Consistency Please!

One of the classes I’m taking now is an embryology class and I have found it very fascinating. Fascinating not only by having an enhanced view of being fearfully and wonderfully made but also at how honest my text book is being. It defines a Zygote as a cell which “results from the union of an oocyte and a sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e. an embryo). The expression fertilized ovum refers to a secondary oocyte (ovum) that is impregnated by a sperm; when fertilization is complete, the oocyte becomes a zygote.” [Italics in original.] This is prior to implantation and just after conception. The zygote has 3 to 4 days to implant into the uterus but the book says that this two cell combo is a “developing human”. From the moment that fertilization occurs this organism is described as a developing human. My question is what is a 2 year old? He too is a developing human. What is a 14 year old? A developing human.

Therefore, if it is legal to kill a non-implanted developing human in the body of a woman why can’t we be consistent with our laws and kill a two or 14 year old developing human? I’ve met plenty of parents who wanted to kill their developing humans. This consistent, helpful, and obedient act towards the law of the land would definitely cut down on the teen pregnancy problem, the over crowded government schools, lack of “quality” at these government schools because of the student to teacher ratio being too out of balance, and it would cut down on the breaking of the fifth commandment. (But then again that is the Old Testament and it doesn’t apply now that we are New Testament Christians.) Think about it. No gangs to harass the big towns, shorter lines at your local markets, no screaming kids at the grocery store, and the dissolution of malls. The children would be more productive around the house, more respectful to adults, and kind to all. It sounds like a veritable paradise. These developing humans would no longer be afraid of the rod but a fear of something far more permanent. And that permanence would encourage, nay foster the development of better people and thus a better society.

And with all the dead bodies in the beginning of this consistent living we could employ Jonathan Swift’s Immodest Proposal. Think of all the trendy handbags that all the important celebrities will be sporting at the next awards show. Actually, I need to remain consistent myself so I cannot call them “dead bodies” but merely just “products of conception”. After all, that is what the zygote is called if it is aborted. Think about it. You could walk around sporting your new “Troubled Teen Bomber” jacket without the fear of some rabid P.E.T.A. anarchist running up to you and spray painting your new stylish gear. Instead of killing those poor defenseless goats and calves and turning them into soft and supple gloves we can make soft and supple guilt free gloves out of the “products of conception”. The next time you see your neighborhood brat take a tumble off his bike take note of where the scarring might be and look at your local fashion store and see if you can purchase the scar that you recognize and beam with pride to know that with each purchase you are contributing to a better society. And tell your neighbor thanks for all the care that they put into keeping their products of conception free from added scarring. Knotted wood looks nice but too many knots looks grotesque and I imagine it would be the same with bag, shoes, and what not.

Imagine guilt free lederhosen. I can foresee the Germans dancing in the streets of Berlin now. Oh, to live in a land of consistency sounds just fantastic and amazingly rewarding. The added benefit with all these new exotic purchases is that we would drive all those animal haters out of business. And maybe, just maybe we can set free all those poor defenseless bovines into the wild, like they did for all those horses in Wyoming. I think that would be more humane and natural don’t you?

Abe Lincoln

I have just learned that there is another reason for me to have a hatred for Abraham Lincoln and that is because he and his wife were permissive parents. They would allow their children to disturb cabinet meetings, run barnyard animals throughout the white house and generally destroy what the public bought. They viewed that their children were in charge of the family. This is definitely not a biblical view of what a family ought to be. I also learned that he loved Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which makes since because it is about a couple without love for one another and the marriage is ruled by the wife, much like his own marriage with Mary Todd. Oh, and there is blood on their hands, much like the War Between the States. My heart does go out to the man because he did have to deal with a contentious wife which from the history of it had to be more than difficult, yet in another way he did make his own bed.

C&P

“But now a new history commences: a story of the gradual renewing of a man, of his slow progressive regeneration, and change from one world to another—an introduction to the hitherto unknown realities of life.”

