Love From Beyond The Vanishing Point

God is Love. 

It is said so many times I fear it is often used or misused in a cliché manner and many people miss its true importance and the depth of its meaning. It is a depth of love that finds its source in a limitless, bottomless and infinite God. It is a limitless eternal love. It is a love that is from before vanishing point or the foundations of the world until beyond the vanishing point ahead of us moving forward. Our minds cannot get a full hold on it.

Since I am prone to focus a lot on the wrath of God, I decided this morning to do the opposite. I am focusing on the love and relational attributes of God. In so doing I sort of ended up driving in a circle because to best see the love of God one needs to witness the wrath of God also: In the Crucifixion of His Son. To best see the love of the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father we must correctly view the most heinous miscarriage of justice in the history of man. It is the murder of an innocent man to appease the wrath of God that we so clearly deserved. While I studied God the last few days I have come across some of the most interesting thoughts I had never had before.

First, we see God speaks of Israel as His firstborn in Exodus.

Exodus 4:21-23 ~ “…and the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’”

We see God call David his son also (2 Samuel 7:14) and of course we see the advent of Jesus Christ. Israel then is not the last, only the first. We see a foreshadowing of not only Christ here we also see a foreshadowing of the Gentile nation. Israel being only the first shows the missional nature of God’s plan to evangelize. So we see God in His capacity as Father, Son and Creator of man in a familial capacity.

Second, we as humans nearly always approach reality or images of reality from the anthropomorphic or man-centered view. When dealing with God this rarely does reality justice. When we refer to God as Father and Jesus as His son we absolutely view this from a human perspective. We do it so much so that postmodern politically correct philosophy says that we should remove the male gender distinctions in the Bible to make it more female-friendly. Nearly 100% of the time we approach the text from a human angle with the idea of a human family in our head. This just will not do for the purpose of this essay. We must step back here and expand our narrow-minded point of view and realize that the relationship between God the Father and God the Son is not metaphor but ontological or “that which is in its very being”. This is not an analogy to make things understandable to humans. The relationship between the Father and Son is the original prototype from which we get the idea of the family, not the other way around. God, the Trinity is the archetype/prototype; humans in our relationships like marriage, parents, child, etc are only an analogy or copy of the real thing.  The true relationship qualities for relational or familial type relationships reside solely in Godhead. This is why, when humans begin to move away from God and the intended order God has established, relations become convoluted and begin to disintegrate and fall apart. Based on varying degrees of sin in a person’s life this disintegration can be halted, slowed or eradicated. The ideal would be to move towards God and eliminate the sin but as humans...we all have our baggage and this ideal will never be met here except through Christ. Although human relations are analogous, they are not perfect and therefore not the same as the Father and the Son.

Third, the tying, cohesive and intrinsic nature of God is love. A love that at its core perfect but from a human vantage point is understood as ἀγάπην or agape. As John states:

1 John 4:16 ~ “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

Here we see the familial and love, we see the relationship aspect and the pathos. We see an unselfish, giving, sacrificial behavior in the love, specifically in Christ. This love, Father to Son and Son to Father has been around since before the foundations of the world. A love that finds it impetus in life and a life in the impetus of love. Perfect love and life of the Godhead. The Father gives life to the Son:

John 5:26 ~ “For as the Father has life in Himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in Himself.”

This is also the life that God the Father used to raise Christ from the dead through the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:11 ~ “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

So in His relationship with His children, Jesus attempts to explain this relational quality between the Father and Son and how it is a giving of life from the Father to the Son and thereby from the Son to the Disciples. After Jesus’ Crucifixion we will then see this giving from the Disciples to a new generation of spiritual brethren in the form of discipleship up until the modern day and to us. All through the medium of the Holy Spirit: life eternal because of eternal love, through love by relationship in belief by faith.

John 5:36-40” ~ “But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”

We also read:

John 14:10-11 ~ “The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.”

We therefore see relational love and life right in the works (Fruits of the Spirit) of Christ and are the evidences of the intimate nature of the Father’s relationship with the Son. This is also why we can see the intimate relationship between the believer indwelt by the Spirit and God also…they manifest the same Fruit of God’s presence: self-sacrificing love (among other things).

This is where we begin to see there is a radical departure from all other religions including Islam and even Judaism. Jesus tells us that the greatest love is the selfless, self-sacrificing kind.

John 15:13 ~ “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

We read that Jesus delighted in doing the will of the Father…

John 4:34 ~ “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.

Jesus also said:

John 5:30 ~ “…can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.

This is truly what Israel missed out on when they rejected their Messiah Jesus Christ. For love to exist there must be at least two otherwise the love becomes selfish and self-serving. There has to be another or other, otherwise there is only singularity. Self-giving love akin to agape has to have a plurality. God in the Trinity is indeed a plurality. There is “other” in Their Oneness and therefore the ability to love distinct from everything else--self-contained. God can therefore be Love and this is the only way it is possible in the true Agape, selfless sense. Agape…as in the greatest love which Jesus has already told us is, “that someone lay down his life for his friends”.

God the Father granted or gave this life of Himself to the Son (John 5:26). We then have the actual event in history on display for all of humanity for all time to witness in terms of this love: The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, Son of God. These are the most obvious proofs of God’s love to mankind. God the Father gave life to the Son and the Son responded in love to the will of the Father by giving it back in return. In doing so he saves all of humanity who will believe in the very thing that He has done and understand that is was indeed a selfless act of love not only in obedience to the will of the Father but also a self-sacrifice because of His love of humanity and his desire to save all those from damnation that would believe it. It is a love that is Salvation. Riddled through all of this we see the familial and relational quality of the Godhead.

