Year: 2018

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Bible Challenge Week 44: The Church – to the Gentiles

The shocking death of Stephen acted like a catapult, flinging Christians out from Jerusalem in all directions.  That was God’s purpose, to carry out the next stage of his plan.  That next stage shouldn’t have been a surprise–the LORD had been hinting about it at least as far back as Abraham: “In you all nations shall be blessed.”  Prophets from Jonah to Isaiah had prophesied about God’s mercy extending beyond the Jews, out to “the nations.”  But as usual, the disciples were slow to catch on, including Peter.

What God is about to do will cause anger, confusion and bewilderment . . and finally acceptance.  In the 2000 years since, all nations have indeed been blessed.

To find out more, click below for the printable .pdf, with scripture references, discussion questions, and activities:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 44: The Church – To the Gentiles

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 43: The Church – From Jerusalem to Samaria

Next: Week 45: The Church – To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth

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Take Their Place–or Take YOUR Place?

Here’s a little vignette from higher education: In the surgical theater of one of the teaching hospitals at Harvard medical school, several portraits of prominent physicians will be removed from their current grouping and placed elsewhere. The decision is more political (for lack of a better word) than aesthetic.  The docs are white and male, and all that massed masculine whiteness is intimidating to women.  Not that any female residents have complained; it seems to be an ideological decision.Image result for Harvard medical school teaching hospital portraits removed

The men so honored are described as pioneers of medicine, going back to the days when the profession was all but exclusively male.  There were reasons for that, besides discrimination.  Discrimination certainly existed–most of these men were only a generation removed from a time when women were considered less rational, intelligent, stable, and hardy than men.  But practically speaking, only a hundred years ago it would have been hard to be married (as most women were) and a full-time physician.  It would have been impossible to bear and raise children (as most women did) and work as a full-time physician.  One requirement of pioneering is being first to show up for it.

Now many more women are involved in medicine because they can be.  They can even be pioneers.  The way to encourage them is not to remove the old pioneers from places they earned, but to encourage new ones to take their own places.  There’s more than one way to look at an assembly of faces that seem to be too much of one color or sex.  You can see those white-coated authority figures, however pleasant they appear, as old curmudgeons keeping you down–even if many of them are currently six feet under.  Or you can see them as leading the way.  For you.  The former is solipsistic and limiting: history really isn’t about you, sister.  The latter is inspirational and challenging–you go, girl!  That surgical procedure developed by Dr. X, that tool designed by Dr. Y, sets you up for taking the next step forward.

The main hallway of my local hospital is lined with photos of the resident physicians.  Most of them are white and male, but more and more women are taking their places among them.  That will continue, and the pioneering business will continue as well–but not by stomping old pioneers out of memory.

 

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Who Needs Air Conditioning?

Seen on the Federalist website: “I Gave up Air Conditioning this Summer to Live within My Means.  America Should Try That.”

Good for you, pal.  He’s in his twenties, vigorous and healthy and feeling great after a camping trip during which temps got down in the forties at night and high eighties during the day.  I’m in my sixties and I just got back from a camping trip during which it got no cooler than 73 with something like 100% humidity, and I feel pretty good, too.  (Did you catch the discernable trace of conservative virtue-signaling?)

I could do without A/C if I had to.  We did do without it for years, partly for economy’s sake.  I’ve spent summers in Texas without A/C—all of them, while growing up, and one while I was pregnant.  We’ve lived through summers in Tennessee and Kansas and rural Missouri without it, sweating out a few uncomfortable nights and very long afternoons.  Survival takes some strategic planning, such as

  • Put a couple of feet of insulation in the attic, along with an attic fan.
  • After sundown, turn on the attic fan and open the windows.  In the morning, turn off the fan, shut the windows and pull down the shades.
  • Fill up a one-to-two-gallon thermos jug with ice and cold water in the morning and drink from it during the day to save the fridge.
  • If you bake or can (I used to do both), wait until the attic fan is on   You’ll be up late, but that will give you an excuse to sleep late.
  • Use your outdoor grill for some of your cooking and a toaster oven, electric skillet, or hot plate for the rest, plugged into the electric socket on the porch.
  • Don’t use your drier—put up a clothesline.
  • Do most of your outside work in the morning and save indoor sedentary tasks for the afternoon, under the ceiling fan with bottomless ice tea.
  • Adjust.  Your body is made for it.

