Experiences with God

My husband and I spent Wednesday evening through the wee hours of Sunday morning approximately 14 hours each day serving on a ministry team at a local conference. We encountered such love emanating off nearly every person we met especially the leaders of the conference. We saw people wholeheartedly devoted to loving people as the love of God overflowed from them. They were so full of the love of God it was breathtakingly beautiful to see.


The presence of the Lord was tangibly thick in the room. Some couldn’t stand up under it. Others laughed and cried with joy as the Holy Spirit lavished the loving presence of God upon us.


I heard testimony after testimony of people being set free in their hearts being made whole by the love of God. I heard many testimonies of people being healed of various pains and ailments that they suffered with. I saw many so full of the Lord they appeared drunk like described in the book of Acts.



I too felt the strong presence of the Lord as did my husband. In fact, I experienced something I had never experienced before when one of the speakers at the conference prayed for us to receive a greater filling of the Spirit. She touched my hands as she passed me and they began to tingle and pulsate. I shook them and put them down at my side to see if maybe my circulation was impaired by having my hands raised. No matter what position I placed them they still tingled all over, not on the skin but within them. As I reflected on the Lord, the feeling increased and my hands were feeling heavy and pulsating and tingling even more. This continued the rest of the day Saturday and all day Sunday, Monday and continues even now. At times, it is almost imperceptible and then I will seek out the Lord in my heart and the original intensity of the feeling returns promptly. I had not felt it strongly today until I started writing this paragraph and the feeling has returned.


I hesitated to share this with you all for obvious reasons, but I feel the testimony needs to be shared even if you add it to your list of my lunacy. I still need to seek the Lord to find out what all this means and what He wants to show me through this. But I cannot deny the tangibility of knowing Him.


I did not have the opportunity to pray with anyone personally for healing at the conference. However, at church on Sunday I had an impression from God that there was one or more people who had a upper back/neck pain that needed healing. Upon asking if this were so, three people said it was. Two were completely healed of their pain and the third said it felt somewhat better, but not one hundred percent.


God is so incredibly awesome. His love is so sweet and good. I feel Him with me as I write and my hands continue to have this strange sensation running through them.

Musings about Imagination

I have been contemplating the purpose of the imagination. Humans have the capability to imagine something that is not observable by the senses. We can see in our mind something we do not have before us. Children imagine and create all kinds of fantastical adventures. Even adults enjoy a good fanciful movie or literature like Lord of the Rings. The poets, artists, inventors, play wrights, writers, and musicians pull from their imagination and create their great masterpieces.


Where does this desire come from to imagine and be imaginative? What use is there in imagining things beyond nature if there is nothing beyond nature? Is it mere evolutionary escapism?


Can it be that this is a desire of the supernatural coming awake in us to depict things that are not natural but fanciful? Maybe the fanciful is a shadow of the real instead of a grave distortion of the natural. Maybe leprechauns, fairies, elves, dwarves, unicorns, and other mystical creatures of our imagination are thus imagined because we see that something supernatural is at work behind the scenes and artist are trying to capture it and compel the imagination forward to grasp this glimmers of something else. We know these things to be created by human artistic expression, but how can it be that humans can create something so otherworldly if there is no reality beyond the physically natural? Why is the literature of every culture so full of grandiose myths of the gods and modern culture so full of superhero and supernatural power stories?


Why this urge to create something non-existent. We consider people who imagine things that aren’t there lunatics and we lock them up. But we don’t consider artist lunatics that imagine such fantasy. G.K. Chesterton suggest that “we must invoke the most wild and soaring sort of imagination –the imagination that can see what is really there.” He is asserting that imagination is something that aids us in seeing beyond what we experience with our senses to see more of reality and not less.


Maybe some of you have studied the imagination more than I and have some natural theories to suggest as to the necessity and usefulness of imagination and the reason for the creation of mythologies, fantasies, poetry, and other artistic expression stemming from the imagination.

