When Jefferson borrowed the now famous American mantra, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" from Samuel Johnson for the Constitution he made an interesting leap for the, till then, largely religious country. When Johnson wrote this, it was a response to an even earlier philosophical statement put forth by John Locke who wrote, "no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions". It was economist Adam Smith who retooled Locke's original notion into the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of property." Yet, in replying to this chain of ideas with Johnson's phrase, Jefferson's declaration over America that the inalienable right to pursue happiness contrasted with the Biblical foundations of the country. Happiness originated, as it is used in English, with the Old English term, "hap". The original word relied on the concept of luck or chance. (For more intersting reading on the concept of happiness, from a refreshing breadth of views, read the wikipedia article.) By placing the pursuit of happiness as an inalienable right, Jefferson tied the American pursuit to a non-Christian power, the concept of chance. The idea that we have the right to base our pursuits on chance implies, indirectly at least, an unpredictable outcome. For Christians, this runs against the grain of Scripture which instructs us to believe that we are to see all that befalls us as good fortune. Chance is an element of the decision made by rolling dice. Hebrews believed that rolling dice would be controlled by the all-powerful hand of God. Yet, for Deists like Jefferson and his European counterparts, I suspect that the intervention of a intimately concerned God was what tied in with the Constitutional catchphrase that later became the embodiment of the American rights. With this being said, it strikes me odd that many American hold these rights to be inalienable when, in reality, placing chance at the heart of what is most basic about life denies what Christians are instructed to hold dear by Scripture. I have much difficulty with this American doctrine and see something more akin to pursue blessing than Jefferson's happiness as being an inalienable right since blessing is not intervened and delegated by chance but rather by God himself.

The family ride needed some new tires so I headed to Firestone today to get the existing ones replaced. While killing time, I picked up a copy of "U. S. News & World Report" from November 13, 2006. Smattered throughout the Letters section were responses to various articles discussing the relationship between science and religion along with answers from both sides to some of the oldest questions posed to each pursuit. Futher into the issue was an article called "The New Believers" by Jay Tolson. What struck me about that article is how the degree of criticism focused on religion, particularly Christian religion, mounts more and more with each passing year. Every ground upon which religion can be attacked...it is. Here, we see science and its proponents trying to discredit religion. Elsewhere, social scientists. On other grounds, economists, politicians, literati...it seems "specialists" all over the world have aimed to rout humanity of its religious nature. Yet, I wonder if any of these folks truly consider what the human experience without the religious dimension will truly be. The critics myopically dwell on the negative history generated by anyone putting for or adhering to a religious affiliaiton as if nothing good has come of human believe in higher power. And, on the other hand, when religious benefits are permitted, they are often allowed begrudgingly with contempt and disdain got their framework.

As a Christian, I see the undermining work of a well-orchestrated attack. The Christian faith now faces legions of assailants, all self-proclaimed prophets of a new vision, a world without religion or Chrisitanity. This may be other religions, "non-religious" groups, such as atheism, secular humanism or any other false religion posing as an "ology". The power of this attack is that there are small pieces of truth in many of these attacks, so the power is real. Yet, the underlying falsehoods that accompany these attacks are often not exposed or refuted as Christians are obliged (A Christian's faith does not rest on clever stories, myths or fables as did the doctrines of the false teachers (2 Peter 2)). One reason seems to be the overwhelming number of these attacks. I think this is the whole key here: the enemy is overtaking Christian's abilities to respond to lies by creating such an abudance of different sources of lies that one simply cannot keep up. The volume of information requiring Christian apologetics is beyond the Christian's ability to meaningfully demolish these arguments and pretensions. I know in my own life that to be able to answer every critique of my belief system would require a doctorate level degree. The number of arenas I see falsehood make it difficult to respond compellingly with truth. But, I have to wonder, is it really my job to refute all of them? Part of me thinks that being unable to defend my faith means I am not able to fulfull my duty as a Christian. Yet, I imagine part of my consolation would be trusting that God is big enough to deal with this through others. In that case, it comes down to, upon which ones am I supposed to focus my defenses? Only God can tell!

One of the oldest stuggles in Christian philosophy is the clash for dominance between free will and predestination. God showed me that these two things are not as incompatible as I once thought. We are trained to think, as Kierkegaard so eloquently wrote, in terms of either/or. Truth is one thing or the other. It cannot be both. This really stems back to Artistotle and his Logic, but, that's another story. Looking more closely at the issue of predestination and free will, the crux of the matter is that God's predestining our acts eliminates the ability for humans to exert free will. If his will prevails regardless of what we choose then human free will is actually an illusion and is no more real than the wizard of Oz.

