Bad Guys Win First
I watched Avatar recently. It was a very good movie. I’m gonna spoil it if you haven’t watched it. Humans are on this planet called Pandora, and some are there to get this rare and expensive rock called unobtanium, and others are there for research. The problem is that there are alien natives there. The main character adopts an alien body in a way similar to the Matrix in order to be with the aliens, and he spends three months learning their culture and such. His original motive is to gain their trust, so that they can get out when the humans come in and destroy their home, which rests on a huge stash of unobtanium. Over time, he becomes attached to them, and he realizes that it’s wrong to kill to get rich, so he takes a bit of a stand against the humans. Then the humans throw him and his buddies into a holding cell. Then the screen blacked out.
At this point, my mind was in a very concerned situation. My heart went out to this fictional main character. It couldn’t end like this. That’s a bad ending. And then the movie started up again, and the bad guys lose, and the good guys win, and the situation is resolved. I was relieved.
Today, I was thinking about this whole thing again, and I was just so relieved once again at how the movie didn’t end at the blackout scene. But the more I thought about it, I couldn’t help but realize that I was just a natural victim of the ordinary plot structure. Essentially all plots have the exposition, the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and the resolution. I learned that in high school. Even when I was a kid, when we would play Imaginary War, or when I would write fantasy stories, I would always insist that the bad guys have to win first, and then the good guys win. That’s just the way stories go.
I’m pretty sure this is not an original idea, and it’s probably something that I’ve read a long time ago from CS Lewis or Tim Keller, but here is something radical.
Essentially all movies and books have a “Bad Guys Win First, Good Guys Win Last” plot. It appeals. If they don’t have that, as in 1984, where it goes “Bad Guys Win First, Bad Guys Also Win Last”, it is usually to urge the reader to see the necessity of having such a concept in real life. But either way, this concept seems to be branded into humans. And I don’t think it’s a cultural thing. Even the ancient Greeks wrote in such a manner. And whenever things transcend time and culture, I always think of religion. And come to think of it, no other religion addresses this idea as well as good old Christianity.
Now when I say religion, I’m not limiting it to official sects of faith. I’m also encompassing ideologies and philosophies. And it doesn’t seem like any other religion has this concept of “Bad Guys Win First, Good Guys Win Last.” In fact, no other religion seems to have much of a storyline. Everything is stagnant.
Many religions just teach that there is a supernatural, and then it says how to respond to the existence of the supernatural. In Avatar, the natives believed in the existence of a life-force that fills all living things, similar to Buddhist and Lion King ideologies, and therefore we must respect and appreciate all life. In Islam, there exists a God, and revelations through the prophets and books tell us the characteristics of that God and the proper way to respond, and so the pillars of faith are developed, and certain sects add on food rules or clothing rules and such.
Other religions or philosophies just teach that there is no supernatural, and then it says how to respond to the nonexistence of the supernatural. Social Darwinism teaches that the things exist not because of God but by chance, and only the strongest will survive. That tends to produce things like German concentration camps in World War 2. Many people don’t really fall under a great organized belief, but they set their own standards. “I don’t believe in a supernatural, or at least not in one that conflicts with human purpose, so I will define my own purpose.” And they go on and say that their purpose is to have a happy family, or to contribute to society, or to pass down the genes.
In all of these, there is no storyline that defines their belief. Instead, their beliefs define their storyline. Because Robin Hood believed this way, he did this. Because Gandhi believed this way, he did this. Because Stalin believed this way, he did this.
Here is how Christianity is different. God doesn’t just write some rules. God writes the storyline, and he takes part in the storyline. This is the story.
Exposition: Once upon a time, everything is perfect.
Rising Action: Sin came into the world.
Climax: God came to earth and died for the sins of mankind.
Falling Action: God has called his people to spread the news and to await his return. This is today.
Resolution: God will return, and everything will be perfect once again. The end.
Everything is perfect, the bad guys win, then the good guys win, then everything is perfect again. Christianity is the epitome of the basic storyline. At one point, sin reigned. At another point, Jesus reigns. No other belief that I have found teaches anything like that. In all the major beliefs of today, all I find is what exists is what exists. There is no change. There is no “God becomes man” event. There is no “God dies” event. There is no “God comes back to life” event. It’s just God exists, so do this. Or it’s just God doesn’t exist, so do this. Christianity says God exists, sin happened, God died for sin, so do this. Man isn’t the initiative. God is the initiative.
