VBS and Predestination

Ahem. My greatest apologies for not posting during the past week or so. Actually more like ten days or something. But last week, I was extraordinarily busy with VBS (I hope you know that that stands for vacation bible school, but if you don't... well, I just told you). So in '04 and '05, I was in the skit. Last year I was at summer school so I couldn't help out, but I sure made up for it this year.

This year, the theme for our VBS was what they called sonforce. Basically a secret agent thing. Now don't ask me why they did that, cause secret agents and espionage and God don't really seem to mix... at least to me they don't. But the kids ate it up. So every day during the opening session thingy, I would dress up in a trench coat and sunglasses (I felt pretty cool) and then did a little talk about the days lesson, and stuff of that sort. Then I had to rush up to the media balcony and start playing sound affects and media for the skit that came right after me. And when they were doing worship, I was working the slides for them. After that, I would head off to help with the second grade class (Which, truthfully, is one of the rowdiest crowds at VBS. Trust me, I would know). Now, also during the week, I was recruited to make a little documentary video thing for the church with my camcorder. Then again, on Thursday, I was part of a team that went around and pulled individual kids out of classes and talked one on one about salvation and such (which was pretty cool). So. All in all, I think this has been the busiest year for me in terms of VBS.

Well.
*Cough*
Now that I have gone on about absolutely nothing for a long while, I'll add something I've been thinking about lately. Predestination. Now, at least at this point, I would say I'm definitely free will. But it's all very confusing. Last Sunday, I stayed for the second service at church (incidentally, that was to help set up for VBS), and me and a friend did a little bible study/theological discussion (which we actually do quite often). We got to talking about free will, and he came up with a cool idea. Now I don't know if this is true or not, but I am under the impression that predestination people use Pharoh as an example of predestination. Maybe I'm wrong. So if God hardened Pharoh's heart, that means he changed something. That in turn means that Pharoh wasn't predestined. Because God changed something in reality (which he is obviously quite capable of doing) this seems to imply that the choice was originally up to Pharoh.

So here are some things I would say. I would say that God absolutely has the power to change things and predestine us. But I think he chooses not to. One argument I like to use is what I call the 'robot' argument. Our purpose in life is to glorify God, right? So how would you feel if you programmed a computer to worship you. That might be minorly pleasing... but think of how much more pleasing it would be if real people who had the choice to praise you praised you. Free will, at least to me, seems to just be logical. And not just using logic.

So the new testament is telling us to always be praying, and that prayer is a powerful tool, etc. etc. It has a lot to say about prayer. Now what is the purpose, I ask you, of prayer, if we're all predestined? I, at least, can't see any purpose in praying for something that's already been determined to happen or not happen.

If any of my arguments are stupid, or you have any points you would like to make, by all means post a reply.

Monks and Hermits

I don't really know what to write about... as usual. But I'm going to write a post and see what comes up.

Let's see. Ah. I've been thinking a lot about monks and hermits lately. I was talking to a friend of mine a couple days ago. I was telling him how I think I'd really love to be a hermit or monk (he said that he could see me doing that) but that I think God is calling me to something else. He burst out laughing, and I couldn't figure why. He said I was the only kid who dreams of becoming a hermit.

So I've been wondering... did God take delight in the middle ages monks? I mean these guys were some serious Christians. They were always reciting psalms... praying... they basically did everything for God and tried their best to be perfect. Now I got to thinking, the monks are kind of taking themselves completely out of the world. I mean they're basically saying the world is evil (which it is, but there's also hope) and then removing themselves. Now I thought we were supposed to minister to the world (which is what I think God is calling me to do... I don't know in what way). We aren't supposed to completely cut off all relations with the world, right? Well, when I think of monks, that's the picture that generally comes to mind.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that monks actually didn't cut off all relations with the world. They prayed for the world. They helped people, cared for people, sheltered people, labored in community fields... so they weren't just these guys on top of a mountain with no human contact.

Now hermits... that's a different story. They were guys on tops of mountains with absolutely no human contact. So... I'm not sure about hermits. I mean it seems like how could these perfect guys (well... almost perfect) NOT be pleasing to God? I dunno. I'm still working on that one.

One thought I came up with is this; how many times does the bible tell us to minister to the world? And how many times does it spend telling us the rest of the way we are to behave? Aren't we to be constatntly praying, and not partaking in any of the worlds evil... um... products maybe? and memorizing the entire Bible... Everyone always stresses on ministering to other people, but it seems that the Bible emphasizes 'me' much more than 'them'.

Okay, okay, I know ministering to other people is a huge part of the Christian life, I'm just trying to make excuses for the hermits. Oh well.



Just a sidenote.... If anyone has any questions or (I don't know why these two always seem to go together... maybe they should like make a compound word out of them...) comments while reading any of my posts, I'd be more than happy to answer them. Just post a comment (and everyone knows blog writers love comments [er... at least this one does]).

Christian music

So what exactly makes Christian music Christian? Or, what should make Christian music Christian?

Well, generally, I believe people think of Christian music as music that sings about God (or something relating to God).

