Miscellaneous Missionary

Christmas Letter

2011-12-23T10:27:00.004-07:00

The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

Numbers 6:24-26

This year was very special to us. In the month of January we went to Brazil so Arnie could meet my family, and then we came to the United States so that I was able meet his family.
In July, our wedding was held at the First Bible Baptist Church in Vitória da Conquista, Bahia, Brazil. Pictures are on facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2472940350324.136770.1456879198&type=1&l=088670a7c5

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2622079958721.139455.1456879198&type=1&l=af66123917

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2506620312302.137679.1456879198&type=1&l=85096dd6a6

http://youtu.be/TcwYf7htH5A

After that, we spent three months visiting churches in Brazil to try and fulfill our responsibilities for home assignment. Now we are visiting churches in the United States, and we already have our tickets to go back to Mozambique scheduled for January 17th.

We are very grateful to God for all He has done and is doing in our lives, for so many loved ones who have blessed us in many ways in Brazil and here in the USA. Word fail to be enough to praise God for His faithfulness and care demonstrated in so many ways that leave us with a heart overflowing with gratitude.
We know we have many challenges ahead, but in our hearts we hope and pray that God will always be glorified in our lives.

Our plans are to return to Mozambique, stay a few weeks in the city of Nampula, where our mission's office is located and then go to Quelimane, capital of Zambezia in central Mozambique. The Maindo people remain in our hearts, and we will have some meetings with our leaders and colleagues in Mozambique to decide the date to move to Micaune where most of the Maindo people live.
We praise God for His faithfulness and the care shown by those who care so much, pray, and contribute financially in this ministry.

We hope that the glory of God will continue to be reflected in the life of His Church.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

And This for my Wife

2011-11-29T15:29:00.002-07:00

Reception Photos
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2506620312302.137679.1456879198&type=1&l=85096dd6a6

Honeymoon Photos
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2622079958721.139455.1456879198&type=1&l=af66123917

Don't Be Sloppy

2011-11-29T11:12:00.002-07:00

I myself have been plenty sloppy in my life, and I am glad that my first sermons especially, but also many others were heard by few and not saved for others. However, a visit to an old country church and a recent radio message have prompted me to reinvigorate my concern that what we say about God and the Bible need to be well informed, and not mere cultural clichês. The very people who insult and speak against buzzwords like 'emergent' and many modern theological trends commit the same errors because of a sloppy approach to their speaking.

On Sunday, I was listening to a classic liberal application of the Sermon on the Mount, which said that Jesus has established His Kingdom on earth, and we need to keep all of the commands that He gave in the Sermon on the Mount in order to be saved. I doubt whether the teacher has heard of the debates between present scholars over this application, but as a church and school, they would certainly distance themselves from the names of those who teach the same.

I will not pretend to have clearly understood or resolved all of the issues in the debate, but much of the message of all four of the Gospels is the head to head conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees. The Sermon on the Mount is no exception, when Jesus says that in order to inherit the Kingdom, the people needed to have more righteousness than the Pharisees. He then proceeded to show how that the heart is guilty before any actions are seen. The people must have been amazed. How could anyone inherit eternal life if even the Pharisees were not worthy. There must be no hope.

Here we see God's righteous standard unkeepable, and not something that we just have to 'do our best and hope it is good enough.'

The second thing that I was shocked and horrified to hear was a radio program in which the Bible teacher said that we need less doctrine and logic and debate and that we need more faith. He then proceeded to describe faith as a subjective feeling of relationship with God. The presentor did not use the word subjective, but he described feelings in the heart and experience as well as several sentiments that leave the hearer with the impression that faith is irrational but good.

I do not wish to be so bold, but faith is doctrine and logic and debate. 'Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen' (Heb 11.1). How can the writer of Hebrews say assurance and conviction? We look too often and see the 'things not seen' part and assume that it is irrational, but assurance and conviction come from a convinced person who is very sure of a truth.

'Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints' (Jude 3). This language that describes 'the faith' seems to describe something more specific than a religious experience. In fact, by the language that it was 'once for all delivered to the saints' I would understand that the writer is saying that faith in this context is a body of truth that Luke calls in Acts 'the apostles' doctrine.' Faith can also be trusting in God to do what He promised.

At any rate, I have been breif, and there are gaps to be filled in these subjects to fully resolve them, but they reminded me of the important need to keep our minds renewed and our communication clear so that we do not falsly understand Jesus to teach mere social issues or Christianity to be a mere moral influence that gives us a way to cope with difficulty in life.

These issues are especially important as we seek to have clarity and consistency in relation to what the gospel is and how we are to teach and express it.

Wedding Photos

2011-11-04T13:48:00.003-06:00

By clicking on the title above, you should be sent to a page that shows a number of high quality photos from my wedding in July.

My Wedding Video

2011-07-11T08:57:00.003-06:00

It is about time, and the last minute prep and travel and all is getting hectic. We have a lawyer in a hearing to get our documents approved in the city hall as well. So, I thought I should get this posted while I have time. Half the family is now here, and the rest will be here soon.

The link will take you to a site that has the video of the wedding. The first one should be the easiest and best to give you the video

http://pibbvc.com.br:8000/pibb...deo.ogg

The second one requires you to click on a link, write a screen name and open a chat session. You will find a blinking red text at the left of the page below the words «Culto ao Vivo.» Then, you give a screen name and hit enter and it should work. To access this page, you have to have java and allow cookies from third parties. I have used it many times with no security compromise, but make sure after you exit the site to change your settings back to block third party cookies.

Página Principal | Primeira Igreja Batista Bíblica de Vitória da Conquista

Plant conference audio: Mark Dever, ‘The Great Commission and Church Planting’

2011-06-18T17:32:00.000-06:00

Plant conference audio: Mark Dever, ‘The Great Commission and Church Planting’

This is a great message on church planting and not just evangelism as the main ministry not only for missionaries who are sent from a local church but also for the local church. I leave the advocacy to the much more articulate Mark Dever.

2011-06-07T09:42:00.000-06:00

Cross Cultural At Home

2011-04-25T13:00:00.002-06:00

I am back in the States now for a couple of months and nothing could be more plain and clear than the fact that I am not any more at home in american culture.

I know, you are probably saying, «When was Arnie ever at home in any culture.» Well, while I have wrestled often with my cultural identity, and for as long as I can remember, I was very much american, and now I am not. I am reminded of that as I look at how much I have become a part of various communities in Southern Africa. More and more, I have been involved with the lives of my neighbors there and at home in the settings. I was reminded of this once again as I was shopping at a store recently. I always have problems wanting to say words in Portuguese and Lolo instead of English.

It has been a pleasure and joy learning the whats behind the thats of God's dealings with Africa. I find that it is hardest being here in the States and being expected to know and be a part of what God is doing here, while I feel out of place. My contacts and communities are not as much here any more, but I have ties and I am trying to reestablish them.

One of the things that hurts the most about being a missionary in a foreign context is the fact that one has to try and keep an appendage in so many different cultural contexts. When I was a teenager, one missionary encouraged us to «wherever you go, be all there.» I think I have taken that to an extreme. While I do regret the loss of contact and even at times fellowship with american church life, I have been so rewarded by the fact that God gave people and churches to replace those things there.

Now that I am here, I find that I am feeling the same pressures and pains of cultural adjustments, along with the fear that I will become distracted by the theme park that is america. Sometimes, I just want to be roasting cashew nuts with my friends as we discuss the meaning of some parable Jesus told. Here, finding places and people to have those types of informal evangelism as a lifestyle feels impossible, and I often have frustrations because the assumptions that need to be addressed are so different.

I guess I am just ranting about my typical missionary insecurity.

2011-04-01T20:35:00.003-06:00

Multimedia

2010-11-14T07:43:00.009-07:00

This is new for me, but here is some media of a recent trip to visit my old haunts out in the bush. My noiva (fiancee) took the pics and vids.

Luala River

Trail to Zooks 1

Trail to Zooks 2

Discussing Baptism and the Lord's Supper

Missionary Worship

Sunrise on the Road

More coming....

Oh yeah, did I say my fiancee? That's right!

A Word of Admission: I am in love.

2010-10-12T08:14:00.004-06:00

For years I decided that I did not need or want romance. I thought that I was independent and enough.

Recently, I have found that attitude disappearing, mostly because I am head over heels in love. God, who works all things together for good, brought us both to the same conclusion independent of each other.

Then, we began to talk to each other and the result is that we are «investing in a long-term relationship that glorifies God.» Some of you might call it dating, but I prefer what I said above.

We are getting counseling and going through Bible concepts of godly relationships together. We have many personality differences, cultural differences and language differences. However, we have one God and we have His Word.

I saw that Rubenita (Rubi) was a person with deep commitment to God, someone who blesses so many lives around her. She shares ministry values and God uses her in a mighty way. She is intelligent, graceful, wise, elegant, lovely, caring, compassionate, and much, much more. I have often told her that she is the most beautiful person I have met both inside and out.

She is a part of the same mission www.ntm.org and we have discussed with the leadership and they have given their blessing to our relationship. Her parents and mine have also been supportive and mostly disappointed that they have to follow the gossip from a distance.

We are talking about the details of a wedding ceremony, but it is really complex with the international flavor of the deal and all the paperwork. Right now, we are talking about the middle of July 2011.

Please pray for us as we seek to glorify God. The churches that we know here are all looking to us as an example and we have asked them for help in counseling as well.

This development has set some other things on hold. I am no longer in Derre and no longer seeking to move into translation or teaching there. Instead, I am exploring options for the mission to be involved in churches in cities to mobilize and help the local churches reach out to the communities around.

The plan is to work on adapting the materials from the Lolo people group to Portuguese and share them with colleagues and pastors. The plan is also to help provide a better picture of what God is doing in local churches in Quelimane and challenge them to cross-cultural ministry.

This change in location and ministry focus has created some adaptation, and I ask for prayers in this regard, and I also ask prayer for clear communication of God's heart for missions here in the city.

2010-05-27T08:25:00.000-06:00

Espere.

Bem vindo.

Tchiau.

Reflections on a Life for Living

2010-02-08T13:23:00.004-07:00

As I sat in a very plain chair, leaning forward to catch the shade of a recently trimmed orange tree, it was hard to explain exactly what I felt. It was barely six in the morning and the ever hot sun was scorching as it had all year long. Even the showy teenage boys were trying to get out of having to act tough in that heat.

I had taken a sick neighbor to the hospital on my little 49cc bike as a rude awakening to my Christmas day pledge to try and sleep in past 4:30 and make it a late morning. I thought I might take advantage of the opportunity to pick out a good leg of goat from the market and maybe some bread and sugar for the neighbors to eat with tea on my treat.

When I went back to check out the patient, the local government official called me over and offered me a chair. There in front of it was a feast: fried eggs, fried potatoes, toast, butter, tea, mango, pineapple, and even a chicken wing. He told me to eat. I did. It was very good.

We talked about how dry it was and how the year had been hard and how the school had grown and so forth, the usual fare. It was all comical inasmuch as he sat there in his boxers, too hot to even move as we ate and talked, and as he complained about his "little hut" in the city not being finished. His little hut is made of cement and has several floors.

This caused me to reflect on how good God has been to me. None of my western friends have had an experience like that. Succulent fruit and a great breakfast from the top local government official as we sit in the partial shade of an orange tree and looked out over the valley which cowered from the burning heat of the sun.

Two days earlier I had gone with another friend way back on a bush trail, crossing rivers and waterfalls and passing through dense jungles. We had gone to slaughter another goat and find green coconuts. Legend has it that the pool above the falls is home to large crocodiles, but we did not see them. The kids were sliding down the falls, since the water fell gently and beautifully across a smooth rock and spilt into a lower pool. I thought man, if my brothers were here, we would all go crazy playing in that paradise.

Later on Christmas day, I went to hang out with some friends and shoot the breeze at the local market over a bottle of Fanta. Before I could go, the local traditional king invited me to share in his goat neck. It was smeared in greens from the goat's small intestine, just how they like it, and cooked in a light peanut sauce with hot pepper and onion on rice. That is what I am talking about.

Over there, about a kilometer's distance, the drunkards and troublemakers fought, passed out, laughed, and danced right through morning dawn, while I went to bed early and prepare for a day of work at sunrise.

Here, they say I have spent the holidays alone, miserable, isolated. Here they say the bush is getting to me. Here, they say it is not safe and you cannot just live out there like that. They say that you cannot eat what they eat. If you only had eyes to see what I see!

Here, But Not Without Trouble

2009-07-23T06:06:00.002-06:00

Here I am. The power went out the first day back, and I have had little access to the internet. It definitely is Africa.

My trip started last week on Monday. I traveled with family to Denver, CO to spend the night there. We all hurried off to the airport just before seven in the morning. The check in lines were so long that I just had time to get in the check in line and then into the security line. I felt really bad, because I did not have time to say a prolonged goodbye to anyone. I was even running to catch the tramway to the correct gateway. I just made it in time.

The ride all the way to Dulles International Airport was really bumpy. The plane landed safely, but the pilot apologized for the rough ride. I was in Dulles for a few hours, and I met some Angolans, and was happy to get a chance to speak Portuguese again.

After lunch, it was off to my transfer flight with South African Airways. This flight was also rough. At one point, I was unable to keep my coffee from spilling, even by drinking it down. The plane landed to refuel in Dakar, Senegal. It was raining.

Then, my flight went to Johannesburg. This flight was also long and rough. When I landed in Johannesburg, I was able to easily make some phone calls, and arrange somewhere to stay. I had the pleasure of meeting some pastors who are very involved in outreach and I also attended a Bible study that is part of a church planting effort. It was neat to see God at work.

I also visited some friends out of town, who have a ministry with college students. It was really cold, below freezing, but once again, I was seeing God work.

On Saturday, I had my scheduled flight for Nampula via Maputo, both cities of Mozambique. At the gate, I saw that the plane was not even around. Boarding time came and left. Then, here came the plane, taxiing to the gate. It left about forty minutes late.

When I got to Maputo, I saw that my residency permit had expired. The immigration folks were real helpful in getting me a tourist visa to make it safely home. The only problem is that by the time I got out of the gate area, the overbooked flight was already leaving.

The ticket people and the airline personnel were not very helpful, and told me I would catch a later flight. That flight came and went, and they did not let me board, telling me that my ticket did not count, since it had been for an earlier flight.

Fortunately, I have friends in Maputo, who helped me out with a place to stay and some food. I was at the airport all day Sunday as well, with no help. The airline refused to help with my lodging or food. They accused me of lying and told me that I needed to buy a new ticket. They kept telling me to go home and try again the next day. I was told my Mozambican friends that I should stay and make a good hassle, and that not all hope was lost. I stayed until the whole counter closed down with no further assurance of service.

The next day, now Monday, I arrived early and started the whole process over again. They refused to give me a seat for about two hours. Finally, since I would not leave them alone, the sent a person to try and find me a seat. This time, they held the plane until they sorted out my name in the computer system and gave me a boarding pass.

The flight came as a relief, though it too was very rough with storms in the area.

It is good to be here.

I have some paperwork to figure out with health insurance, and some supplies to get set for a trip down to my house.

Please pray for a safe trip, and an easy time settling back in.
Please pray for good retention of language and that I would settle in to a good language learning routine.
Please pray for the Bible teaching that is happening that people would have their ears opened to hear God's Word.

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Dispensationalism

2009-06-10T16:03:00.002-06:00

It has been several years since I read on this issue. At that point, I had read Schofield, Showers, and Larkin. I also had read a compilation of quotes from Calvin on ecclesiology and escatology that were relevant, because he positions himself clearly to consider Israel as replaced by the church, which leads to a strong allegorism. Recently, I read a paper on the subject, but I did not get a copy which cited the author. I have spent many years concentrating on defending the Bible in its historical, grammatical sense. I believe that the Bible makes both historical and doctrinal distinctions. I believe that the conclusion of this paper is very essential and necessary to hermeneutics:

1. A distinction between Israel and the Church
2. A consistent, literal interpretation of the Scriptures
3. A doxological purpose of biblical history

As I make some comments on some issues, I will point out some concerns that are important to me.

In defining the debate, I noticed that this seems to be a debate of past generations. The authors are older and/or deceased. None of my friends really know what the word dispensationalism means. This is clearly a sign of our times, but most Christians will defend the hermeneutical principles of dispensationalism. In reading and listening to contemporaries, I see in church culture a huge tendency to not try to harmonize biblical history, resulting in a merging of preterist, amillenial, and post millenial views, while the pre millenial view is seen as inferior. This is clearly troubling.

I do not know really who or what progressive dispensationalism is; I will have to read more of it.

Most contemporary literature on the subject is very negative and frames all dispensationalists into a Schofield Bible Notes referential. I find this very troubling because I reject the idea that angels were created in "eternity past." This is because I believe that all of creation happened in six days, that angels are finite beings (confined to limited space), that Satan (as a fallen angel) or evil were not present before God called everything that He had made "very good." I also have no place for God to create a new world or fix the old one without the coming of the eternally purposed Messiah. All of these are historically prevalent in dispensationalism as defined by Schofield and his contemporaries. This is my biggest problem with most dispensationalists, but is not really discussed here. I also see some of the ministries of the Holy Spirit as revealed in the New Testament but necessary for "sainthood" in any age, but I see a distinction in ministries as articulated in John 14-16 and Acts 1-2.

I think it is actually appropriate that there has been a shift from discussion of hermeneutical system to theological system. I know that this might be considered a deviation from sola scriptura, but I do not think so. Here is why: in my opinion, much of conservative bibliology is built (in many cases unintentionally) on the criss-crossed ideas of Thomas Aquinas and Rene Descartes, namely that universal truth is personally discovered, which leads to the necessity of a god, which leads to the necessity of revelation, which leads to the credibility of the Bible, Which leads to the knowledge of the true God (I am simplifying for time). This idea, in essence, bases all of its truth in man's ability to reason out truth, not in God's establishment of it, nor the Holy Spirit's testimony to it. This is why so many unregenerate men have looked at the Bible and come to apostate ideas, which we see in many anti Christ sects throughout history. In essence, I am saying that a person cannot autonomously come to the right hermeneutic by starting with neutral views and reasoning the Bible into a proper theological position. In other words, I believe that good theology is in the Bible, but that it takes a supernatural intervention to see it clearly. This puts me strongly in the camp that says that Christian theology is its own best apologetic, which is presuppositionalism, as I understand it.

Missing here seems to be a discussion of how God's program for salvation is seen. I know some dispensationalists that say that in the time of the Law, people were saved through Temple sacrifices; that in the time preceeding this that various sacrificial systems with similarities were valid, but that now God saves by grace through faith alone. I know non dispensationalists that see no distinctions between earthly convenants made with Israel, Abraham, Noah, etc. and the "new testament" of Christ's blood. The former say that God always offered grace, but the means was different, sometimes works. The latter say that there are no distinctions, and that men always chose between salvation by grace or by works. I am not clear on how all of this is resolved. I think that both views are false, and that they ultimately lead to a relationship with God based on earned status, and not on imputed righteousness.

It seems that pretty much everybody defends a literalism, but that they all define it differently. Even the principles stated as the "essentials" of dispensationalism are used frequently by covenant theologians, with exception of the distinction between Israel and the Church.

Of course, the Bible never debates or states whether the New Testament is more important than the Old or visa versa. It does model by its structure that the Old Testament came first, but the New Testament writers clearly used the Old Testament in ways that upset the religious leaders of their day, which looks like taking the New Testament to interpret the Old. Asking the question "Which Testament is more important?" is asking the wrong question, if we are to harmonize them. The term "verbal plenary" makes this point by saying that all of the Bible is equally inspired, meaning that it takes both testaments and all of the books equally to truly understand God and His program for history.

I know many dispensationalists defending views on the "literal vs allegorical" line that use no allegory for the church with respect to Moses or the Millenium, but they allegorize much of the Old Testament to speak of "Christian Life Principles." In my opinion, this is inconsitent.

Clearly, this is not a debate between two huge, monolithic structures. There are wide varieties of understanding within all groups.

