Day 1465 – I Believe – Wisdom Unplugged

September 1, 2020 by H. Guthrie Chamberlain, III Leave a Comment

Welcome to Day 1465 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

I Believe – Wisdom Unplugged

Today’s quote is from Jewish refugee, World War II, Poland, and it is: I believe in the sun, even when it isn’t shining. I believe in love, even when I am alone. I believe in God, even when He is silent.

I Believe

In order to function and remain sane in a world of ever-increasing chaos requires that we are grounded in a belief system that is grounded in something, or someone that has complete control over every situation we face in life. When you wake up in the morning, and it is cloudy or stormy out, do you think that the sun has completely vanished? Do you believe that you will never see the sun again? Of course not, you know that it is only a temporary and needed situation for life to be sustained on earth. You have faith that someday in the not too distant future that the sun will shine brightly once again. When you are alone or lonely, do you believe that you will never be loved again in your lifetime? The first principle of love is that you must love yourself properly before you can love others properly. When you love others, then, in turn, they will love you. Even when you are alone, you believe that, indeed, you will feel the love of others soon. When it appears that God is silent in your life, and not providing peace and guidance, you must believe that He has a purpose for this season of silence. It may be that you are holding onto that which cannot provide safety and security in your life. We are told in Hebrews 13:5. Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.”

When you cannot see the sun, or feel the love of others, or when God is silent, you must turn to God in faith. It is then that our vision becomes clear, and we can be at peace and understand those difficult times in life.

Hebrews 11:1-3

Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation. By faith, we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.

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 1464 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:

Live Abundantly (Fully)
Love Unconditionally
Listen Intentionally
Learn Continuously
Lend to others Generously
Lead with Integrity
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 1464 – Bible Study – A Variety of Methods – Meditation Monday

August 31, 2020 by H. Guthrie Chamberlain, III Leave a Comment

Welcome to Day 1464 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Bible Study – A Variety of Methods – Meditation Monday

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 current insights are focusing on study habits to build a strong foundation. Today let us meditate on:

Bible Study – A Variety of Methods

· Insight Fifteen: Use a Variety of Methods in Bible Study

Variety is the spice of life, so the saying goes. It’s good advice for Bible study. The principle is obvious. While there’s security in routine, it’s nice to mix things up once in a while or try something new. Change invites our problem-solving intelligence to kick in and, consequently, to stimulate our brain.

There are a lot of approaches to Bible study. You might want to try as many as you can discover, or master just a few.

Since most people graduate to Bible study from Bible reading, the verse-by-verse method is often where people start. The technique involves moving through a paragraph or passage looking up cross-references, picking words to study, and figuring out what every sentence means within the larger unit.

Topical Bible study is an entirely different method. Topical Bible study is just what it sounds like—discovering what the Bible says about a given topic. This method would require tools that can get you started in sketching out a topic, like Bible dictionaries. You need to know upfront what the keywords are that relate to a given topic. For example, if you wanted to study Old Testament sacrifices, you wouldn’t just use a concordance to look up the word “sacrifice.” You’d also want to look up words like “offering,” “blood, “sprinkle,” and “atone. Once you have a range of keywords, you’ll discover the key passages.Another method is doing character sketches, also known as biographical Bible study. This approach focuses on a single Bible character, searching for every passage where he or she appears.

In this method, you need to be on the alert for where the character’s name doesn’t appear, too. Sometimes a character is just named by a pronoun (“he” or “she” did this or that). The goal is to build a profile of what that person was like. How did your character react in given circumstances? What can the episodes of his or her life tell you about their personal strengths and weaknesses? How did they relate to God? Sometimes unnamed characters can be the focus of this kind of study. A Bible study on women in the Gospels, named or unnamed, could be quite interesting.

Even this handful of methods can keep you engaged for a long time. Be on the lookout for others, and try something new!

· Insight Sixteen: Questions Are Not Answers

There’s nothing better for keeping you humble as a Bible teacher than a critique by your spouse or close friends.

