Monday, September 15, 2014
Web Site
I don't think anyone is actually going to see this, but I thought I'd mention that I'm building a web site. It's at literallyhomeschool.weebly.com and it a homeschool website. Right now I'm building preschool pages. I've got a list of best picture books and several other pages nearly complete. Once that site is more complete, I may come back to this blog and modify it a bit - probably for use in making Bible Studies that could be compatible with the program. For now, if anyone actually stops by this site, check that one out for something that looks a bit more polished and appealing.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Flood
Let's see if I can answer your questions. Remember, this is pure speculation since the Bible doesn't tell us one way or the other on this.
It's likely that all the animals were in some sort of hibernation mode. They obviously showed up to board the ark on God's command, and the Bible says that God (or an angel, I can't remember at the moment) closed the door of the ark and sealed it, so there were some very obvious miracles happening. It seems pretty reasonable to assume that God made sure that the animals didn't kill each other (or the humans) while they were trapped in a boat. They might have entered individual cages to keep everything seperate that ate meat too. God commanded Noah to bring extra animals of the species that people could eat, but He didn't make similar provisions for the animals, so I'm going to go with the idea that they simply didn't need to. This also answers how termites were able to be there - like other animals, they simply waited out the Flood.
Salty or fresh water? Well, let me give you a bigger picture answer for this one. Young Earth Creationist believe that our current Earth isn't the same as the one from before Noah's ark. Different in serious ways that science has no way of proving (because science has to start with the assumption that what we have no is the way it has always been). For example, the Bible states that it had never rained before the Flood - apparently there was 'water from the ground' (lots of springs? Mist? Dew? I have no idea). God changed the water-cycle of our planet at the time of the Flood so that now rain is a completely natural phenomena. So natural that we can't figure out how it would work differently.
We also would assume that the Flood brought about other huge, catestrophic changes - things that are still being felt today (such as earthquakes, volcanos, hurricanes, etc.). These are events that would not have ever existed in a 'perfect world' like the Garden of Eden, but were likely started when God re-shaped the Earth during the Flood. The geography of Earth was re-formed (probably causing the land-masses to split apart into the continents we know today). All sorts of consequences! Evolutionists see a lof the same geological events that YE Creationists do, but Evolutionists claim that they took a long time to reach the point that they are today (like the idea that it took millions of years for the American continents to split off from Europe and Asia and create the Atlantic Ocean) whereas YE Creationists would say that it happened quickly. Same event, just a different time-line.
So we have some things that were 'natural' events (like dividing continents) and others that were 'miraculous' events (like creating a water cycle). Okay, let's look at a couple of other things that the Bible says. First, in the New Earth, we know that the animals will return to their Eden-habits of eating only plants, not other animals. The Bible says that the Lion will eat straw like an ox, that a wolf will lay down beside a sheep, that a person can stick their hand in the nest of an asp and not get hurt. So at some point, either when humans first sinned, or while God was doing other major changes to the Earth during the Flood, God re-formed animals, making some of them carnivores. This gives precedence to the idea that God has changed the nature of animals at least once already. On top of this, in Revelation, the Bible says that along with 'no more pain, no more sorrow, no more darkness', there is also 'no more sea'. That's kind of a random thing to have 'no more of', isn't it? Well, there's two possible reasons for this - one is that the ocean has historically been a source of fear and danger for humans. It's only recently that people have found ways to safely travel across the ocean, after all! So a New Earth without a sea would have been a very positive thing for most of the history of humanity. But there's a second possibility for this and it goes back to the idea of salty vs. fresh water. Salt water is posionous to humans and most animals. So it seems possible that all the bodies of water will become fresh water in the New Earth. This would mean that there wouldn't be 'seas', but in a different way. If this is true, than it is possible that originally all waters were fresh waters until the Flood, at which point, like making carniverious animals, God changed the fish and mammals in those bodies of water to be able to handle the situation.
So my answer to 'Fresh or salty' during the Flood was...both, sort of. God had a direct hand in forming the Earth once the Flood was over and I think he made sure that the fish (and other aquadic life) ended up in the proper locations and with the proper biological equipment to handle the situation once it was all over.
Okay, since we've been talking about the Flood, let me point out what 'lesson for us today' exists in this story. What spiritual truth is a person supposed to learn from the story of Noah and the ark?
