Jesus and the Cross

     Jesus' death on the cross doesn't really make sense as a sacrifice, but His death to fleshly desires does. We are called to be Christ-like and are called to be living sacrifices, so wouldn't it be safe to venture that Jesus' sacrifice was a living sacrifice? Sacrifice for atonement of sins was a specific practice for the ancient Hebrews and was nothing like what Jesus did for us on the cross. Sacrifice for the Hebrews consisted of choosing an animal without blemishes, projecting their sins onto the animal, slaughtering the animal, and laying it before God. Jesus came and was set before God at His baptism, slaughtered His flesh in the desert when He was tempted by Satan, projected His cleanliness onto us, and rose again because He was perfect in the sight of God.

What Christianity Is: Faith or Works?

     Many people try to separate faith and works thinking that you have to earn God's favor or that just faith in Christ is enough to be a Christian.  Those who believe that we have to earn God's favor tend to be harsh and judgmental towards others.  However, those who believe that we only have to have faith tend to be overly sympathetic and accepting of sinful acts.  What I believe to be the correct choice is the middle ground: faith and works are the only way to Christianity.

The Race of Life

     The Bible uses an analogy of running a race to symbolize our walk with God, but most people don't realize that they aren't racing the rest of humanity, but are actually racing Satan to the end of their lives*.  There is only one winner in this race and the winner gets the prize.  If you win, you bring your soul to Christ, but if Satan wins, he takes your soul**.  Too many people believe that the race is with the rest of the world, but this cannot be true because that would mean that Christ is the only one going to heaven; the Bible is clear about there only being one winner in the race*.  This is the race we call life and now that you know the stakes, what are you willing to do to win?

     Our race is not with the world, but with ourselves.  We are not trying to beat out our friends and family, but we are trying to save ourselves and our family from losing the race to Satan.  We focus so much on seeing others who are better in areas of their lives than we are in ours, but how can we compare ourselves to them when we are not even in the same race.  God has made each and every one of us unique and if you don't believe me, just look at your finger tips.  They are one of the smallest parts of your external body and even they are drastically different from every other person in the world.  If we are unique, then we are meant to be different by God's design and why would His plans and callings for our lives be any less unique***?  How can we compare ourselves to others when our callings are different?  Joe may be the most proficient Biblical scholar that you have ever seen and Jamie may be the best singer you have ever heard, but you may be the best public speaker that they have ever seen.  There are things that you are supposed to do that no other person in the world can do and that is something to marvel at.  God separates you from others, so why should you compare yourself to them?  You are in a different race!

     Now that we see that we are not racing others and are actually facing Satan, the issue of knowing how to beat him comes up.  The weapons of our warfare in this race are not physical, but they are in God.  Our weapons are the knowledge of scripture and the guidance of the Holy Spirit<>.  These weapons are not for use against our fellow man, but are for use against Satan><.  Too many Christians are more concerned with what their brother is doing and not concerned enough with their own path in the race<*>.  I would propose that we stop focusing on others issues and start building up others in Christ so that we all may finish our race first!


*1 Corinthians 9:24-27 -- "24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. 27 No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize."

**Revelation 20:14 -- "14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death."

***Jeremiah 29:11 -- "11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

<> 2 Corinthians 10:2-5 -- "2 But I beseech you, that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: 4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) 5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;"

><Ephesians 6:12 -- "12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

<*>Matthew 7:3-5 -- "3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."

