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deja vu

Lissie – Everywhere I Go

I was going to wait until next week, but seeing as we’ve just wrapped up Exodus, maybe now is the time to talk about it.

What’s the point of chapters 36-39?  Why does Exodus’ author feel the need to repeat nearly every word from 25-28?  Wouldn’t it have been enough to simply say “The Israelites had done all the work just as the LORD had commanded Moses” (Exodus 39:42)?

Bear in mind that whatever writing materials they might have used (tablets or papyrus/parchment) would have been costly and so each words counts.  Why not a little more detail back in Genesis on Jacob wrestling God?  Or some more explanation of Abraham’s near sacrifice/murder of Isaac?

Instead, we have a painstaking account of Israel meticulously constructing the Tabernacle in a way that exactly corresponds to the instructions God had given them.  And I suppose that’s the point.  Moses (or whoever wrote it) wanted future generations to understand that God’s instruction is not something to be spurned lightly.

We live in a religious culture that goes to great lengths to emphasize it isn’t what you do in relation to God that matters, but how you feel about God.  As long as our hearts are right, then all the external stuff called religion really isn’t of consequence.  In fact, it may be detrimental.  I’m not sure we can read too much into this, but my guess is that the Israelites felt that God needed to be heeded…  even in the details.

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Cover-to-Cover – Week 4

The Postmarks – No One Said This Would Be Easy

Ok, so here we are four weeks in, and I’m guessing no one is loving me too much for the Cover-to-Cover challenge.  What sounded so well-intentioned, pious, and worth-while on the front-end is starting too lose its luster in a hurry.

If you are on track, you will have read through Exodus 36 today.  Not the most inspirational reading by anyone’s reckoning.  It would be the exceedingly rare person who finds the detailed instructions for building the Tabernacle inspiring.  More on this next week.

However, I think a word or two is in order concerning the ‘miscellaneous’ laws or what is sometimes known as ‘civil’ law.  I know that it seems like God is actively promoting retribution, but you should know that God isn’t trying to institute some detailed process for revenge.  These laws are actually meant to curtail an excess of revenge.

So for example for when it says things like, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” while gruesome sounding to our ears, could be read, “an eye and no more.”  You can’t kill someone for knocking out your tooth.  All you are entitled to is an equal measure of retribution.  Same goes for bulls goring and accidental deaths and so on.  The Law says, “you may be entitled life for life, but you can’t out of revenge kill off the offender’s entire family.”  Societies both ancient and modern left to their own tend towards barbarism.  It is the Judeo-Christian tradition that steers people towards more humane ways of being human.

Another example of humanity’s drift towards sub-human existence is the commandment that says, “Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal must be put to death.”  Now apart from getting the middle-schoolers at church giggling, what purpose does this verse serve?  Does it seem as strange to you as it does to me that people need to be told that sex with animals is a departure from God’s plan for human sexuality?  Was it a widespread problem at the time?

Who knows.  The point is they had to be told…  Don’t do this.  This is wrong.  Again, society left to its own will sink to the lowest levels of human depravity.  It is God, his Word, and ultimately his Spirit that elevates human beings to their role as image-bearers of God.

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Relief for Haiti

Not really knowing what to say about the tragedy taking place in Haiti, I’ve made the mistake of saying nothing.

Part of my silence is born out of the recognition that anything I might say wouldn’t do justice to the magnitude of loss and suffering taking place there.  As if to put words to it would take something immensely catastrophic and make it less than that.

That said, a very few things could and should be said.  So with an economy of words, here goes.

Pray – A short video here might help us get barely in touch with the suffering taking place there.

Also, World Vision UK has issued a call to pray for forty days on behalf of the Haitian people…

Give – Two worthy relief organizations that the Chino’s love are:

Go – I am hearing stories of individuals and churches who are doing what needs to be done in going down and being the hands and feet of Christ.  Those stories are as good as they are humbling.

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

Jesus – Matthew 25:35-36

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knowing (and finding) your stuff

Manchester Orchestra – I’ve Got Friends

It is no secret to those who know me that I’m organizationally challenged to say the very least.  I’ve long since accepted it as an unfortunate attribute and have decided to live with it.  And yet, like you, I process an avalanche of information on any given day.  So how can a person be expected to stay on top of the stuff he or she is expected to stay on top of?

I am a compulsive list maker, which might lead you to believe that I’m something approaching administrative.  You would be wrong.  No, my lists are born out of a nagging fear that I’m going to forget something that I’m suppose to get done.  Even with all my lists, I still manage to let a bunch of stuff slip.  Right this second, as I write this post, I’m letting slip the reason I started typing in the first place.  Which was to share a few valuable (at least, in my opinion) resources to manage information.

