tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post7805021542626691733..comments2024-03-28T09:59:13.754-07:00Comments on bionic mosquito: Revisiting the Parts We Don’t Likebionic mosquitohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12002548958078731031noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-7918598955881650612020-05-28T06:11:41.596-07:002020-05-28T06:11:41.596-07:00Isaiah 43
8 Lead out those who have eyes but are b...Isaiah 43<br />8 Lead out those who have eyes but are blind,<br /> who have ears but are deaf.<br />9 All the nations gather together<br /> and the peoples assemble.<br />Which of their gods foretold this<br /> and proclaimed to us the former things?<br />Let them bring in their witnesses to prove they were right,<br /> so that others may hear and say, “It is true.”<br />10 “You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord,<br /> “and my servant whom I have chosen,<br />so that you may know and believe me<br /> and understand that I am he.<br />Before me no god was formed,<br /> nor will there be one after me.<br />11 I, even I, am the Lord,<br /> and apart from me there is no savior.<br />12 I have revealed and saved and proclaimed—<br /> I, and not some foreign god among you.<br />You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “that I am God.<br />13 Yes, and from ancient days I am he.<br />No one can deliver out of my hand.<br /> When I act, who can reverse it?”<br /><br /><br />John 8<br />56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” 57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”[b] 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.<br /><br /><br />Acts 4<br />8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, 9 if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, 10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. 11 This Jesus[a] is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.[b] 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men[c] by which we must be saved.”<br /><br /><br />Philippians 2<br />5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,[b] 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[c] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.<br />JaimeInTexashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08729407700850451849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-17251430003294034462020-05-27T18:14:26.878-07:002020-05-27T18:14:26.878-07:00@ BM- The Lord God is love...merciful...forgiving....@ BM- The Lord God is love...merciful...forgiving...but He has His limitations. The Hebrew numbers are small, as He guides them to the Promised Land they would encounter many adversaries. Without the Lord God decimating their enemies they would never had made it. His final instruction to the Children of Israel is to slay any one they encounter on there final journey to the Promised Land...or they will be problematic for them in the future...a command they failed to execute.Skinwalkernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-10789751583678459322020-05-27T12:02:32.799-07:002020-05-27T12:02:32.799-07:00"I think half the problem in finding unity wi..."I think half the problem in finding unity with other people is our own refusal to believe the other person's doctrine even for the purpose of coming to a better understanding of their viewpoint."<br /><br />Yes. When we do this properly with people of similar worldviews, we often find that our disagreements - if any remain - are relatively minor.bionic mosquitohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12002548958078731031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-55177074165457317572020-05-27T10:42:53.992-07:002020-05-27T10:42:53.992-07:00" If this is so, it seems reasonable that it ..." If this is so, it seems reasonable that it is my shortcomings that must be overcome."<br /><br />Agree completely, without commenting on your shortcomings as I don't know what they are. For me, there are things that just don't make sense until I make myself accept them as written.<br /><br />There's a great Latin saying attributed to Anselm of Canterbury that explains this belief before understanding idea.<br /><br />credo ut intelligam<br /><br />I believe, that I may understand. <br /><br />I don't know Latin well enough to know if this is a subjunctive construction or not but it does describe how I have come to understand certain things which once didn't make sense.<br /><br />Matthew 24 for instance. Jesus says "this generation will not pass before all these things take place."<br /><br />Now his "coming on the clouds" is included in that "all things."<br /><br />So I could argue with it and say "Well, Jesus never came on the clouds so he can't really mean 'all' here."<br /><br />Or, I could accept what he said as complete truth and then I have to deduce that his "coming on the clouds" was not an indication of a return in person but in judgement and power. Then it makes complete sense. He was talking about the destruction of Jerusalem, not the last day of judgement.<br /><br />There are lots of other places in the bible like this. And I wouldn't necessarily say that it is a leap of faith but rather a letting go of the pretext and prejudice that I already have when approaching the scriptures. Doing that allows me to accept the words as written. Sometimes I don't like doing that because my current belief - which may or may not match what the text is saying - is hard to let go of. It's a comfortable old friend and I fear that if I believe and accept the words as written, then I may end up believing the wrong thing. I mean, once you believe a thing, you can never go back to believing the previous thing you believed right?<br /><br />But that's not true either. Sometimes this belief can be just an exercise and if I treat it as if it's temporary and just for the purpose of understanding, it can result in greater understanding.