Monthly Archive for June, 2007

The Jesus Questions | Week Two

Another week, another video to share with you about the culture we live in and what they think of Jesus. This week the question was focused around the deity of Jesus. “Was Jesus man or God?” The street interviews below paint a picture of a culture ignorant or confused about the dual nature of Christ.

Instead of getting frustrated at this reality in our town, we aim to emerge from traditional Christianity to one which this culture can relate to. However instead of making the message palatable, my Pastor gets right in and presents the absolute truth of Jesus.

Very sad really when you think of the lengths He went through to reconcile each of those people to the Father. But that’s OK - it just shows that we have alot of work to do in our town. Below is the message my Pastor shared last Sunday.

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Deja Vu - Microsoft Style

Anyone seen the film DeJa Vu starring Denzel Washington? If you haven’t, check it out - very cool film. But what blows me away is the technology the film focuses on. Without giving the plot away, lets just say that a secret law enforcement department has the ability to crunch all the closed circuit camera footage in a particular location and recreate reality in a live 3D world. Shockingly awesome stuff indeed!

Well turns out that this technology is not far away - in fact it’s almost here thanks to Microsoft. Imagine for a second all the photo’s on Flickr of The Grand Canyon. I just did a search and it resulted in 223,334 photo’s. Microsoft’s latest offering Photosynth is a technology which looks at all 223,334 photo’s and determines how they relate to one another by analyzing their similarities.

The net result is a 3D rendition of the Grand Canyon as captured by the all the photo’s uploaded to Flickr! It’s totally freaked out! Check out the video below to get a better understanding of what on earth I am talking about..

How freaky huh? To learn more, go to the Microsoft Photosynth website and make sure you check out the video page. Even better, if you have Windows XP or Vista, you can actually play around with the program once you download a simple plugin.

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Religion & The Gospel

My Church has the motto…

“It’s about relationship. Not religion.”

Yeah we might cop a few raised eyebrows form the fundies about this, but that’s ok cause we love fundies for the passion they have about the Word of God. But fundies sometimes fall short of the glorious freedom found in the Gospel, or as our Church likes to say it, relationship with God.

One of my favourite teachers, Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church posted on the Church Planting website Acts29 a simple little post comparing and contrasting “religion” and “the Gospel.” To save you traveling to the site, here it is in all it’s simple yet elusive logic.

Religion says, if I obey, God will love me. Gospel says, because God loves me, I can obey.

Religion has good people & bad people. Gospel has only repentant and unrepentant people.

Religion values a birth family. Gospel values a new birth.

Religion depends on what I do. Gospel depends on what Jesus has done.

Religion claims that sanctification justifies me. Gospel claims that justification enables sanctification.

Religion has the goal to get from God. Gospel has the goal to get God.

Religion sees hardships as punishment for sin. Gospel sees hardship as sanctified affliction.

Religion is about me. Gospel is about Jesus.

Religion believes appearing as a good person is the key. Gospel believes that being honest is the key.

Religion has an uncertainty of standing before God. Gospel has certainty based upon Jesus’ work.

Religion sees Jesus as the means. Gospel sees Jesus as the end.

Religion ends in pride or despair. Gospel ends in humble joy.

I have a friend, Victor Schlatter, I had the honour to travel to Israel with back in 1998. He is an author and has published several books and is a vocal evangelist for the people of Isreal. This guy was a nuclear physicist in the US before he decided to turf his career out the window, moved to Papua New Guinea and planted hundreds of churches. He is the founder of SPIM (South Pacific Island Ministries) where he meets with the Governments of the Pacific islands and convinces them to vote with Israel in the UN.

I remember sitting with him in a cafe in Jerusalem talking about Israel, the Church, religion etc, when he said to me something that has stuck with me since.

“God intended the Kingdom of Heaven on earth - man has made it into the church.”

These days, the secular world hates Church and God because of religion. Even Christians can’t agree with each other about doctrine and church practice. And now with the “emerging movement” or “conversation”, many Christians are attempting to bring together the lost world and the Church through new ways in which society can embrace. This causes even more confusion - especially when a fallen and depraved post modern culture is encouraged to determine what is truth in church settings eager to “get people to get God.”

