AWPATT IX: August 22-27 (Thoughts 83-88)

A Woman Provokes A Thousand Thoughts: Hub

83 It’s eminently reasonable to take care to introduce oneself to others by “putting your best foot forward,” so long as it’s done with more of an aim to project one’s good traits rather than conceal undesired traits. Just don’t place too much emphasis on the process than is beneficial. You can stand to gain in relationships by not calculating every move or speech to try to accomplish a goal beyond merely helping a person get to know you. In romance, I feel that she will eventually get to know all of you eventually, if she’s the One, so being boldly open about yourself can do nothing more for the most part than help ascertain if the girl you’re interested in really IS the one.

84 Asked if I have a yearning for close male friends, not just my future wife, I pondered why I might not be so interested. I concluded that I have no resistance to male friendships, and have a welcoming attitude toward such fellowship, and that I can see the benefit thereof. However, I feel nothing drawing me in the same way that I feel an emotional void that a wife would fill. I neither need nor am made for having a lifelong intimate male partner. I’m made for a woman. This is Biblical. So the answer to the question was no, but not with a rebellious attitude, just with a sense of lack of both interest and need.

85 That should be clarified: married men don’t need “buddies.” They don’t need to have guys they hang out with in order to satisfy their need for social interaction. I do say this as an introvert, so there’s a risk my opinion is skewed from that. Fair warning. But I think a man should be first and foremost satisfied socially in his wife. She’s the one he connects with. She’s the one he can talk to—talk with—and listen to. She’s his companion and she’s the one he participates with in entertainment, rest and relaxation, chit-chat, philosophizing, sharing advice, talking about life, helping each other with problems, etc etc. FIRST. What’s he need male friends for, but to help him with the rare things he needs advice on with respect to his wife that he CAN’T ask her about (if they’re fighting and she’s giving him a cold shoulder, for example. Or if she’s mourning, and he wants to be careful and sensitive). This gets to the point of having male friends. The interest and need at the end of point #84 is emotional. I have and will have no emotional need for other men. The benefit (me-directed; my benefit to others is another Thought) of male friends is in their ability to improve your Christian walk in the few ways that your wife can’t—namely, she can’t tell you from personal experience how to be a Christian man. You can only get this wisdom from other Christian men. And if your buddies before marriage aren’t Christian, drop ‘em. “Bad company corrupts good morals.” 1 Corinthians 15:33

86 But a single Christian man can only give you so much help. I’m writing this blog openly as a single Christian man. I have lots of thoughts and possibly very good advice for other single young men. Not limited to them: this blog can certainly be insightful to young women, or even people who are unsaved, or married. But what I have to offer will be less and less helpful to each successive person in that list. Why? Because in the case of women, I can only help them see what a Christian man ought to think and how he ought to behave, but I can only approach Biblical Womanhood from the outside—I can’t offer them as intimate of an insight. I don’t know what it feels like to be a woman; it’s not my experience. I can speak to a woman’s heart, but I can’t speak from a woman’s heart. And in the case of the unsaved, if you don’t accept the Gospel, theology has little practical benefit to you. Being willing to obey it is sort of a prerequisite to benefiting from being obedient to it. And in the case of those married, I can’t yet speak to their personal experiences, because I haven’t had many of them. I can only give them my approach to women, romance, courtship and marriage. I can’t tell you anything from my own experiences. To get the wisdom gained from marriage firsthand, you’d have to talk to a married man! This whole Thought’s point, then, is that you can benefit much more from friendships with married men, especially if you’re married, yourself!

87 And the direct consequence of this last point, then, is that if you as a married man have sought a married man as a friend or mentor, logic dictates that he has a wife. The reasonable thing to do, then, is for you to, as a couple, make friends, jointly, with other married Christian couples! So harking back to point #84 and #85, I don’t ever anticipate having ANY friends, when I’m married, who* my wife doesn’t also know, and likely no one that she isn’t also friends with! And to my best knowledge so far, from what I’ve learned from older people who have spoken on this subject, this is both the best practical thing to do, and it is Biblical and wise. It removes opportunities for temptation, keeps your accountability high, and gives you trusted confidantes who can help you in your walk, as a Christian and as a spouse.

*I am really curious if I used the right who/whom in this instance. Anyone with knowledge on the subject, please leave a comment. :)

88           Why do I have an easier time making female acquaintances than male ones? There’s two suggestions: one is that I put more effort into it because girls are more interesting. If that doesn’t account for it, then I suspect it’s because I’m more interesting when I open my mouth, to girls—particularly those with some life experience—than to guys. When I talk about love, romance and marriage, by and large, young women respond with head-nods of affirmation that they agree with my ideas, that I paint a picture that appeals to them, that the characteristics of a husband that I describe are what they desire. They act as if it’s refreshingly different to hear these things coming from me. Why? I think that, more so than guys, girls “get it.” Guys typically don’t know what women want, though they have many ideas. I’ve gotten closer to the mark, choosing to imbibe Biblical theology and wisdom from the life experience of esteemed elders, rather than take my cues from what other guys—or my own emotions—have been telling me. And when I express what I think women want, to women, I generally perceive that it’s warmly received—because women, being women, know what they desire in their own hearts, and are able to recognize it in what I say!

                I want to take a break in the middle here and make a caveat that I’m definitely not trying to cast myself as a know-it-all who has females all figured out. I’m using generic language for the convenience, but I don’t mean “all women” when I say ‘women.’ Please don’t mistake that. I’m simply sharing anecdotes in this Thought, and will surely affirm elsewhere that I have plenty of things I think or say that probably irritates women, too. Don’t misinterpret my words as reeking of pride. Be charitable in your interpretation of my statements.

                So, the point I’m getting at is answering the question of why it’s easier for me to make acquaintances with females. And the answer I believe is most accurate is that I have a tendency to talk about sex, love, romance, marriage etc with women (I’m very casual in conversation, as I am in writing), and more so than idiot guys my age and younger (and older, sadly), the kinds of things I express are things that make very good sense to thoughtful young women. Even more so if they’ve had bad experiences in relationships. They’re far more apt to assent to my notions that men have a certain responsibility in how they treat a girl, and agreeable to the notions of abstinence and the order of events. Guys, who neither bother to learn this stuff nor are women so as to be by nature better poised to intuitively recognize the sense it makes, generally respond to my philosophies in a patronizing or dismissive way, supposing that a guy with no history of relationship, single and virgin, can’t know very much. But what they fail to appreciate is the role restraint plays, and especially the fact that experience doesn’t guarantee wisdom—wisdom can be learned willingly through study, without the pain of your own mistakes forcing you to submit to it.

