More from my reactions to a video supporting evolution. You'll need some background here. An man named Michael Behe wrote a book called "Darwin's Black Box." It is a great book. In my opinion it totally destroys the theory of macro evolution. In the first few minutes of his speech, this is what the science guy had to say about Behe:
The guy is saying that says Michael Behe believes that Astrology is a scientific theory. The implication is clear. Behe doesn't believe in evolution, so if we can just get him to be honest with us, he will reveal all kinds of crackpot ideas. Well, I've read Behe's book. There is simply no way this man believes in Astrology.
So I go to do some research. This lie is all over the web. It's simply not true.
Michael Behe was asked about astrology when he was acting as a witness at a trial. He admitted that astrology used to be considered a scientific theory but that it had been discredited. The lawyer for the plaintive came back with one of those lawyerly questions: "So the idea of astrology fits the criterion for being considered a scientific theory?" Behe admitted this was so, but stressed that it was discredited by the evidence. His whole point was that just as Astrology has been discredited, he belives that evolution will be discredited by
And they are ALL LYING or unknowingly repeating a lie.
Here's the address of the trial transcript.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Why is this man praying?
I was watching an on-line video defending evolution. This was part of my e-mail discussion of evolution. I think you might be interested in my reaction to the first part of the video. A professor of religion gets up and begins the whole thing with a prayer. Then the scientist gets up. His position is that God exists, but that He hasn't done anything since the Big Bang. This is what I wrote back to the person who suggested that I watch the video:
Well, if just made it to the prayer. I realize this has nothing to do with the meat of the argument, but why is he bothering to pray to a god, who, if he does in fact exist, apparently doesn't do anything (with the possible exception of setting off the big bang). If evolution is true, our very existence is a meaningless, cosmic accident. If that's true, why should we even kid ourselves about someone being out there who is paying attention to us? Given sin and human nature (or the way we behave), it is just as likely that a creator, should he bother to getting around to noticing us, would be appalled and disgusted and deeply offended that we would even dream of calling him "father."
If the Bible is true, then God was directly involved with every step of the creation process. And Adam and Eve are literal, historical figures. If you are going to disassociate the Christian religion from the contents of 99.99% of the Bible because it's not true, then empty the freaking buildings, turn off the lights, and walk away.
Jesus said that it would be better for a man to have a millstone tied around his neck and to be cast into the sea than to lead other people astray. He meant that literally. It's literally true. When I look at some of these "ministers" and think about what Jesus said, it makes me tremble.
Well, if just made it to the prayer. I realize this has nothing to do with the meat of the argument, but why is he bothering to pray to a god, who, if he does in fact exist, apparently doesn't do anything (with the possible exception of setting off the big bang). If evolution is true, our very existence is a meaningless, cosmic accident. If that's true, why should we even kid ourselves about someone being out there who is paying attention to us? Given sin and human nature (or the way we behave), it is just as likely that a creator, should he bother to getting around to noticing us, would be appalled and disgusted and deeply offended that we would even dream of calling him "father."
If the Bible is true, then God was directly involved with every step of the creation process. And Adam and Eve are literal, historical figures. If you are going to disassociate the Christian religion from the contents of 99.99% of the Bible because it's not true, then empty the freaking buildings, turn off the lights, and walk away.
Jesus said that it would be better for a man to have a millstone tied around his neck and to be cast into the sea than to lead other people astray. He meant that literally. It's literally true. When I look at some of these "ministers" and think about what Jesus said, it makes me tremble.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
More from my e-mail discussion of evolution. For those of you who aren't into science, if you can hang in there for a paragraph or two I think you'll understand the illustration. It's a tremendous example of pure common sense applied to the existing data:
There is a (I don't remember the exact numbers here, but I'm close) 27 molecule chain reaction that takes place in the human eye in the amount of time it takes light to travel the width of a human hair. This chain reaction produces an electrical impulse that travels down the optic nerve to the brain. The result is the illusion that we call "sight." My understanding is that if you take any one of the molecules out of the chain reaction, you end up with a blind human. And that doesn't begin to answer the question of how the eye got there, the presence of the optic nerve, or the ability of the brain to process the information.
To me, these kinds of questions should provide great support for evolutionary theory. If evolution happened, it happened on a molecular level. We can now see things at the level and examine them. This should take us well beyond comic book science. If evolution is the result of very tiny, random changes, they we ought to be able to trace the chains backwards at a molecular level.
