gdp's Comments

Faith Footprint : Opinions and Advice

Wed, 2 Jul 2014 16:22:29 +0000

Colin, Actually over the years Donna and I have relied on others who are more knowledgeable about budgeting, etc. to guide us on our family budget--both in setting our "family policies" and in structuring our lives in order to carry out those policies. I am not saying we cannot learn things from those who aren't "professionals", or that 24 year-olds cannot teach us anything--only that the reality is many people have little of value to teach on a given subject. The 24 year old clearly was not able to teach what he thought he was able to teach--only that he was in fact not qualified and that others should ignore his opinions. As for the kids, you are correct, they taught us great lessons on love--but in reality it was God teaching us through them, and through our interactions with them. The kids themselves had little understanding or mastery of love. Their love for us was entirely dependent on how they felt about us at the time--which was frequently not positive:-) (all discipline is unpleasant for the moment...). On the other hand, today we see them teaching us a great deal about love as they have matured and shown themselves to be able to love others as God loves us.

Faith Footprint : Please don't shoot me.

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 06:39:15 +0000

Rick, thanks for the comments and questions. I don't know that I agree with the generalizations re: gender, but the question you ask about protecting others seems to be the question most people ask in response to my post. It is important to me that we draw a distinction between Biblical teaching and personal opinion--one has authority over any Christian's life, the other is just an opinion. The scriptures specifically address self-defense and retaliation--and tells us to turn the other cheek instead. I don't see anything that would support the supposition that men are given a protector role that includes physical violence "if necessary" (my quotes). On the other hand, I don't see any specific prohibition of this either (such as the "turn the other cheek" passage). Like most people today, I find myself appalled at the genocide commanded by God in the Old Testament. I think I understand why He did, but my understanding is not necessary. God is God. He is the standard of righteousness, and I have learned that this "pot" can't judge the "potter". Now, how does that differ from our circumstances? First, and most important, God isn't doing the commanding in the American army. In fact, it isn't necessarily even someone who follows God who does the commanding. Second, the reasons we go to war and kill people certainly aren't the reasons God had for his people. His plan was always centered on the fulfillment of his plan of salvation through the Messiah. Everything that happened in the OT led to this. That certainly isn't true of any army today. Finally, God commanded His people--a nation chosen by Him for a specific place in history that would literally be crucial for the salvation of every person who comes to Him. No modern nation can claim this (many Americans' opinions not withstanding). So, is it ok for a person to defend himself as a soldier in war? I would ask first, why is that person a soldier in war? I can envision scenarios where a case could be made that it is "righteous" to go to war. However, I don't believe we can simply say that any soldier is automatically in God's will simply because he is serving his government. I believe Christians have a responsibility to their King first, and should make no commitment to a worldly government that might lead him to disobey his King.

Faith Footprint : About Me

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 04:15:39 +0000

Great to hear from you Sandra! Say Hi to Jim for us, and anyone else who remembers us:-)

Faith Footprint : Does prayer "work"?

Mon, 14 May 2012 03:38:43 +0000

Thanks Sue. It's good to hear from you!

Faith Footprint : Does prayer "work"?

Sat, 12 May 2012 04:34:52 +0000

We miss you too my friend!

Faith Footprint : The problem with worship, part 1.

Sun, 4 Mar 2012 23:18:37 +0000

Chris, I think you\\\'re mixing truth with untruth personally. No question the church can get sloppy--and to worship God in a way that is \\\"sloppy\\\", not giving our best, is like offering the lame bull as a sacrifice--it just shows that God isn\\\'t important. However, you seem to be saying that worship is ONLY individual (our personal life given to God at all times--the living sacrifice of Romans 12:1). This simply doesn\\\'t fit scripture. Worship is both individual AND corporate. To separate myself from the body and not worship with the body, OR to say that Christian gatherings are only for the purpose of \\\"connecting with other like minded people, not to worship God\\\" is just wrong. It ignores the value of corporate worship (NOT corporate connecting) and makes our times of corporate worship times of self-focus. If the Holy Spirit is driving the bus, the bus isn\\\'t about us.

