Bible & Charity Sites Make Christian Living Easier

I feel like I’m having a productive day.

I have been slogging through the New Testament, using The Jewish New Testament Commentary as a guide. And it has been SLOW. Today I decided to pick up the pace a bit. I’m going to keep re-reading the Bible for the rest of my life, and it’s not like there are spoilers in it, so there is no reason I can’t read the New Testament without commentary once in a while, with the intention of reading the commentary later.

I have been using Bible Gateway instead of a book. I used to use Bibleresources.org, but I can’t find the New International Version there. I think they used to have it. Not sure. All the translation names sound alike.

I started out with 1 Peter, and I read to the end of the Bible. I’m very glad I got to read Peter, John, and Jude. Sometimes when you read Paul’s writing, it’s like reading Chinese. Some of it makes sense. Some of it, you have to hope to understand later. Peter, John, and Jude are much simpler. Peter’s books are wonderful. Full of encouragement and useful warnings anyone can understand. And they’re short.

Christianity is a balancing act. You want to worry the right amount about the right things. It’s easy to start thinking you’re a good Christian just because you avoid fornication and theft and drugs and so on. Because you refrain from doing things that are obviously wrong. But the books I read today reminded me to keep sight of other things that are extremely important and often de-emphasized. Things like self-righteousness, unwarranted anger, divisiveness, gossip, and pride. These things have sneaked up on me often in my life, and they can give rise to a particularly unattractive and unproductive brand of Christianity.

Reading the books I read today, I can’t help feeling that at least some of Enoch should have been included in the canon. Jude refers to Enoch explicitly. John and the Revelation seem to presume the authenticity of Enoch. There are references to angels who forgot their places and who have been confined in torment. There are references to angels as stars. That’s all consistent with Enoch.

I am amazed that anyone claims to understand the Revelation. Maybe it’s best to boil it down to a warning. We’re going to have hard times, but when it’s over, God will rule first this world and then a new and better world, so don’t quit. If you understand that, do you really have to know who the Beast is, or what the Great Whore represents? I don’t think so.

When you start to move back toward God, everything takes time. My progress was well underway last year, but I wish I had been farther along. There are a lot of things in my books that I would change if I could. I guess I’ll get the chance to do that eventually. I don’t want to be like some other writers I could name, leading other people into foolishness just to make a dollar.

Reading the Bible online is wonderful. I get so tired of holding a heavy book open while I read, or craning my neck while the book lies flat on a table. When you use a computer, you can lean back in comfort and devote all of your attention to what you’re reading. Computers and electronic reading devices will never replace books, but for some purposes, they’re fantastic. And they’re economical. Sending someone a URL is a lot cheaper than buying him a Bible.

Incidentally, World Relief is having another “sale.” If you donate today to buy food for Africans, they’ll get matching funds to multiply the impact by three. Hard to pass that up. The ethanol scam is starving people overseas. A third of our corn is now going into a worthless boondoggle intended to buy Corn Belt votes, and in places that rely on surplus grain, it’s causing real problems. The money you give World Relief won’t just go for food. It also goes to pay for agricultural education and provide animals and so on.

Here’s a link.

I Prescribe Doughnuts

Happy Sabbath, or Sunday, or whatever it is to you.

A day or two ago, I read the book of Romans, and in it, Paul said we were not to get agitated over which day we chose to give to God. That’s good to know. I assume I understand him correctly:

In the same way, some think one day is more holy than another day, while others think every day is alike. You should each be fully convinced that whichever day you choose is acceptable. 6 Those who worship the Lord on a special day do it to honor him.

I got a great surprise when I turned on my computer today. A reader left a comment on my main site. Apparently, my book is HELPING his health. I never saw that coming. Glad to hear it, though. I blogged it here.

I think he’s onto something. If you want to gain weight, this book is tough to beat. The cheesecake, fries, biscuits, flan, and brownies may be the worst (or best) items. The steak, on the other hand, is probably healthy, if you don’t eat it with a big serving of carbs.

Query

Apart from Bibles and The Complete Jewish New Testament Commentary, I am pretty much out of Christian reading material. I feel like I have memorized The Hiding Place and Tramp for the Lord. I know I asked for recommendations before, but do me a favor. Save me the aggravation of searching my comments and give me some suggestions.

I decided to get the Horatio Hornblower Collector’s Edition DVD set. It has gotten very cheap. If you’re not familiar with Hornblower, you might want to consider buying the set or at least DLing the first episode from Itunes. Adapted from C.S. Forester’s novels, the A&E series tells the story of a British sailor, as he moves through the ranks from midshipman to admiral. I believe the story starts under George III. Somewhere in that general time frame, anyway. A friend of mine recommended the series when I was in law school. He said the series was great, because it was fine entertainment and it also imparted valuable lessons about duty and morals.