                And so, I have fewer guy friends because they’re more interested in chasing tail than having deep talks. Girls are far more interested in that, and so it’s the easiest and most obvious way for me to connect with them, conversationally.  That’s a long answer to a short question, and it constitutes a single thought out of 1000.

~ Rak Chazak

Two Game-Changing Tidbits Behind the Headlines

This won't be a huge post. I'm simply using it to redirect to two important articles, given recent developments.

Have you heard that the Israelis are bombing UN schools in Gaza? Read this to find out more about the "UNRWA," and what it is and what it does, and decide for yourself whether to decry or applaud the Israeli military.

Have you heard about how everyone's jumping on the "Ice Bucket Challenge" bandwagon to raise money for ALS? Who is the organization getting the money, and where is it going? Is the research sponsored by the money raised ethical or not? Read this to find out.

This isn't "conspiracy" in the sense that the information is covered up at all. It's all out there for anyone with a keyboard and the motivation to find it. But discovering it still gives you a very similar feeling. You've been lied to, and your whole perception changes when you're given the truth.

May these articles be helpful.

~ Rak Chazak

AWPATT VIII: July 20-August 21 (Thoughts 50-82)

AWPATT Hub

50 It seems unlikely to me that I’d marry someone much taller than me, because of the physical aspect to being her protector. If she couldn’t feel safe because she could ‘look up to me,’ in a sense, that would be a detriment to our relationship.

51 I also wouldn’t be very much interested in someone very much shorter than me, because of how shortness is associated with childishness, psychologically, for me. I wouldn’t want the temptation to look down on her like a child.

52 Basically I want someone I can look straight in the eye as an equal. A reasonable height is not important for its own sake, but for it to not subconsciously interfere with my ability to easily see and think of her as who she really is, without distraction.

53 Sometimes I wonder if I’ll be romantically alone for…well, up to and including my whole life, and why? Because the older I get, the more the chance diminishes that I’ll be able to meet someone my age who hasn’t over time done away with purity. Yea, when a son of man leaves his father and mother, will he find faithfulness among the women on earth? à That’s not a Bible passage, but it’s taken from a mashup of two that came to mind, (Matthew 19:4-5 and Luke 18:8). The connecting thread is this: The world is trending from more faithful to less faithful. This primarily concerns, per the passage, the amount of people who will come to Jesus Christ out of a generation—but it also affects the amount of people who will, as a result of that faithlessness, have any sort of decency in their character over the course of their life. The double meaning in my phrase plays on the second definition of being faithful as being sexually exclusive with one’s spouse. Will it be at all possible to find a single woman who hasn’t made herself unclean? Knowing my own sin*, it’s troubling to consider that most people, even still, are worse than I—by their own admission, in polls and anecdotes. Where is the restraint? From time to time I am brought to despair.

*of a specific sort. I am definitely not saying that I’m, across-the-board, less of a sinner than others. That would be monumentally naïve and arrogantly presumptuous.

54 If she initially shows a modest disinterest in me, save for a few glances perhaps, it would give me the impression she’s wholesome and restrained, whereas if she couldn’t take her eyes off me, and acted overtly to express physical desire for me, it would give me the impression she’s lustful and possibly lacking in sexual restraint, which would be unattractive.

55 I don’t much like people who appear uptight, but I’m far more favorable toward someone who’s awkwardly modest, than someone who’s notably immodest, awkward or not.

56 I thrive on direct communication. One of the many consequences of this is that I despise experiencing one-way communication with someone who’s emotionally withdrawn, or otherwise stunted. Normally pleasant people have behaved awkwardly and secretively after indicating some romantic interest. This could be expanded into a full treatise but I’ll stop here. I will strongly suggest to young women that refusing to say anything lest you say the wrong thing IS saying the wrong thing.*

*[note that this is in the context of a conversation and not in sharing your opinion, publically, on a subject of debate—there are numerous Proverbs attesting to the wisdom of holding one’s tongue in the latter case]

57 Watching movies together on evenings is one of the more consistent things I’ve done with my family in recent years, now that we’re older and all working. I imagine movie nights (even better with discussion) would be an easy tradition to begin while we’re courting, and continue when we’re married.

58 It’s historically been difficult for me to think and talk at the same time as I’m looking someone in the eye—at least at the beginning of formulating a thought, before I get into it. One thought from this: if I seem less intelligent when talking to you, you may be having an effect on me. Awe generally initially begets speechlessness.

59 The other thought from this: I’ll be able to practice and improve on this with you, to become a more capable speaker in one-on-one, face-to-face conversations, as in an interview, or sensitive counseling situation, for example.

60 The chances of finding a woman who has the four characteristics of being close to me in age, agreeable in similar/shared life goals, attractive and theologically sound are very low; it’s an easy thing to find people having just one or two of those! Considering that I know so much theology compared to the typical 20something non-seminary-student, I’ll probably find someone I like but who I’ll be minded to correct on some level. The thought: if I’m to be the Biblical husband and serve as spiritual leader for my spouse, she’d have to be willing and actually able to change wrong ideas and learn and adopt what is right and true, from me—not because I know everything that’s true, but the flipside is that she can’t, like any other person in the world, resist what I say just because I say it. That’s a different sort of bad response. Whereas she shouldn’t listen to me for my own sake, she shouldn’t disregard what I say for the sake of it being said by me. If this isn’t something that can happen with a young woman I’m getting to know—if she refuses to listen to reason early on, particularly if she’s imbibed wonky theology, then clearly she can’t be that woman who would be my wife.

4 Degrees of Separation from Meriam Ibrahim

These are the stories I stay alive for. Life on earth is an epic drama, and at this point in history in particular, we have a treasure trove of stories from history at our fingertips, waiting to be dug up and relished. The ability to know what happened in the past, let alone what's happening right now, is a blessing and privilege that can't be understated. I am quite confident that in eternity, God will show us flashbacks of what really happened, that we never knew about, simply so we can know what He did and give Him glory for it. And in the meantime, in my sense-limited experience of earth history as a participant, I take pleasure in getting just a little taste of seeing how His plan is unfolding. It's exciting. I can consider a day a good day if I learned something about men and women of today or men and women of history that makes me marvel at God's involvement.

