My eye! My eye!

I have to apologize for being gone from this blog for two weeks. I had to have surgery on my right eye. I had an artificial lens implanted to replace one damaged by a cataract and also a Descemet's membrane transplant to repair the damage done to my cornea by Fuch’s Dystrophy. Once the right eye is healed, the same surgeries will be performed on my left eye. It really is amazing what we can now do. One hundred and fifty years ago the Fuch’s Dystrophy would have eventually rendered me blind. The first full corneal transplant was performed in 1905. The Descemet's Membrane transplants have only been performed for the last twenty five years. See a video of the surgeries here. 

Think about this though, We probably will eventually be able to create artificial eyes but we cannot create an eye,  We cannot create a butterfly.  We cannot create a galaxy. And we cannot raise a man from the dead. Only our  Lord can do these things.

Book Comment: In the beginnning

“The very first story in the Bible tells us that God made the world and everything in it. … our world did not simply begin by accident.”

In the beginning  (1984) is book number one in the Lion Story Bible (Lion Publishing plc, Oxford, England), It is a paraphrase suitable for elementary school aged children.  The book emphasizes God’s delight in the world which He created.  The gentle text of the book feels like a prose poem.

Here is a sample from the beautiful illustrations by Tony Morris.

Read this book to a child or, better yet, let those on a late second grade or early third grade reading level read it for themselves.

“That’s good,” said God.

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I believe that the illustration snippet above is a "fair use" of the artwork for the purposes of this blog post. If it is not, I will immediately remove the illustration upon notification.

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A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

Magic Squares in Christian Occultism, Part 2

Magic squares became associated with occultism through the practice of numerology. Numerology assigns number values to individual letters of alphabetic writing systems. Individual words or names can be assigned a numerical value by adding the values of their component letters. Numerologists often consider names and words with the same numerical value to be telated to one another in some way.

 Gematria, a form of numerology, began among the Assyro-Babylonians and was later adopted as a practice by the Jews. Words with identical numerical values were considered to be related to one another or to a person whose name could be assigned the same number. Remember that for the first few years, all Christians were Jews. The number of the Antichrist. 666, was recognized to also be the number of the Roman Emperor Nero, Nero Qasr (Nero Caesar).

The Hebrew word, gematria, probably comes from the Greek word, geometria (“geometry”).  Numerology is closely associated with the Jewish Qabbalah tradition, but there are examples within the Bible, where numbers such as 3 or 666 carry special meanings. The primary language for gematria has always been Hebrew. There is a Jewish tradition that God manipulated the letters of the Torah in order to create the universe; in effect, God’s creation of the universe was through the use of numbers; mathematics. The universe does indeed have a highly mathematical structure as attested to by modern physics.

The ancient Hebrews, and later the Jews, were very careful with names because the name of a person carried characteristics associated with that person. An example is Isaac, which means “he laughed” because old Abraham (he was over 100 years old) laughed when he was told that he and the aged Sarah (she was over 90 years old) would have a son. God said Sarah also laughed in secret but she denied it. Their laughter became that of joy and wonderment.

This is where the magic squares and the occultists come in. Because every word can be written as a number, words and even phrases can be embedded into number sequences. Sending a coded message to a fellow occultist, or placing a blessing or  a curse upon a person, could be accomplished by handing them a talisman upon which a magic square of numbers was inscribed. 

This is an attempt to use the power of words, phrases, and names to influence or to alter reality. Occultists believe that if the correct words (spells) are known, the practitioner can force the universe to create good health, wealth, love, and/or personal power. It is also true that malicious persons felt that they could cause disease, economic trouble, sadness, family conflict, and even death.

Even with the biblical proscriptions against involvement with magic, some Christians were fascinated by this.

Next: Magic Squares in Christian Occultism, Part 3   

The Hand of God

Look at this NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USA) photo of Pulsar Wind Nebula PSR B1509-58.  The Earth would be an infinitesimally small fleck of dust if it were contained in this cloud.  The cloud is hundreds of millions of miles across.

It is probably just a natural phenomenon but it does appear to be a hand, even showing fingernails. The incredibly immense and the incredibly small all point to the Creator.

This NASA image is posted on their website with a downloadable link so I am assuming that it is free of copyright issues.  If this is not the case, I will remove the image.  The URL for this image is http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/pia17566_2.jpg.

Book Comment: Trusting God Even When Life Hurts

In Trusting God Even When Life Hurts (NavPress, 1988), Jerry Bridges makes some very startling assertions.  All of them are biblically sound and all of them are true.

