I should be writing my OT Exegesis Paper, but I'm too much of a slacker to do so. For those that know me, they know that I always work well under pressure (which is a nice way of saying I'm a procrastinator). Nevertheless, I thought I'd share what I am learning from this.

The passage that I've chosen to do my exegesis on is Ecclesiastes 5:1-7.

This is a passage that has drastically changed and is changing my prayer life. I use to say anything and everything to God in my prayers. After all, God is someone we should be open with about everything because we are in relationship with him if we follow him, right? However, this passage teaches me something completely different. It teaches me to choose my words wisely when I am in God's presence. That less just might be more in this situation.

But why would less be more? Why do words seem to matter so much? When I think of the answer to this question, it causes me to think about the people that have spoken the loudest to me in my life. The people that have done so are people that speak very little. Yet when they speak, they resonate the most because they are thought out well before they are said. Maybe this is true for our prayer lives. Maybe we should think out what we want to say before saying them to God.

The next thing that is taught is that if you make a vow to God, be quick to fulfill it. This is also stated earlier in Deuteronomy 23:21. It says it's better not to make a vow than to make a vow and break it. Jesus further adds to this in Matthew 5:33-37 with any commitment to anyone. When reading this, I began to realize how contrary this is to our culture. We frequently make promises we can't keep or as is said in the south "we write checks our butts can't cash." What this is saying to me that this is one of those calls where Christ calls us to be counter-cultural and for us to follow him and not the culture in this incident. We need to be men and women of our word.

The next part is what struck me the most. According to the New Living Translation, it says "Talk is cheap, like daydreams and other useless activities. Fear God instead." This clashes i n my mind because I've learned that dreams play an important part in Ancient Near Eastern culture. On a more personal note, I'm a dreamer at heart so to hear that what I do is useless activity hits me at my core. However, according to many commentaries, what it means is those who have many troubles may fantasize of performing great and noble acts, but their aspirations are meaningless. Similarly, many words mark a person as a fool.

Bottom line: When it comes to what you promise God, don't make a promise that you are not sure that you can keep. If you make a vow, be quick to fulfill it. Don't use many words, but rather keep it short and sweet so that your words will have value. This goes for not only with God, but with other people as well. If you want your words to mean something, think them through long and hard before saying them.

Distractions

Seminary has been probably the toughest challenge to me spiritually that I've ever experienced in my life as a Christ follower. However, through it all, I've told myself "have your rock built on Jesus and your foundation will never be moved." This is a lot easier said than done. I find that there are ideas and beliefs out there that are constantly at war for my mind and my soul. I have to be willing to say no to things that are good and to be willing to be taken over by things that are the best for me.

Jesus said it best:

"Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”

If I build my argument on my own logic, I'm a damn fool and an insensitive one at that. If I built it on pure passion, I'm too sensitive and am prone to change based on feelings. No, my friends, neither one of these work at all. My only hope...our only hope is to build it on Jesus. After all, his community is built on Jesus...my foundation depends on listening to him and following what he says. It is not built on theological or philosophical issues...It is not built on politics or global issues...It is not built on music, art, or literature...It is not built on mathematical or scientific laws or theories...it is built on this:

On Christ the solid rock, I stand
All Other ground is sinking sand....

Being hurt about situations or by people in life is something that is a part of life even though it should never be enjoyed by anyone in any situation. When those times of hurt come, we should embrace them and work through all those emotions that we are feeling. I don't think there's anyone that would deny that every person should do that.

Where people differ is how they react to these situations and how long they work through those emotions. There really isn't a specific way that everyone reacts to these situation or a specific time table as to how long it takes someone to work through it. Some people keep it inside and internalize it in order to work through it. Some people verbalize it to their friends in order to be able to move forward. Whatever way you move forward, every way is different. The length of time it takes may take some people a matter of a week or two. Some people it may take them much longer to work through things. Whatever the length, every person is different.

