Introducing John the Baptist

 This next part is about a person: John the Baptist. John the disciple Jesus doesn’t seem to go into details about the personal lives of the characters in his Gospel. He leaves that to the other Gospel writers. He does, on the other hand, seem to give a lot of background information.

19 Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders[c] in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. 20 He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.”

21 They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” Malachi 4:5 "See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.”

He said, “I am not.”

“Are you the Prophet?” Deuteronomy 18:15-18: 15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. 16 For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”

17 The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him.”

He answered, “No.”

22 Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

23 John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’” Isaiah 40:3 “A voice of one calling: "In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

24 Now the Pharisees who had been sent 25 questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

26 “I baptize with[e] water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”

28 This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

I’m going to take a quick detour back to the previous section I analyzed. Though more poetic than this section, John 1:1-18 has an uncanny resemblance to Genesis 1. I think that is purposeful. At least so far, John seems to be trying to connect the old with the new. He does the same here. Instead of using flowery wording, he uses the conversation John the Baptist had with the religious leaders.

John actually has a fascinating story. The most in depth version of John the Baptist's story would probably be Luke. I'm not going to go into it here as that would be a whole other Bible study. It does give the point though that it is always a good idea to look at everything related to a passage in the Bible. The people John the Apostle were talking to were probably already well versed in who were the main characters of the Gospels. John was giving a different view on it not retelling the story verbatim (though if you read the gospels in chronological order, some of it is verbatim to one another, which makes me think they had the same source).

So, there you have it, John the Baptist, a man foretold thousands of years before he was a twinkle in the eye of his parents (or they there's)

The references I gained to the linked Bible passages comes from: http://biblehub.com

In the Beginning

I am writing this edition a little unsure of myself. On one instance, I think learning about the Bible, and sharing our thoughts on the Bible communally is an extremely good idea. On the other side, I tend to have a bit of a big head about my knowledge and ability to read between the lines and I hate doing anything without pure reasons.

That being said, we are all human, and I'm never going to have completely pure reasons for anything. Well not on my own anyways. So, here is a Bible study I did on John 1. I hope you like it. I hope it inspires you to delve deeper into the Bible. I hope you also know that these are my opinions and should be taken as such. I tried to make sure the personal thoughts were pretty obviously apart from the words of John.

The web site I used to help me gleen information was: http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/Greek_Index.htm

I hope you enjoy.

Here is John 1:1-18

Logos: spoken word

Katelaben: Down-Got; Grasped, overtaken

Para: Beside

phOtizei: IS-LIGHTenING; is-enlightening: 1. give information to somebody: to give clarifying information to somebody 2. free somebody from ignorance: to free somebody from ignorance, prejudice, or superstition

exousian: authority; right

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome^[a] it. Side note: These are fighting words. Much of the time we sideways think (like in Star Wars) that evil is stronger than good. In here it doesn’t say evil doesn’t have a foothold, but it does say that it hasn’t overtaken what is good. In a very poetic way it is saying have hope for good is stronger than evil and evil will not overcome good.

⁶ There was a man sent from God whose name was John. Side note: the word which is translated here into “sent from” is more accurately translated into “Beside”. As in, God sent John to work beside himself. In other words God sent someone to work with him. Interesting huh? ⁷ He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. ⁸ He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

⁹ The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. Side note: it seems a better translation would be to enlighten everyone as in to clarify and free from ignorance. This poetry makes a lot more sense now. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³  children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. Side note: This seems to also be able to be translated such: “He gave them the authority of children of God” In ancient times kings had a signet ring. If the king gave said signet ring to another, they gained their authority much like in Esther. I’m thinking that it works the same way with us. We don’t have the physical power of God but we can move mountains because we have been given the authority of children of God. The spirit world sits up and listens. This means we are definitely not pansies.

¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

¹⁵ (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶ Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and^[b] is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

Last thoughts: We often say things like the Trinity. Three beings one person. How this works is a bit of a fuddle. From reading this, here is my thought.

