2021

It will soon be a new year and so our minds turn to resolutions.  The practice of making New Year resolutions goes back over 3,000 years to the ancient Babylonians.  There’s really no difference between Dec. 31st and Jan. 1st.  Nothing mystical occurs at midnight to change our lives one way or the other.  The idea is to start the new year fresh and live your lives the way you imagine you should instead of how you really do… lose weight, manage money better, exercise, eat healthier, spend more time with family, quit smoking, etc.  These sudden and drastic changes are not so easy when we’ve lived our lives a different way up until then.  I guess that’s why resolutions are rarely kept.  Personally, I think it’s the time restriction we put on them that throws us off.  It’s like starting a diet.  “I can eat whatever I want now because my diet starts on Monday and after that I’ll never have chocolate or French fries again.”  You’re already setting yourself up to fail.  I started my ‘life change’ on a Saturday because I went to the doctor on a Friday.  There was no thinking about it.  It had to be done so I did it and I’m still going strong eight months later.

The Bible says nothing about new year resolutions so what kind of resolution should a Christian make?  Looking at the list above (what most people choose as resolutions), most of them are physical things.  Many times, Christians will resolve to read the Bible more, go to church more often, and pray more.  While these are worthwhile resolutions, they too often fail.  Most often we set ourselves up for failure because the proper motivation behind doing something is not there.  Do you want to read the Bible in a year just to say you did it?  Do you want to lose weight to honor God or to honor yourself when you look in a mirror?

John 15:5 reads, “I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”  Pay close attention to that last part.  If God is the center of your New Year resolution, it has a chance for success, depending on your commitment to it.  God will help you fulfill your wish if it is His will.  If it’s not God-honoring…you’re on your own and will most likely fail.  “If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.”  (James 1:5-8)

So, how do you pick a resolution?  Step 1 – PRAY.  Pray for wisdom regarding what resolutions, if any, He wants you to make and pray for the wisdom on how to fulfill the goals He gives you that you may not have thought about.  Step 2 – RELY on God’s strength to help you and find someone He gave you in your life that can help you by encouraging you and holding you accountable.  Step 3 – ATTITUDE.  Don’t be discouraged by or focus on occasional failures.  They will happen in the process because they are small battles, and you are fighting a war.  Also, don’t be vain but give God the glory.  You can’t do anything by yourself so don’t hog all the credit. 

Why is it so hard to set aside time,

To find solitude and pray for a sign,

Why do we struggle with boredom each day,

Yet not bother taking ten minutes to pray,

So many hours are wasted each week,

When we could be praying for answers we seek,

So let’s make a plan at the start of each day,

To make time for God, and in that time, PRAY.  Amen.

May God bless you and your family in this new year.

In a fit of nostalgia, I was looking at toys that I had as a child to see which, if any, were still being made.  I found the Fisher Price Chatter Phone.  You remember it.  As I was looking through questions and answers on it, I found a parent that wanted to know if the phone came to life at night like it did in the movie, Toy Story.  They were afraid that a toy that came to life would scare their child.  That amazed me.  Of course, the answer people were very polite in explaining that Toy Story is just an animated movie and the toys don’t actually come to life when kids aren’t around or at night.  Still, it makes me wonder how someone, a parent, could believe something they saw in a cartoon and wonder if it was real. 

This led to the thought of other things seen in the movies that people accept as the truth.  Currently, I’m watching the Netflix Series, Lucifer.  My son got me started watching it and it fascinates me to see what parts are true and which are completely false.  I can see where it would be hard for a person that didn’t believe in God to trust, or maybe hope, that this show is more truth than fiction.  It makes the devil sound like a really nice angel that was treated unfairly by God for no reason.  Regardless if you’ve seen the show or not, I’m compelled here to clear up some misconceptions about angels and their leader, the devil.  

(underlined statements are implied by the show)

1.  The devil walks the earth. – True.  The Bible says that the devil was cast down to earth after his rebellion (Revelation 12:7-9).  We must remember, however, that he is not everywhere at the same time.  He is not God.  He can only be in one place in the world at any time. 

2.  The devil always tells the truth. – False.  John 8:44  Satan is the father of lies.

3.  The devil is good at finding out our greatest desire. – True.  He uses our desires against us in order to lead us away from the Truth.  Matthew 4:3 & 1 Thessalonians 3:5  The title of ‘tempter’ here is a present participle in the Greek which indicates a continuous and characterizing activity.  This is his job.

4.  God has an ex-wife and the angels are his children. – False.  God has never been married and there is no ‘Goddess of Creation’.  This is creative license by the movie industry.  The angels were created by God as a separate species from mankind, like animals, for a specific purpose; and are therefore NOT His children.  Jesus died to save God’s children, us, and not the angels.

5.  The devil can die. – False.  Angels, good and evil, cannot die, marry, or reproduce.  Their number remains constant.  Luke 20:36

6.  Angels have free will. – True.  They were created to do the will of God.  Satan rebelled against God with 5 assertions or statements of “I will” (Isaiah 14:12-15).  With unexplained origin, evil thoughts of pride influenced Satan to exercise his free will and try to overthrow God.  Once all angels chose sides, their decision became permanent. 

The study of angels is fascinating.  I have attended several studies on them and have over 20 pages of notes on the subject.  (See the post on May 14, 2021 for more details.)  However, angels should not be our focus in life.  They are separate beings, created by God, for a specific purpose and should be respected as such, but not worshipped.  Our reason for studying them is to be more prepared for the lures and methods of the devil and evil angels; to avoid the traps that they set to destroy our faith.   

It’s important to remember where our information comes from when deciding what to believe.  We must always remember that movies are just movies, TV shows are for entertainment only, ALL commercials want our money, the newscasts are biased, reality TV is scripted, and most of what we see on the internet is someone’s opinion.  How then do we know what’s real?  Simple.  We read and we study.  If you have time and money to go back to school, great.  If not, there’s a place that will teach you for free.  It’s called church.  We can read the Bible on our own but it can be confusing at times.  Lutherans believe that Scripture interprets Scripture.  This is most easily understood and related to real life when heard in a sermon.  Strangely enough, this was explained to me in a different way once by a pastor.  He said that while attending church is important, attending Bible Study is more important.  About 10% of the people that go to church will stay for Bible Class.  These numbers should be the other way around.  (mind blown!)

Finally….

7.  If I do something bad, I’m automatically going to hell. – False.  We are all sinful and do and think bad things.  This is not a one-way ticket to hell.  Likewise, doing one really good deed does not guarantee our ascension into heaven.  The only guaranteed way to go to hell is to reject the Holy Spirit.  The only guaranteed way to go to heaven is to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. 

So, how many of the True/False did you get right?  Need some clarification on this to make sure your eternity is going the way you choose?  Go to Bible Study.  You’ll be glad you did.

It’s mid-November and even though Hobby Lobby had their Christmas Trees up in July, it’s still too early to think about it because we have to go through Advent first.  However.  This is my blog and I can talk about whatever I want.   (smile)

On March, 16, 2011, The David Letterman Show hosted Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers singing a song from their new album, “Rare Bird Alert”.  Steve introduces the song this way: “You know, religious people have such beautiful music and art and atheists really have nothing…until now.  (waves a single sheet of paper)  This is the entire atheists hymnal right here.  A little song called, ‘Atheists Don’t Have No Songs’”.

Athiests don’t have no songs

Christians have their hymns and pages

Hava Nagila's for the Jews

Baptists have the rock of ages

Atheists just sing the blues

Romantics play Claire de Lune

Born again sing He is risen

But no one ever wrote a tune

For godless existentialism

For Atheists There's no good news

They'll never sing A song of faith

In their songs They have a rule

The "he" is always lowercase

Some folks sing a Bach cantata

Lutherans get Christmas trees

Atheist songs add up to nada

But they do have Sundays free

Pentecostals sing, sing to heaven

Gothics had the books of scrolls

Numerologists count, count to seven

Atheists have rock and roll

Catholics Dress up for Mass

And listen to Gregorian chants

Atheists  Just take a pass

Watch football in their underpants

Atheists... Atheists... Atheists

Don't Have No SONGS!

It’s a wonderfully sung tune and very accurate.  If you want to hear it, hold down Ctrl and click here:  Steve Martin - Atheists Don't Have No Songs (Live on Letterman 03-16-2011) [HD] - YouTube

Being a Lutheran, I have always had a Christmas Tree but never thought of them as Lutheran concepts.  When this was mentioned in the song, I had to wonder, “why us?”.  All Christians have them so why are Lutherans singled out?  Research revealed that long, long ago, plants and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the winter.  Just as we decorate our homes with fir, pine, and spruce, ancient people hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows.  It reminded them of the green plants and new growth that would come again in the spring.  Of course, they also did it to worship their gods, Ra, Saturn, Balder, etc. and ward off evil spirits, ghosts, witches, and illnesses.

OK, so what does the Bible say about Christmas trees?  Nothing really.  Many people tried to use Jeremiah 10:2-3 to support the claim that they are prohibited.  “For the customs of the peoples are false: a tree from the forest is cut down, and worked with an ax by the hands of an artisan; people deck it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.”

Now, a closer look at the passage, in context, (that’s very important), shows that they aren’t referring to Christmas trees.  ‘Cut a tree from the forest’ – check.  ‘Work with an ax like an artisan’ – no.  Have you ever carved your Christmas tree after bringing it home?  I don’t think so.  Continuing… ‘Deck it with silver and gold’ – check.  ‘Fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move’ – No.  That sounds like something being nailed to a wall.  You can’t pick and choose what you want the Bible to say.  This passage has nothing to do with Christmas trees and everything to do with idol worship.  They made wooden idols to pray to and worship.  We don’t worship Christmas trees.  There’s no connection between them and the Christmas trees we decorate these days. 

So, back to why Lutheran?  Martin Luther is credited with changing the ideas people had about evergreens and introducing the Christmas tree.  It’s said he was walking home one winter evening and was so awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling among the evergreens, he placed lighted candles on a tree in his main room to recapture the scene for his family.  He told his family it reminded him of Jesus and later wrote a sermon about the experience for his church.  This led to the spread of people decorating the trees with candles as a symbol of letting Jesus into their homes and being the light of the world.

Taking it one step further, you’ve probably noticed that Christmas trees decorated in church have different decorations than you do at home.  These are called Chrismons (CHRISt MONogram).  Coincidentally, they also were created by a Lutheran.  Mrs. Frances Kipps Spencer, a member of Ascension Lutheran Church in Danville, VA, in 1957 made them from early symbols of faith.  They were and are still made of white and gold to symbolize the purity of our Lord (white) and His glory (gold).

Based on that information you could say the Christmas tree has a distinguished Christian pedigree and definitely Lutheran. 

It’s a difficult world.  There is pain and suffering and death.  I’ve had several good friends die in the past two weeks so for comfort, I went back to my notes from the Christian Care Giving class I took.  I admit that I was very nervous about that class, so my professor went right to the heart in his comment to me, “I can sense your anxiety about this course. It really does present us with things we cannot fix; and yet not being able to fix something doesn't mean we are powerless. In fact, the course will emphasize that we are especially powerful as believers in Jesus Christ in the presence of the very things we cannot fix.”   As someone whose nature it is to fix everything for other people, this really struck me.  Obviously, I can’t summarize the entire class here, but I can point out different ideas that can help get a bigger picture and better understanding.