More Thoughts On God's Goodness

I have noticed a trend of sorts in the discussions regarding the goodness of God that I think needs further examination. There seems to be a common agreement that if a God existed, He ought to be good. Hence, if the best candidate for God is shown not to be good by reason of His acts recorded in the Bible, His failure to end suffering in the world, or His plan of salvation is found to be flawed, then He doesn’t meet the qualifications of goodness nor Godhood.

Is this a fair assessment of the charges levied against His goodness and existence? I will continue on the assumption this is fair and I am sure you will all correct me if need be in the comments. At any rate, this is what I am hearing from all the discussion in the comments.

The idea of a “good” is resonate within us however we arrived at this construct. We value the good. We have standards for good. We differentiate good from evil. From what I see, the debate revolves around how we came to these constructs more than whether or not these constructs are part of humanity. Few argue that we don’t comprehend a difference between the two. I think most accept this dichotomy as obvious.

Can you put yourself in my shoes for a moment? Can you think about what the existence of an eternal God who is the author of all life means for the world? Is it possible for you to imagine with me a world where an eternal God created all? If such a God exists and is goodness personified eternally all He creates would naturally be good. This is the story of the Christian God. He created a good world with good people in it and He said it was all good. But we object that it cannot all be good we know there is evil, there is suffering, and there is disease and tragedy. We see natural disasters and not so natural ones. We see war, brutal violence, murder, destruction. We are appalled by what we see, so we, if a naturalist, can deduce we have evolved to have this natural indigence within us towards such cruelty. But what if there is another answer. What if when good was created, that which was not good was made possible. Man being created good, but with freedom sees what is not good and chooses to try that out for size. Man was warned not to do what is not good, but the not good was available to him, not because it was created, but because it is the absence of good or sometimes a distortion of good. The non good defiles the man who was warned it would not be a good thing to do. A course of events was set in motion to bring about the redemption of man to righteous goodness found in God that he became separated from through sin.

The evil and suffering in the world, is thence, a product of the gravity of sin causing corruption in man and in creation. But man has been on a journey ever since to become the great people of righteousness who will reign in a world where sin and evil has been conquered once and for all. God paid the debt for us, and as that reality is lived out in His Church in the world a great restoration will take place and is taking place. He waits and seems slow about bringing it to fruition so that more rather than less will find life in Him. He tarries to allow the fullness greater time to grow and more hearts and lives be brought to life through Him through the work of those who are in Him and are bringing Him to others.

I am a huge fan of C.S. Lewis’s books The Chronicles of Narnia. Maybe you have seen the new movie The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. In this mystical land of Narnia the land had been subjected to constant winter weather due to the reign of the White Witch in the land. However, when four children come into Narnia they set out on a journey with the great lion Aslan who ends the curse upon the land. His presence begins to melt the snow and end the winter whilst the children lead a battle to purge the land of the Witch and her followers. Aslan journeys throughout the land with the children breathing life back into Narnia. Lewis wrote this as a fanciful supposal of the truths of Christ depicted in a semi-allegorical manner.

The longing we have for the good is thus explained as a desire to find this restoration that all for which creation longs. We know intuitively that things ought not to be like they are, that violence, and suffering seem out of place to the way things ought to be. Could it be that there is meaning in it all and that our yearning to set things to rights is because there is a right to set it to? We can give up, so to speak, on our journey and accept things are simply the evolutionary pattern of life that we may or may not evolve past. But it would appear that even in terms of evolution we still have this nagging since of “rightness” and “oughts” and “the good.” It lingers despite evolutionary theories. So much so that we know that if a God exist He “ought” to be a good one or else He’s not worth bothering about.

These charges levied against Him can only be discussed in a framework of “a good” and if we imagine a world with no God I see a world where only humans make up what is beneficial to life based on evolutionary patterns to promote the continuation of our people and yet that doesn’t satisfy me. If that answer is good enough for you, then I can’t argue with that. We can say a God that destroys life for whatever reason under the sun cannot be good because life is good. But how do we determine life is good or valuable? How do we charge this Christian candidate for God with violating morality if He is our Creator and goodness is His nature? Or how do we charge Him, if He doesn’t exist and our morality is a product of evolution? There would be no one to charge, and nothing to charge Him with.

