Jesus Before Christianity, Chapter One I started reading a book published in the 1970's by Albert Nolan called "Jesus before Christianity." His aim is to look at Jesus through an historical lens. His first claim is that we can't look at history without considering our own vantage point, and we will won't be able to form a purely objective view of history. The world in 1976, Nolan claims, shard many characteristics with 1st century Palestine. According to Nolan, these shared characteristics allow us to hear Jesus differently than any previous point in history. We can give Jesus an honest historical look.

First century Palestine was convinced that the world was coming to an end. The system of government was out of control. The socio-political system created winners and losers, and those with money kept winning and those without money kept losing. Today's socio-political system does the same thing. To be fair, the main system has probably done this in every period of history when governments manage too many people. As I understand it, there was a time when clan chiefs were responsible for the well being of every memeber of their clan. They could lose their power and authority if too many people under thier leadership starved or were homeless. I'm sure these clans didn't get to be very large, unlike the millions of people some Mayors lead today, and the billions under the President.

Our system exploits and pollutes our world. It doesn't enable us to manage overpopulation and distribute resources. It promotes an ever-increasing spiral of violence. The problem is that our system is focused on profits, not people. Hasn't the collected wisdom of the ages told us that the love of money is the root of all evil?

Even worse, according to Nolan, we have a hard time changing the system because there is no one truly in charge of things. The system runs itself and we can't just put a few people in key positions and fix things.

Thinking about this in terms of simplicity, we have to opt-out of this socio-political system as much as we can. We have to focus on people, not profits, but we need to stay involved in the political system enough to participate by voting for positive changes. I try to pay attention enough to make informed decisions when I vote, but I consider it my duty to vote. Otherwise, I try to opt out of the socio-political system. I try to live simply, buy locally, be mindful. It doesn't always work.  ¶ 10:18 AM 0 comments

  Simplicity There was another session about simplicity in our adult forums. I think forced simplicity sucks. We don't really have the choice to live simply. We have to. Of course, there was a lot about choosing local foods, which causes problems with the underpaid and overworked workers elsewhere in the world in favor of the local overworked and underpaid workers here in Oregon.

Another aspect of simplicity that was discussed was Americans desire for more choices, when actually human beings are much more relaxed if we don't have lots of superficial choices. I don't exercize my right to choose in the supermarket because I tend to live in a rut. We eat the same food over and over again. Every once in a while we buy food that is outside of our normal dietary range, just for fun, or we go to a restaraunt that serves food we just dont' make at home.

We do eat out more than we should. I tried to set up a budget for us where we spend no more than $150 a month eating out. This includes our Sunday morning Starbucks before church and eating brunch somwhere every week. (Come to think of it, at $20 a meal (cheap) and a $7 breakfast practically breaks our dining budget and I may be a little stingy on that.) We broke the $150 for this month last Thursday, and we've been out three times since.

I think the main part of living simply, the biggest lesson about it, is to keep our priorities straight, remembering Jesus words in Matthew 6:25-33 Consider the Lillies of the field...  ¶ 9:00 AM 0 comments

  Coveting That book by Andy Stanley called "How Good Is Good Enough" also had a passage about coveting, which raised a few questions which I then posed to the GTNG group. I asked:

For instance, my best friend has purchased a really nice home
entertainment system. Mine is not that hot. If I decide that I want the
same entertainment system, is that covetous? If I go and buy one just
like his, is that covetous? If I want his actual system and want to take
it out of his home and put it in mine, is that covetous?

One of the members of the group who I rarely agree with pointed out that if wanting what my friend has intereferes with the relationship, that's coveting. Becoming obsessed with getting an equal or better system is a form of idolatry. Another comment along this line was "sin is mostly getting your priorities wrong, putting other things before God and/or other people."

The sermon on the mount was Jesus' own teachings on the 10 commandments (as well as other points) and I often associate the Sermon with turning the commandments around. The commandment says "Thou shalt not kill" but Jesus says we should honor and uphold all life and the dignity of every human being. Paul states that we should be content (I am trying to find the actual quote) and not "Keep up with the Jonses".

