Baltimore Riots and Christian Civic Duties

A friend of mine suggested that I talk about the Baltimore Riots that occurred earlier last month, but before I talk about that, I have to talk about a Christian’s civic responsibilities.

Politics, like religion, is a very touchy subject that will eventually offend someone, somehow.  My personal belief when it comes to Christianity and politics is that a Christian should act according to what their conscience and convictions dictates.  What my conscience and conviction says about civic duties within the Christian worldview, however, is that it is best to abstain from the political process as much as reasonably possible.  Here’s why I believe these two things:

First, I think Paul made it very clear that people can have different convictions about things, and that’s okay.  In Romans 14:1-9, and in verse 5 in particular, Paul tells the Christians in Rome that it doesn’t matter if one person believes certain days, rituals, and prohibitions are holy or sacred; the main point is that they should do as their conscience dictates and that we shouldn’t judge people for keeping or disregarding certain beliefs, but to do all things for God.

So some contemporary Christians feel that they should run for political offices, and others believe that we should focus on building up God’s spiritual kingdom.  Some people believe that Christians can or should join the military to act as God’s sword on earth, and others believe that we should not repay violence for violence, and let God manage the world’s militaries without our participation (CS Lewis believed the former).  Some think that we should prevent non-heterosexual unions, and others that a piece of paper does not make a spiritual union by God, so it doesn’t matter because God will judge in the end.

Second, while I have a stance on each of these issues, because these are not (in my opinion) salvation issues (things that will prevent someone from being or persisting as a Christian), I think you can believe what you want and you’re still okay.  As I said before, religion and politics rile people up, and Paul thought that living in harmony with each other in the Christian community and in the world’s community was more important than arguing over the trivial political minutae of the day.

That being said, I think the arguments stating that Christians should stay out of politics and focus on building God’s kingdom is much more convincing than acting in God’s stead as stewards to the world. 

That’s not to say that I don’t think the opposing arguments aren’t strong; they make some good points.  I think the best is that God initially wanted Adam and Eve to rule and subdue the earth (Genesis 1:28), that the early tribe of Israel was to purge anyone who sacrificed children to fertility gods (Leviticus 20:1-5), and that Peter was told to sell his cloak and buy a sword (Luke 22:36).  There are other examples I can bring up, but I hope you see my point.

Despite all of this, we are under a new covenent, and many of things that happened in the OT were symbolic echoes to help establish the new promises God has given us (Hebrews 8, and 10:1).  All the times Israel set out to destroy a wicked nation?  Echo of our spiritual battle to destroy the evil within us.  Adam and Eve given authority of the earth?  Jesus now has “all authority in heaven and on earth”, and now we are commanded to make “disiciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18-20).  Peter told to sell his cloak and buy a sword?  This one is bit tricky, because we know that later on Peter maimed someone about to arrest Jesus, then Jesus turned around and healed the person Peter harmed.  I’m not sure if Jesus wanted Peter to attack the dude so he could heal him later on, or if he wanted Peter to be armed or if Jesus…

… Nevermind, I’m getting off topic.  Let’s just say that I don’t think we get a clear “yes” or “no” answer from that isolated instance.

I will say that many of the early christian writers felt that we should keep out of politics, live our lives in peace with others, and “to give back what is Ceasar’s to Ceasar, and to God what is God’s.” (Matthew 22:18-21).

So in light of the Baltimore Riots, what is a Christian supposed to do?

Pray.  Just pray.  Be thankful that it is over, but ask God to make the racial tensions and discriminations in America (yes they still exist, and there are statistics that confirm it) ease.

Keeping with the topic of Christianity and politics, next week I’ll be talking about Christians in the military.  See you there.

Mini-Biography

A question on Facebook came up about my credentials when it comes to my commentaries about the Bible and the larger religious world.

It's a legitimate question, "How legitimate are you?  Are you an academic who will get peer-reviewed from time-to-time?  Are you just some random dude with an opinion and an internet connection?"

I won't bore you with the technicalities of what makes a source trustworthy;  I'll list out my credentials right here: I have none.  On the scale from "peer-reviewed academic" to "dude with an internet connection", I am most assuredly on the latter end of that spectrum. 

Most of what I say here is based on personal observations and self-taught research.  I try to make efforts to get my observations on Christianity reviewed by other spiritually-minded folk (read: fellow church members), give differing opinions the benefit of the doubt, and try to make earnest efforts to not just "rely on my own understanding".  I've fallen into the trap of listening only to myself before; and it led me down some dark, dark paths.

