Moral Science Club

The Watch Tower in Light of Scripture - An indispensable eBook

2009-12-26T08:01:00.002-04:00

Click on the title to read the important response to Jehovah's Witnesses by former JW Peter Barnes. Recently two Jehovah's Witnesses came to my door. One read a Scripture verse and complemented me on the large plaque with a Scripture verse next to my door. He politely read the verse which I can't remember what it was although I did mention something about the context that showed that I have some Bible knowledge. That was it. He said good-bye and something to the effect that it was good to meet another believer. Nothing more. I was kind of hoping he'd challenge me to join up with them but he didn't. There is a Scripture or two (or three?) that I would have liked to read to him. It had to do with the mark of prophets who can't seem to make an accurate prophecy to save their lives; prophets like Charles Taze Russell and Joseph Rutherford of JW.
Peter Barnes knows the problems of Jehovah's Witnesses better than anyone. He was a member for 30 years - rising in their ranks to "Circuit Overseer" of more than a dozen congregations.
For a long time I thought that Jehovah's Witnesses was a at worst an unnecessary group. But Jesus' words in Matthew 7:15-23, Scripture that Peter Barnes dissects in his first six pages, gives a clear warning to followers of Christ who may be tempted to join Jehovah's Witnesses. Jesus calls them evil in the famous parables of wolves in sheep's clothing and "telling a tree by its fruit".
He - and He alone - is the shepherd. Wolves want to lead the sheep away from the shepherd so they can devour them later. Since their prophecies have been a complete sham (end of the world in 1914, the resurrection of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in 1925), Jesus advises us not to expect an accurate prophecy from a Jehovah's Witness....ever. You can tell a tree by its fruit, He teaches us. And a fig tree is not going to produce apples...ever.

What Child is This?

2009-12-24T23:59:00.001-04:00

He is Christ the King, the son of Mary, the Son of Man, the Son of God. He is everything. He is here.
Merry Christmas to all!

Never forget the other side of the Christmas story...

2009-12-24T07:15:00.000-04:00

...and what we put Him through and what He did for us.
"When I Survey the Wondrous Cross"

Susan Boyle - Amazing Grace

2009-12-23T09:33:00.001-04:00

Veni Veni Emmanuel - Enya

2009-12-23T09:05:00.002-04:00

Jeff Beck - Amazing Grace

2009-12-18T06:26:00.001-04:00

Until the whole world hears....every version.

Believing in God is not work...for us

2009-12-16T08:27:00.005-04:00

John 6:29
Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

Romans 3:10-12
As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."
Also found in Psalms 14:1-3; 53:1-3; Eccles. 7:20

Matthew 16:15-17
15"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
16Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
17Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.

A common error I hear is that believing in Christ somehow involves a work on our part. The people in John 6 ask this question, "What must we do to do the works God requires?". Note that Christ answers not with what works they should do, but the works OF God "is this: to believe the one he has sent".

Psalms and later Paul drive this point home; we can do nothing good on our own, so how can we believe in God on our own? If we believe in God, it is A WORK OF GOD, says Jesus. That is exactly true. As in the scene in Matthew 16, God gives us the very faith to believe.

A lot of my friends split hairs over this. The one thing we should stop saying is that there is something we have done, even to say we made a choice on our own is wrong. By Jesus' definitions, any one who finds God by his own will is not a son of God but the contrary. Jesus calls the self-styled "sons of God, sons of Abraham" as sons of the devil in John 8. Why? Because they do not do their father's will, which is to believe in Christ. Thus their father is not God, but the devil.

Perhaps the only thing that we can DO to hasten our salvation is....nothing. Now some might argue that doing nothing consciously is doing something, but, well, good luck with that one.

Really, by doing nothing, I mean being nothing. In my book 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, the protagonist realizes in the end that he is the problem. He meets an older version of himself in a vision, and the older "I" tells him he must "choose not to be". That is essentially the Bible's starting point in our new life in Christ.

We must write the words "what I must do to be saved" down on a piece of paper and have a ceremonial burning. If you believe in the one he has sent, you are saved because the Creator of the universe has thrown down his anchor deep into your soul. You must now live this new life, but you can never earn it. You never did. It was by God's grace alone that we believe in the one he has sent.

Pastor Melissa Scott on "Justified" - Fascinating Bible Lesson

2009-12-14T00:54:00.000-04:00

A Christ-only Christmas?

2009-12-13T22:13:00.004-04:00

My sister says that we shouldn't exchange presents this year 1) as everyone is struggling financially and 2) we should just focus on celebrating Jesus anyway. I couldn't agree more. You gotta love a recession because it sends Santa Fraud packing. We should be ushering in the King, not the clown.