This is a quote from the conclusion of a great book by Dostoevsky and I think it is a fairly accurate one on the journey of being a Christian. Although, in one sense a man is immediately regenerated by the work of Christ on the cross and this man’s subsequent repentance and faith in Him and the man is also on the road of continual regeneration from his life of sin to a life of righteousness. The repentant sinner is going from one world, one of sin and death, to another world where there is life and love. Although, one is converted he is in no way one who knows how to live a Godly life. This is the “gradual renewing of a man” and at times it seems very “slow and progressive”. The book is ‘Crime and Punishment’ and there are several biblical themes throughout it. Dostoevsky demonstrates very clearly that sin separates the sinner from the rest of society and that individualism carried to the extreme is self-destructive. The book is chiefly filled with the difficulty of bridging the separation between the guilt of sin and the humanity of man. And at the same time that this is happening the sinner is trying to deal with his desire to confess his sin and be truly free and run from his sin in the hopes of getting away with his crime. In the end humility is the answer and it is learned through repentance and love.

This sinner’s faith is just the beginning of his Christian life and therefore it is an “unknown” reality. To live in the grace of God and the knowledge of His love for sinners is not only to truly live but also to live in true reality. To live otherwise is to live in lies and the vain imaginations of man’s sinful nature.

Condiment Guy

I realize that I’m not funny, originally. Meaning I don’t come up with some great original jokes, but I’m good at tagging along. Actually, I think that is when I’m most funny. I was once introduced this way, “Dad, here’s Tracy the funniest man I know. Go ahead Tracy say something funny.” Now, that is a tough spot to be in and as expected I did something funny. But notice I didn’t say anything funny I just added to the body language that was already there.

So all that to say I think I can make a good sandwich better but I don’t make good sandwiches on my own. I’m like the condiment guy. I can make a plain old hamburger really tasty and satisfying. I think the best time is when I’m with someone who has a similar sense of humor and we just keep tagging along with where the last guy took the joke. My roommate J.B. and I do this all the time and we have abs of steel and not enough towels to mop up all the tears. It is just a good time and I think Proverbs says it is good for the bones.

The Death of Liberty

Dander has two meanings. The first being to have your temper raised or to be angry and the second is dealing with the dry scaly skin flakes. So, when I say that my dander was up the other day I’m using the first definition. I don’t know which definition came first or how we have made the transition from one to the other, but nevertheless I was pretty heated.

I was driving through Republic a couple days ago obeying the law and my own business. Things were great and grand. I didn’t have a care in the world, the sun was shinning, kids were playing, birds were singing and cats were eating mice. All was right and good with the world. And I, being the good citizen that I am, was on an errand for a friend of mine. The job was to only take me 4 total miles out of my way but as I was finding out it was going to be twice that, but I didn’t really care because I was getting things crossed off my list of projects for the day and should get back home to meet up with one of my roommates to do some more work later that day. Since I was ahead of schedule I figured it a minor thing to travel 8 miles out of my way to do a favor (or to use slang a ‘solid’) for some friends of mine.

However, little did I know that the beautiful day that I was experiencing was going to soon come to a dismal end as the black cloud of governmental interference in the liberty of American man was looming large just around the corner (not a literal corner as I think I would have seen him coming otherwise). I pulled into the parking lot of a video store and started going through the bag of videos to make sure that all the videos actually went to this video store. Knowing that the family that I was doing the errand for to be a topnotch family and highly organized I thought that my checking to make sure that all the videos were correct to be a slight slap in the face which I didn’t plan on mentioning. Also, when I came to the first video and the tag said Greene County Library I thought that I had made a mistake and that either all the videos were to go there or that there was some sort of exchange with the Family Video store and the library.

While I was ruminating about this I heard a tapping at my window and as I turned to see who it was I was surprised to find myself starring into the big sunglasses of a black and white. A 5-O, the PO-PO, a copper and immediately I thought of the Dragnet tag song line Dum-de-Dum Dum. Actually to be honest I didn’t think of the Dragnet thing till just now. In reality I think my mind was a complete blank with the exception of “What does he want?”. I was surprised but I wasn’t thinking exclamation marks or all caps. I rolled down my window halfway because I wanted to hear what he had to say but not really let him all the way in. I have a natural distrust of cops, not that I think they are all crooks (though some are) or that I think that they abuse their authority (although many do) but in my experience with them as working with them as colleagues and watching COPS I know that they aren’t always right in what they do. Not to mention the fact that there are many unjust laws out there that require some discernment in whether or not you, as a cop, enforce them or not. Let’s be honest Hitler didn’t arrest all those gypsies, sodomites, political advocates, and jews they were the German cops who did that. They were just following orders right? After all, they can’t be held responsible.