Just don’t pry into the morals of Mr. Forester himself. I wouldn’t worry too much about that, anyway. I mean, Moses was a murderer, and look at his legacy.

It’s surprising how hard it is for me to find books and videos that have a positive influence on me. There is always the Bible, but you can only spend so much time reading that. We often tell each other that entertainment and reading have large effects on the character and behavior of kids, but that adults are somehow immune. That’s not true. I think we just say that to rationalize listening to sleazy music and watching dirty movies. No matter how old you are, putting good things into your mind will improve you, and putting bad things into your mind will weaken you.

The Book of Proverbs is a great resource. If you want to realize what a moral failure you are and how little character you have, spend half an hour reading it. Probably the strongest tonic in the Bible.

Unless I’m badly deceived, most American parents let their kids down pretty badly when it comes to passing down wisdom and moral instruction. My mother was a good person, and she did what she could, and my dad had demons of his own, and I no longer blame anyone but myself for my faults. That being said, I still find myself learning lessons I should have known when I was seven. Books and movies and TV programs can do you a lot of good, fairly painlessly. If your parents didn’t teach you well, and you want to avoid the misery of years of trial and error, don’t despair. There are resources out there that can help you fill in the gaps. You just have to be willing to admit the need and have the presence of mind to take action.

I thought about this today when I turned on the tube to have something to occupy my eyes while I tried my blueberry cornbread. A movie called Coach Carter was on. True story. You can probably guess, from the word “coach,” what the story was. Ghetto school. Straitlaced coach shows up and forces his athletes to study and behave like men. It’s an ancient genre, but I thought it was well worth watching.

You can grow in height until you’re about twenty, and after that, you can only grow in width or in depth. Depth is better.

I keep hoping I still have enough time left to polish off the bulk of my rough edges. But I don’t know. In my family, no one has lived past 104.

God Endorses Barack Obama

There are some acts so presumptuous they can rightfully be considered depraved. I thought I had some inkling of the vastness of Barack Obama’s disgusting, bloated, edematous ego, but when I saw this photo, I realized I was wrong.

I used to think it was sad that Jews no longer knew the precise location of the Holy of Holies. But now I’m glad, because had Barack Obama been able to find it, he would have erected a throne there and posed for photos.

This is beyond belief. This is the most sacred site in Judaism, and this slimy, condescending 143-day messiah–this common political hack–sneaked in and plastered it with posters for a political campaign. The same shameless buffoon who said Jerusalem should not be divided, but later added that he felt control of the city should be shared. Which means…it would be DIVIDED. In direct opposition to the word of God. You know God, don’t you? The guy who OWNS THAT TEMPLE.

Obama carries a heathen idol with him wherever he goes. It’s the Hindu monkey-god, Hanuman. It’s small, and he carries it on his person. How much do you want to bet he took it with him when he placed his tainted, hypocritical note in the cracks of God’s temple?

Obama was heckled at the wall. An angry Jew yelled, “Jerusalem is not for sale.” And Obama had the gall to criticize him. He said he had expected a little more reverence. Of that, I have no doubt. Reverence for Jehovah? Maybe. Personally, I think he meant reverence for a different god: the false Obamessiah. He gets reverence from liberal journalists all day long; how dare a random Jew deny him his due? This is OBAMA we’re talking about. How dare some piddling rabbi or yeshiva bucher–some nothing who devotes his life to studying the Talmud and the Torah and pleasing God–try to tell him and his monkey idol how to act on the Temple Mount?

If I were Obama, I’d be afraid I’d be struck by lightning. But I guess since Obama is god, the lightning watches its step around him.

I’m not just angry in sympathy with the Jews. I’m angry as a Christian. The Temple Mount is sacred to me, too. Solomon the prophet-king built it. Cyrus rebuilt it. Generations of Jews made their sacrifices there. Jesus chased the money-changers out of it. Paul went there to pay his vows. And now, what is it? A sexy site for product placement.

No one who believes in God could feel comfortable with this. I saw the young men in yarmulkes behind the posters. Surely those were not observant Jews. Surely the Jews of Mea Shearim and the yeshivas are not smiling about this tonight.

It is as if Satan himself appointed and promoted this man, as an offense to God and everyone who worships him. I don’t take people seriously when they call Obama the Antichrist. But there is such a thing as a person who succeeds in this life because dark forces make a path for him. And when you see a junior Senator with 143 days of experience and a heathen idol in his pocket get away with putting posters up at the Western Wall, it really makes you wonder.

Personally, I want to vomit. I just hope he brings his sorry, conceited behind home without putting posters up at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Vatican.

Stooges

Aaron has answered my question about the men in the photo. They are not observant Jews. We are now in a period called the Three Weeks, which lead up to Tisha B’Av. During this time, observant Jews do not shave. And these men have no beards.

