Geoff's Miscellany

A common idea in Christian circles is that young Christians should invest themselves in doing outrageous things for Christ.

I submit that a better idea is contained within Matthew 10:16:

Beware, I am sending you out as sheep amongst wolves, therefore be as cunning as serpents and as innocent as doves.

The passage is not a direct command to all Christians, but rather Jesus’ instructions for a specific mission. But, in the grand scheme of Matthews gospel, it seems directly applicable to Christians today. What does Jesus mean by “be as cunning as serpents”?

There is an idea that has developed in our culture that you and I can define ourselves precisely as we wish to and that so-doing is indeed the only path to happiness and human fulfillment in general. Charles Taylor described this outlook decades ago:

“There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else's. But this gives a new importance to being true to myself. If am not, I miss the point of my life, I miss what being human is for me...Not only should I not fit my life to the demands of external conformity; I can't even find the model to live by outside myself. I can find it only within...Being true to myself means being true to my own originality, and that is something only I can articulate and discover. In articulating it, I am also defining myself.” Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, 29.

You and I are, whoever we happen to be are some combination of the following:

We often associate Jesus' word in Mark 8:35 with martyrdom. The reason for this, in context, is obvious:

Mar 8:34-37 ESV And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (35)  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. (36)  For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? (37)  For what can a man give in return for his soul?

When I was younger, I would go fishing until very late at night. Often, I would listen to the The Mars Volta as I reflected on various philosophic and theological topics. It just made sense to listen to this band when it was dark and when the moon and some distant lights were dancing on the water. This is one of their few songs that sounds peaceful.

I don’t have many reflections upon the song. It is simply eery and entrancing. I hope you enjoy it.

I will soon become 30.

This song is fitting.

So, the word science is one of the most abused terms in modern discourse.

I have heard the word science being used to refer to:

1. Nature (Look at all the science...when it's actually a mountain or the sky being looked at)
2. Technology (this kind of makes sense but it isn't the same)
3. Mathematics (this baffles me)
4. The views of scientists about anything in particular
5. The process of doing lab work (this is only referred to as science very rarely and when it is done, it is in a sort of idealized sense)
6. The findings of a particular science experiment or meta-analysis (journalists all the time)
7. The lay of a land in a particular field
8. The word "biology" is sometimes used to refer the physical processes in a living being.
9. Moral Positions (Sam Harris)
10. Philosophical Positions (Richard Dawkins)
11. Religious commitments (certain Christian apologists)
12. Political positions  (lots of politicians)
13. Pictures of outer space (every meme on The Facebook)
14. Facts about nature (The ocean is deep, I love science!)
15. Speculation about galactic civilization (not kidding here)
16. Any actual knowledge (people who say, "We can only know things via science...then collapse things they know by other means into science)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1 ESV)

If the stories of John’s gospel were in circulation, then the idea that Jesus’ words were life were circulating about. Similarly, we know from Paul’s letters that the gospel message itself was often referred as “the word of [insert synechdoche for Christ here].” The point being that one of the important background factors in John 1:1-18 is the background of the gospel message and the language about it.

I made a list when I was 17 of everything intended to do in my twenties.

1. Get B.S. in computer programming and minor in Greek.
2. Go to Seminary
3. Learn Hebrew
4. Get PhD. in New Testament studies
5. Finish Black Belt in Isshin-Ryu Karate
6. Write commentary on Sermon on the Mount
7. Learn Latin
8. Squat 400 Pounds
9. Bench 300 Pounds
10. Dead Lift 450
11. Read the Summa Theologica (I had a catholic friend my senior year of high school)

Anyway, kids, plan your life better.

Here is an excerpt from a sermon I preached on Matthew 7:1-5 about two years ago. Jim West reminded me of it.

Jesus and Judgment Priorities for a loving and challenging community:

Stop judging, so that you won't be judged, because the way that you judge others will be the way that you will be judged, and you will be evaluated by the standard with which you evaluate others. "Why do you see the speck in your brother's eye but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when the beam is in your own eye? You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye. (Matthew 7:1-5 Author's Translation)"

What it does not mean:

David Foster Wallace, in a commencement speech, This is Water, observed this:

“Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master…

“…if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars - compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: the only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.”

Anyway, I was listening to his speech in order to get ready for a class discussion over it for some rhetoric students when I heard this song by Modest Mouse (there is an explicit lyric contained within):