Dragon*Bomb

So, yesterday, I came up with a grandiose plan.  Dragon*Con goes on in Atlanta this weekend.  I can't go this year.  I have never gone.  Even if I could, I'd not like the crowd, and I'd only be there for Kevin Sorbo.

So, I thought, why don't I just make up my own homemade Comic Con.  At first I called it Meghan*Con, but that sounds vain.  I'll just change it to Dragon*Bomb.

So far, at my hypothetical convention, I'm wearing either my Renaissance dress or my Charles Spurgeon t-shirt.

There will probably be a Farscape booth.  I watched that in high school until it got too confusing and then I stopped.

There will definitely be a Homestar Runner booth.  We can sit around and quote Homestar all day and not get tired of it.  I'd probably do more Homestar tribute videos.

Speaking of Kevin Sorbo, I could conduct a fake interview with my Hercules poster.

Then, there would be the Dr. Who quiz.  You see, I love Dr. Who.  It's a great show.  I love TARDIS and have earrings and seen the 60s movies.  The only problem is, I don't watch the show.  I have no clue when it comes on and am not willing to spend on Netflix.  So bummer.  So it would be funny to ask me about Dr. Who and see what goofy answers I can invent.

We'd make crafts of our favorite nerdities, then we'd line them up in some parade. 

And do skits, and dances, and fan fiction contests.

We'd end the whole night re-enacting MST3K.

Time for thanks

1. We totally had a Spaghetti-o and meatball can, and I ate that instead of junk food.

2. I can see my floor, even walk on it!  Now I just need to vacuum it

3. My Tabletalk was missing and I found it in my backpack, the one place I thought it wasn't.

4. I got to hold two babies yesterday.

5. I can go to Baptist Collegiate Ministry again.

6. I get to start new Tabletalk articles b/c September is about to start.

7. Did I mention my floor is clean?

8. I'm enjoying rereading "Abraham Kuyper: God's Renaissance Man" by James McGoldrick.

9. I guess I am glad I had McGoldrick for a teacher even though at the time I was not a cessationist and greatly offended by him.  My only wish would be to start September 2007 over and take his class again without cheating on the test.  Then again, I would not have had three history classes with Dale Johnson and come to greatly love it.

Cairns 8: Fables and Sound Theology

Legalistic Heresies
The Jerusalem Council was not enough.  The Ebionites believed that the Jewish law still applied as the highest expression of His will.  They didn’t even believe that Jesus was completely divine.
This lives on today in that still uses a sacrificial system and relies on Old Testament ritual.

Philosophical Heresies
People trace Gnosticism to Simon Magus, who Peter had to rebuke.  It “sprang from the natural human desire to create a theodicy, and explanation of the origin of evil.”  To them, matter was bad and spirit was good.  Therefore, since God created matter, he’s bad.  Christ is good, so he can’t have a real body.  Christ was only there for the 3 years of his ministry and then left after Jesus the man died. 
Believing that Christ had no body is also called Docetism, and this can also be called Dualism.  To be saved, you had to tap into the secret knowledge that Christ would give.

Despite their disdain for the body, their beliefs led to libertinism as they believed the body would be destroyed anyway. 

This believe produced Marcion who decided that Judaism was evil and so was the old Testament.  He didn’t even like Paul’s letters or anything besides a condensed Luke.  The Roman church condemned him as a heretic, so he went and started his own church.  The Christians were right to oppose this as it turned the true God into two gods, and evil and a good one, and it started anti-Semitism.  It also forgets about Christ’s crucifixion which saved us.  If he had not had a body and really died then we’d still be lost in our sins. 

Gnosticism lives on in just about any liberal belief system, especially in liberals who are so trendy and know all the right health fads. 

Manicheanism taught that man emanated from the ruler of the kingdom of light who tricked them into being both evil and good.  This is Gnosticism on steroids.  Augustine followed this belief for 12 years and then refuted it.  It pretty much lives on in any person that thinks tragedies happen because God is teaching a lesson.

