Incline your ear to wisdom

This question was posed by a friend Finalyfree.  I answered this excellent question on her blog.  But I think I need to elaborate on it more here.

Why I write this blog

    & nbsp;  This blog was actually inspired by my father’s death last year.  You see my dad left us with many happy memories.  He also left us some published writings that give some insights about him.  But one thing that I wish that he had was a journal.  I would love to read more of his thoughts about things that mattered to him.  And those are the same kind of thoughts that I try to document in this blog.   My primary goal is to have something for my daughter to read when she grows up.  Through this journal, I’m hoping that she would have a better idea what I was like during my younger years.  What my thoughts were about the important issues and events during those years.  Most of all, through this journal, I would like her to know how much I love her and her mom.

This is the conclusion of a series of posts taken from the book Why We Believe the Bible by George W. Dehoff


The Number of Stars

    & nbsp;   The ancients believed that there were only a very few stars in the heavens.  In 150 B.C. Hipparchus said that there were less than three thousand.  In AD 150 Ptolemy said there were not more than three thousand.  This was considered a high estimate.  After the middle ages and the invention of the telescope, men discovered that the stars are innumerable.  Yet all the time Genesis 15:5, Jeremiah 33:22 and other verses of the Bible declared that the stars of the sky are like the sands of the seashore: “innumerable”.  (I will increase the number of descendants of my servant David and the number of priests from the tribe of Levi, so that it will be as impossible to count them as it is to count the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore Jer. 33:22 TEV)  How did these ancient writers know that the stars are innumerable?  There can be but one answer:  God told them what to write!


Something to Think About

    & nbsp;   It is said that Benjamin Franklin, while in Paris, made a model planetary system showing the earth and the planets nearest it.  Many astronomers copied it to use in their studies.  One day an atheist friend saw it and asked, “Who made it?”  “No one made it,” answered Franklin.  “It made itself, it just happened.”  “What,” cried the man, “you’re joking.”  “And so is the man who says the universe just happened,” replied Franklin.


A reminder from the author

    & nbsp;   Despite the Bible’s scientific accuracy, the author reminds us that it is not a textbook on material science.  Rather “it is a textbook on religion – the science of correct living.”

     & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;         & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;  COLE
    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;    We were supposed to draw a picture.
    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;    Anything we wanted...  I drew a man.
    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;    He got hurt in the neck by another
    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;    man with a screwdriver.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;         & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   MALCOLM
    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;    You saw that on T.V., Cole?

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;         & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   COLE
    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;    Everybody got upset.  They had a
    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;    meeting.  Momma started crying.
    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;    I don't draw like that anymore.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;         & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   MALCOLM
    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;    How do you draw now?

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;         & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;    COLE
    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;    I draw people with smiles, dogs
    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;    running, and rainbows.
    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;    They don't have meetings about rainbows.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;         & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;    MALCOLM
    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;    I guess they don't.

 
    & nbsp;   That's a conversation between the two main characters of the movie The Sixth Sense.  Cole was played by Haley Joel Osment and Bruce Willis was Malcolm, a child psychiatrist.  This conversation struck a nerve in me because it reminds me of how we focus too much on the terrible things rather than the pleasurable ones that happen in our lives.  I read several newspapers online and I need to put some effort to find some good news.  The headlines are usually dominated by bad news.  But that's reality you might say and I agree with you.  But still I bet there's a ton of good things that goes unreported.

    & nbsp;   And that's what I remind myself everyday.  As I grieve with every parent who lost a child in that terrible tsunami, I remind myself that there's a child born every minute somewhere, putting tears of joy in their parents' faces.  As I take pity on those children who lost their parents, I’m inspired by the countless couples who seek to adopt those children.  As I try to feel the suffering of every injured and sick person, I salute the volunteer medical workers who care for them.  As I try to fathom the chaos and destruction of this calamity, I also celebrate the unity and brotherhood it has allowed us to show to one another.

    & nbsp;   Those newborn babies, those couples with hearts of gold, those nameless heroes.  Those are the people who form the rainbow that had emerged from this tragic storm of our lifetime.

This is a continuation of a series of posts consisting of excerpts from a book called Why We Believe in the Bible by George W. Dehoff.