Yesterday at the 'Life Group' (adult Sunday School) at the SBC church in my hometown I've been trying to be obedient in attending, the executive pastor dropped by to share a story having to do with the church's practice of "prayer walking."

Prayer walking is not something mystical. It is simply going out and walking around the community while praying for the people in the houses etc as you pass them by. The motivation is to connect the petitioner with the real world in a tangible way (praying from home is just as effective because God is the One who answers), so that as they go around, they get a sense of the needs of the community so that they have a better idea of what to pray for. Basically it's an immersive activity to help you target your prayers more specifically. It's not in any way suggestive of the idea that your prayers become more 'powerful' because you're doing a sort of ritual. Nope. Not at all. The whole goal is to make you more personally involved, and incite you to feel more compassion for the people you're praying for.

The executive pastor shared that he'd been at a retreat in New York (state) with his family some time ago, but recently. Also staying there was another family he's gotten to know, and the husband is an elder in Tim Keller's church. If I remember the details, this man suggested to him that someone he knew was conducting a prayer walk in the Bronx River Housing Projects in the early morning one day that week. The man's name was Demas, and was a former felon who'd become passionate about starting a church in the Bronx. 

My executive pastor showed up in the early morning, and walked with Demas and some other men as they prayed over the people there. He shared with us that he was affected by hearing how they were praying--one example was that they'd literally ask, "God, we ask that you put a spirit of preserving life in the pregnant women, today, that they will not choose to have an abortion today." Raw stuff. 

As they continued, a man came walking toward them. His name was Bill, a friend of Demas. Somewhat confused at first, but becoming more interested the more he heard, this was the conversation the executive pastor overheard:

Demas: How was your trip?
Bill: It was great. I got to hold the baby!

Bill's trip was to Khartoum, Sudan. He has been friends with the foreign minister of Sudan for some years, and he had been one of a group of high profile people who traveled there to contend for the release of Meriam Ibrahim. Her daughter had begun crying while he was there with her, and Bill asked to hold the baby. Apparently he has a way with kids. Final details about Bill from the story: he hadn't grown up in NYC (PA or NJ, I forget which), but if I recall, he had had a heart for the lost of that city and is an elder together with Demas in a church they started. I could be off on some of these last details; they're an attempt to piece together the stuff I heard that didn't fit into the linear storyline.

Bill offered Meriam a place to stay, and that's where her family is now headed. The exec. pastor pointed out that that's a dangerous thing to do. The entire world knows that he's harboring this woman, now, and it's a small thing for a cleric somewhere to issue a fatwa demanding his death and there will be tens of thousands of true believers hoping to secure their place in muslim-heaven by killing him. But this didn't even enter into his decision. It was an easy choice to make, because it was made on faith. It was the right thing to do.

Bill and the foreign minister do not affirm each other's beliefs; they are honest with each other and think the other is wrong, but they have been able to be respectful of each others' person, over the years. When Meriam was in jail, Bill went to the foreign minister and told him "what you are doing is wrong," and used his influence to help get Ibrahim released.

Who would imagine that God would forge a friendship between a NYC pastor and an official in Sudan, so that one day one innocent person could be freed from the injustice of the Shariah Law? No one. But the One orchestrating world events is the same One who lays the groundwork, years and decades in advance, to effect the exact result He desires, in His sovereign will. It's heady. I'm amazed to hear of it.

It should be noted that Ibrahim's case was high-profile but that there are dozens and hundreds of Christians wrongly imprisoned in various countries around the world, and they need prayer as well. We might not know what happens with them, as we can with a case like Meriam's, but I'm nearly totally confident that we'll find out one day. Meanwhile, God is still in control and has the power of life and death in His hands. Nothing comes to us or any other person that He did not do, or permit. So let us confidently trust in Him for all things, and not neglect to pray for the things which are outside of our control. Nothing's outside of His.

~ Rak Chazak

PS Out of curiosity, I searched to see if Bill was already a known man. Otherwise I would have changed his name to protect him. But when I found that there was a top-tier Google result telling about what I have just been reporting, I was left with no further concern that I would jeopardize his safety:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/ny-pastor-meets-meriam-ibrahim-in-sudan-offers-to-help-bring-and-take-care-of-her-family-in-us-123588/

I also misspelled Dimas' name at first (no time to correct it right now, gotta get to work)
http://www.christiannewstoday.com/Christian_News_Report_9005006.html

Personal Life Update: I Give It A Year

In the upcoming week, I'll pass the milestone of having worked one year at my present workplace. It's an opportunity for reflection. I'm doing a fair job of saving my money, although the income is so small at minimum wage that it's hardly getting anywhere. This stagnation is giving me motivation to pursue change. I figured I'd give myself one year to see what I can accomplish, no matter how effectively or ineffectively I job-search, before I decide to take Desperate Action. The one thing that would keep me in my hometown past a year from now would be if I rise to a manager position where I currently am, or get some other job, that pays $30,000/year or more. If that can't be accomplished, why be a bottom-feeder here if I can just as well be a bottom-feeder where I'd prefer to live? So, I would move. Live in my car and start over in exactly the same place, in some other place.

I was interrupted as I wrote this (by myself), when the woman across the table from me in the library finished creating her schedule. She's a manager at a different restaurant farther up town, and she suggested to me that her company promotes more actively from crewmembers than the one I'm presently at. Seeing as my second 6-month evaluation period is about to pass, if I'm not given a hearty title promotion and a glowing recommendation, what would motivate me to remain? I would remain amicable with the general manager, and I know they'd still appreciate me being able to cover positions for people who call out and when shifts are short-staffed, but it wouldn't hurt to make my primary workplace into something different. An added benefit to this is that with more exposure to different bosses, I would theoretically have a better chance at getting a good recommendation letter for non-food-related work, in the event that a manager who does think I'm a good worker is nevertheless lazy, or their personality is unwilling to help, or if they aren't a good writer.

So it sounds like it wouldn't hurt to apply at this other location.