Neoplatonism is a diluted Gnosticism that taught that since the body is evil, a person must separate from all other people to discover their inner light.  This led to the trend known as asceticism.  The biggest mistake people make is thinking that it’s holy to be alone, and it’s not.  People should spend some alone time every day with God, but God created people to be together.

Ammonius Saccas started this philosophy in Alexandria.  Origen and Plotinus studied under him,  then Plotinus had his name placed on this movement. 

Theological Errors
Montanus wanted to fix everything that was wrong with the church.  So he started his own group who followed just him.  This started Montanism, the trend of following one person and only listening to him and this one person thinking he knows all the answers.  This lives on in just about everyone who goes into ministry.  We want to change the world, and we think only we know what we are doing, hence I’m guilty of being Montanus. 

Monarchians are the ones who emphasize the Trinity’s unity that Christ and the Holy Spirit lose their individuality.  It’s not as bad as Arianism (at least Jesus is still God), but it’s still a grave error to ignore that the three members do have three separate identities and roles even if they are the same being.  This turned into modalism, or Sabellianism, and lives on in Oneness Pentecostal churches.

Schisms
People would argue about if and when to celebrate Easter.  They do that today.

The Donatists would not let returning Christians back into their midst after they recanted Jesus to save their skin in the persecution.  How often do we forget that Christ saved greater offenses against us?  The least we can do is ignore someone’s offense against us.

da-ba-dee-ba-da-da-ba-da-ba-dee-da-ba

So the title to that is the lyrics from the song Blue.  I think Eve 6 sang it.  Really, those are the lyrics.  The whole chorus is "I'm blue" and then all those non-words.  But I'm feeling blue this week.  I'm gonna be open about it, but I came to the point where I just have to give up on someone for a while.

I'm actually too mature to stay in a three-year-old tantrum situation with someone who I thought was more mature.

Also, it's my parents' 30th anniversary.  It's a milestone and an anniversary, so I'm thinking of mom more this week.

I didn't get out of the house much this week.  and both last night and tonight, I've been so sad that people have noticed while I'm trying to be strong.

But I did trace my anxieties and obsessions to still mourning over mom.  That's actually normal, and I'll live with that the rest of my life.

And my penchant for arguing?  Turns out I ended up doing it so much this year that I decided to like it.  But it's never for no reason.  I really believe what I say, and I really believe it's important enough to risk friendship over.

This only makes me more hesitant to move on and just call people.  I have serious anxieties over calling people.

I'm so glad for church groups.  I feel as broken as some of the people that I minister to.

How am I going to find time to not be sitting before my computer all day in the next week?  Granted, that will be hard as I have two online classes.  And feel like working on them ahead of time.

WSC 7 and the Fall of Man

Q. 7. What are the decrees of God?
A. The decrees of God are, his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.

This is good to know.  Now my prayer is that I'm going to present this question in the same lesson where I teach the fall of man.

So, if God foreordains whatever comes to pass, and man sinned, then God planned on man sinning.

Here are the proof texts copied and pasted from Reformed.org:

Psalm 33:11. The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. Isaiah 14:24. The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: Acts 2:23. Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Ephesians 1:11-12. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.

The Acts quotation especially shows that even the wicked things were planned by God for his greater glory.  And for real, if you believe in God who is omnipotent and all-knowing (and I know some who don't, that's beside the point), then you have to believe that nothing happens without his green light.  Even in Job, Satan attacked Job only because God gave him permission and he never explained why.

So, the fall of man.  God could have prevented it.  He placed that tree in the garden knowing one of his kids would eat it.  Why?  Because he didn't want robots forced to love him?  No, Scripture never says anything about puppets or automatons or anything else people would have used in the BC era.  If man had never sinned, he would still be free to love God without coercion, just like he will in heaven.

