SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT... I enjoy the process of obtaining knowledge through relationships, reading, the Scripture and many other forms God allows us to grasp through life. One way Ive learned to obtain knowledge over time is reading. Usually it takes me a number of months to read through an entire book, because I love to study and wrestle with the content and truth God reveals through this process. Many of us are familiar with the SHEMA...This was the primary prayer and text of Israel in the Old Testament recited twice a day, Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. However, Jesus added something to this when be laid down the carpenter tools and embraced the title of Rabbi (teacher)... Jesus said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all YOUR MIND. Jesus was the one who added the word MIND. Ive been readying and studying a stretching book for me Who Is This Man? by John Ortberg...this is what stood out for me today as I was reading the words he pinned. Jesus ability to help the simplest person while still challenging the smartest was understood as one sign of his mastery. Early church fathers had a favorite saying that the Gospels are a river in which a gnat can swim and an elephant can drown. Ninety-two percent of the first 138 colleges and universities founded in America were begun for followers of this uneducated, itinerant, never-wrote-a-book Carpenter. The worldview of Jesus is part of how science came about in our world. In our day, many people think science and faith are enemies. But Princeton professor Diogenes Allen writes, We have begun to realize from its very birth, science owed a great deal to Christianity. In March 2009, NASA sent out a telescope named after Johannes Kepler, the great mathematician and astronomer of about AD 1600. Here is what Kepler wrote: God, like a Master Builder, has laid the foundation of the world according to law and order. God wanted us to recognize those laws by creating us after His image so we could share in His own thought. The vast majority of the pioneers of science -- William of Ocklam, Francis Bacon, Galileo, Copernicus, Blaise Pascal, Joseph Priestley, Louis Pasteur, Issac Newton -- viewed their work as learning to think Gods thoughts. George Washing Carver said he started his studies by holding up a peanut and saying, God whats in a peanut?. Alfred North Whitehead, one of the dominant thinkers of the twentieth century asked, What is it that made it possible for science to emerge in the human race? His answer was fascinating: Its the medieval insistence on the rationality of God. Because if you believe creation was made by rational God, it will lead fundamentally different assumptions that if you started with the idea that its just a random accident. Vishal Mangalwadi noted that while the technology for many inventions was observed around the world across centuries, it was developed and harnessed most often by Christian monks. The theological factor that drove technology was the Bible distinguished work (to work is to be like God) from toil (which is the curse of sin). Therefore, using creative reason to liberate people from toil is part of the redemptive work of Jesus. Loving God with ALL your mind means answering the works of people you disagree with, rather than burning the works. Loving God with ALL your mind means you dont have to be nervous about where a book might lead if its reader is sincerely seeking TRUTH. One day a carpenter left his shop and began to teach. What would the history of our world be if Jesus had not changed careers? Imagine that he stays in the shop: there is no teaching ministry, no crucifixion, no rise of the church, no New Testament scriptures, no monastic communities. The reason for which Oxford and Cambridge and Harvard and Yale got founded does not exist. IT IS A MARK OF JESUS IMPACT THAT THE SCENARIO IS SIMPLY, LITERALLY, UNIMAGINABLE. AMEN!!!!
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 13:15:30 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015