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Blogging from the Ashes

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drowning-in-ashesI am but dust and ashes.

–Genesis 18:27

As far as my blog is concerned, I need to have things settled and digested in my own mind, before I impose them on others! I am not saying that this is what you do, as I view your blog more of an exploration of the spiritual and perhaps encouragement for fellow “travelers”, instead of a place for doctrinal pronouncements and apologetics.

-from a private email conversation

Ironically, this is almost exactly what Pastor Randy said to me about the difference in how we write during our most recent Wednesday night conversation. In talking to him and recalling my previous conversation with Rabbi Carl Kinbar about how and why I blog, I realized just how different I am from most people who write on the web, or even just most people who write.

If you’ve read the last few blog posts I’ve published, then you know that I’m backing away from the idea that anything I write, say, or do is any sort of rip-roaring big deal. I keep catching myself in mistakes. No, that’s not right. Other people keep catching me in mistakes. Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s arrogant to think you’ll never make a mistake, but it’s still no great honor, either.

I like the idea of being an explorer and I tend to think of myself and this blog in that light, but lately, I’ve been feeling like less like an explorer and more like a rat in a maze…and I keep finding all the dead ends instead of the cheese.

But in talking to Pastor Randy and turning everything over in my mind, I realized that my purpose in writing this blog isn’t to get things right all the time or to strive to conquer other people’s differing opinions of me and what I think about. Sure, I try to do that sometimes, and that’s when I start getting discouraged.

But while others may only publish their words in print (or electrons) once they’ve fully digested a topic and have come to what they believe is a rock-solid conclusion, that’s not what I’m trying to do. If that were my purpose, it would take me a lot longer to come up with even a single blog post, and these would become weekly or even monthly meditations, not every morning missives.

I’ve said before that as of 2011, there were an estimated 181 million blogs on the web. That makes any one blog (and blogger) seem pretty insignificant by comparison. Whenever I think about “winning,” I start feeling pretty insignificant as well, not just in terms of the blogging population on the Internet, but as far as people, friends, family, and God goes too.

dark_tunnelI’ve thought about quitting. I’ve thought about throwing in the towel because I can’t come up with “perfect” ideas or “perfect” ways to describe them in my blog. I’ve thought about quitting because people can shoot holes in everything I say or do all day long.

Then I realized that of course people can shoot holes in my thoughts. I’m not arriving at conclusions, at least not very many of them. As you read my blog posts, it’s important that you understand how they come into being. How do I write a blog post?

I start with a quote or an idea that has spawned some sort of interest in me. I have an amorphous thought of how I want to pursue my inspiration, but I don’t really have an endpoint in mind. That’s right, even as I’m keyboarding this, I really don’t know how it will end, which is why some of my posts are from 1000 to 1500 words long, and others exceed 3000 words. No outline, no pre-conceived structure, no bullet points or notes (well, sometimes I use notes) to guide me.

What you are reading is my mind in operation moment by moment, or at least as fast as I can type.

I don’t know anyone else who blogs like this. I explained to Pastor Randy that, based on the feedback I get, what I do is appreciated, at least by some folks, because lots and lots of people are processing the same sort of questions I am. It’s just not visible because no one blogs about “half-baked” thoughts. No one likes to serve up raw food unless its sushi, which is the finished product. The way I write is like watching someone trying to develop a recipe for something they’re going to cook in the near future, but you only later get to see some of the cooking and you may never taste what finally comes out of the oven.

I think that’s called “living.” We do it day by day and each day is a little different. God may never change, but our experiences with Him do, because if we’re growing spiritually, we change. Even if there are areas where I’m not changing, what’s reflected in my blog posts are the continuing struggle and engagement with that “stuck” place in my life. I think lots of people have a stuck place in their lives, too. I know a few people who have a hard time letting go.

Yesterday (as I write this), I felt pretty insignificant, very small, especially without purpose. But in talking to Pastor, I came to rediscover that I have a unique perspective or at least a unique way of expressing it. The point of my writing is not to sell you on my perspectives as being “right.” I’m not giving you answers. I haven’t come to many conclusions. I’m not some self-appointed guru out to sell you some form of enlightenment based on my “specialness” as teacher, or leader, or scholar, or any of that.

Well over three-hundred years ago, French mathematician and philosopher René Descartes famously said “cogito ergo sum” or “I think, therefore, I am.” In my case, it’s “I think/feel/experience/live, therefore I write.” That’s really the whole of it. What you see (read) is what you get.

If I had to know every thing and be right all the time, I’d be horribly trapped in a steel box, shackled in chains, imprisoned in my own need to have a carefully designed system that explained everything I write about. But writing as I do, just because I am, just because I live, is very liberating.

soaring_hawk

Being transparent is like flying, soaring up through the clouds. Like a phoenix at the keyboard, I’m blogging from the ashes and rising into the sky.

Yet those who wait for the LORD Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles.

–Isaiah 40:31 (NASB)

Thanks, God. I needed the lift.

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Learning Smallness

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smallThe words of the wise are heard with pleasantness.

–Ecclesiastes 9:17

The Talmud states that on Friday afternoon, a person must alert his household to prepare the necessities for Shabbos. However, he must do so in a soft voice, so that his words will be obeyed.

Many late Friday afternoons, people feel themselves under pressure while rushing to prepare for Shabbos. If one sees that some things have not yet been done, it is easy to lose composure and scream at other members of the household. The Talmud cautions against doing so and implies that shouted instructions are less likely to be carried out.

A politician who had concluded an address inadvertently left a copy of his speech on the lectern. In the margins were comments indicating manners of delivery, e.g. “gesture,” “clap hands,” “slow and emphatically,” etc. At one point he had written, “Argument awfully weak here. Scream loudly.”

If we have something of substance to say, the message will be adequately conveyed in a soft tone, because the content alone will carry it. Only when our words have little substance do we seek to make an impression by delivering them with many decibels.

Even in situations of great urgency, we have no need to lose our composure. I can attest that when life-threatening emergencies presented themselves in the hospital, greater efficiency and more rapid response ensued when everyone kept a cool head.

