On the Apocrypha

Since it seems much of the haggling is over apocrypha this, and bible that. I thought I would chime in. For the record, I will certainly will concede that I may have misinterpreted the Pope's prayer as a prayer for the dead. Casting this aside, I still believe prayer for the dead is without basis. And that to base this idea on anything but the Bible is wrong. For the sake of our readers, when I refer to the Bible I am referring to the "protestant" Bible. And since a prayer for the dead will eventually lead to purgatory, I will make an attempt to nip both of them in the bud. In an attempt to answer some questions that will inevitably arise I will consult the modern day crystal ball...google.

First, I will start with the idea of prayer for the dead which from what I can ascertain is a doctrine taken from the Apocrypha. I personally,do not see how one can reconcile the Apocrypha as the inspired Word of God for a number of reasons. First, in the NT there are numerous references to the Old Testament. If the Apocrypha was "truth" would there not be references made in the NT?
Second, unlike the other 66 books the Apocrypha was written in Greek and not Hebrew.
Third, there are many historical errors in the Apocrypha some of the examples are seen in Tobias where Tobias used magic, heart, liver, gall of a fish to drive away a demon. Also, in Tobias says he saw a revolt in the Northern Tribes(997 bc) and was deported to Nineveh in 740 bc, yet he only lived 102 years.
4th, the author of 2 Maccabees infers that his writings are not divinely inspired. But rather a writing of historical perspective.

To sum it up, if there are these glaring errors in the Apocrypha. One must consider/reconsider the doctrines that are pulled from these seemingly human inspired works. Within the canon of scripture lies what I consider the true and perfect Word of God.

Apologies to Amanda and One_Lost_Coin

As you can see the posting on April 15th has been deleted. The reason for this is I believe the pictures and tone served more to offend and mock, then to facilitate debate. Though I do disagree with many doctrines in the RCC, my sinful pride was on full display when I chose to mock and castigate those whom I disagree with. It did not serve me any purpose, by posting a likeness of the pope on fire, nor by suggesting that all who follow the pope are going to hell. In the Jesus is the Final Judge and only He knows whom he calls into Eternity. I will make a better effort to humbling assert my disagreements I have within the RCC. Once again, to Amanda and One_Lost_Coin I apologize for my foolish pride.

Justin Maberry

Prideful Thoughts

The following is a brief list of thoughts on the subject of what pride is:

Hitting snooze for an extra ten minutes of sleep, thereby throwing your day off kilter.
Staying up late the night before surfing the 'net or watching the tube, when you need to get up early the next morning.
Reading the books(including the Bible) when your kids desire your crave your attention throughout the day or when you spouse desires to spend time with you.
Not having a proper diet or exercise
Misinterpreting the Bible to fit your own wishes.
Working in excess for a extra money that may not be needed.
Going out on the town when you need to pay bills.
Criticizing others for their lack of knowledge in certain areas that interest you.
Placing your kids on a pedestal.
Not including your spouse in decisions.
Not helping out around the house because you think you're a MAN!

This is bit but a small list, but all these are issues that ultimately compete with the sovereignty of God.

Perspectives on the Olympiad

Christmas Day 1979. US intel detects Soviet aircraft streaming towards the Afghanistan border. It was on that day the Soviets disastrous attempt to overtake the Afghan's and "convert" them to Soviet ideology began. The war would last a decade and cost tens of thousands of lives. It also spark a worldwide protest, particularly in Hungary, that foresaw the end of the mighty Soviet Empire 10 years later. 1979(also a good pumpkins song) was also the year before the USSR was to hold the Olympics. They were to showcase the "brilliance" of communism in this Olympiad. They were going to show the world how far they "advanced" since Stalin's Reign of Terror. Fortunately, this invasion of Afghanistan finally struck a chord in minds of people in America, which led to a much needed boycott of murderous regime formerly known as the USSR.
Fast forward to 2007, the news headlines are filled with reports on Tibetans protesting the forthcoming Olympiad held in communist China. We here cries of protest for the US to withdraw. It seems on deaf hears this news falls, as we wouldn't want to offend the slave-supporting, truth-repressing, back-stabbing murders in the aristocracy of China. Truth be told the Olympics is to be a showcase of the world's greatest amateur athlete's. It is a showcase of the grandiosity of country. It is a showcase of unity worldwide.
Public policy in China shows these commie bastards to be none of the above. Their athlete's are frequently embroiled doping allegations. The pollution in Beijing is so bad, world class runners are either dropping out or considering breathing apparatuses while they compete. An undisclosed amount of workers have been killed in a hasty attempt to build the venues at breakneck speed. It leads the world in human trafficking, piracy, computer hacking, and forced slave labor, among other things. On the unity front, China despises Taiwan. So much so, they have threatened to take them off the map. Tibetans are very nearly treated as the Jews were in Nazi Germany. They are a continual supporter of lunatic regimes in Iran, Syria, and Russia to name a few. Lest we not forget, Chinese fingerprints are all over the carnage in Darfur.
When you watch the Olympics in a couple of months think on this. The nice leather coat you go to work was more than likely made by political prisoner or a Christian whose beliefs are criminalized. While you look like a stud, their ass is getting beat into the mud with butt end of an machine gun. But, hey, at least you look cool and the chicks dig you.

