GROUPTHINK ALIGNMENT

GROUPTHINK ALIGNMENT

Tuesday, March 08, 2016

John 7 So there was a division among the people because of Him [Jesus].

  I at times notes during pastor’s sermons, and encourage others to do so for later Acts 17:11 review and Psalm 119 meditation. This morning I did so with notes from June 1, 2008, WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?, John 7. I notice that the portion in my study Bible is subtitled “The people divided in opinion.” No surprise that. Then, of course, people no different than now so far as aligning in opinionated groups where Jesus Christ is concerned. For thoughtful review I share from notes:.

People considered Jesus:

  V.1, A blasphemer worthy of death. (Lk.22:2; Jn.5:18)

  V.12a, A good man.

  V.12b, A deceiver.

  V.20, A deluded madman.

  V.25-26, A man of courage.

  V.40, A prophet, the Prophet. (Deut.18:15,18; Jn.6:14)

  V.41a, The Christ.

  V.41b, Not possibly the Christ.

  V.46, A unique dynamic personage.

  V.47, A seducer of men.

The Pharisees opined, railed against, and condemned:

  The people.

  The guards.

  Galileans.

  Prophets.

  Nicodemus.

  Jesus.

  A brief interesting Bible study provided by pastor Paul Marine that highlights the consequential weight of eternal question, “Which group is my life aligned with?”  when I am confronted with the necessity to decide.

EBB4

ARRIVED?

ARRIVED?

Monday, March 07, 2016

2Timothy [MKJV] 3:16-17; 4:1-4 All Scripture is God-breathed, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfected, thoroughly furnished to every good work. Therefore I solemnly witness before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is going to judge the living and the dead according to His appearance and His kingdom, preach the Word, be instant in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. For a time will be when they will not endure sound doctrine, but they will heap up teachers to themselves according to their own lusts, tickling the ear. And they will turn away their ears from the truth and will be turned to myths.

Titus [GW] 2:1  Tell believers to live the kind of life that goes along with accurate teachings.

“I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”  William Booth

  William Booth died August 20, 1912. He was a British Methodist preacher that founded The Salvation Army in London not long after our USA civil war ended. He was the first S.A. General (1878–1912). Since its founding S.A. has spread to many countries. The movement is quasi-military in structure and appearance.  The S.A. is one of the largest distributors of humanitarian aid.

  Preacher Booth did not claim to be a prophet but he certainly did state terse warnings.

  Does his statement above pertain to us today?

  Let us see. In the local congregation that you or I participate in:

·         If ever, how often is God’s Holy Spirit mentioned?

·         If ever, how often have we been taught about God’s Holy Spirit?

·         If anything, how much do we know about God’s Holy Spirit? Can we intelligently respond to those that inquire about Him?

·         If at all, what influence does God’s Holy Spirit have in our life?

·         If at all, do we hear of Christ or do we primarily hear of a Christianity centered in happy living and social harmony?

·         If at all, is true Christ-centered Bible-based repentance explained, urged, and expected with empathetic shepherding available?  (Jesus first commandment. Mt.4:17 and 6 other mentions.)

·         If at all, is born-again regeneration explained, urged, and expected with empathetic shepherding available?

·         If at all, are political positions and choices explained in the light of God’s Word? (I speak not of endorsements, but of knowing what God says that applies to said choices.)

·         If at all, when have we even heard the word “hell”? If so, how often and with what definition?

·         If at all, when have we been taught from God’s Word about the reality of hell?

·         If at all, when invited to trust Lord Jesus Christ, is any reason(s) given as to why bother?

  Where are we in our particular congregation? Are we taught the sound doctrine of the complete counsel of God or have we arrived at William Booth’s place of “chief dangers”?

EBB4

EVERY PERSON LIVES BY FAITH

EVERY PERSON LIVES BY FAITH

Sunday, March 06, 2016 (Written 7/3/14)

Do atheists and/or agnostics live by faith?

  Absolutely, I believe that the majority of atheist and agnostics live by a misplaced faith in man's knowledge. This leads to a hubris that causes them to become blind to the fact that many of them have turned science into a religion. 