John Piper - There will be suffering

2009-11-28T23:51:00.001-04:00

Alice's Restaurant

2009-11-27T00:23:00.004-04:00

Happy Thanksgiving...even if it isn't

2009-11-26T15:52:00.004-04:00

Leviticus 10:19 Aaron replied to Moses, "Today they sacrificed their sin offering and their burnt offering before the LORD, but such things as this have happened to me. Would the LORD have been pleased if I had eaten the sin offering today?" 20 When Moses heard this, he was satisfied.

After witnessing the deaths of his two oldest sons, Aaron and his remaining sons were to eat a meat offering. However, they were upset that God had struck down Nadab and Abihu for getting carried away in the Tabernacle. So they let the meat burn to a crisp rather than eat the meat. The violent deaths of their loved ones had killed their appetite as well as their thankful hearts toward God. Thus we see Aaron and his sons saying to God, "No thanks". They'd rather go hungry.

It's an appropriate lesson for today when so many people have an understandable "Bah Humbug!" attitude toward Thanksgiving 2009. Things have not gone well in a year in which most people have less than the year before. Countless goals have not been met, many with jobs are not happy with them, and nearly one in five is out of a job entirely. The Word of God understands this in Leviticus 10. There are times that suck and 2009 is one of those times. God is not going to tremble because we grumble, "No thanks!" God knew Aaron was going to come around, and he did. His son, Eleazar, goes far as the high priest who will eventually take over his father's place.

And why was Moses satisfied? Aaron was being honest and transparent. He also had gone through with honoring God with the offerings beforehand. They chose not to eat the goat offering that was for them. It was their silent protest to God. I think Moses was satisfied because they decided not to be fake and say, "Ah, everything's just great!" It wasn't. God knew that. Aaron knew that, and we see Moses knew that.

So we have a right to grumble these days, but let's also remember that Thanksgiving is not about us. We don't have much reason to be thankful for ourselves; at least I'm not. I'm not overjoyed by the lot I've been given this year, and I don't hesitate to take my complaints to God where they belong. That deserves repeating; I don't hesitate to take my complaints to God where they belong. God has promised to take our worries away, and He hasn't been silent about how He plans to do that.

This Thanksgiving I say "No thanks, God" for what I've been given in the short term. This holiday, I give thanks to God for Jesus Christ: the answer to all my complaints, worries, and anxieties. It's not about me anymore. All those old bets are off. I give thanks to my Savior who my Heavenly Father has, in His incalculable grace, drawn me to forever. Amen.

Paul Washer - Jesus is Everything

2009-11-25T11:08:00.001-04:00

An Artistic Depiction of Love and War

2009-11-23T06:24:00.001-04:00

From the Ukraine's version of "American Idol"

Bishop Tobin bans Patrick Kennedy from communion

2009-11-22T23:19:00.003-04:00

The Catholic Bishop's alleged decision to ban crazy-for-abortion Congressman Patrick Kennedy from receiving communion makes sense. I doubt Muslims would welcome someone who cursed Mohammed and Allah into the mosque either. The Bishop's position is reasonable while the congressman's position makes no sense. Another trinket from this article [available by clicking on the post title] is below. Note, this Father Reese fellow is criticizing the Bishop for standing up for the truth because it would cause suffering. Wonder what Jesus would say about that....

“But the problem is, every time an individual bishop does it — especially if the public official has a high-profile name like Kennedy — it’s going to make headlines across the country and every bishop is going to suffer because of it,” Father Reese said.

I Love To Tell The Story - The Chuck Wagon Gang

2009-11-19T09:56:00.002-04:00

I love to tell the story, too. Enjoy.

Stan Smith on the Thorn in the Flesh

2009-11-18T09:05:00.001-04:00

Ian McKellen has more respect for the Bible than the ELCA

2009-11-16T13:20:00.004-04:00

Kim Olsen has an excellent contrast between Ian McKellen, the gay "Lord of the Rings" actor who tears out the page in his hotel Bible condemning homosexuality, and the Evangelical Church of America. It appears ELCA has done what atheist, gay Ian McKellen wouldn't do; throw the whole book out. Click on the title for the link.

This Is My Father's World - 2nd Chapter of Acts

2009-11-16T06:50:00.001-04:00

"My god, why have you forsaken me? Must be cuz u don't exist"

2009-11-12T12:15:00.005-04:00

This statement sums up the pivot point of many atheist bloggers. God fails their sniff test, therefore He doesn't exist. I've never thought that atheism was a tenable position. How could one go through life truly believing that the answer to THE BIG QUESTION (Where did we come from?) was either "nowhere" or "I don't know"? As impossible it is to understand God, I find no-God infinitely more implausible. Wittgenstein had an interesting perspective here. While commands like "thou shalt not murder" have no real meaning in the world and cannot be said, being "mystical", the "mystical is that we exist" (Tractatus). Wittgenstein nailed a key principle about God being not of the world but in it through the mystical.

