Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

Most people tend to think mainly of the book of Revelation when considering end time prophesies. However, there were also prophesies of end times in the Old Testament which were similar. The prophet Isaiah from the Old Testament had end time prophesies that were consistent with those in the book of Revelation (and in other places of the New Testament). Read Isaiah chapters 19 and 24 for this.  The prophet Daniel, also in the Old Testament, had similar end time prophesies. Read Daniel chapters 7, 8 and 9 for this. Recall that the Bible accurately predicted the fall of Babylon (at the time of its prediction, unthinkable - similar to the idea of a fall of London, Paris or New York). The Bible's predictions are accurate. This consistency between the Old Testament and New Testament means we must take these end time prophesies seriously. I wrote a separate article explaining why at this very moment we are not at the end of days , but this could change suddenly.  When the end times ...

Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, counseled against knee-jerk reactions. Reacting without thinking is not a wise way to live. Here are his sayings on that: Do not be quick to anger, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools. Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. Ecclesiastes 7: 9-10  This reminds me to pray, think, and read the Bible when any issue crops up. I'm not good at it - I still get angry quickly when I know that is not the best way. But I am trying, at least. I realize that knee-jerk reactions are literally the enemy of wisdom, as Solomon said. Mental shortcuts like that remove the opportunity to seek God in the middle of this problem. I find it helps me to think "everything is more nuanced than you think it is at first glance", and we do need God's guidance for that. God is the fount of wisdom, so our number one priority should be to seek Him and His solutions, not to give a knee-jer...

Psalm 23 is a well-known psalm that is often quoted for giving comfort to those who are dying. Here it is: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. Psalm 23 This psalm was written by King David at the time when he was beset by many enemies. He did not write this to comfort him in case he died. Instead he wrote this psalm as a prayer for guidance during difficult military campaigns. In other words, this psalm is very much for the living, not the dying. It...

In Biblical times, it was considered by society to be a very negative thing to not have children. Back then, a couple who did not have children was most likely due to infertility than out of a choice not to have children. In those days it made a lot of practical sense to have kids since children could help with some of the tasks of the family business.  So there was a societal stigma to not having children. Even in modern times today, some people view not having kids as a negative thing, although it's seen as less of an issue now than back in Biblical times. Certainly it is more emotionally difficult for the couple who want to have kids but have not yet been able to have them, than for a couple who is childless by choice. I realize this is an emotionally charged topic. The good news is that you do not need to have kids to be a fully functional human being according to God . Your ability to be with God is independent of whether or not you have children. There is a verse in the Bible...

I was reading Isaiah recently and was struck by a particular section. In it, King Hezekiah of the Jews prays to God to spare his nation from being invaded by Assyria, at the time a strong and mighty nation: Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, and have hurled their gods into the fire, though they were no gods, but the work of human hands—wood and stone—and so they were destroyed. So now, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord.’ Isaiah 37: 18-20 The part that struck me as so important is the part where the Assyrian kings " have hurled their gods into the fire, though they were no gods, but the work of human hands—wood and stone—and so they were destroyed ." King Hezekiah recognized clearly that the things that the Assyrian kings destroyed were not significant - those things were never gods at all, but simply the work of human hands. In other words, it wa...

It may seem a bit odd to draw parallels between the programming language Lisp and effective prayer, but this was a revelation that struck me recently. No prior knowledge of Lisp, or of prayer, is necessary to understand this post. A brief look at Lisp - specification and implementation First let's take a very quick look at Lisp. Lisp is a programming language that has a specification , meaning that each command (or function, to use Lisp terminology) is defined to produce a certain result. As a concrete example, the + function must take in as many numbers as desired and must provide the result of adding those numbers. For example (+ 4 5 10) should result in 19.  Exactly HOW the nuts and bolts work for producing the result (i.e. the steps of adding up all the numbers in the + function) is up to the implementation of Lisp.   The programmer doesn't need to know or care how the implementation works , the programmer just needs to know that if they call the + function, they will get...

In my prayer life, I realize I had been very limiting in what I prayed for. I was praying only for things that could happen in my lifetime. It simply never occurred to me to pray for things beyond that. That is incredibly short-sighted.  When reading the Bible, there are many examples of people's prayers being answered - but this happened after the person passed away, so they never got to see it themselves. Does that mean the prayer wasn't answered? No! The prayer was answered. The answer had nothing to do with whether the person praying was there to observe it or not.  Let's take a look at an example. This occurred in the Old Testament when Abimelech tried to establish a monarchy over Shechem. To do so, he killed all his brothers (who could otherwise challenge his rule) except for one, Jotham, who hid from him. The people of Shechem declared him their ruler, but his brother Jotham spoke out bravely to the crowd. He asks if the crowd if they have honored his father Jerubbaa...

I was reading the book of Proverbs ( read here why I think it is the most subversive book of the Bible ). Much of the book of Proverbs is thought to be written by King Solomon. While I was reading this, several of the proverbs leaped out at me as being relevant to today's online misinformation. In these proverbs, Solomon promotes a thinking approach and cautions against carelessness. Let's take a look: A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain, but knowledge is easy for a man of understanding Proverbs 14:6     The simple believes everything, but the prudent looks where he is going. A wise man is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool throws off restraint and is careless. Proverbs 14:15-16   The mind of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouths of fools feed on folly. Proverbs 15:14   A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion. Proverbs 18:2    All of the above proverbs can be well applied to tod...

