Jesus's Last Week - Thursday
It's twenty past midnight while I type this so technically it's Friday. But that's alright because it fits into what it is that I wanted to share. There are a couple of events on Thursday that set everything into motion for what happens Friday. As I write this, almost 2000 years ago Jesus was praying in the garden. By 1am Jesus will be betrayed by one of his disiples and on his way to Pilate. I must say that studying the timeline and meditating upon it is quite sobering. I want to share some scripture from the book of John regarding Jesus in the garden. I like John's account of Jesus's prayers. Personally because of the detail. The only way that John could have known these prayers is if he was one of the disiples that Jesus asked to wait with him in the garden. Unfortunately we don't have all of Jesus's prayers because the story is that the disiples fell asleep on Him. So at least we have what John heard before he dozed off. Or did he? I'm mearly speculating on this. The verses are John Chapter 17 verses 20-26. Earlier in the chapter Jesus prays for himself and the suffering he must endure. Then he prays for his disiples and the purity of the church. My emphasis is on the third prayer in the chapter which conserns us! Yes! Nearly 2000 years ago a little past midnight (as I type this) Jesus was praying for you and I. Jesus was praying that we be as one. That we don't allow petty differences get in the way of our love for one another. Jesus prays that through our faith in Him we may show the world what it means to be in Christ, to be a Christ follower. Jesus made God known to the world and through us we too have the opportinity to show the world the love of God. Denominations don't bother me as much as they used to. I've come to understand that God has given us the freedom to worship him in many different ways so as long as it is in spirit and in truth. Just like Jesus told the samaritan woman, if we worship with our hearts then it doesn't matter where we go or what building we worship in. The differences that I believe keep us apart stem from ignorance, pride and many other personality conflicts that sometimes hid themselves in doctrine or theological discourse. Most of the time it's just man placing themselves before Christ. Please take time to pray Christ's prayer in the garden. Pray that we may be as one and not allow ourselves to get in the way of what truly matters. Pray that we show the world the love of God through our love for one another. Pray that we accept our brothers and sisters of other denominations as children of God. Love one another just as Christ loved us.
I look foreward to sharing Friday with you.
Friday, April 14, 2006
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
4-12-06
Jesus's last week...
I know I said that I would post my views and studies on Christ's last week. The thing is that I've gotten so involved in the scriptures that I'm a bit overwhelmed with it right now. There is so much to study. So I decided that I would at least focus on Thursday and Friday. Since we all have Good Friday off for classes I thought it would be a nice thing to write about.
I've been flipping back and forth through the four gospels. That's what has me hung up right now. All four were written for different audiences. Two were written by witnesses and the other two by men who investigated the events. Sometimes things blurr together and other times the gospels compliment one another. I can't say that I find anything I would call contradictory. A contradiction would be if one gospel says an event occured and the other gospel says it didn't. None of the gospels do that. Instead they speak of events but each author took liberties with what details they felt were important in describing the event. For example, if you look at the account of what happened at the tomb on Sunday, you will find that the gospel accounts of events do not contradict. What makes them different is whether or not the author decided to name every woman who was at the tomb or whether to mention only Mary.
The scriptures are divinely inspired but yet written by men. I don't see a biblical superman writing a gospel for us mere mortals but instead I see men who took the time to share with us their account of touching the divine. I find the gospels deeply personal, divinely inspired and truly human.
I know I said that I would post my views and studies on Christ's last week. The thing is that I've gotten so involved in the scriptures that I'm a bit overwhelmed with it right now. There is so much to study. So I decided that I would at least focus on Thursday and Friday. Since we all have Good Friday off for classes I thought it would be a nice thing to write about.
I've been flipping back and forth through the four gospels. That's what has me hung up right now. All four were written for different audiences. Two were written by witnesses and the other two by men who investigated the events. Sometimes things blurr together and other times the gospels compliment one another. I can't say that I find anything I would call contradictory. A contradiction would be if one gospel says an event occured and the other gospel says it didn't. None of the gospels do that. Instead they speak of events but each author took liberties with what details they felt were important in describing the event. For example, if you look at the account of what happened at the tomb on Sunday, you will find that the gospel accounts of events do not contradict. What makes them different is whether or not the author decided to name every woman who was at the tomb or whether to mention only Mary.
The scriptures are divinely inspired but yet written by men. I don't see a biblical superman writing a gospel for us mere mortals but instead I see men who took the time to share with us their account of touching the divine. I find the gospels deeply personal, divinely inspired and truly human.
Monday, April 10, 2006
4-10-06
Finished the Davinci Crap...