It is a love that is defined by the very nature of the Being who is doing the loving (God). It is not a love defined by the thing being loved (man). It is a love that only gets its full depth when it is viewed properly. It can only be seen in perspective when viewed from the position of the Godhead through Jesus Christ What makes this love even more profound is that it is not driven by what it can do for the One loving. From a human standpoint love is nearly always driven by what it can do for the one loving. In its very nature it is selfish. People generally do not love unless there is something to be gained by doing so. It is what it does for the self that impels us to do so. Not so for God. God needs nothing. God is self-sufficient and self-contained. Therefore, His love is by choice. He loves us because He wants to. His love is giving (agape) and it is also steadfast or faithful as understood in the Old Testament: חֶ֫סֶד or hesed. This Hebrew word expresses God's faithfulness to His covenant and also blessings and mercy.There is nothing more from His point of view that is needed from a covenant standpoint. He has given all and upheld His end of the relationship eternally-vanishing point to vanishing point. He knew He would, He did it and He will continue to...forever. He needs nothing from us. As a matter of fact (and ironically), it is we that desperately need something from Him and it is only through His mercy and grace that we get it. We receive His love in the form of His Son…hanging on a Cross.

John 3:16 ~ “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Love eternal, love from everlasting to everlasting.

Islam: FAIL

Islam – FAIL

The Qur'an is clear: Allah has no son. Allah reigns supreme and is worthy of total submission. 

It is not befitting to (the majesty of) Allah that He should beget a son. Glory be to Him! when He determines a matter, He only says to it, "Be", and it is. Verily Allah is my Lord and your Lord: therefore serve Him; this is the Straight Way. [The Holy Qur'an, Surah 19:35-36]

Christianity – WIN

The Holy Bible is clear, God has a Son and His name is Jesus, the name above all other names.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." [The Holy Bible, John 3:16]

Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. [The Holy Bible, John 12:28]

I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. [The Holy Bible, John 17:4]

Confrontational or truthful?

Revealing Christ In The Old Testament XII (Job I): Have You Considered My Servant?

Job

Christ In The Suffering

Job is the oldest book in the Bible in terms of the scene it illustrates. It is set in the time of the patriarchs. We see in Ezekiel 14:14,20 that he was indeed a real person.

Ezekiel 14:14 ~"even if these three men—Noah, Daniel and Job—were in it, they could save only themselves by their righteousness, declares the Sovereign LORD."

Ezekiel 14:20 ~"as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, even if Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, they could save neither son nor daughter. They would save only themselves by their righteousness."

It teaches us both the scope and the boundary of the power of Satan. It is revealing in the fact of the resurrection, and in shadowing the mystery of redemption. Although it is not the purpose of the Bible to teach science, its language is accurate to describe scientific facts or recent discoveries.

Job 26:7-8 ~"He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing. He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weigh"

The book of Job though is most known of how it speaks to the mystery of suffering especially the suffering of the righteous. Job's friends made the fraudulent assumption that his sin against God must be exceptionally great to account for such exceptional suffering. Job's attitude towards God through all of this barely registered a blip on an EKG meter. Job still paid Him the honor and respect God deserved. This is not to say that he wasn't troubled. He at still had enough sense to rebuke his wife who added insult to injury.

Job 2: 9-10 ~"Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips."

Most of his reflection ended up being on himself. Here we see one of the images of Christ. God's own testimony of Job was, "Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” Job was a pattern of what was to come. Job like Jesus knew that his heart was true to God, and he could not accept the accusations of his friends. Job himself first shows his "friends" that their conclusion is false, and that the wicked often prosper in the world at least temporarily. We will see this again in Jesus. At first even the disciples on the Road to Emmaus do not understand or see the permanent divine turning of tables over the system of the world. It seems to them as if the authorities or powers of the world have defeated Jesus when just the opposite has occurred. Worldly victory is actually a defeat for the world and what the world perceives as a defeat is actually divine victory.

Luke 24:13-21 ~"Now that same day two of them [disciples] were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles e from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?” “What things?” he asked. “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place."

Suffering for a Christian refines the Christian. The very thing that makes unbelievers run even farther from the faith is the very thing that tempers and steels the faith of believers: Suffering. What does Jesus say right in the narrative on the Road to Emmaus?

Luke 24:26 ~"  Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”

 If the Messiah had to suffer, how do we as his followers expected to do any less or evade the model laid out for us?

Christ In The Reprimand

Elihu, who had been listening to the argument of Job and his friends, sums up their discussion in two abrupt sentences : " Against Job was his wrath aroused, because Job justified himself rather than God. Also against his three friends was his wrath ignited, because they had found no answer and persisted to condemn Job". Although Elihu was anything but easy on the ears and delicate, he appears closest to the truth of the message by bringing out God's grace in the purpose of the discipline of His children. The book of Job should not be seen so much as a book of suffering but that of chastisement on the grand scale of things. We must never forget that the Bible and all the books it contains is a book about getting back to a proper position of holiness in front of a holy God. If mankind does not attain the righteous necessary in front of The Judge of the Universe He must judge them and/or punish them. This is why man often times needs to suffer. One, as chastisement and two, as a process of character building that will aid us in our quest of sanctification (made more holy). The Salvation aspect of this was conquered and settled by Christ at the Cross but the sanctifying effort still sees us stumble and fail in our sin...so we are reprimanded. there is no such thing as a person who is sinless and does not deserve a reprimand or punishment.

