Aspiring Stuntman

I like to party. If you gain some insight from my tweets that's your fault. Retweets mean the content is either amazing or stupid. Have fun guessing.

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

Gary Stevenson just said the world is complicated and the Gospel is simple. When we complicate the Gospel we do so by viewing the it through the lens or viewpoint of the world. God's ways are not ours but faith helps to believe.

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

I don’t know anything about Cape Verde other than they’re playing Spain right now in the World Cup. I’m also cheering for them. Their goal has amazing hands.

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

@FiredUpCoug I thought that was called "The Colossus?"

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

Really? Either a mistaken tweet or a juvenile joke.

[Brett McMurphy @Brett_McMurphy]

Didn’t Oklahoma leave Big 12?

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

Ok, that makes sense, the rules were written and established before smartphones allowed easier access to break the rules, so therefore the rules don’t apply. Ok, I’m with them now. I was really confused before.

[Trey Wallace @TreyWallace]

Texas Tech Pres. Lawrence Schovanec, on NCAA gambling rules (Brendan Sorsby)

“I think we have to recognize the rules in place now we’re made long before there were millions of young people walking around with a legal gambling apparatus in their pocket”

Sorsby bet on Indiana football, basketball and Cincinnati hoops…

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

@TeeplesCY This knocks down any arguments critics of the church try to bring up against the church and church members. We’re happy, we love our families, we read and understand the scriptures, especially the Bible, etc. No amount of debating can touch this data.

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

Hey you guys, don’t worry about Texas Tech. They’re totally doing the right thing by supporting their student athlete. On a side note, it’s no one’s business if they decide to start him. The important thing here is the support.

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

I'm so out of touch, or old, I had no idea what this meant and had to Google it.

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

Not that this needs to be pointed out but another reason we know football independence worked for BYU is that it got them ready to compete in a P4 conference. For comparison, it took rival Utah 8 seasons to reach the PAC 12 title game. It took BYU 3 seasons.

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

Texas Tech's new recruiting pitch will now include "you can do anything you want in our program because we've found a loophole to circumvent NCAA rules, and we will also completely support you, no questions asked"

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

All Texas Tech would need to say is "we support Sorsby in his recovery, however we will abide by the NCAA ruling and bench him, though he'll suit up for games"

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

@jakemmccleary Valid

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

@mamalinstro @finebaum They’re going to help him with the recovery or claim they will, just not handing out any punishment.

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

Ok Texas tech, this is really simple. The next step is to decide he’s not playing and accept that as a program.

You’re trying to justify it like a law breaker saying he didn’t mean to, other people have also broken laws, and he shouldn’t be given any additional penalties.

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

@mamalinstro I’d like listening to a politician downplay something

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

So Texas tech is asking for mercy without consequences.

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

Ok, you and he have accepted that he did it and he feels bad. Now for him to accept the actual consequences of the action.

[Paul Finebaum @finebaum]

"It's crazy...because it's not murder, it's not beating somebody..."

Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire defends his QB Brendan Sorsby, who's under fire for gambling on his own team's football games:

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

One of my favorite things about my wife and that I like to do with her is talk to her on the phone. I love the sound of her voice and the only time I’ve been nervous to talk to her was the guest time talking on the phone.

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

Very good summary of how the concept of the Trinity came about.

[Clint Teeples @TeeplesCY]

"You aren't a Christian if you don't accept the Trinity."

The history of that statement is quite shocking, and almost nobody who says it knows that acceptance of the doctrine of the Trinity was once enforced by exile, fire, and death.

Here is what happened.

For the first 300 years after Jesus, Christians did not agree on how He related to God the Father. They argued about it constantly. There was no official rule. That was just normal.

Then a priest named Arius said the Son came from the Father and was beneath Him. Not equal. Not eternal. A lot of Christians agreed with him. A lot. This was not some fringe group. For stretches of the next century, his side was winning.

Other Christians said the opposite. The Son was fully God, equal to the Father, no beginning. Two camps, same Bible, opposite conclusions.

The fighting got bad. Riots. Mobs in the streets. Christians brawling over the nature of God.

So the Roman emperor stepped in. Constantine. He had just won a civil war and he wanted his empire to stop fighting. He was not even baptized. He did not care about the theology. He cared about order.

In the year 325 he called the bishops to a town called Nicaea. He paid for it. He ran the meeting himself. And they voted. They ruled that the Son was equal to the Father, fully God, one substance with Him. That ruling is the core of the Trinity. It got settled in that room, by that vote, on one word that is not even in the Bible.

They wrote the ruling into an official statement of belief. A creed. Every bishop was expected to sign it.

That is the part people think is the story. It isn't. The shocking part is how they made everyone accept it.

Constantine made the bishops sign the creed. The few who refused, he banished.

Then he ordered every book Arius ever wrote to be burned.

Then he made a law. If you were caught hiding one of those books, you were put to death.

Even after all of that, the Trinity did not win for good.

A few years later Constantine changed his mind. He brought Arius back. And he exiled Athanasius, the bishop who had won the argument at Nicaea. That man got banished five separate times in his life for believing the thing the church now says you have to believe.

For the next fifty years it flipped back and forth. One emperor said Trinity. The next said no. Whoever sat on the throne decided what was true. The official belief about God changed every time power changed hands.

It finally got locked in by another emperor named Theodosius. He made the Trinity the law of the empire. Disagree, and you were a heretic. Not in some spiritual sense. By law. Backed by soldiers.

A few years after that, the empire executed a bishop for his beliefs. The first time the state put a Christian to death over doctrine. It would not be the last.

Then came the document that says it out loud. A creed written around the year 500. Almost five centuries after Jesus. They named it after Athanasius, that same bishop. He did not even write it. They put his name on it for the authority.

It opens by declaring that anyone who does not hold the Trinity, whole and complete, will perish forever. Believe it or be damned. Put in writing, and made the test of who gets saved.

So that is where the line comes from. Not from Jesus. Not from the apostles. From emperors and councils who needed a divided empire to fall in line.

The Trinity did not become the rule because the argument was settled. It became the rule because the side that held it had the throne, the law, and the sword.

The next time someone says you aren't a Christian unless you accept the Trinity, remember what it took to make that rule stick. Exile. Fire. And death.

[Aspiring Stuntman @JerThorne]

@BYUSportsNation Still Texas tech