1) An RSS Aggregator – This goes by various names I think – RSS Reader, Feed Reader, Blog Reader, etc…  But the idea is simple.  If you keep up with several blogs (or anything that uses RSS feeds), this thing collects them all in one place.  So you don’t have to go visit the sites you like on a daily or weekly basis to see if new stuff is there.  It “checks” it for you.

I realize that since you are reading a blog right now that you probably already know about these.  But you may not, and if you follow more than two blogs, you should get going on this.  I use Google Reader.  It does what it is suppose to do and does it well.

2) Evernote – This is the ultimate electronic information keeper.  To do lists.  Projects.  Ideas.  Movies to see.  Books to read.  Articles or website you find online.  Anything that you might be tempted to scribble down on a piece of paper.

The real beauty of this is that you can access it a ton of different ways.  There is software that you can install on your computer.  There is a web-interface.  There is even an iPhone app.  And each device is constantly keeping in sync with all the others.  So…  my home computer, work computer, and phone all have the same info going.

Also, if you collaborate with people on projects, you can easily share information with other Evernote users.  But my favorite means to collaborate is Google Docs.  Google Wave promises to be even better, but I haven’t really looked that closely at it.

3) Zotero – This is primarily a research tool, but I think it is for anyone who reads lots and wants to keep notes, quotes, annotate the books they read.

It is a Firefox add-on, but it also syncs stuff to online servers so that if you have it installed on multiple computers…  well, I think you are starting to get the idea.

Ok, so there’s plenty of overlap with some of these tools, but hopefully it will help slow the continual leaking of things I used to know.

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Celebration!

K’Naan – Wavin’ Flag (Celebration Remix)

This post is in honor of my dear friends, Bobby and Amy Harrison!  They have just become parents, and I want to wish them all the best.

This song/video is so very appropriately chosen to commemorate the moment.

Bobby loves soccer…  and this song is the official anthem for the 2010 World Cup.  You’ll be hearing this song a lot round about June.

Amy loves Africa…  and the singer is Somali-born K’Naan.

Abe’s birth is truly cause for celebration!

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Phoenix Take Aways

A friend of mine just sent this my way.  I saw it over the holidays, but I’ve just been reminded how good these were.  They are all great, but if you only have time for one, go with the first one.  Happy Friday!!!

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Cover-to-Cover – Week 3

AA Bondy – A Slow Parade

I’m not really sure how many people are doing the Cover-to-Cover thing this year, but my guess is a bunch.  Alison is.  Both small groups I’m involved in are doing it.  A bunch of my co-workers.  I run into people at restaurants and grocery stores telling me they are on track.  Which is all good and well, but that leaves me feeling a little responsible for this being a good experience for them.

I know that I shouldn’t feel that way.  This is God’s Word and we tell ourselves all the time that a person can just sit down and read the Bible and God will use it for good in their lives.  But what if he doesn’t?  Or worse, what if instead of drawing people to Him, it pushes them away?  It wouldn’t be the first time that a person was put off by the way God is revealed in the Old Testament.

This week, we’ve been reading in Exodus.  And on the surface, it can seem like God is being arbitrary, capricious, fickle, mean.  Why was God “about to kill” Moses in Exodus 4?  Why is God the one who hardens Pharaoh’s heart?  Why was it necessary to kill all the firstborn in Egypt?

I don’t come with any answers today.  But all this highlights that there is much in the Bible that is strange and foreign to us.  Which for me raises the question… how much of that foreignness is due to being fallen and finite human beings unable to have God’s heart and mind or His much larger perspective on things?  And how much of the foreignness is a result of our being so far removed culturally from the time and place in which these things transpired?  As with most things Bible, my guess is both.

No blog post is going to make either of these massively complicated issues go away, but let me make one small suggestion.

Get help.

I know that the penultimate portrait of the ideal Christian is a person all alone with their Bible receiving what they need to understand “directly” from God.  But as I have (with very little success) tried to explore in previous posts, it is never just me and my Bible.  There is always a certain set of assumptions, and previous experiences, and cultural worldviews, and personal biases, and relational dynamics, and so on that guide our reading.

So you need others to help.  And while doing it with a group of people is good, if they are all share the same limitations of expertise and background then you’ll probably end up doing what I do…  stare at each other with blank looks and say, “maybe.”

Someone who is doing the read along came across this one-volume commentary and wondered if I would recommend it.

I would.  What you get is a commentary on the entire Bible in one book by some guys who ain’t dumb.  So when you read that Moses was about to die until quick witted Zipporah did what needed to be done (with a knife and no anesthetic – yikes), it might tell you something like this episode needs to be read in the context of the verses prior where God predicts Pharaoh’s refusal to obey God.  And refusal to obey God whether you are Pharaoh or Moses (or you and me) has serious consequences.  Something like that.