Hebrews 12:7-11 "Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it"

Suffering in the story of Job paves the way for the approach to God or His approach to us. It is in the  aftermath of Job's suffering that he encounters God head-on in the latter portions of the Book of Job. It is in our greatest suffering, even that of death that we as believers will encounter presence of God in glory. If we are non-believers we will encounter it too...as wrath eternal. The dividing line? Jesus Christ.

Hate Is A Two-Way Street

Ah yes...the deafening silence from the anti-hate organization Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in the wake of the hate-filled shooting at the offices of a Christian lobbyist organization named the Family Research Council.

You could hear a pin drop at the SPLC.

It is interesting that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has posted nothing about the most recent attempted shooting at the Family Research Council (FRC) building in Washington D.C. early yesterday. It is also interesting that the SPLC and pro-abortion and gay rights groups consider groups like the FRC (shot up two days ago) as a hate group because it opposes abortion, gay marriage and also pornography and divorce. All these opinions are legal and biblical to have and the sins they oppose are right to oppose on moral grounds. Just because a small morally ambiguous group or their ilk do not like them does not make them illegal. 

I suspect SPLC is now in a conundrum of defining what "hate" truly is and when or if they say it is. If they do not come out and condemn this act as terroristic and driven by anger or even hate they have themselves created a double-standard of what hate is, what tolerance is and what is generally morally acceptable and what is not. They are then effectively redefining or deconstructing the meaning of the word hate (not to mention the words tolerance and justice). The unstated but implied intent from this unbiblical organization right now screams duplicity. Within a 24 hour period the SPLC was quick to point out the “alleged” shooter at the Sikh Temple was a hate crime by a skinhead but two days after the FRC event, still nothing on the shooting at the FRC offices...absolutely nothing. All of a sudden the definitive anti-hate organization in the United States has no opinion and remains mute.

In most recent act of hateful violence, Floyd Lee Corkins II posed deceitfully as an intern and eventually shot a security guard in the arm at the FRC office around 10:45 on August 15th. The security guard subdued the shooter. The gunman was observed carrying a gun, ammo and sandwiches from Chick-fil-A and was quoted as screaming to the security guard one of the following depending on your sources: “It was not about you, it was what this place stands for" or " "I don't like your politics". He has now admittedly been tied to LGBT organizations as even a precursory perusal of the internet news sites will verify.

So here we have an act of violence driven by an ideology. The FRC is a Christian organization that stands for Biblical ideals and therefore Biblical morality at least to outward observation. The shooter is therefore stating indirectly that he is shooting and committing an act of overt violence because it was because the FRC stood for Biblical morality which is "what they stand for" or their "politics".

...and this is the very reason I believe we will see and hear little from the SPLC. Its because their ideals and ideologies fall along the same lines as the shooter's. Although the SPLC does not explicitly call the FRC a hate group, they categorize it as such as they have included it on a list of potential candidates for Hate Group classification. It is through the power of suggestion being the first step in propaganda that the FRC will eventually be considered just that: A Hate Group. For what? Having Biblical values and the Scriptures as a basis for their existence and motives.      

So this presents a problem for the SPLC. They either view this shooting (attempted shooting) as motivated by similar malicious hateful motives as they did as the shooter in Aurora and the Sikh Temple or they have "categorically" denied this being a hate crime which it clearly was motivate by. The duplicitous double-standard of the SPLC is then on full display along with blatant hypocrisy.

In this situation, for something to have been hypocritical, the person of group that is hypocritical has to have complained about something being wrong or as being an infraction to another but then condone the exact same behavior committed by someone with their same ideology or they themselves doing it. Compound this with the added insult of not finding said behavior wrong when done by those within their own ideology makes a potent hypocritical witch's brew. Hypocrites by their very nature: Usually engage in the same behaviors they condemn others for, professes certain ideals, but fails to live up to them, or hold other people to higher standards than he holds themselves. It is the practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess.

It is a condition of a person or group pretending to be something they are not, especially in the area of morality. Therefore they present a false or prejudiced presentation of belief or feeling.

Enter SPLC and those with similar ideologies.

What is truly ironic is that accusation of prejudiced or intolerant beliefs is the very same gauge by which they have categorized the FRC. The SPLC's very statement on their web sites about the FRC hateful ideology is that they are "anti-gay". This is a horribly disingenuous statement and an incorrect reframing of the argument to make the homosexuals themselves look like the enemy to Christian eyes (or as they are referred to in error in the SPLC website: The Religious Right). The FRC is not anti-gay, they are pro-Biblical and therefore adhere to Scriptural or Biblical mandates or Biblical morality. Therefore they hate sin, not the sinner. It is no different than hating the drugs and their misuse (also a sin), not the addict.

Another disingenuous statement from the SPLC is: "...the Family Research Council (FRC) bills itself as “the leading voice for the family in our nation’s halls of power,” but its real specialty is defaming gays and lesbians."

Can someone please tell me what the correlation is between these two statements and where is the backing citations for the accusations that FRC defames gays as there are none included in this false caricature and misrepresentation of the FRC? Why are apples being compared to oranges? Families and supposed defamation are two distinct and separate issues. A  Red Herring fallacy not to mention a faulty generalization that these to groups are completely incompatible from a Scriptural standpoint. There are also many other fallacies put forth on SPLC's Family Research Council page that include Appeal to Fear, Appeal to Pity, Arguments from Silence, Straw man, etc. I will quote and match up these fallacies if pressed to do so but for the sake of time I did not mention them here. Leave a comment and I will gather them up.

