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Day 1459 – Bible Study – Its Aim Is Not Ignorance – Meditation Monday

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Welcome to Day 1459 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Bible Study – Its Aim Is Not Ignorance – Meditation Monday

Wisdom – the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, and to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before.

Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase wisdom and create a living legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1459 of our trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday. Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy.

For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection. You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life, meditation includes reading and reflecting on God’s Word and praying. It is a time to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and make sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body. As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you, too, will experience a time for reflection and renewing of your mind. 

We are continuing our series this week on Meditation Monday as we focus on Mastering Bible Study through a series of brief insights from Hebrew Scholar, Dr. Michael S. Heiser. Our first few insights will focus on study habits to build a strong foundation. Today let us meditate on…

Bible Study – Its Aim Is Not Ignorance

·      Insight Thirteen: The Aim of Bible Study is the Meaning of the Text, Not a Defense of Your View

The Bible is God’s Word—a repository of truths and information that, through human authors, God wanted to be preserved for posterity. Since the Bible is one of God’s means to transform our lives and direct our behavior, those who hold it in esteem have an emotional investment in it. They believe that it’s the expression of God’s will, not only for faith but also practice (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Given all that’s riding on Bible study, it’s not hard to see why people who engage in it seriously sometimes argue about the results. Disagreements aren’t about an intellectual victory. Right and wrong are at stake; at least that’s the ideal. Sometimes that’s accurate. Other times it’s exaggerated.

Knowing precisely what the Bible means at every turn would require omniscience. Several passages are ambiguous. God knows omniscience isn’t an attribute we possess. Consequently, assigning a point of morality to every interpretive decision is unwise. It may sound sacrilegious, but a lot of the Bible—and hence, Bible study—doesn’t have a moral issue in view.

I’ve met many Christians who are so desperate to make sure their behavior is right and not wrong that they end up becoming better at arguing for what their family or tradition tells them a verse means than actually studying the matter for themselves. I’ve seen relationships destroyed over conflicting Bible interpretations where no core doctrinal teaching was at stake. I’ve seen believers driven to despair when friends or family members make an interpretation a litmus test for good standing before them and even before God.

The goal of Bible study shouldn’t be about finding ammunition to make someone guilty or shaming someone on the other side of a disagreement. It isn’t about finding ways to crush opposition or force a spiritual submission. You aren’t the Holy Spirit. It’s often better to kindly share what you believe and its basis in Scripture and then privately take your concerns to the Lord.

·      Insight Fourteen: Ignorance Is Not a Gift of the Spirit

In this era of social media, we’ve all been exposed to people who have a knack for irritating and offending people they’ve never met. If you peruse comments on blogs or online forums to any extent, you know precisely who I’m talking about: the person who can’t seem to read anything without making sure everyone learns that they disagree and why, often in copious detail. So much for the global community.

Dr. Heiser has been blogging for years and has seen countless samples of incoherent, apoplectic ramblings. That doesn’t bother him. The dialogue he finds disturbing hits him in his soft ministry underbelly. As someone who’s spent many years in the classroom as a biblical studies professor, he cares that people want to learn Scripture. In his experience, a single overbearing spirit can poison the learning environment with disturbing speed and efficiency. The internet is the natural habitat of the “unteachable web dweller.”

You would think it would be easy for a professor to (pardon the pun) teach this type of student a lesson. This species often comes with an immunity: their appeal to ignorance as a virtue. Bringing up why the unteachable soul needs to rethink their dogmatic conclusion because of a point of Greek or Hebrew grammar has little effect when they’ve been trained to be suspicious of scholars. Appeals to Christian charity are harmlessly deflected when the target equates being uninfluenced by research with “defending the faith” (a tortured use of Jude 3).

I’m not recommending that Bible students bow to everything scholars say. For one thing, that would be impossible since scholars often disagree. For another, even scholarly conclusions are influenced by presuppositions. A committed Bible student needs to respect scholarship, not prostrate to it.

No one earns a Ph.D. without learning a great deal. That effort does indeed separate the scholar from most people. But the way to judge what a scholar says is not by extolling the virtues of ignorance. Instead, the committed Bible student will put in long hours to either confirm or critique what a given scholar says.

God doesn’t smile with more affection on someone who knows little about a subject, especially when that subject is the Bible. Willful resistance to thinking hard and long about the book we say is inspired is anything but a gift of the Spirit.

