Love people, abhor sin

I was recently sent an article by a well-meaning Christian friend. The article ripped into the concept of "love the sinner, hate the sin," claiming it was a bad idea.  It was a long article, and not surprisingly, had zero Bible quotes.

To start with a point of alignment with the article, I'll admit there are two quotes on my website from Tommy Sparger of North Point Church: "Jesus was never defined by what he was against... I think the church (Christianity) has fallen into the trap of being defined by what it's against..." And "if we knew anything about 'the lost' surely we'd know enough not to call them 'lost'." (Jesus did in Luke 19:10 and Matthew 18:11, but He's God and we're not.) As a whole, surely the Church has earned this criticism. But that doesn't mean we drop the baton of telling the world what God has told us (in the Bible) and helping everyone have a better understanding of God's character.  (All Bible quotes in this post are from the World English Bible.)

John 1:14: The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

If we emphasize grace and ignore truth, we get relativism (chaos). If we emphasize truth and ignore grace, we get legalism. We must be both light and salt to the world, not one without the other (Matthew 5:13-16). I'm going to offer an alternative perspective from that laid out in the article (and by many well-meaning Christians). It seemed to be emphasizing grace (love) and, while not ignoring truth, was not leaning very heavily on it. It made a halfway decent point, but had illustrations which claimed: "it's not in the Bible" and "said Jesus never", but those aren't accurate claims.  Here are some succinct verses:

• Isaiah 61:8: For I, Yahweh, love justice. I hate robbery and iniquity.
• Amos 5:15: Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the courts...
• Hebrews 1:8-9: of the Son he says... You have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity;
• Jude 1:22-23: On some have compassion, making a distinction, and some save, snatching them out of the fire with fear, hating even the clothing stained by the flesh.
• Revelation 2:6:  But this you have, that you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

In case you're not familiar, that Revelation quote is from Jesus. Remember how God treated Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, and Cain in Genesis 4. Did God seem to hate their sin? Did God love those sinners? I think the answer is yes to both questions. And those are the first two generations of humans, there are many more examples as we skim through the rest of the scriptures.

I specifically address love the sinner, hate the sin, in one of the most controversial sections of my Gender Identity feature (here).  This theme isn't something we should wear on our sleeve, but neither is it something we should dismiss, nor publicly write against.  I think the person who disapproves of "love the sinner, hate the sin" has either encountered too many Christians who abused this concept (for which I truly sympathize with the receiver and apologize on behalf of the offender) or they spend most of their time only rereading the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul, plus possibly the token Old Testament books of Psalms and Proverbs.  But just to be clear, hating sin is there, too:

• Psalm 36:1-2: An inner sanctuary is within my heart about the disobedience of the wicked... he flatters himself in his own eyes, too much to detect and hate his sin.
• Psalms 45:7: You have loved righteousness, and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.
• Psalms 97:10: You who love Yahweh, hate evil. He preserves the souls of his saints. He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked.
• Romans 12:9: Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil. Cling to that which is good.

I don't need to quote verses that God loves people.  The Bible is full of them, especially the New Testament.  That was the whole point of John 3:16 and the entire gospels, why God (Jesus) came to earth to live a pauper's life (by today's standards, and so much more so from His own) and to die a brutal death to prove how much He loved us, and that's why He said the second most important commandment was to love our neighbor as ourself (Matthew 22:36-40).  But let's look to the Old Testament, because that's often more colorful. Here's a quote showing God wants to love even the wicked (sinner), but He doesn't beat around the bush about His opinion on sin, or more specifically, unrepentant sin:

Ezekiel 18:20-23: The soul who sins, he shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be on him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be on him. But if the wicked turn from all his sins that he has committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him: in his righteousness that he has done he shall live. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked? says the Lord Yahweh; and not rather that he should return from his way, and live?

Just because Jesus didn't say "love the sinner, hate the sin" verbatim, doesn't mean He didn't speak that way. And just because He didn't always speak this way (and why would anyone) doesn't necessarily follow that He never did.

• Matthew 11:20: Then he began to denounce the cities in which most of his mighty works had been done, because they didn’t repent.
• John 5:14: Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, "Behold, you are made well. Sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you."
• John 8:11: Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more.”

