bierkergaard

Acts 17:16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. "The one positive statement that Socrates seems to have made is a definition of virtue (areté): "virtue is knowledge." If one knows the good, one will always do the good. It follows, then, that anyone who does anything wrong doesn't really know what the good is." (Richard Hooker) If there is a philosophical idol today that parallels the philosophical idol of ancient Athens, it is this: With the acquisition of knowledge, humanity can be good. That is, our evil is a result of ignorance. What a contrast to Paul's statement in Romans 7 that although he knows the good, he does not do it. Like all philosophical musings, there are pragmatic consequences to what we believe. What starts out in the Ivory Tower doesn't stay there...the Ivory Tower--the human mind--is an idol factory...John Calvin wrote, “the human mind is, so to speak,

If you watch TV at all, you have seen the ad for Cymbalta (the depression medication--see http://www.bierkergaard.blogspot.com/ "Happy are the Sad" title for Cymbalta info). The commercial shows people looking really down, laying around, with sorrow writ large all over their faces. There is even one scene where a person and the dog both are really down. Maybe there will be a canine Cymbalta brought to market. I would not be surprised. Friends of ours are getting a divorce and I saw their dog out in the yard the other day and the dog did look down in the dumps. I think dogs have emotional intelligence, they can sense the prevailing mood in a household and be affected by it--and express it. Happy dogs are like mood rings with fur. Happy dog, happy household. Sad dogs, sad household. Bad dogs, bad household. I just don't see dogs as dogs being able to manufacture moods. They are conduits of feelings instead. In Matthew 5:4, Jesus basically says "Happy are the Sad.&quo

I have been starting to read through Martin Luther's Commentary on Galatians. I have been thinking about how easy it is, after being converted, to slip back into works righteousness. It is almost like a man, who after being cured of lung cancer, goes back to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. He was freed from the cancerous smoke for the free and clear air, and has now decided to go back to his addiction. We'd call such a man a fool. As much as we like gifts, we don't like gifts that identify and call out our weaknesses. If a person gave me a book about how to drive better, I would rightly assume that he has some concerns with my driving. I would be insulted. The Gospel tells man that we can't be right on our own ever. Our pride wants to take the wheel of salvation and drive ourselves to heaven. Control is a symptom of wanting to be like God. God says in the Gospel, that this is the problem. My pride desires that I do it alone, find my own way, get glory for my achiev

In the last 7 years, I have been hit three times in my car by others who were being negligent and careless drivers. Another time, I hit a deer. I am not sure I can pin that collision on the deer as I was going a little faster that I should have been on a back country road up to work in the middle of what is functionally a "Deer Preserve" (a lot of woods, farms, and "no hunting signs" posted everywhere. A perfect storm for automotive and deer collisions). Fan-tas-tic...I found that the deer was not insured. The first accident of the three, a red Firebird went through a red light in Lancaster, smashed into my car, a fled the scene of the accident. Nice. The Lancaster Police took over an hour two show up...by that time the driver of the red Firebird had probably finished consuming his second six pack in his trailer down in Solanco. The second time was last year when a young man was going much too fast (I saw him in my rear view mirror catching up to me as a cheetah to

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 20:19 Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. Peace (or shalom) was--and probably still is--a greeting among observant Jews. So it is a wish. One can see why...the Jews have had many things in their history as a race, but peace is not one of them. Peace, as Jesus taught, is based on obedience to His teachings (really His Commandments, to call them only teachings make them sound kind of voluntary). Kind of like when people call Jesus a "great teacher." Sort of like my great teacher in high school Mr. Craney...but not more than a great teacher. And if Jesus teaches that He is God, and the person doesn't buy it, could that person reall

This time of year, we hear a lot about giving thanks....it should be easy to give thanks for the good things. The fact that we often don't, and instead take God's provision for granted, shows how piggish we can be. How about giving thanks for the hard things--adversity, trouble, sickness, weakness? Not that I'll candidate any time soon for Job-like status based on my qualifications. Don't think this is true? We flatter ourselves...often when we ask "Why?" we are really charging God with infidelity to our two greatest commandments..."I don't think I want this so you should not give it to me." Really, who sounds like the boss and who sounds like the underling? The primary sin of each human is Pride. It is an inversion of ourselves to a lofty estate of deity where what I think and what I want are the two greatest commandments. God, is demoted to servant status. I am not saying that it is easy to say "Thy will be done" and then watch ou

