What it means to be Christian

1 Corinthians 9:19-27 (my translation, modified literal)

“Because, being free from everything I enslaved myself to everyone, so that I might gain more; and I became to the Judeans as a Judean, so that I would gain Judeans; to those under a rule as under a rule, not being myself under a rule, so that I would gain those under a rule; to those without a rule as without a rule, not being without a rule of God but within the rule of Christ, so that I might gain those without a rule; I became weak to those weak, so that I would gain those weak; to everyone I have become everything, so that I would rescue any of them at all. Yet I do everything because of the Gospel, so that I would become one who holds in common together with it.

Don’t you see that, on the one hand, everyone running in a stadium runs, yet on the other hand one receives the award? Run such so that you seize it. And every person who competes abstains from everything, those on the one hand then so that they would receive a decaying crown, but we an undecaying one. I then run such as not uncertainly, I box such as not hitting air; but I wear out my body and and lead it into slavery, lest I myself become somehow unqualified after preaching to others.”

This is St. Paul living out what Jesus taught in every Gospel,

“If anyone wants to follow behind Me, let him disown himself and pick up his cross and let him follow Me. Because whoever would wish to rescue his soul will destroy it; yet whoever would destroy his soul because of Me and the Gospel will rescue it.” (Matthew 8:34b-35, my translation, modified literal)

St. Paul removed from himself everything that he had once held an attachment to, everything with which he once identified himself with, in order that he might gain Jesus Christ:

“But those things which were a gain to me, I have held these things to be damages because of Christ. But on the contrary I am also holding everything to be damages because of the superiority of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my owner, because of whom I lost everything, and I have held it garbage, so that I would gain Christ...” (Philippians 3:7-8, my translation, modified literal)

St. Paul just let go of everything which got in the way of Jesus Christ, whether it was a personal possession, a heritage, a doctrine, or a religious rule which might have been dear to him. Like Christ, he emptied himself even as he told the Philippians:

“Be mindful of this thing among you which is also in Christ Jesus, who existing in the shape of God didn’t treasure being equal with God, but emptied Himself taking a form of a slave, becoming in the appearance of a human being;” (Philippians 2:5-7, my translation, modified literal)

St. Paul emptied himself becoming everything to everyone because Jesus Christ emptied Himself becoming everything to everyone. He recognized that those rules, cultural, societal, or religious with which we make to bind ourselves and to which we cling are arbitrary and must give way to Jesus Christ living His life through us. What good is a Gospel preached with which we ourselves are not participants? What good are we if we disqualify ourselves by holding on to other things and not sacrificing ourselves, disciplining our own minds and bodies to adhere to Christ instead of everything else?

Pardon my French, but St. Paul wasn’t screwing around. His adherence to Jesus Christ was no joke. Because of this, he wrote:

“Become mimics of me just as I also am of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1, my translation, modified literal)

And this is the heart of what it actually means to be a Christian. Listening to, following, and imitating Jesus Christ and giving up everything which gets in the way of Jesus Christ regardless of what it may be. The heart of what it means to be a Christian is Jesus Christ.

A Ramble About Sylvanas Windrunner

I’m a World of Warcraft player. That should be no secret to whoever knows me. I really started playing Warcraft way back with Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness, and have played in the world of Azeroth on and off ever since. I’m also something of a “Loremaster” for the World of Warcraft, both as a titled achievement in-game and as someone who actually has researched the story and lore behind the storylines and world it is set in. As such, I’m pretty familiar with the heroes and villains, and what made them that way within the stories which Warcraft has to tell.

As someone who knows the story behind the undead playable race and their queen, Sylvanas Windrunner, the more it crosses my mind, the more I think the game’s creators and story tellers at Blizzard should be ashamed of themselves, and should really have thought twice about the direction they have taken this character and the people she leads.

