A few items on the docket

Heh Heh, another court reference. [insert joke that I think is funny but really isn't]

Item number one - I was driving to work on Friday and I decided to listen to KLOVE (the nation-wide contemporary christian music station) and the morning people were commenting on a new audio Bible. It's called The Bible Experience. And, it is narrated by celebrities, some of whom are Christian (Kirk Franklin, etc.) some of whom are not (Cuba Gooding Jr., Denzel Washington and his wife, etc.). Now, I'm all for celebrities reading the Bible and hearing the truth. However, I am not for selling an audio Bible by marketing it as "narrated by celebrities." It's like hearing Christmas carols sung by secular artists. For instance, I love Bing Crosby's voice, but I can't listen to him singing about the blessed savior's birth when he isn't saved. It's greed and they can't glorify God through it, even if Christians can glorify God through it. That's just one of my pet peeves, not some universal truth that everyone must abide by. But what really ticked me off is that one of the morning show people responded to this press release by exclaiming how cool it was. How can that be cool? How is it that what makes the word of God cool is that fact that it is read by celebrities? Celebrities don't make the Bible cool. How long will the church suffer under our blasphemous pop culture? When will we stop idolizing the things that the world idolizes. It is an insult to God to imply that His word needs window dressing to appear cool or to appeal to our culture. It isn't the messenger, it's the message. And why are we excited about an unsaved messenger in the first place. This is the same kind of frustration I have with The Message and those New Testaments that look like teen magazines and are filled with make-up tips and whatever is in the guys version. Even the fact that they have a guys and girls version of the New Testament bothers me. Why do we dumb down the word of God so that those who can't understand it anyway (i.e. the unregenerate) will think that they can. The Spirit is what opens our eyes, not fourth-grade level words.

Whew! Cooled off a little bit now. The next thing is that Jonathan Edwards rocks. He was truly given an incredible gift by God. I am in awe of his God-given gift to argue and persuade and define, etc. The Freedom of the Will is looking like it's going to be a great book. I just finished Section 2 of Part 2 and I was trying to figure out where he was going to go with it and I came up with this. The will cannot determine itself. It must be determined by something outside the will. So what determines the will? He has already stated that our strongest inclination does. What determines that? Our nature and is influenced by other external things like the world and demonic forces. Obviously, this means that if someone is unregenerate then his will can never be to do the will of God and therefore he cannot help but sin because his strongest inclination is always to sin. So what determines his nature and its influences? Ultimately, this chain ends in God. God determines our wills. But what determines God? God determines God. More specifically, the desire to glorify himself is what determines how God determines our wills. So this leaves us with the question that Micah posed: What do we do with the fact that there is evil and evil intentions in the world? Does God determine evil? I won't fully answer this but will suggest that you read his post on this, which is a summary of John Gerstner's position on this. It's really good. On a side-note, when Gerstner talks about good good and evil good I interpret the second term, which is always good, as relating directly to God's intentions and the first term as relating to our intentions as shown in Gen. 50:20.

The third and final thing (sorry for the length). When I was reading FOTW I started to think about eternity which is something that I don't think we do nearly enough. (By the way, if you took out some of the words in that sentence you would get "I think that I don't think" which is a pretty true statement.) When I start thinking about eternity I think about a tunnel and relate that to my life. My life is like going through a tunnel. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it grows stronger all the time until you reach the end and then you're done with the tunnel. In eternity, not only do you fail to reach the end of the tunnel you don't even see the light at the end because there isn't one. It never stops. We are in a never-ending tunnel filled with the brightness of the glory of God and we will never get to the end of it. I can't help but smile at the thought. Everything I know on this world has an end and we think in terms of beginnings and endings. But with eternity it doesn't have an end and this blows my mind. We will spend an eternity in the loving embrace of our savior. It doesn't end. I just can't get my mind around it. Wow! God, bring your kingdom now or end my life so that I can be with you which is far better. But until then, I have a purpose on this earth and my time serving You is not yet done. Let me serve You with humility and a heart that longs to see You glorified in everything. A heart that glows with Your truth and will never hide its light. To God be the glory.