Clarity

The purpose of art
All art
Is to show
What the artist wants
To show
A part of him
A part of her
A part of humanity
Their view

Art is misused when
It is used to
Hurt harm attack
A person group country
When the point is to spur
Hatred
Violence
Fear
To force the people with
Other views
To be quiet
To sit down
To not respond

When people try
To make
Art
Fit to what they
Think
And not try and understand
The artist
Strife comes
And everyone losses

You can like bad are
You can hate good art
But don’t say that because
You
Don’t like it
Its bad art
And just because you like it
Does not make it good

Acquire art because
You enjoy it
And enjoy it for what the
Artist did

after all this talk about suffering i don't know why we didn't talk about abortion.
ripping a infant limb for limb to make life easer for an other is sick. abortion is just as horrific as the slave trade but the unborn have no voice and no way to escape.

finished reading Ephesians a while ago. Over all the book is possibly my favorite but I want to talk about is in the last chapter, chapter 6 verses 10-20. The armor of God.

My dad and I had a talk about this about a week before I read the chapter. This is going to be a bit of a summery of the conversation and also my own thoughts and interpretation.

Armor has a single purpose to protect your body from harm during combat. In this case our sprite is the thing at risk. The important thing to know here is that as Christians we are in the middle of a war. It’s God and us verses Satin and his demons. Two things that are critical to remember is that it’s not just us verses Satin and that Satin is a defeated foe. He isn’t shooting for victory, because he has already lost and he knows it, but he is trying to increase the casualty count. He wants us to lose hope and fall in to despair. This way we drift away form God and can no longer truly advance his kingdom. The bad news that we gained an enemy by accepting Christ; the good news is that he is already defected and God gave us armor to protect us.

The Belt of Truth - The belt keeps our pants up it. It holds the weapon to our body. Yes it’s a basic piece but it is essential to the armor.

The Breastplate of Righteousness - Think of the Breastplate like a bullet proof vest. It protects our vital areas from attack. The key to this piece of armor is that it can be compromised. If your armor has a weak point your enemies will find it and exploit it. Our rightness is in Christ but I believe that it also has to do with our integrity. If we have a blemish or a rotting hole in our integrity it allows for the enemy to land a crippling blow. Also if your armor has a little rust spot it may not seem like that big of a deal, however rust spreads. In you don’t try to fix that part of you integrity it will start to take down other parts that may have been strong before. I know that I have holes in my integrity and satin does exploit them and it’s hard to patch those holes but stay strong because God will help you.

The Boots of the Gospel of Peace - Paul never refers to boots, shoes, sandals, or Stiletto heels. He simply says to “fit our feet with.” As far as I’m concerned we should fit our feet with steel plate military boots because we are at war and I wouldn’t want to ware my crocks to a battle field. We are to be peace makers because that’s what the gospel says. But these are boots they are meant to be used not just stand around. To me I see this as a call to action. We are not being to told to be pacifists because pacifists have a tendency to be lukewarm and this makes God sick (read Revelations 3:16). Keep in mind that his is in a spiritual war not at physical one.

The Shield of Faith - Our shield is the most intriguing part of the armor given to us. Our shield is dynamic not static. The stronger our faith the bigger our shield gets. Paul says that the shield will be used to extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one. This reminds me of the movie Gladiator. In the opening scene the Romans are being shot at by flaming arrows. The soldiers raise there shields above there heads to block the arrows. The thing I find cool and interesting is that they overlap their shields so that their comrades won’t get hit as well. Simply put we are stronger in groups. Fellowship and studding the word all increases our faith. We can also watch each others backs so that we all stay strong. Our shield is also how we can compensate for the holes in our integrity, at least to a point. Our integrity will also affect our shield size. A shield covers a zone on your body but you also need to stay alert to do this. DON’T SLACK OFF. Try and get the biggest shield you can.