Back in high school (fifteen years ago), I was an atheist.  Part of it was (honestly) because of the group of friends I was with (a lot of nerds tend to be of the anti-religious bent), another part was the example I was shown about Christianity while growing up: superstitious and ignorant people being overly emotional and then blatantly hypocritic when it wasn't Sunday morning.  It made sense at the time: why are all these people falling down and acting crazy (my parents brought me to several churches which were charismatic or heavily charismatic-influenced)?  Why are people saying one thing and doing another?  What proof do I have of the supernatural and this invisible friend they keep talking about?

Someone once doubted the sincerity of my anti-religious sentiment when I was younger.  Trust me, I was an atheist.  I started off as a militant atheist, the type that thought bringing children to church should be considered child abuse, the type that thought Christianity was just a "2,000 year-old middle-eastern folktale", that it was a superstition for the ignorant and weak-minded, who didn't have the ability to cope with the challenges of life and had to cling to fairytales to allieviate their anxieties, that to believe in something that you had no proof was not faith; it was an act of extreme stupidity.

Later on, my father (who may or may not have been aware that he was raising a heathen) pointed out that churches helped establish universities, hospitals and charities.  I thought about this a bit longer, and came to the conclusion that religious people, while deeply mistaken and stupid, aren't completely bad, even if they did all this good out of fear of eternal punishment rather than from a true sense of alturism.  I decided that while religion had a purpose early on in the course of human history, that it was time to "shed the shackles of superstition", and embrace knowledge and pursue means to advance the human race.  In effect, I became a humanist.

That lasted for about a month, because I started to compare animal behaviour and human behaviour, and realized that squirrels don't attack each other because one is democratic and the other is communist (an overly simplistic and categorically wrong assumption in the foundation of its reasoning, but still somewhat true), and that I didn't have any good reason to believe that humans were any better than any other animal.  Humanism was quickly losing its luster, and the burgeoning concept of a world without morality or value was planted in my mind: I became a nihilist.

Nihilism has conflicting definitions, same as the anti-theism, atheism, Atheism, and ah-theism distinctions, but because I refused to believe that morals exist and that value was just a comforting and false illusion, I think it would be fair to say that I was a nihilist.  I also didn't believe in reality, or that anything existed or that everything else existed.  I thought that nothing mattered, that life was pointless and that I should smile and do what I can to not upset other people or myself too much.  I'll get into that stranger stage of my life in a later post, but I think you get the idea.

I settled on nihilism for a while, until I asked myself three questions: do I have any means to escape this currently reality? Do I have any proof that other realities existed outside of this one?  Do I have any reason to escape this current reality I am experiencing?  I didn't know of any way to escape this current reality, aside from committing suicide, and that wasn't a gaurantee.  I didn't have any proof that other realities existed, and I didn't have a good reason to escape this current reality.  By default, I'd have to assume that the things I was experincing wasn't an illusion; it was real.

Long-ish story short, I decided that things outside of my awareness could exist, that good and evil existed, and that because so much of what the Bible said helped established a stable society, and made too much sense, that Christianity and God had to be true.  I became a believer, but I still wasn't saved (that's another story).

Because of my past experiences, I like to believe that I take a much different viewpoint when it comes to my faith; the tools I learned while mucking around in the different flavors of atheism I now apply to Christianity and to my pursuit to learn and understand what my role and purpose in relation to the Universe is.  I know I don't have the prestige of academic credentials behind me, but I was wrong before, I might be wrong now, and I don't want to be wrong again.

So take everything I say with a grain of salt: I'm technically a layman, and I'm still learning (the more I learn, the more I'm exposed to the fringes of things I don't know), but I hope that what I say is reasonable enough to be true, while still put in simplistic enough terms that many people can have a deeper understanding of the Bible.  I'll try to do what I can to both without betraying either, but don't be afraid to call me on it stuff!

Next Tuesday, I'll be talking about the Baltimore Riots and a christian's role in politics.  See you there.

Prophets and Prophecy: 101B

Continuing on the subject of prophecy, I want to talk about the nature and complexities of prophecies, and the difficulties in interpreting them.

An important aspect of prophecy is understanding the symbology of the Bible.  In John 3:14, Jesus says “As Moses lifted up a snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man shall be lifted up”.  This was in reference to an event in Numbers 21:7-9.  It went something like this:

Israelites: Moses! We’re getting bit by snakes and dying, can you talk to God about that?