Though grateful for the A/C now—mostly—I still kind of dread the day in late spring when it goes on, because it won’t go off until early fall.  That groan when it kicks on, the steady rumble while it’s going, the barrier that blocks the summer night and fresh air, the nervous rattle of loose objects on the stove—I don’t like any of that.  I don’t like the dependency.  I don’t like being boxed.

These are personal preferences, and maybe some pokes at first-world guilt. At first glance, Air Conditioning appears to be one of the few technologies with almost no downside.  The title of an American Heritage article from 1984, “How Air Conditioning Changed Everything,” is only a slight exaggeration.  A/C made Florida and Las Vegas possible (a mixed blessing?), along with summer movie blockbusters, indoor sleeping, and year-long factory production.  It leveraged hospital deaths and ameliorated tropical diseases.

But it also created isolation and dependency.  We no longer get to know our neighbors by strolling at dusk and stopping to chat at the porch or stoop.  And when the grid shuts down it can be devastating.  Does anybody remember the Chicago heat wave of 1995?  Most of the 700+ deaths were due to older people “air conditioned” to stay inside, and so accustomed to confinement they were afraid to go out.  With the benefit of life-changing tech, we forget how to cope, and we forget a little more with each succeeding generation.  I can survive with A/C but not without electrical power.  My kids in Clark County, Nevada, would be seriously threatened is their A/C went out, but they could get by without their smartphones.  Will my grandchildren be able to cope without their phones?  Maybe, but research about phone addition indicates it might not be easy.

Technology gives and it takes away, the saying goes.  As the pinnacle lifts us higher from earth and its earthy problems and joys, I have to wonder if we’re jacking ourselves up for a big fall.

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Bible Challenge Week 43: The Church – From Jerusalem to Samaria

The church is growing because the gospel is spreading.  But just what is “the gospel”?  There’s a lot of confusion about that today, just as there was in the first century.  And just as there is in today’s church, the first-century church faced its problems.  Some of them were unique to those early days, but other problems are still with us: hypocrisy, glory-seeking, false teaching, and sudden, wrenching losses.  You would think that twelve divinely-appointed and sanctified apostles, who had spent the last three years with Jesus himself, would be able to run things perfectly.  In some ways it’s a reassurance to know that even the best, most saintly saints can’t do everything right.

It’s reassuring because the growth of the church didn’t depend on them.  Who was really in charge?

Click below for a printable download with scripture passages, thought questions, and family activities:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 43: The Church – From Jerusalem to Samaria

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 42: The Church – He’s Alive!

Next: Week 44: The Church – To the Gentiles

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Should I Expect Thanks?

UPDATE: Hey, Science backs me up! “You Should Actually Send That Thank-You Note You’ve Been Meaning to Write.”

Here’s what I’m seeing more and more, even among young, solid, sound Christian young people (and young people edging toward middle-age): Christmas is coming, or a birthday, or graduation.  I sound them out on what they might like, or ask someone who should know.  I research gifts and plot how to pay for them.  I might even make something.  I scrape together the money, buy the gift, wrap it, send it.  And I get no word in reply.

Sometimes I ask, did you get the present I sent?  Sometimes packages get lost, or emails bearing gift cards get buried.  Usually the answer is, Oh yeah!  Sorry, it slipped my mind.  Thanks!

Sure; everybody forgets—I have forgotten to write that note or make that call myself, so I shouldn’t be pointing fingers.  But I see my carelessness as a fault, whereas I’m not sure everybody does.

My question is, when something occupies my mind for a significant period, and takes an investment in time and money and (sometimes) presentation—doesn’t that deserve a piece of the recipient’s mind, a piece that doesn’t slip?  Do I deserve thanks?

My Calvinist daemon shakes its head no; dangerous territory, to think I deserve anything.  My natural self urges yes.  Maybe there’s a compromise: I don’t deserve thanks.  But . . .

Am I owed it?  Like I would be owed a paycheck for contracted work?  But gift-giving isn’t contracted; just the opposite.  It’s to supposed to be without obligation.

