Saturday, February 27

I once again missed a Saturday as I was down in Central Jersey visiting ORB friends, but I had a great night seeing my friends Pete and Sandi. We got to go to ORB service this morning, and I had lunch with a bunch of buddies at Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Excellent.

So my last post from Friday night was pretty rough. I've been having some internal struggles with that since then, but this morning at Church was helpful. I still have some tough questions that I don't yet have answers to, but as I always forget - I need to wait until I finish this whole thing before I start freaking out. After all, any self improvement is not achieved overnight, and is often achieved through personal struggle, which is definitely what I'm going through. So I just need to keep my chin up and plow through until the end. If I get to the end and I'm still feeling this way, or worse, then I need to do some serious thinking, but for now I will reserve final decisions.

Reading for February 27
Leviticus 20:22-22:16
OK - I think I have a somewhat concrete answer on one of my running questions. That is - what of the Bible can be dismissed because of cultural norms and what should be carried over. I don't have a final answer, per se, but I am starting to see the picture of what it might be. All of this stuff so far in the first three books in the Bible, while it shouldn't be dismissed, it no longer applies. I say it shouldn't be dismissed, because without it, Jesus' sacrifice would mean nothing. I've already somewhat reached this conclusion, but I'm fairly convinced of it now. This chunk of text is what really convinced me:  

¹⁶ The LORD said to Moses, ¹⁷ "Say to Aaron: 'For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. ¹⁸ No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; ¹⁹ no man with a crippled foot or hand, ²⁰ or who is hunchbacked or dwarfed, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. ²¹ No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the offerings made to the LORD by fire. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God. ²² He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food; ²³ yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the LORD, who makes them holy. ^[f] ' "

Basically, if you were born with a deformity, or special need, you weren't worthy of offering anything to God. That, to me sounds incredibly unfair, unjust, and just outright mean. God who created man, rejects them because of a problem they had. While I do believe, based on the text so far, that these problems are a result of original sin and people turning away from God, I don't want to just lean on that as an excuse. Anyway, my point here is - look at all the disabilities God mentions in bold up there. In the New Testament, Jesus interacts with at least one person from each of those disability classifications (except for the damaged testicles, maybe Jesus felt a little awkward about that one). And not just interacts with, but personally touches, heals and loves.

If this doesn't prove my theory about the old way existing to provide a contrast to how Jesus did things, then I am not reading this correctly.

Mark 9:1-29
So my question about what should be dismissed has come somewhat into clarity, but only to be replaced by another one. My new question is this: "When Jesus speaks about 'this generation' and 'you people', is he referring to only the people standing in front of him, or to everyone who would read his words in the future?" The reason I ask is this line:

 ¹And he said to them, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power."

Like, it sounds like he is definitely talking about just those people standing in front of him, as he doesn't say "some who are reading my words," or "future generations who hear these things", he says "some who are standing in front of me" - so does that mean that Jesus predicted the rapture before the end of the generation in which he lived? Obviously it didn't happen, so if he said that and it didn't turn out to be true, that hurts the validity of other things he said...frustrating...

Psalm 43:1-5
I really like this verse here:

 ⁵ Why are you downcast, O my soul?
       Why so disturbed within me?
       Put your hope in God,
       for I will yet praise him,
       my Savior and my God.

David is talking to his soul as it it was another person or entity, separate from him entirely.  Well maybe not completely separate because it seems that for David to praise God, his soul must first put it's hope in God. Or is it he will praise him in spite of his soul not putting its hope in God? Either way, this is a profound and poetic passage.

Proverbs 10:18
Wow, I really like this too:

¹⁸ He who conceals his hatred has lying lips

So to hide your anger or hatred towards someone is considered lying. Maybe this is to persuade us to not bottle up feelings, and not carry around hatred toward something or someone without venting it. But then again, why would God want us to go around saying how much we hate stuff or people?

Or maybe this is a double whammy - you are hating something, which is bad enough, but concealing it is even worse. Interesting. Regardless, I think this is an important verse - as I think there is so much focus on Christians just being nice - in some circles - in other circles, Christians seem to focus on being elitist buttholes. But I think it's important to just be real as a Christian. Not hide your feelings, talk things out, let people know what you're feeling, even if its awkward. Don't be a jerk about it, but don't avoid it either. This is something I could definitely work on improving in my own life.

Alright, caught up. I will finish tonight's reading tonight. Love.