My Story

My Story

I was born into a middle class Christian family. My parents were new Christians, and my Dad was/is an evangelist. From an early age, I knew the basics of the gospel:

• That we are all sinners.
• The result of sin is death.
• We can not provide any payment on our own effort, either for ourselves or others.

• God provided the payment for us in the form of his son, Jesus.

• Jesus was born into this world.
• He lives a sinless life.
• He died to pay the penalty of all of all our sins.
• He rose again to be a mediator between us and God.

• If we accept this gift, repent from our sins and allow Jesus to begin to change us, he will forgive our sins and make us as if we had no sin at all.

• There is no action we can do to earn this, We need only to accept it and yield our lives to him.

I understood most of this gospel from age about 5, though some parts were fuzzy and became clearer as I got older.

 

Also from an early age, I had an eclectic taste for knowledge, particularly engineering and sciences. I’m interested in a lot of different areas and have acquired a better than novice, but not quite expert, understanding of many fields of study. Along the way I have found connections between the various fields of interest. This blog is a reflection on these various fields of study and their connections. Over the years I have had to integrate my biblical understanding with some of my scientific and historical understandings and along the way I realized that this broad knowledge and my ability to acquire it  was a gift from God . It was not meant for my own understanding alone. I needed to share it. This comes at a risk. One is that I struggle with pride. This blog cannot be a vanity project that stokes my ego. As such I will do the best I can to attempt to live out Jeremiah 9:23, “The Lord says, wise people should not bost that they are wise, powerful people should not boast that they are powerful, rich people should not boast the they are rich.” and Luke 14:11, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled but the one that humbles himself will be exulted.”

 

The other issue is the “not an expert” issue. This means that while I know more than the average person, I also know much less than a true expert in the field. There is a very real chance I’ll make a fool of myself due to some incomplete understanding. In this case I hope that I will receive gentle corrections so that this blog can be a source of accurate, and as complete as possible, information.

 

Finally, there is a lot of “American Christian Culture” that is not biblical and is driving a lot of our American Christian teaching. I hope that this blog can provide corrections without becoming a source of Biblical error itself. For that I hope to avoid becoming those called out in Jeremiah 8:8-9, “How can you say ‘We are wise. We have the law of the Lord’. The truth is those who teach it have used their writings to make it say what it does not really mean. Your wise men will be put to shame. They will be dumbfounded and be brought to judgment. Since they have rejected the Lord’s message, what wisdom do they really have.” and 1 Timothy 4:15, “Be conscientious about how you live and what you teach because by doing so you will save both yourself and those who listen to you”.

 

This correction comes from two perspectives.

• Where there is a clear biblical interpretation error, I’ll call it out.
• I’ll make clear when my Biblical interpretation is “gray” or lightly held.

 

While I believe the Bible is without error, I also believe our interpretations are often fallible. In the areas of solid doctrine, we can have high confidence in our decisions and interpretations. In other areas we need to be more careful of being dogmatic. We often hold too strong a confidence in interpretations that are dodgy at best.

 

This blog targets the following people:

 

• Christians who are willing to have their Christian culture challenged-- especially by the Bible.

• People who think the Bible is anti-science and not compatible with science,and are willing to hear why that might not be the case.

• Those who find an eclectic interest in many of the topics on this blog and how they might connect.

 

Welcome to my home. I hope this blog will provide light into these areas and not heat or darkness.