Unless you are talking about the finite gods of the Greeks and Romans and other ancient cultures, no one believing in God posits a God who is less than good. It seems to be a prerequisite for Godhood. We use our own standards to question it, but we are obviously not a perfect standard of good. So I question our appeal to ourselves to have grounds to question Him.

I realize I have not given some awesome argument that defeats all objections to His existence or His nature. But I hope I have left you with some things to consider. I’m not offended or threatened by such questions. I think they need to be asked and the questioners deserve to be taken seriously with great time and consideration taken in forming responses. You will find I do write on the same topics repeatedly because I am trying to have something worth your time to consider and I want to keep at it and keep reading and learning and inquiring. So I give answer, and then study some more, and listen some more, and engage in conversation some more, then write once again. So for today, this is where my musing pauses for you to consider.

Response to Ebon Muse Questions (Part 2)

I was browsing through Ebon Muse website Daylight Atheism and I found Ten Questions to Ask Your Pastor. I am a pastor’s wife and I decided to provide my answers to these questions. My answers are brief, but I hope that they get to the essence of each question in a way that is fair and respectful to the question. If anyone would like me to elaborate on a point or a question later please ask me in the comment and I will try and accommodate you. I will post my answers in two post dividing them five questions at a time due to cut down on the length of doing it as one post. I welcome you to read and to think about my answers, some are repetitive of topics I have addressed before, but are readdressed for the sake of answering this particular list of questions. (This is the second part, questions 6-10)

6. If it was always God's plan to provide salvation through Jesus, why didn't he send Jesus from the very beginning, instead of confusing and misleading generations of people by setting up a religion called Judaism which he knew in advance would prove to be inadequate?

He didn’t set up a religion called Judaism. He set up a people called Jews. People make religion, God makes relationships. He established a covenant (a relational promise) with the Jews to have relationship with them, but that relationship wasn’t fulfilled until Christ came because we needed to see the difference between what was available without Christ and the greater with Christ. Christ didn’t abolish the previous covenant, He made it better. He renewed it to a greater covenant by fulfilling its requirements. His covenant with the Jews was not misleading; it was leading all the while up to Christ. It was pointing to Him. Remember the Church began with Jews. These were Jewish people that saw the fulfillment of everything they had been waiting for in Christ. Some rejected it and clung to laws instead to the reason for the laws. Jesus rebuked them for missing the point of the laws and the Prophets. He came to show them bodily what everything since the beginning of time had been leading up to. He, Himself was born as a Jew and His disciples were Jews. There are many Messianic Jews because they are seeing the truth of Christ in their own Scriptures. It isn’t something separate, it is part of the same faith.

7. Since the Bible states that God does not desire that anyone perish, but also states that the majority of humankind is going to hell, doesn’t this show that God's plan of salvation is a failure even by his own standard? If this outcome is a success, what would count as a failure?

Jesus spent very little time speaking about hell. There are only a few verses where it is even mentioned in the whole of Scripture. I think the Church has made a mistake to spend so much time talking about something Jesus spent so little time talking about. I’ve noticed that the atheists reading my blogspot spend lots of time ranting about hell, when I seldom brought up the subject. The only time I have written on it is in response to their demands that I address the subject. Maybe some churches still spend a lot of time on the subject, but in my lifetime I have not heard it addressed very often and I have read hundreds of Christian books and have been immersed in Christian culture my whole life, still I have never heard so much about hell until I started talking to atheists and hearing how much they bring it up. Jesus is establishing a Kingdom of people who have life in Christ and who are inheriting everything of heaven that belongs to Him. He came to share the good news. He came to give life and give it abundantly. He came to show us how to live the good life. He didn’t come to condemn us. He didn’t come to make our lives darker and more depressing. He didn’t come to oppress. He came to set free, to heal, to love to forgive. This is His message. This is the reality of what He offers.

