times. Most likely they went to the wedding because Jesus was invited. His mother was involved in it. It was convenient to leave Nathanael there in his home town.
(You can read the full story of these meetings and early travels with Jesus in my Companion.)

So, to recap, before this so-called calling of the Apostles, Jesus had already befriended and spent time teaching six of them: Simon Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip and Nathaneal Bartholomew. On the day along the seashore when he said, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of me," it was to the first four in this group. These four are always listed first in the listings of the twelve, with Peter always at the top. We hear more about these four throughout the Gospels than any of the others, although not as much of Andrew as the other three. Even so, there are passages indicating Andrew was included is private conversations between Jesus and this group.

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?” Mark 13:3-4

Andrew may have been something of a gatekeeper at the top. He would interact between others.

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus. John 1:41-42

Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. John 12:20-22

The second group that are always named together are Philip, Nathanael Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, with Philip always listed first. If the first group are the heros, the stars, these are those who get a scene or two in the limelight throughout the Gospels. Like the four stars, two of these fellows knew Jesus from the time he had been Baptized by John and returned from the wilderness. When Jesus actually called them to follow on his ministries, we do not know. It may not have been long after he called the first four off their boats.

The only other of the Apostles where we have information about him being met by Jesus and called is Matthew Levi. Jesus had come off a boat into Capernaum, where he was living then, he stopped by a paralyzed man and had a confrontation with some teachers of the law. After curing the man, Jesus went on into town and saw this tax collector at his collection booth. He called to this man to follow him and the man did. His name was Matthew (also Levi). Right after this Jesus has dinner at Matthew's home along with other tax collectors. Here he has a confrontation with the Pharisees over the company he keeps.

This is all we know about any of the "callings" of the Apostles.

The last member of this middle group is Thomas, known as Doubting Thomas to most and also known as Didymus, which is the Greek for Thomas. The name means "The Twin". We don't know if Thomas was actually a twin or not. We also don't know where Thomas was from, what he did for a living, where he met Jesus or how he was called.

The last group I haven't called The Obscurity for nothing. About all we know of these, with the exception of Judas Iscariot, is the names. They appear in the lists of the twelve, always with James son of Alphaeus listed first. We do not know when Jesus met or called these people.

It would seem it was in proximity of when he called the others. It is not that far into his first Galilean ministry when he calls them together and selects them as Apostles.

So you see, the calling of the Apostles is a bit more complex than usually presented in pop culture. In fact, even the term of Apostle is misunderstood. First these men were disciples, along with perhaps many other people. A disciple is a student, someone learning from the teacher. When Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James and John to follow they did so as disciples. After some time went by, Jesus called a number of his disciples to a private place on a mount and there he select twelve to be Apostles. Although Apostles may continue being disciples, that is still learning, disciples aren't necessarily Apostles. Apostles are Messengers, people capable to taking the message to others and teaching others to be disciples. These men were called to be disciples, they were selected to be Apostles.

Lost my followers listing

2011-08-18T10:33:00.002-04:00

Somehow my list of 19 followers disappeared from my Blog. Do not know how or where. I wonder if someone would choose to follow to see if anything new might show up.

Hold Your Four Horses of the Apocalypses (Yes, Apocalypses)

2011-05-24T11:42:00.000-04:00

Left, William Miller - "Jesus Christ will return between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844."

Okay, for those impatient for the end of the world there is good news. You do not have to wait until December 21, 2012. The new date for the end to come is October 21, 2011. We have that on good authority, one Harold Camping.

Now I don't know for sure if Mr. Camping reads my Blog, but apparently he has picked up on my suggestion that God, being patient and loving, might delay the finale. This seems to be his explanation from the little I have heard so far today.

Right, Mayan Calendar: "The world will end on December 21, 2012."

Camping had, of course, actually predicted October 21 to be the end of the world. What he claimed would happen on May 21 was the Rapture and a great worldwide earthquake and the beginning of Judgment. He now says God, being merciful, put all that off to October 21, including the Rapture of the Campingites. I do not know if that is the proper term, but I know many people are afflicted with Campingitis.

Left, Harold Camping: "The world will end in 1994 maybe...er, make that May 21, 2011 absolutely...uh, let's say October 21, 2011 and I'm pretty sure this time, I think."

Why? Because God in his mercy would not even put sinners through the hell of the next five months if that earthquake has happened. Now it will all be over with very quickly. Much more quicker that the predictions of Harold Camping seem to be over.

For my wife, here is the bad news and the good news. October 21 comes too late to get her out of Jury Duty in July or August, but she will get to celebrate one more birthday. Given there will only be about a week left, though, I probably won't get her anything too expensive.

I said in my past post I thought Camping was sincere and he believed in his own research, but if he came up with another date I'd begin to doubt that sincerity. Now I am even a bit suspect of his so-called deep Bible study that determined all this dating. I am beginning to think he may have been dipping into some old-time Adventist literature. Not just this setting dates thing, but his teaching there is no Millennium Rule of Christ and no Hell; that the unsaved simply cease to exist.

Left, Charles Taze Russel: "The Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world will be in 1914." [I don't know if there was a 21st of anything in there.]

William Miller put the date off a few times, saying he must have miscalculated his math somewhere (where have we heard that before) and others decided it had happened, but as a spiritual thing and the real bad stuff still awaited God's decision (which seems familiar, too). Russel, who was influenced by Miller made a couple more stabs at it after 1914 came and went, but like Miller, died before the end came. That is because those guys were born too soon and couldn't possibly have lived to October 21, 2011.

I suppose I will be writing another post about these non-events on October 22, 2011. Unless the Lord should come before then, certainly a possibility.

You see I do believe in Christ's Second Coming, in Judgment Day and in the end of this world. Here is what I have to say about the date. I don't know it. You see, someone once said, "No man knows the day or hour," someone with much more authority that William Miller or Charles Taze Russel or even Harold Camping, a gentlemen known as The Lord Jesus Christ.

Let the Mocking Begin - The Lions are Hungry

2011-05-22T12:30:00.000-04:00

Well, that was pretty anticlimactic. I didn't expect anything, of course. Even so, can I admit, I still felt a bit disappointed. But the only thing that happened on May 21 was a volcano erupting in Iceland.

This is the largest eruption in Grímsvötn in 100 years. (They probably don't have records going further back.) It is bigger than that other volcano eruption last year that shut down air flight in Europe for so long. Iceland has shut down air flight at the moment.

So one big spit in your eye from Mother Earth is all we got on "Judgment Day". That is something, anyway.

Think if the largest eruption in 100 years had happened on Tonga early on in the expectations yesterday, around 6:00 PM their time. That would have shaken some people up for sure, until nothing much happened anywhere else.

Here we are on the twenty-second, safe and secure. The bars are or have had their "End-of-the-World" Parties and the churches are having their sermons on false prophets. Family Radio is still on the air. Some people are pitying "those people" and some are making fun of them. For the world at large this makes for great sport.

Howard Camping may have missed the mark -- again, but you have to give him credit for one of the most successful marketing campaigns in history. In all my years I often heard advertisers claim, "The product everyone is talking about." This is the first time I have really heard everyone talking about it. Everywhere I was this week, everyone I saw, this subject came up. I heard jokes in passing on the street, mentions at work, statuses on Facebook, tweets on Twitter and monologues on TV. There were articles in each newspaper we subscribe to, on the front page no less. It came up both in a poem and in discussion at my Poetry Group meeting on Thursday and again in discussion after the Open Mic at Borders on Friday. It was the postings of many Blogs. I went to the hardware store to buy some dirt yesterday and everyone in the store, customers and clerks, were making comments about the day and what was predicted.

Now by the time I was in the hardware store we knew it wasn't happening. 6:30 PM of the 21 May had already come and gone in much of the world. It was already Sunday, May 22 in Australia and Japan; all of Asia I suppose. I had coincidentally set out to buy my dirt just as it struck 6:30 PM in Jerusalem. When the Temple Mount did not split apart I figure we could definitely relax.

There is much speculation this morning about what Mr. Camping will do now. He is 89 years old, time is running out for him to recalculate and come up with something new. I think Mr. Camping was sincere about his vision, that he truly believed in it. If he comes up with a new date, then I probably won't feel that way anymore. When he wrote and predicted that September in 1994 would see Judgement Day he wrote a book called 1994?. (Boy that makes for awkward punctuation.) There was a question mark and within he mentioned 2011 might actually be a possibility if it wasn't 1994. He gave himself an out.

He left himself no out this time it would seem. He guaranteed it. He said it would absolutely happen. It didn't. End of story with no possible twist to another announcement left, right?

I can think of one.

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Jonah 4:1-2 (KJV)

Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle? Jonah 4:10-11 (KJV)

Why in the world would I think these couple quotes from Jonah could be used by Camping as an out? You remember Jonah? He was that prophet whom God told to go one way and instead he ran the other, got on a ship and tried to get away from it all. You know, the guy who ended up in the belly of a great fish that everybody keeps mistakenly calling a whale. There is a lot we can say about the plight of Jonah and Christianity, Jesus and salvation, but Jonah doesn't have anything to do with Judgment Day, the end of the world or Harold Camping, does he?

Well, it could have if we think about Jonah's situation. Why did he run away from what God asked him to do? For that matter, just what did God ask him to do anyway?

God asked Jonah to go to this terrible city called Nineveh, a place so full of sin that God planned to destroy it. He told Jonah to warn those people if they didn't straighten up and fly right they would be toast, and Jonah didn't want to do that. Why?

Because Jonah had a bad attitude to begin with. He hated those Ninevehian, uh—Ninevehites...uh, those people of Nineveh. He didn't want them saved, he wanted them flattened, but he feared they just might repent and God wouldn't smite them, which is exactly what happened. This made Jonah really sore at God. Jonah tells exactly what his feeling were. "And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil."

Harold Camping actually used this story of Jonah recently in explaining his coming Day of Judgment. He used it as urging everyone to repent, but also to show how God was patient and sometimes spared people and places because of his compassion for the few who were not sinners. You can find several such examples in the Old Testament.

It would be quite possible to put forth that God was ready to pronounce judgment upon the world, but out of his desire that no one be lost postponed the date. The reason would be there are some who God knows will come to Salvation yet and so a new Judgment Day must occur.

As a Christian, who believes a real Second Coming of Christ must eventually come on a day and hour no man knows, I am not effected much by what Mr. Camping does or doesn't do. I do take what he did seriously, though, as causing great harm.

