Saturday, June 26

Hey hey. I just went to a street fair in my hometown and took some pictures. Here's a couple of the better ones:

That turtle's name was "Soupy". And he was actually a tortoise, as I heard the owner say about 1000 times. Also, did you know those things live to be 100?! And that at full size it will be 150 lbs?! CRAZY!

Bible time.

Reading for June 26
2 Kings 9:14-10:31
There is a lot going on here. Basically everything that happens is all the descendants of Ahab being killed just as God had promised. Also, the prophets of Baal were all rounded up into a temple and slaughtered. I've been sitting here trying to make a connection to the holocaust without being offensive and I can't really think of anything, except to say that it seems like humanity has an extremely dark history that seems to manifest itself over and over. I'm not in any way saying that the holocaust was any sort of payback or revenge for the violent acts committed in the Old Testament - I'm merely pointing out that as shocking and horrific as it was, we as a species have been doing it for thousands of years.

There is often a debate on the inherent goodness of man is actually instilled from birth, or if it is learned. I think as a Christian, I have to believe that man is broken right from the start otherwise, Jesus' sacrifice would mean nothing. Maybe, as friends have been trying to tell me, I should not be focusing on whether or not God was good, but rather realizing and accepting that man is bad. We as a people are awful - all of us. My friend Kaas said to me once, "the ground is even at the foot of the cross." Meaning we are all sinners, some sins, such as war crimes against humanity, appear worse than others, but I have always been of the belief that a sin is a sin. Killing someone or telling a white lie both count as negative one point. But Jesus made it so that scorecard didn't even exist.

The thing that's making me think though is this: Jesus' sacrifice changed nothing within us. We are still the same, sinful people that commit the same stupid sins and engage in the same pointless, pissing-contest wars that we did back in the time of Ahab. Couldn't Jesus' death have done more than absolve us of sins? What if his death removed whatever was in us that made us the way we are? What if, by him dying on the cross, he actually saved the world, rather than just saving our souls for the afterlife? I'm not discounting what he did, I'm just mulling around the significance of it, and if it could have had a more profound, physical impact on the world. I can definitely say that his death ceased the punishment dealt on the world by God, but we are still screwing each other over. We are still killing people for no reason. We are still overlooking the homeless and oppressed and in some cases, oppressing people ourselves. I suppose that original sin had a much larger impact on us than I thought...there doesn't seem to be any escape from it...and that was quite a ramble...

Acts 17:1-34
Some cool stuff in here. The disciples are continuing their tour of the Middle East, spreading the message of Christ. I would like to think of them today as a band in a van. Driving from town to town, proclaiming their controversial message and then high tailing it out of there before they were killed. Do you mind if I share a humorous story quickly? Cool.

So when I was in a band, we were on our annual summer tour and we found ourselves playing at a bar in the panhandle of Florida, I believe it was Tallahassee. This was in the summer of 2004 and the governor of NJ had just resigned and had admitted to having a homosexual affair with another man. In the van we would often make jokes about being from the "gay state" and how other bands would make fun of us. (Please don't hate on me too hard - I wasn't as open minded at that time.) Well, we played this show and as we finished our last song I said (and I still cringe every time I recount this) "Thanks, we're from NJ. Sorry about our governor."

This did not end well. After we had loaded our gear back into the van, we found that our merch table had beer poured all over it, and someone had signed our mailing list with "Thanks. I'm gay." Oh boy. I was starting to feel like a pretty big butthole. So we stayed the night in a hotel around the corner, and the next morning we returned to our van to find another, large, intimidating black van sitting in the parking lot. There were two guys in the front seat and they were just staring at us. We decided it was time to leave and then they started following us. This is when I realized that what I had said was completely offensive. Our bandmate, Tim was driving and he was convince he could "lose them" in downtown traffic. We tried to remind him that we had a giant trailer that could be seen from about a mile away. He was convinced in his driving skills, and eventually they just backed off - I think they just wanted to scare us.

Anyway, this idea of the Disciples "getting the heck out of dodge" reminded me of this time in my life. Except what they were doing was preaching good news. I was being a closed minded bigot.

So back to the Bible. Paul is preaching in Athens and he is telling them about who God is and what he has done and who Jesus is and what he has done. Then he begins to talk directly about the fact that they had been worshiping idols.

²⁹"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill. ³⁰In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. ³¹For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."

This idea of repentance is something that hasn't really come up much yet since I began reading. This is somewhat eye opening. With the forgiveness of Jesus comes a new responsibility on our part - to turn away from our old way of sinning and to live a Godly life. Obviously this is something we will need to do over and over again throughout a lifetime, but its something that is focused on heavily in the Epistles of Paul later on in the Bible. In the OT, God would judge and people would pay. Now he has given us a chance to redeem ourselves, but with that privilege, we also have the responsibility of taking ownership over our own sins.

The other thing to point out is that God was once vengeful. Since Jesus came, his vengeance has subsided, but there will be a day that comes again when his judgment is unleashed on the world. It seems to me that for those who have not accepted God's love, they will face his wrath. Which seems a little counter-intuitive doesn't it?

"I love you."
"Eh...no thanks. I love something else."
"DEAAATTTHH!!!"

Psalm 144:1-15

 ³ O LORD, what is man that you care for him,
       the son of man that you think of him?

A question I often wonder about...why us? And for a while, why only the Israelites?

Proverbs 17:27-28
 ²⁷ A man of knowledge uses words with restraint,
       and a man of understanding is even-tempered.
 ²⁸ Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent,
       and discerning if he holds his tongue.'

This is the lesson here: shut up. If you don't say anything, you won't say anything stupid. For example, "Sorry about our gay governor."