Let me present a scenario. Say that I have a habit of leaving questions unanswered when I taught Scripture, I’ll admit that I like to do that. My reason is that people need to know that there’s a lot to think about in the Bible—that they don’t have it down like they think they do. I also want them to keep coming back for more.

While I think my reasons make sense, I also have to admit that being critiqued is valid and essential too. People don’t like to be left in an intellectual and spiritual lurch when it comes to the Bible. Many people desire definitive answers to their Bible questions. Bible scholars thrive on open questions. It’s like releasing a squirrel in front of a dog. I realize that most of us want closure on whatever is being talked about. Those of us who spend a lot of time in Bible study need to remember that, since we’re often the ones who will be teaching others.

It’s a hard lesson to learn. Serious Bible students like pursuing questions too. There’s a certain “thrill of the hunt” feeling that comes with detecting a problem, framing it, and then attacking it. There’s also a compulsion, to be honest. Sometimes conclusions really aren’t available or aren’t clear in our minds. Think of how frustrating it would be if, in the process of doing research, the sources you depended on were ambivalent, never quite coming to a conclusion.

This advice is pertinent to Bible study itself. We should seek conclusions when we study Scripture, especially when a passage is crucial to some point of doctrine. Granted, the Bible is more explicit in some places than others. Still, if your Bible study results in everything being open-ended, there’s a problem with either your method or analysis, and perhaps both. The moral of this story is that you need to land the plane in Bible study, even though you know it’ll take off again. It’s okay to reach tentative conclusions and allow yourself to revisit an issue later. At least come down somewhere, for your sanity and the sanity of others.

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 ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.’ If you would like to listen to any of the past 1463 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, I am your friend as I serve you through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and Journal.

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

Live Abundantly (Fully)
Love Unconditionally
Listen Intentionally
Learn Continuously
Lend to others Generously
Lead with Integrity
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 1463 – Virtual Reality – What We Can Expect – Ask Gramps

August 28, 2020 by H. Guthrie Chamberlain, III Leave a Comment

Welcome to Day 1463 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Virtual Reality – What We Can Expect – Ask Gramps

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, I hear a lot about Virtual Reality recently. Can you share your insight about where the Virtual Reality market is today, and what we can expect over this next decade?

Virtual Reality – What We Can Expect

Last week we focused on the second part of how exponential technologies are impacting food production. This week we are switching our focus to Virtual Reality and the road from deceptive to disruptive. I am using some of the information mentioned in Peter Diamandis’s blogs and book “The Future is Faster Than You Think.”

In 2016, venture investments in Virtual Reality exceeded $800 million, while Augmented Reality, which is also referred to as Mixed Reality, received a total of $450 million. Just a year later, investments in AR/MR and VR startups doubled to $3.6 billion.

Today, major players are bringing VR headsets to market that have the power to revolutionize the industry, as well as countless others. Already, VR headset sales volumes are expected to reach 98.4 million by 2023, according to Futuresource Consulting. Beyond headsets themselves, Facebook’s $399 Oculus Quest brought in $5 million in content sales within the first two weeks post-release in the spring of 2019.

With companies like Niantic ($4B valuation), Improbable ($2B valuation), and Unity ($6B valuation) all exceeding a valuation exceeding $1 billion in recent years, the VR space is massively heating up.

Today we will dive into a brief history of VR, recent investment surges, and the future of this revolutionary technology.

· Brief History of VR

For all of history, our lives have been limited by the laws of physics and mitigated by the five senses, but Virtual Reality is rewriting those rules. It’s letting us digitize experiences and teleport our senses into a computer-generated world where the limits of imagination become the only brake on reality. Considering all of recorded history, it has taken a while to get here.

