Sunday, November 25, 2007
A Play on the Word
This post first appeared on God Vs. Darwin, and is reprinted here, backdated to match the original post on GvD.
***
When I was in South Carolina last week, a very interesting discussion occurred behind the scenes here at GvD. AG suggested to the group that Esther write a guest post for this forum. Dabich readily agreed and once I discovered the proposition, I saw the brilliance of the idea. When I advised her of this discussion, and after the shock of it wore off, she was excited to be asked and thrilled to do it. Scribe had a dissenting vote and Rudy's opinion was never given one way or another. On this forum, at least regarding posting, majority rules. So without further ado:
God versus Darwin.
Hmmmm. . .
From the first moment I read this blog title, I was struck by that little word in the middle - "versus."
It is a daring proposition to think that there is anything in the finite human Darwin on par, "against," or "versus" what we know and have credited to an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent God, but that initial turn of phrase intrigued me.
Versus.
It is still intriguing me, and from here, I write.
I have always been drawn to word plays and puns. Love them.
When I read the Scripture, I languish and meditate over the words. I digest them slowly, and I savor every morsel and bit of sweetness and spice that I can draw out. I not only want the meat off the bone, I want to taste the marrow in the bone.
"Versus" is a word that I am sensing this with on several different levels.
Allow me to enjoy this little word exploration, if you don't mind, and maybe we can find common ground and a blessing from it.
***********************************
"Versus" as defined by The Merriam-Webster Dictionary means "against" or "in contrast or as an alternative to."
Is God really "versus," or against, Darwin?
I would posit to say, No. No, not really.
Some of you are gasping right now realizing that I am a Conservative Christian, and I seem to be saying that God is not opposed to Darwin's Theory of Evolution. No, I'm not saying that, and I'm not going there in this word endeavor either. To tell you the truth, my aim in this word voyage really has nothing to do with proving or disproving Evolution or finding a "plausible" combination of Evolution and Creation.
My objective is to show you something about the word "Versus" that is beautiful, refreshing, and has application to our lives.
God is definitely not against Darwin. Darwin the man, that is, with a need for greater purpose and an eternal connection. With all that God has done for Man as outlined in Scripture, God has never truly been against Man. Sure, God has had moments of anger and frustration when Man has brought consequences on himself by his disobedient actions, but scripture after scripture and story after story tells of God's desire to give Man another chance and to "raise him up" to something better.
Whether you believe the Scripture to be true or not, the essential and well known Gospel Story is that of a Father so desirous of a whole and healed relationship with Man that He turns over His greatest and purest love - His son - for sacrifice. For those of you with children, how many of you love anything more than those children and would be willing to send your child alone to a small tribal village across the world where they practice cannibalism and genocide to let your child die a tortuous death with the mere possibility that the village could be saved from its murderous preferences and desires? Not too many, I would say.
Everything in God cries out "to be with us" not "against" us. The very term Emmanuel, which has so much application at this upcoming Christmas Season, means "God with us."
God wants to be with us. Apparently, God likes us.
Gasp.
Get down to the real and raw essence of what I just said. Ahem (Clearing my throat, that is.). . . In my best New York by way of South Carolina accent: "Whatcha gonna do 'bout it?" The Man Upstairs likes us. He apparently thinks we're pretty special and cool enough to hang out with.
I didn't write the Scriptures. I didn't create the story. I'm just putting in layman's terms what the whole Bible talks about - over and over and repeatedly. The story goes on and on about how God did this and that to show His love, how He visited this or that person to comfort him or her, how He created this or that miracle to prove His love, and how He gave up (sacrificed) this or that - and ultimately His greatest love, His son - to win even ONE back to His arms.
It is so easy to look at the Bible as a list of rules and regulations and dos and don'ts when really the overriding story is of a God who is totally smitten and in love with a bunch of men and women who are pretty egocentric and repeatedly find reasons to doubt and distrust Him and that love.
To reference a recent topic in Scribe's blog: God's got a bad case of unrequited love.
[As a side note: How nice it must be for Him when He does get to experience rekindled love in one of His creation. In Scripture it says that all of Heaven rejoices with Him when one person realizes how much love has been waiting for him or her all along and comes to His arms by trusting in that love.]
Stop pontificating and finding reasons to push God away. God likes us even when we give Him all kinds of reasons NOT to like us. Get over yourself. Get freed up. You're not "all" that, you never will be, and you don't have to be, and guess what? God is totally in love with you, and He has already proven His love for you. Those two previous sentences alone should be liberating in and of themselves.
God loves you with your bed head, bad breath, moodiness, anger, and all. He's just waiting for you to stop throwing up defense mechanisms as to why you don't need His love or don't want His love. Get over it. He already does love you. Accept it and believe it.
God already proved how much He wants to be with us. He let His son take the fall to regain that privilege for us. . . and for Him.
Please get that: GOD HAS DONE WHAT HE HAS DONE AS MUCH FOR HIM AS FOR US. He is madly and passionately in love with us.
God wants to hang out with you and let you get to know Him too. God wants to be known, Guys! Jesus hung on the Cross so we can hang out with God.
Since when do we turn away new friends, let alone one so well connected?
There is no "versus" in God's heart when it comes to His love for us. That love is absolutely and totally pure and paid the highest cost ever.
There really is no God versus Darwin, because, even with his skewed theory, God was madly and utterly in love with Darwin as His creation....
and that's no "monkeying around."
********************************************************
I said I love plays on words, and there's more that I see in the word "versus."
It's really a continuation on the previous theme of God's love and how He wants to "Verse Us."