As comedian, Mitch Hedberg, was fond of saying, “Alcoholism is a disease, but it’s the only disease you can get yelled at for having.”  Every person you come across is dealing with some or many issues of pain and suffering.  I am now at the age when I don’t know what a day without pain is like.  We often forget the fact that others suffer too, which is unfortunate, because many times a person’s behavior is based upon what they are going through.  We can’t really fault them for that.  Look at pain and suffering.  Pain is a greater or lesser degree of physical discomfort while suffering is the anxiety, fear, worry, or hopelessness that may or may not accompany pain.  Suffering can be a reaction to pain or to something else. 

Attention to suffering is the focal point of pastoral care.  It becomes our focal point as well when we try to see past the pain and discover the real reason for the suffering.  When this is discovered, we can help the injured person see God in the midst of it all.  Knowing that God is involved with their care can deepen faith and provide hope.  Sometimes, healing is prayed for but the pain persists.  Over time, it’s easy to assume that God wants us to be sick or that it’s our fault we’re sick.  Maybe it’s a punishment for something we did.  This could not be further from the truth.  Look at John 9:1-3.  “As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’  Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.’”  Jesus himself said, pain does not come from a person’s sin.  Pain comes from sin in the world.  Sometimes good things come from pain and suffering and sometimes they do not.  God wants what is best for us and sometimes what is best comes through pain.  Even though God does not give us the pain, He can use it for His good. 

We see that this is what happened with Paul.  “a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. 8 Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, 9 but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”  (2 Corinthians 12:7b-10)  Paul was forced to come to terms with his own conceit and pride.  He was God’s chosen messenger so why should he suffer?  God was using him for a higher purpose and did not have to explain himself to Paul. 

Often, it seems like our suffering has no purpose and God is not listening to our pleas for help.  When we try to come up with a reason for our suffering, it is our way of looking for someone to blame for what is happening to us.  This quality is as old as time.  Remember Adam?  “The man said, ‘The woman YOU put here with me…’” (Genesis 3:12)  Adam blamed God.  Then we have Aaron in Exodus 32:22-24.  Aaron had just made the golden calf and basically tells God, ‘They wanted a god, but You were gone on the mountain.  What else was I supposed to do?’  Going on to Ruth 1:21, “I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty; why call me Naomi when the Lord has dealt harshly with me, and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”  The examples of people blaming God never end.  Even closer to home, all you have to do is watch daytime TV talk shows to see person after person blaming their parents or their childhood or their spouses, etc. for their mistakes.  They are suffering because of someone else.  Boo, freakin’ hoo.  When we blame God, we fail to see Him for who He really is, a loving God that wants to see us stop blaming and start living our lives.  Just as Paul accepted His suffering, so we should learn to accept ours.  As the saying goes, build a bridge and get over it.  There is no one to blame because we all live in sin and will continue to do so until Judgment Day.  Sometimes it seems that suffering has no purpose but to invent a reason is to place blame.  Instead of that, if we suffer, our focus should be not on ourselves but those around us that we can love and support.  If someone around us is suffering, rather than making up an excuse or reason, sometimes the best we can do is just sit with them and help them cry.

“Finding God in the Movies Too” is the name of my latest book now available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  It’s a Bible Study for teens which allows them to see God in a different light…the light of their everyday.  With your heart in the right place, you are often able to see a deeper meaning in things that may not have been planned that way, like movies.  Even Bible stories are like that sometimes, but they are called parables.  Parables are bridges from the known to the unknown.  Sometimes they are a way for us to see what heaven is like while we’re still on earth and other times they are used to take a better look at ourselves and our actions.  I must emphasize here that they are NOT to be confused with fortune telling or crystal ball gazing or tarot cards, etc.  Parables are not foretelling the future, which is against God’s will, but telling the same story in a different way. 

In 2 Samuel 12:1-7, we read of Nathan telling King David a story about two men and a little ewe lamb.  Turns out, that story was a parable because the rich man was David.  It showed him, like no other words could, how wrong he was to do what he did.  Other parables we’re more familiar with are ones like the mustard seed found in Luke 13:18-19, Matthew 13:31-32, and Mark 4:30-32. 

The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed - The seed is the Gospel of Christ.  It’s nothing ostentatious with flashing, neon lights – just the honest, simple truth. 

That a man took – This implies a conscious action on our part.  The Gospel is ours for the taking but we have to take it.

And sowed – Again, a conscious action.  If you leave the seed in the bag, nothing’s going to happen to it.  It will never reach its full potential.

In his garden – We don’t have to go to far away lands to spread the Good News.  If you talk to your neighbors or teach a Sunday School class, you’re planting a seed in a world that is familiar to you.

And it grew and became a tree – The Holy Spirit takes that seed and makes it grow into a strong faith.

And the birds of the air made nests in its branches. – This faith would be a comfort to others who are also looking for something strong to believe in.  The Gospel will lead them to become God’s children in His Kingdom.

These are the seed images that Jesus uses about Himself later in John 12:23-24 when He refers to His death and resurrection and also the images of seed death and resurrection used in 1 Corinthians 15:35ff.  In all uses, there is the transformation and growth from what was forgotten and small.  Some commentators have also noted that the mustard seed is interesting not only for its size but also the strong taste of the mustard it produces.  This indicates the potency of the Gospel as well.

Parables make up about one-third of Jesus’ teachings for a reason.  They are not just general stories but given specifically for us to think about and more importantly, learn from.  For example: “Which of you, having 100 sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?” (Luke 15:4)  Which of you…not, what if.  He wants each of us to apply the lesson to our lives and what we’re doing.  Something to think about.

“You can’t see the forest for the trees”.  “When you are a giraffe and you receive criticism from turtles, they are reporting the view from the level they are on”.  “If a fish views its worth by how well it can climb a tree, it will spend its life believing it is worthless”.  There are so many cliches and quotes that all say the same thing – what is your point of view?  I’ve done this topic before but it bears repeating.  So often, we are so focused on the problem, like this cat in the picture, we fail to see any other solution.  Are there other solutions?  Yes.  There are always options and other ways to view things.  We may not always like the options, but they are there nonetheless.  It reminds me of when my daughter was young.  We were in the front yard and heard an ambulance go by with its sirens blaring.  She said she hated that sound because it meant someone was hurt somewhere.  I told her that I loved that sound because someone was hurt, but there were trained people speeding their way to help them.  Two points of view.

I freely admit that I have spent not months but years of my life focusing on things that frustrated me to no end.  No amount of praying or life changes would make any difference.  I wanted what I wanted.  It was not unreasonable so why didn’t God answer my prayers?  This is the same dilemma that has plagued man since the beginning of time.  How did it work out for others??  Adam and Eve – banned from the garden and punished; Jonah – swallowed by a fish; David – lost his firstborn son; the Israelites – plagued with snakes, etc. 

I’ve always loved the story of the blind man that Jesus healed in Mark 8:23-25.  “He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when He had put saliva on his eyes and laid His hands on him, He asked him, ‘Can you see anything?’  And the man looked up and said, ‘I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.’  Then Jesus laid His hands on his eyes again; and He looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.”  So did Jesus mess up the first time and have to fix it?  No.  He healed the man’s sight because he could see.  The problem was that he didn’t understand what he was looking at.  The second healing was the connection between the man’s mind and his eyes so he understood what he saw.  He could have done it all in one shot but He did it this way for a reason.  Jesus heals us in different ways.  Sometimes those ways are not what we would like or expect but they are for our best.  It doesn’t even have to be something that drastic either.  Look what comes next in Mark 8: Jesus asks His disciples, “Who do you say I am?”  Peter answers him, “You are the Messiah.”  Seems like he had his eyes open, doesn’t it?  Right after, Jesus talks of His upcoming death and Peter rebukes Him.  Peter’s idea was that the Christ would rule them as king, bring Israel together, and bring peace.  But he was still blind.  The core of Peter’s beliefs were that the Messiah didn’t suffer, he didn’t die.  He was the conqueror, not the conquered.  The hero never dies in the first part of the movie.  Like the blind man, Peter could see but his mind didn’t match was his eyes saw. 

It’s like a sight-impaired person looking at the world without their glasses or contact lenses.  I'll never forget the drive from LaGrange to Giddings when I was 11 years old.  I could see as mom drove me to the eye doctor.  After all, I had been wearing glasses for 7 years.  After getting contact lenses at the doctor's office, I could not only see but see every leaf on the trees.  I had never been able to do that before.  Everything was in so much focus that I saw things that were always there but I could never see before.  Without glasses or contacts, you can see, but don’t know what you’re looking at.  The glasses and contacts do for you what you cannot do yourself.  Rather than focusing on the blessings we receive, we are without glasses and focus on our wants and needs.  Why doesn’t this person feel this way about me?  Why can’t I do things I used to do?  Where did I go wrong?  Why won’t God answer my prayers?  Sometimes we’re blind to how things really are but the people around us see it clearly.  I’ve had many times when someone suggested something so obvious, I couldn’t believe that I didn’t think of it.  Sometimes it takes people around us to point out something to get us back on track.  We don’t have to make all of life’s decisions by ourselves.  God gave us people in our lives who care about us to help us.  If we can trust them to be our glasses and let go of our focus of what we want, we take one step closer to being who God made us to be - someone who sees God’s love for us and working in our lives every day in ways we never imagined.

Here’s another quote to consider: “The same boiling water that softens the potato, hardens the egg.  It’s about what you’re made of, not the circumstances.”  What are we made of?  We are children of God and the circumstances of our sinful world can never change that.  Amen.

I’m not a fan of snakes but seriously, look at this cute little guy with the hat on.  This is proof that anything can look harmless and approachable with the right accessories.  I’m personally a fan of sunglasses.  Put sunglasses on any animal and I melt.  But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.  Last week I talked about the most popular snake in the Bible and this time, I want to give some attention to the other famous snake in Numbers 21:4-9.  Go ahead, look it up and read it.  I’ll wait.

The snakes God sent in verse 6 were most likely either the carpet viper or saw scale viper.  They generally stay away from people but are easily angered.  They also live together in large colonies of 100 or 200 for warmth and protection.  When bitten, you feel as if you’re burning inside because of the nerve damage caused by the poison.  The poison will liquify the liver, kidney and spleen.

This is what the Israelites were up against because of their stubbornness, short-sightedness and stupidity.  God did everything for them and gave them everything they needed but they still complained because life wasn't perfect.  They spoke against God & Moses and then took it further and went after God’s gift.  They loathed the food God gave them.  They said that they detested it.  That was like throwing God’s gift back in His face.  They could have pigged out on free food every day.  If you ground up manna and mixed it with water, you could make bread out of it.  If you mixed it with honey, it would make the honey better, like chocolate mousse.  If you roasted it over a fire, it would taste like popcorn.  It was that wondrous of a food.