I think that "keeping up with the Jonses" is embedded into American Society, and it's a tenet that keeps us apart from God. I admit it's hard to keep God in the front of my mind all day. I need to learn how to abnegate and become a conduit for the Holy Spirit.  ¶ 11:25 AM 0 comments

  Atonement Theology (again) A friend gave me a book by Andy Stanley called "How Good Is Good Enough?" This small book actually does a great job of explaining Atonement Theology, but fails to make his case on two points. First, atonement theology still hasn't extracted itself form reading the Bible literally, especially the opening chapters of Genesis, where Adam and Eve decided to choose, and chose badly (as Stanley put it). I don't believe that there once was a state of perfection that we lost and therefore there is no need for the salvation atonement theology perscribes.

The book's basic premis that that each of us, and individuals, need to accept Jesus Christ as our "Personal Lord and Savior." The book does not describe what this really means in theological, spiritual, or even practical terms.

Finally, atonement theology still doesn't work for me because it ignores something that I consider vital to the message of the Christ: Love God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus talked about being in a right relation to God. Stanley rejects the notion that the writers of the Bible put things in the story that probably weren't factual, but that they felt were True and necessary for their audience. This leads him to conclude that the passage in the Gospel of John "Only through me shall you get to heaven" means that we have to "accept Jesus as our personal lord and savior." I have dealt with the 'Lord and Savior' portion of that phrase, but I still don't know what they mean by 'personal'.

Yes, sin is a part of our lives, and redemption is important, but learning from that redemption is harder and more important.  ¶ 9:53 AM 0 comments

  Simplicity Today we went to the forum about Lent and simplicity. We talked a bit about simplicity and how it played in our lives. My wife and I can say with some integrity that we live simple lives. We're not poor, we just don't have any money.

We are pack rats but we don't buy things just to have things. I am due to graduate in a couple of months, and then I need to get a job. This will potentially double our income. If we can live off of the higher income and spend most of the second income on our savings and getting out from underneath the debt of student loans, we could have almost half of our loans paid off in a year, and we'd have more money on a month to month basis than we have now.

We live in an apartment complex where we can see that many of our neighbors are worse off than we are. We have two cars, many of the other families only have one. We have an apartment full of furniture and books, but from what I can see our neighbors appear to not have much. We have been blessed with more than enough to live with, and we worry that my future employment will not hurt us in some way.

It is tempting to think that with just a little more money we could have just a little bit more, and then we'd be satisfied. We are satisfied. A friend of mine spent lots of money upgrading his home entertainment system and when he helped me upgrade mine he was frustrated that I didn't buy the biggest and the best. I bought what was better than I had and sufficient for my needs. I have to admit that my computer would still be a 4 gig Mac running OS 8.6 if he hadn't given me gifts of a 20 gig hard drive and OS 9.1. Am I grateful? Yes. I've found that my computer may not be fast enough to play some of the games I want to play (such as ONI) but I can't fill this hard drive up with stuff. It's the first time I haven't pushed the limits of my storage capacity, and this is coming from an addict to POV-Ray and Python. To be fair, I did loose 70 MB of source code in a hard drive crash and failed back ups.

Perhaps I don't live simply, I just think that I do.   ¶ 3:05 PM 0 comments

  Thirty Pieces of Silver I sat down to lunch and opened my Bible quite randomly and it fell open to the book of Amos. The first chapters are listings of judgements from God, through Amos against Israels neighbors, Judah, and Israel. I was caught by Amos 2:6

Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals

I have recently wanted to learn about the messianic prophecies, and this seemed to link to the betrayal by Judas. Mark states that Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests to betray Jesus and they promised him money (Mark 10:11).
Matthew states that Judas began looking for a way to betray Jesus and went to the chief priests, who gave him thirty pieces of silver. (Matthew 26:15, cross referenced to Zech 11.12). Luke (22:2-5) says that Satan entered Judas and plotted against Jesus, and the chief priests of the temple agreed to pay him money. In the Gospel of John, the only reference is "Judas, who betrayed Jesus" (John 18:2).

Only Matthew tells us that Judas returned the thirty pieces of silver and left to hang himself. The priests could not put the money back into the treasury, so they bought a field from a potter with it. (27:3-8). This also references Zech 11:12,13. The book of Acts, which is a follow up to the Gospel of Luke, states that Judas used the money to buy the field and he fell and met his death.