The lessons are: God takes care of His people. He always provides a way of escape for those who trust Him. But that way of escape may not always be fun.
It wasn't fun for Noah (imagine spending a hundred years building a boat on dry land when no one has ever seen rain before. How much do you think the people around Noah laughed at him? I'm betting a whole lot! But he dodgedly persisted and his faith was rewarded. He was saved. And his family with him. The ark was probably not much fun either (smelly, dark, and in constant motion), which is probably a metaphor for life in general, but he made it out to the other side to reach 'the promised land'.
Okay, well, I'll have you either read the story in Genesis of Noah's ark (Genesis), or, if you read this recently (which I kind of think you did), read this instead: It doesn't have anything to do with the discussion at hand, except to point out how God will always be there for us - and nothing can stop that fact.
It's likely that all the animals were in some sort of hibernation mode. They obviously showed up to board the ark on God's command, and the Bible says that God (or an angel, I can't remember at the moment) closed the door of the ark and sealed it, so there were some very obvious miracles happening. It seems pretty reasonable to assume that God made sure that the animals didn't kill each other (or the humans) while they were trapped in a boat. They might have entered individual cages to keep everything seperate that ate meat too. God commanded Noah to bring extra animals of the species that people could eat, but He didn't make similar provisions for the animals, so I'm going to go with the idea that they simply didn't need to. This also answers how termites were able to be there - like other animals, they simply waited out the Flood.
Salty or fresh water? Well, let me give you a bigger picture answer for this one. Young Earth Creationist believe that our current Earth isn't the same as the one from before Noah's ark. Different in serious ways that science has no way of proving (because science has to start with the assumption that what we have no is the way it has always been). For example, the Bible states that it had never rained before the Flood - apparently there was 'water from the ground' (lots of springs? Mist? Dew? I have no idea). God changed the water-cycle of our planet at the time of the Flood so that now rain is a completely natural phenomena. So natural that we can't figure out how it would work differently.
We also would assume that the Flood brought about other huge, catestrophic changes - things that are still being felt today (such as earthquakes, volcanos, hurricanes, etc.). These are events that would not have ever existed in a 'perfect world' like the Garden of Eden, but were likely started when God re-shaped the Earth during the Flood. The geography of Earth was re-formed (probably causing the land-masses to split apart into the continents we know today). All sorts of consequences! Evolutionists see a lof the same geological events that YE Creationists do, but Evolutionists claim that they took a long time to reach the point that they are today (like the idea that it took millions of years for the American continents to split off from Europe and Asia and create the Atlantic Ocean) whereas YE Creationists would say that it happened quickly. Same event, just a different time-line.
So we have some things that were 'natural' events (like dividing continents) and others that were 'miraculous' events (like creating a water cycle). Okay, let's look at a couple of other things that the Bible says. First, in the New Earth, we know that the animals will return to their Eden-habits of eating only plants, not other animals. The Bible says that the Lion will eat straw like an ox, that a wolf will lay down beside a sheep, that a person can stick their hand in the nest of an asp and not get hurt. So at some point, either when humans first sinned, or while God was doing other major changes to the Earth during the Flood, God re-formed animals, making some of them carnivores. This gives precedence to the idea that God has changed the nature of animals at least once already. On top of this, in Revelation, the Bible says that along with 'no more pain, no more sorrow, no more darkness', there is also 'no more sea'. That's kind of a random thing to have 'no more of', isn't it? Well, there's two possible reasons for this - one is that the ocean has historically been a source of fear and danger for humans. It's only recently that people have found ways to safely travel across the ocean, after all! So a New Earth without a sea would have been a very positive thing for most of the history of humanity. But there's a second possibility for this and it goes back to the idea of salty vs. fresh water. Salt water is posionous to humans and most animals. So it seems possible that all the bodies of water will become fresh water in the New Earth. This would mean that there wouldn't be 'seas', but in a different way. If this is true, than it is possible that originally all waters were fresh waters until the Flood, at which point, like making carniverious animals, God changed the fish and mammals in those bodies of water to be able to handle the situation.
So my answer to 'Fresh or salty' during the Flood was...both, sort of. God had a direct hand in forming the Earth once the Flood was over and I think he made sure that the fish (and other aquadic life) ended up in the proper locations and with the proper biological equipment to handle the situation once it was all over.
