Roe v Wade and why I think that both sides are wrong on this issue.

Since the leak of a paper from the Supreme Court on "Roe V Wade", opinions, news reports, demonstrations, etc from both sides of this issue have been dominating our news, tv,  and internet  airwaves.  After reading or listening to what they have to say,  I find myself coming from there and thinking that they have totally missed it.  Neither side is pleasing God. I thought that it might be good for me to write what I think since I have those thoughts.  Now I realize that this could help, but there will be people who will take things out of the context of the whole argument and try to blast me out of the water.  It won't be the first time that has happened to me.  Well anyways, here goes.

When talking about abortion, I usually hear four different reasons to women to have an abortion. They are:  The Mother's life is in danger, The baby's health, rape, and what some call abortion on demand. I believe that each of these issues should be looked at individually and so here, I'm only looking at the reason that believes that any woman can have an abortion when they want, or some variety of that. I believe that is the biggest viewpoint and the one that is usually looked at in this issue. Now I'm not getting into what the 14th Amendment says, because  my argument is coming from a Biblical perspective.

Now I'm sure that last statement has gotten some people rolling their eyes and I want to thank you for staying with me so far.  As you might be expecting me to say, I do believe that this type of abortion is murder. It is the execution of a life whose only crime is to be alive. I know that there are many people who say that they aren't pro abortion, just pro choice and I will get to that in a minute.

For you see, my main concern is not the baby's loss of life, but society's loss of love. I truly believe that if the adults (notice that I'm including the man as well as the woman in this) who produced that child really loved that child, then there would be no abortion. They would work together to make sure that life had the best chance that they could provide.

I also believe that the argument about being pro choice is really an argument about exalting oneself to God-like status. I meant that last statement as a call back to the Garden of Eden and the Serpents claim that "you will be like God, knowing good and evil". This is a second wrong that I see from this viewpoint.

Also the argument, "a woman's body, a woman's choice" has a big hole in it, for the reason (unless she was raped) why she is expecting in the first place.  There are always consequences for every action. If a woman puts alcohol in her, she will become drunk or buzzed.  If she stays up all night, she will become drowsy the next day.  If she chooses to permit  a man to deposit sperm into her, she can become pregnant, even with contraceptives.

If there is love then all of this is moot, because none of this would happen and that is the way of love.

 So, if I'm basing my thoughts from a Biblical perspective, then why do I think that the pro-life group is wrong.  Basically it is for the same reason.

Now it is true that by law they will be forcing everyone to obeying the 6th commandment, but that really does not accomplish anything pleasing to God. What they would have done is to force a baby to live in an environment where the parents wanted to kill them before they were born, so unless there is repentance of that thought, then the outcome for that baby will not be a joyous one.

Also, while forcing people to obey the 6th commandment, they have forgotten the 10th which says: "Do not covet".  That means that just the thought of wanting to abort the baby is just as much a sin before God as the act. It also means that the condemnation of people is a sin before God.  There is a difference between in proclaiming that something is wrong and using that thought as a means to exalt oneself in condemning others.  That is happening on the Pro-Life side.

The sad part is that Christian message has the remedy for all of this and it is found in Romans chapter 8 and among many other verses in the New Testament. It is having the Spirit Of God living inside of us. When Christ lives within us, we become Children Of God.  He forgives us. His righteousness grows within us and flows out of us.  We live in love and we love one another.  This is the true answer to all of this.

The Church, Pharisaism, & Political Agendas

 There are a selection of scripture verses in Matthew that has stuck out to me over the years.  It seems that

  as we focus on the Pharisees as villians, we have made them into two dimensional figures, musch like the

 cowboys who wore black hats in those very old Western "B" movies.  

Just look at these verses from the NET translation: "Matthew 23:  

25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness."  

In these verses, Jesus contrasts what seems to be good to the bad of the Pharisees.  When we skim over the good to get to the bad, we lose the depth of the verses.