~ Rak Chazak

Refusal and Proof

Picture post of a letter explaining my discovery of the truth that people don't fail to believe in God because they aren't told the truth, or because they are incapable of understanding it. They are first and foremost unwilling to let themselves consider the truth, because they don't want to face the possibility of being challenged to change their minds.

Why?

Sin. Love of sin.

~ Rak Chazak

Alternative to Celebrating Birthdays

I had a short text epiphany I shared with a few of my friends yesterday. Not quite a 'treatise'; this'll be short:

"I was thinking about how people use their kids' birthdays as passwords and how that really isn't such a great idea for internet stuff, and as I pondered how to get around that, I relighted on my opinion that birthdays are not really that significant anyway (here and here): so I came to the interesting idea, rather than celebrating my children's birthdays, my wife and I would instead calculate our best guess as to the day of fertilization, and celebrate that week instead. I'm thinking of the symbolic significance of this, that it would attest to the fact that life begins at conception and only becomes revealed, if you will, upon birth. It's an excellent illustration of the relationship between justification and glorification in the New Birth: when we are saved, at first nothing noticeably significant happens. But inside us, enormous changes are occurring; and only at long last when we die or are caught up, will the dramatic revelation take place: others will now see what has already been ordained from the deep past. How we celebrate will teach our kids about the reality of salvation and how to be heavenly minded.

~ Rak Chazak

AWPATT VII: July 11-19 (Thoughts 41-49)

A Woman Provokes A Thousand Thoughts: Hub

41 It would be a welcome discovery to find that she feels like I treat her differently than anyone else does, and that she likes it. When still not a couple.

42 A girl who’s never been in a relationship, or stayed in one when it became clear it wouldn’t lead to marriage, is a smart girl.

 43 It can’t be overstated, the value of clearly communicating your intentions.

44 Generally speaking, people’s voices don’t have so much variation that some is inherently jarring. It’s usually something that’s easy to ignore—when it’s working normally, you don’t notice it. that said, if on top of everything else, she has a beautiful voice, she can make me very, very weak—soft, rather, for her.

45 Does she like writing letters, getting and reading them? It would be a good way to stay connected, not to mention grow in our understanding of each other and be continually romantic.

46 Knowing that cellulite is easily treated by exercise, its presence would show that someone isn’t physically active. So it would be a warning sign to me that we have different lifestyle interests.

47 Devotion to God is of the utmost importance. If she takes her cues for moral and social behavior from any other source than Christian theology, as being of more importance than it, then her priorities are wrong, her actions are unreliable, and I can’t but keep my distance.

48 What are her keenest interests? Her priority reading list should be theologically relevant—the works of Spurgeon, Luther, Calvin rather than popular fiction, for example. It reveals a presence or lack of desire to continue to learn and grow in wisdom. In a very practical sense, it would suggest to me her willingness to “sit under” me and learn from my exposition of Scripture as the household pastor and Bible teacher [Ephesians 5:25-26]

49 An add-on to #41, to make sure I don’t confuse anyone as to my meaning. It would be fine if she thinks I treat her differently than other people treat her, not differently than I treat other people. A subtle, yet big difference. Should I be less respectful, less polite, or less pleasant toward others, implied if I am more so toward her? That would be favoritism: covetous of her, and deceitful to her.

~ Rak Chazak

Something to Weep About

From Ken Ham's blog:

The attack on CEF has included all sorts of wild accusations, such as claims that CEF’s message is psychologically harmful to children. Apparently, this charge stems from telling children that they are sinners in need of salvation.

In recent times secularists are increasingly accusing biblical creationists of “child abuse” for teaching creation to children. Now they are going a step further to show their real intolerance is of Christianity in general. The secularists are directly targeting those who teach the gospel message, which includes telling children that they are sinners. I have said for years that the devil has deliberately targeted the book of Genesis, the foundational book of the Bible, because, if he targeted the Cross, the church would quickly respond and defend the gospel of Jesus Christ. But due to the decreasing spiritual state of this nation and increasing intolerance of Christianity, the attacks are becoming more overt against Christianity, and are on the increase.

In a post from earlier in the week, he reviews a new film called Persecuted:

The film ends with the possibility that there could come a time when Christians won’t be able at all to speak their minds. In a film that I recorded in the 1980s, The Genesis Solution, I stated that America was turning its back on the authority of the Bible and hinted that aspects of Christian teaching might be outlawed in the public arena. Recorded in 1986, the film even mentioned that gay rights might be forced on the culture and that the sanctity of marriage would be increasingly ignored as the nation rejected God’s Word. I was mocked by some church leaders at the time for making such suggestions, but I wonder what these leaders might be thinking now almost thirty years later as they see secularists taking over America with their own anti-God religion?

Secular movie reviewers will probably attack the filmmakers of Persecuted for paranoia concerning the government and its dealings with the church. But for Christians who have been following the state of the nation over the decades, this political thriller’s theme of a growing anti-Christian intolerance in America is not that far-fetched.

I think his observations speak for themselves. I can't add much of value to this without rambling.

~ Rak Chazak

In the Pipeline

I've been using the internet for an hour before work at the library, but this isn't enough time to create a thorough article, start to finish. Nevertheless, if I've worked on something offline, it's an easy matter to quickly copy-paste it, and then format it for an upload. But I have some longer projects that have been on my mind for a while, that I would like to round out and post sometime soon. So I think I'll be taking the time to do so, in the middle of the summer.

The two big ideas I'd like to work on next are:
A lyrical appreciation of Casting Crowns' music on Christian radio
A mega-treatise on the subject of whether Christians can be anonymous online, or elsewhere

And for Topical Bible Studies, I'm thinking about:
An analysis of the demon-possessed girl in Acts who does nothing but say that Paul is preaching the Gospel and people should listen to him.

And in the back of my head, an analysis of something I read earlier this year:
A commentary on the Noah movie and how the early pseudo-christian heresies have basically never gone away, just manifest themselves differently through history. Taking the words of the writer of the article I read that inspired this, I'm going to make the title, "It's the 2nd Century All Over Again."

I'll try to take some time off to get these done. I'm excited to produce good content.