Okay, since we've been talking about the Flood, let me point out what 'lesson for us today' exists in this story. What spiritual truth is a person supposed to learn from the story of Noah and the ark?
The lessons are: God takes care of His people. He always provides a way of escape for those who trust Him. But that way of escape may not always be fun.
It wasn't fun for Noah (imagine spending a hundred years building a boat on dry land when no one has ever seen rain before. How much do you think the people around Noah laughed at him? I'm betting a whole lot! But he dodgedly persisted and his faith was rewarded. He was saved. And his family with him. The ark was probably not much fun either (smelly, dark, and in constant motion), which is probably a metaphor for life in general, but he made it out to the other side to reach 'the promised land'.
Okay, well, I'll have you either read the story in Genesis of Noah's ark (Genesis), or, if you read this recently (which I kind of think you did), read this instead: It doesn't have anything to do with the discussion at hand, except to point out how God will always be there for us - and nothing can stop that fact.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Legalism and Judgement
I wanted to mention the balance (which most people, myself included) have a hard time with regarding the pull between being too harsh vs. too lenient with sin. Since we just talked about homosexuality, this is a good example of where this might be applied. God sees (and Christians are called to see) the sin of homosexuality as 'abhorrent' and unacceptable. However, we are never to assume that such a practice is unforgivable or that the people doing such sin are somehow less worthy of love and acceptance (by God and by us) than any other human. Practicing homosexuality is no better or worse than bitterness or greed or pride or any other sin you can name. None of us are perfect and we are not God and should never place ourselves in the position to look down on anyone else's struggles.
This is a tough line to walk because we (Christians) should never be afraid to stand up and say 'This is wrong.', even when the world around us hates to hear that. Again, homosexuality is a perfect example of how the world doesn't want to hear Christians speak. If I tell a gay man that he is sinning, I open myself up to be prosecuted for a 'hate crime'. Saying that sin is sin shouldn't be wrong, but it is hard to not make it sound as if I find the person doing the sin as worth extra hatred. The groups that spew vile expressions of hatred towards the gay people are just as wrong as those who are being gay.
Legalism is the idea of following the letter of the law so close that you miss the heart behind it. Non-Christians often love the 'do not judge' verse of the Bible specifically because they think that the verse allows them to tell us that we can't point out when a person is sinning, when in fact the verse is warning people that when they do point out sin, they have to be very, very careful that they are neither being hypocrites nor legalistic. Christians are in fact encouraged to point out sin in the world around us, but we have to be sure that our own lives are up to the same level of scrutiny (and if a person thinks they are perfect in this regard, they are probably succumbing to the sin of pride!).
This is a tough line to walk because we (Christians) should never be afraid to stand up and say 'This is wrong.', even when the world around us hates to hear that. Again, homosexuality is a perfect example of how the world doesn't want to hear Christians speak. If I tell a gay man that he is sinning, I open myself up to be prosecuted for a 'hate crime'. Saying that sin is sin shouldn't be wrong, but it is hard to not make it sound as if I find the person doing the sin as worth extra hatred. The groups that spew vile expressions of hatred towards the gay people are just as wrong as those who are being gay.
Legalism is the idea of following the letter of the law so close that you miss the heart behind it. Non-Christians often love the 'do not judge' verse of the Bible specifically because they think that the verse allows them to tell us that we can't point out when a person is sinning, when in fact the verse is warning people that when they do point out sin, they have to be very, very careful that they are neither being hypocrites nor legalistic. Christians are in fact encouraged to point out sin in the world around us, but we have to be sure that our own lives are up to the same level of scrutiny (and if a person thinks they are perfect in this regard, they are probably succumbing to the sin of pride!).
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Bad Morals
Let me start to answer the question about being gay with a broader description of any sin, then focus in on that one in particular.