When the Israelites got their wake-up call and repented, God had Moses make a bronze serpent so when the people were bit, they could look at it and live.  Did you catch that?  When they were bit.  When the pole was put up, the people still were bitten and their livers were still damaged and their bodies still burned.  They still had to live with the snakes.  Likewise, we are still dealing with our challenges, pain and suffering.  We have a pole, Jesus on a cross, that reminds us of the sin that God conquered but we still suffer from.  We may be bitten and suffer in this world but we will not die.  We don’t need all the physical poles to prove that God destroyed sin for us.  No need for poles of polio, Corona, politicians, etc.  But wait a minute! This bronze serpent violates the First Commandment, doesn’t it?  You shall have no other gods before Me.  That means we cannot have an image to honor or worship that is not the true God.  Jesus talks to Nicodemus about this in John 3:14.  Jesus compares His position on the cross with the raising of the serpent by Moses.  The position only; not the means of salvation.  Believing in Christ is not the same thing as believing in something inanimate hard enough to make it beneficial.  Jesus is actually doing something on the other end of our belief while the bronze serpent is as inert as a doll.

Even though the Israelites moved from place to place, this serpent pole stayed with the people through the years, everywhere they went; to remind them. When Hezekiah ruled, he destroyed the pole and broke the bronze serpent the Moses had made into pieces (2 Kings 18:4).  Why?  The people named the serpent, “Nehushtan” (from the Hebrew word ‘nehoshet’ meaning bronze) and had begun to worship it instead of God.  (2 Kings 18:4).  See Lutherans?  Sometimes, (I said sometimes), just because you’ve “always done it this way” doesn’t mean it’s still "right".

Fun fact: in the days of Moses the production and processing of bronze was the highest form of technology and was nothing short of miraculous. 

I know I’ve been doing a lot of “biographys” lately but this is the last one.  Promise. 

Paul was not an apostle but he did write many of the books of the New Testament so I believe he deserves some attention.  What most people know about Paul is his conversion and his letters to churches.  Let’s start at the beginning with his conversion.  Luke records the conversion of Paul three times in the book of Acts.  Why?  I believe it’s described the first time to be a matter of record. 

Luke is describing Paul’s life beginning with Stephen’s stoning, on through Paul’s persecution of the church and his conversion by Jesus and the Spirit.  Paul then begins his missionary journeys and ends up in Jerusalem where he knows nothing except that he will be imprisoned.  In Jerusalem, Jews from Asia see him in the temple and stir up the crowds against him.  He speaks to the crowd in Aramaic to get their attention as the guards are taking him away.  As the crowd listens intently, he tells them of his conversion and adds to Luke’s version of Ananias’ part.  He’s then imprisoned for two years until he is brought before King Agrippa.  He knows the King is familiar with the religious groups among the Jews.  His recount of his conversion to the king however is yet different again.  He does not include Ananias’ part, his own blindness, or the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was speaking.  Instead, he adds things that would appeal to this Roman audience.

Through all three versions, we get a complete story.  The second and third telling by Paul are told in different ways because of the audience listening to it.  He takes into account who they are and what they believe.  We can learn from this.  It sometimes helps to know who your audience is before you start speaking to them about your faith.  If you start right off and insult what they believe, you won’t get anywhere.  As he was being taken away to prison, Paul knew he had one shot at the crowd so he started off with an exciting story that would get their attention, his conversion.  He did a good job with the crowd until he said the word, “Gentile”.  That reminded them of why they wanted him arrested in the first place and it fell apart after that.  When speaking to Festus and King Agrippa, he used parts of the story and terms that they would be able to relate to.  If something makes sense to you and is easy to relate to, it’s easier for you to accept.  Paul did not convert everyone he spoke with, but he said everything God told him to.  He took advantage of every opportunity available to him regardless if it was two men on the road, a mob or a king.  It’s the same for us.  When we are confronted with an opportunity to share our faith, we should first say a quick prayer for the Spirit to put the words in our mouth and then go with it.

That happened to me once and I’ll never forget it.  I had a friend that was a Mormon ask me what I believe.  WOW!  No pressure!  I said a quick prayer and started talking.  Thinking back, I’m not crazy about what came out of my mouth so I have to assume that he wasn’t really interested anyway or the Spirit would have worked to help him.  Regardless, I didn’t back down and am glad I can say that.

Paul has just about all the credentials you need to be a first rate evangelist and was the best possible example of Christian faith:

·         He could speak in Greek to the Romans and in Aramaic to the Jews

·         He appealed to both 'white collar' and 'blue collar' by being a highly regarded Pharisee and also a tent maker (everybody needs a backup plan)

·         He was knowledgeable of Jewish Law as well as Jesus' plan to include Gentiles, so he was comfortable and credible in witnessing to both

·         His passion for Jesus and his ministry exceeded his fear of imprisonment or death

·         He used a network of people to maximize his mission work

·         Who better to see and hear of a conversion to Christianity than someone whose position was polar opposite?  If Paul could be converted, anyone could.

·         His Roman citizenship was to his benefit because several times it deferred persecution.

Paul began life with the name, Saul, but God changed it after he was converted.  The difference between the two names could not have been anymore clear. Saul, a Hebrew name (Sha 'ul) means "asked for or prayed for." How many people do you think prayed for Saul as he persecuted Christians? It would be easy to say not many. However, I must believe that there would have been some early Christians who might have lifted up prayer on his behalf that he may be touched by the Holy Spirit. (Of course, he was more than "touched," he was knocked off his high horse, literally.)  What is interesting about his new name is that Paul, now his Roman name (remember he was both a Jew and a Roman citizen), means "small or humble." Who better to carry Jesus' message that the great shall become small and the small, great?  When you think about it, it makes perfect sense.  God sees us as great when we share His message with others, no matter who we are. 

Are you compassionate?  Do you deeply care about people?  You have much in common with Luke.  Most people know that he wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts.  What you might not realize is that in these two books, even though he was a Gentile and not a Jew, he wrote more of the New Testament than anyone else, even Paul who wrote 13 or 14 books himself.  That seemed kind of hard for me to believe but then I took a class on just the book of Luke.  It was the only class that covered just one book in the Bible.  Very intense.  Luke did not travel with Jesus but, “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” (Luke 1:1-4).  This made him one of the church’s earliest historians.  His detailed writings give us the only thorough record of what happened after Jesus ascended to heaven.  In addition to this, we assume he was educated as a doctor because he is called the ‘beloved physician’ by Paul.  It’s convenient that Luke traveled with Paul because Paul was beaten up quite often.

In this post, I’m going to expand on what makes Luke’s Gospel so unique.  To begin with, it contains the most detailed account of Jesus’ birth and a more descriptive account of His death and resurrection.  It also includes the most healing stories which shows his interest in, and compassion, for the sick.  I’m not a history buff by any stretch of the imagination but Luke comes close to making it interesting.  His gospel has 7 miracles, 19 parables and 30 events in the life of Jesus that are not listed in any of the other Gospels.  His writing also has five endearing qualities.

Universal Appeal – The Gospel of Jesus Christ is meant for all men and women.  He speaks of angels, genealogy, OT miracles, Samaritans, healing the sick, etc.  He also includes the details of Jesus’ early life (circumcision, presentation in the temple, visiting Jerusalem as a child; details a mother would remember and talk about).  Something for everyone.

Hymns – Only Luke has the four New Testament hymns that have been sung for centuries.  Magnificat – Mary’s Song (1:46-55), Benedictus – Zechariah’s song (1:68-79), Gloria in Excelsis – Angel’s song (2:14), and the Nunc Dimittis – Simeon’s song (2:29-32).  These hymns express the rejoicing of earth and show the heavens join the celebration.

Parables – Luke has approximately 28 parables.  Many are easy to spot but some don’t have a preview (8:16; 8:21).  Yes, those are parables.  He also has the two parables that begin with the Jews but end with Samaritans being the ‘good guys’ and the behavior of the Jews being less than satisfactory.  

Prayer – There is a great emphasis on prayer throughout this Gospel.  It begins and ends with the Temple where there is worship and prayer.  There is a unique wording of the Lord’s Prayer (11:2-4); parables of prayer (11:5, 18:1, 18:9); and the lesson on perseverance in prayer (11:5-13).  Jesus and His disciples remain continuously dedicated to God in prayer.  Jesus prays before every important step in His ministry: before His baptism (3:21), before choosing the Twelve (6:12), before Peter’s declaration that He is the Messiah (9:18), at the Transfiguration (9:28), before teaching the disciples how to pray (11:1), in Gethsemane (22:41).  He also insists that His followers be people of prayer also (6:28, 10:2, 11:1-13, 18:1-8, 21:36).  You get the idea of how important it is.

Holy Spirit – Luke stresses the Holy Spirit’s role in different ways.  The Spirit came upon John, Mary, Elizabeth, and Zechariah.  He is present with Simeon and Jesus fulfills the Spirit’s promise (4:18). 

It might be his bedside manner, but I appreciate the fact that Luke omits scenes of violence and disrespect that Mark records.  For example, the murder of John the Baptist, the impatient remarks of the disciples, the outrages committed during the passion and the suggestion that Jesus had gone out of His mind.  On the cross, Jesus utters no cry of declaration but simply commits His spirit into His Father’s hands.  Yes, bad things happen.  They have in the past and will continue to do so.  Just because we are conscious of it does not mean that we need to be continually harassed with the information.  For this reason, I never watch the news both on TV and the computer.  I like to be able to sleep at night.  The media focuses on the evil in the world to get viewers attention and headlines.  Again, I already know there’s evil.  I don’t need to be bombarded with it.  Instead, Luke chooses to focus on the fact that Christ came to save sinners, the joy we find in Christ, and the reminder to be steadfast and faithful in our duties.  These are the things important in life and what we should be focused on.  I wonder what his newscasts would be like…. Oh, I already do.  It’s called the books of Luke and Acts.

Because the book of Luke focuses on the sacrifice of Christ, and oxen were sacrificial animals, the winged ox reminds us of the priestly character of our Lord and His sacrifice for our redemption.  For this reason, Luke is often seen pictured with an ox.

Our next apostle is similar to anyone you know who is “immediate”, or a bundle of energy.  Mark jumps from one topic to the next without waiting for you to catch your breath.  His Gospel may be condensed, but it’s complete.  You see the patience of Jesus as He teaches the disciples and builds their faith.  You hear the parables and read about the miracles He does along with the crowd’s wonder at the authority in Jesus’ teaching.  It has not only the actions but the result of those actions.

Mark uses the word “immediately” 42 times in his Gospel; 13 times in chapter 1 alone.  He’s not one for dilly-dallying.  He begins without a birth narrative or human genealogy but a spiritual one instead:  Jesus is the Son of God.  We live in a society of immediate gratification.  Our media sources are forced to focus on their headlines and sound bites to get our attention hoping we will continue to read or listen.  Mark does just that as well.  His headline reads, “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  Can you think of a more profoundly agitating headline?  This was written in approximately 50 AD.  Jesus had just been put to death less than 20 years before.  It should certainly be an attention grabber. 

Matthew doesn’t talk of Jesus’ miracles until Chapter 4 and then only saying, “they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and He healed them.”  (Matthew 4:24)  The immediacy of Mark is seen in that he not only tells of Jesus casting out demons in the first chapter but also the reaction of the people: “they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this?  A new teaching with authority!  He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.”  (Mark 1:27)  He wastes no time with background details but gets right down to the reality that this is the miracle worker, Jesus Christ.  In addition to being the Son of God, Mark shows Jesus as a man of action and focuses on His activities more than His teachings.  Right after His baptism, Jesus defied Satan and began His ministry.  He called the disciples, preached in the synagogues, healed the sick and demon possessed.  Over and over, action.

