shadman's old Musings

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16) Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and the Qur'an: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme. (Qu'ran 9:111) I really don't have time to write a blog right now, with working a 40 hour a week job, writing a commentary on Colossians and teaching it each week in the Home group I lead, and pondering starting a web development company with a friend, as I get ready to start the third section of the foundations class I teach next week. I'm even slipping in developing the audio-visual team at church, training sound personnel, coordinating the p...

Today, I'd like to tackle omnipotence. Its really not an attribute of God with which Christians have a problem. I would guess that we would all agree that God is omnipotent, since most of us still hold to the belief that God created the heavens and the earth, right? Some of us (although I'm not one of them) believe that God needed several hundred million years to create it, but He did create it. We might question His ability to be everywhere, all of the time, or His ability to know everything there is to know, but creative power? No, that's not really in question. So why is it that we seem to act like He doesn't have the power to do anything else in the earth today? Its down right schizophrenic! Don't believe me? I'll get to that a little later ... The Jehovah's Witnesses are really good and making sure that you know the word 'Trinity' isn't in the Bible. Well, I'd would like to remind us all that neither are the words omnipotence, ...

Have you ever questioned whether God really knows what's going on down here on earth? You ever looked back at 911 and asked, “God, did you know that was going to happen?” Maybe we look back in history and ask why He allowed the Inquisitions to occur. Or why He allowed Nazi Germany to come to power. So for this blog entry I want to look at the attribute of omniscience. We all probably know that it means all knowing, but I'm also sure that sometimes we probably question whether He really is. In beginning this blog I'd like to give a little credit where do, to a good friend of mine, Bob Wells, who wrote what amounts to a children's theology book. It is awesome! Its really nothing more than a collection of definitions and stories to teach the attributes of God. It was a fantastic idea, quite unique. What is most surprising to me though is that no publisher would touch it. “It's too hard for little kids to understand,” they said. Yet, independently of Bob, this is exactl...

I'm currently sitting in a book store because we are once again without power. St. Louis seems to be a magnet for weird storms right now. Its beautiful outside, but dangerous too. I have a fairly large limb on my roof right now – the very one that I just contracted a tree service to cut off. Unfortunately, they haven't been able to get to it yet. So, after taking a 45 minute walk with my wife, and while she continues to walk, I decided to stop and create a blog entry that I hope to be able to post in the next couple of days – just depends on when and where I can find an Internet connection. The next topic on my quest to discuss the nature and attributes of God is God's perfect nature. So let's borrow some information from my Online Bible program (which just might be the very best low cost Bible program available. Esword is good, but it doesn't hold a candle to OLB – especially when you add Gary Gallant's DVD of add-ons). This definition of God's p...

This was originally posted Dec 22, 2006 in my Yahoo! 360 blog: Its been a really long time since my last post, and I apologize for my absence. So, let's try to pick up were I left off in early December. I want to tackle some of the big words of theology, and one of them is the word eternal. What exactly does the word eternal mean? To understand that, we need to go to the source, to see what the Bible say about who God is. So let's start with a couple of verses to see what they have to say about who God is, starting with Ps 90:1-2 says: Lord, you have been our dwelling-place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. God has always been seen as being in existence, with no beginning and no end. He has just always been. Now let's take a look at Job 38:4-5. God asks a few questions to Job: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who ...

This was originally posted in my Yahoo! 360 blog, Nov 8th, 2006: I've been slowly but surely directing my blog to the attributes of God, something that I personally feel that most Christians simply don't know enough about. In so doing, I've been using Islam as a contrast to Christian teachings. I'm sure that some would accuse me of being unfair to Islamic beliefs, but the fact of the matter is, Islam is constantly in the news, and the overwhelming majority of that news is not very complimentary to that faith. So, why not use their 'faith' to contrast what the Bible says about who God is, right? In my last blog entry I wrote about God's mercy, which can be summarized as 'not getting what we deserve'. God withholds the punishment we deserve for the sins we continually commit. Unlike Islam, the Christian faith teaches us that we are to be merciful because God is merciful to us. So this time I'd like talk about justice, but before I can get there, I ...

In the past I have pointed out some of the inconsistencies of what is stated about Islam and what it seems to practice, as well as some of the differences between Islam and Christianity. Today's entry is really no different. These days our so-called secular media seems to be going out of its way to faun all over Islam and prop up the ridiculous “religion of peace” mantra it tries to hind behind. I read a couple of very interesting articles concerning the newly elected African-American Muslim congressman from Minnesota. This is an article about Keith Ellison, the first Muslim to be elected to congress . Beyond the flap about him putting his hand on the Koran instead of the Bible for the ceremonial pictures of the swearing in process, the larger issue is, that as a Christian convert to Islam, Islam seems to get a pass on all of the questions that would be asked any other person with seemly extreme personal beliefs that would also seem to violate the US Constitution, the very thing he...

This was originally posted in my Yahoo! 360 blog, Oct 16, 2006: I want to talk about mercy in my blog today, and to do that I want too relate a story that didn't get much coverage in the news. In Iraq, a country that the USA is currently still trying to help become a democratic nation – maybe even against their own will, a little known murder took place last week. A Greek Orthodox priest was kidnapped and found three days later with his head severed from his body. The reason given by the merciful Muslims that did the kind and compassionate act upon an obvious infidel, was the Pope's recent comments about the need for more dialog between religions. If you will remember, the Pope quoted a 12th century Emperor's statement to a Muslim scholar that he was debating. Obviously this evil priest was responsible for the Pope's statement, and therefore his compassionate kidnappers had every right to behead him for not preventing the Pope's thoughtless comments. Oh yea, and th...

This was originally posted in my Yahoo! 360 blog, Oct 7, 2006: Fortunately there doesn't seem to be any horrible world events to report on right now, just the normal carnage in Iraq (the daily unending Muslim Islamo-fascist terrorists murdering innocent Muslim men, women and children – and any American they can find), political scandals in the West (like Rep Foley chasing young teenage boys), and the normal raping and murdering that goes on all over the world. Everybody wants to exercise power over everyone else. Everybody wants to be in charge, but no one really knows what to do or how to act once they get in charge. If the terrorists win in Iraq, what kind of a government do you think they will establish? Do you think they've even thought about it yet? Or is killing the only thing they really know how to do? Have you ever thought about why its so hard to lead? Most of the time the wrong people want to lead, and the right people don't want anything to do with leadership. W...

This was originally posted in my Yahoo! 360 blog, Oct 1, 2006: This past week, one of the most gruesome crimes imaginable was committed by a woman. A woman cut the unborn child out of the womb of her friend, killing both and drowned her three other children, stuffing them into a washer and dryer. If the authorities know why she did this unspeakable evil, they aren't saying. She plead innocent even though she's admitted the crime to her boyfriend and the police. I'll assume our “justice” system will place her in the loony bin for a few years and then pronounce her cured. Not much justice for the victim's family in that. As a Christian I know exactly why this crime happened. There is evil in this world, and his name is Satan. Yes, I'm one of those. The very first question that most people ask is, “How can God let such an unspeakable thing happen?” But the assumption in that question is that somehow its all God's fault. But is it? How many of us want others to make...