First, let me mention that there is a balance in Christianity between 'good deeds' and 'being saved by God's grace alone'. I mentioned earlier that having trust in Jesus' sacrifice is all you need to get to Heaven, but how does a person trust in that? It's not just empty words and not just a warm fuzzy feeling inside, it is faith. Faith, as I defined earlier, is an action, not just an emotion or intellectual agreement or empty words. If a person actually has faith in Jesus, they will act like they do. With the help of the Holy Spirit, a Christian will attempt to abstain from sinful behavior and will do other good things. I want to make this clear because the Bible is full of 'do this' and 'don't do that'. For the most part, these commands are dealing with the moral principles (I'll tell you about the exceptions some other time). As I'd written before, God sets up the fundamental principles of morals deep within our hearts or every person should know them, but that's not the most reliable method of getting people to do the right thing. The Bible is God's way of being very clear on exactly what He expects of His people and how we ought to go about it.
God set morals up within people, but there are multiple things that can go wrong with that. The most common problem is a 'seared conscious', which is what happens when someone is exposed to something nasty often enough. It's kind of like calluses on your fingers. You grow hardened skin in areas that you rub frequently and as the skin toughens, it loses sensitivity. When a person is exposed to sin frequently enough, whether through their own choice or the choices of someone else, they end to become numb to the experience. This is why some people are horrified by the level of violence in movies and games. A person who is 'used to' that kind of thing doesn't see anything wrong with it, but for someone who isn't used to it, it can be shocking how strong the gore is. Or how some people have no problem with swear words - they hear or use them so often that they don't even register it any more, but someone who isn't used to that kind of language hears it right away and it makes them uncomfortable. It's the same idea with sin. A person may start out making excuses to themselves about how their particular sin is okay, but if they keep on doing it and refusing to listen to their conscious or God's whispered rebuke, after a while, they can't hear either and it becomes easier and easier to slip deeper into worse sin. A good example might be drugs. I don't think too many people start out on the really hard-core major drugs. They start with perhaps smoking and alcohol, then some of the 'lighter' drugs and then... you get the idea.
In addition to a seared consciousness, people can also dispute things that are...well...silly. Like drinking caffeine. Some people argue that, because it isn't really healthy to drink caffeine, it is violating God's command to 'treat our bodies as a temple of God'. Now, I'll freely admit to being on the side of things that disagrees with this idea, but I do see why those who believe it feel the way they do. The Bible gives humans a whole lot of leeway when it comes to a huge range of things. There are lots of grey areas - lots of room for people to have different opinions. That's one of the reasons that there are so many different types of Christian churches out there. One group finds something and is convinced they are right, but another group of people disagree. They still both believe the same basic fundamental truths, but in a minor area, they have a disagreement. So one church group may think that very loud and active singing is okay and another thinks it should be quiet and meditative, and neither group is non-Christian because of that.
So, while there is a lot of room for disputing things that the Bible doesn't specifically address, some areas are totally clear. An example of this would be homosexuality. Your assignment today is to read Romans 1, which is probably the best chapter for this idea. Let me also write out the Old Testament verses for this:
"If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination." (Leviticus 20:13).
"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion. ‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you." (Leviticus 18:22-24).
As you can see, there's not exactly a whole lot of wiggle room in these verses. God pretty much says 'No!' and for a Christian, that's pretty much that. Why would anyone dispute that? Well, there are several reasons - the strongest being that the people who are arguing about it are the ones wanting to practice this sin! If people are not Christian, then they don't care what the Bible has to say about a subject either.
There are two main arguments that people use to support 'gay-rights', one of which is: People have been shown to be genetically predisposed to being gay. The argument then goes, if a person is born that way, then it isn't their 'fault' and thus we shouldn't condemn them for it any more than we should condemn a man for having different color skin. It equates gays with other minorities, which is a smart move since that's still a hot topic in this country and swings a large segment of the population into their camp. The problem with this argument is that it ignores the fact that humans can be predisposed to all sorts of things, but that ultimately it it still a CHOICE. For example, in my family, I probably am genetically at risk of being an alcoholic. I have several family members that were (before they died from it). But would that be a good excuse if I became one myself? No it wouldn't because it would still be my choice to drink. Lots of people are genetically predisposed to be obese, but no one claims that they are FORCED to be that way. The genetic predisposition increases the likelihood of a person going a certain route, but only if they choose to make the steps down that path. The same thing with being gay. A person may have a genetic tendency to go that direction, but it is still a choice and as such, not the same thing as being born with dark skin.