However, God, in his wisdom, and for his Glory, who always makes right decisions, allowed Adam and Eve to eat the fruit and ruin life for all mankind, both human and animal.  

So we must think, what good thing came of this?  Well, God had mercy and did not kill the couple immediately.  He gave them clothes and taught them how to make sacrifices.  He let them have children and populate the earth.  Even after he sent a flood to kill all but 8 people, he still let wicked human beings repopulate the earth.

But the best thing that came from the Fall of Man is none other than Jesus.  If man had not sinned, then he would not need someone to save him from his sin.  He would never know how God can forgive what should not be forgiven.  And we would not know of a God willing to lay aside his dignity to love people who despise him.  So despite being a terrible thing, God planned and rearranged the Fall of Man to bring him even greater glory.

Kuyper on Politics

Due to debates on theonomy v. two kingdoms, I declared that I believe whatever Abraham Kuyper believed.  As it has been 5 years since I read about him, I figured that I had better read what he actually said about a Calvinist's relation to politics.  The following are quotations from his Stone Lecture on Calvinism and Politics, and anything in bold is my commentary.


And the mistake of the Alexanders, and of the Augusti, and of the Napoleons was not that they were charmed with the thought of the One-world empire, but it was this – that they endeavored to realize this idea notwithstanding that the force of sin had dissolved our unity.

God has instituted the magistrates by reason of sin.

Calvinism has therefore, by its deep conception of sin, laid bare the true root of state-life, and has taught us two things:  First – that we have gratefully to receive, from the hand of God, the institution of the State with its magistrates, as a means of preservation, now indeed indispensable.  And on the other hand also that, by virtue of our natural impulse, we must ever watch against the danger, which lurks, for our personal liberty, in the power of the State.

In politics also it taught us, that the human element – here the people – may not be considered as the principle thing, so that God is only dragged in to help this people in the hour of its need; but on the contrary that God, in his Majesty, must flame before the eyes of many nation, and that all nations together are to be reckoned before Him as a drop of a bucket and as the small dust of the balances.

“And ye, O peoples, to whom God gave the liberty to choose your own magistrates, see to it, that ye do not forfeit this favour, by electing to the positions of highest honor, rascals and enemies of God.” – Calvin

But with equal decision, Calvin asserts that God has the sovereign power, in the way of his dispensing Providence, to take from a people this most desirable condition, or never to bestow it at all, when a nation is unfit for it, or, by its sin, has utterly forfeited the blessing.

All this, however, is no theocracy.  A theocracy was only found in Israel, because in Israel, God intervened immediately.

1. God only – and never any creature – is possessed of sovereign rights…2. Sin has, in the realm of politics, broken down the direct government of God… 3. In whatever authority this may reveal itself, man never possesses power over his fellow-man…

Directly opposed to this Calvinistic confession, there are two other theories.  That of the popular-sovereignty, as it has been anti-theistically proclaimed and Paris in 1789; and that of state-sovereignty, as it has of late been developed by the historico-pantheistic school of Germany.  Both these theories are at heart identical, but for the sake of clearness, they demand a separate treatment.

The French Revolution is in principle distinct from all these national revolutions, which were undertaken with the praying lips and with trust in the help of God.  The French Revolution ignores God.  It opposes God.  It refuses to recognize a deeper ground of political life than that which is found in nature, that is, in this instance, in man himself…The sovereign God is dethroned and man with his free will is placed on the vacant seat.

Now it was not to be the sovereignty of the people, but the Sovereignty of the State, a product of German philosophical pantheism…It was correctly seen that a people is no aggregate, but an organic whole…Slowly these organs arrived at their historic development.  By these organs, the will of the State operates, and everything must bow before its will.

The Law is right, not because its contents are in harmony with the eternal principles of right, but because it is law…it becomes the ever-changing will of the State.

We come now to sovereignty in the sphere of Society.  In a Calvinistic sense, we understand hereby that the family, the business, science, art, and so forth are all social spheres, which do not owe their existence to the State, and which do not derive the law of their life from the superiority of the state, but obey a high authority within their own bosom; an authority which rules, by the grace of God, just as the sovereignty of the state does.