When we look at the good with the bad, we see a pattern of being good on the outside and "not so good" on the inside.  When I started looking into this, I found this back in Exodus, from the 10 commandments. These can be found in Exodus 20.  They are as follows: 

1. You shall have no other gods before me

2. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God

4. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy

5. Honor your father and your mother

6. You shall not murder

7. You shall not commit adultery

8. You shall not steal

9.You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor

10. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor

Now, as you look at these, you will notice that the first 9 are commandments of action, and the 10th one is one from the heart. The Pharisees were great at keeping the first 9, but couldn't keep the 10th one. This is what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 23. This contrast is also what Jesus was talking about in his sermon on the mount when he said, in Matthew 5:

21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder,[a] and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister[b][c] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[d] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

What I see from this is that obeying the first 9 commandments is doing righteousness, but the 10th only comes from being righteous.  God is telling us that He is not wanting us to do righteousness. He wants us to be righteous.  Paul goes deeper into this when wrote Romans chapters 7 & 8.

Now remember that Paul was a Pharisee and here he tells of the inner struggle that Pharisees struggled with.  As Paul states: "Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet"

and a few verses later he says:  "For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing."

You see there is no way, that you can discipline yourself or anyone else to be righteous.  Paul would go on to say in his letter to the Galatians in chapter 3 and verse 21: "if a law had been given that was able to give life, then righteousness would certainly be by the law."

So how do we become righteous, Paul tells us in Romans 8: "if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.". This is the difference in being righteous and doing righteous. True Righteousness is God living within us. We become righteous by God living inside of us.

Now how does political agendas play into this? The answer to that is that political agendas can only coerce people into doing righteous deeds and that is not being righteous, which is what Gods wants from us.So when you see Christians (especially those within church leadership positions) post and support these political agendas, they have fallen into the same mindset that the Pharisees of Jesus' day  had fallen into, and the biggest tragedy is that they have skipped over the "new birth" that scriptures talk about, that produces true righteousness, for a false righteousness that comes from simply doing. 

The Fall of Creation: The origin of sin

 This is the third part of the trilogy about the Garden Of Eden. Creation has been finished for an unknown period of time, but there has been enough time elapsed so that certain customs (like God visiting Adam and Eve in the evening) have been established. 

So, we start this chapter with a naked Adam enjoying a naked Eve as they go through the garden enjoying the fruit of the garden as well as sex with each other. This was the world that God had made for us to live in.

Now the Antagonist appears in this story. He is called the Serpent. A lot of time and ink has put forth many ideals of what this serpent was or was not. Most will agree that this either was Satan, or an animal that Satan was working through. The thing that I wonder about all of this is - Did Adam and Eve realize that they were talking to an angel of God?  Even in his fallen state, he still was an angel. I tend to think that they did.

So we now have Satan inquiring Adam and Eve about what God had told them about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. We see that Eve does not quote God - word for word, but instead she puts a bigger hedge around the command of God.   She adds that they are not to even touch the tree.  I have heard sermons criticizing her for this, but I disagree with that thought.  Building hedges around  things that will cause us to sin, is not only biblical,  it is also recommended in the Bible to the point of even self-mutilation to prevent one from sinning.

So where in the story is the origin of Sin.  I believe that we see that when the serpent says, " The serpent said to the woman, “Surely you will not die,  for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  (NET)  When the serpent (or Satan) says that, then Eve (along with Adam) looks at the fruit of the tree and sees it as being  "good,  attractive, &  desirable".  They saw the tree as a mean to exalt themselves to be equal with God. You see I believe that the root of sin is the desire to exalt oneself or to abase others (including God). When you look at the commandments and/or the law, this is what you see is happening that results in bad behaviors.  So now Adam and Eve want to eat the fruit of the tree and this is what happens.

When they eat the fruit, they see that life is not better, it is worse. This is always the lie of sin and Satan. So they make clothes for themselves and hid from God.  God exposes then for what they did and kicks them out of the Garden. Man's work just got harder. Woman's labor just got harder. Instead of husband and wife being a perfectly matched pair, they would now be trying to dominate one another. and the serpent would forever be despised.  

So fast forward to today and we see that same thing happening in and out of the church with people trying to exalt themselves and debasing others.  However we also have the answer to all of this and that comes from Jesus coming to this Earth, being borned from a virgin, living a perfect life, and dieing a cruel death, only to rise from the grave on the third day. And if we take him to be our Savior, He will make his abode within us and others can see his love through us.  It is this love that changes our attitudes from being self absorbed to seeing others as they should be seen.  