Ya know what the strange part about the book is...It's pretty darn good! I think the appeal people have to the story is all the riddles that have to be solved. It was actually rivetting and fun to continue reading to find out if they solve the puzzles. The other thing is that the characters were fleshed out enough for you to enjoy them. I was quite impressed. Except for about 20 pages of the most outrageous and blatantly false information conscerning Christianity, the book was enjoyable.
An example of Dan Brown's falty research is where he refers to the council of Nicea when they voted on Christ's diety. In the book he has one of the characters say that it was a close vote. This is historically false. The council voted on Christ's diety 300-3. Could someone please tell me how that can be close? What a lot of peole don't understand is that the Christian leades at this meeting were not coming up with new ideas and creating a new organized religion for Rome. They were coming together to solidify concepts and theologies that the church already believed, thus making it official. Before that Paul's letters and writings the early church considered divinely inspired were circulated between the provinces.All in all I think the book was pretty good. I am knowledgable of church history and authenticity of the bible so I knew when Dan Brown was full of crap and when he wasn't. The problem I have with this book is that not everyone is a theologian or adept at biblical authenticity. The book makes claims that lead people astray or doubt their faith. I consider that dangerous.
Ya know what the strange part about the book is...It's pretty darn good! I think the appeal people have to the story is all the riddles that have to be solved. It was actually rivetting and fun to continue reading to find out if they solve the puzzles. The other thing is that the characters were fleshed out enough for you to enjoy them. I was quite impressed. Except for about 20 pages of the most outrageous and blatantly false information conscerning Christianity, the book was enjoyable.
An example of Dan Brown's falty research is where he refers to the council of Nicea when they voted on Christ's diety. In the book he has one of the characters say that it was a close vote. This is historically false. The council voted on Christ's diety 300-3. Could someone please tell me how that can be close? What a lot of peole don't understand is that the Christian leades at this meeting were not coming up with new ideas and creating a new organized religion for Rome. They were coming together to solidify concepts and theologies that the church already believed, thus making it official. Before that Paul's letters and writings the early church considered divinely inspired were circulated between the provinces.All in all I think the book was pretty good. I am knowledgable of church history and authenticity of the bible so I knew when Dan Brown was full of crap and when he wasn't. The problem I have with this book is that not everyone is a theologian or adept at biblical authenticity. The book makes claims that lead people astray or doubt their faith. I consider that dangerous.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
4-09-06
The Davinci Crap Chapters 1-33
As you've seen on my blog subject I've read up to chapter 33 in the Davinci Code. I must say that I was kept intrigued by the secret codes and the game that had to be played to find the special cult key that would lead the main characters to the supposed "truth".
Just to give those that hadn't read the book yet a Bob review. Some dude named Langdon is a Harvard professor who specializes in pagan symbols. He's in Paris giving a lecture when some old guy at a museum gets shot in the stomach after telling the albino guy (Silas) where to find the special key stone. One thing leads to another and Langdon is brought to the museum to look at a puzzle left by the old man that was shot. The puzzle is the old guy laying naked on the floor with a pentegram drawn in blood on his chest.
Well in comes Sophie. You find out that the dead old guy is her grandfather. She's a cryptographer. She helps Langdon solve the puzzle. They figure out that naked old men on the floor of museums look like the Davinci's Vitruvian Man piture. The rest of the puzzle are amagrams that spell out "The Mona Lisa" and "Madonna of the Rocks" They both check out these pictures while on the run from French police (yeah real scary!) and find that the naked old man left Sophie the special secret pagan key!!!!
That's the gist so far. I had to overlook some of Dan Brown's theological concepts because they were pretty outrageous. But if you're gonna write a blasphemous book demeaning Christ I guess you have to distort and lie somewhere. Brown starts by assuming that the divine feminine was stamped out of the world by a patriarchial Catholic church. The divine feminine could be called the goddess or mother earth if you want to use those terms. What Brown seems to not understand is that the divine feminine is alive and well in the Catholic church. Brown is willing to concede that pagan symbols are used in Catholic churches but he's not willing to concede that pagan theology was absorbed into the Catholic chuch as well. To back up his claim of a masculine religion is his liberal use of numbers when it comes to women killed in the inquisition time periods. He numbers 5 million but most historians quote a few hundred or thousand at the most.
To get back to pagan theology in Catholic doctrine I must return to the divine feminine. It's alive and well in the Catholic's seeming ongoing obsession with the virgin Mary. Mary represents the feminine side of Christianity and of God to many Catholic historians and theologians. If Dan Brown's assumptions are true that the Catholic church stamped out the feminine aspect of spirituality, then why the obsession with Mary?
I hope this question is answered later in the book. I'll keep you posted on the rest of the story....