Much like Artificial Intelligence, the concept of VR has been around since the 60s. The 1980s saw the first releases of VR when the earliest “consumer-facing” systems began to show up. In 1989, if you had a spare $250,000, you could purchase the EyePhone before the iPhone, a VR system built by Jaron Lanier’s company VPL. It was actually Jaron Lanier who coined the term ‘virtual reality.’

Unfortunately, the computer that powered that system was the size of a dorm room refrigerator. At the same time, the headset it required was bulky, awkward, and only generated about five frames a second—six times slower than the average television of that era.By the early 1990s, the hype had faded, and VR entered a two-decade deceptive phase. Through the 2000s, the convergence of increasingly powerful game engines and AI-image rendering software flipped the script. Suddenly, deceptive became disruptive, and the VR universe opened for business.

· The Disruptive Phase: Surges in VR Investment

In 2012, Facebook spent $2 billion on Oculus Rift. By 2015, Venture Beat reported that an arena which typically saw only ten new entrants a year, suddenly had 234. In June 2016, HTC announced the release of its ‘Business Edition’ of the Vive VR headset for $1,200, followed six months later by their announcement of a tether-less VR upgrade.

A year later, Samsung cashed in on this shift, selling 4.3 million headsets and turning enough heads that everyone from Apple and Google to Cisco and Microsoft decided to investigate VR. Phone-based VR showed up soon afterward, dropping barriers to entry as low as $5. By 2018, the first wireless adaptors, standalone headsets, and mobile headsets hit the market.

Resolution-wise, 2018 was also when Google and LG doubled their pixels-per-inch count and increased their refresh rate from VPL’s five frames a second to over 120. Around the same time, the systems began targeting more senses than just vision. HEAR360’s “Omni-binaural” microphone suite captures 360 degrees of audio, which means the immersive sound has now caught up to immersive visuals.

Touch has also reached the masses, with haptic gloves, vests, and full-body suits hitting the consumer market. Scent emitters, taste simulators, and every kind of sensor imaginable—including brainwave readers—are all trying to put the “very” into verisimilitude.

The number of virtual explorers continues to mount. In 2017, there were 90 million active users, which nearly doubled to 171 million by 2018. YouTube’s VR channel has over three million subscribers. That number is growing. By the end of 2020, estimates put the VR market at $30 billion, and it’s hard to find a field that will be left untouched.

· Future of VR: Emotive and Immersive Education

History class, 2030. This week’s lesson: Ancient Egypt. The pharaohs, the queens, the tombs—the full Tut. Sure, you’d love to see the pyramids in person and have your student join you. If you consider the cost of airfare, hotel rooms for the entire class, plus, taking two weeks off from school for the trip, and you quickly realize that this would never be possible. Worse, even if you could go, you couldn’t go. Many of Egypt’s tombs are closed for repairs, and definitely off-limits to a group of teenagers.

There is a solution, and VR solves these problems. In a VR world, you and your class can easily breach Queen Nefertari’s burial chamber, touch the hieroglyphics, even scramble atop her sarcophagus—impossible opportunities in physical reality. You also have a world-class Egyptologist as your guide.

Visiting Egypt, the pyramids, and the tomb doesn’t require waiting until 2030. In 2018, Philip Rosedale and his team at High Fidelity pulled off this exact virtual field trip. First, they 3D-laser scanned every square inch of Queen Nefertari’s tomb. Next, they shot thousands of high-resolution photos of the burial chamber. By stitching together more than ten thousand photos into a single vista, then laying that vista atop their 3D-scanned map, Rosedale created a stunningly accurate virtual tomb. Next, he gave a classroom full of kids HTC Vive VR headsets.

Because High Fidelity is a social VR platform, meaning multiple people can share the same virtual space at the same time, the entire class was able to explore that tomb together. In total, their fully immersive field trip to Egypt required zero travel time, zero travel expenses. VR will not only cover traditional educational content, but also expand our emotional education.

Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, has spent two decades exploring VR’s ability to produce real behavioral change. He’s developed first-person VR experiences of racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination.

