The Gifts of the Jews

So one of the many books that I checked out from the Library is The Gifts of the Jews but Thomas Cahill. This book is not a christian book, it’s not a jewish book, it’s a scholarly look at the way that the jews have shaped history. It’s pretty incredible that a wandering tribe of Abraham and his household had such an incredible impact on histroy.

There is one thing in particular that I wanted to talk about. I just finished reading the chapter on Abraham. Cahill took some time to describe the “Mountain Experience” where God told Abraham to Sacrifice Isaac, and Abraham obeyed all the way to raising the blade over the boy. At the last minute the LORD stops Abraham and provides ram.

Cahill acknowledges that this really isn’t the sunday school story that we have made it out to be, this is a story about child sacrifce that should terrify us, but for the grace of God. There were some really interesting observations that I would like to share about this.

1. Abraham’s God is not down with child sacrifice.
the author points out that this story has many different levels of understanding, when weexamin Abraham’s history and the people he came from, we could see that child sacrifice was a common element in their diety worship. This story could be seen as a clear markation in Abraham’s faith in this God, whereby the act of child sacrifice is removed from acceptable worship practices for Abraham and his descendants and all that would follow after the Lord. I’ve never really read the story that way before.

2. Polytheistic appeasement to Monotheistic trust.
This is another transforming moment in the lifeof Abraham, where instead of serving this one god among the many gods, abraham is finally getting that this is the One True God, the one that he can’t just appease, or try to manipulate, no this God is in control and now Abraham has to trust the LORD with everything, his life, his family,his future, it’s all in the LORD’s hands. This change in outlook really sets the tone for all that Abraham and his lineage will stand for, God will provide, you don’t go and try to do your voodoo to get him to do your will. No, you will trust him and do His will and the LORD will provide.

I thought those were twovery cool observations about this story that I just had to share.

early morning for jason

So today i came into cutter & buck early so I could cover for Nicole who went to a show last night.  Waking up early isn’t really a problem for me, it’s wanting to do anything early, that’s the hard part.  But it’s been pretty cool, there are more people & more things to do earlier in the day so it goes pretty quick.

It will be nice having an afternoon at home, it’s been awhile since that has been a part of my life and I’m looking forward to it.  It’s gonna be great. 

My Day

Well let me tell you about how great my day was.  First off, I met with our area leader Tim Wicks and we talked about ministry, camps, fun stuff like that.  I love meeting with youth pastors and I need to do it more often because it always recharges me and helps me to see that I’m not alone and other people think like I think.  It’s good times. 

Second, because of my meeting with Tim I was unable to eat lunch before coming into work.  I’m a big guy, I could survive if I missed a meal, but there were two lunch groups today and they had left over food, so I enjoyed a hot dog when I got in and then for my afternoon break I enjoyed a roll sandwich and salad.  Good times.

And lastly, I was directed to Google’s Book Search, where you can read old dead guy books online.  Pretty stinkin’ sweet since this last part of my day usually consists of me trying to find things to do.  This is going to be a great friend in my times of boredom, early church fathers, reformation, poets, literature, you name it, if the copyright is expired then Google probably has it.  HOORAY!!!

 So I’m going to go read some jonathon edwards. 

New Blog

Hey all of you out there in the Blogosphere!

Since I have made the switch over to wordpress I have had a feature that counts the hits other than my own to this new blog.  I just hopped on and we had 200.  That’s crazy.  I know that probably isn’t 200 unique visitors but still, I had no idea that my blog would be read that much within a week.  Pretty cool.  Makes me feel like I should write something of importance.  Maybe later.  I just wanted to thank everyone who is reading this.

Another cool feature that I have discovered is the ability to see what searches people have used to find “Rambilings On . . .”  This is my favorite “Christian Karaoke Worship songs.”  That’s pretty funny, I’ll have to check back on that feature to see what other random things pop up. 

If you have any comments or feedback about the new blog then let me know.  I’ll keep adding pages as time goes on, I’ll add a music page, and maybe a book review page, and more.  If there’s anything that you would like to see then just shoot me a comment or an email.  Happy Wednesday!

Sin and Shalom

So I have checked out several books from the public library, One of which is Engaging God’s World, A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning and Living by Cornelius Plantinga.

This book is written to First Year College Students, and it’s designed to give them a perspective and understanding on how the World works and how we can live in and engage the world, and ultimately live to make it a better place.

In the chapter on the Fall I came across this quote that I found really insightful

Evil is what’s wrong with the world, and it includes trouble in nature as well as in human nature.  It includes disease as well as theft, birth defects as well as character defects.  We might define evil as any spoiling of shalom, any deviation from the way God wants things to be.  Thinking along these lines, we can see that sin is a subset of evil: it’s an evil for which somebody is to blame, whether as an individual or as a member of a group.  All sin is evil, but not all evil is sin.  A killing by a two-year-old boy is a terrible evil, but not an actual sin, at least not by the two year old.  But a premeditated killing by a drug dealer of a drug enforcement officer is bothe evil and sinful.  So is willful ignorance and silence about evils perpetrated by one’s onw nation.  In shore, sin is culpable evil.

God hates sin not just because it violates law, but also because it violates trust.  Sin grieves God, offends God, betrays God, and not because God is touchy.  God hates sain against himself, against neighbors, against a good creation, because sin breaks the peace — in the first place between the sinner and God.  Sin interferes with the way God wants things to be.  That is why God has laws against it.  God is for shalom and therefore against sin.

I’ve never quite read it that way before, that God isn’t just against sin He is for peace.  So when it comes to our personal sins, perhaps were are to worried about feeling guilty for doing a wrong act, when really we should be concerned about maintaining, establishing, building peace with God.  If we look at our relationship with God as an actual relationship then we should treat it like one.  We wouldn’t punch someone in the face and expect to stay friends.  But when we sin, we are in effect breaking the peace with God.  Interesting stuff.

Going to the Gym

Tonight I will be going to the Gym.   I’m looking forward to this because quite frankly, I’m getting flabby.  I’m still losing weight slowly but I need to get this back into my life.  Ever since Judah has been born it’s been really difficult to get out of the house for my gym time. 

Brenda, Kathy’s mom is going to come over and watch him while I go and work out.  She Rocks!   I’m tired right now but I’m so excited I can’t even explain it. 

Last night >>beyond>> went well, and then we had a BBQ at our house.  It was just a quick hangout.   We played a brand new game called DarkMinton, it’s basically badminton in the dark, no net, and who ever drops the birdie is out and we rotate players through, it’s a fast paced game where only the strong survive.  It was actually a lot of just running around jumping and swining at things I couldn’t see.  It’s amazing what a little energy will bring to any event. 

Summers almost over and with that the after parties will come to a close.  It’s sad to see them go but it’s been a really fun summer.