For the non-Christian, God, or non-God, has written down a code to follow. That code takes root in our lives, and our storyline is the result. For the Christian, God has not only written down a code to follow, but he has written a storyline. That storyline takes root in our lives, and our additional storyline is the result.
What’s the big deal?
Well, for one thing, the fact that every human being has a little of this mindset in his or her mind points to the idea that maybe the God of Christianity is hinting at his own character by giving us such a mindset.
Secondly, I believe that this gives Christianity perhaps the most tangible purpose. It is like having office hours with the professor, rather than just reading the textbook that the professor wrote. It is like getting autographs from the band members, rather than just listening to their CD in the car. It is like taking a walk with a lover in the park, rather than rereading past letters. God has initiated the storyline and acted out the storyline. He has set the example. He does not just give you a list of things to do and sit back on his throne on a cloud, but he has come down into earth, he has dwelt among us, and he has died and risen. Now, he is inviting us to follow him. Our storyline is not then a raw storyline, but it is a continuation of a storyline that has been started.
“I can admire the solemn and stately language of worship that recognizes the greatness of God, but it will not warm my heart or express my soul until it has also blended therewith the joyful nearness of that perfect love that casts out fear and ventures to speak with our Father in heaven as a child speaks with its father on earth. My brother, no veil remains.”
- Charles Spurgeon
- Larry
Saul Chosen to Be King
Today somebody asked me how often I do my quiet times. I told him, and I quickly added that I was more consistent during the school year, which was pretty ridiculous in itself. Then he asked why I didn’t do them every day. I didn’t have a very good reason. And he told me to do them. So I did. This is what I learned today.
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1 Samuel 9
1 There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, son of Zeror, son of Becorath, son of Aphiah, a Benjaminite, a man of wealth. 2 And he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he. From his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people.
3 Now the donkeys of Kish, Saul’s father, were lost. So Kish said to Saul his son, “Take one of the young men with you, and arise, go and look for the donkeys.” 4 And he passed through the hill country of Ephraim and passed through the land of Shalishah, but they did not find them. And they passed through the land of Shaalim, but they were not there. Then they passed through the land of Benjamin, but did not find them.
5 When they came to the land of Zuph, Saul said to his servant who was with him, “Come, let us go back, lest my father cease to care about the donkeys and become anxious about us.” 6 But he said to him, “Behold, there is a man of God in this city, and he is a man who is held in honor; all that he says comes true. So now let us go there. Perhaps he can tell us the way we should go.” 7 Then Saul said to his servant, “But if we go, what can we bring the man? For the bread in our sacks is gone, and there is no present to bring to the man of God. What do we have?” 8 The servant answered Saul again, “Here, I have with me a quarter of a shekel of silver, and I will give it to the man of God to tell us our way.” 9 (Formerly in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he said, “Come, let us go to the seer,” for today’s “prophet” was formerly called a seer.) 10 And Saul said to his servant, “Well said; come, let us go.” So they went to the city where the man of God was.
11 As they went up the hill to the city, they met young women coming out to draw water and said to them, “Is the seer here?” 12 They answered, “He is; behold, he is just ahead of you. Hurry. He has come just now to the city, because the people have a sacrifice today on the high place. 13 As soon as you enter the city you will find him, before he goes up to the high place to eat. For the people will not eat till he comes, since he must bless the sacrifice; afterward those who are invited will eat. Now go up, for you will meet him immediately.” 14 So they went up to the city. As they were entering the city, they saw Samuel coming out toward them on his way up to the high place.
15 Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel: 16 ”Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines. For I have seen my people, because their cry has come to me.” 17 When Samuel saw Saul, the Lord told him, “Here is the man of whom I spoke to you! He it is who shall restrain my people.” 18 Then Saul approached Samuel in the gate and said, “Tell me where is the house of the seer?” 19 Samuel answered Saul, “I am the seer. Go up before me to the high place, for today you shall eat with me, and in the morning I will let you go and will tell you all that is on your mind. 20 As for your donkeys that were lost three days ago, do not set your mind on them, for they have been found. And for whom is all that is desirable in Israel? Is it not for you and for all your father’s house?” 21 Saul answered, “Am I not a Benjaminite, from the least of the tribes of Israel? And is not my clan the humblest of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin? Why then have you spoken to me in this way?”
