Chris' Christian Blog

November 18, 2020

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Prompt: "Be not wise in thine own eyes; fear the Lord, and depart from evil.

8. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.

According to my Bible, in these verses, health means healing, and navel means body.

Please tell me what you think."

God is telling us here that we all think we are smart. We try to lean on our little bit of knowledge instead of depending on the Source of all knowledge. One of the classes I will be taking in the future, probably next fall, is Cosmogony and Anthropology. This class discusses the origins of the universe and life as we know it. I thought I was going to take it this semester, but I ended taking Church History 505 instead. Prior to dropping Cosmogony and Anthropology this semester, I read most of my textbook for Cosmogony. I was blown away by the book. It left me with a deep feeling of ignorance. The more I learn the more I realize how little I actually know. God is the Source of all knowledge and He wants man to learn. In fact, I believe that any degree I earn now is only the beginning of what I will continue to learn in eternity. The question was posed the other day of what I believe heaven is going to be like. I do not know what heaven will look like. One thing I am certain of however, is that we will continue to learn in heaven. I believe stiing at Jesus's feet and learning from Him is going to be a huge part of heaven. The education I am receiving now in seminary is only a downpayment on the education I am going to receive in eternity. Everything God knows will be taught to me there and I am eager to learn it. I want to be like my Master and Brother Jesus. I want to learn everything He has to teach me. Even the word "everything" is inadequate because Jesus has infinite knowledge. The word "everything" implies that there is a limit to His knowledge but there is no limit. I'll use an analogy I like to use. Let's say the earth was a giant titanium ball bearing. Let's say an ant began to trudge around and around the face of the earth following the exact same path and it continued to walk in those exact same tracks until it began to wear a path into that ball bearing and in trillions of years it wore that path into a groove. How long would that take? I don't know but I do know that whatever amount of time passed would be nothing compared to eternity. Eternity has no end. Jesus's knowledge is like eternity. It has no end so we will never stop learning from Him. I love to learn. I love sitting under professors who know infinitely more about a subject than I do and learning that subject from them. The more I learn though the more I know I am ignorant. I am considered a professional in the field of Bible and I will one day be considered a professor in the field of Bible. At one point in my learning a college offered to give me a Ph.D. in Religion based on the amount of knowledge they knew I had accumulated. They required only that I take a few tests, give them copies of all certifications I had earned up to that point, pay an administrative fee, and write a dissertation. I declined it because at the time I had not yet completed my bachelor's degree and knew I would be missing out on a lot of general education materials. I do not necessarily like every topic but every topic is something new to learn and there is no excuse for ignorance if something can be learned. God wants us to learn and to continue to learn. When He placed Adam in the garden one of His first commands to Adam was to subdue the earth. Subdue here did not mean to conquer the earth, although man has essentially done that. Subdue here comes from the Hebrew word בראשית and means "have dominion over". In order to have dominion over something, we have to understand that something. If I am to have dominion over the material in my class I have to study that material and learn its ways. I have to think like it thinks. I have to master it. God wants each of us to master each and every detail of the universe. Our lives are only the beginnin g of this education. Our lives show us just how ignorant we truly are and we begin overcoming that ignorance by learning. In eternity we will continue to absorb Jesus's knowledge. Leaning not on mine understanding means admitting to God that I am truly ignorant and letting Him teach me.

"Prompt: Buck Rogers and I were traveling the galaxy and found this planet:

Makes Me Wonder  (E) Questions to make me ponder ABAB #1305011 by Thaddeus Buxton Winthrop

What things make you wonder?

I have to say that I love the prompts today for both Space Blog and Take up Your Cross! They are prompts I can write extensively about and now that I am awake and caught up on my other work, perhaps I can make my blog look like a blog instead of a short answer to a deep question.

What things make me wonder? A lot of things make me wonder. I am a professional student, meaning I have spent most of my adult life in college because I have an insatiable love of learning. I am currently working on my Master of Divinity degree in the Chaplain's Track at Regent University, one of the premier seminaries in the world if not the very best seminary. I hold an academic associate degree in Dependency Disorder Technolgy from Mountain State College in Parkersburg WV and I attended Ohio Valley College also in Parkersburg WV where I majored in Psychology and Liberal Studies. I moved from Parkersburg to Huntington WV where I transferred all my credits to Marshall University and completed my bachelor's degree. I earned a Regent Bachelor of Arts degree or a BA in Liberal Arts if you prefer. I transferred that to Regent University where I hold a 3.89 GPA currently and plan to raise that to 3.92 in the coming month. I also am earning a second associate degree, this one in Divinity from Christian Leaders Institute in Spring Lake MI. All I have to do to earn it currently is pay the remainder of a small administrative fee. However, Christian Leaders Institute is in the process of upgrading their accreditation. That process will be completed by the beginning of the new year. Once they have the new accreditation the requirements for the associate of divinity and bachelor of divinity may change. If so I may be required to take some additional capstone courses to get the same degree. If so I plan to do so. You may wonder how I could be currently working on a Master of Divinity degree in one college when I have not yet earned my associate of divinity and bachelor of divinity at another college. I laugh at that irony myself at times but it is because I used my RBA to get into the M.Div. program. You can enter any field in graduate school with any bachelor's degree. My current bachelor happened to be perfect because it is a general degree covering most fields. The associate of divinity was started before I finished my RBA. Christian Leaders Institute did not have the same accreditation as most public universities. This is not to say that Christian Leaders Institute is not accredited nor does it say the degree from there isn't good. In fact, I know many ministers who hold degrees from there and I have found the curriculum to be solid. I just did not previously finish the degrees there because an opportunity came my way to attend a school that was much better known and had better accreditation. Now I have earned my bachelor and wanted to return to Christian Leaders to finish what I started.