Helmet of Salvation - Your head is a critical part of your body. It keeps the the thing that run the body, being the mind, safe. Your helmet is one of your parts of your armor that you can't take off it is our salvation. God says in Deuteronomy that he will never leave us nor forsake us. Our helmet makes us fell safe. Its comfortable and is strapped on nice and tight. He will never leave us nor forsake us, isn't that the most comforting thing in the world?

The Sword of the Spirit - this is the word of God. The Bible. Actually its better. Hebrews says the the word of God is sharper than any double edged sword and that is living and active. The word of God is our only weapon and its all we need. I had the idea to relate a sword to a gun, to make it more modern. but after thinking about it I realized that I can't do that. there are several metaphorical reasons for this but I'm going to mention 2 of them. First that a gun is no good in hand to hand combat, which we are in. Satin isn't off in the distance taking pot shots at us. He is in our face getting feel for how we react, watching our movements. But we have armor and a weapon to fight him back with. Second a sword is lethal as long as it is exposed. The enemy has be mindful of it because he can impale himself on it. a sword can be used to cut through the thick and nasty things in our lives and fight and defeat our enemy.

Maybe I got to deep in to the metaphor, but i like it and it give me courage to take on myself and the world.

Our enemy is defeated he just doesn't want more people to know. Satin can't stand up to the power that Christ has given us. His bark is loud and vicious sounding but it is only fear that he uses to control us. Don't give in to that fear.

This isn't just a fight, its a war. But have hope we have won already some just simply don't know the news.

So fight hard my friends and comrades I'm right here next to you sword drawn waiting for orders from the King of Kings.


Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:28-31


The LORD is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalms 27:1

so Peter slept through out presentation on suffering. i wish could have taken a nap to but i was presenting and sleeping would put damper on that.

this class is getting more and more boring. every day i sit there and think how John Piper would teach the class. he has taught me me more about Christ then any one i know i think.

i don't want to do my "life story" presentation. I'm a bit of a privet man. i don't want to show 15 some people my life in pictures. also my life tells nothing about who i am. the whole point of this project seem a little silly. lets get to know each other after four years in the second semester. if my classmates cared about who i was and who i am they would talk to me like friends do. i shouldn't need to put my self on display for a group that the majority would not notice if i wasn't there.

I'm not depresses. i have friends who care about me but none of them are in my class and they would rathe talk to me then look at old pictures.

the topic of suffering has been banging around in my head lately. every time i look at the world's problems i can't help but see how much the would needs Christ. in fact every time i look simply at the world i see how much it needs Christ.

hope is seems lost on the world to day. in the US i think that its more of thinking that we can not have hope unless we're in a desperate situation. the thing that they miss is that they are in a desperate situation because of sin.

the presentations on suffering have been interesting. I'm a more sensitive person then i let on so talking about this stuff makes me a bit depressed. i've seen the effects of depression and drugs and its not good at all.

teen challenge is one of greatest organizations to come form Minnesota and hearing about the drug problem makes even more glad to know that they are there working for people buy the will of God.

The study of subjective and objective is fairly interesting. But this discussion, along with the relativism and absolutisms, has one primary problem; they lead to simple disagreement and no real search for truth. A subjectively thinking person can simply brush off something said by a objectively thinking person because the schools of thought. The subjective does not need to comprehend much less debate the statement made by a objective. The objective person knows that not every thing is objective (ice cream taste good). However the subjective person can say that the world being round is simply my understanding of the truth and there for it needs no more consideration. The same is true for the relativist and absolutist. To have a good discussion two things are need. 1) Ground rules are need, what assumptions are both party's basing there argument on. 2) A winner in the end. No one watches a boxing match to see a tie. Until these two things are implemented talking is just a wast of time and energy. The Bible would be a good base to work form. Not everyone agrees that it is true but they can argue that its not.