It certainly harmed many folk who choose to put their faith in Mr. Camping. Some of these will suffer as a result of this fiasco. But so will we Christians who argued against his interpretations all along. The world isn't going to be overly discriminating between some of what we believe and what they have been hearing preached for many moons in the media leading up to May 21. No, the mocking began in earnest last week and it will continue for a while, and in the future anyone proposing Judgment Day is at hand will be quickly compared to Mr. Camping's crusade.

Christians are fair game these day, as the Bible told us we would be. We have plenty of those out there quite willing to feed us to the lions, if not in actuality, at least figuratively.

Jesus left us in the dark as to exactly when he would return or when Judgement Day would be. However, he and other prophets left us with a number of signs that will point more and more to that time as we approach it. As a younger man I used to be mystified reading the prophecies, the events that would begin to happen, and yet the Bible said men still wouldn't turn to God or believe this was from Him. I wondered how knowing such happenings before they happened anyone could deny they were from God. But it recent years I have heard many discussions that would put in place excuses to not believe God had a hand in such things, for instance "Global Warming".

This May 21 will make it more difficult to get anyone to seriously consider such prophecies if we begin to recognize a quicker pace in the signs of the times. People will simply compare any such warnings as akin to Camping's folly.

Remember as well, December 2012 lies ahead. Expect more media coverage of this other prediction of the end of the world. Even though this one has nothing to do with Christianity, it will certainly bring forth much rehashing of the May 21, 2011, failure to launch and all Christian belief will be held up to ridicule as well.

As for me, I trust in the Lord. This is not a prediction of the end of the world, but a prediction of labor pains growing closer together. I would keep awake and keep my eyes on this September and the state of Israel. Yes, indeed, I would.

Is It a Thousand or What?

2011-05-20T10:32:00.000-04:00

This is a follow-up to what I posted yesterday.

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 2 Peter 3:8 (KJV)

And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. Revelation 20:1-3 (KJV)

As perhaps many of you are aware, or have seen many of the placards and billboards, this year has been proclaimed the last. According to Howard Camping Judgment Day will occur on May 21, 2011, a date that has all ready begun somewhere in the South Pacific this very day. In fact, as I begin to write this, it is 12:45 AM, Saturday, May 21 appropriately enough in the Christmas Islands. Thus, if Camping is correct, in less than 12 hours the great earthquake will begin.

I do not believe any such thing will happen, but many do. Camping has said if you dispute him, you must do it from Scripture. There is not enough space here to take on that challenge and I am not such an expert on the Bible to feel equipped to do so. However, there is a statement he has made that popped out at me as making no sense.

In his explanation of the timeline, he has said there is no 1,000-year millennium as traditional Christian prophesy often teaches. It is stated in Revelation that Satan is seized after Armageddon and bound for a 1,000 years after which he is let loose a little bit. He contends the 1,000 is not physical time, but is symbolic. In his scenario, Satan was bound at the time of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. Satan was thus chained up for 1,955 years, until 1988 and then released. In 1988 upon release, Satan then took over all the churches in the world and so everyone who is truly saved should get out of the churches.

He has also stated that during this 1,955 years that Satan was bound, he was still able to roam about seeing whom he could devour like a roaring and sowing "tares" in the churches. I do not quite understand how he could be bound while also roaming free. Perhaps somewhere Mr. Camping explained that.

Note that I said Mr. Camping. I have seen and heard him called in the news media a Preacher or Minister. He is not a minister. He is a civil engineer, turned founder of a Christian radio network called Family Radio. Up until 1988 he was a member in good standing in a Reformed Christian Church, but never more than an Elder. I would call him a Bible scholar.

As long as we are correcting the media, many have gotten great glee in reporting Mr. Camping called for Judgment Day in 1994 and it didn't happen, so he wrote another book. This is technically true, but the original book was 1994?, with a question mark, and he did say in it there was a possibility that 2011 might be the actual year if 1994 wasn't. He has not left himself any wiggle room this time. He has unequivocally and absolutely guaranteed May 21, 2011 is it.

Anyway, back to my problem with 1,000.

Mr. Camping has explained the Devil being bound at the Resurrection for 1,955 year as the fulfillment of the 1,000 year bondage spoke of in Revelation. So how does he explain adding 955 more years on?

He references the passages quoted at the beginning of this post. With 2 Peter 3, He interprets "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" as simply symbolic.

Explaining that numbers are used both figuratively and symbolically in Scripture, he goes on to note we must determine how a number is used, a fact I have no argument with. It is his view that Peter as well as John in Revelation are using it symbolically here. It is his opinion that Peter did not mean a day was literally a thousand years or vice-versa to God, but simply meant "a long period of time". This is also how he viewed the 1,000 years mentioned in Revelation.

This is possible, and certainly in the case of Peter could be exactly right. Peter was calming people impatience about Christ not yet having returned. He began this way: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

Obviously he is telling the believers that what seems a long time to them is nothing to God. I don't see that as the case in Revelation. I feel where it says a 1,000 years there it means a 1,000 years.

Even so, Mr. Campings stretching 1,000 years to 1,955 for the convenience of his timeline is...well...it is a stretch. (I'm not even going to get into his placement of this event where he did.)

A problem with his argument is he is fine with using the 1,000 equals a day concerning other events, for instance, the 7,000 years between when the Great Flood came and this coming Saturday. Here he uses such things as the seven days of Creation, Daniel's Week and the seven days between when God told Noah to get in the Ark and when the rain began as indicating there would be 1,000 years from then to Judgment Day.

In these situations as described by Mr. Camping I don't think you can have it both ways.

There is an irony that Mr. Camping should rely so heavily on Second Peter. In that Book, Peter spends much time warning against false prophets and those who interpret Scripture to their own devices.

A second thing I would like to touch upon is knowing or not knowing the date of the Second Coming. Mr. Camping is emphatic that true saved Christians will know the date and the hour. One reference he uses to support this is from 1 Thessalonians 5:1-10:

But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.

For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

But I see this differently than he. If a thief is going to come to rob your house, you will not know the day or time. However, if there have been a number of burglaries in your neighborhood, then there are signs that such a criminal attempt could be imminent. You would then take protective measures and you would be sober and aware, so when such a crook came you were not caught by total surprise and are ready.

The people who feel safe, who get drunk or go to sleep without care are those who do not believe Christ will come again or dismiss the signs around them. They are taken by surprise.

We Christians need to believe in what Jesus told us and be ever ready for his appearance, not in fear, but in hope. But we shouldn't not so focused on the specific day or hour we lose sight of everything else. That would be counterproductive.

As to going as far as naming the hour, 6:00 PM, that is even more problematic, but this piece is already very long, so we will leave that go for now.

It is now 10:30 here. Less than seven hours to the earthquake begins in the South Pacific, so we shall see, shan't we?

The illustration is "Judgment Day" by Michelangelo.

The full 2 Peter passage:

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. 2 Peter 3:3-17 (KJV)

Within These Next Few Waning Hours

2011-05-19T17:23:00.000-04:00

I suppose it is possible this could be the last post, a time I should be saying goodbye, so long, been nice to know you, my friends, what with Judgment Day coming by the weekend. And if I believed that this would be so, then this would be such a piece.

But I don’t believe it.

Still I am disturbed by some of the mocking comments being made about those who do.

It especially bothers me to hear a Sunday sermon opened this way: “Just so you know just in case the crazies are right and we don’t get to see each other next Sunday … listen today like this is the last day [here]”

The objection is not to simply say, “In case this thing happens, and we are not here another Sunday, listen as if it’s true.” My objection is referring to these people as “crazies”.

As a Christian I will tell you what I believe. I believe in a God who created the world and universe. I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in the Virgin Birth. I believe in the Bible. I believe in the Resurrection. I believe in salvation and a Judgment Day. I believe Jesus will return as He said He would, and following the daily news and seeing how events are occurring and the world is lining up; I believe that the Second Coming is not far off.

I presume this is what many Christian preachers also believe. So are we the “crazies”?

I would never call someone of faith a crazy or a nut case or a wing nut because they believe something different than I. If someone professed to being Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu or Atheist (and yes Atheism is a matter of faith), would you dare to call them “crazies”? Obviously I believe they have placed their faith in the wrong beliefs. If I did not, then I would be a Jew or a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Hindu or an Atheist.

Obviously I believe Christianity it true. Otherwise, why would I be a Christian?

But because I disagree in where someone else has placed their faith, does not mean I think they are “crazies”.

I do not think Howard Camping or all these many people who have accepted his claims that May 21, 2011 is Judgment Day are nuts, nor do I think they are stupid. I just think they are wrong. If you have read the material put out by Camping you would not find some rambling mad utterances. It is very structured and intellectually presented. It is even convincingly logical, given Mr. Camping’s interpretation of Scripture. It is very understandable why many people would be willing to embrace it as the truth.

On the Family radio site there is a countdown clock. Today it reads “2 days to go”. But given Mr. Camping’s forecast of how it will begin, it is in reality just a bit more than one day away at the time I am writing this. It is his stance that a great rolling earthquake will begin at 6:00 PM on Saturday, May 21. It will begin in the South Pacific and will follow the time zones around the world, quaking in each area at their hour of 6:00 PM.

If this part of his prediction is true, then we here in my part of the country will know if it is happening sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 PM Friday evening. Why? Because it will already be 6:00 PM Saturday in the South Pacific just over the International Date Line. Of course if nothing happens at that time, it will not necessarily mean Judgment Day will not come on Saturday, only that this part of his calculation is wrong.

Of course, I expect nothing to happen, no worldwide earthquake, no Rapture, no Judgment Day…not yet.

If I am wrong and they are right, then nothing I have wrote matters. If they are right and I am wrong, then I will be among those facing condemnation by God, for that is what they believe. They believe if you cannot accept that Saturday is Judgment Day it is because you are not truly saved even if you think you are.

However if they are wrong and I am right, then on May 22 we are going to have a mass of disappointed and disillusioned people around this world, not the least of which will be Mr. Camping. This will not be something to gloat about. These will be people on the verge of losing faith in anything and some may be facing a very uncertain future. Some of these people have spent their finances and now will face difficult times. Some have split their families and will need healing. These will be people we should not mock, but instead show compassion for, reach out to with love and understanding. We should be prepared to help them back to faith in something and lift them up from their folly back into a life of true hope.

These people are not “crazies”, but like many, many others, they are just folks who lost their way for a while.

Gone

2011-04-24T06:34:00.000-04:00

There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples.

Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing. John 21:2-3

Gone.