We can't control the way people react or how long it takes a person to move through the emotions. What we can do during these times is grant them the grace to deal with things the way they need to and to be patient in the length that it takes the person to work through those emotions. To expect a person to react the same way you do or take the same length of time as you is a distasteful assumption as well as a condition that you have no right to place on a person....

Do not judge?

We have always been told to never judge people. However, we never take the time to understand what the word judging actually means. According to our good friend Webster, judging means to formulate an opinion about. If that is what judging means, people judge all the time. It's almost unavoidable to judge someone.

In the book I follow and read, it says "Do not judge, or you will be judged." The important concept in this passage is to realize it is not just saying to not judge. Rather, it is saying that unless you want to be judged the same way you judge others, do not judge. An important question to also ask is this: Who is doing the judging here after you judge someone? In the end, we all will be judged by YHWH for the things we have done. That in mind, I think the individual doing the judging is the one that we have judged. So basically, if you don't want to be judged the same way, don't judge anyone else by that standard.

Now their are a few stipulations I would like to add. The next part of the passage it talks about do not talk about the speck in your friend's eye when you have a plank in yours. It says to first remove the plank in your eye before you remove the speck in your friend's. What this is saying to me is that before you go and make a judgement about someone else's faults, you need to make sure that you're doing it for the right reasons, which are out of genuine humility, love and concern for the person. You also need to make sure that you have things set right in your own life or they will come up in the conversation. It may even be that if you struggle with the same thing, the last thing you should do is judge someone for the very same transgression that you commit. Instead, maybe confront the person about the transgression and tell them you struggle with the same thing so that you both can hold each other accountable.

Also, judging is something that should happen within the body of believers. This is called church discipline and is something that is rarely used today. You are to point out a brother's/sister's faults if they are slipping so as to correct them and put them back on the path to where they are more genuinely following Him. This does not mean that you should judge those that do not follow. After all, how can you hold them accountable to standards of the scriptures when they themselves don't even know or much less follow Yeshua?

Lastly, judging in this context, I believe, should only take place if you have a good, trusting, and loving relationship with that person. If I was approached by a person in my church about correcting something about myself and I did not have any kind of personal and deep friendship with that person, I would feel a little insulted. However, if I really knew the person and that they cared about me and that I trusted them, it would motivate me to try to change that part of my life.

What people are really saying when they say do not judge is that you should not condemn. This means that you do not know a person's heart so you have no right to determine that person's salvation or not. In that, people are right, because only condemnation can come from YHWH and we are not YHWH. So when someone tells me to not judge, I'm typically going to ask them what they mean by judge.

Judging is not forbidden, but condemning is...

Lyrics of the Week

Like sex when you're too young
Like youth when you've got none
Like home when you're too drunk
Like getting every you wanted with a line of bad credit
It's never quite worth what you give up to get it

Like style made by slaves
Like bribes to throw the race
Like women who know their place
Like an indian casino or a tank of unleaded
It's never quite worth what you give up to get it

Stand back
You love it now but it's too much

Like fame for what you're not
Like joy that you bought
Like pleasure that never hits the spot
Like security for liberty, you gotta admit it
It's never quite worth what you give up to get it

How do you build a friendship after the trust is gone? How do you build back up trust? I find in life that anything else can be gained back pretty easy, but in the mountains of friendship, building up trust after you've lost it is life's Mt. Everest. It is the toughest thing to overcome after one has done something to lose it.

Is there a difference between making a judgement and making an observation? Sometimes I wonder and chew on this question. I don't consider myself a judgemental person at all. However, if a person calls themselves a follower, I do expect for them to live the life that He calls for us to live and I hold them to that standard. The problem is that I forget that often times, I do that without people granting me that permission and that's where I screw up.

Someone said once that we need to love others. The problem with that is that it just leaves me with more questions. What does it mean to love others? How do we love others? It all seems so terribly complicated and subjective. Where does truth come into the equation? When is it a good time to speak truth to someone? I guess this is where wisdom comes in... a wisdom which I'm nowhere near arriving to yet in my life.

