Through the Lens of Jim
When Christ came as
high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the
greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a
part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and
calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood,
having obtained eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the
ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them
so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of
Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God,
cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve
the living God! Hebrews 9:11-14
The ostrich
poking his beak into our car is not as graceful perhaps as the swans on Jim's
"Journaling for Growth" Blog, but it is certainly taking a bird's eye
view of things. Unfortunately, that is the only view some ever take of
Scripture for usually we use the expression "taking a Bird's Eye view"
as seeing things from a distance. So, I guess in truth this ostrich wasn't
taking a bird's eye view at all, but one up close and personal, much to the
unease of my wife.
If you take
the opportunity to read Jim's Blogs, both "Journaling for
Growth" and "Love One Another", you'll learn how much there is
up close and personal in Scripture. Jim doesn't just give you the bird's
eye view; he gets down in the dust and gives the worm's eye view as well. You
learn the depth of God's Word.
It reminded
me of my childhood when I wanted, and got, for Christmas a microscope.
That's
right, as a kid I wanted to be a scientist. First a herpetologist,
then an entomologist, then a chemist, then an anthropologist and when I finally
did go to college, I was majoring in sociology, a social science. Oh, I had a
lot of interests and I got pretty involved in each for a while, but I missed
the most important of all in what I considered excursions into the mysteries
and life and a search for truth. I ignored the Scriptures. I considered them as
nice little tales mixed with a lot of boring stuff that was hard to pronounce
and difficult to read.
Now I see
it all differently. I think what I discovered is exactly what Jim knows.
Scripture is multi-layered that you could study forever and always find another
truth.
That's why
my microscope came to mind. It was a very nice microscope. It had several lens
on a disc you could turn. Each lens was more powerful than the last. If you put
an insect on the slide and peered through the first lens, it appeared bigger,
but still similar to what you saw with the naked eye. But each turn of lens
reveled more about the structure of the creature until the last lens where you
saw the fine veins and delicate colors of its wings, which had appeared as
colorless with your bird's eye view.
And that is
what you get when you begin to see how all the Bible fits into a story of God's
relationship to man, into the story of atonement through Christ's sacrifice and
salvation through his future return, and all the colors of our God.
Thank you,
Jim, for taking the time and putting in the effort to help us see these things.
Comment from Jim Leasure:
Larry, thanks for noticing the detail. That is where I want to
be, in the dust. I cannot say I understand much. When I read Russ's blogs, I often
feel uneducated and have difficulty being certain that I am assimilating the
messages under the 'microscope' to get the bigger picture.
A little
girl asked her mother, 'How did the human race appear?'
The mother
answered, 'God made Adam and Eve and they had children and then all mankind was
made.'
Two days
later the girl asked her father the same question. The father answered, 'Many
years ago there were monkeys from which the human race evolved.'
The
confused girl returned to her mother and said, 'Mom, how is it possible that
you told me the human race was created by God, and Dad said they developed from
monkeys?'
The mother
answered, 'Well, dear, it is very simple. I told you about my side of the
family and your father told you about his.'
It was a
lovely day. I was sitting on a bench by a small garden of pretty white and pink
flowers. Bees flittered back and forth between petals. I thought about the
perfection of it.
In the
light breeze of the afternoon you could just get a whiff of the perfume of
those blossoms. Obviously the bees could smell it for they were attracted to
the source of the pleasing odor, which is the reason flowers smell good in the
first place. The whole design of the blossom is made to attract the bee, stick
pollen to it and let it carry the pollen to another plant to impregnate it, so
to speak. This is a neat little system of bees and flowers working together for
their mutual benefit.
If
reproduction is the benefit to the plant, what is the benefit to the bee? The
bee goes from flower to flower gathering nectar to take back to the hive. In
the hive the bees turn the nectar into honey. It is stored in cells and when
the honey is ready, the cell is capped with wax for storage. Then comes winter
when the flowers are gone to seed, the bee taps the wax and has food to last
till spring.
Pretty
ingenious for an accident, don't'cha think?
They say if
you put some monkeys in front of typewriters they would produce all the works
of Shakespeare if given enough time. How much time, do you suppose? And how
would you keep the monkeys at the typewriters? And how would they live long
enough? Shakespeare didn't sit at a typewriter (well, of course not,
typewriters didn't exist, but he sat by a blank piece of paper with a quill)
for some interminable time. He started with an idea and plan of what he wanted
to say and wrote it over a short period. He designed his plays with
intelligence, not chance and accident. Frankly, I don't think those monkeys
would produce all those works if they pecked away for eternity. But I don't
have enough faith to be an evolutionist.
Frankly,
every fish I ever saw taken out of the water for any period of time evolved
into a dead fish.
Then God said, "Let the land produce
vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed
in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced
vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing
fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:11-12
And God said, "Let the land produce living
creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the
ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. God
made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to
their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to
their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:24-25
Then God said, "Let us make man in our
image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the
birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the
creatures that move along the ground." Genesis 1:26
A belief in
creationism is an act of faith. So is the belief that evolution explains how we
came to what we are.
