It's hard for me to rest. I can't do it. I get all antsy. The first vacation that Sarah and I ever took was consumed by thoughts and dreams of work. dreams for crap sake! But I got over it, I told the working world that I need a sabbath, and they complied with little resistance.
Exodus 20:8
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
What's that? School work counts as work? But God, you don't understand, this is due on Wednesday, and I have to work Monday, so today is really the most convenient time for me to read this...
It's just built in. Years of living in North America has ingrained this workworkwork feeling into my brain. This country of lost sabbath has tricked me into feeling guilty if I'm not busy.
Why can't I just trust you God? You've never let me down before, and yet I'm so hesitant. I should trust that you've made time in the week for me to read, that you've made my mind in such a way that I'll be able to read fast and comprehend everything I've read.
Genesis 2:2
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.
We have created a world of instant gratification. A world where there is always more work, and it needs to be done now.
God created the world in 6 days and on the 7th day he rested.
We have created a world where it is always day number 6 and never day number 7.
Day after day it is just 6,6,6...
And it is written on my forehead as I think about all the work I have to do instead of reflecting on the words of the Most High.
And it is written on my hands as I work on the holiest day of the week.
So here is my trust my hope and my prayer; that you have made me a competent person Lord, that you have made me industrious enough to read all I need to, and do all I need to in 6 out of 7 days. Here is a whole day for you, a day sacrificed to you, torn away from the altar of overtime. Preserved and dedicated for me and you.
Cheers.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
How the trinity doesn't work
Now I realized after I came up with the title for this blog that it sounds a little misleading. I am not intending in this article to shoot down the concept of a holy trinity, I am not trying to disprove or discredit it. It is a concept I believe in, all be it hard to wrap my head around. I will get into exactly what the title means in a little bit, but first I need to tell you about my philosophy class at Tyndale.
Philosophy is great, it's probably my favorite subject ever, and what's even better is I'm good at it. I'm the guy in the corner of the coffee shop reading Nietzsche for fun. Anyway, I was in philosophy class and we were talking about truth, namely objective truth verses relative truth which lead to a brief diatribe about self defeating sentences. (like if some one was to say "all truth is relative" their statement would be self defeating due to the fact that it was presented as a truth, which is relative.) In any case the subject of the trinity came up, and my prof addressed some common analogies for the trinity that although are widely taught, are in essence heretical.
The first analogy likened the trinity to water. Water can appear in a liquid state (water), a hardened state (ice) or a gaseous state (evaporation), three different states that are all different, but at a base level the same
This
is
heresy! ha ha.
The problem with this argument is that in each state the water had to change.
Hebrews 6:17
Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.
God is unchanging! If the water then changes it can not be like the trinity!
In the second example the trinity was likened to an egg. The egg has a shell, a yoke and a white, three parts one egg.
this
too
is
heresy!
To crack the egg metaphor (if you will excuse the pun) you need to isolate all parts of the egg. If one was to crack an egg and dispose of the yoke and the white, but hang on to the shell, would they still have an egg? If someone were to crack an egg into a siv, and separate the yoke from the white, and throw away the shell so that all they had left was the yoke, would they still have an egg?
John 10:29-30
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one."
Jesus was both fully human and fully God! A shell by itself is not an egg, but a Jesus by himself is still God.
After the prof said all this one woman in the class just about lost it. The prof had shattered the poor woman's faith.
"If you take away our egg metaphor," she said "How will we explain the trinity to new Christians or children? What metaphor can you give us that stands up to theology?"
"I don't know" said the prof. "I don't have one."
"Then how can you stand there and tell us not to use the egg metaphor?" she seemed quite distraught.
"Well. I don't have a good metaphor for the trinity... but I don't think we should tell people things that are not correct! Do you?"
that's when I started to think about how I would describe the trinity. And I realized I couldn't. The easiest way of describing it is just how it's laid out in the Bible. There is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. They are all God, the same God. There is no polytheism here, just three dimensions of God that are always. That last part might not make sense to you, but trust me, it's the best way of saying it, they are always.
Now if you need to know the inner functions and how exactly the trinity works I can't tell you that. What I can tell you is how exactly the trinity doesn't work.