The second argument is the one you brought up which was 'but they love each other'. The problem with that is that it tries to side-step the whole choice issue by bringing up an emotional argument. If a person says 'well, I love my thirteen-year old daughter and she's old enough to know what she wants', is that a valid reason for accepting incest? (Yuck) Or what about a person who 'loves' their dog? (again, yuck). Are either of these people forced to act on their emotions? No, they still have a choice. Or, to put it perhaps in a different way, by saying that emotions are more important than anything else, you could then argue that anyone who is angry has a legitamate right to kill whoever they are angry with. Anger and hate are just as real as love, so why don't they get to express their feelings through actions? It's because we know that sometimes people feel things that they should not express and should actively work to oppress.
So the over-riding issues with homosexuality is that the 'pro-gay' people are doing their best to side-step the fact that such a life-style is a choice - one which they very much want everyone else to agree with so they can justify their sinful actions. The vast majority of people who agree with this stance probably haven't thought through what this actually means and don't care what the Bible has to say about the issue. God call it sin and tell us not to do it.
Whew, long post on this one! Hopefully this helped. Feel free to ask for clarification if it didn't.
First, let me mention that there is a balance in Christianity between 'good deeds' and 'being saved by God's grace alone'. I mentioned earlier that having trust in Jesus' sacrifice is all you need to get to Heaven, but how does a person trust in that? It's not just empty words and not just a warm fuzzy feeling inside, it is faith. Faith, as I defined earlier, is an action, not just an emotion or intellectual agreement or empty words. If a person actually has faith in Jesus, they will act like they do. With the help of the Holy Spirit, a Christian will attempt to abstain from sinful behavior and will do other good things. I want to make this clear because the Bible is full of 'do this' and 'don't do that'. For the most part, these commands are dealing with the moral principles (I'll tell you about the exceptions some other time). As I'd written before, God sets up the fundamental principles of morals deep within our hearts or every person should know them, but that's not the most reliable method of getting people to do the right thing. The Bible is God's way of being very clear on exactly what He expects of His people and how we ought to go about it.
God set morals up within people, but there are multiple things that can go wrong with that. The most common problem is a 'seared conscious', which is what happens when someone is exposed to something nasty often enough. It's kind of like calluses on your fingers. You grow hardened skin in areas that you rub frequently and as the skin toughens, it loses sensitivity. When a person is exposed to sin frequently enough, whether through their own choice or the choices of someone else, they end to become numb to the experience. This is why some people are horrified by the level of violence in movies and games. A person who is 'used to' that kind of thing doesn't see anything wrong with it, but for someone who isn't used to it, it can be shocking how strong the gore is. Or how some people have no problem with swear words - they hear or use them so often that they don't even register it any more, but someone who isn't used to that kind of language hears it right away and it makes them uncomfortable. It's the same idea with sin. A person may start out making excuses to themselves about how their particular sin is okay, but if they keep on doing it and refusing to listen to their conscious or God's whispered rebuke, after a while, they can't hear either and it becomes easier and easier to slip deeper into worse sin. A good example might be drugs. I don't think too many people start out on the really hard-core major drugs. They start with perhaps smoking and alcohol, then some of the 'lighter' drugs and then... you get the idea.
In addition to a seared consciousness, people can also dispute things that are...well...silly. Like drinking caffeine. Some people argue that, because it isn't really healthy to drink caffeine, it is violating God's command to 'treat our bodies as a temple of God'. Now, I'll freely admit to being on the side of things that disagrees with this idea, but I do see why those who believe it feel the way they do. The Bible gives humans a whole lot of leeway when it comes to a huge range of things. There are lots of grey areas - lots of room for people to have different opinions. That's one of the reasons that there are so many different types of Christian churches out there. One group finds something and is convinced they are right, but another group of people disagree. They still both believe the same basic fundamental truths, but in a minor area, they have a disagreement. So one church group may think that very loud and active singing is okay and another thinks it should be quiet and meditative, and neither group is non-Christian because of that.
So, while there is a lot of room for disputing things that the Bible doesn't specifically address, some areas are totally clear. An example of this would be homosexuality. Your assignment today is to read Romans 1, which is probably the best chapter for this idea. Let me also write out the Old Testament verses for this:
"If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination." (Leviticus 20:13).
"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion. ‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you." (Leviticus 18:22-24).