Moses: Fine, I’ll see what I can do. [To God] So God, what should we do?

God: Make a bronze snake, put it on a stick, and then when people get bit, lift the snake up.  When they look on it they will be healed.

A snake is commonly seen as a symbol of sin in the Bible, and bronze is known by biblical scholars as the “metal of judgment”.  So, people become poisoned by a snake (sin), and then they look at “the judgment of sin” on “a piece of wood”, to be healed.  Sound familiar?

Many people are familiar with the symbolic representation of numbers in prophecy.  Ten, for example, is known poetically as “many”.  Ten tens (100), would be seen as a great many, and ten ten tens (1,000), would be a great-great many.  There are also twelve tribes that contained the whole of Israel, and Jesus had twelve apostles sent out to save the world.  Twelve, then, could be seen as representative of the whole of a nation.

Now let’s look at the number of people saved from each tribe of Israel in Revelation 7:5-8.  It wasn’t just 12 (thus symbolizing the whole of an nation), and it wasn’t 1,000 (a great-great-great many).  It was 12,000—everyone, a great-great-great-many.  Combined with the fact that John makes sure to name every tribe in this passage, we can say that the totality of the people saved is then doubled.  Everyone-everyone gets saved, a great-great-great many.  Cool huh?

We can play these numbers and symbols games ad infinitum, but the trouble we face with interpreting prophecies in the Bible is the same problems we face when interpreting poetry in any other form of writing: a symbol can mean more than one thing.

The Bible isn’t just a set of laws or a recorded history of one ethnic group’s relationship to the supernatural, its also a book of poetry.  Because of this, some of the meaning can get muddled not only through translation, but through personal prejuidices and experiences.  Fire, for example, is seen as a symbol of purifying, but it is also a symbol of passion.  Does this mean that when John said Jesus will come and baptized people with the Holy Spirit and fire (Luke 3:16), that people will be immersed in purification, or passion?  It would probably be fair to say both.  But what about the fallen angels in the lake of fire?  The people who entered Hell?  Are they being purified, or impassioned?  I think it would be fair to say neither; they will never be purified, they will always be condemned.

Prophecy, then, is tricky business.  I personally think that we should stick to some of the prophecies that have already come to pass (the ones about Jesus), moreso than what will happen in the end times.  Logically speaking, even if I knew everything that would happen from studying Jesus’s prophecies in the gospels and the visions contained in Revelations, could I stop any of it?  Not really.  Would knowing the exact order of events, down to the second, help me prepare?  Not really, all I need to know to prepare for Christ’s coming is explained (more clearly) in every other book besides Revelations.

So, I couldn’t change anything even if I knew, and my best preparation isn’t in studying prophecies—it’s in the rest of the Bible.

Don’t get me wrong, I think many prophecies can help show the different aspects of God’s character and His plans for our lives, but I think we need to be serious and sober-minded when it comes to the predictions of doomsday that we hear, and that we have to have an attitude of respect and humility when it comes to trying to understand prophecy, and the entirety of the Bible.

Next week I’ll (hopefully) talk about the Baltimore Riots. See you there.

Remembering the Gwangju Massacre

I know that this blog is supposed to be focused on theology and apologetics, but I feel that since not many people outside of Korea knows about what happened in Gwangju, I felt I needed to at least mention it.

For history afficionados, this is pretty much the cliff-notes version of what happened. The situation and technicalities of the events are much more complex, but in light of the limited format of digital articles, I feel that broad strokes were necessary to convey the relevant information while still remaining within the confines of this form of media.

35 years ago, students from Chonnam University (전남대학교) started a protest in the Gwangju regional district (광주시) against the military dictator at the time, Chun Doo-Hwan (전두환). This political protest began on the 18th and continued until the nation-wide police brutality halted the riots on May 27th. Reports vary on the exact number of people injured or killed, with official records claiming around 600 casualities and unofficial reports claiming casualities of up to 200,000 South Koreans.

The Gwangju Massacre, like most of history, does not have a clear-cut line between who was right and who was wrong. While Chun Doo-Hwan's right to rule South Korea was attained through non-democratic means (military coup), the assasination of the previous president and military dictator, Pak Chung-Hee (작정희), left a power vacuum which threw South Korea into greater chaos than when Chun Doo-Hwan's predecessor was in power. The central government weak, and civil unrest escalating, Chun Doo-Hwan seized power and attempted to establish interim stability, only to have the populace lash out against the continuance of military rule and government corruption.

