Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

The chapter of Revelation describes economics at the end of days.  To put this in context, this will occur during the reign of a powerful despotic multi-leader government which we studied earlier in " Government at the End of Days " who persecutes those who do not agree with it. During this time, food will become extremely expensive: I heard what sounded like a voice coming from among the four living creatures, which said, "A kilo of wheat for a day's wages, and three kilos of barley for a day's wages.  But do not damage the olive trees and the vineyards!" Revelation 6:6 This Bible verse is interpreted by scholars to indicate an exorbitantly high price for food.  Will there be a food shortage in those times, or is the government in power simply raising the price artificially?  Either way, food will become expensive. Furthermore, in order to buy or sell anything at all, people of this time are required to have an identifying mark in the beast's na...

The chapter of Revelation, a vision given to John, tells us quite a lot about government at the end of days:  I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads. There were ten crowns on his horns. On each head was an evil name that was displeasing to God. The beast I saw looked like a leopard. But he had feet like a bear and a mouth like a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power, his throne, and great authority. One of the beast's heads seemed to have had a deadly wound. But the wound had been healed. The whole world was amazed and followed the beast. People worshiped the dragon, because he had given authority to the beast. They also worshiped the beast. They asked, "Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?" Revelation 13:1-4 The beast has been suggested by Christian scholars to be a form of government.  This is because Revelation 18: 9-10 explains that the seven heads represent seven kings, and the ten horns are ten kings ...

With plenty of bad thing happening in the world, it is tempting to think that this might signal the end of days.  Are we really living at the end of days described in the Bible chapter of Revelation?  The answer is no, as of the time this post was published, in January 2011.  Right now we may very well be in the preceding stage that Jesus described in the gospel of Matthew: You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. Matthew 24:6-8 Out of interest, as grim as this may sound to us now, living in this stage would have seemed a lot grimmer to those living at the start of World War II, during which (having not so long ago finished with World War I) no-one knew how long WWII would last or whether it was going to be ...

Before reading the Bible, I thought it would instantly make everything immediately clear.  Yes, The Bible gives us the best and closest understanding we can about God and Jesus - better than any other book, any blog, any speaker can.  But, it is still limited by the bounds of language. There are some things that are difficult (not impossible, but difficult) to express with mere language.  What we need to do is remember that we're like babies trying to learn calculus.  We need to slow down and not make any more assumptions than are absolutely necessary.  Essentially, the Bible is a message from God.  It is the most important message he has for us.  A message, by its very definition, is sent through an intermediary. It is not the same as a direct conversation with God.  (This is why prayer is also important if you want to find out more about God). Does this diminish the importance of the Bible? Of course not! God evidently fel...

The issue of God intervening by miracles is a big point of contention between Christians and atheists.  Are miracles the bound between the natural and the supernatural? And if so, why even have a 'supernatural'? Is it because God has to 'jump in' occasionally and 'save the day' to prevent things form getting out of hand?  Or maybe (as other atheists might suggest) miracles are simply Christians conveniently attributing to God mysterious phenomena which we can't yet explain? C.S. Lewis had pondered this question and written an entire book on it called 'Miracles'.  In this book, he argues that what we call miracles (which some would call the 'supernatural') are 'not exceptions nor irrelevancies'.  Instead, miracles are simply God's usual powers used in accordance with the 'rules behind the rules' (C.S. Lewis, Miracles 1947, Chapter 12 'The Propriety of Miracles').  C.S. Lewis likens God's use of miracles to art...

Here we'll find out what miracles mean for the big picture of God's work.  In Miracles Part 1 , we studied the argument put forward by C.S. Lewis in his book 'Miracles' that miracles are a form of artistic license used by God (and not a device to rescue out-of-control situations), and they are not exceptions to nature, although they occur infrequently.  C.S. Lewis puts forward the notion that if God is using artistic license for miracles and it is an infrequent event, then this evidence should tell us that these are the parts of his work that he wants to emphasize, which in turn lets us know that these parts of the story are hugely important.  In his book 'Miracles', C.S. Lewis goes on to have us question what we think of the big picture.  In Chapter 12 "The Propriety of Miracles", he states: "If you have hitherto disbelieved in miracles, it is worth pausing a moment to consider whether this is not chiefly because you thought you had discover...

"God isn't real if I don't believe in him" "I can't believe in a God who lets X or Y happen" The above are sentences which are heard frequently.  Curiously, these people seem to think that if God doesn't match up to THEIR specifications, He can't be real.  I think the root of this is the lack of ability we humans have to 'prove' or see the existence of God (or from the opposing viewpoint, to prove a lack of existence). The difficulty with which we can detect spiritual things compared to the ease with which we can detect the physical world makes it very easy for us to think we make the rules and that if God doesn't appear to follow 'our' rules (expectations), He can't be real. Consider a hypothetical creature of spirit visiting Earth for the first time.  This creature has no way of directly measuring anything physical.  Although unable to sense gravity itself, it realizes from reading minds that humans have measured...

When I was young, I wondered why Jesus spoke in parables.  Did he think that people were too uneducated to understand any other type of teaching? Why not just tell them directly yet simply about the message he was trying to get across? After reading the Bible, my question was answered. I admired the parables for their ability to get the message across for all peoples and all time: 1.  The parables would have been easier to translate into other languages than the direct message would have been, since some of these messages handle complex and otherwise abstract theological concepts.  We have to remind ourselves that we are among the many beneficiaries of this ease of translation - the Bible wasn't originally written in English! 2.  Parables offered less chance that the messages would get distorted over time , whether uninentionally or for self-serving political or other purposes. 3.  These agriculturally based messages can be readily unde...

I have noticed that many people feel they are unable to believe in God when they live in a world where bad things happen.  (Here is a link to my other post: If God is Good, Why Do Bad Things Happen? ).  I've already covered the issue of a lot of the bad things there (comes down to us having Free Will and using it badly, e.g. murders, violence, etc).  The bigger issue here is that people are blaming God for the sins of man!   I'm not denying that there are horrific things happening in the world.  Some people have seen and experienced things that no human being ever ought to.  By all means, blame man for the sins of man.... but don't blame God for the sins of man.  The blame doesn't lie there, no matter how much anyone might 'want' it to.  An even bigger issue that I realized after reading the Bible, is that of arrogance and pride if we start blaming God for the sins of man.  Not only does this thought imply we want him to 'take...