The words of Solomon are correct. The wise speak pleasantly, and those who shout may not be wise.

Today I shall…

…keep my voice soft and pleasant at all times, especially when I have something urgent to communicate.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Tammuz 4”
Aish.com

That isn’t easy to do. A sudden surge of adrenalin as you see a small child run into traffic after a ball will make just about anyone yell, “Stop!” Of course, under that circumstance, a raised voice is perfectly understandable and justified, but most of the time when we raise our voices or otherwise try to push our weight around, it’s not.

Although we don’t generally have audible “voices” in the blogosphere, nevertheless, we tend to “yell” at each other. As Rabbi Twerski taught in the above-quoted paragraphs, human beings tend to yell the loudest when our positions are the weakest. We tend to attack others when we feel insecure about ourselves.

What should we do instead?

The Alter Rebbe writes in his Siddur: It is proper to say before prayer, I hereby take upon myself to fulfill the mitzva – “Love your fellowman as yourself.” This means that the precept of ahavat yisrael is the entry-gate through which man can pass to stand before G-d to daven. By merit of that love the worshipper’s prayer is accepted.

“Today’s Day”
Monday, Tammuz 2, 5703
Compiled by the Lubavitcher Rebbe; Translated by Yitschak Meir Kagan
Chabad.org

Sounds sort of like this:

He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

–Matthew 22:37-40 (NRSV)

forgive-nudnikI’ve wasted a certain amount of time being unkind lately. I’d like to say that I’ll never make that mistake again but I probably will. It’s a mistake because what I say won’t change people unless they want to change. It’s a mistake because what I’ve said does nothing to make me a better person. It’s a mistake because what I’ve said has distanced me from people I truly love.

I struggle between leaving the others who are sometimes abrasive to walk their path and the desire to inject a word of justice into unkind conversations.

But it never works out well for me or for anyone and it is not a path to God.

What is?

Nothingness is the medium through which all energy moves, from above to below and from below to above.

Below, in the human heart, a sense of nothingness that transcends ego. Above, a Nothingness that transcends all boundaries and planes.

The nothingness below fuses with the Nothingness above, locking heaven and earth in an intimate embrace.

That is why G‑d is found amongst the truly humble.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Nothingness”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

Moses was considered the most humble man on earth (Numbers 12:3) and yet Israel considers him their greatest prophet. Most of the “loud voices” on the Internet today (including mine) aren’t particularly concerned with humility and in fact, humility frightens them because they (we, I) consider it equivalent to being “nothing.” However as we’ve seen, nothingness is a desirable trait. So is being small, as Rabbi Freeman also teaches:

“Rebbe!” the man cried. “Nobody gives me respect! Everybody steps all over me and my opinions!”

—“And who told you to fill the entire space with yourself, so that wherever anyone steps, they step on you?”

hero-largeI think part of my desire to inject justice into other online realms is related to the sense of smallness. I experience being stepped on or seeing others step on those who I care about and I become indignant, like the person who cried out, “Rebbe! Nobody gives me respect!” I need to relearn humility as a desirable trait and as a result, learn to stop being concerned with the opinions and petty slights of others.

I mean, it’s not like I’m unaware of the humility of our Fathers or of my own experiences learning humility. If I focus on those areas where I need to improve and strive to encounter God with more dedication, I won’t have time to be concerned about the thoughts and opinions of others who seem to continually feel offended. I also may avoid offending those people I consider friends who may be hurt by what I say and do.

I suppose that at some point, maybe even fairly soon, I’ll encounter someone saying something that I object to and the temptation to respond will overwhelm my good sense. I pray that God will guard me from such a time and such individuals and most of all, guard me from my own foolishness in thinking that I must engage such people or express my own small opinion. The only thing I must do is to diminish in the Presence of God, and allow Him to overflow into the spaces I create in me.

Make yourself small and you will be great.

Know you are nothing and you will be infinite.

At the very least, don’t make such a big deal of yourself
and you will be all that much closer to the truth.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Small and Infinite”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

May God turn my heart and mind to Him alone and accustom me to seek the company of righteous people who are uplifting and inspiring. By being the lowest, sitting at the bottom of the abyss, I can only pray that He will one day raise me up to see light again.

 

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Are People Evil or Just Different?

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shabbat-queen-elena-kotliarkerLet your home be open to all.

-Ethics of the Fathers 1:5

I have traveled to many communities to lecture on various subjects. I have also attended other guest speakers’ lectures. Invariably, after the lecture, the speaker is invited to a home where a small group of people gather for an informal chat, while hors d’oeuvres are served.

It has been very distressing to me that even when my audience appears to receive my talk well, no one may invite me to a post-lecture gathering. Why? I keep kosher, many of these people do not, and they find it awkward that the guest would not partake of their refreshments.

This baffles me. If my lecture was not well received, I could understand people’s reluctance to invite me. But when the response is virtually ecstatic, and I receive immediate requests for repeat performances, why, then, am I shunned? If I were a person of any other faith or nationality, I would be welcomed in everyone’s home. Why are the doors of my own people closed to me? The abundance of kosher foods available no longer makes keeping kosher an inconvenience.

Observant Jews adhere to kosher laws as a matter of conviction. Even if someone is not of that mindset, he or she can at least maintain a home where every Jew can be welcomed (or at least have a cup of coffee!).

So many doors are closed to Jews. We should not be closing our doors to our own.

Today I shall…

…try and make my home a place where every Jew can feel welcome and comfortable.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Tammuz 5”
Aish.com

I know a lot of you Christians reading this may be asking what’s so special about the Jewish people that we should go to extra lengths to accommodate them. Why would Rabbi Twerski specify that he should make his home feel welcome and comfortable for just Jews and that all Jews should do the same for other Jews? Is it only a “kosher food” thing? Why shouldn’t we Gentile Christians be given extra consideration? After all, what are we, chopped liver?