Joshua 1:8

Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.

That is a wrap for today’s meditation. Next week, we will continue our trek on Meditation Monday as we take time to reflect on what is most important in creating our living legacy. On tomorrow’s trek, we will explore another wisdom quote. This 3-minute wisdom supplement will assist you in becoming healthy, wealthy, and wise each day. Thank you for joining me on this trek called life. Encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

If you would like to listen to any of the past 1458 daily treks or read the daily Journal, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day will be downloaded to you automatically.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most importantly, your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

  1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
  2. Love Unconditionally
  3. Listen Intentionally
  4. Learn Continuously
  5. Lend to others Generously
  6. Lead with Integrity
  7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Everyday! See you tomorrow!

Day 1456 – Additional Objections to the Heavenly Council – Worldview Wednesday

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Welcome to Day 1456 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Additional Objections To The Heavenly Council – Worldview Wednesday

Wisdom – the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. Today is Day 1456 of our Trek, and it is Worldview Wednesday. Creating a Biblical Worldview is essential to have a proper perspective on today’s current events. To establish a Biblical Worldview, you must have a proper understanding of God and His Word. This week, on our Worldview Wednesday episode, we will continue with our study based on a course I recently completed taught by Dr. Michael Heiser. Our study is titled “Sons and Daughters of God: The Believer’s Identity, Calling, and Destiny” Throughout this multi-week course we will demonstrate that, in the Old Testament, “sons of God” and “holy ones” refers to supernatural beings whose Father is God and who work with God to carry out His will and that this divine family was present before humanity. By fully engaging with biblical texts such as Psalm 82; Psalm 89, and Deuteronomy 32:8–9, our study will show that this divine family functions as a template for God’s human family. God desires of humans, as His imagers, to participate in His council. This study addresses issues such as polytheism, the nature of the (little ‘g’) “gods,” and the uniqueness of Yahweh. Within this study, we will apply insights to the New Testament texts and shows how the metaphor of being in God’s family informs our sense of identity and mission as believers.

Additional Objections To The Heavenly Council

·      Segment 10: Are References Just People or Specifically Jews?

Who Comprises the Heavenly Council?

In previous weeks we explored if the council of God referred to the trinity or idols. Neither of those options were logical or based on Scripture. One of the other options when people raise the following questions, “Well, maybe these plural elohim aren’t really divine beings; they’re not really gods.” “Maybe they are something else. Maybe they are people.” “Maybe Psalm 82 has God talking to a council of leaders, Jewish leaders, elders, Israelites, you know, some human beings here.”

Coming from the Spiritual World

Now, we’ve already seen specific arguments in addressing other questions that are going to make this option very troublesome. Frankly, making this option impossible. In Psalm 89, the council of God, the council of His sons. In Psalm 82:6, the sons of God, the sons of the Most High. Those two psalms using sonship language very plainly—this council of God’s children in Psalm 89 is in the skies; it’s in the heavenly realms, the spiritual realm.

First Kings 22: Micaiah is looking into the throne room of God. Micaiah sees a vision of the spiritual world. It’s the same thing with Daniel 4 and Daniel 7. In these passages, these beings come from the spiritual world, not earth. That alone would rule out the trajectory that God is really talking to people here.

Dominant View: Humans

You can read your Bible from cover to cover, and you’re never going to come up with a group of Jewish people ruling with God in the skies. It just doesn’t make any sense. There is a reason behind why I am bringing this up because this is actually, believe it or not—even though after the little bit we have discussed here, it sounds a bit absurd—this is actually kind of a dominant view in commentaries and other sources for Psalm 82.

Again, it’s because people are troubled by having multiple elohim in the spiritual world. You might be listening to that and saying, “What’s the trouble? It’s a heavenly host.” I understand that, but again, we need to hit some of these things.

Jewish Elders Never Called Elohim

Dr. Heiser has included specific detailed critiques of this idea that Psalm 82 is just talking about other people in his best selling book, The Unseen Realm. For an even more in-depth analysis, I refer you to his book. Some defend Palms 82 & 89 as Jewish elders and compare them to Exodus 18. That passage is the scene where Moses, through the advice of the counsel of Jethro, appoints other people to help him make decisions—the appointment of elders to assist Moses in Israelite jurisprudence and handling less serious matters.

