Renewing of the Mind (Part 1) Phil 4:5-7

I've recently been more and more interested in Psychiatry and specifically in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). I’ve had several intriguing conversations with Jeffrey Schwarz (who showed the brain changes that occur with CBT) and I’ve studied under David Burns (most famously of Feeling Good) and his TEAM therapy. CBT as I understand it, essentially focuses on intentionally practicing certain thoughts. The idea is that many mental illnesses are at their core an irrational belief which leads to a habit of bad thinking. If this irrational belief can be identified, confronted with rationality, and then finally ousted through practice of right thinking, there will be some healing. Essentially, the theory asserts that you can choose your thoughts, and so by indirect consequence, you can choose your moods. If you think depressing thoughts, you will wind up depressed. If you think pleasant thoughts, you won’t. The role of the therapist is to help teach a person to identify the irrational thoughts and practice rational ones.

[Now please note: this is what I have learned from two specific thinkers in CBT. CBT doesn’t strike me as a standardized orthodoxy, so these observations might not be true elsewhere, and as I am only a neophyte, it might not even be true here.]

I was reading in Philippians yesterday and chapter 4 really jumped out at me because it seemed that Paul in the First Century had figured out CBT. This will begin a long-running series on Psychotherapy in the Bible. I’ve had the thought before, but decided “here” was as good a place as any to start. If you have other passages that speak to this question, please let me know and I’ll (eventually) write about them. I’d be interested to collect these from other traditions, literature and philosophy. So if you’re a Shakespeare scholar, send some passages my way. Or if you know about parallel passages in the Koran, please let me know.

5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4, ESV)

The sections starts off with “reasonableness,” and moves immediately to anxiety. The alternative to anxiety is prayer with thanksgiving. The immediate consequence of this thankful prayer is the peace of God. And this peace itself becomes a defense of both the heart and the mind.

One of the major ‘irrationalities’ that cause anxiety is the desire to control. What if I fail that test? It’s Friday night and I’m out of town; what is she doing right now? I don’t know everyone at the party; what if they don’t like me? I’m speaking in five minutes; what if I say something stupid? What if the plane crashes? Everyone has the temptation to fall into these anxious thoughts. What does Paul advise? Pray. Give it to God.

What does that do? It helps you realize that it’s in God’s hands, anyways (everything is, after all). Kneeling before the Throne Room of the Universe, one feels humble; not the big shot who has something to prove. And then when one rises from prayer, and walks out of the Throne Room, one realizes that one was just in the THRONE ROOM OF THE UNIVERSE. What problem could possibly concern Heaven? And what problem could possibly concern one of its citizens?

Also, we can’t forget the thankfulness. No matter how bad things get, every Christian can open his prayer with: “Thank you Father, for life and breath and salvation.” Though every once in a while you get a man like Job, most can go a lot further than that prayer. Most can be thankful for family, health and even wealth. Most have some hint of nature (sun or stars or sky if nothing else) that they can be thankful for.

Paul tells us to pray a lot. He tells us to practice this set of thoughts and attitudes. And when we do this, we’ll be armored from further assault to both heart (emotions) and mind. Exactly in agreement with CBT, Paul says that something you practice by conscious effort (prayer) will be a guard against future perturbation of mood (“heart”) and thought (“mind”).

So let’s imagine our first character, overwhelmed with feelings of anxiety for an upcoming exam. He is anxious probably because he’s grasping onto his pride and playing out the worst case-scenario in his mind, over and over again. He’s imagining getting the test back, with a big “F” on it, and his having to take the course again, and lose his scholarships, and be ridiculed by friends, and have to go home and tell his parents, and not get into medical school, and, and, and… Now let’s let him pray:

Father, I thank you for life and breath and salvation. I thank you that you have given me the opportunity to study at this wonderful school, that you’ve given me friends that believe in me and a family that loves me. Thank you for this beautiful day, the warm sun and calm green trees. I lift up this exam to you. I have been diligent in my preparation; I have studied what I have studied and done all that I can. And so now I pray that you give me success. Passing this exam will ultimately help me serve your children by entering medical school. Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done: I trust that you will be with me and will do what’s best for me, be it to fail this exam or to pass. Amen.

 If our young friend prays this prayer (or others like it) for 15 minutes a day, he’ll have a lot harder time stressing out about the exam. It’s in God’s hands. He’s accepted the possibility that he might fail, but he’s not worried about that either. On top of it all, he began with gratitude; even this alone will put him in a better mood than when he started.

The pattern of Philippians 4:5-7 is brilliant and powerful:
1. Begin with being reasonable.
2. Don’t worry.
3. Instead, pray and be thankful.
4. This will guard your heart and mind.

