Imperishable Inheritance

Wow, I am now halfway through the project, and it feels like I’ve been here for months. It’s been an excit­ing ride for sure. I’m fin­ish­ing up les­son 14 of 15, and I still have a six page paper to write and a final exam! I’m ready to stop being in school (remem­ber I came here straight from my last final). The pic­ture to the right is the project leader Justin. It’s the best pic­ture I’ve taken so far (click for a larger image). I’ve also added some more pic­tures for your view­ing enjoyment.

As for activ­i­ties, we went to a Dodgers game that was full of excite­ment. I went yes­ter­day to Santa Mon­ica Beach (got to much sun) and went to Sad­dle­back. Sad­dle­back was inter­est­ing. They call their “church” a “cam­pus.” In fact, the “wor­ship build­ing” was actu­ally build­ing 8, so every­one look on your maps to find the sanc­tu­ary. The ser­vice wasn’t out­right “pur­pose dri­ven,” but it was about our growth with no men­tion of sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion (or the need of Christ thereof). The pas­tor used 4 dif­fer­ent trans­la­tions in his mes­sage: NLT, NCV, GW, and CEV. It’s funny since none of those are really Bibles. Any­way, after that I left the sanc­tu­ary and bam two Mor­mons where right there. I couldn’t resist but go up to them, and start debat­ing with them. I went through Eter­nal Pro­gres­sion, Eter­nal Mar­riage, the 3 king­doms, the non pre-existence of Christ, their tri-theism, and a lit­tle bit more. I spent more time bark­ing then lis­ten­ing though (note to self). By the way, if you come up to a Mor­mon and are encoun­tered with the Trin­ity doc­trine, make them open up to 1 John 5:7 (KJV) in their Bibles to the good ole’ Johan­nine Comma.

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
1 John 5:7 (KJV) (empha­sis added)

I just love them try­ing to explain that they’re truly “one in pur­pose,” but not one in exis­tence (need some Peri­chore­sis doc­trine). I was talk­ing to them and think­ing how much I would like Aaron there to be with me.

I’m read­ing the 4 Views of the Mil­len­nium, and I fin­ished read­ing the post-mil argu­ment by Boet­tner. I found it less than per­sua­sive. His argu­ment stemmed around the fact that “the world is get­ting so much bet­ter,” and his argu­ment focused around show­ing sta­tis­tics and num­bers that was sup­pose to show that the world was get­ting bet­ter. Needless-to-say, it was less than com­pelling; and I was dis­ap­pointed, because I have so much respect for his work. Any­way, I’m read­ing the A-mil; and when he starts say­ing that Rev 20 starts over again at the begin­ning of the New Tes­ta­ment rather puz­zles me. I must say I see some weight in the king­dom cur­rently reign­ing though. I have not seen any­thing, as of yet, of any escha­to­log­i­cal posi­tion that is com­pletely con­vinc­ing. I kinda want to mix-and-match the pre and amil, but those are less than compatible.

Well, it’s been fun so far; and I’ve got­ten so much sup­port from all of you. Thanks for the cards (Susie!), e-mails, and prayers. I’m now more excited than ever to reach those unreached peo­ple groups so that Christ may come back (Matthew 24:14).