Okay, Okay, hold up here..... botheration.

I was originally going to write this post--or at least I started with the intention of writing it--about how Christian music doesn't necessarily have to be about God, i.e. praising him, singing about how he did something, etc. But now that I think about it... everything written by a Christian should have a premise that God exists. Obviously, because that is the truth, and like I said in my last post, all art should correspond to truth.

So... can we sing about anything besides God? The first question that probably comes to mind (I guess it shouldn't be the first one we think of but I'll explain that later) is, 'Is it sinful or bad to write about this?'. Take trees for example. Say you wanted to write a song about trees. Or Cheetos and Doritos. I dunno. At first glance, there seems to be nothing really 'immoral' about it. I mean... does there?

You could think about it like this though. Your writing a song about trees (or Cheetos and Doritos, take your pick), so basically, you're glorifying said thing. Glorifying said thing... starting to sound a bit like idolatry. The very reason we exist (I hope you already know this, but in case you don't...) is to glorify God. Now by writing a song about something other than God, doesn't it sort of seem like we're praising creation? Glorifying what God made, instead of the creator himself?

Just thought I'd put in a little disclaimer... I'm making up all of this as I go along so... I don't really hold an opinion at this point. Thought I'd let you know.

So. Idolatry. God. It seems to me that the safe way is to write songs of praise. That's the safe way. But there's also a good way to praise creation. Instead of glorifying it for what it is, glorfy God for making it. Or if you're writing a song about say... the evil of the world (now why does that sound familiar... heh. Maybe I'm just making excuses) then make sure that the song points up instead of down. Sorta like what I said in my last post. Instead of saying everyone's evil and the world is hopeless and we're all gonna die (which incedentally isn't true)--we should give everything we write an upbeat note. A note of the redemption offered through Jesus Christ.

So in the end, do all songs have to be about God? I guess I sort of made a loop, and came back to my 'no' answer. But it's not quite as strongly 'no' as I originally thought. We have to make sure that we still have the understanding that God exists, and that there's hope. Especially if we're writing about something not really relating to God (like Cheetos or Doritos).



Sidenote: if you're wondering why I kept mentioning Cheetos and Doritos, well, I really haven't any good reason to give you. I suppose I just am having sort of a cheesy craving at the moment....

The Modern Art Culture

Well. I said I'd post on something interesting. At the moment I'm at a loss for interesting things, so I'll just post on a verse. The verse is this, James 4:4, and my NASB reads:

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Boy. That hits you hard doesn't it. By trying to be a friend to the world, you are making yourself an enemy to God. Powerful. I don't think I can really 'preach' on this, but I think you can probably see for yourself where that verse applies to you.

The book of James is sure packed with powerful stuff for such a short book. You should read through it sometime.

I'm reading this book called "It Was Good Making Art to the Glory of God". It's a bunch of collected essays on making art from a christian worldview. One of the big questions is what should our art be about, or what should it depict, etc. Basically, it should depict all things beautiful. If you think about it, mainstream art and media go for shock value. But when you see something shocking over and over again, you become desensetized. So to be shocked, the artist has to crank up the shock value another notch. The world's art arena has been cranked pretty high up there on the shock value. And that's not a good thing.

So to be a good artist, you have to shock people. Now that's all good and well (actually it's not, but I felt like saying that), but you can only get so shocking. And the things that shock people are a pretty bad lot. I mean come on, do you think extreme language, gorey grisly violence, graphic depictions of sex... do you think those are glorifying to God? Fine. Maybe you do. but I don't.

So now the question becomes what should we depict in our art? The first thing that comes to mind is beauty. The problem is, when I say beauty, roses, happy smiling people, children playing merrily, a pretty sunset... these are the things that come to mind. Now I think we should focus more on beauty as opposed to chaos, unorderliness, revolting things etc, but we can't just focus on the beautiful, because we live in a fallen world. We live in a world where evil is rampant, so it looks corney and false and goody-goody when people depict a perfect world in their art (By the word 'art' here I don't just mean paintings... I mean music, literature... the creative arts in general).

To make art that resonates and gives the consumer a sense of beauty, you have to depict truth. You have to depict the world as it is. But there's a fine line here, because some people will say there's no hope and everyone's evil and we're all gonna die (unfortuneatly I think I kind of conveyed that in my song Dark Illusions... I rather regret that now. But look on the bright side, the music's cool [if a bit repetetive]). This is not I repeat not conveying the truth. Yes there is sin, and yes we're all evil, but there's an overlying sense of hope and redemption to creation. God is loving, kind, and merciful.

To do or not to do...

So. Is secular music bad? Which movies are bad? should I hit my brother? Should I yell at my mom? Is this choclate bar gonna kill me?

These questions are all asking whether something is bad or not. In the modern Christian society, we focus everything on whether something is bad or not. If it's not bad, it's OK. Well, I was talking with my dad, and he had a revolutionary idea (at least for me). We focus on what NOT to do. Instead, we should be focusing on what we SHOULD be doing. What we do, is we look at things and label them according to how bad they are. Then we judge whether we can get by doing the things we like, without those things being too bad. We try to get by with doing as many 'bad' things as we can. Instead of focusing on the bad, we should be focusing on the good we should and could be doing.

