Who's side are you on?

While reading an online post, previously cited in an earlier blog post, I came across this quote: "Abraham Lincoln once said that he was confident that God was on the side of the right. He added, however, that 'it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation may be on the Lord's side.'" It really got me thinking.
How many times do we pray that God is on our side? How many times do we sing "God bless America" without thought as to whether or not God should bless America?
But I'm not going to go into that issue in this blog post, i'll probably comment on politics at some point, but not now. What I want us to think about is individually; individually as a person, individually as a family, individually as a Church, individually as a Denomination, individually as The Church.
Are we confident that God is on the side of the right? I believe He is, was, and always will be on the side of the right because He IS.
And so, if we are confident that God is on the side of the right, can we really ask God to be "on our side?" I mean, shouldn't we be asking God to be on His side?
Think about this for a minute, if we are all out on the playground at recess and decide to play kick ball. God is one of the team captains, and Joe Schmo is the other captain. Now we know that every time that God has played against Joe, God has won, like a million times, and God has won every time. Now, instead of asking to be on HIS team, we decide to ask God to be on OUR team. Now, we know that God has beaten Joe every game they have ever played, but we want to go on our own and form our own team and have our own strategy. So we ask God to leave His team and come over and join our team. (I'm aware that this analogy has several flaws about it, but it was the best way I could think to illustrate this principle.)
Now here's the flip side of this equation, every game Joe has played against any other opponent except for God he has won, true he has "lost" a few innings, but he has won every game. But we decide that we know better than any team that has ever played before, and we can go it out and beat Joe, but we just need God to play for us, to field and go up to "bat" for us, and we can win, as long as it's OUR team, and OUR strategy.
Isn't that a lot how it happens in life? We get this vision for how we might be able to reach people for Christ, we have a cool new thing that will bring people into the church, we have a new idea to help people grow. So we put all of this together, and then we go and we pray that God will be with us as we embark in this new ministry for Him.
But shouldn't we START with asking to be with God? Shouldn't we ask to hear from God what He wants us to do, and THEN go and do it? I know that we do do this sometimes, we seek for God's guidance a lot when we don't know what to do; but shouldn't we do it every time? Shouldn't we seek for God to guide us and guard us when we feel like we know what to do? Shouldn't we ask God to make sure that we are on His side and not ask God to be on Our side?
Well, just a thought. And I sincerely pray that I am always on God's side, and that you are always on his side as well.
God Bless.

The Bible

This is a totally random post, and may have nothing to do with anything, but for some reason I have been thinking about it.
There are a lot of people, maybe I should say some people, not a lot of people, who have the idea that they don't need other people to tell them what the Bible says. They say that they can read it and take it at face value and get everything they need and everything God wants for them without any help.
Now before I go further,I want to say that I don't completely disagree with this statement. I think that there are a lot of things that you can read in the Bible, take at face value, and get a lot out of it.
However, that said, I think that it takes a lot of education and a lot of prayer to get more out of the Bible than just what is there at face value.
First, let me explain what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that people who just read the Bible, and take it at face value won't get anything from it. I'm not saying that if you don't have an education you can't get anything from reading the Bible on your own. I'm not saying that if you do have an education, even an education in religion or theology or Biblical literature that you will be able to get everything out of the Bible that is there.
That said, this is what I AM saying. It is important to get other peoples' views on what the Bible has to say. This is the reason that pastors use Biblical commentaries while preparing their sermons, because they know that their opinion is not the only one. While you may have an opinion on what a particular verse or passage has to say, other people have different opinions, and they may or may not be alike, or correct.
Here's the thing, the Bible was written over a span of 1500 years, by over 40 different authors from all walks of life, on three continents and in three languages. And these authors were writing to specific people at a specific time, from a specific place in a specific language. While these passages have applications and meaning for our lives today, to take them out of their context strips them of much of the impact and meaning they could otherwise possess.
For instance, when Jesus talks about the parable of the sower, I would venture to say that the majority of the American population thinks about a farmer walking through freshly plowed fields on a vast beautifully laid out farm. And as Jesus describes the different types of soil the seed this farmer is sowing lands on, the image of the farmer becomes more and more stupid. Why would he throw his seed off of his plowed fields?
However, if one knew the context of this story, they would know that the area in which Jesus was preaching was a very rocky area, and it would have been very difficult, if not impossible to remove all of the rocks from a farmer's field, so it was very likely for seed to fall on rocky soil, and so on. So the farmer begins to lose some if his stupidity when you understand the context of his farming conditions (which were much different form the modern farms in America).
So we see that context is very important when we are trying to understand what God wants to say to us through a certain passage.
Now this is where education comes in. Through higher education, those who study the Bible learn the context in which particular passages are written. This involves geology, meteorology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, and many other disciplines. To understand the people to whom a passage is written helps us to understand the passage.
This is just one example of why it is important to be involved in a community of believers, when we are we are able to bounce our questions and insights off of one another and see of they line up with what the Bible has to say.

Humor

While searching the web today I came upon a page published on the web by "Donald Wayne Viney, Midwest Quarterly (Winter 1997)," The Humor of Jesus of Nazareth. This is a great article that talks about the humor of Christ. I think that too often we believe that Jesus was this ultra strict, ultra conservative, ultra... i don't know, just this person who showed no emotion, and when he did he only showed love or anger. The quintessential verse of Jesus' emotions are from the passage in the Gospels (Matt. 21, Mark 11, Luke 19, and John 2) where Jesus enters into the temple courts and begins driving out the tables of the moneychangers because they were dishonest. We often see these moments of Jesus' emotions, in the temple, on the cross, in the garden. 
But we never see Jesus laughing. I don't know why the Gospel writers didn't choose to include these in their writings, but I have to believe that Jesus had a sense of humor. As the article, linked above says "Jesus was a real man who enjoyed life." If Jesus was truly God, and truly man as we believe then could he have possibly made it through 30 plus years of life on this earth without laughing once? Umberto Eco, through William of Bakersville (in Il Nome Della Rosa) says "Jesus was a man and that laughter is 'proper to man.'"
If Jesus was a man, Jesus laughed. (man being, at least in my interpretation, mankind, not just the male gender)
John says in his Gospel that Jesus did many Jesus did many things not written down, I would have to assume that Jesus' humor would have to be included in this.

Hello

Well, as this is my first post to my new blog I don't really want to say to much. I guess I should say what I want this blog to be about. On this blog I will post my feelings. I will post what I am thinking about current issues and circumstances. The posts will cover any topic, none are exempt. I don't want to pull any punches. However I do want to try and say everything in love. I am a Christian, and I want this blog to express Christian values. If I step out of line I want you to call me on it and let me know.
Well, that's all for now. I'll be back