But how can an omnipotent God create a world that He Himself does not feel at home in? The atheist sees this biblical god as contradictory. He can't save 5-year olds from cancer, or saves some and not others on a par that is almost random. Even His believers suffer terribly, which brings me to Psalm 22.

Psalm 22 was originally known as "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" All Psalm names were initially the first line. Psalm 22 (purportedly written by David around 1000 BC) tells of a man suffering terribly. God has abandoned Him to a horrific fate. His hands and his feet have been pierced with nails, people are mocking him, saying "let your God save you". Indeed it seems like this fellow has depended wholly on God to save him and is really being let down. The persecuted man feels like a "worm" despised by the people. People are yelling insults at him and animals are scattered around waiting to be able to eat his flesh. His bones are out of joint, as if he is stretched out or hanging. He describes suffocation (heart has melted away) and extreme dehydration. Although his bones are not broken (v. 17), he is being laid out naked in front of the people (v.18). He cries out once again to God to save his life (v. 19-21) and goes into a praise and worship mode predicting a time when all the world will turn to God.

Now it really doesn't tell us exactly what happened to this poor guy. Apparently, he dies anyway. Verse 29 says "all who go down to the dust WILL kneel before him". Yes, we're going to die, THEN we will kneel before God, or the afflicted one, or both, if they are one and the same. I think it's safe to assume that, since Psalm 23 next in line, speaks of a man going through the Valley of Death, that this man died after all.

So God did forsake him after all. And, if you believe as I do, this was His own son He let die a thousand years later, then that makes sense. He didn't save Jesus either until after Jesus died.

So how could a good and loving God let 5-year-olds die of cancer? I think the answer is that this world is not all there is, and death is not the end. If it were, God would die sooner or later. The one stand He did take was that He brings the dead to life, to "eternal life" which should not be confused with our understanding of life. But they still die a physical death.

There are two stages in a person's life that are extremely frightening. First, is birth, and fortunately we don't remember what we went through when the womb could not hold us any longer and we were rudely pushed out of that sanctuary into what C.S. Lewis called "the First Hell". Then we all face death when our bodies can not be kept alive any longer and we face an uncertain, and possibly no, future. It is a mind-numbing thought, that of coming to an end. There will be no more idyllic mornings with caramel macchiatto coffee in hand, Alpha Smart word processor in your lap, and your Boston Terrier cuddled under your right knee. All our earthly experiences will come to an end. We cannot come back physically to enjoy one more Autumn day in Florida.

I know that something outside of this world is calling us, preparing us for that time when the womb of this world will throw us out. In Psalm 24, we see a picture of complete victory over death as the "king of glory" is heralded. "Lift your heads, O you gates, be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the king of glory might come in". The gates and doors to Heaven open for the king of glory's return. One day my home gates just might open for me, although I won't get the reception that Jesus got. It'll probably be something like, "Oh, yeah, that guy, the blogging smart-ass. Ok, well, let him in. We don't need him here but we'll take him. Jimbo, shut the door behind you, OK. Don't want the neighbors to see."

Or something like that.

When I Survey The Wondrous Cross - Dave Phelps

2009-11-11T19:13:00.001-04:00

Happy Veterans' Day

2009-11-11T11:11:00.001-04:00

However righteous or flawed the call, the dedication of our war veterans is profoundly significant. They make our nation, and our brotherhood, real. What better song to host than the Navy Hymn - "Eternal Father, Strong to Save".

The problem with "What the Bible Really Says" books

2009-11-09T23:07:00.001-04:00

Did you know Jesus had brothers and sisters?
Did you know other people rose from the dead, too?
Did you know that Jesus wasn't born on Christmas Day?

Hmmm, where do you find these earth-shattering revelations? In the Bible! Oh my!

The assumption the wanna-be best-selling bookwriter makes is that there is a large audience that has zero knowledge of the Bible. He/she/Bert Ehrman is correct in this logic, although they are preying on the wallets of ignorant people. The Bible is the most intensely scrutinized book ever printed. How many Qur'an studies have you heard of, or how many "Gone with the Wind" study groups have popped up in your 'burb? Zero? Thought so.

These countless Bible study groups (I'm in my 9th year of one of them) - do they miss these points that represent the three key "gotcha" points mentioned above? No! The dead giveaway that the so-called Bible detective is insincere is what they do with this "information". That is...nothing. "You see, Jesus wasn't the only one who came back from the dead?" That's it. You see it? What is it? To that, I ask, "So?" God can bring anyone back from the dead, but only one of them can save us now and forever. And only one of them is what the whole Bible is about.

Martin Wolf - Private Behavior and Fiscal Stability

2009-11-05T18:26:00.004-04:00

Great article. It comes with this hysterical cartoon, too!

Professor Anthony Esalen on the Problem of Same Sex Marriage

2009-11-05T07:38:00.001-04:00