Bring Shalom to Chaos

Okay, so this took me a little longer than I thought it would, but it's here now. Just a warning, this may be a really long post. It also may be a little crazy, but I'll try and make sure it makes sense. :) Also, I can NOT do justice to what Ray Vander Laan said, and I also don't claim that I have done any of the reasearch and whatnot behind it all. These are just my observations about some of the things that Ray Vander Laan said and some things that stood out to me. That being said, to the blog!

First of all, I just want to show you all a picture of how my notes, which I think reflects how my brain works, but I digress.

Now, on to the talking about it all, though expect about three more pictures. :)

One of the first things he said was that we are to hagah the word. He went on to explain what that word ment. Hagah is like a sound word and it means to completely mediate on it and to read and know every detail. He also said another word, hakak, which means inspired, but I can't remember how he used it exactly. The next thing that caught my attention was what he said about what the story behind the forgiving people 7 times 77 times. Most of us interperate it as 7 being the perfect number so you just keep forgiving. But Ray Vander Laan (here on out refered to as RVL) pointed out something I hadn't thought of before. Now if we go to Adam's line, from both Cain (evil) and Able (or really Seth who replaced Able after Cain murdered him).

As you can see, if you follow the lines down seven times, you find Enoch being so good that he just "disappeared" with God up into heaven where as it says, in Genisis 4:23-24, Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.” Interesting huh?

The next thing that stuck out was something RVL said about the branches that don't bear fruit. We seem to think of it as the stump being God, the vine being Jesus, and the branches being us. But when RVL met an owner of a vineyard, his view changed a bit. If we really look at the story, we find that the stump is Isreal (Judah), from where Jesus comes from. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. Where is God in this equation? Well, he is the vineyard, of course!

He enthusiasticlly cares for his vineyard and makes sure that the branches bear fruit. Speaking of which, let's talk about the bearing fruit thing. See, over there, they don't attatch the vines to poles or whatever. They grow on the ground. But there are parasites and what not on the ground making it hard for the plant to grow good fruit. So, when a vineyard owner sees this happening, he props it up with a rock or something to help the branch out. Later, if it still doesn't, it's thrown into the fire. With this in mind, we look at that passage. God first props us up to try and help us bear fruit in our times of trouble. Of course, later if we still don't bear fruit, we get thrown in the fire.

I think that from now on this is mostly going breif little tid bits that caught my attention. :)

"At your moment of success... you are at your most vulnerable. Because you may not continue to trust in God, who got you there." Meaning, that we trust in God when we are aren't doing well. But when we are at the top, we sometimes forget to keep trusting got. At the top is the best place for Satan to get us to think we did it all ourselves and not with God's help.

The cross symbol may have actually started as an anchor. Like our faith is our anchor. I thought that was pretty cool. :)

We are the salt of the earth. In bible times, salt was used to make the fire burn hotter and longer. And the fuel for the fire was, a lot of times, manure. Meaning, that we are going to have to be mixed with some pretty nasty stuff in order to show God. We are meant to be bringers of Shalom to Chaos. So, we are meant to be in the mist of chaos, the manure, to be the shade.

I also thought it was a little curious that the Romans used the eagle as their icon and we also use the eagle as our national icon.

And all of this is only two pages of my notes... Because I am getting a little bored of this, which is sad to say I know, I'm just going to make two more points and hope you can maybe make out the notes above. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have or if you want to know exactly what a section says. :)

The two main points that he made was

and