CADRE Comments

[Note: The contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, Chapter 55, can be found here. ] [This entry constitutes Chapter 56.] It's only fair--isn't it? God will intentionally set Himself up, to be rejected by all His people: by His special chosen who carried His light, and by His other children who perhaps have been doing the best they can with what they have. Not only those who we might consider desperately evil will reject Him, but those we would be inclined to consider the very best. For even the best of us have sinned, abusing the grace of God Most High. He will have done plenty of things, to show He is good; but He will also give them just enough rope to hang Him, if they want to--on His own timing, if not theirs. And the unjust of this world--very likely even some of the (relatively) just ones who just don't understand!--will want to hang Him. The unjust of any worlds intersecting this one, will certainly want to hang Him, too. Why, you ask, w...

[Note: The contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, Chapter 54, can be found here. ] [This entry constitutes Chapter 55.] I have no clear idea of how this Child would think, as He grows into manhood. God will have poured Himself out, continuing to enact His own specific part in the story of humanity. We might say the finger of God will be gently touching the earth; a mere hum of His voice; a finite trickle out of the river of His eternity. I can only use metaphors, and I am well aware of the problems involved in imagining this accurately--which, I am also well aware, is likely to prove a stumbling block for an honest sceptic. But I appeal to the reasonableness of what I have said before. I am quite sure God exists, and has particular characteristics including a particular personal character. I am quite sure of my own sin and corrupted character. And I am reasonably sure of how this all fits together. Consequently, I am quite sure that sooner or later, God ...

It is the question that has derailed more than one well-meaning Internet apologist. Skipping along the vast digital superhighway, our hero, the intrepid Internet apologist, cruises from atheist bulletin board to skeptical blog responding to the all too common ill-informed objections to the historicity of Jesus or the existence of God. Suddenly, he runs into the incensed atheist (the second most common of the breed next to the loud-mouthed boor) who says something akin to what this forgotten atheist on some forgettable infidel bulletin board said: The whole idea that anyone who doesn't ascribe to belief not only in a higher power, BUT in this one particular 'God' over all others, when there is no real evidence that this god is right or the others wrong, would go to hell for eternity...this whole idea just seems to me idiotic. Like not only atheists, but all Hitler's Jewish victims would be in hell, Gandhi and the Dali Lama in hell......but Ted Bundy could say "I...

Introductory note from Jason Pratt: see here for the previous entry; and see here for the first entry of the series. (It explains what I'm doing, and how, and contains the Johannine prologue.) The GosLuke incidents reported in this chapter had no specific time/place tags--Luke implies very generally, by putting them where he does, that they happen during Jesus' final tour of Galilee on the way back to Jerusalem to die. Which still fits the general timeframe I am assigning them here; but since Luke isn't more explicit about the linkages, I've ported them over to fill a chapter while Jesus and His disciples are on the way north into Syria from Jerusalem. Plus, if crowds are following Jesus after the spats He recently had, with Pharisee disciples/supporters of His bowing out--and with His knowledge of where He's going, which soon becomes a key topic in preparing His disciples--then I can easily imagine Him nipping the crowd's enthusiasms by implicitly comparing ...

Introductory note from Jason Pratt: see here for the previous entry; and see here for the first entry of the series. (It explains what I'm doing, and how, and contains the Johannine prologue.) This entry is the second part of what would be one of the longest chapters in a book. The Greater Condemnations (Part 2 of 2) -- 2 days until the end Now as He was sitting on the Mount of Olives (probably later that night while they were camping in the groves), the disciples Peter and James and John and Andrew privately came to Him, saying, "Tell us... when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your arrival [on the throne], and of the finishing of all things of the age?" And Jesus began to say to them in answer: "Be sure that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Anointed King', and 'The time is at hand!'--and will mislead many. "And you will be hearing of wars, and rumors of wars--be sure that you are not frig...

Introductory note from Jason Pratt: see here for the previous entry; and see here for the first entry of the series. (It explains what I'm doing, and how, and contains the Johannine prologue.) Be aware, this is an especially long entry. Lawyers and Second Comings (8 and 7 days until the end...) Now it happened that when Jesus finished these declarations (says the Disciple, seconded by the Follower, meaning the teaching on forgiveness seven times and seventy-times-and-seven, while back in Capernaum before the final mission-tour to Jerusalem had begun), He got up and went from Galilee; (eventually) coming into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan (past Jericho, east of Jerusalem 20 miles or more). Now the Passover of the Jews was near (the Evangelist says, taking his turn of the story for a moment), and many went up out of the countryside into Jerusalem before the Passover, in order to purify themselves (in the week before the Night itself). So they sought Jesus, and they said as ...