No wonder they did this in the dark.

Stoogette

The girl in the photo is wearing pants. According to Aaron, this shows she’s not observant, either.

I am a New Man

I want to apologize AGAIN for saying anything that seemed even slightly critical about the Pope. I have been Googling around, and I can see that I did not understand how protective his flock is. I saw an article online that said completely benign things about his home and lifestyle, and Catholics were posting furious comments. If that made them mad, it’s no wonder I caught hell. My remarks were somewhat negative. They were extremely mild, but I can see that that doesn’t matter.

I think you could get lynched for something like this, if you did it in front of the wrong crowd. I didn’t understand, because there is no Protestant equivalent. There is no one Protestants are that sensitive about. You can say things about Jesus that you can’t say about the Pope. So I would like to move on. Hooray for the Pope. What a fine person he is, in all respects. I cannot praise him highly enough, so I will not bother trying.

In other news, the Manly Grub forum died last night, but it’s working again. Kudos to Hostrocket, my new hosting company. They responded to my support ticket, fixed everything, and gave me a clear explanation of what went wrong, all in about three minutes. I have to thank Kenny for recommending them.

I hope the forum is easier to navigate than it used to be. I don’t understand why it suddenly went offline. Maybe the Catholic Defense League hacked it, or maybe it was just a run of the mill divine smiting.

Stoke up the Fire

I guess I am to Catholics as Michael Savage is to the parents of autistic kids.

I just heard what Savage said about autism. He says 99% of autistics are brats who have never been told to knock off the act. Ooooookay. After we get done spanking the autism out of them, we really need to go the other fakers, such as the blind and amputees.

I sympathize with the parents who are mad at Savage. I’ve had a lot of people tell me ADD doesn’t exist. Rush Limbaugh, the great neurologist, pushes that theory. I don’t know if it’s right to call ADD a disorder, since it’s so common, but it absolutely exists. As a person who has been known to put cereal in the freezer and ice cream in the pantry, I am aware that it is all too real.

I made some Catholics mad by observing that the Pope was criticizing materialism while living in an opulent palace and wearing handmade clothes and so forth. I can’t believe that upset people. I didn’t call him a fraud or accuse him of eating Protestant babies. And fundamentally, I was right. It’s kind of weird for a church leader to live in such earthly splendor. It doesn’t mean he’s a charlatan, but it doesn’t look good, either. CEOs of companies which are openly unreservedly dedicated to the accumulation of wealth can’t match the Vatican’s trappings. It seems odd for a clergyman to live there.

So far, I’ve been favorably impressed by this Pope. He seems to be a sincere guy with a low tolerance for BS. He appears to be a reformer, and churches need more of those. I’m sorry if it seemed like I was accusing him of being a fraud. I hope he’ll be more sensitive than the last Pope, who made the mistake of posing with his arm around Yasser Arafat. When I was in Jerusalem in the 80s, that photo was everywhere. Someone turned it into a poster, and every Arab in town had one. I have to wonder how the Jews felt about that. It had to make peace overtures a lot harder to take seriously. The US equivalent would be the current Pope posing with Osama bin Laden.

Popular churches tend to have problems dealing with wealth. The excesses of Protestant televangelists are horrifying. They’re not fit to lick the Pope’s pricey shoes. If these guys want to receive comfortable salaries and live in nice homes, that’s swell, and they are absolutely entitled to anything they can earn outside of their jobs, but taking money from old ladies on Social Security and buying private jets and air conditioned doghouses…come on. That’s a bit much. And those things actually happen.

I’ve been learning a lot about Judaism. I read Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein’s book, How Firm a Foundation, which explains the Jewish roots of Christianity. He says the Jews differ from Christians in that they don’t have a negative view of materialism. That’s pretty much how he puts it, and it sounds bad when you put it that way, but what I believe he meant was that Jews believe it’s good to earn money and build a financial base for yourself and your family, and that asceticism is generally not good. I think that’s the correct view. Most Christians probably misunderstand the Bible’s teachings about money. I think the New Testament’s message is that money shouldn’t control you, not that you should not have it. It would be a little odd for a Jewish Messiah to condemn all wealth, especially since the disciples were businessmen who had servants. Abraham was rich. Isaac was rich. Joseph was rich. David, Solomon…it’s a long list. The Bible says a good man accumulates wealth and passes it on to his children. You can’t really reconcile that with a view that we should all wear dirty sandals and live in the gutter.

If they elect me Pope, I’ll probably tell people to be responsible and earn money and manage it well, but not to be greedy, status-driven idiots who waste their money on yachts with gold-plated faucets in the bathrooms. I can’t think of any Christian church that teaches a good balanced way of dealing with money. Maybe there’s one out there somewhere.