But, if we look at this a little differently, the issue of will domineering will is incorrect. God does not want his will to replace ours. He wants our will to merge with his. This is the essence of how we can understand the compatability of human free will and predestination. Here's a down-to-earth example. Say my daughter needs shoes put on. My will and necessary goal is to get her to put her shoes on. (For this hypothetical, we are in a hurry to get to McDonald's.) So, I have two choices: 1) pick her up and shove her feet in the shoes with frenzied thoughts of fries in mind. 2) I can ask her, cajole her, plead with her, "Emma, come put your shoes on."

Eventually, or perhaps quickly as sometimes happens, she comes over, sits down and lets me put her shoes on. In one sense, putting her shoes on was predestined. It was going to happen whether I made her do it (she had no choice) or whether she cooperated (actively chose to do it). Now, what we have here, in the second scenario, is a situation where free will and predestination both occur. I put the shoes on her and she chose to particpate in the event that occured. So, in this simple, McDonald's oriented example, both can happen.

So, looking more big picture, real-world significance, we are given choices every day to work with God or work against God. Let's face it, if we aren't with him, we are against him. Scripture aside, God's plan depends on us. He wants our input, our willful choice to coooperate with him. But, at the same time, he is not beyond or limited to our choices to fulfill his plans. It is way too anthropocentric (and utterly self-absorbed as a human) to think that God's works rely on our actions and choices in such a way as to be unable to accomplish them without us. What we do miss, by not cooperating, is the ability to share in the most glorious creative act in eternity...the restoration of God's kingdom. God made each of us unique with unique abilities and completely perfect attributes to perform certain parts of this plan. If we so choose to cooperate, we can claim a special part in this miraculous act. However, if we choose not to do so, God will find another way to do it. What is lost is the precious thing which the individual can add with their special mixture of attributes, powers and abilities.

In the end, God wants us to be co-creators with him, as we were originally created to be. (For more on this, listen to Kent's revealing teachings on co-creation and Christ...among other things.) Since God's plan does not wholly depend on us, He is within his right to do whatever he wants, however he wants. But, in this case, he wants us to work with him...and, he wants us to want to work with him. So, some might reason, we have to do what he wants. No, not really. He is not bound by our choices. But, in the co-creation, what happens is a mixture of what he wants and what we will. Without our input, without our free will choice, it would only be his creation. That is where we must realize that God has honored us with the ability to choose his will and participate in his works to create something eternally and infinitely unique. Free will and predestination are not at odds with each other if we look at it as a matter of honor and grace instead of a matter of power and might.

God's glorious work, the restoration of his kingdom, is going to happen. It is predestined and it will occur. Of that, our part is merely to add what we can. By not working with God we are simply decreasing the infinte degree of uniqueness, the preciousness of co-creation. The collaborative work of co-creation cannot be matched. But, by refusing to add to it, people simply make the work less beautiful. Image Beethoven's Pastoral symphony less one note in the second movement or Van Gogh's sunflowers less that one stroke on the righthand corner of the painting. As a whole, the work is no less amazing...but, in part, it is less.

Let me back up a bit. I often forget that the things I write about are usually the result of several years or quiet brooding or some conceptual daisy-chain. Without linking concepts, much of this won't fit together.

The idea of sound, particularly speech, rests on basic physics. Sound, as humans perceive it, is really nothing more than the perception of air pressure waves exerting force on the ear drum. In the end, it is a matter of physical force being exerted on our bodies by various external (and sometimes, internal) stimuli.

Now, as I mentioned in the last entry, "Speech and speech alone has the ability, because it intelligent sound, to effect physical matter, and, as a result, our bodies and the environment around us." What I meant to indicate is the lack of power sight, taste, smell and touch have to do what speech does so as to highlight the contrast between sound and its sister senses.

Light waves can exert force on other objects because light, according to modern physics, is actually small particles of matter streaming at us. It can affect us in a variety of ways, but, only once light reaches certain energy levels of either luminous or heat intensity, it is really used to identify objects in spatial relationships and characteristics about them.

Scents and tastes possess a certain amount of power to affect others, but the knowledge required to truly use these basic senses to communicate as we do with speech is astoundingly unlikely because these senses are normally not developed at all in Western culture. At best we are trained to use these senses to perceive threats to health and well-being. On the other end of the spectrum, we use these senses to have positive experiences with pleasing tastes. But, few people, except for experts, understand the power of pheremones, hormonal chemistry and human interaction well enough to use this knowledge effectively. At best, cooks and aromatherapists might indicate our two closest working ancestors to the ancient apothecaries. Nonetheless, as indirect methods of communication, neither of these senses poses much of a threat to the supremacy of sound.

Touch, much like taste and scent, requires, first, expert knowledge of often understudied aspects of human life: physiology, anatomy, bioenergetics, etc. Regardless of its largely overlooked uses, touch does have a more widely well-known power associated with it. The horror of the monkey experiments conducted in the cold war tell us that much! Either way, tactile communication is much more readily understood, but largely overlooked now that physical contact, i.e., touch, is so highly frowned up for fear of the countless variants of unfortunate things that could happen to people: the spread of disease, sexual misconduct and abuse for just a few minor examples.