Mark is special not just because of his “immediate” tendencies but also because he, like Matthew, is a detailed person.  He went with Barnabas and Saul (a.k.a. Paul) to Antioch as their personal assistant so they could concentrate on spiritual matters.  He most likely arranged for travel, provided food, or communicated messages.  He had an aptitude for this job and most likely the energy to go with it.  You see this in how his Gospel is written, very detailed and concise; almost the ‘cliff notes’ of the Gospels. 

In addition, because he traveled with Paul who preached to the Gentiles, he writes in a way to help the Gentiles understand that the cross was Christ’s greatest strength.  He has nothing on Jesus’ birth or ascension but mentions Jesus foretelling His death, three separate times.  He explains Jewish customs (Mark 7:3-4) to help Gentiles better understand and in details that Matthew wouldn’t do.  He has fewer Old Testament prophecies and references, so we see a Gentile outreach in silence there.  He also mentions the Roman Centurion referring to Jesus as the Son of God at Jesus’ death.  If this non-Jew could recognize Jesus as the Christ, then so could others.

Have you noticed how the book ends?  Different than any other in the Bible.  Mark’s Gospel could very well end at verse 8 of Chapter 16.  This chapter is like the end of a murder mystery.  Jesus has died.  The women go to take care of His body and find the body gone and a stranger in His place telling them that He rose from the dead.  They ran off terrified…. dum, dum, DUMMMMM!!!! (Sorry, I love the old film noir sound effects.)  If earlier manuscripts didn’t include verses 9-20, perhaps this is the way it was meant to end.  Seeing as how Mark is the disciple of “immediacy”, an abrupt ending to his gospel makes sense.  By having the Gospel end at verse 8, Mark would urge the reader to find out if the disciples actually saw Jesus in Galilee as the angel told Mary they would.  This chapter gives all the facts like the rest of the book… but it doesn’t give the reader ‘closure’.  The excitement builds and we have to know how it ends.  What comes next??  Thankfully, continuing on to verse 20 gives you a “happily ever after” ending with a warm, fuzzy feeling and not a cliff-hanger. 

As a side note, just as Matthew is pictured with an angel, Mark is usually seen with a lion.  The lion is a well-known symbol of power, pride, magnificence, nobility, and courage.  It is associated with Mark because it emphasizes the Resurrection power, the majesty and the regality of Christ and the characteristics of his Gospel.  Next week…Luke.

In studying the Bible, you find yourself going into the detailed lives and personalities of several different people.  Jesus, Job, Adam & Eve, Moses, Noah, Abraham, etc.  But these are all Old Testament people.  Yes, even Jesus.  He was in the Old Testament more than we realize…but that’s another blog.  What about the New Testament?  Over the next few weeks, I’d like to dig a little deeper into (and maybe better appreciate) the strong personalities of the most popular New Testament members, the apostles. 

The best way to get to understand someone is to be able to relate them to someone else you know better.  My professor began this way:  Who is the neatest, most methodical person you know?  They can best relate to Matthew.  Matthew is the ultimate list maker.  He uses this trait to help us see Jesus as the fulfiller of prophecies.  He points out that Jesus’ ministry mirrors the history of the Old Testament Israel.

Event                                                                                Old Testament                              New Testament

Born in Bethlehem                                                      King David                                       Jesus

Tried to kill the Son of God                                      Egyptian pharaoh (Ex 4:22)       Herod

Brought gifts out of respect                                     Kings came to Solomon             Wise Men to Jesus

Went to Egypt & were called out by God           Israel                                               Jesus

Tested in the wilderness                                           Israel 40 years                               Jesus 40 days

You get the idea.  Jesus fulfilled every OT prophecy.  Matthew also touches on a little of everything in Jesus’ life to give us a better overall picture.  (Quick English lesson: a ‘chiasm’ is when words or ideas are repeated in reverse order.  For example: When the going gets tough, the tough get going or “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”)  The entire book of Matthew is written like a chiasm so one topic flows to the next.  Jesus’ birth and baptism – teaching – healing – parables – miracles – parables – healing – teaching – Jesus’ death and resurrection.  5 different sections listed forward and then in reverse.  This is proof again of accountants being meticulous when it comes to details.

Matthew was a keeper of lists and numbers and his is an ordered world.  His book is organized and his favorite numbers, 3, 5 & 7 are emphasized. 

3 – 3 groups of 14 names each in his genealogy; tells the disciples of his upcoming death and resurrection 3 times

5 – chiasm listed above; 5 times he says, “when Jesus had finished saying these things”; there are 5 books of Moses and Jesus is described as the new Moses; 5 woes to the Pharisees

7 – prophecies in the early chapters of his Gospel before Jesus begins His actual ministry; 7 parables in Chapter 13; 7 fulfilled prophecies of the first four chapters; 7 woes of Chapter 23

Matthew shows Jesus as the great “I AM”; God of past, present, and future with three sets of seven. 

Past - Out of over 300 prophecies related to Jesus in the Old Testament, Matthew chooses 7 prophecies that reference four separate locations that the true Messiah would and did come from.  Each of the locations listed are so unique and detailed that they couldn’t have happened by accident. 

Present - He then includes the seven woes of the “religious leaders” of Jesus’ time on earth.  Men that should have seen the obvious signs from the prophecies that showed Jesus as the true Messiah but didn’t. 

Future - This led to the seven parables regarding the end of man.  The result of evangelism and the different ways the seed of God’s Word would be received. 

Kind of mind-blowing, isn’t it?  Matthew was a tax collector.  This means he was hired by the Romans that ruled Palestine and the Jews during Jesus’ day and collected the taxes that the Romans declared.  Jews considered tax collectors to be traitors because many charged the people extra and pocketed the difference.  His name is Matthew in the book of Matthew but he’s called Levi in Mark (2:14) and Luke (5:27-28).  Some believe that his name was Matthew but he belonged to the tribe of Levi while others think Matthew was his Greek name while Levi was his Hebrew name.  Regardless, it’s the same person.

You also see his focus on money throughout his writings.  In Matt. 17:24, he tells us the exact amount of the temple tax.  Gold and silver are mentioned only once in the book of Mark and four times in Luke but 28 times in Matthew.  The famous parable of the talents only appears in Matthew and did you ever catch this?…in the Lord’s Prayer, Luke (11:4) “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” versus Matthew (6:12) “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”  As a tax collector, Matthew should have been the ideal person to be the group treasurer but given the general reputation of tax collectors, the disciples gave the job to Judas Iscariot.  Ironic that Judas not only stole from the money bag but also betrayed Jesus.

We often see Matthew pictured with an angel.  Each of the apostles is referenced to one of the four living creatures mentioned in Ezekiel (10:14) and Revelation (4:6-8).  The book of Matthew begins with the genealogy of Christ and represents Jesus’ incarnation, His human nature.  For this reason, he is represented by the “man (with wings)” or angel.

Granted these facts are not worth memorizing, but to me, they are interesting.  I enjoy looking deeper and having the dots connected for me (so to speak).  Next week….Mark.

I mentioned last week that I will post my favorite stories from the Apocrypha and so I have.  We begin with Luther’s preface, followed by the stories and then my take on them.  Enjoy!

Luther’s preface:  “Here follow several pieces which we did not wish to translate [and include] in the prophet Daniel and in the book of Esther.  We have uprooted such cornflowers because they do not appear in the Hebrew versions of Daniel and Esther.  And yet, to keep them from perishing, we have put them here in a kind of special little spice garden or flower bed since much that is good, especially the hymn of praise, Benedicite, is to be found in them.  But the texts of Susanna, and of Bel, Habakkuk, and the Dragon, seem like beautiful religious fictions such as Judith and Tobit.  Be the story as it may, it can all be easily interpreted in terms of the state, the home or the devout company of the faithful.”

Bel and the Dragon  (This story is included as chapter 14 of the book of Daniel in Roman Catholic bibles.) 

Cyrus (the Persian king mentioned in a previous post) shows Daniel the temple of Bel and remarks how the god eats a great feast left for him every night.  Daniel asks for the king to lock the temple that night.  After the priests have set out the food and left, Daniel scatters ashes on the floor and then watches the king lock the doors.  The next morning, Cyrus and Daniel unlock the doors and find the food eaten, but also discover many footprints that lead to a secret door behind the idol.  Cyrus orders the priests and their families to be executed and allows Daniel to destroy the idol. 

The next story has Daniel killing a dragon that people in Babylon were worshipping as a god.  He bakes cakes made of tar, fat and hair and feeds them to the dragon which causes the animal’s intestines to burst out of its body, proving it was no god. 

Because of the people’s hatred of Daniel for destroying two gods, Daniel is thrown into the lion’s den again.  This time we have the details that there were seven lions in the den and Daniel stayed for seven days, but God sent an angel to pick up the prophet, Habakkuk, by the hair and carry him from Judea to Babylon to give Daniel bread and stew.  After the week, Cyrus freed Daniel and put his accusers into the den which the lions ate immediately.

Susanna  (This story is included as chapter 13 of the Book of Daniel in Roman Catholic bibles.)  A young Jewish wife is accosted by two elders who demand she have sex with them or they will accuse her of having an affair.  She refuses and the two have her taken to court for adultery.  She is about to be condemned to death when a young Daniel asks to question the elders.  Daniel questions the men separately and they give conflicting testimony (differing in the tree under which they supposedly saw Susanna meet her lover).  The elders, being found out as liars, are condemned to death and Susanna’s piety is praised.

My personal take on these stories is that there is always more to a situation than what we originally assume or expect.  We often assume that elders are above reproach and when food given to idols disappears, we assume that it has been eaten by the idol.  But this is not always the case.  It reminds us to be diligent in how we act on information given to us.  What is expected and what we assume to have happened is not always the true story.  I love the part about an angel carrying Habakkuk around by the hair to feed Daniel.  I don't know that God goes to that extreme anymore (at least I hope not).  He does still use us however, so from this I take that it may not always be in our comfort zone to help someone but we are needed to help each other, even if it's inconvenient to do so.  I also am reminded that justice is sometimes given behind the scenes.  We don’t always see evil punished and so assume there was no punishment.  This is important because we are often misled by the internet and media.  The nightly news seems to focus only on what’s wrong with the world and not what’s right.  They never focus on the justice given, when it happens, only the wrongdoing.  I could go on this topic for hours so let’s just say I don’t watch the news because I don’t like the nightmares they cause me.  Regardless, the world (including the people in it) does not act as we expect or hope.  The best course of action for us is to not act rashly, show God’s love to our neighbors, and right wrongs when possible.  Thankfully, those we miss are seen by God and will be handled by Him, personally.  You can’t ask for anything better than that.

I learned of the Apocrypha (uh-POCK-ruh-fuh) in college.  It was so interesting that I decided to go to a Catholic book store and get a copy.  I asked for a copy of the Apocrypha and they looked at me like they didn’t know what I was talking about.  I quickly figured out why.  They just call it “The Bible”.  DUH!  The word ‘Apocrypha’ means “hidden away” in Greek.  These are books and chapters added to the Bible that were never accepted by the Protestant faith but are included in the Catholic Bible.  Protestants never use these books to establish doctrine or settle doctrinal issues.  According to the Church of England, it’s to be used for an example of life, not doctrine. 

