On Being Free

Why are small children (and sometimes not-so-small children) commonly afraid of the dark? What's scary about darkness? Have you ever noticed how strange this is? Really, there is nothing about the dark that should inspire fear. A tiger is scary, because it can kill you. A falling boulder is scary, because it can also kill you. Darkness, however, doesn't even have deadly potential.

I think that the reason is simply that we can't see in the dark. If we could see, the darkness wouldn't be scary. If we were like owls, however, and became blind in the light instead, I imagine that the daytime would be scary.

If we can't see, we have no control of anything around us. I think that humans are instinctively afraid of anything we can't control. The things that control us, therefore, are hated and feared universally. That's why freedom is so longed for by our species, and also why control of others is such a powerful desire.

However, we also have a problem. Along with the instinctive fear of being enslaved, we also seem to have an instinctive feeling of enslavement. Look at all the religions that have formed over the last few thousand years. All of them have a common thread: something powerful exists in a realm not quite visible, and it has the power to control us.

This is seen in all religions, major and minor. The aborigines of Australia belief in several types of spirits, which control every aspect of their lives. Hindus believe in hundreds of gods, all of which must be kept happy at all times. Even Buddhism, an atheistic religion, contains this thread. They believe that freedom comes from breaking out of the cycle of death and rebirth and death and rebirth and death and rebirth and so on.

There is only one religion which offers freedom. This is Christianity. However, Christianity offers freedom in a most unusual way: by becoming a slave.

Numerous times, Jesus refers to us as becoming slaves of God. Nearly every New Testament author makes the same reference. This, also, is how we become free. So maybe, freedom is not what we think it is. Maybe what we feel isn't a lack of freedom, but a lack of function. Instead of being free, what we need is to be part of something else.

Freedom, this means, is not what we think. Real freedom is control by something ultimately stronger than we are. This is an interesting paradox. I hope you thought so too.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Our Problem

Below is a quote from an interview with Luis Palau, a South American Evangelist, who is now a missionary to the USA.

"When I was in Chicago doing launch rallies for 'Say Yes Chicago,' a taxi driver took me to a press conference at Grant Park. The driver was a Muslim from Sudan, very talkative and eager to make me a Muslim. He was trying to convert me in the course of a ten-minute drive. I told him I was a Christian, which began a quick discussion about Jesus Christ. After a few minutes, he said, 'Islam is going to win in America. And we're going to win in the world. You Christians do not really believe Jesus Christ is the only answer and the only One.'

"I said, 'Of course we believe that.' He said, 'No, you don't. I've been here for six years, and I've hardly met a single American that believes Jesus is the only One and the only way and the only answer.'

"I was amazed, moved, rebuked, and ashamed. Here was a foreigner in America unashamedly trying to convert me in ten minutes. And meanwhile, we Christians beat around the bush. We are not convinced that people without Christ are truly, truly lost forever. If we did, we wouldn't be able to rest. We would jump at the chance to be part of a citywide crusade. If we believed that people were irrevocably lost without Christ, we would take advantage of every chance to preach the gospel."

That's a frightening thought, isn't it? That's all I have to say, since it's getting late and I need to sleep. By the way, I hope you had a happy Leap Day. As far as I'm concerned, it's definitely the best of all the holidays. Thanksgiving doesn't hold a candle to it.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Ten Commandments Minus One

It was my intention to talk some more about faith today. But instead, I'm going to talk about something else. As I mentioned very briefly, faith without works is dead. So what are works? This is important to determine before we can decide anything else.

Works means two things. The first is doing what God wants us to do, such as telling others about Jesus and such. The second is simply not sinning. So here's where ther question comes up: what does it mean to sin?

Sin is determined by the Law. The Law states what is sin, and the most commonly known part of the law is the Ten Commandments. Here's a list of the Ten Commandments (found in Exodus 20)

1 You will have no gods before The God

2 You will not have any idols (i.e. things that you place before God)

3 You will not misuse the name of God

4 Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy

5 Honor your parents

6 Don't murder

7 Don't adulterate

8 Don't steal

9 Don't lie

10 Don't covet

Which one is hardest to keep? I would say number 2. It's hard to focus more on God than on anything else. Which one is kept the least often? This one, interestingly enough, is also the easiest to keep. It's number 4.