All these considered, the point being made here, speech in particular, or sound as a whole, possesses the unique, undisputed, position among the things that happen to people and which could be used by people, to affect others without direct contact. Indeed, if you consider that of all these things, you can basically control all but sound, you see what I mean. To dispel the power of light, close your eyes or turn your head. Taste and scent are neutralized when you remove yourself from the direct influence of the items being sensed. Touch can be negated by simply not allowing physical contact. Sound, however, cannot be eliminated. If sound is loud enough, you cannot prevent it from being sensed. The ears will receive this physical stimulus regardless of efforts to stop it.

I decided to recap this and touch on the underlying concept a little more deeply because I felt I had failed to lay the proper foundation for one element of what I was trying to communicate. Sound is unlike any other of the sensory stimuli because it is the only one of the senses which allows direct physical force to be exerted on the body without direct physical contact. Yet, it still possesses all the power, and more, of a force that does directly contact the physical body. In short, sound gives us control over physical reality with something as simple as speech. How's that for a way to rethink something as simple as those slippery things called words?

So, what does this have to do with my overriding theme, Christianity? When trying to share the Good News we often run into conflict because people don't want to hear the message, otherwise we wouldn't be worried about them not listening. Folks resistant to the Gospel often don't want us to touch them... Using light therapy is hardly a means to share the glorious mystery of Jesus' work... And even the best cooks won't win souls with their tasty dishes... So, that leaves speech. Without the ability to physically manipulate people into believing in God (not that I would advocate or try that anyway) we are left with one tool, the one God mentions most anyway, the Word.

As talked about previously, speech, that is the mixture of intelligence and sound, is the most effective way to affect souls. The soul, it is often learned, is a mixture of tangible and intangible. If protoplasmic didn't really have a parapsychological feel, I think it would be the perfect term to describe the type of matter for the soul. It is the bridge between our bodies and our spirits.

In Christianity, at least since Augustine's writings, the soul has had 3 parts: mind, will and emotions. With these three parts noted, it seems clear that we can affect these three parts of another's being with sound. Each and all of these parts of a person can be touched and transformed simply through the power of speech, not because it is sound. Sound is simply the mechanism to exert force on physical matter. Intelligence is the spiritual attribute that works in conjunction with sound in the soul and spiritual realms to release true, eternal actions. With sound, that is speech, we can truly exert force on the souls of others.

But, and here's the caveat, one I'm not 100% on how to publicly comment: Watchman Nee once wrote of churches using soul power to try and force people or other congregations to do their will. It is literally an exertion of will. However, it is not spiritual, but rather soulish. By trying to convince people, through prayer, to do things is spiritual manipulation. By no means do I suggest this is acceptable. I believe that we are to expose love, that is God, and let God do his work on others. In that way, speech, when uttered with a life and spirit aligned with God and his love, can transform all things. That is the type of power words, and sounds, when combined with love can exert on others.

Back to speech. (Rereading things you write so often leads to new, or forgotten, thoughts. Here are a few regarding speech.) The missing ingredient, though not directly related to the ones already mentioned, to fully seeing the power of speech for what it is lies in a simple observation: speech is the one of the few things humans can do without physically touching another to directly affect others.

When looking at the basic senses, we can notice how speech, particularly the sense of hearing, is more powerful than any of the other senses. Touching, scents and tastes can have an effect on others, but you basically have to have immediate physical contact with them in order to use these senses to communicate. Sight and hearing are the only senses that don't require great proximity to be effective in communicating (or affecting) others. Yet, between the two, hearing has more power of the two.

There are currently some interesting developments in the fringe cultures of academia and the new edge trying to validate what Bible readers have been able to get for millenia: words are amazingly power things! In an article discussing Masura Emoto's work with water and speech, Ralph Suddoth explores the well-documented water experiments of Dr. Emoto's work. The photograph below shows an example of speech's effects on water with the image on the left being spoken to using the word "soul" while the one on the right used the word "demon".



Now, I'm not trying to expose New Age or metaphysical thought as something I encourage or endorse; I don't. Rather, I am using their pioneering work to demonstrate that the power of speech is greatly overlooked because we, as a whole, are trained to focus on using sight as the dominant sense. Speech and speech alone has the ability, because it intelligent sound, to effect physical matter, and, as a result, our bodies and the environment around us.

It is easy to try and bring color and light, leading to the sense of sight, into the mix and say that color therapy offers similar powers, but I have yet to see demonstrative results of how sight-or more precisely, how we can affect others with light through the sense of sight-can be as powerful as speech.