 Adam and Eve in Eden

Adam's and Eve's life in Eden were not talked about very often in the Bible lessons that I had as an adult.  Creation was, and the fall was, but not their lives in Eden. I would like to take a moment and reflect on the "forest" (think of seeing the forest instead of only the trees) of thoughts about this subject.

First we come to the Creation of Adam and Eve.  This is the only part of the creation story where we get specific details about the creation.  I think that it is important to note that both Adam and Eve were form from substances that were already created.  Adam from the earth, and Eve from Adam. It seems to me that the main part of the Theory of Evolution is that creation came from creation.  We also see that Eve came from (or evolved) from Adam by God forming her from one of Adam's Ribs. 

Going on from there, I find it fascinating that after Adam and Eve are created, the first thing that we notice is God saying to them - "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth" (from the Holman Christian Standard Bible). In other words, Have sex and keep having sex until you fill the world (I take that to mean until there is not enough room for another person to come out of the womb) with humans from all of your sex making. Plus to add to this statement, God places them in Paradise naked. 

Now the there is a temptation to jump ahead from this point, but let's stay here a moment.  The meditation that comes from here can and will affect one's viewpoint of the rest of the Bible.  Sex is something most evangelicals have a problem talking about, unless they are preaching against something. But, right here at the start of the Bible, we see God making us sexual and He desires for us to be sexual. Now keep this thought of Adam and Eve naked in the garden being sexual, with what Paul would later write about in 1 Corinthians chapter 7:   

“It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”[a] 2 But because of immoralities, each man should have relations with[b] his own wife and each woman with[c] her own husband. 3 A husband should fulfill his marital responsibility[d] to his wife, and likewise a wife to her husband. 4 It is not the wife who has the rights to her own body, but the husband. In the same way, it is not the husband who has the rights to his own body, but the wife. 5 Do not deprive each other, except by mutual agreement for a specified time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.[e] Then resume your relationship,[f] so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." (from the NET Bible)

If you look at this verses of scriptures while thinking about Eden, you see that Paul is restoring the sexual relationship between a husband and wife to where it was in Eden. If you can see that, then you will see the importance of reflecting on Eden.  For me, I started seeing things like the law showing us a picture of how far sin has caused us to fall, and how the sacrifices point to something beyond ourselves to redeem us.  I started seeing this thing that we call sin as a disease that is devouring us.  The acts that we see as horrific acts of God, that give rise to the thought of how can a God be good and commanding genocide like that, changing to a place where we see a doctor removing a limb or appendage that is so eaten up by disease and decay, so that the rest of the body can live.

Now we can't really talk about sex without mentioning the rest of the statement that God tells Adam and Eve, so let us go there now.  So from Genesis 1 we also get these verses:  "Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.” (From The New Living Translation).  Adam and Eve along with having sexual relations with each other, were given authority over the creation. Now while many look at this as being being told to "enslave the Earth", when I put it in context with the rest of the Bible, we are rule as caretakers.  We are under God, taking care of his creation.  Now the garden was self sustaining, and didn't need Adam and Eve to tend to it in a way that we think of gardening, yet. (That part came after the Fall).  To take care of the garden was simply something like this - when they ate something like an apple, they would simply look for a vacant place to dispose of the seed so that a new tree would spring up.  

Now let us look at the third part of God's word to them.  Genesis 1: "29 Then God said, “Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. 30 And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.” And that is what happened.31 Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!" (From The New Living Translation).  From this we see that Adam and Eve, as well as every other animal were vegans.  Now that is hard for me to accept, since my whole life, it seems that vegetables are just better if you add a little pork to them or as least cook them in a frying pan with pork grease.  They however didn't eat meat with them (Again that came later, and since Jesus ate fish in his resurrected body, then maybe eating some forms of meat will be done in the New Kingdom).

