Wednesday Bible Study: People of the Epistles part two

 

Today we journey with Paul's first letter to Corinth, and we learn one overriding thing about the Corinthian people in this letter:

1Co 4:18  As to my not coming to you now, some are puffed up.

And this shouldn't be all that surprising.  Corinth was the rival in Greece of Athens, in all areas.  Athens was arrogant, self-important, and thought itself wise- and Corinth tried to be better in all these things.  But in a Church, the Corinthian attitude lead to a plethora of problems.

First layer: Contentions

1Co 1:10  I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.
1Co 1:11  For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.
1Co 1:12  What I mean is that each one of you says, "I follow Paul," or "I follow Apollos," or "I follow Cephas," or "I follow Christ."

In Rome, Paul had to preach unity between Jew and Gentile.  Here, the divisions were intellectual.  Satan always starts with a first layer of pride, and nobody knows better than a Martin the pride involved in arguing as a sport.  That's where these people were.  Arguing, especially philosophy, was their entertainment back then, and they hadn't managed to shake it off in the year-and-a-half Paul lived among them.

Second layer: Knowledge

1Co 3:1  But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
1Co 3:2  I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,
1Co 3:3  for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
1Co 3:4  For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not being merely human?

The next thing their pride did to them was a, "yeah we get it" attitude when Paul was there, when in fact they weren't learning what they NEEDED to.  And now Paul was having to backtrack and re-lay the foundations he already laid when no one was really listening.

Third layer: Judging

1Co 4:3  But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself.
1Co 4:4  For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.

This was the core of the "I follow X" thing.  Followers of Peter bashed Paul for not being married, followers of Paul bashed Apollos for not working outside of ministry, everyone bashed Paul for speaking " in weakness and in fear and much trembling".  Instead of practicing faith, they were playing 'popularity contest', paying attention to petty mannerisms of the man instead of the God they preached.  This is the kind of thing that brings people to statements like, "I no longer identify as a Christian", because it's a faith with no Christ in it.

Fourth Layer:  No humility

1Co 4:10  We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.
1Co 4:11  To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless,
1Co 4:12  and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure;
1Co 4:13  when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.
1Co 4:14  I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.
1Co 4:15  For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
1Co 4:16  I urge you, then, be imitators of me.

Of course, this goes hand in hand with pride.  "I'm more humble than you are" is a dog that don't hunt.  But just in case you're thinking, "Yeah, but this is all harmless stuff", see where it leads...

Fifth Layer:  Accepting sin

1Co 5:1  It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife.
1Co 5:2  And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

Paul wasn't as mad at the sin (and he was livid at the sin), but that they were ACCEPTING of it, approving of it!  It was becoming a club, not a faith, and membership let you get away with whatever you wanted.  They were supposed to be brothers, united in holy love, but they couldn't even manage that...

Sixth Layer: Bring in the lawyers

1Co 6:1  When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?
1Co 6:2  Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?
1Co 6:3  Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!
1Co 6:4  So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church?
1Co 6:5  I say this to your shame.

 

 They had failed to grasp one of the most bedrock tenets of the faith:  Be in this world, not OF it.  They were living their lives as if nothing had changed for them.  And maybe for many, it hadn't.  But even the ones who had faith hadn't listened.  Paul had to step by step through so many things in this letter, things they should have grasped in his 18 months there, with one thing in particular standing out...

Seventh Layer: no love

1Co 13:1  If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
1Co 13:2  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

John would teach, "God IS love", and the very fact that Paul HAD to write that brilliant chapter 13 tells you that they had missed the point completely.  And to miss a point that three of the greatest preachers of all time had hammered them with takes a special kind of stubborn.  That was the Corinthian Church of the First Letter.

Eighth Layer: My gift is better than yours

1Co 14:1  Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.
1Co 14:2  For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit.
1Co 14:3  On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.
1Co 14:4  The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church.