Please take a human eye and simplify it, using only existing structures and parts already present, and do evolution in reverse. Take me back to a very simple, working organ that could, say, detect motion. And then move forward, molecule molecule, small random change by small random change, and show how every one of the small changes is a very small step that leaves the organism with some kind of adaptive advantage that would explain the spread of the minute change from the one individual in which the random change took place to the rest of the species.
Okay, maybe it's not fair to ask you to take us that far back. Can you go back 25 steps? If not, why not? How exactly did this marvel of complexity arise from random events? If you go back one step, removing one of the molecules from the chain reaction, you end up with a blind human. We have to conclude that the entire chain reaction was put in place all at once. There is no reason for "natural selection" to add piece by piece to a structure that isn't doing anything.
It's comic book science, and I'm not buying it.
There is a (I don't remember the exact numbers here, but I'm close) 27 molecule chain reaction that takes place in the human eye in the amount of time it takes light to travel the width of a human hair. This chain reaction produces an electrical impulse that travels down the optic nerve to the brain. The result is the illusion that we call "sight." My understanding is that if you take any one of the molecules out of the chain reaction, you end up with a blind human. And that doesn't begin to answer the question of how the eye got there, the presence of the optic nerve, or the ability of the brain to process the information.
To me, these kinds of questions should provide great support for evolutionary theory. If evolution happened, it happened on a molecular level. We can now see things at the level and examine them. This should take us well beyond comic book science. If evolution is the result of very tiny, random changes, they we ought to be able to trace the chains backwards at a molecular level.
Please take a human eye and simplify it, using only existing structures and parts already present, and do evolution in reverse. Take me back to a very simple, working organ that could, say, detect motion. And then move forward, molecule molecule, small random change by small random change, and show how every one of the small changes is a very small step that leaves the organism with some kind of adaptive advantage that would explain the spread of the minute change from the one individual in which the random change took place to the rest of the species.
Okay, maybe it's not fair to ask you to take us that far back. Can you go back 25 steps? If not, why not? How exactly did this marvel of complexity arise from random events? If you go back one step, removing one of the molecules from the chain reaction, you end up with a blind human. We have to conclude that the entire chain reaction was put in place all at once. There is no reason for "natural selection" to add piece by piece to a structure that isn't doing anything.
It's comic book science, and I'm not buying it.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Thoughts on evolution #2
More from an e-mail discussing evolution:
I have yet to hear of any explanation of this that doesn't rise above the level of what I call "comic book science." And believe me, I know all about comic book science. Chemicals + energy = superpowers. A teenager is attending a science exhibit. Radiation is suddenly released just as a spider bites the young man. Energy (radiation) + chemicals (spider venom) = Spider Man!
Compare that to a "scientific" explanation of how billions of pieces of computer code (DNA) were added to existing creatures during the Cambrian explosion.
"Tectonic events made mountains as well as earthquakes which affected many species (Nash). These could have forced tidal waves which would add to the circulation of the water in the oceans and alter the chemistry over a large range. This may have been a key point in accelerated evolution, possibly creating scenarios that added oxygen to the water. When there was little oxygen in the atmosphere multicellular life could not expand but as algae started to produce more oxygen through photosynthesis, bacteria then used the oxygen and produced greenhouse gasses which warmed the earth encouraging the growth of life (Nash). As the algae built up on the floors of the oceans due to erosion it was proposed that water could not circulate as well, possibly promoting life to evolve rapidly during the Cambrian period (Nash)."
Blah, blah, blah. That would have been perfectly acceptable in Darwin's day because we didn't know any better. I would go so far as to say that in the light of our current level of understanding in the life sciences, that the preceding quote hardly qualifies as science.
Millions and billions of biological computer code would have had to be added to existing organisms over a relatively short period of time. How did this happen?
I have yet to hear of any explanation of this that doesn't rise above the level of what I call "comic book science." And believe me, I know all about comic book science. Chemicals + energy = superpowers. A teenager is attending a science exhibit. Radiation is suddenly released just as a spider bites the young man. Energy (radiation) + chemicals (spider venom) = Spider Man!
Compare that to a "scientific" explanation of how billions of pieces of computer code (DNA) were added to existing creatures during the Cambrian explosion.