Clean and Unclean - Reflections on Kosher (Part I)

Cow and Chicken. Both clean.

Lessons We Can Learn From Clean Animals

I was asked by a friend why God called some animal’s clean and others unclean. Why? What’s the difference between beef and pork? At the time, I hadn’t really thought about it, and so had no good answer.

I know this is a subject that has been debated and speculated on by people for a long, long time. But I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm to add my own speculations onto the pile. Why speculate? Well, that’s a matter of worldview. From a conservative Jewish perspective, it doesn’t matter. Commands are given to obey, not to question or understand. The Modern perspective is that these are silly rules given by a silly religious leader and have no deeper meaning. But my perspective is neither; I think I might have a Medieval perspective: that there is deep meaning in everything, especially Scripture.

Leviticus describes (and Deuteronomy repeats) the rules for Kosher. Observant Jews, to this day, observe these very old laws. And indeed: if one knows the what of a Divine command but not the why, obedience is clearly called for. But, as it says in Proverbs, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; it is the glory of kings to search out a matter.”  So here are the rules and my speculations.

Rule Number One: You can eat animals that both A) Have split hooves B) Chew the cud.  Leviticus is explicit about animals needing to meet both criteria. This includes cows, sheep and goats; it excludes pigs, rabbits and reptiles.

Rule Number Two: You can eat animals from rivers and seas that have scales (e.g. most fish).

Rule Number Three: You can eat all birds (except for 20 explicitly listed).

Rule Number Four: You can eat insects if they fly and have long, jointed legs (e.g. Grasshoppers).

The first hint I found for finding some meaning in this was in Lev 11:41-43. It talks a lot about the “creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” Though I don’t think Leviticus has the overly-aggressive and not-at-all-suave guy with bad pick-up lines in view here, the same disgust is suggested. The phrase seemed a bit redundant, and redundancy generally is a flag for meaning or importance. Why is it important that the thing ‘creepeth upon the earth’. It may suggest that this was the problem with those kinds of creatures: they were too close to the earth. Perhaps what is in view symbolically or mystically here is a connection with the earth. The only insects that are Kosher are those which fly and have some special feature of its feet.

Does this hypothesis pan out? Consider the other classes of creatures. The birds is the only “everything except” category. Birds by nature have a light connection with the earth; they travel in the skies. The one in the Hebrew mind that didn’t, happened to be on the list (the ostrich). Rule Number One talks about the footwear of the cattle: only those that had hooves could be eaten; only those that had some keratin insulation from the earth were clean. It seems that there is some repetition in this theme: holiness demands that a creature be not too close to the earth. And this is perfectly consistent with Jewish and Christian Theology. We should not put our trust in the world; we should not cling to material things or the customs and practices of the world around us. We should have our hope in God, and for the Christians, our eyes on His Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven. In fact, we even put on bumper stickers and wear really cool branded shirts that tell people that we are “Not Of This World.”

---> On to Part II

The Core of Christianity

[For Christians...and interested Jews]
I was considering “the Gospel”. I considered the question in isolation. I wanted to find out how the Bible defined the Gospel without ulterior motives or plans to write this. After reading through the a dozen key verses that talk about ‘good news,’ I settled on 3 core truths (with 2 additional sub-points) about the Gospel. After an exhaustive reading of verses that use “Gospel,” I decided that I needed to add two more. And that the 2 sub-points were worthy of promotion to ‘core truth’ status. So I ended up with 7 core truths that seem common to definitions (and passages about) the Gospel (even though I’m prone to trying to make things fit patterns like that, this one was certainly not consciously designed). I found four verses which I believe are the only ‘definitional’ verses on the Gospel (that is, those which say something like, “The Gospel is…”) and based my list of 7 core doctrines on these: 1Ch 16:23-5, Isa 52:7-9, Rom 1:16-17, 1Cr 15:1-9. (See previous entry)

Independently, I’ve been considering what is the core of the message of God? What cannot be taken out of Christianity and it still be Christianity? I was having a very interesting conversation with a friend on Paul’s strategy for planting churches: very sloppy. They didn’t have perfect doctrine by the time he left. He had to work it out from a distance years later. What, then, were the churches he founded based on?

