Modeling in the Bible

Today, I had planned on continuing our Series on the Gospel According to Matthew. However, I believe God wants me instead to address a topic that could have a major impact on the lives of people who read this blog...

Last month this blog recorded the fourth highest volume of visitors in its four year history. There seem to be two reasons...

1. GOOGLE: There are three posts that rank very high when people google the following topics: how to remove guilt, man/woman according to God, and how to permanently break a porn addiction. Apparently, the following posts are proving to be most helpful to people around the world:

The Definition of a Real Woman
The Definition of a Real Man
The Only Way to Remove Guilt
Masculinity and Pornography

2. NEW READERS: Also, there are numerous readers who have become "regulars"...people who read this blog on average at least once a week. I believe God wants me to address these people with a clear explanation of the purpose of this blog and the opportunity that is in front of them...

This blog is the continuation of CS Lewis' legacy. In CS Lewis' last book (The Discarded Image), he wrote:

"But there is a third work which we can, I think, set beside the two. This is the medieval synthesis itself, the whole organisation of their theology, science, and history into a single, complex, harmonious mental Model of the Universe. The building of this Model is conditioned by two factors I have already mentioned: the essentially bookish character of their culture, and their intense love of system." (Page 11)

CS Lewis encouraged us to build a Model (he even used a capital "M"). He gave us two rules for modeling:

"All apparent contradictions must be harmonised. A Model must be built which will get everything in without a clash; and it can do this only by becoming intricate, by mediating its unity through a great, and finely ordered, multiplicity." (Page 11)

"But if we demanded no more than that from theory, science would be impossible, for a lively inventive faculty could devise a good many different supposals which would equally save the phenomena. We have therefore had to supplement the canon of saving the phenomena by another canon - first, perhaps, formulated with full clairity by Occam. According to this second canon we must accept (provisionally) not any theory which saves the phenomena but that theory which does so with the fewest possible assumptions." (Page 15)

From these two rules, we have identified four God-given principles for modeling:
-Non-contradiction
-Causality
-Growth
-Contrastive Thinking

I have called these four principles, when used together, "Modeletics(tm)" in honor of CS Lewis.

Lewis stated this Model would ultimately come from a scientist:

"The demand for a developing world - a demand obviously in harmony both with the revolutionary and the romantic temper - grows up first; when it is full grown the scientists go to work and discover evidence on which our belief in that sort of universe would now be held to rest." (p. 221)

Lewis concluded his final book stating the key to getting the total truth to create the Model would depend on our ability to ask the right questions:

"The new Model will not be set up without evidence, but the evidence will turn up when the inner need for it becomes sufficiently great. It will be true evidence. But nature gives most of her evidence in answer to the questions we ask her. Here, as in the courts, the character of the evidence depends on the shape of the examination, and a good cross-examiner can do wonders. He will not indeed elicit falsehoods from an honest witness. But, in relation to the total truth in the witness's mind, the structure of the examination is like a stencil. It determines how much of that total truth will appear and what pattern it will suggest." (Page 223)

It turns out the four God-given principles are the tools needed to get more total truth!

All of this depends on thinking and understanding how we think:

"No Model yet devised has made a satisfactory unity between our actual experience of sensation or thought or emotion and any available account of the corporeal processes which they are held to involve." (Page 165)

Lewis stated the key is to come up with an explanation that unifies the external world with our internal thought process!

If you have been reading this blog for the past year, you will have noticed the latest discoveries in how our brain works gives this unifying explanation!

So, here is a summary of this blog for those who want to be able to explain it to others...

BLOG SUMMARY: This blog continues CS Lewis' legacy by using his rules for modeling to determine the Model that explains our beliefs. The Model was determined by applying the four God-given principles to the Bible. This Model also unifies the external world with our internal thought process because God created our brains to work a specific way. In the last year, we have seen the latest medical findings have CONFIRMED what had already been covered PREVIOUSLY on this blog.

Please understand this point: We have been using God's Word as the standard...the source...the cause. The medical discussions on this blog have SUPPORTED what God's Word had already shown. God has ALWAYS been the source on the revelation presented in this blog.

For instance, we have seen the Unaware Brain Models according to all four God-given principles without effort. However, our conscious brain Models according to two of the four God-given principles without effort. It is OUR CHOICE whether we are progressing towards thinking according to all four God-given principles (which results in godly thinking) or thinking according to none of the God-given principles...which results in depression, anxiety, and physical illness.