Basically, Bridges’ point is that God can be trusted because of His absolute sovereignty in every instance, in every moment, in every detail, no matter how small.  Bridges quotes hundreds of verses of scripture which make the point that God has absolute control over who is in political power and over the decisions which they make.  He is in control of the weather, including tornadoes and tsunamis.  He is in control of illness and disease.  He is in control of the forces which hold a molecule together and which move gibberellins through a plant.  (Matthew 10:29)

God uses His people and also people who utterly reject Him; everyone serves His plan, which He established at the moment of Creation.  All things move as God purposes and everything works together (even bad things and bad people) for the good of those who love the Lord.  That is what the Bible says.  We do not always understand how that could be so.

Pastor bridges in his book is very careful to stress that God's sovereignty does not obviate human responsibility.  We are not God's puppets or chess pieces, but are free moral agents who are held accountable for our decisions and actions.  As the Bible declares "... they have no excuse."   (Romans 1:20)

Some Christians believe as does Rabbi Harold Kushner that God is loving but not all powerful. Kushner challenges the idea of the omnipotence of God.  God grieves with us over bad things which happen but is unable to do anything.  This is nothing more than Deism; a God who creates the world and then essentially walks away.

 Jesus in Matthew 10:29-31 declared that God is able and willing to sustain us and bring good to His people.  He can use miracles or other people (good or bad), or situations and events (good or bad) to work out everything to our good.

No Excuse

There is no excuse,
For the glories of the Earth
Show it to be so.

"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:" Romans 1:20

Mother Teresa About Animals

"(Animals) too are created by the same hand of God which created us.  As we humans are gifted with intelligence, which the animals lack, it is our duty to protect them  an to promote their well-being.  We owe it to them as they serve us with such docility and loyalty." Mother Teresa, quoted in a 1972 letter from a Kentucky woman who had written to her.  The letter appeared in St. Anthony Messenger (2003).  The letter is referenced in the 2009 book, Will I See My Dog in Heaven?  God's Saving Love for the Whole Family of Creation, by Jack Wintz, a Franciscan.

Book Comment: The 10 Most Common Objections to Christianity

The 10 Most Common Objections to Christianity (2007), by Alex McFarland, is a book of Christian apologetics which addresses what McFarland says are the ten criticisms he most often hears as he speaks in all fifty states of the United States and internationally. He points out that these objections are repeated almost verbatim wherever he goes. In the book, McFarland addresses each criticism individually and gives a reasoned, rational biblically-based response to each, pointing out the weaknesses and intellectual inconsistencies of each attack.

The ten objections are:
1. God is not real.
2. Creation is a myth.
3. The Bible is not completely authentic.
4. The Bible is not completely accurate.
5. Jesus was just a man.
6. Jesus is not the only way to Heaven.
7. A loving God would not send people to Hell.
8. People are basically good.
9. Christians are all hypocrites.
10. A merciful God would not allow suffering.

I heartily recommend this book to you. You have probably heard or will hear most or all of these charges at one time or another. Don't allow yourself to be left standing flat-footed.


"But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:" 1 Peter 3:15

This is why some people are fascinated by the Bible Codes.

GENESIS 1: 22-26

The Hebrew text above is one example of why many people believe in the phenomenon of the Bible Codes.  I must admit that I tend to be a skeptic about things like this, but you can see why this would intrigue people.

Rabbi Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl (1903-1957), the driving force behind the Bible Codes movement, found the following in Genesis 1:22-26; the name of Abraham is spelled out (from the top line down, enclosed in the added boxes) by the letters in the passage with each letter of the name separated from the preceding letter by forty-nine (seven times seven; seven was a sacred number, Genesis 2:2, 4:24, 21:28)) intercalary letters.  In each of the forty-nine letter sequences, אֱלֹהִים (elohim/God, backlit in gray) appears.

 In the midrash Bereshit Rabbah (68, 11f), Rabbi Nehemiah said, "The Holy One, blessed be He, united His name with Abraham; with Isaac too he united His name."  

One of the names of God is "Yahweh" (in biblical Hebrew this is represented as HWHY, read from right to left).  Remember that the ancients believed that names and even the letters of which the names were composed carried meaning and power.

When God confirmed His covenant to Abram by declaring that Sarai's son would be the long-promised heir, He inserted himself (the "H") into their names, giving them new and suddenly different lives.  Abram became Abraham; Sarai became Sarah.  Isaac means "he laughed" which is what elderly Abram did when God told him that he and and his very old wife were going to finally have a son. 

The text (Genesis 1: 22-26) into which this insertion of the name of Abraham occurs says nothing about Abram.  He wouldn't be born until centuries later.

"And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.  And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.  And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.  And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

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There are often odd spacings and other abnormalities in the text when Hebrew and other Semitic languages like Arabic are inserted into a text.  Microsoft Word insists on reversing the letter order to conform to English usage (unintended ATBASH?)  Word processors need special software to properly handle these alphabets; without the software you have to try to trick Microsoft Word which doesn't always work.