Tuesday, April 15, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

Our lives are harder than they should be and the truth is that this is due to sin, others sin, our sin, just sin generally. Genesis tells us that it doesn’t have to be this way, Jesus tells us that it won’t always be this way. In fact, He says it can be better now but we should get over the idea that it is going to be perfect now. Read the rest of this entry »

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Monday, April 14, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

Do we really understand the difference between consequences and punishment? It must have been easier for Adam and Eve to understand that difference. Think about it, before sin entered the picture everything they did was blessed. Everything cooperated perfectly to produce as intended and there was nothing difficult about life. God had said they would die if they ate and then they didn’t, but life got hard Read the rest of this entry »

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Friday, April 11, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

He was with her and he took and ate. What stopped him from saying “No, God really did say we would surely die.” What the Lord said to him was, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree…” Adam had a problem, the first voice he ever heard, the voice of his creator, said one thing and Adam listened to the voice of the only “other” that existed, another created being, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, how stupid can you be! Read the rest of this entry »

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Thursday, April 10, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

I have been sick for a couple of days and to be honest I am a terrible sick person. I don’t like to take medicine to treat symptoms, I don’t understand why we don’t treat the illness instead of the symptom. If they would put me in a hotel room with popsicles, Coca-Cola and some chicken noodle soup, turn on the TV to ESPN or old movies and leave me alone until I am well it would be best for everyone concerned. Read the rest of this entry »

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Monday, April 7, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

What God said was that if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would “surely die.” What He didn’t say was they would die from eating of that fruit or in that moment they would die. They had to fulfill their original design and purpose, procreating and beginning the work of filling the earth with more of their kind. For that reason, the animal(s) had to die for clothing. Innocence was lost and death became a reality to be dealt with in the earth. Read the rest of this entry »

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Sunday, April 6, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

That is more or less what Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3, you have to have a do-over. We call that being born again. For Nicodemus it meant that what was done to him 8 days after his birth wasn’t good enough, he needed to be “born from above.” In our tradition we baptize infants, but we baptize them into the household of faith, not into faith itself. Essentially their birth brings them into one family and in baptism we as the faith community adopt the child into our family and pledge to make sure that the child receives all the instruction we can give her. Our goal is to raise the child in the faith once delivered. Read the rest of this entry »

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Saturday, April 5, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

Isn’t that really the message of the first couple of chapters of the Book? If it is truly God’s story then don’t we have to read it from God’s perspective? If we do, then we can see this as His looking back at the beginning of creation and saying I took a mess and made it something wonderful, something I was proud of, and then I created some people in my own image who were supposed to love it and care for it and do the work of filling all the empty space with others like themselves who would make the whole thing hum. Read the rest of this entry »

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Thursday, April 3, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

I have been studying the book of Genesis with a group of guys for the last 2+ years and it has shaped my faith and the way I read the rest of the Bible in some amazing ways. There are certain aspects of that book that have truly captivated my imagination. That book has much to say about the way things are on a macro level. It tells us why things aren’t as we think they should be right in the very beginning of the book. Read the rest of this entry »

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Wednesday, April 2, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

What wisdom does it take to get yourself a death sentence? It seems a ridiculous proposition but it actually required a great deal of wisdom. Everyone else had a plan for Jesus and it required great wisdom to follow God’s plan instead. Sometimes it required Him to confront and confuse and other times it required Him to withdraw. Sometimes it required Him to do miraculous signs and other times to refuse to do the same thing. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tuesday, April 1, 2008 by Big Kahuna.

I like books, I buy them all the time, but it never occurs to me to go to a library and check one out. I would have to give it back and then if I liked it I would just buy it anyway, so what’s the use? If anyone could become wise or possess great wisdom simply by reading books that contain wisdom, I would be a wise man indeed, but I’m not. Why is that? Read the rest of this entry »

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