Gen 50:15-20 "And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him. And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants. And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive." Godly men don' t strike others in spirit of self-indignation...even if others richly deserve it. Instead, they entrust to God the justificat

The other night, I awakened around 2:30...as is often the case, I was up for a time. I often do my best and worst thinking this time of night. In the solitude and silence, my heart speaks. Sometimes my heart is at peace and I breezily drift back to sleep after a few minutes. Sometimes fear comes like a rustling wind and I am up for awhile. Then I worry that I am up, that I am going to be tired the next day...as so on. The worst fear? The unknown and the known together. What I do know distempers me like left jabs from a boxer; the unknown is the right hook that follows that I don't see coming. When I am up like this, I typical trudge over to my office and either pull out the Bible or something of a biblical nature and read. I figure if the evil one is behind my lack of being asleep because of my cares in this fallen world, the best way to redeem this time is to seek Christ in His Word. What is meant for evil turns out to be good for God is in it . Joseph's refrain is one that s

My wife and I after much deliberation have recently purchased a 40 inch plasma TV. We hesitated for quite some time, fearful that it would suck us into its orbit like some Death Star. It got me thinking about TV. It is interesting the role of television has played in my life. I can still remember when certain TV shows were on when I was a kid. The best line up was Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley on Tuesdays at 8:00 - 9:00 on ABC (when I was in 6th grade); MASH was Monday at 9:00 on CBS; the White Shadow was on before MASH at 8:00...that was my favorite show by far. It was about a white high school basketball coach who played pro b-ball, blew out his knee, and went into coaching a bunch of inner city black kids with names like Coolidge. There was one white kid nicknamed Salami...of Italian descent. I think he rode the bench. There was an ABC program called the Night Stalker that was Friday nights that used to scare the crap out of me. It was good it was Friday night because I had pr

There is a word that I read on a semi-regular basis in articles. The only person I have ever heard use it in conversation is my dad who speaks German. It is the German word schadenfreude. The definition from dictionary.com is: Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.German : Schaden, damage and Freude: joy. Damaged joy...I am not sure what it is about some German words...they just seem to pack a lot of awful intensity. Verbal Blitzkrieg. Heck, when I hear German spoken, it sounds like language emanating from the gut and spoken through a blender. It doesn't do much for the elegance and beauty of a language to have its most well-known speaker in history be Hitler. Another German word, much less negative, is Zeitgeist which roughly means the "spirit of the age." Drop a "Zeitgeist" here and there in conversation and people will think you are an intellectual or a pompous blowhard...so do so cautiously. I have had schadenfreude associated in my head rece

OK, I am back again. Last night my wife reminded me that I hadn't posted a blog since early June. I am like the writing equivalent of a cicada. My prose comes out of the ground once every seven years, makes some commotion, then flies away and dies. It doesn't help that she and I are the only ones who read my stuff. It is not like an audience is swooning for more. Hey I have been busy, I'm ADD and I am not fully appreciated for my insight by the masses which makes me feel neglected and resentful, thus sapping my creative juices. It is a terrible cycle and bind...unproductive and unappreciated. Unappreciated and unproductive...and so on and so on. This summer's garden lesson was the battle versus the groundhog species. I lost some battles, won some battles (with the help of my shirtess Rambo bodybuilding neighbor Steve with a 22), and then settled for an uneasy truce/war of attrition of sorts for the rest of the summer. About mid-summer, I noticed that my veggies in

The titanic battle between man and beast has begun. The rabbits are back like a teeming horde of Visogoths intent on destroying my garden. Rabbits are not going to win any "smartest species" awards but they do have a knack for certain things--like finding where my fence has weak points. I caught a rabbit chomping away on my cabbage so I grabbed a piece of flooring (long story) and threw the piece like a javelin at the four-legged Cuisinart, I missed him by a good foot but I did put a good scare into him. The fence IS secure in most places so he looked like a furry pinball bouncing off the bumpers. It was pretty funny. I let him go so that I could see his exit strategy. After finding where he crawled out I reinforced the area with two cinder blocks. I feel like an East German border guard.

