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This journal is meant for my own personal record. It does not exist to enlighten the masses. If you have come here looking for enlightenment, I apologize; but the attempted enlightenment of masses takes more time than I have allotted for that magnitude of futility. Feel free to post comments and questions here and if I have extra time on my hands or find it personally thought provoking I may reply but I make no promises.
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Mar. 17th, 2012 @ 10:11 pm The Mathematics of Trinity
"Though it is clearly the teaching of the Bible, cultic groups and atheists often complain that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is a contradiction... Christians seem to be saying 1+1+1=1. This is simply bad arithmetic, we are told, not profound theology." ~Trinity & Reality by R.A. Smith

Fascinatingly, though this would indeed be very bad arithmetic for a natural (finite) number (e.g. 1) it is exactly the arithmetic of a transfinite number. That is:
Aleph Null added together three times is simply equal to Aleph Null

So, if we accept the idea that each "Person" of the Godhead is infinite, then our relatively recent mathematics simply rediscovers something which theologians have been asserting as a Scriptural Truth for time immemorial. That is, what has long been proclaimed as "bad arithmetic" or a "contradiction" turns out to be nothing of the sort... Not that this makes it more understandable; I don't think anyone fully understands transfinite arithmetic - even those who work in the field. But it is satisfying that we find the "foolishness of God" yet again wiser than the wisdom of man.
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Feb. 14th, 2012 @ 01:58 pm Quotable: On Christian Morality
"There is a difference between living to please God and living to appease God."


In Christianity the idea of morality is vastly different than any other religion or system of morality. In all others we work to prove ourselves, to merit something. In Christianity we live in the view of the only eyes to whom we would ever need to prove ourselves and He has already said "it is finished", we have been accepted. We live differently because we have already been justified - not because we need to be justified.
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Sep. 18th, 2011 @ 10:57 am Genesis 5 Genealogy
I have heard the claim made that the genealogy given in Genesis 5 can be understood as a supernaturally engineered hint of the Gospel message if the names are examined in translation. Unfortunately the standard exposition from this point does not hold up under examination - several of the names are quite clearly mis-translated (for instance translating Qenan as "sorrow"). However, if one puts in the work it seems that the original claim is defensible with some better scholarship (in contrast to many other claims of biblical "codes"). To paraphrase Dan Dennett - there is little more damaging to a good idea than a bad argument standing in its defense.

So in the interest of Proverbs 25:2
"It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter."

Let's dive in.

First the list of names from Genesis 5:
Adam - Seth - Enosh - Qenan - Mahalal'el - Yered - Enokh - Metushelach - Lamekh - Noach

But in Hebrew of course these names have meanings - they are not random collections of sounds but come from words in the language. So what are these meanings? Some we are certain of, some are obscure - I shall list the names with the proposed meanings putting an asterisk next to names that are disputable. And list a comment on where the name comes from or how we know what it means. Then afterward I will discuss the disputable names and why we think the name may mean the translation given.

Adam"Man" from the word for Earth/Ground - masculine of Hebrew "adamah"
Seth"Appointed" from the Hebrew "shiyth" - attested from Gen 4:25
Enosh"Mortal/Sick"from "anash" meaning "sick", "frail" or "wicked"
Qenan"Habitation / Possession / Lot / Stronghold" from a primitive root "qen" originally referring to birds nests - attested in Num 24:21
Mehalal'elGlorious Godfrom a primitive root for "shining forth" and the word for "God"
Yered"to Descend" / "to Make Low" (tense not implied)from "yarad" a primitive verb meaning "to come down" or "prostrate"
Enokh""Discipling"/"Teaching"from a primitive root meaning "to train up" or "to make initiates"
Metushelach*"His Death Shall Bring" from "mûth"="death" and "shelach" =" "to send forth"
Lamekh*"Captive"/"Slave"/"Pauper" rabbinic sources indicate etymology deriving from "melek" meaning "king" - since the mem and the lamed are reversed, lamekh is inferred to mean the opposite of a king, hence a captive, slave or pauper.
Noach"Rest" / "Comfort"from a primitive root meaning "to rest" - attested by Gen 5:29



*Metushelach: This translation disagrees with the commonly espoused modern rendering in taking the first root from "mûth"="death" rather than "m@th"="man" neither is definitive and vary by a single letter, "shelach" comes from a root meaning "to send forth" which came to refer to ballistic weapons in later Hebrew but more basically referred to any sending forth. Notably, the Masoretic text gives his year of death as the same as the Flood came. The understanding that Metushelach's death was a prerequisite for the Deluge goes back at least to the Babylonian Talmud.