What is the Sabbath? The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week (Saturday), which is intended by God to be a holy day. On the Sabbath, we are supposed to do no unnecessary work and spend our time worshipping God. How often do we do this? The not working part is easy--plenty of people manage to just do nothing on Saturday. However, we don't do the keeping-holy part of it.

The Law shows us what sin is and isn't (I'm not even talking about the complexities of sacrifice and the Feasts--just the Ten Commandents). If the Law says to do something, then not doing it is a sin, and vice-versa. The Law says to keep the Sabbath. So why don't we?

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Note: I have a new label for my posts. Important. This is for things that simply need to be said, regardless of their depth.

Faith

Last night, I watched a movie. In this movie, one of the characters was a Catholic priest (who actually mentioned God a total of zero times), and at one point he was talking about faith. He defined faith as a belief in a thing larger than yourself. I have also heard it defined as a belief in an unseen thing. This means that faith is a specific kind of belief--I believe in the sun, but I don't have faith in it because I can see it.

However, that isn't what faith is. Hebrews chapter 11 is all about faith, and the first verse says something important about it: "faith is the evidence of things unseen." If faith is the evidence in things unseen, it can't be merely a belief in it. Evidence is proof. A belief is not proof of anything.

If I tell you that I believe that I am the best writer in the world, would that convince you? I strongly doubt it. I would have to show you a sample of every single writer in the world, and then demonstrate my own writing. That would be evidence, either for or against me.

So if faith is evidence, then that means it has to be more than belief. However, faith is belief. Hebrews 11 describes faith later on as being belief. So was the writer of Hebrews completely wrong? I don't think so--I think that we are lacking something when we define faith as belief in the unseen.

Here is my definition: faith is a belief in the unseen inspired by the unseen thing. This means that faith is a belief in God that is created in us by God. So how about this one: if faith without works is dead, then do the works justify the faith, or does the faith create the works? But that's a question for tomorrow.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Language Reform

The idea of grammar is interesting to me. Who came up with it? And spelling. When did spelling become standardized? Did someone decide one day that our language needed to work like this, and not like that? If so, he didn't do it very well. I'll admit that grammar usually works well, but spelling does not.

Look at words like "eight" and "bomb." They don't sound like they look at all (and why do we have to have words for numbers? Why not just write it 8?) Standardized spelling is good, but why not make it a little more sensical. English, supposedly, is written phonetically. Wouldn't it be great if that were true? "Facade" should be written "fussad," and the letter K should be eliminated, since it's redundant to C. As for letters:

G should no longer share a sound with J.

C should cease to share with S.

X, Q and K should be removed from the alphabet.

The sounds Sh, Th and Ch should be replaced by, respectively, Q, K and X.

And those are my thoughts for the day.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Reply

The other day I wrote down a very brief thought concerning sacrifice and Jesus. Today, I will finish the thought.


The sacrifice by Jesus was not human sacrifice. I made an error in my logic. If I made anyone worry and fret and lose sleep (I probably didn't), then you can be at rest once again. The human sacrifice mentioned in the Old Testament is entirely different than the one performed by Jesus. The main thing is that the Old Testament human sacrifices were not voluntary.


One of the more popular false religions in the time of Moses and the Judges was the worship of Molech. One of the central parts of Molech worship concerned human sacrifice--more specifically, the sacrifice of infants. When the various Prophets decried Israel for "allowing your children to be passed through the fire," this is what they were talking about.


Jesus was very different. His sacrifice was entirely voluntary. What Jesus did was sort of like a soldier stepping in the way of a bullet to save a friend. This is sacrifice, in a technical sense, but who would say that it's a bad thing?

What Jesus did was a glorious and heroic thing; involuntary human sacrifice is a disgusting and pathetic thing. Rest easy: His sacrifice is still entirely valid, and there is nothing anyone can do to make it less so.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Sacrifice

It's been a few days since I've said anything, which is rare for me. However, even though it was my small and rather sad goal of having a post for every day of this month, I have so far come much closer to attaining the goal than I did in January. I imagine that the month that I actually attain the goal, someone in an office somewhere will shut it down and kick me off the internet.

I don't have much to say today. I have simply been reflecting upon this two-part thought:

1. God forbid human sacrifice in the Old Testament.

2. Jesus is the sacrifice for our sins (He also happened to be human).

What does this mean? If He was the sacrifice for our sins, He was a human sacrifice, which is sin in itself. I'm going to have to study this a little more, because I don't have an answer.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell