I haven't blogged here in quite a while. I was just thinking that I want to start blogging again and wondering what I want to call my blog. Then, I thought, why not come back to my Deity Over Dignity blog.
My therapist says that to write originally, rather than just copying other people's work, is to carve out a self. It is very scarey work, I must admit.
Responding to what I read is the easiest way to do this, it seems. I have committed to start every day for the next month with the first chapter of Luke and the beginning of John. So, some of this is copying, but then I'll include what I think about the text.
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us,
I like Luke's word, "compile". It sounds like just piling one thing on top of another, until the stories at the bottom start to turn into rock. Luke sounds thankful that he was gifted by God with the time to go around and about listening to these stories and taking them down. Somebody needed to and Luke is glad that God chose him.
just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word,
Luke got to take oral histories from people that God counted so important as to make them eyewitnesses of His Son's coming
it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.
Then, as now, a lot of rumors were going around. Luke felt it necessary for somebody in the know to set the record straight. As one who was traveling with Paul, Luke would have been a trusted name.
Screech, now let's go back to the very beginning.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The Word, is just the common word for written words, but it meant so much more to both Jews and Greeks. It still haunts me that we read the word, memorize the word, and yet The Word is a name for Christ. I wonder how much power the written word of God really has when memorized and really dwelt on. It kinda blows my mind.
oops, gotta go. I'll come back to this
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Some notes after an exciting class
Maybe you already appreciate this, but what I really have been hearing when I see scriptures about God separating the Jews as a people unto Himself . . . other than the obvious jealous, holy God. Other than the obvious, I think sometimes about the Hebrew language that we are reading the Old Testament in. I wonder if part of God's molding the Jews as a people was his desire to mold the language that He would make Himself known in. Was it Orwell's book "1984" in which we/i are/was taught that without language for some concepts, we lack the ability to think of those concepts? How careful, therefore, was God as He crafted the language in which He would progressively reveal Himself over hundreds of years. I keep thinking this as I remember that Hebrew, tell me if I'm wrong, combines the words faith and faithfulness. To me this says that, to God, the best faith is not some huge feeling that I can have that totally believes that He is going to come through for me . . . no, no, no . . . the faith that He wants from me is faithfulness. Good, because I can really major on big feelings. But, all the big feelings that I can produce turn out to be mostly hot air and worth little or nothing at all. My dad is like God. He comes through, day after day, rain or shine. He is faithfulness incarnate.
I come from a family of language lovers. I wrote an unsuccessful governor's scholarship application long, long, long ago about how our language both leads us and follows us. Those who want, for instance, more pornographic speech in the media make the argument that they are simply following the language of the people. That's a circular argument, though. The more rich, deep and wide vocabulary that is used by the media's characters of the day, the more society will follow those characters, seeking to be more literate and well spoken. The more that our characters replace every other word with a cuss-word, the more we will lose our ability to think of anything besides what those cuss words describe, immorality. If you follow the language, the language will follow you in a never-ending spiral. Therefore, someone, at some point, needs to set a determined course. What would B. F. Skinner call them? I forget.
I believe that a lot of our future will be written in fiction. Short stories and fairly short novels. Who will be the Grace Livingston Hills of our generation? Have you ever read what that woman wrote? She calls us back to a civility and sobriety and godly character that I have never seen or known. Reading her books is like taking a shower. . . . It's like The DaVinci Code threw down the gauntlet. We have to write better fiction that glorifies His name. Better fiction, I say, because the children of today only argue with facts. They don't believe in facts. They believe that for every set of facts, there are more facts that are just as reliable that say the opposite thing. They've seen too many facts disputed. Therefore, they don't trust facts. They trust good fiction. They don't know that they do it, and would deny it if convicted. They don't want to trust anything, but they find that they have to trust something. So, they trust good fiction for lack of anything else to trust. At least some kids are like this. This is what I see in my family, my nieces and nephews and brother and sister. And I can say little or nothing. I seem condemned to simply watch and pray. Listen to me. I have the power of Almighty God . . . well, I wouldn't say it was mine to command, but He says You have not because you ask not, or ask with wrong motives. I have a relationship with God in prayer. How could I ask for more?