*Lamekh: It is sometimes claimed that this word means something akin to despair and relates to the modern English word "lamentation," but while they are phonetically similar there is no evidence for a shared etymology of these words. This word is also sometimes linked to the root "makkah" which means to beat or to wound. Other modern scholarship (tending toward documentary hypothesis assumptions) often seeks to trace the word origins through other languages such as Akkadian rather than Hebrew.
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Jul. 13th, 2011 @ 08:26 am Salvation by Baptism? - a request
The other day someone asked me to consider the words of 1 Pet 3:21 and the apparent link made between baptism and salvation.
"There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ," ~ 1 Pet 3:21 {NKJV}


Isn't salvation "through faith alone"? So what does baptism (an apparent "work") have to do this. I shall offer commentary in Jim Wilson style (that is by quoting other Scripture with little other discussion - for any unfamiliar with him I HIGHLY recommend following the link).

To give context 1 Pet 3:18-22
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, 19 by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. 21 There is also an antitype which now saves us — baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.


How is salvation wrought in us?

  • Eph 2:8-9 ~ For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
  • 1 Pet 1:5 ~ who, in the power of God are being guarded, through faith, unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time,
  • 1 Pet 1:9 ~ receiving the end of your faith -- salvation of souls;


    • And indeed the author of Hebrews reminds us of the origin of the salvation of the baptism experienced by Noah and his family:

  • Heb 11:7 ~ By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.



    • So if salvation is by faith, what does Baptism have to do with it?
    The sign of Baptism is time and again portrayed in Scripture as a passage through death and into a new life and through the burial of baptism escaping the destruction of an old world under judgment and being brought into new life in the new world.

  • Col 2:11-14 ~ In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross
  • 1 Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2 all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.
  • Rom 6:2-5 ~ Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
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    Jun. 9th, 2011 @ 05:15 pm Quotable: On well-intentioned lying
    Throughout Christian history, denunciations of lying have been loud and frequent. Who has been so abhorred as Ananias? And yet we all know the meaning of the words "pious fraud." From the beginning, the devil has loved to tempt the devout to lie for the sake of their good cause—and thereby make it a bad one. One of the first tasks of the Early Church was to separate the true Gospels from the multitudinous invented "eyewitness" accounts in which the faithful lied their heads off for the supposed good of the Church. Fabulous miracles ascribed to the boy Jesus —and more suitable to an infant devil; romantic adventures of Paul with the holy virgin Thecla; forged donations of Constantine, false Isidorian decretals, profound treatises on metaphysics attributed to a Dionysius the Areopagite who never wrote them but was sainted for them—the list is endless. Nor did it end with antiquity; most modern churches have kept up the good work of forging their own praises and their rivals' dispraise, until that clear-sighted and honest Christian Charles Williams found it necessary to write warningly of "the normal calumnies of piety," and to say of a historian, "In defence of his conclusion he was willing to cheat in the evidence—a habit more usual to religious writers than to historical." Let us clean our own house first.