22 Then Samuel took Saul and his young man and brought them into the hall and gave them a place at the head of those who had been invited, who were about thirty persons. 23 And Samuel said to the cook, “Bring the portion I gave you, of which I said to you, ‘Put it aside.’” 24 So the cook took up the leg and what was on it and set them before Saul. And Samuel said, “See, what was kept is set before you. Eat, because it was kept for you until the hour appointed, that you might eat with the guests.”
So Saul ate with Samuel that day. 25 And when they came down from the high place into the city, a bed was spread for Saul on the roof, and he lay down to sleep. 26 Then at the break of dawn Samuel called to Saul on the roof, “Up, that I may send you on your way.” So Saul arose, and both he and Samuel went out into the street.
27 As they were going down to the outskirts of the city, Samuel said to Saul, “Tell the servant to pass on before us, and when he has passed on, stop here yourself for a while, that I may make known to you the word of God.”
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Saul was looking for donkeys. Saul sought Samuel in order to find his donkeys. So many people do this with God. We have an agenda in mind. We want money or girls or grades or reputation or whatever, so we go to God in order to get what we want.
Saul wanted to “trade” with Samuel. He wanted Samuel to tell him how to find his donkeys, so he felt like he needed to pay him somehow. So many people do this with God, too. In order to get our prayers answered, we feel like we have to do something first to earn it. But there’s no record of Samuel taking the shekel. Similarly, God doesn’t want our pity things. Our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment (Isaiah 64:6). You cannot buy God.
All Saul wanted were his donkeys. He got a nation (and some free food and lodging). Though Saul, being in the lowliest clan in the lowliest tribe of Israel, clearly did not deserve such a position, he was put at the head of the table, and he dined as a hero. And then he was given a place to rest. And in the next chapter, he is anointed to be king over Israel. That is us. We don’t deserve anything. All we want are our donkeys. Or our cars or our careers or our pats on the back. Whatever it is that we want, God is able to use that misplaced desire to bring us to him, so that we can dine with him and to rest in him, who is far superior to donkeys. This is the Gospel. We want donkeys. God gives us himself.
Lastly, it was all prepared. You can see in this story that it wasn’t really Saul who sought God out but God who sought Saul out. God divinely appointed this encounter between Saul and Samuel. He had it so that Saul went to look for donkeys in this location, and he had it so that Saul would come into the city. Even the food for Saul to eat had been set aside. Samuel said to him, “Eat, because it was kept for you until the hour appointed, that you might eat with the guests.” Meanwhile, Saul had no idea. All he was doing was looking for donkeys. And the amazing thing is that God does that for each and every one of us. While we were lost, minding our own donkey business, God prepared a way for us to come to him. And now that we have come to him, Jesus is preparing for us a place in heaven (John 14:2-3). An hour has been appointed when we will dine with God himself.
To sum it up. All we want are donkeys. We go to God for donkeys. Meanwhile, before we have a clue about anything, God made a plan to give us grace, love, and life. Then he executes that plan. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us ” (Romans 5:8). What an amazing story the Bible teaches.
- Larry
Beauty
Today I saw Mt. Shasta. And I saw an amazing sky. My brother Daniel said it’s like the sky is falling to the ground. And later I saw some postcards at this restaurant called Black Bear Diner, and there were these amazing pictures of the sky. It’s like God took a huge paintbrush and painted the sky to make our day.
That’s called wonder. That’s called splendor. That’s called beauty.
My dad says that God created beauty, and even more than that, God created the human capability to appreciate beauty. And the more I thought about that, the more I realized how strong of a correlation there was between the existence of beauty and the existence of God.
If there was no supernatural, meaning everything exists simply because everything exists, why would beauty exist? If we are the result of natural selection and solely natural selection, then the less advanced species would find wonder in the more advanced species, and the most advanced species that ever existed wouldn’t find wonder in anything outside itself. So the more advanced an organism is, the less likely that organism would find beauty in things outside of itself. And if humans are some of the most advanced things that have ever come into being, why would humans find wonder in skies? Skies are so elementary and primitive. Snails are more advanced than skies.
If we are the result of a God who made us to be in fellowship with Him, then it makes sense that humans would long for something greater than themselves. And if God is a Creator, then it makes sense that we would find beauty in His creation. And if God came to earth and lived and died so that we could be redeemed to have an extra infinite dose of wonder, that would be the most wonderful event in history.
