Author: HV Voogd

The Edict of Intolerance

OKCupid Mozilla
A wise man once said, “All we know from history is that we don’t know from history.” In AD 311 emperors Constantine and Galerius signed an edict of toleration ending the persecution of Christians. The other religions were not done away with, but Christianity was allowed into the pluralistic worldview of the time.

The agenda of this edict was not to usher in some golden age of toleration. It was a transitional time where one worldview was replaced by another. The pluralistic worldview was being replaced by the Christian worldview. The time of tolerance was only temporary.

Today in the west we see something similar going on. One worldview is being replaced by another. All this talk of tolerance is, again, just a temporary time of transition. Anyone who thinks that this time of tolerance is a permanent thing is fooling themselves. In fact, the time of tolerance has already passed, and the incident with Mozilla shows that.

With Mozilla you have a situation where a man holds to traditional beliefs and he was punished for it. He was punished because his beliefs don’t conform to the new worldview.

Some would say that the Mozilla incident is simply the free market working as it should. That is true, but it is only true as a secondary issue, it is only true because of everything I mentioned above. In a true free market capitalist system no one would care what the CEO’s personal beliefs were. They would only care about how much money he could make the company.

As a Christian I am not tolerant. I don’t defend tolerance and I stand for what I believe in. I am very intolerant regarding abortion for example; in fact I am guilty of hate crime when it comes to abortion. That does not mean I am going to go around planting bombs in abortion clinics or anything–I have no desire to hurt anyone. But, if possible, I won’t support a business, or a politician, or a special interest group that supports abortion.

If, in this day and age, a CEO is punished for not celebrating gay marriage, so be it. But don’t tell me that is tolerance–that would be akin to doing something like pissing on my leg and telling me it’s raining.

image credit:
http://mashable.com/2014/04/03/mozilla-ceo-steps-down/

The Morning Bike Ride

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The heat in Poipet these days is so intense that it penetrates everything. I put my hand on my laptop and worry about the heat it’s giving off, but then put my hand on the desk’s surface to discover it’s radiating the same amount of heat. The brick walls project heat. The feverish wooden doors. Lying on the couch is like dipping into a sauna. My pillow feels like bread freshly taken from the oven. Heated toilet seats are overrated.

So, the favorite part of my day has become the early morning just after the sun comes up and hasn’t had a chance to infiltrate anything yet. This is when I can jump on my mountain bike and hit some trails before our students start showing up for school at 6:30.

I live on the northern edge of the city so I don’t have to go far to be in the bush. Once the rainy season really kicks in I’ll probably be forced to head south onto the city’s pavement. But as long as it stays dry I’ll keep riding on what was not too long ago Khmer Rouge mine fields.

Here are some pictures…

Once a mine field, this land is now cleared and is sectioned off for future sale. Soon it will be full of houses and shops.
Once a mine field, this land is now cleared and is sectioned off for future sale. Soon it will be full of houses and shops.
Once off the roads, it’s easy to find some small trails used by the locals on their motorbikes.
Once off the roads, it’s easy to find some small trails used by the locals on their motorbikes.
No shortage of cellular towers in this country. Cambodia is the first nation in the world to have more cell phones than land-line phones.
No shortage of cellular towers in this country. Cambodia is the first nation in the world to have more cell phones than land-line phones.
It’s beautiful and peaceful.
It’s beautiful and peaceful.
I carry a retractable baton with me. Not to use on people, but on dogs. It’s not unusual to be riding along and have four or five dogs spring out of the bush with teeth flaring. They usually stay back, but if they do get too close I have the means to put the fear of man into them.
I carry a retractable baton with me. Not to use on people, but on dogs. It’s not unusual to be riding along and have four or five dogs spring out of the bush with teeth flaring. They usually stay back, but if they do get too close I have the means to put the fear of man into them.