    You can usually tell when a hypocrite has been sinning; he denounces that sin in public — and in somebody else. The mere halfhearted sinner may try to wriggle out of his guilt by some verbal quibble; he hasn't really lied to his wife about how he spent the week-end, he just hasn't told her all the truth. But the real, thoroughgoing, incarnate lie of a Pharisee covers his guilt by trumpeting loudly about his virtue; he comes forward boldly and denounces her for lying to Mrs. Jones about that horrid new hat. And if you want to find a man whose whole life is devoted to hypocritical dishonesty and deception, it might be wise to look for one who habitually beats his child for lying.
    ~Joy Davidman (Lewis)

    [stolen from another blog]
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    May. 26th, 2011 @ 08:29 am On Being Right
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    The other day, my brother pointed out an insightful observation: most people are really not very concerned with being right. Don't get me wrong, a great many people are far too concerned with having other people think or concede that they are right, or with having been right all along. But most people who express a regard for "rightness" or who people describe as "wanting to be right all the time" aren't typically really concerned about being right itself and for its own sake but usually mean something along these lines of having possessed a superior worldview all along.

    These two attitudes lead to a vastly different outlook on conversations about truth. The societally common desire to have been right all along leads people to defend what they have always believed without even truly listening to any questions or challenges, it leads them to be belligerent in their defense of their beliefs because their beliefs are not actually about truth but about the strength of their ego, and it leads to people seeking to defend ideas long after they have been irrefutably disproved. On the other hand, a desire to actually be right makes one listen all the time even when speaking to known idiots because you never know where insight or a good argument might come from, desiring to actually be right will lead to earnest and strident discussions about what is true but not in getting one's ego all tangled up in what one already believed, most fundamentally the desire to actually be right will cause one to be willing to listen to ideas and change one's beliefs if presented with proof that one has been wrong.

    So it is worth recognizing that when it is said that a person is "too concerned with being right" - the reality is typically that they are not concerned enough with actually being right.

    May I ever shun the first and embrace the second.
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    May. 25th, 2011 @ 08:22 am Eph 4:8 ~ The spoils of war
    In Ephesians 4:8 Paul quotes Psalm 68:18; however, he doesn't do so exactly, he changes a word.
    Eph 4:8 ~ Therefore *it says, "When He ascended on high, he led captive a host of captives and gave gifts to men"

    Psa 68:18a ~ You have ascended on high, You have led captive Your captives; You have received gifts among men...


    The other day I heard a pastor make a suggestion that this passage can be understood in light of understanding the "gifts" spoken of to refer to the spoils of war. So that the taking of the "gifts" by the King would necessarily imply their redistribution to His people - for that is what a righteous King does.

    This seems like a good suggestion to me. It certainly fits well with the rest of the Psalm and seems to capture the sense of the Hebrew verb that is translated "received."

    However, it immediately raises questions for which I do not see obvious or clear answers.

    When we go on in Ephesians
    Eph 4:11-12 ~ And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; [NASB]


    Who is He despoiling? And what exactly is the "gift" being despoiled?

    It is unclear in the translations (and to my limited knowledge of Greek) what exactly the gifts are: whether the gift is apostleship (as one of the "spiritual gifts, 1 Cor 12) or the apostles themselves, etc.

    If we take it to mean that the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are themselves the gifts to the church at large. Then we who are in Christ are each both the despoiled and the recipients of the spoil. However, we are despoiled of ourselves, and we receive the gifts of the rest of the body. Our own independent strength is yoked to the greater good and our own individual weaknesses borne by the body corpus. - Though I can't currently prove that this is the proper interpretation this seems most perfectly in keeping with the rest of Scripture. We are brought out of our own little rebellious kingdom of one with our greedily guarded assets and our lust for things not our own; and made captive our petty kingdom knitted into a great empire. And both our miserly greed and our un-attained lusts are denied for we are no longer our own; yet in the very denial we are knitted to those with whom we can share our assets and receive the benefit of all the gifts which we never ourselves possessed.
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    May. 20th, 2011 @ 04:25 pm Meditations on "Being Teachable"
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    "The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid. Otherwise it is more akin to a sewer, taking in all things equally." — G.K. Chesterton

    I would credit my PhD adviser, Dr. Richard Smalley, as being both one of the most intelligent people I have ever met (he was a Nobel Laureate) and one of the most teachable. More than half the time when one was talking to Rick he could see the the mistake that you were making before you finished making it. His knowledge was expansive and his insight deep. However, if you said something that he didn't already know, he was absolutely the first to sit up and pay attention. He was never dismissive because the person talking "wasn't as smart as he was" - he listened to what was said regardless AND immediately filtered everything that was said for new ideas and information. If you said anything which fell in the category of a new idea or data point, he would start asking you questions about it and oftentimes you pretty soon found out just how little about the topic you really knew.