The Old Testament Apocrypha consists of 11 or 12 books that were written during the 400 silent years between the book of Malachi and the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist.  Jewish and New Testament sources both agree that no divinely inspired prophetic utterance occurred during this time.  Because the Catholic church accepts them, we assume that they also accept the teachings as doctrine.  We know this because many of the points were things that Martin Luther disagreed with in his 95 Thesis.  

Following are several claims in the Apocrypha and the corresponding teachings found in the Bible.

·         Man is justified by works and not faith alone.  “For almsgiving saves from death and purges away every sin.  Those who give alms will enjoy a full life.” (Tobit 12:9)  The Bible teaches that a person is saved by grace through faith alone, not works.  “For by grace are you saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

·         Purgatory is a place of purging between heaven and hell.  "Making a gathering . . . sent twelve thousand drachmas of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection (For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead). And because he considered that they who had fallen asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up for them. It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins" (2 Maccabees 12:43-46).  The Bible teaches that, after death, one either goes to be with the Lord or to hell – there is no middle place.  “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgement”. (Hebrews 9:27)

·         God hears the prayers of the dead.  “O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, hear now the prayer of the dead of Israel, the children of those who sinned before you, who did not heed the voice of the Lord their God, so that calamities have clung to us”.  (Baruch 3:4)  The Bible speaks nothing of this.  The dead do not pray for the living.  Only the living on earth pray for other living ones on earth.

·         Souls pre-existed.  “As a child I was naturally gifted, and a good soul fell to my lot; or rather, being good, I entered an undefiled body.” (Wisdom 8:19-20)  Again, the Bible speaks nothing of this so it comes from man’s mind and not God.

·         Creation was made out of matter that already existed.  “For your all-powerful hand, which created the world out of formless matter, did not lack the means to send upon them a multitude of bears, or bold lions.”  (Wisdom 11:17)  The Bible says that God’s creation was out of nothing.  “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” (Hebrews 11:3)

These are just a few examples.  We also know the Apocrypha is never cited in the New Testament as Scripture.  The New Testament cites directly, or alludes to, almost every book in the Old Testament as Scripture but it never cites the Apocrypha as being God’s Word.  That doesn’t mean that it’s worthless.  It is definitely interesting as stories go.  Next week I’ll include two of my favorite stories along with Luther’s opinion on the matter.

History has never been my strong suit and never will.  Give me math any day.  Occasionally, I find history interesting, if you dumb-it-down enough, but that doesn’t mean I’ll remember it.  There is, of course, much more to the following narration than I have listed here.  This is the dumb-it-down version that I understood and found interesting.  (FUN FACT: There were about 400 years between Genesis & Exodus and about 400 years between the Old Testament and the New.)  History buffs are welcome to look up exact details but for those like me however, I have some interesting notes about the “Time between the Testaments”.  That is, the silent period of time (430 B.C. to 2 B.C.) between the last writing prophet, Malachi, (Old Testament) and the New Testament.  During this time, the prophets ceased to speak.  The Persian emperor, Cyrus the Great, conquered Babylon and allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem.  (Remember Cyrus…he’ll be back in future posts)  The rebuilding of Jerusalem and its temple took several decades.  The last Old Testament prophets (Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi) supported this work and the Jews made a new commitment to God’s Word. 

In 336 B.C., around 100 years into this time period, Alexander the Great was crowned king of Macedon after the death of his father, Phillip.  Four years later, he began his eastern conquest, fulfilling his father’s wish of a world-wide “Greek” empire.  He took Judea away from the Persians but spared Jerusalem.  He planned to unite his new empire by spreading the Greek language and culture.  This process is called Hellenization (which means, ‘from the Greek’).  As told in Daniel 8:22, when he died, his empire was divided between his four generals: Alexander IV (his son), and Generals Lysimachos, Seleucius and Ptolemy. 

Here’s where it starts getting good.  Alexander and each of the Generals had their separate areas that they ruled.  General Ptolemy ruled Israel and Egypt.  He and his descendants allowed the Jews to practice their religion and culture while also allowing Hellenization (the mixing of Greek culture in and with the Jewish culture).  Unfortunately, wars raged between Generals Ptolemy & Seleucius from 274 B.C. to 168 B.C. and Israel was caught in the middle.  In 198 B.C., the descendants of General Seleucus conquered Judea.  They opposed the Jewish faith and outlawed many of their practices like possession of a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures and also made circumcision punishable by death.  In 164 B.C., Priest Mattathias and his three sons (Judah, Jonathan, and Simon) lead a guerilla war against the Seleucid governor and the “Hellenistic” Jews.  They retook Jerusalem and rededicated the temple, creating the holiday of Hanukkah.  (FINALLY!!  A word I recognize!)

Since we’re between the Old and New Testament time periods, I’ll go one step further.  At the very beginning of the New Testament time, (the third and second centuries B.C. in Alexandria, Egypt), the Septuagint was created.  Pronounced ‘sep-TOO-uh-gint’.  This was the Greek translation of the Old Testament books from the Hebrew Bible.  The name Septuagint comes from the Latin word for “seventy” because tradition states that 70 (or 72) Jewish scholars were the translators.  As stated above, because Israel was under the authority of Greece for several centuries, the Greek language became more and more common.  The Hebrew Bible needed to be translated to Greek to allow the population to have the Scriptures in a language they understood.  The Septuagint represents the first major effort at translating a significant religious text from one language to another. 

By the late first century B.C., and especially the first century A.D., the Septuagint had “replaced” the Hebrew Bible as the Scriptures that most people used.  Since most people spoke and read Greek as their primary language, the Greek authorities strongly encouraged the use of Greek and the Septuagint became more common than the Hebrew Old Testament.  As faithful as the Septuagint translators strove to be in accurately rendering the Hebrew text into Greek, some translational differences arose. But the fact that the apostles and New Testament authors felt comfortable, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, in using the Septuagint, this should give us assurance that a translation of the original languages of the Bible is still the authoritative Word of God….just in case you were wondering….. 

It’s not fair!!  How many times have we said that in our lives?  For some, it was probably the second thing we said after "Mama".  This struck home to me this past Sunday as I was listening to the sermon in church.  The workers that were chosen first expected to get paid more than they were promised because they worked in the hot sun all day while the men that only worked for one hour got paid the same amount.  The amount the owner paid would have fed their families for one day.  That was his goal, to care for their families; not to pay by the hour.  The first men were paid what they agreed to work for but still thought it wasn’t fair.  (See Matthew 20:1-12 for the whole story.)  The guys that worked only one hour thought it was more than fair.  What do you think?  (see the cartoon above)

As I sat there listening to the sermon, my mind flashed back to other instances in the Bible where people thought they weren’t treated fair.

·         Jonah told the people of Nineveh to repent or they would perish.  They did and God spared them.  Jonah wanted to see them destroyed.  (Jonah 3:1 – 4:2)  Not fair.

·         Jacob served Laban for 7 years to marry Rachel and was given Leah, the ugly sister, instead.  (Genesis 29:20-25)  Not fair.

·         The older brother was angry that the younger partied with prostitutes and was rewarded while he slaved away for years and received nothing. (Luke 15:25-30)  Not fair.

·         One of the criminals that hung next to Jesus on the cross had done evil his entire life but repented just before he died and was taken to heaven. (Luke 23:39-43)  Not fair.

·         Job lost his 10 children, all his herds and his health because God let Satan tempt him. (Job) Not fair.

·         The rich man was told to sell all he had and give the money to the poor. (Luke 18:20-23) Not fair.

·         The Israelites were made to roam the wilderness when they had good food back in slavery. (Exodus 16:2-3)  Not fair.

I could go on for days.  Almost sounds like the “You might be a Redneck” jokes, doesn’t it?  We often forget that these things are not fair from our sinful perspective.  There are two sides to every story. 

Things in life should be fair.  God wants us to judge righteously and defend the rights of the poor and needy (Prov. 31:9).  We should hold no partiality as we hold the faith in Jesus Christ (James 2:1).  That includes partiality about ourselves.  We are to be fair because He is fair.  He does not overlook the work that we do for others in His name (Heb. 6:10).  Unfortunately, this life is not fair because there is sin in the world.  Because we are born sinful, our sense of fairness is focused on ourselves and what we want.  We think it’s not fair if we can’t do the things we used to do.  It’s not fair if I’m subject to illness more than others.  It’s not fair if someone else gets the credit that I think I deserve. 

The Bible flat out tells us, “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” (2 Timothy 3:12) and “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” (Philippians 1:29)  It’s there is black and white.  Believers are promised suffering which means we won’t always think life is fair.  What we need to remember is that when suffering or unjust feelings hit us, God is working in our lives, transforming our nature to bring blessing and glory to Him.  To shape, mold and sanctify us, requires that we suffer to make it happen.  After all, Jesus denied Himself and became flesh to suffer and die for us when He never did anything to deserve it.  Is that fair?  We don’t think so but He did.  That’s why He did it. 

(Just a note: you don’t have to look up all the Bible passages if you don’t want to.  I just wanted to give credit where credit is due.)

Control is an illusion.  We love to use the word ‘control’ but in reality, there’s no such thing.  When you’re in a car wreck, the police say you lost control of the vehicle.  Really?  You had complete control over the tire blowing out or some part falling out of the engine?  I don’t think so.  Another fine example is parenthood.  I’ve said that it’s hard for a parent who has complete control over their child to just give up that control when the child reaches adulthood.  You still want them to do what you tell them, right?  Somewhere in the teenage years, kids realize that the control you show over them is not real.  If we’re to be honest with ourselves, even the control we think we have over an infant is not real.  Sure, we decide when they need a nap and what they wear and what to teach them but that’s about it.  Do we have control over their loud outbursts in the middle of a church service?  Do we have control when they decide it’s mealtime after we’ve got them buckled in the car seat and are one block from the house?  No.  We bend to their wishes until they are content.  If we had control over them as small children, we wouldn’t have to tell them 20 times a day to pick up their toys, make their bed, brush their teeth, etc.  You get the idea. 

It doesn’t stop with our children; we wish there was some semblance of control over the people around us regardless if it’s our boss, our spouse, or the driver in front of us that wants to go 30 in a 55 zone.  I believe lack of control over others is the reason for so much high blood pressure.  In reality, we need only control ourselves.  If we don’t allow something to upset us, it won’t have control over us.  Like the school announcements used to be when my children were in Jr. High, “Have a great day, or not, the choice is yours.”  That’s easier said than done.  If it were easy to control what upsets me (sometimes I think ‘if it were even possible’), then I wouldn’t have hives break out all over my body when I feel stressed.  I seem to always have breakouts.

But we move on.  Why?  Because of 1 Corinthians 10:13, “God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation He will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”  Yes, he’s talking about temptation to do evil but it could also mean our temptation to fight the world by holding on to the control we want over it.  And what is the key to that escape?  Prayer.  “Cast all your cares on Him, because He cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7)  Take all your stress, anxiety, and anger over your lack of control and put it at God’s feet.  He can take it all and wants to take it all; we just don't want to let Him because, as my daughter used to say, "I DO IT MYSELF!".  God's response is, "Good luck with that, I'll be here to take over when you snap out of it.". 