Well, they had thought so. They had been there, somewhere, peeking out from the corner of windows maybe, watching the procession. A couple of them, like John, had dared to be up close at the end.

Expecting what?

When those soldiers had shown up at the Garden, what had they expected then? Not this, certainly, no, this was not what they had signed on for back then. This was the Messiah, they thought, he wasn't going to die and go away and nothing change.

But he didn't exactly go away, did he? He rose from the dead. They had visited the empty tomb and more importantly, they had all seen him, twice, in the last couple of weeks. He came briefly and went. He was gone again. Where?

Where ever it still wasn't what they expected.

The Messiah was supposed to free them from enslavement to others and make them a great nation again. The Messiah was supposed to be a great warrior king like David. They expected it to happen in a great uprising, perhaps even with the Angels of God on great steeds made visible behind them, as had happened once in the centuries past.

Some of them who were there on that first Passover journey thought it would be then. When he threw over those tables, chased out the desecraters, that would begin it. It didn't. Over the next few years, trudging back and forth through the dust they waited for his command for Heaven to strike down their oppressors, but no great lightening bolts ever did. And in the end they dragged him away like any ordinary man and killed him - shamefully.

Yeah, somehow he had come back to life, but he still didn't do what they expected. You would think someone dead yesterday and alive today could rouse up the forces to overthrow even Rome. Instead he quietly said, "I am sending you."

Sending us? What are we going to do? Who will listen to us? It's a scary world out there, a dangerous world. Those people who hung you on that cross might crucify us if we so much as talk too loudly. Where do we go? Who will follow? We followed him and lost our place even within our own religion. We are viewed by the priests, by the Pharisees, by even some in our families as blasphemers. Many of those who once listened to you, when you stood on the hills and preached, now see us as fools who they want nothing to do with.

And you tell us you are sending us that whom we forgive will be forgiven. Well, who in this world will forgive us? Frankly, it would be better to shut our mouths and keep a low profile. We saw you alive again. We believe that, but maybe it is a personal thing nobody else wants to hear.

So I'm going fishing. I'm going to do something I like to do that will occupy my mind with something other than all that is confusing me and filling me with fear. I'm not good at this Assistant Messiah stuff. What I'm good at is catching fish.

Except me and my fellow fishermen have been at it all night and haven't caught so much as a cold. He came along one day back in the beginning and told us, "Follow me and I'll make you fishers of men." Now we can't even catch a fish.

It wasn't very different for Peter and those other Apostles on that day 2,000 years ago then for we Christians today. Jesus had a fling being a rock star for a time, but now the whole area knew he'd been brutally killed. He was a nice fellow, he said some wise things now and again, but you saw what happened. The State certainly didn't want anything to do with him. You got a little cult that thinks some itinerant preacher came back to life, fine. Just keep it to yourself. There is no room for religion in government, except for Caesar as God. And as for the rest of the people, well, believe in fairy tales if you wish, but don't bother me with your fantasies.

If I tell you Jesus is going to return -- soon -- will I not face the same disbelief, skepticism, rejection and possible danger that Peter and the Apostles faced on the day they decided to go fishing? I understand exactly how they felt. But what happened?

When the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore...

What we must not lose sight of is that when morning comes Jesus will be standing there. We know that. So why fear? No one can stop that morning from coming and we will be there on that Sonrise even if those of this world kill us. And we have the Holy Spirit within us. Look what that small cult did once they had the Spirit in them.

Today is Easter. To much of the world this is furry bunnies and colored eggs. To we Christians it is everything.

Illustration was drawn by the author when he was 16.

On the Road and In Your Face

2011-03-29T15:46:00.001-04:00

Over the course of my life I have heard people talk about the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. Jehovah is the angry, condemning one and Jesus is the loving, forgiving one. They will say, "I can't believe in that mean old man pointing his finger and sending people to Hell, but I think Jesus was a good guy and he said we shouldn't judge anyone."

I'm afraid I have good news and bad news for these people. There is only one God and his nature doesn't change. Anyone who hasn't seen the loving, forgiving God of the Old Testament hasn't thought about what they've read. Those who haven't sometimes seen an angry and condemning Jesus haven't either. This is bad news because they are wrong about God; it's good news because He will forgive them if they realize it.

Jesus was not a flower child. He was not handing out happy pills and saying, "Can't we all just get along?" He did not say to the adulterous woman, who the Pharisees wished to stone, "Go and do what you please. Be happy." He didn't even say, "I forgive you." He said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more."

When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?

She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. John 8:10-11 (KJV)

There is a difference between not condemning and forgiving. What Jesus says here is very interesting and maybe someday we'll take a closer look, but that isn't what this post is about. This post is about why these men brought this woman to Jesus. It was part of a long running confrontation between him and them. Jesus was a confrontationist from the beginning of his ministry and he continues to confront us today.

Let's look at Jesus beginning his earthly ministry and we will see what a confronter he is.

(If you want to see that what follows is Scriptural, you can read the New Testament account at Nitewrit's Own Harmony. If you would like to read these events with more commentary about each, go to Nitewrit's Own Harmonized Commentary. Or just open your Bible on the table next to you.)

Let's also remember the definition of "confront": 1. to face; stand or meet face to face, 2. to face or oppose boldly, defiantly or antagonistically, 3. to bring face to face with, to confront someone with the facts or to set side by side to compare.

We discussed in the last two posts how Jesus confronted his parents. Now it is about 18 years later and he is about to start his mission in the world. He is approximately 30 years old and to the South there is a cousin baptizing people in the Jordan. This cousin named John has developed a following by this time and a certain amount of fame. Many people even wonder if this guy John is the predicted Messiah.

Jesus comes to John to be baptized and we have a confrontation between the two, granted a mild one. John argues that the roles should be reversed and Jesus should baptize him. But Jesus insists and so is baptized by John.

Immediately after his baptism, Jesus goes into the wilderness for forty days, where he has a pretty well-known confrontation with Satan. Notice this is not an argument between the two. Jesus doesn't get lured into some kind of "Who shot John?" thing. This is a confrontation of temptation with Satan offering all sorts of goodies and Jesus calmly refuting the offers by quoting Scripture, until the end, and then we see Jesus confronting Satan very boldly: "Get you hence behind me, Satan, for it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve'." Luke 4:13 (KJV)

Okay, we would expect confrontations between Jesus and the Devil, I suppose and Lucifer seems to had instigated the face-to-face here. But confrontations aren't defined by who starts it and Jesus certainly didn't back away and he showed his sense of authority.

While Jesus is away in the desert, John the Baptist has his own confrontation with the priests and Levites. This wasn't the first time John has had such things. Before Jesus was Baptized he had a bit of a dust up with the Pharisees, But when he [John] saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, he said unto them. “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"

This time around these people begin questioning John about who he is, The Messiah, The Prophet or Elijah.

Why? Why were the Sadducees, Scribes, Pharisees, priests and Levites so interested in John?

I believe for a couple of reasons. They were looking for the promised Messiah and they were afraid of losing their positions and powers to Rome. The Jews were expecting the Messiah in those days. There had already been instances of individuals claiming to be the Christ. Some of these folk even had bands of followers and sometimes caused problems. The Jewish powers-who-be had to be concerned. The Sadducees, Herod, The Pharisees all maintained their positions at the grace of Caesar. As long as there was nothing to upset the status quo, Rome would leave them be to follow their own course. However if someone came along and led any kind of uprising, Rome would sweep down and crush it and perhaps crush all of Israel as well. Then what would they have? There were groups enough to worry about. There were Zealots, sort of terrorists if you will, and other gangs of Rebel-rousers. Certainly seeing someone like John the Baptist attracting large number of people would concern them. Still they had to be careful. What if this was the Messiah? They had to proceed with some caution. After all, their concept of Messiah was of a great warrior-king like David who would rise up an army and overthrow their oppressors, meaning Rome. They were somewhat between a rock and a hard place.

Then there comes Jesus back from the wilderness. John has told these fellows someone else greater than me is coming and now he points out Jesus to anybody nearby, saying, “Behold the Lamb of God!”

There were some unusual events on the day Jesus was Baptized. Thunder like voices in the sky, a dove descending on him and I'm sure gossip about these things had reached the ears of those powers-who-be. Jesus was not yet celebrity, but I imagine the authorities were noting him down in their book as a character of interest. He hadn't done anything to rile them yet, but I am sure somebody was saying to keep an eye on him.

Two followers of John the Baptist certainly were eyeing him. They heard John say this and they followed him. These two fellows were named John and Andrew.

Jesus confronted these two men. "What seek you?" It probably startled them and they asked where he lived. He told them to "Come and see."

Andrew brought his brother, Simon, to Jesus and Jesus immediately confronts Simon with a new name, Cephas or Peter, a stone. Note that Simon became Simon Peter even before Jesus began any ministry and well before his famous declaration of Jesus as the Son of God.

The next day Jesus finds Philip to whom he says, "Follow me", and Philip in turn goes to Nathanael. When Jesus approaches Nathanael, he speaks first, confronting Nathanael with his knowledge of him.

Jesus and these few men now return to Galilee and their first stop is a wedding in Cana, where Jesus confronts his mother with this question, “Woman, what have I to do with thee? My hour is not yet come.”

Some time passes and now Jesus begins his ministry. He goes to the Passover in Jerusalem. What is the very first event of Jesus' earthy ministry?

And the Jews' Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting. And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables. And said unto them that sold doves, “Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.”

Was this the Flower-Child so many paint Jesus as being? Or was this not the same sometimes angry God of the Old Testament? Jesus began his mission with a loud confrontation, a violent one, with a whip and tables crashing over; with people shouting and running and with the ones in authority watching.

Then he had a confrontation with those people in which he referred to what would occur three years or so hence. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Jesus began the confrontation with the ingrained holders of the Law and religion of the time and place. He would have many such confrontations with the Sadducees and Pharisees from then on. They would dog his footsteps and the thoughts of killing him began early on.

But while here, Jesus did some preaching to the people and performed some miracles and he attracted the attention of one of these Jewish Rulers, one Nichodemus.

And he had a face-to-face confrontation with Nichodemus challenging the man's true understanding of the Scriptures that the man had spent a lifetime studying.

After the Passover, Jesus sets up camp in Judea and begins Baptizing too. This causes, if not directly, another confrontation between the Jews and the followers of John the Baptist about Jesus' activity.