Formation of Static Electricity

    & nbsp;   The Greeks and Romans with all of their intellectual development thought that a thunderstorm consisted of Jupiter with a handful of thunderbolts  hurling them at the earth and its peoples.  Yet they might have informed themselves by reading Jeremiah 10:13, “At his command the waters above the sky roar; he brings clouds from the ends of the earth.  He makes lightning flash in the rain and sends the wind from his storeroom.” (TEV).  Benjamin Franklin, Thomas A. Edison and others have discovered that static electricity may be formed by condensing water, yet Jeremiah knew of this thousands of years before.  How?


Paths of the Sea

    & nbsp;   Matthew Fontaine Maury, “the pathfinder of the seas”, and the founder of the science of Oceanography, was a firm believer in and a close student of the Bible.  His teaching caused the Annapolis Academy to be founded and his memory is honored and respected throughout the world.  On monument row in Richmond, Virginia, is a statue of the great scientist sitting with the Bible in one hand and his charts of the sea in the other.  Behind him is a globe of the earth, which he helped to explore.

    & nbsp;   Before he lived there were no sailing lanes and no charts of the sea.  One day, when he was ill, his son read to him from the eighth Psalm.  He read that God put all things that He created under man, including “⁷ All sheep and oxen – Even the beasts of the field, ⁸ The birds of the air, and the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas.”  “Read that again,” he said.  Upon hearing it the second time, the venerable scientist said, “If the word of God says there are paths in the sea, they must be there.  I will find them.”  Within a few years he had charted the principal lanes or paths of the sea.  How did David know of these paths?

(I will post the conclusion next week)

    & nbsp;   This is the title of the first issue of U.S. News and World Report for this year.  The title compelled me to grab the magazine and scour through the pages.  All of the tips are good but some of them are real gems that I want to share here:

Tip #11:  Use Your Gray Matter
 

    & nbsp;   The article gives light to the misconception that brain cells don’t grow anymore after the age of 20.  Studies in neuroscience had shown the following activities could help enhance brain functions no matter what your age is:

Answering crossword puzzles

Playing a game of chess

Analyzing books and discussing them in your book clubs

Playing a tough 18 holes of golf

Aerobic exercises like basketball and walking

Engaging other people in social activities

    & nbsp;   The first three are widely known as brain enhancing activities.  But I was really surprised with the last three.  It turns out that physical and social activities also help the brain!  I also want to add another activity that has the potential to increase your brainpower – watching movies that make you think.

Here are two very good examples:

 You’re Carol, a young artist who is very much in love with you’re fiancé Steven.  You’ve got a surprise for him, you are pregnant!  When you tell him, there was something weird about his reaction.  He seemed not sure if he’s happy about the news.  Turned out he has a surprise of his own.  One day a visitor knocked on your door.  You don’t know the guy so you were shocked when he told you that he is Steven’s brother.  You see he’s a dwarf and Steven is more than six feet tall.  But wait, not only he’s Steven’s brother, he is his twin brother!  And their entire family are dwarves, except for Steven.  Now the questions and possibilities are swirling in your head.  How could Steven do this to you?  What if your baby turns out to be a dwarf?  Are you still willing to have it?  How would you confront him about this secret of his that he somehow managed to hide?

It’s 1989, your name is Alex and you live in socialist East Germany.  One night, your dad left to escape to West Germany.  He left you with your mom and your little sister.  This left your mom in a state of shock; she never spoke a word for 2 years!  So you considered it a miracle when one day, your mom snapped back to her old self.  But this time, she devoted her life to the Socialist government (maybe to spite your dad).  She embraced the teachings of socialism and eschewed the ways of the west.  Little did she know about the discontent of her son in the very same system she has learned to embrace.  So when she saw you getting arrested in a protest rally, she had a heart attack and went into a coma!  Not again, you told yourself not knowing what to do.  But you decided to be strong for your sister.  You told yourself this has happened before and you endured.  There’s no reason you could not endure this one.

    & nbsp;   Months have passed and somehow you and your sister managed to take care of your mom.  You also managed to move on with your life and even went into relationships.  Sure enough, eight months later another miracle happens.  She awakens from her deep slumber!  But you have a different problem now.  During the course of her deep sleep, the Berlin Wall has fallen, Germany has been reunited.  Radical changes have taken place around you.  This is a different East Germany that your mother had been loyal to.  So what is the problem?  The doctor said you should keep your mom from overly stimulating situations for it may cause another heart attack.  And this time it will be fatal.  So what would you do?  Would you tell your mom about the changes that took place to her beloved country?  How and when would you tell her?  Or would you hide the reality from her?  Would you lie to her, for her own safety?

