Monday, September 29, 2008

Short Night. Alternate Title: Freedom

Last night was quite a short night. I was asleep by, oh ... about 4:30 am. I woke up at 8:00, asked myself if I was nuts, turned over and went back to sleep. But, by 9:30, I had a shivering dog (trying not to wake me up because she needed to go outside) and I knew that I had things to do today. However, looking at the clock, it's taken me nearly an hour to wake up enough to do anything productive.

I started to write a blog last night on 'Banned Books Week.' At some point, I realized that I have difficulty writing a blog about things that inflame me so as to stir others up. You won't catch me writing political blogs or issues based blogs. It seems that every time I do that, I tick someone off and end up in a passionate argument with them and that just stresses me out. It's not that I won't argue my point (most of you know I will), but you will find that I do that in speech rather than the written word. That way, the words tend to dissipate quickly.

But, I am passionate about freedoms and banning books falls in line with a lot of other freedoms that seem to fade away the older this country gets. I tend to keep my mouth shut about a lot of this, because I also believe that everyone has the freedom to have an opinion, even when they disagree with me.

I think that basic freedoms are not only granted to us by this country, but we are also given an assurance of freedom as Christians. We are given the freedom to not be bound up by a legalistic Christian society, we are given the freedom to learn about God in ways that might seem strange to those around us.

I am trying to keep an open mind about my nephew attending a Bible college. You see, one of the things that I try to do when I teach is make information available to those who are learning from me. I hate the idea of choosing a side and then teaching only the information that will prove that side of the topic. It is important to me that those who are in the initial stages of learning the things of God be taught to hunt for the truth themselves, not just be indoctrinated into a belief structure.

I don't think I'm making my thoughts very coherent here. I guess I'm still trying to formulate them into words and I'm probably jumping the gun with this blog. Sorry 'bout that!

I can't emphasize enough the importance of studying scripture for the Christian or even the Christian-searcher. The Bible offers freedom, not bondage. The older I've gotten, the more that makes sense to me. I'm frightened when I watch people allow their spiritual leaders to do all of the learning and studying for them. Christians through the centuries have allowed themselves to be caught up into terrible things because they allow a leader to interpret the things of God.

For all of this, I take the ideals of the Bereans very closely (the original Bereans, not necessarily the Bereans of the 20th/21st Century). Read about them in Acts 17:11.

The say that power comes from information. So does freedom. Know why you believe. Know why you act. Know why you trust.

Hmmm ... I only hope that the random thoughts of this blog will stir random thoughts in your own mind.

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