Grace / Law

     The “Grace/Law” picture at first glance conveys a message of Jesus the Christ’s grace being sufficient for all religions and beliefs.  It also shows the law dying on the cross, which would remove the notion of sin in the world.  This is very controversial in Christianity today and there is great criticism between the grace and law messages, as well as all of those in between.  The letters of grace each represent a belief system; the beliefs being Evolution, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Gender Equality respectively.  The cross has the Ten Commandments nailed to each arm representing the law being fulfilled through Jesus’ death.  The cross also reinforces this idea with the words, “The Law Fulfilled” engraved on it.

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.

Genesis Chapter 1

     Genesis chapter one is a very controversial chapter and is commonly targeted by atheists in an attempt to disprove the rest of the Bible.  The thought process seems to be that if you can disprove that God created the world, then you can disprove that God exists entirely.  The issue with this is that they have helped the Biblical creation account more than they have hurt it.  I will follow with an in depth study of Genesis chapter one using the New American Standard Bible, which is agreed upon by most scholars as the most accurate word for word translation from Hebrew/Greek to English that we currently have available.

Jonah and the Whale

     In the book of Jonah we read a story about a man named Jonah who was supposed to go to Nineveh in order to warn them of God's wrath and to urge them to change their ways.  Jonah, however, decides that the people of Nineveh did not deserve God's grace and ought to be damned as a result of their disobedience.  Thinking theses things, Jonah ran from God and took a ship in the opposite direction.  A storm ends up raging over the ship that he was on and the crew starts asking why they are in this storm.  Jonah then admits that he has disobeyed God and he is thrown overboard.  When Jonah is thrown overboard, a whale catches him in its mouth, carries him to Nineveh, and spits him on the shore.  While Jonah was in the whale, he recognizes God's sovereignty and realizes that God showed him grace even when he refused to show the people of Nineveh the same grace.  Jonah, then goes to Nineveh and warns them of God's wrath and they change their ways.

Science or Christianity: Why Not Both?

     We see a common trend between scientists and theologians in the world today and it seems to be a competition of who is right and who is wrong.  This is a major issue because neither side will ever when because they are looking at two separate issues: the scientists are concerned with how and the theologians are concerned with why.  You can't argue against how with why any more than you can argue against why with how.  Imagine two parties examining a mouse trap and the first is studying how the mouse trap is built and how it works, whereas the second is studying why it was built in the first place.  Now lets assume that they come to a realization about how and why the mouse trap was built.  It was built with a block of wood, a spring, and some metal (there are obviously more details, but lets keep it simple) and when a plate is pushed down the spring releases the metal and it smashes into the wood.  The purpose of the mouse trap is to kill a mouse.  Now how ridiculous would it be for the first group to tell the second group that it is not meant to kill mice because it is wood, a spring, and some metal and it only clamps down when it is moved; it would be equally ridiculous for the second group to tell the first that it doesn't clamp down and kill the mice, it just kills them.  Do you see how ignorant this sounds?  This is an extreme example, but it is exactly what is going on today.  The scientists know for a fact that the earth is more than 6,000 years old, but they have no idea why it came to be in the first place and try to use how the earth is more than 6,000 years old to prove that God doesn't exist.  The theologians are just as bad; they try to tell scientists that the world has to be 6,000 years old because God created it.  Neither of these arguments make any sense, but you may say, "The Bible clearly shows that the world is 6,000 years old because Jesus lived 2,000 years ago, Adam lived 4,000 years before that and God says He created the world in 6 days in the Bible.  My response to that is that God does not say anything in the Bible.  The Bible is inspired by God, not spoken or written by God and the Bible even says so itself*.