Been back with Garden II this Spring. Last year was the first round of learning some things. Basically, got some seeds, some plants, watered, and let the vegetables and the weeds engage in a Darwinian struggle for survival. Decided that I would not pull weeds--although in the Fall I did mow the whole plot which felt like Judgement Day by Lawnboy. Boy, was that a lot of fun. I think that the neighbors appreciated the restoration of order out back. Weeds don't do anything productive. Vegetables, well, produce--so in some manner, weeds have a real advantage. They travel light and are only out for themselves. But, their self-centeredness is their greatest weakness. Because they aren't productive, there is little desire for others to nurture them, to look out for them in a protective fashion. It is as if they shoot themselves in the root so to speak. Then again, they don't need a lot of attention to grow. Instead, I hunt them like Osama. This year, I put down some weed bloc

Like the mummy from the crypt, I rise again from the doldrums of nonblogdum. Coolness is definitely moving in the Facebook direction. It is pretty egocentric to think that others might find my musings interesting on a blog whereas I can throw out a quick scrap of info onto my Facebook wall and it doesn't take any great effort to read it or digest it. Kind of like applesauce. Rebounding from being sick. Emotionally, I crashed Friday night in a calvacade of anger, frustration, and sadness. Like lightning, thunder, and rain. It was a pretty massive storm. Yet, God has used it for my good. To learn my limits and weakness is always a good thing. I like what Eugene Peterson writes in The Message about Paul's passage in 2nd Cor. concerning the "thorn in the flesh." "Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he did in fact was push me to my knees." Amen Brother Eugene (kind of like a wise grandfather who writes encouraging notes to his grandkids)

Man, I love to read. My idea of the fulfilling life would be a nice cup of strong coffee in the morning with a good book to read. The Lord has not called me to the contemplative life...I think my idol would be to be idle. He has put me in the public school where I see the both the wonderful potential and disturbing problems of the younger generation. Maybe some day God will take me out of the fray so that I can retire to a mountain cabin to read and write. Until then, may I keep to my post and faithfully serve.

"The rich man takes a great deal of pains to get an estate together, and sits brooding upon it, but never has any comfort nor satisfaction in it; his projects to enrich himself by sinful courses miscarry and come to nothing. Let us therefore be wise in time--what we get to get it honestly, and what we have to use it charitably, that we may lay up in store a good foundation and be wise for eternity." M. Henry Jim Wallis in his recent book "God's Politics" asks a penetrating question. He inquires in the first paragraph of the first chapter of the book: "How did the faith of Jesus come to be known as pro-rich, pro-war, and only pro-American?" I don't fully suscribe to Wallis's perspective, but I think he raises valid points (God corrects imbalances by contrary imbalances--in this case Right and Left Wings). I am not discounting the dangers of living by the sword or nationalistic messianism, yet I think of the three, Wallis's comment about the

An Easter observation: I have tried to write on the Easter Story several times...trying to be succinct and profound at the same time. I keep getting bogged down...blogged down. "He is Risen" what else needs to be said?

I have been listening to the same section of Luke on CD my car going up to work for at least the last two weeks if not more. So, I have become much more familiar with Luke's Gospel. I'd like to say because it is because I wanted to delve much deeper into this part of the Bible. No, it is more due to my laziness of not wanting to have to take the CD out, put it in the casing, and put in a new Bible CD. Nonetheless, God uses my slackness for my good. I suppose it is a good sign that I am listening to the same part of the Bible over and over again rather than a stand-up routine from Larry the Cable Guy. As I have listened to the last days of Jesus, I have learned some new things. Like this: Jesus gave wine to His Disciple at the Last Supper and told them to drink it, then He broke bread, then He gave them wine again. Boy, that would really frost the legalists if we had wine twice in our Communion service (Yes, the church that I attend...evangelical...actually serves wine during Co

It was really amusing. A kid had petitioned me to drop a course several weeks ago (a cooking class) and we approved it. I assumed he knew (I was wrong). The teacher asked me why the kid was no longer in her on-line gradebook. I said that he had dropped the class. She was like, "No he didn't, he's in my class right now. I will send him down to Guidance immediately." The kid showed up wearing his apron...a big burly 17 year old strapping young man walking down the high school halls wearing an apron on his way to the Guidance office. It is really great that amidst all the seriousness and problems in the world, that something funny happens and it is a bright moment of laughter.

Blogs are like old men...once young and vibrant and virile, full of grand ideas. Then, they slow down, start to wheeze, and hack. Soon their dead, like a bug on a car's windshield. Well, this one ain't dead yet...