"Tectonic events made mountains as well as earthquakes which affected many species (Nash). These could have forced tidal waves which would add to the circulation of the water in the oceans and alter the chemistry over a large range. This may have been a key point in accelerated evolution, possibly creating scenarios that added oxygen to the water. When there was little oxygen in the atmosphere multicellular life could not expand but as algae started to produce more oxygen through photosynthesis, bacteria then used the oxygen and produced greenhouse gasses which warmed the earth encouraging the growth of life (Nash). As the algae built up on the floors of the oceans due to erosion it was proposed that water could not circulate as well, possibly promoting life to evolve rapidly during the Cambrian period (Nash)."
Blah, blah, blah. That would have been perfectly acceptable in Darwin's day because we didn't know any better. I would go so far as to say that in the light of our current level of understanding in the life sciences, that the preceding quote hardly qualifies as science.
Millions and billions of biological computer code would have had to be added to existing organisms over a relatively short period of time. How did this happen?
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Thoughts on evolution #1
For the record, I believe the earth is billions of years old and that the creation days in Genesis one are therefore very long days. I believe in a literal Adam and Eve from whom we are all descended. I believe in a literal garden of Eden. I believe the appearance of new creatures over time in the geological record is a result of the creative work of God. But I can't believe in macro evolution as it is currently taught, and here's why:
The simplest organism we can conceive of (which is less complicated that the simplest organism we have actually seen in nature) has about 100,000 "steps" in it's little DNA stair case. You can bombard the little cells all day long with radiation of one kind or another and you can make minor changes in the staircase, but how in the world are you going to add 3.19 billion steps? Human beings have 3.2 billion steps in their spiral stair case of DNA. How are you going to add all that information? Mutations (radiation hitting the staircase and changing its structure) take place, but they don't add information. They just change the existing information.
So if you believe God started life and left it to evolve, you have to explain, not how the DNA structure might have been changed by mutation, but how 3.19 billion pieces of information was added to it.
Everyone has probably seen the picture of Darwin's tree of evolution. It's like a bush. Right at the base you see all the different life forms branching off. That's not what the geological record shows.
If you want to draw the tree to scale you can illustrate it using a football field. You start out with single celled organisms. These are the trunk, or the beginning of the tree. These stretch from one end zone to (I forget the exact placement) the 13 yard line at the other end of the field. All of a sudden you get some branches. Some sponges and whatnot. But long before you get to the 12 yard line you see a branching of the evolutionary tree into an inexplicable complexity of life forms. Billions of pieces of information were added in an astonishingly short period of time.
I've never seen a sensible naturalistic explanation for that. I've never seen one that could come close to being reasonable.
The simplest organism we can conceive of (which is less complicated that the simplest organism we have actually seen in nature) has about 100,000 "steps" in it's little DNA stair case. You can bombard the little cells all day long with radiation of one kind or another and you can make minor changes in the staircase, but how in the world are you going to add 3.19 billion steps? Human beings have 3.2 billion steps in their spiral stair case of DNA. How are you going to add all that information? Mutations (radiation hitting the staircase and changing its structure) take place, but they don't add information. They just change the existing information.
So if you believe God started life and left it to evolve, you have to explain, not how the DNA structure might have been changed by mutation, but how 3.19 billion pieces of information was added to it.
Everyone has probably seen the picture of Darwin's tree of evolution. It's like a bush. Right at the base you see all the different life forms branching off. That's not what the geological record shows.
If you want to draw the tree to scale you can illustrate it using a football field. You start out with single celled organisms. These are the trunk, or the beginning of the tree. These stretch from one end zone to (I forget the exact placement) the 13 yard line at the other end of the field. All of a sudden you get some branches. Some sponges and whatnot. But long before you get to the 12 yard line you see a branching of the evolutionary tree into an inexplicable complexity of life forms. Billions of pieces of information were added in an astonishingly short period of time.
I've never seen a sensible naturalistic explanation for that. I've never seen one that could come close to being reasonable.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
What about people who never get a chance to hear?
More excerpts from my e-mail. What happens to souls who never get a chance to hear the gospel? My reply:
Souls who lived before Jesus came? If they had access to the old covenant, they could be saved under that covenant. Which leads us to the great masses of people who never got a chance to hear under either dispensation.
