On taking a state licensing examination

Today, I took the state examination for the auctioneer trade in the state of Virginia. Before the exam, I wrote a note to myself, thinking back to earlier stages of my life, such as beginning kindergarten, junior high school, and college, and looking ahead with some mixture of excitement and trepidation. At this point in my life, my thinking was more in the line of, “What kind of mess am I getting myself into?” I know that, without regard to how perfectly I try to do things, problems, really knotty problems, come up.

I am doing this project with my son. I, in myself, don't quite have the stamina to pull starting a new business off. Further, it appears to me that it takes a minimum of ten persons to make an average auction day happen. I do not have experience in overseeing that many persons at once, but my son, who is preparing to leave the Navy this year, does. Still, I am taking this because I can assist, and that I immediately had the time to go to the schooling.

The state has assigned the oversight of this test to a worldwide test giving company. As such, it has to be multiple choice, with the questions appearing on a computer screen. Many of usknow that this can boil down to a test on test taking. I may have been able to pass it before taking the training school. That's life in our society.

That was written before taking the test; the following is afterward.

The exam actually turned out to be more difficult than I thought. At points in it, I felt inadequately prepared for it. My son will go, in about a month and a half, to a different school than I went to, and we will match experiences afterward. Be that as it may, I believed that I passed, and on an occupational test, that is all that mattered. In this case, that I score 57 or more, and not 56 or less.

Today, I spent a few hours in the local library studying my notes, and then I took the test. I did no physical work. Somehow, after getting home, as much as I was telling myself that I was calm, I must have been very stressed, as for a number of hours, I just felt like resting.

I look forward to being able to contribute to whatever projects the Holy Spirit may put on my heart, as I have not been able to earn any money for a number of years. Back when I could, I was in the status quo groove of largely giving to a certain organizational “church” which spent most of the money on itself, although everyone, including myself, had been taught that that was giving to God. I am at peace that those days are over.

On a totally seperate topic, this evening, I took some time to listen to two of the most recent www.thegodjourney.com podcasts, put together by writer Wayne Jacobsen. In case you aren't familiar with it, its more like Wayne sharing what has been affecting him on, as the name implies, his journey of following God, and not like preaching or teaching, per se. One of the neat things about a podcast is that he isn't trapped into a certain time frame like a radio program, and one, if one wishes, can leave a comment on the website, making it more like a conversation.

On literary, historical, and cultural context

            I have a Facebook account, but rarely look at it.  Maybe its because I see a lot of short comments by people I may know, but are pushing some idea, like “Mabel likes Wal-Mart”.  Yippee.  She sends that to enough people and she gets some little benefit from them.  I, too, like the low prices, and dislike how its pushing many people’s paycheck lower, and, no, most of us don’t believe their “That’s the real Wal-Mart” commercials they air to counteract statements such as I’ve just made.  Somehow, though, I opened up Facebook about a week and a half ago, and saw a blip from a man I used to work with at a traditional church in Florida.  He was associate pastor/youth leader, and my wife and I assisted him.  Before coming to faith in Jesus, he was a bar band drummer for about twenty years.  The founding pastor of that church just felt called, and started a church, albeit without training.  This man came along years later, a few months after coming to faith, was there a few weeks, and told the pastor that he felt called.  The head pastor gave him a responsibility, and then more and more.  My wife and I volunteered to help with the teen class.  Sometimes both the head pastor and the assistant did or said something I felt to be a little strange, but, as they were leaders, I kept my mouth shut, partly because I thought my wife was happy being there.  Finally, a situation came up where we both found out that the other wasn’t comfortable with what was going on, but though the other like being there.  At that point, we left.

            Time went on, we eventually moved to another state, and one day, for some odd reason, I decided to attempt to find on the net people I had known in the past.  This man I found easily, as he had left that church to found one himself a few miles down the road.  This was of no surprise to me, as I learned after leaving that church that many people had had a falling out with that head pastor, so that this man did too, particularly when working with him as close as he did is no surprise. 

            I did find it a surprise that he was into something that I personally believe has wandered into false doctrine, what is known as Hebrew Roots Movement.  Shortly, this thread believes that we believers in Jesus are still to live by the Mosaic Law.  As such, he leads whatever group he heads to meet on Saturdays, and he continually is putting out little blips on Facebook hyping some aspect of his unique doctrinal view.  Anyway, when I opened up the Facebook messages that day,   had a little box with a couple of questions followed by Romans 3:31.  If one looks at that sentence alone, he could maintain that the word “law” is talking about the OT law. I could maintain that what the word “law” refers to is the law of love, walking by the Spirit.

            It got me to thinking about an old fundamentalist clever phrase many have used while sermonizing, “A text out of context is a pretext.”  Only in recent years have I learned that there are actually three (at least) contexts.  What is usually implied in sermons is literary context—how a certain thing fits into the larger group of sentences that it is a part of.  In the case above, reading the whole of Romans 3 indicates that what he was attempting to say with that one verse is the exact opposite of what Paul was saying.  This is also easy to figure out by any believer reading a passage, or, for that matter, any person.  The catchy phrase above actually applies to all kinds of writings. 

