4:11, #602: Tom Got a Bum Rap

I read a remark this morning from a devotional that put me to thinking. The writer's point was that Doubting Thomas missed out on the appearance of Jesus in John 20:24-5 because he was intentionally NOT at their meeting. He used this as an illustration that Christians should not forsake going to church because they could miss out on a 'blessed event' by their absence.

Well, I looked at the passage, John 20:24-25, "Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, 'We have seen the Lord.' So he said to them, 'Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.'" Look at the way it's structured...Thomas showed up LATE...period!! It's not that he didn't show up at all! Maybe someone bumped his sundial and it was running late! Maybe his donkey had a flat foot! Maybe there was a multi-donkey pile up on one of the streets of Jerusalem, maybe at the corner of No and Where (thank you, Capt. Malcolm Reynolds of 'Serenity') and he had to stay to file an accident report!!

My point in this short rant is that guys using the Bible to make a point better make it properly or those who don't think too much of them and/or their Book will continue on in their negative thinking patterns or have them reinforced by the very ones trying to change them for the good.
Thus endeth the lesson for the day. By the way, going to church is a good idea...
Got exegesis?

4:10, #601: Roamin' Whilst Roman

The Facebook game, Glory of Rome, is my current interest in strategy games. The problem is that it's geared to folks who like to build up massive armies and then go trounce some smaller fry in the less than real world that's present. My problem is I like to fight in strategy games and I frequently take on an enemy I think I can beat and learn, somewhat to my dismay that I could not. That requires going back to square #1A or B and rebuilding my entire army. I think some game developer should give us a 10 or 20% option rather than 'Win or Annihilation!'...but, hey, that's my quirk! ;p

But, I guess I'm whining here as I'm letting the game build me some buildings and some troops even as I type. I guess you could say my homemade-in-Paint Troops/Buildings logo kind of sums up my view of life, borrowed from the diary of a Civil War soldier, I forget which side, or from Eleanor of Aquitaine in the movie, "Lion In Winter," when she says, "It's 1183 and we're all barbarians!" when the subject of their all having knives arises. In the Us vs. Them world view of ALL people groups on the planet, we really ARE somebody's 'barbarians.' All you have to do is find the opposite or at least opposing view of life to that which you particularly hold and you'll figure out to whom you're the horned-helmet-wearing-smelly-sword-wielder in this life.

Speaking of horned helmet wearers...you Born Agains out there reading this are the 'barbarians' to Satan and his hordes, so aptly given voice in C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters...one of my current online reads. Paul, of Tarsus, Asia Minor and locked-up-in-a-Roman-prison fame, put it well when he said our battle is not against flesh and blood but against various levels of demonic warriors who agree wholeheartedly with their infernal Boss who 'prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." Fortunately, 'greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world' Fellow Barbarians!!
Got Whole Armor of God? If you need a visual point of reference to Paul's text in Ephesians 6:10-20, check out the Wiki photo at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File: Roman_legion_ at_ attack.jpg]