Yesterday in class we were talking about what things people pick up from observing others or what things we say really stick with someone. This has been a big theme between Kaelin and I as well because we’ve been observing what bad habits Luke could pick up from us. Here are some random thought tangentially related to that.

Language

I used to have a bad swearing problem. I picked it up my junior year of high school. I was just going along with the parlence of culture. Thankfully God has been sanctifying me of that. However, I still say quite a lot of things – including “pissed off”, “stupid”, and “idiot” – which I really really want to stop doing.

I have especially been noticing lately how other people mimic people’s words. It is especially interesting to inject a word into conversation that people don’t use a lot, then observe who uses it later. Because they heard it and it stood it, it remains salient to them. I think this becomes especially true for the various slang words we use for good, like “sweet”, “sick”, “cool”, “the bomb”, “awesome”, “hot”, or “cold” (not sure how “sick” came to signify goodness).

Actions

While at the store, I notice how social people are when shopping. If someone is deliberating over the various options for ketchup, and then I grab one, almost always I see the person grab the same one. Quite often in the market we do the “what’s this person going to be eating” look into the passing carts, possibly to grab ideas for ourselves. Stretching on the plane is another great example. Every time I see someone else stretch, I am reminded to do it. Then others see me stretch and often mimic what I’m doing. This even extends to unconscious action, like posture or conversational hand-gestures.

Sin

This one is huge. Sin is incredibly infection. Public sins are quite obviously so. Swearing is a great example. It’s amazing how much swearing can pick up in a conversation if one person is particularly prone to it. Speeding is another one. If one person drives by way over the speed limit, many other cars start to inch faster forward as well. However, the sins we try to hide also are picked up on – especially by kids. They see.

I have been very aware of how some of my sins – such as being overly critical or expressing doubt – immediately takes hold of others, especially Kaelin. My sin of doubting – which is ultimately doubting God and is not faith – becomes contagious and leads others to sin.

Sometimes things we do are not sin for us, but are for other people. This is what Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 8. So while I may be able to not sin by using “stupid” in a proper context, teaching that word to Luke would enable him to use it sinfully. Or, I may be able to drink a beer in a restaurant and enjoy it; however, for some of my friends that would entice them to desire drunkenness. Or, maybe I can eat ice cream one some occasions; however, that might be overly enticing to someone who uses ice cream as a daily comfort mechanism that supplants God in their life. This is why Paul says “therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble” (1 Cor 8:13). Paul is referring to meats that could have been sacrificed to idols for the purpose of worshiping those idols. He says he’ll never eat meat simply to make sure that brother does not stumble. This sacrifice of your freedoms is a way that you can love your neighbor.

Anyway… to sum it up… someone is watching, and probably someone else is mimicing you.

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Mark Driscoll is preaching through First and Second Peter, which are books I love.  The series is called Trial.  

We’ve been going through some trials lately!  I nearly cut the end of my finger off splitting carrots then all of us got bad colds.  That’s on top of feeling overwhelmed with all that we’re doing, including starting a married’s small group and Kaelin started helping with a Beth Moore Bible study.  So this series has been really speaking to us.

We really liked this second one in the series called “Trial and Jesus”.  Mark does a great job iterating how Christians respond to suffering.  Jesus is not going to solve all of our problems right now, although ultimately He does in Heaven.  Right now, Jesus walks us through our trials, encouraging us to continue and to persevere in godliness and faith.

I helped put on a showing of “Expelled” at Hope on Thursday.  Great movie about intelligent design and how it is being surpressed within science.

During the day before, I got to thinking about how evolution implies that newer is better.  We are today more “evolved” than our forefathers.

This – of course – has left us with a quiet distaste for history and a complex of intellectual superiority.  As CS Lewis laments, no one reads old books anymore – although they are the ones tried by history and proven true.  This also contributes to distrust of the Bible, a very old book. 

I know I had this view for quite awhile.  It was not until I started reading it that I found out how true it is that “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecc. 1:9).  I continually find very pertainent application to my life today within the bounds of God’s word.   For example, I continually am reminded of my own cycle of falling away from God and returning to Him again by reading about how Israel did that over and over in the book of Judges.

For many of you, this post is unvaluable, because you already believe that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, traditionally called the “Pentateuch”. For others of you, you should read on.

This stemmed from an e-mail conversation I was having with a friend. I copy/pasted my reply with some edits.

—————-

Now in response to: “i can say with confidence that Moses did not write the 5 books of Moses”.
You need to be VERY cautious by throwing that around. The phrase itself is drastically unbiblical.  The Biblical account makes it very clear that the Pentateuch (at least the 4 books of Law) was written on the authority of Moses and the majority was written by Moses himself.

