Numbers 29

What a dull chapter.

What? You were all thinking it. At least, those who read chapter were. God already knows what's on your mind. Why not be honest with him?

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Numbers 28

God didn't demand offerings because he had to be fed, as so many so-called gods did.

He was owed them because he'd told the Israelites to offer them.no other reason was necessary..

The Trinity

One of the most difficult beliefs I'm Christitanity is the doctrine of the Trinity. This is the belief there is one God, exists in three eternal persons.

God Father is the Creator of everything and the one most prominent in the Old Testament. God the Son is the Savior of all and is featured in the New Testament. God the Holy Spirit, probably the most mysterious member of the Trity, isn't front-and-center in the Bible, but has always empowered people to do God's work.

There are three separate gods; there is one God. That one Hasn't appeared in three different forms. He really is three different persons in one God.

How can three be one? I don't know. Anyone who says he does is probably lying..

Numbers 27

Even as to his own death, Moses obeyed God.

Why did God pick a murderer to represent himself? Who knows? But from their first meeting to his last official act, the nearly-constant refrain eas, "Moses did as the Lord commanded".

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Numbers 26

This is a long, dull chapter.

The important thing to remember is that God keeps his word, to those who love him and those who don't..

naturalistic evolution taken to its logical conclusion

my "stupid reflexes" have been taken as possible proof of evolution. I would respectfully disagree. I am alive due to the work of medical professionals, who worked very hard to save my life, but effectively removed me from the gene pool,

Since evolution, as I understand, is all about genetics, I'm pretty much evolutionarily irrelevant at this point. That's why I don't believe my stupid reflexes are proof of evolution. Since they don't help me pass on genetic material, they're irrelevant.

So is most of what humanity does, in fact. If all your time isn't being spent staying alive and producing children, it's being wasted. The model for humanity isn't God, but stud bull.

That's what evolutionary theory would call truth.

Naturalistic evolution -- that is,evolution without a gluing intelligence; what most people mean by "evolution" -- is ultimately nihilistic. It leaves no room for a God, and thus no room for hope. It has nothing to say to those of us dissatisfied with the world as it is. There's  no point working to improve things if the people we're trying to help are just going to be replaced by the next generation, who may or may not Berber.

Nihilism is just a fancy way of saying there's no point to anything. It's a kid's philosophy. It's an adolescent saying that over and over so he doesn't have to hear anything he doesn't like, and because he's an adolescent he doesn't like anything.

Some will say that I only write these things because I hate science, but that's not true. I love science, and am very thankful for the good it's done. But this form of evolution isn't science. It's not observable and not repeatable in a laboratory. It can't be proven by the scientific method.

For many years I tried to believe two irreconcilable things. I'm glad I had to choose.

Numbers 25

every priest after Phinehas was his descendant.

Not because Phinehas cared about Phinehas, but because he cared about God.

Review: STOP ASKING JESUS INTO YOUR HEART by J. D. Greear

As an evanfelist and someone who loves the Bible, I hate the sinner's prayer. There's simply no biblical warrant for "asking Jesus into your heart". Before you throw Revelation 3.20 at me, read it in context, it's addressed to professing Christians.

I went into this book thinking that it was a refutation of that unbiased mindset. Instead, it was about assurance of salvation. It's still a very good book.

Greear writes well, though not astoundingly so,and the book is strongly biblically-based. Ironically, the part with the least biblical support was the part that spoke most strongly to me.

For years I have been wondering if I should get rebaptized. I was dunked when I was 20, about ten years before I truly became a Christian. Since then, I've heard -- and said -- for years that if you weren't saved when you were baptized, you just got wet. Is this right?

This isn't the place to debate all the issues surrounding baptism, but Greear's answer is a simple no, and after much thought and prayer, I tend to agree. Regardless of your opinion on that subject, I recommend this book

Numbers 24

Balaam could speak the word of God because his eyes were open.

It will shock some people, but this isn't the real world. I know it will because I've met plenty of professing Christistians who are perfectly fine with doing the opposite of what God has revealed in his word because they live in the "real world".

I'm sure Balaam understood. In the end, this world doesn't matter. We don't mater. Only God matters.

Numbers 23

Balaam was not an Israelite, he wasn't a descendant of Abraham, as far as we know. He was apparently just some Aramean through whom God spoke.

And he paid attention to every word.

a correction

Last week I said that 2Maccabees was prophetic. It isn't; it's a historical book that focuses on Judas Maccabeus and his followers. That's what I get for doing this from memory.