Now there is one final thing that I would like to mention here, and that is the relationship between God and Adam & Eve.  Now if we skip over to Genesis 3 we read this: "8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze" (From the Holman Christian Standard Bible).  This shows God coming by and visiting them like a good neighbor and a good friend.  Now take this statement and compare it to how you see the relationship between God and us today.  Now-a-days, we talk about a God who is foreign to us, like he is on another world in another solar system out beyond our reach.  However now I see that the 1st Good Friday, the 1st Easter, and the 1st Pentecost (In the Gospels and The Acts of the Apostles) as one big event then we see that they are restoring that close relationship with God.  Since that Pentecost, when the Spirit of God came down, true believers  now experience God as being always within them.  We now know God even closer than Adam and Eve did.

There you have a few thoughts coming from my head. I hope that I gave you something to mull over in your minds and to take to God as you meditate upon them. 

Why as a Christian, do I like Halloween.

 Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year. I love how the last four months of the year has holidays in them (Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and then followed ny New Year's Day).  As a Christian, some find that it weird or even a heresy, that I like Halloween.

Many Christians see Halloween as a Satanic Holiday, but to me, Halloween is a special time of the year where people's thoughts turn to the supernatural, and there is not a more supernatural story than the Bible story. I use to love teaching Halloween Bible stories as I taught Sunday School in the past.  It seems to me that many of us have forgotten how supernatural the Bible is and how that filters into our lives.

Along with the many obvious Halloween stories in the Bible (like the ones dealing with ghosts or magic), the Christian message is one that fits right in although many do not see it.  Please consider these few things as we talk about Christianity.  

First, at this time of the year we hear stories about demonic spirits entering and taking over a person.  As a Baptist, we have been taught that we become Christians by asking Jesus to come into our hearts. About the Holy Spirit being sent to us to guide us, teach us and to be a companion to us.

We hear stories about conversions.  People become werewolves, vampires or zombies, but though what Jesus did on the cross and the Holy Spirit entering our lives, we are converted into Christians.  We become a part of God's Kingdom.  We become family to God Himself.

We hear stories about life after death.  Jesus conquered death that passover weekend that we refer to as Good Friday and Easter. We are promised life after death.  The story closes with us in new bodies, walking on this Earth that has been made new and being with God Himself.

So as kids go out seeking treats, I am reminded that the best treats are the treats that God is waiting to give us.

My thoughts about Creation

The creation story from Genesis is probably the most controversial story in the bible.
It has caused a lot of arguments.  It is from this section of scripture, that you hear theologians teach that you can't trust science.  When you read commentaries about this, you see people start with their points of view, and look to find people and teachings that agree with them and label everything else as fake news or in the case of theologians trying to sound pious, heresy.   It is funny to me how many people can't see the story over the words (Yes that is a play on the "they can't see the forest because of the trees" ciche.) The words that I am talking about do not change the story, just the way that the person wants to read the story.

I believe that when you look at these first few verses in Genesis, there are a couple of things that you need to remember.  First things is that the book of Genesis is believed to have been written during the events described in Exodus or Numbers and for a developing nation that just miraculously escaped slavery.  That means that more time had passed between Genesis 1:1 and the writing of Genesis, then between the writing of Genesis and now.  The second thing is that science cannot prove or disprove God.  Science can only show how God did something.  

Instead of going verse by verse like I might do in a bible study, let me make a few observations how science and theology can work together to tell and understand this story.  The NET Bible states the first 5 verses like this:  
"1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was without shape and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep, but the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water. 3 God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light! 4 God saw that the light was good, so God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” There was evening, and there was morning, marking the first day."

Verse two points out the God had assembled all the ingredients needed for creation. The verse also points out that God was there.  Verse 3 is the verse that brings in "The Big Bang".  God starts off by light exploding into the dark space.  When light enters into darkness like this, it is always like an explosion as light overtakes and expels darkness.  It is this entrance of light that causes the ingredients to come together.  Now the bible doesn't say what that light was (I think that it was the glory of God) ,but it does show that it was important.  The first way that God shows that is by the way that God sets up the Hebrew Day by starting at night and then by day.  There was darkness, then God brought in the light. In the New Testament, Jesus is referenced as being the true light and that would bring the Israelites thought - back to creation.  Jesus was raised from the dead on the first day of the week, which was to be remembered as the day that God brought in the light.  The believer's new birth or new creation of the soul is a reminder of this part of creation.