Some people think that just because the laws of nature exist, that this means there is "no room" for God to exist. In fact, they often see the idea of God existing as near-sighted. Instead, it's important to remember that God created the laws of nature . In fact, God states this very clearly in the Bible as far back as Deuteronomy in the Old Testament: And when you look up to the heavens and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, do not be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples everywhere under heaven. Deuteronomy 4:19  In the above Bible verse, God cautions people against worshiping objects that He created.  Yet all the time, people get caught up in serving those objects instead of God himself. Some of these people think that it is shortsighted to believe that God exists. Rather, it is shortsighted to believe that God does not exist. If you found this post interesting, you may ...

Do not underestimate prayer. Often, someone prays for something, sees no obvious result, and assumes nothing happened. This is far from the reality. Most often this is due to the person not being able to detect what had happened as a result of the prayer .  There are some other reasons nothing could happen, of course. Some of those other reasons are:  This was not the right time for the prayer to be answered - the prayer was in God's will but the timing is later, or The prayer was not consistent with what God wanted But assuming that none of these issues above are the case, often the problem is simply that the person cannot detect that the prayer has been answered .  This is because prayer creates direct movement (or action, or an effect - any of these is a decent approximation) in the spiritual dimension. But remember, the spiritual dimension is a dimension that we cannot detect easily. It is there and it is more real than our physical dimensions , but we have the misfor...

Human leaders are fallible and won't be able to lead once they die. This concept seems logical and common-sense, and besides that it is iterated in the book of Psalms: Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish. Psalms 146: 3 - 4 By contrast, God and Jesus are perfect leaders who are with us forever. Even the richest or most powerful man in the world is not a leader we should trust. Instead, we should put our trust in God and ask Him to lead us.  How do we do this? By reading the Bible and by praying, we get to know Him more and more. We can ask for wisdom, for discernment in knowing what to do in any particular situation. Guidance from God is far more useful and valuable than guidance from any human. Furthermore, I've explained why I believe that a human leader who does not know God cannot have true wisdom . Who are you following? If you found this po...

I was pondering the question of whether someone could have true wisdom without knowing God. While I don't have all the answers, I am leaning towards a definite "no" to that question, and here is why. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that everyone who doesn't know God has a low IQ and everyone who does will have a high IQ. No. What I am saying is that wisdom comes from God, and it's virtually impossible to have true wisdom without knowing God. I'm not talking about purely book-learning here or ability to do math quickly. I'm talking about discernment as wisdom. The ability to know what to do in a given situation.  All the high IQ in the world will not always help someone to know what to do in a given situation. I'm not bashing people with high IQ's - their IQ is a gift they have been given, just as some people have been given the gift of beauty, and others the gift of charisma.  So, having separated discernment from IQ here, I'd like to keep...

This is a topic I have been thinking about over the past year or so. The richest or most powerful men in the world have less power than you might think. In this situation I am thinking mainly about tech leaders, but it could equally apply to a head of state, or anyone else.  In the Bible, we see an example of where an archangel moves an incredibly heavy stone, the one that was closing the tomb where Jesus was buried. After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. Matthew 28: 1-3 The stone covering the entrance was huge. Yet an angel was able to move it without help. Do the angels possess super strength? Yes, but it's a side-effect of a particular reason. It's because the angels belong to the spiritual world...

Sometimes it is tempting to fall into the trap of thinking everything was simpler in Biblical times. It was not! There was as much corruption, political backbiting, and greed as there is today. Of course, it is sad that things have not improved in that regard over the past 2,000+ years. In the book of Micah, we can see an example which resonates strongly with today's world, even though this was written before the birth of Christ: The faithful have disappeared from the land, and there is no one left who is upright; they all lie in wait for blood, and they hunt each other with nets. Their hands are skilled to do evil; the official and the judge ask for a bribe, and the powerful dictate what they desire; thus they pervert justice. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge. The day of their sentinels, of their punishment, has come; now their confusion is at hand. Micah 7: 2-4 You can see that this passage speaks of widespread corruption and greed, b...

There are many references in the Bible showing that Jesus will come to Earth again. But this is not a second chance for us. He is not here to teach us and to conquer sin - he already completed that the first time around.  Even though those alive today were not here at the time he came to teach, we have all his teachings available to us! These are written in the Bible. So we have access to all of that. Do not make the mistake of thinking that when he comes again, it will be for another chance. That already happened the first time he came. When he comes next, it will be to gather those who are waiting for him. so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Hebrews 9:28 This is why the end of days has not already happened - God is delaying in order to give us time to decide if we will follow Jesus. Indeed, Jesus himself told his disciples that the end of days would come...

Faith and the environmental crisis do indeed intersect, or at least should intersect. Sadly, comparatively few faith leaders seek to address environmental issues, despite humans clearly being tasked by God as being caretakers of the planet. I recently watched the Hook Lecture for 2021 by Dr. Carmody Grey, which addressed the intersection of faith and climate. It's fairly long, but worth the watch, even if you have to watch it in bits. This lecture made me really think. Dr. Grey posed the question "What is it that we want to sustain?" which is a fundamental question that all too often gets ignored.  It's true that if no-one actually talks about what it is we are sustaining, we won't all be rowing the boat in the same direction. Her answer to this question was humanity itself, which made sense to me. Yet I can see how some people would not have given this answer. Some people are wishing to sustain the status quo above everything else, while others are seeking to ...