8. Why didn't God create human beings such that they freely desire to do good, thus removing the need to create a Hell at all? (If you believe this is impossible, isn't this the state that will exist in Heaven?)

If God created humans who freely desire to do good, would not this mean that they cannot do bad? As soon as something is good, that which is not that something is be default bad or evil. So a choice is created. If the choice is removed, freedom is removed.

No, in heaven we have arrived at the fullness of freedom from the bondage of sin because it was dealt with on earth by freely accepting Christ gift of salvation. The chains of sin are broken here and we start learning to walk that that reality now on earth.

The Bible speaks far more about the Kingdom of God and life in Christ than it does condemnation or hell. I think this shows what is important to God is giving us life. He isn't desirous of our not finding life.

9. Is it fair or rational for God to hide himself so that he can only be known by faith, then insist that every single human being find him by picking the right one out of thousands of conflicting and incompatible religions?

God put the desire for Him in us and He put the reality of His existence all around us. Moreover He tells us all about Himself in the Bible. And He came into our world bodily to further show Himself to us. He also shows Himself to the world through each believer. He tells us to go out and be witnesses for Him showing the world His truth.

However, despite all that there is truth to saying He is hidden. Have you ever seen the joy on a child’s face when they find a treasure? The path to God is full of treasures and He wants us to share in all that glory of discovery.

Religions have sprung up because of man’s desire to be connected to God. We have funneled this desire into things that do not satisfy. We invent ways to earn God’s favor and God is all the while telling us we have His favor we just need to learn that we can belong just as we are without earning anything and His love will provide all we need to live life. Religion shows man’s deep desire for God. It proves we have a God need. But it is inadequate to bring us home to Him in life. He gives life, He gives it to anyone who wants to drink of it.

There are many reservoirs of water. If you try and drink the oceans salty water it will not satisfy. If you try to drink from a bitter spring it will not satisfy. If you drink from water that’s full of bacteria it can cause dysentery or worse. But water is necessary for life. But all reservoirs of water are not equal. You need to find the good water in order to have life giving water. It is the same with “religion” you need to find the right source to drink from in order to find what will be good. God provided that source in Jesus and He gave us much evidence of its veracity and goodness. Will we drink up His life or will we choice a substitute source? He doesn’t force our choice. We are free to make that for ourselves.

10. If you had the power to help all people who are suffering or in need, at no cost or effort to yourself, would you do it? If so, why hasn't God done this already?

God has done this and is doing this still. He’s doing it through each believer. He’s doing it directly as well. Muslims are having dreams and visions of Christ and are coming to know Him without ever hearing the Gospel from a missionary. Christians are going into some of the most hostile of territories and bringing healing, miracles, and life to the people and they are hungry for more. Many groups are providing food, drinking water, hygiene instruction, education, jobs, employment training, homes, health care, etc.

A Christian woman named Heidi Baker and her husband Roland went to the poorest country to the most poor people in that country and risk their lives regularly to help the orphans there. They hear about the worse crime ridden neighborhoods and it is there they go to bring life. They raise the dead, they see miracles, but most of all they love the ones society has not loved.

I listened to Rick Warren the other day address a group of Muslim dignitaries and politicians from various nations on CSPAN. He spoke to them about merging efforts to help the poor and needy world wide. He spoke about working together despite our theological differences and aiding this world in a grassroots effort to bring relief to the suffering. His church is doing much toward this end.

A church in California that I know of often holds a large banquet with the best food on the finest china and invites in the homeless and gives them a grand dinner and prays for them and helps them in their needs. A couple from the church invited the homeless to their wedding and instead of accepting gifts from their family and friends they registered at Target for sleeping bags, coats, clothes, and all kinds of things these people needed and had their guest give them to the homeless guest in lieu of any wedding gifts for the bride and groom. These stories are told in the book written by Bill Johnson “When Heaven Invades Earth.”

There are thousands and thousands of such stories in the world today.