As you can see, there's not exactly a whole lot of wiggle room in these verses. God pretty much says 'No!' and for a Christian, that's pretty much that. Why would anyone dispute that? Well, there are several reasons - the strongest being that the people who are arguing about it are the ones wanting to practice this sin! If people are not Christian, then they don't care what the Bible has to say about a subject either.
There are two main arguments that people use to support 'gay-rights', one of which is: People have been shown to be genetically predisposed to being gay. The argument then goes, if a person is born that way, then it isn't their 'fault' and thus we shouldn't condemn them for it any more than we should condemn a man for having different color skin. It equates gays with other minorities, which is a smart move since that's still a hot topic in this country and swings a large segment of the population into their camp. The problem with this argument is that it ignores the fact that humans can be predisposed to all sorts of things, but that ultimately it it still a CHOICE. For example, in my family, I probably am genetically at risk of being an alcoholic. I have several family members that were (before they died from it). But would that be a good excuse if I became one myself? No it wouldn't because it would still be my choice to drink. Lots of people are genetically predisposed to be obese, but no one claims that they are FORCED to be that way. The genetic predisposition increases the likelihood of a person going a certain route, but only if they choose to make the steps down that path. The same thing with being gay. A person may have a genetic tendency to go that direction, but it is still a choice and as such, not the same thing as being born with dark skin.
The second argument is the one you brought up which was 'but they love each other'. The problem with that is that it tries to side-step the whole choice issue by bringing up an emotional argument. If a person says 'well, I love my thirteen-year old daughter and she's old enough to know what she wants', is that a valid reason for accepting incest? (Yuck) Or what about a person who 'loves' their dog? (again, yuck). Are either of these people forced to act on their emotions? No, they still have a choice. Or, to put it perhaps in a different way, by saying that emotions are more important than anything else, you could then argue that anyone who is angry has a legitamate right to kill whoever they are angry with. Anger and hate are just as real as love, so why don't they get to express their feelings through actions? It's because we know that sometimes people feel things that they should not express and should actively work to oppress.
So the over-riding issues with homosexuality is that the 'pro-gay' people are doing their best to side-step the fact that such a life-style is a choice - one which they very much want everyone else to agree with so they can justify their sinful actions. The vast majority of people who agree with this stance probably haven't thought through what this actually means and don't care what the Bible has to say about the issue. God call it sin and tell us not to do it.
Whew, long post on this one! Hopefully this helped. Feel free to ask for clarification if it didn't.
Monday, July 1, 2013
What is the likelihood that the Bible has copying errors?
Okay, so, you haven't asked this, but I thought I'd bring it up anyway. Since you haven't asked a new question, I figured it wouldn't hurt to talk about one of the many things atheists bring up as an excuse for why they don't trust the Bible.
The argument goes: Everyone knows that copies of copies of copies become degraded from the original. And humans are prone to errors. Anyone who's ever had to copy down a piece of text knows that even when a person is being careful, typos can slip in (or even deliberate errors, if the copyist has a motive to change the message). A person playing 'Telephone', whispering a message along through a string of people is another example of how you can start with one thing, then end up with something completely different. The argument then goes on to say that even if the Bible was originally true, what's to say that what we have now is anywhere close to the same thing that was originally written?
The argument goes: Everyone knows that copies of copies of copies become degraded from the original. And humans are prone to errors. Anyone who's ever had to copy down a piece of text knows that even when a person is being careful, typos can slip in (or even deliberate errors, if the copyist has a motive to change the message). A person playing 'Telephone', whispering a message along through a string of people is another example of how you can start with one thing, then end up with something completely different. The argument then goes on to say that even if the Bible was originally true, what's to say that what we have now is anywhere close to the same thing that was originally written?
Tuesday
Assignment for day 7
Okay, today's assignment is going to be an application question. Here's a scenario and I'd like you to answer some questions about it. The purpose of this is to help me evaluate whether you understand what I've been trying to say for the last week.
So, let's say there was an older woman who died. She'd been a Sunday School teacher at church for most of her life. She successfully raised three great kids. She had a gambling problem her whole life and never quite managed to beat it. She died in debt, but was otherwise happy and considered a very nice woman by friends and neighbors, although she was estranged from her ex-husband. Based on this short biography, did she go to Heaven or not? Why or why not?