~ Rak Chazak

Theology Matters: Rejection and Selfies, from Wretched Radio

Since you need to be a member to listen to or download Wretched Radio's full-hour podcasts, I think it's a fair conclusion that it would be inappropriate to upload segments, even if I had the software and know-how to splice mp4's into smaller pieces. But I think that the goal of ministries like Wretched and others is to get as much of their content out to people as possible, so there's a tension between wanting to do this and wanting to stay above water financially. Knowing this, I think the content creators would be fine with me posting the text of a segment I personally transcribed this morning, but if I am wrong I will naturally remove it upon their request.

I just had to share this, because of how good it is.

What I passionately appreciate about Wretched Radio is the practical theology. It's not a sermon and it's not a current-events analysis. It's the best of both, and more. Hopefully when you read the transcript below, you'll understand why I try to get as much insight from this as possible. Wretched segments (1/6 of the day's broadcast) are available for free on the website: http://www.wretchedradio.com/podcast.cfm

Enjoy (broadcast from hour 2, segment 1, June 11 2014)

Don’t know if mentioned, I had the opportunity to be at the International Christian Retail Show, a couple of weeks ago in Atlanta, GA. Come and visit us if you love humidity—we’ve got it by the bucketful. There was a booth in particular that caught my attention: lots of charts, lots of graphs…I like that. There were some books by June Hunt. I’ve been intrigued by her, because I’ve read some good articles by her…Christian post…this one was called Rejection: Healing a Wounded Heart. And inside this little booklet, I wanted to see what her approach was, how she addresses healing the wounded heart…the heart that has suffered from rejection. And if the number of selfies that is being taken these days is any indication of the amount of lack of feeling loved, valued by somebody, is any indication of the amount of people that are hurting out there, then we have got ourselves a fair amount of pain going on in the US of A. By the way, speaking of taking selfies, there was a very thoughtful article, Girldefined.com, why Christian girls post seductive selfies…it was written by Christian Clark. And she talked about how Christian girls are posting selfies that they aren’t even aware are seductive. They just don’t realize it. Why? These are girls who are going to church, they’re raised in godly homes—they’re home-schooled!—and yet you see some of these pictures of these Christian girls and it’s like…What is the matter with them? Why are they doing that? And Christian speculates, because that’s normal to them. It’s not seductive to them. That’s just the way that girls pose. It’s all they’ve seen their whole life. Every billboard, every model, it’s all in some way designed to be seductive.

Treatise Hub

These range from "a decent length" to "ridiculously long," meaning about 3,000 words for the most ambitious articles. Often, they're taken from my private Journal or transcribed from my cell phone, after texting a lot with a friend, and these tend to be somewhat shorter and are called "Texting Treatises."


Because they take place in a referential vacuum, the content is off-the-top-of-my-head, and not footnoted with Bible verses or links, and they tend to be very philosophical in nature. If that lies in your interest, you'll find these types of articles an enjoyable read.


Note, once again, that this won't be an exhaustive list of all lengthy philosophical articles I've posted on here, but the ones which are most characteristic of what I described above.


Long-Form Treatises:


Private Letter: Falling In and Out of Love and the Transformative Power of the Holy Spirit
Journal Entry: A Theology of Evangelizing Discussion Forums
The Atheist Fallacy of Imputing Motives on Actors Motivated by Religious Ideology
Silly Obligations
Journal Treatise: When Was I Saved?
Journal Treatise: Why I'm Not Baptized
Journal Treatise: Maturation
Journal Treatise: Oort Cloud
Does Sanctification Come Through Experiences?
Treatise: What Made the Red Planet Red? A Theory of Planetary Colonization and What Could Have Been
When Open-Air Preaching 'Clicked' For Me
Treatise: Married Women, Turn-offs, Turn-ons, and Plato's Forms
A Comparison of Single People to Young Children
General Disinterest in Valentine's Day
Proof of God: The Argument from Possibility
Impassioned Prayers
Intimacy in Heaven
Irrationality in Regeneration: A Source of Relief
Treatise: Confessions of A Smart Guy
Treatise: A Monument to All Your Sins


In a theme by themselves, my 3 Treatises on modern feminism from a Biblically Christian perspective:


Journal Entry: On Feminism, "Male Privilege," and "Rape Culture"
Treatise: Third-Wave Feminism's Irresponsibility Double-Standard
On the Word "Slut" and "Sexually Liberated" Third-Wave Feminism


Texting Treatises:


Text Epiphany: Recent Thought on Prayer
Choosing to Break Up or Break In A Relationship: Risk-Reward Calculus
Texting Treatise: Flirting
Phreniology: Theory of the Mind-Brain Interaction
Text Treatise: Suicide's Real Victims
Texting Treatise: Pride, Lies and Murder
Text Treatise: What God Taught Me About the Innate Sinfulness of Man Through My Experience of Being Cyber-Bullied At College



And there we go. I'll place a link in the sidebar and this hub page will be modified to include future additions to my collection of Treatises which I post on this blog.

Subsequent Additions

Treatises:
Always Happy to Reconcile with the Repentant

Texting Treatises:
Meta-Talking: Talking About Talking
Texting Treatise: Pure Fantasy?

Texting Treatise: Pragmatism is Impossible in an Infinite Universe

Not 1 Corinthians 13
All About that Alto, No Soprano

~ Rak Chazak

Topical Bible Study Hub

Here's another hub. I'm going to do more Topical Bible Studies from this point on, and by having a permalink on the sidebar for them, they can be accessed instantly by anybody visiting the blog.

I : Righteousness and Goodness
II: Word Study: Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me
III: Elihu
IV: About that Scarlet Thread (Judah interceding for Benjamin)
V: Solo Scripturo

There are also some which are not identified as "topical Bible studies," yet which do meditate on an insight gained from Scripture. Something of a "Bible Study Lite". But note that these don't include all my more philosophical posts, and ones which don't make extensive use of Bible passages (not much of a Bible study, then, would it be?). Those are what I would call 'treatises,' or 'thoughts,' depending on the length, and I'll be sure to make a hub for them the next time I come online.

The Simplest Scriptural Case for a Young Earth
Jesus, King of Insults
Be Careful What You Pray For
Does Sanctification Come Through Experiences?
What About the Jews? -- a poem, yes, but a thorough study of the question of whether we should pray for Jesus to return soon, with an ending that might surprise you.
7 Deadly Sins:No Such Thing, BUT...