  In your [EBB4] last paragraph you state, "...faith involves not necessarily knowing or understanding everything. It also shows us that though lacking complete comprehensive knowledge and understanding, we, as with our past elders, are to make use of that which works," in science we call that a postulate. Here is the definition from www.biology-online.org.

1. Something demanded or asserted; especially, a position or supposition assumed without proof, or one which is considered as self-evident; a truth to which assent  may be demanded or challenged, without argument or evidence.

2. (Science: geometry) The enunciation of a self-evident problem, in distinction from an axiom, which is the enunciation of a self-evident theorem. The distinction   between a postulate and an axiom lies in this, that the latter is admitted to be self-evident, while the former may be agreed upon between two reasoners, and admitted by both, but not as proposition which it would be impossible to deny. (eng. Cyc) 

  So to put simply a postulate is something that is assumed to be true without proof being given. It is a starting point, a place were scientist agree to begin their discussion and by saying it is true even though we can't prove it. They are happy to do this because it is such a basic starting point that the postulate comes across as simply common sense and something that is the very basis of the universe. Please compare that idea with Romans 1:20 "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."

  Atheists often ask Christians to prove the existence of God, but we have trouble doing that because the existence of God is, to use the science terminology, a basic postulate for Christians. It is one of the tenants of our faith. We look at the universe and say there has to be a God because of the vary qualities found in the universe.

  The atheist scoffs at this and say you are deluded, an idiot, uneducated, because everyone knows that the universe came about by the Big Bang and Evolution. (Their gods of creation.)

  Here is the atheists trinity, even though many are unaware of them, the three basic postulates of science as given to use by the University of Berkeley. http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/basic_assumptions

1. There are natural causes for things that happen in the world around us. For example, if a ball falls to the ground, science assumes that there must be a natural explanation for why the ball moves downward once released. Right now, scientists can describe gravity in great detail, but exactly what gravity is remains elusive. Still, science assumes that there is an explanation for gravity that relies on natural causes, just as there is for everything in nature.

2. Evidence from the natural world can be used to learn about those causes. Science assumes that we can learn about gravity and why a ball falls by studying evidence from the natural world. Scientists can perform experiments with other falling objects, observe how gravity affects the orbits of the planets, etc. Evidence from a wide range of experiments and observations helps scientists understand more about the natural causes of gravity. 

3. There is consistency in the causes that operate in the natural world. In other words, the same causes come into play in related situations and these causes are predictable. For example, science assumes that the gravitational forces at work on a falling ball are related to those at work on other falling objects. It is further assumed that the workings of gravity don't change from moment to moment and object to object in unpredictable ways. Hence, what we learn about gravity today by studying falling balls can also be used to understand, for example, modern satellite orbits, the formation of the moon in the distant past, and the movements of the planets and stars in the future, because the same natural cause is at work regardless of when and where things happen.

  I absolutely love the fact that they use gravity in their examples because it demonstrates my next point. Man has accepted certain things as fact but over time as our understanding grows, we find out that the fact isn't actually a fact, instead it is an explanation, a contrivance, made up by us to explain the world around us. Gravity is one such contrivance. Gravity actually doesn't exist. Now some of you may be jumping up and down and saying, "It most certainly does, otherwise I wouldn't fall back to the floor."  Gravity is actually an effect witnessed due to the interaction between mass, space, and time. It is something we made up to explain the observed "attraction" between two objects. 

  Let's say we have two ants on the surface of a basketball and they start at the basketball's equator and move directly towards the "north pole" of the basketball. Now they may have started 1/4 of the circumference away from each other but by the time they reach the "north pole" they have zero distance between them. To us standing outside, we understand and can see the cause being the curvature of the surface they are on. To the ant, assuming that they could think and only think in 2D, they might say, "Ah, there is some force that acted on us and pulled us together." That is essentially what we have done with gravity. Gravity is our made up force that pulls us together when in fact it is simply the objects following a path along the "surface" created by space, time, and mass.