#1: It doesn't work like an egg, because when isolated the 3 components of the egg no longer make an egg, but God is always God, no matter which form he is working in. He is 3 in one.
#2: It doesn't work like water, because when water turns to ice it goes through a physical change, and God is unchanging, also like the egg, when water changes to ice it is not also water, but Jesus is also God.
So there you have it. How the trinity doesn't work. exactly.
Philosophy is great, it's probably my favorite subject ever, and what's even better is I'm good at it. I'm the guy in the corner of the coffee shop reading Nietzsche for fun. Anyway, I was in philosophy class and we were talking about truth, namely objective truth verses relative truth which lead to a brief diatribe about self defeating sentences. (like if some one was to say "all truth is relative" their statement would be self defeating due to the fact that it was presented as a truth, which is relative.) In any case the subject of the trinity came up, and my prof addressed some common analogies for the trinity that although are widely taught, are in essence heretical.
The first analogy likened the trinity to water. Water can appear in a liquid state (water), a hardened state (ice) or a gaseous state (evaporation), three different states that are all different, but at a base level the same
This
is
heresy! ha ha.
The problem with this argument is that in each state the water had to change.
Hebrews 6:17
Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.
God is unchanging! If the water then changes it can not be like the trinity!
In the second example the trinity was likened to an egg. The egg has a shell, a yoke and a white, three parts one egg.
this
too
is
heresy!
To crack the egg metaphor (if you will excuse the pun) you need to isolate all parts of the egg. If one was to crack an egg and dispose of the yoke and the white, but hang on to the shell, would they still have an egg? If someone were to crack an egg into a siv, and separate the yoke from the white, and throw away the shell so that all they had left was the yoke, would they still have an egg?
John 10:29-30
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one."
Jesus was both fully human and fully God! A shell by itself is not an egg, but a Jesus by himself is still God.
After the prof said all this one woman in the class just about lost it. The prof had shattered the poor woman's faith.
"If you take away our egg metaphor," she said "How will we explain the trinity to new Christians or children? What metaphor can you give us that stands up to theology?"
"I don't know" said the prof. "I don't have one."
"Then how can you stand there and tell us not to use the egg metaphor?" she seemed quite distraught.
"Well. I don't have a good metaphor for the trinity... but I don't think we should tell people things that are not correct! Do you?"
that's when I started to think about how I would describe the trinity. And I realized I couldn't. The easiest way of describing it is just how it's laid out in the Bible. There is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. They are all God, the same God. There is no polytheism here, just three dimensions of God that are always. That last part might not make sense to you, but trust me, it's the best way of saying it, they are always.
Now if you need to know the inner functions and how exactly the trinity works I can't tell you that. What I can tell you is how exactly the trinity doesn't work.
#1: It doesn't work like an egg, because when isolated the 3 components of the egg no longer make an egg, but God is always God, no matter which form he is working in. He is 3 in one.
#2: It doesn't work like water, because when water turns to ice it goes through a physical change, and God is unchanging, also like the egg, when water changes to ice it is not also water, but Jesus is also God.
So there you have it. How the trinity doesn't work. exactly.
Unmelted
Good news! My computer is unmelted! For those who don't know, a week before school started my computer melted in mid use. It was kind of scary because I was watching the news at the time and they were talking about a guy who died because his laptop exploded. lol, luckily there was no exploding, just melting. Dell sent it back with a new casing, heat sync, hard drive, web cam, operating system and a whack of other stuff that I don't even know what it is! it almost seems like it would have been cheaper for them to give me a new computer. None the less I'm back in action! plus I'm in school so I will have lots of new knowledge and experience to fill you guys in on! lucky you...
Monday, September 7, 2009
My Hedonistic Christianity
Hedonism
[heed-n-iz-uhm]
–noun
1. the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the highest good.
2. devotion to pleasure as a way of life: The later Roman emperors were notorious for their hedonism.
When I think of hedonism, often the thought of some Caesarian, toga wearing king with an olive branch for a crown being fed grapes by semi-naked women. Which is not far off from the intention of the word, so I found it sort of odd as I ran this morning, reflecting on my mini-labourday-vacation that the term "Hedonistic Christianity" popped into my head.