No Bad Trees in the Garden

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God put two special trees in the garden. The “Tree of Life” and the “Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.” Adam was allowed to eat of any tree as much as he wanted, but he could not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Why then did God put that tree in the garden? Some would say, “Well, God wanted to give Adam free will and the ability to choose to be evil. And, God wanted to know if Adam really loved Him, and He couldn’t have known that unless Adam had a choice to not love Him.”

That’s a good Sunday school answer, but it makes God sound like somebody’s insecure girlfriend. “Adam, sometimes I just don’t know if you love me anymore!” Also, if that reason is the only reason, then the tree could have simply been called the “Tree of the knowledge of Evil” since Adam already knew good–in fact, that’s all he knew.

But the tree was called the knowledge of good and evil. Perhaps a better way to say it would be “the tree of being able to discern the difference between good and evil.” Being able to discern the difference between good and evil is called wisdom. If we could only choose a select few in our societies to have this wisdom, who would we choose? Our leaders of course.

In Canada, our leaders have declared that gay marriage and abortion are good things. They have lost their ability to discern the difference between good and evil. What is clearly a hateful thing in God’s eyes has been declared a “right to happiness” in our government’s eyes.

In the bible you will see that the great kings and leaders were also great judges. Solomon was known among the nations for his wisdom, a wisdom that allowed him to discern good from evil. The whole book of Proverbs is a laying out of what is good and what is evil. At the beginning of the book of Judges, we see that everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes. That’s why God sent in the judges–to discern good from evil. When ever a king lost this wisdom, the whole nation suffered.

Nebuchadnezzar was a great king. In his vision of the statue he was the head of gold–the greatest of all the empires to follow. He had another vision where he was a great tree. All the peoples took shade under his branches. What was that tree in his vision? It was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The wisdom to discern good from evil is given to kings.

It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
~Proverbs 25:2

You’ll notice that with the Old Covenant (the law and the Mosaic priesthood) it was all about bread. The bread of life. But when Jesus came to establish the New Covenant He added something more: wine. And while the bread stayed, the emphasis was placed on the wine.

And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.”
~Luke 22:19-20

He said the cup was the New Covenant, not the bread. Wine is a symbol of maturity. It takes time to prepare good wine. And while you can give a child plenty of bread, you won’t give him wine. The bread of life and the wine of maturity. The Old Covenant (the bread) prepared the way, and Jesus (the wine) brought the covenant to maturity. Jesus is King.

Back to the garden. The tree of life was the bread. The tree of knowledge of good and evil was the wine. Adam was called to be king. But he was not ready to be king right at the beginning. He needed to mature first. If Adam had obeyed God, the time would have come where God would have said, “Adam, you are ready to be king. You may now eat of the tree of knowledge.” But instead, Adam took a short cut, and in doing so forfeited his ability to eat of both trees.

Jesus Christ was called to be king also. When He was tempted in the desert by Satan, He was being tempted to take a short cut. Satan offered Him all the nations. Did Satan have the ability to give Jesus the nations? Absolutely. Satan had authority over all the nations except Israel. But Jesus did not give in. Instead, He bound the strong man and took the authority from Satan through His death and resurrection.

Jesus is the second Adam. Where Adam fell short, Jesus conquered. And now, we who believe, can rule as kings with Him, being brought into maturity by His blood.

Speaking in Tongues

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Here is one of the best explanations of tongues I’ve heard…

I can think of at least one or two instances in my own life where, as I was praying, I was wanting to fully express my strong emotions to God about a particular troubling issue I was dealing with at the time. And, when words failed me, I resorted to unintelligible sounds. And, I believe God heard that, and of course knew what was being expressed from my heart. He knew it before I opened my mouth.

But as I reflect on those times, I know that I was not speaking in some angelic or heavenly language. Also, I think that if I would have opened up the bible to the book of Psalms, and began praying scripture, I would have been able to more fully express myself, and would have walked away from that being more satisfied knowing that God had heard my prayer and understood what was in my heart.

Scripture is always better.