For example, experiencing what it would be like to be an elderly, homeless, African American woman living on the streets of Baltimore produces real change: A significant shift in empathy and understanding.

“Virtual reality is not a media experience,” explains Bailenson. “When it’s done well, it’s an actual experience. In general, our findings show that VR causes more behavior changes, causes more engagement, causes more influence than other types of traditional media.” Nor is empathy the only emotion VR appears capable of training. In research conducted at USC, psychologist Skip Rizzo has had considerable success using virtual reality to treat PTSD in soldiers. Other scientists have extended this to the full range of anxiety disorders.

VR, especially when combined with AI, has the potential to facilitate a top-shelf traditional education, plus all the empathy and emotional skills that traditional education has long been lacking.

When AI and VR converge with wireless 5G networks, our global education problem moves from the nearly impossible challenge of finding teachers and funding schools for the hundreds of millions in need, to the much more manageable puzzle of building a fantastic digital education system. The educational possibilities are available to millions worldwide for free to anyone with a headset. It’s quality and quantity on demand.

In the workplace, VR will serve as an efficient trainer for new employees. Ten thousand of Walmart’s 1.2 million employees have taken VR-based skills management tests. Learning modules that once took 35 to 45 minutes, now take 3 to 5. The company plans to train 1 million employees using the Oculus VR headset by the end of this year. The upfront costs of VR headsets will ultimately be recovered in labor efficiencies.

· Multiple Worlds, Multiple Economies

We no longer live in only one place. We have real-world personae and online personae. This delocalized existence is only going to expand. With the rise of AR and VR, we’re introducing more layers to this equation.

You’ll have avatars for work and avatars for play, and all of these versions of ourselves are opportunities for new businesses. Consider the multi-million-dollar economy that sprung up around the very first virtual world, Second Life. People were paying other people to design digital clothes and digital houses for their digital avatars.

Every time we add a new layer to the digital strata, we’re also adding an entire economy built upon that layer, meaning we are now conducting our business in multiple worlds at once. The possible uses for VR are only left to our imagination, and we have yet to begin to scratch the surface.

Just think about the possibilities that we will have to walk where Jesus walked, and never leave your house. To stand on top of Mount Siani where Moses receieved the ten-commandments. To travel the same route that the Apostle Paul traveled. There are unlimited possibilities as we continue to use exponential technologies to build God’s kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven. The season of harvest is coming.

Ecclesiastes 3:1

For everything there is a season,

a time for every activity under heaven.

That is a wrap for today’s question. Join us again next Futuristic Friday as we look at Flying Cars and Aerial Ridesharing 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 1462 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:

Live Abundantly (Fully)
Love Unconditionally
Listen Intentionally
Learn Continuously
Lend to others Generously
Lead with Integrity
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!

Day 1462 – Forgive Your Enemies – Humor Unplugged

August 27, 2020 by H. Guthrie Chamberlain, III Leave a Comment

Welcome to Day 1462 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Forgive Your Enemies – Humor Unplugged

Forgive Your Enemies

In his Sunday sermon, Pastor Sam prepared a fiery sermon, “Forgive Your Enemies,” as his subject. As he was finishing up his sermon, he pleaded with the congregation and asked, “how many are you willing to forgive your enemies?” To Pastor Sam’s amazement, only about half of the congregation held up their hands.

Not satisfied with the response, Pastor Sam went back into his sermon and harangued the congregation for another twenty minutes and repeated his question, “how many are you willing to forgive your enemies?.” The response was better, but still, only eighty percent of the hands were raised. The lack of response lit a fire in Pastor Sam’s belly, and he started back in for fifteen more minutes and repeated his question, “how many are you willing to forgive your enemies?.” Thinking that they may be there all day, everyone raised their hand except for old Mr. Jones in the back pew.

“Mr. Jones, are you not willing to forgive your enemies?”

“I don’t have any enemies, Pastor.”

In a bit of a pompous tone, Pastor Sam asked, “Mr. Jones, that is very unusual. How old are you?”