Responding to Ebon Muse Questions (Part 1)

I was browsing through Ebon Muse website Daylight Atheism and I found Ten Questions to Ask Your Pastor. I am a pastor’s wife and I decided to provide my answers to these questions. My answers are brief, but I hope that they get to the essence of each question in a way that is fair and respectful to the question. If anyone would like me to elaborate on a point or a question later please ask me in the comment and I will try and accommodate you. I will post my answers in two post dividing them five questions at a time due to cut down on the length of doing it as one post. I welcome you to read and to think about my answers, some are repetitive of topics I have addressed before, but are readdressed for the sake of answering this particular list of questions.


1. Why is God called loving or merciful when, in the Old Testament's stories of the Israelite conquest, he specifically orders his chosen people to massacre their enemies, showing no mercy to men, women, even children and animals?


The Old Testament shows us the natural consequence of sin. It shows us the severity of sin and the problem of sin. God physically gave them laws for their protection. These laws were not His whims, but rules to protect their heart and life. They needed to know these things and they needed external enforcement of these rules so that they could taste the goodness of life instead of taking on the weight of sin. God did not at this point co-habitat with man in our hearts for that was going to be made available once Christ came and fulfilled the requirements of the law and showed us and enabled us to live a new way a better way.

In the Old Testament, God was showing them His power. He demonstrated His authority. He gave them leaders to show them how to live in a way that was not going to lead to their destruction. He spoke to the people through Prophets and he gave them warning after warning. He was patient with them. Consider Jonah. God sent Jonah to Nineveh to warn the people that their ways were going to cause their destruction and they needed to repent. (Repentance means change the way you think turning around away from the path of destruction. It doesn’t mean being really sorry.) The people did just that and were saved from destruction. It wasn’t God’s desire to destroy them for their actions, if it were He simply would have done it without sending Jonah to warn them. Jonah is actually dismayed that God saved them; he says “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” (Jonah 4:2) He says this is why he didn’t want to waste his time warning the people, because he knew God could relent. He didn’t understand why he had to go through the trouble of warning them when God wasn’t going to end up destroying them. His selfishness was showing through. God tells him, “Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” (Jonah 4:11)

If you pull these stories often cited by atheists out of context of the whole of what the Bible reveals to us about God it will look like God is a vindictive annihilator. I am not sure how you can read through Scripture and miss the warnings, the mercy, the compassion and see that all acts of judgment were few and far between and very slow in coming. But when you learn more and you see His holiness in context of His love and goodness and His justice in context of His goodness you will see more clearly. When Moses is working with God to free the Israelites, God sends these plagues as warnings to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. He doesn’t come sweeping in and destroy them all and have Moses leave with his people. He is patient. More patient than the Israelites wanted Him to be. He gives ample time for Pharaoh to do the right thing and when Pharaoh remains resolute in the face of all the demonstrations of God’s power, the consequences of His rebellion are brought to fruition.

Also many who are adamant about God having done something unjust the few times He exacted judgment must consider if they believe there is ever a just war? Is there ever a just reason for bloodshed on a human level? If so, why do you not see that there could also be a just reason that God had for doing what He did? We who can’t see the whole picture of the outcome of a war, or the outcome of a battle can see good reasons for going to war and taking lives even when some of those lives will be innocent lives of citizens and not soldiers. Yet God sees the big pictures, He knows the complete ramifications of His actions and He knows the hearts of man to know what the eternal consequences may be and what choices they would make if left to their own ways. Do you not think a perfect God capable of making such a choice and it be good? We have this idea in our minds that good always means pleasant and that just isn’t correct.

2. Does it make sense to claim, as the Bible does, that wrongdoing can be forgiven by magically transferring the blame from a guilty person to an innocent one, then punishing the innocent person?

Does this question forget about question one where it is proposed that God is wrong to punish a guilty person? One can’t have it both ways.

God shows us the severity of sin and then shows us the One who will take the pain of sin for us so that we can be redeemed and free from the judgment. It is a loving act. It isn’t a logical act. Is it logical for any person to die so another can live simply because of love? Yet this happens all the time. One person takes the bullet for another protecting the other by their love and sacrificing themselves. If a created person can act in such a way, why are we confused by a perfect person, Jesus, doing so?