Cop: “Do you know where your front license plate is?”
Me: “No, not really. Is it not on the front of the truck?” Now to be honest I knew I didn’t have my plate on my front bumper. I didn’t really know where it was without question, but being from Kansas were you only need to post one plate on the rear of your car I thought the second one was a little over board and just an option.
Cop: “Can I see your license and proof of insurance?”
Me: “Sure.” and I dug into my pocket to give him my papers just like a nice and obedient cow. I did this while he went to the front of my truck I presume to verify that I did in fact not have my license plate posted on my bumper. He arrived back to my window and I gave him what he wanted. And he proceeded to check my vin number to see if it lined up with my insurance card.
Cope: “No, your plate isn’t there. The screws are there and it looks like the plate hasn’t been there for some time. I’ll be right back, this will only take a moment.”

So I sat there as he went back to his computer on wheels and I thought, “What in the world is going on and why am I not challenging anything here? Have I broken the law and if I have have I broken one that is stupid and that requires no enforcement? Why did he park at an angle to the rear of my truck? Why does he have his flashing lights on implying to everyone else that I’m a criminal? Why is he taking so long? Can I go and tell him that I will be just a moment and I can go and drop off these videos? I don’t have all day to have this public servant accost me and waste my precious time when there are meth makers out there and real criminals to catch.” While thinking about getting out and dropping off the videos I had a continual image of the cop noticing me getting out of my vehicle and thinking the worst.

In my imagination the cop hurriedly gets out of his car while calling for backup drawing his pistol and crouching behind his car door. I would then be asked to get back into my truck whereupon I would try to state my case and my time constraints. By this time his backup has arrived and with the drawn pistol the situation only looks heated and these backup guys are hot to fire their weapons and kill the bad guys. The story ends with me lying face down on the cold asphalt being handcuffed (and possibly gagged as I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to control my tongue and the endless liberties they are violating) and thrown into their plastic molded seats of the cop car. Although, they would be careful to keep my head from being bumped on the door frame as I was gently tossed.

I’m I really going to get a ticket for not having a front plate on my truck? The thought of this was too much for me so I stuck my head in the sand and went back to my original job of going through the videos to make sure they all went to where I was intending on putting them. I finished that when the cop came back.
Cop: “I’m going to let you off with a warning. You need to have a front plate on your vehicle and if you can not find your plate then you will have to file for a lost or stolen plate because if someone steals your plate and they get a traffic fine we mail the ticket to the owner of the plate.” He said this while passing back my papers and the thought of someone taking my plates and getting traffic violations was one that is all too familiar with me as this happened to me a couple years ago. But he didn’t know that and since he wasn’t the Thought Police he didn’t know what I was thinking either.
Me: “Okay”.

I put my papers away and the videos too and on my way home I began to process all that transpired. And as I did this my dander was up and getting upper. I am not one who angers easily, actually it takes a great deal of effort to get my dander up but on issues like this I’m a tender box next to the fire. Why must I have two plates on my vehicle? My only answer is that it is so that the cops can verify that you have paid the taxes to get your car on the road and that you, at one time, had insurance to get your car on the road. They have you put them on both ends of your car so that they can verify this whether you are coming or going. So, why not have 4 plates. This way they can see this same information from all angles. Or how ‘bout 5 so you can put one on your roof so the ‘Cop-copters’ can do the same job.
What law am I violating? I have paid my tax and I pay the useless insurance. I’ve actually been paying into that scam for 15 years and never have I used them, but they certainly are using me. Not to mention that these cops are public servants and I’m the public, therefore, they are to serve me not harass me. Now, people will say, “Tracy stop throwing your little hissy-fit over nothing. Besides, you did break the law right? You didn’t have your plate on the front bumper did you? Those cops are just trying to do their jobs.” To this I will answer them in one of three ways. Either a flick to the forehead, slap to the back of the head, or a full on punch to the throat depending on their attitude and demeanor when they say what they say.

I don’t know if I can explain it very well as the German in me is getting angry just recalling the whole event and this usually degenerates into a lot of arm and hand waving and yell talking. This escalates into more and more rapid arm and hand movements where you see a strange phenomenon where my arms look like they are moving in the opposite direction than which they are in fact moving much like watching the wheels on a car. And the intensity and volume of the speech is such to drive most people out of the room. Either this or I just pass out from the overload.