We get a possible answer from something that Peter wrote. After Jesus was dead, but before the resurrection, He went and preached the gospel to the worst generation that ever lived, the people from the time of Noah's Ark. Think of how the earth would be if the Nazi's had won WWII and their culture had spread across the face of the earth and you might have some sense of just how corrupt things had become at the time of Noah.
Why would Jesus go and preach to them? Did He say, "Neener, neener, continue to burn in hell because you didn't listen to Noah? The redeemer Noah believed in has finally come and I am He. Don't you wish you had made different decisions in your lifetime?" Somehow, I don't think that would be gospel (good news) to them. He couldn't even have told them that it was good news because some of their descendants would be able to be saved. They didn't have any descendants. The only way it would be good news would be if they had a chance to believe it and act on it.
Which would lead you to believe that they all probably are in heaven right now and there must be some sort of second chance for everybody, so everyone will probably be saved in he end. Right?
I don't think so. I've spend a whole lot of time thinking about this, and this is what I am thinking.
Most people think of heaven as a place with beautiful homes, no crime or disease, and great golf courses. We will have to go to some sort of "church" once a week, maybe even once a day, but this would be a small price to pay for being able to escape for 40+ hours of work every week. Shoot, you could trade three hours of church a day for eight hours of work and most people would take you up on that one. That's the common picture of heaven, and it's deeply flawed.
God is a triune being. He is the ultimate relational being. And in saving us, He is calling us into union with Himself. We will become part of Him. He will always be God and we will always be man, but we will live in beautiful harmony with the conscious awareness of His presence throughout all the ages to come. Jesus described the relationship as the relationship between a vine and a branch. Shared life.
Nobody wants to go to hell, but not everyone will want to go to heaven. CS Lewis told a story about a man in hell. He was living all alone, miles and miles away from everyone else. One day he decided to catch a bus and go visit heaven. He wandered around for awhile. Nobody threw him out. Nobody made him leave, but eventually he took the bus back down to hell again. He didn't belong in heaven and he didn't want to be there. I think he just about nailed it, except for the part about nobody throwing him out.
The question isn't ultimately based on access to information. It's based on a willingness to repent, to acknowledge the goodness of God, and to willingly live in harmony with Him.
There will be those who see Him who will fall in love with Him, joyfully abandoning themselves to a life of totally intimacy and harmony with Him. Others will be unwilling to surrender their autonomy, no matter what the cost. To someone outside the kingdom, I would of course recommend reading the New Testament with an open heart. But I would also recommend reading with an open heart that is specifically seeking an inward revelation of the beautiful God. I've read to the end of the book, and understand this much about the story. It's a love story. All the pain and suffering, but in the end it's a love story. The greatest love story of all.
(But what about missions? If there is a chance people can hear or make a decision after they die, why should we support missions? Because Jesus said so. Because I could be wrong. Because to God, a person is saved from a whole lot more than hell when they get saved. People are slaves of Satan. They are delivered from the kingdom of darkness so they can walk in God's marvelous light. Even if a person could be saved later, Jesus doesn't want them to have to wait. I have always supported missions and I always shall.)
Souls who lived before Jesus came? If they had access to the old covenant, they could be saved under that covenant. Which leads us to the great masses of people who never got a chance to hear under either dispensation.
We get a possible answer from something that Peter wrote. After Jesus was dead, but before the resurrection, He went and preached the gospel to the worst generation that ever lived, the people from the time of Noah's Ark. Think of how the earth would be if the Nazi's had won WWII and their culture had spread across the face of the earth and you might have some sense of just how corrupt things had become at the time of Noah.
Why would Jesus go and preach to them? Did He say, "Neener, neener, continue to burn in hell because you didn't listen to Noah? The redeemer Noah believed in has finally come and I am He. Don't you wish you had made different decisions in your lifetime?" Somehow, I don't think that would be gospel (good news) to them. He couldn't even have told them that it was good news because some of their descendants would be able to be saved. They didn't have any descendants. The only way it would be good news would be if they had a chance to believe it and act on it.
Which would lead you to believe that they all probably are in heaven right now and there must be some sort of second chance for everybody, so everyone will probably be saved in he end. Right?
I don't think so. I've spend a whole lot of time thinking about this, and this is what I am thinking.
Most people think of heaven as a place with beautiful homes, no crime or disease, and great golf courses. We will have to go to some sort of "church" once a week, maybe even once a day, but this would be a small price to pay for being able to escape for 40+ hours of work every week. Shoot, you could trade three hours of church a day for eight hours of work and most people would take you up on that one. That's the common picture of heaven, and it's deeply flawed.
