What do you think about angels? Any Christian will tell you that they exist. Some may have a story that they've heard or read about involving somebody seeing an angel. Do you believe that angels are still at work today? More importantly, do you believe that angels are still at work today for you? Personally, I hardly think about angels and am not as educated on the subject as I'd like to be. I believe that there is spiritual warfare going on all around me, but I rarely think about it affecting my life.
In Acts 12, Peter is in jail and the church is earnestly praying for him (verse 5). When is the last time you or I earnestly prayed for anything? What does earnestly even mean? Well good thing you asked, because I looked it up! Earnestly means serious in intention, purpose or effort. Another definition is showing depth and sincerity of feeling. If I am honest with myself, I can't recall the last time I was that serious about a prayer. Anyways, back to the story. An angel came to Peter and broke him out of jail. The angel vanished and Peter went to a house where people had gathered to pray for him. He knocked on the door and a servant girl recognized his voice and ran to the others to tell them Peter was at the door. Now look at their response in verse 15, "You're out of your mind," they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, "It must be his angel."
This strikes me as a very odd reaction to what is going on. The people had enough faith to believe that Peter's angel was at the door, but could not fathom Peter being at the door. Because the people were earnestly praying, they fully believed that God would send an angel for Peter. Notice that nobody jumped up and ran to the door to see what an angel looks like. The next verse actually says that Peter kept knocking. Everybody kept going about their business when they assumed that there was an angel outside of their door. The mood I get from this story is that they are treating an angel of the Lord like the next door neighbor needing a cup of sugar. The only justification for this response that I can think of is that angels were very common for the early believers. Everybody at that house probably had seen angels at work in their lives.
What about us? Why aren't their more stories about angels doing miraculous things in our lives? Do we not pray earnest enough? Do we not have enough faith? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I would love to be able to have an experience of my own about angels. If you have a personal story about angels or can point me to some good passages in the Bible on how and when angels work, please share them with me! This kind of stuff intrigues me and I would like to be more educated on the topic.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Fun with Math
I read this concept in a book that I had to read for school, and have been meaning to share it with you all for about a week. Pascal was a mathematician from the 1600s that discovered that it was a wise and correct decision to become a Christian. He believed his theory so much that he disgarded his math and science background and became a theologian for the rest of his days. Pascal used what is called probability theory to justify his choice to become a Christian and theologian.
For those of you who don't know/don't care about probability theory, let me try to explain it to you. Suppose you have a choice between two envelopes (A and B). In envelope A, there is 10 dollars and in envelope B there is 100 dollars. Your job is to choose an envelope and then a coin will be flipped. The two sides of the coin represents the two evelopes, heads for A and tails for B. If you chose the envelope that the coin represents, you get to keep the money. Understand so far? Now there are four outcomes to this little game. 1. The coin lands on heads and you chose envelope A. 2. The coin lands on heads and you chose envelope B. 3. The coin lands on tails and you chose envelope A. 4. The coin lands on tails and you chose envelope B.
Probability theory calculates the expected money that you could get. That is, since there is 10 dollars in envelope A and the chances of the coin landing on heads is 50%, the expected amount of money for this choice is 5 dollars. Likewise, since there is 100 dollars in envelope B and the same chances, the expected amount of money for this choice is 50 dollars. Since the expected value of envelope B is much greater than envelope A, the correct choice in this game is envelope B. Now most of you probably used your intuition to choose envelope B and didn't even think about the expected values, but that is the mathematical explanation of your intuition.
So lets take our little game and use it with Christianity. So we have two separate conditions: either you are a believer or a non-believer, and either Jesus saves us from hell and believers go to heaven, or heaven and hell don't exist. Once again, there are four outcomes. 1. You are a believer and you go to heaven. 2. You are a believer and heaven doesn't exist, so nothing happens. 3. You are not a believer and you go to hell. 4. You are not a believer and hell doesn't exist, so nothing happens. Pascal assigned a numerical value of infinity to heaven because heaven is eternal bliss with Jesus and he assigned a numerical value of negative infinity to hell because it is eternal damnation. So in his probability theory he assumed the chances of there being a God and Jesus coming down to save us was 50-50. It looked something like this:
Believers:
God exists (50%) and you go to heaven: 50% of infinity=infinity.
God doesn't exist (50%) and nothing happens: 50% of 0=0.
So the expected value of being a believer is infinity + 0, which is infinity.
Non-Believers:
God exists (50%) and you go to hell: 50% of negative infinity=negative infinity.
God doesn't exist (50%) and nothing happens: 50% of 0= 0.
So the expected value of being a non-believer is negative infinity + 0, which is negative infinity.
We don't know the exact probability that God exists, but by using the properties of infinity and zero, you can see that those percentages do not matter. Say there is a 20% chance that God exists, 20% of infinity is still infinity! Say there is a 0.00001% chance that God exists....still infinity. The only way this does not make since is if there is a 0% chance that God does not exist. In math, you cannot do 0 x infinity, its gibberish. Since nobody on this earth can prove that there is a 0% chance that God exists, I'm siding with my old friend Pascal on this one and living my life for Jesus.
I hope this made a little bit of sense to you because I found it to be very profound and interesting.