<br /><br />I think half the problem in finding unity with other people is our own refusal to believe the other person's doctrine even for the purpose of coming to a better understanding of their viewpoint.<br /><br />That's the very definition of compassion though. Stepping into another person's shoes, accepting their beliefs as they've stated them and trying them on. Our first reaction is to think that doing this is going to cause harm to our identity. It doesn't have to.Demidoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15788176923089765710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-17997078625754486692020-05-27T04:52:31.017-07:002020-05-27T04:52:31.017-07:00Demidog, thank you for these replies. The clarifi...Demidog, thank you for these replies. The clarification and discussion helps.<br /><br />I agree that our understanding of the Bible is influenced by translation issues, and also by other outside factors. Can I read the story of Moses without seeing Charlton Heston?<br /><br />Yet, the disciples had three years of unfettered access, and only understood (incompletely, because no human can fully understand) after Pentecost.<br /><br />Which perhaps offers the best understanding: ultimately, we must read the Bible through faith; what we don't understand, we accept as our shortcoming, not God's.<br /><br />Is this an unreasonable action on our part; irrational? I think not. I know with certainty that the more I study the Bible, the more I come to understand it - weighing it against what I know of the world around me. If this is so, it seems reasonable that it is my shortcomings that must be overcome.<br /><br />bionic mosquitohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12002548958078731031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-24865789583515289662020-05-26T21:47:26.807-07:002020-05-26T21:47:26.807-07:00The disagreements are generally caused by people i...The disagreements are generally caused by people ignoring context. Context sometimes spans the entire bible.<br /><br />One of the greatest examples, I think, of how people get caught up in weird doctrine that really shouldn't be controversial is the one that says Isaiah 14 is about Satan. That idea came from "Paradise Lost," a work of fiction. <br /><br />The passage opens up with God telling Isaiah he's going to take a proverb to the king of Babylon and thus we see that it applies to that king, not Satan.<br /><br />The word "lucifer" there is not a proper noun and it just means morning star, it's not representative of Satan. In fact, the word lucifer isn't found in the Hebrew. Why the translators took it from the Latin is a story in and of itself.<br /><br />But even today, people will swear up and down that that passage is about Satan. <br /><br />I'm not saying that the bible is black and white. There are many things hard to understand even about the gospel. Jesus took Paul out in the wilderness and taught him for three years, the same amount of time he spent with the other apostles, roughly. And they had the Holy Spirit to guide their speech. And even then, they sometimes got it wrong. It took Peter about 3 1/2 years to finally understand the message he preached on the day of Pentecost, that the "promise" of the gospel was to both Jews and Gentiles. ("for the promise is to you and your children and those afar off").<br /><br />That term "afar off" is a euphemism for Gentiles.<br /><br />Yet, it was written down finally. I do applaud you reading the bible from beginning to end. I did so four times (and plan to do it many more times) and it was during my third pass that I finally came to believe that the gospels are eye witness accounts, not some fantasy of a group of men trying to invent a religion as some might tell you.<br /><br /> I'm not suggesting that you believe that the apostles were just trying to fashion a new religion. I just remember how many people I knew who pushed that narrative. <br /><br />Reading the whole thing helped me connect things from old to new and to see how tightly it fits together. I think it's imperative that we do that. <br /><br /><br /><br />Demidoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15788176923089765710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-73892904127809741012020-05-26T21:21:10.943-07:002020-05-26T21:21:10.943-07:00I probably should have been more clear in the way ...I probably should have been more clear in the way I put it. If the bible has been modified over the years by man, thus giving us an incomplete picture, then it is unreliable and we cannot understand it nor can we trust it. I thought I saw you write that sentiment but it may have been in a reply, I can't find it. Sorry if I misattributed that idea to you.<br /><br />Demidoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15788176923089765710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-62238992737968387792020-05-26T19:38:44.993-07:002020-05-26T19:38:44.993-07:00I agree wholeheartedly with you about ATL. His co...I agree wholeheartedly with you about ATL. His comments have been enormously valuable to me. PegAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-23601829484947877092020-05-26T12:48:39.693-07:002020-05-26T12:48:39.693-07:00"You are talking though as if the word is not..."You are talking though as if the word is not just as God intended it to be."<br /><br />I say nothing about God's intentions. I certainly am not so arrogant.<br /><br />I do say something about my understanding. And if it was so black and white, please explain the infinite disagreements in Christian understanding, even after 2000 years of trying to figure it out.bionic mosquitohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12002548958078731031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-84119550308962136362020-05-26T12:43:07.283-07:002020-05-26T12:43:07.283-07:00I neglected to add, I also miss ATL.