Not long after, John the Baptist is arrested. Jesus now pulls up stakes and heads into Samaria, where Jews generally would not go. Jesus has caused a ruckus in Jerusalem. He certainly made enemies by what he did. They have kept their distance. But now John has been arrested and if it has come to a point in which authorities, whether Herod or otherwise, feel comfortable doing that to John, they quite well could feel it was safe to come after this guy Jesus. He's gained some followers, but certainly hasn't yet become as popular as John was. Samaria is not where they would think to look for a Jew.

And in Samaria he has a confrontation with a woman at a well. I mean, she being a Samaritan and he being a Jew, it is even a confrontation to even speak to her and then he challenges her religious beliefs. Read the conversation he has with her. It is full of confrontation.

After Jesus has been through Samaria, he cures a Nobleman's child in Cana. The Nobleman is from Capernaum, I suggest you keep that in mind for future reference.

Now, Jesus goes to his home town of Nazareth, walks into the Synagog and confronts those there by reading Isaiah's prophesy of the Messiah and indicates he is the fulfillment. They don't like this. They try to kill him.

People don't like being confronted with the truth and Jesus was and is a great confrontationist.

Next: Band on the Run

Illustrations: Jesus Curses the Pharisees by James Tissot, 1886-96

The Purification of the Temple by Jacopo Bassano, 1570

Confronting Some More About the Question at the Temple

2011-03-26T11:05:00.000-04:00

I am going to spend a little more time discussing the question Mary asked Jesus. Here is the situation.

The family of Jesus had traveled to Jerusalem for Passover. Males were supposed to go there for certain Holy Days, although probably many skipped this requirement or sometimes went to some and not others. Passover was the one to which the majority went. We are told Joseph and Mary went every year.

It was an arduous trip. First, they lived in Nazareth and had to travel the 90 miles on foot; perhaps they had a donkey or an ox cart. Whatever, you couldn't hop in the family car and be up the freeway in a couple hours. It could be a dangerous journey as well, so people would usually travel in a caravan of family or friends and neighbors. It is obvious from the text that this was the case here, "Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends."

Such a journey was tiring and it had to be repeated going home after the festival. And the event itself was quite wearying. This was not like an outing to Church for an hour or so on Easter or Christmas. This went on for several days in a city that was turned into a constant carnival. The population doubled, tripled and people were everywhere, as were the compliment of vendors and entertainers and pickpockets. There were lines at the Temple for sacrifices, seders to attend, all kinds of hustle and bustle.

As many of us know, we often need a vacation from our vacation. This is especially true if we are attending some grand event, like Mardi Gras. I can completely understand how Joseph and Mary could have left their son behind. I mean, when packing up to leave people were tired and eager to be on the way. There was probably confusion and traffic jams of crowds as all the pilgrims departed. They were traveling with a trusted group, other family members. They set off thinking Jesus was somewhere in line with his cousins and aunts and uncles. They went a day before finding arrangements to spend a night and then discovered no one had seen the boy. These things happen.

So now they return and search for three days. Finally they find the lad in the temple with the teachers.

His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” Luke 2:48-49 (NIV)

In my last post, "Confrontationist", I only briefly passed this over as his parents having to confront who he was. I still think that was part of it, but not all, so what did he mean?

A problem arises for us because of the nature of translation. Different languages do not just substitute different words for the same thing. There may be words spelled the same with alternate meanings, such as, "The wind rustled the leaves" and "Did you wind the clock." There are words where they're spelled different, but while their pronunciation is the same, the meaning isn't. Add to this grammatical rules, slang, idiom and voice infection and you end up with signs like this in non-English speaking countries:

"English well talking. Here speeching American", signs on a Majorca shop entrance.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Sometimes one language has words that other language don't. Chinese does not have gender-distinct pronouns. In my last years at The Bank I had a Chinese supervisor (who has since returned to China). She and I worked well together as a team, but sometimes she would really confuse me about who she was talking about. "He say we need go to meeting and he say me should bring such and such." I would be lost because I had no idea who this "he" was. "Who said this?" "Him." "Him who?" "Mary say."

Okay, then I would understand. Mary was our manager and to me was a she, but to Sherry was a he.

Translation can be tricky and I don't know Hebrew or Greek, which is why I use several Bibles. Here is a case in point where a translator's decision can make a difference in how we interpret a passage.

I quoted the passage from the New International Version (NIV) above, which is:

“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”

The King James translators went with:

And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?

The Wycliffe New Testament goes with:

And he said to them, What is it that ye sought me? knew ye not that in those things that be of my Father, it behooves me to be?

The word "not" ("didn't" in the NIV) is a Hebrew word that always means "not" or "no", but it is a word used only in questions where an affirmative answer is expected. It makes this sentence somewhat like a rhetorical question, except in a rhetorical question no answer is expected. Here, Jesus expects Mary and Joseph to answer, "Yes".

Most of the other words are fine, although some alternate substitutions are available, such as "about" "must" and "behooves", which the NIV basically makes "had", the KIV uses "must" and Wycliffe went with "behooves". Or words translated I or me, which can be "I", "Me", "My". The word translated "in" by both Wycliffe and the NIV is left out of the KJV. The word's only meaning is "in", but it is only used to denote in a fixed position (space, time, place). The final word means "father".

Here translators have added to that word for father something not there. The NIV adds "house" and the KJV adds "business" I think the Wycliffe comes closest in translation. It leaves "father" as just "Father".

That "business" business in the King James is what confuses us. Some take that question as implying Jesus should have been starting his ministry, but looking at the original and doing a straight up translation, I think we can look at it this way: "Perceive not that I it behooves to be in my Father?"

Where would he be in a fixed position at that time to be in the Father? Why in the Father's house, the Temple. What I think he is saying to Mary and Joseph, expecting them to agree, is, "Why did you spend so much time searching for me? You know me well enough, so why didn't you come to the temple first?"

We could also say, "Why are you searching for God in all the wrong places?"

There is quite a bit to be said about what came after this and someday we will come back to the last few sentences at the end of Luke 2, but for now we'll end here and next time pick up with "On the Road and In Your Face".

Yes, I know, I said that last time, but this time I mean it...I think.

Confrontationist

2011-03-23T07:13:00.001-04:00

I don't know about you, but it seems I hear the word "confrontation" in the news more and more. Usually it is followed by descriptions or pictures of shouting people waving signs and sometimes fists. Anymore, it appears to go beyond just slogans, chants and threats. Everywhere about we have wars and rumors of wars.

In our daily working world there are individuals spoken of as being very confrontational and this implies a person always spoiling for a fight, argumentative to the extreme and generally unpleasant to deal with.

If you turn on the TV "news," any discussion of issues isn't a discussion at all, but a confrontation between two unbending opposites. This also tends to lead to name-calling and not much substance. Many go here and there to increase knowledge, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. "Everyone is senseless and without knowledge;  every goldsmith is shamed by his idols.  The images he makes are a fraud;  they have no breath in them.  They are worthless, the objects of mockery; when their judgment comes, they will perish." Jeremiah 10:14-15

All in all, confrontation is described as a negative thing, somewhat akin to bullying, but very popular as entertainment. Confrontation appears to be the heart and soul of most so-called reality shows, which consist of getting a group of people together where they shout at each other a lot.

Now I am going to come here and tell you to look beyond the pop culture image of Jesus as a gentle, smiling understanding uncle, hugging a child or clutching a lamb tenderly to his breast, and softly intoning "Peace" and say see Jesus the Confrontationist.

Was Jesus the soft-focus flower child poster presented by Hollywood or is that simply what many wish him to be? Is it not easier to invent a savior who will always say, "Don't worry, be happy, I will accept you just as you are," a benevolent Mr. Rogers rather than a Savior who confronts us with ourselves and demands we, just maybe, need to rethink our lives?

What did Jesus say? “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn -- ‘a man against his father,  a daughter against her mother,  a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ [Refer to Micah 7] Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 10:34-39

I think Jesus was a confrontationist right from the beginning.

Being confrontational is not necessary negative and doesn't have to imply that name-calling and fist waving are involved (although we might be surprised to find Jesus engaging in a bit of this). Here is the definition of confront:

1. to face; stand or meet face to face

2. to face or oppose boldly, defiantly, or antagonistically

3. to bring face to face (with): to confront someone with the facts

Let's look and see if Jesus' methods met these definitions.

Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. Luke 2:41-51

I am a parent. I am certain most parents understand Joseph and Mary's panic. Back when my children were children we went to Sesame Place in New Jersey. Laurel, my eldest was four and my youngest hadn't been born yet. The middle child was about six months old and in a stroller. At one point we separated for some reason; that is, my wife went one way and I another. We met up again perhaps fifteen minutes later and the first words out of my wife's mouth were, "Where's Laurel?"

My reply was, "I thought she was with you."

We rushed about, flitting along the paths we had taken, surrounded by hundreds of small children, searching, searching. We found her pretty much standing where we had parted and what a relief.

But imagine having traveled a great distance to a far city and on the return trip discovering you left your child behind? Joseph and Mary hadn't just walked fifteen minutes away within a confined park either; they had traveled for a day and were probably camping down for the night. They may have covered 20 or 30 miles by then. Just like us, they thought the boy was with other members of the family, now they discover he isn't there. They had to travel back to Jerusalem, now a day away, and try and find him in the big city. It is not altogether clear exactly how long they were separated. It says, "...they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him..." Did the three days include travel time or just the time they actively searched? It could have been five days or three; but whichever, it was a long time not knowing where the child was.

His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”

This is not a rebellious child sassing his parents. This was a serious question to parents who knew his origins. I think he was forcing them to confront exactly who he was.

But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them.

They did not understand, but I bet they pondered it many times afterward.

But before Joseph and Mary located Jesus, what was going on in those three or so days?

After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.

He was in the temple court with the teachers, Pharisees perhaps, or Scribes, questioning them and giving answers. The teachers were amazed when confronted with his understanding. It had begun.

We don't know anything about Jesus over the next approximate 18 years. Given that we know he never sinned, his very living must have confronted and confounded his neighbors. There must have been questions about someone so perfect, who probably didn't follow the expected course of tradition. When was this nice Jewish boy going to get a wife, have children and settle down like every other boy in town? Then when most sons had long settled into just that lifestyle, at about age 30, he takes off to confront Jerusalem.

Next: On the Road and In Your face.

Illustration: This photo taken in 1954 most likely by Ronald Tipton show three bots horsing around.

I am not certain of the identity of the boy on the left anymore.

The boy in the middle is my longtime friend, Stuart and I am on the right.