“One hundred and one.” Mr. Jones replied.

Still not being convinced, Pastor Sam said, “Mr. Jones, please come down in front and tell the congregation how a man can live to be one hundred and one and not have an enemy in the world.”

Old Mr. Jones teetered down the aisle, slowly turned to face the congregation, smiled, and said, “I outlived every one of them!”I hope that brought a smile to your face today. If it did pass your smile onto some else, we all could use a kind smile each day. Our Thursday thought is, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

Here is our verse for today:

Colossians 3:13

Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.

Just as you enjoy these nuggets of humor, please 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 1461 treks or read the Wisdom Journal, 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 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:

Live Abundantly (Fully)
Love Unconditionally
Listen Intentionally
Learn Continuously
Lend to others Generously
Lead with Integrity
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 Futuristic Friday!

Day 1461 – Arguments for a Divine Council – Worldview Wednesday

August 26, 2020 by H. Guthrie Chamberlain, III Leave a Comment

Welcome to Day 1461 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Arguments for a Divine 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 1461 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.

Arguments for a Divine Council

· Segment 12: Polytheism: Are The Gods Real?

Denying the Reality of the elohim as gods mocks God

Now, aside from trajectories that sort of try to blunt or strip away the supernatural element of the plural elohim, the plural sons of God in the Old Testament, by making them idols or making them people, when we dispense with that, that brings us to a certain set of issues that we have to address. If it’s not those other things, then it must be divine beings. Then typically, what’s asked is, well, maybe this is just sort of imaginative. Perhaps the gods, these other elohim just aren’t real at all.

Biblical Writers Had a Supernatural Worldview

How do we handle that? Because these are biblical writers writing things about these other elohim. Now, we as modern people, we sort of reflexively go to this question, and we sort of assign unreality to these beings. A biblical writer would not do this. A biblical writer is predisposed to supernaturalism. That’s why the Unseen Realm has its subtitle: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible.

Then you might say, “Well, if you are going to say that these gods are real (and I do because the biblical writers do), isn’t that polytheism? Then what about these phrases about ‘there is no other God besides Yahweh of Israel,’ ‘besides Him there is no other,’ these sorts of phrases?”

Denying Reality of the Elohim Mocks GodSo this is the territory that we need to cover now. What we’ve already established has God’s members of His council as spirit beings. There are other ways to discern that and discern God’s relationship to them. I would suggest this. We’ll start here: that if you are going to deny that the other elohim, the members of God’s council, if you’re going to say they are not real, then doing that actually mocks God because God is going to be described as being above these other elohim, as being the elohim of elohim, the God of gods.

If those beings don’t really exist, there is no glory for God to be had there. In fact, it makes God a caricature. These sorts of statements that God is above these gods, God is the God of gods, these kinds of statements, in the Psalms, there is a lot of them (Psalm 86:8; Psalm 95:3; Psalm 96:4; 97:7, 9; Psalm 136:2); the one I like though is in Exodus (Exodus15:11). In that particular passage, it’s right after the crossing of the Red Sea, and it’s part of Moses’s song, where he says, “O Lord, O Yahweh, who is like you among the gods?”

Well, if those gods aren’t real, what does that say? It sort of eviscerates the praise of God at that point. It’s like saying, “O Lord, who is like you among these beings that don’t exist?” Think about it in this manner. I am better than a being that doesn’t exist, and so are you. If you strip away the reality, if you deny them reality, there is no praise of God when God is compared to them. It’s comparing God to nothing or a cartoon character or some fictional entity. We are better than that as well, and so, where is the glory for God? This is why I said stripping away the supernatural ends up making God a caricature and mocks Him. I think we need to be careful with that.

Judgment Cast on Gods, Not Idols

Exodus 12:12, referring back to the final plague—and of course, that’s going to be the precursor of the crossing the Red Sea where we get Exodus 15:11—look at the language there: “For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord [I am Yahweh].”