God is a triune being. He is the ultimate relational being. And in saving us, He is calling us into union with Himself. We will become part of Him. He will always be God and we will always be man, but we will live in beautiful harmony with the conscious awareness of His presence throughout all the ages to come. Jesus described the relationship as the relationship between a vine and a branch. Shared life.
Nobody wants to go to hell, but not everyone will want to go to heaven. CS Lewis told a story about a man in hell. He was living all alone, miles and miles away from everyone else. One day he decided to catch a bus and go visit heaven. He wandered around for awhile. Nobody threw him out. Nobody made him leave, but eventually he took the bus back down to hell again. He didn't belong in heaven and he didn't want to be there. I think he just about nailed it, except for the part about nobody throwing him out.
The question isn't ultimately based on access to information. It's based on a willingness to repent, to acknowledge the goodness of God, and to willingly live in harmony with Him.
There will be those who see Him who will fall in love with Him, joyfully abandoning themselves to a life of totally intimacy and harmony with Him. Others will be unwilling to surrender their autonomy, no matter what the cost. To someone outside the kingdom, I would of course recommend reading the New Testament with an open heart. But I would also recommend reading with an open heart that is specifically seeking an inward revelation of the beautiful God. I've read to the end of the book, and understand this much about the story. It's a love story. All the pain and suffering, but in the end it's a love story. The greatest love story of all.
(But what about missions? If there is a chance people can hear or make a decision after they die, why should we support missions? Because Jesus said so. Because I could be wrong. Because to God, a person is saved from a whole lot more than hell when they get saved. People are slaves of Satan. They are delivered from the kingdom of darkness so they can walk in God's marvelous light. Even if a person could be saved later, Jesus doesn't want them to have to wait. I have always supported missions and I always shall.)
Saturday, November 7, 2009
He'll be along soon
More excerpts from my e-mail. If Christianity is true, and all of God's people are praying for Him to come back, where is He? My reply:
As to why He isn't back yet, it was pretty well established that the time for that is set. I sincerely doubt that we can move it up by our prayers.
As for signs of the coming of the Kingdom, yes, we all tend to get a little carried away over optimistic. Here are the facts as I see them. There is no way that the end times scenario could take place without a Jewish state in Palestine. The emergence of that state after 2,000 years of dispersion, is a modern miracle.
I'm told that they don't study most of Israel's battles at West Point because there is nothing to be learned from them. Case in point. The guy holding the Golan Heights in 1973 was down to seven tanks by the beginning of day three. They knew they were going out to die that morning, but they were willing to die to buy time. So their seven tanks rumble out and stretched out before them are over a hundred Syrian tanks. And just as they begin to get in range, the Syrians begin to run away. Some abandon their tanks and run on foot. Others turned the tanks around and left the battlefield.
What is so amazing about these stories is that the people who tell them will frequently tell you that they are not religious. They are secular Jews. They don't pray. They don't really believe in the supernatural. But they are compelled to believe in something or someone as a result of their experiences in battle.
Incidently, humanly speaking, the trickster saved them. Nixon took a 3:00 AM call from Golda Meier. His advisers did not want to help. Nixon asked her what she wanted. She had a list ready. He got a copy of it. And he sent every single thing she asked for by air.
The existence of Israel quickens the pulse and excites the mind, but apart from the Jewish state, I personally don't see one piece of fulfilled prophecy in my lifetime. Not one. This whole thing could go on for another century or two and it wouldn't affect my faith. The Jews could get slaughtered and the state could be destroyed, but that wouldn't affect my faith either. The emperor who followed Constantine didn't like Christianity, and he gave the Jews a state in Palestine. That probably got the prophecy buff's excited back in the day. But later emperors took that authority away from them.
And since you insist on asking such cosmic questions (I'm thinking that these e-mails mike make an interesting book), I have to say a word about time. I had a God encounter a couple of years ago as I was riding my bike past the bus station. And I suddenly had this amazing thought. What if one of these buses smashed into me? What if I died?
And this is what I came up with.
http://mac61107.blogspot.com/search/label/Dealing%20With%20The%20Death%20Of%20A%20Christian
The point is one of the perception of time. If you want to walk with God, you will have to move from your time perspective to His. The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas used to seem like it was a year long. Now I blink and it's gone. And standing there beside my dead body, faced with the reality of a separation from Nancy and the kids, the time perspective once again shifts. They'll be along at the appointed time. And it won't seem like much time at all.