In the concluding sections of the paper, I had some concerns that I think are worth mentioning. First, I would re-arrange the priorities of Ryrie and not omit the doxological element. In fact, I would make it first in priority. All of God's plan is doxological. God's glory should govern every aspect of one's hermeneutic. Second, I think that one should much better define the term literal, rather than use the word and risk equivocation. Third, I think that the escatalogical issue, while relevant, is subject to the issue of ecclesiology. The identity and purpose of the church is much more relevant to the debate. The allegorization of the present has produced the allegorization of the future. I also disagree that in this sense: the non dispensational do not use the New Testament to interpret the Old, but visa versa. They try to say that baptism means the same as circumcision, communion with the Passover, church leadership with the aaronic priesthood, locations of worship with the Temple, worship itself with the Sabbath, the mosaic covenant with Christian living, etc. This is because they need a single program for history and since they deny different phases and parallel purposes in God's plan, they really have a hard time accepting a New Covenant that sees those things as shadows which are passing away. They identify themselves more with the Old Testament and Israel than the New Testament as a new people: neither Jew nor Greek. Finally, I appreciate the call for a love without compromise on truth. That is a common critique of conservative theologians: that they defend Christian doctrine, while showing no Christian love.

God Wants Us to Know Him

2009-05-17T22:09:00.000-06:00

I don’t know what to tell you about my experience that you do not
already know, and probably better than I know. After all, I have not
been all there upstairs recently.

I do not know how or where it began. I was dealing with sinus problems
first. I had already started breaking loose and getting over that, but
I just kept getting weaker with no other signs. I do not know who
found me unconscious at conference. I do not remember anything from
late Friday on. I do not know when I began waking up. I could not tell
if it was morning or night. I had no idea what day it was. I remember
bits and pieces of people talking to me, and being sick a lot.

I remember someone was always there.

It almost seems like a dream, except I still feel weak and have a
dizzy moment every now and then. However, I just want to use this time
to say thanks. Thanks to all who spent nights and days and hours
taking care of me, the vegetable. Thanks to all who put up with my
vomit and nonsense and hiccups. Thanks to all who brought food and
drinks to get me started eating. Thanks for making me eat when I did
not want to.

Thanks.

I do not know how to cover it all. In short, thanks for all the love
and care and most of all prayer. No one else in that hospital had a
team that worked like family to keep him going. Thank you very much.

I have done a lot of thinking about what has taken place. I have
looked at what I was learning from God down in Derre. I think that
most of all, I have to say a huge thanks to God. He gets all the
glory. That is the point of what He does. No matter what calamity
takes place, He is there, sovereignly working His will for all of us.
And He is Good to us. He is good to us. My recovery is a testimony to
that.

I would like to share a prayer with you. It is one of the great
theological prayers of the Bible.

“O Lord, I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to
anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing
harm.”

Wow! Now that is a barrage of good theology. It is comforting and
beautiful. But I left some out. Here is the end: “Therefore now, O
Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than
to live!"

What!!!!!! You see, Jonah had been called to preach judgment, death,
destruction, pain. He knew from the beginning that God would forgive
Nineveh. That is why he ran away. He was afraid that people would
actually find God’s Love. He, like us looked at Bible history and came
to the conclusion that God was too good to wipe out Nineveh without
providing salvation.

I feel like Jonah. I know that God has a good purpose for what has
happened. I just wish He had chosen someone else. I am supposed to be
the independent guy. The one who does not get sick, and can take all
the challenges that come along. But God knows what He is doing, making
me weak and needy.

Paul told the Corinthians, ” I determined not to know anything among
you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” That is what I want to
do. All of this happened for the same reason that every thing happens:
so that we can know God better.

"Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless
gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else,
counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have
power, together with all the. saints, to grasp how wide and long and
high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that
surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the
fullness of God"

These are the passions of Paul for his life and that of others.
Knowing Christ and His love. We get so caught up in our missionary
duties, and that is not why God created you. He created you to know
Him.

Finally, a portion of Jesus prayer in John 17:
Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where
I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You
loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father! The
world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known
that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will
declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and
I in them."

That is it! Here is what I said in summary. Thanks so much to all.
Thanks most of all to God. May we take the trials like this and draw
near to God. God's deepest desire is that we know Him and learn His
love more and more every day. This we have seen in our midst. May we
continue to grow.

Getting Stronger

2009-05-06T13:31:00.001-06:00

I had a good check up with the doctor today. He said that the tests today showed no traces of malaria in the blood sample, high iron, out of the danger zone for hemorrhaging, no adverse signs in my liver or pancreas, and healthy all around. I still lost a lot of weight, being on only IV's for several days, plus the heavy wear that malaria puts on the body. He said that I was out of the danger zone for anemia, but that I still have a ways to go to get to normal.

Lord willing I will have about a month to get this growth and rest done that is necessary. In this sense, I will be taking a brief medical furlough to get my full health back. The doctors and medical professionals that I asked (many), said that after treatment, it is best to be out of a malaria zone to recover for about a month to avoid a relapse. I wish I could visit everybody, but I would defeat the purpose of rest, and for that I am really sorry. Lord willing, though, I will be able to spend a month with family before getting back into language and culture study. I will miss an evaluation, but I am talking with my language and culture consultant, and doing what I can to not lose ground.

Please pray for the Lolo people as they continue to hear God's Word. Please pray for me, since my heart is to be there preparing the soil for the planting of the Gospel with the new friends and contacts that I have made, and since that awaits my culture and language acquisition as well, this delay seems a bit discouraging. However, God is in control and has a plan, and He is far wiser than I. Most of all, praise God for the way He drew so many people to pray and care for me while I was so sick (so far I count 14 countries on five continents, and I suspect more: wow). God is working in this world.

Sinking And Rising

2009-05-04T02:25:00.003-06:00

Praise the Lord!!!!!!

After a couple of weeks of very serious health problems, I am weak, but up and around. It started with a cold. I had a sinus headache, and drainage. It must be a cold! Soon, I began to feel weaker and weaker. I started getting a high fever. I had a conference to attend for the team of missionaries here. I went, but began to feel so poorly that I missed most everything at the conference. Later, I blacked out. My colleagues found me in my room. They evacuated me to the city of Nampula, where the local clinic did a blood smear and found me fully infected with cerebral malaria. I was placed on IV's of quinine, and soon stabilized. In a couple of days, I began to gain consciousness.

My health just kept getting better, and in less than a week, my blood tests showed no traces of malaria. My other symptoms were all disappearing rapidly. I soon was able to get around and take care of myself. I am now out of the hospital, and taking medicine to boost my immune system and rebuild my blood count.

All of this in about three weeks. My recovery is amazingly quick. The doctors said that I had an abnormally high iron level in my blood, which probably helped in the quick recovery. In all of this, I can only say that God was caring for me the whole time.

The symptoms were not normal malaria symptoms. The malaria was just as serious. Many others have not survived such a thing. I can only give the glory to God.

God is always in control, and seeks my best. In doing this, He gets all the glory. This a fundamental part of the Christian faith. Clearly, it is not time for me to go. God has other things for me. What they are, I do not see.

In the mean time, I will need to take a short medical break. I will miss an important language evaluation. I do not even know where I will be this next month. Please pray for continued strength. Please pray for me to see God's wisdom clearly and follow His leading.

2008-05-17T22:53:00.002-06:00

This week looks like another trip. Lord willing, I will be returning to the Lolo work for an extended period of time. This trip, like all of the others has been set with complications. The government paperwork has been set back, forcing us to get a later start in the morning. The pastors with which we had tried to work are not available. However, the director and I hope to head south to Zambezia with another pastor for the opportunity of beginning study of the Lolo language. Right now, it is an area without any formal infrastructure, and I will have to arrange my own electricity, water, and everything else. However, I am piloting a new pattern of not building my own house, but renting an existing house from a local family, which means that the hassle and expense of housebuilding has for now been avoided completely. I should be out of touch in many senses until August, since I will be out in a very rural area. In August, the field has a workshop on advanced language learning, communication, and translation, which will bring me out for about two weeks. At that time, I will know more about what the time line will be and so forth. The Lolo team had hoped to begin teaching chronologically in the month of June, but the lesson preparation has been set back a little by some training of teachers aids. The hope is that this will greatly help the teaching in the future, since the people group is so scattered. The literacy class is moving forward, and the first readers of Lolo are emerging. There is not a lot of momentum for others to want to read at this point, but the base that exists in key in setting up the program in the future. The Zooks, who have been responsible in large part for all of this work give praise to God for the help of the literacy teacher that is nearly fully trained and able to teach most of the classes himself.
We would ask for prayer as we seek to prepare the soil of the hearts of the community for the planting of God's Word.
We would ask for prayer for wisdom in interacting with the community so that they will have clear understanding of their need for God's Word in their own language. Right now, the general mood is that missionaries are here to fund development projects, and the expectation of teaching God's Word is minimized. Please pray for God to create through our team a hunger for God's Word in the hearts of the Lolo people.

It Has Been a Roller Coaster Ride

2008-05-11T03:10:00.002-06:00

And it is not over. As I reflect on the last several months, I see a lot of ups and downs. I have eaten a lot of raw sugar cane (local version of the popsicle). I have visited many places. First, I had to prepare for the first ever official evaluations in Portuguese by the team here in Mozambique. I have the distinct honor of being the first to be evaluated at the target level on the field. While I did feel proud of this for a while, I soon found that I still learn loads every day. This was especially true as I did translation of field documents into Portuguese. Soon after, I was asked to consider an existing work that was short on people. I had always wanted to move into an area as a part of the original team, but this seems to be a window of opportunity and an exciting ministry opportunity. Over the next several weeks, I found myself packing and unpacking and repacking in anticipation of a move that did not seem to happen. Later, I was able to spend significant time in the administrative post of Derre with the team there and several consultants discussing needs and expectations. When I left there, I still had no place to call home, but a much clearer picture of what needs to be done. This last week has been a bit frustrating dealing with internet problems and trying to feel out what needs to be done back here in the city. Finally, I do have an agreement on living space and some plans set for a move sometime next week. At least for starters, this will be a very remote setting. I may not be able to attempt communication until August. I will probably be spending my days getting as much vocabulary as I can and getting my feet under me in a culture and language study program.

Please pray for the Lolo people, that God would be preparing their hearts to hear His Word.
Please pray for Matt Zook, since he is developing Bible lessons and preparing for evangelism.
Please pray for my strength and health, physically and spiritually.
Please pray for continued peace and stability in Mozambique.

This is the News as It Is Happening

2008-03-25T22:43:00.001-06:00

Here are a couple of letters explaining the work that is being done and that is delaying my allocation. Please keep praying.

Dear DJ & Arnie,
At this time with the preparation for Rick's visit, the jetlag of the last lot of visitors and then McIlwains to follow Ricks Visit, we are not ready to allocate Arnie the first week of April. We would ask that you put your plans on hold until we give you a go ahead which may be when Rick comes or in May.
We suggest that you do not bring a pastor until after he decides where he wants to stay after trying out 3 places or so. If Arnie would like to come with Rick, if that would be helpful for a 'kick-off' then he is welcome to do so. And/or come with McIlwains/Germanns (although the car might be very full by this stage), that is fine too.
with thanks,
Matt & Debi
Greetings praying friends,
On this Easter Sunday my thoughts are about Christ being raised from the dead that we might have life, not only life after death, but true life while we are on here on Earth. Did God create man to do good works or to be saved? It seems to me that in the beginning God created man to his steward on earth, ruling the earth according God's plan. Did Christ die on the cross that man might do good works or that he might be saved? Bad question. Better put, he saved us that we might do good works and accomplish that purpose for which God created man to serve from the beginning, to live on earth as His stewards according to God's plan. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Eph. 2:10. How encouraging these words are in these busy days.
Here we have a lot of work to do and there is no end to it in the near future that we can see. I need to prepare for a language check in mid April which consists of for example, doing some conversational speaking on debatable topics then writing the whole conversation, translating it back to English and reviewing it with my language helper for him to correct my errors. I need to do three of these speaking tasks, so that among some other things will keep me busy. If all that goes well, I will be cleared for writing Bible lessons and once I get a bunch written and into that far enough to see that they are communicating well, then I want to begin public teaching. So that is pretty exciting. Our prayer is that this time next year there might be some Lolo's who are rejoicing with us that, "He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
We appreciate all the prayers. It is amazing to think that the Lolo have for countless years, not yet the heard the gospel of God clearly and that Lord willing and enabling, in the next year at least a few of them might hear. While we do not know all his ways, we know that Satan will do everything to thwart God's message being proclaimed to the Lolo. We earnestly desire your prayers for the Lolo that they might realize their spiritual needs. May you also pray for us, we feel unable in so many ways. Please pray that God will give us better minds to understand His word and how to teach it in the Lolo language among the Lolo people that captivates them with His greatness. The word 'God' is in the Lolo language, but 'God' to the Lolo is some distant, uncaring, being that has little or no interaction with man.
All this alone is enough for prayer but we would also ask for prayer for health for us especially Melody who has a cold and some fever probably associated with a mouth full of teeth she has coming in now.
In Christ,
Matt & Debi and Melody

Roller Coaster

2008-03-19T22:26:00.005-06:00

The last couple of weeks have been a bit crazy. I have been on a rollercoaster of emotions and events. I was in traveling the muddy roads in the pouring rain to survey ministry opportunities in Zambeze Province. I had a good meeting with team members there about possible allocation. The plan was made to allocate within two weeks. Two weeks later, I am half packed and the paperwork is still in process. I have been trying to tie up loose ends, which is really hard to do when I want to spend more time preparing my mind and heart for the hard battle ahead of language and culture study. Some contingency concerns have been raised about me as a single man working in the village that will not prevent me from going, but have delayed. You have to understand that it is common in this culture for single men (and married men for that matter) to get offers. I have to be careful whenever I am out in public because of this. At any rate, some Mozambican pastor friends are being asked to help establish the relationship with village leaders that will help avoid some of those potential problems. Because of this, my move has been moved back until the month of April. It still looks very certain that I will have the chance to start full fledged language study of Lolo in the next six weeks. Praise the Lord.

As a side note, the city of Nampula is really coming up in the world with just less than a dozen new traffic lights. They have changed the whole look of the city.

Please pray for the allocation process: that wisdom would be evidenced in decisions, that God would be glorified, that testimony would be clear, that all would be done well.
Please pray for continued good health.
Please pray for the teams working among the Lolo, the Mwinika, and the Yao.
Please pray for the Maindo, Tawara, Ngoni, and Makwe people and the field's decisions about allocating new teams in these areas.

The Rain Came

2008-03-12T22:14:00.003-06:00

Last week was a rough one on the coast of Mozambique. Jokwe, a cyclone hit the coast and destroyed the houses of many people. There are numbers given that are weak, but at least three dead and as many as 10. The cyclone left the coast and moved south, where it threatens to hit again.

I am safe and sound, but I did get soaked in the rain. The reason is that I was travelling with some colleagues to visit a village in the south of Zambeze province. I am currently doing what is necessary to see an allocation in just a few weeks. Please pray for wisdom as a search for the right place to live is still underway. Please pray for good language ability. The Lolo people speak a language very different from any I know, and that will be a huge barrier to cross. Please pray for good cultural understanding. The Lolo people have a world view that is complex, and that is important to address in the presentation of God's Word.

Belated Update

2008-03-02T20:58:00.004-07:00

This month has been a bit maddening with a bunch of crazy things happening. I have been involved in trying to help some aspects of the field run more smoothly, from Portuguese study, to orientation, to interacting with customs officials, to survey, etc. In the end, it was a month with a lot of different types of work. This actually is a good sign. I have resisted getting involved in office work, because I do not want to get stuck there, since my deep desire is to work in a village area. However, since I have the highest official Portuguese level on the field, I have been asked to take some tasks that involve a lot of bilingual work. This also means that I am exploring the option of entering an existing work. I had hoped to enter a new work, but there is a window of opportunity to enter a work that is about ready to start chronological teaching. Otherwise, I would be working in the office for at least a year. I really ask for prayer on this, since it is complicated and has never been done on this field. In preparation for this, I have been doing a lot of other study as well on the linguistics side, since these Bantu languages are famously tough.
Another really big encouragement has been the ability to listen to George Walker from the Worldview Resource Group talk about the importance of teaching the Bible in such a way that people are not just converted, but that they have a complete change of their concept of God and reality.
Please continue praying as I continue to seek God's will in these decisions.

More Container Stuff

2008-02-08T23:17:00.000-07:00

A Container?!

2008-01-28T21:41:00.001-07:00

In a display of western grandess, the truck pulled up and without clearance height, broke a couple of branches to get through. Since we had no fork lift, all of the crates had to be dismantled and unloaded piece by piece. All of the missionaries uncomfortably cleared their throats and said "well, they wanted to send it. " Later, the stuff was all organized and repacked. We tried to hold back on the jokes about curry and crude oil. I chowed down on moms homemade pickles. Photos coming.

Exciting Developments in Africa

2008-01-10T21:40:00.000-07:00

A note from M. Zook-
Today the people are supposed to come to sign up for literacy. Actually the local leaders are supposed to bring the people they choose.

A note from A. Hefner-
Dear praying friends,
This is just a little update to keep you informed with what is happening in Madina Bafe. We celebrated “Ala tantung sogena” (God be praised day) last Saturday. We did this last year at the one year aniversary of our arrival to Madina and celebrated it again this year. If you were Dialonke, you would say we had a wonderful celebration. We managed to purchase a cow this year to provide the meat, over 200 lbs of rice, and a whole bunch of onions, etc… There was music, games, and of course,lots of tea.
From our perspective, the most important event of the day was the speech I was able to give to the entire village. On no other occasion in the past year has the entire village gathered together for one event, but yesterday everyone was there. In this speech I was able to praise the Lord for his goodness to us in bringing us to Madina and the blessings he has sent our way while we have been here. We also thanked the village for being good neighbors and all their help. And lastly I announced theupcoming teaching and encouraged them all to attend, b/c they did not yet know God’s word. I expressed their need for God and his word in terms that they could relate to, and are praying the God would impress this need on their hearts. We plan to begin this Saturday night (12th.
We would appreciate your prayers this next week as I will be speaking individually with people in the village encouraging them to come to the teaching.
It will truly be a miracle of God’s grace if even one Dialonke comes to saving faith. They are as Eph. 4:18 and 19 say, “…darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.”
The obstacles are huge, but we believe that God is greater. Please pray he will, by his mighty power and wonderful grace, show himself to be the God of the Impossible and call some of these lost ones out of darkness into light.

These are two huge steps. The first is happening here in Mozambique. Literacy is a step that happens just before the chronological teaching. They are developing Bible lessons now which will be taught soon. This is the first team in Mozambique to begin teaching. The second is from Senegal. These friends and colleagues are in need of prayer, since they are beginning the most exciting and trying times in the work.

I am OK

2008-01-08T21:54:00.000-07:00

If you read the news from Africa, you might get the picture that a person there is always in serious danger. Kenya is having serious problems, Zimbabwe is having serious problems. South Africa is considered a part of high violent crime. There are wars in the DRC and Sudan among other places. AIDS and malaria threaten here worse than any other place. Around fifty thousand people are being evacuated because of floods in Mozambique for the umpteenth time. However, I am in good health and far from those social and political problems. The rain here invariably traps me or soaks me, but I the serious floods are far south from here. So, do not worry about me. God is taking good care of me. But pray for Africa. What inconveniences me here in Nampula threatens the way of life and lives in other places. These are lives of people who hear all kinds of gospels but never hear a clear, consistent, biblical teaching of salvation in Christ, people who do not have the Bible in their language, and people who spend more time trusting sacrifices, ancestors, and curandeiros than the God of creation. So, don't stop praying for me, but pray for Africa.

Blessing in a Cockroach

2007-12-30T21:54:00.000-07:00

That is right. I was sleeping semi peacefully as I successfully kept the mosquitoes out of my eyes and ears. The night was humid and cool and I was tired. Suddenly, the sleep was interrupted by a strange sensation on my foot. To this day, I do not know what it was. In my groggy imagination, I thought it was a bite from a gecko, but I jumped up and turned on the light to find none. What I did find were at least ten mosquitoes and two cockroaches. After killing them, I was not able to sleep. This gave me time to think, and I had a good time reflecting on the year and several prayer requests that came to mind. This makes me think about what makes a place home. Living with geckos, cockroaches, and a new cloud of mosquitoes every night is not the dream of too many people that I know, but God makes even these things blessings to draw us to Him. I am not a mystical Christian. I hesitate to say "God told me this" or "I sensed the Spirit urging me to do that," mainly because that is an experience that I cannot prove to the hearer. In other words, how do I prove to someone else what God's voice sounds like or what the urging of the Spirit feels like? However, I do believe that God takes a personal interest in the lives of His children. He can use cockroaches to be a blessing by waking me up so that I can spend time in prayer. I never heard a voice from the cockroaches like Balaam heard from his donkey, but I know that God can use any of His creatures to draw us to Him. So, do what you will with the mice, the snakes, and even the stray cats that bawl outside your window, but do not let a chance to learn more about God slip by.