Again and again tonight, the teacher kept marveling at the lack of leadership that Jacob exercised in situation after situation. I suspect part of this was brought on by the presence of too many women in his household. I don't think that God made any man up to the task of being a husband to 4 wives. I think that a man's leadership in the home needs to be tended and nurtured by a good wife. She is prompted by nature to help him be all that the Lord has made him to be when she sees how much she needs him for. But, in a house with 4 women fighting for dominance, who would bother to think of Jacob's place in the pecking order?
In the Baptist church, it seems that we honor men for what they become. Then, once we have already seen something in them, then we make them deacons and pray for them and cultivate leadership in them. I don't know if I saw what I thought I saw in the Church of Christ when I was going there for a while, but it seemed like they had more of a practice of grabbing their younger men, before the world had a chance to get its hooks in them. After youth programs, when they are just at that point when our youth start wondering off, at that point, the church of Christ started putting them up in front of the whole congregation to lead in prayer and lead in singing and lead out in things. Well, we are not the Church of Christ. But, do you think that, after they graduate high school that we could maybe start teaching our post-youth leadership classes, very different sorts of leadership for men and women. For men, clear-cut leadership classes how to become the best at whatever God has created them to be. For women, submission/leadership, what Beth Moore describes as the godly discipline of influence, something so powerful that it must be used with care. I don't know about the women. The women's ministry understands a lot better what the girls need to be taught than I do.
I come from a family of language lovers. I wrote an unsuccessful governor's scholarship application long, long, long ago about how our language both leads us and follows us. Those who want, for instance, more pornographic speech in the media make the argument that they are simply following the language of the people. That's a circular argument, though. The more rich, deep and wide vocabulary that is used by the media's characters of the day, the more society will follow those characters, seeking to be more literate and well spoken. The more that our characters replace every other word with a cuss-word, the more we will lose our ability to think of anything besides what those cuss words describe, immorality. If you follow the language, the language will follow you in a never-ending spiral. Therefore, someone, at some point, needs to set a determined course. What would B. F. Skinner call them? I forget.
I believe that a lot of our future will be written in fiction. Short stories and fairly short novels. Who will be the Grace Livingston Hills of our generation? Have you ever read what that woman wrote? She calls us back to a civility and sobriety and godly character that I have never seen or known. Reading her books is like taking a shower. . . . It's like The DaVinci Code threw down the gauntlet. We have to write better fiction that glorifies His name. Better fiction, I say, because the children of today only argue with facts. They don't believe in facts. They believe that for every set of facts, there are more facts that are just as reliable that say the opposite thing. They've seen too many facts disputed. Therefore, they don't trust facts. They trust good fiction. They don't know that they do it, and would deny it if convicted. They don't want to trust anything, but they find that they have to trust something. So, they trust good fiction for lack of anything else to trust. At least some kids are like this. This is what I see in my family, my nieces and nephews and brother and sister. And I can say little or nothing. I seem condemned to simply watch and pray. Listen to me. I have the power of Almighty God . . . well, I wouldn't say it was mine to command, but He says You have not because you ask not, or ask with wrong motives. I have a relationship with God in prayer. How could I ask for more?
Again and again tonight, the teacher kept marveling at the lack of leadership that Jacob exercised in situation after situation. I suspect part of this was brought on by the presence of too many women in his household. I don't think that God made any man up to the task of being a husband to 4 wives. I think that a man's leadership in the home needs to be tended and nurtured by a good wife. She is prompted by nature to help him be all that the Lord has made him to be when she sees how much she needs him for. But, in a house with 4 women fighting for dominance, who would bother to think of Jacob's place in the pecking order?
In the Baptist church, it seems that we honor men for what they become. Then, once we have already seen something in them, then we make them deacons and pray for them and cultivate leadership in them. I don't know if I saw what I thought I saw in the Church of Christ when I was going there for a while, but it seemed like they had more of a practice of grabbing their younger men, before the world had a chance to get its hooks in them. After youth programs, when they are just at that point when our youth start wondering off, at that point, the church of Christ started putting them up in front of the whole congregation to lead in prayer and lead in singing and lead out in things. Well, we are not the Church of Christ. But, do you think that, after they graduate high school that we could maybe start teaching our post-youth leadership classes, very different sorts of leadership for men and women. For men, clear-cut leadership classes how to become the best at whatever God has created them to be. For women, submission/leadership, what Beth Moore describes as the godly discipline of influence, something so powerful that it must be used with care. I don't know about the women. The women's ministry understands a lot better what the girls need to be taught than I do.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)