Do I need it?  Maybe closer to the truth, but not quite true.  I would certainly like to know if the gift arrived, that it didn’t get lost in the mad rush to unwrap presents and that it was (somewhat? a little?) appreciated.

Should I expect it?  Well . . . maybe, but expecting anything still sounds like strings attached: I do this for you, you’d better do something in return, even if it’s just a simple “thank you.” Not that we’re playing tit for tat, and don’t you hate it when people feel like they have give you something of equal value whenever you do anything for them?  So expectation doesn’t quite fit either.

Could it be that a gift isn’t complete unless it’s received and acknowledged?

Maybe it’s like this: a gift isn’t complete unless it’s received and acknowledged.  It’s still a gift, because of the giver, but something needs to come back to the giver for the circle to be closed.  Otherwise all the questions are just hanging out there: Did you get it? Do you like it? Can you use it?  A work of art is unfulfilled without an audience, an act of mercy must be received—even fixing a drain under the sink is pointless unless the sink is promptly used with gratitude (and the plumber is paid).

“It’s the thought that counts” works both ways.

Yes, we get busy and forgetful.  But I wonder if thank-yous are even a thing for younger people—do they want thanks when they give?  Or do their lives move too fast for either giving or receiving? If so, their lives move too fast, period.

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Always In Between

Do you have a “trip from hell” travel story?  Mine occurred over ten years ago, when I was trying to get from Vienna to Missouri using my status as a USAirways employee next-of-kin.  It’s too convoluted to recount in full, but it began with an accidental upgrade on the train from Vienna to Frankfort (that I didn’t pay for) and ended with me on a plane to DesMoines, which was not my destination.  (I got off before the plane left the ground.)  The forty-odd hours of delays, close or missed calls, deprivations and misunderstandings didn’t seem funny at the time.  But from that experience comes one solid piece of advice: when you are stuck in an airport for several hours because of a missed connection due to a delayed flight, find the chapel, open a Bible, and get a grip.

Chances are your place of refuge will be an inter-faith sanctuary that tries to accommodate everybody: the chapel I found in the Pittsburg airport scheduled Mass every morning, marked off a special praying area on the carpet for Muslim knees, and asked nothing of visitors but silence, so that fellow travelers could commune with their personal spiritual reality in peace.  But the deepest imprint on the chapel was left by Christians, as I discovered while paging through the prayer journal on the lectern.  Most of the entries expressed faith in Jesus Christ while sharing their burdens or giving thanks.  Reading over them was like traveling alongside for a while.

In fact, we’re always traveling alongside: these are the people crammed three abreast on Boeing jets, sharing processed air and hugging their bit of private space.  We know them, because we are them.  The prayer journal revealed their hearts:

“Thank you Father for this peaceful place and this beautiful day.”

“Lord, please show me if Michelle is the one for me . . .”

“Please pray that this last visit with my dad will be special. I love you Dad–thanks for everything.”

Amid the outcries and the gratitude, I found this fleeting prayer: “. . . and bless those who are in between where they need to be.”

It’s the cry of travelers the world over–I’m here and I need to be there.  Oh for wings like an eagle, that I could soar above all that unyielding space that stands in my way.  Or a divine bow to shoot me straight home, piercing the hours and the miles.

That’s our wish, even while acknowledging that we’ll never truly arrive.  In between–thought and deed, fact and expectation, doubt and assurance, heaven and earth–is where most of us spend our lives.

Abraham was never home.  The Israelites wandered for years, and after settling in Canaan, travel became part of worship.  Psalms 120-134 is the songbook for such journeys (and more edifying than “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.”)  Most of the teaching in the synoptic gospels takes place after Christ “set his face to go to Jerusalem”–including the story of the youth who traveled to a far country, squandered his inheritance and made his painful way back home.  Paul, that epic traveler of the New Testament, set out for Rome and found himself seriously “in between” on the island of Malta.

We know we are strangers and exiles on the earth, and our journeys from here to there are metaphors for a life lived in expectation of heaven.  Of course we tend to forget it, but on that trip I was blessed by a timely reminder.

