Where are all the 2,000 year old men? Part 2
by JohnBagwell
 Faith & Family
Mar 04, 2012 | 3307 views |  0 comments | 26 26 recommendations | email to a friend | print | permalink


- Reposted from www.MenRising.com





First, answer these questions:










Where are all the 2,000 year old men? Part 1
by JohnBagwell
 Faith & Family
Feb 25, 2012 | 3599 views |  0 comments | 21 21 recommendations | email to a friend | print | permalink

I want to start by saying this: Just because YOU don't understand the Bible doesn't make the Bible wrong or God a liar.  For some reason, atheists in particular, are drawn to the parts of the Bible they do not understand, and then finger-point like little children while whining away.  What is worse, if YOU personally cannot give them an answer, then they conclude that THEY are right and YOU are wrong.

How ignorant and childish.

Just because you cannot give an answer to someone on any topic doesn't make your statement false.  I can say with confidence that the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, but if someone asks me to prove it I'm going to have to shrug.  If they ask me how I know it is true, I'm going to have to point to a book somewhere.  If they further challenge me to prove the book I didn't write true, I'm going to have to say "Go to the author."  Atheists, however, do not want to go to the Author of the Bible, because they do not believe in God.  So instead, they want you to speak for God, and are ready to pounce on you if you can't.  "See!  You can't prove it!  It must not be true!"  So, God is a liar because I cannot prove the Bible true??  Wow.

Well, the speed of light is still 186,000 miles per second, and it's not up to me to prove anything.  So it is with questions about the Bible I may not fully understand.  That we both, atheists and Christians alike, may not fully understand a particular passage of Scripture does not instantly make God a liar, or the Bible untrue, nor do I have to prove anything.

That said, Christians should feel free to stiff-arm the questions they do not understand for a while and say "Let me do some research on that and get back with you."  Truth is, there is nothing to fear from such childish finger-pointing, and if you will put just a little time into some Bible study, looking at the context of the passage in its proper place and time, and really seek to gain a real understanding, then I believe you can have an answer.

Here is one particular passage that, for no good reason, has confused many.  Again, atheists will finger-point like little children and ignore the vast majority of Scripture in an effort to hold YOU responsible for a Book you didn't write.  I will simply let the question stand as written first and then give answer next week.

Some means more than one.  Jesus has not returned with all of his powers.  Where are these men who were alive then and are still alive?  Truth or lie: There are 2,000 year old men still wondering the earth who personally met Jesus."

See how the question is worded?  He wants to draw an exact line with the words "truth or lie" and later he personally challenges me to give answer "Where are these 2,000 year old men?" as though I had them hidden somewhere in some secret undisclosed location or something.  It's funny really, because the Bible answers this exact question.

I told him on February 21, 2012 that I would answer his question next week, and so I will.  Meanwhile, until next week arrives, I wanted to allow this question to go to all of you out there.

The words were spoken by Christ.  Christ has not yet come in His kingdom.  There were some present when Jesus spoke that were not going to taste of death until such an event took place.  The Bible is true.  Jesus did not lie, and you CAN find the answer in the Bible.  Well?  What do you think?

As I told my atheist friend, I will answer this question next week, but for the next seven days, why don't you think this over, study it out, and see what you find.  I'll give you a small hint: he didn't ask "Where is the 6,000 year old Christian?" or "Where is the 3,000 year old Christian?" but he could have.

- reposted from www.MenRising.com

What Are You Afraid Of?
by JohnBagwell
 Faith & Family
Feb 18, 2012 | 3505 views |  0 comments | 26 26 recommendations | email to a friend | print | permalink

Something about screaming always sets my nerves on a knife edge.  A number of weeks ago, I wanted to take my two daughters out for some ice cream.  So, we piled into the car and took off, and it was a nice ride just listening to my two daughters talk to each other, talk about different topics on little girls minds, and I especially enjoy listening to my youngest who always seems to carry a song in her heart when she is happy.  So it was not a little disconcerting when, as I was getting out of the car, I began to hear one of my two daughters scream from the other side of the car as though mortally wounded.

My first reaction was to figure out who was hurt, and then identify, attack, and shred to pieces whatever was doing the hurting.  I raced around the edge of the car as my oldest just looked on with wide eyes at her little sister who was still in the car screaming at the top of her little lungs with eyes closed.  The door was not open so I assumed she had somehow caught her hand in the door.  I jerked the door open, but that wasn't the case, and she was still screaming while I began to feel more desperate.

I screamed her name asking what was wrong, and she pointed at . . . nothing.  I couldn't see anything in the direction of where she was pointing.  She then got out the word "spider" and my eyes finally narrowed in on a spider so small it could have been mistaken for a grain of sand dangling from the car ceiling 6 to 8 inches in front of her face.  However, to a little girl with an overabundance of fear, a spider dangling from the ceiling of the car within 6 or 8 inches of her face probably looked terrifyingly huge, and she obviously felt obliged to feel terrified because of it.

I, being the hero I am, promptly smashed the spider between my two hands, but my daughter was still screaming.  I finally had to grab her by the shoulders and yell her name telling her I killed it and it was gone before she even began to calm down.  As I got her out of the car, she latched onto me in a tight embrace still sniffling.  As I carried her into the restaurant to get ice cream, I could feel her small frame still trembling with fear.  Or was it me trembling from the adrenaline rush?  I guess it was hard to tell.