Essentially, it boils down to the fact that speech is truly a mixture of intelligence and sound. Intelligence is what organizes and vivifies sound, which would otherwise be chaotic sensory data, bunched together communicating like Shakespeare's monkies. It is intelligence that makes speech differ from all the other sensory manifestations of power, and it is speech that allows us to transform the world. God calls prophets to proclaim, to speak forth and share his Word. Indeed, his good news is called the Word. In a world where we are asking to see more, look here, listen up, God's trying to tell us something. So, listen!

(The whole discussion of intelligence is something to be saved for another night cause I want to touch on the Thomistic idea of intelligences and how we have lost this in today's understanding. We get wrapped up in the numbers game of SAT and IQ forgetting intelligence is much more than the perverted measure we have forced on it to create an economy of intellectual goods called human minds. But, I'll quit my rant before I start!)

To me it is amazing how people overlook the power of speech. Day after day most people float through life with little physical contact with others. Aside from family, intimate friends and children, most Americans have little physical contact with others. To get others to understand them, do what they want or simply be affected by their presence, most people use speech as the medium of choice. Yet, we overlook the most commonly used method of affecting others as simple noises! It's anything but. Christianity, it is time to realize the power of speech and use it as God intended.

One of the more interesting observations that came up lately has to do with a clear-cut Biblical example of how God can help us learn how to deal with false authority. In Daniel 3, the conflict between Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel's three associates reaches a boiling point after Hananiah, Mishael And Azariah (to be called HMA for brevity's sake) refused to bow down to the king's orders. This story is hardly news. It's been around about 2-1/2 millenia. What does add new light to the story is how similar the plot that unfolds in Daniel mimics what happens in Revelation 20.

When Nebuchadnezzar ordered HMA to bow down to the golden statue (Dan. 3:4-5), Daniel recorded this by using the word "image" to describe the statue. The Hebrew word for "image" noted by Daniel is "tselem". One other major passage that uses this word is Exodus 20:4, where Moses records the commandment, "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the image of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." Now, to me, there is no coincidence that Nebuchadnezzar challenges God's commandment in this way.

It is a direct attempt of the enemy to try and break these prophets. By challenging HMA to disobey God, Nebuchadnezzar was merely serving as a mouthpiece for the enemy. Yet, beyond this well-understood fact, there is a masquerade intended to deceive HMA. As outlined in Revelation all we be brought before God to be judged. Those who were not recorded in the book of life were to be cast in the lake of fire. In Daniel, HMA was not only threatened with but actually thrown into a furnace for disobeying the king's law.

Ironically, the power of God's judgement, damnation and eternal destruction, is not possessed by the enemy. When the false threat of Nebuchadnezzar's power gets unmaksed a major lesson is revealed: the enemy will even try to deceive the elect by resorting to mimicing God's plans. Counterfeiting is hardly headlines for Christians who have had to deal with the enemy face-to-face.

What comes out here is that authority can be an instrument for trying to effect Satan's plans. In this case, Nebuchadnezzar was simply a mask for challenging HMA on their willingness to obey the commandments at the risk of their very lives. We can apply this to our lives by understanding there are times when we will be confronted with the enemy. Don't put it past him to threaten by pretending to be God. But, the dead giveaway is the fact that the challenge is directly against what God says to do.

The power of comparing the vision of Revelation, that is, the real judgement of God, and the events of Daniel, show how the power of God can, yet again, provide protection through trusting him. This highlights the real power of God to save his people from real power when the power is not used by God. Pay attention to those in authority and be willing to challenge those that pose as God without his righteousness or love. You will be amazed at how many strongholds possess power, not in reality, but, rather, only in the minds of those who are subject to them. Remember, the truth shall set you free...and HMA were a great testimony to Christ's words even before he uttered them.

Are we all living in the past?

If you've read a few of these things you've probably noticed a theme of my aversion for empiricism. Empiricism, if you've never heard of it, says all we can know basically boils down to what can be experienced through our five senses. There are some great debates out there on this theme between empiricists and non-empiricists. I'm not going to get into the mechanisms of knowing and enter that battlefield. Instead, I'm going to bring up a simple point about consciousness and our physical experiences that seems rather interesting in the light of empiricist thought.

Anything with mass is bound by the space-time continuum. The greater the mass, the greater the strength of this binding. Now, if we accept the empiricist approach to human experience that knowledge is based on physical senses and sensory data are based on matter, it would make sense that neural activity can be seen as a founding element in knowing. But, since all matter is bound by mass and the distortions of space-time relative to that mass, the transmission of energy from the object being sensed and the consciouness perceiving that sensation requires time itself. Seeing as the sensation and the perception of this sensation are not in fact occuring at the same moment, there is no direct correlation between what is known, by empiricist standards, and what is perceived.

