Thinking to Believe

It’s official! I have renamed the blog from Theo-sophical Ruminations to Thinking to Believe.

I raised the possibility of a name change back in March. At the time, I was considering changing it to Theogetical Rumanations. This was a mouthful and was no more memorable than my original name. Thinking to Believe has been the name of my private ministry for many years now, so it only made sense to use it as the name of my blog. It reflects my conviction that thinking and believing are bedfellows, not enemies. Thinking, when done properly, will lead one to faith, not away from it.

This is also the name of a podcast I will be launching very soon. More to come on that!

The new blog URL is https://www.thinkingtobelieve.com. If you have the old URL saved, please update it. However, a forwarding address has been added to ensure that old links to the blog will continue to work.

I recently spent many hours copying and pasting every single blog post I have ever written into a Word doc so I would have a back up of my life’s work. I’ve been blogging at Theo-sophical ruminations since February 19, 2006. That’s over 15 years!

In that time, I have written 1,525 posts. The content filled nearly 1300 pages of a Word document, clocking in at nearly 718,000 words. I’ve had nearly 1.1 million visitors to the WordPress version of this blog (I moved from blogspot to WordPress in 2012). It’s hard to believe.

I offer a sincere thank you to all of you who have read this blog over the years. If it wasn’t for you, there wouldn’t be much reason for me to continue doing this. Thank you!

I would like to know your thoughts on a potential name change for this blog.

From day one, “theosophical ruminations” has caused a small bit of confusion. “Theosophical” is a combination of “theology” and “philosophical,” but it sounds similar to “theosophy,” which is not a movement I want to be confused with.

I’m considering renaming the site to “Theogetical Ruminations?” Theogetical is a combination of “theology” and “apologetical.” Not only would this distance me from any association with theosophy, but it would describe the blog a bit better. I focus much more on theology and apologetics (theogetical) than I do on theology and philosophy (theosophical).

What say ye? Keep theosophical, or change it to theogetical?

Sometimes we think it’s only those who are poor or hurting who want or need God. We are reluctant to share the gospel with those who are wealthy and successful, and have friends and influence. But these people can be quite open to the gospel precisely because they are wealthy and successful, and have friends and influence.

They were broken and unhappy before they obtained these things, and they believed that money, fame, and success would fix their brokenness and fulfill their deepest longings. When money, fame, and success didn’t bring them happiness, they despair all the more. Now, they are acutely aware of just how empty life is, and how nothing satisfies. That’s why they are so open to the gospel. They don’t have anything else to try. On the other hand, those who are poor, not famous, not successful, and not influential are still under the delusion that wealth and fame can make them happy, and thus they can be harder to reach than the wealthy and famous. This about this the next time you are reluctant to share the gospel with someone because you think they don’t see the need for God.

A lot of people grew up seeing their parents divorce and feeling the consequences, and now they don’t want to get married because they fear that the relationship will end in divorce. That makes as much sense as saying “My parents bought a car and wrecked it, so I don’t ever want to buy a car. I’ll just rent a car instead.” If they fear having a failed relationship, then they should forego romantic relationships altogether because any relationship can end. It’s not as though it only hurts when it’s a legal marriage. The piece of paper doesn’t create the pain. But actually, getting married makes it more likely that the relationship will last because marriage entails a higher level of commitment and legal entanglements.

Perhaps the primary concern is not the ending of the relationship, but the ending of a relationship involving kids. If that’s the case, then they should not be avoiding marriage per se, but having children. If they don’t want kids, they can get “fixed.” Foregoing marriage because your parents’ marriage did not work out just doesn’t make sense.

Due to my busy schedule, I’ve hardly had time to blog this year, yet alone interact with the comments (which I would like to be able to do).  As I’ve read through some of the comments sections this year, I’ve been very frustrated with what I see.  Comments veer off the topic almost instantly.  Some comments are a mile long, filled with off-topic rants, a million links, or quotes galore.  If you want to rant, do it somewhere else.  If you want to talk about different topics, start your own blog.  If you want to interact on my blog, however, please stick to the topic, be respectful, don’t rant, and make your argument with words not links.  If you cannot follow these rules, I will provide a warning.  If you do not heed the warning, I will start deleting your comments.  If the behavior continues, I will simply block you.  Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

All of us like compliments, but why?  I think a large part of the reason is that they serve to either validate our own healthy sense of self-perception or, if we have an unhealthy self-perception, they serve to bring hope that we just might be better than we perceive ourselves to be.  Compliments serve as confirmation that we are, indeed, valuable. Receiving compliments is necessary to a healthy development of one’s self-perception.  A failure to receive compliments can cause someone to doubt their own value, and may lead to them doing abnormal things to solicit compliments so they can be reassured of their own value.

Of course, there is always the temptation to pride when one receives compliments.  That’s where a health Christian theology comes in handy.  We recognize that everything we are, and everything we do, is because of God’s grace.  He is to be thanked for everything we are/do, and thus we redound the praise to the glory of God.

Singing is a spiritual exercise (Psalms; Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16).  Few things can open up hearts to God like beautiful music and meaningful lyrics.  The effects of music on the soul are nothing short of amazing.  That is why virtually all Christian congregations feature music in their services.  But what we sing about is just as important as the fact that we are singing.  After all, singing the latest Taylor Swift song would not be deemed spiritual just because it was sung in church.  Content matters.  But not just any ‘ol content that mentions God will do either.

Theologically Lean

I have been increasingly concerned over the years with the lyrical content of mainstream “worship” songs.  Many of our songs suffer from theological anorexia.  There’s not enough theological content in them to make the Devil yawn, yet alone choke.  They are so generic that one may have a hard time telling what God they are talking about (if God is even mentioned).  Then there are the “God of my girlfriend” songs that are spiritually androgynous.  One can’t tell whether they are singing about their love for God or their love for their girlfriend.  Finally, there are songs some have called “7-11” songs: They contain seven words sung 11 times.  If you want to know what theologically robust songs look like, get yourself a hymnal that’s more than 30 years old.  They are pregnant with theological substance. (more…)

It’s been just over two months since my last post. No, I’m not dead.  No, I haven’t given up blogging. I’ve just been working crazy hours at my job.  Sleep has been a luxury (to give you an idea of how crazy it’s been, last week I slept five hours between Sunday morning and Thursday night), so blogging has been out of the question.  I apologize for not at least posting something a couple months ago notifying everyone that blogging would be next to non-existent for a while.  When I have a few minutes I write down some thoughts for a blog post, but then it takes me 10 days to get back to it, and I only have five minutes to write.  So I will be posting something in a few days.  It’s only a few paragraphs, but it took me more than a month to write!

For those of you who have not already subscribed to my email feed, I would encourage you to do so (click “email notifications” on the top right).  Hopefully by December things will be back to normal, and I’ll resume blogging on a regular basis.  Until then, I’ll try to post when I can.  Thank you for your faithful readership!

There is a difference between being enthralled/infatuated by someone, and being in love with someone.  Enthrallment or infatuation is when you are consumed with your desire for someone else.  Love, on the other hand, is the giving of oneself to another.  It is caring for their needs as you would your own.  It is doing all you can to make them a better person.  In short, infatuation is self-consuming, while love is self-giving.

I tend to think that we have so confused the two in our culture that only a minority of couples ever experience true love.  Instead, they experience intense periods of infatuation in the beginning of their relationship, and that gives their relationship the gas it needs to continue for a considerable distance.  But like a car that only gets filled with gas in the beginning of a long trip, the relationship does not reach its intended destination of “til death do us part.”  Only true love (or pure will and commitment) can fuel a relationship so that it can endure the many hardships of life.