Over the ten...I neglected to add, I also miss ATL.<br /><br />Over the ten years of this blog, there have been many commenters who came and went. Maybe a half-dozen to a dozen were such regulars, who also offered such valuable comments, that I truly miss them. ATL is one of these. Hopefully he will stop by at least once in a while.bionic mosquitohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12002548958078731031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-76402585962472236312020-05-26T12:24:47.236-07:002020-05-26T12:24:47.236-07:00Just a quick note - your "There are close to ...Just a quick note - your "There are close to 64,000 hyperlinks. The only way to make sense of it is through the frame that it all points to Jesus – who is both God and the Son of God – and His crucifixion and resurrection. It all points to this and must be read through this." - reminded me of Paradise Restored by David Chilton. It explains three things very well:<br />1-The Bible is literature <br />2-Written in the language of the time of writing and constantly referencing previous prophetic writers.<br />3-The NARRATIVE from Genesis to Revelation is UNMISTAKABLY about Jesus.<br />While I used Gary North's Unconditional Surrender book primarily for my CAP Lessons, the connectors often came from Paradise Restored.Crush Limbrawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11511707894293049606noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-81407409297535199892020-05-26T10:05:10.440-07:002020-05-26T10:05:10.440-07:00Jesus came to suffer the punishment that we deserv...Jesus came to suffer the punishment that we deserve in our place. He didn't come to suffer death alone as that would make his sacrifice of no real import.<br /><br />We all die. He didn't substitute physical death but the punishment we would receive were we not born again in Christ.<br /><br />"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"<br /><br />God separated himself from Jesus those three hours of darkness on the cross. He suffered what we deserve, spiritual death, hell, not just physical death.<br /><br />How this relates to the violence in the old testament is not clear to me.<br /><br />You are talking though as if the word is not just as God intended it to be. God's commands that his people carry out his the punishment on people are uncomfortable to read about. Saul's sin for instance in not killing the king. Saul wasn't just showing mercy there, he was happy to take the choice spoils as well, something God told him not to do.<br /><br />But also, this concept of "genocide" I think is based on race. It seems abhorrent that God would command his people to wipe out an entire culture, mostly because we think of this as somehow race related and a demonstration of partiality.<br /><br />But all men are equal, made from "one blood" and the concern here was not racial purity but obedience. We don't know all of the reasons behind God's commands to the Israelites in this regard because it doesn't tell us. Some of this though had to do with their worship of false Gods. God knew whether or not those people would ever change their ways or if any of them would seek him. Perhaps that foreknowledge is the key to at least understanding a possible rationale. If you have a group of people who will never seek God then their souls are already forfeit.Demidoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15788176923089765710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-3692797401814908372020-05-26T08:24:17.466-07:002020-05-26T08:24:17.466-07:00"They were trying to describe things that are..."They were trying to describe things that are difficult to describe. We should give then and ourselves a bit of grace along the way."<br /><br />I am with you. These stories have passed through thousands of years of filters. These filters were all godly men - some real giants, beginning with the apostles, who said not a word. the early Patristics, etc.<br /><br />These men weren't stupid, nor devils. To me, it's all part of being humble regarding my wisdom in the face of the wisdom of the ages. One lifetime is not enough to understand everything about everything.bionic mosquitohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12002548958078731031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-20854355092810162362020-05-25T22:49:42.435-07:002020-05-25T22:49:42.435-07:00I for one am impressed that you took everyone'...I for one am impressed that you took everyone's comments and already have reviewed the sources people gave you, then organized your thoughts about them enough to write it down.<br /><br />Sounds like you are coming to a good understanding to me.<br /><br />"Augustine would offer that “a God-commanded genocide must not be an atrocity.” This seems not a satisfactory conclusion. As has been noted above – and if you accept anything like these interpretations – the more current understandings of these events would not fit the definition of genocide as we understand the term."<br /><br />I for one though don't have a problem with Augustine's quote above. We are all sinners, so God is justified to judge us how and when He pleases. That isn't to take anything away from this article or the level of understanding you have gained in the last 1 or 2 days.<br /><br />One lesson I think you have learned is to look at the language and literary devices used. People thought and wrote differently hundreds and thousands of years ago. It is hard to understand them fully, but it isn't hard to understand where they are coming from. They were trying to describe things that are difficult to describe. We should give then and ourselves a bit of grace along the way.<br /><br />I miss ATL commenting by the way.RMBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13603112499567064214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-89703630881250837892020-05-25T15:30:19.603-07:002020-05-25T15:30:19.603-07:00"Yet even after this episode, there are refer..."Yet even after this episode, there are references to Amalekites. Is this just exaggerated language?"<br /><br />Perhaps you are taking things too literally. Here, look at this:<br /><br />"The figure of Amalek (first mentioned in Genesis 14:17) gives us a specific insight as his persecution of Israel. Amalek is directly tied to "doubt" (versus faith) on the part of God's people. When the Hebrew people doubt God, Amalek strikes. In gammatria, the numerical value of "Amalek" (240) and the word for "doubt" (safek) are the same."<br /><br />The complete destruction of Amalek is the complete destruction of doubt. Even "coming out of Egypt" has deeper spiritual meanings.<br /><br />That's not to doubt the literal meaning however, because then you fall into the "either/or" fallacy.<br /><br />When the Sufi Ghazali was asked whether the stories in scripture were true or allegory, he replied: "Both, God writes the spiritual mysteries in the lives of the prophets."Ahmed Fareshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07105255828394485657noreply@blogger.com