This constitutes the blog posts that have been uploaded *to the date of this hub being posted*. Any further Topical Bible Studies will appear below this text:

[coming soon]

~ Rak Chazak

Owl City Commentary Hub

I'm going to fix a link to this page to the sidebar, so that all the different articles I'll eventually end up writing can be reached from one place with ease.

Below are the posts that exist to date:

The Introduction
Owl City Music Isn't "Christian Music" In the Usual Sense
Interpretation of Beautiful Times
Interpretation of Meteor Shower

~ Rak Chazak

AWPATT VI: July 1-10 (Thoughts 31-40)

A Woman Provokes A Thousand Thoughts: Hub

 

31 Burning oneself through sun exposure is foolish and a repellent. The only point of cooking meat is to eat it, so why sear your shoulders and walk around with medium-rare leathery skin? If getting cancer is so important to you, then our interests are not aligned. I want my LIFE partner to stick around for a while, and myself for them also, and being fair-skinned is incidental to that. Someone who wants to live fast, die young, and doesn’t plan things out more than 20 years into the future is a fundamentally selfish person. Selfishness doesn’t translate well to healthy relationships.

32 Ditto for smoking. And seriously, with all the information there is about it, for someone to even start that, they’d have to possess a level of stupidity and/or arrogance that would put them in a completely different playing field than the one I’m in. I’d never consider a relationship with a current or past smoker.

33 Anyone who I would seriously consider a potential partner, I will at some point act noncommittal toward and push them away. Not to be self-destructive, mind you, but to weed out the insincerely committed. If I like you, I will not fail to try to make you doubt that I do. I want to see what happens when attractive qualities in the other person that could potentially motivate you are removed, and you are left with nothing but your own choice. Will you love without condition or expectation? This is where the rubber meets the road, and I believe that I won’t ever be married until I’ve put someone through this and they’ve persisted to say that they want me, “warts and all.”

 34 One way it’s important to have your theology straight is who you submit to. Daughteràparents, church memberàpastor, citizenàlaw enforcement/judges. Not womanàman. You don’t just act submissive to any ol’ guy, or guy you like, even. If  I never see you say no to anything, it’ll raise my alarm.

35 Because of the culture these days, someone who’s already had romantic relationships is probably not a match for me. On the one hand, they can give you the wisdom of experience, and teach you to treasure the good things, but they can also ruin a person’s understanding of what love is or looks like, and leave them jaded

36 I want to see that she’s passionate for evangelism

37 It can be attractive when someone lets you know that they’re aware that they’re attractive, just not if they make efforts to draw attention to themselves. One comes across as confident, the other as insecure and egotistical.

38 Using a smile to signal contempt or a touch to signal condescension cheapens and sullies the usually-benign meanings of those gestures. It’s too much like cruel sarcasm for my taste. It’s rude because it’s dishonest. It hurts more because it strings people along only to ridicule their trusting nature.

39 Like with touch, someone saying my name is something rare for me, and so when someone takes the special care to address me by my name, rather than just speak to me directly without the personal greeting, it makes my ears perk up. It strikes me as noticeably more formal or polite, and if it’s outside of a formal context, especially if it’s one-on-one, it makes me wonder if they’re saying my name to be more intimate, and telegraph interest.

40 Speaking of which, there was one time at college where I was killing time, hanging out with a freshman in her room while we waited for her friends/roommates, and she determined to say my name several times, dare I say seductively, after I had said I didn’t think of it as very special. ‘First time in my experience that I was aware of someone saying they liked my name, or for that matter showing that they liked saying my name. That would certainly be something that falls into the category of increasing desire but nevertheless superfluous in terms of whether I think someone would be a good wife. The memory is something my ears won’t soon forget.

~ Rak Chazak

Topical Bible Study: Solo Scripturo

Sola Scriptura: Scripture is our highest authority on theological truths.

Application: we can learn valuable truths from sources other than the Bible, and even learn more about what Scripture says by utilizing sources such as commentaries, concordances, dictionaries, maps, study tools, etc.

The Bible gives us what we absolutely need for our soul. It does not give us everything we could need in any way across all contexts and circumstances. It is completely true, but it is not a complete compendium of all truth of all kinds in existence.

Solo Scripturo: Scripture is our only authority on any truth.

Application: no other source of information is of any value whatsoever, because it's all totally unreliable. No theological truth can be learned from books, radio broadcasts, tracts, commentaries, footnotes (etc), only from the Bible itself.

If it's not in the Bible, it's not true. There is no redeeming value in seeking to learn anything from anything outside of Scripture.

*     *     *     *     *

Solo Scripturo does seem a bit silly, doesn't it? You'll see views like this touted by KJV-only-ists, who have latched on to a translation of the Hebrew and Greek original documents, and refuse to accept different ideas of what a Bible passage might mean, by study of newly discovered (Dead Sea Scrolls, not incorporated into the original KJV, but used by the ESV and others) source documents.

This is sheer ignorance. Verbal Plenary Inspiration is only for the original message, it doesn't extend to every copy of that message and it certainly doesn't extend to the translations of those copies. This is why we find differences between the manuscripts that exist, and why some translations are less accurate in their rendition of particular verses. Hence why it is helpful to have multiple Bible translations to refer to, to get the best idea of what a difficult verse means. Sola Scriptura, not Solo Scripturo.

Solo Scripturo is also demonstrated by Bible critics who insist that you "prove it from the Bible" why some charge they've made is false. They claim that if you show using Strong's Concordance or a Bible dictionary or a series of commentaries or simply a different version, that you fail to disprove their allegation that the Bible has an error. Fanciful, ignorant folly, borne out of defiant misuse of Scripture.

Solo Scripturo is also seen in Islam. Caliph Omar ordered the destruction of the Library of Alexandria on the grounds that "if what is in the library agrees with the contents of the Qur’an, then it is redundant. And, if the contents of the library do not agree with the Qur’an, then such contents are heretic[al]."

Solo Scripturo. Scripture alone has any value. All else is garbage, fuel for the fire.

So, does the Bible actually take one side or the other, within its pages, or do we have to impose our own opinions on the text to make it say what we want it to say?