The one I follow knew the perfect time to speak love and be love, but he also knew the perfect time to speak the truth as well. He wasn't always supportive of decisions he knew those who were watching his every move. The older that I get, the more I admire him and how he did things the way he did. I just do not comprehend how he does it.

It's sad when situations in life don't turn out the way that you'd hoped for them to. Sometimes I just wish I could get people to see things the way I do. It would be so much easier for all of us if they could. Sadly and yet beautifully though, every person thinks differently than the next person. I guess that's what makes it amazing when people come together and can agree on things or disagree on things and still be united. It's a beautiful thing actually...

People feel guilty after they hurt someone and their feelings. I sometimes want to tell them they shouldn't feel bad for doing it if it was the right thing. However, I do think people should feel bad when they hurt someone. Whether it's the betrayal of a friend by another or the ending of a love relationship, people should remember that feeling in the moment.

It should never feel good hurting another human being. So to that I say...You should feel bad for hurting someone, but if it was the right thing in the end, it's the right thing to do.

They say I dodged a bullet

I say we probably both did

She would have gotten someone who would have told her what she didn't want to hear

I would have gotten someone that would have never lovingly confronted anyone

She would have gotten someone that would have loved her unconditionally

I would have gotten someone who brought a love with expectations of what's fair

I love the area in which I live. It has some of the most beautiful natural beauty I've ever been able to experience on a daily basis. This is due to the fact that the people which live around the area that I live claim to be very "green" oriented. I guess I do have to be thankful that they care for God's creation. Sometimes I do wonder though how much they really care about the environment. This is the 18th richest county in the United States that boasts on being green and liberal. The reason I wonder this is that they boast of being green, but I do not see them giving up their houses to live in places that are more sustainable or giving up their gas-guzzling vehicles to cut back on air polution and volunteering to ride public transportation or even bring the BART to this side of the bay.

The truth is they care about the environment to the point where it minimally affects their own lives. When it really starts affecting them in the way that it takes away from the possessions they "need," then they are not so "green" anymore.

Is loving someone after a dating relationship even possible?

How do you love someone as God requires after a dating relationship is over?

What does love look like within this context?

I've been thinking about how powerful and necessary confessing. They bring repentance, freedom, relief, peace, joy, tears, and happiness to the confessor as well as to the ones hearing the confession. Saints from long ago even wrote confessions (i.e. St. Augustine and St. John the Cross) that bring us great comfort still yet today. This in mind, I have decided that I'm going to start posting confessions to you guys on here. My reasoning for doing this is that God will be glorified and that I honestly pray in some small way, it will lead those that I love to do the same. I pray this leads to great conversation as well among all of us and I pray that it leads us all to realize that we are all equal. "Confess your sins to one another..." (James 5:16). So here goes my first confession:

I confess to you all that no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to stop judging people. Whether it's verbally, mentally, emotionally, or with a simple reactive facial expression, judging of people seems to always happen with me. I confess that I do this because I place my personal opinions over those of other people. I also do this because in the back of my mind, my pride still tells me I'm intellectually, physically, and spiritually better than some people. I confess that this is wrong...I'm sorry and I pray that you as well as God will please forgive me.

    I've become a person that loves community.  I love to gather with friends and/or family and just be able to be open with each other about what we're working through, what frustrates us, what brings us joy, and what were learning through the journey that we find ourselves on in life.  I love it so much that I want other people to get on board and do the same.  I do so because I believe that is exactly what Jesus did.  He spent a lot of time with people and I believe that because of spending a lot of time with people, it led to deeper conversations than just the usual crap known as small talk.

    I love community so much that it frustrates me that some people don't really want that.  They don't want to be completely open and honest about who they are.  They want people to know the good things about them, but not the bad things about them.  They love for people to know their good qualities, but have an overwhelming trepidation to people knowing their dark side.  It frustrates me that some people are just okay with the small talk crap.

