This video was shot tonight at some friends’ house, and features the making of some delicious Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. Please excuse the low quality. It was shot on my cell phone, on the “economy” setting in order to fit it all. But I think it’s got some good entertainment value anyway.
“They stoned Paul and dragged him out of town, thinking he was dead. But as the believers gathered around him, he got up and went back into the town.”
– Acts 14:19-20 (NLT)
These words really stuck out to me the other day as I was reading the passage. Paul is out sharing the Gospel, runs into opposition, has the stuffing beat out of him, and is dragged out of town and left for dead. And then what? He gets up and goes right back into town. Wow. He doesn’t run away. He doesn’t back down. He goes right back into the city he was just thrown out of. Back into the fray.
I’ve never been beat up for my faith. I’ve never faced anything remotely close to that kind of persecution, and I assume most of the people reading this haven’t either. But I have failed. I’ve been hurt. I’ve been disappointed by others. I’ve disappointed myself. I’ve sinned when I knew better and felt rotten for it.
But when I read this passage, I remembered that whatever failure I’ve had, whatever hurt I’ve experienced, it doesn’t have to have the last word. With God’s help, I can get up and go back. And so can you.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
– John 1:1 (NIV)
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what the Bible means when it refers to Jesus as “the Word”. I’m sure there’s more depth to it than I’ve yet discovered, but here’s what I’ve got so far:
Jesus is God’s way of revealing Himself to us. He could have sent another prophet to tell us about Him. He could have shown us some sort of miraculous sign in the sky. Instead, He came to us in a form we could understand: He became one of us. Jesus is God’s most clear revelation of His own character. If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.
This has a huge affect on how we see God. And it should have a huge affect on how we view Scripture too. Jesus is the center-piece of the Bible. Everything in the Old Testament leads up to Him; everything in the New Testament is directly influenced by His life and teachings.
Beyond that, Jesus Himself teaches us how we should interpret Scripture: Himself (a pretty bold assertion to make, but if He’s really God, then He can do that). He tells us He’s the fulfillment of the Law. He replaces the sacrificial system with His own sacrifice. And He radically re-interprets a lot of Old Testament teachings by showing us God’s heart behind them (the letter versus the spirit of the Law).
I think a lot of the Church’s history of legalism, abuses of power and misuse of the Bible to justify political and personal agendas is rooted in a failure to interpret the written Word through the life and teachings of the Living Word, Jesus.
Christians often talk about “getting back to the Bible”. I say we get back to Jesus.
It occurred to me today that It’s been quite a while since I blogged about my language studies. Actually, I haven’t blogged about much of anything; I’ve posted lots of pictures and stuff but haven’t shared many thoughts or stories lately. I’m going to try to get back to more regular blogging, especially now that I’m officially only updating one blog (this one) instead of two. By the way, if you’ve just joined us from JapanLog, welcome!
Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah — languages studies…
Studying Japanese has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Seriously. A linguist I am not. I was horrible at French back in high school, and remember practically nothing. My spelling’s also pretty bad, though it has improved with some help from a little thing computers do called “spell check”. So it should be no surprise that Japanese would be a challenge. Also, rote memorization is tough for me, and with language study there’s a lot of that.
People talk about “hitting the brick wall” in their studies. I feel like I’ve hit several of them over the past year and a half. But, the good news is, I am improving. Maybe not as quickly as I’d like to be; but improving nevertheless. I’m encouraged by those “a-ha” moments that happen once in a while, when something I didn’t for a long time get suddenly clicks.
I’m also encouraged in those the moments when I actually stop and think about where I am compared to a year ago; when I see how far I’ve come rather than just seeing how far I’ve got to go.
This morning in church, I had one of those moments. We were singing a song and I realized that I actually understood almost all of what I was singing. It helped that today was one of our less-traditional services. Usually we sing from a hymnbook; like English hymnbooks, Japanese ones use a lot of out-dated language and “churchy” language. Today’s songs were more modern and thus used more common language. And I realized all of the sudden during one of those songs that I knew just about ever word. I looked the one up that I couldn’t, and understood.
It was a nice moment. I find I’m having more of them lately. Sometimes it’s when I have a good conversation with a friend. Or when I’m sitting in a meeting and understand the gist, even if I don’t get every word.
Though I’ve got a really really long way to go before I’m even close to fluent, I’m thankful that I can look back and see some real progress.
Tried to go to sleep early tonight. Like 10:30. It didn’t work. So here it is, 11:20, and I’m blogging for a change of pace from that. Some thoughts:
1. Just finished a great week with a couple of Canadian friends visiting me here in Japan for some travel and ministry. It was really tiring… but at the same time refreshing. We shared a lot of laughs, had some great ministry experiences, and learned some stuff too. I felt blessed by the experience.
2. I’m really in love with my church here. They made me proud with the hospitality they showed by Canadian Brothers, and with how they stepped up to the plate to partner with us in some ministries this past week. Sometimes I think I could stay here in Nagoya with them forever.
3. Meanwhile (on a more superficial note) back in the West, the season finale of Lost aired this week. I’m not all caught up yet, so don’t tell me how it ends. It’s been an interesting season, though, with some really good writing. I wasn’t sure when this year’s started, but it’s turned out to have been a good ride. I’m hoping it ended on a good note. Only one season left after this.
4. I have some catching up to do: on studies, on work stuff, and on the personal/creative front, too. No time to get bored these days… and lots of reason to work on my time management skills. Which always need work. I’m easily distracted. What was I saying?
5. I have way too many photos to sort through, edit and share. Like 400+ from the past week alone (including some I got from others, not just my own). And like a zillion (that’s right, a zillion) from the previous few months. I need like a month off just for that. But instead it’ll probably end up being a “a little at a time” project…
6. Speaking of projects, the Doodze webcomic has been put on hiatus due to my recent bout of busyness. I do hope to get back to it soon, when I have some free time, but I probably won’t start posting right away. Instead I’ll work on building a buffer, some lettering fixes on previous pages, and getting the official site ready to launch.