Willful Ignorance: The Plague of Christianity

     A major issue that is plaguing Christianity today is willful ignorance.  Willful ignorance is defined by the Urban Dictionary as, "The practice or act of intentional and blatant avoidance, disregard or disagreement with facts, empirical evidence and well-founded [arguments] because they oppose or contradict your own existing personal beliefs." (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=willful%20ignorance)  Ignorance in itself is not wrong; it is actually impossible not to be ignorant because ignorance is just not knowing something.  Willful ignorance is knowing that you don't know something and refusing to learn about it.  Many Christians today believe that willful ignorance is something holy and that you must be ignorant in order to love God.  They will deny fact and say things such as, "If it's not in the Bible, then I don't believe it!" or "I will not read or listen to anything outside of God's word!".  It's just too bad that they believe that God and his words are limited to the Bible.  Do they not know that all knowledge is knowledge because God made it to be so?  Do they not understand that if they believe in the Bible, then the world around them is all God's words that came into being*?
     If you are truly reading the Bible, then you should know that knowledge is something that we are told to attain.  We are told to seek knowledge and to be wise**.  Many Christians would claim that Paul tells us to forsake knowledge and love***, but he tells us that Jesus is the embodiment of knowledge<>.  Are we to forsake Jesus?  What is happening in Christianity today is that many people are missing the point when Paul forsakes knowledge in the wake of love.  What he is saying is that we are not to use knowledge to make ourselves feel important, but we are to love others and build them up.  He further explains this when he claims that knowledge without love is nothing, however, he doesn't say that you cannot have knowledge along with love.  His point in saying all of this is that if you are standing on knowledge alone, you will fall because people will reject you.  What is knowledge if you cannot share it?  However, if you have love, then people will listen and you will have solid ground to stand on and share your knowledge.
     What Christians need to realize is that knowledge is a part of God because He created it and when they abandon knowledge; they are abandoning a part of God.  How could we know things if God had not first given us the ability to?  I will continue to do everything I can to learn because the more I learn, the closer I get to God!

*Genesis 1

**Nearly all of Proverbs

***1 Corinthians 13:7 & 8:1

<>Colossians 2:2-3

Homosexuality YES/NO

     If you would have asked me what my stance was on homosexuality less than a year ago, I would have been firmly against it.  I thought it totally immoral, and had trouble associating with anyone who liked members of the same-sex.  I was always raised to know that homosexuality was wrong and a horrible atrocity in my right-wing, conservative, Christian home and church.  I actually probably would have agreed with this article that makes my stomach turn now: (http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/franklin-graham-world-vision-doesnt-believe-in-bible.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_1437792219796749_207595_1437797499796221#f1ffe67028).

     If you were to ask me the same question a month ago, I would have given a different, yet similar response.  I have experienced a few gay people in my time at college and at first I was disgusted, but as time went on I became more and more accepting with the help of my wonderful girlfriend.  I was still against homosexuality, but I was rationalizing my hate by accepting these people for who they were and allowing God to change them rather than me spewing hate at them.  At least I got something right at this point.

     Asking me my what my feelings on homosexuality were yesterday would have yielded a very different answer than I had given in the past.  I would have answered that homosexuality is no more wrong than most heterosexuality we have today.  This statement was a huge leap forward in recognizing the ignorance of the people around me in believing that their own sexual lives were somehow superior to those of homosexuals when they were both lustful and sinful acts.  I will admit, I didn't think it was as much of a sin as I did previously, but I still thought it to be a sin.  My standing on this argument was formed by this article: (http://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/03/against-heterosexuality).  Later, I realized that this article wasn't just damning obscene acts of hetero- and homosexuality, but it was promoting only procreation based sex, which damns everyone in the world to gross sexual sin in the authors mind.

     If you were to ask me today, if I believe in homosexuality, I would respond with a resounding, "YES!"  Homosexuality is not only a misconstrued of the 19th century, but is also not demonized in the Bible at all!  The scriptures that gay bashers oh so love to use are not even valid when you truly put them in context.  Even if they were, there are only six verses that support their claims and the other three that they may mention are completely irrelevant.  Do you really think that it is right and just to use six of the thirty-one thousand scriptures (0.01935% of scripture) in the Bible?  Even if you added the other three for some reason, that is still only nine out of thirty-one thousand scriptures (0.02903% of scripture).  Is this really an issue to attack people over?  I can say that today, I am a full supporter of LGBTQ rights and this is the first time I have ever been one.  I feel like a huge weight of spiritual oppression has been lifted off of me and that I can look at things more like Christ and less like the world!  Here is the article that helped to shape my view on this matter: (http://www.thegodarticle.com/7/post/2011/10/clobbering-biblical-gay-bashing.html).

