Thursday, May 21, 2015

Christian Modesty Part 1

I know many people have said that any more discussion about modesty is beating a dead horse and we need to stop and focus on more important issues. Modesty in the church is still an issue, therefore I think it still needs to be discussed and once again I will throw in my two cents about modesty. I love studying the true historic meaning of words, and this post is based upon my study of words. English has lost so much strength in our time, so many words have been corrupted, changed or lost meaning, it is amazing how the King James Bible comes to life when you study it with an old dictionary on hand. 

We know that in Genesis, God calls nakedness a shame, so building on that we know that we need to wear some clothes. I think all of us would agree that we as Christians should be wearing something, where the modesty debate starts to get bloody is when we ask how much is enough. How much skin? How tight? Which skin? In Leviticus we are commanded not to look on other peoples nakedness.What is nakedness anyway? Paul says that women should be modest. What is modest?  In Genesis Adam and Eve were ashamed of their nakedness after they ate the fruit and they made aprons, an apron usually covered the front of the body to protect the clothes, it could be from the neck down to mid thigh or lower, or it could start lower, like at the waist, think blacksmith's apron. God did not think this covering was sufficient, and I would like to say, if he considered it insufficient, then could it be that the apron is classified as nakedness? I don't know, I still need to study that word. Anyway, God made them coats. What is a coat? We all have them, a coat by the old definition and most modern definitions is a piece of clothing that goes from the collar bone/neck to mid thigh length or lower and is usually worn for warmth or protection. So, a piece of clothing that covers from the collar bone or so, to at least mid thigh is sufficient. That is what God considered sufficient, seeing he could have made anything, and that is what he chose. We need to then think of the details. If we assume this person in a coat is standing, we can assume everything under the fabric is supposed to be covered. So the coat must be sufficiently tight and long to prevent movement causing exposure of that which is meant to be covered. We should also keep in mind that a coat is not tight or form fitting. We need to realize that form fitting clothing can be often just about as revealing as no clothes at all.

In conclusion, God wants us in modest clothing, and he gave us a standard to follow, we should just obey him. If we are upset at his standard and want to push against it, we need to ask, why? Here is another thought, there is no “less modest” or “more modest” it is rather, are you sufficiently covered that is, modest, or are you insufficiently covered, that is, naked. I may be wrong but I think it is defined that simply in scripture. BTW, I am not speaking to girls only here, guys you need to keep your shirt on too. You need to get rid of your skinny jeans and your speedos and wear some clothes. Us guys tend to get away with a lot, we need to man up and set the example. We need to stop telling girls to dress modestly when we are taking our shirts off and saying modesty for men doesn't matter. Okay, well, let the flames fly, I did it, I said there is actually a standard that we need to follow in dress.

P.S. I did more study and came up with some new information since I wrote this, so I decided that I will write a part 2.

Saturday, April 25, 2015

They Need Jesus Too

“All Muslims are terrorists, we need to just kill them all so the world can be at peace.” Such statements send cold chills down my spine, especially when spoken by professing Christians. We have to remember that Muslims are just lost sinners like everyone else. All of them are going to hell just like everyone else. (Oh, and not every Muslim follows the Quaran, just like most Christians don't follow the Bible. So, not all Muslims want to kill everyone.) You did not believe at on time in your life, you spit in Christ's face too. Think of Paul, he did what he could to destroy the Church of God, he murdered innocent men, and women. I also think of Muslim fanatics that got saved they said they were fanatics because they were desperate to find God. They were looking for him desperately and they eventually found the true God. See what I am getting at here? Now another angle. What difference is there between us and them if we say to kill all of them? Many of Muslims want to kill all of us, we call that wrong. Hitler wanted to purge the Jewish menace from the earth, we say he was wrong for picking the Jews out and killing them. What difference is there between us and him? We picked out a group of men, women and children and want to kill all of them regardless of guilt? We want the heathens to not try to kill all of us Christians and to walk on our rights, yet we would do the same to the Muslims. The real issue with Islam is that they need Christ. They need to experience the love of God, something they have never seen as their god does not love. Remember this, everyone ever killed on this earth is a living soul either bound for hell or heaven, it is irrelevant what they have done, but only what they believe. It grieves me every time I hear of someone dying, if they were not saved, they are one more soul in hell. That cuts me to the core when I really think about it. Think of the all the souls in the middle east, all those lost souls, all those who are seeking for God desperately but only know their god of violence. Please, whenever you read something of Muslim violence, in your anger don't forget, they need Jesus too.

P.S. I hope this post doesn't go misunderstood, Islam is evil, I just don't want people to forget the human side of it.

Monday, April 20, 2015

Some thoughts on The Battle of Five Armies

Recently my family and I watched The Battle of Five Armies, I've decided that while it is still fresh in my mind I would write down some thoughts I have had concerning it.

I really liked it as a movie. Lots of battle scenes, not a lot of sappy commentary, mostly just pure battle. The battles were fun, and at least for me the story was almost impossible to guess. The one on one fights tended to be exciting, but also very unreal. Legolas' fight with Azog's spawn was particularly unreal, though still very exciting. Anyway, it was an action movie so, I won't question it too much. On to more major things. I have three major problems with this movie, one of them really carries to all of the Hobbit/LOTR movies, one of them is specific to the Hobbit series and one is specific to The Battle of Five Armies.

1. The “spiritual warfare” scene in TBFA, I was shocked at how satanic the “good guys” looked, especially Galadriel. I mean, she was supposed to be a good guy, and she looked totally shockingly satanic. It just kinda shocked me to see that. Seems to be one more effort of the media to blur the lines of good and evil and call evil good and good evil.

2. The ring. In LOTR, the ring is evil, it cannot be used for good, and anyone who has it or uses it will be corrupted by it. This may be nit-picky but, in The Hobbit series, Bilbo is constantly using the ring for good, and never gets taken over by it, though he does lie about it every chance he gets which is never condemned. So, which is it, is the ring evil or good? It can't be both, and I don't think we can use evil for good. Very confusing.

3. There is no God. At all. Everyone draws from their own strength and power to do anything. It is all about are you more powerful than the force you are fighting. For us we have God, we can pray for strength, we have spiritual tools that do not draw from our own strength to battle the forces of evil. Praise God for that too, I can't imagine facing what we are facing today without the power of God and the knowledge that he wins. 

There, that gets that off my mind, now maybe I should write a post about why I think Frodo was a traitor and why I don't like him at all. That should start a war, LOL.