What a reader ends up sadly and ironically realizing having read much of the misrepresenting rhetoric on the Southern Poverty Law Center's page about the FRC is that it is heavily biased and, well, hateful (or at least rancorous). These facts in themselves make the site high hypocritical. Compound these obvious facts with the additional damning and noticeable absence of any mention of hate perpetrated by their own "protect groups" like the most recent shooting at the FRC...and it makes their "hate" rhetoric absurdly laughable and one-sided.

Conversely, what I will say is that many within the media have properly reported this as a hate crime or terrorist act (although at times with a definitive bias). Perhaps this is so because it also flows along the lines of other ideologies that the media also propagates such as gun control? Regardless, even the bias media outlets realize that few arguments are won through militant and or violent means. As such there have been a coalition of 25 gay rights groups that have released a statement through GLAAD condemning the shooting and are smartly backing away from any direct association with this nutty individual and labeling him as the terrorist and violent person that he is. They have classified him as a rogue agent and are sacrificing one for the good of the whole. There is no deontological ethics here, only teleological. The ends justifies the means. Throw him to wolves so he does not derail all the positive aspects of the parent group and prime directive of getting unbiblical behaviors normalized in society. Did all of them LGBT groups do this? No. If I said that, I would be making sweeping generalizations like the SBLC. What is for certain though is that a majority of them did. They tossed one of their own under the bus. 

On the other hand, I have not seen a similar distancing from the issue by the SPLC and don't expect that I will. I suspect that it is because by taking a stand against anyone from their "protected groups", they will undermine some of the very tenants and beliefs that they have struggled so hard to redefine and deconstruct over the last 40 years.

Hate is a two-way street. Hate can most certainly be reciprocal. To think it can only go one way defies logic or is at least incredibly naive. The difference between naive and hypocritical is intent and thought processes (or lack of them). I am nearly certain that because the SPLC has now painted themselves into a rhetorical corner they will not be decrying the anger, bitterness and intolerance that enabled the violent and hateful action towards the FRC. Nor will they broad stroke the entire LGBT community because of one loose cannon (and rightfully so). Conversely, the SPLC are all too quick to make sweeping generalization about vocal Christians that stand by a biblical worldview labeling them the "Christian Right" thereby linking them synonymously into the "Radical Right" politically. If someone reads the SPLC website closely enough they will see the menacing and misleading nature of the organization. This is especially true when they make sweeping generalizations about Christians in combination the "Right" or "Religious Right" in general. In their "Anti-gay" category they then try to make tenuous connections between the Christian Right/Religious Right which is a mischaracterization as I am not Right or Left and then stretch this even further and group or associate the wingnut Fred Phelps from the Westboro Baptist Maniacs in the same group (guilt by association) through clever manipulation and placement of pictures of Fred adjacent to the article. 

The SPLC makes little effort in differentiating the above categorizations leaving it open for broad and loose interpretation. They have openly mischaracterized an otherwise decent Christian lobbying organization that good Christians donate to by stating that they their "intentions" are to, and I quote: "denigrate LGBT people in its battles against same-sex marriage, hate crimes laws, anti-bullying programs and the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy". I seriously doubt that is so based on some of the people that have been involved with FRC and Focus on the Family including Dr. James Dobson himself who is as close to a decent Christian as this generation is bound to see (Focus on the Family is also considered a "Religious Right" organization by the  SPLC also which they have likened to other unsavory groups elsewhere in their site). The FRC and FotF's intention is to preserve Biblical behavior in society not propagate an unbiblical one. They are trying to show the LGBT lifestyle for what it is...sin. They are not purposely maligning the sinner but trying to establish what is Biblical behavior for society and lobbying for it before immorality steamrolls all of us.

The SPLC make no attempts at differentiation between regular Christians and the likes of Fred Phelps and radicals of other faiths as they are all grouped together on one website. This thereby allows for casual readers readers of the site to accidentally make the leap that, "If one's guilty, they're all guilty" or a  fallacy of composition and fallacy of affirming the consequent. At their base they are also making  logical inference based on fake arguments or fabricated scenarios that do not exist in reality. Straw man arguments. This ironically is the very same thing liberal-minded media doesn't want others doing with this most recent shooting at the FRC...making sweeping generalizations and false misrepresentations. For an organization mostly manned by lawyers, this is pretty sloppy rhetorical language and poor or inconstant logic.

Nor is the sin ever differentiated from the sinner on the SPLC's website when it comes to homosexuality. If you speak out against the sin you are immediately labeled a hater of the person. Any true Christian knows this is not true. It is a shame that there is such unmistakable and obvious double-standard when it comes to biblical morality which is the underlying and mitigating factor in all this. The perpetrators own words condemn him in this situation as it came directly out of his mouth, “it was not about you, it was what this place stands for" or " "I don't like your politics". The very same politics or ideologies the shooter hated...the SPLC hates too. The only difference between the shooter and the SPLC and similar groups is the methodology to silence their opposition. One tried to do it with a bullet, the other does it through strategic rhetoric and the legal system. Both can destroy lives when the mediums or vehicles that they use are misappropriated and misused.