Faith Footprint : What exactly is "faith"?

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:52:21 +0000

I agree, and actually I think your aside is very much to the point. Whether this man's original "belief" was limited to intellectual agreement or trust, he acknowledged the universal need to deepen those (our ascent still harbors doubt and our trust is incomplete) and move to faithfulness. And as you said, in the end, the point of all these is believing IN Jesus. Believing things *about* Him are only useful if they lead us to believe IN Him (trust). Otherwise, we are left with either a sterile academic "faith" or a more limited set of superstitions separated from the person who is the object of our trust and faithfulness.

Faith Footprint : We really don't believe in Hell.

Wed, 8 Jun 2011 05:34:25 +0000

Fact is a statement of reality. Metaphor is a figure of speech intended to help a person understand an aspect of that reality. However, since it is a figure of speech, it not intended as a statement of reality. While there are (in my opinion rare) instances where it is not immediately obvious whether a statement is metaphor or fact, in most cases this not the case. In the case of heaven and hell, the metaphorical nature of the scriptural descriptions becomes obvious both by the context and by the fact that different statements make perfect sense as metaphors but are contradictory if taken as "fact". An example would be the pictures of hell (e.g. a garbage dump, a bottomless pit, a lake of fire). These are different, and are obviously representative of things which we consider horrible (the garbage dump imagery from scripture goes infinitely further than our experience of a garbage dump). The "fact" (statement of reality) is that hell exists (the metaphors are meaningless otherwise) and we don't want to be there.

Faith Footprint : We really don't believe in Hell.

Wed, 8 Jun 2011 05:29:37 +0000

The word "Lord" is an English word. It is used to translate words from both Greek and Hebrew (in Greek, typically the word "kurios"; and in Hebrew, typically the word "adonai", though there are other words in both languages which can also be translated "lord"). As for the use of the male gender, the short answer is that the scriptures typically refer to God as male (God the Father and God the Son being the two most obvious examples). Personally, I don't believe this is intended to communicate that God is limited by gender as we are. I suspect this is simply a literary convenience since God chose to preserve portions of his communication with us in written form. There are portions of scripture which refer to what I have called the "maternal nature" of God, where God uses maternal imagery to refer to himself.

Faith Footprint : We really don't believe in Hell.

Wed, 2 Mar 2011 06:28:15 +0000

Cari, I’ve never been comfortable advocating for Satan, but I’m good with taking the opposing thought for discussion. A complete answer to your question (exactly what does the Bible teach about hell?) would be a book, not a post. However, I think there are several points that are hard to argue with: 1. our word “hell” refers to several Biblical terms: Hades, Sheol, Gehenna among others, and what God has revealed about hell has increased over time (progressive revelation) 2. hell is real—it is referred to too often to believe otherwise 3. hell is a really bad place—seems absurd to put it that way, nevertheless the one common thread to all the references to hell is that it is basically the worst we could imagine (examples: fire—Matthew 5:22; a garbage dump [gehenna] Matthew 23:15; a pit [falling] Psalm 5515). In fact, I think it would be fair to say that both heaven and hell are described with imagery in scripture something like this: think of the best thing you could possibly imagine—heaven is better than that. Think of the worst thing you could possibly imagine—hell is worse than that. 4. hell is a terrible place and is a place of punishment (Matthew 5:29-30; Matthew 8:11-12; Matthew 10:28 to cite a few passages). Jesus himself (in each of these passages) uses the threat of hell to motivate people (something many contemporary preachers seem to feel is beneath us).

Faith Footprint : We don't really believe in praise.

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 18:39:27 +0000

I'm not sure what you're saying. I don't see how focusing on another brings us back to ourselves? As for the need for Thanksgiving, I think I agree with you in part. We do need to be thankful for one another and expressing that is encouraging, though I'm sure you would agree that no one serving the Lord does it for others' thanks. As you pointed out, they wouldn't continue in that service long. That said, this post is about worship--how we focus on God, not each other. My point is simply that true worship can't be focused on us, it must be focused on God. Thanking God is certainly part of that, but I think we (the American church) are way out of balance between praise and thanksgiving.