I am not a stranger to hedonism, in the truest sense of the word. As a young man (well, youngER man) I would wake up, have an actors breakfast of coffee and cigarettes, and maybe some McDonalds, go to work, make crude jokes with the guys and laugh at inconsiquential things, then after work I would head to the bar or to a party, or go play a show and I would drink to my fill, often flirting with older women who might buy me a drink. I would get home at 3 in the morning, smoke another 3 cigarettes before going into the house and then fall asleep on my couch (I didn't do beds back then... I don't know why...) Then I would wake up in between 11 and 3 and do it all over again. Expensive? yes. Fun? yes. Satisfying? hmmm...
Sarah didn't have too much of a different youth than I did, in fact when we met part of the attraction was that we were both beautiful broken people.
Lately Sarah and I have become the couple who would rather watch Grey's Anatomy and go to bed at 11, a big change for us, but not nescesarilly a bad one. So when we were invited by some friends this weekend to go to a bar where there would be sexy dressed people, dancing and cigarettes, we were hesetant to agree, but something from our past started pulling us towards our old lifestyle. After much persistance we agreed to meet them at the bar later. Once we got home however we began talking about how, although we aren't opposed to going out once in a while, we didn't feel tonight was the night. We didn't want to be thrown into the same temptations of our old life, which although were fun, would ultimately leave us unsatisfied.
Needless to say our friends were disapointed by our no-show, and our phone call to let them no we weren't coming was met with more than a little animosity.
"I don't know why she's so mad..." Sarah said.
"She'll get over it." I said.
"I just wish she could realize that I've changed. I'm a little more conservative, but it's not that I'm a prude... My past speaks to that. I'm just... happier now."
That's probably where the seed for "Hedonistic Christianity" was first planted. If happyness is pleasurable, and being more conservative made us happy, then wouldn't the pursuit of that happiness be at it's basist level, a true act of hedonism? In which case the rejection of the pleasures most comonly associated with hedonism is actually the embrace of hedonism.
Romans 6:1-3
1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
and it doesn't end there either! When you deny yourself to help others and you get a good feeling from that, that's also hedonism! In fact, I am most happy when full heartedly following the will of Christ! Which is a complete rejection of physical pleasure, and a complete rejection of self! An act of whole hearted love, which spreads like wild fire, and comes back to you. and when the love comes back to you that is another form of pure pleasure!
so I encourage you, reject the selfish hedonism of the past, embrace this new, selfless, wonderfull hedonsim. A hedonism that gives pleasure to all at it's most base and most complex forms. This wonderfull Christian Hedonism.
Matthew 25:40
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
[heed-n-iz-uhm]
–noun
1. the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the highest good.
2. devotion to pleasure as a way of life: The later Roman emperors were notorious for their hedonism.
When I think of hedonism, often the thought of some Caesarian, toga wearing king with an olive branch for a crown being fed grapes by semi-naked women. Which is not far off from the intention of the word, so I found it sort of odd as I ran this morning, reflecting on my mini-labourday-vacation that the term "Hedonistic Christianity" popped into my head.
I am not a stranger to hedonism, in the truest sense of the word. As a young man (well, youngER man) I would wake up, have an actors breakfast of coffee and cigarettes, and maybe some McDonalds, go to work, make crude jokes with the guys and laugh at inconsiquential things, then after work I would head to the bar or to a party, or go play a show and I would drink to my fill, often flirting with older women who might buy me a drink. I would get home at 3 in the morning, smoke another 3 cigarettes before going into the house and then fall asleep on my couch (I didn't do beds back then... I don't know why...) Then I would wake up in between 11 and 3 and do it all over again. Expensive? yes. Fun? yes. Satisfying? hmmm...
Sarah didn't have too much of a different youth than I did, in fact when we met part of the attraction was that we were both beautiful broken people.
Lately Sarah and I have become the couple who would rather watch Grey's Anatomy and go to bed at 11, a big change for us, but not nescesarilly a bad one. So when we were invited by some friends this weekend to go to a bar where there would be sexy dressed people, dancing and cigarettes, we were hesetant to agree, but something from our past started pulling us towards our old lifestyle. After much persistance we agreed to meet them at the bar later. Once we got home however we began talking about how, although we aren't opposed to going out once in a while, we didn't feel tonight was the night. We didn't want to be thrown into the same temptations of our old life, which although were fun, would ultimately leave us unsatisfied.