Confusion, blurred boundaries, hostilities, loss of credibility and loss of focus on the Gospel set’s into the Church whenever mankind takes over the Kingdom of God on earth. In one word, this reality is called “religion.” In contrast, as Driscoll points out, the Gospel should always be elevated above religion as it is a much higher way to accomplish the Kingdom of God on earth instead of creating the “church.”

How I wish the Church allowed the Gospel to be the center of all it’s activities - after all, the Gospel is the central theme of the Bible. The Gospel was the passion of Christ.  Why then is anything in modern church elevated above the Gospel?

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The 10th Dimension

I tried to walk my wife through the last post and she smiled in her cute way and politely stated that this kind of stuff is beyond her. That’s cool - maybe it’s way beyond me as well. I write these kinds of posts late at night after a few wines so maybe they are in the realm of la la land.

Then again, maybe they’re not. I was listening to the sound track of The Animatrix I was writing that last night and felt quite inspired by the soft drum and bass/electronic vibe of the music - not to mention the entire content of the film.

If you bothered watching the video’s, the closing statements in the second go along the lines of this:

Super strings vibrating in the 10th dimension are what make up our sub-atomic particles in our universe. Therefore all possibilities are contained within the 10th dimension.

How do you feel about this reality? A scientist would be tripping out with mind boggling possibilities. A Christian would instantly think “God”.

You’ve probably heard the question, “if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it fall, did it make a sound?” Well quantum physics says that if no-one was observing that tree, then it didn’t exist in the first place. Confusing? I agree. Some scientists have committed suicide as they grappled with the reality of quantum physics. This science has literally discovered the edge of reality.

As confusing as it may seem, it is also completely predictable. The fact that you are sitting there and reading this post right now was made available with technology derived from quantum physics. In their pursuit to make computers even faster, tech geek’s are now looking at Quantum Computers to dramatically increase the power of computers.

But what does all this have to do with the way I ended my last post? Let’s have a look at Psalm 2 again..

“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”

OK here is my stab at this passage. It could be way off the mark, but I need to nut it out. Here we have mankind declaring war on God. In my understanding of history, I don’t think this has happened yet!

The setting is one of rage against God and a plot is birth to achieve a very specific aim - to “burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” In light of what we have talked about, I find this very interesting. Man will aim to “burst their bonds” and “cast away their cords” - hmmm sounds like super string theory to me.

Super string theory is the latest thinking in theoretical physics - the aim to get that all elusive “theory that binds all the laws of the universe together.” My prediction is that science will discover the reality of God very soon. When it does, a fallen and depraved mankind will freak at the notion that we are controlled by a higher power than ourselves. Little do they understand that this “higher power” has given us a free will.

The Good Book says that in Christ, all things are held together. I strongly believe that this includes our “reality” as much as our “theology.” If you look at a nuclei and observe the protons and electrons spinning around it like crazy, the force keeping those protons and electrons in orbit is mind boggling and scientists haven’t really nailed the origin of that force. Yet it’s this force that makes things solid in our dimension. The fact that your fingers can type on a keyboard comes from the atomic binding of your skin clashing with the atomic binding of your keyboard.

And yet the space between the nuclei and the proton and electrons is vast. A good analogy is if you were a nuclei and you were standing in the middle of a football field, your protons and electrons would be spinning around the boundary lines. Mind you, you are a speck and so are your protons and electrons. So in reality, your physical mass is nothing at all. It’s the energy binding you to your protons and electrons which makes you solid.

I believe this “energy” is Christ holding all things together. The Creator God in a dimension so far beyond our ability to comprehend - the Bible calls this eternity - playing on those super strings and holding together the reality of mankind in the palm of His hand. When you look at it this way, Jesus’ ability to perform miracles becomes a scientific reality and completely “do-able.”

It staggers me to think that mankind will one day declare war against God. But I laugh with God at His response..

He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.

I can almost imagine God bursting into laughter as He looks at mankind. Then as His laughter subsides and turns into wrath, He utters..”But Jesus.”

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The 10 Dimensions Of Life

I’m a Christian who loves science. I embrace science with all the lay potential my mind can muster. And that’s ok with me because if I was a genius, I would seriously go insane - especially in the realm of Quantum Physics. In my mind, the theory of evolution is dead - not because of my faith, but because of the pathetic “science” it speaks about. With the introduction of molecular biology and information sciences, the theory of evolution looks like yesterdays science - much like the “flat earth theory.”