    The point is that he thought about what was said - he never simply accepted pontifications as authoritative dictums to be filed away or as the words of an idiot to be discarded. He thought about all he was told and evaluated the content of the ideas and then dealt with it accordingly - on the basis of whether what was said was worth listening to or not. His mind was open to being taught in every circumstance that I ever observed - but he did this by constantly engaging with what was said and filtering out anything of worth to be taken into himself, and rejecting any offal for the worthless matter that it was.

    Now, when people talk about being "teachable" there seem to be two different ideas of what this means.
    1) Some people use the word "teachable" to mean that a person ought to listen to the teaching, seek to explore how this fits into and possibly expands or disagrees with their previous understanding. This mindset always encourages the student to ask questions wherever the teacher says anything that they don't understand or seems to be at odds with what they had previously understood.
    2) Others use the word "teachable" to functionally mean 'sit down and memorize what the teacher says and assume it to be true.'

    I would suggest that this is an extremely wrongheaded idea. Not only is it wrongheaded about how the truth is to be sought and encountered but it is a lousy way for the student to truly learn. The student may take in the group of words and make affirmation of "I believe this" but if the student does not engage or explore the ideas that those words were supposed to convey then the student has not understood the ideas well enough to actually believe or disbelieve them at all. It would be quite as useless for me, who does not speak Spanish, to puzzle my way through the sounds of a Spanish sentence and then tell myself - "yes, I believe that." Though I could "affirm" it, I could not possibly believe it because the ideas which were meant by those foreign sounds will not have registered in my mind.

    In general this idea of affirmation without engagement is pointless at best; but in a worldview this is a very dangerous place to stand, for the church pews are filled with those who can recite the Lord's prayer and tell themselves that this is "true" without being faced with the reality and implications of that idea. I can affirm any number of things: That God is HOLY, that He is my Father in Heaven; that Jesus was the Son of God who came to sacrifice His life to make a means of redemption for me; that God has provided a means in every circumstance for the Christian to avoid sin. Indeed I can affirm them and they can be good things... but affirming them will not cause me to act upon them. I will act upon what I truly believe deep down in my heart-of-hearts. Affirmation is not belief, and one is not taught by what they might affirm unless it becomes belief. So be teachable; engage with what is said, ask questions; because the other option is that you just wasted your time and the teachers by sitting there uselessly.
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    May. 16th, 2011 @ 03:36 pm The Weighty Responsibility of Teaching
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    The Scripture make it clear that the responsibilities of anyone in a teaching capacity are not to be trifled with:
    James 3:1 ~ "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness."


    In various circumstances I have observed various cases in which a teacher said something where someone in the audience was not on the same page as the teaching - either because they disagreed or because they didn't see how the teacher supported their conclusions.

    I have observed that teachers will commonly have one of two reactions to questions or suggestions put forth in these circumstances:
    1. The teacher may welcome the comment, or even the suggestion that what they said was wrong and seek to engage with the student to come to a greater mutual understanding of what was said and why both parties believed what they did.
    2. The teacher may seek to suppress the comment, feeling it to be a threat to their authority or a criticism of their person.


    I myself have seldom been in the position of "a teacher of the Word" - but if I were and said something that anyone thought might possibly be wrong I hope that they would come and talk to me about it. For if I am right, then I might have the chance to better clarify what has been said and be a still greater benefit as a teacher. But even more importantly if I am wrong then I may be given the chance to amend my ideas and amend what I have said taking every opportunity to comport myself according to the seriousness of the responsibility which God has required of the teacher.
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    May. 14th, 2011 @ 11:21 am Quotable: On Disagreements
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    It is a key truth, all too often missed in present society, that there is a fundamental and distinct difference between disagreeing with an idea and disparaging a person.
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