Most people are unaware of the state of authoritarian rule South Koreans had to bear in the modern era. Something as small as long hair on men, for example, was seen as a symbol of rebellion against the government. This problem was initially rectified by police escorting the person off the street to the nearest barber to correct their "anti-establishment sentiment". This inconvenience to citizens escalated to jail-time if someone's hair was too long in the arresting officer's opinion. Between the rigged elections, bribery, favoritism to select political officers, and general oppressive rule, it is no wonder that the public's discontent led to a nation-wide riot.

While the events that led to the Gwangju Massacre are complex, the after-affects are not distinctly positive or negative, either. The Gwangju Uprising did not oust Chun Doo-Hwan from power, but the shadow of Pak Chung-Hee's tyranny and the tragedy in Gwangju made certain that Chun Doo-Hwan would eventually relinquish power back to the people. Chun stepped down, and for the first time, Korea had a democratically-elected president, Roh Tae-Woo (노태우), in 1988. Almost a century since the seedling desire to modernize was planted, Korea had a democracy.

Korea still has its political foibles, and the corruption and favoritism to the ancient and elite families are still obstacles that Koreans face, but the Gwangju Uprising, while tragic, was necessary to galvanize political officers into providing a Korea more open to its people than ever before.

Abortion: A Brief Comment

Caption:

Picture: Is it really just… your body?

betterthanabortion: “My body, my choice.” only makes sense when someone else’s life is at stake.

fandomsandfeminism: Fun Fact: If my younger sister was in a car accident and desparetly needed a blood transfusion to live, and I was the only person on Earth who could donate blood to save her, and even though donating blood is a relatively easy, safe, and quick procedure no one can force me to give blood.  Yes, even to save the life of a fully grown person, it would be ILLEGAL to FORCE me to donate blood if I didn’t want to.

See, we have this concept called “bodily autonomy.”  It’s this… cultural notion that a person’s control over their own body is above all important and must not be infringed upon.

Like, we can’t even take LIFE SAVING organs from CORPSES unless the person whose corpse it is gave consent before their death.  Even corpses get bodily autonomy.

To tell people that they MUST sacrifice their bodily autonomy for 9 months against their will in an incredibly expenseive, invasive, difficult process to save what YOU view as another human life (a debatable claim in the early stages of pregnancy when the VAST majority of abortions are performed) is desperately unethical.  You can’t even ask people to sacrifice bodily autonomy to give up organs they aren’t using anymore after they have died.

You’re asking people who can become pregnant to accept less bodily autonomy than we grant to dead bodies.

albinwonderland: reblogging for commentary

I’ll expand about the topic of abortion later, but I saw this yesterday off of iwastesomuchtime.com and decided that it needed to be addressed.

From what I understand, fandomsandfeminism’s [FAF] argument is that since everyone has an unalienable right to use portions of their body as they see fit, then a person has the unalienable right to decide what they should do with portions of their body. 

In light of betterthanabortion’s [BTA] comment, “’My body, my choice’ only makes sense when someone else’s life is at stake”, I think FAF’s comment is a non-sequitur (I’ll talk about non-sequiturs later) because BTA’s argument seems to say that a fetus is not part of a person’s body, and therefore does not fall under the definition of “bodily automony”.  FAF then goes on to define what bodily autonomy is.

To simplify, I think the exchange went something like this:

BTA: A fetus is not part of the mother’s body, and therefore doesn’t have the right of bodily autonomy.

FAF: Bodily autonomy gives us the right to decide what to do with our organs, blood and other portions of our anatomy.

FAF doesn’t really address the issue (a fetus is not part of the mother’s body); FAF assumes that a fetus is naturally part of a mother’s body, and the mother has the right to decide what to do with her body.  If a fetus is part of a mother’s body, then FAF’s argument is sound, but FAF doesn’t prove that a fetus is part of a mother’s body; FAF just defines what “bodily autonomy” is.

FAF briefly mentions that they don't believe that a fetus is human, which I think would have better addressed the issue.

For the most part, I think the issue over abortion can be summarized as this: at what point of time does a fetus become a human?

Many arguments in favor of abortion say that the early stages of a fetus isn’t a human; that an acorn is not a tree.  The argument that an acorn is not a tree is true, but to say that a baby is not an adult is also true. 

If I plant an acorn from an oak, it will become an oak tree.  If I plant a pine nut, it will become a pine tree. Same thing with walnuts, almonds, and avocados.  If we follow this logic, then a human fetus will become (barring unforseen circumstances) a human adult.  Stage of development is then irrelevant in the context of this argument.