Addendum: 

I have revisited the SPLC web site as of August 18th, days after the event and I do indeed see a post concerning the shooting at the FRC. As I suspected, in a token manner they only generically state that the shooting is a tragedy and in a casually generalized manner denounced "all violence" before launching into the real intent of their article. Their intent was to malign the comments made by the FRC after the shooting which specifically blame the half-truths and mischaracterizations by the SPLC as the mitigating factor for the shooting. The very type of thing I tried to initially explain when I originally most this article...that hate is indeed a two-way street and can spur individuals to violence. The SPLC has again attempted to re-frame the argument and make this an "anti-gay" issue. The response from the SPLC wasn't so much a denunciation of the violence as it was another purposeful mischaracterization of the FRC as being haters of homosexuals themselves which is patently not true (while simultaneously loosely grouping all Christian groups together on their web site as the "religious right". This in liht of the fact that the FRC has repeatedly stated that they do not support the hate crime tactic because it is pro-homosexual but rather on the grounds that the FRC opposes all hate crime laws on principle, calling them "Thought Crime laws," and has singled out the sexual orientation portion of hate crime laws as particularly objectionable from a biblical point of view.

The SPLC is still doing what it does best with its entourage of unbiblcial lawyers. They purposely twist words, decontextualize statements, dilute ideas and misuse tragedies to benefit their views.  Sadly, this is exactly what the SPLC is accusing the FRC of doing as is clear in their most recent post about this incident:

"Perkins and his allies, seeing an opportunity to score points, are using the attack on their offices to pose a false equivalency between the SPLC’s criticisms of the FRC and the FRC’s criticisms of LGBT people. The FRC routinely pushes out demonizing claims that gay people are child molesters and worse — claims that are provably false. It should stop the demonization and affirm the dignity of all people.

Right within SPLC's own closing statement they are attempting to fraudulently reframe the argument to be about the supposed wrong-doing of the FRC as being anit-gay. They then use incendiary comments like "demonize" to solicit emotional reaction. In terms of rhetoric fallacies they are Appealing to Pity and Appealing to Fear, Appealing to Ignorance, among others. The SPLC also states that the FRC's claims are "provably false". They have decontextualized and taken quotes from an Executive Summary written by Peter Sprigg of the FRC that links homosexuality to other sinful behavior such as pedaphila. In removing it from its context is paints Sprigg in a negative light. What the SPLC completely fails to tell its readership is that the data Sprigg uses...comes directly from the Pentagon therefore from a reliable source. Ironically, the SPLC cites none of their sources unlike Sprigg and the FRC who do so and if they did it is not readily available. Shoddy and unschooled work from supposedly educated lawyers. Sadly, the SPLC having little to defend their position on revert to ad hominim attacks on the members of the FRC itself and when they dredge the waters all they find is men defending biblical views through protest such as anti-abortion outside abortion clinics and the like. They also try to draw false connections between members of the FRC and other unsavory groups such as White Supremacists, just as they do elsewhere in their site.

To conclude this addendum,  this shooter of the FRC is a terrorist even in the eyes of the US government who defines terrorism as:

"... as a dangerous action that is intended to intimidate or coerce a "civilian population," influence government policy by intimidation or affect a government's actions by "mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping." Terrorism can be the work of one isolated individual, or a larger network of criminals.

"Anti-Gay | Southern Poverty Law Center." Southern Poverty Law Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Aug. 2012. <http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/ideology/anti-gay>.

Tucker, Eric. "News from The Associated Press." News from The Associated Press. N.p., 16 Aug. 2012. Web. 16 Aug. 2012. 

"Family Research Council | Southern Poverty Law Center." Southern Poverty Law Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Aug. 2012. <http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/family-research-council>.  

Scorched By The Word of God

Below are some ideas from Abraham Heschel's The Prophets. He describes the absolute discontinuity and strange disconnect between a person that is truly attached to God and those of the world. The prophets and those with a prophetic voice are utterly alien to most around them even to those that are in the faith but are comfortable floating around the periphery of the church living as marginal Christians (if they are Christians at all). We sense by reading this and the Scripture included...that the prophet is one who is, by his vocation, distinct from the world but forced deeply into it only to stand out as odd all the more. Close to God but called to sojourn into a hostile and desensitized world. 

Many will claim prophets and those with a prophetic voice are harsh, unloving and lacking in grace but it is the very nature of their calling that makes them this way. Nor does this mean that all who are caustic and lacking in pleasant words are of a prophetic bend (they're tactless). For the prophet, it is what they are and how they've been made. To stop this is to change what they are and what they are made for. It is the very way God has made them to deliver his message in the manner He expects. Not everyone who has a message from God will be well received, just ask people like Isaiah and Jeremiah. His way / דַרְכּ֑וֹ (the way of Him) or the way God wants them (a la Proverbs 22:6) is often demanding on the prophet or one with a prophetic voice. Since this is the case they should deliver the message as it has been expected of them after much prayer, meditation on Scripture and God Himself.

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The two staggering paradoxes in the life of a prophet or those with a prophetic voice are: God's turning to him, and man's turning away from him. This is often his lot: to be chosen by God and to be rejected by the people. The word of God, so clear to him is totally unintelligible to others....

Isaiah 28:9-13 ~“To whom will he impart knowledge, and to whom will he convey a message? Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast? For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little. Nay, but by men of strange lips and with an alien tongue. The Lord will speak to this people, to whom He has said: This is rest; give rest to the weary and this is repose; yet they refused to hear. Therefore the word of the Lord will be to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little; that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, snared, and caught.”

