I feel strongly Mar 20, 2005
One thing I realized on Friday night after the HALO Bible study (part of Bethlehem Church) is that I feel strongly about several things, and I'm thinking there's a reason why I feel strongly about these things.  For example:  I encouraged Mare to be more consistent with her devotions by devoting a certain time each day or by changing up what she reads.  This made me realize that I feel strongly about encouraging/helping believers have a regular and meaningful quiet time.  I realized just a few weeks ago that I feel very strongly about confronting obvious sin among believers.  I don't think a person can be part a discipleship group and be blatantly involved in sin and have no desire to change.  This was partially brought on by my subteam's study of Revelation, which condemned some churches for allowing sin to exist among their members.  Toleration is terrible.  I also feel strongly about teaching believers an easy way to share the gospel.  A lot of people think it's really difficult and you need several hours to explain everything.  Other people think you need to bring people to an evangelist or an outreach to have the gospel explained properly.  I believe every Christian should know how to explain the gospel to any other person.  It can be as simple as what's on my gospel page.  Another thing I feel strongly about is dating with marriage in mind (courtship) as opposed to dating for fun or "to see where things go."  I hate hearing about people who are just trying dating to see where it leads them.  I can tell you this from experience:  it only leads to bad things.  People are naturally sexual beings; that's how God made us.  You can't put a hungry wolf in a room and expect it not to eat a juicy steak.  I think we just need to be honest with ourselves and realize where things are going before it's too late and we weakly give in.

I think I feel strongly about these things because I've experienced all of them.  I've had trouble with having a consistent quiet time with God; I've been engaged in sin while in a discipleship group only to be confronted about it; I've been afraid of sharing the gospel because I just didn't know it well enough to share; and I've dating for fun only to realize how stupid it is.  I guess this is all part of the Christian walk.  We experience things and stumble for a reason:  to grow. #religion
Hail to the conquering hero Mar 20, 2005
Here's a random thing about Christianity that just came to me today (from God most likely) while in church (I always realize the coolest things in church): The Jews around Jesus' time were expecting a political and/or military leader to release them from Roman rule. Jesus came as a conqueror, but as a spiritual conqueror -- to conquer death, not people. So once again, people didn't realize what God was doing because they were expecting him to act in a certain way. This kind of thing happens all the time. When we pray about something and "our wish doesn't come true," we immediately think God didn't answer us. We're expecting him to act in such a way as to answer our prayer in a positive way. But God can answer with a "no." #religion
Large letters Mar 18, 2005
This is a great verse from the Bible: "See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand!" (Galatians 6:11). I just think it's funny. I wonder if the original manuscript was written with big letters. I also like the context: Paul's letters are mostly (I think) written by other people as he dictated to them what to write. Towards the end of Galatians, he writes some of it himself to emphasize its importance and to make it more personal. But apparently he wrote larger than his scribe; large enough to mention it. #religion
Seeing God Mar 18, 2005
Do you want to see God? Doesn't everybody? Wouldn't that make it so much easier to believe everything about Christianity? Here's why I think we can't see God: Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." If we saw God, we would no longer have any use for faith. The problem with this is that "...everything that does not come from faith is sin." (Romans 14:23) So in other words, if we saw God and continued to live, we couldn't not be living in sin because seeing God eliminates faith, which is required in order to not sin. (Did I just unravel the universe? Probably not -- it's probably a mistranslation) #religion
Animal instinct Mar 11, 2005
I'm reminded of something I read a while ago concerning sexual immorality and other "things done for the feeling." It was said that one thing that separates humans from animals is humans' ability to act on things other than feeling. Animals survive by instinct. They do things because they know no other way. Similarly, as a recent example, in learning how to train our cats, Wendy and I learned that cats don't respond to punishment like some other animals do. They respond to good and bad experiences. If they climb on the counter and find something good, they'll do it again. But if their experience is somehow made unpleasant, they'll stay away. So in other words, they act based on feeling. Which brings me to my point: as humans, if we just do whatever feels good, there's nothing that separates us from animals. #religion
Fast Mar 10, 2005
Yesterday was my fast. It was part of a Bethlehem Church-wide thing to focus on God and loving others. I ate on Tuesday night at around 10 p.m., and lasted until Wednesday at about 5:30 p.m. It always tastes so incredibly good to eat after you haven't eaten in a little while. I would consider doing it on a somewhat regular basis so that I'd enjoy food more. But then I'd just binge when it's over. And I'm also missing the whole point: to concentrate less on the distractions of the world, and concentrate more on God and prayer. #religion
Abortion and Bible stuff Feb 17, 2005
How 'bout this for a radical extremist idea:  Concerning abortion, what if babies went to hell when they died because of man's inherently sinful nature and a baby's lack of time/ability to accept Christ.  This would mean that Satan would gain a soul for his army each time a baby was aborted.  This would be a good reason not to support abortion.  I don't think I believe this though.  It's too out there. 

