Bible, Etc.

My God, My Bible... What kind of truth?
Daniel here. I discovered within the last week that I get a lot more out of listening to the Bible than I do reading it. When I read a passage I've read before, or that's "non-exciting", my eyes just skim faster, and I don't really take it in very thoroughly. But putting on headphones and listening, I am currently finding, is a much more powerful experience. When you think about it, the idea of the texts is that Jesus said all those words, out loud. So it's cool to hear them out loud. I have been finding myself to be somewhat "blown away" by the words of Jesus within the last week. Sermon on the mount? Mind blowing!!! Crazy faith healings? WHA!!???? Jesus is so OUT THERE!


Like I have said before, I know I have a road ahead of me right now of determining my beliefs about the Bible. But I still think it is valid practice to think and live biblically, even if I am not necessarily believing totally biblically. Two reasons why:

1. To work on "thinking and acting" biblically is the most involved way of testing the internal consistency of the Bible. If I am trying to "live and think biblically", then I'm more likely to discover consitency or contradiction within the Bible's teachings on -- for example -- sin, heaven and hell, money, gender, etc. I'm less likely to discover those things if I am "disinterestedly studying".
2. I know I believe in YHWH, Yeshua, and Parakletos. That is the image of God that I have, that has been etched in my soul from my life's story that I will not elaborate here. But is that the only image by which God reveals God's self? I don't know. I'll probably never know absolutely. I want to develop my view on how exclusive and objective my understanding of God is, and not just sit complacently on my comfortable "I don't know". But what I DO know is that one way or another, YHWH is my Creator, Yeshua is my Savior, and Parakletos is my Comforter. Because that image of God more-or-less has the Bible as its source, then seeking to live and think biblically makes quite a bit of sense, even if I am not (yet?) convinced that the Bible has a total corner on theistic truth.

"Work hard and cheerfully as though for the Lord"

In other news, the details of setting up life are proving slightly more annoying as time goes on. I keep telling Rebekah, "it feels like whenever I try to get something done, there's something that happens that means I can't finish until later." But I've been saying (or singing) to myself "work hard and cheerfully as though for the Lord." a Vacation Bible School version of Colossians 3:23.  If I'm doing work I should be doing, then there's no reason, or at least no value, to getting cranky about it.

TNIV: Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Part of me suspects that I'm creating extra work for myself by doing "too good" of a job of certain things, mostly keeping track of finances. But then I reply to myself that it won't always be this bad: once the systems and automated things are set up, the majority of the work I am doing now will disappear. And I have some people in my life whose meticulousness with which they track their money is something I really respect, and have seen the fruits of that borne out in their lives and even into my own. 

More and more community all the time

Both at church and in our "neighborhood", I/we ve been growing closer to the people around me/us. 

We've been hanging with the neighbors a bunch... we've got four metal chairs for "setting" out on our front sidewalk. (People don't "sit" in the South. They "set".) We greet and talk and go on with our days. Rebekah and I have been visiting the neighbor ladies to watch "The Sing Off" (even though we'd probably get better sound on our computers), and we've had some interesting chats about life, finances, food, church, everything. Luchia came and visited church with us, and said she'd never felt so welcomed by a church in her life! 

We are really feeling right at home in that church. We've got 5 weekly things we do with our church: 2 short music practices, 2 bible studies, and 1 Sunday service. The sermons and lessons keep us challenged and squirming -- if you want to squirm too, you can watch some of the Francis Chan videos pastor has played for us, especially "Lukewarm and Loving It". On top of all that there's the usual Sunday group lunch, and the occasional hangout with Pastor Chuck and his wife Debbie, like this week when they called me up to help deliver a bed to somebody out in the countryside, and then we grabbed some fried mushrooms, talking about faith, sin, holiness, personalities, marriage, etc.. It's really crazy and cool to be part of a community, nay, family, so soon in our time here in Liberal.

After delivering the bed, we were all talking so much that Rebekah decided she wanted in on the action, so we invited them in to continue the chat in the living room. During that conversation, Chuck introduced me to a perspective about sin and "being a sinner" that I had not ever heard before, but that seems so far to be defensible within a Biblical worldview (whatever that is, exactly). A paraphrase of that part of the living room conversation:

• Chuck: 80% of the denominational churches will say 'we are sinners, saved by grace', 
• Rebekah: Yeah, like how the LCMS and ELCA say "I, a poor, miserable sinner"
• Chuck: But in all my reading of scripture, I have never found followers of Jesus referred to as sinners. They are called saints. Paul doesn't say "to the sinners at so-and-so", he says "to the saints at so-and-so". Sure, in Romans 7 Paul says "the evil that I don't want to do, I do," but in Romans 8, he says "you were formerly slaves to sin, now you are slaves to righteousness."
• Daniel: Okay, but then what do you call it when Christians do what's wrong?
• Chuck: It's called faults. Mistakes. Sin is a rejection of salvation, it's much more serious, and it's pretty much reserved for those outside of Christ. When we have sin in our lives, we're not right with God.

It was crazy sounding, and totally contrary to how I've always thought and talked. But then again, if the foundational assumption you're working from is that the Bible is authoritative, then he may very well have a case, and I told him so. So I searched the New Testament for "Sinner", and started looking through verse by verse, and I'm not even through one Gospel, so I can't say much yet, but I haven't seen him disproven anyway.