Sylvanas Windrunner started her life in the Warcraft world as a hero of the elven peoples of Quel’Thalas. She was a ranger-general of Silvermoon, and a protector of the elven nation. In the story of Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, during the campaigns, she is brutally murdered by the Lich King while defending her people. As a further insult and violation of this woman, he held her ghost in thrall and forced her to serve him as a banshee, hiding her body from her. Yes, Sylvanas Windrunner was a victim of a brutal crime and a horrendous violation. In some ways, you could even compare her to a rape victim. In spite of this, she was eventually able to break free of the Lich King’s control, find her body and restore herself to it, though still a corpse, and then free a large number of her people from his control as well, establishing the Forsaken nation as the remnants of the former kingdom of Lordaeron. Instead of exercising control over those undead people as the Lich King did, forcing them to serve her, she gave them back their free will to live out the rest of their existences as they so pleased.

Something also which must be understood about the undead race within the lore of the game. These are essentially plague victims who themselves were murdered in mass and then forced to serve the Lich King until they were freed. They had no choice as to what they became. Many had families who did not rise from the graveyards with them. More still had human family members elsewhere in the world who turned their backs on them when it was learned what had happened to them. These undead people, through no fault of their own, were hunted by self-righteous fanatics in their own lands. All rights to their property had been stripped away from them by the remaining human legal authorities because of the plague of undeath which had infected them. Though retaining who they were prior to the crime which had been imposed upon them, they were treated as monsters before they even had a chance to prove they were still the people they had been.

So, this is the background for Blizzard’s choices in their new storyline for the expansion, Battle for Azeroth where Sylvanas Windrunner is now unquestionably evil, slaughtering her own people when they dare to defy her and murdering thousands of people just to watch the hope die from a single person’s eyes.

And here is what I find particularly offensive, the message that Blizzard is sending by stating that because she is undead, because her people are undead, they must be evil. Think about that for a second. Not because of who they are, but because they are a certain race they must be evil. Because they are different, they must be bad. And this against a woman who was brutally violated and against a people who suffered and were brutalized horribly to begin with! And it flies in the face of all the lore and story which came before which portrayed heroes and virtuous characters from either faction and from every race: Thrall, the heroic Orc warchief; Bishop Alonsus Faol, the heroic undead priest of the Light; King Varian Wrynn, the heroic human king of Stormwind; Varok Saurfang, the heroic Orc general, and many others.

The whole point of there being two playable factions in Warcraft is to see that it is not always as simple as good and evil. It’s to see that there are reasons behind people’s motivations, and that you are not “good” or “evil” just because you happen to have been lucky enough to be born into a certain race or gender.

The writers at Blizzard, I believe, have totally forgotten this simple principle. They have, in a way, further brutalized the character of this woman who suffered horribly and yet still managed to somehow survive and try and make things better for her people who suffered with her. In my opinion, that is abominable and the writers at Blizzard should be ashamed of themselves.

A Ramble About Karmic Weather Patterns

I shared this in an email with a pastor friend of mine years ago before I had this blog. With everything which has happened with us lately, I was reminded of it and wanted to post it here.

Just as there are weather patterns produced by air currents, temperatures, moisture, etc. So also there are a kind of "weather patterns" of Karma. Now, the word "Karma" comes from Sanskrit (karman), and literally means "work" or "action". It is the 1:1 equivalent of the ancient Greek word ergon. It also has the connotation of the consequences which result from the action which is taken. You walk out in the rain without an umbrella, you get wet. You have sexual intercourse, there's likely to be a pregnancy. You help someone with the groceries, they're likely to be thankful. Here I take Karma to mean, not only the actions one takes, but also implying the consequences which result from those actions taken.

On Earth, there exists several different kinds of weather patterns depending on where you live in the world. In some parts of the world it happens to be sunny skies and temperate conditions most of the year, such as Southern California. In other parts of the world it happens to rain most of the year and can be wet and miserable, as in such places as Papua New Guinea or the Amazon. In some places, the weather is always hot and dry, such as Yuma, Arizona, or such as in Egypt or the African Sahara. All of these things depend on the currents of air pressure, moisture, ocean temperatures, and how they gather and move across the surface of the Earth so that weather in such a far away place as Australia may have a direct impact on farmers in Canada whether that seems possible or not. In some places, the weather patterns become so violent that hurricanes and tornadoes form, ripping through anything which stands in their way.

