This week and unusual biblical event from the book of Judges chapter 6 through 8. The person and event is Gideon. He was an Old Testament leader, prophet, and the fifth judge of Israel. Gideon is best known for his military triumph over the Midianites. He gained a great victory with only 300 men a famous fleece test to confirm God’s will, and his later downfall when he invariably lead Israel into ideology. Once again, a simple reminder that his life story is recorded in the book of Judges, chapters 6–8. I was attracted to this event because it’s not very often your read about somebody of the faith challenging God. One that does come to my mind is the Bible Book of Job. Job question God about his immense suffering and the apparent injustice of a righteous man being punished while the wicked prosper. I have read on in that story God rebuked Job for questioning his justice and speaking about divine matters without understanding. Because of his friends accusations and their divisive attitude, Job had accused God of acting arbitrarily and unjustly. To correct this God confronted Job highlighting his ultimate wisdom and sovereignty over the universe, and not realizing his place. Job repented for speaking so ignorantly, ultimately God defended Job against his friends saying that Job spoke more accurately about him than they did.

Gideon had a bit different approach than Job had. Reading in chapter 6 of judges down through verse 40, you will see the conversation that took place between Gideon and God. Basically to keep things a little bit simple Gideon had been called out to defend his people, and God had picked him to be the leader, but Gideon said to God if you are truly going to use me to rescue Israel, as you promised, prove it to me in this way. So Gideon innocently challenged God to prove that it was actually him calling out to him. Gideon told him I’ll put a fleece on the threshing floor tonight if the fleece is wet with dew in the morning, but the ground is dry then I will know you’re going to help me rescue Israel as you promised. Gideon checked the fleece in the morning. He was able to rung out a whole bowl full of water, but then Gideon turns around and says to God please don’t be angry with me, but let me make one more request. Let me use the fleece for one more test. This time let the fleece remain dry while the ground around it is wet with dew and so that night God did as Gideon asked, and the fleece was dry in the morning, but the ground was covered would dew. This interaction between God and Gideon caught my attention and I wanted to read more about it and try to understand it. So let’s look at some of the things that took place here in these chapters 6 through eight. There was a call to leadership. The people had turned away from God and they were seriously oppressed by the Midianites who kept stealing their crops and livestock and had been doing so for about seven years. It was then that an angel came to Gideon calling him to be a man of mighty valor. We talked about the fleece earlier, Gideon tested God using that sheep’s fleece first it was to be wet but the ground was dry and then reverse it both of which happened. To ensure God would receive the glory for the impending battle, Gideon’s army was reduced down from 32,000 to just 300 men and the next thing in the story, of course is the victory using only horns, torches in clay jars, Gideon’s tiny army surrounded the Midanites camp at night, the resulting confusion caused their soldiers to turn on each other, and it secured a miraculous victory. But as always, the people behaved just like a lot of us do today, once the crisis was over and passed they went right back to living the way they had before. Gideon lived a long life had 70 sons and Judged Israel for 40 years. His life was kind of a complex mix of deep faith, human doubt, and the danger of compromising with false worship.

So I will wrapped this up by sharing with you that the main point of the story of Gideon is that God’s power is perfected in human weakness. We see that a true victory comes from trusting God rather than relying on human strength and numbers, demonstrating that with God, even the most unlikely and fearful individuals can accomplish extraordinary things. What are some of the things that we might take from his story and carry with us as we travel along the way today? There are several core lessons that we can take with us. Overcoming fear and doubt, the angel finds Gideon hiding in fear, but God still refers to him as a mighty man of valor while he’s hiding in fear. God sees people for what they can become through his strength rather than their current limitations. And I think all of us are guilty of this next thing, self-reliance, we always believe we can do it best, but to ensure that the Israelites knew their victory came from God above… God whittled Gideon’s army down to just 300 men which meant that the pending victory against the Midianites could not be credited to human might or strategy.

There is one other important lesson to take from this blog today. Talk to God… God will listen, God always listens to his people. Place your trust in God and know from whom your salvation comes.

Life is Good

jk

This is a post from 2018…Thank you for reading.

