Category: Bible

Definitely a different culture

Today I was teaching about John the Baptist in Sunday School class at the Deaf church. He is not the John who wrote the book of John nor First, Second and Third John or the book of The Revelation. John, the author, is the one we refer to as Saint John.
John the Baptist however was a cousin to Jesus and was his “forerunner.” He went around preaching that Jesus was coming. John attracted some attention. The Bible says that he dressed in camel skins and ate locusts and wild honey.

The insect that the Bible calls locusts are what I called grasshoppers when I was growing up. I think that is pretty common in the US. Wikipedia has a pretty good article about locusts and shows that they are capable of the destruction of “biblical proportions” that has been attributed to them.Desert Locust

In Spanish the word for locusts (or grasshopper) is langosta. If you are up on your seafood in various languages, you will know that langosta is lobster as well. I did my best to describe lobsters for them. Though they are teens and fairly well educated, they are Deaf and do not know all the names of animals that do not affect their lives regularly. After my great description of a lobster and they knew what I was talking about, I asked them if they liked lobster / langosta. Basically…no. It was “OK,” but nothing too exciting for them.

I then told them that what John the Baptist was eating was not lobster anyway. He was eating an insect by the name langosta. They did not know what it could be. So, I pulled out some pictures that I had of grasshoppers. They got excited. One blurted out (in signs), “Oh! Those are really good. Especially with chocolate!” They not only knew what they were, but could tell how best to eat them!

After we were done being grossed out and amused by their excitement I said that John probably did not eat them with chocolate. But the Bible does say that he ate wild honey. So perhaps he dipped his grasshoppers in the honey instead.

Just because we don’t understand something that the Bible says, does not make it untrue or unbelievable. Maybe from our perspective we cannot wrap our heads around it, but it may just be a matter of experiencing a new culture to get an understanding.

Be ye holy…

First Peter 1:6 says, “Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” Where was it written? In the Bible. Leviticus 11:44 and 45 are two verses where it is said.

But what does it mean to be holy? A few years ago there was a big emphasis on holiness in churches in the US. There were all kinds of conferences and discussions about holiness. I presume that most of it was very good and helpful. My friend John VanGelderen has a conference each year called The Holiness Conference. Though I have never been to one of his conferences, I know Bro. VanGelderen and I would probably very much agree with what he has to say each year.

But just recently I was sitting in church and the pastor was speaking on being holy. God gave me a simple thought on what holiness is. Holiness is living absolutely as right before the Lord as you know how in contrast to simply obeying rules.

When you need a rule, or a Bible verse, to tell you each thing that you should and should not do, you are not living holy. Obviously rules and specific verses from the Bible give us direction and are the only way we can begin to understand holiness. But if you have to filter every action that you take through a set of rules, then you are trying to live at the edge of sinfulness, not in the fullness of holiness.

From Matthew 18 we see Peter talking to the Lord. “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” The point being, “Don’t worry about the exact number Peter. Just forgive because it is right to do.” Peter was trying to quantify the rule of forgiveness so that he could make sure he did what was necessary, but not any more than that.

Holiness is living absolutely as right before the Lord as you know how. It is not simply obeying a list of rules. Isn’t that where the Pharisees and Jesus often clashed? Don’t be a 21st century pharisee. Live holy.

Woodrow Kroll writes about The DaVinci Code

I get a lot of questions asked of me about The DaVinci Code. These questions are usually from friends who know that I am a Christian and they focus on how scandalous the book must be for me. My answers have centered around the fact that the book should be seen as a work of fiction.

Yes, it is highly inflammatory. Yes, it does make certain assertions about Christianity that make it seem like a shady religion. But a few things must be remembered. This is fiction. If one takes any amount of time to check the facts in the book, they will find that there are many historical inaccuracies. Many.

The book also confuses Christianity with Catholicism. Therefore, whatever is said about the Catholic Church is being applied to Christianity as a whole. There have been many things done through the history of Catholic Church that does not fall under the realm of Christianity. I know that people will argue that Catholicism is Christianity, but not where I live. I live in a Catholic country. Here, you are either Catholic, or Christian. The Catholics make this distinction more than we do.

There is a great article by Woodrow Kroll at Back to the Bible. He takes just three points about the book to write his article. I thought it was an excellent, short, read. Mr. Kroll states, “Dan Brown has done his homework, but it’s in the realm of lore and legend, not the reality of history. It’s fiction, not fact.” That is a great summary of the book.

I found the book to be well written from a literary standpoint. Unfortunately it is being taken more as fact than it is fiction.

Proverbs 22:1

I was teaching a class yesterday using this verse which says: A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold. In a nutshell it means that a good reputation is better than a boatload of money. It does not say that you can’t be rich and have a good reputation. But that you should not trade the good name for the money.

What I got from this after thinking about it some was this. If you believe this verse and practice it, it says certain things about you. You are honest. You are a hard worker. You obey the authority placed over you.

No thief believes and practices this verse. Liars don’t believe and practice this. Nor lazy people.

There are companies that have lots of money, but horrible reputations. They get there by being liars and thieves. But those who have good reputations can also have the money.

It is never right to sacrifice on the alter of money and riches a good name or reputation.

Ancient Mammal Found

Scientists have found a mammal that lived in a time when they thought that mammals did not exist. Of course, this is no surprise to those who believe the Bible.

As a creationist, you believe that God created the world at one time. This would have mammals, dinosaurs and humans all living at the same time. Each time “science” comes up with a new discovery it strengthens what the Bible says. We are not afraid of true science. Science has never proven the Bible wrong. In many cases it just took science longer to observe through its scientific process what the Bible has stated as fact for hundreds or even thousands of years.