Saturday, August 30, 2008

Odds n’ Ends 10

1). Most Ambitious Science Experiment of "All-Time" to Take Place on September 10th by CERN. (Report from K-House ENews dated Aug. 26, 2008.) "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.." - Hebrews 11:3

Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there. In this case, "it" is what physicists call "dark matter." They can't see it, they can't measure it (at least not directly), and they don't know what it is made of. Yet scientists believe it constitutes over 90 percent of all the matter in the universe.

In an ambitious undertaking, scientists from all over the globe have come together to build the world's largest particle accelerator. The CERN Large Hadron Collider is perhaps the most ambitious science experiment of all time, with it scientists hope to finally uncover the secrets of dark matter and the so-called "god particle". Together these two mysteries represent the holy grail of astronomy and physics…


 

The Big Bang Experiment

Physicists hope CERN's Large Hadron Collider will shed even more light on dark matter, dark energy, the existence of extra dimensions, and the fundamental nature of matter, energy, space and time. Various tests are taking place this week in preparation for the official launch on September 10th. The media has labeled the project as the "Big Bang" experiment, and BBC radio has dubbed the 10th as "Big Bang Day."

The Large Hadron Collider is a 10 billion dollar, 17-mile circular tunnel, which spans the border between Switzerland and France. The massive underground laboratory took ten years to build and the project involves more than 8,000 scientists from at least 85 countries. The scientific community believes the collider will one day help them unlock the some of the best kept secrets in the universe. Until then, they must continue to trust in things unseen…


 

2). This Pill Will Change Your Life. http://www.popsci.com/stuart-fox/gallery/2008-08/pill-will-change-your-life. Popular Science magazine has a list of 6 Pills that may soon change our lives:


 

  • Cancer Vaccine Pill;
    Rather than designing a drug to cure cancer, current research focuses on developing drugs to help the body fight cancer itself. Cancer vaccines would boost the body's own natural immune response so that naturally produced antibodies would attack the cancer cells and cure the disease. Currently, researchers have only tested the vaccine with melanoma [left], and the treatment still requires that the cancer fighting immune cells are altered in the lab and then returned to the body. However, once researchers figure out how to change the immune cells in vivo, it would only take a pill or a shot to get the body killing cancer for itself.
  • Male Birth Control Pill;
  • Anti-Addiction Pill;
  • Exercise Pill;
  • Anti-Aging Pill;
  • Smart Pill.


 

3). Uh oh, I better watch out! Alabama to place a 'Fat Tax' on state employees. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2008/08/alabama-places.html. Alabama officials are warning state employees to shape up or pay more for health insurance.


 

On Friday, the State Employees' Insurance Board announced a new plan beginning next year in which state employees will be required to receive medication screenings for several conditions, including body mass index. Those considered obese or who have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or high glucose will have to pay $25 a month more in health insurance beginning in January 2011, if they don't take steps to address their health problems.


 

4). A Baby born in Israel Comes Back to Life After Pronounced Dead, and Placed in a Cooler for 5 Hours. http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSLI23405020080823?feedType=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews&rpc=69. JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A stillborn Israeli baby who was pronounced dead by doctors "came back to life" on Monday after spending hours in a hospital refrigerator.


 

The baby, weighing only 600 grams at birth, spent at least five hours inside one of the hospital's refrigerated storage units, before her parents, who had taken her to be buried, began noticing some movement.


 


 

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Community Bible Study – in Lakeville

In case you are looking for a Bible Study that starts up this September, and that is also south of the river, will you consider the Community Bible Study course in Lakeville? It will be held Monday evenings at Trinity Evangelical Free Church in Lakeville. And the Teacher will be former BSF Teaching Leader Galen Watje, who is terrific. To register, check out the CBS website at: http://www.communitybiblestudy.org/classes_and_courses.aspx;


 

I am going away to a friend's cabin for a long weekend with friends, and away from my family. Have a great weekend!


 

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Darwinism’s Fairytales

I'm done with my 'Surprise Me, God' experiment. I enjoyed trying something new. And it has helped me to see that I have to be more focused on the people around me, and to see what opportunities there are to enjoy and help them. But I've decided that my summer vacation is over – it's back to contending for the faith!