I have written this opening sentence several times and have come to the realization that I might be over thinking this subject a little too much. So to keep it simple here is a fact of life. If your faith is such that it has a heavy influence on your actions, you might be a Christian, a follower of the way or a disciple of Jesus Christ. If this be the case it is inevitable you will be called on to defend the faith. To take this to the next step it is your faith that has placed you in this position and in reality you are defending or better said, presenting “an Argument for Christ.” Peter has set down acceptable ways to enter into this mode of Christian defense.

1Peter 3:15b-16A

…always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; 16 yet do it with gentleness and reverence.[c] Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. 

We must start off being reasonable, which in this present world of discourse is not easily done. It must be inspired by the word of God. It must be an intelligent, clear and applicable statement of position and of divine reasoning. It should contain an element of intelligence that conveys the message that you have prepared yourself through study and prayer to defend your faith; always remembering that you are defending Christ Jesus. This approach requires that you have come by your faith through first hand experience and not another’s story. William Barclay writes,

“It is one of the tragedies of the modern situation that there are so many church members who, if they were asked what they believe, could not tell, and who, if they were asked why they believe it, would be equally helpless. Christians must go through the mental and spiritual effort of thinking out their faith, (Barclay, DBS…1 Peter Pg 266)

Our defense must be given with gentleness. Our attitude must not be one of arrogance. We must not be of  the temperament that those who do not agree with us are stupid or they are unreliable. We must not do as some others with differing opinions and try to shove our beliefs down the throats of those who disagree with us. We must present our Christianity with love and tolerance while maintaining the scripture as written with divine discernment. We must understand that we cannot bully anyone into The Way. We can only lead them to the foot of the cross and allow the Holy Spirit to bring them to Christ. Most any debate today can easily become an argument. There are many debates within and outside of the Christian community that are just a word or two away from becoming an argument. Christians can become engaged in discussions that move to debates and then to full-blown arguments especially concerning theological differences. I wrote earlier that an argument for faith is an argument for  Christ. Any presentation of a case for Christian faith or beliefs must be presented with reverence, the tone and language must be pleasing to God’s ear. There is no room for rancor of any kind. Love for Christ and his love for all people must guide our behavior. As Christians our lives need to be a compelling and a living example that makes it easier for others to believe the message……makes it easier for others to believe in God, Jesus Christ and salvation.

Thanks for coming by, hope to see you in the pew next week.

Life is Good

jk

Lot is a key figure in the book of Genesis. Lot was a nephew of Abraham, who separated from his uncle to settle the lush Jordan River Valley near the Central city of Sodom. After a dispute between herdsmen , Abraham decided to give lot the first choice of land, Lot chose well watered planes and pitched his tents near Soto, then collation a of Kings attack that region and Lot, and his possessions were captured. Abraham organize a rescue mission and successfully brought him back to safety. And when we read further into the book of Genesis, we see read of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, they were extremely wicked cities. God decided to destroy them, sent angels to warn an escort Lot and his family out of that area and it came about as they fled Lots wife, ignoring the specific instructions of the angels looked back and she became a pillar of salt. The story is extremely sad in that fearing these rival nations Lot chose not to live in the nearby town of Zoar, lot and his two daughters took shelter in a mountain Cave. Believing there were the last people left on earth. Then his daughter’s got him drunk and became pregnant by him. They gave birth to Moab and Ben-Ammi who became the forefathers of the Moabites and Ammonites who became historical rivals of Israel. Lot made a series of poor choices, and the conclusion to his story was rather tragic. Yet the New Testament refers to him as a righteous man in second Peter 2:7–8, which is a testament to God’s grace and mercy and preserving him from the destruction of Sodom. This biblical story of Lot teaches the dangers of moral compromise and holding onto the past and the gradual descent into the wicked city of Sodom serves as a warning against letting worldly comforts, slowly erode your principles, and then we can look at what happened to his wife as a lapse of remembering what she was instructed to do and the importance of dealing with God with wholehearted obedience.