So turning back to Zechariah, I see that it is full of prophecies about the messiah, and it even prophecies about horsemen in something that sounds like the Revelation of John. I'll have to come back to that for further study. Zechariah is full of symbolism. The referenced passage has him tending the flock of sheep that are doomed, and he has two staves, Favor and Unity. He breaks Favor, symbolic (I suppose) of God removing favor from the flock and no longer caring for the people. Then he tells the sheep merchants (I don't know what they stand for) "If it seems right, pay me my wages, otherwise, keep them." The merchants pay him 30 pieces of silver which the Lord tells him to throw into the treasury. There is a footnote that says "or to the potter." After this he breaks the staff Unity, severing the ties between Judah and Israel.

There's a lot there. More than I think I can digest right now. I am surprised that none of this came back to Amos. All I can think of is that silver was special as a coinage metal, or there is some symbolism to it. I don't know what shekels were made out of in Amos' time or in Jesus' time.  ¶ 1:02 PM 0 comments

  Jack Chick Don't get me started. He is probably one of the most dangerous people around. You think the extreme islamists who plotted September 11 were bad people? Compared to Chick they've just got a bigger budget. He refers to "soul winners," people who go out and relentlessly pursue the conversion of others. So far all of his biblical research is fuzzy at best, and malicious at worst. He appears to spend more time fighting his idea of a personified Satan than worshipping and loving God.

He is a dangerous, dangerous man. It's a shame that he chose to put his marketing and artistic skills to such a damaging purpose.

This entry is simply not right, on my part. Yes, my opinion of Jack Chick are very low, and I do believe him to be very dangerous and misguided, but the venom of this post is unworthy of anyone claiming to be a human being.  ¶ 2:29 PM 0 comments

  Prophecy? Somone posted a link to an article on the Morning News web site about the Passion of Christ Blooper Reel. One of the Ads linked to the web site passionofchrist.com. I clicked. One of these pages claims to list some of the prophecies about the messiah that Jesus fulfilled. They also claim that there are over 300 messianic prophecies in the old testament. I've been reading through some of these claims and I think it would be easier to argue for Nostradamus's prophetic vision of the 21st century.

Most of what I've read so far points to phrases in the Old Testament taken out of context and linked to a passage of the Gospels. Some of them go so far as to use nothing but a reference from one of the Epistles to verify a messianic prophecy.
Normally I don't bother with such things. I want to know what the Jews expected from a messiah, and how did those expectations change. The history of the concept of the messiah is something I want to research later on in life. When apologetic christians claims that Jesus fulfilled all these prophecies they state it as a fact, and since I want to be just as sure about God as they appear to be, every once in a while I dip into the messianic "prophecies" to see what they're talking about.

I did a similar thing with a panel from a Jack Chick pamphlet about eight years ago, and what I found holds true for the Passion of Christ web site. They take a passage from the New Testament where the Old Testament is quoted and claim a prophecy has been fulfilled.

Example: One fulfillment is listed as Acts 3:25: "You are the descendants of the prophets and of the covenant that God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham 'and in your descendants all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'" My NRSV Study Bible links this passage to Genessis 22:18, which reads "and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice."

The Genesis 22:18 passage is part of a larger monologue of the angel of Lord who is speaking to Abraham right before he lived in Beer-sheba. The Passion of Christ web site lists the prophecy of Gen 18:18, which reads (including v. 17) "The Lord said, 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall become a great and might nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?" (this is the prelude to Abraham questioning God about the impending destruction of Sodom and Gamorrah)

How is this prophecy and fulfillment? First of all, Peter (in Acts) is quoting the earlier passages from scripture. He is speaking to a crowd of Isrealites, trying to convince them that Jesus is the Messiah, and came to the people of Isreal to turn them from their sins. He is also defending himself because he had just healind a crippled beggar. He is simply quoting what has been said before. He states in Acts 3:19: Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presense of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his prophets." Peter is preaching.

It gets more complicated. This clearly can only work as a prophecy and fulfillment if a lot of extra bits of text are put around them, and even then it is dangerously close to taking one thing out of context to justify another thing.

Give me a quatrain any day. They don't have context, just symbolism to muck through.  ¶ 2:19 PM 0 comments