No, it’s not that at all. But if we expand on the thought begun by Rabbi Twerski and acknowledge that the Jewish people were specifically chosen by God (and the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ didn’t “unchoose” them), and we know that they have been especially targeted for persecution and even destruction, even to this present day and even among the body of believers, then we must realize that as disciples of the Jewish Messiah and worshipers of the God of Israel, we have a special duty to show love to those whom God loves.

Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord of hosts is his name: If this fixed order were ever to cease from my presence, says the Lord, then also the offspring of Israel would cease to be a nation before me forever.

–Jeremiah 31:35-36 (NRSV)

As part of his blog post for today, Derek Leman discusses the interdependency between the Jewish people and the nations, and the nations as particularly represented by Gentile believers: Christians. At least one of my reviews of the Rudolph and Willitts book Introduction to Messianic Judaism (I gave my Pastor a copy but with his brutal reading and studying schedule along with his Pastoral duties, he won’t be able to crack it open until the latter part of July), also addressed this mutual dependence and interlinking relationship between believing Jews and Gentiles.

We really can’t do without each other and yet, the divisiveness between some believing Jews and Gentiles, at least on the web, exists in sharp contrast to this principle, more’s the pity.

how-it-feels-to-disagreeI was encouraged by one non-Jewish Hebrew Roots supporter when he said (amid a sea of negative comments), “That being said, I agree with your sentiments re: not vilifying each other…We should be in the business of building one another up, not tearing one another down.

I agree, too.

It stands to reason that as human beings, we are going to disagree with each other on a good many things. As religious human beings, we are going to disagree about religion. Persecutions, pogroms, and inquisitions have all been justified in the name of God. Wars have been fought and many people have died over religious differences. Today, the weapons of choice, at least in the western nations, are not bombs and bullets, but words and blogging. We don’t just disagree, we attack, we “demonize,” we declare our opponents not only wrong but actually “evil” and that their teachings are “sending people to hell.”

Is that really what we’re supposed to be up to as disciples of the Master? What ever happened to the “unified” (as opposed to “homogenized”) body of Christ? If the so-called body of Christ were actually a human body, it would be dismembered into hundreds of individual pieces and lying dead in a large pool of blood; a scene that could only appeal to the Jeffrey Dahmer’s of the world (no, I’m not accusing anyone of being like Dahmer, I just said that for effect).

The comment I quoted above about “not vilifying each other” is an exceptionally rare one on the web. It has been said that the Internet was made for (adult material), but it seems more realistic to say that it was made to encourage rudeness and divisiveness. Most people “hide” either behind some pseudonym or, if the blog or discussion board allows it, behind the mask of “Anonymous.” From that perch, any one can say anything that occurs to them in the emotional “heat of battle” with no apparent consequences. Almost no one would say the same things or at least not in the same way if they were having a face-to-face conversation.

Accept truth from whomever speaks it.

-Maimonides, Kiddush HaChodesh 17:24

Some extremely choosy people will accept guidance or teaching only from an acknowledged authority, because they consider accepting anything from anyone of lesser stature a demeaning affront to their ego.

Among my physician colleagues, I have observed this phenomenon when a patient requests consultation. Those doctors who have self-esteem and know that they are competent have no problem accepting consultation, but those who are less self-confident may interpret the request for consultation as an insinuation that they are inadequate. They may be insulted by this request, and if they do comply with it, they will accept as a consultant only the chief of the department at a university medical school or some other renowned personage. Any other consultant constitutes a threat to their ego, an admission that “he may know more than I do.”

Physicians are not the only guilty party; professionals and artisans of all types can also show a lack of self-confidence by displaying this intellectual snobbery.

The Talmud states that truly wise people can learn from everyone, even from people who may be far beneath them. Limiting ourselves to learning only from outstanding experts is not only vain, but it also severely restricts our education. Humility is essential for learning, and we should accept the truth because it is the truth, regardless of who speaks it.

Today I shall…

…try to learn from everyone, even from someone whom I may consider inferior to me in knowledge.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Tammuz 7”
Aish.com

Let’s change “consider inferior to me in knowledge” to “different from me,” or “someone who disagrees with me,” or “someone I don’t like.”

Agreeing with a statement made by someone you don’t like is probably one of the most difficult things for a person to do. Imagine you are against another person because of their religious, political, or moral beliefs. You disagree with each other on almost everything. Then the person says something that you can’t disagree with because it is also one of the principles you choose to live by. Imagine they said something like, “I agree with your sentiments re: not vilifying each other…We should be in the business of building one another up, not tearing one another down.

agree-or-disagreeWhat would you do? What would you say? Would you…could you say anything?

If you agree with them, you have to admit the two of you have something in common. If you agree, then you are saying there is at least one point on which the two of you can stand together, a platform that could potentially be used to construct a dialog and to find other points of agreement. You might even have to admit you could learn to cooperate on certain projects to accomplish goals you both believe are worthy.

What a shock. Could you do it?

Imagine you have either publicly or in your thoughts, vilified someone. You can’t stand them. You think they’ve done you wrong. You think their religious teachings are false, dangerous, heretical. You believe what they say “sends people to hell.”

You’ve worked up quite a justified dislike if not hate for that person. And then they go and ruin it all by saying something you completely agree with…a truth that’s impossible for you to deny (at least unless you are willing to go back on stuff you’ve said in the past).

It is possible to disagree with someone, even strenuously, and not personalize the conflict (I know…that’s probably a radical idea to some folks). I won’t name names but I recently publicly disagreed with someone, a leader within his own organization. Although I acknowledged that this person has many fine qualities, I expressed concern over an area of behavior I thought could be improved, relative to everything I’ve said so far in this blog post.

Sadly, that was interpreted as a personal attack by several people including an employee of the person I was mentioning, resulting in a list being posted of this person’s many fine recent activities “proving” that he was without fault and that I was wrong to criticize that individual about anything whatsoever.

This is the sort of discussion that is “crazy making.” A person can be a good person and still be vulnerable to human faults, frailties, and temptations. I’d like to think I’m a good person but I know for a fact that I make mistakes (hopefully writing this blog post isn’t one of them) and have faults that I continue to address (being married is an enormous help in this area since spouses are just made to point out how we should improve ourselves).