What baffles the prophet is the disparity between the power and impact of God and the immense indifference, unyieldingness, sluggishness, and inertia of the heart. God's thunderous voice is shaking heaven and earth, and man does not hear the faintest sound. The Lord roars like a lion (Amos 3:8). His word is like fire, like a hammer which breaks the rock in pieces (Jeremiah 23:29), and the people go about unmoved, undisturbed, unaware. What to the prophet is like the sun piercing the thickest cloud remains unnoticed by the people.

Isaiah 5:20 ~ “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who put darkness for light, and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.

The prophet is scorched by the word of God-"There is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones" (Jeremiah 21:9), “…but the hearts of the people are asbestos, fireproof. I have become a laughingstock all the day, everyone mocks me…The word of God has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. They refuse to hear the instruction of the Lord. ~ Jeremiah 20:7-8

The central message of the prophets is the insistence that the human situation am be understood only in conjunction with the divine situation. The absurdity of isolating the human situation and treating it in disregard of the divine involvement is exemplified by the self-defeating course of man-made history. Modern interpretations see history as the arena in which man reigns supreme, with the forces of nature as his only possible adversaries. Man is alone, free, and growing stronger. God is either nonexistent or unconcerned. It is human initiative that makes history, and it is primarily by force that constellations change. Man can attain his own salvation.

This view of history, starting with man's consciousness of freedom and sense of sovereignty, arrives at the antinomy of freedom and fate: the frustration and collapse of freedom. Man is not the master of his own destiny. Forces he cannot completely control emerge imperceptibly to stifle him and to defy his intentions, his plans, and his visions. Prophetic reflection begins, we might say, with the abuse and consequent failure of freedom, with the irrationality of human conduct, and it points to God Who stands above history. Man-made history is not history's only dimension. The pathos and judgment of God transcend the human dimension. Great conquerors are seen as mere tools of His mysterious will. Man has choice, but not sovereignty.

Can we hear the crackling of the fire that burns within these types of people. When we come near their flame we feel the heat that flares from them like star burst. The sounds that emanate from their mouths are more akin to snaps and pops that discharge sparks that fly up and outwards...often singeing those bystanders unprepared for the work of the Spirit coming through them. Caustic, cauterizing, searing...but real and truthful. Perhaps too true for mortal ears. Perhaps to truthful for sinful mortal ears.

They are different and they do not march to the beat of the world but rather, they march to the beat of the Word. They march to the cadence and measure beat out by God. This is often why when they speak it has the tone of a large booming drum.

God: Fiend or Friend?

We've all heard these before...

God's a hater

God's genocidal

God's cruel

God's mean

God's  ___ place negative adjective here ___*

Blah Blah Blah

This is what everyone should've read from the Bible....

[ John 15:14 ~ "You are my friends if you do what I command." ]

We hear it all the time from folks that do not know their Bible well or read it often:

“How can God supposedly be such a loving God, when He allowed genocides?”

When people read the story of the Amalekites they usually chalk-up the call to eradicate them as an overreaction on God’s part or an overly hostile and angry God, just as the heretic Marcion did in the early second century. This is a telling comparison…that people who think like Marcion think the same way as a heretic did.

Here’s the thing though, the statements about wiping them out comes multiple times and for a while, God's people can't seem to get these people dead enough for God's purposes. As the flawed vessels they are, they continue to fail in this task. As with everything else...it all works out to God's glory. It works out if one actually reads the Bible, understands history and educates themselves about God's so-called "genocidal rages" which are in reality justified retribution for horrific and unspeakable evils to children, the elderly and women. Evils that most people casually glance over as just another difficult to understand passage from the Old Testament.

Exodus 17:14 “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.”

Deuteronomy 25:17-18 “Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God.

1 Samuel 15:3 “Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”

Amalek was the grandson of Esau. The Amalekites themselves were cruel and cowardly. In every story in which an Amalekites participate, we see extraordinarily evil people committing cruel acts and doing so in a cowardly manner. They are not noble in their actions.

In Exodus 17:8-16, we learn that the Lord is particularly peeved at the Amalekites and He swore to (v.16) "have war with Amalek from generation to generation." The real crime here is not because the Amalekites attacked the army of Israel. Oh no, they (Deuteronomy 25:18), “met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God” The Amalekites only attacked those who were unable to defend themselves, the weak (think children and elderly) and those unable to keep pace in the desert with their stronger brothers. They attacked the stragglers, those in Israel who were too ill, too weak, or too young to protect themselves. These are the very people that God as a specific heart for in their weakness and downtrodden lives. After this incident the mass of people were broken into tribes and the weaker ones would from that point on, always be in the main body moving along with their tribe (Numbers 2)

As God promised, He beleaguered the Amalekites. They were never friends of Israel nor God because of their wickedness. In Numbers, they fought the Israelites entrance into Canaan. In Judges, they are mentioned several times as Israel's oppressors. When the Amalekites show up in Scripture it is assured they will act as cowardly skunks.

They are finally done away with in…

1 Chronicles 4:43 ~ “And they defeated the remnant of the Amalekites who had escaped, and they have lived there to this day.”

Had Saul carried out his duty as charged earlier in the Bible, they would’ve been wiped off the face of the Earth sooner but all happens to the glory of God anyway. So who was cruel here? God or the Amalekites? The One seeking to right the wrong with justice or the ones committing the unspeakable atrocities? What we learn from the story and context is that the Amalekites had it coming in terms of justice. What we also learn is that people that are brazen enough to make the aforementioned thoughtless comments need to learn to read the Bible better.