We Shall See

2007-12-22T21:45:00.000-07:00

Over the last several months, communication has been really hard with problems on the phone network, increasing power failures, and really bad internet connections. For this reason, the blog has been pretty much off line.
Another reason for my lack of contribution is the fact that I am really hesitant to write on the types of things I used to with news and critiques because I do not want that to get in the way of my work here in Mozambique. The fact is that the African leaders that the West loves to hate are very much loved here and freedom of expression is a little more qualified.
However, the biggest reason has been the lack of sufficient access to the internet. That may have changed. We shall see.
For those of you who are worried, I am doing fine. Christmas is in full swing, and even here where Christmas is not a big deal, it is a big deal and the markets and shops around town have gotten very busy, and prices have gone up on a lot of things. The other thing is that the Metical has gained sufficiently against the dollar, the pound and the euro over the last few weeks. Needless to say (but I'll say it any way) I have plenty of fodder for the theoretical economist in me.
Rainy season has finally arrived. This means rain. Over the last month, the days have started with sun and heat until about noon. Then come the clouds and rain, usually two or three storms and several hours of rain. I know I was in rainy season in Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire, but I just do not remember the rain, since Nebraska is so arid. At any rate, the wierd days are the ones that have clouds and rain in the morning too. In other words, it is wet and rainy. I have to schedule my day around the rain.
God has been good to me to allow me to be here. I have been priveledged to live in an amazing place with an amazing profession and an amazing team.
Please pray for the Lolo people that their hearts would be open to hear God's Word in the next year.
Please pray for the Mwinika people and missionary team to be prepared for literacy and lesson preparation in the near future as well.
Please pray for the Yao people, since our team there has had just a little time to begin studying language and culture.
Please pray for these other people groups that may receive teams in the next year: Maindo, Mwani, Tawara, Ngoni, and others.
Please pray for wisdom as VI organize and decide on these people groups.
Please pray for wisdom as VI seek to initiate a national church ministry as well.

The Rest of the Trip

2007-07-03T12:03:00.000-06:00

On the return trip home, the adventure got more exciting. One of the last days in Maputo, a fellow came up to the window and offered to sell us a bunch of obviously illegally procured items (stolen goods). I guess that is part of living in a city. We had to go to a coastal city named Beira to check on something, and the bonus was meeting a fellow who has done some good survey work in the north. His wisdom was a great source from which to glean. The same day a fellow came up and claimed to have a chunk of gold to sell us, I am dubious as to the legality of that racket. I am keeping a list of crazy things people offer to sell you at the car window. We made an otherwise good and uneventful trip northward. We arrived at the banks of the Zambezi River as the last ferry arrived and started unloading. This meant that we would have to spend the night.
That night turned out to be very eventful. We parked at the gate and made preparations to spend the night. We really did not have enough space to sleep in the vehicle, so I decided to be the first outside, while we all slept in shifts. I really did not feel like I was in danger, because of the presence of guards in all the trucks that were there. Also, the wind was blowing pretty steady, and there were really no mosquitoes. I was just in awe as I stared at the famous Zambezi River in the moonlight, and then, just the streetlights, since clouds covered the moon. All of a sudden, there was a noise across the way next to the tent of the military outpost. Someone was apparently bothering others, and when the guard tried to stop him, he resisted. There was only a mild shoving match, and all returned to quiet. I was tired enough that I actually started to sleep. I do not know how much time passed, but I was stirred by the nouse of someone passing on foot. I never saw the person, but I assume he or she was heading to use the bathroom. All of a sudden, the person ran by in the other direction calling for help. One of the guards came and asked what was wrong, and I heard, "Is that a person, please tell me that's a person." The guard explained that it was a person. "But it's white!" The guard explained that the color came from the shirt that I was wearing. "But it's white! Besides, you never looked over there." They came and looked closer. The guard said once again that I was a person, and I too repeated that I was a person. The scared individual ran off saying that I could not be a person, and that was the end of it. I woke up just before dawn and realized that I had slept enough that we never traded places. The wind died down, and the mosquitoes rolled in, and so did I. When the sun came up, some people stared to point out as they came back from bathing in the river that there was a hippo in the river. I could not see anything. Later, when the smaller boats started taking foot passengers across, a motorboat ran across the back of the hippo, and the boat sped away, everyone in fear. What was neat was that the boat's wake exposed the hippo, which was larger than the boat! As the hippo swam away in fear, it too left quite a wake!
The next day went by with little incident, and we arrived in a little village to spend the night with some of our team members who are studying the local language in preparation for evangelism. It was great to see how they are coming along and the good relationships that they have built along the way. That night was more interesting, as none of us had mosquito netting, and the mosquitoes were bad. Fortunately, none of us has contracted malaria, but all of us were bitten several times.
The next day, we took off, with an extra load of things that some people from the village wanted to sell once we came to the nearest city. I spent most of the day driving, which was quite an experience for me, since the roads and terrain are new. I am sure that God was protecting me, since nothing serious happened, despite the many times that people on foot or bicycle cut in front of me, and I had to do that while learning to drive on the British side of the road. This was a real challenge as night fell, and people were hard to see, and we came into the city. However, I am safe and a sound as I ever was, thanks to God's protection.

Some Weeks on the Road

2007-06-20T12:28:00.000-06:00

It all began a couple of weeks ago when I was offered the opportunity to travel to the south of Mozambique. It was a complex set of errands, needing to drop off a vehicle for a coworker, help another get a different one, get some supplies, get to know the country better and many more little things. Along the way, there were several disappointments, and several unplanned blessings.
It all started at four in the morning on a Monday, when I loaded into a small double cab pickup with four other people and a backed filled with things to be delivered(when one makes a trip from the north to the South, it is usually filled by request and obligation). Groggy from the early start and stuffed in the back, I tried to get some sleep. This was really hard. The highway is under construction, and the detours are very long and bumpy. I was glad to wake up as the sun rose over the valleys that introduce the Zambezi Province. It was beautiful. It was quite the adventure as one of the Mozambican passengers counted stories for most of the day about how he survived the civil war by leaving the country and returned after the hostilities ended. It was a very long day, despite the good stories, and we just made it in time to catch the last ferry across the Zambezi River at 5:30 pm. Our driver and field director wanted to press on in order to arrive in Maputo the capital city in time to try and get some business done on the first day, so he drove through the night. Needless to say, the legs were cramped when the journey finally ended.
We were disappointed to find that the vehicle we thought was ready for pickup was not the vehicle that we were expecting. That disappointment was assuaged by the chance to meet some Mozambican pastors and leaders in Maputo. In fact, along with the two other missionary guys, I was able to speak to a student assembly in a seminary in Maputo. The fellowship time afterwards was good. Everything ran different than planned (imagine that), and one week later than planned, we headed home with one less vehicle than planned.
The trip home was an entirely different adventure. That will have to wait for the next time.
Praise that I finally received my permanent resident papers.
Praise for safety.
Praise for the good fellowship.
Pray for focus in the next several months of preparation.
Pray that the Mozambique field would have wisdom in allocating its new personnel (lots of us arrived in the last few months).

some fotos

2007-05-12T02:44:00.000-06:00

Feet and Foundations

2007-05-12T02:36:00.000-06:00

Last week while at a conference on African traditional religion, I was playing volleyball, when I hurt my toe. My foot swelled up and I had trouble walking for a couple of days. This was really bad, since the best way to learn a new city is by walking. However, I have been able to get the chapas (local minibuses) and walk around quite a bit as it has healed. This little thing has reminded me of just how important foundations are to our lives. My feet are the base of my transportation. My toe is just a little part of my foot, but when it got hurt, I was in bad shape. As I sit here, it still hurts, making me unsure of whether or not I should go out and run errands. The problem is more obvious with buildings. A little foundation problem makes a big structure problem. Each person too needs a foundation for life, a solid base to govern decisions and give purpose to a life. In Proverbs 1:7, we read that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, and later in chapter 9 and verse 10 we read that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. In short, knowing God is the foundation that makes our lives make sense. The more we know God, the more our lives make sense.

Finally Home?

2007-05-02T12:04:00.000-06:00

Here I am in Nampula writing after a few days. It has been a bit hectic trying to get all settled in and set up. My trip was long, but I arrived safely last Friday without any hitch except the heat, to which I am not accustomed. However, I am starting to feel more at home as the days go by and I become more accustomed to the area and climate. This week I have the great privilege of attending a seminar by an SIL missionary on African culture and world view and the impact of the gospel in an African context. It has been really informative and helpful. As yet, I have no good pictures to pass on, but I hope to post a few this weekend.

Please pray that I would be able to settle in well.
Please pray that I will find good contacts for ministry.
Please pray for wisdom as I grow into ministry opportunities.
Pray as a new process of paperwork to give me permanent status has begun.
Praise for safe travel.
Praise for a home and a bed.
Praise for God leading me here.

Not Mine

2007-04-24T08:32:00.000-06:00

The first thing that is not mine here on the blog today is this link to pictures. Some colleagues of mine arrived in Nampula a couple of weeks ago, and these are some pictures they took along the way.

The second thing that is not mine is my stuff. I learned this last week when I was in Lisbon and someone stole my camera. It was a bad day for the whole day, and I was very disappointed. However, I am safe, and everything else seems to be in its place. It helps me to think of the fact that all that I have is only temporary anyway, and is ultumately not mine, but God's.

The third thing that is not mine is my very own life. I have plans, dreams, and objectives that I pursue and I have things that I want and desire. All of these things are subject to the sovereignty of God. He brings the good out of every situation for His glory.

Pray for my camera to yet be found by the police.
Pray f0r my trip to go well.
Pray that I will be able to settle in quickly in Nampula.
Praise for a safe trip so far.
Praise for good friends here in Portugal.

Finally

2007-04-16T17:36:00.000-06:00

This week marks what could be my last in the USA for a long time. Tomorrow, I leave for Denver, and Wednesday, I fly from there to Portugal, where I will connect to the Republic of Mozambique. It seems to me to have been a long time coming. In January of 2001, I was researching short term mission opportunities, when I accidentally applied to New Tribes Mission's full term program. I went through their mission's schooling program that fall. The full training lasted until December of 2003. For the next two years, I was traveling and involved in itinerate ministry to share the ministry of NTM. In 2005, I went to Coimbra, Portugal to study Portuguese at the university there. In 2006, it was back to the USA for more meetings, and now off to Mozambique. It is going to be hard not seeing the friends and places that I have met over the last few years, but God is gracious to give me a much deeper desire to know a new place.

Praise that my paperwork came.
Praise for dear friends and family and their great encouragements over the years.
Praise for God's provision.

Pray for my travel to go safely.
Pray for me to adjust as soon as possible.
Pray for Mozambique, and the needy people there.

Tristeza

2007-03-28T15:00:00.000-06:00

My plans and desires to leave for Mozambique today were not realized. I was unable to get my visa in time to catch my flight. As a result, I am not flying out. However, my paperwork seems to be going through, and I was able to reschedule my flights for later in April. As of now, I am planning to fly out of Denver on April 18. All is not lost, and I can still trust that God has good reason for this taking place.

Please pray for my paperwork to come through.
Please pray for my travel plans to go well.
Praise that I was able to change my tickets in time.
Praise for friends and family that are still praying.

Packing and Paperwork

2007-03-12T09:37:00.000-06:00

As I prepare for a big move to the other side of the world, I am awed by the opportunity and the task at hand. It has been a big adventure getting everything together and getting ready for Mozambique. Truly, I will never be fully ready, and that is why the time has come to just go and make adjustments culturally, linguistically, and physically that can only be made there. I appreciate all the support and prayer that have been offered on my behalf over the last several years. In case you have not heard, I have purchased tickets to fly out on the 28th of March from the USA.

Please pray that the trip will go well.
Please pray that my paperwork will come through just fine, even if it is slow.
Praise God for the provision over the last year and the ability to make this trip.
Praise God for new supporters in the last couple of months.

2007-03-01T17:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you can't see the end of
the road
Sometimes the way is uphill
Sometimes the road is poorly
paved
Sometimes walls darken and
tighten
Sometimes I can't see the sky
Sometimes I can't see grass or
trees
I guess that is the romance of
the path I have taken

Letting the Grace of God Teach

2007-02-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives...

(Titus 2:11-12a NIV)

I chose this translation because it emphasizes the most familiar part of the verse in a unique and powerful manner. I have always heard this verse and followed the natural preaching outline that lies in it. There are two key things to deny (ungodliness and worldly passions) and three key things to affirm (self-control, uprightness, and godly living). Man, I can imagine this as a perfect springboard into a series of sermons on just how each of these things impact our lives.

However, as I read these verses today, I am struck by another bit of the verses.

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us(KJV)

I wonder how capable we are of letting this sink in. God's grace teaches us these important aspects of living. It is God's grace, for we would be blind without even the most common grace and the most general revelation. But Paul is not merely saying that God is gracious to give us good principles for character and living. Note that he says it is the grace of God that brings salvation is revealed and teaching. It is not a second grace or third, or fourth. It is that same grace by which we were saved through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9).

I have trouble trusting God on this one. You mean that if I am to succeed at these things, I have to focus on the same old gospel message? Yes. God's grace not moral fortitude changes lives.

looking for the blessed hope, and the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify to Himself a special people, zealous of good works.
(Tit 2:13-14 MKJV)

It is the confidence that salvation gives and the powerful message of a saving God Christ Jesus that changes hearts.

So, stop being so introverted and trying to glorify God by works. Trust His grace. Let His grace teach.

Look Out!!

2007-01-19T02:40:00.000-07:00

The headline above is linked to a story in the Times of London that is troubling. I have good Chinese friends, and I do not think that this reflects on them. Neither do I think that it is wrong for a government to destroy its own satellite. The trouble comes from the concerns listed in this story coupled with this archive from last year. It shows a trend that is more than just growth, but conquering.

Diplomatic Schitzophrenia

2007-01-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

Above is a link to an interesting article by Victor Davis Hanson over at Real Clear Politics.

The Mouthpiece of Somebody

2006-11-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

As much as I want to be objective, as much as I want to get it right, I must admit that I have a decidedly slanted view. In fact, I have come to realize that many of my biases and ideas were shaped from early years in education that I really have been a mouthpiece for someone else. That mouthpiece has moved from being a big government conservative, to being a big government liberal, to somewhere in between, to a Repubican apologist, to some sort of a right-leaning Christian libertarian (if those words go together). This shows that I have tended to change my views based a lot on whom I happen to be studying at the present time.

This puzzle from my short life span demostrates a larger problem, sorting out our culture's messaging system. Day after day we are bombarded for ads that promise the "real story" or a "no spin zone" or "fair and balanced" news. This is very much untrue in many ways. In fact, I believe that there is no one who speaks objectively or from his own opinion. This is true in at least three ways.

First, it is true because of the fact of the microphone. The microphone is actually a metaphor for mass media. Newspapers, radio, television and the internet are all effective ways to get the word out on any given subject. Because the microphone is so powerful, it is in the best interest of those who want to get a message out to use it. I am not saying that all people write, speak and perform only out of money or force, but that the ideas presented are supported by those of a likeminded background. Others are mere lackeys that are paid to write what they are told. In the end, it makes a very messy picture of society's messaging systems, when financial, political, and religious interests are battling for the airwaves and the printing presses. It flies in the face of the desire on the part of the media to gain credibility and the desire of the viewers, listeners, and readers to trust what is said. However, this is just not possible. It is better to search all sides for oneself, than to merely trust what someone says in front of a camera.

Second, it is true because of education. Some say the purpose of education is to produce good citizens, while others say that it is to prepare children to be adults. The difference is subtile, but the implications are huge. Do good adults vote republican or democrat? What do they think about everything from taxes to theology? As I perused the library of a public school this last summer, I noticed a decidedly left wing slant with anti-religious literature and books to convince the youth of the left's ideas of each political issue. There was no voice even of moderation. On the other side are groups like the Leadership Institute, and the vast majority of Christian schools and home schools that have a decidedly conservative slant. The products of these environments have been shaped throughout their formative years to participate in society's debates from their given sides, often resulting in something very ugly no matter how one looks at it.

Third, it is true because of a unique fact about facts. The fact is that facts are not as factual as they first appear. I recall my many attendances at sporting events, where half the fans see one set of events and half see another. In the end, they tend to agree on the score, but even then, the outcome is disputed in some minds for years. Another good example is global warming. I have seen convincing evidence for global warming and global cooling, climate change and climate stagnation, polution and clean environments.

In the end, this problem is much more disturbing than sports or politics. Am I the unwitting mouthpiece of some philosophy or philosopher at a fundamental level? How much of what I think is what I think? How do I know that what I write is accurate, true, and correct? I believe that what I write is true, and that is why I write it. However, it is up to the reader to analyze the validity. That means you have to decide for whom I speak.

Yet Another Reason

2006-10-04T13:18:00.000-06:00

The latest scandals about the senators and their staff is yet another reason not to trust one's identity to the "great" politicians. I vote and stay informed of the latest news and issues, but I refuse to let them dictate to me what life is all about.

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of Jehovah our God. They have bowed down and fallen; but we have risen and stand upright. Save, O Jehovah; let the King hear us when we call.
(Psa 20:7-9 MKJV)

As Christians, we need to remember that it is God who saves both societies and individuals.

Reverse Culture Shock!

2006-07-25T09:56:00.000-06:00

In the last month, I went from the city by the river to the rodeo camp in the desert. It was a bit of an adjustment moving from and to like that, but I also had to adjust from speaking Portuguese to everyone I did not know. I actually had an embarassing moment on that, as I tried to ask for help in Portuguese of a person in an American airport. Now, I am reading and listening online to keep up, but I miss the people and culture I was just getting to know before I left.

I Spent the Night On a New Jersey Runway

2006-07-05T08:39:00.000-06:00

After fininshing the course in Portugal, I have returned to the USA for a period of time. I will miss my good friends in Portugal, and I hope for a chance to visit them again sometime. I will be planning a summer of deputation ministry that will extend into the fall.

My trip was long, but safe. I thank all for their prayers. I did get stuck in New Jersey for a few extra hours because of the rainstorms, but it was not too bad.

Praise for a safe trip.
Please pray that I could get to Mozambique soon and just as safely.
Please pray for my summer plans.

One More Week

2006-06-19T07:00:00.000-06:00

Just a one liner this week. Please pray for my ministry opportunity next week with the church here as I share the ministry in Mozambique with them in Portuguese..

God: Eternally Faithful

2006-06-14T07:00:00.000-06:00

God kept His word throughout all His dealings with Noah. He judged the earth. He saved the family. He rescued the species that were in danger through the ark as well. In the end, God reigned sovereign over man, judged sinfulness, saved sinners, and made the world a better place for man to receive His blessings. It is all for the glory of God. This is a very important point. We get the idea that God was a different person back in those days, that He dealt with man much harsher, or much differently than He does today. The fact is that God has always had the same mission. throughout history, He has faithfully saved sinners, judged sin, and blessed mankind through His gracious working. This is the testament that comes to us through the flood and is best evidenced by the exit of Noah and all those in the ark safely after the flood. They quickly were able to worship God out of a heart of pure thanks for what God had done to save them. They saw God's hand at work in the promise never to flood the whole earth again.

The flood has been and continues to be the center of argument for the young earth that the Bible depicts. Rather than being gradual erosion and scattered natural disasters that made the mountains, canyons and fossil beds over billions of years, the creationist viewpoint is that they happened mostly at the same time--the time of the flood. I am not an expert on these things, but I do have a couple of good sites at the left to help. In the end, as Ken Ham says, I was not there. I have to rely on interpretation of history passed down by others. Aside from the obvious philosophical problems that arise from this, we have the basic need to trust someone to tell us what happened. I do not like to do this. I love picking holes in the evolutionary viewpoint, such as what scientific evidence ever shows that life comes from non-life and the endless failures to contact life on other planets, and the lack of evidence for real change from one species to another. But in the end, they remain convinced. Every time I look at a mountain cliff, or even a map, I think of how God judged the earth with a flood and how radically it changed everything, but this is a question of faith. People who believe otherwise also have their faith.

Does it matter? A thousand times yes. God gives this message not so that we can get a groovy feeling in the emotions, but so that we can know Him. If we cannot trust His historical record to be true, than that calls into question His character. If God is faithful (and I believe He is), then He will keep His word, just as He did with Noah, and come again, proving once and for all What really happened. WE can trust Him for that. Just as He kept His word for Noah, He also would continue to keep His word from the time of Adam and Eve. That is why the reality of the flood is so important. It is a matter of defending God's faithfulness, which is essential to His character.