Anyway, I would appreciate it if the people I annoyed would refrain from burning me at the stake.

Day-Lewis’s Milkshake Brings the Critics to the Yard

I recently paid $6 to sit through a 158-minute movie, just to find out what “I drink your milkshake” means. Now that I know, I am not impressed.

There Will be Blood was very odd. The story was a big nothing. It goes like this: insecure, materialistic guy becomes an oilman and has a miserable life. But the acting and directing were so good, I nearly forgot I was watching a movie with the depth of a microscope slide.

I am starting to be a big fan of Daniel Day-Lewis. This is one of the great scenery-chewers of all time. Bill the Butcher was a fine bit of over-acting, and with Daniel Plainfield, Day-Lewis has established his credentials beyond question. Here’s what I want. Let’s put him in a flick with a bunch of other over-actors. Let’s see. Al Pacino. Maybe Joe Pesci. Robert Blake. Jim Carrey. I’d add Robin Williams, the king of all over-actors, but he’s so annoying, I wouldn’t be able to sit through the film. They’d have to use two screens, side-by-side, to have room for all the unnecessary emoting.

Am I the only one who thought that after Life is Beautiful, we didn’t really need the Robin Williams remake, Jakob the Liar? Williams has a reputation for stealing jokes. Stealing a whole movie, however, puts him in a whole new class of plagiarist.

One thing about There Will be Blood impressed me. Of course, I’m referring to the lumber. The wood they used to build the “Mary” oil derrick was thick slabs of what appeared to be mature hardwood. No Home Depot pine or spruce two-by-fours. Reminded me of the white oak boards my grandfather used to build his last tobacco barn. They had to drill holes in that stuff before they could put nails in it. The movie studio must have paid a screaming fortune for that beautiful wood.

I guess the movie was supposed to be art. It used to be that art had to have intrinsic substance. These days, you say absolutely nothing and let the audience project substance onto it.

Art doesn’t give me a big thrill any more, except for music. I was thinking about this last night. When I was young, I read a lot of literature, but I eventually cut way back. My bookshelves now contain books that have nothing to do with art. Biographies. “How to” books. A little history.

I think I cut back on art stuff because as a Christian, I didn’t feel a strong kinship with the godless people who wrote arty books. People who write great literature generally don’t have relationships with God. Most literature reflects a completely godless and pessimistic mindset. When God enters the picture, He’s almost always a big disappointment. A pathetic myth or an apathetic absentee landlord. That’s fantasy; reading it is like reading libelous nonsense about a person I know well.

Great writers are generally blind to the reality of God. Maybe that’s why they move us. They have a black, cold, empty space inside them, where God is supposed to be. And that helps them to write effectively about misery and injustice and futility. They’re like caged songbirds, which sing best after you blind them. Many great writers are blind to the most uplifting truths in the universe, so their song is especially dark and troubling.

There Will be Blood was predictable in its take on Christianity. Really trite. There was a young man in the movie who started a ministry which included faith-healing, and of course, he was as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. And the screenwriter’s bicoastal Hollywood tunnel vision was obvious in his depiction of a healing. To someone who has never been to church, it would probably seem believable. A bogus preacher, engaging in hysterics to throw imaginary demons out of gullible people. But to anyone with even a scant acquaintance with Christianity, none of it rang true. None of the real-world cliches, so familiar to Christians, were there. If you want to see a liar behind a pulpit, acting the way false prophets always do, all you have to do is turn on TBN and wait. I guess this guy failed to do that; his movie preacher was the cinematic homologue of a straw man. The screenwriter couldn’t even come up with a good proof-text.

I think this movie won critical acclaim for several reasons. 1. The direction was wonderful. 2. The acting was engrossing. 3. The topic was interesting. 4. It was critical of Christianity. Hackneyed criticism of Christianity always passes for brilliance in Hollywood. I don’t care what the critics say. This movie had no plot, and it left me with nothing to think about. Therefore, on the whole, it was bad.

I thought I saw the new Batman movie on the PPV choice list, but I guess I was wrong, because it’s not there today. I would have preferred to watch that. Call it Brokebat Mountain if you want; it probably has more substance than the film I watched.

Same Basic Idea

Peg, AKA Mr. Mollo’s Mom, says her budgie Shelley is not doing well. It may be hard to believe, but those little eight-dollar birds that weigh an ounce are actually very smart, and people become attached to them.

So put Shelley on your prayer list. Look, do it. How long can it take to heal a bird that size?

Also, her friend’s pug has leukemia and is receiving chemo.

Further assignments will be released as it becomes necessary.

Make a Note

Via Sondra K.: it turns out Linda SOG’s non-malignant brain tumor has come back. Put her on prayer blast for me, okay?

Again!