- Larry
When Loved Ones Go to Hell
I was reading through the beginning of 1 Samuel with a friend yesterday, and I was amazed by how applicable these stories could be if I just meditated on them for a while. There’s the inspiration of the surrendering Hannah in chapter 1, who took joy in giving her child to God, and there’s the pointing to the Messiah in 2:25 and 2:35. But even more mind-blowing to me was the story of Eli.
To give some context, Eli was an old priest, and he had two sons who were very disobedient in their priestly jobs. So Eli confronted them and tried to reason with them, and just check out what the Bible says about his sons in the second part of 2:25. “But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the Lord to put them to death.”
That’s insane. And that’s not all. In chapter 3, God appears to Samuel, a young boy at the time, and gives him a message. “Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.”
That scared me out of my skin. God swore that the sins of Eli’s family would not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever. We often refer to Jesus as our substitutionary atonement. It seems pretty clear that this did not apply to Eli’s family. In other words, Eli’s family is going to hell. God swore it. And so I wonder, what would be the proper reaction to such a message from the Lord? Let’s look at what Eli did. Starting from v15…
“Samuel lay until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. And Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, ‘Samuel, my son.’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ And Eli said, ‘What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.’ So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. And he said, ‘It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.’”
Eli’s response was, “It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.” That is the true recognition of God’s sovereignty. Even when God has pitted it all against you, simply recognize that God is in control, and comply with his plan. If it is the Lord’s will, how can we run against it? How can we cry “injustice” into the face of the God of justice?
I’ve heard people say to me that they could never follow a God who condemns people to hell. But the issue isn’t God but us. God has told us in the Bible that he condemns people to hell. That’s been the case ever since the world began. The issue is whether or not we are going to follow such a God. If God told me somehow that my parents were going to hell, or if my brothers were going to hell, it would definitely be something I would wrestle with, but at the end of the day, I would have to admit, “It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.” Does not Jesus say in Matthew 10:37, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me”? It’s a hard truth, but Jesus asks for our all. Even if God’s good runs contrary to what we believe is good, it must pass. And we must watch it pass.
- Larry
Talking About Myself
Someone once told me, and I think I’ve talked about this here before, that pet peeves often point to something that is wrong within the individual who is having that pet peeve. This theory has proved correct once again.
Here are some past pet peeves of mine.
- People who are stuck up.
- People who show off.
- People who are quick to give instruction to others though they are not of competence in the subject matter, especially in a large group setting, probably to portray that they are more competent than they actually are.
Now I’ve been becoming more aware of another pet peeve. I get turned off by people who spend most of their conversations talking about themselves.
When two or more friends bump into each other, there often is the usual fake filler material. “How are you doing” and “what do you have going on today” and the like. But after that, it seems like when people realize that they’ve done a good enough job portraying themselves as decently polite and friendly, they relax back into their true selves. And these specific people who annoy me start talking about their lives as if they were all that mattered. These end up to be one-way conversations, where one individual does most of the informative talking, and the other individual(s) politely compliments here and there with “yeah I know” or “totally.” As if it were a charismatic preacher and a couple of “amens.” Here’s an example to show you what I mean.
“You know today I was with Freddie McDonald, and I was so hungry and wanted to go out, but he was like, ‘Wait I gotta finish my problem set.’ As if he was actually doing it or something. He was like texting at the same time. And he had to go take a crap because he had beans last night or something. And I had to wait for like thirty–no–forty-five minutes starving to death. I didn’t even have lunch that day because that same idiot girl in my math class needed help again. I don’t even know why I help her. She doesn’t even seem to try. I swear, it’s such a joke that she even got into Cornell. And since we’re on the topic of people who annoy me, that math professor ran late today again. I’m gonna start going to the 12:00 lecture, because I can’t stand this guy. Plus, I’ve never met such a boring guy in my life.”
Note: I am only referring to casual conversations. This is irrelevant to sermons or presentations or anything like that.
I’ve been thinking about this recently, and like most pet peeves, I’ve been coming to see that the problem is in me just as much as it is in them. I’ve been catching myself interjecting into the conversation and almost changing the topic in order to talk about myself. Or sometimes we’ve been talking about myself, the conversation moves on, and I interject and return the conversation back to myself. It’s so ridiculous I can’t believe I never noticed it before.