3. Why does the Bible routinely depict God as manifesting himself in dramatic, unmistakable ways and performing obvious miracles even before the eyes of nonbelievers, when no such thing happens in the world today?


How do you know no such things happen today? I’ve seen them happen today. I’ve read countless stories of them happening today. I’ve met many people who can tell me example after example of it happening today. His miracles are a sign of His existence, His love, His kindness, His authority and the power that He gives to those who walk with Him through life. He demonstrates His love through us by healing the sick. We live in an age of an increase of miracles happening in and outside the Church. Many are happening in the malls, on the streets, and in daily life as we Christians are out about our business. Many Christians are actively going out and seeking the sick and injured and physically handicap to bring healing to them and many are seeing results, not every time, but enough to know God’s still doing miracles.


4. Why do vast numbers of Christians still believe in the imminent end of the world when the New Testament states clearly that the apocalypse was supposed to happen 2,000 years ago, during the lifetime of Jesus' contemporaries?


The Bible does not state that it was going to happen 2,000 years ago. Jesus said before this generation passes away you will see the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is here now and is demonstrated in the lives of each believer. Moreover, I do not believe the world will end. I believe the corruption of the world will end, but not the world. The Bible says that what can be shaken will fall away but what is unshakeable will remain. It also said the corruptible will put on incorruptibility meaning that what is now corrupted will be restored to something not-corrupted. The earth isn’t going anywhere because God gave humans authority and dominion over the earth. The earth will be made new and sin and corruption will be gone from it one day, but it’s not going to be destroyed.


5. Why do Christians believe in the soul when neurology has found clear evidence that the sense of identity and personality can be altered by physical changes to the brain?


The soul is something spiritual, not physical. I’m not sure science could find something metaphysical. I have not researched this area of science so I really can’t say more than that.

The Limits of Science

Why is there so much faith put into science? Why the certainty of factuality when it comes to what is considered scientific? Science does not tell us how life originated. It doesn’t tell us why life originated or give us insight into our purpose. Science can tell us that if I put strychnine in a well the water will kill those who drink it. But it doesn’t tell us if it is wrong to kill.

G. K. Chesterton quips “Nobody can imagine how nothing turned into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else.”

I do appreciate science. I think we are motivated by God given curiosity and desire for knowledge to search out the hidden things with our microscopes, telescopes and other instrumentation. We want to know. We need to know. But why? Science cannot answer that. Notwithstanding, so many have such an unwavering faith in science when it tells us so little about who we are and why we are. Science can give us a complete composite of our biological make up and that is outstanding progress. It can get into the molecular level and tell us so much and give us ways to repair bodies. It can help us explore the oceans, plants, animals, and universe. The scientific advances are astounding wonders of exploration.

When I was watching Dawkins and Lennox debate, Dawkins said that the beauty of creation compels us to want to worship something greater and he said that science can show us how things came to be this way dismantling the desire for worship. Science can break down things and show how they work, but it fails to explain why nature should be so picturesque. It doesn’t explain why our hearts fill with wonder at a sun rise over the ocean or a rainbow over a field of flowers. It doesn’t explain what happens in our soul when we take in this grandeur of the universe. Can it be that it is precisely this wonder that so captures our soul that launched the sciences in the first place? Why now does science in some schools of thought destroy the need for wonder?

Science is an awesome tool for exploring life, but it isn’t THE tool to knowing about life. It falls short in many areas of answering the great questions most of us think about. Some say there is no meaning to life and yet they thought about the meaning of life enough to write about it acknowledging a need for meaning that prompted the negative answer to the question. The great thinkers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Kant, and Kierkegaard, etc. explored these questions of life. What drove their exploration? There is something in us that cries for answers and accepting defeat to our questions does not make logical sense. If that desire is in us then there is a reason for it. If we haven’t found the reason we can’t give up by denying the question.