There are many important theological concepts any good Christian should be aware of and live out. Whether you like it or not, when we take the Bible seriously, clearly "love the sinner, hate the sin" is one of them.  The trick is this makes us think.  It's not black and white, it's very gray.  At least, until we get practice, then it actually gains focus pretty easily.  It takes maturity to be able to isolate a human being from their actions, who a person is choosing to be now or has chosen to be in the past versus who they can choose to be in the future (2 Corinthians 5:17).  We are called to mature beyond just the true but rudimentary "Jesus only" slogan and it's equivalents, twice: Hebrews 5:13-6:1 and 1 Peter 2:2.  And what does a mature Christian look like?  Gordon MacDonald said "Self-sustaining in spiritual devotions. Wise in human relationships. Humble and serving. Comfortable and functional in the everyday world where people of faith can be in short supply. Substantial in conversation; prudent in acquisition; respectful in conflict; faithful in commitments."

"Love the sinner, hate the sin" is just an expression, a terse, succinct articulation of a concept that says we should love people while not promoting, endorsing, nor normalizing choices that God specifically told us will make Him mad.  If you're just hung up on the terminology, possibly because The Left has ruined the word "hate" by overusing and demonizing it, then perhaps call it "love people, avoid sin," or "maximize people, minimize sin."  Or just skip it, but don't be insulted when another Christian says this.  If you're insulted then what's probably happening is you don't like their style.  You don't like the way they're presenting it, and I can only sympathize with that.  I'm just reminding us what the Bible says.  Accepting "love the sinner, hate the sin" as an even somewhat accurate theological concept doesn't mean we have to criticize people, but it does mean we don't entertain laws or other practices that normalize sin.  Just skim the writings of Paul for some summaries of sins (like 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 or Romans 1:28-32) and may God forbid we ever normalize any of them.  Even worse is protecting those sins and giving them marriage benefits for publicly bragging about it. All people deserve protection, but not all choices do.

I had lunch with that well-meaning Christian friend who sent me that article, a couple days later.  She shared that too many people in her life who used this phrase, used it in self-righteousness, pointing to the sins of others while ignoring or even denying the sin in themselves.  While that's still not a reason to say this isn't in the Bible, it's a valid disclaimer that we should never get self-righteous.  Jesus had compassion on sinners and condemned the self-righteous.  He used the word "hypocrite" 17 times, and 9 of those had an exclamation point in the NIV translation (here).  It's a dangerous trap to become self-righteous.  But we can remember Romans 3:10, Romans 2:19-22, and scenarios like Deuteronomy 9:4-6.  And of course, there's a difference between hating sin and judging (or condemning) people.  A mature Christian is able to politely, lovingly tell a friend (or stranger) that certain choices are defined as sin in God's word, yet keep it clear that people can still be accepted as human beings, and even friends.  Calling sin "sin" is (can be) noticeably different than judging people.  Perhaps that'll be a blog for another day (Matthew 7:1-5, John 7:24).  Loving people doesn't mean we allow anyone to pass laws protecting choices that God told us would make Him mad.  Remind this to your representatives and senators every chance you get (at least once a month).

The Bible is never criminal

The Bible must never be classified as hate speech or any other negative form by my country or my employer. A person's actions may or may not be appropriate in a given situation, but quoting the Bible with even a remotely honest intent to educate or remind people what it says should never, under any circumstance, ever be accepted (tolerated) as criminal.

Sound crazy that quoting the Bible could be responded to this way? It's already happening. Here are some results from a quick Google search (note, I didn't pick the wording in these titles):

• Canadian Supreme Court Rules Biblical Speech Opposing Homosexual Behavior is a 'Hate Crime' (2013)
• Man Arrested for Quoting Bible on Homosexual Sin (2013)
• The Bible as Hate Speech? Gays Win Big in Canada (2003)
• Street Preacher Arrested on Accusation He Made Homophobic Comments in London (2018)
• Preacher locked up for hate crime after quoting the Bible to gay teenager (2017)
• Minnesota Pastor: Mall Shook up (removed)
• 84-Year-Old Widow to Be Evicted for Bible Study (2019)

I'm fine with protecting people from persecution and related acts of discrimination. (Everyone deserves freedom and protection from persecution.) But telling someone how their choices (or their lifestyle) is characterized in the Bible, must never be outlawed, penalized, reverse discriminated, or otherwise officially condemned.

A person should never be required by law with threat of penalty to do something that is explicitly frowned upon by the official text of a long established world religion they unabashedly claim membership to. Similarly, a person should never be penalized for turning down a business opportunity because it would involve them in ways they don't want to be involved in something their religious text explicitly frowns upon, so long as it's an established world religion (as opposed to a religion we make up as we go to suit our ever-changing needs).