The issues brought up in the previous article are: Genesis 19:1-11, Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13, Romans 1:26-28, and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 & 1 Timothy 1:9-10.

     Genesis 19:1-11 is the story of Sodom & Gomorrah where most people see the moral of the story as abstaining from sexual sin; more specifically homosexual acts.  However, this is not the case.  The moral of the story is that Sodom was evil because it was not hospitable to outsiders, not because it was committing sexual sin.  If Sodom was committing sexual sin, then why would Lot offer up his daughters at all?  He did so because it was better to harm his family, than to be inhospitable to his guests.

"The sin is not about being gay. It is not about non-straight sexual orientation. The sin of Sodom was lacking hospitality, not being just, bullying, hating strangers, not caring for those marginalized.  Funny, they are all things Churches (and individuals for that matter) sorely need to keep in mind and be better at practicing when it comes to how we do or do not welcome LGBTQ folk into our lives. After all, in today's society, who is more marginalized, more bullied, more treated like a “stranger,” than them? Come to think of it, not so funny."

     The Leviticus scriptures are a favorite for the gay bashers as it seems to actually condemn male-on-male sexual activity until you take a closer look at it.  The fact that this is the book where eating birds, pigs, and shell-fish were banned along with cutting your hair in certain places and mixing fabrics is enough to just throw these gay bashing scriptures out of the water immediately, but some Christians cling to these scriptures while they break just about every other rule in the book.

"Scholars have pointed to various reasons for ancient Israel's seeing male-male sex as taboo in Leviticus. It may be the same reason the rhythm method was thought to be wrong in the eyes of God, which presumably is that, as I have mentioned, they thought sperm contained the whole of life (how typically male-dominated-society of them). Therefore, in their way of seeing it, “Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great. If a sperm gets wasted, God gets quite irate.” On the other hand, it may be that they thought it was taboo because it went against their understanding that mixing of kinds, just like the mixing of two kinds of cloth was taboo. Male-male sexual relationships, in that way of seeing things, mixes up their understanding of gender roles.

Whatever the reason, the perspective in these clobber verses were based on an understanding of sex and sexuality that was just as misinformed as their understanding of the earth in relationship to the sun, of fish, of pork and of reasons for stoning children. In our scientific age, it is time to let go of archaic perspectives and start recognizing the things that are truly an abomination in the eyes of God: lacking in compassion and love, exercising judgment against others, and practicing and encouraging hate."

     To further explain the book of Leviticus, I will share another important set of details.

"Homosexual acts were prohibited because they don't produce children. What people need to realize is that these books in the Old Testament were basically a survival manual for a community that was finding itself in conflict with others and frequently "on the run." The whole point of the various injunctions is to ensure the next generation.

Take the dietary injunctions for example. You eat some bad beef, you might get sick. Eat some bad pork or shellfish and you could die, hence the rule to not eat those meats. The injunction against mixing meat and dairy falls in the category of preserving your resources. Both meat and dairy are good sources of protein. If you're eating them together, you're more likely to run out sooner.

Also in the category of preserving your resources is mixing fabrics. It is unnecessary, from a standpoint of survival, to wear clothes of various fabrics. Use one fabric to wear and the other(s) for bartering or for clothing in the future. 

The injunctions regarding keeping oneself clean are self-explanatory when you're in close quarters and need to worry about lice, scabies, etc. 

Now onto the sexual injunctions. The acts that are prohibited are ones that don't produce offspring such as masturbation, sleeping with a woman who is menstruating and homosexuality. As mentioned in the blog post, people at the time thought sperm was it so you didn't want to waste it. People also used to think men had a finite amount of sperm, making being wasteful with it problematic. Of course we know now that isn't the case.

All this is to say that these injunctions existed in a very specific context for a specific group of people, people who had an interest in preserving resources and ensuring the next generation as a means of their very survival. That said, it's ridiculous to exhort people to follow the same rules (or rather carefully selected ones) today in 2012. If one rule is irrelevant today, they all are because we're not in a position where we have to worry about our survival the same way."

