Sunday Dispatch

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.800


Grab your coat, and get your hat. Leave your worry on the doorstep Just direct your feet to the sunny side of the street.

~ Dorothy Fields

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.801


Christ Holds It All Together

He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.

~ Colossians 1:18-20 (The Message)

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.802


Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin.

~ John Lubbock

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.803


The Obstinate Toy Soldiers

Did you ever think, when you were a child, what fun it would be if your toys could come to life? Well suppose you could really have brought them to life. Imagine turning a tin soldier into a real little man. It would involve turning the tin into flesh. And suppose the tin soldier did not like it. He is not interested in flesh; all he sees is that the tin is being spoilt He thinks you are killing him. He will do everything he can to prevent you. He will not be made into a man if he can help it.

What you would have done about that tin soldier I do not know. But what God did about us was this. The Second Person in God, the Son, became human Himself: was born into the world as an actual man-a real man of a particular height, with hair of a particular colour, speaking a particular language, weighing so many stone. The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a foetus inside a Woman's body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.

~ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.804


“Reading and naps, two of life's greatest pleasures, go especially well together.”

~ Will Schwalbe, Books for Living

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.805

1. There is not nearly enough evidence to convince me that God exists.

First, this objection is necessarily personal. It is possible to claim that our personal, subjective threshold for evidence has not been met, but this fact would only disprove God's existence if we were certain that our personal standard of proof is correct. How do we know it is correct? And what do we even mean when we talk about the "correct" standard of proof?

A second question deals with the burden of proof. The skeptic often presumes that the burden of proof lies with the theist to prove that God exists (the evidence must "convince me" to move from atheism to theism). But why should the burden of proof not lie with the skeptic to convince the theist that God does not exist? We might answer that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." But then we are left asking who determines the definition of "extraordinary." People with different worldviews may share many presuppositions about the intrinsic likelihood of certain events, but in other areas there will be a genuine lack of agreement about what is intrinsically likely or unlikely. For instance, an atheist might consider a miracle wildly implausible. On the other hand, a theist would consider the creation of the universe ex nihilo by anything other than God wildly implausible. We need to recognize that our presuppositions are intrinsic to our worldview and are truly presuppositions. They determine what we consider plausible and implausible, prior to our examination of the evidence. Although this truth may seem unremarkable when we share basic assumptions about reality, it makes an enormous difference when we come to issues that touch on these presuppositions directly (see Resurrection and Worldview for one such example).

Finally, this objection actually addresses the theist's warrant to believe that God exists rather than the question of whether He exists. In other words, it says that the evidence is not sufficient to compel me to believe in God. But our warrant to believe in a fact does not affect the truth or falsehood of this fact. For instance, physicists in the 1910s had little warrant to believe that quantum mechanics was true. But it was true! So even if we grant that theists are not warranted in the belief in God's existence, He could exist nonetheless.

Short answer: first, this statement is personal and subjective. Second, this statement assumes that the burden of proof ought to fall on the theist; how do we know this? Third, there is a difference between claiming that belief in God is unwarranted (i.e. is not reasonable based on the evidence at hand) and that He does not exist. See also The Necessity of Faith and Resurrection and Worldview.

~ Neil Shenvi

Short Answers to Common Objections

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.806


The idea that salvation is an idea unique to Christianity ought to shock us. After all, don't the vast majority of religions center on salvation? Buddhists long for release from suffering and the illusion of the material world. Muslims seek a heavenly paradise. Hindus desire to escape the cycle of reincarnation. But what is fascinating is that when we use the word "salvation" to describe the hope of these religions, we actually use it in a way that is in utter contrast to our non-religious use of the word.

Given that the etymological root of "salvation" is in the word "save" (both come from the Latin salvare), consider the following secular uses of this word: "A passing motorist dove into the icy water to save the drowning child", "The surgeon saved my father's life by performing open heart surgery" or even "The goalkeeper made six spectacular saves over the course of the game." Two ideas are common to these examples. The first is the idea of rescue and the second is that of inability. When we use the word "save" in a non-religious context, we assume that the object itself is utterly incapable of some action and is rescued from the natural course of events by some external intervention.

In this sense, I would argue that the word salvation is inappropriate to describe how other religions envision our reconciliation with God. If we really take "salvation" to imply "rescue", then it seems to me that this word can only truly be used to describe the Christian gospel. In fact, to avoid any confusion, I will substitute the word "rescue", "rescued" and "rescuer" for the words "salvation", "saved" and "savior" from now on to capture what Christians mean (or ought to mean!) when they use these words.

~ Neil Shenvi

Why I Am a Christian

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.807

Final post of three selected passages by Neil Shevi:

What does it mean to live in a universe where God judges evil?

What is the solution? Most historic religions believe in a God who judges evil. Most religions affirm that one day God will put things right and will put an end to evil and suffering by judging the wicked. The difference between all other religions and Christianity is two-fold.

First, other religions always radically understate the magnitude of human sinfulness. The assumption of other religions is that -with God's help and with enough of his forgiveness- we can merit God's blessing. If we try hard enough, if we are loving enough, if we live a righteous enough life, then God will vindicate us. The Bible gives us no such hope. It says that we are utterly unable to merit God's favor. Rather, because of our sin we have merited nothing but his curse, his rejection and his judgment.