Even in gifts of the Spirit, everyone sought pre-eminence. Pride had certainly done its work well:

1Co 5:6  Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 

And there was a LOT of leaven in Corinth.

Ninth Layer: So what's the point?

1Co 15:12  Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
1Co 15:13  But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
1Co 15:14  And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 

Four the sake of their arguing entertainment, some in the Church tried to strip away the one defining thing of the faith:  Christ's resurrection, without which there was no point.  It made Jesus NOT God, and thus made the arguer his own god- the ultimate destination of all pride.

And now, Paul gets to the point...

1Co 15:34  Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.

Pride is stupidity of God.  A "drunken" delusion of Satan.  And at this point, all one can say is, I hope these people have gotten better at this by the second letter....

Tuesday walk

 

A bright, beautiful afternoon- God is good!

River views...

This section was a little jammed up...

The beginning of a short adventure that took Misty where she'd never been (And I'd only been a couple of times)

Comes out here...

"Hmm... he's right, I've never been here!"

To get out, though, you have to cross this... and its frozen-at-the-top, three inch deep mud...

"Yeah, Dad.  Real fun."

If you remember the last Misty post, this is ALMOST (but not quite) the north end of Misty's hidden trail...

...and here's the south exit.

Duck Pond is full...

...river's a bit low...

Swamp's frozen over...

Like I said, river's way down...

Alumni Pond is tasty...

If you squint, that blue spot was a blue jay...

Misty at one end of the Sidewalk To Nowhere.  She's staring at the guy who's buddy landed his frisbee in the ravine.

Squirrel time...

The last little bits of color 'round here.

Thanksgiving and hate

 

 

Tonight, I have to shake my head.  It was the weekend before Thanksgiving, and before you think that Wisconsin has a monopoly on stupidity, check this out- the police reports within 5 miles of my place on Saturday and Sunday:

 

Other	11/20/21 09:34 PM	55XX OLD DOVER BLVD	Details
	DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE
B	Other	11/20/21 11:14 PM	28XX NORTHGATE BLVD	Details
	DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE
C	Theft	11/21/21 05:27 PM	25XX ABBEY DR	Details
D	Other	11/21/21 02:57 PM	25XX RIVER COVE TRL	Details
	DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE
E	Other	11/22/21 02:11 AM	51XX NORTHCREST DR	Details
	DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE
F	Other	11/21/21 06:23 PM	49XX MARSTON DR	Details
	DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE W/BATTERY
G	Vandalism	11/20/21 10:05 PM	65XX ST JOE RD	Details
H	Other	11/21/21 01:53 PM	53XX COLDWATER RD	Details
	TRAFFIC ACCIDENT - HIT SKIP
I	Other	11/21/21 11:11 PM	1XX W WASHINGTON CENTER RD	Details
	DISTURBANCE - PARTY ARMED
J	Other	11/20/21 11:09 PM	47XX DRUID HILLS DR	Details
	DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE W/BATTERY
K	Other	11/21/21 01:30 PM	23XX GLENWOOD AVE	Details
	DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE W/BATTERY
L	Other	11/20/21 11:09 PM	25XX GLENWOOD AVE	Details
	DISTURBANCE
M	Other	11/21/21 02:08 PM	ROLSTON ST & CHARLOTTE AVE	Details
	SUSPICIOUS PERSON PARKED VEH
N	Burglary	11/21/21 06:05 AM	61XX GRAYMOOR LN	Details
O	Other	11/21/21 01:18 PM	26XX E STATE BLVD	Details
	DISTURBANCE

************************************************** 

 

You'll note no less than SEVEN domestic disturbances, 3 with battery.  The fun apparently commenced around 9:30 Saturday night and concluded in the wee hours of Monday morning.

 

What the hell is wrong with you people?

 

"Hell" is right.