Jesus is coming back quickly. Very, very quickly. And if this whole trains of history wobbles it's way down the tracks for another 1,000 years before He comes back, He is still coming back very quickly. Someday we will look back on this from the perspective of billions of years of existence. He is coming back very quickly. It won't seem like any time at all.
As to why He isn't back yet, it was pretty well established that the time for that is set. I sincerely doubt that we can move it up by our prayers.
As for signs of the coming of the Kingdom, yes, we all tend to get a little carried away over optimistic. Here are the facts as I see them. There is no way that the end times scenario could take place without a Jewish state in Palestine. The emergence of that state after 2,000 years of dispersion, is a modern miracle.
I'm told that they don't study most of Israel's battles at West Point because there is nothing to be learned from them. Case in point. The guy holding the Golan Heights in 1973 was down to seven tanks by the beginning of day three. They knew they were going out to die that morning, but they were willing to die to buy time. So their seven tanks rumble out and stretched out before them are over a hundred Syrian tanks. And just as they begin to get in range, the Syrians begin to run away. Some abandon their tanks and run on foot. Others turned the tanks around and left the battlefield.
What is so amazing about these stories is that the people who tell them will frequently tell you that they are not religious. They are secular Jews. They don't pray. They don't really believe in the supernatural. But they are compelled to believe in something or someone as a result of their experiences in battle.
Incidently, humanly speaking, the trickster saved them. Nixon took a 3:00 AM call from Golda Meier. His advisers did not want to help. Nixon asked her what she wanted. She had a list ready. He got a copy of it. And he sent every single thing she asked for by air.
The existence of Israel quickens the pulse and excites the mind, but apart from the Jewish state, I personally don't see one piece of fulfilled prophecy in my lifetime. Not one. This whole thing could go on for another century or two and it wouldn't affect my faith. The Jews could get slaughtered and the state could be destroyed, but that wouldn't affect my faith either. The emperor who followed Constantine didn't like Christianity, and he gave the Jews a state in Palestine. That probably got the prophecy buff's excited back in the day. But later emperors took that authority away from them.
And since you insist on asking such cosmic questions (I'm thinking that these e-mails mike make an interesting book), I have to say a word about time. I had a God encounter a couple of years ago as I was riding my bike past the bus station. And I suddenly had this amazing thought. What if one of these buses smashed into me? What if I died?
And this is what I came up with.
http://mac61107.blogspot.com/
The point is one of the perception of time. If you want to walk with God, you will have to move from your time perspective to His. The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas used to seem like it was a year long. Now I blink and it's gone. And standing there beside my dead body, faced with the reality of a separation from Nancy and the kids, the time perspective once again shifts. They'll be along at the appointed time. And it won't seem like much time at all.
Jesus is coming back quickly. Very, very quickly. And if this whole trains of history wobbles it's way down the tracks for another 1,000 years before He comes back, He is still coming back very quickly. Someday we will look back on this from the perspective of billions of years of existence. He is coming back very quickly. It won't seem like any time at all.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Was Jesus a socialist?
Continuing excepts from a recent thread of e-mails. One of my correspondents opined that Jesus was a socialist. Jesus quote about the rich man and the eye of the needle was brought up. My reply:
One of the things that really struck me when I was reading through the Old Testament for the first time was the earthy nature of God's promises to the faithful. If Israel was faithful, then they would be wealthy and virtually disease free. Pretty cool covenant.
The disciples had been raised on this stuff. To them a rich person wasn't a bad guy, he was a good guy! If he was rich (and he was a Jew) he must be an exceptionally diligent in following the commandments. The associated personal wealth with living an exceptionally good life. It was this context in which Jesus made his comment about the needle.
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." If the disciples had been schooled in socialism they would have replied something like this. "Right on! Power to the people! Stick it to the man!"
But that's not what they said. "When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, 'Then who can be saved?'" Note that they were astonished. This was contrary to everything they had been taught as children. What they were saying was, "if a rich guy, who has been blessed with wealth because of his exceptional devotion to keeping God's commandments can't be saved, then what chance to us poor people have." The implication was that if the holy rich man couldn't make it, nobody could. Jesus agreed with this point of view.