Well, the fact of the matter is, that’s true, but if you read Exodos 18, the elders are never called elohim in that passage, not even once. Every occurrence of elohim in that passage, except for one, refers to the God of Israel; the outlier is a reference to the other gods of the nations. Jewish elders are never referred to as elohim in either Exodos 18 or any other passage.

Spiritual Beings, Not Humans

What I want you to take away from this point here is that you don’t need to do all that fancy scholarly stuff. Think about Psalm 82, think about Psalm 89, think about 1 Kings 22, think about Daniel 4. God’s family, His children who form His council, or His advisory board, is not really in the sense of God learning anything. God allowing them to choose, make decisions, have a little freedom in carrying out things that God has already decided He wants to do. That body, that deliberative body, that group, are spiritual beings. They are in the spiritual realm, in the skies, in the heavens, according to Psalm 89. That alone rules out people.

Summary

So that’s the point really to take away from this for our purposes. If you want to get into the more extended, lengthier discussion, The Unseen Realm will do that for you. We are not hung up with divine plurality, and as we proceed through the rest of the questions, we’re going to get into: “Well, how do we think about the divine plurality if the answer isn’t these other things?” We are not dealing with polytheism here. The God of Israel is unique; none are like Him. There really is, comparatively speaking, none beside Him. He is unique.

So we don’t need to worry about that idea, and that in turn means we don’t have to invent contrived answers, contrived positions to explain divine plurality. I think you’re going to see as we proceed through the course that’s a good thing because God is going to use His relationship with His heavenly family and what they do as a template for helping us understand how God looks at us and what we do.

I will give you a sneak peek here. In the end, humans who are redeemed are going to be made like Him. 1 John 3, we are going to be made divine; we are going to be grafted into the divine family. There is a reason why we get a body like Jesus had, according to 1 Corinthians 15; there is a reason why we are described as being partakers of the divine nature in 2 Peter 1. The Old Testament language about the sons of God and what they do and how God relates to them is of great importance for understanding our status, our calling, and our destiny.

·      Segment 11: Are References in Psalm 82 & 89 Just Angels?

“Angel” as Job Description

We have one more common trajectory to address in terms of people trying to identify the plural elohim of Yahweh’s council in Psalm 82 and some of these other passages. The question naturally comes up, “Well, are these angels?” Well, it’s kind of like six of one and a half dozen of the other. The specific term for “angel” in the Hebrew Bible (mal’akh) is not used in these or other council passages. Heavenly host terminology, though, does show up, and of course, angels are part of the heavenly host.

What we have here is a bit of a confusion. We think of “angel” as a term that describes what something is. That’s not actually how we need to think about angels either in the Hebrew Bible or in other literature as well. An angel, a messenger, mal’akh in Hebrew just means “messenger”; angelos in Greek just means “messenger.” This term “angel” is actually a job description. It doesn’t tell you what a thing is; it tells you what a thing does. So, if we are referring to a certain elohim, certain divine beings as being mal’akhim (“angels”), it just means those particular elohim that’s their job for the day; they are taking a message somewhere.

“Sons of God” as Job Description

“Sons of God,” on the other hand, is also a job description. I mentioned earlier that it’s actually a hierarchical term. So, within the council, the biblical idea is that some of these council members take messages; those are the angels. Others, though, are referred to as “sons of God” in certain passages for specific reasons. It refers to a different task, different status in the hierarchy.

You have to think a little bit about the ancient Near Eastern world for this, and Dr. Heiser does this in Unseen Realm. He gives us a description with primary source references and all of that. “Sons of God” is really a royal household term, and in the book, he uses the example of Pharaoh. Pharaoh in both Egyptian and its later understanding, its transliteration as Pharaoh—Egyptian is per-aa; it means “great house” or “great household”—it actually refers to the inner circle or the high bureaucracy that runs Egypt.

Of course, you have one person at the center who is the king figure (what we call the Pharaoh), but this great household is really the ones who are tasked with the most important positions and the most important jobs. That’s the way we sort of need to think about sons of God. Yes, messengers/angels are part of the council, but it’s not correct to sort of make them one-to-one equivalent terms: elohim are angels.

