The Bell-Shaped Curve

 

Have you ever run into a person who is so mistakenly smug he can’t seem to grasp that he is a sinner or, at the other extreme, one who feels that he is such a terrible sinner that surely God would have nothing to do with him?  Perhaps what follows will help you reach them with the truth.

 

One day, soon after I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I was reading 1^st John, chapter 1, in preparation for a Bible study being led by a friend.  As I read verse 8, I had a subtle prodding inside which I have subsequently learned to recognize as the Holy Spirit’s gentle voice.  I tried to ignore it, and read on.  But it was too persistent to ignore, so, with some hesitation, I returned to the passage.  Truthfully, I was wondering whether I’d get the message or even if there was one there to get.  I read verse 8 several times to no avail.  Then I came to my senses and prayed to God that I believed He had a message for me, and if so, would He please open my eyes to see it?  As soon as I finished that prayer, I had a thought!  My background includes some statistics, and I could see the following picture of mankind:

In statistics, this is known as a “bell-shaped curve” because it looks like a bell viewed from the side.  The concept is really quite simple.  The length along the bottom covers the span of goodness exhibited by mankind –from “Very, very bad” at one end (perhaps someone like Hitler or Charles Manson) to “Very, very good” at the other end, (perhaps someone like Mother Theresa, or Mahatma Ghandi).  The height of the curve at any given point represents numbers of people in the category of goodness found at this point.  For example, there are very few really bad people in the world, just as there are very few who are really good, so the curve isn’t very high at either end.  Most of mankind falls somewhere toward the middle, showing some good behavior and some bad, so the curve is highest in the middle.

 

The next thought was “Where do you see yourself fitting in this diagram?”  Since I regarded myself as one of the “better guys” who needed only a little improvement to find favor in the eyes of my heavenly Father, I put myself toward the right end of the curve, but not at the far right… after all, I had to maintain some pretense of humility.  Suddenly I visualized the next diagram:

 

It became obvious it really didn’t matter where I put myself in the bell-shaped curve of mankind, or for that matter, where anyone puts me or puts himself.  For as we are taught in Romans 3:23, “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

 

Thus, my considering myself to be basically good is revealed to be of no more consequence to God than if I had felt I were so bad as to be beyond help.  God’s perfect goodness is so far removed from the scale of mankind, that no amount of effort on our part in either direction separates us more from Him or draws us closer to Him.  Thus it is not what we do that makes us worthy of fellowship with God, it is what He did and does.

 

Knowing that each of us needs Him and yet each of us would recoil from Him as His pure goodness exposed our true, awful state, He established the model in the Old Testament, that the shed blood of a sacrificial lamb could purify us, and then came to earth as Jesus, the Son of God, who died on the cross as the ultimate sacrificial lamb, showing in the process, that His love for us, and his desire for us, is so great that He was willing to shed His own blood to purify us.  Then He lovingly offers this gift of purification to each of us so if we accept it, we can enjoy His companionship without guilt now and for eternity. (John 1:12,13)

 

But, until that day when we stand in our Lord’s presence, we are still part of mankind.  Thus when we begin to feel self-righteous, it is humbling to honestly assess our position on the curve of mankind… and then view the chasm between where we are and God’s perfect Goodness (Matthew 5:48).

 

I have since come to realize that in addition to goodness, the curve applies to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, and self control.  That is it applies to all the fruits of the Spirit, not just to goodness (Galatians 5:22,23).

 

God is oh, so Clever!

 

First, a little lesson in Hebrew.  Hebrew is read right to left, not left to right. That is the order the letters occur in below. However, their spelled version and translation will be read in the normal English order,  left to right. In other words, the first Hebrew letter (on the right) will be translated into the first English spelling (on the left), and so on.  Second, there are no vowels in Biblical Hebrew.  They are included in the English translation following subtle rules that I have yet to explore.

 

this is: “jod, hei, vav (or wah),  hei” or “Yahweh” or “Jehovah.”

 

  this is: “dalet, vav, dalet” or “David.”

 

David’s line will produce the Messiah: (Psalm 110:1), (Jeremiah 23:5-6) and the Messiah is Jesus (Rev 5:5).

 

Notice that “dalet” is nearly identical to “hei,” the difference being a single additional stroke of the pen in the latter.

 

 this shows that the word for “Jehovah” incorporates the word for “David:” 

 

This is a cryptic way of including “Jesus” in the word “Jehovah”!