I am organizing the information from the past year in order to approach "experts"...people in various completely separate fields...in order to show the interdependent and wide-ranging applications of this God-inspired information.

To those of you who are regular readers, I encourage you to write to me and make a connection. My e-mail address is jglenhart@gmail.com. Let me know who you are...and, perhaps, how I can help you continue to grow. At a minimum, you ought to know your ARE. You can send me twenty "gains" and twenty "drains" so you can become more who God created you to be. If you haven't read "Modeling God", let me know and I will send you a book. We also have workbooks that help guide you through the first half of "Modeling God". I believe God wants me to make myself available this month to help you while I still have free time to do so.

If you are still unsure about the importance of "modeling" according to the Bible, the rest of this post will be an eye-opener...

We have covered how the words "Rapture" and "Trinity" are NOT in the Bible, yet they are Biblical concepts. We have covered how the words "sovereign", "omniscient", and "omnipresent" are NOT in the Bible...and the way most people use them are NOT Biblical concepts. We've even covered how "omnipotent" is in the Bible once, and it is NOT used the way people use it today. It means "the all-ruling". Be careful when you state what word is and isn't in the Bible...


MODELING IN THE BIBLE
Last week, we covered some words used in the English Bibles that are not completely accurately translated from the Greek. Today, we will look at the word "model" and "modeling"...

The Bible does use the word "pattern". What is a pattern?

In the Old Testament, the word is Strong's #8403 tabnit - "structure, by implication a model, resemblance"

When this word is used, it refers to physical models/patterns.

We really shouldn't be shocked that pattern and model are interchangeable. The English dictionary gives this definition for pattern - "the object serving as a model".

In the New Testament, the word is Strong's #5296 hypotyposis - "from a compound of #5259 and a derivative of #5179"

Strong's #5259 is hypo - "under...by, from"

Strong's #5179 is typos - "a die (as struck)...specifically a sample ("type"), i.e. a model (for imitation)..."

Here are passages from the New Testament using hypotyposis and typos. I have replaced these two Greek words with "Model"...

Romans 5:12-14
Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned:-- for until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is a Model of him that was to come.

Adam was a Model of Jesus. In fact, Paul called Jesus, "The Last Adam".

Romans 6:17-18
But thanks be to God, that, whereas ye were servants of sin, ye became obedient from the heart to that Model of teaching whereunto ye were delivered; and being made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness.

2 Timothy 1:13
Hold the Model of sound words which thou hast heard from me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

1 Timothy 1:15-16
Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief: howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all his longsuffering, for a Model of them that should thereafter believe on him unto eternal life.

The teaching, the sound words, and all Jesus' longsuffering were given to us as a Model to follow.

1 Timothy 4:12
Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou a Model to them that believe, in word, in manner of life, in love, in faith, in purity.

Likewise, we ought to Model to others! Here is a longer explanation of this same point:

Titus 2:1-8
But speak thou the things which befit the sound doctrine: that aged men be temperate, grave, sober-minded, sound in faith, in love, in patience: that aged women likewise be reverent in demeanor, not slanderers nor enslaved to much wine, teachers of that which is good; that they may train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sober-minded, chaste, workers at home, kind, being in subjection to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed: the younger men likewise exhort to be sober-minded: in all things showing thyself a Model of good works; in thy doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of us.

Finally, the use of Model in the New Testament is directly linked to the use of Model (pattern) in the Old Testament:

Hebrews 8:4-5
Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, seeing there are those who offer the gifts according to the law; who serve that which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses is warned of God when he is about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the Model that was showed thee in the mount.

The Old Testament focused on physical Models...which were a copy and shadow of the spiritual Models from the New Testament!


SUMMARY
CS Lewis devoted his last book (The Discarded Image) to a Biblical concept: determining the harmonious mental Model of the Universe...the Model that intentionally explains our beliefs.

This Model would be useful to, and proven by, every area of life: religion, science, medicine, government, etc.

This blog is dedicated to:
-the use of God's Word and the four God-given principles to determine this Model
-the presentation of this Model.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, I highly encourage you to make a connection by writing me an e-mail this month...

Tomorrow, we will continue this year's Series by beginning to look at Matthew chapter 21.

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