Needless to say our friends were disapointed by our no-show, and our phone call to let them no we weren't coming was met with more than a little animosity.
"I don't know why she's so mad..." Sarah said.
"She'll get over it." I said.
"I just wish she could realize that I've changed. I'm a little more conservative, but it's not that I'm a prude... My past speaks to that. I'm just... happier now."
That's probably where the seed for "Hedonistic Christianity" was first planted. If happyness is pleasurable, and being more conservative made us happy, then wouldn't the pursuit of that happiness be at it's basist level, a true act of hedonism? In which case the rejection of the pleasures most comonly associated with hedonism is actually the embrace of hedonism.
Romans 6:1-3
1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
and it doesn't end there either! When you deny yourself to help others and you get a good feeling from that, that's also hedonism! In fact, I am most happy when full heartedly following the will of Christ! Which is a complete rejection of physical pleasure, and a complete rejection of self! An act of whole hearted love, which spreads like wild fire, and comes back to you. and when the love comes back to you that is another form of pure pleasure!
so I encourage you, reject the selfish hedonism of the past, embrace this new, selfless, wonderfull hedonsim. A hedonism that gives pleasure to all at it's most base and most complex forms. This wonderfull Christian Hedonism.
Matthew 25:40
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Like the Wind
You are weird God.
Duck billed platapus? Lemmings? Even sheep are pretty weird looking, we're just more used to them.
But weirdest of all is this pink, flabby, lanky ball of flesh that for some reason you love. This odd thing that for some reason is alowed each day to keep breathing.
How did you design me? How did you know exactly which pieces to put where? How did you know how to make my brain the way it is? That it would respond to this stimulae and that? trigger this thought, then that one?
You are so weird...
Psalm 8:4
what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?
I hate excercise, I love to sit and be lazy. Under my own strength, with my own will, I could run 50 feet...maybe.
How is it then, that when I think about you, about your word, and praise your name that the kilometers melt away? And no pain resides in my body, and my body disapears and I feel only a reflection of your spirit?
How is it that when I focus on your word, your promises, your greatness, you can take this pink, flabby, gangly thing and turn it into wind?
Early in the morning, when the moon and the sun still fight for a place in the sky, how can you transfrom me?
And so your praises flow from my mouth, albeit dry, parched, breathless, non-existent.
Exodus 4:11
"Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD ?"
When my mind is focused upon your glory, my body transends itself, it breaks it's bonds of lazyness and becomes a slave to my mind, which is bond servant to Christ.
1 Corinthians 9:27
No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
So praise be to God, the God of transformation, who can take this weak flesh and make it strong, who can take this weak will and make it his,
who can take this
pink.
flabby.
gangly.
thing.
and make it
Like the Wind
Duck billed platapus? Lemmings? Even sheep are pretty weird looking, we're just more used to them.
But weirdest of all is this pink, flabby, lanky ball of flesh that for some reason you love. This odd thing that for some reason is alowed each day to keep breathing.
How did you design me? How did you know exactly which pieces to put where? How did you know how to make my brain the way it is? That it would respond to this stimulae and that? trigger this thought, then that one?
You are so weird...
Psalm 8:4
what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?
I hate excercise, I love to sit and be lazy. Under my own strength, with my own will, I could run 50 feet...maybe.
How is it then, that when I think about you, about your word, and praise your name that the kilometers melt away? And no pain resides in my body, and my body disapears and I feel only a reflection of your spirit?
How is it that when I focus on your word, your promises, your greatness, you can take this pink, flabby, gangly thing and turn it into wind?
Early in the morning, when the moon and the sun still fight for a place in the sky, how can you transfrom me?
And so your praises flow from my mouth, albeit dry, parched, breathless, non-existent.
Exodus 4:11
"Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD ?"
When my mind is focused upon your glory, my body transends itself, it breaks it's bonds of lazyness and becomes a slave to my mind, which is bond servant to Christ.
1 Corinthians 9:27
No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
So praise be to God, the God of transformation, who can take this weak flesh and make it strong, who can take this weak will and make it his,
who can take this
pink.
flabby.
gangly.
thing.
and make it
Like the Wind
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