Faith Footprint : My Jury experience--bad news and good news

Mon, 8 Nov 2010 17:35:11 +0000

Thanks Jeff. I don't know why I wrote the wrong name--mind numb I guess:-). Yes, he is Greg Lymuel, though some of the other things the papers said were not so accurate.

Faith Footprint : I love you. No.

Sun, 3 Oct 2010 03:06:26 +0000

Absolutely. I guess it shows that we tend to move from chair to chair much more often than we want to admit:-). The adult who says "I love you God. No." is putting himself in the time out chair. For those who don't know about the "chairs", they refer to an illustration we use picturing our relationship with the Lord in terms of the table the Lord sets for us. Three chairs around the table represent curiosity, new commitment and maturity (and of course most are somewhere in the process, not just in one or another chair). Two other chairs are away from the table. The time out chair is where we go when we back away from the Lordship of Christ (I'm mad, I don't care, I won't give this up...many ways of saying "No") and the high chair is where we go when we say "But it has to be my way. My music, my group, my preferences...". If anyone is interested in more info on this see the videos on www.nocc.org.

Faith Footprint : Homosexual Love

Sat, 7 Aug 2010 03:16:12 +0000

I totally agree about the parents' responsibility--and the church's responsibility to equip and support the parents. But if you ask any teacher in a public school they'll tell you the majority of the parents of the kids in their classes aren't interested in supporting or teaching their kids. I fear abandoning those kids to whatever the popular or politically powerful at the time want to tell them.

Faith Footprint : Homosexual Love

Fri, 6 Aug 2010 19:44:41 +0000

I have to agree with your sentiments if not your conclusion. The fact is the state *is* involved in deciding what marriage is--and what children will be taught about marriage. This is my biggest concern in this whole discussion. I have watched an amazing and scary trend in schools over the last 35 years. Young children are taught immorality as good, and morality as bigotry. They are encouraged to "experiment" and parents are vilified if they object. I'm not a reactionary. I know many reports of this type of thing are exaggerated or just plain manufactured. But I have also seen it actually happen--and this is without a law that saws two men or two women can get married. I have no faith in America as a country--it is a secular state and it will pass. I just don't want to be part of the problem in the process.

Faith Footprint : Why I'm not a proud American.

Tue, 6 Jul 2010 22:03:53 +0000

Tad, thanks for your thoughts. I don't usually talk about the American Revolution (pick your battles principle) but I have to agree with you. Everything I see in the scripture tells me that "Christians" (we have to remember that many if not most of the early American fathers were deists) do not rebel. They *may* resist if obeying involves disobeying God (choose for yourselves whether it is right to obey God or man), but rebellion just doesn't seem justifiable for a Christian. On a little lighter note, I was taken to task a few years ago about the fact that we don't have an American flag here (someone figured that out when they wanted it for a funeral and we didn't have one). When pressed, I agreed that we could have the American flag if we put a "Christian" flag next to, and above it. The response was that it was just wrong to put anything above the American flag, so we shouldn't put one up at all.

Faith Footprint : Deer, snakes and spiders

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 06:59:52 +0000

Tambra, I am grateful to the Lord for how he used the spider. But the spider still gives me the creeps:-)

Faith Footprint : Gratitude: What I Have And What I Don't

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:11:51 +0000

Russ, we've been playing with this for a year but finally put it out to the world this weekend.

Faith Footprint : Who Are We?

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:22:40 +0000

Good questions Roy. I would add that there is a difference between duplicity and boundaries. I have only one fb profile, but I don't say everything on that profile because not everything is for everyone's ears--not because I don't want them to know who I am, but because there are things only certain people should be in on. Two profiles, or if you're really a skilled geek (I use that word positively now:-)) and can figure out how to discriminate security settings on fb, can both be positive ways of setting appropriate boundaries.

Faith Footprint : In the middle of discouraging times, God is still working!

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:17:30 +0000

Had no idea of the connection Roy. Truly a small world.