 

This is the world we live in, where rage apparently entitles you to beat your wife, run over your neighbor, or plow through a parade.  And you know what aids and abets it?  Let me give you a headline:

 "Illinois Dem who used Rittenhouse case to mock Waukesha tragedy has resigned: 'Self-defense'"

This was from the social media "director" of the Democratic Party of Du Page County, Illinois.  This representative of the 'caring, tolerant' of the American parties had this to tweet:

And before we get torches out for her, let me tell you something.  I was using Twitter to get the latest news, and every serious tweet had dozens of comments just. Like. This.

Because the side I stand on in politics is far more important than respecting human life, or having sympathy for human tragedy.

I've been struggling with getting to the "holiday spirit" this year, and today I think I know why.  Instead of thinking of the things we should be thankful for, all we do is list the things and people we hate.  Not with actual lists, but unthinking insults, un-funny sarcasm, and unsubstantiated innuendo.

I really believe that word- "innuendo"- was poorly put together.  For the damage it does, and the worth it is to mankind, they should have made it "Outyouendo".

When Rittenhouse was exonerated, Congressmen were actively inciting people to violently protest.  Were I dictator of the world, such idiots would have their bank accounts opened to pay for damages.  Of course, if I were dictator of the world, such idiots wouldn't have a bully pulpit from which to spew such garbage, but that's just me.

But the problem is only exacerbated by Washington, MSNBC, and Social Media.  The problem is in the heart.  The problem is people who look in the mirror every morning after contributing their share of hatred the night before, and ask, "What's wrong with the world", while looking themselves in the face.  It's so easy to join the crowd and say, "Trump this," and "Pelosi that", on your Facebook comment; and so hard to swallow your emotions and think, "And yet, God is good."  But you tell, me, "You have to stand up to this, you have to fight back!"

Wrong.

Here's what I HAVE to do:

Mat 5:44  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
Mat 5:45  so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

The adventures of Misty

 Scrappy was a dog that lent himself to adventures that made blog worthy posts, Misty not so much.  Misty has a more subtle thing going on, harder to catch on camera, especially now with it just cold enough to make my camera battery shrink and my camera continually asking me to "Use a battery made for this camera".  But let me tell you some Misty stories.

Scrappy had one way to wake me up on the weekend:  flop into the crook of my arm, lay his head down on my face with one eye right on MY eye ("the Baby Eye"), and wait for me to move.  Misty? Well...

Sometimes she starts off by licking my hand, maybe rolling on her back a bit, standing up to shake.  That's the easy way.

She has at times pushed my head off my pillows and my blanket off my body.

Today, it was on her back, butt in my face, wiggling around.  Followed by jumping off the bed, and using her front paws to drag my leg out from the covers and off the bed.

So I sleepily get down on the floor to put my pants on.  Which gets interrupted by her rubbing me like a cat to get her back scratched.  This in turn causes head to go down, butt to go up, and a twisting motion which ends with her on her back wanting her belly scratched.  Followed by getting up and barking at me because I'm taking 'too long' to get my pants on.

Next comes getting ready for a morning walk.  Misty is very vocal (read: noisy) as I get shoes, etc, around, and when I hush her (which works about 35% of the time), she gets frustrated.  So she eats.  Gets a mouthful of food, grumbling as she does so.  Sometimes throwing in a stretch with a low "ROOOO" that sounds more like a Scrappy bay than her usual.  I've almost gotten her to the point that when I get her bungee leash, she'll sit quietly while I get it put on the both of us.  From that point to the door, though...

The walk itself is like specifically designed for a man of my age and health: straight ahead, no pauses, about two paces faster than I would like.  And where Scrappy would examine pee spots, bunny trails, dead bodies, discarded food, and any hole in the ground- the longer abandoned, the better- Misty stops for only one of those- pee spots.  Two examples:  One, she is the only dog I've ever seen that will pee in the front yard, go around back long enough to poop (or look for bunnies), and stop to smell her own pee spot on the way back.  Two, there is currently a dead mouse (or small mole) right in the middle of the trail to the soccer fields.  Scrappy would have sniffed it, perhaps even peed on it.  Misty has shot over it three times in two days without a backwards glance.