First off, a personal message. A reader sent me an email about his great-grandfather, a Jew who came to believe Jesus was the Messiah. This gentleman came from a family of rabbis, and he studied with the intention of becoming a rabbi, but his belief in Jesus put an end to all that. And as a result, he endured a lot of persecution from his family. His sister went so far as to pay to have him killed. I found the story remarkable, but I was not able to say so, because all my efforts to reply to the email failed. Some technical problem. I wanted this reader to know I did not ignore his email.

I was startled by the degree of antipathy this man’s belief evoked. If the story is true, his family must have been enraged to such a degree that they violated their own beliefs in order to punish him. There is no way a rabbinical court would back that kind of response. Even I know that.

Second, I see there is another sensational news item, purporting to prove Christianity is a hoax. We see these things from time to time. In the end, they generally serve only to prove the dishonesty or ignorance of the perpetrators. Remember James Cameron, making the ridiculous claim that he had found Jesus’s bones? That theory stood up for what? Two days? And what about The Da Vinci Code? Remember how it turned out to be full of outright fabrications? I never did understand that mess. If I recall correctly, the author admitted it was a work of fiction, yet sincerely hoped it would advance his bizarre pagan beliefs, which were reflected in the book.

Now we’re told that the concept of a suffering Messiah existed before Jesus, and that evidence has been found, in the form of an ancient stone with a story written on it. Congratulations, opponents of Christianity. You have confirmed what Christians have said for millennia. The concept of a suffering Messiah is very old, and we see it in the Psalms and the prophets. That the notion should appear in an old work of fiction means absolutely nothing.

It’s surprising how little non-Christians know about the faith. Even scholarly religious Jews can be disappointing; some of the people encouraged by the discovery of this stone are Jews. It makes sense, however. Christians believe the Old Testament is divinely inspired, so we feel comfortable studying Jewish texts and asking questions of religious Jews. On the other hand, Jews consider Christianity a dangerous form of idolatry, worse than Islam. So you can’t expect them to inquire into it as deeply.

Apart from that, they have an interest in disproving the validity of Christianity, so it would be unrealistic to expect them to be free from bias, regardless of how good their intentions are. You wouldn’t expect the Pope to say kind things about Mormonism, would you?

A year from now, this story will be dead, like all the others. Christianity will remain alive.

Non-Christians don’t realize that faith isn’t based purely on the Bible or on social pressure. It’s also based on personal revelation, including, in many cases, supernatural experiences. A Christian’s faith is like a building with many bases. Chip away at one, and it still stands on the others.

This object was found in the region of the Dead Sea, and opponents of Christianity are citing that as evidence that it pre-existed Jesus, as did the Dead Sea Scrolls. Funny thing…you can’t carbon-date a stone the way you can a scroll. When you date writing found on a stone, you have to guess. Wonder why the story doesn’t mention that. This thing could have been carved twenty years ago by a scholar with a warped sense of humor. Christianity has many millions of enemies, and archaeology and paleontology have a long history of hoaxes. Remember Piltdown Man?

In fact, the story says they don’t really know where the stone was found. The Dead Sea claim is just a guess.

Yeah, okay.

Even James Cameron did better than that.

Third, it’s the Christian Sabbath, and once again, I am learning what keeping the Sabbath is like. This week, I’m learning how it feels to need the Sabbath. Lately, I’ve felt caught up in worldly concerns. I have felt as though I were being pulled away from religion, and it has been frustrating. I needed a day to devote to renewal, and now it’s here. Wish me luck.

You Can’t Help Others Without Helping Yourself

Got several things to talk about today.

First of all, let me apologize to all the people who have patiently tried to make me part of their Facebook and Myspace experiences. I just can’t seem to get into social networking. I don’t get it. Maybe there is something wrong with me. I will log in today and try to catch up.

Second, someone emailed and asked about good gun shops in the Miami area. I can’t recommend any of the local places all that highly. I’ve bought guns at Garcia’s National Gun, and they’ve given me good prices and competent service, and I have nothing critical to say about them, but I wouldn’t say the experiences were inspiring. Bass Pro Shops has a store in Miami, and the gun area is pathetic, probably due to the yankees who still exert a disproportionate influence here. Their Hollywood store, however, is much better. I think I’d consider going there, if I needed advice or smithing as well as a good price.

Third, happy Fourth of July! Enjoy your burgers and don’t even mention Cinco de Mayo.

Fourth, I saw an interesting guy on Fox News today. He’s some kind of shrink. He was talking about the heartbreaking Brooke Bennett story. This young girl was apparently lured into the hands of murdering perverts by another girl who is only fourteen. And that girl had stated that she wanted to see Brooke suffer.

