I’m going to keep this one short, real short. I feel like I haven’t accomplished what I’m trying to accomplish. All I want is for people to have an actual conversation. So this week all I am going to blog is a question.
WHAT IS CHURCH FOR YOU? WHERE DO YOU SEE IT GOING?
I’ve missed a week or two. I have had a couple ideas floating around and I feel like this one is the most put together. I’ve ate way too much turkey, drank a lot of beer, dominated in dicecapades, ate more turkey, finally had a good night sleep in what is not my current bed, ate more turkey, and then got thoroughly pissed at this weeks walking dead. KILL BETH REALLY!?!?!?!? and the Cowboys got their ass kicked in there somewhere. I’m not looking forward to tomorrow, I hope for my wife’s sake it is a good day. My heart is heavy and I wish I didn’t have to go to work tomorrow. I apologize if this post gets scatter brained. The whole point is to create conversation so please comment….
Can faith and science coexist? I think they can, I think they have to. I’ve grown up hearing the ” Evolution vs. God” debate, and recently I’ve tried to begin to dissect that for myself. I think that as an evangelical Christian we have put God in such a small box that we can’t except anything outside of what we perceive him to be. God is Adam and Eve, the garden, the fruit and the fall of man. God is eternal damnation to the sinful nature. God is the destruction of entire nations. God is the destruction of man minus Noah and the Ark. God is hope. God is peace. God is joy. God is prosperity, if you follow him and keep his commandments. God is a mansion on a hill? I think God may be what we’ve made him.
What if the bible was written today? Would culture change the way it was written? Would it have a more feminist approach? God forbid Paul was a black man, or gay. I currently cannot say that the bible is the inherent word of God. That’s not to say that it can’t be used by God, or wasn’t even breathed by God. I’m saying that the culture of the time heavily influenced the way the text was written, and the way it was interpreted there after. Entirely written by male authors, suggesting that men are superior. Extremely patriarchal, suggesting that women have no place of authority. The bible throughout history has been used to justify so many horrible acts. Slavery, prejudice, rape, sexism, most wars, and many other forms of oppression. Did God want us to not eat that fruit because we would become to much like him? Would we truly know the difference between right and wrong? Would we not need him anymore? Did the devil deceive us or did we deceive ourselves?
Genesis 3:5 (NIV) 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
I can’t get past the fact that most of the bible, if taken literal is completely fucking crazy. The creation story I can except, though I lean toward a theistic evolutionist approach. Jonah and the belly of the whale, maybe the “belly” of the whale was a the inside of a ship? Noah and the Ark, maybe that was the best way at the time to explain the ice age? Then there is the plagues, the red sea, Moses the Pharaoh and all that jazz. I think most of those “out there” stories could be fairytales meant to make us behave. To scare us into submission. To differ from science a little bit. The Lords’ Supper has always struck me odd.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26New King James Version (NKJV)
Institution of the Lord’s Supper
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat;[a] this is My body which is broken[b] for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.
This do as often as you drink it. Did he really mean once a year when you drink this remember me. Or did he mean every night, when you drink wine(fermented grape juice, because they had no fridge), and crackers(because unleavened bread lasted longer than leavened) remember me and what I’ve done. Also, we exclude communion from “non-believers”, but Jesus didn’t. Judas would betray Jesus, but he participated in communion with him. Is that grace? Is that how we should approach our table? Is that how we should approach church? These aren’t questions I have answers for, just what makes sense to me now. How could a jealous God only want us to think of him once a year?
HONESTY HOUR
1. I am thankful for family.
2. I need tomorrow to be a good day.
3. I confess that I’m angry and bitter towards people.
MY BADASS MUSIC SESSION
Embrace The Bait 