I was excited as I read my study Bible (happens to be KJV, but a 1980ish publication, not an unreadable 1611 one), to find a footnote containing verse references to all the places where the Bible acknowledges source materials. You read that right: the Bible used source documents. The information contained in it didn't just fall down out of the sky, like the Quran and Book of Mormon allegedly did. It was compiled by men who researched historical documents and were led by the Spirit to include that which was true and leave out that which was unimportant or errant.

Click the link below to read these examples after the jump break.

Personal Life Update: Books, Letters, DVDs and Hands

Books
One of my friends has a habit of sending me stuff. Sometimes I'm not sure if all her asking me for my opinion on things over text is more for her benefit or for mine, but mailing me books she's read can only be a one-way gift. Very kind of her, since whereas she has more resources at her disposal, I don't think either of us is necessarily in a position to spend lots of money buying all the books we want to read. She's nevertheless decided to start somewhere. Last fall, she sent me a book which did a great deal to help me understand the nature of political persecution far better than I had up until that point. Before then, I'd had trouble visualizing it, and could only think of it in terms of being a totally free society or a totally persecuted society, down to the micro level. The differences described between the various Eastern European communist countries of the 1950s and 60s (when the book takes place) were an eye opener. It was called God's Smuggler, and was the story of the founder of Open Doors USA.

More recently, she sent me a copy of a collection of Spurgeon sermons entitled Spurgeon's Calvinism, to show that he certainly affirmed those doctrines totally.

Speaking of Mbewe, it wasn't until I read a Wretched newsletter that had his name written that I realized it wasn't "Conrad and Beway." I had been continually confused whenever Todd Friel mentioned speakers at upcoming conferences and he seemed to be cryptically referring to what could be a Siamese Twin who happened to both be thelogians. Glad to have that cleared up.

Letters
I'm spending a lot of my spare time in the evenings before bed, when it's too hot to lay down on the sheets, writing letters. And recently I had the idea to, lest I swamp my friends with too much stationery, write the occasional letter to my wife, to practice thinking about her as a real person and not a fantasy.

DVDs
I finally did it. I had recently bought 300 The Biggest Question's from Wretched and went to my town's fairgrounds for July 4th to hand some out. I took 200 with me in my pockets and a bag on my back, but I didn't pass out nearly that many. I did, however, get 44 into the hands of a wide assortment of people--it was far easier once I began targeting people sitting in groups on lawnchairs. I initially had the pre-start jitters, so I didn't hand any out in the first hour, despite walking around. When I finally stumbled upon the suggestion "you don't like free stuff, do you?", I was able to get comfortable approaching people in a conversational manner. I'm glad for the opportunity to, to be honest, practice giving out tracts. Like with exercise, it's hard to get up and go, but when you've done it, you feel satisfied--generally. And like with exercise, you get better and better at it with continual training. And no matter how awkward it feels or how lackluster you think your performance was, if you steeped yourself in prayer before and after, then you can be confident God will have worked through you to serve His ends no matter what--you can't save anybody. That takes the pressure off of you, and you can enjoy the experience of being obedient and exercising your faith. I'll be looking for other opportunities to do this, again. Maybe it will be easier if I bring another person with me the next time. Who knows? Now is my season to strike out, experiment and get used to witnessing so that I can hone whatever gifts God has given me relevant to this endeavor, to be more effective (insofar as any of it depends on me) in the future.

Hands
I had an appointment at a dermatology associate somethingorother, and the attractive, intelligent and kind physician's assistant confirmed my primary care doctor's suspicion that I've got a form of eczema on and between my fingers, one more than others. So now I'll be getting some prescription-strength topical steroids to deal with it, in addition to the 'intensive care repair Vaseline' I've been applying at night. I'll talk about this in another entry, surely. After all, this blog does exist to be a chronicle of my life's journey, sort of; the things that happen to me are as important as my detached thoughts about things, because both have a role in affecting how I develop as a person and in terms of my character, who I become.

And the summer continues!

~ Rak Chazak

Letters To My Wife, Introduction

I'm exploring a possible theme, here, and that's to use my down-time to write real-live love-letters to my future wife/fiancée, and when appropriate, post them here. If I can induce others to want to write and receive the same, that would be a welcome development. Thoughtfulness in relationships is definitely something worth fostering.

This first one is appended to a letter I sent to a friend I met in college. I figured she'd like to read it, and if I write something I really like, I don't want to wait years to share it, you know? Nevertheless, these letters, as with portions of my private Journal written in the 2nd person, will be something I'll eventually share with the love of my life once I've found her.

Your Hakam Adam

~ Rak Chazak

Treatise: A Monument to All Your Sins

Transcribed from Journal Brown, late 2012.

The explanation for the Mayan Long Count:

20 days

18 times 20 days = 360 days, one Mayan Year.

20 times that,

and 20 more times that = 144,000 days, one b’aktun, if I recall.

A number of astronomical phenomena converge at a point in the past, roughly 3100 BC; the Milky Way and the plane of the ecliptic of the sun and bla de bla de bla. The significance and reverence the Mayans gave to astronomical things led them to peg the date as the date of creation. Close, but no cigar. Anyway, since the Mayans liked multiples of 20 (and may have used a ‘base-20’ numbering system, whereas ours is base-10), they invented a longer calendar for keeping accurate track of dates over long periods of time. This was called the Long Count. It lasted 144,000 days, as shown above. The 13^th round of that reckoning came to a close today (or started. I can’t recall). When you understand what the Long Count is, you realize it’s just a a calendar and not a prophecy of any sort. There’s no coincidence that the b’aktun came to a close on the Winter Solstice, either. The  solstice is directly tied to earth’s orbit and is one of the smaller, shorter cycles that made a circuit and converged today. The Mayans may have attributed religious beliefs to the conclusion of b’aktuns, because they, like many other cultures, had tied their religious beliefs to astronomical phenomena—attributed religious significance to conspicuous mathematical relationships in nature. In this way, they were very much like the Pythagoreans (Protagoreans?), who, though mathematically astute (supposedly), maintained many strange rules and basically worshiped the number 10 because 1+2+3+4 = 10 OMIGOSHITSMAGICK! Something like that.