For those of you who don't know/don't care about probability theory, let me try to explain it to you. Suppose you have a choice between two envelopes (A and B). In envelope A, there is 10 dollars and in envelope B there is 100 dollars. Your job is to choose an envelope and then a coin will be flipped. The two sides of the coin represents the two evelopes, heads for A and tails for B. If you chose the envelope that the coin represents, you get to keep the money. Understand so far? Now there are four outcomes to this little game. 1. The coin lands on heads and you chose envelope A. 2. The coin lands on heads and you chose envelope B. 3. The coin lands on tails and you chose envelope A. 4. The coin lands on tails and you chose envelope B.
Probability theory calculates the expected money that you could get. That is, since there is 10 dollars in envelope A and the chances of the coin landing on heads is 50%, the expected amount of money for this choice is 5 dollars. Likewise, since there is 100 dollars in envelope B and the same chances, the expected amount of money for this choice is 50 dollars. Since the expected value of envelope B is much greater than envelope A, the correct choice in this game is envelope B. Now most of you probably used your intuition to choose envelope B and didn't even think about the expected values, but that is the mathematical explanation of your intuition.
So lets take our little game and use it with Christianity. So we have two separate conditions: either you are a believer or a non-believer, and either Jesus saves us from hell and believers go to heaven, or heaven and hell don't exist. Once again, there are four outcomes. 1. You are a believer and you go to heaven. 2. You are a believer and heaven doesn't exist, so nothing happens. 3. You are not a believer and you go to hell. 4. You are not a believer and hell doesn't exist, so nothing happens. Pascal assigned a numerical value of infinity to heaven because heaven is eternal bliss with Jesus and he assigned a numerical value of negative infinity to hell because it is eternal damnation. So in his probability theory he assumed the chances of there being a God and Jesus coming down to save us was 50-50. It looked something like this:
Believers:
God exists (50%) and you go to heaven: 50% of infinity=infinity.
God doesn't exist (50%) and nothing happens: 50% of 0=0.
So the expected value of being a believer is infinity + 0, which is infinity.
Non-Believers:
God exists (50%) and you go to hell: 50% of negative infinity=negative infinity.
God doesn't exist (50%) and nothing happens: 50% of 0= 0.
So the expected value of being a non-believer is negative infinity + 0, which is negative infinity.
We don't know the exact probability that God exists, but by using the properties of infinity and zero, you can see that those percentages do not matter. Say there is a 20% chance that God exists, 20% of infinity is still infinity! Say there is a 0.00001% chance that God exists....still infinity. The only way this does not make since is if there is a 0% chance that God does not exist. In math, you cannot do 0 x infinity, its gibberish. Since nobody on this earth can prove that there is a 0% chance that God exists, I'm siding with my old friend Pascal on this one and living my life for Jesus.
I hope this made a little bit of sense to you because I found it to be very profound and interesting.
Monday, October 5, 2009
A little bit more...
A new friend in my community group shared this concept with us and I feel that it is worth repeating.
In God's infinite wisdom, he has created us just the way we are supposed to be. We, being filthy and sinful, take what God has meant for good and make it bad. One of these things is the desire to have just a little bit more than what we already have.
This desire was most evident in my sexuality. As a teenage boy, I remember sinfully lusting after the female body. Most guys can remember a time in their life when they have struggled with the same thing. My lust was not quenched unless I saw a little bit more than what I had previously seen. No matter how deep down the rabbit hole I ventured, I always seemed to want just a little bit more.
Another way we perverse this idea is with materialism. We have all wanted bigger and better than what we possess. We want a little bit more money, time, clothes, etc. It is so hard for us to be content with what God has given us.
While this concept of wanting a little bit more may be seen as sinful, I'd like to argue that it is the way God made us! We, as sinners, have turned this into a sinful thing. I challenge you to use this longing of wanting more to glorify God.
I believe that God has given us this longing to use it on His Word. The Bible contains more information than any human can consume in their lifetime. There has never been a Biblical scholar that finishes studying the Bible. Everytime we open the Bible we should be getting a little bit more out of it than when we last read it. This is what I believe God intended.
My prayer is that we want a little bit more time with God each day and we use a little bit more time to advance His kingdom.
In God's infinite wisdom, he has created us just the way we are supposed to be. We, being filthy and sinful, take what God has meant for good and make it bad. One of these things is the desire to have just a little bit more than what we already have.
This desire was most evident in my sexuality. As a teenage boy, I remember sinfully lusting after the female body. Most guys can remember a time in their life when they have struggled with the same thing. My lust was not quenched unless I saw a little bit more than what I had previously seen. No matter how deep down the rabbit hole I ventured, I always seemed to want just a little bit more.
Another way we perverse this idea is with materialism. We have all wanted bigger and better than what we possess. We want a little bit more money, time, clothes, etc. It is so hard for us to be content with what God has given us.
While this concept of wanting a little bit more may be seen as sinful, I'd like to argue that it is the way God made us! We, as sinners, have turned this into a sinful thing. I challenge you to use this longing of wanting more to glorify God.
I believe that God has given us this longing to use it on His Word. The Bible contains more information than any human can consume in their lifetime. There has never been a Biblical scholar that finishes studying the Bible. Everytime we open the Bible we should be getting a little bit more out of it than when we last read it. This is what I believe God intended.
My prayer is that we want a little bit more time with God each day and we use a little bit more time to advance His kingdom.
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