The real question then is if it is ethically correct to terminate baby humans, or to terminate any human.  I think these questions are more interesting in the pro-choice/pro-life debate. 

For now, I think it is important to look at people’s arguments and see if they actually address the issues being brought up.  In my personal experience, I’ve met a lot of people who base their arguments on their assumptions without going through the tedious process of seeing if their assumptions are sound in the first place.  FAF seems to have the relevant information to back up their opinion, but appears to deem it unnecessary to bring up that evidence.  People not addressing the topic and going on tangents is yet a another topic to discuss.

This Tuesday, I’ll be continuing my thoughts on prophecy.  See you there.

Prophets and Prophecy 101

This week I want to talk about prophecy.

My final comment on last week's post said that I would examine a prophecy of Daniel, but the more I thought about it (and after listening to some feedback from facebook) I decided that I need to talk about prophecy and what it means for Christians today.

The first thing I want to point out is that prophecy doesn't necessarily mean "a prediction from the future".  In John 4:16-19, Jesus asks a woman to get her husband, and the woman replies that she has no husband.  Jesus then points out that she’s telling the truth—she has no husbands, but she has been married five times, and the dude she’s currently with isn’t her husband.  When Jesus reveals this knowledge about her, she says: “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.”

The woman declares Jesus’s prophet-hood not because he told the future, but because he knew something about her past.  In other portions of scriptures, Pharisees say that if Jesus was truly a prophet, he would know that he was in the company of sinners (Luke 7:39), again demonstrating that a prophet should be aware of a person’s past as well as making predictions of the future.

This idea that a prophet’s knowledge is not limited to the past is exascerbated by the fact that when Jesus was being struck on the face after being tried by the Pharisees, they mock him, saying: “Prophecy! Who hit you?”  My assumption is that they wouldn’t ask this question unless information of the present would also be available to a prophet.

Past, present, future.  The power of prophecy doesn’t seem to be limited to just the future, and the power doesn’t seem to be limited for good, either.

Deuteronomy 13:1-4 states that a prophet shows their authority from God by performing a sign or wonder, but they can still announce that the Israelites should follow other gods.  Obviously, God didn’t want the Israelites to follow other gods, and this scripture is followed by an ordinance saying that if this happens then God is testing them to see if they will follow other gods (and other people), or if they will continue to follow the one true god.

While he have exemplary models for dedication to God from various prophets (Isaiah had to be naked for three years (Isaiah 20:3), and Ezekiel was initially told to eat bread baked from human execrement (Ezekiel 4:12), but God relented (Ezekiel 4:13-15)), we also have the not so great example of Jonah, who decided to go against God’s will and not preach to Ninevah as he was told (Jonah 1:1-3).  From this I think it is fair to assume that just because you have the gift of prophecy doesn’t mean you’ll use the power for good; just that the information revealed to you is true.

What does this mean for the modern Christian?  Just that we need to be sober-minded when it comes to someone’s claim to prophet-hood in our era.  If someone says that they have the gift of prophecy, but they only make claims to the future, be alert.  Same thing if they start saying stuff that isn’t aligned with God’s will (remember Deuteronomy 13:1-4?) Or if they can’t accomplish other “signs and wonders” (Elijah and Elisha were able to part water in 2 Kings 2:8 and 2:14, similar to Moses parting the Red Sea). So, while most of the prophets did amazing things (especially Jesus), that doesn’t mean that ALL prophets are good.

A final note:  I personally don’t believe that people have the power of prophecy today.  I believe that prayer produces miracles and that sometimes God may reveal to people certain goals or missions for their lives, but I highly doubt that people have the power to know information that should remain hidden to most.

I’m going to continue talking about prophecy next week.  The week after I think I might tackle some political issues that Christians are facing today.

How Far Will You Walk?

If you have ever read Matthew 15:21-29, or Mark 7:24-31, you'll find a curious story.  Jesus goes to the region of Tyre and Sidon, after leaving Gennesaret (Matthew 14:34 & Mark 6:53), where he meets a Canaanite woman.  She comes up to Jesus and their interaction goes something like this:

"Jesus, Son of David, heal my daughter!"

Jesus ignores her.

"Jesus, Son of David, heal my daughter!"

She says again, but Jesus ignores her.

"Jesus, Son of David, heal my daughter!"