The implication here is that, according to the rules of empiricist thought, we are actually living in the past. There is a gap in time between what happens and when we perceive it. This is a major flaw of this approach to perception and a valid reason for dismissing this approach to knowledge and consciousness as being flawed.

John Paul Jackson outlines 7 dimensions and time is one of them. By realizing that other dimensions, such as Spirit, which is timeless, can give us more accurate information about what is actually happening than our senses because there is no delay between the act and the perception, we can begin to realize relying on sense, though normally provable by common physical connection, doesn't necessarily possess the most power as a source of understanding.

Two things tonight: 1) ethical hacking and 2) physics and Christianity.

For the past few years I've been looking into Certified Ethical Hacking positions, CEH for short, and am intrested in trying to get some certification. My skills need to be sharpened, but I think white/black hat work is quite exciting personally. One day I'll get further into it, but I've got my assignments to work on for now...

Physics and Christianity.

For several decades, the Holy Grail of physics has been the Grand Unified Theory, aka GUT. This theory seeks to reduce, among other things, two of the most complex issues facing human kind, gravity and subatomic activity, to clearly articulated, mathematical models. Sounds easy...when put into plain English. The irony is, and most physicists are either ignorant of this or choose to turn a blind eye, physics cannot truly produce a GUT.

Though hardly a scintilating dialogue of some Nobel laureate, I did find a concise, easily understandable description of the GUT at http://www.hep.yorku.ca/yhep/gut.html

One of the biggest goals in physics today is to unify the strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational forces into one unified force...

This paints a simplistic picture, so, physicists, have mercy. Nonetheless, the idea remains...trying to explain all of existence as the manifestion of one force cannot possibly occur. Here's why.

In simplistic terms, we have four basic relationships, from a human perspective: man to self, man to others, man to universe and man to God. Each of these relationships entails more complex interactions, but most of our experience deals with some single or overlapping pairing of these connections and how we act and react to them. Physics tends to focus on the man to universe relationship. It is not that the relationship of man to God does not exist; it simply ignores it. The result is that people have come to think in terms of three channels of understanding instead of four.

In 1984, Einstein's article "Religion and Science: Irreconcilable?" was published with this note,

As to science, we may well define it for our purpose as "methodical thinking directed toward finding regulative connections between our sensual experiences."

This approach to science limits itself to sensual experience as the boundary of knowledge. By doing so, it eliminates the realms of the theological by default. It is at this moment that no ultimate GUT could be allowed. By bounding the total realm of inquiry to the tangible, scientists made their Holy Grail an unattainable carrot. Only through theology, as science defines it, can all things be explained.

More specifically, the concepts of physical matter that remain inexplicable are the ones into which theology can speak most. What is gravity and why do atoms not dissolve into nothingness? These two questions are truly resolved with the same answer: the Word of God. When God created the universe it was sound (see yesterday's entry for more on the power of sound) that was the manifesting force which arranged creation.

Indeed, Gregor Vlastos, the famed Platonic philosophed notes of the term "kosmos", generally translated as a noun meaning "order", that this concept actually denotes a thing which is neither noun nor verb, but rather both, much like the idea of the unmoved mover. Without going into the realms of philosophy, this idea translates into the science versus theology debate by shining light on the fact that God created the world, i.e, the order/ordering force that is creation. It is a perpetually active power, maintaining the arrangement of things according to God's will, that is, the law of creation.

God's words were spoken into the universe and, at all dimensions of physical matter, organize things according to the essence of what God made that thing to be. Gravity, is a law of God, a metaphysical condition manifesting on a physical level. Sub-atomic particles remain in stable forms because the energy of those particles obeys the order of its creator. This is the simple truth about why physics cannot produce a GUT. It chooses, on a fundamental basis, to reject God-given, obvious answers.

Of course, an easy point of attack for this matter is the fact that this whole approach to viewing the relationship between physics and theology lies on the lynchpin of fact that it is framed in anthropocentric terms. Sure, we are a self-centered being, we see things only in human terms. But, I just have to ask, how else are we supposed to think about the human experience? I don't know what it's like to be a tree or a neutron or a dog. All humans can know is human experience, regardless of how idealistic a realistic is with their efforts to be "objective". In the end, scientists have to admit they are human and can only know as such.

I've always had an issue with the self-congratulating attitude of scientific methodolgy that pats itself on the back for inching closer and closer to discovering the undiscoverable because it always seems such a waste of God-given talent on impossible ends. So much more important matters surround us, day after day. Science has incredible things to offer, but pipe dreams often gain leverage in spheres where it truly has neither right nor authority and abuses the power it does properly have and spread truth outside of its appropriate frame of reference.