Now we get to the sticking point of the word "day" here.  Now at this point of creation there were no 24 hour days.  That would not happen until day 4.  However the words used here seem to show that they were talking about a 24 hour day.  I have a couple of thoughts about that as well.  As I said before, this book book was written thousands and thousands of years later during the time when Israel was becoming a nation.  Although the 7th day would play a big point as a day of rest, I think that everyday was suppose to be a reminder of creation. So the first day would be the day of light, 2nd day would be sky or atmosphere, day 3 would be ocean, land and plants, day 4 would be sun moon and stars, day 5 would be birds and sea creatures, day 6 would be land animals, man and woman and the famous one, day 7 is a day of rest after completing the creation.

So, now we get to a big sticking point of whether each of these events happened within that 24 hour period.  I don't think that changes the story either way you want to believe, but here is an interesting tidbit of knowledge that might help reconcile the long history that archeology suggests and the 24 hour days that a lot creationists believe. Gerald Schroeder is a Jewish physicist who has a theory that an explosion of that first day would have caused a stretching  of time (another way of describing a time warp buble as described in sci-fi shows, books, etc.).  He even developed a mathematical equation to reconcile the two dates.  Well, if you are a sci-fi geek like myself, that is fascinating.

Another scientific theory is evolution.  This belief that is taught in schools actually works best when paired with creation.  In the verses of scriptures that we looked at, God doesn't explain how He created everything.  Evolution simply shows that creation begat creation.  God used what he created to create other things. It would also show why we are not getting all types of new things now.  I mean that although we are getting stuff like mules, zorses, and zonkeys, from horses, donkeys and zebras; we are only getting species that is similar to the old species that they came from and not getting something that is - nothing like anything else alive.

A lesser discussed theory is the ideal of Pangea and Panthalassa.  This is the ideal that when the Earth was created, instead of the seven continents that we see today, there was only one super size island called Pangea.  Pangea would break up and form the seven continents. Panthalassa was one super sized ocean that surrounded Pangea. Genesis 1:9 supports this by saying that the oceans gathered in one place.

"9 Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so.: (NET) 

I don't know if this post will actually help anyone (I hope that it does), but getting this off my chest gives me a sense of relief, and if you are still reading this at this point, I just want to say thank you.

Some thoughts about Christmas

As I write this, Christmas is two weeks away.  It is a holiday where we celebrate the birth of Christ.  I really doubt that he was actually born on December 25, but the important thing to me is that he was born and that we are celebrating it.

Christmas is also a time where a lot of pain comes to the surface.  In this time that is supposed to be a happy time, the unhappiness that we live in comes out.  Depression overcomes many of us. The stress of all the activities and schedules will overtake many.  Remembering those who have died and our failed relationships will haunt us. 

 I believe these things show us why Christmas is so important. The dysfunctional family that hurts this time of year is a picture of the dysfunctional relationship that mankind has with God.  The reason that God came, was to heal that relationship between us and Him.

Contrarily to popular opinion, God is not some angry narcissist.  God desires to be friends with us and for us to be happy.  He is the God who put a naked man and a naked woman in a perfect paradise and basically told them to have sex and to keep having sex until there was no more room for another person to be born.  He is a God who would come by in the evenings and just hang out with them.  

Then after Jesus came into this world, we see God as one who liked to hang out with the people who the seminary trained leaders of his day, condemned.  He ate and drank and partied with those people.  He even provided wine when the host ran out at one of those parties.  He told us, as well as those seminary trained leaders that He preferred mercy over sacrifice.  He also would describe his kingdom in terms of a big banquet or party where there was music and food and even dancing.  

The bible also tells us that when that kingdom is fully restored, God will be a personable God.  He will be among the people with hugs, wiping away tears and healing hurts.  It will be a perfect paradise.

This way of living is all about love.  When love is the driving force, then there is no need for laws, because love will cause us to act rightly.  This is what God set up in the beginning and Christmas marks the time when God came into this world to right that relationship.