Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

• Acts 1:1-5

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

• Romans 1:18-20

Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit,
    and wickedness as with cart ropes,
to those who say, “Let God hurry;
    let him hasten his work
    so we may see it.
The plan of the Holy One of Israel—
    let it approach, let it come into view,
    so we may know it.”
Woe to those who call evil good
    and good evil,
who put darkness for light
    and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
    and sweet for bitter.
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
    and clever in their own sight.

• Isaiah 5:18-21

“Born in Saragossa, he used the ideas of Plato and Aristotle in his treatises, and influenced Averroes. He set out to show the compatibility between reason and faith, stating that the path to true knowledge, and therefore enlightenment and a link with the divine, came only from thinking and acting rationally But, Ibn Bajja warned, each individual must make their own journey to enlightenment. If the enlightened attempt to pass their wisdom directly to others, they place themselves at risk of contamination by the ignorant.”

• Sam Atkinson (senior editor), The Philosophy Book, Big Ideas Simply Explained

Ibn Bâjja, a. k. a. Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyà ibn aṣ-Ṣā’igh at-Tūjībī ibn Bājja, or by his Latinized name Avempace, (1085-1138), was a Moor who was born in Saragossa in Moorish Spain.  He was an Andalusi polymath, meaning he was knowledgeable in many fields of study: astronomy, physics, music, philosophy, medicine, botany, and poetry.

But Ibn Bâjja did not say, “Refrain from passing on your knowledge.  He said that you run the risk of your knowledge being contaminated.

I taught a class at our church’s combined Adult Sunday school classes in December.  I thought since we were all adults, we could discuss the Nativity from an adult perspective.  Luke 2:7 says that Mary gave birth to a son, wrapped him in some kind of cloth, laid him in a manger, for there was no room at the (inn).  I put inn in parenthesis because the Greek word ketaluma is translated as Upper Room when it is used again, and the best translation is “guest room.”  I asked the class, mostly older adults, but some adults with teenagers – few with little children.  I asked them if they had a spare room, fitted with a bed, dresser, and closet.  It might be a little dusty because no one goes in there, but if you have guests come to visit, the spare room becomes the “guest room.”  I then gave the alternate point of view for an alternate Christmas pageant (A New Pageant Script, Dec. 23, 2024), without a grumpy inn keeper and with a loving Grandpa who tells Joseph to stay with them in the family room and then when the baby comes, they take an animal food box (manger) and empty it.  When it’s empty, the animals hardly notice that it’s there.  They know where their food is.

Pardon me for a moment, but ever since I wrote the alternate script, and it would fit any script thus far, but can you imagine Jesus opening his human eyes for the first time, maybe like normal humans with his vision a little blurry until focus is developed, and he constantly sees the heads of animals look into the manger and then move to where the food is. It would be a game of peekaboo using livestock. Jesus got entertainment before the shepherds ever arrived. Sorry, that has been on my mind for weeks!

My point is that “no room in the guest room and guest rooms are often at inns” and “manger” leave holes in the story.  We fill those holes with a grumpy inn keeper and a barn out back or cave a few miles from Bethlehem, not even IN Bethlehem, and after Saint Francis of Assisi was through with the first nativity representation, we had every kind of animal you could find there.  Why?  Saint Francis loved animals.  I have been to churches that had a live nativity scene with camels, llamas, donkeys, sheep, etc.  Please, no lions, tigers, and bears – oh, my!  Just docile animals, some of which would have never been in Bethlehem when Jesus was born.  Just to make Saint Francis happy, although he has been gone for centuries.  Can we say “contaminated”?

We cause trouble when we contaminate things.  Contaminating a crime scene is illegal.  Butchering some famous quote can sometimes be comical.  I butchered a C.S. Lewis quote one time and a dear friend said that I had butchered the quote adequately that it was now my quote.

Yes, it is the telephone game, a. k. a. Chinese whispers.  You whisper a message to one person.  That person whispers the message, at least what they heard, to the next person.  The hilarity is when the first and last person compare notes and find a totally different message.

My wife introduced a pantomime version of that game.  I came out with one person from a team in front of a church crowd.  I went through an elaborate pantomime.  Everyone in the audience knew what I was doing.  They roared with laughter at the appropriate times.  Then, I instructed the person who watched me do it to do the same thing for the next person who came from the next room (if a TV game show – from the soundproof room).  After four people, maybe five, did the pantomime for the next person – luckily the pastor was right after the woman who nearly had a breakdown, screaming, “I don’t know what I’m doing!”  And he thought that was part of the pantomime, and he nailed it!  Then after the ”contestants” argued over what they thought they were doing, I delivered the punch line.  “I have no idea what you thought you were doing, but I was washing an elephant!”  At that point, the audience erupted in laughter.

But contamination?  Just try that, and the first person will miss some very important things that you did that completely change what the next person sees.  For instance, holding out the ears to wash them or holding your nose when you lift the tail to wash there.  Washing the legs, turns into washing a car if you are not carefully watching everything else.  If you are in the know, remember that the trunk, ears, tail, and short legs are the key.

So, what about the Bible?  Some modern English translations, many of them still having “inn”, have guest room, something other than inventing an inn in a town of maybe 300 citizens in the late last Century BC or early first Century AD.  Yet, the scribes were faithful over the centuries, deviations were caught and corrected.  But it is in our reading of the Bible that we can mess up.  Some denominations have been created due to misinterpretations of a book in the Bible, or maybe the new denomination got it right.

Why did God make things ambiguous at times?  Why did Jesus speak in parables?  Why so many metaphors rather than spelling it out?  God wanted us to seek Him, and when we truly seek Him, we find Him.

But when we rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us, comparing what we have learned with other strong believers, we get a richer understanding.  And as we read it more and more, it means something more to us because we have grown in faith, we have added more experience, and we have been touched by God’s Grace that little bit more.

No contamination at all, just deeper knowledge of God.  Yet, I truly believe when we arrive in Heaven, we will look around us with astonishment thinking, “Wow! I got that wrong, and that wrong …  But it is better than I could ever imagine.  Praise the Lord!”

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.