Well, we’re not finished with Lot yet. The story offers several specific and actionable life lessons. There is a progression of sin, He did not wake up one day and decide to live in a notorious city. When you read the story in the Bible, it shows a deadly step-by-step drift. He first looked in that direction, then pitched his tent near it, and finally chose to live inside its gates. It teaches that you you cannot deal in temptation without eventually becoming a casualty of it. Another lesson we learned involving the example of Lots wife is that she had a lingering attachment to her old life in possessions. She looked back and it cost her life. The lesson here is that we have to learn the necessity of leaving behind past sins rather than allowing for them. Lot compromised his morals for the sake of prosperity in city living. In the end, he lost everything…his possessions, his home, his moral authority, and his wife, which Illustrates the fact that you can gain a lot in this world, but at the same time you lose your ethical footing and that ultimately will lead to ruin. While we’re introduced to the New Testament pacifically two Peter 2:7–8, we find a Lot is described as a righteous man, but we also see that his decision to live among the wicked caused him this constant torment and left him powerless to influence his own family, so we can learn from this that your environment matters and surrounding yourself with unwholesome influencers will negatively impact your life and your loved ones.

For weeks now, we’ve been discussing the value of The Good Way. Lots story fits in here just perfectly in that we see what happens when you leave The Good Way, thanks for joining us in The Pew this week. I hope you’ll come back again and join us.

Life is Good

jk

This is a re-post from July 7, 2018. Each Wednesday we will be  “Looking Back” Please join us.

 You will find that people in the pew have many different opinions but on one thing almost all agree. Folks are tired of the lack of civility, the inability of people to express their differences without disrespect and in many cases these days, out-right displays of hate in words spoken and actions taken. Seriously, we all need to take a step back and see what we are doing to each other and our nation. Of note there is the fact that this type of behavior is not confined to those not in the Christian community.

 John 13:34-35  

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

 As shown by these verses There are certain characteristics that make Christians different from others, traits that point to the fact we are his disciples. Here in these verses from 1 Peter are more of those behavior traits that mark a Christian life. Today’s blog looks at  1 Peter 3:8-15a. It would be helpful to read these verses and then return to the blog. The Christian community is not immune to the current lack of Civility when addressing different opinions, beliefs or new directions. It seems this type of behavior has found a foothold within our community. Peter gives some great qualities for living a Christian life. He starts with the need for Unity. There are many great passages in the New Testament that encourage unity. We are divided as a community of faith by denominational beliefs, inner-denominational conflicts and in some cases a move to reinterpret scripture to meet the changing societal needs and trends. Even the Apostle Paul pleads for a unity of mind in the church. Throughout the NT there is this plea for unity. To some commentators and bible scholars it is more of a realization that people cannot live a Christian life unless in their personal relationships there is unity and the Church cannot meet its’ Christian call when there are divisions within it. The next being Sympathy. Again we are urged in NT writings to see this as a duty. 

Romans 12:15

15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.  

Just as evil cannot exist in the presence of our God, neither can selfishness exist where sympathy prevails. With Christ in our hearts sympathy will reign there. From here we move to Love. Peter sets out with what can be literally translated as brotherly love. The love we have for one another and Christian charity for others, all of God’s creation. Here again we see the indisputable fact that love of God requires love of others and also applies to the Church. Neither an individual or the Church can meet the reality of Christianity if they cannot love one another and their neighbors. Peter continues with  a much-needed attribute in this world. Compassion……something we  see less of in this day. In our books, movies, theater, social media and all this world of digital expression allows, we see a disturbing trend of insensitivity to adverse events in our daily lives. There can be no Christianity without compassion. The next attribute. Humility ……… We might measure up well against others but the real test for Christians is…..how well do we measure up to Christ? We know we can never obtain his sinless perfection. We must constantly remind ourselves of our utter dependence on our God. We must strive to be humble in his presence and in the presence of others. The last to share with you would be Forgiveness. We seek God’s forgiveness and it is our calling to extend forgiveness to others.

Ephesians 4:32 

32 and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

 We now go to verse 13 and the remaining verses in today’s scripture. To have written this passage (13-15a) we can tell by his words that although he does not quote directly the OT, it is obvious that his knowledge of it is firmly on his mind. From the very first of these verses Peter insists that you must have a passionate love for Goodness. It is when we seek the goodness of things in this life that the wrong things lose their pull on us. There are some things here that are a part of all people’s lives. Seeking to walk the walk, taking the good way does not exempt us from the human suffering that from time to time comes our way due to circumstances in our lives. Our humanity leaves us open to the trails of life. We can become absorbed with the importance of stuff, money and position. We depend on these things for our comfort and pleasure in this life. This places us in a very vulnerable position, scripture tells us that the things of this life are only temporary. There is then the fact that there can be hardships brought into our lives simply because Jesus Christ holds a unique place in our lives. None of us can escape the sufferings of this life but we as Christians know that suffering for Christ and the faith, it will never touch the things which matter most. 