Lately, I've also been thinking about giving and not taking. I think we need to stop concentrating on ourselves, and concentrate on other people and God. We have so much capacity to give, and yet we hoard our time, recources and money to ourselves. We need to stop being so caught up in ourselves and let God work through us. Of course I try to do what I just said (and fail miserably) but it makes me so angry when I think about how bad we (Society and even the Christian community) are defocused from God.

Evil Apples

I took down the previous post... because I felt like it. I don't know how the heck I came up with that. Seriously. It just came out of nowhere. Kinda scary actually...

I had an interesting thought yesterday. Why is it that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil always portrayed as an apple? I mean hey, I like apples, they aren't evil. It seems like it should be a more sinister fruit... take the extraevilsuperbad fruit for example. Ok, fine, I made that one up, but still, why apples? They have a sort of negative connotation to them now, like I don't think they should be, but if I try to think of a sinister fruit (which I suppose is sort of random and abnormal in the first place, but that's beside the point), I sort of automatically think of the apple, which I find rather interesting. I wonder if the apple has a truly evil nature, or if it just has a negative connotation from the Bible (which, as you should already know, never actually says anything about the type of fruit). Then again, the apple might have derived it's evil implications because it was evil in the first place. Quite the paradox.

It's almost beginning to sound like the old 'chicken or egg' statement. Anyone with any common sense (someone really stupid trying to be really smart must have come up with this thing) would know that the chicken had to have come first. Even if you're an atheist, the chicken must have come first. I mean, it's not like the egg evolved (Well, it's not like anything evolved, but you get the idea) from a goat. Or a whale. Or a codfish. Or anything else for that matter.

I'm terribly sorry, but I'm going to add a paragraph about me personally. Nothing interesting after this line, so you might as well not read it. I don't know why I'm writing it if I'm telling you not to read it, but oh well. I'm a weird person, right? (That was a rhetorical question)

At the moment, I'm at an internet marketing seminar in Chicago. I'm in my suit and tie, sitting in the conference center, on a laptop with wireless. I've been here since Thursday, and I'm leaving tomorrow. Internet marketing is quite an interesting and complicated world, but to put it simply, it's all about how to make money on the internet. Entrepreneurial stuff applied to the internet, really. Quite interesting.

About Communion

I had never realized this before, but some denominations think communion is really important. When I was having a discussion with a certain someone, the aforementioned said if you don't take communion, you're starving yourself spiritually. Now, personally, I never thought about communion that way. I thought of it as (and still do) as a way to remember what Jesus did for us. How he came to earth and sacrificed his body and blood.

I don't remember anything in the bible saying that communion is spiritual food. I just glanced through my Bible at some passages where communion is mentioned. Jesus instituted it in Matt 26:26. I read through that, and I'm not exactly sure why you would say communion is 'spiritual food'. It seems to me that 'spiritual food' is meditation on the word of God, prayer with God, and discussing things with fellow Christians.

Just thought that an interesting little topic.

Of Unicorns and Spirits

I found this post in a certain forum...


Hoyla! I recently acquired a book by Odell Shepard entitled "The Lore of the Unicorn." Here's something from it that I thought you people would be interested in, in light of reading Herodotus in GB1.

"In the King James version of the Bible there are seven clear references to the unicorn, all of which occur in the Old Testament. The animal is mentioned twice in the Pentateuch, once in Job, once in Isaiah, and three times in the Psalms. These passages read as follows:-

"God brought them out of Egpyt; he hath as it were the strength of the unicorn."
-Numbers 23:22

"His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth."
-Deuteronomy 33:17

"Save me from the lion's mouth; for thou hast heard me from the horns of unicorns."
-Psalm 22:21

"He maketh them [the cedars of Lebanon] also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn."
-Psalm 29:6

"And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with their bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness."
-Isaiah 34:7

"Wilt the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide in thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labor to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into my barn?"
-Job 39:9-12

I thought that was kind of neat. I went and looked up those references in my New King James Bible; they've changed "unicorn" to "wild ox." Go figure.

Any comments or insights?


The reason I found this so interesting, is because recently, I've been listening to some tapes by J.P. Moreland (the same guy I got the other two posts from), and he was talking about something that struck me as similar. The topic was about spirits and souls, and he was saying that you aren't your brain, and that's not where your memories are stored and stuff... well, it was all very interesting, but then he got to talking about animal souls. He said that in the King James version, in the old testament in multiple places, there is reference to the animal soul. But if you look in newer translations, it has been changed to 'life' or 'life-force' or 'vitality' or something of the sort, because it has kind of been assumed (on a scientific basis) that animals don't have souls. The post about unicorns seemed almost exactly the same. There is no such thing as a unicorn, so it must be an ox or something. Let's change that little word. An interesting little discrepancy don't you think?