What will it take to solve the worlds problems?

Did you see the news last night?

I can’t believe what they did to that guy. Actually I can’t believe the news station showed so much. It was a bit gruesome I think. But as bad as that was it’s nothing compared to what that lady did to her own kids. Or what that other girl did to her own mother. And can you believe the bill that our government passed? Did they stop and think about it for even one second? Oh, by the way, they all got raises. And did you think of the proposed solution for homelessness? Maybe it’ll work, but I’m always a little skeptical of these things. It just seems too good to be true. I mean why didn’t somebody think of it before if it is so simple?

It doesn’t matter which news station you watch or what night you watch it. It’s all the same. Every country. Every city. There’s nothing new about the news, it’s the same thing every night.

I posted some videos below. I imagine some of you share the same tastes as I do so you might appreciate the styles of music. The first video is just a recap of last nights news. Except it’s a little more personal. They’re not trying to keep their audience and their advertising sponsors happy so it just sounds a little less rehearsed and a little more personal.

The second video actually proposes a solution. So does the third. Google the lyrics if you need to.

Rancid – As Wicked

Bad Religion – Sorrow

Mat Redman – Nothing But the Blood

I don’t really have to explain to you that the world is in a mess. You’ve seen the mess. We’re all a part of it. There are a lot of good times for sure. But they never last, do they? Something always comes along and throws a wrench into things. Fights and death are the big killers. At the end of the day many people are left with nothing but sorrow.

But what would the world be like without sorrow? I’m not asking what it would be like to have no emotions. I’m asking what it would be like if there was sorrow no more. What would it take to rid the world of the wickedness that leads to sorrow?

Bad Religion has us imagining a world with no more sorrow. What are the conditions to such a place? Soldiers lay their weapons down, kings and queens relinquish their crowns, the only true messiah rescues us – from ourselves. They say it’s easy to imagine. Well, maybe. Bad Religion diagnosed the problem quite well I think.

The problem is us. The weapons are ours. It is us who hold the crowns. We’ll never let go; will we? I don’t think humanity is hopeless. I just think the solution is not going to come from ourselves. We are wicked and we need saving from ourselves. I don’t know who Bad Religion thinks that the true Messiah is but I’m pretty sure I do.

Jesus; He’s the true Messiah that rescues us from ourselves.

I’m taking a course at the university that I go to, and it’s all about a letter that was written a few years after Jesus spent his time on earth. It’s written by Paul the Apostle. It is the letter to the Ephesians. I’ll be spending well more than 100 hours studying that letter. It’s only a few pages long but it is so profound that I could spend the rest of my life studying it, considering it, living it.

There are a couple of themes that keep recurring in it. One of them is peace. However, according to Paul, peace can only come through Jesus. Not through a government institution, not through ‘just getting along.’ It comes from the first person to every really be what humans are supposed to be. Jesus. Through Jesus humans are reconciled to God and to each other.

May I suggest that you take this into consideration?

By the way, Jesus is a King and Paul calls us to take up our weapons. It is not by laying down our weapons, rather it is by picking up the right ones that our sorrow will be dealt with. It is not by all kings and queens laying down their crowns, rather it is by the true King being crowned that our sorrow will be dealt with.

The true Messiah rescues us from ourselves.

How do you know when you are ready for marriage?

Over the last couple years I’ve had a few people ask me how you know when you’re ready for marriage. I’ve given various answers depending on the person and the situation. I try to think back to when I was making that decision for myself and I let them know what I was thinking at the time. During the summer before I proposed to my girlfriend I recall coming across an article by accident and it was one of the things that convinced me that it was time to get married.

The article was written by one of my favorite philosopher/theologians. His name is Greg Koukl, and oddly enough he was a bachelor at the time he wrote it. The article convinced me that I needed to make a commitment to my girlfriend. We had been talking about marriage already, but when I say commitment I mean a different kind of commitment than just marriage itself. A lot of people get married without making any real commitment to each other. The gist of the article is that you need to be fully committed to fulfilling the needs (particularly the emotional needs) of the person you are marrying.

“What is the point of having a child? What is the point of having a wife? What is the point of having a family if you’re not investing yourself in those things?” ~Greg Koukl

There seems to be a big problem among married folk. We like to get married and then ditch each other for our careers and the golf course and things like that. Christians often find themselves so busy with ‘ministry’ that they don’t have time for their ’spouses.’ In a nutshell I’d advise that you’re not ready for marriage if you’re already married to your job. There is a way to balance the two. As humans, we’re made to work and we’re made to marry (I am aware that not every one has to get married… not so sure that the same should be true of work). I encourage you to check out the whole article. Click here for full article.

My other piece of advise is that marriage need not be like a prison. I think Kramer quite nicely sums up the typical view of marriage (at least it’s the view that is held by most people that have made it past the honeymoon stage). Before I got married I was warned by many people that marriage is a horrible thing. No more freedom and all that stuff. Well that doesn’t have to be true, though in many cases it is. Anyway, if the two of you are ready for the commitment to each other and you put a little effort into it then I’m sure you can avoid the prison sentence. I think my wife would agree that getting married has been a good thing!

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Healthy Body Sick Mind

My doctor wants me to eat healthy. My government wants me to eat healthy. The grocery store wants me to eat healthy. The factory I used to work in wanted me to eat healthy. Even McDonald’s wants me to eat healthy! But nobody seems to care about my mind.