Something Different

I'm going to try my hand at a little poetry. Periodically, I've been known to scribble out some prose, on the encouragement of a friend of mine I'm going to give it a shot.

Last Hours

The whip cracks with a mighty thunder, as it tears into the skin
Pulling out bloody chunks of skin and sinew, a few more hours until the end.
In a dazed, disheveled mess thorns are buried into My head,
Blood streams down my face, burning my eyes, as I blurily
stare upon the Cross, on which I will soon be dead.

My body is in agony as I shoulder the Cross against my savagely beaten frame,
Insults are hurled, as Simon carries the burden for Me as I've become lame.
I am lain on cedar, with iron spikes my hands and feet are cloven to the wood
To hold up a body no longer recognizable to those who normally would.
Spit mixes in with the dripping blood and sweat,
My side is pierced, as I have given my last breath.

Fear not, it was not I who was defeated on the Cross,
On that day, sin was given a permanent loss.
I've sacrificed My life,
I've taken every evil,
I've healed every wound,
I've dried every tear,
That Day on the Cross.

The Big Fraud

This blog would normally get me in trouble, but since all of two people read it(and I am one of them). I feel pretty safe in writing about what I am to transcribe. I don't even know why I am writing about this. Perhaps if it it was in January or February it would be a little more timely, but alas it is March. The main position I'm taking is not that Martin Luther King, jr. was a great "uniter" of the races, but rather he was a pseudo-Christian, who did about as much to advance the cause of Christ as Led Zeppelin advanced hip-hop.
To show that MLK was hertic, I will not make wild conjectures based on feeling, but rather I will use his own words from his own writings to show that MLK is a heretic.

On the Sonship of Jesus, King wrote the following. " The first doctrine of our discussion which deals with the divine sonship of Jesus went through a great process of development. It seems quite evident that the early followers of Jesus in Palestine were well aware of his genuine humanity. Even the synoptic gospels picture Jesus as a victim of human experiences. Such human experiences as growth, learning, prayer, and defeat are not at all uncommon in the life of Jesus. How then did this doctrine of divine sonship come into being?
We may find a partial clue to the actual rise of this doctrine in the spreading of Christianity into the Greco-Roman world. I need not elaborate on the fact that the Greeks were very philosophical minded people. Through philosophical thinking the Greeks came to the point of subordinating, distrusting, and even minimizing anything physical. Anything that possessed flesh was always underminded in Greek thought. And so in order to receive inspiration from Jesus the Greeks had to apotheosize him.The church had found God in Jesus, and so it called Jesus the Christ; and later under the influence of Greek thought-forms, the only begotten Son of God."

On the Virgin Birth King states the following, "First we must admit that the evidence for the tenability of this doctrine is to shallow to convince any objective thinker. To begin with, the earliest written documents in the New Testament make no mention of the virgin birth. Moreover, the Gospel of Mark, the most primitive and authentic of the four, gives not the slightest suggestion of the virgin birth. The effort to justify this doctrine on the grounds that it was predicted by the prophet Isaiah is immediately eliminated, for all New Testament scholars agree that the word virgin is not found in the Hebrew original, but only in the Greek text which is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word for "young woman." How then did this doctrine arise?

A clue to this inquiry may be found in a sentence from St. Justin's First Apology. Here Justin states that the birth of Jesus is quite similar to the birth of the sons of Zeus. It was believed in Greek thought that an extraordinary person could only be explained by saying that he had a father who was more than human. It is probable that this Greek idea influenced Christian thought.

A more adequate explanation for the rise of this doctrine is found in the experience which the early Christians had with Jesus. The people saw within Jesus such a uniqueness of quality and spirit that to explain him in terms of ordinary background was to them quite inadequate. For his early followers this spiritual uniqueness could only by accounted for in terms of biological uniqueness. They were not unscientific in their approach because they had no knowledge of the scientific. They could only express themselves in terms of the pre-scientific thought patterns of their day.

And here is King on a myriad of basic tenets fundamental to beliefs of a Christian," Doctrines such as a supernatural plan of salvation, the Trinity, the substitutionary theory of the atonement, and the second coming of Christ are all quite prominant in fundamentalist thinking. Such are the views of the fundamentalist and they reveal that he is oppose to theological adaptation to social and cultural change. He sees a progressive scientific age as a retrogressive spiritual age. Amid change all around he was {is} willing to preserve certain ancient ideas even though they are contrary to science."

