Trip Update

We've been talking a lot about our trip- especially since we announced it to the whole congregation on Sunday- and though we're still both really excited, now the hard part begins.

We are stuck in a series of catch-22's, most of which will hopefully be worked our by a cooperative travel agent and a little higher limit on our credit card...

The biggest problem seems to be that tourist visas to Paraguay only last up to three months, and in order to get one, we have to have a return flight within those three months. We won't be staying in Paraguay the whole time (we'll leave to visit Argentina and renew our visas then) but we aren't planning to fly back until February. One solution is just to buy two round-trip tickets for each of us, but that of course is not cost-effective (they're about $1800 each.)

So we need to buy our tickets ASAP, besides the fact that prices will be going up the longer we wait. However, we need money to do that, and we haven't raised any money yet. So as you can see, it's not all fun and games. But we're working though it all. We also have shots to get, insurance to buy, figure out our mail and storage of our stuff, our car, etc. It's crazy, but it's worth it.

I've been reading a lot about Paraguay lately, mostly on Google news (I told it to show me any story with the word "Paraguay" in it...) I read all about the native Guarani people and their spiritual beliefs, and about the new Presidente Fernando Lugo, who before running for office was a Catholic bishop. Interesting things! I feel like I use the word "excited" so much it looses any meaning, but that's how I feel. Although ost of the stories are just about soccer.

Sarah and I will be in Terre Haute for the weekend visiting family. Also, our Church lost one of it's members yesterday, and we'll be back in town Saturday to help with the funeral. We thought about rescheduling our trip, but we're pretty much booked from now until February of 2009.

Sometimes, God doesn't Call...

...sometimes God just sends an email. Over the past week my wife and I have exchanged several emails with people from the US and the South American Field Office of the Nazarene world mission. The end result of these emails is an exciting new opportunity for Sarah and I:

We're movin' to Paraguay!

Right now we're planning to leave in early August to volunteer for 6 months with missionaries in Asunción, Paraguay. The details are still hazy (and mostly in Spanish) right now, but we are really beginning to sense God's call for the next part of our life. We formally (Sarah more formally than me, of course) submitted our resignations last night, and tonight at Youth and Children's activities we told some of the people closest to us that we will be leaving at the end of the summer. That was that tough part, but went well. Now all we have to do is raise $9000... any suggestions?

time meta-blog 2

I've been working on blogging about time for... well a long time now here's what I've come up with. To start us off I want to look at this verse from Ecclesiastes 3:11 – He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

I think this shows us the time-less-ness of God, having already “made everything beautiful in it’s time” and also done everything “from the beginning to the end,” all past tense. It’s not what God has done and what God will do, but one statement, past tense, about what God has done. From an outside-of-time perspective, everything God does is done. Form an inside-time perspective this may look like some things are still happening, but from God’s perspective it is done.

If this is correct it means two things;

1) a shift in our thinking about things like predestination, free will, and prayer. I might get into those things more later. (I’ve been talking about them with my wife for years)

2) an incredible hope, following a God who already knows the way it all ends

So lets look at this a little more. This post was motivated by a conversation I had with some friends about life and death and I found it difficult to explain and support the point I was trying to make about time. I started out by looking through the New Testament for references to “eternal” or “eternity” that might give us more insight into the idea of time, I found the following: there are 69 references in the new testament, 63 of them don’t really say anything specific about time. Here are the other 6:

John 6.40:This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.”

The last day (end of time) is the beginning of eternal life, which I think shows that time ends and then eternity begins.

Romans 6.22:But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life.

This could be understood to mean that at the end of everything, including time, is eternal life.

2 Corinthians 4.17:For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure,

On the issue of time, this seems to me to say that now we are in time (momentary being a reference to an amount of time) and that now is preparation for eternity which is beyond all measure. Time is a measure, and the glory of eternity is beyond even the measure of time.

Titus 1.2:in the hope of eternal life that God, who never lies, promised before the ages began—

Here we have an example of how eternal life was promised before time began, showing that it is something outside of time.

2 Peter 3.18: But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.

“day” is a measure of time, which here is linked with eternity. I think this shows that our understanding of time with at very least be different in eternity, because “day” is used to mean an ambiguous (or even infinite) amount of time, not a 24 hour period

Luke 18.30: who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”

Here eternal life is referred to as an age, which seems to imply an amount of time with a beginning and an end. I suppose eternity could be an “age” with a beginning and simply no end, but it seems clearer to understand it as a starting point for an existence not governed by time whatsoever.

Other things like “eternal life”, “eternal glory”, “eternal dwelling”, “eternal fire”, --none of these terms imply a dynamic state of time in “eternity.” In fact, they all seem to point to eternity as a state of existence, without really specifying an amount (or lack) of time.

It comes down to this: is eternity infinite time, or an actual lack of time? I think there is scripture that hints at the latter, but nothing entirely decisive.

When scripture lets me down, of course I turn to Scot McKnight…

In Scot’s blogging about the Jesus and the kingdom, he shows how Jesus uses the term “kingdom” as both earthly and eternal, but there is a theme of “eternity” to the understanding of kingdom emphasized over and over again in the gospels.

Again in his discussion there doesn’t seem to be much that indicates whether there is in eternity an experience of time or whether eternity exists apart from time I read through it again and I didn't catch anything, but I could be wrong.

Right now I’m working on reading N.T. Wright’s book Surprised By Hope, which is what sparked this conversation in the first place and hopefully will help me as I continue to read it. If he says anything meaningful relating to time and eternity, I’ll post it!

What do you think? Time? No time? Waste of time? Don’t have time to think about it?