Every action taken by a human being has real effects and consequences, not just for that human being, but also for every other human being who may or may not come into contact, direct or indirect, with the one who acted. When you have X number of actions taken by Y number of people not only alive today, but also throughout history, what you get is a kind of Karmic weather system of chain reactions and "currents" which impact different people in different ways. Around some people these currents coalesce into a stable, pleasant environment where everything seems to just go right for that person. Around others, it creates storm systems and even hurricanes in which the person must hold on for dear life. For some, they receive an even mix of fair and foul weather. For others, it's heavily weighted in one direction or the other. Now the first thing which must be noted is that these currents may be affected by the person's own actions, and most certainly will be, but they are not necessarily caused by that person's own actions.

I think the way I think, and live the way I live largely because of all the different influences and interactions in my life, positive or negative, from my parents, grandparents, teachers, world events, textbooks, friends, enemies, wife, children, and a host of other people with whom I have had direct and indirect contact over the course of my life, and of course God Himself. I speak English because of the actions of English immigrants and settlers almost four hundred years ago in settling along the northeast coastline of North America. I am mostly culturally Californian because of the actions of my grandparents in moving and settling here in Southern California long before I existed. Who I am is largely made up of the consequences of the actions taken and choices made by other people, including even my physical body which is the direct result of the choices my parents made as to who their sexual partner was to be. This holds true for my grandparents, great-grandparents, and every ancestor I am aware of or am not aware of. And not only this, but this holds true for, not only myself, but for every human being who has ever existed, does exist, or will exist. The only one for whom it does not hold true is God Himself who is entirely "other". The consequences even of the actions of kings or beggars thousands of years ago still continue to swirl around us and impact who we are today whether we know their names or not.

We have the option to react one way or the other to these Karmic weather patterns. The choices we make will send new currents and chain reactions out to other people as well as ourselves. This is why it is so important to choose compassion and not selfishness. To choose either to help or be still and not to harm. To give, and not take. It is not only us who reap what we sow, but everyone else has to harvest it too.

A Ramble About Feeling God's Presence

Recently on Facebook, twice now on my feed I have seen a meme which says something to the effect of “You can really only ever enjoy two things in life, Serotonin and Dopamine.” For those that don’t know, these are two neurotransmitters in the human nervous system which have to do with feelings of pleasure and well being. Chemically or neurologically speaking, you can’t feel happy without these two chemicals being released into the synapses of your brain..

I was reflecting on this at church this morning during the worship part of the service. The church we currently attend has a contemporary type worship service with a band and regular worship leaders and singers. Those who sing and lead worship are very good at what they do and I dare say could probably sing professionally. The music being sung and the feeling in the room are positive, uplifting, and as I was watching, most people participating had their arms outstretched and were singing with profound emotion lead in various ways by the meaning of the words, the sincere expressions of those leading it, and the melodies and beat of the music.

There is nothing wrong with feeling sincere emotion during a church service. People are frequently affected emotionally in a positive way and are moved to devotion, love, faith, and repentance by that emotional outpouring. Let me be clear about that before I go on so that I am not misunderstood.

Frequently, in many church services and in many churches that I have attended, people make the mistake that what they are feeling at the moment is the Holy Spirit. Now, it is perfectly possible for the Holy Spirit to bring about those feelings in the same way that being with a much loved friend or significant other can bring about those feelings. But where the problem comes in, and I have seen and heard this from people, is that when those feelings die down, they feel like somehow God has left them. In response to this, they then do whatever they can to bring about the return of those positive feelings and “get pumped for Jesus” in order to “revive” the Holy Spirit within them.