Being a parent is the hardest job in the world because it doesn’t end until you leave this world.  For their lifetime, you will want to guide and teach but we have no control over their actions.  We need to let them live their lives and make their own mistakes but most importantly, we need to make peace with ourselves over that fact.  The best we can do is lead a life of example for them to follow and pray to God for guidance, ours and theirs.  Why ours?  No matter how old you are, there are things that you can and probably should do differently.  Others see it, funny how we never do, and if you are told… does it really make a difference?  You’re an adult, you can do what you want so why can’t your adult children?  Speaking of leading by example, have you ever shared your faith with anyone that doesn’t go to your church?  We don’t have control over the belief of others but what if every person you shared your faith with would come to believe in Christ and be saved because of you?  It reminds me of the end of the movie, “Schindler’s List”, where Oskar Schindler was devastated because he only saved 1200 Jews but could have saved more.  Will we be that broken-hearted on our last day because we could have told even one more person about Jesus but didn’t?  There’s a way to fix that now.  Try to control yourself first and let God handle the rest. 

There are so many terms and phrases in the Bible, and in church, that have a much deeper meaning than we first realize.  For example, the term “Law and Gospel” is heard in the church constantly.  We understand the word, “Law”.  We live by them every day and not just on April 15th or when we’re driving.  Laws are the legal versions of rules and have more severe consequences than rules do.  Like rules in the home, workplace or classroom, they are instituted in order to invoke a sense of order, fair play and safety.  But what is Gospel?  If someone asked you right now to define the word, “Gospel”, what would you say?  Take a minute……   Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.  Those are the four gospels.  That’s true but it’s a very wide sense of the word.  Narrow it down a bit. 

“Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.” (1 Peter 3:15b)  Peter was right.  The Christian who effectively communicates the Gospel to the world is someone who can give a reason for what he believes.  Many Christians believe but don’t know why or what they believe.  The Gospel is the power of God that works through salvation for believers.  It is the heart of the church (John 3:16).  The only purpose of the Law is to condemn us but we still need the law first to recognize how much we need the Gospel.  Because we have to earn everything we have on earth now, we believe we also have to earn our salvation by our works (keeping the Law).  Saving faith comes only through the Gospel – we are righteous in God’s sight through our faith in Christ.  We don’t have to DO anything thankfully.  If we did, we would never be sure it was right or enough.  Out of His grace, God sent His only Son to this world to die for our sins and make us holy in God’s sight.  That is pure Gospel.  It is what motivates and empowers us to live lives of service to others and obedience to God.  Notice that I said out of God’s grace and not out of His mercy.  There’s a difference between grace and mercy even though the two terms are often mistaken for each other.  Mercy is the receiving of a “lesser” punishment while grace has no punishment.  With mercy, you are still punished.  With God’s grace, Jesus took on ALL of our punishment.

So then the Gospel must just be found in the New Testament where Jesus comes into the picture?  No.  Jesus made several appearances in the Old Testament even though He wasn’t called by that name at the time.  (but that’s another blog)  He didn’t get the name, Jesus, until His birth.  Remember the story of Adam and Eve?  Genesis 3:15 – “…He will strike your head and you will strike His heel.”  That was the first Gospel and prophesy about Jesus.  Moving on to Exodus 15:13 – “In your steadfast love you led the people whom you redeemed…”  Jesus redeemed us = Gospel.  It’s too long to type out here but read Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12.  This is the Gospel of the Old Testament because it also points directly to Jesus.  I’m not going to go book by book but you get the idea.  God loves us because of who He is, not because of who we are. 

Sometimes it’s not always spelled out.  Sometimes the Bible uses symbolism to show us the Gospel.  See if this sounds familiar… “…for you are with me, your rod and staff – they comfort me.”  (Psalm 23:4)  The rod is the law and the staff is God’s Word - Gospel.  Both are used to comfort & guide us.  What about the image of a lion?  The lion represents the Law because judgment will come like a lion, so powerful it can’t be resisted or stopped.  But it also represents the Gospel – the lion of the tribe of Judah is Jesus.

If you still need it spelled out, no problem, the Bible covers that as well in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith…”    This is God’s promise.  To learn more about God’s promise, read Romans 4:13-25.  But in a nutshell, ‘promise’ is a Gospel term because it’s what faith holds onto.  Really???  I promise….or rather, God does.

As I see it, there are four types of living beings in the world: the Triune God, man, animals, and angels.  I don’t count plants because they don’t have a conscious and cannot think for themselves.  We learn about God from the Bible.  We learn about animals from working with them.  We learn about each other.  Not much is said about angels though.  Not much correct, anyway.  I’ve participated in several studies on angels and find that they are just as complex and misunderstood as we are.  In this post, I wanted to hit on some of the things I’ve found to be the most interesting.

·         Angels don’t sing.  They sang one time only, when the universe was created.  They haven’t sung since.  They continually praise God with their words but they don’t sing them.  “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?...when the morning stars (angels) sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4a, 7)  They didn't even sing when Jesus was born.  "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying..." (Luke 2:13)

·         Angels were created.  “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude.” (Genesis 2:1)  Angels were created before the seventh day of creation.  At that time, God created a certain number of them and that number will never grow more or less.  There will be as many angels on the Last Day as there were at the beginning of creation.

·         False beliefs:

o   Angels are all powerful.  They have great power but their power is limited by God to serve Him in the tasks He gives them. 

o   Angels were once human and we become angels when we die.  God created angels as they are and they will never change.  Neither will we become like them.  (see below)

o   All angels have wings.  Some do (Seraphim – Isaiah 6:2, 6) & Cherubim (Ezekiel 1:5-8) and some don’t.  Angels are spirits and wings are used for lifting bodies with weight.  They have no weight.  They can take on human form but are still spirits.  Their wings might symbolize their swiftness to execute God’s wishes.

·         Because man was made it the image of God, he was given authority to rule over every other created thing, including angels.  Right now, we are lower than the angels because of our sinful state.  In the future, after the Last Day, we will be placed in authority second only to the Trinity.  “Do you not know that we are to judge angels – to say nothing of ordinary matters?” (1 Corinthians 6:3)  It’s interesting to read in Daniel 10 that an angel couldn’t deliver a message because of the prince of the kingdom.  A human cannot stand in the way of an angel delivering a message so the prince of Persia was not human even though it looked that way.  It later says the prince of Greece wasn’t human either.  They were ruled by fallen angels.  Satan gave control of each nation to one of his demons to carry out his purposes. 

·         Satan rebelled against God with 5 assertions or statements of “I will” (Isaiah 14:12-15).  When he did this of his own free will, there was no going back.  The angels chose sides and their decision was permanent.  All angels that followed Satan will end up in the lake of fire.  Jesus didn’t die for any angels to save them.  He only died for us. 

·         How should we treat or think of angels?  With respect – they are servants of God and are holy.  With appreciation – we should follow their example in that they are constantly worshiping and serving God without a break.  We should NOT worship angels.  They set an example for us and should not be worshiped themselves.  (Colossians 2:18, Revelation 19:10; 22:8-9)

In closing, I just wanted to add the following about the nature of angels:

A.  Spirits Heb. 1:14

B.  Visible when necessary Gen. 3:24 & 19:1, Num. 22:21-35, Dan. 3:23-28, Luke 1 & 2, Acts 1:9-11

C.  Great power 2 Thess. 1:7, Ps. 103:20

D.  Knowledge is limited Mark 13:32

E.   Created by God Col. 1:16

F.   Great number Ps. 68:17, Rev. 5:11, Heb. 12:22

G.  Their number is constant – they do not die or reproduce Luke 20:36, Matt. 22:30

H.  They praise and serve God Ps. 103:20, Heb. 1:6, Matt. 25:31

I.      They are God’s messengers Luke 1:11-20 & 26-38, Acts 1:10-11, Dan. 9:20-23

J.     God’s warriors – marines Acts 12:23, Matt. 13:41-42 & 49, Ps. 78:49

K.   Guard and protect Christians  Gen. 19:1-26, Ps. 91:11

L.     They have emotion - they rejoice when sinners are saved Luke 15:10

M.    They come in many forms Heb. 1:7 & 13:2,  Matt. 28:2-3

There is a lot more to learn about them but we must be careful to not put them on a pedestal.  Our focus should be following their example and not following them.

In my last blog, I could not think of an association with three of the pieces of the Operation game.  Fortunately, my mother (Thanks Mom!) reminded me that the rubber band could represent how we stress ourselves out with worries of this world.  The water on the knee would then represent the way our fragile, human bodies deteriorate and the charley horse would be the consequences of the worry and stress we endure through our lives. 

Now, to be honest, I said that was my last games blog and I fully intended it to be…and then at  Wednesday night Bible Study, Pastor Red suggested I write one on Gnip Gnop (Ping Pong backwards).  Yes, I do take requests and yes, it was a real game of the 70’s.  Do you remember the 70’s?  See and Say, G I Joes, Easy Bake Ovens, Barbie dolls, Spirographs, View-Master, Toss Across, Slinky.  Ah yes.  Unfortunately, Gnip Gnop (pronounced “guh-nip guh-nop”) didn’t have the staying power of Legos or Hot Wheels but it had its moment in time.  This small, tabletop game had three balls on each side, separated by a piece of plastic with holes.  The object was to shoot the balls on your side through the holes before the other person shot the balls from their side into your space.  The first to get their area free of balls wins.

The Bible doesn’t talk about games but we know children played.  Drawings and paintings on tombs and palace walls show contests of gymnastics, fencing and water sports.  Children played with hoops and sticks, and had chariot races (go carts) in addition to board games.  Yes, they had board games back then.  We don’t know the rules but archeologists have found the remains.  One particular game is referred to as “hounds and jackals”.  The pegged playing pieces are carved with likenesses of jackals and dogs and fit into holes in a board.

But back to the game at hand.  This game didn’t take a lot of talent because all you had to do was push the little levers as fast as you could.  There was no team to be a part of.  You battled your opponent alone and thus challenged yourself, trying to win faster than you did the last time.  Focus and concentration are needed here.  Maybe that’s the great attraction to games.  We become less self-absorbed, our perception of time is altered, and we escape our everyday worries.  All of our energy is focused on the task at hand.  Can you consider that a positive thing your life?  I think, yes.