Jesus still ignores her, and by this time the disciples must be a little annoyed by her, so they come up to Jesus like, "Hey, uhhh, Jesus, can you send her away or something?  She's like bothering you and everyone else."

"It is not fit to take the children's food and feed it to their dogs."  Replies Jesus.

"That's true, but even their dogs eat the crumbs that fall off the table."  Says the woman.

"I like your answer," Jesus says, "Go.  Your daughter is healed."

She goes home to find her daughter healed, and Jesus and his disciples leave the region of Tyre and Sidon to go to the Sea of Galilee.

This story is so odd: Jesus seems to be calling this woman a dog, and her reply doesn't seem sufficient enough to warrant her daughter's healing, yet Jesus approves of how she responded to him, and Jesus is always wanting to heal and teach, but this time he seems to purposefully withhold his healing.  There are three points I want to make about this story.

The first point I want to address is the fact that Jesus called her a "dog".  The greek word he uses here is "κυναρίοις", or "kynariois", which means "little dog". So Jesus wasn't calling her a "dog", as much as he was calling her "precious, little puppy".  At the time, the Jews called Canaanites "dogs", and Jesus's decision to call her "little puppy" was more a play on the words and references between their two cultures than an insult.

When Jesus said he was there for the "children of Israel", not for their "dogs", her response was that she knew she wasn't a child of Israel, that she was a dog and had no right to the blessings God would give them, but all she wanted was a breadcrumb.  Her sense of humility and gratitude was what moved Jesus to heal her daughter; she knew she didn't deserve what he could give, but she was grateful for what little God would bless her with.  We too, do not deserve the blessings God has given us, and yet how often do we take what God gives us for granted?

The second point is the distance Jesus and his disciples traveled, going from Gennesaret to Tyre and Sidon.  Some people estimate that the distance Jesus traveled on this leg of his journey was around 50 miles.  It is reasonably assumed that Jesus didn't travel via donkey or camel, much less a car, so that means Jesus and his disicples probably hoofed it via foot during the entire journey.  Assuming a natural pace of 5/mph, Jesus spent about ten hours to travel that distance, not including stops for resting and eating a snack before moving on.  This means that Jesus traveled an entire day to get there, and when he arrived, he did no teaching or miracles, aside from meeting this woman, testing her faith, and healing her daughter, before he left that area.  Jesus walked 50 miles for one person.

Think about that for a second: Jesus walked 50 miles for one person.  Just one person.  How far will you walk for one person?

I want to encourage us all to follow Jesus's example: how far will you walk?  Will you walk 50 miles for a friend, much less a stranger?  In America (and especially Orange County, where I live), we are so busy trying to pay our bills and living our lifestyle that I think we forget to commit to people more.  Sitting down to eat or walking around a mall and shopping with a friend doesn't quite fill the needs we have as social creatures. 

When was the last time you stayed up all night with a friend because they were in grief?  When was the last time someone did that for you?  When have you given someone $100 because they were in need, and you told them to not bother paying you back?  When was the last time you had a fight with a friend, and you stuck with them, despite your differences?

We are social creatures, and we need our relationships to help us function and live our daily lives.  I think Americans pride themselves on their independence, resilience, and self-sufficiency, so we are not ready to admit our weaknesses or our need to have help from time to time.  Perhaps if we are better friends with the people already in our lives, maybe, just maybe, we'll have people who are better friends to us.

My final point is that there are many facets and lessons we can learn from this one account.  How often do we read our Bibles (if some of us read it at all), find a curious passage like this, and just keep skimming through it?  In one short account, we find the heart we need to please God, Jesus's cleverness and sense of humor (and his humanity), and the depth of level of commitment Jesus had for one person to measure against our own sense of commitment to other people.

The Bible is an ancient document that records a culture's relationship between God and man.  The purpose I want to establish about this blog is not only the literary and historical context of the Bible, but keeping God's heart and desire to have a relationship with us, while writing in a style that's more accessible to everyone, because I think that most people feel a little intimidated about the countless dry, academic papers that examines God's word.

I'll be tackling many topics, and I'm open to discuss pretty much anything; so don't feel shy about asking me a question.  Hopefully, I'll be making a new post every Tuesday, and I'll try to preface my posts with remarks on what I believe are doctrinal (like issues on what makes us saved, what is and isn't a sin), and things that I believe are my opinion (should Christians be in the military? Run for political office?  Vote?). 

Next week I'll be talking about the Daniel prophecy of Jesus. 

Let's get started.