It is a mistake to confuse the Holy Spirit's presence or control with emotion. I have experienced both enough times in my life to have established a baseline for recognizing both. Emotion feels great for a time and makes you more susceptible to follow the crowd around you. It's a little like intoxication, removing inhibitions and making you feel more than you are due to the increased flow of those neurotransmitters I mentioned at the beginning of this Ramble. When the emotions die down however, it's like crashing after a high and the person wonders why the "Spirit" has left, sometimes even doubting their salvation or whether or not God really loves them.

The control and presence of the Holy Spirit is an entirely different experience. When this has happened with me, there has rarely been any change in my emotional state, but I often suddenly know things or say things that I wouldn't or couldn't have before. I am able to empathize with and see into other people in ways that are not naturally possible for me. There is a lovingkindness and compassion that projects from within out towards the other person, or towards me personally. This possession by Him tends to be calm, and if there are any emotions attached to it, they never originate with me. I have felt both His overwhelming love, and His intense anger, as well as His resignation to a humanity that is hell bent on destroying itself. But there is always that knowing sense that it is a cooperation and not from me.

The truth is that God does not leave. By the very nature of His existence, He is literally everywhere you are, and everywhere any part of creation exists. There are times when He allows us to have an almost tangible awareness of this constant presence around and within us, but there are also times when it seems like either He withdraws our awareness of His presence, or we simply stop paying attention to His constant presence and lose our awareness of it that way. And when those times happen it can feel as though we have been plunged into a pitch dark room, and we can begin to panic.

The thing about rooms when they are pitch dark, there is no real difference to them than when all the lights were turned on. The design of the room hasn’t changed. The furniture hasn’t been moved. It’s exactly the same as when the lights were on. The only thing which has changed is our ability to sense it, and this is what causes the panic which rises within us.

The emotional lows which can happen through either the worship feelings wearing off or from bad circumstances happening around us can make it feel like we’ve been plunged into that pitch dark room. The crash from the high created by the dialing back of the Serotonin and Dopamine to be replaced by neurotransmitters dealing with stress and fear responses can be terrifying and depressing. But none of these chemical emotional reactions give any real indication of how near or far God is from us. Whether we are feeling positive or negative has no bearing on the reality of His presence around us or His concern or care for us or anyone else. Just because the light has been turned off, doesn’t mean the room has changed. Just because the music fades, doesn’t mean He’s not still there. God can stir emotions, but He is not emotion. There can be good feelings associated with Him, but He is not those good feelings.

Understanding the difference takes time and experience getting to know Him, and it’s very easy to allow yourself to make this mistake as you try and discern the distinction between Him and your own thoughts, emotions, and inner demons. His voice and promptings, His “cues”, are frequently quiet, and all too easily ignored or missed if you’re not intentionally paying attention, and can be missed altogether if you’re too caught up in your own “stuff.” They may be of profound import, or they may even seem somewhat mundane but in your best interests.

The other night, I wanted to go and get some kind of cereal. I’ve been having more stomach issues lately due to stress, and sometimes it can help settle my stomach. But instead of going to the “cheap” supermarket I normally would, I got the distinct direction to go to the store that I knew would be more expensive. Since I also knew that I’d be able to get my wife’s salad mix there cheaper (ironically) than at the “cheap” store, I headed over to the more expensive one, and if I were to be honest, not really expecting to find anything. When I picked up the salad mix, I headed over to the cereal aisle to find something. Lo and behold, the only cold cereal which my whole family can eat (my family having severe food allergies) was on sale for $1.99 a box, almost half off the regular price. It was a little thing, and certainly not earth shatteringly important, but He directed me to that particular store against all conventional wisdom to find the only cereal we could eat on sale. It was not an emotion, it was not a feeling positive or negative, it was just this inaudible understanding that I should go to the other store instead of the one I had intended to. No further explanation, not telling me what I would find there, or even what I was looking for exactly. Just “I think you should head to this place instead of that place.”