Jesus in Hollywood

2011-03-21T15:59:00.000-04:00

Hollywood likes to make films based on true stories. The optimal words here are "based on". Sometimes the part based on seems little more than a few names and a date. But whether the film is fairly accurate or more fantasy than fact, the unfortunate thing is many, many people's belief about history is what they saw on the silver screen. How many folks accepted that King Solomon had a torrid love affair with the Queen of Sheba, and that she was a woman come to destroy him to gain a port and in the employ of the Pharaoh of Egypt. King Vidor and his writers certainly had a different interpretation of 1 Kings 10:1-13 than I do. Go read it yourself and see if you can find anything I just described in the movie plot beyond the names of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. It did give Vidor an excuse to put Gina Lollobrigida in skimpy costumes and Yul Brynner in hair (one of his rare appearance not as a baldy).

Here, of course, is another problem since Hollywood has often turned to The Bible for their "based on" true stories. Although one would think The Good Book contains all the intrigue, crime, lust and murder a scriptwriter could handle, they always seem to add a little more on their own; sometimes a lot more. As with the aforementioned Lollobrigida's belly dancer interpretation of the Queen of Sheba, Hollywood always finds some sleaze or sex to throw in the mix, the orgy scene in "The Ten Commandments" or Salome's salacious dance in "King of Kings." Even with John Huston's epic, "The Bible," a classic misnomer of a movie, since it only touched on some of the stories found in Genesis, this was so. Much of the hype and publicity surrounding that film centered around the actors playing Adam and Eve performing in the buff or the altogether or naked.

Speaking of "King of Kings", here we have a case where our perceptions of Christ have too often been impressed upon us by popular media, even going back to the paintings of the Renaissance. Jeffrey Hunter has the image of the Renaissance's blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus entwined with the aura of a Hippie guru. At least, that was the impression I got watching the "Sermon on the Mount" scene. (Perhaps I should say he was a kind of "On the Road" guru, given the movie was made in 1961, landing in the transition from the Beats to the Hipps.) At any rate, it seems I've seen Jesus presented too often in soft-focus lighting where you expect him to sing, If you're coming to Jerusalem be sure to wear flowers in your hair.

All of this imagery becomes easily ingrained in us and we have a hard time letting go. Even when someone makes a movie and tries to be accurate in detail, in showing the times as they were and uses actors who look like they belong in the setting, they can't resist popular notions that distort the reality. Take for instance the film, "The Nativity Story". This is a very beautiful movie and it places you right into the emotions Joseph and Mary must have felt, but even these producers couldn't resist popular Hallmark Card tableaus over scripture. They did the old familiar manger scene with sheep and shepherds, camels and Three Wise Men all gathered together, just like the creche sitting on the mantle at Christmas, but hardly found in scripture.

Even we Christians who spend much time in The Bible often fall into this trap. After all, not only do cliches ingrain themselves in our psyches, but familiarity often blinds us from the details. In other words, we sometimes can't see the forest for the trees and other times we can't see the trees for the forest. Sometimes we need to just stop, step back and see what else is going on in both the forest and the trees.

Over at Tamela's Place she did a post recently titled, "Who Do You Say I Am?" She is talking about seeing things through spiritual eyes and there is an interesting quote: "I might add that there is a lot out there that needs a spiritual filter as to sift through the garbage though".

I think I am going to do a little sifting over a couple or so posts. Perhaps not totally with "spiritual eyes", but at least without the visions drummed into me by the Magic of Hollywood and the splendor of

Let the following verses be a tease and next time, "A Christ of Confrontation".

Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. Luke 2:41-51

More in Harmony

2011-03-20T16:34:00.000-04:00

Some may be aware that a couple years ago I began a project of doing my own harmonizing of the four Gospels with commentary. This effort will certainly continue for a few more years.

I did get to thinking that the commentary may be interesting and informational in many ways, but some people might like to have a straight narrative Harmony without any commentary.

I have just added this to my sites. Of course, this Harmony is only complete as far as the companion Commentary so it too will continue as a work in process.

You can get the Commentary by clicking right here and you can get the Harmony by clicking over here.

If you haven't ever looked at my Commentary, take a look at it and the Harmony now just for fun.

A Couple New Poems

2011-02-10T14:22:00.002-05:00

FAITH

Some folk believe in fate and destiny

Say it caused all that was and will be

And don’t give God any slice.

It is their general sentiment

We’re all Big Bang and accident,

But the two do not jive.

If you have no God, no Divine,

Everything a freak of time

And nothing guides your life.

No God, no immortal scheme.

No earthly hope or cosmic dream

No reason to be alive.

If you wish to be an Atheist

Then you must forsake every myth

And accept a world of strife

Without reason, without rhyme.

Where human life’s not worth a dime

With no goal for which to strive.

Oh what a pathetic breed

If we are but mutant seed

Our worthlessness be rife.

I don’t know about destiny and fate

And have no proof on what I await,

But in God I will abide.

Illustration: “Hecate or The Three Fates” by William Blake

IN MY VILLANELLE

I think I am the villain in my villanelle.

I wish I could break out and be free form instead,

But I’d rather stay the rules than languish in Hell.

Of course I want to do my own thing and rebel,

Not count my syllables, my rhythm or my rhyme.

I think I am the villain in my villanelle.

What if I changed the pattern, rambled a spell?

Is anybody counting? Is it such a crime?

But I’d rather stay the rules than languish in Hell.

Over the corpse of rhyme some have rung the knell.

Though it is easier, I’ll not lie in that bed.

I think I am the villain in my villanelle

Because I chafe against what others do compel

And rant of how I suffer to compose each line,

But I’d rather stay the rules than languish in Hell.

So it is the fate of man since Eve and Adam fell,

This struggle with obedience till we drop dead.

I think I am the villain in my villanelle

But I’d rather stay the rules than languish in Hell.

Photo: The author in Lewes, DE, January 2011 taken by Ronald W. Tipton.

ON THE NARROW PATH

Up here no one goes

When it rains, when it snows.

The narrow time, the narrow ledge.

As far as I see

There is I, myself and me

Alone teetering on the edge.

Up is very steep.

Down is steeper still and deep;

The narrow ledge, the narrow time

My mind is alert.

Avoid a fall; avoid the hurt

Teetering alone on my climb.

Cold crawls over me

As if my sins' impurity

Have found me in this hidden place.

I’m swallowed by regret,

By the thoughts I‘m thinking yet.

With my narrow soul face-to-face

Upon this way alone,

Where me myself and I atone

In narrow time on narrow path

And when I meet God.

On this hidden trail of frozen sod,

We both exchange a knowing laugh.

Photo by the author, 2011, “Rocky Run Trail”, Brandywine Creek State Park.

WILD GOOSE FANCY

First you hear the call, the cry, no, the cacophony.

It is the trumpet of triumphed recovery from near extinction

That edges up to the sound of a world’s destruction.

How do you turn away? How do you stand against such noise?

Over the hill they come, first in vanguard,

Then canopy of multiple V’s,

Darkening, darkening and it is an awesome sight

And a frightful fright

When the wild goose take flight.

I walk into the woods alone, into the silence of the trees.

The path is rough with ice-encrusted snow, the going slow,

And far behind the circling cloud, the noisome crowd

Is drifting off in searching groups,

Scouting out the water flows beneath our frozen earth.

But I see this no more or hear that roar,

They are there and I am here on my own mission

Finding my own solitude, I no longer listen

To the wild goose take flight.

That pale winter ghost has stolen everything,

Coated it with his seal and slippery trails

Are teasing, taunting my every caution step.

Sister wind blows love songs in my ear

That freeze my heart and soul to the bone.

How dare you, sir, steal into my home

And poke about with your icicle thumb

To gray my days and turn them numb.

When the wild goose take flight

There is beauty everywhere and death.

All the color has been drained away

From tree or cloud or lake or field.

To fall is lost and you’d shiver there

Until the gracious sleep eased the pain

And lifted you upon its frigid wing

Into the last cold dark night,

On the last wild goose flight.

Photo: Over 300 Wild Geese in flight over Alapocas Run State Park. Taken by the author in December 2010.

Judged

2011-02-04T17:56:00.000-05:00

That big-nosed (for sticking it where it isn't wanted, I guess) man on the left waving an accusatory finger is a narrow-minded, superstitious, uneducated, anti-science boob who can't think for himself believer in fairy tales.

At least that is the way my portrait was painted in a rather aggressive email I receive some six months ago.

I don't think all those things are true. Surely my nose isn't that big!

The biggest surprise about this email was it came out of a clear blue cyber sky from someone I don't know and never heard of and it told me to rethink my request to be her Facebook Friend.

I beg your pardon? I had never heard tell of this personage. What am I doing? Am I making Friend requests in my sleep?

The person began by stating, "I am an Atheist," which is a fairly empathic declaration of faith. Yes, faith, it takes faith to be an Atheist, too.

Okay, fine, and I am a Christian.

We are both human beings.

As a human being you are allowed to choose to be an Atheist if that is what you believe. I'm going to recognize we will have a somewhat different worldview, not see everything quite the same way, but we still have a lot of humanity in common to build a casual relationship upon do we not? We share the same world and struggles within it. And being a Christian doesn't necessarily make me better or worse than anyone else, although that email certainly painted me to be dumber than the average bear.

What I understand as a Christian is God loves all his creatures, even if all his creatures don't believe in Him or His Son.

Ah, but there's the rub. I might say something about God and Christ and love and creatures (can't say creatures since that implies a creator) and all that...uh...fairy tale stuff.

Now granted, since you are an admitted Atheist and I am an admitted Christian, I will have some concerns about your future beyond this world that you won't have. I might even go into my room and pray for you, but...shhh...whispering here...it isn't because I hate you. Please forgive me for doing that. Just as you as an Atheist believes all that is unnecessary, I as a Christian believe it is.

My friendships have never been built on the labels the world, nature or an individual has pinned upon their sleeve. My list of friends includes blacks and whites and browns and yellows. (I never actually had a red friend, although you might count my wife as pinkish, that is, she is one-quarter Creek.) My friends are male and female, heterosexual and homosexual, skinny and fat, tall and short, Christian and non-Christian, Jew and gentile and Arab, too. I have God-fearing friends and "Maybe-there-is-a-God-I-just-don't-know" friends, and friends who believe in nothing. I have Democrat and Republican, Progressive (whatever happened to Liberals, because I was sure I used to have more Liberal friends than anything and now nobody says they're Liberals), Conservative and downright confused about-it-all friends. I have even been on good speaking terms with a couple of Communists. I'm an equal-opportunity friendly guy.