 

Which leads me to today's post, Darwinism's Fairytales. It seems incredible to me that perfectly intelligent people around us believe that life created itself – that the inanimate (i.e., non-living) became animate and living. More specifically, Darwinists believe that rock, water and lightning created a chain of events that led to Beethoven, Michelangelo, and Michael Phelps. Can random events and random forces really create something that is so obviously designed?


 

Of course not, and this is why I have entitled this post "Darwinism's Fairytales". Christians believe in the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ from the dead. We believe in the miracle of Jesus using 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish to feed 5,000 people (Mark 6:30). Yes, we believe in God controlling all of the natural forces on Earth, so that Jesus can calm a storm, and walk on water. Yes, these are amazing, miraculous events that the authors of the Bible understood were hard to believe. Yet they wrote them anyway, and after the Resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, Christianity still spread to consume the world, despite the persecution brought against it. How could so many people accept the fantastic stories of Jesus' life written by the eyewitnesses who studied under Him? The answer is because it is true.


 

Yet, many people in America today dismiss out of hand the miracles in the Bible, yet have faith in the story told in science classes throughout the country: that life formed through chance, and that that life grew more and more complex until people like Beethoven, Michelangelo and Michael Phelps walked the Earth. Why is this any easier to believe than the miracles reported in the Bible?


 

So let me start by describing a walk in the forest where we see two things around us on our walk (btw, our walk is on a great, beautiful, glorious day like it is today in Minnesota) – first we see a tree haven fallen in the forest, with burn marks around the jagged spot where the tree separated from its trunk. Then we walk by a stream where there are a great deal of sticks and chewed tree branches gathered together, mostly facing one way, and behind this pile of sticks the water is dammed up. We easily conclude one of these events was "designed" by something intelligent, while the other was the product of natural forces. Yes, the tree fallen in the forest appears to be caused by the natural forces of a lightning strike. While the sticks damming up the stream was the product of an intelligent force (a beaver) acting to create a beaver dam in the water. One was caused by natural forces, while the other was intelligently designed.


 

And so, can we use this example to see if life on Earth was designed? Let me use DNA as the starting point. Even the simplest living / reproducing cell has DNA. DNA is a large protein molecule. It contains the instructions for making the proteins, RNA and everything else in the cell. DNA has the instructions for the development of all life. DNA is complex, but is has something more than mere complexity - it has meaningful complexity. Similar to our understanding that a beaver dam is designed, while a fallen tree is not, isn't it obvious that DNA which has the instructions for the making of life itself is also designed? Why have we lost our way in America for understanding that life is the product of design?


 

Give me the miracles of the Bible anytime! It feels good to be back. I hope that you are able to enjoy these last few weeks of summer. May God bless you and your families this week.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Surprise Me God, Update #4

Hey everyone,


 

Not much to report here in Wolff house during the Dog days of summer. Our oldest two girls are off with friends at a sleep-over, and they will get to go horseback riding. We have the new Wii Fit game (thanks NaNa), and the kids are using it consistently, which is nice to see. Exercise and fun? Crazy idea, huh?


 

Well, here is my short and sweet update on praying 'Surprise me, God' over the last few weeks – I think I am becoming a better listener, to both people and God. For example, this past Tuesday or Wednesday I had lunch with my bride. Now this was the height of the Brett Favre mania on TV, and the restaurant had the ESPN news reports flashing all-over the screen. And it was an effort, but I gave my wife my attention. She needed some time to talk with me, and tell me some of the plans she has, and it was great.


 

A second example was a new Client who is both blind and deaf. Now this would normally seem like an insurmountable hurdle for me, but he called me and wanted me to come over and visit and I did. Our meeting was a little comical. But I did see someone who needed a new friend in his life. So I hope to make my new Client's home a place where I become a regular visitor.