    Furthermore, it frustrates me how people where I currently live take the word "friend" so lightly. You can talk to a person for a good hour or have gotten to know a person really well over a couple of weeks and you're automatically their friend.  I'll even admit that I almost started falling back into this way of thinking, but I've decided that I am not going back to that.  I'm going to give it some serious thought before I call anybody my friend.  

    Just because we've hung out a handful of times or had a few good talks does not make me your friend.  Just because we've shared a few laughs or had a few good times does not make us friends.  I may respect you and love talking to you, but in order to be my friend, this requires being open on a deep level and for both of us to have the freedom of sharing what's on our minds and hearts without fear of not being accepted.  

    This requires for us to be able to have a calmness in the quiet.  This requires both of us having a trust in one another.  This requires for both of us to know that no matter where we are on this journey called life, we will always be accepting of one another.  This also means that we will have laughs, arguments, hard times and good times but that we stay friends through it all.  Do we have that?  If we don't, maybe it's time for re-evaluation.

    Call this a bit of a confession if you will.  I see myself as a really nice guy that really cares about people.  I'll give up my time alone if I know that a friend of mine is in need or wants to hang out.  I'll even go out of my way for people if I know they need it.  I readily trust people and believe that they have the best intentions in mind even when I may not see it.

    Here's the confession part.  I wish sometimes that I wasn't as nice of a guy as I see myself.  I get taken advantage of, disrespected and forgotten about sometimes.  I also feel as if sometimes, I miss out on a lot of good opportunities because of it.  People always say "nice guys finish last" and I've been finishing last for way too long now so it gets really old, really quick.

   I'm not saying this stuff to look for sympathy or pity.  I'm saying this to be open and honest and real about how I feel.  Nevertheless, I can't bring myself to be a jackass to anybody even no matter how much I want to.

It's been different living back in the United States. I won't go into great detail about how this change has been for me, but let's just say things have been a little more isolated here than it was in Spain. It's easier to be in your home by yourself or to be anywhere by yourself for the whole time. And if you want to go somewhere, it always costs you something. If you want to go to the coffee shop, it costs gas, time and money.

People also seem to be so disconnected from each other here a lot of times. It seems like people here have a genuine fear of getting close to anyone else, which is something I find really strange. I find it strange because the only logical reason I can think of that people would be fearful of that is because when you let someone close to you, you're giving that person the power to do what they will. They can be a help, encouragement, and blessing. At the same time, they can be hurtful, take advantage of you, and spiteful. I can understand the fear, but at the same time I feel that as a believer, God commands me to not be fearful of anything

The Social Gospel or "The" Gospel

I was shortly engaged in a conversation with a seminary student a while back about the past elections and my choice for president (if you want to know, just ask me).  After a long, in-depth conversation, this person proceeded to insinuate that I was promoting a social gospel and not THE gospel.  By that, I mean he seemed to insinuate that I was promoting more of a need to meet people's physical, mental and emotional needs and not their spiritual needs.  When he confronted me with that part of it, I was honestly confused by what he was saying because this person seemed to insinuate that in a ways, God only cares about our spiritual well-being and not about the whole person.  I am sure he didn't mean to come across this way, but he nevertheless did.

Anyways, it got me thinking about the gospel in and of itself.  Is the gospel really just about caring about souls being saved?  While I can't answer this question, I do believe that he does want us to live our lives the way Christ intended for us to live it and to actively share our faith in the process.  This, to me, means that while sharing our faith, we should fight poverty, abortion, the death penalty, white collar crime, genocide, and other injustices against humanity or things that God frowns upon.  It seems that in the United States, we have people either sharing their faith and not being active in standing up for truth and justice or people standing up for truth and justice and not sharing their faith.

The great thing that I see is that is quickly changing.  We're quickly finding a generation of believers that have character and actively share their faith while standing up for what's right and against injustice.  THAT, to me, IS the gospel.  Call it a social gospel if you want, but that to me is The gospel of Christ.  After all, didn't God turn water into wine to keep the party going?  Didn't he feed the five thousand and preach?  Didn't he break bread and pass the cup in the last supper?  Didn't he heal those that needed healing while teaching them?  Didn't Christ, in a sense, teach, preach, and live what the gospel is?  And isn't the gospel not only the way Christ lived, but also Christ in and of itself?

