NextGenKent

In my devotional this week I was confronted with some thoughts I believe had their basis in unfounded truths. So I did some digging into what the Bible has to say (as well as a devotional guide I am reading). Some initial thoughts: 1. The Sun stays the same ... yet changes. How much can an object change yet still be referred to as unchanging? Time a factor. Scientists believe our sun could burn out in 5.5 billion years. So it is not in a big hurry. Shoo! Relatively speaking, the sun will be constant in my lifetime. 2. The Garden of Eden is said to have been perfect, yet it needed tending. To what extent does perfection not reach and still hold its meaning? Can things be perfect yet incomplete? Can the qualities of perfection still need to be maintained and be perfect? Can a garden not be perfect without the addition of a caretaker? Could the continual maintenance by God's first created human of a garden created to be incomplete add up to perfection? Perfection was not i...

What if I never had to sin again? Part 1. I have been pursuing some answers to my sin problem--or my overcoming sin problem, that is of being able to move beyond forgiveness to developing patterns in my life that keep me connected to God and all that that means. Isn't that called Sanctification? Well, most likely, but stating the word now locks me into a theological debate I do not want to get involved in. But yes. I purchased a book not too long ago entitled, The Five Views of Sanctification, which basically has each view beating up on all of the others in Jesus' name while rising to the top. I bought it because it added yet another feather into the hat of my search for perfection--it continues in humanity too. It is a viable question of merit. Perfection? Another theological term I do not want to debate (but discuss? Yep). It doesn't mean to me what it means to so many others. To me it means responsibility to the best I am able. Some would say it is the Garden of E...

Most of us believe critically thinking about things is good. Most of the people I hang with know they don't just do what they feel like doing. Education and learning happen by levels and degrees--first grade, then second, Algebra I, then II, etc. Your thinking skills can graduate to a more critical thinking level as you add different knowledge bases to it--an understanding of Science can add to your ability in being an Accountant or Pastor. A video entitled " Ed Schultz Yells at guest Ryan Anderson, then cuts his mic " made me think of the following comparison when it comes to how some people think. Let me use gears as a metaphor for thinking. Getting our gears turning is like using the energy necessary for thinking. Some people think egg beaters and others like watches. Both ways of thinking are viable forms for accomplishing what they were created for. Keeping time is much more of an intricate process than beating eggs. An egg beater has two gears inte...

In the beginning God spoke and said, Let there be light and it was so. What was created was something we would train ourselves doesn't exist. This light God spoke just was and existed without a sun which hadn't been created yet but is now what we have trained ourselves to see is real. The first light lets call 'heavenly light' for it is from God's world and so continues to be. Once sin entered into our world the heavenly light, although still existing, shrunk from our sight and relegated itself to what we many times call the spiritual realm. This is understandable because sin brings darkness. But something else came with that darkness, another presence that found how to live and exist in it and develop authorities and seats of governance and powers.  Although the heavenly light still exists in this world we humans cannot see it for the matrix of darkness is keeping blinders on our eyes so we cannot see it. The truth is, ever since one man has come into this world th...

A reaction to John Van Sloten's, The Day Metallica Came To Church: Searching For The Everywhere God in Everything ,  2010. This book caused me to rethink some of my foundational theologies, specifically Creation and the Fall. If God created us in His image and declared His creation as ‘very good’, what consequences did the sin of Adam and Eve have upon us? How deep does it go? I have some very strong thinking patterns that hold everything as either good or bad, God’s or Satan’s, black or white. This either/or (dualistic?) outlook doesn’t leave room for the mysterious. But what if all of these things were meant to lead me to something more? What if I always stopped short because I was led to believe that when I came to a certain point I had arrived—mission complete--stop here and move on to another subject? And what if that wasn't true? I was challenged by the thought of how God speaks to us outside of the Bible. I have believed that God speaks to me through many things (...

A reaction to Albert M. Wolters, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview, 2nd ed. 2005. This was a great book to have read prior to many others and is very foundational to the development of the rest of my thoughts for a course in my doctoral training… and for life. I truly appreciated not only the style and manner this book was written but the biblical scholarship is very solid. I don’t agree with the author’s assessment of consecration (I believe we consecrate and God sanctifies). God won’t sanctify what we don’t consecrate. Consecrating is our setting aside those things that are to be holy. Nevertheless, I have actually vocalized what this book has taught on a couple of occasions—it is that formative and conceptualizing to me. The creation of God was declared ‘good’ and so are the laws God put into place to govern His creation. Those laws haven’t changed but we do need discover them and “have dominion over them”. This is what true science is sup...