For everyone who has been worrying about me...

No need to worry. The worst was really only about a day and a half, and it's been gradually and surely getting better since then. The rash is still there, but it's gone down a lot and now only hurts just enough to remind me that it's there.

So I add a third point to my previous post: 3. How quickly we forget. With the pain basically gone, so is my passion about those two points. It was very real then, but now it's a distant memory. I'm reminded of the stones of remembrance that the Israelites took from the Jordan as they were crossing over; even then, how quickly they forgot! (See Joshua 4:3-7)

Gospel notes from having shingles

After my mysterious rash turned excruciatingly painful last night, I got it checked out this morning. Turns out it's a classic presentation of shingles. But I'd had it for more than a week before starting medication today, so it's quite painful. In fact, I think it's the first thing that I've experienced that makes me want to say, "it hurts like hell!" And thus I realized:

1. Praise GOD that although I deserve to endure this for eternity, thanks to Jesus's work I don't have to!
   
   

   And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ (Mark 9:47-48)

   
   
   

   Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:13)

   
   
   

   4 Surely he has borne our griefs
   and carried our sorrows;
   yet we esteemed him stricken,
   smitten by God, and afflicted.
   
   5 But he was wounded for our transgressions;
   he was crushed for our iniquities;
   upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
   and with his stripes we are healed.
   
   6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
   we have turned every one to his own way;
   and the LORD has laid on him
   the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:3-6)

   
   
   
2. I want my attitude toward my sins be more like my attitude toward this virus.
   
   This virus is a tiny, otherwise insignificant pest. But I want to kill it! I want it out, never to return.
   
   Oh, that I would view my sins the same way! I'm usually content to let them hide in me; they're small and insignificant and I have more important things to be concerned about. But if I could just see them for what they really are -- painful ruptures in my soul that steal my joy away from God and maul God's dwelling place -- then I'd see how good it is to rip them out!
   
   

   For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:13)

   
   

God may be gracious and bring even more observations to my attention; he's actually shown me a lot in this and I praise him for it (though sometimes with gritted teeth!). Jesus, let me not waste my suffering.

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)

From Tablet ignites debate on messiah and resurrection:

"His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come," Knohl said. "This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel."

Very interesting article. The true Gospel is that Jesus's death accomplished both atonement for the sins of the people and by that, redemption for Israel. (i.e., those who are, like Isaac, children of the promise, and from every race, nation, tribe, and tongue.)

In short, the "new" discovery just confirms what we've known all along: "that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3).