I was angry with my complete willingness to do whatever they wanted. If the cop had asked me to step out of the vehicle and stand on my head I think I would have done it with out flinching. Why is this? I think it is because it is far easier to give up my liberties than to fight for them and then I leave my kids (they are just a thought right now and don’t actually exist) with the task of fighting. (Sorry kids). Did I do anything wrong? No. Did I obey an unjust law? Yes, I paid my tax and bought everything ‘necessary’ to drive on these unjust roads (a future post). I bowed down to ‘Massa’ because he held a gun and a willing public in the palm of his had and thanked him for is kindness of letting me off with just a warning. Where does he get off of blindly obeying his superiors and thinking he is in the right? I am not harming the public and I am being bothered and real criminals are out there doing crimes.

There is this aspect of my nature to pick a fight and I intend on finding the law for plate display. If it is vague then I intend on displaying my plate upside down as a protest. I know this will get me stopped more (actually I’m an rarely if ever stopped by the cops) but I am fine with this as I’m asking for it. I do the same with postage stamps which I find a violation of our freedom of private mail delivery. Know one gets it though.

Who arrested and stole all the property from the American Japanese during World War II here in the Land of Liberty? The cops. Where they right to put all these law abiding American citizens in a ‘concentration camp’? Does it sound better if we call it an American Isolation Camp designed for their protection? Did they get their property back? Who do we hold responsible for this injustice? We like to make it the responsibility fall on an idea or an impersonal entity like America, but America didn’t arrest these people. People did. And let me emphasis this point. Law abiding American citizens arrested law abiding American citizens in the name of “hey, I’m just doing my job”. Does just doing your job, or just obeying because they say so make it right? Hitler didn’t kill thousands of people. He made it okay, lawful, even patriotic, to kill thousands but regular people obeyed and pulled the trigger, or clinked the handcuffs. Hitler didn’t do it. People have a responsibility to obey just and righteous laws and not blindly obey some superior because you are afraid of the repercussions. Maybe, I should hear and do what I say also.

Jimmy D revisited

Jimmy D. Revisited

After some time I remembered the main portion of what the last post was to be about. Systematic life, kinda. You see I read Proverbs everyday. Now when I say that I don’t mean that I read the entire book of Proverbs everyday but I do read an entire chapter. And unless I have miscounted my days I read the chapter that corresponds to the present date. I have been doing this for the last six years and have found it continually poignant in my day to day life. So on this particular date I was reading chapter 29 and when I read verse 11 my thoughts took me back to when I worked with troubled teens. Proverbs is great and I used them often when I worked with the kids and those teens are still a constant source of examples for me. Primarily where it says something about being slothful or foolish.

“A fool vents all his feelings, but a wise man holds them back.”

The place I worked at was declared a Christian based troubled teen place, but I think it was only Christian in the sense that Christians worked there. The counsel that was given by the state certified counselors was completely unbiblical. In my judgment if you are not using the words of the Wonderful Counselor then you are using the words of a terrible counselor. Therefore, if you are not speaking the words of Christ then you are speaking the words of antiChrist.

Our culture is just saturated with pop-psychology and we fool ourselves with the notion that there is this hybrid, transitional form, animal called “Christian Psychology”. Like in biology we think that if we can find these transitional forms then we can prove that evolution is true so too in the Christian culture if we can find our prooftext we think we can christianize a pagan mode of counseling. We think psychology is good counsel that can be just tweaked if we can put Christ in there somewhere. Or we acknowledge that psychology has a antiChrist foundation but we think there is still some good stuff in it. But we fail to realize that this is just the chicken who is scratching in and around the manure patch to find that one kernel of corn. Sure he finds some corn but look what he has to find it in. If we found some poo in our salad we wouldn’t exclaim, “Wow this salad is really good, just don’t eat that poo there. Treat it as garnish.” I feel we shouldn’t treat psychology in the same manner. Flee from the poo filled food and cling to the counsel of Christ. And for all that is righteous don’t dabble in psychology and just say, “well all truth is God’s truth”, because that statement has more holes in it than a sieve.