Here’s why I think this is dangerous. If a conversation takes up time, and if time is money, and if a person is spending the majority of the conversation on himself, what does that mean? It means he is valuing himself more than anybody else who is participating in the conversation. That’s really what it comes down to. But here’s the thing. No man has the right to value himself more than anybody else. We have plenty of words to describe them. Pride, bigotry, and self-righteousness are a few.
There is one exception, and that is God. The reason why Jesus could say stuff like “I am the light of the world” and “I am the good shepherd” was because he actually was more important than the people he was talking to. Not only was he important, but he was beneficial. It was for the good of his audience that he was talking about himself, because their whole lives were dependent on his identity. Jesus had to be who he was in order for people to be saved from eternal damnation. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that Jesus talked about himself.
But if it was any other person, what reason can he have to direct the conversation to himself? Can any other person honestly redirect a conversation to himself, afterwards claiming that his audience’s eternal damnation was on the line? I don’t think so. Nobody is in that position of authority.
If a man does talk about anybody, he talks about Jesus. Why? In the Christian walk, a man is realizing daily the magnificence of God, and he is realizing daily the magnificence lacking in himself. Therefore he will realize how unnecessary it is to talk about himself and how necessary it is to talk about God. But how do you get to talking about God? Start by talking about them. Why? This is how they know you love them. This is how to rejoice in their joys, to suffer in their sufferings. After all, that’s what Jesus did.
This is all over the the book of John. In John 4, Jesus talks to a Samaritan woman about her previous husbands, and then he tells her that he is the Messiah. In John 6, Jesus feeds the five thousand, and the next day he says he is the bread of life. In John 9, Jesus heals a blind man, and then, more than thirty verses later, he tells him he is the Son of Man. In John 11, Jesus has conversations with Martha and Mary, weeps with them, and then he raises Lazarus from the dead to show that he was the resurrection and the life.
So when having good (in the eternal sense) encounters with people, this is how it works. 1) Talk about them. 2) Talk about Jesus. Talking about yourself just loses its worth.
- Larry
Assumptions
In many of my posts, I like to start with a hook and lead into the main topic. This post’s hook is about riddles. And this hook is about half of the post, which is pretty long, so if you don’t want to read it all, you can just scroll down.
These past few days, I’ve been into riddles. Not any kind of riddles. There is this specific category of riddles that I find very entertaining, and I don’t even know if this category has a name. This is how it works. The riddle-teller provides a scenario, and the audience is to discover how that scenario came to be. The audience does this by asking a series of yes-no questions, in order to discover more facts about the scenario. Slowly but surely, if the audience has the persistence, additional characters are introduced and a story unravels.
Here’s an example. Spoiler alert.
A man is lying naked in a desert with a straw in his hand. About a hundred meters away are a bunch of sandbags.
Now people can start asking yes-no questions. Facts are revealed until the story is complete. Here is a usual revealing of facts concerning this riddle.
- The man is dead.
- The man committed suicide.
- People witnessed the suicide.
- The people did not prevent his suicide.
- The people who witnessed the suicide have left the scene.
- The man lost his clothes before he died.
- The man took off his own clothes.
- The clothes are still in the desert.
- The sandbags were placed there by the man.
- The sandbags were also placed there by the other people.
- The sandbags were not used to prevent a flood.
- The man traveled to this place in the desert.
- Before he started traveling, he did not intend to suicide.
- The man traveled on an object.
- The people and the sandbags were with him on this object.
- The man traveled in the sky.
- The man did not travel on an airplane or a helicopter.
- The man traveled in a hot air balloon.
- The sandbags were tossed off the hot air balloon to lighten up the hot air balloon.
- The hot air balloon was going to crash.
- People tossed off their clothes to lighten up the hot air balloon.
- The man jumped off of the hot air balloon.
- The people in the hot air balloon also had straws.
- They did not use the straws to drink.
- They did not put the straws to their mouths.
- The straws were not identical.
- All but one of the straws were identical.
- The dead man held the different straw.
- They drew straws.
- They drew straws to see who had to jump to lighten the hot air balloon.
The final story: A group of people were going over a desert in a hot air balloon. It was going to crash, so they decided to lighten up the load by tossing their sandbags and their clothes. It was still going to crash, so they drew straws to sacrifice somebody for the rest. The man drew the shortest straw and committed suicide for the rest of the crew.