The writing jag has kicked in. Why I'm writing, other than to take up space on someone's server on the other side of the ethereal reality we call the internet, is really to complete some assignments. God has been giving me things to write about for about 5 years now. Off and on I've been trying to perfect them. But, at times I find myself procrastinating...well, I'll just refine this some more and put it out when it's ready. (Tell-tale signs of a compulsive perfectionist writer with a bad case of procrastination syndrome.) Self-reflecting humor aside, God told me a few months ago that it's not my job to perfect his words since the perfection of his words isn't just the form, but the timing of what he says. (For a related blog post on why perfection is more than just nice filler word, see this post.) Nonetheless, He's reminded me again that in war, grammar and literary merit matter little. It's all about the message. So, I put my own standards to death and pray his would fill my heart and mind!

So, onto the whole point of this post: speech. There are books upon books that New Age and mystical Eastern literature that discuss the power of sound. For most folks, these are not common topics that you can just pull down off the shelf and thumb through. That's why folks like me have read all the weird books and noticed some things...so you don't have to. Nonetheless, sound is actually one of the most overlooked things in our oh-so-confused-and-mislead, current Christian culture.

Sure, the story of Jericho comes to mind for some. But, beyond, not much, right? Okay, next, song, psalms, praise. Some very interesting things there too. (Read about Jerry's sermon on praise here.) David's soothing of the evil spirit sent upon Saul by the Lord. The thunder in the Gospels some heard as thunder, others heard as angels. More interesting stuff, right?

Well, lets look back, way back, to the beginning. Even before the beginning. In Genesis, God created the heavens and the earth. The greatest opening line of all time. I mean come on, how can you beat that! Okay, literary snickering aside, it took a long time for God to get it through my head that before anything happened, he spoke. This is a major key to seeing the importance of sound in God's Kingdom.

Let me say that again looking at it a little more closely. Genesis 1:2 reads, "Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, an the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light." If we take the order of events literally, sound, released through God's voice, came before light.

This is revolutionary in our neck of the woods. Why? It challenges so much of what we, as natural beings, are trained to accept about experience. Aristotle, over twenty five hundred years ago, wrote of mankind's experience,

All men naturally have an impulse to get knowledge. A sign of this is the way we prize our senses; for even apart from their utility, they are prized on their own account, especially sensing with the eyes. For not only from practical motives, but also when we have nothing practical in view, we could be said to prefer sight to any of the other senses.

As such an oracle of what natural man is, Aristotle's summation couldn't capture what our natural mind would incline do any better. Indeed, sight can only occur with light, if we are to imagine the rabbit trail reason would go down by following Aritstotle, i.e., the natural man's perspective, to its natural conclusion. Taking this in a spiritual connotation, knowledge, or soulish mentality can lead us to rely on what can be seen and overlook what came first, sound.

Looking at another element of this scripturally, 1 John 1:5 says, "God is light". If God is light, he had to speak before he could be revealed to creation. It was by the power of his word, that is, his speech, that God could be revealed to creation. Taking this and applying it to our own lives, if God had to speak to reveal himself, and we are filled with the Holy Spirit, in other words, God, why would it be any different for us?

Many times we seem to fall into this trap of believing that once we see God in our lives, we will then be justified in speaking forth his will. In reality, it is the exact opposite if we are to follow the picture of Scripture. Genesis depicts this pattern clearly. But, if more evidence is needed, take the prophecies of Christ. He was spoken of before he became manifest. The word preceded the act.

Such is the principle I aim to outline here: as Christians we are all too often brainwashed into thinking, by our very nature, that we need to see things of God as confirmation that they are true. This is an utter lie. Truth is an eternal principle and time is no limiting factor on its power. When God speaks truth into us, it is our duty and obligation to speak it, to do as God did with Himself and His very own son, before it can become manifest. This is part of our labor, our work.

Prayer, as an act of speaking, is a way of doing just this. So, if you ever feel weary of prayer and the powerlessness of words, remember, it is not be sight, but by faith. Look at Hebrews 11:1-3 for evidence of this.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Paul was onto this! He knew that the order of events told a story and people were not taking note of this fact.

Faith, alluded to here, is also referred to as the substance of things hoped for. If faith is a substance but cannot be seen how is it created?

Through the power of Jewish thinking the idea of pregnancy, with all its implied symbols and metaphorical language, we as Christians have had conceived, given birth to and are growing spiritual beings. But, as such, this substance, that is, faith, is an idea that goes back to Medieval theology and philosophy when the term substance was more potent that it is today. Substances were considered to be the only real things, while the properties of these substances, things that could be sensed, only indicated things about these realities. So, we have been mislead into thinking that the characteristics of what is real, our sensory experiences, are more real than the things themselves. What a deception!

By being drawn away from faith as a substance, Christians have lost touch with what faith really is. We have been detached from faith by being led to believe that since faith cannot be seen it does not exist. Well, that sort of backwards thinking is exactly what the enemy wants us to get into. It reverses, and therefore, perverts God's order. God wants prayer to build faith. Prayer is speaking our pleas for justice and mercy before the act occurs. Only by doing so can we give God the power to give us faith. Without our actively speaking God cannot build our faith. But, the key is to realize that sound, speech, proclamation, precedes revelation, display and demonstration.