But second, other religions radically understate God's grace. Christianity does believe that God is a Judge. But God is a Judge who was judged. Jesus once stood before a judge: Pontius Pilate. But rather than being vindicated as a good and righteous man, he was stripped naked, flogged, and crucified. More than that, on the cross, Jesus the righteous Son of God was made to bear our sin. The one who will one day judge all of humanity was himself judged and sentenced and struck down as if he were the worst of sinners.

Why? In our place. Christianity teaches that salvation is not by merit but by substitution. The judge of all the universe stepped down from the bench and was led to the gallows. For us. The only response we can make is to repent and believe. Repent by turning from our own sinful desires, our own attempts to merit God's approval, our own selfish goals and believe by trusting in the good news of Jesus' substitutionary death on our behalf.

We do live in a universe in which God judges evil. The bad news is that our sin renders us guilty before a good and perfect God. But the good news is that "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." (John 3:16-17)

~ Neil Shevi

What does it mean to live in a universe where God judges evil?

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.808

List of Bible “Errors”

Here’s nearly 800 supposed Bible “errors” with their resolutions.

800 Bible "Errors" with Resolutions

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.809


Before you put on a frown, make absolutely sure there are no smiles available.

~ James M. Beggs

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.810

TO MRS. JOHNSON: On the four kinds of love; on the various forms of char- ity; on pride as the pleasure of self-approval; and on self-forgetfulness.

18 February 1954

Of course taking in the poor illegitimate child is ‘charity’. Charity means love. It is called Agape in the New Testament to distinguish it from Eros (sexual love), Storgë (family affection) and Philia (friendship) [E.g., I John 4:9]. So there are 4 kinds of ‘love’, all good in their proper place, but Agape is the best because it is the kind God has for us and is good in all circumstances. (There are people I mustn’t feel Eros towards, and people I can’t feel Storge or Philia for; but I can practise Agape to God, Angels, Man and Beast, to the good and the bad, the old and the young, the far and the near.

You see Agape is all giving, not getting. Read what St. Paul says about it in First Corinthians Chap. 13. Then look at a picture of Charity (or Agape) in action in St. Luke, chap 10 v. 30–35. And then, better still, look at Matthew chap 25 v. 31–46: from which you see that Christ counts all that you do for this baby exactly as if you had done it for Him when He was a baby in the manger at Bethlehem: you are in a sense sharing in the things His mother did for Him. Giving money is only one way of showing charity: to give time and toil is far better and (for most of us) harder. And notice, though it is all giving—you needn’t expect any reward— how you do gets rewarded almost at once.

Yes, I know one doesn’t even want to be cured of one’s pride because it gives pleasure. But the pleasure of pride is like the pleasure of scratching. If there is an itch one does want to scratch: but it is much nicer to have neither the itch nor the scratch. As long as we have the itch of self-regard we shall want the pleasure of self-approval; but the happiest moments are those when we forget our precious selves and have neither, but have everything else (God, our fellow-humans, animals, the garden and the sky) instead.

Yes, I do believe people are still healed by miracles by faith: but of course whether this has happened in any one particular case, is not so easy to find out.

~ From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.811

Spring is the Period
Express from God.
Among the other seasons
Himself abide,

But during March and April
None stir abroad
Without a cordial interview
With God.

~ Emily Dickinson

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.812

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem and was greeted with applause and with palms. People thought he had come to overthrow the Romans, but ... no ... he had come to change THEM ... and that led to things turning bad.

~ Garrison Keillor

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.813


“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

~ John 11:25-26 (NIV)

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.814


When I was about eight, I decided that the most wonderful thing, next to a human being, was a book.

~ Margaret Walker

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.815


If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.

~ C. S. Lewis

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.816

12 Reasons I Don’t Go to Sporting Events Anymore

1. Every time I went, they asked me for money.
2. The people sitting in my row didn’t seem very friendly.
3. The seats were very hard.
4. The coach never came to visit me.
5. The referees made a decision I didn’t agree with.
6. I was sitting with hypocrites—they only came to see what others were wearing!
7. Some games went into overtime and I was late getting home.
8. The band played some songs I had never heard before.
9. The games are scheduled on my only day to sleep in and run errands.
10. My parents took me to too many games when I was growing up.
11. Since I read a book on sports, I feel that I know more than the coaches, anyway.
12. I don’t want to take my children because I want them to choose for themselves what sport they like best.

Do these reasons sound familiar?

~ Source: Unknown

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.817


So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.

~ 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (The Message)

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.818


The gospel says you are more sinful and flawed than you ever dared believe, but more accepted and loved than you ever dared hoped.

~ Timothy Keller

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.819

Christians believe in salvation in the original sense of the word. Secular humanism and many other world religions would affirm our obligation to love others and may even affirm our failure to live up to this standard. But their remedy is ultimately some kind of self-improvement through alms-giving, prayer, meditation, fasting, volunteer work.