If “word” is Logos which means the spoken word or divine will, and that “word” became flesh, as in Jesus, than Jesus was the devine will of God placed into flesh and blood and sent out to enlighten the world as to who God is. Thought provoking huh?

Idols

When I was sixteen, I lived in France. I loved it there: the freedom the Metro and bus lines gave me, the art, the numerous parks, and little shops with amazing hot chocolate. I was a teenager so school wasn't my favorite thing of all time, but it was an incredibly good school. Even the buses they transported us in were first class. I got to go on some of the best field trips, simply because I went to a school in Paris. I loved it. 

 The field trips and nice busses were great and all, but my favorite part was the learning. It was there, I remember having a teacher sit down with me and basically telling me I was smart, just simply in a unique way. I drank that up like a thirsty animal. The irony was, I received worse grades there than I ever did in any other school. Sweeping aside the normal math and science classes, the classes pulled out my gifts, made me use my brain and find I had one. It was wonderful. And it was no wonder that I started to idolize a few teachers. A lot of teenagers have crushes on their teachers. That wasn't it. I didn't have any feelings for them, but I lapped up everything they said, spun those things in my mind and learned. 

 My time in Paris, was also the first time I started sharing my faith. Like most teenagers in almost anything, I was clumsy about it, almost brutish. God has taught me so much since, and I look back and laugh at my own weird antics of the time. I can only pray that nobody suffered negatively from it.

I'm not someone who tends to share my faith on the streets. I will probably never be a soap box preacher. Other than that one fumbling time in a classroom, I plan on never telling people they are going to hell. To me, when I tell people about Christ, even then when I did it so often, it is like I am baring my soul. It is an incredibly intimate thing for me mentally, because He means that much to me. So, when I say I felt a connection with those teachers and fellow students who I talked to about such a thing, as a naïve sixteen year old, please understand it wasn't creepy but yes pretty intimate for me.

There was this one teacher at the school who I both idolized and shared God to. God never leaves any item un-dusted. He uses everything in our lives. Whether he at first wanted me to feel any connection to anyone at the school or not, he did use this one connection to have me pray for him over the years.

Later I found out something about him that wasn't so great. It took me by surprise. He'd done something that I just couldn't tolerate myself. Me, Heather, couldn't take in easily and say, “That's all right.” But God continued to have me pray for him and so I did. Still later I read a book by him, that seemed to mirror strangely the actions I'd heard of before.

This teacher taught me to read between the lines and I did. Whether it was what I wanted to read or it was real, I don't know. To some, his novel was just lewd and well written. To me it spoke volumes into the heart of the writer, and humans in general.

So often everything seems fine on the outside. The person can have amazing philosophies, make the mind snap to attention. Then you look deeper, and what is there is a lost soul grasping for hope, for a little bit of light. Grasping to feel something and to hold onto it. We can understand everything in the world and have nothing, but an empty pit.

Because we may be an incredibly articulate person, we may have everything in the universe, but without the utter wonder of God's grace and forgiveness, we are nothing, and while we may not know this, our souls do.

It took a while, and I will never idolize this person again, but I can find forgiveness in my heart because first, I was forgiven, and God has and will always love and forgive him as well as you.

Heather

Purposes

 

So I'm twenty-six now; a high-school degree and in a low paying job. Now I ask myself, often, what the heck am I doing with my life? Especially since I probably have the smarts, yet not the drive, to do a lot of things. I'm not changing the world through my knowledge of anything. What is my purpose in life?

Well I don't know.

God put each of us down on this earth for a reason. He's got a plan for each of us. I don't believe in fate so of course you get the messed up people and people who go far afield from the plan God made for them.

Other people go head on into it. You have Gladys Aylward who is known for saving 100's of Chinese children, or Bruchko who evangelized a whole murderous tribe. They seem like the true heroes to me. THEY have a purpose.