As a reminder, here's what the first amendment to the USA Constitution says:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." (source: archives.gov/founding-docs)

If we say for argument's sake the notion of "separation of church and state" (Wikipedia) was in our founding documents at all, then let's be clear what it would have meant. It would mean the church should not run the government. It would mean the current Pope (or some equivalent) should never be considered a government leader, and should not compete on legal issues with the President. No bishop, imam, priest, or other religious position should be considered a government official unless they go through the same process as everyone else. It would also mean the government shouldn't meddle in the affairs of the church. Neither the President, a congressman, judge, etc. should pretend to have influence over what the church teaches, if and when it teaches, nor what it means to be an honest person of faith. The reason this separation would exist is two-fold:

1. All too often in human history we have blurred the lines and put religious leaders in seats of political power, or likewise, political leaders claimed religious power (thought police/ political correct police). Separating church and state isn't meant to make either subordinate to the other, it's meant to keep them distinct, and it's absolutely not a pretension that we can have freedom from religion. Everyone has religion, even atheists.
2. To prevent non-Christians who happen to get in political power (whether executive, legislative, or judicial) from doing exactly what some are attempting to do right now: criminalize Christianity (beginning with but not limited to the Bible).

An extreme example of this would be that the government has the jurisdiction (in the eyes of man, if not the eyes of God) to pass a law that promotes/ protects/ rewards sin. But when there is a separation of church and state, that same government has no jurisdiction to tell Christians (or Jews or Muslims) that they cannot speak against that law and even against that sin, reminding the public (from their homes, over the internet, from the street corner, in their businesses, or from the pulpit) that the law is anti-Biblical, and what God has to say about that as revealed in the Bible. Similarly, in a nation with a separation of church and state, religious people don't have jurisdiction to take matters into their own hands and criminally penalize sinners, that's the government's job. Nothing says the two can't be informed by the other, but the church and state are distinct organizations that aren't supposed to bully each other.

By the way, the reason the provision of free speech was explicitly spelled out in the first amendment in the first place was to protect speech the government and the majority of the populace didn't like. Speech that is deliberately and obviously going to result in imminent physical injury or death, or exposes information that is legitimately confidential, is all we can justify censoring. (Though being justified is different than actually doing it.) This would not include quoting passages of any book that was written a great many years ago. Which ideas you listen to and agree with is up to you, but in a country that has freedom of speech written into its constitution, whether you silence any ideas is not.

What Jesus said and what Peter heard

A few years ago I'd posted about Gospel Paradigms. As a followup, here's a related theme. Here's what Jesus really said in Luke 9:21-22:

But he warned them, and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, "The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up." (WEB)

Based on Peter's paradigm that the Messiah would be a military hero, here's what Peter heard, and why Peter reacted so poorly to the events at the Garden of Gethsemane.

"The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes, but then he'll kill them all and take control of the whole region. In the process he'll be severely injured and on the third day decide to be miraculously healed and so spectacularly prove his self confidence and authority to the world.”

May we take God seriously and abandon our preconceived notions of how He should operate, and accept His.

Compilation: Explaining "the Left"

Dennis Prager is a great American, and a conservative.  He's responsible for http://www.prageru.com and the corresponding YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/user/PragerUniversity.  PragerU is not a real school in the traditional sense, but may be more useful in the modern sense. He's written a great 5 part article to help a conservative (who doesn't spend time watching politics) understand that there's a serious undertone in our nation's culture we need to be aware of and prepared for.

1. https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2018/07/10/explaining-american-leftists-part-i-n2498802
2. https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2018/08/21/explaining-the-left-part-ii-n2511543
3. https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2018/08/28/explaining-the-left-part-iii-leftism-as-secular-religion-n2513574
4. https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2018/10/02/explaining-the-left-part-iv-leftist-contempt-for-middleclass-values-n2524560
5. https://www.dailywire.com/news/39615/prager-explaining-left-part-v-left-vs-right-brain-dennis-prager

On the same theme, one of his most recent videos was also on understanding the difference between liberals and "the Left" (https://www.prageru.com/videos/left-or-liberal), and compliments his written articles well.

The disgusting treatment of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was a perfect example of the appalling accuracy of Mr. Prager's observations.  As an example, here's an article: https://www.dailywire.com/news/36774/walsh-why-fbi-should-investigate-christine-ford-matt-walsh and here's the same topic from another angle https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/21/christina-blasey-fords-polygraph-was-b-s/.

Sadly, another current event that helps prove Mr. Prager right happened on Thursday: http://insider.foxnews.com/amp/article/63652. Here's an excerpt:

The Metropolitan Republican Club's windows were smashed, its locks were broken and its doors were spray painted with anarchy symbols. A note left behind at the building read that the attack was putting the Republican Party "on notice." "Our attack is merely a beginning. We are not passive, we are not civil, and we will not apologize," it stated.

