A New Creature. . . an Apostolic Pentecostal blog

Twenty-five years ago or so I read a book:  Gödel, Escher, Bach An Eternal Golden Braid .  Gödel was a mathematician, Escher an artist, and Bach a composer.  The book has to do with artificial intelligence and thought and systems of logic. . . Maybe this wasn't the author's intent, but it also has much to do with systems of religious belief.  The topics are heavy and require some work to comprehend, but these complex issues are presented in such a way as to be relatively understandable (with effort).  The author uses the art of Escher, the music of Bach and a mathematical proof written by Kurt Gödel to explore the ability of machines to think.  In 1931 Kurt Gödel discovered a mathematical theorem that if I might paraphrase says: Any system, sufficiently powerful, contains elements within it that are unprovable within that system. Here is a  page   which gives more complete restatements of Gödel's proof.  Gödel, Escher, Bach An Eternal Golden Braid is a fascinating book.  I...

Day 1 Genesis 1:3-4 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.  (4)   And God saw the light, that it was good : and God divided the light from the darkness. This is the first mention of God seeing.  Seeing is necessarily done in the light.  Before there is light you cannot see.  You can feel.  You can taste.  You can hear.  You can smell, but if there is no light you cannot see.  Undoubtedly God has senses that we cannot begin to imagine, but without light there is nothing to see, without light there is nothing but blackness.  In this first mention of God seeing. . .  And God saw the light . . . there is a pronoun in Hebrew not usually translated into English (Strong's H853 'eth  את  ).  This pronoun, 'eth, brings emphasis to the noun to which it refers.  Only in this the first 'seeing' and the in the last 'seeing' of verse 31 does this pronoun appear.  If this word were translated it might read like this. . .  And God   ['eth - Himself]  saw...

It is annoying for me to go into a restaurant and to have a table that rocks and tips.  That just really bugs me no end.  Your water sloshes and spills.  Every time you lean against it as you chat everything comes toppling your way.  It is a chronic symptom of a table with four legs on an uneven floor.  It is next to impossible to get each of the legs the precisely needed length and if you do manage to do that, when the table is moved only a few inches to a new position the rocking begins again.   A three legged stool on the other hand will never tip.  It is geometrically impossible for that to happen.  It takes three points to define a plane.  Get a three legged milk stool and cut the legs to differing lengths all you want, place it on the most uneven floor imaginable and it will not wobble and rock.  Those three legs define a flat surface, and are inherently stable. I believe that our relationship with God is built upon communication with Him and this communication has three legs on ...

The photo above is of Pipewort Pond, a little wildlife refuge a few miles from my home, where my dog and I frequently go hiking. (Actually the butterfly picture, currently at the head of my blog was taken on the shore of the pond, in a button bush  at the right side of the above picture.)   This is a picture from last February.  We went out a couple of days ago and it looked similar to what you see above, but there was not as much snow covering the ice of the pond. You can see plants growing up through the ice all over the pond.  It is a seasonal body of water.  Two years ago, even without ice, I was able to walk pretty much everywhere I wanted.  The open water was confined to an area maybe the size of a backyard swimming pool, but this past year has been much wetter and there is a good area of water several acres in size, now frozen, but in any respect it is not at all deep, maybe at the deepest spot a mere three feet in depth. Also in these last few days I am writing a Bible study t...

What can I give God?  The calendar is rolling around to December 25th, the celebrated date of Jesus birth.  What do you get for God who has everything?  After all it is His birthday that we are celebrating.  On who else's birthday do all the guests give each other presents, but ignore the giving of a gift to the honoree?  So again I ask, what can I give God for Christmas? We celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th, but it surely is not merely the birth of a long deceased man whose birth we celebrate, but this birth of Jesus was prophesied many hundreds of years before his birth: Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. This and many other verses in the Old Testament talked of a coming Savior.  The Hebrew people anxiously looked for someone to rescue them in their hour of need.  They looked for a military savior, not recognizing that their spiritual condition was greatly mor...

Heat is not life A white raging inferno owns no warmth The yellow searing sun wavers not Movement is not life A crystal river knows only the lowest way to the sea The blue wind blows every flag Respiration is not life A ruby crowned mountain exhales with no lung The brown nail inhales air for decay Healing is life A wound restored with the mercy of fresh pink skin The rebirth of awareness after the despair of black confusion Change is life A breaking of free fall toward gray gloom and despair The swimming against the tide into golden light of forgiveness and grace Creation is life A seed sprouting into the green tenderness of growth The two join as one in the purple mystery of a new soul's beginning God is heat. . . God is movement. . . God is respiration. . . God is healing. . . God is change. . . God is creation. . . God is my life. . . Thank you my God. . . Thank you my Lord. . . I give thanks. . . Dave

If we had some power to perform miracles at our command and could take away alcohol and illicit drugs from our society our jails would have hugely excessive capacity.  It would be close to the truth to say that we could immediately close 3 out of every 4 prisons.  I've seen figures showing that alcohol alone accounts for close to half of all incarcerations in penal institutions.  It is not only drinking while driving that puts people in jail, but it is the things that people do while intoxicated that end them up in prison.  Domestic violence, sexual crimes of all kinds, robberies, assaults, financial troubles, failed businesses, failed marriages, child support arrearages and on and on all have their roots in many cases in the abuse of alcohol.  For many years, I was a suicide hotline worker.  It was huge the percentage of our calls that had as a foundational component, the abuse of alcohol.  It was not often that the one who had the drinking problem who called us, but it was most o...