Bible

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Cover to Cover

kidbibleDid you make New Year’s resolutions for 2013? If so, you’re certainly in good company. According to a study published in the University of Scranton’s Journal of Clinical Psychology, 45% of people usually make resolutions and another 17% make them occasionally. They go on to state that “People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions.” That’s pretty inspiring.

Most resolutions deal with self improvement issues—specifically losing weight, getting more organized, exercising—and finances. I’m not surprised. I usually resolve to lose weight and exercise more too. (I’m making good progress on the exercise vow. The weight problem? Not so much, sigh.)

About ten years ago I added a new resolution that I’m very glad I kept. I boldly promised God and myself that I would read through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.

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A Bible Quiz, Again

I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving, and that your heart is overflowing with gratitude for all God’s abundant blessings! Now that we’re all sitting around munching leftovers and perhaps taking a day off, I thought that it might be time for a bit of fun.

A little over a year ago I posted a little quiz asking, “How well do you know your Bible?” Since then I’ve continued to collect interesting quotes, and it’s time for Bible Quiz, Part 2. I admit, this one is a bit harder than the last quiz. Still, I have the utmost confidence in the Biblical expertise of my readers.

As with my last quiz, the answers are at the end, but no peeking until you’ve finished the test.

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Words and Works 3

This is my final (for now) post on science and Scripture. For the others, see “Words and Works 1” and “Words and Works 2”.

In Part 1, I mentioned that when science and Scripture do not agree, either our scientific theories are wrong, or our interpretation of Scripture is faulty… or both. We are limited human beings trying to understand the words and works of an omniscient God. Of course we fall short.

Part of my ability to eliminate conflict between scientific discoveries and the Bible comes from how I view Scripture. I alluded to this last time when I mentioned the presence of metaphors, such as Jesus being the vine and we being the branches.

Far more important, to my understanding, is the fact that the Bible was written over thousands of years ago, by people with a far different worldview, living in a culture that bears little resemblance to mine. If I simple read it at face value, I’m going to miss a lot.

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Words and Works 2

This is Part 2 of my thoughts on science and Scripture (see Part 1).

Last time I mentioned that the Bible has been used to “prove” scientific “facts” that we now know to be false. For example, Psalm 104:5 states, “He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.” Yet, of course we now know that the earth rotates on its axis, revolves around the sun, and the entire solar system revolves around the center of the galaxy which is itself hurtling through space.

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Words and Works 1

I hate controversy. It really bothers me—not when people disagree, but when they become defensive, obnoxious, hateful about it. (If you’re familiar with the DISC personality test, you won’t be surprised to learn that I’m a strong “S”—as in steady. Don’t rock my boat!) Unfortunately, the world is full of controversy. Just witness the presidential election. (I’ve already voted—I can tune it all out now.)

One of the biggest controversial topics in the church is the divide between Creationists and Evolutionists, “Young Earthers” and “Old Earthers.” What seems to me to be a peripheral subject has become a litmus test for determining the faith of others. One side accuses, ‘You can’t possibly be saved if you believe that!” while the other side retaliates with “You are an idiot of you believe that!” It’s enough to make me want to hide under the bed.

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The Greatest is Love

Over the last 17 months, I’ve been slowly crawling  my way through the passage in 2 Peter 1:3, 5-8, where Peter lays out God’s steps to success. Well, we’ve finally arrived at the ultimate goal: love. All the lessons about goodness, gaining knowledge of God, learning self-control and perseverance,  learning to see things God’s way, and seeing people from God’s point of view finally have purpose when we begin to love as God loves.

It takes love to produce lasting fruit—effective and productive ministry. Without it, we might know about Jesus, but our knowledge is useless. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, without love we are nothing.

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A Revelation

Do you love the book of Revelation—or do you avoid it whenever possible? We seem to have a love/hate relationship with John’s writings, and it’s easy to see why. He’s confusing. The book is full of scary events. It’s controversial; many of us have strong opinions about what it all means, and we often don’t agree.

I admit, I wouldn’t read Revelation except that God tells us to. It’s the only book in the Bible you get a bribe reward for reading—“Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.” (Rev. 1:3)

Most of the time, I don’t give the book of Revelation much thought. However, in just the last week it’s come up four times in various conversations and articles. Plus, the Holy Spirit seems to be prompting me in this direction. I just finished reading through the Gospels, and was trying to decide what to read next. I guess this is it.

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Desperation Prayers

What motivates you to pray?

A group of us were talking after church one day, and a friend declared, “I pray as a last resort, after I’ve exhausted all other possibilities.”

He clearly didn’t see any problem with that; I bet a lot of people would agree with him. As long as things are going well, as long as we think we know what we’re doing, as long as we believe we have the answers, we don’t pray. After all, God is busy and we don’t want to bother Him with the “little stuff.”

Well, I’ve learned that this is a really bad approach. There are two reasons why.

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It’s All Lies

There was big news in the psychology world last week. Headlines proclaimed: “Telling fewer lies linked to better health and relationships.” Some psych professors at the University of Notre Dame actually did a study on lying, and concluded that their test subjects were healthier, both physically and emotionally, when they did not lie. The control group (who presumably went on telling lies) had no such benefits.

I always snicker when some study or other confirms what is obvious. Even people who’ve never cracked a Bible will admit that lying is a sin.

God is pretty straightforward about this one: “Do not lie. Do not deceive one another” (Leviticus 19:11).

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A New, Improved Post

Hey, have you seen the new Nikon D800? It has a 36.3megapixel FX-format CMOS sensor, full HD 1080p video at 30/25/24p with stereo sound, an ISO range of 100 to 6400 (expandable to 25,600), a four-frames-per-second burst rate and their Advanced Scene Recognition System with a 91,000-pixel RGB sensor!

Hey, do you have the new iPad? It’s got that new Retina display, a 4 megapixel camera, and 4G LTE, and it’s only $499!

Hey, have you heard? They just came out with the…

Yes, I’ve heard. And no, I haven’t read the reviews.

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