I have about a dozen of these up my sleeve now. And I absolutely enjoy telling them and hearing them. And one thing that I am noticing the more I tell these and hear these is how packed people are with assumptions. In this riddle, for example, one person would ask, “Were there people with him when he died?” And he would usually follow up with “So they killed him?” Or a person would ask, “So all of these naked people were together?” And he would usually follow up with “They were gay?” In most cases, their assumptions would be correct. But ridiculous scenarios that are possible provide one of the few ways in which their assumptions become wrong. So I think one benefit I’m gaining from these riddles is this breaking down of assumptions. It makes me think outside of the box.
So today, after I told a riddle about a man who killed himself after waking up in the non-smoking compartment of a train, I was thinking about these assumptions. And I started to read a book for my metaphysics class, which is a collection of philosophy articles, and I come across what seemed to be a blatant assumption. Except this time, it mattered.
So the writer was talking about time, and he believed that time “passes.” There exists the past, the present, and the future. But future events, in some sense, don’t exist. Past events exist, because they have been experienced by all. But nobody has experienced anything in the future. When the future events come, then they start to exist.
So this all was very nice and cuddly in my mind. But then he randomly put God in the picture. Because the future hasn’t passed, because the future isn’t defined, because the future doesn’t exist, it isn’t knowable. And so even if God existed, he wouldn’t be able to know the future. He writes that “there are things about the future that God doesn’t yet know because they’re not yet there to be known, and to talk about knowing them is like saying that we can know falsehoods” (Some Free Thinking About Time by A.N. Prior).
So here’s the deal about assumptions. Essentially an assumption about someone parallels the thought, “People similar to you do this, so you do this, too.” And there are correct assumptions and incorrect assumptions. Examples. Humans have minds, so this human must have a mind, too. Humans have two legs, so this human must have two legs too. Rich people are snobby, so this rich person must be snobby, too. Asian people get good grades, so this Asian person must get good grades, too. Christians who smoke are nominal Christians, so this smoking Christian must be a nominal Christian, too. Christians hate gays, so this Christian must also hate gays.
No assumption is 100% accurate. But many assumptions have a high probability of being accurate. In order for an assumption to have a high probability of being accurate, it seems like two things must be true. 1) The people that the individual is being compared to actually do what is said they do. 2) This individual must be similar to that group of people. In fact, the more similar this individual to the group of people, the higher the probability the assumption is accurate. I’m gonna break this down. Skip ahead if you get it.
For example, let’s assume all rich people are snobby. There is a rich person. Therefore he is snobby. What is wrong with that? The people that the individual is being compared to don’t actually do what is said they do. Not all rich people are snobby. Premise #1 is false. Therefore, the assumption itself is wrong.
Here’s another example. Let’s assume that some Christians hate gays. There exists a man who is a Christian. Therefore he hates gays. What is wrong with that? Premise #1 is correct. Some Christians do hate gays. But the connection between the individual and that group is not strong enough. Just because this man is a Christian does not mean he is specifically the type of Christian who hates gays. The individual might not be similar enough to that group. Premise #2 is false. Therefore, the assumption itself is wrong.
Put God in the picture, and no assumption is true. Why? Because of Premise #2. Here’s the deal. God is not similar to anybody. There is no one like God. Therefore, accurate assumptions cannot be made about God, because there is no group to which he can be compared. We might compare God to hippies or to pastors or to popes or to trees or to our parents, but we will always come up dry.
And everybody makes assumptions about God. The major reason atheists don’t believe in God, the major reason Christians doubt God, is because of false assumptions about God.
If God exists, 9/11 wouldn’t have happened. If God exists, the woman who had cancer who was prayed for by her whole church wouldn’t have died. If God exists, he would reveal himself to more people. If God exists, there would be no suffering. If God exists, serving the church should be emotionally fulfilling. Those are all assumptions. They are comparing God to human fathers or to presidents or to doctors or to a collection of media depictions of deities or to Greek and Roman gods, etc. Whatever their image of God is, it is based to some extent in some way or form on fallible human beings, because those are the only intelligible beings we ever come across. Therefore, our image of God is always flawed.
We have not disproved the existence of God but the existence of our imaginary God. We have attached attributes and characteristics to God, and we are finding contradictions in those attributes and characteristics that we have attached.