"And looking at them Jesus said to them, 'With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'" In other words, it is impossible for any human, rich or poor to live a good enough life to be saved. What was impossible for man would only be possible for God, who had become a man and was about to die to pay the penalty for our sins.
This is not a socialist teaching, but it has been co-opted by leftists who want to portray Jesus as being on the side of the revolution. The point of the story is not that people need to give up their wealth, it was that people couldn't be saved by their own good works.
This would be my very brief, not well planned out in advance, summary of Jesus attitude toward money.
Don't worship it. Don't over emphasize it. Don't expect too much from it. You can't serve God and mammon.
Don't worry about it. Make the spiritual life your first priority and God will see to it that your basic needs are met.
Be generous with those in need.
And let it call come from the heart. That was hugely important to Jesus.
He was in the temple with the disciples when a rich man came in and made a very ostentatious show of giving a large sum on money. He was followed by a poor woman who dropped in the equivalent of a quarter. His take on this was that the poor woman had given the larger gift. Her motivation was pure. The rich man had been showing off.
I don't think Jesus would be impressed with a system that made giving a matter of law instead of a matter of the heart. The heart was of primary importance to him.
One other point.
The Obama's earned a million in 2006. That's pretty good money. In 2007 it jumped to 4.2 million with book royalties. In 2008 it dropped to 2.4 million. A great American success story. They were able to buy a house worth 1.6 million.
I'm reminded of a pastor I once heard preach. He was doing the "it's sinful for Americans to have all this money" routine. I would say to him the same thing I would say to the Obama's. Nothing is stopping you from giving it away. Figure out what the average income is in American and live on that. Give the rest away.
Practice what you preach. Don't buy a 1.6 million dollar house.
One of the things that really struck me when I was reading through the Old Testament for the first time was the earthy nature of God's promises to the faithful. If Israel was faithful, then they would be wealthy and virtually disease free. Pretty cool covenant.
The disciples had been raised on this stuff. To them a rich person wasn't a bad guy, he was a good guy! If he was rich (and he was a Jew) he must be an exceptionally diligent in following the commandments. The associated personal wealth with living an exceptionally good life. It was this context in which Jesus made his comment about the needle.
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." If the disciples had been schooled in socialism they would have replied something like this. "Right on! Power to the people! Stick it to the man!"
But that's not what they said. "When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, 'Then who can be saved?'" Note that they were astonished. This was contrary to everything they had been taught as children. What they were saying was, "if a rich guy, who has been blessed with wealth because of his exceptional devotion to keeping God's commandments can't be saved, then what chance to us poor people have." The implication was that if the holy rich man couldn't make it, nobody could. Jesus agreed with this point of view.
"And looking at them Jesus said to them, 'With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'" In other words, it is impossible for any human, rich or poor to live a good enough life to be saved. What was impossible for man would only be possible for God, who had become a man and was about to die to pay the penalty for our sins.
This is not a socialist teaching, but it has been co-opted by leftists who want to portray Jesus as being on the side of the revolution. The point of the story is not that people need to give up their wealth, it was that people couldn't be saved by their own good works.
This would be my very brief, not well planned out in advance, summary of Jesus attitude toward money.
Don't worship it. Don't over emphasize it. Don't expect too much from it. You can't serve God and mammon.
Don't worry about it. Make the spiritual life your first priority and God will see to it that your basic needs are met.
Be generous with those in need.
And let it call come from the heart. That was hugely important to Jesus.
He was in the temple with the disciples when a rich man came in and made a very ostentatious show of giving a large sum on money. He was followed by a poor woman who dropped in the equivalent of a quarter. His take on this was that the poor woman had given the larger gift. Her motivation was pure. The rich man had been showing off.
I don't think Jesus would be impressed with a system that made giving a matter of law instead of a matter of the heart. The heart was of primary importance to him.
One other point.
The Obama's earned a million in 2006. That's pretty good money. In 2007 it jumped to 4.2 million with book royalties. In 2008 it dropped to 2.4 million. A great American success story. They were able to buy a house worth 1.6 million.
I'm reminded of a pastor I once heard preach. He was doing the "it's sinful for Americans to have all this money" routine. I would say to him the same thing I would say to the Obama's. Nothing is stopping you from giving it away. Figure out what the average income is in American and live on that. Give the rest away.
Practice what you preach. Don't buy a 1.6 million dollar house.
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