I should also note that I used the KJV Apocrypha, mostly because I had it handy. There are a couple of different presents of the Apocrypha. Some Bibles just have the books as part of the Old Testament, and others have them in a separate section, There are many versions, also, ranging from that of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which as I understand it has the largest Apocrypha, to the many Protestant groups that accept none of these books.

I belong to one of those groups, the Southern Baptist Convention. So why spend so much time on books I don't believe are Scripture? For two reasons. The first is that these Wednesday posts are mostly written to new Christians. They've most likely seen, heard about, or been given a Bible with more than 66 books. I feel I have a duty to address that.

The second reason is that I've always been interested in the Apocrypha. Why? The answer is simple, and it's the same reason I've spent time learning about Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and a thousand other things I don't believe: I like to learn. I'm curious, especially about religion, and there was so much misinformation from all sides regarding the Apocrypha that I wanted to find out the truth for myself.

I don't read Greek or Hebrew, but I know of many who do who are generally trustworthy. I depend on them, and on the many who have gone before, when I say the Apocrypha is good reading, but not the word of God.

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Numbers 22

God will let people seem to have their own way, only to show it was all part of his plan anyway.

Maybe the moral is "don't make God mad".

Numbers 21

What was the Book of the Wars of The Lord? I don't know. Does it matter?

If God wanted us to have it, we'd have it.

What Chris thinks about all this

My wife's been asked what I think about being ing in this condition. The implication is that I don't want to live like this, and that Lora's only keeping me around for selfish reasons.

Let me assure you that part of that is correct. I don't want to be like this. No one in his right mind would.

As it stands, I'm here now. God will take me when he's ready. Until then, my job is to try and build his kingdom, and I intend to do a good job.

Or, as the apostle Paul put it, "to live is Christ and to die is gain,"

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Numbers 20

God had a certain way he wanted things done, and the Israelites refused to go along. They rebelled and complained every chance they got 

God still took care of them anyway..

Review: COMPETE WORKS by Aeschylus

One thing I'm trying to do is to read through the first Great Books series, published back in the 1950s by Encyclopaedia Britannica.  I made it through .The Odyssey (good) and The Illiad (bad), and remembered that after that came four playwrights: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Eurpides, and Aristophanes. So far, they've  been kind of ugly.

There are seven extant plays by Aeschylus, and all of the are very boring. I think this more than anything else has to do with the age of the plays. They're over 2000 years old, and the fact that I read them them in a Victorian translation didn't help.

Some people swear by Classical Greek dreams, but I found it dull. Not recommended unless you're masochistic, hardheaded, or both.

Numbers 19

Water didn't make a person clean. Ritually, anyway.

The people still needed to wash themselves, because God had told them to. Even after they'd done so, they were still unclean the rest of the day. It was God's grace, not water, that made them clean..

Numbers 18

Every priest was a Levites, but not every Levites was a priest.

It's important to know the difference.

The Apocrypha

Some Bibles have another class of Old Testament books, generally called the Apocrypha. These are later books, which appeared in Greek first, not Hebrew

1Esdras covers the same groound as Ezra and Nehemiah, while 2Esdras is prophetic. The Additions to Esther are exactly what they sound like.  The Wisdom of Solomonand The Wisdoom of Jesus,the Son of Sirach are similar to Proverbs, Baruch and The Epistle of Jeremiah claim to be by Jeremiah's secretary and Jeremiah's respectively, and The Prayer of Manasseh purports to be the prayer of repentance of one of Judah's wicked kings. The Song of the Three Holy Children, The History of Susanna, .and The History of the Destruction of Bel and the Dragon are all additions to Daniel. 1Maccabees tells of a war between Israel and the Greeks, and 2Maccabees is prophetic.

And Tobit and Judith are about individuals.

I've never seen any reason to include them in Scripture. At the same time, there are a lot of good reasons to read them; chief among these is the fact that  any Christian can learn from them.

The Apocrypha is not something the Catholics came up with in the 1500s. Nor is it true that these books were unknown when the apostles wrote. Still, I defer to those wiser and godlier than I. The Apocrypha is good reading, but not the Bible.

Numbers 17

I love that God always does more than he has to.

As an example, he promised to make a staff blossom, That would have been enough. But God didn't just make Aaron's staff bloom, but bud and produce ripe fruit overnight..