How then can we accuse God? How then can we even know anything about God? One thing is for sure. If our image of God is a result of pondering with oneself, and if God is the least bit different from human beings, our image of God will be false. Statements like “I’d like to think of God as a kid burning ants with a magnifying glass” have no worth at all if they are based on pondering with oneself. And so here is the second thing that is for sure. The only way we can have any idea about God is if God chose to show who he is to us.
And thank God, the Christian faith says that he did choose to show himself to us. He came us a man and dwelt among us, and we caught glimpses of who he is. He has given us a Bible, and we catch more glimpses of who is. And one day, after we die, we will receive the full revelation of who he is. We will be stripped of all of our assumptions, and for better or for worse, we will be blown away.
- Larry
Steadfastness
Hello. I spent the weekend in Manhattan, and during this time I talked to a friend about steadfastness. We talked about how God was steadfast and how we were not.
It wasn’t until I returned home that I realized how huge this contrast was. God was good and will always be good. God was love and will always be love. God was sovereign and will always be sovereign. I can’t say anything like that about myself. I never liked ham too much. Today I ate some ham and liked it. I used to like chocolate. Now it’s not a big deal. Yesterday I read my Bible. Today I didn’t.
At different points of my life, I have had different values and mindsets. My opinions about government, education, religion, family, girls, and music have constantly been changing. But God has always been. He is who he is. When the world is a hurricane, God is still God.
- Larry
PS I created a new page on my blog, where I put up some of my original songs for download. Today I updated it with a few dozen more. This is a decently huge deal in my little life, because many of these songs have been private until now. Enjoy.
Segregation in the Church
I came back from a Campus Crusade retreat today, and the speaker talked a great deal about unity within the church. He touched on this issue quickly, but it was such an issue for me that I had to write something about it. This is the discrepancy.
==The Church in the Bible==
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
- John 17:20-21
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
- Galatians 3:28
“For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”
- Ephesians 2:14-16
==The Church in Reality==
“The church has become notoriously good at alienation.”
- Gary Parrett
“Eleven o’clock Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Multiracial Congregations Project, stationed at Rice University, conducted a study in 1999. If a multiracial church is defined as a church in which no one racial group is more than 80% of the church, 92% of all American churches are not multiracial.
- Larry
Investments
I never knew which words to not capitalize in titles. I used to lowercase all kinds of words. Recently, I realized that I didn’t like how titles looked when some words were capitalized and some weren’t, so I began capitalizing every word in titles. Even “An” and “Of” and such. Today, I had enough of this, so I went and researched the official rules online, and I had no idea it was so complicated. This title has proper capitalization. Look how ridiculous it is. But who says proper isn’t ridiculous?
Investments.
To some, buying a ricecooker is an investment. You invest some money, and your future meals might be cheaper.
To some, attending college is an investment. You invest a lot of money and four years of your life, and you gain a college degree, some lasting relationships, and some life lessons.
To some, a relationship is an investment. You invest time and energy on an individual, and you gain a happier life and some good memories.
So this is the common process. 1) People want gain. 2) People invest. 3) People gain. In fact, it seems like every single action that anybody ever does is for gain. Honestly, I can’t think of any example that isn’t the case. If there was no joy and no good memories in making friends, why would somebody make friends? If there was no degree, relationships, and life lessons in attending college, why would somebody attend college? If future meals were not cheaper, why would somebody buy a ricecooker?
Let’s see if Christianity fits the process. Why do Christians invest in God? Jeremiah invested a life preaching for repentance. He got beatings and time in prisons and cisterns. Jan Hus invested a life in purifying the Church, speaking out against indulgences and the Crusades. He got a burning at the stake. Jim Elliot invested a life of pursuing God, eventually leading him to be a missionary in Ecuador. He was ambushed by a group of warriors and speared to death.
What was the gain of these life investments? Jim Elliot once wrote, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” Philippians 3:8 says, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”
So Christ is the gain. Let’s check out the process. 1) Person A wants Christ. 2) Person A invests a life. 3) Person A gains Christ. Is that how it goes? No, that’s salvtion by works.
Jesus says in John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” God chose us. We didn’t even want Christ in the beginning. But God came down and gave Himself to us freely for our good. And after gaining Christ, it is addictive, andwe cannot help but to continue the pursuit. Thus the investment in Christ comes after the gain.
So what’s the process for the Christian life? 1) We didn’t want Christ. 2) We gain Christ. 3) We invest in Christ.