Thank you for coming by the Pew this week. Next week join me as we lay out an argument for the faith. 

Life is Good

Jk

 

 

 

 

I have been in the hospital,  got home today July 7th and I’m going to post  the July 5th post. This was the first time in 15 years that I missed a publishing date.

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?” — Romans 10:14-15

There are other scriptures that come to mind when we read this, there’s Mark 5:19 “go home to your own people tell them how much the Lord has done for you.” We might also consider the commissioning from Matthew 28:19… “therefore go and make disciples of all nations”…and of course we recall the response from Isaiah 6:8… “then I heard the voice of the Lord saying “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us and I said, “here am I send me!”… One thing that can sometimes reading scripture makes it difficult for the Layman, are the considerations that we have to make. We have to be very careful about the context when we’re reading or studying a particular scripture. Not pulling just the part that serves what we believe but… trying to get the scriptures intent intact. So what is the context? Is it evangelism, conflict, resolution, or sharing a personal testimony?

It has been the observation from The Pew that many of our larger churches today have become almost like a community center and place for social gatherings. After reading through several local churches weekly newsletters and bulletins it’s really been easy to see that there is a huge emphasis on activities throughout the week and that’s a good thing and many of their endeavors serve a public that has many different and varying needs and that’s a good thing. But we are left pondering a little bit but not criticizing, just pondering do we still love to tell the story and do we do just that? in this writers humble opinion we don’t do enough of that I’m not going to get into a long list of do’s and do nots, because that serves nothing of value. Instead, I want to share a story with you about an English evangelist named Catherine Hankey, who wrote a poem, a massive 50 stanza, a poem about the life of Christ and it was titled, “I Love to Tell The Story.” Without going into all the details, I’ll just simply inform you that this poem eventually part of it became the hymn, “Tell Me The Old, Old Story.”… she wrote this poem while she was bedridden with a severe illness in 1866 she divided it into two parts, “The Story Wanted” and The Story Told.” In 1869 William J Fisher, set her versus to music and added the famous singable refrain …

“I love to tell the story; / ‘Twill be my theme in glory / To tell the old, old story / Of Jesus and His love.”

Something we don’t often do here on The Pew is to invade the realm of sharing with our opinion. Today we break with a tradition, because I believe it’s extremely important that we get back to telling the story and worry about the games and other activities a little less. We’re just simply stating our opinion…  have you been sent? We as Christians are called and set apart to do just that “Go and Tell The Story”

Life Is Good

jk

This is special post this evening such things we would normally discuss on the back porch, but as I have shared with you earlier, we’re not able to get together there anymore, so I wanted to share it with you this way From the Pew. It’s really very difficult to have to write this but we live in a world today that thrives on hate. Respect for others opinions, civil discourse among the people in general and a love for that which is good is no longer the norm. Did a little bit of borrowing so to speak for today’s blog. In 1944 there was a hit song called Accentuate the Positive and its origin is as interesting as the song itself. The phrase originally came from a sermon given by a religious leader, Father Divine, it was overheard and turned into an Academy award-nominated song by Johnny Mercer. The timeless, uplifting chorus advises:  

“You’ve got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive / E-lim-i-nate the negative / Latch on to the affirmative / Don’t mess with Mister In-Between”.

 Folks, I guess we should really admit to ourselves that we are really kind of in a downward spiral as far as attitudes go in this country. We need to accentuate the positive, highlight and celebrate those activities and focus on things that are going well. We need to get rid of all that pessimism doom and gloom, toxic mindsets that absolutely drain our energy. I like those lyrics say we need to latch onto the affirmative. How do we do that? We hold tight to our core truths, goals and empowering beliefs, rather than settling for a lukewarm undecided in between state of mind. By shifting our focus to the affirmative that becomes a powerful tool for resilience. We need to stop fixating on what went wrong and look at what we can learn from it so that we don’t make those mistakes again. I like one of the churches here in the city I live in. They’re going through a year of “Gratitude”. Start thinking about the things you are genuinely thankful for and then perhaps one of the more practical things you might try doing is to limit the time you spend engaging with the pessimistic news media, conversations that pull you into a negative place.