There is a term used among ancient Christian writers called a “Holy Darkness”. It’s used to describe this inability to use our senses to experience God as He is. It’s the pitch black room we have to navigate in our getting to know Him personally. It’s the understanding that He is something “other” than our brain trying to interpret the world around it. This Holy Darkness can be disorienting much as the room without light. But with experience and patience, it can be navigated and explored and in the process of doing so we discover the One who has been there all along.

More Thoughts on Hamartia

So, I’ve been going through this series on neurology and the origins of human individuality from the Great Courses recently. In the last set of lectures I was watching he was discussing the role of the amygdalae and the frontal cortex play in aggression. As I was watching, the list which Paul gave in his letter to the Galatians of the "works of the flesh" came into my mind. And as I was thinking about it, what I realized was that everything in this list in Galatians can be attributed to a limbic system response, and in particular is an aggression response governed by the amygdalae and the frontal cortex.

The human limbic system controls the base responses which in psychology and neurology are known as the four “f”s: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and… sex. To take my initial observation further, we can also say that virtually every Hamartia response, everything we can functional describe as a “sin”, is also controlled by the limbic system, the amygdalae and frontal cortex in particular, because every response which is considered to be a hamartia response invariably involves fear, aggression, sex, or feeding in some way. Murder, theft, adultery, outbursts of anger, jealousy, etc. are all ultimately limbic system responses.

I have written about my hypothesis that the amygdalae in particular might have something to do with the hamartia disorder because this is the first thing which stands out when comparing the size of the human brain and its components to the size of the brain of our closest genetic cousin, the chimpanzee, who does not appear to have this disorder. The human amygdalae, relatively speaking, are larger than the chimpanzee’s. Related to this is the frontal cortex which is also larger in humans, relatively speaking, than in chimpanzees. The human frontal cortex is larger and more developed than any other animal, and is responsible for inhibition and disinhibition of behaviors. You could say that it is the human frontal cortex which is the gatekeeper for “right” and “wrong” behavior and is responsible for holding back “inappropriate” behaviors based on societal and cultural norms.

It is also the frontal cortex which is partly implicated in ADHD, Clinical Sociopathy, and Autistic Spectrum Disorder. The frontal cortex is not fully developed until age 25 in human beings, and explains why children and young adults are prone to impulsive decision making because their frontal cortices are not complete.

This latter point reminds me of when Jesus said, "unless you become as a child you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." Consider how children behave and their decision making. It also brings to mind the long standing idea of the age of accountability where a young child is not held as responsible for their “sins” because they are too young to understand. It also reminds me of Jesus’ teaching, and Paul’s, of non-judgment. Non-judgment is virtually the exact opposite of what the human frontal cortex wants to do. It wants to say “this action is correct” and “that action is incorrect” and it appears like it wants to do this for not only its own person but also for those others with whom it comes into contact.

The thought also occurs to me that in thinking about hamartia, we tend to have it backwards. We often define hamartia by its symptoms: selfishness, theft, murder, anger, etc. But many of these things are demonstrated in the animal world, and most animals evolved in such a way that they instinctively prioritize the passing on of their own individual genes at the expense of their rivals. Consider this. For Billions of years, animals have behaved like animals and the planet has been no worse the wear for it. For at least one hundred thousand years, homo sapiens also more or less behaved this way, even with a larger cerebral cortex than most animals, and there was no detrimental impact to the planet as a whole. And then Hamartia was introduced by what I am coming to believe were an enlarged frontal cortex, amygdalae, and a reduction in mirror neurons due to a toxin consumed by the ancestors of all homo sapiens currently living. Within the span of a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms, homo sapiens have overrun the planet, driven massive numbers of other species to extinction, and are on the verge of damaging the planet’s environment beyond repair. Hamartia is not the existence of wrong actions, it’s the error in processing that arbitrarily determines something to be right or wrong.

Lastly, I am reminded too of Paul’s teaching that God judges a person based, not on His arbitrary code of conduct or behavior, but on the code of conduct or behavior which that individual person recognizes. God counts as sin, or Hamartia, what the individual counts as sin or wrongdoing according to Romans 2. But where there is no such code of conduct, there is no “sin” to be held accountable. Thus, even though animals kill, steal, rape, and run around naked etc. they do not “sin” because their frontal cortices are not shouting at them that their actions are wrong in some way.