So there you have it kids...the reasons why MLK is a fraud. If you care to challenge me on this go right ahead. You can read it with your own eyes here,here,here,and here!

Becoming All Things To All Men

This past Friday some dudes from the church went out into the city of Philadelphia to "live as the homeless". It was quite an experience in a couple of ways. First, it took us two hours to find the first homeless man(that might be some kind of a record). Second, believe it or not homeless do sleep like normal people, and most of them we found were asleep. Some on benches, some on the sidewalk, some in amazing contraptions that would make Bear Grylls proud. Needless to say, we could have packed it in after the two hours and said to ourselves this is pointless. Fortunately, we were a little deranged so kept up the pursuit.
After getting home and recovering, I began to think of the words of Paul when he says, "...I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings."
As Christians, we need to take this attitude when sharing our faith with others. It doesn't do us any good if we give up because we feel we are not reaching anybody. We must constantly be in pursuit of the prize, so that we can reach others. Even if it is just one person we reach, that person we reach may be the next great revivalist who can reach multitudes of others. Or that person you reach may turn his life around and be saved from destruction. As final word I will share a quote,
"The battle has already been won, it is only a matter of how many soldiers that share in the victory that we need to worry about."

Sermon on Jonah

By clicking here, you can listen to my sermon on Jonah.

Ahh yes, my man crush

Those crazy emergents

While reading an article in Time magazine about N.T. Wright's forthcoming book on bodily resurrection I couldn't help but wonder who reads all this stuff. So, I did some digging through various blogs and found the emergent folks are the ones who seem to have a man crush on this dude. Which got me thinking, that the emergent church reminds of old style fundamentalism, expect with more pastels, goofy paintings, yoga sessions, and other stuff you would associate with people marching in a gay pride parade.
I grew up in an era where God was vengeful and if you made a mistake you were smoked. Now, we have the emergent crowd who seem to like the idea of a sissy Christ who picks daisies, gets a manicure, and then ends the day drinking a wine cooler. They spend so much useless time haggling over "Does your real body go to heaven, or does your soul?" I'm starting to wonder if their missing the point of Jesus died for you and when your saved you go to heaven...Does it matter how or when we get there.
I believe they are making a fatal mistake by placing time according to the human element next to time according to Jesus. Sure, you can make the case that their could be a slight delay, in human terms, of when you "officially" go to heaven, but then time is completely different according to Jesus. So, is there really a delay at all?, if a thousand years in heaven is like a day on earth?
Frankly, these emergents need to grow a pair balls and teach Christ died for your sins and you are saved when you repent and seek His mercy. If they want to keep screwing around with their loony debates, maybe they can pack their grateful dead cd's and baloney sandwiches and move to San Fran.

Welcome to the East Coast

Being from Seattle, I am not really acquainted with in's and out's of catholicism, other than the fact I think it's a bit goofy. So, silly me I thought people celebrated Mardi Gras for the three B's beer, broads, and boobies. Luckily, I work with enough "religious" folks who told me about Mardi Gras, Lent, Ash Wednesday. After they told me, I did my best not to laugh, as I thought it to be the most absurd thing, it's right up there with praying to the Saints.
For it's worth here's my two cents...it your going to party like rock star for the other 325 days, what does it matter if you act pious during Lent. Last, I checked Amos had some stern words for this type of religous piety. As for the ash on the head, I pretty sure Jesus said that fasting should be done in private and not in an outward manner, so as not to draw attention to yourself. Who are these people fooling with their with the ash of a cigarette on their forehead? Perhaps, they should pick up a Bible and read about fellow named Jesus who died for their sins, and who doesn't demand some Pharisee type of living, but rather a life in full devotion to Him.
One good thing about this Lent bit is that most of them don't eat meat. So, now is the time to go to your favorite steakhouse.

Chew on This

"Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses to be bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?"

Unsynchromized Thoughts

Here's a couple of obscure thoughts to sink your noodle on...
If you watch a documentary on WWII and it's black and white you always think of those images in black and white, but if you talk to veteran whose was in the specific battle he remember those images in vivid color. Think on this...you both can talk about the same images to each other but you transmit the images to your head in black and white, while when the old vet talk about those images he sees them in color...

And for one more obscure thought...if you are a pre millennial pre trib type of dude and the Bible speaks of the Second Coming of Christ...well, if are a pre trib wouldn't you have to have 3rd coming of Christ...I put myself in the category of I'm saved and I'll go to Heaven and how I get there is of zero concern to me.