John Calvin is and was a great man, but I disagree with him on his view of who the antiChrist was. He thought the antiChrist was the Pope. I think the antiChrist is James Dobson. And Larry Crab would have to be an antiChrist as well. The stuff that that these men put out into the Christian world as coming ‘straight from the horses mouth’ have their ends turned around. The junk that they claim as having any validity and gospel truth generally has more in common with what Anton LeVay puts out than what God has declared. (For those who don’t know Mr. LeVay wrote the Satanic Bible).

We don’t eat rat poison and for good reason. . . it isn’t good for you, but if you coat it in chocolate and color it to look like M&M’s you can fool many people into eating them. And they will often like it and point out how much they like that candy coated shell. This is Dobson and his ilk. They operate with a foundation of poison which is psychology, yet people like his tripe so much because he will lace his teachings with just enough prooftexts and spiritual sounding words to make people think his stuff is good for you. Our Christian culture is so hungry for truth that we have been living out the proverb “A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb, but to a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.” Pro. 27.7

At Doulos Ministries, the place where I worked with troubled teens, the counselors would teach these kids to “vent their feelings”, because if they “bottled” them up then they would explode at any time. Uncontrollably. The thought was to give these kids the opportunity to unload their feelings at a “controlled” time then those same kids wouldn’t display their lack of self-control at inappropriate times. There were two homes at Doulos which were separated into a girls house and a boys house and the houses were separated by about 50 yards of grass, concrete and a gazebo. (I loathe that gazebo [said with a clinched fist raised to head level and shaken a couple times]). And being that it is in the Ozarks there were more than enough cedars dotting the landscape. So, these girls, given an endorsement by their counselors and their ‘big’s’ unwillingness to challenge the “priests” decision, took hold of aluminum baseball bats and unloaded their feelings upon helpless cedars. Mind you these feelings were not feelings of love and compassion for their fellow man or feelings of warmth and affection for the beauty of God’s creation. These feelings were those coming from the deep recesses of man’s original nature, and they were set on fire from Hell. (Let me give you a little background information: a ‘big’ is a person who voluntarily [like myself] came to live with these kids and essentially became their parent for the course of a year. A big would generally have three kids living in their room and the house would have 4 rooms. My year lasted for three years. I was never that good at math.)

These uncontrolled “whack a cedar” instances were true hate crimes against anything civil or sane, muchless things that was Godly. Several of these troubled girls would destroy the bark off a few trees just after a bad call with their folks or after being told that they were disobedient at some point in the course of the day or when they found out that the girl across the hall, whom they despise, despises them. All things petty, trite and ridiculous generated the response of, “let’s kill some cedars”. And the funny thing was that none of these girls came from families that had a history in the logging industry.

Not only were these out-of-control girls putting the life of many cedars in danger they were also disfiguring a perfectly good bat. These girls did not play baseball or softball and so I guess it didn’t matter to them that the boys house did. But through a logistics error one of our big brothers lent a bat to the girls house without knowing that the bat would be abused in such a way. Bark was flying every where, bats were slowly becoming metal boomerangs, girls were learning the fine art of being a contentious and dripping faucet type of woman, and the boys were growing frustrated at not being able to destroy something without getting into trouble. The men in the boy’s house finally got the women to stop letting their girls ‘vent their feelings’ after the girls successfully bent one bat to an unusable fashion and when the director of Doulos realized that the esthetics of the property was being compromised. Apparently, ‘good’ counseling is good in so far as it still looks good. Who cares what is actually being taught just so it looks good, right?

If these girls could have gained anything useful from this experience you would think that they would have learned how to swing a bat better. But, no, again there was not Godly instruction. They were just let loose to vent their feelings and the cedars had to pay the ultimate price. Since, I have not been gifted with tact and since the Lord has been busy changing other areas of my life I quickly and often mocked the behavior of these ‘troubled’ girls when this type of action was being displayed in my presence. This verbal slap in the face had an effect. Sometimes it would give the girls more fuel to keep destroying trees, which I would have to ask the trees for forgiveness, but more times than not the girls would quit their uncontrolled foolish behavior. When making remarks to these girls I would not let the boy’s I was walking with make any mocking remarks, unless they were good at it. Some of those boys were pretty good with their tongues. Those who weren’t were allowed to laugh which usually caused the girls to realize their own foolishness quite nicely. These times never failed to provide opportunities for me to teach these young men the value of self-control.