Here's a tough Bible question:  Did Christ preach to dead people, according to 1 Peter 4:6?  My answer:  No.  It says that the gospel "was" preached to those that "are now" dead.  It doesn't say he preached to those that "were dead".  This is true in the NIV, NASB, KJV, and NLT, among others.  It's saying that Christ preached to people who have since died.  That's it. 

And what about this one:  Did Christ preach to people in hell or Old Testament people or fallen angels, according to 1 Peter 3:18-20?  Most likely fallen angels.  He preached to spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago while Noah was building the ark. 

Who are the sons of God in Genesis 6:1-3?  Probably not angels because Matthew 22:30 says there's no marriage in heaven.  However, this was happening on earth, not in heaven.  It says "sons of God" saw "daughters of men," which kind of implies that godly men saw some women of the world and were attracted to them.  Plus, this fits in with the context of the passage, which is talking about how wicked the world is and how God is about to destroy it with a flood. #religion
Da Vinci Code (2) Jan 21, 2005
I just read this book that disproved parts of Dan Brown's "the Da Vinci Code" and I came to a few realizations about the book.  I think the reason why so many people are interested in the DVC is because disproving Christianity would validate their entire way of life.  How rewarding would it be to be able to tell some schmuck who's evangelizing to you that everything he/she believes has been proven to be a lie?  Which means that your way of life has been wrong and mine has been fine.  It's a big "I told you so."

Also, the idea of goddess worship and the sacred feminine is so inherently appealing to our culture of fashionable femininism (much like fashionable liberalism and fashionable homosexuality).  Some stupid guy can read the book and say to some poor unfortunate woman, "Oh yeah I totally believe this stuff about the sacred feminine and how women were written out of Christianity.  I'm on your side."  Stupid.

In my opinion, the bottom line is that Dan Brown is a really smart guy who knows how to capitalize on people's interests. #religion
Religion, a crutch Dec 17, 2004
Some people say that religion is a crutch for the weak. I agree with them to some extent, except for the fact that religion causes more problems than it fixes. Christianity, for example, helps people deal with the problems of life by reminding them that there's an afterlife where all life's problems will go away and we'll be experiencing bliss with God (assuming you're saved). The thing is, Jesus also said that we should be perfect like God, we should offer our bodies to other people who want to harm us, and we should tell everyone about the saving grace that God offers. My argument is that if someone made this stuff up, they would have made it at least slightly more fool-proof. If you're gonna invent a religion, don't make it impossible to follow. Make it easy! This is why Christianity isn't an invented religion: it's got too many holes and doesn't exactly simplify life. Thank God for his grace, which allows us to still go to heaven despite our failing to live up to the perfect standard of Jesus. #religion
Drinkin Nov 22, 2004
About 2 weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to stop drinking, and I told my decision to Wendy who promptly agreed with me.  Here's why:  I claim to be a Christian.  The Bible talks constantly about drunkenness in a bad light.  In other words, we shouldn't be getting drunk.  My justification up to this point has been this:  What's the definition of drunkenness?  Is it when you have more than one or two drinks, or is it when you black out and puke?  To me, there's a fine line.  To the world, there's a huge gap.  This doesn't matter to me.  My problem is that I like drinking.  Like most questionable actions, drinking is fun.  I've almost never had a bad time when I was drinking, though there were a few times when I ended the night in a terrible way by throwing up everything that ever entered my body.  My enjoyment of drinking makes it so that I can't really have only one or two.  I want a lot.

In addition to this reason, there's the cover-all reason for doing or not doing everything:  Drinking doesn't glorify God.  Although it's cheesy and weak, it's true and I believe it.  If I really think about what honors God, that's when I realize what I'm doing that I don't like (and God probably doesn't like either).

So another reason is that, when I was a freshman, that was my thing.  I had sooo many conversations with people at frat parties and such, and sooo many of them started with them asking me, "Why don't you drink?"  At the time, I might not have followed up that question with a profound answer, but I realize now that it gave me so many opportunities for ministry. #religion