Elohim Not a Job Description

Angel is a job description; elohim, on the other hand, tells us what a thing is, but angel tells us what a thing does. So messengers are part of the council, but we don’t want to equate that term with elohim. We’re going to talk a little bit about what elohim are in more detail as we proceed in subsequent weeks because we next week need to get into how this whole question of, well, isn’t this just polytheism? If we run around and use “gods” as part of our vocabulary, part of the vernacular as we talk about biblical theology, aren’t we just talking polytheistically? The answer is we’re not, and we’re going to see why as we understand what elohim actually means. Again, that’s a key term. Angel is not a complete equivalent because angel is a job description, but elohim is something different.[1]

That will finish our study for this week’s Worldview Wednesday. Tomorrow we will continue with our 3-minute Humor nugget that will provide you with a bit of cheer, which will help you to lighten up and live a rich and satisfying life. So encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along with us tomorrow for another day of ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.’ If you would like to listen to any of our past 1455 treks or read the Wisdom Journal, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day’s trek will be downloaded automatically.

Thank you so much for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and, most of all, your friend as I serve you in through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.

As we take this Trek together, let us always:

  1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
  2. Love Unconditionally
  3. Listen Intentionally
  4. Learn Continuously
  5. Lend to others Generously
  6. Lead with Integrity
  7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain….reminding you to ’Keep Moving Forward,’ ‘Enjoy your Journey,’ and ‘Create a Great Day…Everyday’! See you Tomorrow!

[1] Heiser, M. S. (2019). Sons and Daughters of God: The Believer’s Identity, Calling, and Destiny. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

Day 1451– Shared Rule With The Heavenly Council – Worldview Wednesday

by Leave a Comment

Welcome to Day 1451 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Shared Rule With The Heavenly Council – Worldview Wednesday

Wisdom – the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. Today is Day 1451 of our Trek, and it is Worldview Wednesday. Creating a Biblical Worldview is essential to have a proper perspective on today’s current events. To establish a Biblical Worldview, you must have a proper understanding of God and His Word. This week, on our Worldview Wednesday episode, we will continue with our study based on a course I recently completed taught by Dr. Michael Heiser. Our study is titled “Sons and Daughters of God: The Believer’s Identity, Calling, and Destiny” Throughout this multi-week course we will demonstrate that, in the Old Testament, “sons of God” and “holy ones” refers to supernatural beings whose Father is God and who work with God to carry out His will and that this divine family was present before humanity. By fully engaging with biblical texts such as Psalm 82; Psalm 89, and Deuteronomy 32:8–9, our study will show that this divine family functions as a template for God’s human family. God desires of humans, as His imagers, to participate in His council. This study addresses issues such as polytheism, the nature of the (little ‘g’) “gods,” and the uniqueness of Yahweh. Within this study, we will apply insights to the New Testament texts and shows how the metaphor of being in God’s family informs our sense of identity and mission as believers.

Shared Rule With The Heavenly Council

·      Segment 8: Participation with God’s Government 1

 Participation Not Artificial

I bring up the issue of predestination really for one reason. That is, I want to make the point that participation in God’s council, participation in carrying out God’s will isn’t artificial. That is, God uses the members of His family to carry out His decrees, and He allows them freedom, creativity, input—however, we want to think about this—in carrying out His will, in getting done the thing, He wants to get done.

Participation is going to be a part of a template for understanding our role in God’s program. Even though it’s sort of a bit of a sidebar, sort of a little bit abstract, it’s essential to include this in our thinking, because when we talk about “participation,” this term is going to come back later in our course when we talk about imaging. The whole concept of being created as God’s imager really matters because God (as we’re going to see) is going to lend us His attributes, one of which is freedom, and He allows us to use those attributes to be who we are in carrying out His decisions. Not Predetermined

Let us consider an example or two of that in the Old Testament, where God and the decisions He makes does not have everything in a predetermined. This mindset is going to matter how we process what we do as God’s servants, as God’s children in His family business, His family bureaucracy. So the question before us is: Isn’t everything predestined? I have already said, tipped my hand here last week, the answer is still no.

Do we have scriptural evidence for that? I’m going to take us on a short detour through 1 Samuel 23 to obtain a needed perspective. This perspective is going to be an ingredient in understanding the importance of actually working with God, being co-laborers in what He wants us to do. It’s not artificial. It’s meaningful; it actually counts. So let’s take a look at 1 Samuel 23.

