The Temple

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

-Mahatma Gandhi

Technorati Tags: Gandhi, Forgiveness

Ben Franklin regularly followed a plan to develop his character. Based on Philippians 4, Ben used the chart below as a tool to improve himself.

Check out the site Flamebright for a brief explanation and DIY Planner for templates you can print out.

His “Plan” was made up of 13 virtues, each with short descriptions:

1. Temperance: Eat not to dullness and drink not to elevation.

2. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation.

3. Order: Let all your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time.

4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.

5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste nothing.

6. Industry: Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. Justice: Wrong none, by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. Moderation: Avoid extremes. Forebear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation.

11. Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring; Never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

12. Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Technorati Tags: Ben Franklin, Virtue, Resolutions

“Kiss the kids.” My brother signs off our phone conversations with that phrase and tonight is one of those nights.

I left the house tonight on my way to a meeting. As I was driving down Contour, I noticed this car on the side of the road and a tall young man next to it. Grateful that the car ahead of me had pulled over, I got ready to continue on my merry way…I was late. As I got closer the realization that it was Caleb (my third son who had just gotten his license and made his way into my previous post) was the tall young man standing next to my BMW, which looked like he had turned it into a jeep.

I pulled over to greet a grateful son, glad to see his dad, and I was glad to see him OK. The accident had just happened and he hadn’t even had a chance to call anyone. A car had veered into his lane and forced him off the road, and just kept on driving. When the CHP arrived she informed us that with no witnesses and no actual collision, the report would read Caleb at fault. Innocent until proven guilty. Go figure.

Well, I am very happy to have a healthy son or four…Kiss the kids.

Technorati Tags: Accident, BMW, Parenting

Click on the link for an interview with Leon Botstein by Stephen Colbert (check out the VodPod in my sidebar).

Colbert makes me laugh, and the discussion has an interesting God element to it. Botstein gives a common tolerant humanist view about the existence and nature of God (God is human capacity), and it is OK with him if you still choose to believe in an archaic version of God. A little different than the strident atheists of the Dawkins - -Harris - Dennett variety.

Technorati Tags: Leon Botstein, Stephen Colbert, God’s Existence

Check out this Christianity Today review of Christopher Hitchens book entitled “God is not Great.”

ht:Between Two Worlds

Technorati Tags: Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Preston Jones, Atheism

We celebrate Christmas. We celebrate Easter. We celebrate Good Friday. We celebrate the important events of the life of Christ. Why don’t we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus? Certainly the Ascension is as important as the Incarnation. I contend that our ignorance of the Ascension has adversely affected our theology, especially our eschatology.

The Ascension is recorded in Luke 24:50-51 and Acts 1:9-12. See post on Acts 1:1-11.

Part of our prejudice toward the Ascension is that we regard it as only a physical movement of Jesus into heaven. The incarnation is the physical movement of Jesus to the earth, but additionally, actually primarily, we ascribe theological meaning to the Incarnation. We do not afford the Ascension the same privilege. So it is relegated to any other physical movement of Jesus, say his travels from Galilee to Jerusalem. This is a major mistake for our theology.

The doctrine of the Ascension has its roots in the military movements of the Old Testament culture and the priestly movements approaching the temple for worship (Exodus 34:24). The Psalms of Ascent are found from Psalm 120 - 134, these are possibly the hymns sung in approach to the temple and the temple mount.

But the real foundation of the doctrine of the Ascension is found in Psalm 110:1: “the Lord said to my Lord; Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”

Here are some passages of Scripture for your own study of the Ascension: Luke 24:50-53; Acts 1:6-11; John 6:62; 14:2, 12; 16:5, 10, 10, 17, 28; 17:5; 20:17; Ephesians 1:20; 4:8-10; 1 Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 1:3; 4:14; 9:24.

Here are some important elements of the doctrine:

1. It is the capstone of the resurrection. We believe that the resurrection affirms the work of Christ on the cross, it is God’s stamp of approval on what Christ has done. In like manner, the ascension cumulatively continues this affirmation, and elevates Christ to His appropriate place of adoration.
2. It shows that the kingdom of Christ is a universal kingdom and not simply the kingdom of the Jews. He ascends and takes the eternal throne of David, and its realm includes the heavens and the earth. The kingdom is an eternal one, never to end, and Christ will not be replaced or superseded.
3. In his work as King he sends the Spirit by whom He rules and guides and protects his Church.
4. It points the believer to the true nature of the kingdom, and the true focus of his attention. Now the mistake that is made in most eschatalogical systems is the missing of this very point. The kingdom of Christ extends to the earth, even now, as we express and obey the gospel. So it puts our proper focus on the life which we have here and now, a new creation in us. It pushes us back to the original mandate of the book of Genesis, to subdue and fill the earth. The focus of our work is the work of redemption and the sharing of life. Here and now. Many, who still see major kingdom work left for Christ to accomplish, adopt a pessimistic view of the world and church - hence tend to be inappropriately “other-worldly”.
5. It includes his work of mediation and intercession for us.
6. It is expressed in the squashing of his enemies. In this sense it would include his judging activity in the events surrounding AD 70.
7. It will culminate in total justice.
8. It is included in however you define the “second coming” of Christ. The Second Coming is considered a part of the exaltation of Christ, which is a subset of the Ascension of Christ.

