The Joshua Victor Theory

“ For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). Today the prophet Isaiah gives us a beautiful and encouraging Scripture, written to give us hope. Isaiah lived 7 centuries before Christ, but probably more than any other single prophet, he described Jesus in beautiful detail, showing marvelously God’s inspiration of His Word. Today Isaiah teaches us about God’s powerful and effective Word. I’ve always been amazed and fascinated by the landscape of Maui and the Hawaiian islands in general. In parts of Maui or the Big Island, you can see “fresh lava flows” from as recent as a few days to a few hundred years old. Sharp, hard, black, inhospitable lava can cover the landscape for miles around, like we see near La Perouse Bay on Maui. But amazingly, under the right conditions, you can see green plant life and even whole forests burst out onto those rocky la...

            In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. We live in an automated age. A long list of conveniences relieve the drudgery of daily work, or simplify our daily tasks. We have automatic dishwashers to do our dishes, automatic sprinklers to water our yards, autopilot mechanisms that steer airplanes over long flights, automatic self-cleaning ovens, automatic coffee machines, automatic apps that send our pictures and files into “the Cloud”, and all sorts of other modern innovations that supposedly simplify our lives. Well in today’s reading we discover a much older innovation, a much older “automatic system” that has been at work for ages. It is the kingdom of God. How is it automatic, you ask?             Jesus tells a parable, that the kingdom of God is like a man scattering seed on the ground. Waking and sleeping, the farmer passes his days, and the seed s...