One area I am freaked out about is dimensions. A Rabbi by the name of Nachmonides read the first verse of the Bible where it says..

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

..and concluded that we live in 10 dimensions. What a freak! This guy lived 700 years ago and it took mankind that long to catch up with his thinking.

Height, width and length are obvious dimensions - it’s what gives us 3D. Time is the 4th dimension. Time has been described as a physical dimension. Our 5 senses makes us sensitive to these 4 dimensions.

Now Quantum Physics is saying that we exist on at least 10 dimensions. Four of which we are aware of, and 6 we have no clue about as our senses and mind have no capacity to fathom this. I can almost see Nachmonides rolling in his grave! These 6 other dimensions are said to be “curled beyond the Planck length” - geek talk for we don’t understand this stuff.

A very good explanation can be found in the following two video’s..

I get a little confused once we pass the 5th or 6th dimensions as it’s pretty mind boggling stuff. But in essence, what these videos are alluding to are realities far greater than what we can imagine. Just like the flatlanders in the 2D world where the 3rd dimension makes no sense, the higher dimensions for us are a place where things get a little “blurry” to say the least.

Jesus In His Resurrected Body

As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them. Mark 24: 36-44

In a locked room - a 3 dimensional concealed space, Jesus appears out of the blue. The disciples freak and think they have seen a ghost. Jesus says, “hey stop freaking out. I’m not a ghost. Touch my hand - I’m real. Give me something to eat!”

Mathematicians have concluded that for Jesus to have appeared in a physical state in a sealed 3 dimensional room, that He would have to be physically present on at least 11 dimensions.

Now stop and think about this for a second. Now we are physically present in 3 dimensions and are aware of the 4th dimension - time. Dimensions beyond that are a little crazy for us to understand. And yet these science geeks have worked out that Jesus was physically present on at least 11 dimensions!

This freaks me out in the most amazing way because here Jesus is in His glorified body - one that we will all have one day. Could it be that a glorified body is to live in a dimension 6-7 times higher than that we are now? Oh the mind boggles. To throw more into the mix is to ask this question…

Before the fall, did Adam have the same glorified body that Jesus had after His resurrection? Is this what it means that we all fall short of the glory of God? Is this the mindset we need to interpret the following scripture.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Was Adam physically alive in at least 11 dimensions and therefore gave him the ability to walk with God? When sin entered, Adam realised he was naked and hid himself. He was now reduced to 3-4 dimensions and this results in death? And is the work of Jesus the path to restore mankind to the pre-fall reality? You be the judge.

I will stop here although there is heaps more to write about. The video’s above talked about string theory and how this theory ties in everything. Will this be the reality of what Psalm 2 talks about - that man declares war against God. Focus on the words in verse 3.

 

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Shift Happens!

I stumbled across a great YouTube clip at joethorn.net. Turns out, my previous post is also listed on his blog! Small world.

But this clip is a beauty! I remember in University the buzz words were “paperless office.” Technology was going to get rid of paper and we will all live in a greener and safer environment.

Well that was back in 1992. When I graduated in 1997, the term “paperless office” was about as popular as a kick in the teeth. Technology had moved along so quickly that man now had a massively increased capacity to produce documents. Therefore the ability to produce documents made the “paperless office” look like a silly idea.

Fast forward 10 years to 2007 and we live in a culture addicted to change and instant gratification. I once asked a 60 year old manager, “what was the biggest technological advance you experienced as a young man?”

“The invention of the calculator,” was his response. “The calculator turn life upside down.”

When I think about this, it kind of freaks me out. Our generation deals with change on a much faster and broader level than any other generation. Imagine our generation being completely stumped by the invention of the calculator! I don’t think so.

Change is happening so quickly that we are becoming immune to it consciously, but sub consciously I don’t think we deal with it that well. Maybe it’s the pace of change driving the fact that by 2020, depression will be the world’s biggest killer.

That’s why I found the following clip fascinating. Titled “shift happens,” it nails the changes occurring on our planet. No fancy graphics or artwork here - just interesting comments to think about as I raise my children…

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