·      Segment 9: Participation with God’s Government 2

Introduction

Let me read through 1 Samuel 23 to get a flavor for this notion about predestination, how God looks at the future. There is going to be an implication in this passage that’s important for us as we, later in the course, think about our participation in God’s program.

First Samuel 23:1–13

So beginning in the first verse of 1 Samuel 23, we read this:

Now they told David, “Behold, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah and are robbing the threshing floors.” Therefore David inquired of the Lord, “Shall I go and attack these Philistines?” And the Lord said to David, “Go and attack the Philistines and save Keilah.” But David’s men said to him, “Behold, we are afraid here in Judah; how much more then if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?” Then David inquired of the Lord again. And the Lord answered him, “Arise, go down to Keilah, for I will give the Philistines into your hand.” And David and his men went to Keilah and fought with the Philistines and brought away their livestock and struck them with a great blow. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah.

When Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech had fled to David to Keilah, he had come down with an ephod in his hand. Now it was told Saul that David had come to Keilah. And Saul said, “God has given him into my hand, for he has shut himself in by entering a town that has gates and bars.” And Saul summoned all the people to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men. David knew that Saul was plotting harm against him. And he said to Abiathar, the priest, “Bring the ephod here.” Then David said, “O Lord, the God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah, to destroy the city on my account. Will the men of Keilah surrender me into his hand? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O Lord, the God of Israel, please tell your servant.” And the Lord said, “He will come down.” Then David said, “Will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul?” And the Lord said, “They will surrender you.” Then David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah, and they went wherever they could go. When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he gave up the expedition.

Summary of 1 Samuel 23:1–13

Now, do you see the relevance to the predestination question? David is in a jam. Saul was going to come down; he is in the process of coming down to Keilah to encircle the city—classic siege warfare tactics—trapping David inside. And of course, when he does that, he’s just going to say to the men of Keilah, “Look, I am going to sit here as long as it takes. I will starve you out. I will cut off your water supply.” You just do what you do in siege warfare. “Hand David over to me, and nobody gets hurt; I’m gone.”

So David asks, “You know, is this going to happen? Is Saul going to come down and besiege the city? Will the men of Keilah hand me over to Saul?” And God says, “You bet.” He says yes to both things. And so, what happens? David does what you and I would do: he leaves.

Foreknowledge Not Predestination

So, what are the implications? Here’s what we are aiming at: God in this passage foreknew two things that never happened. That tells us that foreknowledge does not necessitate predestination. God foreknows two things that never come to pass. His foreknowledge did not necessitate the predestination of those events because they never happened.

Now, this is going to matter in later weeks when we get into Genesis 1, the fall. Humans are added to the divine family, and God shares His attributes with them, one of which is freedom. When God has His intelligent family members, whether they are divine beings or whether they are human beings, when He tasks them with participating with Him in working out His program, His plan, His will, that’s going to happen in real-time.

What We Do Actually Matters

Yes, God knows what’s going to happen. He knows all things—real and possible. The possible things, at least a lot of them, don’t always happen, even though God foreknows them. So, we again need to learn the lesson here. What God tasks us to do in our time, in our place as His children, as His coworkers, what we do actually matters. We are not robots. Everything is not pre-programmed. We’ll address those thoughts again in subsequent weeks when we talk about imaging.

For now, we need to get back to the nature of God’s family, the other elohim. We know they are not members of the Trinity; we know they are not idols. And we’ve talked about why God doesn’t really need a council, but this is what He uses. So next week, we will go back to some of the other questions and wrap them up.[1]

That will conclude segments 8 and 9 in our study, “Sons and Daughters of God: The Believers Identity, Calling, and Destiny.” Join us again next week as we explore other objections to God’s divine and earthly council. I believe you will find each Worldview Wednesday contains thought-provoking topics to consider as we build our Biblical Worldview.

Tomorrow we will continue with our 3-minute Humor nugget that will provide you with a bit of cheer, which will help you to lighten up and live a rich and satisfying life. So encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along with us tomorrow for another day of ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.’ If you would like to listen to any of our past 1450 treks or read the Wisdom Journal, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day’s trek will be downloaded automatically.

Thank you so much for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and, most of all, your friend as I serve you in through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.