Ever since breaking the picture frame glass on New Year's Day at IKEA I have been thinking through some issues. The first thing is the brokeness of the world; it is like glass. Especially, the cracked image of God in man. But, everything else is broken, too. There is a beauty yet still here but one must see the brokeness to then see the beauty. Second, I thought about how fire can remelt broken glass--or destroy it. Any self-repair with tape or glue is like "works" salvation. Makes it look worse. We don't have the skill or the tools to fix what we have broken. We can admit it is broken and that is a start. Third, that took me to the Epistle of Peter where he writes of the elements melting upon the return of Christ...melting, like glass. The glass itself is not sinful but it has been broken, like a precious gift on Christmas, by unappreciative brats. Many will remain cracked for eternity...eternally broken, "always dying, never dead" as the quote goes. The

For about two weeks (from New Year's Day to last Monday) I was in a spiritual fever of sorts. I was all worked up, worried, and wearied. Kind of weird to be both worked up (anxious) and weary (tired) at the same time. The worst of both worlds emotionally. On Monday night, I was laying in bed sleepless going through some verses in my head like James "Count it all joy my brothers when you go through various trials" and "Lean not on your own understanding," Then God spoke, "Be still and know that I am God." I knew it was God speaking. This verse is not in my MP3 player of my mind. Stunned...the fever came to a halt and scampered away whimpering like a whupped and yelping (love this word...yelp) attack dog. He'll be back for sure. Then, in my devotional the next day, the writer essayed on Psalm 46. Yesterday, when listening to R.C. Sproul's "City of God" series (I am cutting NPR out in the morning...too much negativity that I don't

I wrote of the image of God in man being like cracked pieces of glass. Originally whole but finite and framed, now the image is shattered into shards. But these shards still retain eternal existense. What risks, what rewards, is that eternality.

Still thinking, listening, reading, and reflecting on 2 Peter 3:10. When the elements melt, is it because the elements themselves are sinful? No, the material world is not intrinsically evil. We had Communion at Church on Sunday...are the elements of the bread and wine evil? No, how could they be? They are symbols of Christ and His redemptive plan to redeem creation through His death and resurrection(after He was risen from the dead He had a material presence). When I think of the fire that God will send at the end of the age, it is a deeply purifying fire where evil will be permanently exfoliated from the created order. More thoughts to follow in later blogs.

Peter writes in 2 Peter 3:10 "The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire." I did a Bible Study on this verse today in trying to consider how the broken glass-like image of humanity (see previous blogs for my train of thought) and the world's brokeness in general, is to be restored to wholeness. A conflagration, a universal burning, leading to transformation. This is not God playing with matches just as Noah's Flood was not God with a garden hose. A cosmic incinerator as it were. Out of ashes, beauty.

I am sinning right now...as I type. My heart aches because it is troubled. Because it is troubled, that is why I am sinning. Jesus tells me that my heart should not be troubled; that I should believe in Him. But, I answer, "Lord, I do believe." Maybe, I need to believe more. Or, believe in a different way. I am not sure. It has been a hard week at work (pulled 3 twelve hour days thus far this week just to not fall behind more) and I don't want to be glib and say something I don't mean like "Tough times don't last but tough people do." Or some other sub-Christian cliche crapola. I'd rather says that it takes "A tough man to make a tender chicken" an old ad line of Frank Perdue--a man who not only sold chicken but looked like a chicken. The last line was just thrown in to make this otherwise ponderful blog entry more entertaining. I do have to admit that this world causes me to be chicken sometimes. I wonder how all of the brokeness will be

The band U2 sang the the song "Nothing Changes on New Year's Day" "where the world is white and on its way." (click the title for the 1982 song's video--the members look like they are in middle school!). The U2 song came to me after I broke the glass to the picture frame for the inspirational quotes at IKEA on New Year's Day (see previous blogs). The inspirational quotes were like hopeful resolutions; I had my quotes and would be able to view them clearly. Well, even before I had a chance to mount the quotes, I broke the glass. Nothing changes on New Year's Day. Furher blogs will develop how God's grace alone changes things.

On New Year's Day Lina and I on the way back from Philly stopped by IKEA to buy bookshelves. We were pleased when the four 8 ft boxes fit into my Honda Civic. It was like a magic trick. With Lina driving, I crawled into the back of the car. My abs constricted and cramped severely causing great pain; I moved my right arm and elbow on top of the boxes to try to a pull myself out of the involuntary fetal position. "CRACK" went the glass in the picture frame (that was on top of the boxes). So, we (me feeling like quite the bad boy) went back into IKEA to buy another frame. The store rep said that they probably would replace it for free and encouraged us to go to the return counter. Both he and the clerk were somewhat astonished when we said that we were not going to do that--I just needed to throw the cracked frame out and that we'd purchase another. It felt good for me to confess my guilt. Reminds me of what the Tax Collecter said in Luke (in Jesus's story about