            The second type of context is historical context.  As this is Christmas season, when we hear the Christmas story, particularly as it is popularly sermonized, we hear a passage in which the historical context is explained thoroughly, as Israel being under Roman control is key to why things happened as they did.  It needs to be explained to us because we are so far away from that scene in both time and culture.  Still, some aspects are oftentimes passed over, such as why the Romans were so distrustful of Israel.  From modern culture, we perceive that a number of peoples that are under the control of a foreign power wish to overthrow the oppressors.  Rome generally wasn’t that way, but, given that Israel did overthrow them for a couple of years in 166 to 164 B.C., they were distrusted more than most peoples under Roman control.

            The third type of context is cultural context.  Sticking with the Christmas theme, and as I seem to write just about every Christmas, possibly because I see it as an amazing piece of faith, and so foreign to modern culture, in Luke 2, when the angel of the Lord comes to Mary to tell her that she will bear the Christ child, and she speaks words of assent and faith back to the angel, she is doing so at age 12 to 14 probably, with a slight chance she could have been as old as 16, that she does so in a culture in which, if a young man would find that the one he is betrothed to is pregnant, he could have her put to death. That is why we are told that Joseph, before the angel came to him, was going to have her put away quietly, that is, have her go away so the marriage never happens.  When the angel comes to him, and he agrees, God miraculously allows them both to be in a situation which, from normal social mores of the time, puts them both in a position of dishonor.  We later learn that Joseph is, in the Koine Greek, a teknon.  This is normally told to us to be “carpenter”, but is more appropriately a stone mason that may occasionally do carpentry.  Even that has to be noted that, in our culture, a stone mason is a rarer, and therefore, more treasured skill than carpentry, in that culture the opposite is true.

            The trick about all this is that all one needs (at least sometime) to figure out literary context is the Bible, for the other two one needs other material.  I am 60, and have been a believer since I was 15, but only learned about the different types of context a couple of years ago.  I certainly heard things taught which included historical and cultural context over that time, but never heard anyone differentiate the types.  This goes for both intellectualist, even over-intellectualist, leaders, and non- or anti-intellectualist types, such as the man I referred to above.

            Earlier today, I was listening to Wayne Jacobsen’s podcast, “The God Journey”, where Wayne mentions hearing an author from Great Britian who studied psycopathy.  A psychopath does not care what happens to his victims.  The author devised a study.  He found criminals and c.e.o.’s were high on this trait.  He was surprised to find that so were clergy.  This is understandable, as they must protect their organization, just like the c.e.o.  Maybe that’s why I wasn’t trusted it some places where I went for traditional church—I knew too much.  In the church were I met the man referenced above, I was told only after I left that the founding pastor sometimes didn’t understand things that I said, but, given his position, wouldn’t admit it to me (he did to my wife).  Desiring to know the Bible and faith in Jesus in detail, but not desiring to (i.e. pushing one’s way into) the traditional leadership system is threatening to parts of the status quo.  So be it—I have slept with a clean conscience.

On (possibly unintentional) arrogance

Today, I got around to listening to the October 25, 2013 edition of Wayne Jacobsen's podcast, The God Journey. Now, it seems to me, after listening to a number of this series, that when there is some really notable truth that comes out in one of the programs, it appears near the end, after going 30+ minutes of no particular direction, which one can get by with in a podcast. On this, Wayne retells a conversation he had with a woman who came to faith in Jesus later in life, and asks a question about a certain (unnamed, as almost all would fit the situation) televangelist. Wayne tells that he deflected the question back to her, to which she replied that he seemed (after 5 minutes) arrogant.

To me, that clicked. I've been trying to put a finger on what it is among, not just radio and TV Christian speaking personalities, but also the huge amount of institutional church pastors. I will be kind enough to not specifically charge the persons with arrogance, although assuredly in some cases it must fit, but the system, albeit unintentionally breeds arrogance, in the sense that the idea that one person who, according to his/her position, is largely disconnected from whatever our “real world” is, has all the edifying, and the large number of other believers who do live and work in the largely unbelieving world have none of the answers, should reasonably come across as absurd.

Now, I recognize that in a large number of cases called denominational churches, such as the one I went to when I was a teen, only authorized, approved leaders (i.e., graduated from their seminary) are allowed to speak to the congregation, following a tradition that goes back to the 4^th century. It is so ingrained that most, including myself up until a few years ago, and on both sides of the artificial clergy/ laity divide, just accept it as status quo. In those churches in which it is not an enforcable rule from some headquarters, it still happens to varying degrees. Still, that one or a small number of persons have all the answers, and have them without even having to ask what questions the others have, should come across as ridiculous. Now, to go back to the story Wayne tells, the persons on radio and TV are insulated, usually first by geography, and when in their general presence by a layer of staff, from actually dealing with what questions people have, and, of course, the problem that it takes time for any one of us to truly trust even fellow believers to give, as Francis Shaeffer wrote sometime in the 1960's or '70's, “honest answers to honest questions.”(1)

1) The phrase appears in one of his books; at the time of this writing, I wasn't in a position to look up which one or where.