The impression

We have all heard the saying about making a good first impression.  I would have to say that at this point in history, and many other times as well, Islam is not making a good first, second or third impression.  Right now, accurate or not, when people hear "Islam", they think "terrorism". 
Much closer to home, we should be asking the question about ourselves.  If we have taken the name of Christ upon ourselves, what impression do people have of us and of Christ, through us?
It seems to me that both Scripture and church tradition teach that our one goal should be love.  Wouldn't it be absolutely wonderful if people, when they heard our name, thought "For all his faults, I know that guy really cares."

From a position of strength

It may seem odd but the logic works.  It may not always be in our best interest to be healthy and/or wealthy.  My thought process goes like this.  First, when we are comfortable, we tend to become distracted and temporally focused.  We all have things that we like and like to do.  When everything is going our way, it seems that we tend to default to enjoying ourselves.  If we have extra money, we often think to buy something that we have been wanting.  If we have extra time, we often blow it on some form of entertainment.  If we are sleeping well, have abundant strength and health, we often focus on the things that make us even more so.
But when you look back over this list, we can see that love of God and love for neighbor aren't in the mix. 
On the other hand, when we are sick, we are forced to consider just how frail and weak we actually are.  We are forced to consider eternity and our position before God.
When we are poor, we are forced to trust in the mercy of God.  We are forced to depend upon his hand for our daily bread and not our own debit card.
When we are young, strong and seemingly invincible, we forget just how short life actually is.  When we are old, tired and spent, we can look back over our lives and pray that God will have mercy on our foolishness, short sightedness and self centeredness.
My point is not to endorse poverty and sickness, but to simply remind us that true reality is a life lived to the glory of God, not a life of distraction in a vain and empty world.

That's entertainment

One of the things I have been ruminating upon, as of late, is that of distraction.  It seems that distraction is the American way.  Find something that you like, that lets you escape, at least for a little while, so you do not think about/worry about, all of life's concerns.
Of course, this is not a Christian action.  While we should never worry about anything, we should never try to leave reality, as a response to the troubles that are common to all men.
So what about entertainment?  I have found that any entertainment, whether music, movies, art, poetry, etc., if perceived correctly, can be used to draw is closer to God and closer to valuable thought.  This is true even for the ugly things in film or reality.  As an example, I have enjoyed the Insidious movies.  While they are of the horror genre, they are valuable because they can (and should) move us to consider: death, eternity, responsibility for sin, the things that evil is actually capable of and what is true about life after death.
The movie had much that was wrong, but it also had some that was right and thought provoking.
The same can be said of music.  What is being said?  What worldview is held by the composer/performer that would move him to create such a piece?  Are they responding to something?  Is that response good and right?
In short, we need to use all the time we have in some sort of valuable way.  We should never let our minds/hearts be drawn away by the empty or evil.

"Do you want fries with that?"

A silly illustration, I know, but my point is a simple one.   Why do we think that we have a smorgasbord of options in regards to our religious practice?  Do we seriously think that worship is rightly done when it is something that moves US?  Do we choose what doctrines we believe to be true because they seem right to us?
If we go back to the first century church, i.e., the church under the apostles' direction, do we seriously think that each was doing what they thought right?  Of course not.  Each church was started by an apostle and moved in a certain direction with certain doctrines.  Any questions were passed to the apostles for clarification.
And later on, when questions or controversies arose, an ecumenical council was formed to answer the question.  The answer was another question that is, "what has the church always/believed?"
This is the question we should ask now.

"Hey, how are you?"

This question really bothers me.  We hear this, from a wide variety of people, multiple times a day.  But in nine times out of ten, they don't really mean it.  I'm not suggesting that the ones asking the question don't really care (though that may be the case), the question has become a social norm devoid of normal meaning.
I've actually read that only a "bore" would answer this question literally.  If this is actually the case or not, it is pretty sad that a question of genuine concern has been gutted of meaning. 
In my opinion, let your yes be yes and your no be no.  Let your words mean what the words actually mean, and follow up on them.  If you want to ask that question, let it be known that you want an honest answer and that you actually care about the person giving the answer.
Maybe we could use this as a way to communicate love to someone else.

Considering Job, 1

A friend recently began to muse on Job, the man in the Old Testament that lived through so much suffering.  I thought it might be helpful to give some considerations as to what was going on with Job in his particular situation.

The really get a good understanding of Job it is important to understand his context.  Job lived around the same time or just before the time of Abraham.  This is important because prior to Abraham, there were no "children of God" in the "Abrahamic Covenant" sense. At this point in history, God has not yet revealed himself to a specific people.  At creation, God revealed himself to Adam, in what we call the Adamic Covenant.  This was a very simple relationship.  Basically, "I am your God, you are my people, here is what is expected of you."  God then laid out the one requirement (don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil yet).  God then communicated that if they did so, death would immediately follow.  

You all know the rest of the story.  From that point onward, mankind began a rapid decline into depravity, ending with global destruction.  God spared the righteous Noah, his sons/daughter-in-laws and the animals.  After Noah got back onto land, God then established the Noahic Covenant.  This was really the same covenant as the Adamic, but with some more details.

Mankind spread and multiplied and also continued to sin.  The story continues up to the time of Abraham, when God called him out of Ur to a promised land.  Most theologians believe that Job lived just prior to Abraham's appearance.

The other thing to consider is that as Job was not in "covenant" with God in a Jewish/Abrahamic manner, Job could not appeal to any special covenantal privileges.  But at the same time, obviously Job has some knowledge of God and some sort of relationship/understanding of God.  We see this in his words and responses to his situation.  

All that being said, the main point is this: we cannot think of Job in modern day, post resurrectional reality.  The world and God's interaction with it, at Job's time, was radically different than it is today.

Fleeing

I wish I could have been there.  During the third century, when Christianity was legalized, large numbers of people started coming into the church.  As this began, the unwritten requirements of the faith, i.e., that what the average Christian was expected to be, began to ease, considerably.
In response to this, a substantial number of holy men and women began to flee to the desert.  In summary their thought was this: Christianity is becoming watered down.  Christianity is being popular and easy.  It is not supposed to be.  Our life should be a hard struggle against temptation and sin. 
I wish I could have been there to see and understand what exactly they were seeing and saying.  What exactly was their argument?
I have to wonder if we are in the same place, here in America, but we are to lazy and sinful to see it and respond?