Okay, today's assignment is going to be an application question. Here's a scenario and I'd like you to answer some questions about it. The purpose of this is to help me evaluate whether you understand what I've been trying to say for the last week.
So, let's say there was an older woman who died. She'd been a Sunday School teacher at church for most of her life. She successfully raised three great kids. She had a gambling problem her whole life and never quite managed to beat it. She died in debt, but was otherwise happy and considered a very nice woman by friends and neighbors, although she was estranged from her ex-husband. Based on this short biography, did she go to Heaven or not? Why or why not?
Thursday, June 20, 2013
What does God Look Like?
What does God look like? What do angels and demons look like?
Since these questions deal with spiritual beings, I lumped them together.
First, God is a spirit. This is different from a ghost and so isn't really what you probably think of when you think of a 'spirit'. Most people probably imagine something like an invisible, incorporeal (non-physical) being, but one that is otherwise fairly similar to something in the known world. Like a translucent human. That's not a very accurate image of God though, so I kind of don't like it, but it may be as close as we can get to having a metal picture of God. We tend to think in visual images and it is difficult to think outside those boxes. God is not defined by a physical body or anything else that our human eyes can see. He doesn't have five fingers and toes - He doesn't have a physical body. Everything physical was made by Him, but He's beyond that. So 'what does He look like' is not exactly easy to answer.
There were some people who encountered God in the Bible and from their description, it might be like looking at lightning. Or like being on the surface of the sun where the very air is so filled with light and heat that you'd be burned to a crisp just by being close. Because of this, when God and people interact in the Bible, it is almost always with God taking on the form of something else. Like He spoke to Moses from fire and talked to Abraham through dreams. The people who found themselves in God's 'physical' presence were often there 'in the spirit' (so not in their physical body, somehow) and usually acted as if they were pretty sure they were about to die. The descriptions of such encounters vary, but there is usually a whole lot of blinding light.
Angels and demons are likewise not confined to a physical form like we are. They can almost be thought of as shape-shifters. The Bible says that sometimes people encounter angels and think they are regular people. And it says that demons 'disguise themselves as angels of light' (so, in the unlikely event that you ever saw an angel, be very, very doubtful that it is an angel and not a demon before you trust it!) The Bible several times admonishes the people not to trust 'spirits' and to test anything that claims to be from God (which is done by evaluating its words and actions very, very carefully). Anyway, we don't know exactly what they naturally look like, but when there were encounters with angels in the Bible, people were usually either fooled into thinking they were normal people or they were absolutely terrified by the glowing figures. And there were no cute fluffy wings to be found anywhere.
So, getting back to God, the answer to you question is that God is pretty much indescribable.
In fact, one of the 10 commandments (the ultimate law from God) was that the people never try to make a image of Him to worship. He probably made that rule because people tend to start worshiping the statue/painting/whatever itself rather than who it was supposed to represent and because nothing they'd create could be even close to accurate.
Now I get down to the exception to this. As I'd mentioned in a previous post, Christianity teaches that God took on human form in the person of Jesus. And if that's true, then God CAN be physically described by describing what Jesus looked like. Sadly, the Bible doesn't give us a detailed list of 'he was this tall and had this color of eyes, etc.'. In fact, the only real description of Jesus in the Bible comes from a prophecy of Him from the Old Testament that says 'There was nothing about his appearance to make him attractive'. So, we can be pretty sure Jesus wasn't a super-model. Beyond that, we can also have a few pretty good guesses. He was Jewish and lived in Israel, so he probably had dark hair, dark eyes, and bronze-ish skin tones. He was a carpenter by trade, so was also likely in good physical shape since that was a labor-intensive job. So all the lovely paintings of Jesus out there? Usually of him being blue-eyed and very pale skinned? Complete baloney.
But, as long as you realize that our mental pictures of God and Jesus are wrong, it doesn't hurt much to have some sort of vague image in mind when you think of Him.