2 Timothy 2:16
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

Yesterday I started reading Sun-tzu's Art of War. The book its self is very short but there is a lot of commentary. The book has 13 chapters each being very short. Master Sun (as he is referred to in the book) was very wise. His view of war was simple; fight for prophet not for the sake of killing. He talks about fighting the strategy its self. the point he is trying to make is that politics is part of your arsenal. Moral and strain on one's country are also important to remember. His approach to war I like. I be leave that war is unavoidable and that the need for military is utterly fundamental to survival of a country or people group. This is not to say that war is always the answer but waiting too long to fight can mean more death. The world is a fallen one and war is a result of that.

Thursday was interesting. The article we had to read spurred some conversation but nothing particularly good. To me it seem that I was the only one who really cared about what the author was saying and I disagreed with him. I am out numbered. Plain and simple. The biggest problem here is that, in order to search for truth, debate is needed. This goes back to the Yale Freshmen article, communication. I'll stick to my guns but it is a lot of work when a) the majority of the class won't listen or doesn't try to understand, and b) there is no opposing view point. The last point made in class was that "humility is essential in the search for truth." Part of this is thinking about other points of view. Where is the other point of view? Where is the guy who says that we can be certain? The fact that an opposing view point is not being presented goes directly against what we talked about in class.

The first point the author makes is that our view of the world is skewed because we are fallen. But he takes it one step farther saying that because we are fallen we can not truly know anything. He says, “our knowledge of any absolute is not only partial, it is distorted.” He uses the example of a football game and how everyone had a slightly different experience.

The second point he makes is that there is risk in everything we do as people. He says “Whenever a decision is required there is risk.” Certainty is basses on the fact that there is no risk and since all our relationships have risk why should our relation ship with God be any different?

Not only do I disagree, but he is dead out wrong.

I’m not going to disagree with the fact that every one at a football game has a different experience; however that mater of a game is trivial. Yes people have different experiences in faith but they should be tested against what the bible says to know if they are of God or of satin. Neil Anderson wrote in his book The Bondage Breaker about a man who said that God told him where to go to church each Sunday. This was his view of God. As it turned out he has been going to a Mormon church under the direction of a demon that Neil, after hearing the story, confronted.

A lot of time is spent taking about how we, as humans take risk. Yes, believers have always been risk takers but the threat came from humans. The risk in relationships is there because we are fallen. We hurt each other because we want to or because our flesh gets the better of us. BUT OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD IS NOT AN EARTHLY ONE. To say that, just between us and God, there is risk is saying God does not love us the way the Bible says. What good shepherd harms his sheep? These sounds more like a Greek God then the Biblical one to me. God reigns supreme and he knew when he made us that we would disappoint him. This is not a risk. Risk implies the unseen and unknown. To say that sending Christ here to earth is a risk is saying that God does not know any thing of the future.

He is saying that he can not be truly certain of any thing so why is he writing?

Ignorance is bliss. This statement was challenged to day in class. The question was would we be better off no knowing about the worlds starving children. After being bounced around for a bit the class agreed that it is better to know about it so we can do something. But do what? One of my classmates said that she gives money to charities to help theses children. Thats good but to me it seems a bit like a quick fix. To simply through money at a problem allows us not to feel guilty. Giving money does not take us off the hook. As Christians we should give as much as we can afford and preferably more, but our time is also wanted. Time is the most precious thing in this world. We don't get to go back. To go and help is truly helping. Giving money is important because supples need to be boughten, but we should never look over what we do.

I thought that the discussion to day was interesting. I had never thought of talking about religion as worthless. I believe that it is unavoidable. All cultures have had some sort of religion whether it be one god or many. The idea of not taking about it is somewhat foolish. The majority of the world religion is a major factor. The majority of the world’s population believes in some sort of truth. I would say that all people have a type of faith involving the supernatural; either their belief in it or that it does not exist (faith is necessary to be and atheist). A person’s faith in that and what truths they derive from that is, what I would call, religion. These religions are, consciously or subconsciously, acted upon. It is part of the human condition we must talk about it.

My religion goes beyond simply a set of truth or belief. I am a citizen of a different world, a soldier in God’s army. I am a hardcore Christian. the basic truth I believe is well put in the apostle creed.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy *catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.

Amen.