    & nbsp;   Additional questions to readers:  Do you like watching those kinds of movies?  What movies have you watched lately that made you think?

The Three Kingdoms

    & nbsp;   Scientists now teach that there are three great kingdoms – mineral, vegetable and animal.  This scientific division is a comparatively recent innovation.  Neither the cuneiform records of Babylon and Assyria nor the hieroglyphics of Egypt reveal that the ancients knew of such a division.  It is thought that Linnaeus was the first to recognize these three kingdoms and he made his announcement in A.D. 1735 while Moses wrote in 1500 B. C.  In the first chapter of Genesis, Moses used the first ten verses telling about the mineral – material – kingdom, the next nine verses telling about the vegetable kingdom and the rest of the chapter telling of the animal kingdom.


Rotundity of the Earth

    & nbsp;    When the Bible was written it was universally believed that the earth was flat.  It was argued that should one go too far toward the edge he would fall off.  The early Grecians as well as the Toscanelli, an Italian, suggested the rotundity of the earth.  Columbus and other believed them.  Finally, Magellan and his men sailed around the earth and thus proved it to be spherical in shape.  But of the shape of the earth the Author of the Bible was not in ignorance for we read in Isaiah 40:22, “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth.  And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.  Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.” (NKJV)  In Proverbs 8:27, “When He prepared the heavens, I was there, When He drew a circle on the face of the deep,” (NKJV).  We read that Christ is coming in the daytime and that He is coming at night...it will be day on one side of the earth, and night on the other when he comes (Luke 17).  That the writers of the Bible wrote of the rotundity of the earth cannot be questioned.  They could have learned of this only from God.  No other being in the universe could have given the information.


Suspension of the Earth

    & nbsp;   The ancient Greeks and Romans were the most advanced peoples of their time, yet they believed that the earth was held in place by poles or by the neck of Atlas.  Others believed that Atlas had the earth on his shoulders.  Some said that the earth floated on water and should one go too far out on the sea he would surely perish.  When men sailed around the earth, they discovered that it touches nothing – that nothing visible holds it in place.  Then it was understood why Job 26:7 says “He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing.” (NKJV).  The ancient book of Job is absolutely scientific.  Indeed so, God told Job what to write.  If not, how did he find out these things?

(I will post part 3 next week)

    & nbsp;  In his book Why We Believe in the Bible, author George W. Dehoff discusses how science supports the Bible rather than contradict it:

Scientific Principles

    & nbsp;   Herbert Spencer (1820 – 1903) first announced that there are only five “manifestations of the unknowable” in existence – time, force, action, space and matter – and that all else is based on these fundamentals.  This was hailed as a great announcement but this was already reflected in what God made Moses to write thousands of years earlier.  “In the beginning”  (time); “God” (force); “created” (action); “the heavens” (space); “and the earth” (matter).  Thus Moses put all five scientific fundamentals in the first verse of Genesis and they are in the same order as announced by Herbert Spencer.

Light Before the Sun

    & nbsp;   All men once held with Sir Isaac Newton the idea that light is an emanation from the sun and other luminous bodies, but in recent years men think they have proven that light existed before the sun.  There are many theories concerning light but all scientists are apparently agreed that light existed before the sun was made its governor.  Since this was discovered, many pseudo-scientists have ridiculed the “old Bible idea that light comes from the sun.”  While in college one of my professors explained his favorite theory of light and ended by saying, “Well, this completely upsets the old Bible idea that light comes from the sun.  In fact it just proves that book to be out of date.”  “Sir, where does the Bible say that light comes from the sun?” I asked.  “Oh, I don’t know,” he replied.  “Everybody knows it’s there.”  At my insistence a Bible was brought and the professor read from the first chapter of Genesis:  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and God said, Let there be light and there was light....” He read on to verses 17 and 18 where God later made the sun, moon and stars to control this light and to act as our chronometers.  Seeing that Moses was perfectly scientific, the learned doctor said, “Well, that makes a donkey out of me.”

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;  How did Moses know this important scientific fact thousands of years before others discovered it?

To be continued...