It may be sharply and decidedly expressed that these different developments of social life have nothing above themselves but God, and that the State cannot intrude here, and has nothing to command in their domain.  As you feel at once, this is a deeply interesting question of civil liberties.

Free love may try to dissolve, and the concubinate to desecrate, the holiest tie, as it pleases; but for the vast majority of our race marriage remains the foundation of human society and the family retains its position, as the primordial sphere in society.

This unity does no longer exist.  The government of God can no longer assert itself.  The patriarchal hierarchy has been destroyed.  A world empire neither cannot be established nor ought it to be.

According to the apostolic testimony the  magistrate bears the sword, and this sword has a threefold meaning.  It is the sword of justice, to mete out corporeal punishment to the criminal.  It is the sword of war to defend the honour and the rights and interests of the State against its enemies, and it is the sword of order, to thwart at home all forceful rebellion.

He agrees that after the flood, God instituted government with a sword so that those who put people to death should be put to death.

1. Social sphere, 2. corporative sphere, 3. the domestic sphere of the family, 4. communal autonomy.
In all these four spheres, the state government cannot impose its laws, but must reverence the innate law of life.

He moves to the difficulty in the role of Church in the state. The difficulty lies in the unanimous and uniform advice of Calvin and his epigonies, who demanded intervention of the government in the matter of religion.

The duty of the government to extirpate every form of false religion and idolatry was not found in Calvin, but in Emperor Constantine, in reaction to what his pagan predecessors had done to the Christians.  He points to the Servetus affair as a terrible result of this tradition.
The first system worked because there was only one Church that had to defend against heresies and sects.  Then the Reformation happened, and the Church kept dividing.  Then Christians started persecuting Christians in the name of Jesus, and many innocent people were killed, thus showing that a theonomic society can never work if we are still divided into denominations.

The Truth, true as it must ever remain in our personal consciences, may never be imposed by force on other people.

Duty towards God, the magistrate is still God’s appointed servant. 
The sphere of the state is not profane.  But both Church and State must each in their own sphere, obey God and serve his honour.

Duty toward the Church; if the Church was still united, this would be an easy answer.  Or is it the duty of the government to suspend its own judgment and to consider the multiform complex of all these denominations, as the totality of the manifestation of Christ on earth?  Kuyper sees that as the answer, not from  neutrality, which isn’t possible but because the government lacks the data of judgment.

The government bears the sword that wounds; not the sword of the Spirit, which decides in spiritual questions.

Only the system of a free Church in a free State may be honored from a Calvinistic standpoint.  They exist side by side and mutually limit each other.

Duty toward the individual person; man also has his own individual sphere in society, which I’m pretty sure I don’t agree with completely.  No man is an island, but a family unit. 

Conscience is never subject to man but always and forever to God Almighty.  The Inquisition, its practices violated and assaulted human life in man.

Liberty in the French Revolution and Calvinism are two different things.  The French give us liberty to agree with the unbelieving majority.  The Calvinists grant a liberty of conscience, which enables every man to serve God, according to his own conviction and the dictates of his heart.

In conclusion: Kuyper believes in the separation of church and state as they are separate spheres.  He does not believe in the separation of God and state.  However, God gave the government the sword to defend the sanctity of life, to kill anyone who has killed a human life.  He gave the Church the sword of the spirit.  Unfortunately, the Church is not currently unified.  Therefore, the Church cannot properly punish heretics, sectarians, and sinners.  Because of this disunity, there a church can never rule a state without disaster or corruption.  Therefore, we must wait on Christ to return and reunite us for there to be an ideal Christian state.

The New Nero

I thought I'd add on to the post about religious persecution from Saturday.  Cairns listed four categories of reasons that Rome persecuted the Christians.  It is interesting how they compare to biases against Christians today in America.

