This is a real question I encountered in an online group this week. Most of the social media theologians that responded were on the same page but one guy that disagreed with the general consensus disagreed a lot. We went back and forth citing verses and discussing the nature of Jesus during the incarnation and what that meant in terms of his “being God.”

Let’s begin with a couple of examples of how God operates when dealing with humanity. He is not stuck in the time the way we are, experiencing events at a uniform rate of forward motion along the timeline. His prophecies are not his best guess of what he expects to happen; they are as absolute because he exists outside of time. That may become another debate but I’m kind of hoping at this point everyone takes that as a given in my theorem. I’m going to try to be somewhat brief by referencing Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac and God “searching for” Adam and Eve in the garden without going into full explanations. These are ways that God leads people to learning or proving certain truths; it’s part of his process by which we become self aware. So one part of my argument is about God’s knowledge and foreknowledge. The next step involves God being in control of events as the Lord of history. A year or two ago there was a woman arguing that Mary could not have been only 13 or 14 years when Jesus was born. God would not have asked her to carry the baby Jesus “knowing how dangerous that it is” at such a young age. There would have been nothing unusual about a 14-year-old mother in that culture at that time. But let’s think for a minute about who God is. Once the announcement was made that she was favored among women and would conceive a child of the Holy Spirit, there was nothing on earth (of the earth or in the spiritual realm) that could change that. There was 0.0% of miscarriage or complications of her pregnancy that could have prevented the Son of Man/ Son of God from being born.

God is not tempted to sin and does not tempt people to sin. Jesus is God; and yet some of the qualities we attribute to God were laid aside during the incarnation. God does not get hungry, thirsty or tired either and yet Jesus did all of these things. God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent but these are not attributes we see displayed during Jesus’s life on earth during his incarnation. “All the fullness” of God was pleased to dwell in him (Col. 1) but Paul describes how he “emptied himself” in Philippians 2 when he took the form of a servant. He did not “consider equality with God a thing to be grasped.” Yes, Jesus is God; and also fully man. Jesus is a truly unique case and sometimes did things that only Jesus could do. God had never died before, or since, but Jesus gave up his own life (and had the power to take it up again).

We know that Jesus was tempted to sin. If it were not possible for him to sin then the temptation would not have been real. Jesus couldn’t sin and be the all sufficient, perfect sacrifice; but it must have been possible – or at least Jesus thought it was possible – for him to yield to temptation at a time of incredible weakness after his 40 day fast or he could not have been tempted. God’s plan of salvation was never in danger of failing just like Mary was in no danger of losing her baby because of her age, regardless of what our medical science tells us today about about the odds.

Maybe that should have been its own post. Here are a couple of more things since this the week in review post:

Kentucky Fried Chicken is leaving Kentucky, or at least its corporate headquarters is. KFC, PIzza Hut and Taco Bell were at one time owned by Pepsico and are now part of YUM! Brands. But in a world of shell corporations and subsidiaries, YUM! is not completely divested from its parent company. PepsiCo, Pizza Hut and Frito-Lay, along with many other companies not related to each other, are already headquartered in Plano.

Reduced sodium bacon pieces have more sodium than regular bacon pieces. Now if you’re reading national labels out of concern for your health, then you are probably not eating bacon pieces in the first place. But you gotta admit this is a head scratcher. I did not discover this fact on my own but thanks Internet, you never cease to make us question humanity.

State highways in Georgia and Alabama have highway signs in the shape of the state. Florida signs are suggestive of the state without showing a whole picture, a little more artsy perhaps. Then you have states like Texas that just show you a number and write “TEXAS” at the bottom. This map shows what state highway signs look like in each state is just the right level of informative but not necessarily useful information I believe my readers are looking for on a Saturday morning. I could be wrong.

I published an update just night to my next project for this blog called Read the Bible. I lack the foreknowledge of God so I have no idea how this will turn out. I know that Christian believers everywhere need to do two things, and those are read the Bible and pray. I’m going to put some times and effort into reading the Bible, discussing it, and encouraging others to join me on a slow journey through the scripture. It is going to take a while and that’s okay.