 

But it doesn’t end there.

 

 this is the paleohebew  “dalet.”  Paleohebrew was the script used by most of the authors of the Old Testament.

 

Dalet is like the Greek letter delta, which is used in science to symbolize change.

 

If we concede the possibility that God influences the minds of men, and we concede further, that He can influence even the minds of men who are not His followers when this influence ultimately serves His purpose, then the following message could be extracted from the above observations:

 

David, in the line to Jesus and Jesus in the word “Jehovah “can be understood to emphasize change.

 

God as Jesus is all about changing us.

 

Before you reject this reasoning, know that I support the idea that God is a lot cleverer than we give Him credit for.  God weaves into His creation and His Word, subtle hints that He is behind it all.  Bearing that in mind, am I being an exegete or an eisogete when I make observations like the above?  Is it possible for a mere human to see something God didn’t see first or even see something God didn’t even set up first? I don’t know, but I suspect not.

 

I’ll grant these hints are not blatantly obvious, but they are there for those who make the effort to find them (Matt 7:7).  God wants us to spend time seeking to understand Him, His will (Col 1:19) and His awesomeness (Ps 66:5).

 

So, to those who would say I am committing the error of eisogesis, I would reply, “Your God is too small.” 

 

I have seen too many examples of God’s subtle fingerprint to feel this position is far-fetched.

 

If you don’t know what I am referring to with these words, check out http://www.interfaith.org/forum/exegesis-vs-eisogesis-184.html.

 

Loving the "Unclean" Presentation to LGBTQA.pptx

 

Before I begin, let me explain my use of the term "Unclean."  The Bible is very clear what was meant by "Unclean" and also equally clear that Jesus ignored the rules applying to the "Unclean."  As such, it is a stand-in word we under-stand that embodies the whole concept of how the world regards LGBTQA.

 

What I am about to relate is a little long, but it has to be that way for two reasons: 1) It takes time to weave the story of how God worked and is working in this endeavor, 2) the 40-day program tells us to journal and record answers to prayers so we could reflect on them in the future and there were so many answers to your prayers!

 

My specific prayer entered for the day in our 40-day Web-based group:

May Your angels place a hedge of protection around me tonight as I share Your Love for the sinners in the LGBTQA Club who are no different in their standing with You than I was before I allowed You to transport me across that humanly impassable chasm between mankind's unholiness and Your Holiness to find myself suddenly bathed in Your cleansing Love.

 

How February 9^th, 2012, and today tracked:

 

Early morning in my quiet time:

I should always be on the lookout for miracles in my life, whether they are major or minor, like the "coincidence" that happened this morning in my quiet time.  I currently read two pages of the OT and two of the NT each day.  Today my reading in the Old Testament "just happened" to include Leviticus 18.  Jesus was reminding me to not lose sight of His Law in what I was about to do that night.

 

Mid morning:

I received an email from a former member of NCF requesting to be removed from the rolls because of what NCF was doing.  Here is the original email and the response God gave me after praying about it:

 

It has been brought to my attention that Norwich University Christian Fellowship is the "biggest ally" of the Norwich University LGBTQA club.  Due to this, I cannot, in good conscience and in accordance with my beliefs, be associated with a group that claims to be a Christian group which supports a group that promotes a group and lifestyle not in accordance with the Christian faith.  While I have been inactive this academic term in NCF, I am requesting confirmation that myself and my name are not associated in any way with the Norwich University Christian Fellowship.  Thank you for your time.

 

Respectfully, X

 

X,

Although you were on our rosters in ‘10-11, you requested since then that you be removed and were.  As a result, you have not been sent an email from our rosters for at least a year and you would, therefore, not be privy to our motives.  That is a shame, because it is obvious from your message that you do not understand what we are doing and why we are doing it.  We are clearly following the Lead of our Lord Jesus in this matter.  We would not be doing it if it weren’t crystal clear that He wants us to.

 

If you want to know more, then come to our meetings.  If not, I have to ask you how do you handle Jesus’ constant mingling with the tax collectors, prostitutes and other sinners?

 

Agape, Carl

(If you don’t know what I mean by Agape, click on http://mentiscopia.pbworks.com/Truth%20and%20the%20Bible/ and scroll down to agape.)

 

During the day:

I had a flow of NCF’ers in my office letting me know their concern and that they were praying.