Also, it is important to realize that things are not always perceived right away because they may be happening either so fast or at far enough a distance that nature prevents us from sensing the event even though it has actually occured. For example, jets travelling at supersonic speeds can fly directly above a person but the sound of that aircraft passing may not reach them for minutes. Does that mean the jet has not passed them yet? Of course not. It just verifies, that if we rely on what falls in line with reason, according to our natural senses, we will easily fail to be in touch with what's really going on.

There were a lot of things in there that I wanted to reserve for other entries, but I guess they went where they needed to go. Hopefully God uses them the way they need to be used.

God bless and take care.

I tried to come up with some clever, artful way to talk about this, but feel I'm just supposed to be more focused on getting it out there than how it looks. Maybe later I can get to polish and cut these things...

I read many years ago that the Biblical cultures held a very different belief regarding the importance of names. For them, names captured and contained an articulation of the essence of a thing. Adam demonstrated such power in Genesis when he named the animals. Beyond this particular instance, the power of naming things, particularly people, carried on throughout Scripture. Yet, one key Biblical story highlighted something deeper about naming that was unclear until recently.

While reading Genesis once a footnote indicated, in a quiet, pay-attention-to-this manner, that Jacob's name held great significance, not just for learning context of Scriptural people, but in a more immediate, spiritual way. Jacob's name means "deceiver" or "one who supplants". (Who, after all, names their son "deceiver"? No one I know of.) At any rate, deception is noted throughout his life as a major issue. First, when he steals his brother's birthright, and later, when he deceives Issac into giving him Esau's blessing, Jacob shows characteristics of a man whose name truly captures the essence of his being.

What proves even more interesting than this testimony to Issac's insight with his son's name is what happens in Genesis 32. To recap, Jacob fled his brother, spent over a dozen years at a relative's house, gained two wives, a small tribe of children, servants and possessions and had begun the process of returning to his childhood home. More importantly, as Jacob returned home, he had been forced to reconcile with his father-in-law righteously to be allowed to continue on his journey.

Fast-forwarding to the key events I want to highlight, of chapter 32:22-32, Jacob has sent his family ahead. He stood, alone, on the edge of a new life. He had left a fleeing man and returned the father of a tribe. But, God had not completed his work. Jacob met God face to face that night and wrestled with a man "till daybreak". It was through this ordeal that Jacob finally demonstrated the fullness of his capacity to act in righteousness. By refusing to let the man go, Jacob did not forfeit his blessing or rely on trickery and deceit. It was only after the man injured Jacob's hip that he stopped wrestling with him.

Even though, however, Jacob demanded blessing. But, what I find most interesting than this odd midnight wrestling match is not that he blesses him, but rather, that he asks him his name first. Why would a stranger, with whom he has wrestled, or to put it more Biblically, contended, all night, ask the name of someone he has fought, hand-to-hand, for hours?

It was a powerful moment. The man then said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." Israel actually means, "he struggles with God". So, this man, who had lied, extorted and stolen, had been faced, at the moment before he was about to cross into a new life, to confront and overcome, one last time, his very own nature by struggling with his maker.

By being renamed by God, Jacob's identity was no longer bound to his natural-given essence, that of a deceiver, but it was bound with his destiny, a contender with God. God had transformed Jacob in the most powerful way a person can be transformed, with the very way in which God calls people, through his name.

This single story of God's transforming power simply demonstrates a larger Biblical principle outlined by Christ himself in Revelation 2. When speaking through John the Revelator to the Church of Pergamum, Jesus says, "To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it." (Revelation 2:17)

Jesus' own promise simply reiterates what was already demonstrated through Israel's life and account of being renamed by the Lord, but it opens this promise to all of his followers. By pursuing righteousness and overcoming a new name will be given to all who accomplish Christ's call. Indeed, he is calling his brothers to inherit the transformation of their very essence by struggling, by "contending with God and with man". Just as Jacob's life was transformed by unceasing wrestling, so too can ours!

Broadening this specific point to Christian life in general, we can see from this perspective how the acts of a single man can stand symbolically for so much more. Israel's struggle to overcome his own nature transformed him from as natural a man as can be into one who was blessed by God and made into one in and through whom were fulfilled some of history's greatest promises. From this, we can draw our own inspiration and motivation to struggle for this stone, for this new name and identity.

All the more reason to fast, "...one of the consequences of general relativity is that gravity changes the rate that time passes if gravity is stronger, time passes more slowly. In fact, a black hole can be considered a place where gravity is so strong that time stands still." Fasting ensures a heightened propensity for one to move out of the realms of ordinary time. However, be sure to fast for the right reasons and not just the spiritual high of getting weird time-space distortions.