Political persecution: Christians had to choose between Christ and Caesar on pain of death.  
We don't quite have to choose between Christ and the President.  It is noticeable how liberals think that they can solve all the world's problems and how conservatives think that America is the promised land.  You already have to choose between creation and evolution in education or you will be seen as an unscientific naive person, despite the fact that evolution has never been scientific.

Religious persecution: Romans had tons of idols and rituals.  When Christians prayed to nothing visible, Rome equated that with atheism.  Also, Christians met secretly, causing rumors of incest, cannibalism, and unnatural practices.  
America has celebrities, talking heads, and ideologies that sit in the place of idols today.  They insist that they are atheists yet believe in horoscopes and whatever is popular at the time.  They scoff at the Christians who refuse to give into the libertine culture (just unfortunate virgins) or hate that we don't agree with them, though we've never done anything to them besides simply disagree with them.  And even within the Church, people will patronizingly smile at me when I say I believe the Bible as it says and hate that I can prove it right.

Social persecution: Rich folks hated them because the slaves loved them.  Christianity preached equality of all men, so the slaves would threaten their style.  They also did not take place in pagan gatherings, causing Rome to call them “haters of mankind.”  
We preach equality, so liberals get angry that we really want to give birth to our babies, keep our grandmas alive, raise down syndrome children as if it taxes the economy.  The liberals want to live for themselves and give up on people when they become to complicated.  Christians love all life and consider every one worth living.  So, somehow, we infringe upon their right to not have to feed an extra mouth.

Economic persecution: Idol makers started losing business.  They also got blamed for Roman destruction.  
Again, when Christianity becomes powerful, abortion clinics lose business, Playboy loses business, and Chick-fil-A and Tim Tebow get overworked with business.  They look on with jealousy and try to blame it on racism.   The best selling news stories do give only skewed exaggerations of Christian beliefs while the truth is only found on the internet for free.

And as for Nero, I think America lives under as much of a Nero as we've ever experienced.  He cares nothing for religious freedom, private property, nuclear families, and he supports everything that destroys America like Islam and homosexuality (you know, because they can't reproduce and carry on a culture in that lifestyle).  I don't know if I sound like Chicken Little, but it is interesting that there is so much anti-Christian sentiment in the government and the media.  But it also gives me hope that Christ is closer to returning to earth.

Parousia by J. Stuart Russell

These are thoughts on Parousia by James Stuart Russell.  This is only for the first chapter and the only chapter that I will comment.  He gives some good preterist eschatology.  For some reason, however, he is convinced that Christ came back in 70 when the temple fell.  This cannot be.  We'd know about it and not be here at the moment.  However, I do believe that pretty much everything in Revelation happened up until 70 and that now we live in the millennium waiting for Christ to finally finish Satan.

Matthew 22:38-46
Russell notes that Jesus said “this generation” and that he did not necessarily mean the Jews for all time.  They would all pass away and the temple would be destroyed because they rejected God’s obvious truth and salvation in Christ.

“Neander gives a luminous explanation of its true import: 'As the fruitless tree, failing to realize the aim of its being, was destroyed, so the theocratic nation, for the same reason, was to be overtaken, after long forbearance, by the judgments of God, and shut out from His kingdom.'”

Concerning the Parable of the Wheat and Tares in Matthew 13:36-47, Russell notes that the word for “world” in verse 38 is different than the word for “world” in verses 39-40.  The former is koinos, the world of men.  The latter is aeon, which means time.  So Jesus calls the field the world.  The end of the world, however, is the end of the age.  That means when a certain period of time has expired. 