As we take this Trek together, let us always:

  1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
  2. Love Unconditionally
  3. Listen Intentionally
  4. Learn Continuously
  5. Lend to others Generously
  6. Lead with Integrity
  7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain….reminding you to ’Keep Moving Forward,’ ‘Enjoy your Journey,’ and ‘Create a Great Day…Everyday’! See you Tomorrow!

[1] Heiser, M. S. (2019). Sons and Daughters of God: The Believer’s Identity, Calling, and Destiny. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

Day 1450 – How Simple – Wisdom Unplugged

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Welcome to Day 1450 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

How Simple – Wisdom Unplugged

Wisdom – the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1450 of our Trek, and it is time for our 3-minute mini trek called Wisdom Unplugged. This short nugget of wisdom includes an inspirational quote with a little bit of additional content for today’s trek. Consider this your vitamin supplement of wisdom for today. So let’s jump right in with today’s nugget:

Today’s quote is from  Gerald Jompolsky, and it is:   How simple it is to see all the worry in the world cannot control the future. How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now and that there will never be a time when it is not now.     

How Simple

Worry is so self-destructive since no amount of worry will result in a positive change in any situation. Worry in no way will control the future, except for the possibility of allowing circumstances to slide in a downward spiral. Only action can affect change, which will enable you to control the outcome of the future. Tied closely to worry is the impact that it will have on your happiness of your current situation in life. We only can be happy now, because there is never a time which is not the present. We can look forward to the possibility of a future time, but if worry steals from us the ability to be happy now, then there is little chance we will be happy when the future is now. So we must choose today not to worry, and we must choose today to be happy. That does not mean we don’t take action today to change our current circumstances if they need to be changed, but while we are taking action, we must choose not to worry and chose to be happy. To do so is really quite simple. The choice is up to you, and it a choice that you must make each day.

Psalm 19:7

The instructions of the Lord are perfect, reviving the soul. The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.

Proverbs 8:5

You simple people, use good judgment. You foolish people, show some understanding.

That’s a wrap for today’s Wisdom Unplugged quote. If you would like free access to my database of over 11,000 inspirational quotes, the link is available on the main page of Wisdom-Trek.com. Just as you enjoy these nuggets of wisdom, encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along tomorrow for another day of ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.’ If you would like to listen to any of our past 1449 treks or read the Wisdom Journal, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day’s trek will be downloaded automatically.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most importantly, I am your friend as I serve you in through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this Trek of life together, let us always:

  1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
  2. Love Unconditionally
  3. Listen Intentionally
  4. Learn Continuously
  5. Lend to others Generously
  6. Lead with Integrity
  7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain….reminding you to ’Keep Moving Forward,’ ‘Enjoy your Journey,’ and ‘Create a Great Day…Everyday’! See you tomorrow for Worldview Wednesday!

Day 1448 – Augmented Reality – Implications and Opportunity – Ask Gramps

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Welcome to Day 1448 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Augmented Reality – Implications and Opportunity – Ask Gramps

Wisdom – the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. Today is Day 1448 of our Trek, and our focus on Fridays is the future technological and societal advances, so we call it Futuristic Fridays. My personality is one that has always been very future-oriented. Since my childhood, I have yearned for the exploration and discovery of new technologies and advancements for the future. I grew up with the original Star Trek series, and even today, while I am on my 64th revolution around the sun, I still dream of traveling in space. Each week we will explore rapidly converging technologies and advancements, which will radically change our lives. At times, the topics may sound like something out of a science fiction novel, but each area that we explore is already well on its way of becoming a reality over the next couple of decades.

To keep with our theme of “Ask Gramps,” I will put our weekly topics in the form of a question to get us on track. So this week’s question is, Hey Gramps, what are some of the implications and opportunities of Augmented Reality and its impact on the world. 

Augmented Reality – Implications and Opportunity

Last week on Futuristic Friday, we explored how Augmented Reality is and will impact significant sectors of industry. Today, we will focus on the implication and opportunity of AR. Our world is in a disruptive mode, which will speed up the exponential technology that is changing our world today. I am using some of the information mentioned in Peter Diamandis’s blogs and book “The Future is Faster Than You Think.”

If you could choose, how do you want to see the world? As an on-going game? A constant shopping extravaganza? A classroom that spans the planet and never stops teaching? How the Earth appeared 100 years ago? Augmented Reality (AR) will allow everyone to view the ultra-dynamic and highly immersive digital world of their choice.

