Miller Jones is a pen name that I have used for years. My name is Lonnie Hendrix, and my identity has been public knowledge since the founding of this blog (when it was announced in The Journal: News of the Churches of God). However, as a few individuals have expressed confusion over the identity of the author of this blog, I wanted to set the record straight and assure my readers that I am not ashamed of anything that I've posted here and have no desire to distance myself from the opinions that I've expressed here. In short, Lonnie C. Hendrix owns this blog and all of its content.
I have been a student of the Bible all of my life. I was baptized into Herbert Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God at the tender age of seventeen. I was "disfellowshipped" from that organization in 1985 for dating someone who was not a member. Thereafter, I began attending the services of the Church of God International and continued my association with them for many years. I have also attended Church of God Seventh Day, Seventh Day Adventist and Seventh Day Baptist Services. I was awarded a "Certificate of License" by the Paint Rock, Alabama congregation of the Seventh Day Baptist Conference in 1994 and have participated in marriage, funeral and baptismal ceremonies. I have preached numerous sermons in front of SDB, CGI, and COG7thDay congregations over the years and have written numerous articles that have been published in church newspapers over the same period. I regard myself as a Christian and a teacher within God's Church.
I began writing this blog as a response to some of the very narrow views of God expressed by some of the folks that I have fellowshipped with over the years. Indeed, my own views of God were much too narrow and naive in times past. Over the years, I came to understand that God is much greater and more complex than I had imagined. Like many of my friends, I had created an image of God in my mind that did not comport with the world around me or what I was reading in Scripture. Instead of accepting the fact that I was created in God's image, I had unwittingly created God in my image. In short, I limited God with my own experiences, expectations and knowledge. Likewise, it was apparent to me that many of my brothers and sisters in Christ had essentially done the same thing to God.
Paul warned against trying to make God look like us. (Romans 1:23) God told Samuel that "He" doesn't look at things the way that we do. (I Samuel 16:7) God told Isaiah that his thoughts and ways were on a different, higher plain than those of humankind. (Isaiah 55:8-9) When Solomon built a temple for God, he acknowledged that God could not be placed in a box of human making and design. (II Chronicles 6:18) Indeed, he acknowledged that the whole universe was not sufficient to contain God!
In other words, we are a reflection of him. Any books that we possess (including the Bible) are a representation of a piece of his mind, purpose and will. Hence, in my opinion, anyone who claims to have a handle on God is being a little arrogant and self-deluding. God is a topic that could be talked about forever - there are no limits or boundaries to that subject. And that is the kind of theology that the author of this blog is devoted to writing about.
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