Parable

March 29, 2019

Year 4, Day 88 | No Comments

Section of The Infant Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Guido Reni, n.d.

Christians need to be clear and convinced that both the necessary and unnecessary changes in society are not commonly understood, sometimes not perceived, and are often contradictory. Christian values separated from personal faith are applicable in any situation, spiritual or secular, but the attitudes of government and education may move away from openly supporting the corporation of values found in the Christian context. Moses discovered and taught that divine faith and practical humanism were friends. The New Testament authors followed accordingly. Modern society seems to assume that religion is not a friend so much as a pleasant dream or fantasy so to aid the weak of society to function in reality. Religion that is personal in faith, rather than appeal… Read more

Layers

March 6, 2019

Year 4, Day 65 | No Comments

Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

The Bible has layered meaning which means it is to be understood first as history. This is the context used by archaeologists. Does the narrative stand up well to what is known in the history of mankind? It is important that we gain this balance in order to interpret the spiritual meaning. Spiritual meaning emerges from the parables of truth in experience, as it was used by the prophets, but more clearly by Jesus. Jesus did not violate earth’s logic based on nature’s evidences, sometimes called Greek logic. The evidence is verifiable, and is basic to what we now identify as Scientific. It is so striking and useful for earth knowledge that some persons presume it is the only pattern… Read more

Holistic Christianity

February 27, 2019

Year 4, Day 58 | No Comments

Christianity is first and primarily the offer of God, through Jesus Christ, to provide redemption to mankind. That adoption is necessary because human imperfection (identified as sin, faulty, immoral, etc.) demands repair if the individual desires to be included as a child of God in the spiritual (immortal) meaning identified beyond the natural (mortal) creation. God’s redemptive meaning spiritually proceeds beyond the natural creation, whereas God’s physical creation does not require spiritual identity in nature’s life – as the animals do not hold spiritual inheritance. The concept is summarized in that human beings belong to God by his creative gesture, but unacceptable for immortal relationship with God. In the acceptance of the redemptive plan of God, the human individual is… Read more

Healing and Faith

February 22, 2019

Year 4, Day 53 | No Comments

Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

A book by Bryan Johnson and Maria Pagano was accented in an article entitled: Can Faith Rewire an Addict’s Brain? Because Johnson is a professor at Baylor University, and Pagano at Case Western Reserve University, I followed their academic approach to respond to the question posed in the article’s title. Their answer is affirmative, that faith can revive the brain, perhaps achieved by moving the control from left to right lobes in the process. Shift in brain lobes relates to science for evidence, and the reference to faith relates to testimonials from former addicts that faith played a part in their recovery. The point struck me that the addicts were greatly helped to health through cooperative faith and science. The… Read more

Faith

February 4, 2019

Year 4, Day 35 | No Comments

Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

Faith is a New Testament word used twice in the KJV version of the Old Testament and scores of times in the New. The word faithful is used much more generously in the Old Testament, but even then it appears in the majority of instances in the poetic books. This does not take away the place of faith in the Old Testament, as noted through extensive repetition in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews in the New. The pre-Christian generations utilized faith in a forward thrust that ultimately took a central focus in a messianic expectation. In the advent of Christ as Messiah, the Christian perception added the expectation in the finished work of Jesus Christ. This resulted, for Christians, in… Read more

Experience In Imperfection

January 25, 2019

Year 4, Day 25 | No Comments

Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

At this writing I am away from my home for a week, at the home of my younger daughter and her husband who are celebrating the twentieth anniversary of their ministry in Coronado, California. Their schedules are extensive. I am graciously released from being entertained, so to be permitted to do what I like best to do – write to young men and women, faithful students searching life meaning in a specific value orientation that I believe to be in faithful biblical context. Another benefit of these days is that I browse through the library my hosts have built, so to revel in the ideas, ancient and modern, that have impacted (or ought to have impacted) persons as individuals and… Read more

Resistance

January 21, 2019

Year 4, Day 21 | No Comments

There are many words that are helpful to us, sometimes very helpful, in both negative and affirmative contexts, but words that tend to fall into either excessive adoption or reputation in one direction or another. They may have positive or negative impressions on our feelings, so may be given meanings by listeners never anticipated by communicators in this or that situation, to this or that audience or person. Audience attitudes related to some words cannot be violated for emotions, even for the purpose of discussion. Resistance is built into the human psyche and should be understood and interpreted. Even though the N-word is used by some Afro-Americans in conversations among themselves in humor, the use of the word by a… Read more

Two Kingdoms

January 17, 2019

Year 4, Day 17 | No Comments

Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

There is a sense in which I feel sorry for us, for those who want to include in their earthly sojourn the context of heaven’s life. The effort is more than difficult in that heaven’s future inhabitants do not have barriers of earth’s imperfection, and earth’s inhabitants do not have heaven’s perfection. For Christians in the world, life often seems like a jumble, especially as Christians learn more and more what God and heaven, and earth too, are really like. We blame life for earth problems. There is so much we do not understand about earth with its contradictions and paradoxes. Then to add the righteousness God calls us to follow in preparation for what heaven has to offer. To… Read more

Academic Hoops

January 12, 2019

Year 4, Day 12 | No Comments

This morning I read the current issue of Biblical Archaeology that included a number of articles on the latest information related to a number of topics. Some of the main ones included: 1- an article on whether or not the evidence proved Rahab a harlot or an innkeeper, and how she assisted the spies from Israel; 2- an article on Hezekiah’s tunnel, and whether or not it was Hezekiah’s or that of some other; and, 3- an article on the identity of the Kings of Israel, and whether or not they were genuine renditions. There was much else – including book reviews, a section always of interest to me in any publication. The reviews here were not so much reviews… Read more

Faith Learning

January 11, 2019

Year 4, Day 11 | No Comments

Reading widely with an attitude of search for truth and meaning, one finds statements that reflect what the reader would like to say. I found another one quoted from: Man:The Dwelling Place of God, but without noting the author (A. W. Tozer): In natural matters faith follows evidence and is impossible without it, but in the realm of the spirit faith precedes understanding; it does not follow it. The natural man must know in order to believe; the spiritual man must believe in order to know. The faith that saves is not a conclusion drawn from evidence; it is a moral thing, a thing of the spirit, a supernatural infusion of confidence in Jesus Christ, a very gift of God…. Read more

Category Archive: Faith