Therefore, Jesus has in view the temple’s destruction and the end of Judaism as a legit theocracy.
Parousia means the return of Christ. “Can anything be more specific and definite as to persons, place, time, and circumstance, than this prediction of our Lord? It is to the twelve that he speaks; it is the cities of Israel which they are to evangelize; the subject is His own speedy coming; and the time so near, that before their work is complete His coming will take place.”  But he notes that at his writing, it had been 18 centuries since this time and Christ has not physically returned.  Which is why I believe that the millennium is the whole Church age.  At this point, Russell had not known the anti-Christian horrors that abound in 2012 even in developed nations such as America.  It is my personal belief that Satan is unbound and wreaking havoc on the world now, and that he had been doing so ever since the Church kept splitting up in 1521.  His havoc has been subtle and taken 500 more years, but it is there.

“The very form of the expression shows that the event spoken of could not be within the space of a few months, or even a few years: it is a mode of speech which suggests that not all present will live to see the event spoken of; that not many will do so; but that some will. It is exactly such a way of speaking as would suit an interval of thirty or forty years, when the majority of the persons then present would have passed away, but some would survive and witness the event referred to.”  Clearly, the temple was not destroyed in the next year, but it did happen 40 years after Christ’s death and resurrection, 40 years being considered a whole generation to Judaism.

In conclusion: I agree with Russell that everything in Matthew 24 and most of Revelation only concern things that happened before the temple's destruction.  However, Russell does not take into account the millennium prophesied, nor the reality that Christ has not come back to reign as this world still suffers from sin.  In my amillennial beliefs, Christ destroyed the first Church who rejected him, namely Israel and the Jewish religion.  They rejected their Messiah, so he destroyed the temple and gave his salvation to the Gentiles.  Now we must wait for him to do the same thing to the wicked in the world who have rejected Christ and terrorized his people.

Chapter 7: Christ v. Caesar

My notes on reading the chapter.  I assume that I will comment on them later on this week.

The church had to face the internal problem of heresy and the external problem of persecution.  (Cairns 87)

Tertullian – the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church

Political persecution: Christians had to choose between Christ and Caesar on pain of death. 

Religious persecution: Romans had tones of idols and rituals.  When Christians prayed to nothing visible, Rome equated that with atheism.  Also, Christians met secretly, causing rumors of incest, cannibalism, and unnatural practices. 

Social persecution: Rich folks hated them because the slaves loved them.  Christians preached equality of all men, so the slaves would threaten their style.  They also did not take place in pagan gatherings, causing Rome to call them “haters of mankind.” 

Economic persecution: Idol makers started losing business.  They also got blamed for Roman destruction. 

Nero has the dubious distinction of being the first major persecutor of the Christian church.  Tacitus first mentioned that Nero started the Roman fire, and it was so believed that he decided to blame the Christians.  This stayed only in Rome, and Peter and Paul died in this. 

Domitian began a persecution when Jews and Christians would not pay a poll tax to Jupiter.  Jews suffered because Rome still thought of the Christians as Jews.  This is when John wrote Revelation on Patmos. 

Pliny the Younger began the first organized persecution in Bithynia.  Ignatius was killed in that one, and Polycarp lost his life in the persecution at Smyrna. 

Marcus Aurelius was a devout Stoic who had been biased against Christianity by his teacher Fronto.  Justin Martyr died in his reign. 

When Rome was falling apart in the 3rd century, Decius blamed the Christians.  He sent an edict in 250 that demanded people serve the Roman gods to receive a libellus certificate and live.  Origen died after the fact from complications in the persecution.  The Church also had confusion about members who would deny Christ for their libellus.  Also, Valerian killed Cyprian.

Diocletian decided only a monarchy would solve all the problems.  This brought the most severe persecution ever.  March 303, Diocletian ordered the cessation of Church meetings, destruction of Church buildings, deposition of officers, imprisonment to people who persisted in Christ, and destroyed Scriptures by fire.  Later, the Donatists would not allow the ones who handed over Scripture back into the Church.  He also sent them to death camps to overwork them. 

Galerius died and issued protection to Christians if they kept the peace.  Persecution ended when
Licinius and Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313. 