The Amalekites nor other people that God smites did what God told them if they were to be His friend. Obey His commands. They did just the opposite and reaped the reward for disobedience (Deuteronomy 28). They are cursed and inevitably...annihilated for their wickedness. ZAP!

So what we see from God is not monstrous and evil behavior but is actually justice due for an unrepentant people. These are the type of people that remain in their sin and refuse to repent. They are therefore worthy only of death and that is what they receive. It is the eventual destination for all that refuse to turn to God…eternal punishment in death, separated from God forever.

The next idea is usually always missed by those that would make the "mean God" accusations against God. The next statements never occur to these types of people because frankly, those naive enough to make the previous accusations are ignorant of the Bible and the truth of God’s amazing patience in the face of exceptionally abominable practices and disobedience.

As was often the case, God was extraordinarily patient, long-suffering and forbearing when it came to people’s sin. Most often (as they usually do today), they confused God’s silence and patience as His final reaction, judgment or even apathy. Just as people will realize today sooner or later, this prolonged patience and silence was only calm before the storm of judgment. In dealing with evil nations in the OT, God often withheld punishment until their wickedness reached a particularly high level or a fevered pitch. He was abundantly patient until sinners had been given over fully to their reprobate nature and depraved minds and literally began thumbing their noses at God in defiance just was we see in the United States and the world today. Year upon year of wickedness and flaunting of sinful behavior meanwhile they are flipping God the middle-finger.

What we see with the Amalekites is that the violence against the Israelites was not the main mitigating factor for the hammer of justice coming down on their heads. It was the overt rebellion against God and their outrageous insolence. It must also be understood that in a Sovereign God’s universe it is actually God who was avenging the Israelites, not the Israelites themselves. It is God who has perfect knowledge, wisdom, justice and the authority to make this type of judgment call against a people. Mankind on the other hand even on their best day do not have the ethical ground to stand on nor the authority to make this judgment without being hypocrites and mockers of God for they themselves are sinners worthy of death.

This being said we should look closer at God’s wrath in these so-called genocidal situations. They are extreme from our point of view but in reality we are all worthy of the same punishment and it wasn’t for Jesus Christ and God’s forbearance we would’ve gotten it already. If we attempt to fully grasp God’s wrath we must remove ourselves from our myopic human presuppositions and points-of-view. We must look at God’s wrath through a divine lens as much as we can as fallen humanity. We need to see the far-reaching implications of God’s wrath and stop viewing it from our pigeonholed viewpoint.

Other than Jesus Christ, the closest we have in terms of the pathos of God when it comes to wrath and anger is through the shrieks and pronouncements of impending doom from the prophets. No pathos or emotion of God is more vehemently denounced by today’s politically dorky society that God’s anger towards sinners. “We can’t preach God’s wrath, it’ll scare people away and we’ll lose church members!” “We can only talk about a loving and accepting God that has open arms for everybody.” …Even though this perception of God is not the God fully described in the Bible. We as humans always see God’s anger as sinister and, well, evil and something that should be inhibited or repressed. It is rare that those quick to pass judgment on God’s motives rarely ever bother to actually read into the reasons for why He is angry in the first place. They usually just assume they know and then fraudulently jump to conclusions and assert that “God is mean”.

What we do find if we read the Bible is a God who: Accumulates anger through human injustices, sin and disobedience. Instead of judging them immediately and react to them on the spot he forebears and the sin ends up becoming accretions adding to God’s anger. Here we see a key element in God’s wrath. It is not an attribute per se as much as it is a manifestation of reaction to existing sin. Otherwise God is indeed love. Wrath is God’s reaction in justice to sin not an actual attribute of God. It is not His essence it is an outward dynamic. Although anger and wrath in the human context is usually wrong and evil we cannot say the same for God. Anger when associate with immorality and malice which are not of God will always be evil but these descriptions don’t apply to God do they? God does not think like man thinks and that’s exactly why we need to get to where God is. Because where we’re at even makes us think improperly about God’s wrath.

Numbers 23:19 ~ “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?”

There are no defects in God’s thinking or God’s justice if He is truly omniscient, omnipotent and Sovereign. Therefore, if he is angered, it is justified. If justified His wrath at some point must be expended or absorbed as in the case of Jesus on the Cross for Christians. The wrath of God is not some errant instantaneous “shotgun blast” or emotional outburst. It is never a spontaneous explosion but rather a slow methodical reaction prompted by the sinful behavior of men. God’s wrath is not only systematic and orderly, it is also meticulous, voluntary and purposeful, motivated by concern for right and wrong.

It is therefore horribly wrong and thickheaded to identify God’s wrath with evil. It may be evil by association when related to man but never when in relation to God. Only a sinfully wicked and reprobate mind would make this assumption anyway. A mind far from God and therefore not very well versed in the Scriptures.

The irony is that God’s wrath can often be a blessing as in the case of Jesus Christ’s Crucifixion on the Cross. As fire can be harnessed for good to use as a tool to produce positive things when in the right hands, so to it can be used as a weapon and become fatal in the wrong hands. This analogy applies to wrath when wielded by man…it is usually a weapon and evil. When applied to God it is a tool or energy steered for righteousness and holy purpose. Anger in God’s reality is never in isolation either. It is an a homogeneous whole that also includes justice, righteousness, love and all of God’s other infinite attributes. No so for man. To say the least, man is wanton, partial, unbalanced and frankly…scatterbrained and crazy compared to a perfect God. God on the other hand is benevolent, perfectly balanced and orderly.