As folks will undoubtedly discover I am not much for mincing words when it comes to things theological. At any rate, I do have a nice little shimmering moment from my daily walk. Last weekend I decided to go down to a local computer store to pick up a few titles from the clearance section. While checking out several $0.99 books rang up as $0.10 items. When I went home I told Kerri, "Getting some books, even if they cost me $0.10 a piece and are out of date, is still a great investment." So, Sunday rolled around and I returned with family in tow. I filled up a grocery cart with, what I later learned to be 41 books, and headed to check out. At the check out the floor manager came up to me and said, "I've approved it with my manager, we're just going to give these to you. We're throwing them away tonight." I turned to Kerri and just heard "Provision, provision, provision". For folks who don't know the somewhat obscure frame of reference, we always talk about God and how provident he is. I have been praying for unlimited resources and felt this instance was nothing short of God's fulfilling a part of this prayer. Upon arriving at the house, I proceeded to count the book's total cost had I purchased them new...it came out to nearly $1,500. I am still totally stoked!

The long tangent...

On another, more overtly theological tangent, I have found myself hearing the theme of perfection pop into my head a few times of recent. As an American I have heard, at least as an underlying, almost hynotic sub-theme of postmodern culture, the notion that perfection essentially boils down to flawlessness. Indeed, pulling a move from my college essay playbook, m-w.com defines perfection as, "being entirely without fault or defect". Along those lines, the synonyms, flawless, free of blemish, untarnished...any of these ideas point in the general direction that an ideal of "perfection" lies outside of the scope of reality. It is nothing more than an ideal.

"So what?" most people probably would point out. "What does this have to do with Christianity?" For Christians living in postmodern society perfection, as described above, conflicts with the Biblical concept of perfection. I tend to see many of the most undervalued concepts of Scripture to lie in the arena of concepts that are poorly imported in our modern mindscape because the original context gets lost. Perfection, as the Greeks defined it and Christ used it, refers to a concept of completeness.

In my trusty little Lexical Aid the Greek term, teleios is noted as a derivative of telos which, when translated, roughly means "goal". The extended definition reads as follows, "Finished, describing that which has achieved or reached its goal, objective, purpose, or limit; hence, consummated, complete, perfected, proficient, full-grown, mature." Nowhere in this definition does the concept of flawlessness appear. So it seems somewhere along the lines someone pulled a bait-and-switch with the word and the underlying concept.

Looking at Scripture it becomes abundantly clear that the concept of perfection as a matter of completeness instead of a matter of flawlessness makes a wide variety of passages clear. It also has implications we will explore after looking at the Scriptures themselves.

Perfection and sin can co-exist, contrary to popular mentality allows. Perfection, by today's standards, tends to encompass all aspects of life in an almost universal fashion. So, when zooming in from everything to spiritual matters, perfection, by today's standards would require no flaws whatsoever. By definition, God and God alone is capable of this. However, spiritual perfection, in terms of bliblical Christianity, doesn't directly imply this. Considering that perfection simply means maturity, and not flawlessness, it is possible for a Christian to have accomplished a spiritual end while being sinful. In fact, if it weren't for this, God could accomplish nothing through man since "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)

Christ, as he used perfection in Matthew 5:48, aims to specify how we, as his followers, are to love. It is impossible, by the very nature of existence, for us to be perfect as God is perfect. So, we cannot take this literally. Once Adam and Eve sinned a division in moral nature was made actual and manifest. As a result, we are of a completely different moral order than God. Hence, the impossibility of taking Christ's command literally since this is impossible.

But, when I flip the coin, it can be read another way as well. Since "all things are possible with God" (Mark 10:27) and by his grace we are filled with His Holy Spirit (Romans 1:4-5), God can work in us and through us to exercise perfect love. Being justified by this grace and granted authority to love fully, we are now able to reach the fullness of God's measure, the completion of God's end, which is the showering of his love on earth.

So, which is it? Are we able to love perfectly or not? Yes and no. (Every theological question gets answered that way in the end!) God's love is what allows us to be perfect. Nothing more. All we can do is choose to obey. That's the only thing we can claim in this entire process. So, being perfect, as Christ commands, isn't a matter of our own making, it's a matter of our own undoing. We undo our wills, submit to love as he commands, and, by doing so, can love perfectly and completely. Without our submission, we only love in part.

So, it is clear that perfection, as most perceive it today, is not a biblically based concept. This connection by no means condones or approves sin in any shape, form or fashion. Rather, the goal merely is to outline that we need to think of perfection as a more organic idea, on for which we are made to achieve instead of the unattainable ideal today's world would have us chase after forever. If we choose to obey God, we are called and destined to be perfect, though certainly never flawless. And for that, we can be eternally thankful.