So what about us who get left behind. Who don't seem to be doing anything with our lives. Stuck in a weird sort of rotation.

Well, I'm thinking we do have a purpose and it's a beautiful one. It's an every day one. It is how we each effect the lives of those around us – our bubble of influence. We are responsible for their lives. It's not because we are related to them or married to them, it's just because they were in our acquaintance for that one moment and they needed that smile or slight flirt to make them feel better.

We don't have to be the epitome of wisdom or courage. We don't even have to be an every day hero who pulls over their own car for a stranger's car crash. We just need to realize our affect on others has a rippling affect. A friendly smile, a hug, or even a quick chat over the water cooler at work makes up our everyday purpose.

Yes, our first duty is to God, but He happens to think we are amazing, beautiful creatures. He loves our individuality and our unique smile. So if our first duty is to God and He looks to us first than we should make it our mission to be there for others. To be the shoulder, because we have this wowing God in heaven who is our own personal shoulder to lean on.

We each have an impact... on eachother. And that is a great purpose in life.

Convention

“Convention is a dish best served broken.” Is the words I saw written on a website of an actress I follow, Allison Hall's, web page. It got me thinking.

Convention: a rule, method, or practice established by usage; custom

Christians, or more broadly, religious groups in general, have conventions. Actions, thought patterns, and ways of speech they follow as almost a rule whether spoken or otherwise. Like Christians, we always say, “we will be praying for you” when something goes wrong. Now this is all well and good if we actually do pray for the person, but I find myself just saying that out of convention, because it is the right thing to do per say, and forgetting to actually pray an hour later. Thus we just lied to someone to make them feel better and to adhere to convention instead of calling them up or talking to them face to face and right there praying for them.

Throughout the Bible, God breaks the conventions. I mean, he shatters them to pieces. In the time of Abraham, everyone had multiple god's they worship. It says that Rachel and Leah stole their father's household gods because they weren't going to get an inheritance from their father. No one even seems to blink an eye to the fact that they stole something that was a direct affront to God, because it was such a normal thing at the time. People had household gods. Period. When God approached Abraham, then Abram, he declared himself the only god. That there was nothing else to worship. That was against tradition and convention.

He did it again to the Hebrews when they were fleeing Egypt. As is well known, Egypt had tons and tons of gods. Gods were everywhere. There was a god for everything. God said they were not to have any other gods but him. These people's grandparents had been born in Egypt. It was all they knew.

Later with the prophets, God told the prophets to do crazy things, like burn human feces as fuel (the guy had it taken down to cow droppings thank goodness), run around naked, name their kids terrible names, marry a prostitute. Those, I will say, are not even considered conventional today and we are a lot more liberal now than then.

Finally, Jesus went up against the Pharasees, Saducees, and other teachers of the law. Those people practically taught convention as being next to Godliness (cleenliness was a part of that convention so it wasn't left out). Jesus went right out and called them white washed tombs which is about the equivalent as saying they were a bunch of expensive coffins with rotted corpses with bad smells inside. Convention, while it looks nice does no good. It sometimes hurts where we could do a lot of good without it. After all wasn't Paul a Roman to the Romans.

There are quite a few things that are in conversation right now between the church and the regular jo shmoes out there. We preach all these huge deals about them and say that God finds it disgusting and blah blah blah but we forget the first commandment. We first love. The prostitute the coffin like people brought before Jesus, was easily seen as guilty, easily considered punishable by the law of Moses, but Jesus didn't punish her, instead he showed each man his own sin without naming them, and saved a woman's life. He showed her love by forgiving her.

We as Christians, only look at the thing we see as wrong, and we don't look at the human being standing there beautiful, and no less dirty than we once were.