The process is radical. Investment in Christianity is not the means to an end, but it is the natural result of an encounter with Christ.
John 4:14 says that “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Jesus gives us the gain. All we do is drink. And when we drink, we will never thirst again. What does that mean? It means that we won’t want anything anymore. Any gain but Christ simply doesn’t matter. Every single thing of this world unrelated to the pursuit of God is now rubbish. There is now no more gain to be found in the world and thus no more investments to be made concerning the world.
Practially, it means we live without worldly expectations. Our cup is already full from God’s blessings, and because God is the source of all we need, we can give our lives away without asking for anything in return. We can buy ricecookers, go to college, and make friends, without an investment mentality. We can never gain more than what we already have.
- Larry
The Need to Disassociate
Hello all. It’s been a good first few days at school. It’s so nice talking to people I haven’t talked to in a while. I don’t know why that feeling is so nice, but it is.
Sometimes, when I walk around campus, I walk with people. Other times, I walk alone. When I walk alone, I like to just listen in on random people’s conversations. I think you can learn a lot about people by simply listening to them. And after listening to enough people, you reach a large enough sample size to place theories on the human race.
Recently I’ve been becoming more and more aware of what seems to be this human need to disassociate. Let me show you some examples. Most of these are theoretical.
During an Ultimate Frisbee game on the field, this Frisbee was launched across the field, and a player sprinted down after it. He slowed down, the frisbee went by, he made a lunge, he managed to touch the frisbee, the frisbee slipped out of his hands, and he fell onto the ground in a way that wasn’t too admirable. “I thought it was gonna settle,” he said. What did he just do? He didn’t want others to think of him as a horrible Ultimate Frisbee player, so he justified his physical mistake by saying that he misplanned it. He wanted others to know (or at least believe) that he was physically able but simply mentally unprepared. Thus he associated himself with the group of occasionally mentally unprepared people, which isn’t that bad of a group to be associated with, because it is a fairly large group. At the same time, he disassociated himself from the looked-down-upon horrible Ultimate Frisbee players.
The guys are playing basketball, and this guy missed his fourth shot in a row, so he goes, “Aw crap this arm is killing me. You know last week I messed it up so bad longboarding.” He is assigning his physical incapability to an injury. Thus he is dissociating himself from people who suck for no reason. At the same time, he is associating himself with longboarding people, who are very cool people.
These are everywhere. And they’re so contagious. I’m on a roll with these examples. I’ll keep going.
In one conversation, people are talking about how hard this test was, and a girl would say, “Dude Billy Jean Chen finished the test like when I was on page two.” She just tried to dissociate herself from people who finish tests quickly.
In another conversation, people are talking about how easy this test was, and a guy would say, “Man last night I didn’t even study at all. I was up playing DOTA.” This person is trying to dissociate himself from people who study a lot.
In another conversation, somebody would say, “That’s what she said!” And everybody would laugh. But one of these laughers actually doesn’t understand why it’s funny, yet he laughs anyway. He is trying dissociate himself from people who suck at getting “that’s what she said” jokes. Also similar to this scenario is the very hip word or expression that flies over this dude’s head, but he laughs, and later that day he looks it up on Urbandictionary.com.
In another conversation, somebody decently smart would be watching Jeopardy with a really dumb girl. And the guy on Jeopardy answers this question correctly, and the really dumb girl goes, “What the heck? Does he have like no friends? How do you know stuff like that?” And the decently smart guy next to her would go, “Yeah I feel so dumb watching this show.” But in reality, this decently smart guy also knew the answer. He is simply dissociating himself from geniuses who have no friends.
There seems to always be this mentality to dissociate from the out-group and to associate with the in-group. And it kills. It produces pride. It produces ignorance. It produces masks.
Here’s a classic question. What would Jesus do? The exact opposite. Jesus, more than anybody else, purposely associated with the out-group. One of the reasons why the Pharisees were turned off by him was because he always hung out with the tax collectors and sinners. He chose to be associated with those others tried to dissociate themselves from. That’s counter-cultural. That’s radical. That’s revolutionary.
That’s not even all. Once upon a time, the Trinity was the in-group, and the human race was the out-group. And so God became flesh and dwelt among us. God came into the out-group and died for the out-group so that we can be in the in-group. There’s something to ponder about.
- Larry