And few more un-American stories happened that following weekend: https://www.frcaction.org/updatearticle/20181018/conservatives-beating.

May God help us stay civil and maintain the freedom of thought and freedom of religion this country was built on and for.  Equally important, may we (God's people) act appropriately (not just pray, but pray and act). If atheist Americans abandon Judeo/Christian values and become barbaric, Christians should not lose hope. Our nation was founded in a world that hated protestant Christianity.  If we can build a nation from scratch under that pressure, surely we can maintain one, with (and only with) God's help.

(Edit 21 Jan 2019, added part 5, and see recent news https://www.dailywire.com/news/42312/cnn-reporter-shocked-discover-mike-pences-wife-daily-wire right on topic.)

My new toy, and it's not a Samsung

Photo: Motorola

I've had the Samsung Galaxy S8+ for about 16 months and was getting fairly tired of not having a usable fingerprint sensor, and the infinity display was getting old.  I saw the latest Motorola Z3 has the all black glass front & back so caught my eye.  The super thin profile with hard edges was really attractive, and most of all the price tag less than $500 was the icing on the cake.  I am really looking forward to the 2019 lineup of Samsung phones having embedded fingerprint sensors under (inside) the display, but I'm fearing they're going to charge a lot.  I thought the $850 was basically too much for the S8+, and I fear Samsung will charge at least $100 more for that.  So after having a Galaxy S3, Note 4, S7, and S8+, I decided to give Motorola a try.

After almost a week, there are a handful of software complaints I have, but those are more with Google than Motorola, since Motorola does a good job of keeping it pretty "vanilla" Android.  The all primary color blue call screen is an embarrassment to the design principles of either Google or Motorola, or both, I'm not clear.  The lack of a dark theme in Android (namely for the pull-down notification pane, but also for the settings) reaks of Android v3, not v8.  The fingerprint sensor on the right side is in a poor place, but functionally better than being on the rear.  There's no headphone jack, but I'm fine with that as it makes for fewer openings on the device.  I like the lack of the Bixby button, just power & volume.  I miss the always on display that Samsung has, and since always on display is such an awesome feature, and yet after a couple years still no one else has it, it makes me wonder if Samsung was a jerk about it and patented it.  Moto display is both cool and dumb at the same time.  Compared to the always on display it looks childish (like the primary blue call screen).  It's better than nothing, but that's about it.  Could we please have a little customization (size, color, features)?

The dual camera is a gimmick, but no more so than the iPhone X.  Portrait mode is a gimmick, fairly cool, but probably only truly useful once or twice a year, and even then I'll only care because I have it, not because it's needed.  It does capture the photos with very low lag, and they're only just perceptibly lower color saturation than the S8+.

I do enjoy the feel of this Motorola in my hand, and knowing I paid almost half what the latest generation Samsungs cost (especially considering the Note9 is $999).  This year's iPhone comes out in a week or two, and I sincerely hope they can make me envious.  If they repeat last year then I'll be laughing rather than lusting, so we'll see.

The only way

A female friend of mine (and my wife) was dumped via text message a few months ago. That's not cool. What jerk does that to a girl? Actually in this case I knew the boy, and he was perfectly nice. I was even the one to prod the boy to ask her out in the first place.  But he lacked adequate social skill to handle the situation, and he lacked compassion to care enough even to followup in person when she asked to talk.

As long as it was someone else (and not us ourselves who was the offender) it's easy to look at this situation and say the offender was a jerk.  Love is one of the most complex emotions and therefore one of the most sensitive conversations to have.  If we treat it as if it were just a random topic we risk offending the person who's sharing with us.  We know this to be true because if we were sharing our heart with someone and they dismissed us, especially if they'd recently been very open to us, we couldn't help but be hurt.

All things being equal, given the choice we'd all chose friends we can meet in person over friends we will only ever talk to over the phone or email or txt.  We want to invest in people who can interact and maybe physically help us, and who we can physically help.  Because that's what friends are, people who can be there for us.  Virtual interactions are fine but they can only supplement human interaction and aren't meant to take the place of it.  We weren't designed for that.

For those of you who agreed that the boy in the first paragraph above was a jerk for dumping my friend via text, I suspect not many of you would consider him any more of a gentleman if he had sent his brother or sister or friend with a verbal message that he had single-handedly decided that their romantic relationship was over.  Or if he had wrote a blog post (or a newspaper article or a book) and arranged for her to find out by reading it.  For the important things, it matters to discuss them in person.  Preferably face to face, and only when that's not physically possible then by phone might be acceptable.  In the digital age, the concept of real time & synchronous (two way) are important.  Virtual non-real time (email, chat, txt) aren't ideal because they don't allow true interaction, plus they lack both body language and tone.  The important messages just have to be discussed in person, it's the only way that can result in a mutually positive outcome.