Finally, as I am so inclined, I have to adress those fearful skeptic atheists who try to say that my faith is exactly what is wrong with this world (people convinced of religious truth and willing to defend it). I am not trying to force my way into government or public places and force all others out. I am not trying to shout you down and call you ignorant or blame the world's problems on you. I am trying to speak the truth as I see it. I am secure enough that I do not have to play political games and try to force my faith into power. It is you, however, who is trying to exclude all Christian and biblical voice from public expression. That shows me that your theories do not give you the security to have an open mind. My belief in God's faithfulness makes me let Him defend His own Name.

What It Means to be a Missionary

2006-06-12T06:03:00.000-06:00

Learning From My Friends

I had some experiences this weekend that upon reflection are good illustrations of what it means to be a missionary.

OK, I fell into temptation. I watched several of the Football (soccer) World Cup games. It was notable that the first game I watched with a bunch of non-Christian friends and acquaintances. There were some there who loved to show me how well they know the English language by cursing loudly in English. Others, were conversational, and I learned a bit about the culture of sports and its importance here (by the way, there is no other news right now, only the World Cup). The impression and illustration was the challenge of maintaining a good testimony and living and speaking truth, while having "secular friends." I put that in quotation marks because it is so strange talking about friends and people that way. The point is this: the missionary is that person who goes out of the circle of Christian contacts, and actively lives for Christ in a secular community. A lot of times I feel really strange, because I have a different set of presuppositions, but that is what being a missionary is al about.

The second observation happened with some friends in the park. We were all standing in a circle kicking a soccer ball around and each showing what he could do (I showed very little). Some of the guys were so confident that they were joking in good fun about how good they were, and then one guy did a series of kicks and tricks that was incredible with the end in kissing the ball mid air and basically juggling with his feet. Just a few minutes later, we went to play basketball. I played lightly, but I had to show off a little, since I felt a little more at home. Those guys most confident with the soccer ball were shaking with nerves trying to find the ball with their hands. The observation is this: the missionary leaves his home and comfort, and goes to strange situations. They left their home to "minister" in a foreign context. This is what the missionary does. In this sense, the missionary is a student much more than a teacher.

The third observation was just yesterday. I was with a group of people mixed in nationality and origin. We were again involved with the World Cup, and Portugal was playing. When they played the national anthem, I observed the pastor of the church (Brazilian) singing with pride the Portuguese anthem. What an example of a missionary heart. I do not know what will happen if Brazil plays Portugal in the later rounds, but I noted that he was able integrate in his ministry such that his new home is as much his home as his old one ever was. This is the task of the missionary. He leaves behind some things to take up new ones. He takes on a new identity that is more interested in who he is in Christ and making that identity the focus of his ministry.

Not all of these things have come true fully in my life, but these are some of my goals. My time in Mozambique is coming very soon, and I want it to be marked by these things. As I move toward a new phase in ministry, I trust that God will "let this mind be in me.

Please pray for my upcoming summer plans, and in particular my travels very soon back to the States.
Please pray for my support to reach the necessary level.
Please pray for the field of Mozambique, as they move forward in the ministry that is just being established.
Praise for the good friends that God has allowed me to have here.
Praise God for a good return on the final exam.

Salvation in God's Way

2006-06-09T03:47:00.000-06:00

God, offering His grace through Noah to the world, offered His way of salvation. He ofered Noah a plan for the ark. He assisted Noah in his building and gathering of supplies and animals. He commissioned Noah to preach the coming judgment of God. God was making Himself very clear. One of the most obvious things about Scripture that we fail to see so often in the fact that God has a tremendous missionary heart. He wants to reveal Himself to emn and He does just that. That is the basic point of the Bible. In this passage, God's free gift of salvation was offered not only to Noah, who found grace in the eyes of the Lord, but also to the entire world, which was concious of Noah's faith, ministry, and plan, and concious of God through the creation around them. In spite of all this, they mocked God, Noah, and the way of salvation.

This is a tremendously important point to note. God always offers salvation when the time comes for judgment. That salvation is offered freely to all, and is gracious. However, it is very exclusive. Just like Adam and Eve could not cover their sins with the leaf garments or hiding in the Garden of Eden, and just like Cain could not access God's blessing with his offerings contrary to God's will, and just like Noah and his family could only be saved through the ark, we can only be saved in God's way. We, just like all of these people and the people who died in chapter five on Genesis, and the people who rejected the salvation of God in the time of Noah, need God's salvation. We are sinners, children of Adam, needing that promised Seed. Just as Noah had to follow God's plan for the ark, we have to follow the message God gives us as our Missionary and find God's way of salvation. At the same time, being children of Adam, and sinners by birth, we naturally reject God's message.

On To the Next Thing

2006-06-07T03:21:00.000-06:00

The term is over, but the exams continue. I am not still taking exams at the University of Coimbra, but I am having exams of a different sort. For example, last week, I played Taboo in Portuguese with some Portuguese friends. It was really challenging to stretch the vocabulary around the most common words. I am going to miss this time and place, I am also going to miss the new friends that I have made along the way, but I am glad to be on to the next level and step toward Mozambique.

Please pray for the final preparations before I head back to the States.
Please pray for my summer plans and support raising.
Please pray for the team in Mozambique as they continue to make progress in the language study.
Praise God for the time learning and new friends.
Praise God for the provision of this course.

Exames

2006-05-29T10:35:00.000-06:00

I know, that is not how one spells exams in English. However, that is exactly what is staring me in the face at this point, in Portuguese. I am starting to evaluate what to keep and what to discard from the course, how to spend my last days, and prepare for the trip home. This is a sad and glad time. I feel glad to have had the priveledge to study in such a rich and historic atmosphere. I am glad to have accomplished pretty much what I came to do. I clearly have more to learn and more practice to continue in the language, but my head is swelling as I write this with my level in the language. I have also a bit of sadness. I have made good friends here and some doors of ministry have opened up as I have begun to have good times of fellowship and Bible study with certain folks and the opportunity to share a little of my faith with my fellow students and my teachers. I will also miss Portugal. I have now a little bit of Portuguese culture that has become a part of me.

Please pray for my future plans and support raising in the coming year.
Please pray for the exam as it is on May 31 all day.
Please pray for my preparation and travels which are coming very fast.
Praise for the learning God has allowed me to do.
Praise the Lord for the great experience.

I Have Not Arrived

2006-05-22T11:09:00.000-06:00

I spent this last weekend immersed once again in Portuguese. I was at a seminar at the church, and spent all my meal times with them there. I had the hardest time on Sunday, when I was with several families from São Paulo, Brazil. They have an accent very distinct and difficult. Even the Portuguese have to ask them to slow down and speak more clearly. Needless to say, I was lost at times, but I was able to really get to know them better and fellowship. Besides that, it was very entertaining hearing all the stories they had to tell. They really know haw to tell stories. That, I am just now learning in English...
Please pray for the next month of preparation, as the course ends and new plans begin.
Please pray that the course would end well.
Please pray for my summer plans.
Please pray as I prepare to enter Mozambique, with all the new packing, paperwork, changes, and planning that needs to take place.
Praise, Praise, Praise for the great experience and growing time that have come with the Portuguese language learning. (I will miss this place and these people.)

Noah and repentance

2006-05-17T04:29:00.000-06:00

The word "repentance" and its relationship with God is a relationship that is complex. However, the idea of repentance and mankind is just as complex. Here in Genesis chapter six, the subject is not mentioned directly, but the issue of righteousness and relationship with God is extremely strong. We start our study in verse eight.
Before we can get into that there are some important things to remember about Noah. First, the generations of Noah are important. Noah was not born supernaturally, came in the line of sinful men, and was part of the society that had continual, persistent evil motivations. Second, is in relation to God's pattern of dealing with men. He is executing a plan with a determined end, and means, while leaving men with liberty to decide their level and manner of participation. In this sense, God was letting the sinners be who they were up to the point He determined, while preserving His integrity and the promised line from which would come the Seed. Third, is in the context of the times. Moses has painted a horrifying picture of the anti-deluvian society. It is in this picture of total corruption that we find a sudden contrast in the person of Noah. For this reason, most translators put in the word "but."
The most important word in verse eight is the word "grace." Noah found grace. In the middle of all that wickedness, destruction, drunkenness, and degradation, Noah found grace. This shows us that God's grace is offered to men regardless of social status and history. This also shows us that grace can be found. Seek the Lord while He may be found. God's grace has always been the mode of salvation. Adam and Eve were under judgment, but received grace and promise of salvation. Cain was under judgment, but received grace and mercy from God. The same is true of Noah.
On this point, I wish to elaborate. Notice the structure of the chapter. First comes the grace of God, then the fruit. Noah was a righteous man, entire or a man of integrity, we read of his life. We find that he walked with God, something missing between Enoch and Noah. After this, God came to Noah, presented His plan of judgment, and the plan of solution. God made a covenant with Noah to save Noah and his family. Noah followed the plan of God, built an ark, preached salvation, collected animals, and escaped in the ark. Were all these works God's reason for offering Noah grace? No. They were exactly God's grace given to Noah. God never chooses to reveal Himself or work through someone because of the greatness or merit of that person. We do injustice to God when we offer salvation for favors of participation in a church organization, money, behavioral change, or anything else.
God's grace must be found in God's way. Too often we are looking for God's grace through the insecurity of our ability to make it happen. Did Noah repent? Absolutely. He left a sinful society and did something so radical that everyone laughed at him. In the end, he was saved both physically and spiritually. God's grace is found in His revelation. Learning to understand how God thinks and thinking along the same lines makes us change. Repentance is God's work of grace, not my work of merit. It was God's grace that accomplished all of these works in Noah's life. Where is your confidence?

2006-05-15T12:24:00.000-06:00

Here it is mid-May, and the school year is drawing to a close. We have just a couple more weeks until the end of classes and the final exams. I have really enjoyed my time here, and I cannot believe that I only have a little more than a month left here in Portugal. This means that I am starting to pack up some things and decide which papers from the course need to be kept and which papers need to be discarded. To see that this has not just been a year in vain, check my Portuguese blog.

Please pray that the course will end well. Please pray that I will have a good testimony. Please pray for the preparation of my summer in the USA. Please pray for the ongoing work in Mozambique.

Repentance and God

2006-05-10T04:46:00.000-06:00

This story of Noah is so controversial in the biblical record that I cannot believe it. First we have the controversy over the historical existence of such a flood debated in modern society. Second we have the huge controversy over the identity of the "sons of God." Now, we have a multi-leveled debate over the idea of repentance.

The first level comes in verses six and seven of chapter six: "And Jehovah repented that He had made man on the earth, and He was angry to His heart. And Jehovah said, I will destroy man whom I have created, from the face of the earth, both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air. For I repent that I have made them" (MKJV). Now, I have ranted and raved about the transcendence of God and His eternally unchanging (immutable) character. God and repentance do not seem to go together. I really have to apologize here, because I have very little knowledge of the Hebrew language or the text. I have a copy of it, but I cannot read it. Faced with this dilemma, I offer the meager work of Dr. Strong:
H5162
נחם
nâcham
naw-kham'
A primitive root; properly to sigh, that is, breathe strongly; by implication to be sorry, that is, (in a favorable sense) to pity, console or (reflexively) rue; or (unfavorably) to avenge (oneself): - comfort (self), ease [oneÂs self], repent (-er, -ing, self).

The implications of this word's usage here are controversial to say the least. Was God sad with man's choices, with the fact that He had made man? Did God choose to change or avenge Himself for His mistake? In the English the word "repent" invokes a certain idea of a street preacher shouting passionately at alcoholics and prostitutes to change their lives. The Greek term most often translated "repent" in the New Testament metanoeō means a change of mind or direction. Obviously, this Hebrew word is a bit of a different word, but one nonetheless of reconsideration and change in the status quo.

In the larger sense of the story, God did not change. He upheld His righteousness and kept His integrity. He judged sin, provided salvation, and did it all in a gracious and merciful manner. In the smaller sense of the history, God's use of a flood, though different from the past and future, produces a bit of a puzzle. One very important note on this is that it is a pattern for Scripture. God uses different individuals at different times, in different circumstances to accomplish different tasks. This does not mean that God changed. It means that man changed, and God dealt with man appropriately.

In the locale of the text, we are still faced with the problem: did God have second thoughts, change His mind, or become something that He was not before? In the end, we all decide the interpretation based on our presuppositions. Many different viewpoints exist on this passage, often trying to attack the integrity of biblical thought and theology. They also have their agendas that color their viewpoint and taint their interpretation. I am inclined to believe that God did not change, because it is a characteristic fundamental to my ability to know Him. In this sense, I interpret this word to indicate the tremendous sorrow that personal and societal sin brings to the heart of God. This is one of the possible interpretations, and is (I believe) validated by the larger context of Scripture. You may still add, "Why did God then 'have tremendous sorrow' that He had made man (verse 7)?" This may seem a bit of a puzzle, but remember that Moses did not write this book to have stories for children. In fact, many have a rating to high to allow children to see them on film. These books are arguments for the interpretation of history and in particular the validity of Hebrew theology. Moses is clearly and without question showing God to be apart from the sin of society and and justly outraged by it. He is clearly showing God to be the One, True God of gods. He is pointing out the this God of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Enoch and Noah is the same God. He is just and right and over all, He is over all.

God created man to have the freedom to choose to sin. This freedom resulted in sin. God was not happy that the man He created had chosen to sin. Does this mean God wished He had never created? No, and a thousand times no. God could have destroyed the universe and started over if He wanted to, but He did not. Instead through history, He has been saving certain sinners according to His plan. This shows that He, while saddened by the sin, was resolute in the outworking of His plan. The very next verse actually explains it all. Noah was the recipient of God's grace. That is a completely different topic, but it shows that God was not wishing He could do it all over again, but that He was executing a plan of salvation through the judgment of the sin and the saving of mankind, most impotantly because He still had that promise of a Seed to defeat the Serpent.

A Week of Noise

2006-05-08T05:36:00.000-06:00

One thing I learned this last week about Coimbra was that it has the second largest drunken social for students in the world, second only to Munich. This social has been going on for about a week now, and should end tomorrow. Needless to say, it is not too advisable to be out at night. The other downfall, is that there are concerts about a half-mile away and they make sleep at night a little hard. However, I am getting through it. The students take their ribbons that they earn throughout their course and burn them and then celebrate the nights away. The saddest part is that as I went to church services yesterday morning, there were people passed out drunk on the street and lots of garbage. It is yet another reminder that we live in a world of people with mixed up values and foolish moments that bear rotten fruit on the future. All is not bad, I had a great time of fellowship and spent more time with good Christian friends this week.

Please pray for my studies as the course is drawing to a close this month.
Please pray for my upcoming summer as it comes with more travel and meetings.
Please pray for the team in Mozambique as it continues to work at preparing the gospel in the tribal languages.

Sin's Effects on Society

2006-05-03T05:02:00.000-06:00

As I progress through my "histomatic theology" (historically systematic) I find myself at yet another central passage of scripture, one of controversy and great debate. Genesis Six is noted for its application to the whole subject of angels, their role in history, and their physical nature. Being a youthful, strong-willed person, I love taking positions. I do not want to say that this is healthy, however. The expression "sons of God" is used in the Bible in some passages to refer clearly to angels, in other passages clearly to men. I do not know who was marrying whom back in those days. I only know that men had built for themselves incredible societies and grand infrastructures. I have a little suspicion that they may have had some technologies that we to this day have not discovered. I will not go any farther there. Whether men and angels were mixing blood, whether men of the promised Seed line were mixing blood, we do know that "[t]here were giants in the earth in those days. And also after that, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore to them, they were mighty men who existed of old, men of renown" (Gen 6:4 MKJV). We also know that "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen 6:5 MKJV). Despite having all of that infrastructure, breeding, power, and prestige, these men were corrupt.

As an aside, note the non-racist ideas. These men were corrupt, not because of their breeding in the end, but because of their hearts. Noah was of the same breeding, yet his outcome was different.

As another aside, note the problem of sin and society. One item of interest in chapter five consists of the inventions of the men in the genealogy. Their creativity, intellect, and social interaction did not save them from the destructive power of sin. It only corrupted them more. The same is true today. That is why for all the good we can try to do through the government, it always fails us in the end.

Returning to the passage, note the depth of corruption. Every depth of the human being was, according to the record, completely corrupt so that even the very thoughts and intents of the heart were always evil continually. You may ask, "but surely they fed the poor?" Surely they did! "Surely families helped each other?" Surely they did! "Surely they helped the sick, the elderly, and the disabled?" Most assuredly they did! In fact, I have no doubt that they had a better system to take care of these puzzles that plague our modern society. "Are these things bad?" God called them evil! "Why?" Because the corruption of the heart was so deep that they very motivations of these deeds were corrupt and self-centered. In the end of the Bible's argument for history, we see this thing called "Zion." That "Zion" is a community of people who are only godly continually. However, that community is made completely by the hand of God's salvation through the promised Seed. In the mean time, all attempts to make that society are corrupted by the heart of sinful man. This is the ultimate corruption of man's heart. The desire to build, create, and act not according to God's purpose and plan, but as an alternative to it is the ultimate in rebellion and hatred for God.

Whether angels or men were the "sons of God" the essential problem remains that mankind and the individual men were so corrupt that God had to intervene and judge that sin.

My Food Is Staring At Me!

2006-05-02T07:00:00.000-06:00

This past weekend, I was able to go on a church retreat. It was a good time to get to know the people at church better, be involved in the ministry, and test my Portuguese skills. There were no native English speakers, and maybe three out of the fifty really knew English well. I also got a crash course in Portuguese food culture. We had fish, lots of fish. One of the days, the fish was grilled whole and served whole. It was a little strange for this Nebraska boy to eat seafood while looking it in the eye. However, it was good. I am now writing English for the first time in five days, and I have only said maybe five sentences in English since I got back. This proves that I am coming along in the language fairly well. I was even able to speak publicly on the what it means to be a church. The whole weekend was a good time of fellowship, challenge, and growth. It makes the Bible seem all new again to be studying it and learning from it in a new language.

Please pray for continued progress in the language. Please pray for my upcoming summer plans as I return to the States. Please pray for my support to be there when I head to Mozambique next year. Please pray for the Mozambique team as they plan where to place those of us coming in the next several months. Praise the Lord for the progress already made in the language. Praise the Lord for the fact that Mozambique is getting closer and closer. Praise the Lord for the team in Mozambique and the works that have already been started over the last year and a half.

Boring But Powerful

2006-04-26T04:42:00.000-06:00

The fifth chapter of Genesis is very redundant. It is a listing of the generations from Adam to Noah. We read so and so lived such and such, had this important child, lived such and such, had more children, and died. There are a few important points about this chapter that make it so powerful that the redundancy becomes irrelevant.

First, there is the interesting note on Enoch. Enoch had a strange life. Close to the middle-end of the chapter it says, "And Enoch lived sixty-five years and fathered Methuselah. And Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he fathered Methuselah. And he fathered sons and daughters. And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God, and then he was not, for God took him" (Gen 5:21-24 MKJV). This life is strange for its duration, its nature, and its end. Its duration is extremely short by the standards of the others in this chapter. Three hundred sixty-five years is immense to me, but according to the record given here, it was only a little more than a third of a normal lifespan in that time. Its nature is strange, because the other men mentioned were listed for inventions or major happenings, but he was mentioned for his relationship with God. The life's end is strange because it ends with God "taking" Enoch, rather than Enoch dying. Whether this is the first example of a "rapture" or a resurrection, I really do not know, but everyone else in this chapter died. Only Enoch had a unique end, being taken to be with God.

That brings me to the second powerful point of the chapter--the generational grip sin has on mankind. Forgetting Enoch for a while, look at all the others. Their lives end with "and he died." It is no wonder that Paul used the phrase "death reigned from Adam to Moses" when he was describing the issue of sin before the Law. Despite our best efforts, all things that come from sinners, including sinners, come to an end. Sin results in death. Returning to Enoch, I see that he was different. Here was a man who did not end up the same. What was different? We only know this: he walked with God, and God took him. Being rescued from the effects of sin is only possible in God's way and by God's power. God took Enoch.

The third point is possibly the central point that Moses intended for the chapter. Remember, this is history and argument rolled up into a single package. The story of history is summed up in God's decree: "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He will bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel" (Gen 3:15 MKJV). Here, Moses is tracing the promised line of the seed. It travels through different generations of men, but that Seed promised had not arrived. However, the point is that God is still in control and faithful. God had promised a Seed. That Seed was yet to come. That Seed would come at the right time, and God would be working things for His glory in all the time leading up to the "appointed time." In other words, God has not forgotten His promise. He is keeping track of the time and making things happen according to His plan.