I feel that the lessons you learn in handling your emotions, ie. displaying self-control will not only help you to not look foolish, or in displaying that you are in fact foolish, but it will help you in all aspects of life. Learning and practicing self-control in one area of life will give you the tools necessary to display self-control in other areas. Because I have learned the tools of being self-controlled in where I put my clothes, either on the floor wherever I want (no self-control) or in putting them where they belong either in the dresser or in a hamper (self-control) I am able to use this training of my flesh to resist other temptations that will come my way. If you can be trusted in the little things, such as keeping an orderly house, then you can be trusted with the big things like shepherding a family or loving a wife. Everything in life is preparation for something bigger, something more glorious than what you are currently doing. Luke 16.10 “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.”

A kid learning geometry may ask, “why do I need to know this. I’m never going to use it. I’m going to be a Marine and knowing what an isosceles triangle is will not help me kill that guy over there” and he will be partly right. Knowing how to figure out the angles for a bisected angle may not be necessary in your life (although you never know what God will have you do 10 years from now) but the discipline that it will teach you will pay dividends in areas of your life that you can not fully comprehend now. The conscious effort of making your body obedient to the Lord in obeying the one teaching you math will also help you be obedient to the Lord when you are tempted to not discipline your child, or to cheat on your wife. I don’t buy the tired cliché that ‘boys will be boys’ and therefore we accept as natural that a boys room will be messy to the extent of not even being able to see the floor. I think this is a result if we allow the boys flesh to have dominion over his actions, but if we take the gifts of the Holy Spirit into all areas of life than it can’t help but have an effect on a boys room.

Someone may say, “but I don’t think this kid has the Holy Spirit so how can I apply this last statement?”. To this I would say, “Why then do you teach that kid anything?” My Dad had a fairly good rule that my brother and I lived under which was, “My house, my rules”. With this rule my Dad taught us to obey him in everything. We didn’t set the standard for what was clean, dirty, or correct behavior he did, and we obeyed him or we faced a pretty good spanking. Since we are Christians we are led by the standard of God and God is not a God of disorder but one of order. Therefore, how does living in chaos equate to living according to a Godly standard.

These girls who whacked on a number of trees were being taught how to be fools and as Proverbs says, “a wise man holds [their feelings] back”. Thus the wise person is he who bottles their feelings and not the one who displays them. Psychology generally teaches us to be fools and that is why there are so many of them out there. More specifically that is why we notice them more. The fools were always there but they just never had the “scientists” in the lab coats give them authorization to show their faces. God, in His wisdom and humor, allowed me to major in heresy. . . I mean psychology and it is just a reminder to me that not only is God a good God but that He has fun with His children.

telemarketers

Telemarketers. I love them. They are a great way to practice your argumentative skills with people who do not know you. You also have the added benefit of dealing with people who live in other cultures, say those on the coasts. I feel this rounds you out as a debater when you can get a feel for how all people handle your responses to their statements. If they want you to support a charity I grill them on why I should do so and then beat the drum of the responsibilities of the local church. They never understand my points even when they say, “um-hum” approvingly, therefore I have to state them again. . . and again. . . and again. Until they want to hang up with me. I try to keep them on the phone as long as I can therefore I don’t give them the two ‘no’s’. Once they hear you say ‘no’ the second time they generally hang up so to keep them from doing this I don’t exactly say no. I hear their point and give them a counter point and we debate. I’m across the board too, a switch hitter if you will. Sometimes I will support their ideas and take them to farther extremes than they are willing to go. Such as trying to raise money for deaf poor kids I will lead them to the next logical conclusion of either robbing my neighbor and donating the money to them or of killing my neighbor and donating their good ears to the poor little kids. That last step is hard for them to agree to but I can generally get them to the edge. My response to them all depends on my mood. So next time they call I think you should ask them why they call at the times they do and ask them why they always want to talk to the woman of the house. I think they are hawks that try to prey upon the women of our homes. Since there are no women in my house I have to improvise and sometimes I create some. Well I have to go the phone is ringing.