This isn't a new concept, it's timeless.  God knows it because He designed us (Genesis 1:27).  At first He walked with us (Genesis 2:16-17, 3:8-9, 4:3-7) but we ruined our relationship with Him and eventually He only talked to some of us (Genesis 12:1) and then only through messengers, called angels (Exodus 23:20, Joshua 5:13-14, Judges 6:11-12) and through prophets (1 Samuel 3:10-11, Isaiah 6:1, Ezekiel 34:2).  (The role of a prophet is to tell God's will more so than it is to tell the future.  Telling the future is just a form of proof that the prophet speaks for God.)  But we are rather sinful and often just don't get it, even when love is staring us in the face (Isaiah 1:2-3).

So why do Christians think there's only one way to Heaven, or one way to God?  This is a common question from non-believers.  Besides the fact that the Bible says so (Acts 4:11-12, 1 Timothy 2:5) there's a simple bit of logic to realize.  God loves us, and all the intermediaries (angels and prophets) He sent just couldn't get through to us.  The fact that He loves us is really, really important, and it's quite unique among all major religions (at least until there came copycat religions).  This message had to be delivered in person, and that's where Jesus came into the picture.  That's the original reason for what we now celebrate as Christmas.

But Christmas is only part of the story.  Jesus didn't come to Earth just to hang out and tell us parables.  He knew what had to be done.  Because God is holy and just, every time we sin we separate ourselves from God.  But God loves us, He wants to be connected to us, but He's holy and we're not.  So the only way to be reunited is for a payment to be made for the sin.  Us humans have worked out a similar system in every culture: break the law and pay a fine, bigger crimes require separation from society, and extreme crimes sometimes result in capital punishment.  Thousands of years ago God established a pattern of atoning sacrifice to the Israelites: when you sin, make up for it by sacrificing something of value.  But sacrificing animals was never enough.  Every time we sinned a new sacrifice had to be made, and we just keep on sinning.  So God decided to come in person and be the ultimate sacrifice, once and for all.  Jesus came to Earth with a mission.  He volunteered to leave paradise (Isaiah 66:1-2) and come to Earth as a pauper (Luke 2:12, Matthew 9:11).  He knew what He was doing (Matthew 16:21) and who He was coming to be with (Genesis 6:5-6, John 2:24-25) but He came anyway (Romans 5:8).

And then we have the gall to say dumb things like "there has to be another way" or "I would rather find my own way."  This is just more of the same to God.  His lament about our disdain for His heart was recorded in Luke 13:34.  The idea that Jesus is our only savior is not simply common arrogance shared by all Christians.  If there was another way, do you really think He would have come here and modeled a sinless life just to die a brutal, violent, murder on our behalf?  If there was another way then God had better things to do than become human just to take our punishment for us, and I'd think He'd just say "let them be saved that way, that way is good enough, I'll skip the 30 years of poverty followed by brutal murder" (Mark 14:32-36). And don't think that just because it happened two millennia ago that you have any excuse to demand God act again, now, in your lifetime, in an equally radical fashion. What He did 2000 years ago was good enough once and for all (1 Corinthians 15:22, Hebrews 10:10) that's why He left eyewitnesses (2 Peter 1:16-18, 1 John 1:1-3) and a written record: so we'd still know about it today and thank Him for it, love Him even.  It's not supposed to be a drag when He says He's the only way (John 14:6), He's reassuring us.  He's saying "no one else is coming for you, but I have, I created you, and I'm pursuing you with My love.  I love you enough to suffer the consequences of your sin so that you can be with Me forever."  No other God nor any form of deity has ever made an offer that good, and yet He still allows us to choose.  Do we accept His offer, or reject it?  And if we accept it, do we keep this offer for ourselves or do we share it with the world?  This is what Christmas and Easter are annual reminders of: God cared enough to come in person and tell us how much He loves each and every one of us (John 3:16, Galatians 3:28).  This is why the angel declared that famous evening:

Luke 2:8-14: There were shepherds in the same country staying in the field, and keeping watch by night over their flock. Behold, an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. The angel said to them, "Don't be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be to all the people. For there is born to you today, in David's city, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This is the sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth, lying in a feeding trough." Suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men." (WEB)

The biggest leap forward since the original

Go Apple.  iPhone X.   I'm trying really hard not to be cynical. Apple is a good company, really. They produce good products that do what they claim and last. They're not junk. I will never forget the awesomeness of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 6 designs, the bold "jet black" of the iPhone 7, and the truly revolutionary marketing of iPhone 6 with ginormous marketing photos of their product (not those stupid dumb little teeny photos that most marketers offer). But they're clearly coasting this year. Makes me wonder if they've lost their touch.