     The next scripture is Romans 1:26-28 uses the poorly translated word "natural" and seems to speak against homosexuality.  However, the Greek word here is actually "physikos", which is better translated to "produced by nature" or "the realities of nature".  This means that the Bible is condemning people who commit acts against the nature that they were born with, which would mean that is sinful for a straight man to sleep with a man or for a gay man to sleep with a woman.

"In reality, physikos has more to do with how things naturally occur in God's Creation.  At this point, you may have begun to guess that physikos is based on the same root word from which we get the word “physics” which is, of course, the study of the realities of nature. Conveniently, the way Paul uses physikos here in Romans, it also means something very similar to “the realities of nature.” It is concerned with what is of our nature and not with what is defined as acceptable. That is to say, Paul is concerned with how God created something or someone to be. He is concerned with people going against their nature or in the words of Lady GaGa herself, if they are “born that way” he's concerned with them behaving as if they were not.

That is the sin here in Romans, acting against the very nature of who God created you to be. In this case he seems to be addressing the idea of a same-sex sex act in which at least one of the two are not attracted to someone of the same sex; they just are not born that way."

     The last set of scriptures used in this argument are 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 & 1 Timothy 1:9-10.  There is a huge issue with these two scriptures because they use a word that is nearly impossible to translate, "arsenokoitēs".  This word is generally translated to "homosexual", which doesn't work because it only refers to man-on-man acts.  Some people, then decide to translate it as "sodomite", which is equally absurd because we already abolished the idea of Sodom dealing with sexual sin.

     The next issue with these scriptures is the word "Malakos", which means "soft".  Most people see this as meaning effeminate, but that is an extreme stretch of the word soft as it could mean a fearful man or plenty of other more believable things.

 "Malakos was a word that could be used to refer to things as diverse as men who were weak in battle (or who were “soft”), to men who lived extravagant and pampered lives (or who were... well, “soft”). It was not specifically about sexual relationships. If Paul was actually trying to describe something about a submissive male in a male-male relationship (which is still not the same as homosexuality as we understand it today), it's very likely that he would have used kinaedos, which was frequently used to describe that very relationship. But he didn't. So, stop acting like he was."

     In reading this, it is very clear that what the conservative Christians of today have outlined as anti-LGBTQ is a stretch at best and just an excuse to hate.

The Vicious Cycle - Live Dangerously

    When we are young we are taught to go into the world and to win it for Christ and to love as Christ did, but once we become old enough to do so we are ridiculed for doing it.  We go into non-Christian communities and are told that instead of going into the world, we are to be careful who we associate with.  We open ourselves up to the people who we were taught "need God the most" and are told that it is dangerous to do so.  We treat them as people and show them the love of Christ instead of pushing them away because of their sin and we are told that we are speaking blasphemy.  Can anyone tell me what is wrong with this picture?  What I see is that the leaders in the church today are starting to look a lot like the leaders of the church in Jesus' time.  We are being told that we cannot go into "foreign" land.  We are being told that we cannot associate with non-Christians*.  We are being told that we are supposed to point out other's sins rather than showing them love of Christ.  I refuse to conform to the relapse going on in Christianity and if that means I am living dangerously, then I wholeheartedly accept!
    This leads to the question, "What is living dangerously look like?"  Living dangerously is not being afraid to go into the world!  Living dangerously is not being afraid to befriend the people outside Christianity!  Living dangerously is not being afraid to love the world as Christ did!  We are to love people no matter what they have done.  Many people will use the cliche phrase "love the sinner, hate the sin", but they hate the sinner and the sin with their actions.  It doesn't make any sense to accuse people of breaking a law that they don't even believe exists.  Also, if they don't believe in the Bible, then how can we convert them with it?  People outside Christianity don't accept the Bible as truth, so using it to convert people doesn't do anything because to them the Bible is just a group of myths.  So how do we convert people?  We walk out the love of Christ and show them that Jesus is real through our actions!  People can argue with words, but not action.  You cannot argue with what someone did, you can only accept that it happened and discuss whether it should have happened or not.  I leave you with this: How can we convert people to Christ if we avoid them?

     *John 4