DaVinci and McDonalds ??

I just read an article about a group of scholars that, through extensive analysis of "The Last Supper", have determined that food portions have been growing in size dramatically over the last two thousand years. They claim their findings show that the most drastic increases have taken place over the last few hundred years. The researchers measured the sizes of the Disciples heads in conjunction with the food on the plates, the loaves of bread and other items on the table to produce their findings.

Fascinating article...extensive research.

Let's see...if I get this right, then what we have here is a very credible, very expensive study of the eating customs of 33 AD Jerusalem....depicted by a guy who never witnessed them. The Disciples portrayed by the same man, albeit talented and gifted, yet one who had no idea what those Disciples looked like much less what hat size they wore. All this 'research' based on elements of a painting that was done 1500 years after the events of the true Last Supper. Never mind that the "Last Supper" (originally a mural on a wall) has been touched up, repaired and redone so many times, it is now, virtually, a painting of a painting.

I find it amusing to some extent but alarming to another that so much of our Christian faith and so many of our perceptions of the reality of Who Christ is, is based on material other than the Bible. How many people allow their beliefs to be shaped by things like paintings, movies, songs or even books that are only shadows of the reality we find in the pages of Scripture?

Had those 'teams of experts' spent as much time and effort searching the Scriptures, they might have produced something more worthwhile rather than something so obvious as an admonition to avoid super-sizing.

"Respectable Sins" by Jerry Bridges

I really enjoy long drives in the car and don't mind them by myself. I usually take the time to get caught up on some of the good teaching I've been accumulating on my iPod and haven't had the time to listen to.

This week, I listened to the unabridged audio version of Jerry Bridges new book, "Respectable Sins". I am very quickly becoming a huge Jerry Bridges fan. His modern classic "The Pursuit of Holiness" (which we are going through in our Sunday School class) had a big and lasting impact on me as did another of his recent releases, "The Bookends of the Christian Life" (which should show up on our Spring Adult Sunday School schedule).

In "Respectable Sins", Bridges hits hard and cuts deep on the sins we have learned to accept in our lives, even as Christians. Sins that permeate our day through our culture and our environment making them commonplace and easily dismissed yet reeking havoc on our daily walk of sanctification. He lays a firm foundation, demonstrating our need for Christ then he begins to identify casual sins that interfere with our relationship with Him. Finally, he gets to the root f those casual sins, exposing them for what they are and how much damage they can do if left unchecked.

Jerry Bridges is one of the great Christian authors of our time. He is, in my opinion, under-appreciated for his capability to speak clearly and concisely on extremely deep subjects in an accessible and easy to read manner. This latest book is highly recommended and is available in the WBF Bookstore.

"Time For Choosing" - Ronald Reagan

Only history will be able to attest to the final outcome of the historic vote on the health care issue. I ran across this speech, made by Ronald Reagan in 1964, over 45 years ago. Reagan was known as "The Great Communicator", given that label for his amazing capability to cut through all the political talk and get to the core of an issue in a simple and straightforward way. We could use someone with that talent today:

Excerpts from
A Time for Choosing
by Ronald Reagan

I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this.

It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government."

This idea -- that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power -- is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream--the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."

The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we're always "against," never "for" anything.

Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he'll eat you last.

If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what's at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits--not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.