As God usually does, it seems these independent thoughts didn’t stay that way. I had never really thought of the “good news” as being central, which is silly when you think about the core texts being called ‘Gospels’. Perhaps by trying to define “Gospel,” I stumbled across the non-negotiables. Everyone seems to have their own list of things you need to believe/do to be saved. So here’s mine:

1. God is great.
2. Yahweh is Salvation (translates to “Jesus”).
3. We will live by faith.
4. God loves Israel and will be faithful.
5. God loves the Gentiles, too.
6. The scriptures confirm the above.
7. We should declare #1-6

Conspicuously present is ‘Israel;’ conspicuously absent is ‘obedience’ (both of which are good cult litmus tests. “Israel’s not Israel, we’re Israel!” and “Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t enough for salvation!” are two dead giveaways... though this is a high sensitivity and low specificity test). The Christology is not as developed as in most Christian statements of faith, but the cross-scriptural message is the same: Yahweh is Salvation. Whether you lived late enough to know that God meant that literally (that some dude would take on that name and be the very provision by which God would bring about salvation), or like Abraham, you just believed in the fact without knowing the mechanism. I’ve come to the conclusion that “The Gospel,” could have been preached by Jacob, Moses, David, Isaiah, John (or his remnant disciples in Acts), Jesus (pre-crucifixion) or Paul (post-resurrection). The message has never changed; we just have details added.

Like I said, I didn’t set out to come up with a list need-to-believes. But this looks about right. The core doctrines of Christianity are all here, albeit with some shifts in emphasis (compared to what a seminary student would produce).

Perhaps these represent the core of the faith. Are these elements truly the central ones? In my next entry, I plan to look at sermons by Paul, Peter and Jesus to see if these seven elements are indeed common to their preaching.

What is the Gospel?

[For Christians]
A survey of selected verses

The following searches were done using the search engine BlueLetterBible.org and searching the word “Gospel” in the KJV NT and the Hebrew word “Basar” in the OT (Strong’s # 1319) because the KJV doesn’t use the word “gospel”. The list is not exhaustive. I tried to be as objective as I could be in excluding verses that didn’t apply (e.g. the good news of Saul’s death), were not clarifying (i.e. verses I did not understand). Verses were also excluded if they were along in describing a detail of the Gospel or if there were not enough to support promotion of an element to a ‘common element’ or essential part of the Gospel. For example, there were a few verses that spoke of disobedience of the Gospel that I excluded; I did not think that ‘obedience’ was one of the most important essential parts of the Gospel (absent in the definitions, only a few verses support it). Obedience is indeed a part, but not an essential part. As with any selected survey of verses, the author’s bias and preconceived ideas remain. The reader is encouraged to do the search herself to corroborate or contradict these results.

Vocabulary

בשר basar

1) to bear news, bear tidings, publish, preach, show forth
εὐαγγέλιον euaggelion
1) a reward for good tidings 2) good tidings

Usage

Jesus uses a word translated "Gospel" only 11 times (3 in Matthew, 6 in Mark, 2 in Luke, 0 in John). It is used in the Gospels 17 times (as in “Jesus preached the gospel”). This may be good reason to look elsewhere for a concise definition. Paul, for example, discusses the Gospel extensively (Paul uses the word 75 times, 13 times in Romans alone). Mathew, Mark, Luke, John certainly contain the Gospel, but offer no concise or explicit definition.

There are explicit definitions for the “good news” or “the Gospel” in I Chronicles, Isaiah, Romans and I Corinthians. In my reading of the scriptures, these four definitions contain seven common elements.

Common Elements

1. God’s glory (esp. attributes of holiness, righteousness, strength; relative to other gods)

2. Receiving and declaring (seeing, proclaiming, singing, declaring, praising, witnessing; usually joyful)

3. Salvation and reward (via resurrection)

4. Redemption of Israel

5. Redemption of all people/All nations/Heathen

6. Faith, fear, belief in/of God

7. The word (the Truth; the promise; consistent with the scriptures).

Other repeated themes:
A mystery revealed: once hidden but now revealed. Given plainly; not in wise words or flattery. Obedience is an important element. A fulfillment of promise. These did not come up as consistently as the seven.

Definitional Verses

(Italics indicates the use of the word “basar” in the OT or “euaggelion” in the NT)

1Ch 16:23-5 Sing unto the LORD, all the earth; shew forth from day to day his salvation. Declare his glory among the heathen; his marvellous works among all nations. For great [is] the LORD, and greatly to be praised: he also [is] to be feared above all gods. [5/7 of the common elements]

Isa 52:7-9 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion. Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the LORD hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. [6/7 of the common elements]

Rom 1:16-17 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. [7/7 of the common elements]

1Cr 15:1-9 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. [5/7 of the common elements]

Other Verses

(Italics indicates the use of the word “basar” in the OT or “euaggelion” in the NT)

Psa 40:9 I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.

Psa 96:2-4 Sing unto the LORD, bless his name; shew forth his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all people. For the LORD [is] great, and greatly to be praised: he [is] to be feared above all gods.