ALL CAPS

I heard a pastor talking about using the all caps in writing (when else would you use them?). And in reading the all caps you are to render that as yelling. Whatever happened to the exclamation point! I thought that punctuation taught us that that is a way to typing a yell! (Boy, that was a lot of that's in that last sentence). And I thought that the more exlamation points you used the more expressive you were trying to be in your writing!! I have read that if you use multiples of exclamation points you should only use odd numbers of them as that is the best, or most appropriate way of displaying them!!! I would hate to think I have to learn new rules of writing with the addition of the all caps stuff!!!!! I don’t think I use the exclamation point often enough as it is!!!!!!! DO YOU!!!!!!!!! I DIDN’T THINK SO!!!!!!!!!!! I THINK I’M STARTING TO LOSE MY VOICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jimmy D

Jimmy Dean is a type of sausage, but this post is not about sausage. Unless you hate sausage than this post can be loosely said to be about sausage. If you like sausage than go back to my original statement and know that this is not about sausage. Although, I don’t care for sausage because it doesn’t agree with me. It doesn’t not agree with me in that it doesn’t agree with my premisses in an argument but it doesn’t agree with me in a more physiological sense. Anyway.

I realize that I have said this type of thing before but I must say it again. I find that as I come up with ideas for a post that in the mists of that brainstorm I think of many things and some of a more personal nature that I will not post but some other things/ideas that I find really funny that I can’t remember once I get to my computer. It is all terribly sad. It is sad for all of us. You see you are deprived of the enjoyment of a good laugh and I am deprived of the enjoyment of hearing a good laugh. So let’s pause and lament the fact that I can’t remember all the funny things I was just thinking of while sitting and thinking just moments ago. Hmmmm. Thinking. Thinking. Lamenting. Lamenting. Remembering other things I could be doing right now. Lamenting again. Okay, back to the post. Stop lamenting now. I have now thoroughly forgot everything about this post and will have to start all over.

I have a system to just about every part of my life. There is an inherent order to all that I do. Although, I think this is good for the most part it can become a bit constraining. For instance, I’m sure most people have found themselves in this situation. I go to a restaurant and order something that I just think will taste great and if I return to that place I more than likely will order the same dish. However, once this is done I have now worn myself a rut and I find it very difficult to justify leaving that rut and spending money on another dish that has the potential to not be as equally satisfying. This is especially true of Mexican restaurants. I don’t understand any Asian menus so this doesn’t necessarily hold true for that type of establishment. I basically have to be adventurous if I go Asian because it is all like a bungee jump. However, for Mexican I have a general idea of what I’m getting into and therefore that knowledge breeds indecision. In a group I will generally desire to go last so I can hear what other people are ordering and then I will quickly read the description of what they are ordering from the menu. Sometimes I will look up at the person and back at the menu several times to try and figure out why that person would order something so unappetizing. I think I am waiting for that person to say “just kidding” to the waiter and look around the table for the smiles and laughter from everyone else. On some occasions I have gotten, and given, some mistaken signals. There have been times where the person orders a meal that I think is very unappealing and look at them with a smile to try and reread them. They in turn are looking at me for some sort of approval. So with my smile they feel justified in ordering what I would consider a dumb move. And with the smile they feel they have made a good choice. Nonverbal communication is so important because of what is not said as well as what is. Anyway, none of this has to do with Jimmy D. so I should probably continue this at another time.

It does something part 3

Jesus makes the connection between baptism and being born again in John chapter three. No where in scripture does God implore one of his covenant members to be born again. Being born again is seen as being baptized, therefore, He does not ask for one who is baptized to be rebaptized. God, as spoken in the writings of the Apostles, sees that through baptism the person has already received grace and over and over again calls them to faithfulness. He does not doubt the grace that was conferred to them in the sacrament but calls them to live out the reality of the sacrament. For instance, some of the members of the Corinthian church had some major problems with sin yet as Paul is dealing with these sins and the errors of their living he states, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6. 9-11).

Notice that Paul warns of apostasy and then gives hope and says that they were these wicked things, and the thing that made all this past tense is that they were “washed”, “sanctified”, and they were “justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God”. Paul also doesn’t state that the one who he delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh (5. 5) wasn’t also “washed”, “sanctified” and “justified”. At the writing and reading of this letter that person was more than likely sitting in the pews with the other members of the Corinthian congregation. Paul doesn’t say, “Well, I know that this person made a profession of faith, was baptized and was brought into membership with this congregation but that was all symbolic and it didn’t really do anything anyway. So, in effect we are going to do a do-over and if the guy will repent then we can bring him back into fellowship and maybe rebaptism him?.”