Games, no matter what type or how many competitors, have one thing in common.  They all have set rules that you need to follow in order to play.  We are also using our brains for focus and concentration to improve our skills in order to beat our opponent or our previous record faster than before.  Can this also be said of how we live our lives?  I think, yes.  Our daily life is a race that needs focus and concentration.  In this respect, we are all athletes and that IS something that the Bible tells us about.  “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1)  What is that race?  Our lives.  How do we run it?  “Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.  They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we are imperishable.” (1 Corinthians 9:25)  We must have self-control because we live our life to God.  In this way, we receive the best prize of all, eternal life.  Unfortunately, not all run the race the same way, according to the rules.  “An athlete is now crowned unless he competes according to the rules.” (2 Timothy 2:5)  In this chapter, Timothy talks about being a good soldier of Jesus Christ.  This means we should share in his suffering.  He goes on to say that, along with the athlete, the soldier’s aim is to please the enlisting officer, and the farmer that does the work should have the first share of the crops.  Many try to find loopholes and ways to excuse their ‘playing of the game’.  They don’t find out until too late that this doesn’t work.  I pray that when it’s my time to join the heavenly realm, I can truthfully say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  (2 Timothy 4:7)

As I mentioned before, there was a pastor (can’t remember his name) that did a 4-part sermon series about relating games to our faith.  I’ve been recounting them along with adding some of my thoughts.  The last sermon in his series was a football game that’s played on a Game Boy.  My interest is not in football so for my final one, I decided to update a children’s devotion that I wrote years ago involving the game, Operation.  This is the adult version…

Wouldn’t it be great if we never got sick?  Can you imagine feeling great all the time, every day?  I personally can’t remember the last day I had that was pain free but that’s the price of growing older.  However, even when we feel really good, we’re still sick with sin.  As we go through our daily lives, we accumulate more and more sin.  These sins are represented by the little pieces that go into the holes on the game board that we think we need to fill to make our lives complete. 

We begin with the Adam’s apple.  This represents our original sin from the first man and the fruit that was taken against God’s Word.  The next is the spare rib which also represents original sin in the form of the woman who was made from the rib of man.  Then what about the deadly sins? 

Bread basket = gluttony

Funny bone = pride

Writer’s cramp = greed

Wrenched ankle = sloth (after all, how much do you move with a busted ankle?)

Butterflies in the stomach = lust (obviously, when you are near someone you find very attractive, where do you feel it?)

Broken heart = wrath (anger)  (Nothing breaks a heart faster than words or actions given in anger)

Wish bone = envy (Duh!)

Then there is the Water on the Knee, Charley Horse, and rubber band that connects the knee bone to the ankle bone.  I’ll be honest here…I’ve got nothing for these.  Then again, they didn’t consult with me before making the game. 

Back to what I was saying, do you see how we are soon filled with sin taking over every part of our body?  “What about the head?”, you say?  In 2004, Milton Bradley held a contest to let fans choose a new piece to be added to the game.  It was an ice cream cone in the head to refer to the brain freeze you get from eating or drinking something cold too fast.  So, we are filled with sin from head to toe. It’s like a cancer that grows in us for years without us realizing it.   What do we do now?  There is no chemo for sin.  I can try to remove my sin by doing more good works, repenting, giving more money to church, fasting, etc. but does any of it work?  No.  When we try to get rid of sin by removing it from our body, we only get zapped like the game.  It just doesn’t work.  The Bible says, “When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”  (Matthew 9:11-12) 

Jesus is our great Physician.  He took all our sins away and got the greatest ZAP!! in doing it.  When He died on the cross and rose again, His resurrection resulted in God only seeing us as a holy person, without sin.  “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.  By his wounds you have been healed.”  (1 Peter 2:24)  Our bodies might have pain and misery while here on earth.  Sometimes we feel that we are the only one with troubles and problems but that is a condition that affects everyone on earth.  Regardless of the pain our bodies have, through faith in Christ, our soul is healed and will live forever with Him.  All we have to do is hang on and enjoy the time we have here, helping others focus not on their pain but on the healing of their souls by the Great Physician.  Amen.

The game, Battleship, is a game of war in which you try to sink the battleships that your opponent has before they can sink yours.  Even though it’s a game, it is yet another way to visualize the daily battles we face as Christians.  

We acknowledge our daily struggle with sin (this is a never-ending battle that we face).  Because we struggle daily with sin, we must be careful of the danger of failing to acknowledge its existence and living in “open sin”.  So often, it is such a part of our lives that we don’t see it as a battle any longer.  It’s only another part of life. 

You may find this hard to believe but the majority of American Christians do not believe that Satan is a real being or that the Holy Spirit is a living entity.  Nearly six out of ten Christians surveyed agreed with the statement that Satan "is not a living being but is a symbol of evil".   In contrast, about 35 per cent of American Christians believe Satan is very real.  Interestingly, the majority of Christians believe a person can be under the influence of spiritual forces, such as demons or evil spirits, even though many of these same people believe Satan is merely a symbol of evil.  (Tell me how that makes any sense.  Humans can truly twist anything into “fact”).    

Likewise, most Christians in the United States do not believe that the Holy Spirit is a living force. Fifty-eight percent agreed with the statement that the Holy Spirit is "a symbol of God's power or presence but is not a living entity."  Interestingly, about half (49 per cent) of those who agreed that the Holy Spirit is only a symbol but not a living entity, agreed that the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches. Strange, since the Bible states that the Holy Spirit is a member of the Triune God and not just symbolic.

Take the following quote:  "Hollywood has made evil accessible and tame, making Satan and demons less worrisome than the Bible suggests they really are. It's hard for achievement-driven, self-reliant, independent people to believe that their lives can be impacted by unseen forces."  Is this the excuse we give ourselves?  That’s like blaming video games for kids killing kids.  Come on people, lets put the blame where it belongs.  (But that’s a whole ‘nother blog.)

We battle against sin while on earth but thankfully the war for our soul was already won so that’s one less thing we have to worry about.  Jesus delivered us from the greatest power of evil ever, death itself.  He did this by dying on the cross and rising again, thus beating death.  Just to make sure we understood and didn’t look for a loophole, He also battled the devil by being tempted.  This was also done to show us what to do when Satan comes after us….and he will.

The main thrust behind all three of the devil’s temptations was to get Jesus to use His power to prove who He was.  Jesus uses the Word as His weapon.  This tells us that God’s Word is all we need as well.  If you look at the armor of God, the only weapon mentioned is the sword.  Everything else is for protection. 

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  (Ephesians 6:10-17)

Just like you can only lose weight by exercising, you can only fight against the devil with the Word of God by studying it.  If you don’t know it, you can’t use it.  I don’t know of any surveys done on this but I think it’s safe to say that most Christians believe that Satan is everywhere just like God is.  He’s not.  He is one evil angel that can only be one place at a time, just like us.  I’ve surprised many lifetime Christians with this fact.  Just because he might be in China or Africa right now though, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have other evil angels working on us here.  One evil is the same as another and we have to battle them all.  So grab your Bible and suit up!

I love a sermon series with an interesting theme.  Every once in a while, especially during Lent or Advent, pastors will group sermons together with a specific theme to fit the time of year or what’s going on in the world, etc.  A friend of mine in college told me her pastor once did a sermon series on board games.  That sounded very interesting to me so I looked up his sermons.  The next few posts will be summaries of those sermons along with other points that I would like to note. 

Don’t Wake Daddy

This is a board game for small children.  There is a bed in the middle of the board with a ‘daddy’ wearing a nightcap lying on it.  Kids must move their pieces around dad’s bed to get from their bedroom to the kitchen for a snack without stepping on the cat’s tail or tripping over roller skates left lying around, etc.  If daddy catches you, you must go back to bed and start over. 

Even though this game is for ages 3+, we still play it every day, don’t we?  As God’s children, we often find ourselves out late at night in places we ought not to be, doing things we ought not to do.  Why in secret?  We don’t want to wake our Divine Daddy and get caught, or worse, get punished.  After all, it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?  Thinking that way is a sure sign that you’re about to do the wrong thing.  The first thought that comes to mind when you think of sneaky behavior is the first time it happened.  God’s first children made a big mistake and tried to hide so God wouldn’t find out.  (Genesis 3:6-8)  Of course, this happens many more times in the Bible where someone thought they could hide items or themselves for selfish reasons and continues to happen millions of times every day.

We try to hide our sins from both other people and our heavenly Father as well.  We rationalize our actions very easily by saying it hurts no one.  Then why hide it?  “And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.” (Hebrews 4:13)  We’re not really hiding from anyone but each other.  So what matters more?  Things you hide from other people or things you think you can hide from God?  Some would say, “Oh, but you’re not referring to me.  I don’t have any bad magazines hidden under my bed or secret bank accounts.”  What about the non-material things we hide?  We hide our feelings, our unhappiness, our inability to forgive, our pain, etc. all behind a smile and a cheery, “I’m fine!”  (I’ve heard that some families hide their true feelings so often that “I’m fine” has become their family motto.)

Back to the topic at hand…No matter how sneaky we are, we’re going to wake our divine Daddy over it.  “Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away?  Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord.  Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.”  (Jeremiah 23:23-24)  God is even in our brain and knows our every thought and secret.  So why do you try to keep it from Him?  Talk to Him about your secret sin and let Him help you.  He gave you family to help you as well so you can share your pain and grief freely without hiding behind yourself.  Even if they can’t help physically, they can pray for you.  That's the best kind of help there is.  Basically, whatever God has planned for you is much better than what you’re trying to hide from Him.  Give Him a chance.  You won’t regret it.

“We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.  The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.  So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:9-11)

This is a Bible passage that is incorporated into almost every Easter service somewhere.  I’ve heard it hundreds of times but never really thought about it.  A few small words hit me this year and made me stop to think…”death no longer has a hold over him”.  That means that at one point, death had power over God.  WHAT??!?!  I know there are things God can’t do but I never knew anything could have power over God.  God is all-powerful.  I needed to dig a little deeper.  The answer is found in the previous chapter.  Sin came into the world through Adam and death came through sin.  So everyone is born sinful and will die one day because of it.  Death ruled over everyone that came from Adam, including Jesus.  He was 100% God and 100% man so as true man, even though He didn’t sin, death ruled over Him.  Jesus’ death was a one-time thing.  When He rose from the grave, he defeated death.  There will be no re-match. 

It’s often mentioned at Easter that Jesus left his grave clothes in the grave.  Remember when He raised Lazarus from the grave?  Jesus told the women to unwrap him.  He came out with his grave clothes on because he would be needing them again eventually.  Jesus never will need His again.  Read Romans 5:12-21.  It says over and over that because sin affects every man, Jesus’ resurrection will justify or save every man.  Once and for all.  Our bodies will die but we will not suffer an eternal death (away from God).  This type of eternal death can never rule over a believer.  We are of course, still capable of sin but with God, there is forgiveness, life, and salvation. 

The second part says He rose to live to God…to receive the glory that was set before Him.  When other people were raised from the dead, they returned to the same life they had before.  Jesus rose to leave this world and return to the Father to rule with Him.  Because we are saved, we must rise to live with God.  This is what is meant by “newness of life”.  To live by other principles, other rules, other purposes than what we had before.  A life devoted to God is a new life where your focus on yourself is no longer an option.  We must make Him the center of our actions.

Just an FYI, in case you caught that in the first paragraph about things God can’t do.  I may have mentioned it before but it bears repeating.  It’s true.  Our all-knowing, all-powerful God cannot lie, go back on His word, forget His promises, or anything that results from sin.  These are all things that we’ve come to expect from each other because we are sinful.  It’s hard for us to imagine anyone that we can trust so implicitly to never let us down, lie to us, cheat us, etc.  But we can because the Bible says so, “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.  Has he said, and will he not do it?  Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19)  The Bible says it.  I believe it.  Amen.  

On vacation......