Megyn Kelly asked the shrink how a girl that young could have that attitude, and the shrink said that people from abusive environments learn to shut off their feelings in order to avoid feeling pain. Then later on, the same trick prevents them from empathizing with the pain of others.

I had never heard it put that way before. I had heard the phrase “cycle of abuse,” but it always seemed like a platitude. Now I see how it could make sense.

I had a miserable childhood, and I learned to put off feeling things that upset me. I’ve written about this before. After I became an adult, I realized I was not responding properly when I was presented with the suffering of others. For example, I remember watching footage of Nazi concentration camps. I disapproved of what I saw, but I didn’t think of each person–each body in the mass graves–as a human being with a name and relatives and a history and so on. I thought maybe television and movies had desensitized me. That was probably true, but I now wonder if the defense mechanisms I used as a kid were also to blame.

When I realized I wasn’t feeling the distress a healthy person should feel, I started making a point of trying to think more deeply about other people’s suffering. Today, for example, if I’m watching the History Channel and I see that old concentration camp footage, I look at the faces and I wonder about the lives of these dead individuals. I wonder if they were married. Whether they had kids. What their achievements had been. And what I feel is much more appropriate. The other day I saw a show about the B-29, and they showed footage of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs going off. I thought about the people burning under those clouds, and the fact that the gas was partly composed of human beings.

It’s a better way to live. Not as comfortable, maybe, but more likely to lead to constructive thoughts and actions. I find it helpful as I try to improve myself. For example, many times in my writing, I’ve said things that were unbelievably stupid and seemingly cruel, and I’ve been trying to pick up on these things as they appear, instead of being bitten in the ass by them later.

I was thinking about this today, and I realized that I knew of a way other people could protect themselves from becoming jaded and insensitive. Charity. I think this is one reason God demands that Jews and Christians give money to charity and take care of the needy. It’s not just to help others. It helps the giver as well. When you decide to give, and you start looking around for a good opportunity, you will find yourself presented with a burdensome smorgasbord of human misery. Babies with worms. Jews trapped in Muslim countries. Girls forced into prostitution. The list is virtually endless. And when you try to decide where to send your aid on a given day, you can’t help but feel empathy for the people you try to help.

If you, too, feel as though you’ve become calcified from movies and television and Internet rage, and maybe from the bad things that have been done to you during your life, consider charity as a way to heal yourself. You might try the links on the left side of my blog. World Vision and the IFCJ are especially good; they will present you with specific opportunities that may touch you in special ways. You might buy a family a few chickens or help a Jew leave a squalid camp in Ethiopia.

The Internet is making all of us less sensitive and civil. Maybe charity can help you fight back.

Final note: Russ Emerson put up a review of my book, Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man – The World’s Unhealthiest Cookbook. Thanks, Russ. Your loyalty means a lot to me. Hope the physical therapy is going well.

You Think You Have Enemies?

I continue to work on the New Testament today, in The Complete Jewish Bible, with accompanying commentary. I just got up to the stoning of Stephen. I don’t like calling him “Saint Stephen,” because I think the whole “saint” thing is a bad mistake. Anyway, my father (who claims to be a Druid) says I was named after various Stephens in his family. My mother told me the Bible’s Stephen was the inspiration. I suppose it’s flattering to be named after a martyr, but the choice doesn’t scream “good luck.”

I almost wish they had gone with “v” instead of “ph.” As I have noted before, one constant reminder that people are becoming more and more ignorant is that increasingly, people pronounce my name “Stephan” and even argue with me about it. It’s terrible, seeing what liberals have done to education. How can you make it to the age of ten without noticing all the famous Stephens? And what does this say about people’s knowledge of the Bible? I guess I’ll worry even more when people lose the ability to pronounce “Moses” and “Jesus.” If you’re young, you may think Americans have always been stupid, but that’s not true. I remember a time when a lot of us were not total ignoramuses.

I learned interesting stuff about stoning. Somewhere the Talmud describes it. The defendant was taken to a place from which the fall was twice the height of a man, and then he was shoved off. If he landed face-down, they turned him over. Then the first witness dropped a big rock on his chest. After that, the stoning was carried out by others present, I think. So it wasn’t a Life of Brian affair, where women in false beards threw pebbles.

I had always assumed that one virtue of stoning was that no single individual bore the responsibility. But if a witness has to be the first to harm the defendant, that’s not true. It makes a lot of sense to force a witness to drop the first rock. It would tend to discourage lying cowards who are willing to accuse but prefer that dupes do the dirty work. In other words, it might make the bearing of false witness less likely.

A peculiar thing about stoning is that the Jews have been reluctant to do it. For example, I have been told they didn’t obey the order to stone homosexuals. One of the commandments says your eye is not to pity those who are to be stoned; you’re supposed to do what the written law says. I don’t know how they came to the conclusion that it wasn’t necessary to go through with stonings. I haven’t read the Talmud. I know they didn’t make the decision lightly. Jewish law, like civil law, should never be taken at face value.

