Drive with your brake, not your horn!

     When my Dad taught me to drive, I heard this many times. "Drive with your brake, not your horn!" I guess it stuck, because the other day, as I was driving into town to run errands, someone cut me off on the freeway. I got a little flustered and started to hit the horn, but I heard my Dad's voice in my head and my foot hit the brake instead. 


     It's funny, but if I had hit the horn, I know I would've stewed about it the rest of the day. As it was, I felt like I was the "better" for my behavior and left the situation feeling pretty good about life. I extended grace to my fellow driver and remembered some of the times I had, inadvertently, cut other drivers off.  


     It occurred to me that this is a pretty good principle to practice throughout all of life. 


The Bible puts it this way: 
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." Philippians 2: 3-4


     So, the next time you get "cut off" either on the freeway, or just in life, why not try "hitting the brake" instead of "honking the horn"?


I promise you'll feel better for it.  

God's Early Edition

     Did you ever watch that TV show 'Early Edition' (it ran on CBS from 1996-2000).  Ok, me neither. But I love the premise. This normal guy starts getting tomorrow's newspaper delivered today. Wow! How great would that be? 
     
     Knowing the winning lottery numbers in advance.  Which football team would win the Superbowl - a day early.  Which horses end up in the Win Place and Show positions.  Which shoes go on sale. (wink, wink)


     Turns out this guy reads about the disasters and tries to prevent them.  You know, the car wreck, the house fire, the exploding gas tank.  He runs around trying to save as many lives as he can. 


     Now how we would respond to that same information is a subject for a whole other post. 


     What occurred to me recently when I was studying predestination -(our home group is in Ephesians and you can't really gloss over the idea of predestination when you're studying Ephesians.) Is that God has the ultimate Early Edition.


     He knows in advance which horse to bet on - so to speak. 


     I went to the passage in Romans that gave me this insight - 


      "For those whom he foreknew, those he also predestined. . . " Romans 8:29


     And looked up the word for foreknew. It's proginosko and sure enough, it means "to perceive or recognize beforehand, to know previously" Keyword Study Bible NASB 1990


     This resolved for me the apparent conflict between all the predestination passages and this simple, lovely, and in many ways, more appealing truth. 


     "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9


     See - there He is. That's the big hearted God I fell in love with. 


     He didn't create anyone 'to perish'. He just knows in advance who will choose it. 


     But rest in the knowledge that there is a choice.  Keep praying for your beloved unbelievers and have faith in a "compassionate and gracious God slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin." Exodus 34:6 (related post)


     How about you? Have you struggled with the idea of predestination? How did God resolve it for you? Are you discouraged in praying for your beloved unbelievers? 
    

Manuscript Evidence for the New Testament

Heavy topic, eh? Don't worry, I'm no theologian or historian, but this is part of what our pastor covered this Sunday.

Here's just a snippet of the table he showed us.

Author           Written             Dates of Manuscript Copies              Number of Copies

Plato              450-385             1200 years (after original writing)            7

Aristotle        384-322              1400 years                                                      5

New
Testament     50-100                 30-225 years                                          5300 +


Now, what this says is that there are 7 manuscript copies of Plato's writings and those were copied about 1200 years after the originals were written (between 450-385). There are only 5 copies of Aristotle's and they date from 1400 years after the originals were written.  

Funny that no one doubts their legitimacy or if they are accurate copies.

Finally, there are over 5300 manuscript copies that are only 30-225 years after the original writing of the New Testament.

Want more information about all of this? I highly recommend Josh McDowell's book "Evidence that Demands a Verdict."