So here, we have the death of the firstborn; this is direct and specifically (and the other plagues were as well in most cases) to the gods of Egypt—their defeat. Well, it doesn’t say much if God is defeating beings that don’t exist. Where is the glory in that? Now, we are not saying that idols don’t matter, or they are never in the picture, but idols are not to be equated with gods. We’ve already talked a little bit about that, but you can’t import idols into Psalm 82 and some of these other passages because God doesn’t work with them.Relationship between Deity and Idol in Ancient Thought

You have to understand the ancient mindset—how an ancient person thought about an idol and thought about the deity. An ancient person built an idol with the belief that after doing certain rituals that an entity, a spiritual being, a deity would come and attach itself to that object, would come and reside in that object. So there was an identification of two things: a deity that they thought was real, and an object that essentially became that deity’s domain or, again, attached to that deity.

If you smashed an idol, an ancient person wouldn’t sit there and cry or imagine that, “Oh, now my deity is dead; Baal is dead,” or whoever. They are not going to imagine it that way; what they would do is they would go home and make another one because the entity that inhabited that thing that is now destroyed needs to be reattached to it. That object is no longer fit for the deity to inhabit. So we make another one. The deity doesn’t die; it doesn’t go away. In their minds, it is real, and it’s there, and we need a place for it to dwell among us.

Summary

So if we look at it the way an ancient person does, yes, they thought (and the biblical writers thought with them) that the gods were real. They were real entities, and because they thought that, when they compared Yahweh to those other gods, they were making a theological statement that is really, frankly, more important than any other theological statement in the Old Testament.

God is the God of gods; He is the only one who deserves worship. He is the creator. He is the sovereign. He is … fill in the blank. All of these things are attributable to Yahweh alone in Israelite thinking, but if you say that these beings aren’t real at all, then He is being compared to nothing, and there is no praise in that.

· Segment 13: The G-O-D Problem

Cultural and Contextual Problem

So let’s confront the question: Does multiple elohim mean polytheism? I’ve said repeatedly already no. What we have here, we need to think culturally. We don’t have a theological problem in Psalm 82 when the biblical writer talks about multiple elohim being in a council with Yahweh. What we actually have is a cultural and a context problem.

Modern Views on the Term “God”

I like to explain it this way: When we as modern people, modern Westerners, Christians, or just generally modern people, when we see the letters G, O, and D on a page or a screen, our brain, because of our culture, our Western culture, Judaeo-Christian culture, and our traditions, when we see those letters, our mind immediately assigns a specific set of unique attributes to the letters G, O, and D. We can’t help it. It’s just the way our mind works because of our cultural context. We see G, O, and D, and then we think of things like omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence.

Again, because of the way we are taught and raised in our culture, there can only be one of those, and so we get creeped out when you put an S on the end of that word (G-O-D-S) because our brains assign a specific set of attributes to those letters.

Elohim Not Connected to Unique Attributes

That is not what a biblical writer thought when he thought about the word elohim. Elohim does not carry with it a specific set of unique attributes. We know that is the case. Why? You don’t have to take my word for it. We know that’s the case because biblical writers used the term elohim of different entities besides the God of Israel. And when they did that, they aren’t assigning those attributes or any specific attributes that should belong to Yahweh to other entities. They are not thinking about attributes at all; that’s our problem.

When we see the letters G, O, D, our brain assigns those attributes. Elohim does not work that way. It is not about a specific set of unique attributes, and the evidence for that is really right in front of us in the biblical text by virtue of the way biblical writers used elohim of a variety of different entities besides the God of Israel. So next week, we will study how the term is actually used.^[1]

That will finish our study for this week’s Worldview Wednesday. Tomorrow we will enjoy 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 1460 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:

Live Abundantly (Fully)
Love Unconditionally
Listen Intentionally
Learn Continuously
Lend to others Generously
Lead with Integrity
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.

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