Speaking of the three walks in two days, the next poop she takes almost has to contain brain matter.  8 stops to dump in 24 hours is a record even by her standards.

As we took our walk today, I thought about Scrappy's love of exploring.  We used to go down every seeming trail in the brush, up and down embankments, always looking for something new.  Misty is very content with straight ahead.  And to be honest, as Scrappy's physical ability to do all that clambering around faded, so did mine.  This is not to say that Misty COULDN'T manage it.  Let me tell you a story from last night.

There is a tongue of woods that sticks out into the soccer fields.  Beside the rotten trunk of a fallen tree, there is a trail that cuts through that, which Scrappy and I often used from the north to get to the Duck Pond.  Me and Misty, not so much, and it is pretty overgrown.  You can't see it at all from the north side, and have to know what to look for from the south.  But Misty can find it, no problem.  In fact, last night we were coming from the south, and I was waiting to see if she would take it.  I saw a place that I thought was the entrance, and she walked right past.  "You missed your trail", I told her; she looked over her shoulder with a "You think so, huh?" look on her face.  Ten feet later, she turned down the right spot.

A few days ago, we found a couple more lacrosse balls on our walk.  You should have seen the pride she had the next morning, tossing one of them around while Laurie watched.

Speaking of mornings, I called in sick last Thursday.  Normal morning procedure is me leaving for work, then Laurie taking her outside for first pee.  That morning, I was on the couch bundled up after calling in, when Laurie asked if she needed to go and got up to grab her jacket.  You could see the gears turning in Misty's head as she stood there, looked at Laurie, looked at me, looked at Laurie, looked at me, decided, "Oh, Daddy's staying home", and jumped up on my lap.

I've also noticed that, if we take a longer walk (or say two of 'em, like yesterday) she burns herself out so much she gets "confused".  About an hour after our second walk yesterday, I got down on the floor to see if she wanted to play or cuddle.  She went to her toy box and got her favorite toy, came to me and played tug, I got it and threw it over by the door.  She looked at me, looked at it.  Went to the toy box, got her second favorite toy, stopped about halfway to me, dropped it.  Looked at me for a moment, then went and got toy #1.  Tugged for a bit, let me throw it again.  Went and got it, dropped it by toy #2, jumped up on the chair and looked at me.

Finally, shower procedure.  As I go up, she follows, barking and nipping, racing to the top of the stairs.  Bugs me as I get undressed.  When I head for the bathroom, she follows, barking, demanding to be chased.  Runs down the stairs full speed, then back up, into the bedroom, flying to a slamming halt on the bed, sailing back down, down the stairs, rinse, wring, do again.  Breaks into the bathroom when I shut the door, challenging me to chase some more.  How she hasn't broke a leg, I'll never understand.  My mattress, already weakened by Scrappy's struggles before he passed, now that, she's gotten a fairly sizeable hole broken in one side.  Mind you, we are talking about a bed on a high frame, that I stupidly bought a tall box spring for and now we both need to step up on a futon that used to be my sons to even get up on the thing.  And trust me, in three steps she can go from the top step, fly over the futon, spin in the air, and land back feet first on the mattress.

Now, you go ahead and try to get that on camera.  But be careful, I might be naked...

Wednesday Bible Study: People of the Epistles part I

 

Today I will be flying by the seat of my pants, because, I had a PLAN for the next wave of posts.  I don't think it was God's plan, though, and the morning I type this I said to myself, "You've been knocking your head against this for a week now, and what are you LEARNING?"  I learned so much from the Judges series by letting it teach me.  So now I'm going on a new tack, one I think God wants me to learn from.  The idea is not to re-preach the epistles (and I think that's where my idea wanted to head) but just go through and pull out the concept of WHO the writer was talking to, so we can see WHY he was saying what he did.  And we start in Romans.