I agree that Moses may not have literally wrote it with his hand, as almost certainly he had a scribe and an editor – most likely Joshua, who was Moses’ assistant (Ex. 33:11), sucessor (Num. 27:18-21), and was with Moses when he met “face-to-face” with God (Ex. 24:13, Ex. 33:11). I agree that Moses probably did not write about his own death and that it was most likely written by Joshua, who is said to have written in the “Book of the Law of God” (Jo. 24:26). I also agree that Genesis was probably a tradition that was handed down and then transcribed and not “invented” by Moses. I also agree that later scribes altered places and names and possibly language to update them to be understandable. However, that’s pretty much all I can agree to given the biblical account:

The Bible refers to Moses as the authority of the Law
Those books are referred to as the “Book of Moses” (5 times ), the “Law of Moses” (22 times ), the “Book of the Law of Moses” (4 times ), the “Word of the Lord by Moses” (1 Time ), and the contents of the books are attributed to Moses over 32 times (cf. 2 K 21:8, 1 Ch. 15:15, 1 Ch. 22:13, 2 Ch 24:6, 2 Ch. 33:8, 2 Ch. 34:14, Neh. 1:8, Neh. 8:14, Neh. 10:29, Mal 4:4, Matt. 8:4, Matt. 19:8, Matt. 22:14, Mark 1:44, Mark 7:10, Mark 10:4, Luke 5:14, Luke 20:37, Luke 24:27, John 1:45, John 5:46, John 7:19, John 7:22, John 8:5, Acts 3:22, Acts 15:21, Acts 26:22, Romans 10:5, Romans 10:19, 2 Cor. 3:15, Heb. 9:19)

Jesus indicates Moses wrote the Law
- Jesus thinks Moses wrote them:
“For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.” (John 5:46)
“And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.” (Mark 10:5)
- Jesus refers divides the OT into Moses, the Law, and (sometimes) Psalms (Luke 22:44 )

Jesus indicates Moses wrote Genesis
Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. (John 7:22)

Paul indicates Moses wrote the Law
” For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.” (Romans 10:5)

Philip attests to Mosaic authorship
“Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” (John 1:45)

Deuteronomy attests in itself that Moses was the author
“Then Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests…” (Dt 31:9)

JEPD (the alternative theory)
This has been the largest alternative proposed to Mosaic authorship. It was largely proposed by men who did not take the word of God as authoritative. For example, Wilhem De Wette was a primary contributor and did not think any of the Pentateuch was written by Moses (despite Biblical claims above). He proposed that Deuteronomy was written as propaganda in the time of King Josiah (which of course means the entire book is filled with lies). Read more about JEPD.

Conclusion
So I would say the Bible, Jewish tradition, and Christian tradition points to the Pentateuch being mostly penned in Moses’ time under his authority (albeit with slight additions as mentioned previously). Saying otherwise is a pretty big leap of faith – I’m not sure if its faith in the right direction.
Many more arguments against fallicious claims that Moses was not the author are here:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/13

My Grandma (Stan's sister-in-law) and My Mom

I’ve always said I wanted my funeral to be a celebration.   Because I believe that is just what it shall be, for me.  We went to a funeral last Saturday for my Great Uncle Stan, a wonderful God-fearing man.  The funeral was actually pretty fun!  Stan was a musician, so they had his jazz band play a few selections that made Luke and me dance in the back of the sanctuary!  

I have never been so blessed by the bereaved.  At the gathering afterward, Joanne (Stan’s wife) looked at me from across a group of people to say, “Well aren’t you just a sweetheart!”  She told me she thought I was a witness for Jesus!  Ah!  My heart just melted.  I don’t always feel like that.  Plus, I thought we were supposed to be the ones blessing her on this occasion!  We then got to talking about the new body Stan had received.  Awesome!  

Stan’s departure from this world continued to bless me this week.  I was out with Luke while this story was told during service.  My mom retold it to me last night.  Stan probably passed at 5:00am, according to Joanne who was with him.  Bill, Stan’s son, had a dream that Stan bumped into him.  And filled with joy he exclaimed, “I’m FINE!!!” then flew over his shoulder!  He was AMAZED at what had happened to him at 5 o’clock in the morning!  Bill said that he rolled over the moment he dreamt it and the clock said 5:00.   Imagine being AMAZED upon the moment of your death!!  My eternal life has already begun….1 John 5:13 : I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life….

 Can you see ‘em?

Reading with Daddy

It’s been a rough couple of days around here!  First, I started to get sniffley on Saturday, then my Dad sliced his finger cutting carrots!  He had to get stitches and I started to get worse.   There I am with a cold rag on my head to get my fever down.  Mom is not excited about my first time being sick!  We’ve been laying low in the house for most of this week.

Despite being sick, I’m still a really happy guy!

We had a blast a week or so ago at Feed My Starving Children, an organization that packages food packs to be sent to countries with poverty-stricken peoples.  We have to say, it is one of the most successful and efficient ministries for volunteer work we have seen.  Here’s their website:  http://www.fmsc.org/.  We went with a large  group from Hope that included our Marrieds Small Group:

Look, here comes my handsome husband on “warehouse” duty!

Here’s some more tough men to man the warehouse duties.  The workers inside just yelled to them what they needed when they needed it…..”RICE”!!!

Luke was even out for some serving.  He mostly did quality inspection.  And Kaelin supervised him doing that!

He thought the hairnets were absolutely hilarious and kept trying to pull mine off, hence the nice bangs in the previous picture.  Here he is wearing it.  He’s a little volunteer already!