Results:
During the Apostolic period, Christianity was mostly urban.  During the second century, the Greek Gentiles became Christians in newer cities other than Jerusalem.  Alexandria became the chief church.  In 200, Christians were in all parts of the empire.  Then, people started spreading the Gospels to the Latin west. 

Two severe controversies broke out in North Africa and Rome concerning the manner of treatment those who had offered sacrifices at pagan altars in the Decian persecution and those who gave up Scriptures during Diocletian who came back to the church when persecution ended.  Some included them, but the Donatists would not. 

This also began the process of New Testament canonization. 

Concerning the Starbuck's music

I remember when I loved the music at Starbuck's.  It was so indie.  I'd hear songs by Brooke Fraser and Fran Healy that I would not hear outside of YouTube. 

Now, it's like all they play is Bob Marley.  I'm pretty sure I can listen to one of his songs, but seriously, that's the only song he has.  They all sound the same, and I feel toward them like some of my friends feel toward Country Music.

Then they played the Cure, "Just Like Heaven."  I sang every word, harkening back to my goth period.  And also, I'm still not sure how Robert Smith was goth other than the way he dressed.

Then they played that "Hallelujah" song.  Not that one, but the one that was in Shrek.  First done by Rufus Wainwright.  I liked that song, then.  It was different.  Now every whiny teenager has covered it and put it on Christmas albums or CCM albums.  Which, it's lyrics are unique but that's something I would pray to the Lord, not necessarily sing as a praise song.  So, now I can't even listen to Rufus sing it.  But I did kind of sing along..

I also endured Van Morrison singing, Willie Nelson singing, and I believe heard only one song that I sang along with, out loud, but can't remember what it was.

I do like "Brown-Eyed Girl."  Sadly, I hate Van Morrison's singing.

I like "Crazy." Willie has good taste, but again, terrible singer and seriously PC.

I guess not everything can be a George Strait tribute show. 

Why do I keep leaving my earbuds at home?  The ones that look like duckies.  My earducks.

Who Do You Say I Am?

My text for tomorrow night will be Mark 8:27-38. 

Read the text, then we will go through these questions.

Who do you say that Jesus is?  Who do most people say that he is?  (Talk about each thing they mention.  Possibly write it down.)

What did Peter say that made Jesus say happy things (Matt. 16:17-19)

 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock^[b] I will build my church, and the gates of hell^[c] shall not prevail against it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed^[d] in heaven.”

What is the Rock on which Jesus builds his church?  Peter?  Why would you think so?  So what is it?  Christ built the church on what Peter said: you are Christ son of the living God.  What does all that entail?  And what will happen to all the believers who are in the church together?  The gate of hell will not prevail against them.  It means the Church will never fall apart.  Is this true today with our denominations?  Do we have lots of churches?  Why?  We have denominations today, but the true believers believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  He unites us all under one Church.

Read Mark 8:31-38:  What did Jesus’s Christ position entail? v. 31

Name some things.  Discuss. 

How did Peter react?  He did not like Jesus’s idea.  Why? 

How did Jesus respond?  v. 33 He called him Satan.  Why?

Read Matthew 4:8-10.  How is Peter reminding Jesus of Satan here?

Satan clearly did not want Jesus to give up his life on the cross for the Church.  He wanted Jesus to bow down to the devil and find an easy, painless way to win the world.  What would have happened if Christ decided not to die but find another way to save us?  What do we need to be saved from?  What will happen if we still die in our sins, in our rebellion against God?  How could we ever get to heaven?  Live a perfect life or suffer God’s wrath for eternity.  How long is eternity?  We’ve all made at least one sin that can never be erased from our record.  That one sin makes us candidates for hell.  Without help, nobody can come to God without suffering his wrath.  What’s the solution?  Jesus had to live the one perfect life, and he took the punishment of all who will be saved on the cross.  What was Satan wanting Jesus to do again?  Then he would not have died to save humanity.  If this had happened, we would still be dead in our sins.  We’d have nobody to pay our debt for us.