As you've seen on my blog subject I've read up to chapter 33 in the Davinci Code. I must say that I was kept intrigued by the secret codes and the game that had to be played to find the special cult key that would lead the main characters to the supposed "truth".
Just to give those that hadn't read the book yet a Bob review. Some dude named Langdon is a Harvard professor who specializes in pagan symbols. He's in Paris giving a lecture when some old guy at a museum gets shot in the stomach after telling the albino guy (Silas) where to find the special key stone. One thing leads to another and Langdon is brought to the museum to look at a puzzle left by the old man that was shot. The puzzle is the old guy laying naked on the floor with a pentegram drawn in blood on his chest.
Well in comes Sophie. You find out that the dead old guy is her grandfather. She's a cryptographer. She helps Langdon solve the puzzle. They figure out that naked old men on the floor of museums look like the Davinci's Vitruvian Man piture. The rest of the puzzle are amagrams that spell out "The Mona Lisa" and "Madonna of the Rocks" They both check out these pictures while on the run from French police (yeah real scary!) and find that the naked old man left Sophie the special secret pagan key!!!!
That's the gist so far. I had to overlook some of Dan Brown's theological concepts because they were pretty outrageous. But if you're gonna write a blasphemous book demeaning Christ I guess you have to distort and lie somewhere. Brown starts by assuming that the divine feminine was stamped out of the world by a patriarchial Catholic church. The divine feminine could be called the goddess or mother earth if you want to use those terms. What Brown seems to not understand is that the divine feminine is alive and well in the Catholic church. Brown is willing to concede that pagan symbols are used in Catholic churches but he's not willing to concede that pagan theology was absorbed into the Catholic chuch as well. To back up his claim of a masculine religion is his liberal use of numbers when it comes to women killed in the inquisition time periods. He numbers 5 million but most historians quote a few hundred or thousand at the most.
To get back to pagan theology in Catholic doctrine I must return to the divine feminine. It's alive and well in the Catholic's seeming ongoing obsession with the virgin Mary. Mary represents the feminine side of Christianity and of God to many Catholic historians and theologians. If Dan Brown's assumptions are true that the Catholic church stamped out the feminine aspect of spirituality, then why the obsession with Mary?
I hope this question is answered later in the book. I'll keep you posted on the rest of the story....
Saturday, April 08, 2006
4-08-06
Trying to read the Davinci Code
The Davinci Code came out in paperback so I decided to buy it. I pretty much know the supposed "facts" behind the book but I decided if I was gonna blast a book I must first read it.
I'm through chapter 2 right now. I'll probably be blogging about the "divine feminine" and secret Jesus secrets in tea leaves here in a few days.
I'll keep ya posted.
The Davinci Code came out in paperback so I decided to buy it. I pretty much know the supposed "facts" behind the book but I decided if I was gonna blast a book I must first read it.
I'm through chapter 2 right now. I'll probably be blogging about the "divine feminine" and secret Jesus secrets in tea leaves here in a few days.
I'll keep ya posted.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
4-05-06
Special Easter Treat!!!!
Current mood: content
With Easter coming up I thought it would be kinda cool if I shared something with you. Starting with Palm Sunday I will be posting as either a blog or a bulletin the accounts of Jesus's last week. Some of you will be familiar with the stories of Jesus running the moneychangers out of the temple, His parables about the wedding banquet and cursing the fig tree. I will have some commentary from myself with a little help from John Piper (www.desiringgod.org).
There's a lot of stuff going around about Jesus of Nazareth especially this time of year. One magazine says he didn't really exist. A best selling novel says he was an ancient "Martin Luther King" who challenged Rome for social justice, faked his death and ran of with Mary Magdeline to France only later to be deified by a secret organization (phew!). Some just believe that he was a good man who legend surrounds. But whatever your take, I hope you find my treck through Christ's last week enlightening and it makes you question.
Expect the first one posted Palm Sunday.
Current mood: content
With Easter coming up I thought it would be kinda cool if I shared something with you. Starting with Palm Sunday I will be posting as either a blog or a bulletin the accounts of Jesus's last week. Some of you will be familiar with the stories of Jesus running the moneychangers out of the temple, His parables about the wedding banquet and cursing the fig tree. I will have some commentary from myself with a little help from John Piper (www.desiringgod.org).
There's a lot of stuff going around about Jesus of Nazareth especially this time of year. One magazine says he didn't really exist. A best selling novel says he was an ancient "Martin Luther King" who challenged Rome for social justice, faked his death and ran of with Mary Magdeline to France only later to be deified by a secret organization (phew!). Some just believe that he was a good man who legend surrounds. But whatever your take, I hope you find my treck through Christ's last week enlightening and it makes you question.
Expect the first one posted Palm Sunday.
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