Notice too that Paul doesn’t separate the water from the Spirit. (This is much like Jesus in John 3 where He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”.) Paul is taking the command by Jesus seriously. He was told to “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. . . “. Throughout the book of Acts what is the normal occurrence to those who hear the gospel and believe it? They are subsequently baptized. Therefore, it would be consistent that when those in Corinth heard the gospel and believed that Paul baptized them. And so, the washing, sanctifying and justifying that Paul is referencing would be a remembrance of their baptism.

Most people don’t have a problem with what is said thus far when dealing with an adult convert, but the rub comes when we are dealing with one who doesn’t know what is going on. Some view that the person who is to be baptized needs to make a profession of faith and then be baptized (called believers baptism). They are then able to swallow those otherwise hard to chew pieces of scripture where it talks about being a new creature and some of the things mentioned here in my blog. However, scripture doesn’t limit the grace to just those who are able to make a profession.

Those who believe in believers baptism want to limit the grace conferred in baptism to those who know what is going on in the baptism. Which to me smacks of arrogance as if we really know what is going on in baptism when at the moment we barely know who the savior is. Did the early church really know what was going on with baptism when they were baptized. I think they didn’t when they were having such problems with understanding the Jew/Gentile distinction. Even the Apostle Peter didn’t live like he understood the oneness that is created between Jew and Gentile or else why would Paul have thrown such a fit about seating arrangements at the potluck dinner (Gal. 2). Therefore, based on this occurrence and the lack of discernment that Peter displayed should he have been barred from being baptized?

If we are going to limit baptism to only those who know what is going on where do we set the bar? Who knows enough? And does the one who regurgitates the correct answers really know what he/she is saying or are they just saying what they know will get them in? Baptism is the initiatory rite and therefore those who have not been baptized are barred from communion. Every week, or in some places every quarter they have to watch as the plates of bread and wine (and for some grape juice) is passed to them, around them, and passed away from them. They have to watch this happen from the time they can remember to 10, 12, 15 years of age. They also watch as their parents get to participate in communion and they realize by their non-participation that they are not in this. They may go to church, sing the songs, know some bible stories but they see that at this point they are not the same as the others.

The bar for baptism initiation is it too high for one who is mentally handicapped? What of a person who will never surpass the intellect of a 4 year old? Do we allow them to be baptized? They clearly do not understand what is going on and they never will. What about a mentally handicapped person who has no way of communicating anything therefore we really do not know their level of understanding do we allow them to be baptized. We could set the bar at the Westminster's Larger and Shorter Catechisms but does the one who knows this and is baptized ever fall from grace? Has there ever been a person who knew the catechisms and was baptized lived a life that was sinful, never repented of their waywardness and died. Clearly the answer would be yes. There are those who fall away.

My point in all this is to say that if we set up some arbitrary standards that have no consistent connection with the bible than what we have done is made the gospel no gospel at all, but have changed the grace of God for a lie. We have made the gospel, by our practice, Gnosticism. We claim there there is some special wisdom that will be given to you as you strive for it or memorize it. Once you are able to check enough boxes you have what it takes to get baptized. But we, as good Calvinist, keep putting up the mantras of justification by faith, but apparently to some that faith needs to be well communicated and correctly footnoted for the individual to pass those who are barring that baptistry and those who are barring the Table.

It would seem to me that the Baptistry and the Table are meant to keep the children of the promise in and not to keep them out.

L is larger than XL

I was asked a question while at work today that I had difficultly in answering, particularly because I’m not that familiar with Roman numerals. The question was “what is the I.D. of ID?”. I tried to figure it out, but with no definite answers I had to consult my computer and do a little search on Google. From this I realized the answer to the question but I also learned more than I expected. D=500, L=50 and X=10, therefore ID would be 1-500 which equals 499. After viewing these Roman numerals I began thinking about my more familiar associations with these numerals. I frequently see an L or XL on the clothing I wear (I must admit that any XL's in my wardrobe were purchased by accident) and I realized that my XL is smaller than my L and not because of the way I washed them. I figured this out because L=50 and X=10 and if the X is first then it is in the position of subtraction. Therefore XL (10-50) equals 40 and 40 is clearly smaller than 50 which is what L is. See I’m not crazy L is larger than XL.