Not to pat ourselves on the back but we have always advocated here at The Pew that there’s a lot of things in the Bible that will keep us on the good way so remember Philippians 4:8…

 

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

And while you’re doing that, why not look up that song Accentuate the Positive by Johnny Mercer.

Thank you for dropping by The Pew, join us again this Saturday evening and Sunday for another blog fromThe Pew.

Life is Good

jk

For those of you who have been reading The Pew over the years about two years ago we started sharing some posts from the porch, a gathering of some of us old guys just to sit around and ponder about things in this world we live in. Well, it’s been a while since we’ve shared anything from the porch with you and there’s a reason for that and we want to talk about that some today and then to bring you some special information. As we grow older age has its rewards as well as its distractions, the biggest for most of us that met on that porch was mobility and independence. Sometimes our health makes demands on us and while the mind and soul are willing the body can’t. Well, we can’t physically meet anymore. We are still able to communicate by other means but that’s not like being together. There are some of us, including myself now that can’t make it to church every Sunday and I can assure you we miss that very very much. I have been writing The Pew for over 15 years now, over 700 posts, not a very large readership, but it does include many friends and readers from foreign countries. It is our hope that we will be able to increase writing and posting here on the Pew. 

Thank you for giving this Laymen a purpose and the opportunity to share the word. I would like to invite you to come back here next Wednesday evening for a special post from The Pew about a subject that all of us in this world today need to consider.

Life is Good

jk

Continuing from last week blog,  we will examine the key themes of the prayer. For your reference information the prayer can be found in the book of Nehemiah chapter 1 verses 5–11. We will break the prayer down in the four different sections by the verses in each of those sections. The very first will be adoration and praise which we can find in verse five.

-the very first thing that Nehemiah does is to acknowledge God’s supreme power. He makes it a point to refer to God as great and awesome. And he remembers God’s faithful covenant.

-the next is the confession of sin we find that in versus 6–7. Jeremiah assumes responsibility for much of what has happened, and he repents on behalf of Israel. He includes himself and his family, and he confesses that both Israel and his family broke God’s commands.

–remembrance of God’s word is addressed in versus eight through 10. Nehemiah quotes God’s promises to Moses, he remembers the warning of exile, and he claims the promise of restoration. We will come back to those promises in just a few paragraphs.

-as we begin reading in verse 11 Nehemiah, begs God to listen now, he asked for success that day, and he requests favor before King Artaxerxes.

I want to go back to the promises between God and Moses. God made several profound promises to Moses primarily centered on deliverance, Devine presence, and inheritance. God assures Moses of his continued presence. “My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.” He speaks of deliverance he vows to rescue the Israelites from Egyptian slavery and redeem them with mighty acts. There’s a promise of the promised land… God promises to bring the Israelites into the land of Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey. It is a unique covenant for God has stated that if Israel keeps his covenant, they would be his treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. And lastly, in response to Moses request, God promised to make all His “goodness pass before” him. 

Using what we have looked at so far I suppose a proper step or direction would be to look at our prayer life and what we need to be doing today. Our prayers today should focus on seeking God’s guidance, peace and strength in our daily lives.  

-the very first thing we should does we pray is to acknowledge God’s goodness, we simply need to remind ourselves that God’s love is better than life itself and we need to praise him for this day.

-we need to thank God for his gifts. Thank Him for the very air we breathe, the roof over our head and the people that surround us that we love.

-we should confess our shortcomings and ask for God’s help to improve the way that we live and serve him. We need to pray for the strength to overcome the anxiety and stress of this life today that we may remain calm and focused on that which God would have us do.

-and while it will not be an easy thing to do because of human nature, we need to put our total trust into God and let him control our daily lives and lead us to the truth that will sustain our efforts to walk in The Good Way.

