unlearn Archives - BibleScribbler

Ed Catmull – WCAGLS 2015

Dan Sullivan · August 11, 2015 ·

This was from an interview Bill Hybels did with Ed Catmull, boss of Disney Animation Studios and co-founder of Pixar.

Two takeaways I got from this was that he saw the deeper cause and motive behind just making movies and a lot of money. That made me wonder about the deeper cause behind me working at Lieberman. Am I just making websites or am I doing something different? Later in the day I caught myself when someone said “What do you do?” and I said “I help people get their business on the internet.” AAAAH! It’s happening!

The other part of his talk that was good was how much he talked about teaching the principles of their company and their work philosophy. Sure, people need to know how to render lighting and keyframe the polygons, but they can learn that their own way, what he was concerned about was teaching the culture of creativity and flexibility and trust that will then turn out amazing movies.

They Did It All Wrong and God Loved It

Dan Sullivan · February 28, 2012 ·

2 Chronicles 30:18-20

The majority of the many people from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun were ceremonially unclean, yet they ate the Passover in violation of what is prescribed in the law. For Hezekiah prayed for them, saying: “May the Lord, who is good, forgive everyone who has determined to follow God, the Lord God of his ancestors, even if he is not ceremonially clean according to the standards of the temple.”
The Lord responded favorably to Hezekiah and forgave the people.

Here is a great spot in the Old Testament showing people getting close to God–not by following the Law but by being sincere and turning to Him with all of their hearts.

Hezekiah called the whole nation to celebrate the Passover. The priests weren’t properly prepared, the people weren’t properly prepared, but since it hadn’t been done in so long, they had to start somewhere.

God accepted them and they were so delighted in the Passover they continued it for another 7 days beyond the amount of time the Law required. The chapter ends with God listening and being pleased with all they had to offer Him.

This makes me think about all of the pickiness we bring when we go to church on Sunday. Here is God, overlooking some blatant screw-ups during one of His most important holy days:

Celebrated in the wrong month
Celebrated by unprepared priests & Levites (should have only been priests that were clean)
Celebrated by people that were unclean
Celebrated by many people that weren’t even Jewish!
Celebrated longer than God ever ordered it to be
Celebrated in ways God never intended (with sacrifices from the king in addition to being from the people)

Next time you are at church (if you know me, you know I’m the “you” in this sentence) and you want to gripe or be critical about the way things are being done, look at this hot mess in 2 Chronicles 30. Very little went according to God’s plan, and look what happened:

The Lord responded favorably to them as their prayers reached his holy dwelling place in heaven. 2 Chronicles 30:27

Poverty the Blessing & the Prosperity Curse

Dan Sullivan · January 20, 2012 ·

Psalm 17:13-14

NASB Deliver my soul from the wicked with Your sword, From men with Your hand, O LORD, From men of the world, whose portion is in this life,

And whose belly You fill with Your treasure;

NET Use your sword to rescue me from the wicked man! Lord, use your power to deliver me from these murderers, from the murderers of this world!

They enjoy prosperity; you overwhelm them with the riches they desire.

If you never read it anywhere else, you can read it here. Prosperity and the riches of this world are a curse, not a blessing.

Some of that sounds good: to have your belly full of treasure, to have all of the riches you desire, but the context is worldly men or murderers, not the blessed.

This fits along with 1 Timothy 6:9

Those who long to be rich, however, stumble into temptation and a trap and many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

It is so crazy how we are ripped off every day to the point that we think it is totally normal to constantly covet and wish for stuff!

Jesus was right on when He said

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. (Matthew 6:24 NASB)

Even in christendom we make jokes about being afraid God will send us to Kookamunga. More and more I’m thinking that more of us would be better off if He did! How pure and attractive our devotion to God would be if it were coupled with poverty!

Ooh Ooh! What if the goal of all of this Christian financial money management stuff was to train and equip yourself to live in poverty in spite of your income! Wow. May God help me with this stuff.

<<Written on my dual core i7 MacBook Pro>>

Secrecy and Jesus

Dan Sullivan · April 1, 2011 ·

Matthew 6 (you should read this whole chapter first) Matthew 6

It is so CRAZY to read this stuff Jesus says about not worrying about money! I keep reading through Jesus’ teachings and I just wonder if the Church ever read this stuff!

The awesome part is that I woke up worrying about money! Am I managing it right? Am I paying off debts the right way? Is my budget set up the right way? Why do I act like I even have a budget?

Jesus flies in the face of all of that!

There are three times leading up to this section where Jesus says our prayer life, our donations, and our fasting should all be done in secret. I think I need to get unlearn.com and have a Bible study blog on there!

Pray in secret. Don’t make it a big oratory or a big deal. It’s valuable to God and you because it’s a conversation. If you get any value out of it being eloquent or by impressing others with it, you’re doing it wrong.

Donate in secret. If you are buying a stronger pride from the homeless man or getting a good deal on righteousness for only $50 a week, you are doing it wrong. Give away stuff joyfully and for the sake of giving it away, not so that you look good.

Fast in secret. If you go without something for religious reasons, don’t tell anybody. I wonder what would happen if we applied this to all of the boycotts the Baptists are known for. Wait, a boycott is the opposite of a secret fast, isn’t it? Think about the secret fast next time your tempted to tell somebody, “No, I don’t ________” Want to go bowling? “No, I don’t bowl.”

I think we need to fast from the condescending DON’T.

In all of this, Jesus is pointing the arrow directly to Himself as the SOURCE of all things.

You want your prayers and requests to be heard? Trust Jesus with your words. Trust Jesus with your prayers. You don’t have to pray like Maya Angelou to get heard.

You want some confidence and ego boost for who you donate money to? Forget about it. It was God’s first. He probably allowed you to get more than somebody else so that you’d share, so you’re just doing what He asked you.

Actually I don’t want to say it was God’s first. He doesn’t even deal in the currency we deal in. If you want to deal in His currency you have to go to the currency exchange at your local soup kitchen, homeless shelter, or the home of your neighbor.

And fasting? Oh fasting. I could write a whole blog post about how messed up I am over fasting. Like anything else, if we do it to get attention from others, that is all we’ll get.

Jesus is the beginning and the end of our ego, our good-personship, our confidence, our confused religious fervor, and our lives. Let’s throw off all of the wrong stuff we’ve learned and look at the things Jesus said all over again and live them out.

May God give us all of the worries and beauty of a flower in the field today!