Their CEO, Tim Cook, made two claims at their annual product launch last week.  Two dumb little sentences that if they'd left out, I wouldn't be cynical.  But those CEO speeches are written weeks and months in advance, and are very carefully crafted.  With these sentences Apple is going out of their way to (yet again) prove to the world how devoted their fans are, and that the fans will drink any "kool-aid" they serve up (no matter how bad).

The product launch video is at https://www.apple.com/apple-events/september-2017/, and as videos go it's perfectly fine. High quality, clearly good planning of the event, nice new venue. But here we go. At 1 hour 16 minutes in, Mr. Cook says "our teams have been at work for years on something that is important to all of us: the future of the smartphone. The first iPhone revolutionized a decade of technology, and changed the world in the process. Now, 10 years later, it is only fitting... to reveal a product that will set the path for technology for the next decade." At 1:17:50 he continues "This is iPhone X.  It is the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone." You've got to be kidding me. One of my favorite articles I read in my masters class had this excerpt in it:

Here's the thing about innovation: I'm not sure any of us needs a definition. We don't need a journalist to tell us what it is. Or who really gets it. Innovation is like obscenity: We know it when we see it. It's hard to miss when paradigms shift.
-http://www.informationweek.com/it-leadership/innovation-is-executive-porn/d/d-id/1111194

If he'd left these exaggerations out of his speech, I'd have nothing to be cynical about.  iPhone X is a decent product. But it's nothing innovative. It's new features are:

• edge to edge screen (something almost every other manufacturer has dabbled in for years)
• wireless charging (something every other manufacturer has had for years)
• facial recognition (Samsung did even better earlier this year)
• super retina display (Samsung has had higher for at least 2 years)

And that's what he calls "the biggest leap forward" since the original device?? Then at 1:21:25 Phil Schiller says removing the home button "is a big step forward in the iPhone user experience." Now instead of pressing the home button we swipe up from the bottom of the screen. He follows by saying "it's incredibly smooth and once you do it for the first time, you'll know there's never been a better way." Really? Last I checked, swiping takes more effort than touching. And let's not get into how old all this is to Android users, especially those who've installed alternate launchers.

And lastly, to add insult to injury, they're charging a whole grand. Yeah right. Sorry Apple fans. The 10th anniversary was supposed to be the year for the iPhone. What a let down. I mean, if you want a thousand dollar phone, and you want it to be an Apple, then great, I'm happy for you, go for it, it is their most impressive yet. But don't try to brag about it's technology. It's not cutting edge. Unlike the original iPhone, there's nothing new here here at all.

God helps those who help themselves?

The title of this blog post is one of those famous Bible quotes that's not really in the Bible.  But could it be?  When does God help lazy people in the Bible?  There's no good quote, but the theme isn't far fetched.  Let's look at some famous people God helped (or carried out His plan through).  Pay close attention to the vocabulary used.

• Noah - Genesis 6:14-15 (make)
• Abram - Genesis 12:1 (go)
• Moses - Exodus 3:10 (go, bring)
• Joshua - Joshua 1:6 (lead)
• Gideon - Judges 6:14 (go)

And it wasn't even limited to the Old Testament:

• Acts 5:18-20 (go)
• Acts 12:7-8 (follow)
• Romans 2:6 (do)
• 1 Timothy 6:18 (deeds)
• James 3:13 (deeds)

When we read the words, we see that God commanded people to do work.  These people are famous for God helping them but it's only our modern, lazy, post scientific revolution paradigm that makes us think God will take care of us so that we will have an easier life.  That's what garage door openers and self closing trunks are for, but isn't why God intervenes in the world.  He intervenes to carry out His plan, which like Noah and the rest, involves a lot of hard work.  While it's tempting to give Gideon a hard time for asking for the wet fleece and the dry fleece, he asked for those demonstrations out of fear, not laziness.