 

That evening:

In our small group Bible Study before the event, I was afforded an opportunity to practice my presentation (something that I did not have the time to do earlier that day) and work out a couple of glitches so that the presentation I gave later went with only one minor glitch.

 

When we got to the LGBTQA meeting room, the TV-computer interface wasn’t working in spite of my trying it out earlier.  I didn’t try one step and wouldn’t you know, that step was the critical one.  This also meant that the group leader couldn’t show his presentation after mine.  Fortunately I knew where an LCD projector was and I immediately went there.  It wasn’t in the room where it was supposed to be. I headed out of the room and felt I needed to look one more time.  I did, and there it was on top a shelf near the ceiling!  

 

The next mini-miracle can be seen in the slides I prepared.  They were black on a white background, nothing fancy.  The wall we ended up projecting them on was yellow.  The wording showed up clearly!  The presentation is attached.  Please open it in the version where the slides and notes are shown simultaneously.  I always put notes with my presentations so I will remember what I said two weeks later when I look at them again.

 

Many from my church and many NCF members were praying for me during the entire time.  Some (Chris and about five other NCF members) even found the time to attend with me and silently prayed during the presentation.

 

The message was very well received.  It took longer than I thought, but some of that overrun was answering the many questions they had.  They were very receptive of the presentation and none had an objection to it that they voiced anyway.  One openly stated she wanted to know when and where we met so she could join us.  We have been invited to show the film, “Lord, Save Us from Your Followers” during a gay pride week they are putting on later this semester.  Pray for that one.  If you thought last night was dangerous and fool-hardy, then this event is even more so.

 

One interesting result of the survey of things we have in common (see the last slide of the presentation) was the idea we both have dreams, meaning both hopes for a future and physical dreams indicating that our brains are fundamentally the same.  I had thought of the former, but not the latter.

 

When we came home:

I quickly went over my emails and found an email from the co-director of the Vermont State Science and Mathematics Fair.  She had created two important files that I had planned to create but didn’t have the time for since I was working on my presentation.  I nor any other human asked her to do this.  Here is my response to her.

 

Trish,

 

You have been busy tonight doing my work!   Believe me when I say this, you are showing me God’s goodness.  It’s a long story, but today I did something I was uncomfortable doing because God called me to it.  It took time away from what I knew I needed to be doing for the science fair.  What you have done is God using you (and I know you are pleased to know that) to show me He really does pay us back and then some for time we sacrifice for Him.  This is something that was not even on my radar, but will clearly save me immense amounts of time.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

 

Agape, Carl

 

Wednesdays is when I normally send an email to my granddaughter in Minneapolis, Kevin’s daughter.  She is a 13-year old Christian who has taken up the cause of Christian persecution of Gays.  I didn’t send it Thursday because I was so busy with preparations for Wed. So I sent it Thursday evening.  Here is what I was able to say,

 

Em,

 

I hope and pray you are reading these messages.  Because today is a day that I really desire your prayers.  You see, this evening, as a representative of the Norwich Christian Fellowship, I am reaching out to introduce Norwich’s LGBTQA club to the love of Jesus.  I have clearly been called by our Lord to do this, and I want to do it so that His love comes through loud and clear.  Please, if you get this, or even when you get this, pray, even if it is after the event.  God already knows that you are going to pray and that prayer will be added to the many others that will give me the strength, love and wisdom I will need.

 

Love, Grampa P

 

This morning in my quiet time

My OT reading included Leviticus 19.  In spite of the fact I have read this over 30 times in the 36 years I’ve been walking with the Lord, I had missed that this chapter is essentially a rendering of a third version of the 10 commandments (the others are in Exodus and Deuteronomy).  The order and wording is not the same, but you can find them all there if you look carefully.  Verse 3 is a particularly poignant verse since it talks about respecting our mothers and fathers.  I was instantly reminded that when I came to the part of the introductory slide that said we returned to Northfield in 1982, that I explained the major reason Chris and I had returned was to honor our mothers and fathers as required in the 10 Commandments.  We did this since Chris’s mom had Alzheimer’s and needed constant care that her dad couldn’t deliver and my folks were getting close to the age when they likely wouldn’t be around much longer.  At the time I worried if that wasn’t a little “too strong of a Christian message.”  This confirmed it was not.

 

God is Awesome!  Thank you ALL for your prayers.

 

Agape, Carl

 

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