We really need to be able to acknowledge others we disagree with when they do good, and even if we find it necessary to disagree from time to time, said-disagreement doesn’t mean the other person if evil, rotten, criminal, or any other bad thing. They may even say the truth about stuff sometimes and we may even agree with them sometimes.

There are days when I think there are very few voices of reason and sanity on the web. I know that most of us are trying to be good people and to serve God to the best of our abilities. If we could acknowledge that quality about each other, maybe we’d be heading in the right direction and finally, finally starting to obey our Master:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

–John 34-35 (NRSV)

I promise that by Monday, I’ll feel better and that will be reflected in my blogging but in the meantime, I just want to take this opportunity to encourage you, me, and everyone else who puts their thoughts and feelings out into the public realm to shape up, start reading our Bibles more, and start realizing what God is actually trying to tell us. Hint: The Bible doesn’t say, “be more snarky.”

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Taking the Fork in the Road: Discussing Arminianism and Calvinism, Part 4

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pass-failThe Arminian, whether strict, or moderate like Thiessen, will say that man is elect because he believes. The Calvinist asserts that man believes because he is elect. As long as Acts 13:48 and John 10:26 are part of the Bible, the Arminian definition of election which bases that election upon God’s foreknowledge of faith can never be maintained.

-Manfred E. Kober, Th.D.
“Chapter 4: The Demarcation of Modified Calvinism and Historic Baptist Beliefs,” pg 44
Divine Election or Human Effort?

Since they are both short, I blew through the last two chapters of Dr. Kober’s paper just to see how it was going to all get wrapped up. Not only does it come out as “Calvinists are right, Arminians are wrong,” but what’s more, Baptists are at the top of the heap.

OK, I may be exaggerating just a little, but it seems like what we’re really looking at is the continual disagreement between the two Protestant theories on the nature of election and salvation, created four-hundred years ago (sixteen-hundred years or more from the New Testament writers), and tinkered with ever since. Really, are these two perspectives the only way to read and interpret the Bible on this topic? Have we given up actually trying to understand how Paul might have really understood his own letters?

According to Kober and his supporting documentation, both Jesus and Paul were “Calvinists,” but like the doctrine of the rapture, we have to ask ourselves if the original apostolic authors understood the scriptures in an identical manner as latter-day Christian scholars? Remember, many latter-day Christian scholars also support supersessionism and predict that Jewish people have no place in the world to come unless they give up all Jewish practices and convert into Gentile Christians. Somewhere along the line, some Christians have missed a step or two.

I don’t have the theological chops to totally refute Calvinism (really, the whole Calvinism/Arminianism constructed framework), but hopefully, I’ve managed to punch a few holes in it and generated even a little bit of reasonable doubt.

On pages 46 and 47, Kober marries the Calvinist perspective with the “Creeds of the Baptists.” This is one reason why I’ll most likely never join a Christian denomination. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to study and understand the Bible in all its colors and moods. How could I possibly accept the partitioned cardboard box into which any denomination forces the Bible and God?

So much for Chapter 4.

This paper opened with the duty of the theologian and it closes with an exhortation to the expositor of God’s Word. What is the expositor’s task in light of this awesome doctrine?

-Kober, “Chapter 5: The Demand Upon the Expositor”, pg 49

“Awesome doctrine?” Sure, if you’re a die-hard Calvinist and “winner of the game,” you can say it’s “awesome,” but some of us might call it something else. Take the following quote from Henry Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1949), p. 345:

In the minds of some people, election is a choice that God makes for which we can see no reason and which we can hardly harmonize with His justice…We are asked to accept the theory…which does (not) commend itself to our sense of justice.

Kober goes on to say that Thiessen self-admittedly creates his doctrine as much out of his emotions as any form of Bible study and scholarship, but he ignores the words of Thiessen he quoted. The argument, as presented in the quote, isn’t Election vs. man’s compassion, but Election vs. Justice.

I said in a prior blog post that man very much does have a stake in holding God to His own standard of justice:

So the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham came near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.” Abraham answered, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” Again he spoke to him, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” Then he said, “Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” He said, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place.

–Genesis 18:22-33 (NRSV)

plead1Abraham may have been “buttering his own bread” by pleading for Sodom since he knew that his nephew Lot and Lot’s family lived there, but on the other hand, he may really have been begging God to exercise His own standard of justice in not executing the good with the bad. God relented (or appeared to) when He said that He would spare Sodom if ten righteous men were to be found in the city. God was willing to be just for the sake of ten human beings.

Continuing to support his position, Kober quotes Romans 11:33:

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

However, taken out of context, this verse could be applied both ways. Can either Arminianist or Calvinist search the inscrutable judgments of God? What, besides a series of short quotes from different bits and pieces of the Bible and then strung together as if on a piece of fishing line, makes the Calvinist so sure that God must agree with their analysis of how election and salvation works in the Bible? Are you really sure?

Did Kober forget that in the same chapter of Romans, Paul also said, “all of Israel will be saved?” This is based on the idea that all Israel is elected by God, but even Paul laments that Jews who are lost for not knowing Christ, so how does that work?

On page 50, Kober says something curious.

It is never right to misrepresent an opposing view in order that a person’s position may be enhanced. The God of the Calvinist is not an arbitrary God but one who in His infinite wisdom plans every detail of the universe. Neither is the God of the Calvinist a hard God. The Calvinist is quite convinced that a merciful God will redeem as many sinners as is possible without violating His justice and righteousness.

Now who is limiting God’s power, sovereignty, mercy, and justice? As many sinners as possible? I thought all things were possible with God (Matthew 19:26). Kober seems to be saying that there are some things that are not possible with God and that, in order to make them possible, He has to violate His own principles. It is that, or is the concern that if God did make it possible (has made it possible), it would violate Calvinist theory?

I don’t say that God is hard (although He is hard to understand sometimes), but I don’t accept that the Calvinist has one God and the Arminianist has another. God is God. If something has gone haywire, we can’t blame God but we can blame human reasoning and understanding (or the lack thereof).