God’s wrath is always in reaction to wayward man otherwise there would be no divine wrath. Why does God do this? Because He loves and wants what’s best for His creations especially the ones bestowed the greatest honor…of being created in God’s own image.

One last thing that needs to be mentioned is God’s sustained silences in the face of pronounced evils. His silence is not apathy. One of the biggest evils in the world is apathy so this attribute can never be attributed to a holy God. Indifference to evil is even more insidious than evil itself and therefore more evil than evil. It is a silence that makes evil not only possible but allows it to thrive. This is a sin that all people are very guilty of. Most of us are and won’t even acknowledge and admit this fact. God on the other hand is not apathetic in his silence, if anything He is immensely concerned. Him giving is only Son should’ve clued us into this fact. No, this silence is not apathy but rather long-suffering and forbearance at a divine level. Even in the face of the Holocaust, the Khmer Rouge, The Great Leap Forward, Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Antiochus Epiphanes, etc.

The patience of God means restraint of justifiable anger. The patience of God means another chance at salvation for a wayward person flirting with damnation. We should be thankful He is so patient.

We should be so thankful that He is forgiving and forgives those that truly repent of their sins. We must never forget that at some point forbearance ceases to be a blessing and switches over to being a curse. This is especially true when God’s patience is so great that we are given over to our sins which in the end…become their own punishments…our own tortures.

In the end God’s expenditure of His wrath is always followed by a call to return to Him. We are never scorched by the heat of God’s wrath without a glimmer of hope that we may return to the fold if we turn around and repent. If people will only turn from their evil and wicked ways and correct their conduct to be in alignment with God and obedient…there is still hope. There is still and avenue of return. If not, once they're dead…its over and they are eternally condemned.

So the next time you see people experiencing what appears to be God’s wrath, or you yourself are, perhaps you should be thankful. The fact is you are still alive and have a chance to repent.

Perhaps that is the main purpose of the wrath to begin with…don’t you think? On the eternal scale of things, sometimes God expending His wrath is good for some people that, up to this point…just haven’t gotten the message. For people like that it could be worse…

Infinitely worse, or should I say eternally worse?

Partitions: Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth

As A Whole

The Word of God comes to us as a whole and it comes in two parts. The first part written in manuscripts that are mostly in Hebrew and the rest in were in Aramaic (Ezra and parts of Daniel). The second half comes to us in Koine Greek manuscripts. All of these languages were the languages of the common man. The blue collar so to speak. God gave his word in the language of the mostly humble people or common folk. Two different languages tied together by a silent Inter-Testamental period between about 450 BC and 4 BC. The testament divisions are of God as it is God and His prophets that go silent after Malachi until the writings of the New Testament begin. They are not human divisions. They are divine.

Up to the second century AD the term "Old Covenant" was used by the Greeks to describe the Hebrew Bible. When Jerome wrote it, this passed into the Latin Vulgate as "Vetus Testanentum" from which our English term" Old Testament" was derived. So likewise the Greek portion would be referred to as the New Testament. Regardless, the names are not divinely inspired.

Book Partitions

When we break down the Bible into distinct books we begin to see the element of humanity become visible even though we know that the inspiration is divine. Books of the New Testament. are generally broken down into five categories: the Gospels, the Acts, the General Epistles, Paul's Epistles, and the Apocalypse. The Epistles themselves can be further broken down into epistles which are directed to groups of people like Romans and Corinthians and letters which are directed to individual people like Timothy and Titus. The specific order of these groups varies depending on the source manuscript.

Chapters & Verses

The current division of the Bible into chapters and the verse numbers within the chapters has no basis in any ancient textual tradition. They are medieval and early Christian inventions. They were later adopted by many Jews as well, to act as technical references within the text.

Stephen Langton (1150 - July 9, 1228) was Archbishop of Canterbury and is believed to be the one who divided the Bible into the standard modern arrangement of chapters. He was not the first to attempt divisions for reference in the text but it is his that stuck. While Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro is also known to come up with a systematic division of the Bible (between 1244 and 1248), it is Langton's arrangement of the chapters that remains in use today. Hugo de Sancto Caro used Langton's chapters and added subdivisions which he indicated by letters. Robert Estienne (1503 - September 7, 1559), known as Robertus Stephanus in Latin or Robert Stephens found these letters inadequate and introduced numbers in their place in his Greek Testament of 1551. This apparently is the origin of our verse-divisions, which were first introduced into the English Version known as the Geneva Bible (1560), and then into our Authorized Version in 1611. As can be expected, these verses do not always match up with those of the Hebrew Bible.

In the end it must be understood that chapter divisions and verse are not inspired. It must be understood how chapters and verse are modern, and human (and therefore) devoid of all divine authority. Conversely, they are most extremely useful for purposes of reference but we must be extremely careful never to use them for interpretation, or for doctrinal teaching. The breaks seldom accord with the breaks required by the Structure, context or setting. In some cases there have been really poor breaks put into the text that have cause lasting confusion such as the "the scribes who devour widow’s houses" in Luke 20:45-47; Luke 21:1-4. An improper division or break should be understood as any place they were put into the text and they interfere with proper continuity or understanding of the text. This happens in a few places in the Bible as mentioned above.