The prompt originally asked what makes me wonder. The short answer is that everything makes me wonder. I find that the more education I get the more obvious my ignorance becomes. While my specialty and my career choice is Bible, I love to learn about everything. My plan is to finish my M.Div. and then reapply to Marshall University to the Master of Social Work program. I love working with people. The M.Div. and the MSW are ideal ways to do that. Will I stop once I have these degrees? To be honest I seriously doubt that I will. It is likely that I will die sitting under a professor in some field. I do plan to at least earn a doctorate degree, probably in theology though it could well be in ministry or even social work. The fact is that I love to learn. I do not believe it is possible to have too much education. No matter how much a person learns the body of knowledge available to man leaves one totally ignorant in a lot of areas. What makes me wonder? I guess an insatiable love of learning makes me wonder!

Prompt: "Good mashed potato is one of the great luxuries of life."~ Lindsey Bareham
“Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.” ~ Jim Davis
“Thanksgiving: Bringing out the best in family dysfunction since 1863.”~ Unknown

Have fun using one of these quotes in your entry today."

As you can see from the entries above to other prompts, I am in the mood to write blogs today. My muse struck with a vengeance. She has been on hiatus for quite awhile as I was focusing mainly on my college courses. I got my grade back on the big research assignments I did and they were all As. My last A was a 98%, which was a little low for me, but when I loaded my paper to Blackboard it screwed my formatting up slightly and it was set so that I could not resubmit it. I lost two points over the technical glitch but it is still a very high A. The remainder of my assignments are all submitted and awaiting grading. The class has twelve graded parts. I've gotten five of those grades back thus far and they are all 100% with the exception of the paper that got the 98%. If I literally failed the remaining sections the worst possible grade I could get is a C. Since the remaining sections are all very similar to what I got back thus far I anticipate all As on them. So now I can relax a little and allow my muse to focus on writing creatively as opposed to academically. At least I can until next semester since my remaining assignments have been completed. I still have to respond to some discussion boards and blogs that are upcoming in class, but not today. Today, I am able to write here.

I disagree with Lindsey Bareham about mashed potatoes. We were so poor when I was growing up that potatoes were the biggest part of our diet. I guess I ate so many potatoes that I grew tired of them. Today I eat potatoes sparingly. We have a lot of mashed potatoes here at the West Virginia Veterans Home but I don't eat a lot of them. I guess it depends on whether or not I have gravy and what type of gravy it is. I love mashed potatoes and beef gravy or chicken gravy. Aside from that, keep the potatoes.

I agree with Jim Davis and his way of serving vegetables. I could easily eat my weight in zucchini bread and I weigh a lot! I'm 275 pounds or about 124.738 kilos. That would be a lot of zucchini bread! However, I dearly love zucchini bread! I also love carrot cake. They serve carrot cake here quite often. I need to cut back on desserts because they are starting to catch up to me. I'm already outgrowing my pants. I told myself I wore a 42 waist. The truth is that I wear a 44 waist. I always found it odd that they don't make 23, 33, or 43 waists for men. It's either a size too big or a size too small. I prefer a size too big. I ordered a new pair of pants recently, that I am wearing now. They were a size small and the buckle cuts into me. Ouch!

I have to agree with whoever the unknown writer was that said Thanksgiving brings out the best in family dysfunction really hit the nail on the head. My family never gets together for the holidays anymore or if they do they don't invite me. I was always the black sheep in my family because I chose a different path than most of my sibs. (I spent years living in apathy and drug addiction and never really contributed to the greater good. I think my siblings resented that and the rift it created won't heal). I am now contributing by working as a chaplain but they all live hours from me. If they get together, which I am sure they do, I am never told about it. I love my family and often long for fellowship with them but I have other families that I must tend to as well. WDC is my family, as is my church, and the home I live in. If I attended functions with my family of origin their resentments toward me would likely cause them pain. I don't want that for them. I just leave it alone.

Before my parents passed I ate Thanksgiving with my parents and the whole family gathered in. Dysfunction was sometimes an understatement! I was always awed by the way my brothers would get into pissing contests about football though. It never failed that one of them would leave with their feathers ruffled because somebody teased them about their favorite college or NFL team. The fact of the matter is that no football team puts enough money in my pocket for me to sell the space in my head and ruminate about them all the time! Dysfunction at its best is worrying and arguing over the trivial. I always wondered how families functioned in which the members actually did play for opposing teams!

"Prompt: What character from a book would you like to meet and why?"

Man! I have been a blogging fool today! I wonder if there is a word limit to blogs?

If I were to meet a character from a book, I guess I would have to say Jesus. I will meet Him soon too. We all will! I hear that He is coming again real soon. I suggest the whole world prepare for His arrival. However, most will ignore the warning because it is easier to stay with the status quo. Humans don't like change, even if they know the change is for their ultimate good. Most people ignore Jesus because they are comfortable with sin and becoming a Christian means they might have to change some things. Nobody wants that. Jesus does not ask us to be normal though. He demands that we be a peculiar people, a royal priesthood as the Apostle Peter says. Jesus is coming soon.