Your thoughts are appreciated....

Forgive me for this, but since I've been back from Spain, I find that I am not the most patriotic person anymore.  Please don't misunderstand that as I don't like or that I hate America.  I actually think America has a lot of good things about it, but there are many things about American culture I find really odd and even really wrong.

I began to realize this while I was sitting in church this past sunday and I watched a video talking about things that we as believers should stand up for when voting tomorrow.  Instead of raising the cross in the video, they raised the American flag.  Instead of raising God's word, they raised the red, white and blue.

Does anybody else find something wrong with this?  Doesn't it bother anyone else that we almost place Country over Christ?  A president over an everlasting king?  Democracy over the kingdom?  God bless America over "In God We Trust?"

Contextualization

It seems that believers love to read their bibles and that's a good thing.  However, there has been the issue of how to contextualize the gospel, meaning that how should we read the bible or apply it in our daily lives.  Some people tend to think that the way to do that is to go back to what those words really mean in the Greek and Hebrew.  Others believe that you should view in the way it was applied to that culture at the time that book of the Bible was written.  Yet others believe you should just read the words that are on the bible in front of you and apply it that way as well.

While I can't say how I necessarily feel about contextualizing scripture and how to read it, I do not necessarily think that there is only one correct way to read the scriptures.  Please don't think I'm trying to say that every person can necessarily make up their own interpretation of scripture.  I believe that we are fallible human beings and are capable of some grave misconceptions as to what God's word is "really saying."  I also believe that we should all read the scriptures and study it from different angles and with prayer, meditation, meeting in community with other believers, practicing what we learn and walking in the Spirit, God will reveal the true answers in time.  I believe that to say that there's only one way of looking at scripture is putting God in a box and limiting the capability He has of transforming lives through scripture in different ways.

  What do you think of contextualizing scripture?  What do you believe about this topic?

Death and Life at a Funeral

Yesterday, I attended the funeral of my Uncle Hugh, who died after a long battle with Pancreatic Cancer.  We gathered at the funeral home at 11am and sat with the rest of the family.  We heard a sermon from his pastor about his life and what he stood for and even had a visit from the first basketball team he coached in Hoboken, Georgia.  The overflowing fragrance of flowers and the overwhelming sensation of happiness, but also of tearful nostalgia of times we had with Hugh filled the room.  It was truly a hard, but beautiful moment.

There's a lot to learn about funerals.  At first, it's a happy occasion (especially in the case of believers) because you celebrate the fact that even though his/her life on earth is over, they're with the father in Heaven.  From there, it turns to sadness and you tend to focus on the fact that the loved one you lost is gone from this earth and how much you will miss him/her.  Then at the end, it turns to a happy occasion because you look around you and you begin to treasure the ones around you.

Funerals do teach us so much.  Not only a lot about death, but also a lot about life.  It teaches us to embrace the fact that one day, we will be like the person we are here to remember in that we will die, our bodies will be put in the ground and the worms will have their way with them. Ben Franklin even said "There are two things certain in life: Death and Taxes."  There's not many things in life that are certain, but it is certain for all of us that we're all going to die.  We need to quit trying so hard to avoid it and just accept that when the time comes for us to die, that we will die with honor and dignity and be able to not regret a single moment of our lives.

Funerals teach us a lot about life.  It makes us ask the question if we have truly lived life or if we have only done enough to survive through life.  I have to be honest and say that I see too many people just surviving and not enough people truly living.  It seems that we as believers are thinking so much about the life to come, that we forget about the life that we have right now.  I'm not trying to say that I don't do this from time to time because I do.  I'm just saying that when is the last time we as human beings truly lived and not just talked about living or surviving.  Make the most of the day, love God, and love others.  God is not just the God of the past and future, but more importantly he's the God of the present.  Enjoy every moment.