It's crazy to be down here in Bible land for the period of my life in which I had already planned to be inspecting my views of scripture, because like I mentioned earlier, I feel like it is so much more rich and honest to question scripture "from the inside", by attempting to think and live by it, than to question with a telescope from a disinterested distance.

Crazy.

I'm realizing that I'm saying things are "crazy" a lot. And that's true. And you know what, I'm alright with that. Because my primary worry about coming to a small town in THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE was NOT that it would be CRAZY. I'll take crazy any day.

Other News.

In relation to our interesting quest with lifestyle/resource choices, I can think of two notable developments: 

1. Alternative transportation ambitions: delayed/modified. We have discovered that Rebekah is notably more "wobbly" than we had previously estimated. We were noticing that she didn't like taking her hands off the bars, and then one night when she was tired, she got up on the bike, wobbled a bit, and plopped into a bush. After that I just wanted her off the road. So we're thinking that we'll have to put the thing on hold until we can test ride one of those terratrike three wheeled bikes. And depending on how that goes, we may not have any Rebekah-related "alternative transportation" in our near future. Overall, I think this learning experience was a positive one; she appreciated my willingness to drop my energy and daydreams about biking once some convincing evidence was in, and I appreciated her willingness to explore the possibility of becoming "the weird lady on the reverse-trike" in the future.
2. Health insurance: cool! I have been talking to the people at MediShare and applying to participate in their program. It's quite awesome. It's not technically insurance, it's a sharing network. Basically it's Christians paying each others' medical bills. Instead of "premiums", it's a "share amount" that you pay each month. It's a nonprofit, so the money goes to 20% administration costs, and 80% to pay people's bills--no owners or shareholders to take dividends. That fact helps the costs stay down, along with the fact that everyone signs a Christian belief and lifestyle covenant, which contains stipulations (no smoking, no drunkenness, etc.) that lower the overall health costs incurred by the members. And I think it's a cool manifestation of the body of Christ acting as a body. 
• NOTE: The "letter of the law" of MediShare's belief covenant was a bit more than I could swallow outright:  I believe that the Bible is God's written revelation to man and that it is verbally inspired, authoritative, and without error in the original manuscripts. I don't really know what "authoritative" would mean here, and if I don't understand the meaning of what I'm affirming, is it honest for me to affirm it? "Verbally inspired", i.e. that God chose individual words for the authors, I have no particular belief about. "Without error", in my opinion, is either subject to MAJOR interpretation, or is not something I can affirm. 
• I often think about the two very different accounts about Judas' death and the "Field of Blood".  In Mat. 27, Judas hangs himself from guilt, after returning the betrayal reward money to the Pharisees. The Pharisees buy a field with it, and because the money was "blood money" from the betrayal, they call it the "Field of Blood." In Acts 1, however, Judas keeps the reward money, buys a field with it, and then his bowels burst over it, his blood making it the "Field of Blood". Now. I have looked into this some, and have read explanations that he could have hung himself AND had his bowels burst. That's how the workarounds usually go... apologists take two different stories and show how they could be representing parts of the same historical event... But reading up on this event, I have seen nothing resolving the following issues: 1) Did he keep or return the money? 2) Did he or the Pharisees buy the field? 3) Why was it called the field of blood? I'm of course open to input, but the point of my example is to show how the historical inerrancy of all Biblical text is not something I can actively affirm.
• Before enrolling in Southwest Christian High School for 9th grade, I had come up against a similar issue to the one I am now facing with the MediShare belief covenant: Southwest's covenant stated "I will honor God with all my actions", or something to that effect... something I knew was unrealistic in its literal letter of the law. I knew I couldn't honor God with ALL my actions, no matter how hard I could ever try. So before enrolling, I had a meeting with the principal and talked through the stuff, and he said it was okay for me to sign on despite my concerns with the wording. That's basically what I'm doing now, with the MediShare people. The representative said that when HE signed onto the MediShare program some years back, he had understood that the most important thing about the covenant is that a) you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, and that b) you live a Christian lifestyle. With both of those things, I'm majorly on board.
• My final thought was: I may not be able to say the Bible is verbally-inspired and inerrant, but I sure do drill its contents into my brain and life quite a bit. It is possible that in the future, something in my understanding or application of scripture could change such that integrity would require me to withdraw from the MediShare program. But for now at least, I can say that I'm on board. I'll hold off on submitting the application for now, though, to be sure I'm reflective, prayerful, and conscientious, not casual or just doing what's convenient.

Parents are coming!

Within two weeks of each other, both of our sets of parents will be visiting us in October! Daddy Jimmy and Danny Jimmy will be going hunting some, which he has been looking forward to ever since he learned I'd be moving near some of the best pheasant grasslands in the country. The summer was a tough one and we don't have a dog, so picking might be slim, but it will be fun anyway. Dad and Mom Schulz will be around for Sunday church, and the J's will be around for Wednesday night Bible study. I imagine we'll all tour Rebekah's now-established classroom.

Non-conclusion

I have no witty way to conclude, or pull everything together through common themes, given that I've talked about some pretty random stuff. I talked about the Bible a lot, so maybe a good concluding paragraph would involve the Bible somehow, but I haven't currently the Bible-related conclusivness to pull such a thing off. So for now I'll just say,

Bye!

~Daniel


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