Biblical Archaeology in 5: Pagan Gods vs. Evolution

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Biblical Archaeology in 5: “Let there be light”

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Biblical Archaeology in 5: on temples

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A Message to the Never Trump Movement

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Noah’s flood and hydrophobia

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Taxes, Jesus and Donald Trump

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Can we be from Missouri and still be a Christian?

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Gosh, I hope so…come to think of it, my sister was born in Missouri, so the jury is still out (just kidding, dear sister…you know which one you are).  Why would I say such a thing?  Heck, my dad went to seminary in Missouri, so why pick on Missouri?  Missouri is known as the “show me” state, so I am using it as a metaphor for “living by sight.”  When it comes to religion, most people are from Missouri, and by this I mean to say:  if they cannot see it, they do not want to have any part of it.  Prior to Adam’s fall, he did live in Missouri…okay, it was Eden, but he walked in the garden with God, which means that he lived in the “show me” state.  However, after Adam fell, he got thrown out of Missouri…uh, Eden, so he no longer walked in the garden with God.  This was a change in paradigms—after the fall, Adam had to walk by faith rather than by sight, and this has been our plight ever since.  This reality was brought home to me this morning as I was reading Deuteronomy 29 (which I highly recommend since it is chocked full of great stuff).  As the story goes, Moses is approaching the end of his life and he has brought the Israelites to the plains of Moab and to the brink of the Promised Land.  In verse 2, Moses points out that this generation of Israelites was an eyewitness to all that Yahweh had done in Egypt.  At first blush, one would think that eyewitnesses would be enthusiastic followers of Yahweh, i.e., people from Missouri would be enthusiastic followers, but one would be wrong, seeing as the desert was littered with the bodies of their parents who proved that “seeing is not believing.”  When Adam fell and the paradigm changed to a faith-based system, things became complicated, but Moses helps us understand the solution to this problem with verse 4:  “But to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.”  God’s grace is indispensable in the paradigm of faith-based salvation.  This idea is rolled forward to Luke 8 where Jesus preaches in parables and he says in verse 10:  “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that “seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.””  John 20:29b summarizes things nicely:  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”…just sayin’

Was St. Paul Being Culturally Relevant?

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Romans chapter 10 is one of those passages in which St. Paul pours out his heart over the lost condition of the Israelites—even though they are zealous for God.  The problem is they wanted to meet God under their own terms.  As I was reading chapter 10, it occurred to me that there may be more to St. Paul’s choice of words here—especially in light of the audience, i.e., folk in the Roman church who came out of a pagan background.  The clue lies in the affirmations of what “the righteousness of faith” is not:  it is not ascending into heaven or descending into the abyss.”  If we know that the audience came out of a culture steeped in mythology, it is natural that they might slip into the hero mythos of their culture, i.e., heroes who descend into Hades to achieve great deeds, etc., so St. Paul is disabusing them of such thought.  In other words, the “righteousness of faith” is not about our great heroic deeds—the heroic deeds of faith were accomplished by Jesus!  The heroic deeds of Jesus have made “the word” come near us so that we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths.  It seems that St. Paul, once again, proves himself to be an artist with his pen—praise be to God…just sayin’

Does Your Brain Go To Sleep During the Sermon?

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If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that sometimes our attention wains during the sermon on Sunday mornings, but we must guard against this.  Why?  Whether we realize it or not, the pastor is trying to help us “connect the dots.”  It is important for us to develop a deeper sense of the connection of the story of salvation from Genesis to Revelation.  So, I want to give a shout out to Fr. Jonathan Smith at Redeemer Anglican in Winter Park because he helped me “connect the dots” a couple of weeks ago.  Fr. Jonathan was preaching from Mark 3 where Jesus encounters the hardness of the Pharisees’ hearts.  The context was a legal one:  is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath? i.e., was it lawful for Jesus to heal on the Sabbath?  You know the story, so I won’t spoil it for you when I say that the Pharisees opposed the healing on the Sabbath.  Fr. Jonathan brought up the Exodus story and Pharaoh’s hardness of heart.  The scenarios parallel one another for both Pharaoh and the Pharisees begin with the letter “P”, LOL.  No, they both experienced the miraculous hand of God and they both rejected it.  The dots get connected when one realizes that while Pharaoh was enslaving the bodies of the Israelites, the Pharisees were enslaving the Israelites spiritually.  Jesus came to set all the prisoners free…just sayin’