So the astounding irony of all this is that the guys who made fairly noteworthy mathematical, astronomical, and engineering discoveries in earth’s past basically wasted their potential by directing all their energy into the babbling nonsense of false religion and foolish, vain spirituality. Much like how the Egyptian pyramids were built to serve as the tomb for one man! At least the Great Wall of China had a practical application. Stonehenge and Göbekli-Tepe were large stone structures for religious ritual/festival. If you think about it, the huge Roman temples are the same thing: huge concrete engineering feats, massive building expenditures, all to build houses for idols built by man’s hands. What. A. Waste. To be honest, huge Catholic Cathedrals and “evangelical” mega-churches also fall into this category. There seems to be something innate in Man, that he has a tendency to try to erect extravagant structures to impress weak-minded people into becoming followers, and really, to impress himself, also—and convince himself that his false deity must be right, because “look how cool this is!” It’s the age-old “dick-measuring” shtick. It’s the short man overcompensating with a big/expensive car. (Contemporarily, they even call it “short man syndrome.”) When you have nothing truly impressive or remarkable to be confident in, you try to hide that fact by outwardly making a show for others, lest they see you for who you really are, and you be ashamed.

Wikipedia image

Flickr image

 If this is true for individual men, why would this not be true for religions as well? After all, religions are made by men, and their following is made up of men. It’s the same insecurity, played out in equally sinful ways, on a much larger scale, compounding the effect….which is what makes it so atrocious. To borrow a phrase I heard in Halo 2, spoken by the Gravemind, “I am a monument to all your sins.” This is what all those construction marvels are. Chichen Itza. The Great Pyramid. The Temple of Jupiter. St. Peter’s Basilica. Notre Dame. Angkor Wat. Taj Mahal. Vertsailles. The Masjid Al-Haram, “Dome of the Rock.” Easter Island. Stonehenge. The Mahabodhi. The Kashi Vishwanath. The Church of the Nativity. The Forbidden Palace. The Sistine Chapel. The Hagia Sophia. The Vatican. The Mormon Temple. The Ka’aba. These variations on the Tower of Babel all have one thing in common: they were either built for ONE MAN (“idolatry of self-worship”) or they were built for the worship of a false deity (idolatry by other means). They are the rotten fruit of thousands and millions of individual sins, compiled and amplified, manifest in enormous man-made structures which echo Babel, both in its form, scope, and intent: Man-made beacons of idolatry for the glorification of man and idol. No wonder God is so furious with idols and idol worship throughout the Old Testament: “behold, you are nothing, and your works are less than nothing; an abomination is he who chooses you.” (Isaiah 41:24)  Good grief, I am angered, exasperated and frustrated by this myself! How much more so the Holy God of the universe, who has no tolerance for sin as I do?

Treatise: Confessions of a Smart Guy

Originally posted in late December 2012 in Journal Green. Names have been changed.

In Journal 8 earlier, I was writing about how I mistakenly overestimate people’s capacity to understand me (and in many cases in online arguments, the ability to think clearly and reason logically). I’m averse to thinking about this, because I realize I’ll have a tendency to be dismissive and “look down on” their intelligence. This is rather arrogant, since I’d be acting as if I’m so much smarter and wiser and more knowledgeable. But then, experience has repeatedly proven to me that I AM smarter than most people I encounter, and this makes things confusing for me. In theory, I realize acknowledging that you’re smarter or wiser than someone else/others isn’t inherently arrogant or presumptuous, if it happens to be true. So the danger then is in thinking highly of oneself for being smart. If I want to tell myself that I’m more intelligent than the vast majority of people out there, in order to make sense of reality (mind you), then I must do this in such a way that I do not think of myself as being better than others because of it. Pan out for a bit and consider that this is difficult or impossible to do if you don’t believe in God. If your universe is naturalistic and materialistic, what is your standard for determining if something is ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ or if one thing is ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than another? Your estimate of worth would likely be pragmatic or merit-based. Without God, if you are smarter than someone else, then clearly you are better than they are, at least in that one sense! This kind of reasoning is inevitable when you pay no heed to the Cross and what it means—in this context, what it means about human goodness and the question of what makes one thing ‘better’ than another.

Consider briefly some evidence to confirm my reasoning here. Men without the Spirit—or men denying the Spirit’s power—will inevitably reveal that they think they are better than you (if not you per se, then at least someone). Christlessness is arrogance, because the fruit of the Spirit is humility [note: I checked and this one is not directly mentioned by name in the Galatians 5 passage, but it certainly wouldn’t be inconsistent]. Atheist Libertarian Guy thinks he’s better than me because he has more money—was born into more privilege. Grumpy Old Man thinks he’s better than me because of his age and life experience (and strangeliest, his daughter’s accomplishments). Depraved Greek Orthodox Guy thinks he’s better than me because of his academic accomplishments and (supposed) intelligence (Grumpy also boasts of his two Master’s Degrees). These are the more obvious blokes of which I have recent memory. I posit that their desire to assert themselves as being better than me has its foundation in their lacking theological views. Both Grumpy and Depraved would claim to be christians, but assuredly believe in a works-based soteriology. Libertarian Jerk, not having the luxury of pretending to belong to the Church, naturally has only the works-based option open to him. But the Cross says that there are none who do good—none, then, who are good. We are all in the same bucket, believers and unbelievers alike. God the Father looks down from heaven and sees two kinds of people: bad people, and Jesus. That’s it! Being a Christian does not mean nor make (by definition) you a better person. It means you are better off.

Likewise, then, I can take this knowledge and apply it to my intellect. See, I only have this wonderful ability to think the way I do by the Grace of God. My intelligence is a gift from my Father. And salvation is also a gift from God. You can’t earn a gift, and receiving a gift is not because you’re better than those who did not receive it. A gift reflects on the character of the giver, not the recipient. And so, if all the things I have, salvation included, are free gifts from God, then in the same vein as of salvation, none of these gifts are an avenue for me to brag. They are not for me to think highly of myself, but of God. They are not occasion for me to boast, or to make my name great. What God has given, God can take away.

“Sleepy Hollow” on FOX: Spiritual Warfare? Review.

This needs little introduction. Below are three images, pictures I took from my handwritten Journal, this one “Journal Red,” (so named for the color of the binding). Setting the scene, this is from late December 2013, after having seen the episode of the Sleepy Hollow series where the typecast “creepy middle-aged man” from the Fringe television series [also not recommended television, let me add] makes a guest appearance as a “sin eater” whom Ichabod Crane seeks out for help.

Were you surprised? 

~ Rak Chazak