  That brings me to my next point. Man has expanded his use of postulates in science from the basic three listed above to the point that virtually every science has something they assume to be true without proof. Just to give a couple of examples: Einstein's postulates in Physics, Koch's postulates in Biology, the assumption that the daughter isotope starts at zero in geologic dating, evolutionary theory... These additional postulates have become tenants of their religion. A person that hangs their hat on science for the reason they came about becomes very defensive when these basic "truths" come under attack because they are assumed to be true without any way of proving them.(That is why it is evolutionary theory and not the law of evolution.) All they have left to defend their religion and themselves is to call someone uneducated or stupid or narrow minded. (Might I add, just as a believer sometimes get frustrated when our basic faith is attacked.) 

  I firmly believe that science is the search for truth and I believe, just as confidently, that God is truth, therefore ultimately when science finds the truth it will find God. Einstein once said, "I want to know God's thoughts, the rest are details." The problem as I see it is that an atheist can't get past the details.

"Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.” Romans 1:22-23

Sincerely,

Jon Mayo

Science Department Chair

Brownell-Talbot School

To contact Jon: 402.556.3772 or jomayo@brownell.edu

ARE, NOT SHOULD BE

ARE, NOT SHOULD BE

Friday, March 04, 2016

2Corinthians [GW] 5:14-21 Clearly, Christ's love guides us. We are convinced of the fact that one man has died for all people. Therefore, all people have died. He died for all people so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for the man who died and was brought back to life for them. So from now on we don't think of anyone from a human point of view. If we did think of Christ from a human point of view, we don't anymore. Whoever is a believer in Christ is a new creation. The old way of living has disappeared. A new way of living has come into existence. God has done all this. He has restored our relationship with him through Christ, and has given us this ministry of restoring relationships. In other words, God was using Christ to restore his relationship with humanity. He didn't hold people's faults against them, and he has given us this message of restored relationships to tell others. Therefore, we are Christ's representatives, and through us God is calling you. We beg you on behalf of Christ to become reunited with God. God had Christ, who was sinless, take our sin so that we might receive God's approval through him.

  Mary Fear is cofounder of Overcomers In Christ. She wrote the OIC handbook, Dealing With Feeling questions cards, and other Christ-centered Bible-based materials, all designed to support and further victorious personal maturation pleasing to God and man. Since husband Bill passed from this life Mary has continued as OIC director with daily her hand to the plow.

  Mary has a characteristic in common with the Apostle Paul.  When she writes she does not emphasize what we should be doing, but focuses primarily on the fact of whom and what we are as God’s people . . . and that our actions should be because of and according to.

  Consider highlights in Paul’s letters to the church at Corinth:

·         Paul begins with the fact of whom and what they are: Saints; with exalted standing in Christ.

·         Paul points out that they do not think or act out accordingly to who they are. (Note Rom.12:1-3 written a year prior.) They think and act like immature children that know no better.

·         Paul reminds them of proper congregant resolution and He who is the Ultimate Judge rewarding and denying.

·         Paul, detailing examples, judges Corinthian believer’s misbegotten mindset, faulty reliance, and egocentric prideful lives.

·         Paul describes the body of Christ, the church, as it is and how the Corinthian church acts contrariwise. (I cannot ponder this apart from remembering Grandmother’s folksy admonition: “Sometimes you bite off your nose to spite your face!”)

·         Paul emphasizes that though gifts are important, with prophecy the greatest, he learned charitable love is the way to think and act.

·         Paul describes acting out charitable love; not a ministry, but the ministry for all.

·         Paul presents some warnings and the why therefore.

  That which has always spoken to me greatly in Paul’s words to the Corinthians is the reality I am a new creature by and in Lord Jesus Christ and consequently am His minister of reconciliation with God and man. The Overcomers In Christ literature and support groups don’t supersede this fact, but they do definitely reinforce this truth of being existent versus reliance on experts (fulltime pastors, priests, missionaries, et al) or bemoaning “Woulda, coulda, shoulda!”

  Thank you Paul.  Thank you Mary. 

EBB4

If interested: http://overcomersinchrist.org/ or call (866)-573-0966 or write Overcomers In Christ, POBox 34460, Omaha NE 68134

BURIED TO WHAT?

BURIED TO WHAT?

Thursday, March 03, 2016

Luke 16:19-31; 18:7-14

John 3:1-18 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. … For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

  There are situations that we prefer not to think or talk about. The topic of eternal unrest versus rest of loved ones, benefactors, honorable people, heroes (Especially those giving the lives in saving others.), those we esteem is a proscribed list-topper.