So, if the frontal cortex is the problem, isn’t it surgically possible to correct it? No. It isn’t, and this is why; human society is based around this concept of societal rules and norms. It’s based on actions being either right or wrong. Without a functioning frontal cortex governing this, human civilization would collapse completely, and while that might be best for the planet as a whole, it would be horrendous for every human being alive right now. Millions of people would die. There is literally no way for a human being to return to a pre-Hamartia state biologically speaking. The damage was done thousands of years ago, and human beings have adapted to it in such a way that it is biologically and sociologically irreversible. Paul himself acknowledged this in his letters when he spoke about death as being the only way to be released from the Hamartia disorder.

Thus the need for Jesus’ own death on the cross and our entanglement with His death so that it becomes our own.

A Ramble About Being Powerless

I feel powerless right now. Totally and utterly powerless as I sit here typing on my laptop. The circumstances surrounding myself and my family feel like they’ve reached a crescendo which there is literally nothing I can do. The demons, whether they be literal or figurative depending on your point of view, which seem to have habitually harassed myself and my family for decades now seem to be on an all out no holds bar assault on multiple fronts and I just feel totally powerless against them.

And all I can do is pray.

Often, this last line is seen as something which is said out of desperation. Often, many people see reaching out to an unseen higher power, regardless of the higher power in question, as one step removed from lunacy. I have actually been accused of this when defending my faith against a friend once.

All I can do now is pray.

Thing is, I feel powerless, but amidst all the anxiety and depression which that feeling brings on, I also feel a strange peace as well. In recognizing that I am powerless amidst all this, I am only accepting reality as it is… as it always is. It is an illusion that we cling to to say that we have power over our own lives. We are responsible for our choices, but we cannot control the storm of choices, decisions, and interactions among other people and events which affect our lives. That storm constantly rages even when we are oblivious to it and we are affected by it even if we had nothing to do with creating it or the direction it takes; much like the hurricanes which recently hit the eastern coast of the United States, or the fires which are hitting northern and southern California right now destroying thousands of buildings, taking lives, and creating devastation which none of those in its path were responsible for in any way.

As a Christian, the recognition of my personal powerlessness is a necessity for drawing closer to God through Jesus Christ. You see, human beings have this habit of not relying on God for anything unless they feel it’s impossible for them. We have this contradictory habit of thinking that we know what is best, we have the power to chart our own course, we can somehow alter the storm or somehow we are in command of it. As a result, God allows the storm to surround us and overwhelm us at times in order to bring us to our senses and make us realize that we have control of nothing. He doesn’t ask us to surrender our control to Him. We have no control to begin with. He asks us to surrender our illusion of control to him. He asks us to face reality, something which human beings frequently do not want to acknowledge is different from what they want it to be.

The only one who is truly not powerless is God Himself. But He will not interfere with human free will. He will guide, He will direct, He will attempt to get us to see reason, sometimes the hard way; but he will not override our free will however far into the depths of lunacy that free will might take us.

I am much reminded in the midst of feeling utterly powerless, that this is where I actually need to be. All my illusions dispelled and reality laid bare. And once I let go of those illusions, that is when peace begins to settle in. Once I cease to be attached to the way I think things should be, that’s when the storm within begins to settle down regardless of the storm without. I am powerless, but God is not. And He hears the voice of those who cry out to Him and responds.

A Ramble About Theology and Translation

I've been thinking today about Bible Translation, Theology and how the two inform each other.

In the first and second century Southern Europe and Near and Middle East, almost everyone spoke Koine Greek in some form, and they all had basically the same socio-cultural worldview with a few local tweaks here and there. When the writings and letters which would become the New Testament were originally disseminated, just about anyone who got a hold of them knew exactly what they were saying and what they meant for the most part. When they were translated into Latin by Jerome in the fifth century, there was still that more or less common cultural worldview understanding between Latin speakers and Greek speakers that enabled them to understand what was written without too much further explanation.