Turn on Game mode, and when you’re walking down the street, everything you look at becomes part of a game… Star Wars, Star Trek, Pokémon, or Harry Potter. Entertainment information layers permeate all physical environments.In Shopping mode, online merges with offline environments. Every storefront is only showing you things you desire; your AI knows precisely what you’re shopping for, what you need, what colors and fabrics you prefer. Specifications from price, color, and brand, are preferentially displayed by your AR headset. Your AI filters even the advertisements you see (or lack thereof).

Turn on Education mode, and wherever you look, your AI-enabled AR headset can deliver to you physics lessons, historical rundowns, or linguistics courses. Virtual educators appear on demand, answering nearly any question you could possibly think of. (Every action, from an arching football to an ocean wave, can teach you about physics.) Every moment is filled with constant learning and growth.

Or switch on Tourism mode: Explore any location with a personalized, expert guide. See a site as it appeared during any time-period—rewind 600 years or 6,000. Don’t miss any of the most renowned local food spots, particularly those your AI knows best match your palate.

·      The AR Cloud

As AR hardware advances within its deceptive growth phase, the business opportunity for AR content creators is now—whether building virtual universes or digitizing our physical one.

To create multi-player games, social media communities, and messaging platforms linked to the same physical space, a centralized AR Cloud must first unify all headsets within a synced virtual overlay.

Just as search engines like Google serve multiple operating systems, the AR Cloud will serve every headset. Yet unlike today’s Cloud computing infrastructure, the AR Cloud will need to churn constant input-output loops in real-time, crunching, and serving up far more data than we can currently comprehend.

While most AR apps available today offer one-time wonders like furniture try-outs or human anatomy lessons, AR-native apps linked to daily tasks in the physical world will change the way we do everything. It may be a few years off yet, but it is coming.

Ori Inbar, the co-founder of Augmented World Expo, believes; “A real-time 3D (or spatial) map of the world, the AR Cloud, will be the single most important software infrastructure in computing. In a nutshell, with the AR Cloud, the entire world becomes a shared spatial screen, enabling multi-user engagement and collaboration.”

The AR Cloud is also set to transform how information is organized. Currently, we actively input our questions and find answers through 2D mediums. But the AR Cloud will soon enable a smart environment that feeds us what is relevant, when relevant.Local businesses that are inherently pertinent to you and your problems will auto-populate individualized data in your AR interface. Individuals’ backgrounds will pop up at networking events, particularly of those who share your industry, interests, or might be great partners for your next joint venture. That computing system you’ve just been shipped will guide you interactively through the assembly process—just give it a gaze and activate instructions with a blink.

·      Technological Requirements

But how do we actually build the AR Cloud?

As I’ve mentioned in previous Futuristic Friday Episodes, the closest we have come to a widespread communal AR experience was Pokémon Go. To function, the game’s servers store geolocation, player activity, and specific location data. Even in the case of this sophisticated online-merge-offline AR experience, there is no shared memory of activities occurring in each location.

In tomorrow’s AR Cloud, a centralized AR backend would incorporate shared memory data, allowing us both individual gamification and seamless shared experience.

To do so, the AR Cloud requires us to perfect point cloud capture, a method of capturing and reconstructing 3D areas. Several techniques—laser scanners like LiDAR, depth sensors like Kinect, or drone and satellite camera footage—will together enable a universal, high-integrity point cloud.

Along a similar vein, a tremendous upcoming business challenge involves inputting scans from many hardware devices and outputting data accessible to a range of platforms. i.e., the process of digitizing and updating every square foot of physical space as user-worn sensors collect data.

To achieve this, we might think of solutions similar to (but far more sophisticated than) Google Tango’s “area learning,” wherein devices use camera footage and location data to recognize places they’ve seen before. Depth sensing and motion tracking will also play a critical role in environment creation.

In terms of AR self-orientation, companies will need to develop universal localizers that give devices ultra-fast positional awareness. In this instance, crowdsourced 3D mesh stitching might be employed to stitch together all data generated by AR users, thereby recreating digital versions of shared physical environments.

Finally, the AR Cloud will ride on massive surges in connectivity. Some examples are 5G, balloons, and satellite networks proliferate worldwide would reduce latency (i.e., the delay in data transfer), which will vastly improve access across AR devices, allowing constant real-time updates to the cloud.