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”  How many times have we heard that or said it ourselves?  The first thought that usually comes to believers is the story of Thomas.  The other disciples said they saw Jesus after his death but Thomas would not believe until he saw for himself.  It’s really a shame that this is what Thomas is remembered for.  Do you remember the story of Lazarus in John 11 when Jesus brought him back from the dead?  Jesus wanted to return to Judea to see where Lazarus was buried and visit with Mary & Martha.  The disciples begged him not to return because the Jews there wanted to stone Jesus.  It was Thomas that said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”  Instead of being labeled ‘Thomas the Brave’, he will forever be remembered as ‘Doubting Thomas’.  What a shame.

    This phrase of believing reminds me of my favorite scene in “The Santa Clause 2” movie where Charlie tries to convince his teacher that his father is really Santa Claus.  He tells her, “seeing is not believing, believing is seeing.”  Once she gets rid of her pre-conceived beliefs, she can see the real truth.  Likewise for us, once we believe and have our mind in the right mindset, the truth becomes more obvious.  We are more able to see God’s presence around us and how He works in our lives.  God transcends logic so you can’t use human logic and reasoning to define God and put Him in a box to better understand Him.  That’s where most people run into trouble.  They are convinced they already know the truth about life so why should they change their belief based on something that can’t be seen with the naked eye?  Through the Word and Sacraments, we receive the eyes of faith that we need to not only grow our faith but spread to others.

What those people that require proof don’t realize is that seeing is deceiving; faith is believing.  You can’t always believe what you see (ex: television, magic tricks, optical illusions, etc.).  If you only live by sight, even God is confusing.  (ex: how can God be loving and merciful if there’s so much death and pain in the world?  How can He be everywhere at once? etc.)  Focusing only on things you can see will put you under Satan's control because that’s what Satan wants us to be – confused.  In 2 Corinthians 5:7, Paul says we, as Christians, live by faith and not by sight.  Having faith puts your head in the clouds with God.  Back in the 70’s, a famous radio personality, Kasey Kasem, always ended his program with this saying:  “Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.”  As a Christian, unless you have your head in the clouds, you’ll never be able to walk firmly on the earth.

I’ve mentioned before that parables are earthly stories with a heavenly meaning.  Merriam-Webster defines them as short, fictious stories that illustrate a religious principle and provide an instructive example or lesson.  That’s a long way of saying ‘a comparison’.

Take the following parable for example. 

The Parable of the Popcorn

Behold at the time of harvest, the ears of corn did bring forth kernels which were dried and prepared for the popper’s hand.  And it was that the popper did take the kernels, all that did appear alike unto him, and applied the oil and the heat.  And it came to pass that when the heat was on, some did explode with promise and did magnify themselves a hundred fold.  And some did burst forth with whiteness which did both gladden the eye and satisfy the taste of the popper.  Behold, there were some that did lie there, and even though the popper’s heat was alike unto all, some did just bask in the oil and keep everything that they had unto themselves.  And so it came to pass that those which had given of themselves did bring forth much joy and delight to many munchers.  But those which kept of the warmth and did not bring forth were only cast unto the pail and thought of with hardness and disgust.  And thus we see that in the beginning, all appear alike, but when the heat is on, some come forth and give all, while others fall, their purpose as chaff, so as to be discarded and forgotten.

This parable IS NOT in the Bible.  It’s a joke. BUT, can you, as a believer, see any religious teachings in it?

We know that Jesus spoke in parables to the people in order to give the secrets of heaven to believers only and not those who rejected Him.  He didn’t purposely hide these secrets, but because the heart of an unbeliever is hard, they hid it from themselves.  He always explained parables later to the disciples so they, and we, would understand them and this knowledge would feed our faith.  He continues to reveal them to us through the Spirit. 

There are 46 parables in the Bible.  Many of them, you might not know was a parable and think actually happened.  Instead of going into detail about them individually, I’d like to go into their purpose. 

1. They make truth concrete.  Many times we tend to judge a book by its cover.  Unbelievers would do this with parables by taking them at face value but Jesus’ explanation would make it something solid for us.

2. Use here and now to get there and then.  We cannot possibly imagine what heaven will look like without some reference here on earth for our minds to grasp.  Parables explain the unknown with what is known.  (See Revelation 21:18-21 for an image of the New Jerusalem we will live in for eternity.)

3. Compel interest.  They are more than sermons.  They are Godly stories.  People love hearing stories.

4. Compel the hearer to discover the truth for himself.  The parable makes the answer clear, but you have to still think about it.  There’s more to it than what you first think.  Every time I study the parable of the Prodigal Son, I learn something new.  It’s like there’s no end to the different meanings behind the words.

5. Conceal the truth from those who don’t want it.  Just as in Bible times, those who are self-blinded, won’t get it.

6. Were spoken.  They weren’t written down so they could be analyzed but were passed down verbally from generation to generation.  They were eventually written down and included in the Bible for our benefit. 

It makes me wonder how much we would know or understand about God today if His teachings were passed down generation by generation by speech alone like in Old Testament times…???  Nah.  I can see God saying, “somebody write this stuff down, they’ll never remember it all.”  Thank you God for that!!

Gallagher was an American comedian whose act included smashing watermelons at the end of every show with his trusty sledge hammer, the Sledge-O-Matic.  Thousands of people went to see him, not for the watermelon smashing but for his ideas.  He had a unique way of making you think about the world around you.  He did a show once on having “new eyes” which means seeing the world around you in a different way.  He loved learning from children because they all have new eyes.  At his home one day, the UPS man came to the door of their home; Gallagher gave him a package and he left.  His daughter asked him, “Who was that?”.  He replied, “The UPS man”.  “How do you know?” she asked.  She had new eyes and didn’t take things at face value or with the understanding that adults have. 

My grandson, Aiden, has the same new eyes.  While watching a lighting storm, he remarked, “Look, there are cracks in the sky!”  I never noticed that before.  My bathtub faucet has handles instead of knobs.  He loves to play with them because you can turn them on full force and off again in less than a second.  While playing, he told me, “Look Oma, the bathtub threw up!”  How amazing it must be to see all these mysteries of life with new and fresh eyes.

To better understand the mysteries of God, we should see our lives with the eyes of our heart.  This is explained in Ephesians 1:17-19:  17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.

It's easy to look at the things in this world and only focus on the negative (I don’t need to elaborate here, you know what’s negative in this world).  Through the study of God’s Word, we are able to see with new eyes and not focus on what our physical eyes see.  What our physical eyes see is temporary but what cannot be seen is eternal.  Our new eyes, through faith, show us the power of Christ to change all men.  Did you already know this?  What is old news for us may be something completely new to someone else.  New eyes start with us telling those who have lost heart about our hope that with Christ, things will improve.  The one who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also raise us (believers) on the Last Day.  The Bible says, “I believed, and so I spoke”.  Do you believe?  Do you speak? 

There’s nothing that gets me more excited in a Bible Study than finding out something new about a passage that I’ve read dozens of times before…seeing it from a different perspective.  This happened to me this past week when I read an upcoming sermon on John 2:13-16.  It’s the story of Jesus getting angry.  See for yourself…

13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

What’s so bad about that?  The people had to make sacrifices but could only buy animals for sacrifice with temple money. They had to convert their money to temple money.  In this temple courtyard, the same animals were being sold over and over.  The people were being cheated in this way and by the moneychangers not converting their money correctly.  All this was being done in the Court of the Gentiles in the temple.  The people were taking advantage of the Gentiles because they didn’t know any better and were an easy target.

Who knew Jesus had such a temper?  He got angry enough to cause a big, violent uproar in the middle of the temple but he didn’t sin while doing it. 

Our minds have a difficult time understanding that because when we get angry, it’s a justifiable and a righteous anger.  When others are angry, it’s sinful.  At least, that’s how our minds twist it.  Our anger may start out righteous (which means “right with God”) but it’s a slippery slope to lies, hatred, gossip, etc. because our sinful nature wants it to be about us.

This story isn’t about our anger issues though.  It’s about God’s righteous anger over sin, all sin, our sin.  Jesus got angry but He was angry over the right things.  They were desecrating God’s house and His means of grace.  Sounds like God in the Old Testament, doesn’t it?  He gets angry over our sinning and there are earthquakes, famine, floods, war, slavery and death with the purpose of bringing us back to Him.  But Jesus is supposed to be all about love.  Here’s the clincher.  He wasn’t angry at the men doing these things.  He didn’t strike down the people doing the sinning.  He was angry at the sin in the world.  He pulled no punches when it came to making their sin known and how He felt about it but He didn’t punish them.  Did you catch that?  He only drove out the animals they were selling.  Look at the middle of verse 15.  It was His job to bear the punishment the men deserved.  And He would take the full punishment in about three years and right down the road from there while hanging on a cross.  He disciplined them like a father does with his children that he loves.  His anger had a purpose.  It was done out of love to call His children to repentance.  Christ’s anger had a life-saving, life-giving purpose and meaning.  So how do we show our gratitude for Christ taking our full and complete punishment?  Has true repentance changed your life or do you feel like you’re doing enough by going to church for 1 hour a week?  If that much…..

I think it was Jeff Foxworthy that said a woman's brain is like an 8-lane highway and a man's is like a little, dirt path.  Now, I can't speak for men but he was dead-on regarding women.  If a woman hasn't spoken in awhile and you ask her what's on her mind, if she gives you less than 4 different thoughts, she's holding out on you.  This is a GOOD thing.  Trust me, you're better off not knowing.  We can't control it.  We can't stop it.  We just deal with it....because we can.  

Sometimes however, it can make us a bit crazy.  Case in point, I've been a bit, (OK, a lot) preoccupied lately with my conscious vs. my health.  I can safely say we're all more health-conscious lately than we've been most of our lives but for a totally different reason.  The world is adapting to accommodate social distancing.  Some of us are taking advantage of it and others are doing whatever they want because they choose to believe the opposite of what the CDC says.  Honestly, how can we really know what to do when even they don't know what's going on?  But back to my preoccupation...

Church.  Do you go to church on Sunday or do you watch it online?  This is a serious topic that has literally kept me up at night.  There are pros and cons to both sides.  I've had family members get COVID from people they came into contact with at church.  Some Lutherans take communion only at church and others take the little bread/wine individually packaged sets home and take it as they watch the service online.  I don't have anyone to cover my job.  If I get quarantined, people go without a paycheck.  Pastors are trying to get butts back in the seats because if you stay gone from church too long, odds are you won't go back.  So what are we supposed to do?  Driving myself to the point of crazy, I finally talked with my friend and ex-pastor, Pastor Red.

He explained that I was not alone in my confusion.  He had gone over this with others and would likely go over it with still more people.  God gave us a brain and common sense for a reason.  If I'm not staying home just for the convenience; if I'm still watching the services and participating in the singing and responses and reading my Bible; if I'm genuinely scared for the sake of my health, it's OK to continue to watch services online.  The problem arises in that I can't take communion at home.  Some congregations do but the LCMS teaches that communion was instituted by Jesus to be a union with Him and with each other.  If you're sitting at home by yourself, you're not with everyone else.  Some pastors set up times when a small group of people can gather safely and just take communion with each other.  That's great!  The point is, I shouldn't stress about going or not going as long as I'm still participating.  God gave us brains to take care of ourselves and He will guide us when it's safe for us to return.