We forget to look at the reasons behind each law. There is. The sexual laws: sexual acts have huge psychological reactions. The eating laws: blood carries terrible diseases, pig, well you don't want to know what happens if it isn't cooked properly, carrion, that should be obvious. All those laws, and conventions, were way before most of the sciences that explained the human brain, chemical imbalances, and germs.

To that thought, and to hopefully end this speal: just like the Israelites back then, God does not explain every detail of his reasoning. He has a reason for everything. That is all we really need to know, that and he is love. Who are we to judge what people do when they are harming no one but themselves (which in the end we all do). We first need to see the human behind the dirt that once layered ourselves. We need to see the beautiful soul that God crafted together in his own likeness and lead them to the father. It is between them and God what they need to change and when they need to change.

After all, the only reason why we are clean is because like a mom bathing a child who can't bathe himself, Christ bathed us. We are useless in it. Oh we may splash around and gurgle but we are completely useless in our own cleanliness.

A Little Bit of Whimsical

Greetings friends and strangers,


So I’m not preachy today. Instead, I’m sharing some of my new found obsessions.

It is always great to see a new-fangled something or other, especially when it has to do with talent and ingenuity.

The first two are web series. There are a ton of webseries, vlogs, and thoughts by random people. What I happened to stumble upon by chance would be The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (http://www.lizziebennet.com/). It has run its course and ended after the 100th episode, but I was so impressed with it, I had to tell you. Lizzie Bennet is best known as a character in the fictional novel “Pride and Prejudice”. Now put modern clothes on her, along with red hair, place her in a modern setting and give her a video blog to speak to as her life carries its course with numerous friends, family, and enemies coming along to pop into her videos seemingly randomly. In between times she talks to you (about twice a week) she and the other people involved in her blog talk on twitter, commenting on everyday life or something rather important. Now modernize her family, friends, and crushes then give them all twitter accounts (and one sister a video blog of her own). Now you have the The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. It rolls in the same time frame as actual happenings. This made it sublimely realistic and several times I had to remind myself that no, Lizzie was not reading a book right now and Darcy was not dreaming about Lizzie’s long locks because really Heather, they aren’t real. It was lovely. They did a great job at keeping to the story, and the acting was incredible. I would definetly recommend it.

Something that is extremely similar would be The Autobiography of Jane Eyre.  So far I’m not entirely sure what I think but it definetly has caught my attention. It’s much like the above just with the characters and story of Jane Eyre. Look here http://theautobiographyofja.wix.com/jane-eyre#

On a different note: some art I have recently found and instantly fell in love with would be that of the whimsical James Hance. http://www.jameshance.com/index.html

There you have it, my whimsical happiness. Enjoy. :)

Community at Last

So as most people who read this blog know, I am no longer on some crazy adventure half-way across the world from my designated home. I am home.


What I haven’t told people on here is, I haven't felt at home since I left the ship. There are bits and pieces that helped my tiny little apartment feel like home. Like, for the first time in my relatively short life, My room is completely my own. It isn’t the guest room, I’m not sharing it, and it doesn’t have other people’s stuff in it. That is lovely. And, of course I need to clean it… note to self.

But… somehow the US, Colorado, with its beautiful Rocky Mountains, my family surrounding me, and where I grew up for 8+ years didn’t feel like home. I felt distant from God and family. I was bone weary lonely. I missed community, and all my friends from the home I’d made on the ship.

But now this is home. It’s funny how being accepted by others makes me feel like I actually belong. Like somehow having a little part of my heart is filled. The home part.

I now have a job where people recognize me, greet me, and joke with me. In my church life I'm also accepted. The girls from my small group are amazing and get really excited over the idea at having girl's night, or just hanging out one on one. I'm one of them.
I still say community is so important. We need people, other than direct family members, who we can call up and ask to hang out at any time. People who don't feel forced to be our friend. Who actually want to hang out.  How amazing it is to be given such a blessing. I think God made us for that. But I finally have it and I no longer have to be living with all of my friends to feel at home. It’s good. :)

God bless all,

Heather