Matt W Cook

Have you ever stopped to think about what civilization is actually built on?

I was thinking about that today. What is our mighty, human empire founded on? What is the foundation that we continually are adding to as we build up to the skies. What one thing, if it were gone, would send us over the edge into anarchy? What is the ‘official’ that keeps us from killing society?

I thought it might be the economy, but then realized that paper (or digital) money has no real inherent value. So I started wondering where money got its value from, and the answer was a little surprising. General Agreement.

The only reason a dollar is worth a dollar is because you, me and everyone else I know agrees that it’s worth a dollar. The dollar is an empty symbol. A picture of value, rather than value itself. It is a request that begs ‘Please accept this instead of something valuable.’ And we all honor it, because if we didn’t there would be nothing to base our commerce on.

And I think, in our age of democracy and freedom, that is how government works, too. Government is run, by and large, by public agreement. The general public decides (generally) who runs the show, what laws to have, and other such things. For the people, by the people, and all those other democratic slogans we chant.

But I start to wonder, are we, as a mass of people, really qualified to run our own show? I have been reading a bit about some of the anti-intellectual trends in the western world over the past thirty years. And I start to wonder, are we wise enough? Are we good enough? And if we’re not…then what?

Have you ever stopped to think about what civilization is actually built on?

I was thinking about that today. What is our mighty, human empire founded on? What is the foundation that we continually are adding to as we build up to the skies. What one thing, if it were gone, would send us over the edge into anarchy? What is the ‘official’ that keeps us from killing society?

I thought it might be the economy, but then realized that paper (or digital) money has no real inherent value. So I started wondering where money got its value from, and the answer was a little surprising. General Agreement.

The only reason a dollar is worth a dollar is because you, me and everyone else I know agrees that it’s worth a dollar. The dollar is an empty symbol. A picture of value, rather than value itself. It is a request that begs ‘Please accept this instead of something valuable.’ And we all honor it, because if we didn’t there would be nothing to base our commerce on.

And I think, in our age of democracy and freedom, that is how government works, too. Government is run, by and large, by public agreement. The general public decides (generally) who runs the show, what laws to have, and other such things. For the people, by the people, and all those other democratic slogans we chant.

But I start to wonder, are we, as a mass of people, really qualified to run our own show? I have been reading a bit about some of the anti-intellectual trends in the western world over the past thirty years. And I start to wonder, are we wise enough? Are we good enough? And if we’re not…then what?

“Everything is being done to end militancy. Everything is being done for peace,” Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the provincial information minister told reporters after talks with Mohammad in Timergara, in Lower Dir.

No, it isn’t. If it was, there would be peace.

A wholesome, happy prank.

A wholesome, happy prank.

Stumbled across a blog and a podcast I like. I hope you like them, too.

Stuff Christians Like.
Writing Excuses (thanks, Mack!)

Update your bookmarks, folks. In the future you can reach this blog at www.theilliteratescribe.com. Joy and happy!

I was reading Matthew this morning. Jesus suggested that every scribe who is trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house that brings out of his treasure what is old and new. I used to think that a scribe was just someone who could read, therefore we are all included in this. But a scribe writes, I realize.

I like to write.

A good writer who loves Jesus brings old and new treasures to his readers. I like that idea. But I need to recognize that I’m pretty much illiterate, unless Jesus is helping me out. So the Cracked Pot becomes the Illiterate Scribe. Hope you still visit.

Peace.

I recently heard a man say that, on the cross, Jesus Christ became a rapist, a murderer and a pedophile.

I didn’t like hearing that.

In fact, physically felt a little sick to my stomach. Every part of me starting screaming out ‘NO!’ So, yeah, I didn’t like hearing that at all.

But my wife, blessed woman, counseled me to think about it for a bit before violently rejecting it. And so I did. And I found out that Mark Driscoll said something similar in his book, Death by Love:

The great Protestant Reformer Martin Luther rightly declares that at the moment Jesus became the most grotesque, ugly, and hideous thing in the history of all creation. In what Luther calls “the great exchange,” the sinless Jesus so thoroughly took our place that he became the worst of what we are – rapists, thieves, perverts, addicts, liars, gluttons, gossips, murderers, adulterers, fornicators, homosexuals, and idolaters. Importantly, Jesus’ work on the cross was not just a bookkeeping transaction in the divine economy. Jesus actually took to himself our sin with all its horror and shame, (Hebrews 12:2-3)

Hmm. So Driscoll also says that Jesus became a rapist. You know what? Unless he means something different by it that I’m not understanding, he’s dead wrong. He seems to say that Luther agrees with him. If so, I guess that Luther is wrong, too.

Christ was made sin, yes. Christ took the sin of the world on his shoulders and brought it down to the grave with him, yes. But Christ did not become a sinner. Christ did not become a pedophile. In a strange way he became something worse.

He became pedophilia.

Or at least the root sin that causes it. He became sin, not a sinner. He became dirt, not dirty. To say that Jesus was a pedophile has a lot of shock value (whatever value that has), but it has not root in reality and it’s bad theology. And bad theology leads to many nasty places that we don’t want to go. Because if Jesus only took the place of the sinner, that’s not much good for us.

If Jesus became a pedophile and took the place of the pedophile, what does that do to the pedophilia? Nothing, as far as I can tell. But Jesus became pedophilia, so now not only can the pedophile rejoice in mercy that he can be pardoned, but he can rejoice in hope that his root problem of pedophilia is killed and he can be free of the horrid darkness that it is!

Through Christ I am not only pardoned for my pride, but my pride has been dealt a death-blow, and I can have hope that, since he became pride and took it with him to the grave, I will be free of pride, ultimately.

I usually have a few buttons pinned to my jacket. I like them. This is one of them.

In 1947 the board of directors for Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created this clock, called the Doomsday Clock, as a method of gauging how close to utter, nuclear destruction the human race is. Since 1997 it has stood at five minutes to midnight. Midnight, of course, being when we all evaporate in a cloud of radioactive smoke.

So I wear it. Why? Because I agree that we are a mere five minutes to midnight, though I think the source of our danger is a much more powerful and all-permeating thing than nuclear war.

We can all agree on one thing: Nobody’s perfect. But we fail to realize what a huge problem that is. I think it may be the only problem we really have. Novels and books come up with all sorts of ideas on how we can save the world. The Watchmen has one of the most interesting and original ideas. But in the end, all the ideas are bunk. True peace can never come and last because we, as a race, hate each other. We are inclined to spite and malice and hate. We may put our hate away for a moment to pursue another goal, but it will always come back. The Taint forces us to kill each other.

And it will always be like that until we recognize that Jesus is the only one who can change us.

So I wear the button. I think the whole human race is at five minutes to midnight. But I don’t think that reducing the nuclear stockpile will ensure peace (though I certainly think it will help). It’s not the nukes that make me nervous. It’s the sin. Without Jesus we’re all doomed.