Just by doing my flyover, I can see that you really need no other book than Romans, doctrinally.  So much wisdom and power in Paul's words, it's hard not to get lost in them.  So I'm putting a tether around my conceptual waist, so not to dive too deep and miss my point.  And that is, who were the Romans he was talking to?

Well, for one, they were believers, with a good reputation...

Rom 1:7  To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Rom 1:8  First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.

And for another, they were not a church founded by Paul...

Rom 1:11  For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you--
Rom 1:12  that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine...

Rom 1:15  So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

Now, my paper Bible mentions that who they were has been a matter of contention, noting that, "Tradition says the church was founded by Peter, but this is contradictory to the evidence."  And I agree, because the evidence is- from what Paul goes through in the letter- that they have heard the word and been baptized, but NOT fully instructed.  Some say they were among the people, in Jerusalem for Passover, that heard Peter's first sermon- and some may well be, but not all.  Because this was not written to a purely Jewish audience, however the first ten chapters make it seem....

Rom 11:13  Now I am speaking to you Gentiles...

 

But what the evidence does tell us, is that Paul is not convinced they have the bedrock down.  This is not an uncommon problem in those days...

Act 18:24  Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures.
Act 18:25  He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John.
Act 18:26  He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately. 

And this is the first big lesson:  That knowing the Word is good, but being grounded in a church TEACHING it is better.  What was it Peter said...

2Pe 1:5  For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge...

And he really starts with the basics- why this came from the Jews, and not the Gentiles, and why the Jews did nothing with it?  Thus, we know that a) it is a church starving for knowledge, and b) it is a church of mixed Gentiles and Jews.  And by the way Paul lays it out, we know another thing about it- that the Jews find themselves superior for their Jew-ness, and the Gentiles resent them for that.  And the driver of the problem is obvious because Paul spends from chapter 2 clear into 11 trying to convince the Jews to LET GO of their Jew-ness...

Rom 2:28  For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.
Rom 2:29  But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God. 

 

But only a bit of time convincing the Gentiles not to fret it...

Rom 11:12  Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!
Rom 11:13  Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry
Rom 11:14  in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them.
Rom 11:15  For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?

Having established these points, he returns to teaching them unity...

Rom 12:1  I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Rom 12:2  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

One thing that is curious; this is a church he cautions many times about being judgmental.  Not only about the people in the church, but the way they do things...

Rom 14:4  Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
Rom 14:5  One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.
Rom 14:6  The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.
Rom 14:7  For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.

I see a lot of this on Catholic social media posts, fighting about the proper way to sing, to hold your hands during prayer... "this is respectful, that isn't respectful..."  And this is the problem you get when you let others do your Bible reading for you- you miss what has been clearly taught in the Word, and fight about stupid things.  This is what Paul was trying to crack down on, and apparently one of the first we fail to pay attention to.  For every Catholic post about 'hands in worship', there are a dozen evangelical post busting on the historicity of Halloween and Christmas.  None of them take into account Romans 14.

So here is the next big lesson to learn from these Romans... let me put it to you as Solomon did...

Pro 4:5  Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.
Pro 4:6  Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you.
Pro 4:7  The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight.

The Better Part, week #44

 

Two weeks worth of FB posts:

The Better Part, Day #215:

 

Gen 6:14 Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. 

 

The neat thing about the Bible, you can always learn something new! The word used literally for "pitch" is also used figuratively for atonement. So just as the Ark was protected inside and out with pitch, Jesus's sacrifice- which the ark was a "type" of (think "foreshadowing")- atones for our sin- inside AND out.

 

 

The Better Part, Day #216:

 

If you doubt prayer works, then try asking God to take away the no-reason anger you had all day, and watch Satan interrupt by stuffing fabric in the gears of your machine... no reason to interrupt if no one was listening!