The Bible reading assignment today is to read Ezekiel 1. Normally I won't assign two different passages to look up, but since there is a second really good one, I'm going to also add to this and have you look up Revelation 1:9-18. When you read this, expect to have a whole lot of trouble trying to visualize what Ezekiel is trying to describe. Most of the chapter deals with some sort of creature/angel/spiritual being and only at the end do we get something about God, but the point is that when you read this, it is confusing and you get the impression that the writer was really having a hard time trying to tell us what he saw. There are a lot of 'it was like' phrases because he probably couldn't find the right words for it. In the end, you sort of conclude that it is nearly impossible to describe what they actually saw!
Since these questions deal with spiritual beings, I lumped them together.
First, God is a spirit. This is different from a ghost and so isn't really what you probably think of when you think of a 'spirit'. Most people probably imagine something like an invisible, incorporeal (non-physical) being, but one that is otherwise fairly similar to something in the known world. Like a translucent human. That's not a very accurate image of God though, so I kind of don't like it, but it may be as close as we can get to having a metal picture of God. We tend to think in visual images and it is difficult to think outside those boxes. God is not defined by a physical body or anything else that our human eyes can see. He doesn't have five fingers and toes - He doesn't have a physical body. Everything physical was made by Him, but He's beyond that. So 'what does He look like' is not exactly easy to answer.
There were some people who encountered God in the Bible and from their description, it might be like looking at lightning. Or like being on the surface of the sun where the very air is so filled with light and heat that you'd be burned to a crisp just by being close. Because of this, when God and people interact in the Bible, it is almost always with God taking on the form of something else. Like He spoke to Moses from fire and talked to Abraham through dreams. The people who found themselves in God's 'physical' presence were often there 'in the spirit' (so not in their physical body, somehow) and usually acted as if they were pretty sure they were about to die. The descriptions of such encounters vary, but there is usually a whole lot of blinding light.
Angels and demons are likewise not confined to a physical form like we are. They can almost be thought of as shape-shifters. The Bible says that sometimes people encounter angels and think they are regular people. And it says that demons 'disguise themselves as angels of light' (so, in the unlikely event that you ever saw an angel, be very, very doubtful that it is an angel and not a demon before you trust it!) The Bible several times admonishes the people not to trust 'spirits' and to test anything that claims to be from God (which is done by evaluating its words and actions very, very carefully). Anyway, we don't know exactly what they naturally look like, but when there were encounters with angels in the Bible, people were usually either fooled into thinking they were normal people or they were absolutely terrified by the glowing figures. And there were no cute fluffy wings to be found anywhere.
So, getting back to God, the answer to you question is that God is pretty much indescribable.
In fact, one of the 10 commandments (the ultimate law from God) was that the people never try to make a image of Him to worship. He probably made that rule because people tend to start worshiping the statue/painting/whatever itself rather than who it was supposed to represent and because nothing they'd create could be even close to accurate.
Now I get down to the exception to this. As I'd mentioned in a previous post, Christianity teaches that God took on human form in the person of Jesus. And if that's true, then God CAN be physically described by describing what Jesus looked like. Sadly, the Bible doesn't give us a detailed list of 'he was this tall and had this color of eyes, etc.'. In fact, the only real description of Jesus in the Bible comes from a prophecy of Him from the Old Testament that says 'There was nothing about his appearance to make him attractive'. So, we can be pretty sure Jesus wasn't a super-model. Beyond that, we can also have a few pretty good guesses. He was Jewish and lived in Israel, so he probably had dark hair, dark eyes, and bronze-ish skin tones. He was a carpenter by trade, so was also likely in good physical shape since that was a labor-intensive job. So all the lovely paintings of Jesus out there? Usually of him being blue-eyed and very pale skinned? Complete baloney.
But, as long as you realize that our mental pictures of God and Jesus are wrong, it doesn't hurt much to have some sort of vague image in mind when you think of Him.
The Bible reading assignment today is to read Ezekiel 1. Normally I won't assign two different passages to look up, but since there is a second really good one, I'm going to also add to this and have you look up Revelation 1:9-18. When you read this, expect to have a whole lot of trouble trying to visualize what Ezekiel is trying to describe. Most of the chapter deals with some sort of creature/angel/spiritual being and only at the end do we get something about God, but the point is that when you read this, it is confusing and you get the impression that the writer was really having a hard time trying to tell us what he saw. There are a lot of 'it was like' phrases because he probably couldn't find the right words for it. In the end, you sort of conclude that it is nearly impossible to describe what they actually saw!
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