Book Review: Loving Our Kids On Purpose

I read this fantastic book on parenting entitled “Loving Our Kids On Purose”. No, I don’t have any children yet, but I wanted to read it just the same. I would say this book is good for anyone who wants to know the heart of the Father. The author, Danny Silk, communicates the love of the Father and how parents can model that love. He shows how we send messages to kids about what God is like by the way we parent. If we parent with strict rules and punishments the child thinks God is a strict disciplinarian bent on punishment. But if we parent in freedom based on love and we lead by love we will show them the Father’s heart. Silk explains how many still parent in an old covenant way and that it is more relevant and beneficial to parent in a new covenant way. He gives practical examples of how this is done and how perfect love cast out fear. As a social worker, pastor, father, and grandfather, Danny Silk, is well equipped and qualified to offer parental advice. I found his book amazing and it really changed how I think. I knew these principles he sets forth in reference to how God responds to us, but I hadn’t made the connecting in parenting yet. It’s a parenting model built on freedom, self-control, and love. Danny says no one is to control another person, not even your own children. If we control our children, they don’t learn self-control.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the heart of God and how to represent that heart in relationships with children or adults. For more information about this book and the Loving Your Kids On Purpose Ministry please click here.

The Question of God's Conduct

I have heard the questions regarding God’s conduct depicted in the Old Testament. I have reviewed various answers people have given regarding this conduct. Some argue that it was required to wipe out a people because of the severity of the sin. Child sacrifice was amongst the injustices being done by these people creating a need for God to command their destruction. Still no matter the levels of injustices it would seem to our modern mind to be an immoral response of a good God. Certainly God could provide a better solution. Of course, maybe in these instances we theorize that He ought to have removed their free will and forced the end of these vile practices. However, these responses have not satisfied me as I am sure they don’t satisfy my atheist’s readers.


I’ve explained that the situation is different before Christ then after, but I haven’t had the words to really communicate this idea properly. I will attempt to do so here, however, bear in mind that this is my first attempt to articulate this at this length and I will not stop giving the subject my attention simply because I have made a post about it.


In the Old Testament, God did not dwell in man. He related to man externally from a place of holy separation for man was contaminated with sin and God being sinless and holy would not be able to have union with man until man was redeemed. The presence of God was actually harmful in a way to man if man is in direct tangible contact with His presence for man was not yet able to bear it. We were created to live lives in union with God, to know His love and truth internally; to share in His holiness. However, sin created a new paradigm where God related truth to man externally through the Law and the Prophets. He in His justice exacted the consequences of sin and rebellion through plagues, warfare, etc. These however, are simply earthly consequences designed to protect those who were in covenant with God for the good of the propitiation of the human race. Moreover, these ways of dealing with man were last resorts; God always gave warning and allowed time for repentance. Scripture doesn’t tell us what the eternal consequences were to these people. It doesn’t tell us that the children of these people are held accountable for their parent’s actions in eternity. I doubt that they would have been. The Bible tells us when Jonah was sent to warn Nineveh that destruction was coming if they did not repent and change their ways, Nineveh repented and God spared them.


When Jesus came a paradigm shift came that all of creation had been building toward. Now redemption is in place and because that changes the situation of man, God relates to man internally. He offers to dwell in us in a love relationship where the relationship is the key to all freedom and life. Obedience to external laws is no longer the key for we don’t need that kind of thing to live a victorious life. We don’t need fear of retribution. We can experience the direct life changing love of God. We can now dwell unabated in the living God and He can now dwell within us. A major shift occurred creating this new way of God relating to man because the condition of man changed. This is why Jesus articulated that greater than any obedience to a law was loving God and loving our neighbor for all the law is fulfilled when we learn to have relationship with God and one another. We don’t need a system of rules to live by, we just need relationship with God which fulfills all that the rules were never sufficient to fulfill.


We can argue that God could have brought this about faster from the beginning, but the story needed to play out as it did for it all to work as it does. God is still the same God, but the condition of humanity has been altered. We can still choose to disregard this grace and we can subject ourselves to external realities refusing the freedom and life in Christ. God will still pursue us with His love time and again giving us ample opportunities to see the gift He has extended to us.