This immediate familiarity with what the writers of the New Testament were discussing, the immediate familiarity with concepts like "pneuma" and "sarx" and "logos" even, informed the theology and practice of those first and second century Christians and their writings reflect their immediate understanding of what was meant by Paul, Peter, and John when they wrote.

But fast forward to when the Scriptures began to be translated into other vernacular languages such as English, German, French, etc. and it is a different story. Many people in the western world from the fifth century on thought the original texts were in Latin. It was only after the fall of Constantinople in 1451 and the exodus of scholars and educated men from the Eastern capital into Western Europe that the Greek texts of Holy Scripture were "rediscovered" and translation attempts began within a couple hundred years.

These people, a thousand years later, did not share the worldview of the original texts, much less the spoken or written language. And the vernacular languages into which they were translated were never 1:1 with the original meanings. Furthermore, the theologies which had been developed over the course of that thousand years informed the translators as to what the texts meant, and the translations which emerged reflected both their imperfect understanding of the ancient language and their own theologies.

And this is my point, that it is ideal that the original Biblical text should inform theological understanding, but what I see far too often in most English translations is theology informing how something is to be rendered so that the reading in the translation reflects the theological worldview of the translator and not the other way around.

As a result, there are still large numbers of archaic English words in modern translations because theologically conservative translators refuse to part with them. As another result, the same word "pneuma" is translated as either "spirit" or "Spirit" depending on when the translator believes it is talking about the third Person of the Holy Trinity or "spirit" in general, and John 3 in this regard is just a mess to translate because in English "pneuma" represents completely unconnected concepts in the modern worldview, "breath, wind, spirit," where in the ancient world view they were all one and the same.

The consequence of this mess is a never ending circular theological reasoning. The translation of Scripture informs theology, but then that theology informs how we translate Scripture, which then informs our theology. Sooner or later, we translate and interpret the Scriptures in such a way that they will always justify our theological bent. And you see this in many Christian faith communities now, as many will refuse to use any English translation but the one which confirms their theological viewpoint even when they know that it is, after all, only a translation of the Scriptures, and not the original words of Scripture themselves. There is even the theological justification for this given in the idea of certain translations being divinely inspired or a transference of divine inspiration from the original texts to the translations!

Jesus said, "You search the Scriptures because in them you think that you have life, but these are they which testify about Me." For the Christian, the center and foundation of his or her theology must be Jesus Christ. The Holy Scriptures inform us about Jesus Christ, but they cannot take the place of interaction with Jesus Christ. They cannot take the place of listening to Him, talking with Him, and spending time with Him. The Scriptures are not Him. They are a sign post to Him.

Theology, by definition, is not a study of religion or religious concepts. Theology is, by definition, a study of God. The best way to observe and study your subject is to actually observe and study your subject, to interact with it under various circumstances and take notes. This is no different in the study of God. You can read about Him all you want to, and formulate numerous theories and hypotheses, but until you get to know Him, until you interact with Him, all your theological theories remain just that. Theories.

I believe the Scriptures should inform us, but I also believe we should stop trying to force them to speak our language (and for that matter stop trying to interpret them through our own modern western theological worldviews), and start learning to see the world through the Scriptures' eyes so to speak. We need to converse with them in their language in order to really understand what they're saying, especially if we're responsible for explaining it to others.

I do know this, the Christian writers of the first and second centuries, the ones who did speak the language of the Scriptures, had a very different understanding of what they meant, and their Church looked very, very different from the various churches today. I would encourage anyone reading this to take a look at the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and especially the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. "A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs" is a very good place to start as well. This was the Church where the miraculous charismata were still a daily occurrence, even routine. This was the Church that went to their executions joyfully, and sang hymns even as Nero burned them for torches in his gardens. This is a Church whose understanding of the original Scriptures I don’t believe we can ignore any longer.