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Miller’s Miles

Blind Pilot – The Story I Heard

I finally got around to reading Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I love his writing. He makes me laugh out loud no matter where I am. With my family at home. Alone in my office. In a crowded coffee shop. Laughter that can’t be restrained. I’ve often noticed how difficult it is to express sarcasm in the written word. He does it effortlessly. He is self-deprecating. Witty. Profound. What’s not to like?

However, despite a deep appreciation for most everything he writes, I resisted picking this one up for a couple reasons. One, I have a psychotic aversion to trendiness. In the space of a week, it had become the thing to read, and for that reason alone, I wanted no part of it. Two, (and I haven’t been able to completely push through this one yet) I have an equal measure of disdain for anything that smacks of “self-actualization.” And the whole “write your own story” premise smacks of Depak Chopra or something along those lines. Again, my problem. Not his.

Finally, curiosity won out. He lives up to usual form – funny and insightful – generally within two breaths of each other. One of the things I appreciate most about his writing is his ability to summarize an idea that he has been exploring in a memorable phrase or two. Here were a few of my favorites…

“The great stories go to those who don’t give in to fear.”

Deep down, we all know this to be true. Too often fear controls us and confines us to living diminished stories. I think this is one reason I enjoy mountain climbing. It allows me a chance to face and overcome fear. And there have been numerous terrifying situations I’ve found myself in. Narrow ledges for walkways. Sheer rock faces. Ridges that fall of thousands of feet on either side. Falling boulders. Loose hand holds. I’ve had to push through being scared plenty of times on mountains. And hopefully, pushing through fear there, helps me to push through other, more everyday fears.

Speaking of mountains…

“The mountains themselves call us into greater stories.”

I think it is common knowledge that there are beach people and mountain people. Suffice it to say, I’m a mountain person. Both mountains and oceans are epic and beautiful, but mountains require something of you. They are wild and unpredictable. In a word, they are exhilarating. I know that the ocean (especially on the open water) can be equally demanding and wild, but I favor what the mountains have to offer.

“He understood the story was not about him, and he cared more about the story than he did about himself.”

In my opinion, this is the single most important sentence in the entire book. It is one that keeps this book from becoming just another exercise in self-absorption. Re-read the sentence and let it sink in.

However, this statement which points away from self and to something larger had a rival for most important. The  contender being…

“The reason Danes are so happy was this: they had low expectations.”

Poignant and classic.

But the phrases that will linger with me the longest are…

“I didn’t want his words to mean anything. I didn’t want to need his affirmation. But part of our selves is spirit, and spirits are thirsty, and my father’s words went into my spirit like water.”

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Cover-to-Cover – Week 2

As I’ve been reading along this week, I was reminded of the problem of setting versus date of composition.  Setting being the “when” and “where” the events are taking place.  Date of composition being when the story or book was actually written.  As you might suspect, as with everything Bible, this can be a very complicated issue.  However, the Genesis account will serve well enough to illustrate the difficulty.

Many conservative Biblical scholars would affirm Moses as the author of Genesis.  So, we have Moses writing some stuff down around 15th century B.C.  Of course, this means that Moses wasn’t a first hand eye witness of anything that is recorded in Genesis.  Which raises the question, how did he know?  I suppose there are some who would ascribe to a theory of God supernaturally revealing the info to Moses and he simply dictated what God said.  Most would affirm some sort of oral/written tradition that had been handed down over centuries, and Moses was the one who collected and shaped it into its final form.  Naturally, there are other theories about who wrote what and when.  Some would date the final form of Genesis much, much later.  Closer to 5th or 6th century B.C.

Anyway, all that’s sort of beside the point.  Mainly, I wanted to share a chart that might help you keep track of the flow of the story.  For what it’s worth…

Then, there is this one too.  It is loads of fun.

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When Foster speaks…

…people should listen.

Elvis Perkins – While You Were Sleeping

I not only read the Bible.  I also read books about the Bible.  But in ultimate nerd fashion, I also read books about reading the Bible.

And this morning, I came across this quote from Richard Foster’s Life with God: Reading the Bible for Spiritual Transformation:

“In seeking to discover this with-God life it is helpful to read the Bible in four distinct ways.  First, we read the Bible literally.  Reading from cover to cover, internalizing its life-giving message. By reading the whole of Scripture, we begin to apprehend its force and power.  We enter into the original dynamics and drama of Scripture: struggling with Abraham over the offering up of the son of promise…”

It goes on, but the example of Abraham and Isaac is as far as we’ve read so far.  There are three other “distinct ways” to read the Bible, but you’ll need to read the book to get those.

Never fear.  I’m certain that I’ll be sharing other nuggets of wisdom as I come across them.