Topics for today:

Syria Officially Recognizes Lugansk and Donetsk as Independent States

Hike with Chris

Daniel Hale

Family,

I sent the email below to my good friend in Utah who is a Latter Day Saint, or a Mormon. It was an effort to make clear the differences in our foundation. We have been in dialog for years, even with our fundamental differences. This continued interaction is consistent with the “all long-suffering” or “complete patience” seen in 2nd Timothy 4:2, or as I describe, you never give up.

While I understand that most that I send this to have already given up, I have not. I hope you find the email below of interest, a challenge, and an act of love!

I remain grateful for our friendship and especially of our recent dialogs. What I cherish the most is that even with our foundational differences, we still have respectful dialogs. Most others in the Protestant community simply abandon the dialog.

A quick note, after several months of perusing a dialog with the leadership of a local Russian church, we have an hour meeting scheduled for this Wednesday with the pastor, myself, and an interpreter as the pastor does not speak English well. I am going without an agenda, but a hope of a friendship and mutual encouragement. And, yes, these things happen because I am a bit of a pushy fellow.

As to our foundational differences, I think often of face-to-face dialogs with local LDS friends and acquaintances. We use so much of the same language, but it seems some of our words have very different meanings. The one I would like to address is similar to what I have studied about Islam where we hear about the Prophet Jesus, with the typical addendum of PBUH or “Peach Be Upon Him”, versus the Lord Jesus Christ. It seems to be the same historical Jesus, but not the same Jesus.

In listening to or dialogs with Protestants and Roman Catholics, there seems to be some form of a secondary nature to Jesus and having a distance from Him and the Father. So I have developed a theses statement that I use for this that “Jesus is the Creator that entered His creation to redeem His elect.” I think this might be an area that would make it clear as to foundational differences and why we would arrive and different points on other questions.

So to literally start from the beginning, the first word in Hebrew, or the first two in Greek, or the first three in English is “In the beginning”. What is so fascinating to me is that there was no five minutes before. Time literally started “in the beginning” and time itself is a creation of and sustained by our Creator.

But then who is the Creator? I contend from the Bible it is clear that our creator is God the Father. But is it just Him? There is the concept of the Trinity, typically described as one God in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. While many go into complex explanations, I suggest it is very simple. God the Father is outside of His creation, as in outside of the physical universe and time itself. The Father created all things and entered His creation as the Son, which I contend is seen already in Genesis 1, such as the various refrains of “God saw…” in which it was Jesus seeing His creation unfold before Him.

When we read “Let us make man in our image” in verse 26, many point to the “our” as consistent with the Trinity, to which I agree. But what is the Holy Spirit?

I suggest that when we see in Genesis 2:7 “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”, there is significant meaning in that “breath” in the Greek is the root of the word “spirit”. It is not that man is the Holy Spirit, but what we know of as soul is what the Lord put into man, which we might see as our conscience being.

We then have the Father who ordinary man has not seen. John 6:46 “Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.” Since the Father is outside of creation, we can understand why no man has seen Him.

However, Jesus has seen the Father, not because of a special audience or biological relationship, but that Jesus is the Father as seen in John 17:9 “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father”.

Jesus is also fully man as seen in 1st Timothy 2:5 “the man Christ Jesus”, and therefore in one place at one time. So how can we have a direct relationship and individually be with our Creator? This is the work of the Holy Spirit, who has the intimate bond with His creation. This is the idea of multi-tasking to the nth degree.

So we mere men cannot see the Father, and the Son is only in one place at one time, but the Holy Spirit can commune with all He desires at the same time.

Where then do we see the first time Jesus audibly speaks to man? Genesis 1:28 when He said “Be fruitful, and multiply”. This was not a voice from heaven, or a message implanted in the Adam’s head, but a face-to-face command from Jesus. We see Jesus again in Genesis 3:8 “And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day”. It wasn’t the Father or the Holy Spirit, but Jesus walking.

This can be expanded much further, but I think we would agree that this leaves us with foundational differences. So please consider the case I set before you and give me a challenge to where I am wrong or how you would present a different perspective from the Bible.

My assumption is that you will also draw on the other books, but would you agree that they must be a single consistent message?

I have been doing a lot of study on Ukraine, the events of the last few months, the civil war that has been going for 8 years, the mischief around the Maidan Revolution, and other things. But it is not the politics I am interested in, rather the effect of propaganda and how others, especially the young, are impacted. I am trying to do the job of the watchman as seen in Ezekiel 3 and 33, which I believe is not just a call to Ezekiel, but the mature follower of Christ.

I hope you find this inspiring, joyful, and respectful. I welcome your response.

I plan on sending this to some others to see if there is someone in the Protestant or atheist community that will take the challenge.

Respectfully,

Today’s postcard was sent to Tirzah.