 

Finally, the Word of God is fresh and new, and I am feeling like I am getting more help from the Holy Spirit, especially over the past few weeks. It's fun to have issues I am debating (in my own mind - J), and to have the answer clearly given to me, though I literally have read this same verse a number of times before. For example, I still think about the topic of how much of our own effort or work Christians need to put in to grow in righteousness. And though I have read Romans 9:30-32, many times before, this morning it jumped out to me, righteousness comes through faith, not by working at it. And then I also came across John 6:28-29, which repeated the same thought: Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" 29 Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." So I am spending more time in the Bible, enjoying it more, and having the blessing of God's Holy Spirit open it up to me more than it has in years.


 

So why do I think God is speaking to me now more than before I started my "Surprise me God" experiment? My quick answer is that before I spent too much time in my thoughts thinking about crafting the perfect arguments to persuade my atheist / unsaved friends. And things I read were also designed to help me in making the perfect "Tom" argument against unbelief. And so I see now that this is wasted effort. So I've given up much of my argument crafting reading / thinking, and replaced it with thinking about God's Word. I think this is the way I need to be fixing my eyes on Jesus, rather than on my own efforts, but I'll need more assurance of this before I abandon it altogether. So that's what's going on in my faith walk this week. I hope anyone visiting my Blog is also being blessed by God in whatever ways they are seeking and walking with Him. I pray this for you in the name and righteousness of Jesus, Amen.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Surprise Me Update #3

It's a very Big God we worship. A much bigger God than I can see right now. While it's tough for me to talk about such a great God, especially because we are going through a tough time right now (financially), but I am going to write about this Big God anyway - because it is true, and because it is the foundation for my life. But let me start this post by writing more about the 'Surprise Me' experiment:


 

God helped me this past week praying with someone and for someone who are both precious to me, but it is too private to speak of. But God surprised me with the prayer anyway. I wanted to pray one thing, but it seemed as though God changed my prayer to pray for what He was going to do.


 

What has me writing me about our Big God is that this morning was one of those times when I received a clearer view of God. I started out the morning thinking I would write a devotion to the Men's Group I'm in, and write about what one of those Bible issues I was wrestling with – the issue involves what Commands of Jesus are we to obey to be "in" with Him? Jesus tells us that if we love Him, than we will obey His Commands (John 14:15). But what Commands should we obey? Does Jesus just want us to love one another, and if we have this one down we are "abiding" in Him? I was all set to show all of the verses that emphasize loving one another as the centerpiece of keeping Jesus' Commands.


 

But this is where God surprised me. I read the 'New Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge' entry for 1 John 2:3, and I realized I may be verging on allowing cheap Grace into my life. There is a heresy of antinomianism in Christiandom today – The problem is this, we cannot lessen our obligation to obey God just because we are saved by grace alone. I trusted in God's Grace to remove ALL of my obligations to obey Jesus' Commands, and my seeing all of Jesus' Commands in one place helped me to see this. Anyway, after studying this Note in the New Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge, I realized there are dozens (perhaps over a hundred?) of Jesus' Commands that I need to follow to show my love to Jesus. It's so much more than just 'loving others' that followers of Christ need to do. I am humbled by how God keeps opening my eyes to errors in my thinking, and understanding of His Word. What does Jesus command us to do? Jesus demands it all, and I'm not feeling quite up to this today. Praise God that my salvation does not depend upon my efforts!


 

One more quick story to share. Yesterday I was having lunch at Sam's Club, and it was very crowded, when a woman asked if she could sit with me. I invited to have her sit with me, and I sent up a quick prayer 'OK, God is this an answer to my 'Surprise Me' prayer? Help me, guide me in our conversation'. She was a heavy set woman who was 61 years old – I knew this because I mentioned I was there to buy flowers for my Mom's birthday. She seemed to be focused on money things, she told me I could buy cheaper flowers at Aldi's, and talked about how cheap the pizza was here at Sam's Club, etc.. Then she mentioned that some friends said she looked like a Psychic on TV. I missed an opportunity to go further into this strange statement, and instead I talked about her grandchildren that she helps take care of, trying to encourage her. And we also spoke of the hot weather (I know original wasn't I?). And then I left. It was a nice conversation, but I left feeling like I missed an opportunity.


 

So that's my quick update. I pray all is well with you and your families. In Christ, /s/Tom.