And one more Art Bellesque thought...since sound waves are constantly traveling and don't technically vanish into thin air...Would it not be scientifically possible to create some sort of device that could decode these waves and listen to conversations in the past?

For the sake of my 2 readers, I have not been drinking tonight...unless you count the pomegranate juice sitting forward of the mouse

Fear of Failure

While preparing to preach on February 17th, I've taken to reading various resources on the methodology of preaching. Needless to say, every time I read something I feel as though I'm not adequately prepared. Which leads to reading some more, and then having doubts, and then reading more, and so on and so forth.
Then it hit me one day, I can read every book, listen to every podcast, talk to every pastor, but unless I seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit I will be doomed for failure.
Before each reading, I've found it necessary to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit. we can prepare for something as long and as hard as we can, but unless we can prayerfully seek guidance, we will sound foolish. And the message that was needed to be conveyed will be lost in our sin of pride.

Unsubstantiated Bantering

So, I'm flipping through the tube after another fine episode of The Wire, which is a fine show. Someone I stumbled across a show called Friends of God. Needless to say, I got suckered into watching it when I probably could've been sniffing glue or dipping my tongue in battery acid or some other more productive activity. It was what I expected, charismaniacs dancing like acid-tripping hippies of the 70's, capital "F" fundamentalists isolating themselves from the world like Randy Weaver in woods of Idaho, and then my favorite...those idiotic political nut jobs who somehow think Israel is code word for the United States. I find it amusing how people think if you are a Christian than somehow you are a part of an all inclusive gun-toting, navy-blue-suit-wearing, hang-an-atheist-for-fun club. It's almost as if they that if you don't vote Republican, God will smite your first born and cast you into the lake of fire for eternal damnation. The irony of all this is that I do typically vote for Republicans, and I do think liberals are a bit off their rocker...except when it comes to some of the details of "War on Terrorism". But that is for another time...

Fun with numbers

While preparing to speak on Jonah, I realized that one man cannot touch on everything in one day, unless of course I was at an apostolic church in the South. Than I would probably do everything in four hours I would be allotted. With all the running that takes place I would probably pull a hamstring and have be involved in a faith healing. Which would carry on the service for another couple hours. Anyway, here some interesting tidbits that for now have found their way to cutting board.
In Jonah, God gives Nineveh 40 days to repent. This number forty has been oft repeated in Scripture. Examples are Jesus' temptation, Moses on the Mount, Ezekiel's hand on his right side,
etc. I believe this number shows a time of testing that God used showing people his plan for their life, nation, etc.
Also in Jonah we find the number listed 3 as the days spent the belly of Sheol. The significance of this number shows the completeness of something. For example, Trinity is 3 parts all equaling One Triune God, Jesus' completeness was shown buried and rose again in an span of three days, and in Jonah we God's Mercy, Jonah's repentance, and his recognition that "salvation is of the Lord", while in the belly for three days.

These are just some of my observations...

Boondock Saints...

Strangely this is funny

Don't Be That Guy

While I have a few minutes in this chaotic world I will scribble, not really scribble since I am technically typing, down some thoughts on the "American" prophet Jonah. I use the term "American" because I believe it aptly fits Christians in America today. For a little more on that description I shall digress into the whale story. Though it's not really a whale story, but a story on the eternal grace, mercy, providence of God.
Jonah was called to preach to Nineveh, instead he tucked his tails between his legs, hopped on a boat, and made a vain attempt to flee 2500 miles to Tarshish, which is located in now modern day Spain. What happened in this attempted Houdini act is what I find similar to the Christians in cities all around us today. God calls us on a mission...we think think were hearing voices in our head...God gives us mercy by saving us in spite of ourselves...God provided a Big Fish(also a good movie) to keep Jonah on his mission...then we finally do get around to accomplishing the mission God sent us on,then we whine and complain, because we think God's mission wasn't what we had in mind...Jonah, after saving Nineveh from certain doom, seemingly sits on a hill overlooking Nineveh waiting for Sodom and Gomorrah part II(if anything he should have known that sequels aren't as good as the original). Instead of being thankful that many more came to know God, Jonah was ticked off that he didn't get a good fireworks display.
Don't be that dude who is on mission for God and himself. Only God know his divine plan. It is not up to us to decide whether certain acts of God of unjust or unjust. It is only our mission to follow God's will for our life, and be thankful that He was gracious enough to include us in on just a infinitesimal part of his Divine Plan.

Some random thoughts...if Hillary loses the nomination will she explode? Is it ironic that after the 'Skins beat the cowboys by 21, and thought Sean Taylor was with them(he's wore number 21), that they turn around and lose to the mighty, Super Bowl worthy Seahawks by....21? "It's a little to ironic, yeah, I really do think!"