On page 51, Kober quotes from the preface of Perry Fitzwater’s book, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1948), p. 7.

There is no mediating position between Calvinism and Arminianism. We shall not vacillate but oscillate between them. Sometimes the viewpoint will be that of a high Calvinist and sometimes that of a low Arminian.

I’ve said before, “Is it too much to ask for both?”

Actually, in my recent blog posts where I look at the Bible from rather different and difficult perspectives, I’m trying to introduce the idea that we can look at the Calvinism-Arminianism debate from a meta point of view, rising above and outside the context of the argument itself so we can observe, not one side or the other as opposing perspectives, but as a unified dynamic that exists as a single entity.

(Speaking of meta, if I attempt to take on Calvinism or Arminianism on their own home grounds, I’d probably “lose” so I choose to meet them outside their usual context. I know that sounds like cheating, but it’s also the only way David beat Goliath. If David and put on armor and carried a sword and shield into battle against the giant, he’d have lost and Israel’s greatest King – this side of Messiah – would never have ascended the throne. David stepped outside the entire context and framework of military battle and, treating Goliath like an invading lion trying to devour his sheep, the young shepherd won the day.)

Within the traditional context which Kober presents, one doesn’t talk of Calvinism without speaking or Arminianism and vice versa. As I’ve also said before, I don’t accept the “either-or-ness” of the argument because both sides are trying to contain God within their own construct rather than letting God be God as sovereign.

I know the Calvinists think they’re letting God be sovereign but only on their own terms. Different Christian denominations do more or less the same thing, defining God in relation to their own theology and doctrine, not imagining that God exists in a way that cannot be “boxed up”.

This last part on page 52 was a real capper for me.

Unfortunately, many pastors shy away from the doctrine of election, so that most Christians have never been clearly instructed in this precious truth.

Precious truth? It may be precious to Kober who no doubt believes he’s among the elect and doesn’t appear to generate a great deal of concern for those who are not. I’ve read all the defenses of Calvinism but here’s what it comes down to if preached from the pulpit (this is just my imagination):

Some of you are saved and others will burn in hell and there’s nothing you can do about it one way or the other.

unworthyKober ends his paper saying there’s no harmful effects to Calvinism but I can tell you that it hasn’t done me a world of good.

There are too many times when Abraham, Moses, or some other prophet or holy person has begged God to uphold justice and mercy and not exterminate people, even when they deserve it. In the majority of cases, God has agreed even though it’s within His rights to wipe everyone out whenever He pleases and start all over again (He did that once by flooding as you may recall). God seems to be OK with humans begging Him to show compassion to other humans and I think it’s something He’s encouraging in us.

Calvinists can come up with many Biblical justifications for their theory and why their opponents are bad Biblical scholars, but I will not let Calvinists and Arminians force me into a choice that flies in the face of thousands of years of God’s interactions with humanity where He has been merciful as well as just, forgiving and relenting as well as sovereign over all.

I’ve talked before about Talmud and Quantum Physics which is a very strange way to approach the Bible, but its one in which people can engage God, talk to God, even struggle with God on difficult moral and ethical issues. God is sovereign. I fully believe that. To believe otherwise is to deny that God is God and that He has the power to be Creator and compassionate savior. But somewhere in the space between the Heavenly Court and the dust of a lowly humanity, God allows us to encounter Him in a place we can’t quite understand and that may not always follow the simple “A, B, C, D” sequencing of a Calvinist. It’s a space where God is absolute and sovereign and where human beings have the opportunity to bring our case before the King and the Judge…and where we know He will listen because He is also a loving Father and supportive Teacher.

In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words…

–Romans 8:26

Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

–Hebrews 4:14-16

At the end of my days, God will judge me and He will mete out whatever consequences, for good or for ill, that it is His pleasure to deliver. I pray for a favorable outcome, but as I look at myself, there’s no guarantee. What man knows if His name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life until it is read aloud by the Lamb himself?

If the Calvinists are right about God, then I may have been conceived and born in hopelessness and everything I’ve said or done is in vain. But if God allows His mercy to even slightly outweigh His justice, then it may still be possible for man to relent, to turn from sin, beg forgiveness, and step into the light.

I pray that can be true for me. I pray that can be true for all of us.

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Fish Out Of Water

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FishOutofWaterA true master of life never leaves this world—he transcends it, but he is still within it.

He is still there to assist those who are bonded with him with blessing and advice, just as before, and even more so.

Even those who did not know him in his corporeal lifetime can still create with him an essential bond.

The only difference is in us: Now we must work harder to connect.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Connecting”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

“The Son of David will not come till a fish is sought for an invalid and cannot be found.”

-Talmud, Sanhedrin 98a

The Son of David is a diminutive reference to the Messiah, who will be a descendent of the royal house of David, King of Israel. The diminutive reference is strange in itself, but even more strange is the contention that the coming of the Messiah is dependent on an invalid in search of an unfound fish. What did Rabbi Menachem Mendel see in this passage that could reflect on his present situation?

-Rabbi Eli Rubin
“Lisbon 1941: The Messiah, the Invalid, and the Fish:
The private journal of the Lubavitcher Rebbe reveals a dual vision for the future of humanity”
Chabad.org

My wife sent me the email version of Rabbi Rubin’s article about the Rebbe, the Messiah, the Invalid, and the Fish and I still can’t figure out why. Maybe she just thought I’d find it intellectually stimulating or maybe she was sending me a message about my faith in Jesus as Messiah.

I do find it stimulating, which is why I’m writing about it, but more than that, I think the Rebbe’s message about Messiah tells us something about ourselves.

But I’ll get to that in a moment. One of the things I found in the article and learned at some previous point in time is that at least within some streams of Judaism, there is no single scenario that is thought to bring the Messiah. As far as what the Rebbe was teaching he said that there were two different generations that could possibly see the Messiah come: one that was entirely worthy or one that was entirely unworthy.