Isa 40:9-11 O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift [it] up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! Behold, the Lord GOD will come with strong [hand], and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward [is] with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry [them] in his bosom, [and] shall gently lead those that are with young.

Luk 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

Rom 10:13-17 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Rom 16:25-27 Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith: To God only wise, [be] glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen.

Gal 3:8-9 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, [saying], In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.

Eph 3:6 That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:

Col 1:23,26,27 If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and [be] not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, [and] which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister; …[Even] the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what [is] the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

2Ti 2:8 Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel:

Hbr 4:2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard [it].

1Pe 1:25 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

Biblical HDI

So for those of you who don't know, there is this thing called the Human Development Index. It's a mathematical way to calculate who's "Developed," who's "Developing," and who is, well, "Underdeveloped." For those of you who are over 22, you are probably more familiar with descriptions of the "First world." These have been done away and have been, more or less, relabeled in terms of development. Lots of math and thinking has gone into this index. For the mathematically inclined, just take an average of the following indicies to get overall HDI:



And just like that, you know if your country sucks or not. (For those actually interested in the math, check out the Wikipedia article, from whence these formulas were jacked).

Now, that's the background. I was reading the prophets this morning. God was describing the future peace of Jerusalem and one of the attributes of it was this:

Zec 8:5 And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.

Isn't that a lot easier? Instead of massive economic and social indicators which take thousands of man-hours to assemble, go to a place and see if there are children playing in the street. This will tell you many things: the kids are not forced to work for their food. The streets are safe. The children not sick.

This is consistent with my experience as well. My own home street is a great example of this. It is a suburban dreamland, and when I drive home I have to go 5MPH because children consider the street a placeplace and cars intruders. In various communities in Mexico, the difference between a 'good' neighborhood and a 'bad' one really is kids playing in the street. So next time you're in a foreign country and want to know if it's a good place or bad place, look for kids playing.

Leadership and the Covenants

Leadership
There is a series of books by a man named C.S. Forester about a Navy man who begins at the bottom and works his way up. I just finished "Hornblower and the Hotspur" and was again impressed by the character and leadership of the man. He cares deeply about his duty, far over personal gain. He believes in mercy, and forgives a man at the risk of his own life. He is cunning, and on several occasions defeats a more powerful ship with creative tactics (the naval details of which were completely lost on me as I don't know the difference between a tops'l and a jib except that they were both important in one of his clever moves). He is extremely self disciplined and is terribly harsh on himself for even the slightest lapse in judgement. He demonstrates many of the qualities of a leader that I have learned myself through experience.

The one area that I disagree is that he allows his men to believe him perfect. He even encourages a higher view of himself in places than would be justified. Even though he does the opposite when it comes to the rest of the world, in downplaying his accomplishments, he wants his men to have complete confidence in him and so exaggerates his actions before them.

I think the key difference is in the type of leadership. He, and most military people, are in absolute power and must rule as such. The alternative style that I attempt to engage in is a more team-based leadership; I desperately want those under me to themselves lead. I want to guide and direct, but I want those who are closer to the ground to be thinking as hard as they can about decisions they can see more clearly than I could. This way, I have a whole team of brains, not just one central with a collection of fragments.

In my mind, these are the two types of leadership for two kinds of teams: he Partnership vs. the Platoon. In the first, nothing is sacred; everything can be questioned for the best approach. In the second, thinking is only encouraged within the bounds of the command. Both have their place. The Platoon style leadership is much more important for people not to question orders in military situations. There is really only one way to obey the order "Charge!"; having the men think about it will only get more of them killed. On the other hand, in an academic environment, free-exchange of ideas is a powerful way to make progress. Other places like business, both can be effective.

As I pursued these thoughts, it wasn't long before I made it to the Bible.

Bible Connection

So kings in the Old Testament clearly were of the Platoon-style leadership. Their subjects didn't think unless they were commanded to. The king was perfect and his command could not be questioned. This was a model for God as He related to the people in those days, as a master to slaves. God indulges this metaphor by His frequent refers to purchasing Israel from Egypt. People did not have to think about what was right or what to do; God gave them 613 specific things they had to do.

In the New Covenant, we have been adopted out of slavery and are now sons: Gal 4:7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. So then, it seems that God has transitioned leadership styles. Now that we are mature, He wants us to think about everything. We have principles now: Love God, love your neighbor, make disciples of all nations... etc. But how? That is left up to us.

Do we eat meat or abstain (1Cr 8:8)? Do we quote the Bible (Act 18:28) or do we translate the Gospel into the pagan vernacular (Act 17)? Do we preach or do we teach? What is God's will for my life? It's up to us. We no longer have the convenience of direct orders.