Even today, network giants like Cisco, Microsoft, and IBM are already starting to tackle the AR Cloud’s infrastructural components.  Take Cisco, which now innovates across various IoT platform solutions such as Cisco Kinetic, Cisco Jasper, and Cisco DNA (Digital Network Architecture)—supporting the ever-increasing bandwidth needs of smart, connected devices.

Another example is the global non-profit Open AR Cloud (OARC), which spans projects from spatial indexing, to edge-computing and 5G, and also incorporates security and privacy.

·      The Implications….

So what does it all mean?

Instant skills training: Anyone capable of following decent audiovisual explanations can become an expert on anything, whether in the middle of NYC or rural Bangladesh, on-demand.Screens go away: Your AR headset can project your watch, phone screen, health metrics, entertainment, anywhere, and to the scale you desire. We first dematerialized radios, calculators, measuring tapes, and almost every computing tool into a handheld device. But now, we are dematerializing screens themselves— seeing through interfaces, not looking into them.

Control what you see: Eliminate what you don’t want to see and populate ordinary environments with your desired reality. Your office floor becomes a calm pond, your windows a mountain view. Your kids might be surrounded by open canvases, how-it-works rundowns on any tool, or written vocabulary as you speak to them. Imagine telling your AI, “every time you see a coffee cup in the world, fill it with flowers.”

Never forget anyone’s name or birthday: The combination of facial recognition, AR and AI will allow you to recognize anyone by name. You immediately know a familiar face when you see one, how you know that person, and relevant information at the right time.

Instantly recognize any “thing:” Look at any tool, piece of art, product (you name it!) and know exactly who made it, what it costs, what it does, how it might be assembled or disassembled, and the supply chain that brought it about.

The advent of digital fashion: Digital garments are overlaid seamlessly on your body in the AR Cloud, and digital copies of yourself might model new styles or innovative fashion ideas at whim. You can control who sees you in what clothing. Your colleagues can see you wearing one outfit, pedestrians, another, your family members a third.

Training your AI: AR headwear will know where you’re looking, tracking your facial expressions, eye dilation, and focus—all working with your personal AI to learn what you love, how you think, and what catches your imagination most.

·      Final Thoughts

Consider how companies, governments, artists, and leaders will vie for priority in presenting AR-delivered data to your visual cortex.

Ponder how you (or your AI) will curate your digital world, how you might maintain privacy (of which information and how much?). Do you want people looking at you to know your name? Your profession or birthdate?

AR will not only transform our world. It will fundamentally redefine it. Your combined AR/AI system can help you focus on what’s important, block out distractions, or help lift your mood when required.

The convergence of AR, gigabit/low-latency networks (such as 5G), IoT (i.e., sensors), AI, and Blockchain is about to change almost every industry in the decade ahead, and create more opportunity for wealth creation than was possible in the past century!

Entrepreneurs should pay attention! Consider these two economic predictions to understand the magnitude of what is coming.

  • First, the McKinsey report predicts that IoT will create $6.2 TRILLION of new economic value by 2025.
  • Second, Gartner predictions that AI augmentation will create $2.9 TRILLION of business value and 6.2 billion hours of worker productivity globally by 2021.

AR will be a significant factor in both.

My advice to everyone… DON’T BLINK, the Future is Faster Than You Think!

As a Christ-follower, you might wonder how we should engage with this new technology. Just like all technologies of the past from the printing press to the cotton gin, we should fully embrace it to build God’s kingdom to earth as it is in heaven. The best is yet to come. This reminds me of:

1 Corinthians 2:9

That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”

That is a wrap for today’s question. Join us again next Futuristic Friday for another interesting question about our future on our ‘Ask Gramps’ episode. Our next trek is Meditation Monday, where we will help you reflect on what is most important in life. So encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along on Monday for another day of ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.’If you would like to listen to any of the past 1447 daily treks or read the associated journals, they are all available at Wisdom-Trek.com. I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day will be downloaded to you automatically.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and, most of all, your friend as I serve you in through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.

As we take this Trek of life together, let us always:

  1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
  2. Love Unconditionally
  3. Listen Intentionally
  4. Learn Continuously
  5. Lend to others Generously
  6. Lead with Integrity
  7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain….reminding you to ’Keep Moving Forward,’ ‘Enjoy your Journey,’ and ‘Create a Great Day…Everyday’! See you on Monday!