-and when our day comes to an end, we should express our gratitude. Maybe there was a specific blessing or a moment of peace that we experienced today and we need to thank God for that.

-and then, we should lay down the burdens and unfinished tasks for that day, and pray that God will grant us a restful night of sleep and restore our spirit to continue to do the Lord’s will. 

And I pray and give thanks for each one of you each week, that take some of your time to spend with us here in The Pew. May God bless you and your family, may He strengthen you, giving you peace in these stressful times.

Life is Good…God is Good

jk

What is that other wall?…it is the wall of Faith. Faith is something that stretches or reaches far beyond just mere belief, it’s the core of our Christian life,  a simple acknowledgment that God exists, and there is a definite realm of trust required. Without getting into a whole discussion of exactly what faith is a very simple explanation would be that it involves abandoning all of our human reliance on self efforts and placing total dependence upon God’s character, his actions and promises as revealed in his word. In just these few words, you should have grasped the concept that this wall we’re talking about is bigger than life itself. So at this point, I suppose I will share with you that we’re going to do. We are going to take one of those “holy stretches.”we’re going to draw today’s blog, material or subject from the book of Nehemiah chapters 1-2 and 3, so join me and stretch just a little.

Chapters 1–3 of Nehemiah detail how Nehemiah, a Jewish cup bearer to the Persian King, learns of Jerusalem’s ruined walls. He responds with a deep prayer, receives royal permission to travel and rebuild, and organizes the local community to successfully begin the reconstruction.

The key verse from Nehemiah is Nehemiah 1:11:

“Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.”

What brought Nehemiah to his knees was a devastating report from his brother that the walls of Jerusalem are broken down and the gates destroyed by fire, leaving the returning Jewish remnant vulnerable, and in disgrace. As we go through this today, I will take a few opportunities to do a little parallel stretching. Our wall of faith today is broken down and in some places destroyed completely and we are vulnerable to the many sins and calamities of this world we live in today, and unfortunately, in some instances, it has destroyed many believers faith and I would remind you that we’re speaking of not only our personal faith, but we’re speaking of our country’s faith, One Nation Under God, I doubt very seriously if we can say that anymore with any assurance. You can find Nehemiah’s prayer in its entirety in the book of Nehemiah chapter 1:5–11 and it follows a very structured model of faith, humility, and urgency. Next week, the Pew will follow Nehemiah’s prayer and examine it in more detail looking at how it is structured and model of faith, humility, and urgency, and we’ll look at that next week.

OK, for now let’s get back to kind of an overview of chapters 1–3 the book of Nehemiah. As we’ve written, he was in service to the Persian King and he learns of Jerusalem walls. He responds with deep prayer, receives royal permission to travel and rebuild and organize the community to successfully begin reconstruction. We find the account of that in chapter 1 when we moved to chapter 2 after we have observed a more detailed account of the deep sadness of Nehemiah’s concerning the wall. The King asked what he wants and Nehemiah, after praying to God silently, he asks the king for permission to return to Judah to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls and the king grants his request and provides safe conduct letters. This occurs in chapter 2. When Nehemiah arrives in Jerusalem, he secretly inspects the ruin walls at night and afterwards he reveals his mission to the Jewish people and urges them to rebuild despite the early mockery and some opposition from local adversaries. The people resolved to start the work. And then we get to chapter 3, and we discover a community effort,  this chapter provides a detailed organized roster of who built which sections of the wall. Unity and teamwork and a diverse group of people working side-by-side. The list includes priest and goldsmiths, perfumers, merchants, rulers, and everyday citizens working on the segments closest to their own homes and professions. Stay with me now as we proceed to wrap this week’s blog up. As you remember at the very beginning, I wrote about doing some “holy stretches.” And now I’m going to make a little bit of a U-turn and we’re going to look at something called an allegory. We have so far in the summaries of the first three chapters of Jeremiah, shared the the literal story, the actual plot, characters, and setting of the story and what we’re gonna do now is we’re going to look at the symbolic level, the hidden deeper meaning, the real world concept that the literal story represents in my mind.