It has been this way all my life. I've judged my friends for "the content of their character" long before Martin Luther King used that phrase in his most famous speech.

Uh, did I just use a bad word, "Judged". Oh dear, sorry, I forgot, "Judge not, lest so you be judged." Somebody said something like that. It wasn't King. Now , who was it? Let me think about it.

While we do that, here is the core of the email sent to me.

"I have little patience with people that feel they have to "share" with me, I've been there, done that. Science always wins. I am well educated in world religions and have no need to follow it up with superstition or fairy tales. With that said, I do agree with the old saying, "to each his own", but that doesn't mean I want them (bible thumpers) "sharing" with me on my page ....Understand?

"I prefer people who can think for themselves."

If you really think about it, this is a very insulting letter to send to any Christian, especially one who doesn't even know you.

So, how do I respond to this email? Let me start by saying I think this person is...

Wait, "Judge not, lest you be judged?" It's coming back to me. "Judge not, that ye be not judged." Of yeah, Matthew 7:1 and Jesus said it.

See this becomes a reverse Catch-22, doesn't it? If I criticize some bad behavior, this gets thrown at me by those who don't believe in Jesus in the first place. They get to stand in judgment of me, but I am restricted from making any judgment about them. It ends up being used to excuse any kind of excessive behavior one wishes to engage in then.

Well, isn't that illogical? If I am walking down the street and a purse snatcher jumps from an alley to grab an old lady's pocketbook, I am to just go on my way. She struggles to hold on and he takes out a knife and begins to stab her, and I am not allowed to judge this person.

Now just a minute, that is an extreme example. Yes, but it makes it no less valid. It says, "Judge not, that ye be not judged," not Judge only in cases of blatant extreme violence of one person against another, right?

Unless, perhaps, it might be talking about something else, you know, something more in context of what the Bible teaches overall. There are certainly passages exhorting us to judge, aren't there? Maybe what we are talking about here is gossipy types of judgement, superficial ones based on faulty premises and prejudices. Or maybe we are talking about hypocritical judgments. Maybe we are talking about the wrong way to introduce ourselves to someone else. Perhaps it is the wrong way to present the Christian message?

I think if we extend the passage fully I might even be justified to some extend if I began judging this email writer in harsher tones than she without provocation judged me. I won't, but Matthew 7:1-2 (KJV) is saying that is what she should expect to happen.

Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

Or as the NIV translates Luke 6:37 and Matthew 7:1-2:

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

You see, if you go around superficially judging others without careful examination you must expect they will do the same to you. I judge you, then you judge me. Then what do we have? Just a lot of who shot John going on. We have anger and further misinterpretations and no one wins.

I was judged and found wanting without this person ever getting to know me simply because she has preconceived ideas of what a Christian is. Sad to say many times we Christians do the same thing. We judge first and quickly condemn and confront. From a comment later in her email she may have experienced just that at times in her life, been judged by Christians without a true trial, and now she is measuring it back on me. We can judge bad behavior; otherwise, how to we know not to engage in bad behavior? But how do we ever know a person's needs if we hit them over the head with the guilty stick before we even say hello? How do we ever do what we were commissioned to do if we have condemned our neighbor already?

It is so easy to jump to conclusions, isn't it? We know who isn't going to Heaven, right? We have out list of wrongdoers: the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, sodomizers, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers. Well, before we are quick to judge, remember to whom Paul said that and what came at the end of the passage in 1 Corinthians 6: "And that is what some of you were." Yes, and so were some of us.

You don't begin the relationship with judgment, you begin it with love of your neighbor and an Atheist or whatever is your neighbor. You be the good Samaritan; God will be the judge.

And I still say my nose isn't that big.

If the End Were Near: A Variation on a Peter Pollock Post

2011-01-24T15:45:00.000-05:00

In a recent post at Peter Pollock. com he began by asking a particular question: "If you knew for absolutely certain that Christ was coming again this time tomorrow, what would you do?"

There will be no Spoiler Alert. If you want to know what his answer was to the question you will have to click on the link and read it yourself.

The question that came to my mind on reading his post was this: Would you want to know for certain that Christ was coming again this time tomorrow?

For most Christians I would imagine the first knee-jerk reaction is, "Yes!"

I'm not certain that is the best answer. Jesus said no one knew when that moment would be, not even the Angels, and it would come in a blink of the eye. God must have had a reason why this would not be known ahead of it happening. Now the Bible indicates that God is a patience Deity who doesn't want to see anyone perish and he delays until the last possible soul has been redeemed. But the idea the date isn't known to us because God keeps putting it off for that reason doesn't make sense. God already knows who that soul is and when they will be saved. So what difference would it make to know the date?

It doesn't seem it is the need for something to be in place to make the fulfillment of some End Time prophesy possible either. You know, like satellites and the internet and television and all the things that would allow the world to see an event when it happens. Or super computers that would let some central government to control all our affairs. As far as I know everything is in place that would allow the very last days to begin. But even if there was something else, God knows what it is and when it will be invented. Why not tell us the date?

God knows us much better than we know ourselves of course. Maybe it is for our sake we aren't told the exact date. We probably wouldn't react sensibly at all and probably not at all as The Lord has told us to.

And who all would know this exact time with certainty, everybody or just true believers? There was a movie back in the early 1950s called "The Next Voice You hear". It starred James Whitmore and Nancy Davis (later Nancy Reagan). In this film a voice claiming to be God is suddenly heard on everybody's radio each evening for six days. The movie is about the effect this had on the characters' lives.

If something like that happened, with God suddenly declaring on the radio or TV that in 24 hours The Lord would return I expect the reaction would be similar to some of the fictional movie. Many people would think it a hoax, some would take it seriously and the government would launch an investigation. But I'm not so sure it would change much. People always say why doesn't God just speak up and then we'll believe. You know if God did, people still wouldn't believe in him. After all, he did that once and look what happened.

Perhaps the message would just come to the believers. What if Saturday evening you went to sleep and sometime in the night you had a dream. In the dream an Angel appears and says, "Fear not and rest assured, for I am Gabriel, a messenger from God and I am announcing that Our Lord will return at 9:00 AM Monday morning."

When you awake in the morning you remember this dream vividly. You come down to breakfast and tell it to your spouse and your spouse says, "I had the exact same dream. Hmm, interesting coincidence." So you go off to church. The service is about to start, but instead of the usual beginning your Pastor steps to the podium looking very serious. He tells you he had this dream, your dream, and that he called the minister of such-and-such church and that man had the same dream and he tells the dream. And then many people about you, not all, but most are nodding their heads that they also had that dream. (As an aside, given the dress of the family in this picture, the Rapture must have occurred in the early 1950s.)

Now what? Do you all form groups and swarm into the neighborhood to knock on doors and warn those who aren't in any church that they must repent? Why not, a lot of people think we Christians are nuts anyway so this won't hurt? It probably won't do much good either.

Or do you sort of panic yourself. Am I sure about my own salvation? Am I ready? Have I done enough? Am I really ready to give up all this stuff I have here on earth? It is always easier to say we are ready and we want the Lord to come soon than to know it is actually about to happen.

It is also easy to say we know he could come at any moment that He could come before I type another

word.

I don't doubt we are honest when we say we expect the Lord to return at any moment, I just wonder if we would really grasp the reality if we knew it was upon us slightly ahead of time. You know, like we expect to die someday. We know we could die at any minute. But do we grasp that reality? We could get in our car, head for work and get killed by some aggressive driver on the interstate. How much to we actually consider such a thing? Probably about as much as you really consider that Christ could return in the next moment. As much as we accept the truth we could die at any moment, I don't think many of us expect to die today. As much as we accept the truth of the prophecy, I don't think many of us expect Christ to come today. We say at any moment, but in our mind we always see it somewhere in the future.

I actually think God designed it that way.

If you were given absolute proof that it would happen twenty-four hours from now you would probably be overwhelmed with anxiety, guilt and sorrow. You would think of those you know and those you love that don't believe. People close to you who are not saved. You will probably realize there is little that can be done in one day. You will feel guilty because you will feel you never did enough to save them or others, that you did too much during your life for yourself and not enough for others, even if you did a lot for others. You will feel great sorrow for these people and terrible because you let them down. You'll begin to take a burden on to yourself that isn't yours to bear.

It other words, it is better not to know the exact date and time. I think God has spared us that anxiety.

Of course there are some people who believe they do know the exact date. They put up billboards even announcing it. Some think it was all foreseen in the Long Count Calendar used by the Mayans and some think they have unwoven exact timelines within the Bible. We will see how close they come in the not so distant future. At least we will if the Lord doesn't come tomorrow or next week or at a moment we least expect him. Remember those key words from His own lips, "When you do not expect Him."

My personal opinion is if we claim we know the exact date we are calling The Lord a liar.

I pray I am always alert and watching, but I still prefer I not know exactly.

But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

“Be on guard! Be alert! Therefore keep watch, because you do not know when that time on what day your Lord will come. It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. Matthew 24:36-44 and Mark 13:32-37 (NIV)

To Wait or Not To Wait, that is Not the Question. That is the Answer.

2011-01-15T03:45:00.001-05:00

I thank you for your patience. I've been away from this Blog a long time, six months in fact. Perhaps you thought, "He's gone away and not returning". But here I am, I'm not dead and gone.

I just popped back probably when you didn't expect it or even forgotten about me.

Hmmm, maybe there is a message in that beyond this silly blogger's posts.

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. 2 Peter 3:8-10 (NIV)

Who better to show us patience can be learned than Peter, a very impatience man.

What got me thinking about patience was a post at Tamela's Place, "Becoming Calm and Submissive Goes for Humans Too".

"Patience is a virtue" is a popular saying. I don't know who said it. I do know the Bible teaches it and it is a virtue. There are other popular sayings about patience that seem contradictory.

"Everything comes to him who waits." "He who hesitates is lost."

Now how can that be?

It can be because of the verses quoted. We, who are Christian, must wait. We wait for the return of the Lord and in the meantime we wait for death. Our patience and belief will be rewarded with everything promised. And while we wait, we must show by our patience and our love for those who are not Christian that they cannot wait.

We do not know when our Lord will return. Usually we do not know when we will die. If either of those assured events should fall upon us in unbelief we will be lost. The Lord will come as a thief in the night. Death may come in the very next second. Hesitation is not advised; he who hesitates is lost.