I will expand on these ideas in future posts.

Technorati Tags: Ascension, Christianity, Resurrection, Christian Holidays

I am re-posting this old post from my previous blog - I was reminded of it looking at the last two posts. From the sublime to the mundane. Alvin Plantinga is a premier philosopher, the flip side is Darren Daulton. To follow up on stupid things heard on the radio and the definition of a prophet this post will also include those wacky predictions of the end of the world/rapture.

Darren Daulton was a former Major League Baseball player with the Philadelphia Phillies who is now waxing poetic on the end of the world and “metaphysics.” Here are some quotes from Mr. Daulton:

“That will be the end of this dispensation. I really don’t know how to explain it. I don’t know what words to use so people won’t think I’m goofy. But by Dec. 21, 2012 [the last day recorded on the Mayan calendar], people will have a pretty good idea. It’s all about consciousness and love. We have the ability to create whatever we want. We’re all made of energy.”

“There is no good or bad,” he says, explicating the Dutch Theory of Being. “We’re all the same, but we’re all different. The higher we ascend, the more the same we are.” (Daulton was known as “Dutch” during his playing days).

When I share my thoughts and experiences with them, I tell them there’s absolutely no way their minds can comprehend what I’m trying to relate,” he says. “My friends are limited to the five senses.”

Darren claims to be dealing with the area of “Metaphysics” which is a branch philosophical studies that strives to explain the nature of being, or reality. It really is a legitimate study, but as with all arenas of life, there are fringe elements and extremists.
Of all the things he says in the article, most interesting to me (today) was his claim regarding the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar.

Good to see that date setting loonies are not just of the Christian variety. Here is a hall of fame of recent Christian date setters:

• Emil Gaverluk of the Southwest Radio Church (still on the air in the LA area, it is out of Oklahoma) predicted that the rapture would occur by 1981
• Edgar Whisenant wrote a book: “88 Reasons the Rapture is in 1988.” Estimates of his book sales range from 4-6 million copies. He actually set September 9-11 as the actual dates.
• Paul and Jan Crouch (Trinity Broadcasting Network) were so enamored of Whisenant’s theory that they cancelled all live broadcasting of their program and aired tapes of programs having to do with the rapture, in case unbelievers might tune in to “understand” what happened.
• In 1989 Whisenant wrote a follow up explaining why he was a year off
• Hal Lindsey (he denies that this qualifies as date setting) wrote:

“When the Jewish people, after nearly 2,000 years of exile, under relentless persecution, became a nation again on 14 May, 1948 the “fig tree” put forth its first leaves. Jesus said that this would indicate that He was “at the door,” ready to return. Then He said, “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” (Matthew 24:34 NASB). Obviously, in the generation that would see the signs — chief among them the rebirth of Israel. A generation in the Bible is something like forty years. If this is a correct deduction, then within forty years or so of 1948, all these things could take place. Many scholars who studied Bible prophecy all their lives believe that this is so. (The Late Great Planet Earth, pp. 53-54).

• Charles Taylor wrote in the Bible Prophecy News that Jesus would return in 1992 writing:

“What you are starting to read probably is my final issue of Bible Prophecy News, for Bible prophecy fulfillments indicate that Jesus Christ our Lord will most likely return for us at the rapture of the Church before the Fall 1992 issue can be printed.”

• Grant Jeffrey wrote that A.D 2000 is the “probable termination date for the last days.”
• Lester Sumrall also chose 2000,
• Harold Camping published a book entitled 1994,
• Jack Van Impe has generalized dates like the late 80’s or the 90’s look good. Recently he is claiming 2011 as the rapture, with the return of Christ in 2018.
• Chuck Smith told a 1981 New Year’s Eve audience “If we’re here next year at this time, I will be very surprised.” This was after publishing 1981 as a date he was convinced was the time of the rapture.

Kooky. Is that a word?? People believe weird things.

Technorati Tags: Eschatology, Darren Daulton, Metaphysics, Rapture, End of the World, Mayan Calendar

You may not recognize the name. Melissa Buskeros is a 15 year old girl who was forcibly removed from her home because her parents had the audacity to care about her education and began home-schooling her in response to some challenges she was having in High School.

She was recently allowed to meet with her parents, she hadn’t seen them in a month

Read the story in World Net Daily and Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit (don’t worry, its in English)

Read a blog that updates the Buskeros family ordeal: Principled Discovery

Great quote from the Principled Discovery blog:

Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in.

–Abraham Lincoln, 1832

ht: Planet Preterist

Technorati Tags: Home Schooling, Melissa Buskeros, Education

God whispers to us in our pleasures, and shouts to us in our pain.

Technorati Tags: CS Lewis, Quote, Pain, Pleasure

bubbl.us is a unique online program that will help you brainstorm and map ideas. Really a cool and simple program that I have been enjoying the last week or so…try it out. Basically you connect ideas using “bubbles” that you can move around and rearrange. I usually brainstorm on paper, but find sometimes it would be nice to move things around without starting over. This program makes that possible.

Technorati Tags: brainstorming, mind mapping, bubbl.us,

ht:Evangelical Outpost