None of these practices is wrong. But Christianity believes that they will never solve either the problem of our objective guilt before God or the thorough corruption of our hearts. Christians believe in a God who rescues. God does not rescue those who are basically good or basically kind or basically loving. He rescues the evil, the wicked, and the ungodly. God does not rescue you because you are good, but because He is good.

The message of the gospel is the message of substitution. God did not send Jesus to teach good people how to earn their way to heaven. Rather, God sent Jesus to live the perfect life we ought to have lived and to die the death that we -as rebels- deserve to die. He freely sent Jesus as a substitute, "the righteous for the unrighteous". And He just as freely sends the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts and renew us.

It is when we truly grasp and understand the nature of the gospel - the radical evil in our hearts and the radical grace of God - that we find our desires radically changed. The moral obligation of God's law tells us that we ought to love God and love our neighbor. But the grace of God in the gospel makes us want to love God and love our neighbor.

~ Selected from “Why I am a Christian” by Neil Shenvi

https://www.facebook.com/Neil-Shenvi-Apologetics-206180286078691/

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.820

"LIKE A PATIENT & LOVING FATHER..."

I'll be brief. (It is possible)

These are "hymns." At least the way i hear them.

These "hymns" have been something like inventories, pep-talks & wrestle-lings on the way. They have been written in moments of elation & despair.
There's a lot of "worship songs" out there these days.

To my ears, a lot of it sounds like the strumm-y-acoustic-hippie-drug rock of the 70's replete with insipid lyrics of a repetitive mantra-like quality OR it sounds like 3 chords & a ripped off U-2 out-take.

I was raised on many an old Presbyterian or Lutheran hymn book. I figure that if "they" got it right the first time with their penchant for tuneful melodies & time-tested lyrics pounded off an old upright, then I wasn't going to better that.

I had something else to attend to. And so, here's what i want to say:
i learned early on that i had only one thing to bring to God. And that was my blindness, my shallowness, my emptiness & my sin.

That's still the case.

Sometimes a guitar and a song have been the only way i could "pray" to God. And as I said, these songs are some of my inventories, pep-talks and wrest-lings on the way.

Because the Good news of a Crucified & Resurrected Savior and the whole-ness He promises ONLY make sense when you know what the "bad news" is first. It's not pretty. And it's part of who you are.

"He maketh all things new."

Yes. He does get the last word...and I'm more convinced than ever that it's a good one.

But. I wrote these because, like a patient listener & loving Father, He waits to hear our words first...

~ bill mallonee

Passages from the liner notes of Hymns to the New Idolatry.

https://billmalloneemusic.bandcamp.com/music

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.821


Believe what you like, but don't believe everything you read without questioning it.

~ Pauline Baynes

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.822

“I think it is a relief for Glen and the family. I know Glen and I are of the same faith. We are both Christian and I know where he is now. I know he is in a perfect place.”
~ Alice Cooper

What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole.
~ 1 Peter 1:3-5 (The Message)

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.823

I have good news, brothers and sisters; and I want to share it. Believe it or not, my imprisonment has actually helped spread the good news to new places and populations. Word has spread through the ranks of the imperial guard and to everyone else around me that I am in prison because of my faith in the Anointed One. My imprisonment has instilled courage in most of our brothers and sisters, so they are trusting God more and have been even more daring as they speak the good news without fear.

~ Philippians 1:12-14 (The Voice)

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.824

ALL ALONG THE WATCH TOWER:EXPLORED
~ American Digest

Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield.
For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.
And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.
~ Isaiah 21:5-9 (King James Version)

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.825

Jesus went back into His own hometown where He had grown up, and His disciples followed Him there. When the Sabbath came, He went into the synagogue in Nazareth and began to teach as He had done elsewhere, and many of those who heard Him were astonished.

Those in the Synagogue: Where did He gain this wisdom? And what are all these stories we’ve been hearing about the signs and healings He’s performed? Where did He get that kind of power? Isn’t this Jesus, the little boy we used to see in Joseph’s carpenter shop? Didn’t He grow up to be a carpenter just like His father? Isn’t He the son of Mary over there and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, Simon, and their sisters?

Who does He think He is?


~ Mark 6: 1-6 (The Voice)

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.826

Do not discount the core message of the Christian faith without thoroughly questioning everything. Seek the truth.

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.827

The hiddenness of God

Thus far, I hope I've demonstrated why there is no inherent conflict between science and religion. I've also suggested several ways in which science can point us towards belief in God rather than away from Him. But I don't want to stop there. I want to tackle another question which I think is often overlooked: why isn't the scientific evidence for God's existence clearer? Even if we think that there is very good scientific evidence that God exists (as I do), why isn't the scientific evidence for God's existence absolutely undeniable?

~ Neil Shenvi

Read more….

The hiddenness of God

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.828


The first thing my family did when we moved was join the local church. The second was to go to the library and get library cards.

~ John Grisham

 

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.829


October, here's to you. Here's to the heady aroma of the frost-kissed apples, the winey smell of ripened grapes, the wild-as-the-wind smell of hickory nuts and the nostalgic whiff of that first wood smoke.

~ Ken Weber


I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it?

~ Lucy Maud Montgomery


I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring.

~ W. S. Merwin




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