A camping trip with family multiplies the fun. Thirty-nine of us (including 14 kids 11 years old and under!) convoyed 10 hours or more to a campsite on the Red River, New Mexico. We had 2 cabins, a camper, pop up, and 4 tents. Four days and three nights. Here’s some of the mountain-air scenery. See http://www.redriver.org/
Our response to war, an atrocity impossible to understand, is the subject of Chapter 5 of No Small Snakes. (Finally something good after trudging through the first chapters.)
Gordon Dalby writes, “Clearly, something more evil must underlie war.” Duh.
Remember all those wars in the Old Testament? How do we reconcile that with the love of Jesus? Dalby explains that “the God of Israel tells His people to distrust military power—not because it’s intrinsically evil, but precisely because it keeps them from recognizing and trusting in His power instead. War is idolatry, insofar as it leads people to look for saving power in their weaponry instead of in God.”
Are Americans looking for safety through military might?
Dalby also states: The people of Israel did not recognize Jesus, not because they had wrongly expected the Messiah to be a warrior king, but because they did not recognize the war He had come to win.
Aha, the earth as a battlefield.
“This is not, as Wiesel warned, to embellish guns and bombs with a ‘spiritual dimension,’ but rather to engage an entirely new dimension of war itself, in which guns and bombs are subject to God’s purposes, if not irrelevant.
The question is not: Shall I spend my energies working for disarmament or praying, promoting peace candidates or fasting, reading the editorial page or the Bible? (Or going off to war.) The question is: How can I be so wholly submitted to God that I can both hear and respond when He calls me to any of these?
Effective peacemakers in the world must first and foremost be warriors in the kingdom of God. War ceases – not when vanquished surrenders to victor—but rather when all of us surrender to Jesus.
Peace is defined not by the absence of conflict but by the presence of God.”
Dalby, I think you’ve got something here.
You will succeed, not by military might or by your own strength, but by my spirit. Zech 4:6
Taken from Gordon Dalby in No Small Snakes
Reminded me of VBS at Pink Baptist. Back when we played Red Rover and had cookies and kool aid around the picnic table. Of course, today’s kids don’t have outhouse like we had though. Here’s some pics of last week’s VBS in Antioch.
We had a large group for such a small church. Theme was fruits of the Spirit.
Two Chinese girls relayed insight into their culture. Majoring in English, they attended UCO for one semester and returned to China to complete their degree. They lived with us for a few weeks several years ago.
We exchanged many books and one that S. gave me was The Spirit of the Chinese People, a book written about 100 years ago but still widely read in China. Like she said, “I thought it was logical and never questioned it.” [I believed some things in the book but I questioned much of it. However, it did help me understand some of the Chinese thinking.]
Confucianism, according to the author Hu Hong Ming, claims to be a substitute for religion. He proposes that religion offers people two main things – security or order, and permanence or eternal life. Confucius offers to fill these two needs in a totally different way. [Interesting how he acknowledges these two needs are universal.]
First, Confucianism teaches that loyalty to the King or Emperor can maintain order and offer security. This is the idea of the State. The author contrasts Confucianism to European religions. “A religion in the European sense of the word teaches a man to be a good man. But Confucianism does more than this; Confucianism teaches a man to be a good citizen.” In Confucius own words, he states that “If you live as a dutiful son and a good citizen, you have religion.” [In my opinion, a good man will be a good citizen and good soon, but a good citizen or son may not necessarily be a good man.]
The second universal need, permanence, is fulfilled by loyalty to the family or ancestors. Or ancestor worship. I have never understood this but when I talk to the Chinese college students they are fearful of letting their parents or grandparents down. Eternal happiness is dependent upon your prodigy remembering you. Otherwise, you are lost. [Remember the “dutiful son” comment from Confucius above.]
Do you see the implications? Chinese students are very loyal, maybe more so than we are. In Confucius-based countries, loyalty to the State and to the family is fiercely taught and followed. It is a way of thinking. Completely accepted.
The author further defines religion in a broader sense, as a system of teachings with rules of conduct, so he therefore acknowledges that Confucianism has become like a religion.
One difference, Ming states, is that Conficianism did not come from supernatural means.
And, we know that Christianity did.
And Christianity also meets people’s basic need of security and eternal life.
One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organizations do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always.
A. W. Tozer