NIGHT STRINGS; MORNING SOUNDS

2010-12-01T23:59:00.000-05:00

Collected Christian Essays by Larry Eugene Meredith, 2010

An Actively Replicating Repetitive Sequence that Serves No Known Function

2010-12-01T23:57:00.000-05:00

By tradition, the beginning of a new year demands reflection and resolution. Perhaps not as much reflection as yesterday’s newspapers columnists gave the day though. Commentators in every category were presenting best and worst of the decade lists. I would remind those who don’t know that 2010 is NOT the beginning of a new decade. It is merely the last year of the current one. (There is no year zero in our calendar. The year 2000 was not the new millennium, just the final year of the Twentieth Century, thus 2001 was the first year of the first decade of the Twenty-first Century. 2011 will be the beginning of its second decade.)

I’m as traditional as anyone. I approach every New Year’s Day with reflection about the past year and a resolve to change for the better. I don’t make resolution lists anymore than I made a bucket list. Following a list for your living is a good way to miss life. Did you ever make a strict itinerary for a vacation trip? You are enjoying a particular HERE, but can’t stay because you have to be THERE by 1:00 and still squeeze lunch in between. By the end of the day you feel you may have missed more than you experienced even though you saw many sites. It is the same with living life with a list, too many things get overlooked.

There is nothing wrong with lists in their place. I made To-Do lists all the years I worked, especially when I was a Project Manager. Such lists are very helpful in prioritizing, organizing and getting things done, but in short increments. If your life is so crowded you need lists for living it; you need to cut down on something. Remember there is one item on everyone’s list and it is not number 10 or number 5 or number 100. It is a floating number called death. It is the one thing on our lists we can be pretty confident will be accomplished.

The problem with making a lot of resolutions is the days are full of interruptions. You resolve you will exercise everyday and then you get the flu, miss a week and never get back on schedule. You resolve to lose twenty pounds this year and along come the holidays and all your poundage comes back with the festive meals and prevalence of well-intentioned fairies proffering sugarplums or at least chocolate chip cookies. You resolve to put more money away in the bank and in June the transmission falls out of your car.

Rather than a list of resolutions (which tend to simply be repeats of last year's and the year before that and the year before that ad infinitum) is to have a desire to improve your character in the coming year. This is my desire for 2010:

Teach me, O LORD, to follow your decrees; then I will keep them to the end. Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart. Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight. Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word. Fulfill your promise to your servant,  so that you may be feared. Take away the disgrace I dread, for your laws are good. How I long for your precepts! Preserve my life in your righteousness. Psalm 119:33-40

Now reflect upon your desire and pick one component for achieving it and make that your resolution for the year. One resolution kept in mind is much more doable than a list of ten or twenty. Think if in 2001 you had made one resolution and over the year you made it habitual. In 2002 you made one more resolution and by 2003 you were in the habit of doing it too, and each year after. Think how much an improved person you would be by now.

My one resolve for 2010 is not to be “an actively replicating repetitive sequence that serves no known function”.

That is the definition of selfish as it applies to nucleic acid and an example is “selfish DNA”. My one resolution is to be less selfish.

Selfish -- 1: concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself: seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others 2: arising from concern with one's own welfare or advantage in disregard of others.

Twenty-oh-nine was not a good year in my perception. By November I was in a depression. There was a spate of negative changes. They began with the death of my dog. Within the event series was deterioration of my father’s health, an occurrence at the church where I was very comfortable that made me less comfortable and changes at the job I enjoyed which took away much of the joy. This includes beginning this New Year with a 40% decrease in my work income.

Change happens. My Yellow Lab was 18 years old, my dad is 91; death and illness are not unexpected occurrences with age. Many business and individual incomes have been affected by the current economy. These things were not in my control. So why did such events lead to depression?

Selfishness.

Such changes threaten the comfortable routine my life had become and that tells me I have become too much concerned with my own welfare and well-being.

One can becomes like a stick covered by snow. The stick thinks it stands out. It grows conscious of it’s own lengthening shadow. It is the center of its own attention because everything else has become hidden except itself.

Then the snow begins to melt and it is just a dead stick disconnected from its life source and the other life around it. It is useless and dead. It has no purpose except to be gathered up and thrown in the fire.

It is easy becoming that stick when life is smooth. You begin to say, “isn’t life grand” because it is all about you and what you enjoy, and you do have what you enjoy. But if the snow isolating you in your own little world begins to melt a bit you begin to see the reality you’ve forgotten. It isn’t all about you.

It isn’t all about me. Thus my one resolution for the New Year is to reduce my selfishness and focus on whom it is really all about: “Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.”

And the mystery of this is when your focus is on Christ your concern is for the others who surround you who were hidden by the snow of selfishness.

What is Your Expectancy?

2010-12-01T23:55:00.000-05:00

"Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure. Do you fix your eye on such a one? Will you bring him before you for judgment? Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one! Man's days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.” Job 14:1-5

Are you communicating with the dead right now? Is this post spirit writing from beyond the grave?

Life expectancy for my birth year was 67.3 years. I am pass that age, so should I be here?

Life expectancy the year my father was born was 58.5 years. My dad is very much alive at 91. Didn’t he get the memo?

The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) tells us life expectancy in the United States is 77.7 years and the United Nations says it is 79.4. The CDC notes their figure is based on “complete data of 2006”; I don’t know what data the U.N. based their figure on, only they say if you are born in 2010 you have an expectancy of 79.4 years.

At least the trend is going in the right direction.

The U.N. also ranks the United States at number 24 in the world and Japan as number one with an expectancy of 82 years. (Andorra has the longest living population, 83.5 years, per the United States Census Bureau. I am not exactly sure why the U. S. Census Bureau is counting people in Andorra.)

Some people make a big deal out of this claim that the U. S. is in twenty-fourth place. Of course, this is just averages kept by agencies of these various governments and subject to a lot of variables, not the least of which is the criteria used and the accuracy of obtaining it. For instance, if a baby dies in early infancy in the U.S. it counts as a death in the population. If a corresponding baby dies in Japan it may be counted as stillborn and not included in the population. That tends to skew life expectancy upward in Japan more than eating a lot of sushi.

All our lives we hear talk about life expectancy. “Be glad you didn’t live in Ancient Rome or Greece. Life expectancy was only 28 years.” Man, those Romans had to do things quick, “get born, keep warm, short pants, romance, learn to dance… (“Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan, 1965) How did all those teenagers and college kids pull themselves away from Guitar Hero long enough to conquer the world?

Now Jesus lived in those old Roman Empire days and He was 33 when he died, older than 28, yet He was crucified. Were those Jews made of sterner stuff than Romans? Or did they have a saying, “Never trust anyone over 30” and decided to eliminate the old people? Lets see some of those people around Christ.

There was Augustus Caesar. He was ruling Rome when Jesus was born. He was 81 when he died, about a month short of being 82. Tiberius became Caesar then and was in rule when Jesus was crucified. Tiberius was only 77 when he died, but he was allegedly smothered by his son Caligula and Macro, the Commander of the Praetorian Guard.

Let’s see, there were Herod the Great and his not so great son, Herod Antipas, dead at ages 69 and 60 respectively.

Add these five contemporaries together and you get a life expectancy of 64 years. Take Jesus out of the mix because He was cut off early and the expectancy jumps up to 71.8 years. Why that’s around the modern average.

What about our Founding Fathers? The life expectancy in the 1700s was 35. Did a bunch of early-thirty-somethings compose the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and then kick the bucket?

“For their era, the 1787 delegates [to the Constitutional Convention – my note] (like the 1776 signers) were average in terms of life spans. Their average age at death was about 67. The first to die was Houston in 1788; the last was Madison in 1836.

The one who reached the oldest age was Johnson, who died at 92. John Adams lived to the age of 90. A few—Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Williamson, and Wythe—lived into their eighties. Either 15 or 16 (depending on Fitzsimons's exact age) died in their seventies, 20 or 21 in their sixties, eight in their fifties, and five only in their forties. Three (Alexander Hamilton, Richard Dobbs Spaight and Button Gwinnett were killed in duels.” Source: Richard D. Brown. "The Founding Fathers of 1776 and 1787: A Collective View," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Vol. 33, No. 3 (Jul., 1976), pp. 465-480

I wonder if Hamilton (47), Gwinnett (about 42) and Spaight (44) were removed from the mix if the average would have moved up to 70 years?

How about in the 1800s? The life expectancy for those born in 1850 was 38.3 years. Let’s look at some of the 32 famous people born in 1850.

Henry Cabot Lodge died at age 74.

Samuel Gompers died at age 74

Robert S. Brookings died at age 82

A. G. Spaulding died at age 65

Pat Garrett died at age 58 (He was shot.)

Johnny Ringo died at age 32 (Probably suicide.)

Robert Louis Stevenson died at age 44 (He was sickly all his life and died of a stroke.)

There were only 3% of the 32 famous births of 1850 that died below the age of 38, which was only one person, Johnny Ringo and he was a criminal, gunslinger, alcoholic and depressant, who most likely died from a self inflicted bullet to the brain. 44% lived beyond age 70 and 19% beyond age 80. The oldest to die was Tomas Masaryk, former Czech President.

So what does this life expectancy number mean? Not much unless you are buying or selling life insurance.

But you see, we tend to forget Life Expectancy is a period-specific averaging not a natural dictate of the species. The term expectancy is perhaps a bit misleading. Being born when the life expectancy was 67.3 did not mean I should have expected to die at age 67 years, 3 months and 18 days. In fact, the closer I grew to that age should make me expect to live longer, which I have.

If we use a very, very, very tiny cohort of two people we can illustrate this.

Assume only two people were born in 1900. If one dies at age 1 and the other dies at age 92, the life expectancy is 46.5 years for people born in 1900. Neither died at age 46. However, if the first reached the age 46, then the life expectancy is 69. If both people lived to be 92, then the life expectancy of people born in 1900 would be 92.

A calculation made on actual data at a point of time will then be assumed to apply to the other cohorts born at a later year. Where a cohort consists of millions of people the statistic will hold for a while. In a small sampling like above it would have no validity at all. If only two people are born in 1901, their death ages will likely be quite different than the two born in 1900. If two million people are born in 1901, their statistics may be quite similar to those of 1900.

So when we hear the life expectancy in 1910 was about 50 years and in 2010 it is 77.7 years and thus humans are living longer, we must remind ourselves that humans are not living longer, less are just not dying young. A more pertinent figure would be what was the infant and child mortality rate in 1910 versus 2010.

