Revisiting Old Inspirations
I've been browsing around the Wayback Machine finding old comments and blog posts that I published almost 20 years ago. I found one particular rant that captures my inspiration for what eventually led to the creation of Founding Word. It was written in 2003, I was far more abrasive then, I painted with a much broader brush than I probably should have, but the passion of what I wrote still flames today.
From the very beginning, with all my crazy and pointless posts of humor and foolishness, I wanted to demonstrate the miracle of God teaching even the silliest of people how to understand His Word. That was what I wanted to do. To demonstrate, not to teach, but to demonstrate that "if Josh can digest the deepest things of God's Word, then ANYBODY can."
Here's the rant that I'm talking about. I published it in 2003 and it was in response to a thread of debates between atheists and religious people of various degrees from Christians, Muslims, Wiccans, all kinds of cults and semi-cults, and many of them were even masked under a banner of Christianity. It was written in the heat of anger, so pardon it's abrasiveness and just absorb its message. It captures what eventually inspired the creation of Founding Word.
I used to quote 1st John 2:27 a lot back in those days and I was often misunderstood in that people thought I was saying that God doesn't use teachers. How absurd. God most certainly uses teachers otherwise He wouldn't have given people the Spiritual Gift of teaching. But God has given every one of us a primary Teacher known as the Holy Spirit. He is the first Teacher whom all things filter. When we listen to gifted teachers, it's the Holy Spirit within us that takes apart what we're hearing and teaches it to us so that we can apply it to our heart. But what the Holy Spirit teaches through MOST is HIS WORD. That's the point of 1st John 2:27.
Unfortunately, many of us have become lazy to rely upon teachers as a crutch for not spending time with the Lord in prayer and His Word. God never intended for His children to starve to death between the little snacks of a weekly feeding that we might get from a gifted teacher. He certainly never intended for His children to die of food poisoning while listening to false teachers when we have such pure teaching in God's Word and the Holy Spirit to guide us and teach us through it.
From the very beginning, with all my crazy and pointless posts of humor and foolishness, I wanted to demonstrate the miracle of God teaching even the silliest of people how to understand His Word. That was what I wanted to do. To demonstrate, not to teach, but to demonstrate that "if Josh can digest the deepest things of God's Word, then ANYBODY can."
Here's the rant that I'm talking about. I published it in 2003 and it was in response to a thread of debates between atheists and religious people of various degrees from Christians, Muslims, Wiccans, all kinds of cults and semi-cults, and many of them were even masked under a banner of Christianity. It was written in the heat of anger, so pardon it's abrasiveness and just absorb its message. It captures what eventually inspired the creation of Founding Word.
JPA 2003
There are millions of Christian groups and subgroups out there with teachers and preachers that don’t have any idea of what they’re talking about. If you were to ask a lot of people why they believe the way they do, they will give you a rehearsed answer that is based on nothing more than what they’ve been told.
I think many Christians here are secretly afraid that what they believe is nothing more than a fairy tale and therefore, they’ve convinced themselves that blindly holding on to their faith without actually thinking about it is what they’re supposed to do. So they say things like, “This is what I believe because this is the faith that I follow.” That way these people can hold onto their own beliefs without discrediting any other beliefs just in case their own belief might be wrong.
In other words, “Just leave me alone with what I believe and I’ll leave you alone with what you believe.” Many people think that’s a mature and enlightened attitude. In other words, “Just pick the faith that works best for you while being tolerant of all the other faiths out there because none of us really know for sure.” I have a hard time following that kind of thinking. I can’t just believe something for the sake of believing it. Wouldn’t it be better to base your faith on solid facts and personal experience knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that what you believe is accurate?
For example, I don’t abide by the law of gravity because I believe in it thru blind faith. I abide by the law of gravity because of solid facts about gravity and because of personal experience with gravity. Therefore, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is gravity and I have a personal relationship with it.
Many in religious circles wander around aimlessly, believing this and believing that while looking like a bunch of fools because they have no idea why they believe the way they do. In the meantime, most of the facts concerning God and the Bible get buried thru rituals, formalities and clichés.
God has flawlessly woven together an awesome group of writings that have evidences of supernatural engineering. These writings are what we call today, the Bible. Yes, I know that every religion out there has it’s own bible. But what makes God’s Bible unique is that God went out of His way to put things in it that no human could possibly create or replicate. That way the reader can know with settled assurance that he or she is not reading one man’s opinion, but the words of God Himself.
Another thing that makes it unique is that most of it will not make any sense unless the reader is a Christian. (I Corinthians. 2:12-14) If the reader is a Christian, then the reader is given the promise that not only will God interpret the Bible for them, but God will interpret it so well that the reader will have no need for a teacher. (I John 2:27) A lot of people don’t know that. A lot of Christians don’t know that, which is why most of them never bother to open it except on Sunday mornings when their preacher tells them to. They don’t know what they’re missing. If I can get it, anybody can."
I used to quote 1st John 2:27 a lot back in those days and I was often misunderstood in that people thought I was saying that God doesn't use teachers. How absurd. God most certainly uses teachers otherwise He wouldn't have given people the Spiritual Gift of teaching. But God has given every one of us a primary Teacher known as the Holy Spirit. He is the first Teacher whom all things filter. When we listen to gifted teachers, it's the Holy Spirit within us that takes apart what we're hearing and teaches it to us so that we can apply it to our heart. But what the Holy Spirit teaches through MOST is HIS WORD. That's the point of 1st John 2:27.
Unfortunately, many of us have become lazy to rely upon teachers as a crutch for not spending time with the Lord in prayer and His Word. God never intended for His children to starve to death between the little snacks of a weekly feeding that we might get from a gifted teacher. He certainly never intended for His children to die of food poisoning while listening to false teachers when we have such pure teaching in God's Word and the Holy Spirit to guide us and teach us through it.
