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Change

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At the heart of Western culture lies a mistaken assumption: our belief in permanence, the ironic persistence of which endures—despite life's relentless attempt to beat it out of us." Change is an ever-present reality in our lives, yet we can never seem to accept it. We design elaborate schemes to stabilize favorable circumstances, only to be surprised when they fail. And yet, we try again. Why do we so obstinately refuse to accept that permanence in this life is a myth? The watershed moment in our culture came in Ancient Greece, when the insights of one man, Heraclitus, were overshadowed by those of another: Plato. Plato taught that our physical world is merely a shadow of a higher realm of ideal forms—perfect and unchanging. He believed that the changes we witness every day in people and things are just material objects moving toward or away from these ideal forms. The adoption of this belief instilled in Western thought a longing for a nebulous ideal called perfection and, w
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How did Paul die

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Paul's death comes after the end of the Bible, so we can't be sure.  One tradition says he was beheaded in Rome and the last we hear of him in the Bible is during his imprisonment in Rome. But he did have plans to eventually go to Spain and some say he was released and eventually made that missionary journey as well and died in Rome later during another imprisonment. This would mean that his appeal to Caesar as a Roman citizen was ultimately successful. This is not unlikely especially when you consider his behavior in the Roman prison when it collapsed and during the shipwreck. Paul and his companions could have taken the opportunity to be free, but they said stayed saving the lives of their captors. Paul's actions might have been seen not as a guilty man, but an honorable kne seeking the vindication only Caesar could offer to his reputation.  And history is rarely as neat and tidy as we would like it to be.  Everyone agrees that Paul was beheaded in Rome, and the  New Test
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Erickson on Ecclesiology

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Today I took a stab at reading Millard Erickson.  I am hoping that, over time, my mind will become more focused - but it is very easy to get distracted by every little detail.  I'd wanted to read straight through his section on The Nature of the Church pp 949 - 970.  In actuality, I only got started on his section "Defining the Church". Pp 950-956 Lots of rabbit trails to wander here.  For instance, Erickson's assertion that the doctrine of Ecclesiology has not received as definitive treatment as doctrines such as Christology, the atonement, salvation (951).    Is this true?  Or does it simply reflect the state of Protestant Ecclesiology after its reframing of the doctrine during the reformation? The Catholic and Orthodox churches have a very clearly defined ecclesiology.  For them the term "Church" indicates a concrete historical body, with an authority structure, that was passed down to the present through Apostolic succession. This claim to historical co
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Father's Day

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One of my favorite activities is organizing my thoughts, or at least learning about new ways to try to do that.  I'm very drawn to things like bullet journaling, commonplace notebooks, and the whole second brain thing.  The concept of outsourcing the task of memory reminds me a bit of computing, where the cloud and various sorts of drives are used to relieve your PC from the burden of having to store everything on its hard drive.   This is Father's Day, and it did not go as I had planned.  I had hoped to spend last night out with my friend Austin, and after church today, to go out and spend some time reading.  Then I was going to go home and spend some time with my family.  Last night it was pouring - so I decided to stay home, then our power cut out and I spent the night trying to sleep in a recliner because my C-Pap doesn't work without electricity.  I finally went to bed this morning when the power came back on, but that meant we missed church.  Determined to salvage wha
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Hello World! . . .Hello?

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Is anybody blogging anymore?   It feels like a stupid time to start blogging.  Like that ship has sailed.  Yet here I am with my steamer trunks like I'm actually going somewhere.  But I'm late to the dock.  People I want to follow all seem to have stopped blogging years ago. Most of the information I've seen about blogging is for entrepreneurs hoping to make a buck off their content.  I hear people complain about being overlooked by the algorithms. It seems like anyone hoping to start a blog these days should accept that nobody is ever going to read their stuff. The thing is, I need this.  My mind is a jumble of thoughts and dream projects, and ideas that I think are clever - and it kills me to think that after springing to my awareness, that they will just sink back again into the obscurity of my subconscious maybe never be seen again.  Or just as bad, keep poking their heads above water as clever yet unfinished ideas to taunt me and remind me of how little I've ever d
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