Finally, the argument for current events. Many Bible readers are really unaware of how strongly the Bible diverges from the scientific community on the duration of history. This genealogy, along with the others given in other places in the Bible give no room for an old earth. No one who interprets the Bible from a literal perspective can accept the idea of an evolutionary history spanning billions of years. This is gut check time, here. The Bible has now set itself up against the conventions of science which have endured for the last 200 years, the rulings of the US court system over the last 150 years, and the desire to ban all creationism's science whatsoever. This chapter is a powerful argument that the Bible sets itself up over those scientists. I have heard so many people try to argue that the Bible is good for moral counsel and encouragement, but leave it there. However, no reader of the arguments of Scripture can leave it there. If the Bible has anything to say, it is arguing against those schools of philosophy that would ban it from having things to say about science, engineering, government, society, and the like. The flip side is that those who try to make that half concession to the Bible's moral voice really quickly will try to say that it is people of faith and Christians in particular that have caused moral crises throughout history. The point is clear. The fence is not fit for sitting. In fact, you end up falling on one side or the other eventually. Clearly, historical exegesis is not neutral, has a purpose, and must be taken seriously. Credibility diminishes in all parts when one part is disintegrated.

Moses' arguments for a faithful and sovereign God, a saving and resurrecting God, and a unique and exclusive view of history are a call to consider what we believe and make certain it is in line with the truth.

A Little Picture (s), Not Posting Well

2006-04-24T02:48:00.003-06:00

This is a little courtyard that has a real historical feel. I found it this last week, as I took a self tour of the university grounds. It is part of a monastery fortress that was part of the kingdom in Portugal hundreds of years ago.

This is the sunrise at our sunrise service a week ago Sunday. It was not a very sunny day, as you can see. In fact, despite some days of warmth, snow actually fell on the mountains not too far from here later in the week.

Finally, this great piece of graffiti. The words mean, "Arms to the people, bombs to the bourgeoise." I think it is funny to read things like this because this is not a violent society, but young students feel like they have to write something radical in order to be important. It is also funny because it is supposed to be a profound and important message, but the writer made a mistake, scribbled out the mistake, and rewrote the word below. I can just see the poor kid, more emotion that thought, trying to passionately get out the message, and making a mistake. Kids. I guess I am/was one as well, but I try to be a little more respectful of property, a little more professional, and a little more well reasoned.

This coming weekend, I am going to attend a retreat with my church here. It will be a full weekend of complete exposure in Portuguese. I would like to use it not only for language purposes, though. I would also like to be a ministry to my new friends.

Left and Right

2006-04-21T06:56:00.000-06:00

I grew up believing that the politics of the left tend toward communist totalitarianism and the politics of the right tend toward fascist totalitarianism. I also grew up believing that the fight between the two keeps both sides honest and keeps them from prevailing. As I have grown older, I have decided that this is wrong for at least three reasons.

First, it is wrong because the politics have misunderstood each other. Fascists and communists use the same language. They try to band a whole country or group of countries into one central state, which regulates everything, hence the word totalitarian. They are not polar opposites, but slight variations of the same thing.

Second, it is wrong because history has seen this polarity differently. In World War II, the alliances united governments with "polar" differences. The Soviet Union united with The Third Reich and El Duce and the Emperor of Japan. The Allies included dictatorships, constitutional monarchies, parliaments, republics, later the Soviet Union and more. The point is that there were communists and fascists on both sides, as well as other types of people.

Third, it is wrong from the point of view of current politics. The same mixed bag of alliances are spread across the world on many issues. Just take a look at the people and positions on Iran's nuclear program or China's economic role.

Furthermore, we can critique the hidden motivations, but the modern political language in the West is strangely inverted. In America, the Democrats are promoting more and more socialist programs. Some Republicans are as well. This is a more traditional left. But, President Bush, a "right winger," has done more than any president in my short lifetime to nationalize transportation, healthcare, education, law enforcement, disaster management, immigration, and more. Meanwhile, the Partido Socialista (traditionally left, note the unashamed name Socialist Party) here in Portugal is cutting taxes, privatizing industry, turning government functions more and more local, reducing regulation of businesses and making real cuts in the government budget to reduce the deficit--sounds like Steve Forbes.

Who is the left? Who is the right? I can no longer tell. What is more important to me is that I know what I believe. I will have a greater impact on society by speaking truth with my colleagues than I will ever have by trying to play political games.

Who Is Smart Now?

2006-04-18T04:09:00.000-06:00

The rejection of creationism is not just a factual issue. It is a very religious one. I challenge Christians to read this refutal of creationism. If you get bored with the details, at least read the conclusion. "Scientifically Creationism is worthless, philosophically it is confused, and theologically it is blinkered beyond repair." He is making claims so strong, so emotionally invoking that he had better have absolute certainty to back them. Absolute certainty is something that no philosopher/scientist can achieve. In fact, it is conventionally unacceptable. That is precisely why people are afraid of Christians and creationism, which claim to know the truth with certainty. I heard a sociologist say last week that faith is the one thing that has caused wars and genocide most consistently through history. The reason being that people are motivated to act, not by intellect or respect to the greater good of society, but by faith and the motivation of eternal recompense for failure in this life. He has a fair point. However, he does not realize that we may have an even greater disagreement than we originally realized. We do not agree on the nature of faith. We have this idea that faith is one thing, logic is another, and the two always fight: may cooler heads prevail. This is not true from any sense, and perfectly untrue from a biblical perspective. The Bible speaks of faith as being evidence based, substantive, and persuasive. Paul speaks of those apart from God as being without an apologetic. This idea that faith is something that does not make sense is a wrong idea within Christianity. "Our faith" is not a feeling of devotion or closeness to God, but being persuaded of the truth of the entire system of Christian theology.

Likewise, the evolutionist has this type of faith. He hates this allegation, but he has to accept it. He has to accept it because he really does not know what happened ten years ago, let alone ten billion. He is a presuppositional creature. I tire of reading these debates, not because of the terms mechanical naturalism, irreducible complexity, intelligent design, etc. The problem is that these people focus the debate on the wrong location. Why does the evolutionist look at a molecule and see something, while the creationist looks at the same molecule and sees something else? I think it is because the molecule is actually irrelevant to the debate. What is in question is the entire philosophical system, the presuppositions, the world view, the interpretive grid. We could debate the integrity of a "faith" as such by comparing it to molecules, but the best way to examine the integrity of that faith is by comparing the entire systems as structures.

Férias da Páscoa

2006-04-17T03:00:00.000-06:00

A week without class does not mean a week without learning. It does not mean a slow or empty week. This past week was, in fact, very busy. This past weekend was especially full. Some good friends of mine, the Rodgers, are leaving this week for Mozambique. They were really helpful in getting me settled here in Portugal. We "New Tribers" got together for one last time with them. After that, I went to a farewell party at the Portuguese church. After that, I had a choir practice (that is right, I sang in the choir, missed several words, but had a great time doing it). After a very short night, I went to a sunrise service and breakfast, after which came sunday school and church. The services tend to be long anyway, but since this was a special day, the services went extra long. I stayed a little longer to say one last goodbye to the Rodgers, and the afternoon was almost gone. I went to the evening service, and by the time I got home from that, I was tired.

I realize something this morning that is very encouraging. I spent just about the whole weekend immersed in Portuguese. The encouragement is that comprehension is going up. Six months ago, I did not get anything out of the church services or conversations, unless they were in English. It was very intimidating. Now, I have to ask sometimes for a repeat or an explanation, but it is possible to get the conversations and so forth around me. I praise God for this. Never satisfied however, I ask you to pray that I will be able to get more than this out of my studies. I want to be able to speak like a Portuguese speaker and think in Portuguese as well as I do in English. That is the highest level of fluency, and that is my target.

Até logo.

Is Europe so Liberal?

2006-04-11T08:32:00.000-06:00

Europe is debating placing in its constitution special protection for its "Christian tradition." It has reacted very strongly to the influx of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and South American immigrants. Just this week a new proposal has been introduced to campaign against the flood of immigration. This is a very conservative value. In fact, it sounds like the current debate in the USA over immigration.

I want to make some things very clear. I am not a liberal. I am just skeptical of certain attitudes in conservative circles. I want people to follow the law. I also think that the law needs to be simplified. In both the USA and the EU, I sense a bit of a fear for a loss of identity. The fact is that that identity only existed in theory anyway. The traditions only came over long periods of time and great changes spanning generations. This is not a question of protecting a tradition, but a question of an insecurity in an insecure world.

This comes from a basic misunderstanding of what truth is. The truth is true, not because we defend it, or make laws about it, or fight wars, or establish it by winning debates. The truth is true because God declares it to be true. No matter what happens or changes, I can be confident that God will do what He says He will do.

Right now, the world is especially afraid of people certain of their beliefs. The big lie is that faith is certain ignorance that drives men to destroy other people's lives. Paul was accused of turning the world upside down, but he never was violent after his conversion. He never encouraged violence after his conversion. On the contrary, he was persecuted for his claims, not his acts. This is true of all the great New Testament theologians. Biblical Christianity is the safest theology from this standpoint. It does not exist to conquer earthly kingdoms. Christians are merely called to be witnesses of Jesus Christ to the most remote parts of the earth.

I am so certain of my beliefs, that I am willing to debate them with anyone at any time (the old always ready idea). This is not the highest level of security. I am so certain of my beliefs that I do not need to force others by law, war, terrorism, or whatever. They have to answer to God themselves. This is the highest level of security. We just need to keep speaking the truth in love. I could try to come out in favor or opposition to some immigration policy here in Europe or in the USA. What I find interesting is that the idea of conserving traditions very strong. It is not liberal thought, and it is a mark of a very insecure people.

Personal News

2006-04-10T06:58:00.000-06:00

The last week passed with a lot of rain. On Saturday, I went exploring on another side of town. It was very beautiful, but the hills made the walk pretty tough.

I observed a few interesting cultural items. First, as the season of PÃ¡scoa has started, the stores filled with huge piles of candy and chocolate eggs. It is not traditional to have egg hunts for the children, but the eggs aredefinitelyy part of the culture. Last Sunday, being Palm Sunday, the Catholic Church was packed with people when I passed it. (They must be CEO--Christmas, Easter, Obituary--Catholics mostly.) I noticed that nearly all of the people had bundles of what I judged to be small palm branches. I was on my way somewhere else, so I did not stop to observe. I feel a little strange staring and taking pictures anyway. Though they are different, they are people not landscape. Finally, the biggest news of the weekend was the Super Liga. The top two teams faced off in a pretty good game. It was interesting to note that the sport may change, but society still loves its spectaculars. With major elections in Italy, protests in France, floods in Eastern Europe, tornados in the USA, wars in the Middle East, and debates over the direction of the government here in Portugal, it all gave way to the discussion of what will happen to the standings after a weekend of futebol. I was reminded of how that happens also in the USA with our sports.

Please pray for me to keep my focus on study, even during this week off of classes.
Please pray for the Mozambique field as they continue to face the challenges of the new field.
Please pray for the Rodgers, a family here, that is headed to Mozambique in about a week.

2006-04-07T06:56:00.000-06:00

Jesus was a homosexual, Jesus never existed. We cannot trust the biblical record. Israel and Jews never existed before very recently. The Bible was written as a super secret conspiracy to take over the world. Religion is an old-fashioned attempt to control you. Christians are stupid. I hear this all year long, but why do these attempts to destroy biblical Christianity always crest at this time of year? Simply, it is considered the most sacred time of year, and the religious are doing battle. Atheists are fighting to prove their case that God does not exist. Pagans are celebrating the spring renewal of earth. Christians are arguing just as strongly for the historical validity of the Bible and the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Jews are arguing for the historical validity of their escape from Egypt and establishment as a nation.

What bothers me the most about this is that all of these people live in the same world, but see radically different things. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the area of the historical record. The ever present issue of the biblical record (claiming a young universe created by a eternal God) and the evolutionary record (claiming an eternal universe in which the people created gods) is particularly troubling. How can two people look at the same data and come to such opposite conclusions? Is one of them just super ignorant?

I am troubled by that assumption. I think they have a faith, which they are trying to apply consistently and intelligently. The problem with all these debates is that they do not focus on the presupposed framework by which all the other data is interpreted. One good example of this is the geological layers. The evolutionary presents them as proof of his theory, and the creationism presents them as proof of his.

Today, launched by National Geographic, is a document that claims a different historical record for Jesus' life and a different understanding of who He was and what happened surrounding His death. This document has been around for some time, has undergone varying analysis, and has hit the news wires with amazing promotion.

Being a bit cynical, I suspect that the whole issue was raised on the news wires today to accomplish two major things. The first, is to attack Christianity with an attempt to hurt or discredit the various celebrations in the week to come. The second, and here I go really cynical, is to promote the soon release of the Davinci Code movie and try to give its fictional portions some validity.

Being a cynical reader, I am clearly not an expert. I leave you with many links today. Some go to very anti-Christian sites, with which I disagree almost completely. Some go to very ecumenical sites, with which I disagree on many things. Some go to what you might call conservative sites, with which I agree almost completely. The point is to see what I was talking about in the beginning. Different people are looking at the same data and coming to different conclusions. This is because they are all coming into the arena of debate with a bag full of assumptions that are changing the way they interpret the data. I am showing you some of mine right now.

Here are some of my thoughts directly on the document. Thousands of ancient manuscripts exist consistent with the Old and New Testaments which Christians hold as Scripture. These documents, being hand written and spanning generations of time show tremendous consistency. The consistency is particularly marked with respect to the Old Testament, since it spans much more time in authorship and many more men wrote the books. The existence of ancient documents to the contrary does not prove these documents wrong or illegitimate. It only proves that even in those times people were partisan, interpreting history according to their own presupposed framework.

Does the New Testament accurately describe the history and interpret it? I do not know. In the first place, I was not there to be able to judge by experience. In the second place, I would be judging anyway based on my presupposed framework, just as I am now. In the third place I am not alone in this problem (in other words, dear reader, you and everyone else have the same problem). I do know this: as a basis for knowledge, gnosticism is an inconsistent system, making their documents less convincing. I know that the people presenting the document as authoritative evidence of any kind hold very partisan views, and that needs to be taken into account before one goes off into blind acceptance of what they say.

Faith

2006-04-06T08:10:00.000-06:00

Who do men say that I am?

Some say a John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say Jeremiah, some say a prophet, some say a teacher, some say a liar, some say never existed, some say cool dude.

Who do you say that I am?

The Messiah, The Son of the Living God.

Who do men say that faith is?

Some say morality, some say religion, some say illogical, some say foolish, some say uneducated, some say keep it out of public discussion, some say it is not science, some say it is important, some say it is irrelevant.

Who do you say that faith is?

It is certainty, assurance of knowing the truth.

"I had rather see an entire regiment armed and ready for combat coming toward me than one lone calvinist convinced he is doing the will of God" (author unknown).

This common sentiment is more real than we may know. There are many kinds of "calvinists." Not all of them believe in God. I fear atheists in their faith convinced that evolution, themselves, or some convention has dictated something and they must fulfill it.

I fear Christians and anyone else who misunderstand just what faith is. Faith is not a groovy feeling or a deep sentiment. Faith is not trusting the illogical or nonsensical. I repeat, Faith is the evidence of things not seen, the substance of things hoped for.

As a Christian, I think it is important that I know that Jesus is The Christ. I think it is important to know that in full assurance. If that makes me one of those feared calvinists, then so be it. The difference is that I will talk with you about it over a cup of coffee. Those insecure "calvinists" are trying to bomb, regulate, or conquer earthly kingdoms.

Faith is believing the facts to be true, and having the wisdom to discern what the facts are. Many people believe "facts" that never existed as fact. That is not faith; it is foolishness.

If you want faith, get wisdom, get knowledge, and with all your getting, get understanding.

God's Grace

2006-04-05T05:57:00.000-06:00

I had a teacher that said once, "You don't have to squeeze grace out of the Old Tesament like you would try to squeeze blood from a rock. The Old Testament is already saturated with grace. It's practically dripping grace all over."

The story of Cain and Abel is the same. As I was thinking about how fast the Bible's history records the rise of murder, and I wrote about that last week, I realized that the same story is dominated by God's great grace. Cain, guilty of murder was approached by God. God came to Cain with the same instructive attitude, asking questions and leading Cain to the truth, just as He did with Adam and Eve. God judged the sin of Cain, because justice was required, but God made the judgment gracious and loving. He made the judgment bearable.

I believe that God did this because ultimately God loved Cain as much as He loved Abel. He passed the judgment of Cain's sin onto the future judgment of all sin in the promised Redeemer. Cain, as one can read in Genesis four cried out for mercy beyond the mercy that God had already given. Rather than becoming angry and upset with Cain, God eased Cain's pain even more.

I talk a lot about the argument that the Bible is, because I do not believe it is legends, or stories, or sentiments. I believe that the Bible is a systematic presentation of a complete theological, cultural, and practical culture. This passage of Scripture is no different. Aside from Moses, the author, arguing for the depth of sin's depravity, Moses is arguing that God's justice is carried out in a grace that is far deeper. God loves mankind. He loves me. He loves you. He has a "missionary heart," in the sense that He comes to men, reveals Himself, judges the sin and saves the sinner. As we say in Portuguese, "Que tão grande amor!"

The Fundamental Problem of Democracy

2006-04-04T09:40:00.000-06:00

The reader is probably asking himself, "Who would ever try to entitle an article like that?" This is one author who should not surprise you in this regard. As modern people call for the expansion of democracy, and differing governments claim to have the same thing, but have wars over that "same thing," I ask my self, why haven't we learned anything in the last six thousand years of history?

Venezuela's democracy is trying to start an arms race with the USA's democracy. Brazil and China try to forge a new definition of democracy. Europe has fights, but insists on forging its new definition of democracy. Democracy is resulting in street mobs dominating society in France. Iran's alternative form of democracy is asserting its independence. Israel and the whole Middle East continue to fight over what it means to be democratic.

Democracy is such an overused term that it has come to mean really anything at any time. It essentially is the claim that the power goes to the people. The problem is in deciding what power and which people.

You see, as badly as we may berail the oligarchy, it has never and it will never go away. Someone will always rule someone else. In democracy, it is really exxagerated because of the dominance of the mob. That is, without checks and balances, the shrillest and most violent voices are always the ones that rule.
I believe that government should be accountable, so much so that I believe every government position should be up for election, right down to teachers and secretaries, and dog catchers, and every beurocratic administrator. However, government accountability does not prevent the abuse of power.

What really gets my goad is when I see society broken down into demographs that now lobby for their agenda. The students lobby for their agenda, the retirees want what's coming to them, the farmers fight to maintain subsidies, the women's vote, the black vote, the gay vote, the christian vote, the workers vote, blah, blah, blah. This is not even rule by majority, it is rule by largest demograph. What has been happening with riots in the streets around the world (called protests by sypathetics) and especially in France has been an example of how the mob can take democracy and turn it into a real hand to hand street fight. Why, because no matter what form of human government we may choose, it is human and therefore corrupt. I wish I had a good alternative, but I do not. I only wait, hoping for a supernatural intervention.

Vistas de Portugal

2006-04-03T10:10:00.000-06:00

Castles, countrysides, history. Oh, and note the multi-million dollar stadium in from the turret of a thousand-year old castle. What a priveledge to experience this!

The News of the Week

2006-03-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

Illegal Immigration--From this side of the water

From that side to this side (a matter of perspective)

Tragic Sex Abuse Scandal

Gun Control Gone Wrong: Agents Secretly Trafficking the Guns(in Portuguese)

Gun Control Gone Wrong: Good Guys Get Shot

Hostage Released Safe and Sound

Thought Provoking Editorial of Christians and Politics

I Had Class and Clouds, but the Pictures of the eclipse are great

Isreal's New Gov't Gets the Shaft and Isreal's New Government

Drunk Redneck Gearheads Use Profanity: Is This News?

Finally, The Final Four Preview

One Generation Later

2006-03-29T00:51:00.001-07:00

After God expelled Adam, Eve, and the Serpent from the garden, life was much different. Just as God promised, they had to work much harder and endure much pain to sustain their lives on earth. Immediately, the decay of sin began to take effect.

Eve, however, kept the faith in God's promise believing that her sons were a sign that God was going to keep His promise through her seed. There is nothing deep or mystical about women and babies here, just a clear promise of God. Eve trusted and looked for that promised One who would deliver from the curse of sin.