  The beggar died first. The rich man continued to live in pleasurable position.

  Without wealth, Lazarus the beggar’s remains may have been “disposed of”, possibly per custom to a potter’s field or the city’s burning trash dump.

  With wealth and status, the rich man’s funeral must have been a grand public spectacle, with much color, pomp, and place for family words and dignitary oration.

  Such distinctions can easily confuse our thinking as Christians.

  For example: Uncle Jim McGee, thrice wounded and decorated WW1 combat veteran, lived with our family. From my earliest days he took me to parade, memorial, and gathering where I was privileged to meet many veterans. He was a tremendous influence contributing to my patriotism (and the reason I started PATRIOTS news e-list.)

  James Robert McGee left me with an emotional side that surfaces, sometimes with whelming poignant affection when I view military funerals.

  Knowing the facts of life and death in God’s Word, I am soon disturbed considering how beyond glorious visuals and words honoring deceased military or otherwise uniformed man or woman . . . there is eternal question, “Buried to what?”

  "One day the beggar died, and the angels carried him to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. He went to hell, where he was constantly tortured.” (GW Lk.16:22-23)

EBB4   

CANDLING

CANDLING

Wednesday, March 02, 2016

Mark 4:1-21 Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed?

Revelation [MKJV] 2:1-7 To the angel of the church of Ephesus write: He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands, says these things. I know your works and your labor and your patience, and how you cannot bear those who are evil. And you tried those pretending to be apostles, and are not, and have found them liars. And you have borne, and have patience, and for My name's sake you have labored and have not fainted. But I have against you that you left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and will remove your lampstand [KJV “candlestick”] out of its place unless you repent. But you have this, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

Revevelation [MKJV] 3:19-22 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame and have sat down with My Father in His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Dear fellow travelers,

  I continue to ponder and pray about the church at large and in particular our local congregation, in the latter examining my condition first of all. I am not alone in this exercise. Leaders and else are exercising.

  I know not what others consider, but I’ve been contemplating the letter to the church at Ephesus most of all. In particular I’ve been thinking on several points:

·         The common misapplication of Revelation 3:20 as having to do with individually gaining eternal salvation when its imperative application is to listen to what the Holy Spirit says about local congregations’ pluses and minuses. (2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13,22)

·         Then there is penalty for active and yet unrepentant congregation = removal of light. (2:5) Is this the same light that Jesus speaks of as recorded in Mt.5:15, Mk.4:21, Lk.11:33? I believe so. An illustrative memory: In the good old days blood clots were sometimes in eggs from free ranging hens. Before sale the eggs were “candled” in a dark room -- between forefinger and thumb examined visually with candle flame behind. Later when Edison’s filaments were used it was still referred to as “candling”. (Housing in celibate stalls by and large solved flawed eggs problem.)

·         “I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first.” has involved my most serious personal reflection; as Jon Mayo said in a recent sermon (THE GREATEST OF THESE … [1Cor.13:1-13]), “You cannot control the actions of the other person in the relationship nor should you try. The only person’s actions you can truly affect are your own and those should be guided by Godly principles.” And what is this abandonment that the Lord referred to? I do indeed believe it is what He speaks of, saying “If ye love me, keep my commandments. … If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. … If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.”(Jn.14:15, 23; 15:10)

  Knowing these things and thinking upon them I now sincerely before God and man continue in our journey toward the “reasonable worship” Paul wrote of and typified.

EBB4

CALM MAY BE SPELLED RISK

CALM MAY BE SPELLED RISK     Tuesday, March 01, 2016

'Everything is alright! Everything is alright!' But it's not alright. (Jer.6:14; 8:11)

  Calm is always better than tumultuous stormy atmosphere, right?

  Maybe, but not necessarily.

  Family, business, and congregation all suffer tempestuous times necessitating prayerful Biblical examination, determination of solutions, and practical implementation of God’s remedial changes.

  Calm is not a solution.

  “Things have finally settled down now that the troublemakers are gone.” rectifies little or nothing if underlying problem(s) are not resolved.

  Calm can be riskier than storm.

EBB4

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