The cold weather they are forecasting for this weekend got me thinking. There is an very popular and equally misunderstood passage in Revelation 3 where Jesus tells the Laodiceans that he wishes they were either hot or cold, but because they were luke warm he was going to vomit them out. The popular understanding is that hot is good, cold is bad. That is a very modern interpretation of the meaning and is very wrong. The concepts of being hot or cold spiritually aren’t the point and, in fact, are contrary to other parts of scripture. Jesus doesn’t say hot is good, cold is bad, luke warm is really bad. The only bad is luke warm. Hot and cold are extremes. His point is that they weren’t extreme for the Lord, they were luke warm. Read the rest of this entry »
When I sat down to write up this thought that I had I didn’t intend it to be a political commentary. It very could be if you want to read it that way. I won’t focus on that but if you want to read it once, then reread it with those goggles on, it could have some interesting implications. Thought I’d paste that here before the meat of the thing.
I’m studying for a one-off study this weekend on Jehovah’s Witnesses. Between books I like to hit one or two topical things. Relevant things that have come up and need addressing. A few weeks ago the Jehovah’s Witnesses came by and left a flier on my door. Without going into my whole study here and now, I thought it would make good fuel for a new once-in-a-while-series called, “Hath God Said…” Not an attack series on the evil and wicked cults, but an equipping series to help people out of their deception and into light. Read the rest of this entry »
Headline – Austrailian Priest Claims Jesus Was Not God
For those who don’t want to click over to the article, here is their summary. The page has a link to the full article on another website.
Jesus Christ was not God, and Mary was not a virgin, according to a controversial new book written by an Australian Catholic priest.
“This whole matter regarding Jesus being God … not only does violence to my own intelligence, but must be a sticking point,” Father Peter Dresser writes in his new book, “God Is Big. Real Big.”
“For millions of people trying to make some kind of sense of the Christian religion … No human being can ever be God, and Jesus was a human being. It is as simple as that.”
Dresser claims Joseph was Jesus’s father, Mary was not a virgin – and actually had six children – and that the story of the resurrection should not be taken literally.
Dresser’s book has angered conservative Catholics across Australia.
“The Council of Nicaea settled the question that Christ was God in 325, so he is 1700 years out of date,” Sydney priest Anthony Robbie said. “The rest is a regurgitation of every discredited 19th-century liberal Protestant German cliche in the book.”
Wow. I mean, wow. First off, the amount of cognitive dissonance going on in this man’s thought processes must be astounding. I don’t mean that as an insult, not at all. How can one be a priest in a belief system and not hold to the most fundamental beliefs of that belief system? The realities of Jesus Christ being God in the flesh and the resurrection are the most foundational tenants in the Christian faith, Catholic or Protestant. And to be a priest in that system and trying to juxtapose those tow things, it makes no sense.
Without writing a whole theological treatise, here are just a few things to consider. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s no secret, I’m a fan of sci-fi. One show I really like is Stargate-SG1. Those who are movie-purists don’t like the show, but I bridged the gap. All of my watching has been done in reruns. The show was on for 10 years and it’s spin-off, Stargate Atlantis is in it’s fourth and final season. Late in the SG1 story line, after beating the original bad guys (the guys I can’t spell), and after beating the next bad guys (the replicators), they introduced a whole new kind of bad guy. After all, an adventure show needs bad guys for the heros to beat. These bad guys were called the Ori.
They are supernatural being. They ascended from a physical form to an energy form and live forever. They send out missionaries called Priors to the planets of the galaxy to spread Origin, the teaching of the Ori. What is the Gospel of the Ori? The Ori are good, loving, and benevolent beings who alone hold the truth of reality. They want to share their love, their truth, and the ability to ascend with all who would follow them, those who would devote themselves to worshipping them as the only true gods. If people don’t, they they will be punished forever with fire. This sounds familiar… Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve always been a fan of the sci-fi genre. Star Trek (all movies and series), Star Wars (not the Ewok live-action series), Stargate (the movie and both series), The X-Files, Millennium (I was one of the few who dug the show it would seem), those are my favs. Interestingly enough, these shows fall into two camps; all of the “Star” shows would say that there is no such thing as the supernatural, that everything can be explained through science and by natural means, while the other two shows would say (minus Scully) that there is something of the supernatural or that which cannot be explained by natural means.
While pondering Bible prophecy as well as creationism (I’m teaching both topics in different venues) I was thinking about this concept of being able to explain everything through naturalistic means vs. saying that some things can only be explained via the supernatural (meaning God) and have to be taken on faith. Then it occurred to me; the idea that we live in the natural world and that God lives in the supernatural is actually very man-centered. What if God is the one who lives in the natural world and we live in the sub-natural? Read the rest of this entry »
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