I should not be too bragadocious (if that's a word) on Christian teaching, but this fundamental result of sin is perhaps the most well established scientific fact (simply that as time goes forward, things get more disorganized). Chew on that idea for a while: things are in a constant state of change and increasing confusion. This is the opposite of the idea that evolution brings to the table (to be fair, some evolutionists do recognize the weakness of their theory in this respect). However, the Bible is very clear on one thing: things get worse under the influence of sin. Complexity comes and goes, but the degeneration of creation remains.

It is only plausible then that one generation after the Fall of Man, the generation after would degenerate. It did. Here we are in the Twenty-First Century saying things like "We will never go back to doing this or that" (usually a reference to some great historical atrocity or abuse of power). Adam and Eve ate a piece of fruit. Cain MURDERED his very own brother. He did it over something sentimental. "Oh, God is happier with you than me, eh? I'll show you happy!" How bad is sin? It is so bad that the very worse is predictable in every life of every sinner. This is serious business.

One generation from now, I do not know what will happen. I do know this, that sin is so bad, that right now as I am typing about God's Word I am capable of doing the very worst because of sin. Please feel the tension of this passage. I hold no great hope for the development of a better society as long as sinners rule, myself included. Sin is so bad that Cain, who knew nothing of violence, had no violent movies, music, or video games murdered his own brother. We too are sinners. We have the same capacity and the same problem. We too stand in God's judgment, not just in the next generation but also in the present generation., right now.

Congratulations Walter E. Williams

2006-03-28T02:12:00.000-07:00

Dick Vitale loves to say give the little guy a chance. This year the little guy took the chance and turned it into a Final Four appearance. George Mason University is a little school with a lot of pride. Since I cannot cheer for Kansas or any Big Twelve team, I will root for the little guy.

Walter E. Williams is a little guy with big brains that teaches at
George Mason University. I have enjoyed every opportunity to hear him speak (he's from the economics department). I have only been able to take his courses on line, because George Mason does not admit people of my skin color (white).

I give congratulations to him for the Cinderella story of the year, though I know he had nothing to do with the winning. My bigger congratulations are for his skill in teaching economics. I have been thinking a lot lately about the problem of poverty. I receive messages regularly through the news, politicians, friends, etc. stating that disparity of wages is increasing and that this situation needs to be fixed.

I come from a country that has the richest man in the world (Bill Gates) and the largest gap between the rich and the poor. What is even more telling is the gap between America's poor and the poor in parts of Africa and Asia. Those people cannot read, have no clean water, live in makeshift shacks, often starve, and live in the most horrible conditions imaginable. The American poor have food, water, shelter, schooling, telephones, some even have televisions, cars, and cable TV.

What really bothers me is that the statistics about gaps between poor and rich are always presented in a framework of envy and penalization for the successful. The idea is that Bill Gates owes me because I he is rich and I am not. In an old radio drama-sitcom called "Duffy's Tavern" the manager Archie bet on a horse that died before he could cross the finish line. He was depressed over this until he heard that Duffy the owner had bet on the same horse. This made him joyful and happy.

Is that what makes people happy in life? "Don't better my situation, just make that rich guy suffer a little"?

I would like to see an end to poverty. I think that any solution involving stealing from the rich to give to the poor is wrong. This is fundamentally why the liberals can never convince me to join a redistributionist model. Rather than investing their funds in enriching the lives of the poor, they build a state run Robin Hood to rob from others, justifiable because they "pay their fair share" (skepticism, skepticism). If the gap is such a big injustice, then sell all you have and give the money to the poor. Live the rest of your life directly sending all your personal profits into good charities.

The problem of the framework of these gap statistics is even more compounded because they come from a centralized ideal of a unified society. This is even more tragic. I really get physically sick when I hear the phrase "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." The fact is that this is a lie and a self contradiction. "Whole" and "sum" are by definition the "sum of its parts," and not greater or lesser than such. Society never exists without first having individuals. Compounding this problem of society is the fact that the individuals within society disagree on the nature of society. This is obviously a greater philosophical problem, but consider the issue of poverty in light of this. If society cannot agree nor unite on the issue of poverty without trampling on the rights of another part of society, then it is best left alone. In the case of poverty, we see the great societies of the past only slowing and hurting the economy. In the end the poor suffer more than they would have had they not united to steal from the rich "legally." I want to live in a world where starving people are fed and where poor people receive a better life. I think that we as individuals will have a greater impact on the problem of poverty if we take the responsibility on our own shoulders and generously deal with it from our own bank accounts.

The River is Up

2006-03-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

There was a little flood trouble this weekend as the rains in the area extended into the weekend, but nothing serious.

I had a double experience this weekend, half good, half bad. I was asked to pray in the church service, and I did without too much difficulty. One of the young people afterward apologized for speaking to me in English, after realizing that I could understand him well in Portuguese. Of course, I still have a little swelling in my head as a result of this. However, that afternoon, one of my apartment colleagues (Portuguese) asked me if he could borrow my cereal bowl. I had no idea what he was talking about. He had to point to it because I was so hopeless to understand what he was saying. He then commented that he had heard me speak Portuguese and thought I knew it. He did not understand why I would not know such a basic word. Ouch. I also was told a Portuguese joke that only works in Portuguese. I understood all the words, but I did not get the joke. It was another humbling reminder that I may be able to say "Heavenly Father we pray that you would give us the grace to worship You in a manner worthy of your glory." I still have a lot of things to learn. This too is a form of worship as I prepare for cross cultural ministry.

Please pray that I would continue to learn.
Please pray for the Rodgers, who are getting ready to move to Mozambique. They have been a great help in getting me here, finding an apartment, and many other things. Pray that the transition would go as smooth as possible.
Please pray for the families in Mozambique studying languages harder than Portuguese that they would succeed by God's grace.

2006-03-23T06:30:00.000-07:00

"There are very many kinds of theft. One consists in violence, as when
a man’s goods are forcibly plundered and carried off; another in
malicious imposture, as when they are fraudulently intercepted; a third
in the more hidden craft which takes possession of them with a
semblance of justice; and a fourth in sycophancy, which wiles them away
under the pretence of donation" (Institutes of the Christian Religion,
Book II, Chapter 8, section 45).

Aside from the depth of formal intelligence ingrained in the great old
works on theology (I speak of the language structure), I really
appreciate the fact that here justified is a great understanding of the
eighth commandment. What is stealing? It is taking something from one
man, to whom it belongs, and giving it to another man, to whom it does
not belong (paraphrase of Walter Williams).
Herin, among other problems, is the problem for those Christians who
back a redistributionist attitude toward society, and in particular the
government. It is just as wrong for Robin Hood, no matter how endearing
the movie, to steal at arrow point in the road as it was for Prince
John to steal from the castle. Prince John wanted to hoard the taxed
riches to himself, but had the tables been turned, and Robin Hood had
by law taxed Prince John to give to the poor, he would have been just
as wrong.

The problem for free market Christians is that we want the government
to let the market be whatever it is. We then stand in danger of losing
a society wide impact on morality and the family structure. Outside of
government, can we affect social morality on issues such as poverty
without engaging in fraud, that "semblance of justice," or
"sycophancy"? This is further complicated by the market's inclination
to provide abhorrent services like prostitution, abortion, pornography,
deception (layers of fraud), divorce, mind-tripping drugs, grand
theiving and murderous gangs for hire, false teachers, bad science,
antitheism, etc, etc, etc. I recognize the fact that the government is
in the business of making moral decisions, and if so, it ought to use
biblical morality. However, since it consists of sinful men, it will
reflect that corruption. That show of social morality will then be the
great fraud of the country and farce to the world. Furthermore, we see time and again
reminders in the New Testament that Christ came to establish a kingdom
not of this world, and that the role of the church is to affect social
norms by winning converts not by passing laws. We are not in the
business of setting up a millenial kingdom age with the hope of
bringing about o regresso do Rei.

Jesus had plenty to say about the sins of the rich men of His and any
time. He never told us that it is our duty to steal from them to feed
the poor. They stand before God's judgment for their neglect,
manipulation of society, and misuse of God's blessing. Furthermore,
when I see men like Bill Gates giving a huge portion of his huge
fortune to serious needs in Africa, I cannot help but wander what our
government has done to discourage this by giving the false illusion of
being the greatest social cherity on earth and doing so coercively.

The Bible was written to teach about God, not the details of a
sociological theory. Clearly, people can find verses to back up some
variant views on society. At the founding of America, it was the
Christians forcing the separation of church and state and the free
market. In the years since then, Christians have emerged with multiple
views on this. I think that it is really not as clear from Scripture as
redemption, for example. Paul, when he had an audience with Felix the
governor did not direct apologetics for the purpose of getting
Christian morals in government. He had the same action with Festus and
Agrippa. His appeal was "I would pray to God, both in a little and in
much, that not only you, but also all hearing me today to become as I
also am [Christian], except for these bonds" (Acts 26:29 MKJV). He
wanted conversion and not assimilation.

I have wandered a little today. I started with a discussion of what
stealing is. I wanted to demostrate why I really do not agree with
government's endless desire to tax society. However, I moved from there
to what the role of government is and the role of Christian morality is
in government. Ultimately, we have discovered that apologetics exist
with the end of conversion and not assimilation. This is perhaps the
greatest discovery of all. The church laments its loss of relevancy and
scrambles to find the best way to regain it. However, it fails to
recognize that that relevancy is gained by earnestly contending for the faith. The focus is the
message. The church has lost its relevance because it has lost its
voice. Ask any Christian to defend family values, and they will have no
problem. Ask any Christian to defend their faith, and they will
probably not even be clear on what the gospel is. Furthermore, their
best defense will be a "this is how I got saved" story, and not a
contention from history and theology. Paul gave his testimony, but
ultimately he said in reference to the history of Christ's resurrection
that these were historical facts that "were not done in a corner" (Acts
26:26 MKJV). Indeed, they were not done in a corner, and that is why I
am confident in my faith.

God's Promises

2006-03-22T01:40:00.000-07:00

God made a promise to Adam and Eve. He said that if they ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they would surely die. Did God keep His promise? Adam and Eve stayed alive long enough to make some clothing out of leaves and hide. They stayed alive long enough to be evicted from the garden. Adam lived to be over 900 years old. Did they surely die. They did. They died spiritually, in that they were separated from God, and they eventually died physically. God kept His end of the bargain. He always does.

God did do something special, though. He clothed Adam and Eve with animal skins. Those animals had to die for that to take place. We do not know the details of this event, but I am pretty sure that this was also the first institution of blood sacrifices for sins. At any rate, something else had to die, for their nakedness to be covered. This is an important biblical point. Substitution is this act of changing places. The fact that animals were used can be a bit complex, but quite simply, the animal sacrifice was a picture and a promise. This picture and promise would be used for many years, and God would elaborate on that for some time.

God's first elaboration was with the introduction of the term "seed," in particular the "seed of the woman." "And Jehovah God said to the serpent, Because you have done this you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every animal of the field. You shall go upon your belly, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He will bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel" (Gen. 3:14-15 MKJV). What exactly was God talking about? He was promising that someone would come along in the future (as a part of the human race) to "bruise the serpent's head." This promise, so vague at this point, is the central course of biblical history. God now shows how that He brings this about. I also notice (for which reason I included verse 14) that God was actually speaking to the serpent at this point.

However, Adam and Eve could take great hope in the fact that God was promising not to let the sin nor the serpent win in the end. God was also illustrating that ultimately, non-humans cannot deal with human problems. Despite the hope of the animal sacrifices, Adam and Eve still had sin in their lives, they still had to die. But, this promise spoken to the serpent gave great hope to them because they could be assured of a future victory. God did not fill in great details, but He gave them a great promise. This is God's true answer to sin, a Savior.

Who that Savior is remains to be seen, but once again, the biblical history is setting the stage and arguing for God's character. The record argues that God is faithful; He keeps His Word. The record argues that God is sovereign (and not chaos or Satan or man). The record argues that God is righteous, in that He cannot leave sin un-judged. The record argues that God is good and loving, because He dealt with the sin in such a way that man could be saved out of that sin rather than be destroyed in that sin. The record argues that only God's way is the right way. The record argues that ultimately, God wins, no matter how complex sin gets between devils and men and rebellion.

The Ides of March and Puke

2006-03-21T06:49:00.000-07:00

If I were to just say nothing about the woes of my beloved Jayhawks, I
would be failing in my role as a fan. The Ides of March com and go
every year dissappointing. The sorry performance of the Hawks March in
and March out with little hope of a championship. The end of season
surge had me all hopeful, but it was a false hope. The tradition at
Kansas has long been dominate the Big Eight (now the Big Twelve) and
choke in the national tournament. This has caused many of us skeptical
fans to take that famous Phog Allen Fieldhouse chant "Rock Chock
Jayhawks, KU" and exchange it for "Upchuck Jayhawks, PU." I am still
for the blue team (not the baby blue team), but I would just once like
to get a glimpse of those Danny Manning years. Until then, I will have
to settle for the "PU."

While I am on the subject (PUKE), I would like to reference you to a
couple of news items which, when juxtaposed, are really quite sad
and funny at the same time. One, an editorial in the Washington
Post Online complains about the fact that Pres. Bush is too much of
a man. The other is of the alternative.

While I do not agree with everything the Pres has done or said, I think
that I prefer a manly man, and not a womanly man.

Here
is a good commentary on bird flu and the scare in Europe.

And, if I was not sick enough, here
is one to take the cake. There was once a time when parents were
begged, commanded, lured, and whatever else it took to get involved in
their children's education. Uncaring parents were the reason that super
teachers had to emerge, drawing in their students from the streets.
Now, educators are fed up with parents involved in their children's
education. They want to do whatever it takes to get those nosy,
ignorant parents off their backs, to get those controlling nuts to let
their children go, and to let the educators do their job. Gag me with chalkboard! Education
begins and ends with the home. I do not believe that home schooling is
morally obligatory, but I do believe that in every case, concerned
parents should at least partner in education and pay attention to what
is being taught. Unlike what I hear from the socialist model
(children's education is an investment "society" makes for future
production) I like to think that children ought to be real people,
individuals whose parents love and care for them and prepare them for
the future with a grounding in truth, justice, morality, and practical
ordinary things too, like look both ways before you cross the street. I
thank God that my parents did not stay out of the classroom.

International Movie Star?

2006-03-20T06:16:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, my church here did a special program for Portuguese Father's Day (Happy Portuguese Father's Day, Dad). In that program, one of the guys in my Sunday School class made a film of sketches, and I was in one of them. Okay, I did not have to say anything, and I did not have a big lot of things to do, just type on a computer. However, it was a bit of a fiasco, as I was rushing to finish the shooting, but I still missed the train for another meeting on Saturday and arrived late. Oh, well, next time I will schedule things farther apart. However, it is another opportunity to be involved in local church ministry with limited language ability. One day, I trust that I will be able to speak publicly as I do in English. Until then, I like to find creative ways to be involved.

Praise the Lord for much needed rain here in Portugal. Praise the Lord for a good week of classes. Please pray for the next several weeks of classes. Sometimes I really feel like I have made good progress, and other times I have difficulty with very basic pronunciation. Please pray for the field of Mozambique as the people here look forward to arriving and the people there are learning languages more difficult than Portuguese.

The Consequences of Sin

2006-03-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

When Adam and Eve and the Serpent had done their evil deed, they showed consequences of sin even before God formally judged them. Adam and Eve, rather than determining right and wrong as they had hoped, realized just how wrong they were. They tried to cover themselves with leaves. They tried to hide from God. They were ashamed. They were confused. They were scared. They felt insecure and isolated. These are all results of sin. Before the Tower of Babel, they were already confused, and used messed up language. They knew they could not hide from God. They knew they could not hide their sin. They gave it a good old college try, because they were not thinking consistent with God's character.

This week, I won't quote a reformed theologian, but a friend and theologian Dr. Jim Steel. He says, quite eloquently, "All wrong thinking ultimately stems from wrong thinking about God. Wrong thinking results in wrong attitudes. Wrong attitudes result in wrong actions. Wrong actions result in wrong consequences." This is the fundamental consequence of sin.

In summary then, sin's consequences were and are confusion (sin clouds the mind), degradation (sin gets worse and worse), enmity (the state of being enemies) with God, and judgment by God.

Here we see God, coming to Adam to judge the sin that Adam had committed. More than a testimony to the sinfulness of man, this is a testimony of the justice of God. He gave a command, Adam did not follow it, and God had to judge that breaking of the law.

This can be both tremendously comforting or tremendously troubling. It is comforting because we know that amidst all the confusion of sin and the vast unknown, Somebody knows and Somebody cares. God does. It is comforting because God is consistent. He kept His part of the bargain. There is tremendous security in having a firm foundation for truth and justice. It is troubling because Adam, having sinned, had to undergo that justice. It is troubling because every natural born descendent of Adam stands in the same judgment. We stand in it because we are his offspring. Conceived by sinners, we are sinners still. We have confusion, degradation, and are enemies of God. This is the practical, troubling result of sin.

Norm, What Did You Do?

2006-03-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

I am appalled at the nature of intellectual attitudes and ideas. You pick the field. Science, philosophy, ethics, politics, economics, and more base their knowledge base in something I call the normative, or Norm. Norm takes a wide variety of experiences, makes an average or finds a middle point, and decides that the average is "the truth." The problem is that Norm can never explain things that happen outside his formula.

This is especially used poorly in the area of ethics. For example,Norm would say "Most people use their right hand to eat; therefore, you should use your right hand to eat." What relationship does Norm establish between "most people" and "should"? To use terms like "ought" and "should" is to assert that all left-handers are in a position of moral compromise. Maybe Norm framed the debate completely from a wrong system of thought. Need I quote Mom to refute Norm? "Just because everybody jumps off a bridge, doesn't mean you have to do it." More appropriately, adultery is still wrong no matter how many people do it or endorse it. Morality is inherently metaphysical (that means it is not biological or physiological). The debate needs to be framed according to its nature.

However, it is really dangerous beyond ethics. Science is filled with statistics like 55% or 82%. The fact that most water on earth is salt water does not mean that water is salt water. Many scientists, to their credit do not frame their results by saying that x% majority equals universal fact. The fact is that .0000000000000001% to the contrary means that one does not have a universal trait. I don't even want to get into the problem of changing scientific conditions from one generation to the next, both atmospheric and philosophically. Needless to say, Norm, you really do not explain anything to me.

Norm, what I really do not like is that you get so much press. Every day, another poll is promoted telling me what I should think because most people think this or that. Norm, truth is not democratic, it is not conventional. Every day some new scientist gets a lot of press because he says "most of the time." Most Christians are out there arguing for this or that with attention to Norm's theory, rather than stating (consistent with their worldview) that they believe something to be true because God made it so. I know, that is an offensive and hated message, but it makes at least as much sense as "most people think this, therefore this is true" or "most dogs weigh that, therefore all dogs should weigh that." In fact, Solomon wrote "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (Prov 1:7). Paul characterizes the thoughts of the ungodly as "futility of their own mind."

When you think about it Norm, you are running around the world getting people all worked up, motivating them to action (sometimes violent action), and keeping them in the dark. Rather than letting them reframe the debate from a more adequate worldview, we are stuck talking about "norms." Norm, you are responsible for stereotypes and ignorance at the same time. Norm, I would rather know what is right and true than what is normal.

This has been a tirade from the Intolerant, Bigoted, Right-wing, Christian, and Evil I Hate Norm Organization.

In Brief

2006-03-13T10:48:00.000-07:00

While tornadoes ripped across the USA and protests and bombs happened around the world, I just went to class and read stories, boring stories. It is good to review, but we still have not really attempted to advance very much in my classes. I was expecting more, but that is yet to come. I continue to extend by studying outside of class. I am learning more and more too by reading news and listening to the radio, but I am really happy to have a good church with Christian friends who can teach me as well.

I am trying to upload some pictures of the leitão, but I do not know if it will work. If you remember, it is a local specialty that I was able to eat a couple weeks ago. If you cannot see them, there are little links where the text is indented that will give you a big version for your pleasure.

Please pray that all the folks here in Portugal will be able to continue to learn Portuguese.
Please pray for the teams in Mozambique as they learn language, build relationships, and search for the proper vocabulary to present the Gospel.

News Of the Day/Week

2006-03-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

Here Are not all the news items, but the most interesting to me.

Ports Deal

The Nature of Sin

2006-03-08T05:41:00.000-07:00

Understanding what happens in Genesis three is extremely important to all of theology. Every Bible teacher has strong opinions on this passage, and every Bible teacher differs slightly with every other Bible teacher. The reason is that the manner in which sin came to earth is very important to the definition of sin and its consequences. I will attempt to introduce these themes today.