We get a lot of hoopla because of the longer life expectancy rate claiming that people can live much longer, perhaps for two hundred years, perhaps for a thousand years, perhaps forever through scientific and medical innovation. Have such improvements in the past led to humans living longer as a species or just allowed more of us to reach the limitations of God’s dictates?

Did God set a limitation on the length of human life?

All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan. The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. Psalm 90:9 (A psalm of Moses.)

A person, “if they have the strength” and have avoided the violent ends often brought upon people in this world have the same length of days, 70 or 80 years, as stated by Moses approximately 3,500 years ago.

“But you said your dad was 91. We see Willard Scott wishing birthday greetings to people 100 years old regularly on TV. So how are we limited to age 70 or 80?”

We aren’t. That is just where most of us who survive to old age finally succumb, but that isn’t the limitation. There are a growing number of people reaching 100. In fact, there is a classification of people called “super centenarians”. To be in that group one must reach the age of 110 or older. Currently there are 76 known super centenarians in the world, 73 women and 3 men. Not good dating odds for the women. Somebody isn't going to the prom this year. In fact, the oldest person in the world up until September of 2009 was Gertrude Baines of Los Angeles. The current oldest person in the world is now a Japanese woman named Kama Chinen, age 114. (Moses, himself, was a super centenarian who lived to be 120.) The certifiably oldest person ever on record was Jeanne Calment who died at 122.

Are these people breaking God’s limitation on human lifespan? No, they are just pushing the envelope a bit. Jeanne pushed it hardest, but I think the limitation has a little give, a few years either way so to speak.

What is the limitation?

When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years." Genesis 6:1-3

One Hundred Twenty Years was a limitation on our years set long ago by God.

Could science expand our lives beyond God’s limitations? We know from the Bible there was a time when people did live much longer than 70, 80 or even 120 years. Could technology take us back to those pre-flood life spans?

What would happen if man tried? Would man succeed?

Ah, another discussion at another time.

Illustration: "Retired in Delaware" and I were visiting family graves at the Grove Methodist Church, Grove, Pennsylvania one afternoon in 2004 when I chanced upon and snapped a gravedigger at his work. It being the middle of the day, I assume he was a gravedigger and not a grave robber.

Will you be the One-Thousand Year Old Man or Woman?

2010-12-01T23:45:00.000-05:00

And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. Genesis 3:22-24

“The first person to live to be 1,000 years old is certainly alive today …whether they realize it or not, barring accidents and suicide, most people now 40 years or younger can expect to live for centuries. --- But it's not inevitable, that's the point. At the moment, we're stuck with this awful fatalism that we're all going to get old and sick and die painful deaths. There are a 100,000 people dying each day from age-related diseases. We can stop this carnage. It's simply a matter of deciding that's what we should be doing." Aubrey de Grey, Cambridge University geneticist, CSO of the SENS Foundation and Co-Founder of the Methuselah Foundation.

Professor de Grey and I probably have more in agreement than you would think. I certainly believe human beings are capable of living for a thousand years. First of all, it’s been done. Second, we know it is going to happen again. With less certainty than de Grey, I think there is a very high probability that people 40 years or younger today may continue living for centuries more here on earth.

I also think it is a matter of what we decide.

To many people this idea of the 1,000 Year-old man sounds a bit kooky, kind of out there, something for Science Fiction adherents, but not for serious consideration. The idea man could circumnavigate the globe or fly through the air from one destination to another was once considered kooky, too, but someone gave it serious consideration and chose to make it happen. I was taught in grade school that man would never walk on the moon in my lifetime. Approximately 17 years after I was taught, absolutely, I would never see such a thing so don't give it serious consideration, a man not only stepped on the moon, he turned it into a golf course.

God endowed humans with imagination, brains and determination. If one of us bipeds conceives of a possibility, no matter how incredible, some other brainy biped will begin working on the problem. Do not slough this off. I am certain geneticist and other scientists in labs all over the world are working on the longevity problem.

The SENS Foundation lists seven discovered reason for aging, or at least, damage from aging that hastens death, and they provide a list of solutions. Here is what they say about this aging deterioration:

“The specific metabolic processes that are ultimately responsible for all of this damage are still poorly understood. However … this ignorance doesn't matter for "engineering" purposes. All that matters is our ability to periodically fix the damage, at the right time: after it has formed, but before it builds up to levels high enough to interfere with our youthful functioning. The even better news is that we know how to fix all of this damage today. For each major aging lesion, a SENS solution for its removal or repair either already exists in prototype form, or is foreseeable from existing scientific developments.” SENS, An Engineering Solution, SENS Foundation, 2009.

God put a limitation on the days of men. It is 120 years, though most of us never make it even that far. Since God declared that limitation, the certified oldest person to have ever lived was Jeanne Calment, who died age 122.

But when in history did mankind not try to exceed God’s limitations? When did mankind except God’s Will over their own? So the question is not whether there is serious consideration or serious attempts to extend the lifespan of man to a thousand years, but will it be achieved.

I definite believe it is achievable and we will see strong efforts to do it. I imagine science left to its own devices would succeed, except…and it is a big EXCEPT.

Except...what has happened whenever mankind has begun to assert his will over God’s Will and grown a little too big for his britches? Let’s look at one example because it has certain similarities to the present.

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth. Genesis 11:1-8

This is interesting. God said “nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them”. God did not alter the nature or intelligence of His creature. He did alter their tongues. He did not make them speak gibberish, either, he gave groups of them a real language in common and then He, God, scattered them over the face of the earth.

Now in this case do I think God was worried about the tower? No, it was because these men, under the leadership of Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, were putting their will over God’s Will. Note the name Babel relates to the location of this occurrence, which was around Babylon. Such towers, called ziggurats were to become common in this area and throughout the Middle East. You often hear references in the Bible to Kings of Judah “tearing down (or building up) the high places”. Many of these high places were towers and the purpose was to commune with gods, not The God. In the building of the Tower of Babel we probably see the beginnings of a pagan religion. This certainly didn’t please God.

Besides that, Nimrod and his followers were disobeying God’s Will that they scatter across the earth. When man began to go against God’s wishes and achieve their own goals contrary to His, God stepped in and put in limitations that stopped them.

Keep in mind, this tower building didn’t come very long after the Flood, only three generations if that. And what was the Flood, but a limitation on mankind. Mankind had grown so self-centered and evil God wiped them all out except for one righteous family, which allowed people to start all over with a fresh beginning. It didn’t take long for some of these people to blow that second opportunity, did it?

This brings us back to the limitation on the length of a man life span. Remember I said we know the human body is capable of living a thousand years on earth because it had been done? Before the flood people lived to near a thousand years.

"Now when Noah had lived three hundred and fifty years after the Flood, and that all that time happily, he died, having lived the number of nine hundred and fifty years. But let no one, upon comparing the lives of the ancients with our lives, and with the few years which we now live, think that what we have said of them is false; or make the shortness of our lives at present an argument, that neither did they attain to so long a duration of life, for those ancients were beloved of God, and [lately] made by God himself; and because their food was then fitter for the prolongation of life, might well live so great a number of years: and besides, God afforded them a longer time of life on account of their virtue, and the good use they made of it in astronomical and geometrical discoveries, which would not have afforded the time of foretelling [the periods of the stars] unless they had lived six hundred years; for the great year is completed in that interval."

"Now I have for witnesses to what I have said, all those that have written Antiquities, both among the Greeks and barbarians; for even Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian History, and Berosus, who collected the Chaldean Monuments, and Mochus, and Hestieus, and, besides these, Hieronymus the Egyptian, and those who composed the Phoenician History, agree to what I here say: Hesiod also, and Hecatseus, Hellanicus, and Acusilaus; and, besides these, Ephorus and Nicolaus relate that the ancients lived a thousand years. But as to these matters, let every one look upon them as he thinks fit." (Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, III, 9)

When we go back to Genesis 6:3, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years," we find this limitation was made before the flood. After the flood, we see the ages of men decline over a period of about 300 years from Noah who lived well over 900 years, through Shem who got to 600 down to Abraham who didn’t make it to 200. It continued a gradual descent until the limitation was met in Moses, who lived 120 years. By the time of King David the decline began to level out at 70 to 80 years where it has been to this day.

Why did it decline in this manner? Because God did not again alter the general construction of his creation, but made changes to the world around man that afflicted the body with disease and deterioration.

Here are two changes that occurred with the flood that may have contributed. Before the Flood there had never been rain. Water was supplied by pure springs in the ground. After the Flood there was rain, this may have affected the drinking water and what it contained. This may also mean there weren’t clouds before the flood and the atmosphere itself may have been different.

Here is another radical change, which may validate the arguments of vegetarians, because before the Flood all men were plant eaters. It was after the Flood that God gave man the right to eat meat. This change in diet may have contributed to the shortening of our life.

Nonetheless, God put a limitation on the days of our lives. One might ask why would He do it using the world about us? Couldn’t He have simply willed out bodies to die at 120? Certainly, but here is that other statement I made in agreement with Aubrey de Grey: “With not as much certainty, I also think there is a very high probability that people 40 years or younger today may continue living for centuries more here on earth.”

Why did I say that?

Because God has promised the return of Christ to rule on earth for a thousand years. There will be those alive at His return (who choose God’s gift of Christ) who will go into that Millennium Kingdom and live for a thousand years and there will be those born during that Kingdom who will live for centuries. I said what I said with less certainty, only because we don’t know when the return of Christ will be.

But because God has promised some of mankind will live for a thousand years, he has not altered man’s body to die in but 120 years or less. The difference will be those things which destroy our bodies will be eliminated in the new Kingdom.

Because God did not alter our bodies and it is “specific metabolic processes that are ultimately responsible for all of this damage”, as the SENS Foundation claims, which shorten our lives, I believe man is capable of managing the damage. We’ve seen man find cures for many of the diseases that have plagued us (but note how new diseases seem to appear a-sudden through history – God’s frustrating man's will). Man has developed organ transplants and even more and more artificial organs to prolong life. So, I don’t doubt men have the capability to again go against God’s Will and the 120 years age barrier.

What will happen if man does?

Well, look at the Tower of Babel; look at the Flood; look at Adam and Eve banished from the Garden. Perhaps this time the limitation on man will be the Second Coming of Our Lord. And wouldn’t that be ironic, for then God will achieve the goal as He stops man from achieving it on his own.

And wouldn’t that be wonderful.

The Illustration is a detail from a photo I took at the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, 2006. It is a bronze bust of the author Victor Hugo sculpted by Auguste Rodin in 1890-97.