Seems contradictory and unnecessarily complicated from a Christian point of view. We tend to think that the Messiah will come when he comes. It’s up to God, not us. We can’t do anything about it and we certainly can’t be “worthy” of his coming.

…as it is written:

“There is no one who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God.”

–Romans 3:10-11 (NRSV)

But then, as my wife has told me before, Christians and Jews think in fundamentally different ways. As I previously said, in certain areas of Judaism, it is thought that people have the ability to change the timing of Messiah’s arrival based on our collective behavior. That then lends itself to multiple circumstances by which Messiah could appear (or “return” from the Christian perspective):

Rabbi Menachem Mendel offers two explanations of the earlier passage, corresponding to these alternative scenarios. In the first, the redemption is well deserved due to the lofty station at which society has arrived; in the second, redemption is bestowed because the alternative is utter deterioration.

This brings us back to our invalid: The diminutive designation “Son of David” indicates that the redeemer is worthy of his messianic status only due to his lineage. Likewise, the generation to be redeemed is also deficient, suffering from the spiritual maladies of sin and moral degeneration.

At a time when the world was ailing, and the Holocaust was already underway, Rabbi Menachem Mendel confronted the paradoxical possibility of evil in the presence of G‑d. The cause of such spiritual illness, he wrote, is human forgetfulness. We can do evil only if we forget that we are in the presence of G‑d.

lisbon-to-new-yorkThe Rebbe’s commentary didn’t come out of a vacuum. The backdrop for all this was the Holocaust, World War Two, when the Rebbe and his wife were trying to leave Lisbon for the United States to escape Nazis in 1941. The time when the world went mad or as mad as anyone thought we could get up to that point.

“We can do evil only if we forget that we are in the presence of G‑d.”

Well, yes and no.

“Yes,” in the sense that when we believe we are doing “evil” or anything wrong, we cannot simultaneously be acutely conscious of the fact that God is watching over our shoulder, so to speak. It would be like a man cheating on his wife while his wife was in the same room. If we choose to sin, we must temporarily pretend that God isn’t watching in order not to be immediately seized with horrible guilt (of course if we are wired correctly in a moral and spiritual sense, we should experience guilt anyway, even without a direct awareness of the presence of God).

But it is also “no” in the sense that we do “evil” and do not recognize what we are doing is evil. People who operate within the bounds of what you might call “self-righteousness” are quite guilty of this and also quite unaware of their guilt. In fact, they might feel completely justified and even believe that God approves of their evil acts, calling their evil “good.”

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

–Isaiah 5:20

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

–2 Timothy 4:3-4

The Westboro Baptist Church is the most extreme example I can think of within “Christianity,” though I don’t count them as disciples of Christ. They perform heinous acts against grieving families of American military personnel who have died in the service of our country and believe it is somehow all for the glory of Jesus.

Of course, most believers commit such “evil” in far less spectacular ways but they are no more conscious of their wrongdoing than the aforementioned Westboro folks. Confront them if you will, but they’ll turn every argument you make against you (and that’s happened to me more than once) as if you, in attempting to uphold the Biblical principles of forgiveness, kindness, and compassion are making terrible Biblical errors and their own fire-breathing doctrine is the only way to please God.

That makes the following statement all the more ironic.

This is where the Talmudic fish comes in. Fish are a metaphor for the knowledge that we are ever submerged in the presence of G‑d. Just as a fish cannot live out of water, so the spiritual health of humanity can be preserved only if we are consciously aware of G‑d’s all-encompassing presence. It is at a moment that G‑d’s presence is utterly hidden—when no fish can be found for the invalid—that the redemption must arrive.

Ironic and true.

We live in a world where no fish can be found, when it seems as if the presence of God has completely left our world. Good literally is being called evil and evil is literally being called good in terms of the various social priorities and journalistic pronouncements we find daily in the popular media.

I keep expecting Jesus to come around the corner at any second, given what the Rebbe has said.

“Just as a fish cannot live out of water, so the spiritual health of humanity can be preserved only if we are consciously aware of G‑d’s all-encompassing presence.”

We are one sick and dying fish.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel’s second interpretation lays out the flip side of this vision. So long as the hand of G‑d has not yet been forced, and the redemption has not yet arrived, the burden of responsibility still lies on the shoulders of humanity. We can repair the world, so we must repair the world, ultimately bringing it to an era that is “entirely worthy” and ripe for redemption. In an era of human perfection, man will strive to lose all sense of ego, desiring to become utterly submerged within the divine self.

But maybe not completely dead (though I wouldn’t say we can possibly be “worthy”).

feeding_the_hungryAt least from a Jewish point of view, we can do something to help. Maybe we can’t actually summon the Messiah, which is what a Christian believes, but we can still be more “Messiah-like.” Some Christians used to wear those “WWJD” or “What Would Jesus Do” bracelets, but we can go one better and just do what Jesus would do in the world. What did he teach? Is the answer going to come as a big surprise?

Feed the hungry, visit the sick, comfort the grieving, help anyone hurting in whatever way they need help. Change someone’s flat tire. Volunteer to take “meals on wheels” to the elderly and the infirm. Pick a need and fulfill it. I don’t care which one. Just quit being a “sick fish” by going out of your way to hurt other people because that is your special or only way of “serving” God.

According to the Rebbe’s metaphor, the fish is “sick” for the love of God but as immersed as the fish is, the fish and the water aren’t ever going to be the same thing:

Similarly, the worthy invalid is “sick” with love for G‑d, desiring utter submergence but unable to cross the infinite divide separating man from G‑d.

The best we can do, and that’s only by the grace of God, is to imitate our Master in how we do good to others. Maybe that will bring the Messiah back sooner and maybe it won’t but it sure couldn’t hurt. In fact, it probably will do some good, if not in a cosmic sense, then at least in a down-to-earth human sense.

Four decades later, Rabbi Menachem Mendel delivered a public talk in which he explained that at every moment we face two very different visions of the future. On the one hand, we anticipate the imminent revelation of a new era of eternal good; on the other hand, we invest long-term commitment and energy into a more gradual transformational process, changing the world from the bottom up.

