shadman's old Musings

And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. (Mark 13:13) There is for you an excellent example to follow in Abraham and those with him, when they said to their people: 'We are clear of you and of whatever ye worship besides Allah: we have rejected you, and there has arisen, between us and you, enmity and hatred for ever, unless ye belieive in Allah and Him alone. (Qur'an 60:4) Wow! Its actually been a month since my last blog. And the crazy thing is, I started immediately after I posted my last one. But then I got to looking at a really interesting Scripture related to the Trinity, and then a mild controversy by what I had shared about a particular verse. But, no matter – here we go! The Crusades are not one of the bright spots as you look at the history of the church, but that really has more about their outcomes rather than the actions of the participants. I'm not going to gloss over the things that were done...

Seems I forgot to post my April 15th Yahoo 360 blog entry ... so here it is. Before I begin – just wanted you all to know that I have not received any reply from the History Channel (see previous blog entry), not that I expected one. Maybe some day they'll get the hint, but its doubtful. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. (Luke 6:35) Let not the believers Take for friends or helpers Unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah. except by way of precaution, that ye may Guard yourselves from them. But Allah cautions you (To remember) Himself; for the final goal is to Allah. (Qur'an 3:28) I'm sitting here on a Sunday morning, a little sick, so I'm staying home from church and writing a blog entry instead. I just got done watching the movie, “United 93”, about the passe...

No one is good except God alone. (Mark 10:18) The Jews say, “Allah's hand is chained.' May their own hands be chained! May they be cursed for what they say! By no means. His hands are both outstretched: He bestows as He will.” (Qur'an 5:64) I believe the real quote is that there are “lies, damn lies and statistics”, but I only need the first two parts of this quote. It was my intention, for my last blog, to talk about the myths about Islam. I got a little side-tracked and a bit strong but I don't apologize for telling the truth. That's why what follows may shock you as much or even more than what I blogged last time. So, are you ready? Too bad if your not ... Let discuss the perception that Islam is responsible for the great advances in the sciences and the arts. If you haven't heard that, then, just where have you people been – under a rock? Did you sleep through your LIBERAL arts classes in high school? Oh, right, they were taught by liberals so y...

I just got done watching a couple of programs on the History Channel. Before I get to my blog post, I want you to know that I'm a big history buff. I really love just about anything historical: WWI, WWII, Civil War, Pilgrims, presidents, technologies, scientists. But really I love reading about earlier Christian history between 100 and 300 AD (not CE). I just love it! Yes, I know that probably sounds a little strange. So I know things that a lot of things that most people just don't know about the early church. Like, did you know that during Constantine's time it was common to be baptized on your death bed because they were afraid of loosing their salvation for sinning after baptism? Or that the books for the NT were pretty well decided by ca 180 AD? Or that until 1945, the only thing we know about Gnosticism came from the apologetic writings of a guy by the name of Irenaeus, who would explain what the Gnostics believed and then refute their beliefs from the OT and accepte...

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 ...