(All quotes MKJV) "Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which Jehovah God had made." I already dealt with some of that in the last time, but it is evident that this serpent was "cunning" in the sense that he had a scheme and a plan. His plan was to attack and overturn God's program for creation. "And he said to the woman, Is it so that God has said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" Here most Bible teachers agree that Satan is deceptively asserting a slight alteration of what God actually said. Grammatically, it is a little ambiguous as to whether or not Satan is asking how many trees are free or how many are prohibited. I think that is part of the point. By questioning God's revelation, the confusion began. Let me say this clearly: language started to be confused as soon as sin entered the picture.

Eve's response is likewise a little different from the actual revelation God had given. She said that They were free to eat all except the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil." Of that tree she said, "God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die." This is another slight confusion. I do not know if Adam added that they would not touch it, if Eve added it, or if God added it. The historical record does not say. I doubt the latter, because God said they were to keep and tend the garden. At any rate, it was different from What God had said, and the serpent did not introduce the difference. Up to this point, we have a confusion introduced by the serpent and a confusion introduced by Eve.

The serpent's response is clear and not confused. "And the serpent said to the woman, 'You shall not surely die.'" This was a directly opposite claim to that of God. Then, the serpent alledged that God feared their wisdom reaching His level, and that they could reach God's wisdom by disobeying God. This is very contrary to what God had said and contrary to God Himself. As much as the temptation had confusion and deception, this was very clear. Eve was going to choose either based on God's authority or some other authority.

She chose the other authority. According to verse six, I believe that Eve used the authority of the serpent's "revelation" but ultimately her own selfish desires to choose. In the end, she set herself up to determine morality and truth. Much is made of the three aspects of fruit, eye-pleasure, and wisdom. Maybe so, but in the end, she chose based on rejecting God's revelation and authority. The same is true for Adam. Whatever his motive for eating what his wife gave him, he still had to reject God's revelation and authority to do that.

This is at the heart of what sin is. It is rejecting God's authority, and establishing another. Solomon said, (Pro 1:7) " The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge; but fools despise wisdom and instruction." Sin is foolishness that rejects the very foundation of truth. When men deny God's existence, when men choose to act in place of God and contrary to God, when men build philosophical structures to hide God from their science, culture, society, and every day life, they are at the heart of sin.

I forget the date, but I heard a reformed theologian (sorry), Dr Greg Bahnsen cited for this brief quote, speak about "the moral foundations of epistemology." On this point he was very right. He said that Eve's moral obligation was not just practical (to eat or not to eat), but also epistemic (truth based). Sin is not just doing something other than God says. It is fundamentally taking the right to judge the very truth itself apart from God. Adam, Eve, and the serpent were all guilty of this, and that is why God had to judge them.

Freedom is Dangerous

2006-03-07T10:07:00.000-07:00

I wrote a column once entitled "I Would Be a Liberal If It It Weren't For the Liberals." I have linked to a humorous fake article from a spoof website (caution advised) about how they seem to campaign on panic and despair.

Democrats Vow Not To Give Up Hopelessness

I am reminded of that today with all of the news here in Portugal. They are fighting over a number of interesting issues. Someone is trying to outsource the government telephone company. The newly elected president is personally congratulated by former US President Bush (twilight zone music please). Gay marriage and abortion are at the forefront on social fronts, with pending court cases and Hollywood productions influencing the ideas. This week, a television company (in which Viacom has huge influence) launched a new program for news and views in the morning. We are all going to die of bird flu. As different as American culture and Portuguese culture seem on the surface, they really deal with the same things: morality, society, and justice.

One thing that really hits home, though is the issue of freedom of the press. Last night, there was a national debate over the prosecution of journalists and confiscation of investigative reports. The whole issue of this continues to be borne out of an ongoing fiasco with the infamous "Islamic Cartoons." A columnist in Britain was jailed, and an immigrant was expelled for speeches they made. Libel and innuendo seem to end up in courts easily. Prosecution for the stealing of "intellectual property," whatever that may be, is more active than any other crime area. As an aside, Charles Dickens lost a court case to block third party printing of his books because of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

I defend the freedom of the press (even the right of Hollyweirders to make farces like "Brokeback Mountain" and "Transamerica") because I defend my own right to speak. The same power I would use to stop their anti-Christian messages could also be used to stop my Christian messages. At heart of the panic over issues and the freedom of the press is the heart of my disagreement with Democrats and Republicans and probably most other people is a fundamental disagreement over what society is itself.

A woefully poor use of language and logic is the ideal that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." This is so untrue that I am embarrassed to have to refute it. Whole is by definition the sum of its parts, nothing more, nothing less. The problem with society is that we band together to accomplish more, disagree, disband, fight, and fragment. Society only exists because of individuals. Without them it would not exist. Yet society by definition diminishes the role of the individual.

The idea that all of these issues but particularly the issue of the press is still being debated (will be after I am gone) is that people think that freedom is dangerous, and particularly freedom to inform or misinform. It is dangerous out there. Society has to protect us poor individuals from the liars and bad influences, from the mal-intented and the mis-informed?

People are saying all types of things. Christian speech has been progressively banned in America since before it began. Now, there is immense power being weilded to destroy any intellectual position that does not support the secularist religion. My response is not to ban secularism, as it seeks to ban Christianity, but to use my freedom of speech to speak out in favor of Christianity. The government cannot save us. Only the truth will set society free and protect it. Learn it, live it, give it.

Mission Work: The Worst Investment You Can Make

2006-03-06T03:53:00.000-07:00

As I think over my life for the last several years, I wonder in disbelief. After arriving in America from Africa, I have farmed, worked construction, stocked and sold hardware, cut and hauled logs, worked in camps and VBS's, studied theology, missions, anthropology, linguistics, been to nearly every state in the USA (lower 48), traveled by train, bus, airplane and car, studied foreign languages, and invested literally hours of time and thousands of dollars in a future with little future. That is, I will yet have to invest more money in moving to Africa, and getting set up for work. The start up cost for this business is phenomenal. Well, that is how it is in all business. It takes a lot to get where you want to be. What makes missionary work such a bad investment is that it promises continuing financial failure. Rather than actually showing a profit from the time and money invested, the missionary continues to lose money by helping with healthcare and literacy programs, and paying for all sorts of things that the recipients will never be able to pay back. You may be asking yourself, "Arnie, if you cannot take it, why don't you just quit?" Well, you are right, I cannot take it alone, but I can do all things through Christ. Or worse, "Why don't you just dig a hole and pour your money into that? At least you can dig it up later, if you remember where you put it." Here is my answer.

That is where I have led you astray. I am not in this "business" for the business. I am doing this because all of this investment is worth the lives and future of a church that would not otherwise exist. I heard it once said that ministry is like this: "the pay stinks, but the benefits are out of this world." As cheesy as that may sound, I really agree. I am willing to risk the "wasting" of all that capital for the sake of the gospel. Rather than economic entrepreneurship or social entrepreneurship, I believe in spiritual entrepreneurship. It is like Paul said in Second Corinthians about motivation. He did not say that it was about the motivation of returns, but that "the love of Christ constrains us."

I do not know the details of my future. I do know this. I am so happy for having come this far, and I will keep trusting God to lead me into the future, and to keep me content no matter what the future holds. Right now, I am studying Portuguese for future use in Africa. I have found another hill to climb, which we call the subjunctive mood. But it is worth it. The gospel needs to be shared around the world, and I want to have an integral part in that.

Please pray for my Portuguese studies. Please pray for the continued work in Mozambique.

Misplaced Priorities

2006-03-02T08:59:00.000-07:00

What is the job of the US federal government? The president says that his main job is to keep the American people safe. If I remember correctly, the oath of office swears to support, defend and protect the Constitution. As I hear more hoopla about the president's response to Katrina, I become more and more tired of hearing it. On the other hand, I cannot "disengage" because there is a fundamental principle at stake.

The first five words of the first amendment to the Constitution are as much of a preamble as the preamble itself--"Congress shall make no law... ." The key is that the Constitution has always been about protecting the American people from its government. A protectorate government assumes powers over the people that it should not have, and that seems to be the entire framework of the discussion. Both sides of the isle have accepted the idea that the federal government should have power to override local authority at its choosing. It is a fundamentally collectivist idea that has serious ramifications. That was the whole issue in the debate. We could argue that George Bush has been inconsistent in his application of the law, but in the case of Katrina, he was held back by its restrictions. Do we now take off those restrictions or ignore them? The mayor or the governor had the jurisdiction in this case all along, and the federal government was their servant. They failed to use it properly.

Furthermore, the framework is increasingly troubling as we deal with this issue in the context of the War on Terror. What rights are held by the federal government to micromanage society from a set of bureaus on the Eastern Seabord? I, for one, am appalled by the expansion of federal power on this issue. It is true that the nation was attacked and thousands died. It may well be fair to invade states that sponsor terrorism. What is abhorrent is that the entire program of policing by the federal government is invasive by a branch of government removed from the public by distance and independence from an elective accountability. Being at war is one thing. Being at war with an enemy that is independent of any state is another. What really troubles me about the Katrina situation is that the war begins against a completely indefinable enemy. Is the president to declare war on nature, weather, hurricanes, God? In the end, whether by intention or accident, the war will be on the people and on individual liberty. This is the problem with power. Power corrupts, despite the best of intentions, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I would rather see people spend their energy planning and developing technology and ideas that benefit me as a person or even better the individual lives of the poor and the suffering than plan massive infrastructures. The ultimate lesson that I think we all should take from Katrina is not that the government should do more. It has been doing more for hundreds of years down there with all of the intelligence collective engineers can muster, and the ultimatly the levees broke and the town flooded. The government built it, and it broke. The ultimate lesson should be that the government should do less. When we give the government power to do good, it can turn right around (and will eventually) and use that power to do evil.

History and Satan and God

2006-03-01T05:26:00.000-07:00

We know from an extensive study of Scripture that Satan existed before he tempted Eve, and that he planned that temptation, and that his intention was to overthrow the rule of God. He has acted that way as history has progressed. Paul, for example speaks of two "mysteries:" one is the mystery of God's will acted out and revealed through history toward the ultimate conquering of evil and salvation of creation from it, the other is the mystery of iniquity or Satan's will toward the ultimate conquering of good and the destruction of creation (which speaks of the creator). This seems to indicate that there are competing eschatalogical plans for the universe, one is God's and the other is Satan's. The events in the Garden of Eden are the same. We know from certain passages of Scripture that "that Serpent of Old" is the Devil. We know that it was part of his plan to destroy creation.

I have a couple of important observations to make at this point.
One consists of the nature of good and evil. In God's record of history, we find definite boundaries of morality. Good, being a foundational characteristic of God's nature ("And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good") existed, or better said has always been, eternally as a part of God's character. Evil, as a function of God's permission and not of His character, has only existed within the confines of history. Furthermore, it has a definite beginning and end (an entirely different work for another time, but eternal dualism is not biblical). Therefore, whenever Satan began this plan and its execution, it was within history, for he is a finite creature operating under the permissive will of God.
The second observation is in regard to the biblical text. Why did Moses not tell us all of this? It is almost mysterious how he describes this serpent and its conversation and the whole event with little to no explanation of exactly what is taking place. One reason clearly is that he cannot tell all at once. I believe the second is because the focus of the event and its purpose is to launch themes more central to God's plan. How long do we have to read in the Bible until we find such and explanation? We find little until Job, and there the evidence is scant. More is clarified in the prophets, but we really do not get the whole picture until we see the last books of the New Testament writing about last things. Clearly, the events surrounding the fall of man have heavy relevance to demonology, but the focus of Moses is on once again introducing at a fundamental level the nature of the books of the Bible. For this, he does not articulate deeply. I now feel a little guilty, for I have begun to articulate deeply, and I see that is not Moses intention. He is introducing. The explanation comes later. We should be careful about ordering our teaching the same way.
I am a firm believer in the chronological teaching method. By this I mean that we should order teaching programs and even evangelism around the structure of Scripture. I believe therefore that the tensions created by leaving some of the obvious questions until later (who was the Serpent) will serve to follow the logic of the Scriptures more closely. Having already violated this principle, I stand in judgment. As we shall see later, the Christ is a central message of this story, but He is never mentioned by name, nor is His ministry described in any detail. This tension should also be left to be resolved.
As a reader of classic literature and a fan of Charles Dickens, I cringe every time a new movie comes out from one of the classic books, because they skip around too much. A reader of Great Expectations never knows who the benefactor is until the end. It is a great read, I do not want to spoil it for you. It is also an illustration of my point. I could tell you the end or the alternative endings and explain how it all fits together right now, but the impact of the story only comes from sensing the tensions and questions and events and characters of the story. The same is true of the Bible. It is not a dry series of proof texts, but a living story of history that resolves beautifully in the end. However, the impact of its teaching comes from teaching it progressively in context from beginning to end. Stop asking "What does God have to say about...?" and start asking "What does God have to say?"

Cultural Experiences

2006-02-27T10:20:00.000-07:00

This weekend was a very long one and a very tiring one. I played soccer with some Portuguese friends Friday night and became tired. Saturday morning, being my only good time to do homework came early. Saturday afternoon, I went to a birthday party for a Portuguese friend. At this party we had a local specialty called leitao (I cannot include accents here for some reason). Leitao is a young pig roasted in a similar way that large pigs are roasted. I brought some pictures, but my camera card is not working right now. Maybe I can post them tomorrow. I also was able to sample some local soups, one like grass chowder and the other liver and potatoes. They were not what I was accustomed to eating, but they were not bad. I also got to sample some local cheeses, sausages, and breads. It was great. It was also great to be surrounded by Portuguese speech, and understand most of it, except when we went to the coffee shop. On Sunday, I had church meetings followed by a group of the young people who went to a coffee shop to drink coffee and watch the big game of the week. This was interesting as well, although a bit challenging after a weekend of heavy immersion.

This week is the Festa do Carnival. In Portugal it is said to be quite different from that of Brazil. One of the main differences is that the festa really only lasts one day. The other is, thankfully, that with the much cooler weather and more conservative modesty the people are less offensive at this time of year. To explain the party, one teacher said today "Adeus carne," meaning "Goodbye flesh." That about hits it. The idea is that since consecration happens during the period of Lent, they have to get the sins out of their system by committing them. Why is it that, not just in Catholic but in all religions, days designed to celebrate the holy are preceded and superseded by days that celebrate the unholy?

Please pray for continued progress in the language. It is coming, but I always want to learn more.
Please pray for the church in Portugal. One percent are professing protestant, which includes a wide variety.
Please pray for the Mozambique team. They have full work schedules. Praise the Lord that the earthquake in Maputo was not as disastrous as it could have been (7.5, but not a lot of structural damage). And praise the Lord that it was no where near the team of missionaries who work in the north.

Selling Our Souls

2006-02-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

I learned recently a saying in Portuguese that says "um pau de dois bicos." This means a stick with two beaks or a forked stick. They like to use it to refer to things that require a downside to receive a benefit. That is my sentiment exactly on several trends that are happening right now. I love the fact that I can write this stuff on the internet, and easily share with friends around the world through the internet. I love how travel is getting easier (as long as one does not wear a turban, a burka, or look like a little old granny,sorry for the last bit of sarcasm). However, these things are coming at a significant cost. Since more and more of life is electronic, more and more of life is being recorded and sold to all kinds of people from advertising agencies to government agencies. With more global freedom comes less local control. South America is moving, like Europe toward a unified block. The fight is over external relations (mostly with the USA). Just like the tenth amendment has been basically nullified in the US constitution, this unification "just on economic means" always results in much more.

Add to that the trend of China, still playing games diplomatically here in Europe, and you get a muddled world of commerce. One good example is this. Portugal is trying to privatize many of their traditionally government owned sectors of the economy. They are debating waterworks, but they have already moved forward on healthcare, transportations, banking, and telecommunications. This last one has been the classic example of what can go wrong in globalization. As the government sought to privatize, a company owned by the Spanish government tried to buy out the company. At this point I ask which is worse, commerce owned by a local government or by a private government. Add to that that the Chinese government has begun to expand its holdings in corporations around the world, and that several of the Middle Eastern royal companies (that means government by kings, who own the companies) are doing the same, and we have a situation. Needless to say, I am skeptical of the whole port fiasco on the part of Bush.

But what do we see in the end? Commercial interests (from both private and public coffers) playing games with globalizing and trying to wield power across borders. That is where the real evil comes in. They want to build an environment in which they can control how we the people interact with them and with each other. Inherent in the "war on terror" is a cold war of competing global economic interests that seek to subvert one cause and advance another on an economic basis. I hate to sound like one of those evil premillennial dispensationalists (tongue in cheek) but is there not something in the Bible about commercial interests driving an increasing global economy, which results in a global government? I am not saying that this is it. I am just saying that the trends sure are in an affirmative direction. In the end, I am afraid that the rush for globalization is going to bring more harm than good, and that we may well lose more than we gain by pushing for that ideal.

History and Theology

2006-02-22T09:52:00.000-07:00

After God rested, we find a new event in history. We already saw the aspect of time, in that it consists of both relationships between objects in space and progression through history. Furthermore, the history of the Bible is not just there to provide illustrations and stories. Nearly all if not all written material exists to teach the reader ideas, facts, opinions, and understanding of the world. Biblical history has this purpose with a central focus. In other words, God is revealing His plan as it was being unfolded through history.

The next series of events in biblical history are every bit as important to Christian theology as creation. They introduce the fundamental problems of the world we see every day. In Genesis three we see the introduction of a person whose plan is to counteract God's work, we see the beginning of sin, we see the consequences of that sin, and we see the promise of God for the future.

Over the next few weeks, I want to examine these things.

I heard a joke once that went something like this. One can always see a preacher's convention a long way off because of the horrendous mess made by all of the hobby horses on which they rode to the convention. This passage of Scripture is one of those passages, which we like to carry with us when we ride our hobby horses. That is because one of the most important problems in all of the world and in all systems of thought is the relationship between good and evil, or the relationship between a righteous God (who created a pure world) and a sinful creature (and how something created pure can become impure).

My views on this subject will become more evident as we go, but I want to point out something else from the saddlebags on my hobby horse. Here we are studying theology through history. I have looked at some sources outside the predominant text, but the main thrust has been from the text. People tend to study the Bible by jumping from topic to topic and passage to passage. They try to understand a concept by dropping a dump truck full of verses or verse fragments on the table for discussion. What I want to demonstrate is that while using Scripture to interpret Scripture is important, we need to value the structure of Scripture by letting the first things come first, followed by seconds and thirds. In other words, I do not need to preach Genesis to maps every time I open my Bible. By stopping and understanding the arguments or points in Moses' account, we found plenty of theology, cosmology, anthropology, and more. As we get into Genesis three, we find loads of hamartiology, soteriology, and eschatology, among others. I am saying that I believe in teaching through the Scriptures as much as I believe in teaching the Scriptures. Christian theology was first revealed through history, and we do best to study it that way.

A Day Late and a Euro Short

2006-02-21T03:09:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was a bit hectic, and I apologize for being a bit late on this news. I had a lot of composition assignments to write, plus some special meetings with some folks from church. In addition, a family headed to Senegal with NTM stopped to visit all of us students on Sunday, so that was definitely a full day. It was good to hear how God is working in their lives and fellowship a little.

It was a very good weekend, though a very wet one. The sun is now shining, but everything is still drenched. I had clothes that were soaked (umbrellas did not even function in this weather), and they would not dry. I wanted to wash them, since city rain is usually pretty dirty, but it would have done no good, since they would have only hung out in more rain any way. It is an answer to prayer, though. Last year was very dry here, and the traditional rainy season (now) never brought rain. The farmers are very happy now, and the rivers are getting back toward the usual levels.

Although I am committed to Africa, I want to challenge others to other needs, and Portugal is one of them. This last weekend was a celebration of a national saint as her body was placed in a final memorial to her main source of fame, her vision of Mary. Thousands of people stood out in the pouring rain to honor her and that apparition of Mary. To the left is a picture of that cathedral, though without all the people. The people at the Sunday evening service were very emotional as they saw the devotion of so many of their own people committed to a false system of worship. That is how it is here in Portugal. People are either seeking that type of metaphysical experience or they are functional atheists as a whole. Some small groups of true believers exist, but they do not have a strong voice because the overwhelming majority in Portugal is contrary. Please pray for all who preach the gospel in an increasingly hostile world.

What Can I Say?