I don’t believe the world and the people in it are anywhere near “the imminent revelation of a new era of eternal good.” Looking at the news headlines for five minutes will tell you that humanity is no better now than at any time in the past, and some might argue that we’re getting worse all the time. That leaves the Rebbe’s “Plan B:” investing in a long-term commitment to gradually transform the world from the bottom up, one act of kindness at a time.

Multiple sources have been attributed to the famous quote, “If you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem.” Whoever first said it knew what they were talking about. Sitting on your bottom and doing nothing isn’t actively “evil” but it does nothing to produce “good.”

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

-Edmund Burke

That’s pretty much it. How many “good men” did nothing while six-million Jews died? How many good men have done nothing while countless men, women, and children starved, or died in wars, or died in riots, or died due to political indifference to human rights?

Doing nothing won’t keep you safe and doing evil in the name of good is just as bad or worse.

If we are truly connected to God and truly love Him, then we have no choice but to also love human beings. God loves human beings…all of us, regardless of race, creed, color, nationality, language, and (gasp) religion. Like it or not, God loves the Muslim, the Taoist, the Buddhist, as well as God loves the Christian and the Jew. God loves us even though we screw up pretty much all the time, even the best of us.

If we restrict our love, then we are hardly being “Christ-like” and thus we’ve already tainted our response to God and our ability to do good in the world.

“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?”

–Matthew 5:46

rocket-scienceThis isn’t rocket science. This isn’t esoteric and arcane knowledge hidden within the murky depths of some obscure part of the Bible. This is the “easy stuff.” Well, it’s easy in that it’s pretty easy to comprehend. Obviously given the state of certain areas of the religious blogosphere and various believing congregations, home groups, and families scattered across the landscape, it’s not really that easy to do, otherwise there’d be a power surge of constantly doing good in the world.

Take a look at the last time you talked to another person. Was it in kindness, indifference, or anger? If you’re a blogger (or you comment on blogs), what was the last topic you wrote or commented on? Were you encouraging and supportive? Were you insulting and accusatory? Given everything I’ve written so far, you should be able to quickly figure out if you’re doing the will of the Master in the world or the opposite.

Do not bring us into the power of error, nor the power of transgression and sin, nor into the power of challenge, nor into the power of scorn. Let not the Evil Inclination dominate us. Distance us from an evil person and an evil companion. Attach us to the Good Inclination and to good deeds and compel our Evil Inclination to be subservient to You. Grant us today and every day grace, kindness, and mercy in Your eyes and in the eyes of all who see us.

-from the Siddur

You’re either a fish in the water immersed into the reality of God or you’re a fish out of water (Marco Polo). If you’re out, then you’re dying and you don’t even know it. You think you’re in a vast ocean when in fact, your tiny little puddle is evaporating like a raindrop in the Arizona desert sun in August. You don’t have much time.

I don’t believe people will ever be “worthy” enough for the age of Messiah to come. I think our world and the people in it will continue to degrade until he either comes or we destroy ourselves, eating each other alive. But those of us who are disciples of the Master can continue to strive to be a little more like him every day. In that way, maybe he will find at least a few people who have faith when he finally returns, may it be soon and in our day.

 

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The Bible as a Quantum Cookbook

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Talmud StudyWhen I was young, my father, a rabbi, would roll up his sleeves in front of an open Talmud and spend four or five hours putting different postulates and corollaries together as though he were building a road in ancient Rome. It wasn’t easy, but he was determined. He would concentrate unrelentingly on the words and sentences until he fashioned a pshat – a line of reasoning – to make things work. Lazy thinking was as far from him as Queens was from the Pacific.

He was the whole world to me, and I yearned to know what he knew, to be like him. But he and I were too different; we still are. My father is thoroughly God-centered and deeply committed to mastery of religious texts. He is a man of principles, scholarship, organization, planning, and goals. I, on the other hand, am both less scholarly and less organized along rational principles. I cannot be like my father, as much as I may have awkwardly, painfully tried.

-Dr. Simon Yisrael Feuerman
“My Father and the Talmud”
Aish.com

While Rabbi Shkop was spending his final years directing a Talmudic academy in Grodno, Belarus, a tight-knit community of theoretical physicists not so far away was discussing a strikingly similar problem. Instead of a married woman, however, the subject was a cat.

It was the summer of 1935, and Erwin Schrödinger’s thoughts were preoccupied with the fate of a small cat that had somehow been trapped in a metal box with a glass bottle of cyanide. A small hammer hung precariously over the bottle, attached to a kind of Geiger counter, on top of which sat a substance containing a single atom of some radioactive material (my guess would be nitrogen-13). The cat was certainly in danger. As soon as the atom would decay, the Geiger device would drop the hammer so as to smash the bottle, releasing the cyanide and killing the cat.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Quantum Talmud: How Deep Can Talmud Go?”
Chabad.org

I recently suggested in Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of my discussion on Arminianism and Calvinism, as well as in a blog post about the potential for unknown qualities of the Bible, that the Word of God may have more to it than meets the eye.

I know “Talmud” exceeds the definition of “Torah” or “Bible” for most Christians by quite a bit, but I’ve been having a small discussion with someone named “ProclaimLiberty” on Sunday’s and Monday’s “meditations,” and they seem related to how we perceive the Jewish authority relative to the Bible (and Jewish authority as it exists after the Biblical canon closed) as well as the nature of the Bible and the supernatural itself.

While the quote from Dr. Feuerman’s article illustrates a simple desire to gain a traditional Jewish understanding of Talmud and thus Jewish thought (though like Feuerman, it may always be beyond me), Rabbi Freeman’s article (which is exceptionally lengthy) manages to compare the dynamics of Talmud study with Quantum Physics. I never thought of those two processes being related in any way, but Rabbi Freeman makes a compelling if complicated case.

But what does that have to do with anything, especially a Christian’s understanding of the Bible?