Another paradigm shift is on the horizon when the Lord will return for all of those who dwell in Him to bring all that we wait for into fruition. There remains much to be actualized upon the earth before His return, but it is happening throughout the world more and more as time goes on.


One can argue that none of this is fair. But where do we get our standard of fairness? How do we gage what is fair? One can argue it isn’t just. But where does justice come from? One can argue a good God would never harm anyone for any reason whatsoever, but to what do we appeal as a standard of goodness?

Honor & Grassroots Generosity

My grandfather passed away last March. A memory came to me yesterday of an afternoon he and I went to a local hardware store so that he could purchase an item he needed. The next day, we returned as the item was not what he thought it was. He wasn’t driving any longer being in his late eighties and I was helping him run his errands. We approached the counter to return the item to find that they would not give him a refund because he had paid by check the previous day. Their policy required a ten day waiting period to ensure the check cleared before rendering a refund. We could not exchange it, for they did not carry the item he needed. I was thinking about how this was going to be an inconvenience as we would have to remember and schedule yet another return trip to this store. However, my grandfather was more taken aback at not being trusted than anything else. He told them his check is most certainly good and took it personally that they did not trust his word. While he calmly attempted to procure his refund from the bewildered cashier, I saw the clash of two cultures: one that upheld the honor of one’s word and one that was skeptical of everyone’s words.


Too many have witnessed fraud and deceit to trust a person’s word anymore. There was such a day that there was honor in a man’s word. If he said his account was good for the money, that statement was as good as gold. My grandfather had lived through such an era, but the policy keeping his refund until the check cleared was made in a culture that could not simply accept someone’s word.


I watch today as my country travails through this economic crisis. Businesses are battening down the hatches laying off employees and reducing the quantity and quality of their products and services while increasing the prices. Many are looking out for themselves and I think this is contributing to more economic troubles than if we worked together generously looking out for each other to make it through these times. What if people upheld their word and honor and worked with their employees to find a way to keep jobs while keeping the business alive. Maybe products that are frivolous need a temporary cessation in production to allow greater quality to those necessity items. Maybe cost can be cut in ways that don’t cheapen the products and services. Maybe schedules can be worked out with employees so that those with the greatest needs are given the most hours and those who have second incomes can cut back their hours. There just seems to be a better way than what I am seeing, a way built on generosity and honor and not on selfishness and fear. I think the way we are going to pull out of this crisis, isn’t going to come from more money from Washington, but a grassroots movement of generosity.


Does anyone have any stories of this kind of generosity they have observed or heard about? Instances where employers and employees are working together to help save a company? Instances where people are volunteering their time to help keep their company afloat? Are we thinking about ways that we can serve in these times, or are we only focused on making sure our needs our met? I think there can be a good deal of creative ideas that come from everyday people that can turn these economic problems around. We just need to see beyond our needs to the greater community and nation.

Book Review

I just completed D’Souza’s book, “What’s So Great About Christianity.” Overall it was a good read. I appreciate his scholarly response to the popular new atheism books. To get a feel for the book from a skeptic’s view point one of the endorsements, Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine reads, “As an unbeliever I passionately disagree with Dinesh D’Souza on some of his positions. But he is a first-rate scholar whom I feel absolutely compelled to read. His thorough research and elegant prose have elevated him to the top ranks of those who champion liberty and individual responsibility. . .”

I must say D’Souza tackled very scholarly subjects and presented them in a readable fashion. I would say his book is by far intellectual enough for those who want to think deeply and basic enough for those who are trying to get a hold of some of these issues for the first time.

I did not agree with all of his positions, but I enjoyed the book immensely. He dived deep into historical, philosophical, and scientific territory to give a viable answer to skeptics. Some of the common questions I hear from atheists were regrettably not addressed or were not addressed as well as I would have liked in his book. But other matters were thoroughly addressed that still have me contemplating his research.

I think his book is certainly worth reading for Christians, theists, skeptics, and atheists alike who want to keep up with the popular debates of culture in our times.