The Muslims, of course, see it differently. Stonings, beheadings, mutilation without anaesthetic…Muslims are very sincere and fastidious about observing their obligation to do these things.

I also learned that a man named Daniel Zion saved most of Bulgaria’s Jews from Hitler. He was a Messianic Jew, too. He was a religious scholar and a rabbi before he decided Jesus was the Messiah. In fact he was the chief rabbi of Bulgaria, and he retained that position even after confessing his faith to another rabbi. He never considered himself “Christian,” however. I guess he’s a thorn in the side of those who say no Jew with a religious education can go Messianic. Anyway, he helped about 45,000 people escape the camps, so he must have been quite a man. I found a page about him. I can’t vouch for it, but I have no reason to think it’s not factually correct.

He ran a synagogue in Israel after the war, but his status was not recognized by Israel’s rabbinical court, which took away his credentials.

Interesting man. Flogged by the Nazis for his Jewishess. Stripped of the title “rabbi” by a Jewish court, for his belief in Jesus. They gave it to him coming and going.

Good Monday Topics

First item today: TC sent me a link to a story about Christianity in China. The Chinese have repressed Christianity, going so far as to commit widespread atrocities. But it looks like it hasn’t worked. It never does. About five percent of the Chinese people are Christians. That’s a lot, in a nation five times the size of the US. And their numbers are growing.

More exciting: the Chinese churches teach the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s extremely important. A lot of the older churches behave almost as though the Holy Spirit were an embarrassment, and that is what has torn the heart out of them and made them so disappointing to believers.

On a personal note, I was struck by the realization that once again, God was answering my own prayers, on a giant scale. The evangelization of places like China is something I include on my prayer list regularly. Looking at this story, it occurred to me that God must be guiding millions upon millions of Christians to pray for the same things, because over and over, I see my global-scale prayers answered. I don’t think God looks down and says, “Steve wants to save China, so I better do it.” I think He must be guiding huge numbers of people to pray for big-ticket items, like change in China, and answers to our energy problems, and victory over militant Islam.

Why mention it? Because it might encourage people to pray for things they think are too big for God to grant. Don’t assume you’re the only one on the job.

I’ve been very pessimistic about China. On the whole, China is our enemy. And if China ever has enough wealth and power to cause us real problems, we’ll be in big trouble. It represents a fourth of the world’s population. You don’t want an enemy that big, with a sound economy propelling it. The rise of Christianity in China is very encouraging, because it could lead to better relations and a profitable alliance. At the very least, it will weaken China’s efforts to harm us.

On the gun front, I got a comment from someone putting down the M1 carbine. As if to confirm what I said this weekend about the dangers of criticizing other people’s guns, people are firing back! They’re seriously annoyed! The commenter compared the M1 to a .22 rifle and essentially described it as worthless.

I’m not stupid; I know the M1 carbine isn’t a battle rifle. But it looks like it would be tremendous fun to shoot. It has a cartridge big enough to be considered a real rifle round, making it more fun than a .22, and it should be much more pleasant to shoot than a K31 or M1 Garand or Moisin Nagant or Mauser.

I don’t know, but my guess is, it would be an easy and fairly inexpensive reload. And each gun has history. Some have been through World War Two AND Arab-Israeli conflicts, on the proper side.

If I get one, I want a Rock-Ola, an IBM, or maybe a National Postal Meter. Simply because those are funny names to put on a gun.

Yesterday, I mentioned the fact that joining the Garand Collectors’ Association would enable me to buy Civilian Marksmanship Program surplus rifles. In a comment, a reader says he thinks a carry permit will get me in the door, with no club affiliation. If I read the CMP’s site correctly, this is not true. To buy their guns, you have to prove you’re actively involved in marksmanship, and they’ll accept a carry permit as evidence. But you still have to join an affiliated organization. Correct me if I’m wrong.

I’m still debating the purchase of a Golani, which is a Century Arms parts-bin copy of the Israeli Galil. As I understand it, this is basically an AK with some real improvements. The big knocks are a. parts gun, and b. heavy. I like the idea of buying Israeli products, even if they’re assembled somewhere else. I like the idea of a military-style rifle with cheaper, lighter ammunition than the stuff I’m used to. And I think the gun will appreciate, simply because they’re not available often. But it’s not a real Galil.

Last note on guns: pray that the Supreme Court will get it right and expand our Second Amendment rights to the greatest extent possible, without alarming Congress to the point where they can get a majority and amend the Constitution. I have to tell you, there is nothing like the sensation of walking around in stores and malls with a loaded gun. This is the power the framers wanted us to feel. Let’s not let effete wimps and hippies on our coasts take it away from us. I hope everyone at the BATF and the Brady Center has indigestion for the coming month.