Not everyone who doesn't act is lazy.  Some of us honestly believe that praying hard and often is good enough.  Now I get it that Jesus was big on prayer.  But the only time Jesus ever came close to saying "just pray" was in a specific case of direct, toe to toe spiritual warfare.  This example was so specific it's dangerous to ever use this as an excuse that we should ever "just pray".  Certainly prayer is important, and just so you don't think I'm anti-prayer or that I think nothing of prayer, here are some of Jesus's positions:

• Matthew 6:5-13
• Mark 1:35
• Mark 9:29
• Luke 5:16
• Luke 6:12

I'm just so tired of hearing people (over my lifetime) saying something like "we just need to pray."  Granted, that's important, and granted when we are out of options then maybe all we can do is pray.  But we are on the verge of sinning if we have the capacity to act and yet we choose only to pray.  As if to ask God to step in and do our job for us.  If you are a parent, and you just asked your teenager to wash their own dinner plate off, and they responded "mom/dad, I sure wish that you would wash this plate so I can watch TV", how well do you think you'd like hearing that, and do you think you'd actually grant your teenagers request?  Not many of us would.  If you're going to pray, fine, but don't kid yourself that praying gets you out of working.  Prayer is the "air cover," or the administrative overhead, to the actual work.

We so want life to be black and white but it's more complicated than that.  It's important to pray.  Just like it's important to have a Biblical worldview.  (Remember, Biblical worldview only comes from actually reading your Bible and remembering what it says, then taking it seriously.)  But neither (nor even both of these together) are enough.  We must do good work too.

• James 2:14-26
• Romans 12:9-13
• Matthew 7:21

Thomas Edison (the guy who invented both the light bulb and the municipal power grid) said something cool.  "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." What opportunities does God have planned for us today?

Genesis 1 & 2

I've heard it claimed that the order of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 are contradictory.  My initial response was that Genesis 1 is the account of all of creation, whereas Genesis 2 is retelling the story from Adam's perspective, even though it's written in the third person.  I am working on making my own translation of Genesis 1-11 for publication on Kindle, and I came across a detail that is more plausible to interpret as a contradiction.  It's still not a contradiction, but it's "more plausible," and for those of us who are just looking for contradictions, it's close enough.  But close enough isn't good enough.  Let's review together.  Here's the important text from Genesis 1:24-27.  (This copy of the text below is from the Amplified translation, which is an extremely literal translation, more so than NIV, KJV, etc., and not necessarily the translation I prefer to read from but is in many ways the closest to the original. I have added the "[1]" and "[2]" for reasons you'll see below, and I've removed parenthetical text that is found in the Amplified translation, for simplicity sake of this article.)

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kind: [1] livestock, crawling things, and wild animals of the earth according to their kinds”; and it was so. So God made the wild animals of the earth according to their kind, and the cattle according to their kind, and everything that creeps and crawls on the earth according to its kind; and God saw that it was good and He affirmed and sustained it.  Then God said, “Let Us make [2] man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, and over the entire earth, and over everything that creeps and crawls on the earth.” So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them.

If we accept Ussher's calculations with genealogies in the Bible, these events happened about 6,000 years ago.  But this text is not 6,000 years old.  It is attributed to Moses, as revealed to him by God.  Moses was born about 1,500 years before Jesus was.  Paper wasn't invented until after Jesus was born, there certainly weren't any printing presses back then, and tablets were made of stone or clay, not silicon & glass.  Limited hard copies would have been created, making each extraordinarily expensive.  This is why it was such a big deal in 2 Kings 22:8 that they found a scroll (full story is 2 Kings 22-23).  So God told Moses, who wrote it down (discussed at length in my other blog post), which was eventually copied by others, and the oldest surviving copy is probably in the Dead Sea Scrolls (http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/featured-scrolls) which are dated to around the century before Jesus was born.  In Genesis 2:18-19, we see:

Now the Lord God said, “It is not good for the [1] man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable and complementary for him.”  So the Lord God formed out of the ground every [2] animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.

Since I added the [1] and [2] you've probably already noticed the seeming contradiction.  In Genesis 1 we read about the animals first, then man, and in Genesis 2 we read about man first, then animals.  But if we're going to get nit picky and claim to point out technicalities, then we need to be professional about this and put on our scientist hat and be thorough.  Because we don't want to leave ourselves open for a counter attack, air tight arguments work much better.

A few months ago I sent an email at work.  Someone had asked me a question on a topic I had some experience with.  I sent them a link to a presentation I'd made.  I told them in the email, which I sent in July, that I had made the presentation back in January.  In the presentation there is a title slide, which also has a date.  The date is not the date the presentation was created, it's the date it was last updated.  The date on the title slide said May.  But it doesn't say it was last updated in May, it just says "May."  So if the recipients of my email wanted to be nit picky, they could have written back to me and been critical and distrustful and pointed out a contradiction in my understanding and representation of reality.  Fortunately they weren't so, but if they had been I could have easily explained away what they could have perceived as contradiction.  That's the case here with Genesis 1 and 2.

