Nothing

"Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off... The only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy... Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one..." ~ Screwtape in C. S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters


To understand this quote from Lewis' famous work it is essential to remember that this book was written from a demon's perspective. In the book Screwtape (a senior demon) is writing letters to his nephew, Wormwood, who is a "junior tempter". Since it is from a demon's perspective "the Enemy" is God. Here Screwtape is advising Wormwood not to do more than he has to when tempting "the Patient" (an unnamed British man). The chief purpose of a tempter, Screwtape reminds Wormwood, is to separate the man from God. The young demon need not go to all the effort of tempting the Patient to murder if simply distracting him with idle pleasures will get the job done.

Nothing is very strong. It is one of the simplest way that our enemy tempts us to evade responsibility. If it successfully separates us from God then the enemy has succeeded and he has literally used nothing to do it. I never thought "nothing" could be a sin until I read this. This, of course, does not mean that "nothing" is always a sin, but it does make me think about the "nothing" parts of my life. It makes me wonder if there were times where I could have made our enemy work a little harder at his job.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Polycarp's Martyrdom

"For eighty-six years I have been his servant, and He has done me no wrong.  How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?" ~ Polycarp, recounted in the Letter of the Church of Smyrna to the Church of Philomelium and recorded by Eusebius in his work The History of the Church

February 23, 156 AD Polycarp (a disciple of the apostle John) spoke these words at his trial before he was executed for being an "atheist" according to the Roman authorities. It is an incredible account of strength and faith that must be attributed to the promise Jesus gave the disciples in Luke 12:11-12: "And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say." How else could one have the courage to say, "Call for them!" when he is threated by wild beasts? It is a very encouraging account and Stand to Reason has it on their site.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Refreshing Objectivity

"No one has publicly disagreed with my interpretation of the Apex fossils. But privately, some would prefer I were mistaken, since they (and I, too) would prefer a simpler evolutionary story, one that told us these oldest fossil organisms were capable only of primitive ways of living and that advanced metabolic lifestyles evolved much later. But the evidence seems strong, and what one might 'prefer' shouldn’t matter." J. William Schopf, The Cradle of Life

William Schopf is a professor of paleontology at UCLA. About 15 years ago Schopf and his team found microfossils (now known as the Apex fossils) in the Pilbara Supergroup (the oldest rocks structures on earth) and they have turned out to be the oldest fossils for life on earth. This discovery created a problem for naturalistic evolution, as Schopf expresses above. The reason his discovery was such a problem is that it seemed to show that life appeared suddenly on earth and very complex (as complex as the simple life on the planet today). There in lies the problem because from a naturalistic evolutionary perspective that cannot be the case.

Over the past 15 years Schopf's discovery has been debated heavily amongst origins of life researchers. The hottest opposition was brought against Schopf and his team by a UK team of biologists led by Martin Brasier, a professor of palaeobiology at Oxford. From about 2001 to 2003 Brasier debated with Schopf and attempted to prove that what Schopf and his team found was only the result of unusual chemical processes. The debate was eventually won by Schopf when two other independent teams confirmed his findings.

While the debate over the biological origins of these fossils ended there has been continued debate over their complexity until now. Recently a paper (written by an interdisciplinary team from Australia and Japan) was publish in the journal Astrobiology that has caused further troubles for naturalistic evolution because it reveals the complexity of these fossils. This team used a new 3D image reconstruction technique to analyze the fossils from the Pilbara Supergroup. This new technique allowed them to see that these fossils were much bigger and Schopf's team had thought--about 15 microns which is the size of human cells and much bigger than the simple bacteria that exists today (simple bacteria today measure about 1 micron). They also discovered that these organisms were highly complex with double-membraned cell walls, spheroids contained in the membranes that look like cell nuclei, and "flange-like" appendages that were constant in shape, proportion, and dimension (possibly flagellum like many current bacteria have).

All this is to say that I appreciate Schopf's honesty and objectivity about his discoveries. The evidence in his discovery and recent discoveries shows that the earth's earliest life was highly complex with internal structure, complex membranes, and appendages. It is evidence that is not compatible with naturalistic evolution but is what one would expect from a Creator. He would have preferred the story be different because it cannot be reckoned with naturalistic evolutionary models, but he would not hide behind what he wished to be true. He shows refreshing objectivity that is sadly lacking in many current scientists.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Unconditional

"If we could fix each other we would never understand unconditional love. You having trouble loving people? Say, 'God show me my sin and then hug me and then maybe I can go out and hug some others.'" ~ Steve Brown

I like this quote from Steve because it reminds me of one of the ways that sin is a blessing in disguise. When we really understand our sin we can really understand how incredible Christ's love is. To say, "Jesus loves me" is great, but if we do not remember what condition we were in when Jesus loved us then that statement has no depth and no real comfort. When we really see and know our sin then we really understand what Jesus did for us and only then can we really love others the way He has called us to love others. Steve also gives a principle: "You can't love until you've been loved and then you can only love to the degree that you have been loved."

By His Grace,

Taylor