Well, the Pentacostal and Charismatic movements re-introduced the notion that revelation did not necessarily cease 19 centuries ago. Of course, that notion also has been abused terribly to justify everything from charlatanism to insanity. Re-introducing the notion of messianic Judaism also was difficult 4 decades ago, and it is still resisted in some quarters. It could be viewed also as having been already abused in some measure.

Thus I understand very well your sense of the difficulty about re-introducing a notion of the continuity (more than merely a restoration) of Jewish authority. It has been hard enough to convey the idea that Jewish believers are entitled to be something more than or different from merely some ethnic expression of Christianity. But this suggestion derived from Matt.23:3a undermines a fundamental viewpoint underlying the Nicene Council and the creeds it developed. It opens a door to a very scary world in which large segments of Christian doctrine could need to be re-invented. Furthermore, it threatens to unleash another wave of Christian guilt over its historical treatment of Jews. On the other hand, theologians love that sort of challenge; and if Christianity hasn’t learned how to request and accept forgiveness, something truly is fundamentally wrong (though there may be some need to learn a bit more about how repentance and atonement work).

-ProclaimLiberty’s comment on my blog
June 10, 2:45 am

phariseesI invite you to read the entire exchange of comments to get the full flavor of what was discussed, but PL brings to the table the compelling suggestion that Jews didn’t lose the authority provided by God to issue binding halakhic rulings after the Biblical canon was closed sometime in the early centuries of the Common Era.

Christians are almost universally going to reject that idea, but it’s at the heart of Jewish religious observance and Talmudic study within Messianic Judaism (as well as the other streams of Judaism today) and is based, interestingly enough, on a Biblical principle found in Matthew 23:3 (though I’ve yet to hear a Christian interpret that verse in such a fashion).

(PL isn’t the first Jewish commentator to bring up this interpretation of Matthew 23:3. For more details, please read Matthew 23:2-4: Does Jesus Recognize the Authority of the Pharisees and Does He Endorse Their Halakhah? (PDF) by Noel S. Rabbinowitz.)

This may mean that, for the Jewish people in general and for Jewish Messianics in particular, Rabbinic authority to make binding rulings over specific Jewish communities under God’s directives continued in some fashion after the Jewish/Gentile Christian split and continued across time and into the present. Of course, such a suggestion isn’t without problems as PL addresses in the same comment:

Of course, even if the notion of Jewish authority continuity were wholeheartedly adopted, there would still be a lot of analytical work to do examining how it might apply to non-Jews, and in what measure. Along with that analysis is one that would examine how a number of statements in Jewish literature were developed. For example, some statements were polemical responses in defense of Judaism under the pressure of Christian assault. While we don’t throw away such opinions in Judaism, we do at times limit their applicability and effectivity to specific circumstances, even when they were responsible for accepted elements of halakhah.

The “analytical work” involved to “examine how a number of statements in Jewish literature were developed” and the application of some of the more difficult Talmudic statements to Messianic Judaism (let alone non-Jews involved in the Messianic movement) has yet to be done, at least to any significant extent (to the best of my knowledge), but I believe a whole world of study would open up to Christians if we could just see the Bible from the perspective PL seems to represent.

PL was less than impressed by what he calls “esoteric mystical perception” as he commented in our conversation in my other meditation, but then, he’s had some rather unique experiences in that area as well.

However, I still maintain that the Bible is more than the sum of its parts and, as Rabbi Tzvi Freeman has remarked, (and I paraphrase) the Torah is not a book about what God thinks about so much as an illustration about how God thinks.

Reading Rabbi Freeman’s commentary on Talmud study and Quantum Physics, I’m convinced I’d never make a good student of either discipline. I must however, admire a mind that can grasp even the very basics of both.

Today’s “meditation” probably seems a little “over the top,” even for me, but since reading Rabbi Freeman’s article on Talmud and Quantum Physics last week, I’ve been periodically considering the implications if any portion of what he presents can be said to be relevant to non-Jews outside the stream of Jewish thought.

Back when I was an undergraduate for the first time in the early 1970s, I took a few astronomy classes. I might have considered making a career out of it if I could have handled the math. However, among the things I learned in my beginning astronomy class, I learned that we can consider light as both as a wave and a particle. Depending on how we consider light in terms of the math involved and under direct observation, it can behave either as one or the other. Depending on the circumstances of human investigation, we treat light either one way or the other.

In quantum physics, a particle has a potential for a number of locations in space until we observe that particle, then it appears in a single location only, and from that location, we can trace it back to where it must have been.

But why does its location only become fixed when we observe it? What is happening to the particle when we don’t observe it?

quantum-physics-catAs I asked before, what does any of this have to do with the Bible?

The Bible isn’t a particle (or a wave) of light. It exists in the “macro” world and just like Schrödinger’s hypothetical cat (no, he never put a real cat in danger…it was a thought experiment), we can’t actually apply what we know about subatomic particles to objects like cats and Bibles in our world.

Unless you consider the study of the Bible (like Talmud study) to be somewhat “transcendent” of the world we live in.

I admit that his all requires more mental gymnastics than I am capable of, just like a career in astronomy (I probably would have specialized in cosmology or the study of the origins of the universe, but I wouldn’t have ruled out planetary astronomy), but just like astronomy, I find the more esoteric aspects of the Bible to continue to be compelling in my present-day life.

All this complexity of thought (some of you may see this as unnecessarily complex) comes down to something very simple and something I’ve said before. I think it’s possible for the Word of God to contain far more than we imagine. I think that if we treat the Bible as far more than just a book full of ancient writings, it will “behave” in that manner.

Oh sure, I know this could easily lead to people projecting their (our) desires and imaginations onto the text, reading what we want to read in-between the lines, but what if God Himself put something in-between the lines for us to find? What if it takes someone with the mind and imagination of a Talmud scholar or Quantum physicist to find the place in-between the lines (and that someone would not be me)?

What if that “something” holds the answer to questions like the Calvinism-Arminianism debate or at least provides us with a perspective that throws said-debate clear out of the fifth floor window, defenestrating the very idea that human beings can turn the Bible into a “cookbook” containing Calvin’s and Arminius’s separate “recipes” for salvation?

Food for thought.