I guess I would ask the question… where is our Nehemiah? Our country is so divided by so many social justice groups, and people with special agendas that we can’t come together really for most anything. But the thing that bothers me the most is what I had written earlier, this is no longer One Nation Under God, that just doesn’t apply to us now. We’ve lost our wall of faith and we need to restore it. So I close out I simply re-asking that question…Where is our Nehemiah? Ponder that.

Life is. Good

jk

As you know the past few months, the Pew has been looking at the Good Way, today we continue that journey by taking just a few moments to look at this quest for knowledge and wisdom that sometimes can compromise the road to the Good Way.

We’re going to go out on the limb today so to speak and simply say that in our opinion, there are three components to the subject we’re looking at today. There is a new phenomenon known as AI, add to that just plain knowledge and round that out with God’s wisdom. Artificial intelligence is a computer technology that is designed to simulate human intelligence. It enables machines to learn from data, recognize patterns, solve problems, and to literally make decisions. What’s unusual about this particular system is that it allows itself to adapt, analyze the information, and perform tasks that typically require human input. But it becomes even more amazing once you consider the fact that the traditional computer software that we use nowadays follow strict rules, and is programed by humans. But the new AI on the other hand operates by analyzing vast amounts of information, examples and data rather than explicit instructions. It looks at trends and data to make educated predictions, and it understands spoken language and if that’s not enough, it identifies objects in images.

Knowledge, on other hand is the confident understanding, awareness, or familiarity of a subject, concept, or skill. It’s acquired, you get there through study, observation, or experience, the bridge between raw information and actionable insight. Gaining knowledge can really be broken down into some procedural steps, so to speak the core types of knowledge. One of course, is procedural, knowing how to perform a task, then there’s conceptional the understanding of theories and mental models. And then the next is pretty common for most of us and that’s factual familiarity with the specific objective data, and any information that is provided for that. Then there is the  knowledge that is gained from experience that is often difficult to transfer to others. Here is interesting fact about knowledge which is pretty well understood to be defined as justified true belief. To know something you must believe it and it must be true and you must have valid reasons or just reasons for that belief and that brings us to the last topic of these concepts. That of course, being God’s wisdom.

I’ve done quite a bit of research trying to find ways to write about this topic and the best I could find, the one that I feel comfortable with would be found on gotquestions.org . The information that I shared with you in this blog, a large part of it came from the website I just listed. I chose that because there are a number of biblical verses that were used in the explanation about God’s wisdom. And there is no better place to learn about that wisdom than the Bible itself. According to the Bible, God’s wisdom is the perfect divine insight, of moral purity, and understanding that governs the universe. Unlike worldly knowledge which relies heavily on self promotion, God, the wisdom is rooted in reference for the Lord and is characterized by a lifestyle of righteousness, humility, and peace. It’s interesting to note that one of the first points made in this article is the fact that the starting point would be the book of proverbs which states that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Simply said it means that we’re acknowledging God’s sovereignty, obeying his commands, and relying on His truth rather than human intellect. Consider 

James 3:17…But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Next we find in 1 Corinthians 1:24-25…but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Paul wrote this to symbolically state that the power of God and the wisdom of God could be found in Jesus Christ among us. The Bible is very plain about Godly versus earthly wisdom. The Bible simply describes earthly wisdom as being foolish. Earthly wisdom relies on pride and self interest, and shortsightedness, whereas Gods is the wisdom to live from an eternal perspective and prioritize God’s will. I could continue on and overwhelm you with scripture, but it’s true in my opinion that the things we learn and retain are the things that we have in our heart. Godly wisdom is from God and it honors God, the wisdom starts with fear of God and results in a holy life, but if we see the wisdom of this world, and we’re not concerned with honoring God, but with pleasing our self, we’re gonna get in big trouble. With worldly wisdom we may become educated, smart, and have common sense that enables us to play the world’s game successfully. But when we look at the difference and look at Godly wisdom, we see that it will prepare us for eternity. With Godly wisdom, we trade earthly values for biblical values, and we recognize that we are truly citizens of another kingdom and the choices we make will reflect that allegiance. I’ll wrap this up by simply asking you to go to this website which I’ve included. Read this and think heavily about the direction you are traveling. Is it a Good Way…God’s Way?

https://www.gotquestions.org/godly-wisdom.html 

Life is Good

jk