Speaking of the BATF, I’m holding my breath until I get the go-ahead to cruffle. Once that happens, look out.

Once again, I apologize for falling behind on email. I’ll try to fix it up today. I have been distracted by BS, but things have cleared up.

Bother me Tomorrow

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA it’s the Sabbath. Every time I call Sunday the Sabbath, I cringe, expecting wise guys to post pointless corrections in the comments. Still, for me, it’s the Sabbath. And I reiterate: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Why “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA”?

Every week, since I started setting Sundays aside for God, I have had some sort of revelation about the nature of the Sabbath, or the rewards or consequences of keeping it. And this week, payoff is a renewed understanding that the Sabbath is a sanctuary. On the Sabbath, you escape your problems. The busted pool pump, the sidewalk that needs to be repaired, the emails that should be answered…they will all have to wait. I refuse to even think about it. And I count on God to prevent me from suffering because of my sanctioned procrastination. Somehow, He will work it out. The Sabbath is His idea, not mine. I’ll worry about His concerns today, and He can do the same for me.

For the last two weekends, I’ve been unable to do a full-blown Sunday observance. First there was Father’s Day. Someone explain why we let the retail industry force Sunday holidays on us, knowing it will interfere with worship and rest. After that, there were horrendous plumbing problems that could not be ignored. This weekend, things are back to normal. I’m safe again. I can take the day off! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

In addition to plodding through the New Testament in The Complete Jewish Bible, with commentary, I’ve been reading the books of Samuel and Judges. Unfortunately, there is no companion commentary. And it’s pretty confusing. Generally when you read the Bible, it makes sense. You can see the point of each story. That seems less true in these books. The people seem much more worldly and corrupt and aimless than the folks in much of the rest of the Bible.

Some parts, like the history of Saul and David and Solomon, are not hard to understand. But other parts seem to have an almost random nature. The Jews and Fundamentalists tell us that isn’t true, however. Every letter in the original Hebrew is supposed to have a meaning and a purpose. I take it on faith that they’re right, and I read it and assume there will be some benefit eventually.

I can report one benefit. I got to talk to my Dad about it. He’s extremely hostile to Christianity, and to religion in general. But he and I ended up having a conversation about these books during this period, and he was surprisingly willing to listen. That was great. You never know when you’re going to plant a seed.

I think any reasonable person who sat and listened to an explanation of the Pentateuch and the New Testament and maybe the Psalms would eventually have to agree that all these books are connected, and that when read in pari materia, they are convincing proof of the existence of God. But you can’t bind and gag people and make them listen. When it comes to religion, listening is not nearly as popular as talking. I try to think about that when other people talk and expect me to listen, but I often fail to live up to my own ideals.

Here’s a pleasant piece of news. The weather has brightened up. I spend time reading the Bible on Sunday, obviously, and I very much prefer to do it outdoors. There is something about outdoor air that indoor air ordinarily can’t match. The weather has been terrible all week, and I figured today I would be stuck on the couch. But it’s sunny and not all that terribly humid for Miami. Maybe I’ll manage to spend a few hours outside.

“Tough”

Condi Rice is upset because Israel is building new housing in the eastern section of Jerusalem, THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE JEWISH NATION.

What nerve they have. After all, isn’t the land sacred to Muslims, too? I mean, a Koran verse refers to an imaginary mosque–a mosque in a dream–which kind of, sort of, in some feeble way, could be said to resemble the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, which DID NOT EXIST UNTIL LONG AFTER MOHAMMED DIED.

Never mind David and Solomon and the other JEWISH kings of Israel and Judah who ruled in Jerusalem for centuries.

The Dome of the Rock was established on the site of a Christian church, which itself was built on the Temple Mount. The Muslims put a mosque there for the purpose of humiliating Jews and Christians, much as they sealed Jerusalem’s Golden Gate and placed a cemetery just outside it. They sealed the gate to prevent the Messiah from fulfilling prophecy by entering through it, and the cemetery was intended to prevent the Messiah and Elijah (who must precede Him) from approaching the gate. The theory is that the Messiah and Elijah are both cohens and can’t legally enter a cemetery. Oh, yeah. That will work.

The Road Map to Peace is a Road Map to Appeasement. It’s a remarkable invention: a map which helps people get more lost. It’s worthless and offensive. Condi is smart, and I’m sure she has good intentions, but even the Secretary of State has to defer to God.

I can’t wait for the day when the Jew-hating con artists are back on their own soil, and their poisonous arguments are no longer taken seriously by anyone. And I truly look forward to seeing that mosque demolished and scraped off the Temple Mount.

More

I respectfully request that people quit putting the term “raghead” in comments.