Well, that’s not quite true. I have some professors who care about my mind. Some other people too. But our culture at large doesn’t seem to care a whole lot about our minds. Health crazes and health scams abound, but I never feel pressured to give my mind a good work out. Why doesn’t our culture care more about our minds? We’re bombarded every day with offers and advertisements, yet we’re not taught how to think through them. Why is that?

Upon entering class a few weeks ago one of my professors asked, “Do you ever think that the world has been set up in such a way as to keep you from concentrating?” That question kept me from concentrating on his class. But seriously, even when we are encouraged to think it’s usually just superficial. What most people mean by thinking is taking a few seconds (or perhaps a whopping five minutes) to make a decision on an issue and then moving on to the more important things in life like blogging random thoughts.

As a teenager, I liked to think but I wasn’t the best at it. One of the bands that encouraged me to think was Operation Ivy. They’re a legendary punk/ska band from the days before punk rock was as trendy and fashionable as it is now. Their lyrics are though provoking – unlike most of what our culture has to offer.

The song, Healthy Body Sick Mind has become somewhat of a theme song to me. I suppose you could say a soundtrack to my thoughts about thoughts.

Expensive vitamin pills and
Wheat germ on your windowsill
Schedule’s hectic and you got no time to kill
Earning money and you’re spending it the right way
Just in such a rush
You don’t know if it’s night or day

5:30 get up, run run run
Then you work eight hours slaving under the gun
Your little world’s based on lies lies lies
Always rushing but you’re never ever satisfied…
Healthy body sick mind
Working overtime
Healthy body sick mind
Too hectic, too hectic
Healthy body sick mind
Why don’t you justify
It’s just a matter of time
Sick body sick mind

The money you spend on running shoes could feed me for a week
Your plans are laid so well you can’t even sleep
Pursuit of happiness got your life locked under martial law
You got everything to lose so you’re paranoid about some fatal flaw

5:30 get up, run run run
Then you work eight hours slaving underneath the gun
Your little world’s based on lieslieslieslieslieslies
Always rushing but you’re never ever satisfied…
Healthy body sick mind
Working overtime
Healthy body sick mind
Too hectic, too hectic
Healthy body sick mind
Why don’t you justify
It’s just a matter of time
Sick body sick mind

Lyrics from some lyrics website.

The King of Queens Teaches Valuable Lesson About God!

I love sitcoms. Just the good ones though! I don’t have cable, so I’m limited in what shows I can watch. Lately I’ve come to like King of Queens. I came across a great conversation between Doug and a Rabbi in a recent episode. It’s about religion.

The three most popular monotheist religions are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These three religions all have something in common. They all claim to have roots in Abraham. Abraham is a guy that we first meet in the book called Genesis (it’s in the Old Testament in the Bible). Generally speaking Jews and Christians both agree on who Abraham was and why he was important. Abraham was on a mission from God and the mission was continued through his son Isaac. This is where the Muslims disagree. They say that the mission was continued through his other son, Ishmael. Now, to the average Joe this argument seems pointless. Who cares!? Don’t these religions all worship the same God? Why can’t we just overlook the differences and simplify things a bit? Why not just admit that we all worship the same God? Is it true that right now we have three separate monotheist religions that all worship the same God and just disagree about a few details?

The Devil is in the Details

Well some people don’t think that these three religions worship the same God. I think that there are many Jews, Christians and Muslims that think we all worship the same God. But each religion thinks that it is the one that God favours. I disagree. I think that we all worship different gods. This is a pretty controversial statement. But there is one detail that Judaism and Islam reject. This little detail at least separates Christianity from the other two monotheisms.

Surprisingly, Doug (the not-so-bright star of King of Queens) understands the distinction between Christianity and its rivals. Why don’t you take a look at the script and then I’ll explain the important distinction. I transcribed it myself and other than punctuation it should be accurate.

Transcript from episode 206 (or was it 207?!)

Setting: In a car on the way to Arthur’s wedding. Deacon is driving. Doug and a Rabbi are in the back seat.

Doug – I can’t believe you aren’t the one getting divorced.

Deacon – Hey stop talking about divorce will you, you guys are gonna be fine. You always work these things out. She screams, you cry, two pizzas later you’re back to normal.

Doug – This is different Deac, Okay? We had a commitment about our future and she just didn’t hold up her end. That’s not right, is it?

Rabbi Feldman– Well I certainly understand why you’re upset, but I also know that God believes in forgiveness.

Doug – Yeah. Is that just your God, or any God?

Rabbi Feldman– Do you think you and I have different Gods?

Doug – No! No, no, no, no… oh, I mean, yeah. Only cause my God is… Jesus. But, uh. But from what I understand my God is the Son of your God. So, I’m sure they’re on very good terms. They probably see each other all the time. You know holidays, family functions.

Car screeches to a halt and Doug rams into the seat in front of him.

Doug – Hey! What the hell was that for?

Deacon – To shut you up.

The Difference Doug Makes

This bit between Doug and Rabbi Feldman is supposed to be funny. Those of you who are familiar with King of Queens probably read it with the appropriate tone of voice. Even though it’s funny it is also true. As Christians, we do worship different gods… because our God is Jesus.

Doug mentions that Jesus is the Son of the Jewish God. This is true. Although, we should not think of this in the traditional child-bearing sense. The Father/Son language is used more as a metaphor to explain the tight-knit and shared nature of Jesus and the Father. Jesus made it clear to his fellow Jews (yes that’s right, Jesus was a Jew not an American Evangelical!) that if they did not follow him then they were rejecting the Father. Well, let’s let Jesus speak for himself.

“he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” Luke 10:16

“”Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”" John 14:5-7