That play on the word will have to be saved for a Part Two sometime down the line...
***
When I was in South Carolina last week, a very interesting discussion occurred behind the scenes here at GvD. AG suggested to the group that Esther write a guest post for this forum. Dabich readily agreed and once I discovered the proposition, I saw the brilliance of the idea. When I advised her of this discussion, and after the shock of it wore off, she was excited to be asked and thrilled to do it. Scribe had a dissenting vote and Rudy's opinion was never given one way or another. On this forum, at least regarding posting, majority rules. So without further ado:
God versus Darwin.
Hmmmm. . .
From the first moment I read this blog title, I was struck by that little word in the middle - "versus."
It is a daring proposition to think that there is anything in the finite human Darwin on par, "against," or "versus" what we know and have credited to an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent God, but that initial turn of phrase intrigued me.
Versus.
It is still intriguing me, and from here, I write.
I have always been drawn to word plays and puns. Love them.
When I read the Scripture, I languish and meditate over the words. I digest them slowly, and I savor every morsel and bit of sweetness and spice that I can draw out. I not only want the meat off the bone, I want to taste the marrow in the bone.
"Versus" is a word that I am sensing this with on several different levels.
Allow me to enjoy this little word exploration, if you don't mind, and maybe we can find common ground and a blessing from it.
***********************************
"Versus" as defined by The Merriam-Webster Dictionary means "against" or "in contrast or as an alternative to."
Is God really "versus," or against, Darwin?
I would posit to say, No. No, not really.
Some of you are gasping right now realizing that I am a Conservative Christian, and I seem to be saying that God is not opposed to Darwin's Theory of Evolution. No, I'm not saying that, and I'm not going there in this word endeavor either. To tell you the truth, my aim in this word voyage really has nothing to do with proving or disproving Evolution or finding a "plausible" combination of Evolution and Creation.
My objective is to show you something about the word "Versus" that is beautiful, refreshing, and has application to our lives.
God is definitely not against Darwin. Darwin the man, that is, with a need for greater purpose and an eternal connection. With all that God has done for Man as outlined in Scripture, God has never truly been against Man. Sure, God has had moments of anger and frustration when Man has brought consequences on himself by his disobedient actions, but scripture after scripture and story after story tells of God's desire to give Man another chance and to "raise him up" to something better.
Whether you believe the Scripture to be true or not, the essential and well known Gospel Story is that of a Father so desirous of a whole and healed relationship with Man that He turns over His greatest and purest love - His son - for sacrifice. For those of you with children, how many of you love anything more than those children and would be willing to send your child alone to a small tribal village across the world where they practice cannibalism and genocide to let your child die a tortuous death with the mere possibility that the village could be saved from its murderous preferences and desires? Not too many, I would say.
Everything in God cries out "to be with us" not "against" us. The very term Emmanuel, which has so much application at this upcoming Christmas Season, means "God with us."
God wants to be with us. Apparently, God likes us.
Gasp.
Get down to the real and raw essence of what I just said. Ahem (Clearing my throat, that is.). . . In my best New York by way of South Carolina accent: "Whatcha gonna do 'bout it?" The Man Upstairs likes us. He apparently thinks we're pretty special and cool enough to hang out with.
I didn't write the Scriptures. I didn't create the story. I'm just putting in layman's terms what the whole Bible talks about - over and over and repeatedly. The story goes on and on about how God did this and that to show His love, how He visited this or that person to comfort him or her, how He created this or that miracle to prove His love, and how He gave up (sacrificed) this or that - and ultimately His greatest love, His son - to win even ONE back to His arms.
It is so easy to look at the Bible as a list of rules and regulations and dos and don'ts when really the overriding story is of a God who is totally smitten and in love with a bunch of men and women who are pretty egocentric and repeatedly find reasons to doubt and distrust Him and that love.
To reference a recent topic in Scribe's blog: God's got a bad case of unrequited love.
[As a side note: How nice it must be for Him when He does get to experience rekindled love in one of His creation. In Scripture it says that all of Heaven rejoices with Him when one person realizes how much love has been waiting for him or her all along and comes to His arms by trusting in that love.]
Stop pontificating and finding reasons to push God away. God likes us even when we give Him all kinds of reasons NOT to like us. Get over yourself. Get freed up. You're not "all" that, you never will be, and you don't have to be, and guess what? God is totally in love with you, and He has already proven His love for you. Those two previous sentences alone should be liberating in and of themselves.
God loves you with your bed head, bad breath, moodiness, anger, and all. He's just waiting for you to stop throwing up defense mechanisms as to why you don't need His love or don't want His love. Get over it. He already does love you. Accept it and believe it.
God already proved how much He wants to be with us. He let His son take the fall to regain that privilege for us. . . and for Him.
Please get that: GOD HAS DONE WHAT HE HAS DONE AS MUCH FOR HIM AS FOR US. He is madly and passionately in love with us.
God wants to hang out with you and let you get to know Him too. God wants to be known, Guys! Jesus hung on the Cross so we can hang out with God.
Since when do we turn away new friends, let alone one so well connected?
There is no "versus" in God's heart when it comes to His love for us. That love is absolutely and totally pure and paid the highest cost ever.
There really is no God versus Darwin, because, even with his skewed theory, God was madly and utterly in love with Darwin as His creation....
and that's no "monkeying around."
********************************************************
I said I love plays on words, and there's more that I see in the word "versus."
It's really a continuation on the previous theme of God's love and how He wants to "Verse Us."
That play on the word will have to be saved for a Part Two sometime down the line...
Labels: Esther, guest poster
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