All I know is, that as a parent of the male variety, the sound of my daughter screaming in what I interpreted as great pain flipped my switch, and I was ready for war.  Finding out that, in fact, no one had been hurt, and the source of all the mayhem was a tiny little creature actually had me feeling more sorry for the creature whose life had to be sacrificed so my daughter would regain her sanity.  I began thinking, how could such a small thing bring so much turmoil to what was a perfectly good day, and upset my daughter so much that she could not function in any other way than sheer panic?

As we sat down for ice cream, I called my wife telling her what happened, and she told me that I just had to be understanding, that the fears my daughter has toward spiders is very real to her, and that she just needs to be comforted.  I have to admit the "ready for war" mentality seems to come way more naturally to me than the comforting part of me, so the little reminder didn't hurt.  I let my daughter talk with her mom, and then we all, eventually, began to laugh a little about what happened.

I was reminded in those moments by the last few words in Hebrews 13:5 that say, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."  Too often, I think, we leave God in much the same position that I was left in regarding our own fears about what happens in this vapor we call life.  Being too easily upset about things, fear arrests our lives and we become incapacitated, unable to think about anything else other than whatever worry, doubt, or fear consumes us at that moment.  God tries to remind us He is there and we have nothing to fear, but confronted with our own fears face-to-face, we leave God the task of swiping away the small things, and trying to comfort an irrational state of mind.

Whenever fear tries to take hold in my life in some fashion, I remind myself of what someone once told me: "Life is an incurable disease, and we will all die from it some day."  He was joking, but the point is still true.  We will leave this world and everything in it behind one day, so why fear losing these things when the outcome is inevitable?  When it all seems to be falling apart and you feel like you are losing everything, try to remember what is really important; that there is an eternity to be had, and the only "things" you can take with you are the people you have shared the Gospel of Christ with who have accepted the salvation of Jesus Christ.  When it is all said and done, then one day you will see the only ones who had anything to fear are those who rejected Jesus Christ, while you had nothing to fear.

Real Men Read Good Books
by JohnBagwell
 Faith & Family
Feb 11, 2012 | 2843 views |  0 comments | 27 27 recommendations | email to a friend | print | permalink

Long ago I heard couples talking about a book called "The Five Love Languages" and just about the time I heard the title my brain turned off and started wandering to other topics I keep stored in my brain's hard-drive for when "boring" conversations like this come up.  I wasn't interested.  Why?  Well, to put it simply, the book had "love" in the title.  I wish I could be more pragmatic, but that's it.  I made up all kinds of assumptions just from the title, and I had come up with a vision of a book that contained all kinds of "mushy stuff" about relationships that basically women wanted men to know, but no man was ever going to read.  Why?  Well, it seems men don't read such books.

Fast forward to a conversation with a guy I had regarding his personal life with Christ, and I began to think of a few books that influenced me and he said simply, "John, I just don't read books."  I hesitated, and then shrugged my shoulders.  What else was there to say?  When I talked about this phenomenon with another friend, he had a different response.  When I told him about the guy who just doesn't read books he responded, "Really?  Ya' think?  The guy is having all kinds of problems in his Christian and personal life and then you found out he doesn't read books?  Is it any surprise?"

It got me to thinking.  There are a lot of guys out there who do read books, but there are also a lot of guys out there who proudly assert that "They don't read books" as though it were something to be proud of.  I'm not saying a guy needs to get into "the mushy stuff" women enjoy in fiction, but there do happen to be some very good books worth a read.  I am reminded by the oft repeated quote of "Charles Tremendous Jones" that says, "Five years from now you'll be the same person you are today except for the books you read and the people you meet."  Years later, this quote was paraphrased to say "A man is never changed but by the books he reads and the people he meets."

Men don't want to change though.  They resist being changed.  I have never met a man yet who said, "I married her because I just knew she was going to change me into a better man."  I fact, if that had been part of the marriage bargain up front, most men would probably never follow through with getting married.  I say this in jest, but in some part of men there resides an idea that if we are good enough to marry the way we are now, then we should be good enough the way we are for the rest of our lives.  However, that simply is never true, for everything changes in life, and men need to be able to change and grow and improve over time or risk becoming either irrelevant, or replaced.

Getting back to my original topic though, I eventually was encouraged strongly by a good friend to pick up and read "The Five Love Languages" with my wife.  I was hesitant, but told him I would.  I was just sure the book was going to talk about all the "mushy stuff" women love, and that the message would be something along the lines of "You're doing it all wrong.  Idiot."  I am happy to report that nothing could have been further from the truth.

In the end, there was a lot to be gained from reading this book together with my wife.  We learned a lot about each other, I discovered some very interesting and encouraging things about myself (turns out I was doing a lot of things right already!), and also discovered ways to do the right things even better.  My wife learned along the way as well, we were both helped through the process, and our marriage took another bump up on the ladder of success.

This would not have been possible if my manly ego had not been laid aside long enough to pick up the book, but it had me thinking about all the men out there who may be thinking, or even proudly saying, "I don't read books."  This message is for you: "If you're not reading good books, then you're doing it all wrong.  Idiot."  Now go set your manly ego and pride aside long enough to realize you need to change as all things change in life, and the best way to make a change is to guide that change by reading good books and opening yourself up to being influenced by good people.  Why?  Because real men read good books!

Warrior-Poet Christianity
by JohnBagwell
 Faith & Family
Feb 04, 2012 | 2942 views |  0 comments | 24 24 recommendations | email to a friend | print | permalink











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