Speculation

I The great command is what? "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." (Matt 22:37) Right? What about "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength." (Deu 6:5)?

My speculation is this. The word for "heart" in the Hebrew ("lebab") is very vague and could also be interpreted mind. Perhaps Christ is re-interpreting or re-translating this in light of the New Covenant, with a greater focus on the Mind and on glorifying God with our thoughts and mental effort than there had been in the past, where strength or might was the focus.

I've started looking at the original texts in this, so it may simply be a translational issue (hence why this is speculative). However, it seems on the first glance at the LXX that Jesus does actually say something different even than what was said in Deuteronomy. The word "dianoa" (thoughts, mind, thinking) is not present in the LXX text (at least in the one hosted by StudyLight.org), though may be a perfectly legitimate translation of the word "lebab."

Discipline

I just watched the Bourne Ultimatum with my family. Of course, the movie was awesome, but it reminded me of a conversation I had with my friend BJ about discipline. We talked about how cool it was that humans can do so much if we put our minds to it. Jason Bourne is a super hero simply because of his training. There are a million other movies/people who are similarly cool. Hitman, Batman Begins, etc.

There are also plenty of real life examples of discipline. There are Jews who memorize the Torah. The entire Torah. Eastern Monks become masters at martial arts. Even people who live in a disciplined setting for a few years have their lives changed. I know people who go into the military as slobs and come out four years later as upstanding and disciplined men.

People use discipline to accomplish great things. In general, though, it does not seem to be a very American attribute. In school, procrastination seems to be the rule. Why do an hour a day when you can do five hours the night before? Likewise in the church, even the most pious churchgoer has difficulty spending even 10 minutes a day reading the Bible. There is no society or authority to enforce discipline.

In Boot Camp, you learn quickly to wake up on time, make your bed, and look sharp by 5AM every morning. Perfection is expected. You get yelled at and mocked if you are less than perfect. They don't ask nicely to wake up early and do PT. You know that waking up that early and exercising is good for you, but you'd never do it on your own (if you are a normal American). They demand you do what you know is best for you.

Sometimes I wish this was true of the church. Not in an obligatory, legalistic manner, but in a voluntary and manly manner. I want to go to a Bible boot camp or join Bible ROTC. I want someone to kick my butt at 5AM and help me do what I am too weak to do by myself. I want to be mocked by my peers when I don't show up. I want to be ridiculed by my leader when I am late. Why? Because I know I am capable of so much more.

Nobody has ever done anything like this to me. It's understandable given draconian enforcements to orthodoxy of the past. However, I think the pendulum has swung way to far on the side of softness. Especially for men.

2 Timothy 1:7 "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self‑discipline."

And this is speaking of external discipline ("chastening" in the KJV):

Hebrews 12:11 "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

And added the day after initial writing:

1 Petet 1:13 (KJV) "Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;"
In writing this, I now realize this is all one big intellectual excuse. If only ______, I would have discipline. I need to gird up my loins and be disciplined. Tomorrow I need to wake up early, exercise and read my Bible. I need to not waste time playing video games our lounging around the house. While it would be great if there was something to help me, I have it in me to do it myself and I need to stop complaining about the state of the world and do what's already in me.


I will post tomorrow and let you know how much a man I am.

The Bible - relevant and powerful

Recently the Daily Bruin ran an article (from another school). This incited a letter to the editor about the irrelevancy and powerlessness of the Bible (can be found here).

I wrote and submitted the following in response:

In “Defense of the Bible fails to add up,” (Viewpoint, Nov 29) Jern dismisses the Bible as an irrelevant and worthless “archaic book.” To his credit, Jern does summarize the opinion of a majority at UCLA. Unfortunately, this view is contradicted by many great men who strongly affirm the Bible’s relevancy and value.

George Washington disagrees with the notion that the Bible is irrelevant: “it is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.” Even Jefferson, a Deist, echoes this: “The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty.”

Francis Bacon, the man who developed the scientific method, valued the Bible to the point of comparing it to science. He said, “Let no man … think or maintain that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God’s word, or in the book of God’s works.” The founding father of science itself believed that it’s at least as valuable to study the Bible as science.

The first president and the author of our Declaration of Independence both believed that the Bible was relevant. Were Washington and Jefferson wrong about the Bible’s relevance to government? The inventor of science said that the Bible was at least as important as science. Did this man of reason grossly miscalculate the Bible’s value?

Or is it possible that they were at least partly right?

Even if you disagree with its Divine origin, it’s simply foolish to dismiss the Bible’s relevancy and value outright.

It was not published.