 

 

The Better Part, day # 217:

 

Reading my science today e-mail, I realized scientists- though they may be oblivious to the fact- have discovered yet another "goldilocks zone" that proves that God designed this one world, this earth, specifically for life. The study is trying to decipher what kinds of rocks are on other planets by analyzing the debris that fell into the atmospheres of white dwarf stars after their evolutionary expansion. Skipping the mechanics, here's a piece of what they found:

 

"While some exoplanets that once orbited polluted white dwarfs appear similar to Earth, most have rock types that are exotic to our Solar System," said Xu. "They have no direct counterparts in the Solar System."

 

"Putirka describes what these new rock types might mean for the rocky worlds they belong to. "Some of the rock types that we see from the white dwarf data would dissolve more water than rocks on Earth and might impact how oceans are developed," he explained. "Some rock types might melt at much lower temperatures and produce thicker crust than Earth rocks, and some rock types might be weaker, which might facilitate the development of plate tectonics." "

 

Our world could never have been as right for life as it is, without God being the hand that crafted it.

 

 

 

The Better Part, Day #218:

 

 

In studying for my last post on Judges, I saw that the last story features 3 distinct cycles, each one beginning with "listening to someone/thing I shouldn't have". Applying to myself, I see them very clear. The first involved listening to someone out for pleasure and heedless of consequences. The second involved a lie used to get a reaction that wouldn't have necessarily come up otherwise. And the final one was using man's wisdom instead of God's to get out of an impossible situation. Do they sound familiar to you, too?

 

 

 

The Better Part, Day #219:

 

 

I don't know how to explain the actual mechanics of what happened, but today The Lord showed me that He is willing to explain things to the extent we can understand, if we are willing to listen to the extent we can understand.

 

 

The Better part, Day #220:

 

 

Today David Jeremiah quoted from another pastor's message, about how waiting for heaven is like being on a camping trip, that by the fourth day, you're just ready to go home. And closed his message by noting that it's okay if we struggle a bit here on earth- "because, we're still camping."

 

 

 

The Better Part, Day #221:

 

Joh 2:6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.

Joh 2:7 Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim.

Joh 2:8 And he said to them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast." So they took it. 

 

 

Tony Evans on Focus on the Family, said, "They had to do according to their faith- they had to bring the water- before Christ could make the wine. Before He brings the miracle to your life, He asks you to do according to your faith..."

Veteran's Day 2021

 

It was 11:11 AM on November 11th, 1918.  Politicians began to congratulate themselves for a job well done, and make plans on how to divide up the world.  Almost in a dream world, an American President began the program of creating an organization that would prove that any of them learned something.

In a German military hospital, a mustard-gas blinded corporal of the Bavarian Army cursed the fates and blamed the Jews.

And the blood of 500,000 men in a patch of mud once known as Paschendale began to nourish grass and poppies.

As we "celebrate" Veteran's Day, and we salute those who have died, both in "The War To End All Wars" and every war since, the one thing that plays through my mind is that there are two things common to every war that are necessary ingredients for any war.

One is the ability to hate.  Not for reason, at least good reason.  Just because "we're over here", and "you're over there."

And the other is politicians who have spent 99.9999% of their lives behind a desk and 0.0001% in a trench in Belgium. Or in a MASH unit in Korea. Or in a psych ward back at base.

The war that spawned Armistice Day is a favorite reading spot of mine.  And every new book I read on it, I find myself shaking my head at new stupidities, caused by petty men who thought they moved the world with a wave of their hands.  And it makes me think of ALL the ways God gave them to prevent that war, to prevent the 20 million deaths, much less the 3 1/2 times that in the next war- and the sheer blindness to reason it took them all, from the British Prime Minister to the gunman in Sarajevo, from the dead Austrian Archduke to the murdered Russian mystic, to avoid those chances and let it happen.

So as I salute all vets everywhere for doing a job I couldn't begin to, my prayers, ironically, align with that naive American President- That there might be a lessening of hate, and a lessening of blind politicians.  I pray for men who will fight for it, that will cast aside my skepticism and try to lead the world a better way.