On the Inside

Well... and now I post.

I've been dealing with rebuilding the Ubercart site for the last week at work. Unfortunately, we had an embarrassing backup solution (read, none) that led to us losing our website's database when our RAID system went yonkers. This means all our forum posts, contributions, live site listings, documentation, users, etc... the whole shebang... went the way of the dodo. This has given me a good opportunity to rebuild everything "in the know" so to speak. I've been able to avoid some of the failures of our previous systems with the benefit of a year's worth of hindsight. So it has been all bad... just mostly.

Oh! I finally got a closing date. This means I'll be moving into 528 Camp St. early next week before heading down to Greenville, SC for the wedding. Talk about cutting it close... closing on the house not even a week before getting married! But at least I'll have a house to bring my lovely bride to be home to (even if our bed won't have any sheets and the shower curtain won't be up!). I formally invite you all to come help with the moving and sprucing up of the property.

Finally, this evening I was reading the gift I got one of my groomsmen. (I hope he'll be alright with a slightly used copy of The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell.) It's sort of a collection of apologetics outlines by McDowell that touches on any and every subject you might want to read about. Well, I started by reading an essay included in it by C.S. Lewis which was stellar. Feeling like I was cheating a little I turned to a chapter written by McDowell and read a bit about defenses for the deity of Christ... and I realized it was an approach I'd never read before. I found it to be quite encouraging!

The premise of the chapter is a question... "If God were to become a man, what kind of man would I expect him to be?" McDowell answers this with a list of 8 things (granted, he already has a Christian perspective of the world, so Jesus fits the bill quite nicely... but I still think at least some hit on things non-believers would think of, and he supports that with plenty of quotes and thoughts from non-Christian and even anti-Christian men):

1. Have an utterly unique entrance into human history.
2. Be without sin.
3. Manifeset His supernatural presence in the form of supernatural acts--that is, miracles.
4. Live more perfectly than any human who has ever lived.
5. Speak the greatest words ever spoken.
6. Have a lasting and universal influence.
7. Satisfy the spiritual hunger in humanity.
8. Overcome humanity's most pervasive and feared enemy--death.

I've thought about Scriptures providing an answer to the question, "Is Jesus God?" But I guess I've never just stopped to think... "Just look at him! Who else could he be??"

The evidences he provides are very encouraging, particularly for points 2 and 4. The quotes he gave exalting Christ were exactly what my often doubtful heart needed to hear. I need to be reminded of the grandeur of God in Christ, of the impossibility of a man coming close to living like Jesus did without being God Himself. I particularly liked this quote from none other than Napoleon Bonaparte in response to point #4:

"I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for Him."

Incredibly insightful coming from a men who was one of the most powerful men on the planet...

(I also liked this quote from Pascal: "Who has taught the evangelists the qualities of a perfectly heroic soul, that they paint it so perfectly in Jesus Christ?" I shouldn't lose the wonder of the man depicted in the gospels as the Savior of the world!)

In other news, I am totally digging Incubus' new CD Light Grenades and would happily accept it as a wedding gift. Also, I'm going to try and move to a new website called By Wombats in the not-so-distant future. I need a space of my own on the web to call home and embark on an illustrious career in Drupal consulting and coding. (Well, I'd just like to make some more money doing it from home. )