Understanding

There is a difference between knowing about a thing and understanding a thing.  For example, I know that if I stand in the edge of our front porch roof and step off onto that portion of the space time reality where there is no porch roof, however gracefully done, I will in all likelihood break something when I come to the sudden stop at the end of my rather brief experiment with human flight.  This is the same thing experienced when Sir Isaac Newton was bopped on the noggin while resting beneath the infamous apple tree, resulting in the invention of fruit filled fingerling cakes.

The technical moniker for this bit of discovery is ‘gravity.’ I know it exists.  I even have a working understanding of what it does.  I don’t have a clue as to how it works.  Ditto wind, by which I mean the kind born between high and low atmospheric pressure inversions, as opposed to that which is the byproduct of having consumed too much cheese, which, the wind, not the cheese, can be ‘broken’

I know what it is.  I know what it does.  I do not understand at even the most rudimentary level how it works.  That is true for both gravity and wind.  I know they exist, I have a working, if fundamentally fragile understanding of how they do it, but I’m so far removed from grasping the elemental mechanics of either scientific discipline, I am without question the wrong person to send hip deep into a pool of curious third graders intent upon expanding their circles of scientific inquiry.  I am, however, a good target for their spitballs and paper airplanes, and hence not a complete waste of skin.

My point is this.  I am not the person you would seek out to further your understanding of either scientific theorem.

Why, you ask?

Good question.  One for which I am eminently qualified to provide you with an answer.  Ready?  Good.  Here goes:

I don’t know the answer. 

My education and training, and in no small part, personal areas of interest include neither meteorology nor physics. Oh, I could give you an opinion.  I have one for almost every topic imaginable, and a few on topics about which you never considered,  and in most cases, I could speak for a very long time and give every impression of knowledge in these areas, but the fact remains, I would be mostly making it up.

I call this the IDIOT (the Impossibly Dim Influencing the Ostentatiously Trivial) Syndrome. I am not alone in this field of postulating an opinion on a subject about which I have little or no knowledge.  Depending on the subject, at times it’s a little crowded in here. One might go so far as to suggest that we’re surrounded by IDIOTS.

For example, last week Barry Soetoro, A.K.A. Barack H. Obama,  A.K.A. POTUS (President Of The United States) went on record in support of homosexual marriage. To add merit to his proclamation, Barry called upon the Bible for support by citing, however vaguely, an axiom of Scripture known to Believers and unbelievers alike as ‘The Golden Rule’.  In Leviticus 19, it appears as a portion of Mosaic Law saying, “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” (vs. 18, NKJV).

As recorded in the New Testament Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus refers to this passage: “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12 NKJV), and again in Matthew 22:37-40 NKJV: “Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

The holy book to which Barry personally subscribes makes a similar proclamation: “Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.” (Forty Hadith of an-Nawawi 13, Quran).

I could give you a forever list of Barry’s stumblings, but since we’re concerning ourselves mostly with how he demonstrates that he is a card carrying, lifelong IDIOT, I’ll stick to the matter at hand.

Barry is not a Christian.  He is certainly not a Bible scholar or theologian. His membership as high ranking IDIOT is demonstrated by how he interprets, or rather MISinterprets the Bible.

The ‘how’ of his misunderstanding is clearly explained by the ‘why’. Barry doesn’t know the Christ of the Bible, and because he doesn’t know the Christ of the Bible, he cannot understand, much less give authoritative explanation of what the Bible is saying.  The Bible itself makes clear the principle of how understanding the Bible works: “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
(1 Corinthians 2:13-15 NKJV)

From Genesis to Revelation, God condemns homosexuality.  From Genesis to Revelation marriage is ALWAYS described as the union of a man and a woman.  The first command given by God to his human creation was that they (man and woman) procreate.  By design, two men or two women cannot procreate naturally. From the very beginning of humankind on this planet, God intended that the growth and continued existence of human beings would be blessed by the union of a man and a woman. It’s not that difficult to grasp unless you’re one of the IDIOTS.  Here’s what God said: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.  Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:27-28 NKJV).

Homosexuality, on the other hand and irrespective of gender (male/male or female/female) is always condemned in the Bible.  In Genesis 19 the depravity of homosexuality is so great that God destroys the city whose name describes the act of homosexual sex.

But this is not the issue in question.  There cannot be a misunderstanding of what God says about sin in general, or about the specific sin of homosexuality.  The misunderstanding lies elsewhere.  The so-called Golden Rule and how that applies to homosexuals and other sinners are what is misunderstood.

You see, God never told His people to hate homosexuals or any other sinner.  God said hate the sin, but love the sinner.  The problem is that the one is not synonymous with the other, and it is only by the clarity of understanding that God bestows on His children through the teaching of His Holy Spirit that clarity and understanding come.  Love your neighbor as you love yourself never means love your neighbor’s sin.

Barry may have suggested that loving your neighbor means approving of your neighbor’s sin, but Barry saying it does not make it true.  Barry, after all, is not God, and God who does not change his mind because the political or moral climate has shifted, has already spoken on the matter.  Despise the sin, but love with the love of God, Who sent his Son to be crucified for sinners, those who sin.