2006-02-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

I seem to be full of words this week. Maybe because I am being a little bombarded by some other things. I am a fan of literature, and a student of thought. I know that the major themes in writing and the arts are common across the board. Therefore I am not surprised that all of the Portuguese stories I get in class are right in line with the messages of Dickens and Hugo. However, I am a little sick of hearing about class warfare and relative morality. Maybe that is why I have read more non-fiction in the last few years. I am being reacquainted with that now, as I study excerpts from Portuguese literature in class. I am also well sure that my theory that western and eastern philosophy have the same origin. At any rate, eastern philosophy is very popular now in all institutions of higher learning. Beyond this, I am bombarded this week with stories in the news that are beyond belief.

Secret China Nukes

Abortion Issue

Aftermath of a Shooting

Sadaam: Al Qaida Insider

This Movie Is Huge In Europe

Bad Pictures of Poor Behavior

Haiti: How Long Will It Last?

Venezuela a Gathering Threat

If You Are Brave, Bird Flu in Portuguese

Gay Marriage in Portugal (in Portuguese)

Every man a believer.

2006-02-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

I am about to make a fool of myself by describing theories I have not fully studied, but I cannot move on to the next area without one more discourse over the manner of Moses' argument and its relevance to apologetics.

String Theory is a very controversial area of physics. Einstein is the most famous person who articulated it, but it is very popular now. Einstein formulated String Theory in his quest at the end of his life for a “theory of everything,” or his quest to understand the fundamental nature of the universe. String Theory is also based in Einstein's Theory of Relativity. I do not want to give a huge lesson on it, but it is relevant to the current arguments over intelligent design and other ideas. At the expense of over-simplification, here is a summary. In physics, three main dimensions are known: length, breadth, and depth. Beyond this is the fourth, which is time. String theory in essence claims that there is a fifth dimension, if you will, that of energy, and made up of strings. These strings are ordered, so the reasoning goes, only according to a sixth dimension: information. My deepest apologies to the physicists out there, because I know that I really have not been fair to the subject, but I just want to point out that this theory is one large influence on the scientific world. It cannot be proved by experiments, and for this many scientists discount it as well.

String Theory really is unable to deal with one big problem, it is unprovable, and it falls short of its original goal: to explain everything. It really cannot explain this: if there was a big bang, from what did it originate? To remedy this, some modern string theorists added membranes. Membranes are practically infinite parallel universes, which can collide, causing the big bang. This theory really is on the fringe of acceptability on any convention, but it is an attempt to answer the fundamental question by adding an almost transcendent dimension to the material universe itself.

Why discuss this? It really seems quite silly. Furthermore, it really can serve to confuse. I just want to point out that these theoretical physicists are attempting to answer ultimate questions to which Christians have responded “God Created” for centuries. They really tend to look down their noses at guys like me for saying that. The fact of the matter is that theoretical physics has been a driving force of all science for a very long time. Physicists will know more names, but we have seen major innovations only rarely with men like Einstein and Newton. Now, the foremost name might well be Stephen Hawking, but I just have not studied the field well enough to know. These men still direct most of the science. The fact is that theoretical science has always directed the future study of experimental science. This presents a fundamental problem of logic. Is science to be based on theoretical reasoning or on pure experimentation? Now we have found the key question. Do we know things to be true by pure experience or by how we order our experience? In the end, they all conclude that reason proves experience and experience proves reason.

OOPS! That is a vicious circle, a destructive circle. It is compounded by the problem that if they say reason proves reason or experience proves experience, then they are still just reasoning in a circle. Beyond that, by taking a side, they are unable to explain how someone from the other side knows anything. Rather than prove any thing, they have now proved that they can really prove nothing. I like what one man wrote, “The accountant can give an account, but he cannot account for the account given.” In other words, these scientists have some very elaborate theories, which they cannot prove. These scientists also have some experimental data, which they cannot prove.

What can be proved? Here is where I begin to tie all of this meandering high brow stuff together. Moses was arguing that he was presenting the one, true God, as I mentioned in the last lesson. These theories are no less than attempts at the same thing. They are attempts to set forth a transcendent origin for all phenomena. Hmm, sounds like a god. In the end, these men, who are running as fast as they can to get away from faith are carrying it in their back pockets. In other words, instead of chasing their tail, their tail is chasing them. Sorry for the silly analogy, but it is true.

The evidence of God's having created is so clear that Moses and none of the other biblical writers attempted to prove it scientifically. David even went so far as to say that the declaration by the heavens of God's glory is clearly being heard regardless of language by all men (Psalm 19). Paul argued that this message gets through so effectively that it takes a constant and conscious effort to ignore it (Romans 1: 18-21). He later argued in Romans as well as many other books that this constant effort is destructive morally, intellectually, and ultimately spiritually. We as Christians, need to be careful not to compromise our faith by trying to prove its truth on the basis of other faiths, or by entering the philosophical framework of unbelieving men.

Cartoons Continue to Rock the World

2006-02-14T06:34:00.000-07:00

The recent outrage over the political cartoons in Europe has been a mixed bag of strange and unusual alliances. It was just another symbol of the present tension between the Islamic world and the western world. Four unique observations follow with some clear conclusions of the right response.

1. The cartoons were in poor taste.
The images of Islam were clearly in poor taste for several reasons. They were in poor taste because of insensitive mockery.They were intended to mock terrorists and the general Islamic world from the start. The problem is that the insensitive mockery hurts too many people unnecessarily. There are better ways to get one's message across. They were in poor taste because of the ideas of Muslims regarding pictures. Examples of traditions of Islam with pictures have been found in history, but the clear opposition to any form of idolatry has resulted in the overwhelming idea that pictures of sacred people are off limits. It is insensitive and ignorant to think that in addition to that, a mocking picture will reach Muslims. I think it is clear from this that the newspapers always intended a level of offense. The level of condescension in rhetoric has been in poor taste. The journalists from around the world who have supported the newspapers have ridiculed the Muslim world as backward and incompetent for decades anyway. It is with no surprise that they continue to insult and lambaste Muslims with quite partisan rhetoric.

2. The response of the Islamic world has been in poor taste.
The response of the Islamic world has been in very poor taste. It has been marked by making the problem worse. The response was in poor taste because violent mobs are always in poor taste. The mob is fickle, and unpredictable. People get together and work themselves into a frenzy and do very foolish things. There was no reason for gunmen to surround embassies or for rocks to be thrown or fires started. This type of behavior is unacceptable in any society. Second, The response was in poor taste because linking one newspaper with all western people is in poor taste. Why should one man from Denmark be marked when he had nothing to do with the publication of another man from Denmark? That is just a racist and hateful way to view people. Finally, the idea that the press should not be free is in poor taste. If these people would just take a step back and hear what they are saying, it would be much clearer. They are saying that all of a people, economy, culture, and society should suffer until the government steps in and does something about insensitive people. That is just a tacky, at best, overreaction to a tacky cartoon.

3. A unique paradox
Strange companions. This world is now officially filled with them. President Bush condemns the articles, appearing to side with the Iranian government. His wife sides with the press, something she would never do. More than this, some very strange things have come out of Europe and the Middle East. More hatred of the West has been spawned by these articles than the war in Iraq. While French papers critique Bush for enraging the Arab street, they keep fomenting more anger by ridiculing Muslims. Furthermore, there is more xenophobia in Europe than they would have you believe. The violence in France back in December coupled with a discussion of its causes has revealed that there is little to no respect for legal, let alone illegal, immigration. Add that to an institutionalized secularism, and any religion finds itself in disregard, but especially Islam.

4. The arguments on both sides have been deeply troubling.
This entire debate has been characterized by ideological frameworks that are troubling. How can I say that a newspaper has made a moral error, without compromising my own right to freedom of speech? How can I critique protesters without doing the same? However, some arguments on both sides have been particularly troubling.
On the Islamic side, any attempt to claim moral integrity for violent protest is bad enough, but here are some really bad examples overheard last week. First, the desire is for the state to stop tasteless journalism. Where does that restriction end? The same power could be used to ban theism, atheism, and any other "ism," by citing exclusive language. Second, I actually heard people saying that people should be considerate of Muslims, because of the danger of terrorist responses. This argument is only coercive, and it bears no logical persuasive power. Third, there is the fallacy of linking of all westerners with secularists, or with hateful secularists. Secularism, like all religious systems has its crazy people. But the fact is that in the western world, there are many people. Some are Christian, others Jewish, Buddhist, secular, and a multitude hold to yet other ideas. But the fact is that we should judge each person individually and not hastily group them all together and sentence them to our wrath. Finally, there seems to be the idea on the Muslim side that they have a right to protest, but that the other side does not. This is clearly a double standard that wishes to silence by regulation all opposing viewpoints.
On the newspaper side, I have no more need to explain of what poor taste consisted their decision to publish the caricatures, but they have their own share of poor, defensive arguments. First, and very troubling is the advancement of the secular society as an ideal. These people argue that a "nonreligion," if that exists, should have authority over all other religions. This only results in a gathering hostility against religious communities and an eventual restriction of religions. Secondly, many have stated concerns over "self censorship." To be fair, I still do not know what that is; but if I understand it correctly, it is the moral imperative to always publicize even the most anti-aesthetic of ideas, whether or not they are well reasoned. I would rather hear one word of reason than a thousand obscenities from a tongue that feels rather than thinks. At any rate and thirdly, the enduring mockery with continued publishing and the argument that the Muslims are just intolerant fools, is just ignorant and intolerant itself. Do not forget that the great sciences, philosophy, arts, and academic schools were kept alive through the Middle Ages by the Byzantine (Muslim) Empire. These people are not idiots as a whole, and nothing is accomplished by such predications. The fourth foolish idea is the linking of all religion with terrorists. This is a foolish generalization because it is just not true. Compelling are the arguments that all men are faith oriented, and yet the overwhelming majority do not become terrorists. It is just this that the shrillest voices and the most violent are always the most easily heard. We just do not hear the people who quietly do their own business and live peacefully because they are not shouting in our faces. Finally, it is an equally double standard to claim a right to publish, but deny others a right to speak to the contrary, which has been set forth by some.

Conclusions:
1. Protect freedom of the press, even if it means allowing idiocy. I don't incarcerate my dog for chasing his tail, no matter how stupid he looks. I fear giving the state power to restrict the speech of others, because they will turn and use that same power to restrict my speech in turn.
2. Only provoke hostility if you are ready to face that hostility. Only jerks beat their dogs and keep them in cages to prevent response. Talk of dialogue is only useful if dialogue actually happens.
3. Society cannot answer these problems through government action. Men, like dogs, can only stand so much regulation. We are ignorant to think that government can keep us safe from offence from whatever source.

I Am Not Shooting Myself Or My Cabinet Members

2006-02-13T10:44:00.000-07:00

Oh, the weather! While New York City was under dumptrucks of snow, people here in Portugal went to the beaches this weekend because of the beautiful sunshine. I personally enjoyed a little basketball in a park. My friends didn't show, because they slept in too late, but I enjoyed God's creation just the same. I was up, had gone to church services, and had lunch, but oh, well.

Beside these colleagues, I really am grateful to God for giving me good Portuguese friends. I need them for practice in the language, but they are much more than this. They are a good opportunity to fellowship and study God's Word.

I still have no news on the grade of my exam, but as classes start, I received some good grades on some compositions that were handed in at the end of the last semester. The grading is a little different for this course. For example, we started the second semester with the exact same classes and courses as before, just some new students and some new verb tenses. However, the "final exam," by the account of the teachers, was for the purpose of informing them as to the focus of the second semester courses. The grade percentage will not be counted into the final grade, but the grade is necessary to complete the course. I am translating here, and some information is lost, but that is it more or less. At any rate, I am not as nervous about this exam, since my objective is not to get a piece of paper to hang on my wall, but to be able to speak fluently in any situation in a Portuguese speaking country. That is moving along. One man at the church services Sunday night reminded me of my first day here and how I could not really even say "Hi, my name is Arnie" without making errors, and now, we can talk and understand each other much better. Praise the Lord.

Here are some prayer requests from the Mozambique Field:
Please pray for the Rodgers family as they prepare to move to Mozambique soon.
Please pray for the Germann family as they travel to Portugal this week to share in our study.
Please pray for the tribal teams as they are studying tribal languages.
Please pray for those of us here studying Portuguese that we would have good understanding and desire to learn the language.

What Is the Big Deal

2006-02-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up (I'm still young, but not growing) (not growing "up," anyway), I heard about the 1960's, and all the evils that they brought to the modern American society: increased divorce, sexual impurity, drugs, abortion, rock and roll, escalation in crime, publicly staged violence, and hatred of all things good. I figured that must have been a bad time. I was not there to experience it, but it does seem to have been rather rough. It has been most often tied by Christians to the federal courts rulings of note with respect to abortion and prayer in schools. It was clear that there was a culture war under way. People were attacking the institutions of Christianity: morality, Christian values, and the place of Christians in society. Today, it seems that the pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction, with the rise of the values vote and the Christian right.

However, the real tragedy is that the battle may be swinging in one way or another, but the major ideas have already been won. Christianity has made some much more crucial mistakes that led up to that time (1960's), and that will continue to cause problems.

I read a blog last week in which the writer said that the Scopes Monkey trial settled the issue of creation for him for all time. Needless to say, he has a blog about how evil Creationism is. He is still being deluded by the mistakes made back then. The mistakes in this case were multiple: the lawyer failed to submit a sound defense, but spent most of his time trying to emote the jury; the case for evolution was so fraudulent, but so left alone; the actual issues at stake were never given enough time; and finally, when are we to give a judge so much authority as to render a verdict on the truthfulness of Christianity and hope that we get the right lawyer? The battle actually began before that, when Christians decided to let the state run their educational system, placing the government in the position to pass judgment on Christianity at a later date.

The battle was even more problematic than that. The Christian world had lost its proper view of the Bible and deep respect for it. After Luther's sola fide, sola scriptura, it took not very long for things to return to a mixed up message, and that is why there was so much theological turmoil, confusion, even chaos in the 18th and 19th centuries.

I hate to beat a dead horse, but the fact of the matter is that Christians lost their relevancy because they lost their message. They lost their message because they lost their paramount view of Scripture. I bring this up because I really do not want to leave Genesis chapter one behind without realizing its utmost importance. We often do not see the problems generations down the road resulting from a loss of respect for the Genesis record.

Moses was not just writing the history down as God had revealed it. Moses was arguing for something very important. He was arguing for a radical theological position, and he was using history to do it. God Almighty is above all other things. He made them all by His power. He made them as He wanted them to be. He did not create out of a battle or mistake (as some pagan traditions claim). It is common for men to seek common points with one another, and the world of Christian apologetics is littered with people seeking to do this. However, Moses argument is clear, that there is one God above all, and He is perfect, all powerful, and righteous, and that this the One, true God was being revealed different from all other conceptions of deity. He was not seeking common ground on this one at all. When we take a lackadaisical approach to this point of the beginning of history, we lose the power of this argument by Moses. When Moses' argument loses its power, all of the rest of Scripture falls under the loss of the foundational principles set by Moses. Solomon summed it up: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (Proverbs 1:7 italics mine).

Personal and Prayer

2006-02-07T07:10:00.000-07:00

I had a great day Sunday. I was able to play basketball at a nearby park with some of my classmates and some other people who were at the park as well. We had two from China, two from Macao, three from Portugal, one from France, one from Northern Ireland, and one from the USA. It was a real international event. We all decided to make it a regularly scheduled event. I really enjoyed it because it was my first real chance to play in a long time and my first really good exercise since I arrived in Portugal. It was also important for another reason. In order for me to be involved in missionary work, I have to have a missionary visa. In order to study Portuguese at the university, I have to have a student visa. These two do not mix easily. My main purpose for being here is to study Portuguese. However, all of these people have been placed here with me, and I want to be able to have a positive impact on their lives. This is one opportunity, and I want it to be used for God's glory. Please pray for me to have a good testimony.

This is probably just a little off topic, but the Ivory Coast soccer team has successfully advanced to the next round in the African Cup of nations. The semi-finals are today. Their civil war goes on hold during each game. Liberia has begun to receive special training and help in the wake of their successful elections. Liberia was a mess for years, tough for missionaries (like my parents) to even enter at times. This looks like good news.

My exams have come and gone, but I will not know the results until after the next semester begins. Please pray that I God would increase my ability in and dedication to Portuguese study.

I think I am dealing with my annual cold right now. It is not bad. I did not have it until classes were over, and it is almost gone now. Praise the Lord for the perfect timing and overall good health.

More on Creation and Science

2006-02-01T05:55:00.000-07:00

I want to say a few words about the nature of God's creation. We will notice briefly how God organizes His creation, and how God made His creation.

First, let us consider how God organizes His creation. I really think that this organization is communicated in the history of the first week of creation. We notice the creation of certain classes of things separated by borders of the days and by God's own terminology.

On the first day, we see created "the heavens and the earth" as well as the light. This, I believe to be the area in science classified as physics. If you will, God created matter, space to contain the matter, and light/energy to govern the relationships between material phenomena within space. One clear result also came of this creation: time. Time was created in the purely physical sense of the relationship between objects in space. Time was also created in the sense of the forward movement of history according to God's direction.

On the second day, we see formed the "heavens," or the earth's atmosphere. This is still a bit on the level of physics, but we see the emergence of meteorology. It is a bit confusing to me why God did so much on each of the other days, but on this day, He created nothing new, but separated (classified?) parts of the existing creation. It is my personal opinion, based on the plural use of "heavens" and the limited mention of new things that God created also the Heaven we as Christians hold as our future home, along with the angels, but there are problems with this view, namely limited to no Scriptural evidence.

On the third day, we see God classifying earth sciences between dry land and the seas. Another addition is the creation of plant life. Plant life was a new classification and a new phenomenon. Here we see also introduced a very important decree from God. All plants were to reproduce after their kind. This is a clear opposition to the classic biological idea that plants have radically changed over time, but God is helping us study His creation by allowing us the security of knowing that apple trees will produce apples, and not oranges or coconuts in chaos.

On the fourth day, we see God classifying, or organizing, astronomy. It is interesting to me that the plants were able to survive only on God's light, before He classified it into the various lights across "expanse of the heavens." Nonetheless, we see that rather than be chaotic (big bang) God placed (where He wanted) the sun, moon, stars, asteroids, galaxies, etc.

On the fifth day, God created the fish and the birds. Here, I find once again two separate classes of study. If you did not notice, I think God is more detailed in His classification than we are with our plant kingdom and animal kingdom. Up to now, we have the plant kingdom, the fish kingdom, and the bird kingdom. God issued another decree by telling these classes to reproduce, fill the earth "after their kind" (another comfort of consistency).

On the sixth day, God created the animals and man. These are two more kingdoms of living things that God classified. He brings the same decree to these two classes that He brought to the first ones: "after their kind." More can be said on this, but the fact is that God set the classes and declared their borders to be uncrossable.

I should mention the special attention made to God's creation of man. All of God's creation declares His glory. It shows us things about Him. However, God's creation of man was special. No other part of creation is described in such detail. It is mentioned as a special creation in God's image and likeness. Man was not just to declare God's glory but to wear it. I know, that is a little sloppy, but it rhymes. This makes man the center of God's purpose in creation. We see that man was to rule creation. It is also for man's pleasure and God's future plans for man that God created the rest of creation.

We even find a discussion within the Godhead taking place. I would remind you of the discussion of elohim vs. YHWH. Here, we find a subject object distinction and a united pronoun ("us" in English). This is distinct from some people's pagan idea of a conference of deities, discussing options, voting, and creating. There are no options mentioned, no discussion, just the affirmation of the nature of man in God's eternal purpose. Thus we see incredible unity in the Godhead with limited diversity. Let me clarify that. The doctrine of the trinity is illustrated in this event because we see different persons united in one Godhead on the creation of man.

On day seven, we see God resting. In my opinion, God was not just illustrating His satisfaction with His creation. He was also illustrating a consistent style of acting for a purpose through history, and stopping that action when its purpose has been fulfilled. That is a strange way of saying that God ended the first "dispensation."

One final observation, and then I am done. We see God use language throughout this entire story. Language was used to communicate with the creation. God used language before man existed. He used language independent of creation (when He said "Let us make man..."). Language is very important to God. We must be very careful to judge exactly how God uses language and what that means for us. For example, did light come because God said the words "Let there be light"? No, God created the light (as my Hebrews teacher so eloquently said) "not by the power of His word, but by the word of His power." Thus, we see that the power of God's language is not in the language itself, but in God Himself. The power of our language is not magical or mystical. It rests in the truthfulness of the statement and its correct relationship to God's revolution.

So, I am saying that every level of science is affected by theology, and specifically the theology of this important event--the creation of the universe.