In which I overcome some activation energy.

Let me tell you a joke!

Q: Why do your parents always get under your skin?

A: It’s their parenteral duty.

Oh no, here comes the hook—

Second funny thing that I learned while studying for microbio. There’s a type of pneumonia that used to be called bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP). Now it’s called cryptogenic organizing pneumonia (COP). Immediately I imagined a cop whose name was Boop. “Officer Boop, reporting for duty!”

Then I imagined someone having pleural blebs caused by COP. “Dx: blebs secondary to BOOP!”

I know that in reality, nothing about that statement is cute. Sigh. Medicine.

In Exodus 20, God’s instruction for building the altar are not so glamorous. Rather than asking for vaulted cathedrals and flying buttresses, God tells His people to cobble together an altar of earth. If not, then rocks, unhewn and joined by earth.

There were expert builders among God’s people—weavers of tapestry, sculptors, carvers, metallurgists, everything God could ask for. Moses himself had received the highest education offered in the world for his time. Surely God could ask His people to scrape together something closer to mountain than molehill. Why would He ask for just an altar of stone or earth?

Verse 25–26 say that if we lift up a tool upon the materials of the altar, we pollute it by our work. It also says building steps to an altar exposes our nakedness when we worship God.

I think this line of thought really reveals the schism between what people value and what God values. He who searches the hearts wants the consecration that an altar signifies, and not the self-aggrandizing glory of milestones reached, legacies left, and ticks on belts that such a consecration may turn into if left to the auspices of human endeavor.

In other words, people want to build wonderful things for God. But in the principle of Cain, we don’t see that all God wants is Christ. And this isn’t the handsome, rugged be-six-packed Jesus that we see in art and sculpture. This is the man with marred visage, whom the Pharisees ball-parked at twice His age (John 8), who made Himself lower than a slave.

So, dirt and rocks can build an altar to the God of the universe.

Then what about the steps?

Sometimes we think that living a life with God somehow makes us better than others. The “holier-than-thou” attitude of some people giving themselves to God reveals that some “altars” may be constructed with steps leading up to a dais.

I think in God’s wisdom, He didn’t want an altar to Him to be inaccessible to anyone. So the building materials and the altar built itself must necessarily be down to earth.

What does this mean?

Satan sometimes deceives us into thinking we’re not good enough to love God, or to give ourselves to Him. How could God want anyone like us? Actually, the Bible reveals that there is only One in whom God finds delight—Jesus, His Son. So in our offering ourselves to God, as represented by an altar in the Old Testament, we can only use materials from God. Christ, and Him crucified, are the basis for our giving ourselves to God.

In 1 Corinthians 1:23 Paul says, “We preach Christ crucified.” It is significant that here Paul does not say that he preached Christ resurrected, ascended, glorified, or enthroned. In the past I sometimes wondered why Paul did not tell the Greeks that he preached Christ ascended and exalted. Instead, Paul preached Christ crucified; he preached One who was put to death on the cross, executed as if He were a criminal. To Jews the preaching of Christ crucified is a stumbling block, and to Greeks it is foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, this Christ is “God’s power and God’s wisdom” (v. 24). Praise the Lord that we have been called to receive a crucified Christ! The decision to receive such a Christ did not originate with us; we have received Him because God has called us. God has predestined us to receive this Christ.

However, after receiving Christ crucified, many Christians try to beautify Him. Some have also attempted to make the church beautiful in the eyes of man. However, for us to beautify anything in the Lord’s recovery is to insult God. Instead of beautifying things, we should remain in what man would consider a primitive, uncultured situation. Instead of hewn stones, we should have an altar of stones or earth created by God. Such an altar is acceptable to Him.

Because we do not add man’s work to the cross, but only have an altar that is primitive, the Lord’s speaking is with us. We are not more capable or more intelligent than others. Nevertheless, because we do not give place to the work of man, the Lord continues to open His Word to us and to send forth His light.

Life Study of Exodus 67.

The last month has been a rising tide of things. Deadlines give rise to more deadlines, and in the headlong triaging rush, I haven’t updated in more than a month. But sometimes I’d enjoy something and think, hey, I should write a blog post on this! The problem isn’t really finding the time, though I wish it were. The problem is that I want my blog posts to be really good. Whether that means eloquent, witty, or novel, I just want them to have some value that has altogether nothing to do with Christ. And when I can’t get them over a certain threshold, I feel a certain lassitude. I caught myself just trying to do something to add something of human beauty to God Himself.

I can’t help this part of my nature, but I can ask the Lord for His covering to keep sharing what I’ve enjoyed. I’ve been practicing just to ask the Lord, “Lord, if this is Your will for me to share this, then grace me to do so.” Whether that means giving me the time or just giving me more grace. Today I think I received some grace.