In Genesis 1:24, God tells us on day 6 He started off creating the land animals.  It specifically says in Genesis 1:26, "then" He talked about making man.  This wording implies a sequence, an order of events.  One started before the other.  Genesis 1:25 indicates that all the land animals (at least all the various kinds of land animals) were created before God talked about making man.  Back in Genesis 1:11​ we read about God creating plants on day 3, and even earlier in the chapter it says when God made the Earth, the land, and the waters.

In Genesis 2:7, God tells us how he made Adam.  It says he made Adam after making the Earth, the ground, and water.  This is aligned with the order of creation in Genesis 1.  In Genesis 2:5-6 it said there were no plants, but it doesn't say Adam was created before the plants, the story just moves from Genesis 2:6 to Genesis 2:7 without explaining what happened in between.  It had no obligation to.  Remember when we consider Genesis 2 as a whole, it's clearly explaining the dawn of time from Adam's perspective.  Adam didn't necessarily care on what day the plants were created, or that the plants were created before the Sun and stars were, or that the Earth was at first all water.  Why would he care?  Therefore why would it be in Genesis 2?  There's no contradiction here.

In Genesis 2:8, there's a sentence that, if we're being critical (as in negative) then we could shout out "wait!"  It almost sounds like God made Adam before he made the Garden of Eden.  But if we keep reading Genesis 2:9-15​, we see that whoever wrote this text was using the literary technique of a flashback.  Genesis 2:5-8 is one line of thought, then the author recalibrates, and sort of starts over and gives another line of thought in Genesis 2:9-18.  Notice in Genesis 2:19, that the author doesn't say "then," he says "now."  This is significant, because it means he is yet again doing another recalibration/flashback.  Genesis 2:19-25 is a third line of thought.  So even though the text of Genesis 2 structurally mentions the creation of Adam before it mentions the creation of the other land animals, it's not implying nor explicitly saying that Adam was created before any of the others.  There's no contradiction here.

Remember, the whole Bible was written before the printing press.  This means it was written before publishing companies, and had no editor.  The whole Bible is written more in the style we today recognize as blogs than as books.  A great example of this is Luke 3:18-22, where the author, who was a doctor (a.k.a. a scientist), writes about John the Baptist being put in prison right before Jesus was baptized.  However Matthew 14:3-11 says John was executed in prison and Matthew 3:13-17 clearly explains that John was the one who baptized Jesus.  There's no contradiction here when we recognize the fact that this wasn't reviewed by an editor first.  And we know that it would be hypocritical to say a writing can't be accurate if it's not reviewed by an editor.  These were letters, little different than blogs, and amateur blogs at that, not professional blogs where people make a living crafting well articulated messages.  Luke could have even very well wrote his letter while traveling (Colossians 4:14, 2 Timothy 4:11, Philemon 1:24).  And lastly, the whole Old Testament was first written on scrolls.  They weren't written on lined paper bought in a package of 500 sheets using a number 2 pencil with a new eraser.  They weren't typed on a laptop where non-linear editing is standard.  They were written on a scroll with a pen, and once they wrote something they couldn't go back and insert an extra sentence they'd accidentally left out.  They just had to keep writing and try to make their story cohesive.  And they probably didn't know what they were writing would be scrutinized by a hostile audience 2+ millennia later.  They were just writing what they knew in hopes of passing it along.

This article was written as an expansion of a main feature I call my Creation versus Evolution FAQ.  I hope they can be of help to your understanding of our Creator, and how easy it is to take Him seriously (believe His word, the Bible) if we are only willing.

Sucker for technology

Image credit: Samsung

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 is $100 off this week. I was really tempted. I even blogged about how cool it was back on April 7th. I was thinking tonight how I could justify buying another tablet... Then it occurred to me, I really love my S8+. I really hope they keep every design feature of the Tab S3 in the Tab S4, but ditch the physical buttons like they did with the S8. If they do that, and release the Tab S4 in less than a year, then I'd kick myself for having bought the Tab S3. So I have to wait. But Samsung, keep the all glass design, the all black look (even the sides/edges), the 4 speakers, and the awesome display.

I looked up some stats on phonearena.com:
The S2 8" is 272g and 5.6mm thick.
The S3 9.7" is 429g and 6mm.
The NotePro 12.2" is 753g and 7.95mm.
The latest iPad 9.7" is 478g and 7.5mm.
The iPad Pro 12.9" is 692g and 6.9mm.

It is available from Verizon.  Oh so tempting, but $700 from Verizon plus $30 activation plus $20 per month, and only $500 flat for WiFi only.