While I was still reading the prayer journal in the airport chapel, the door opened and an airline employee entered with a guitar.  He nodded to me in the wary way of strangers, then took a seat, turned his instrument and began singing praise choruses.  After a moment I joined in on the ones I knew, and just like that, we were no longer strangers.  Soon three more employees joined us, then two other travelers.  The songs gained energy and conviction, especially “This love (joy, peace) that I have–The world didn’t give it and the world can’t take it away.”  At the end of the song service, before continuing on our separate ways, we took a moment to shake hands with special warmth.  Like the pilgrims of Psalm 84, “in whose heart are the highways to Zion”, we had passed through the Valley of Baca and found it a place of springs.  And the very place, providentially, where we needed to be.

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Bible Challenge Week 42: The Church – He’s Alive!

If the main character of the Old Testament is Yahweh, the main character of gospels is, of course, Jesus Christ.  But the  main character of the “Acts of the Apostles” is not the apostles–not even Peter and Paul.  It’s the Holy Spirit, or the third Person of the Trinity, who completes the work of salvation in the disciples of Jesus and goes on to make more disciples: “First in Jerusalem, then in Samaria, and on to the uttermost parts of the earth.”

When we last saw the handful of disciples that were left after their leader’s shocking death–about 120 of them–they were disheartened and bereft, but still together.  Two stunning events are about to occur, which will turn not only their lives upside down, but alter the history of the world.

What were they?  Click below to find out:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 42: The Church – He’s Alive!

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 41: Messiah – The Lamb of God

Next: Week 43: The Church – From Jerusalem to Samaria

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Wordcraft and Warcraft

Rasmussen Reports published a poll on June 27 that got some wide reportage: apparently, 31% of Americans believe civil war is likely within the next 5 years.  But 60% said, “Nah, don’t worry about it.”  Almost that many pointed to opposition to Donald Trump’s policies as the spark to violence.  That’s interesting—not the President’s policies themselves, but opposition to.  I do have to wonder: when does overheated rhetoric become war?

The campus free-speech battles going on now are based on a premise that speech is violence: sticks, speech, and stones break my bones.  I think it’s interesting that those more sensitive to verbal violence use the most violent words: Nazi, Fascist, bigot, racist, and much worse.  In the infamous Charles Murray incident on the Middlebury campus last year, intemperate speech did lead to violence, but it wasn’t Charles Murray’s.  He didn’t speak.  They shouted him down.

The shouters do have a point, even though they misapply it: speech can be violence.  Speech can also be love, temperance, pain, incentive, construction, inspiration, peace, and war.  Words come so easily to most of us we forget where they come from and what they can do.

Where they come from is God.  What they can do it create.

It’s no mere metaphor that Genesis 1 shows a Creator who creates by speaking.  “Let there be” introduces a host of articulations that spin off untold quadrillions of particles, elements, classes, phyla, and species.  That’s him–but for us it’s not all that different.  Words are puffs of air—sounds shaped by breath and spit that ride on invisible waves to reach someone’s ear, where tiny bones and membranes convey them to nerves and synapses.  This is a common-as-dirt example of the spiritual becoming material, as it did when “Let there be light” produced energy waves.

We see the same thing happen when Jerk! or Racist pig! or much more graphic terms produce a punch in the nose.

It’s easy to destroy with words; that’s why sins of the tongue get much more coverage in the Bible than any other kind.  James 3 is only one example; you can open up the Psalms anywhere and find

The rules take counsel together, saying . .

He will speak to them in his wrath . . .

How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?

Give ear to my words O Lord

You destroy those who speak lies

For there is no truth in their mouths;

They flatter with their tongues . . .

(A random selection from Psalms 1-5)

And why does Jesus say we’ll be held accountable for every word we speak?  We act as though he didn’t really mean it.  Though if anyone would mean what he says, Jesus would.

Destructive words are easy, quick, and effective.  Constructive words are not as easy or quick, but can be just as effective.  Back to the Bible:

Your sins are forgiven.  

How great is the Father’s love, that we should be called the children of God.  And so we are!  (I John 3:1)

Those who were not my people I will call “my people.” (Hosea 1:10)

He called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (I Peter 2:9)

Words create—on legal contracts, peace negotiations, architectural blueprints, declarations and speeches.  Families begin with them, cities rise on them, churches are sustained by them, peace returns with them, hope rises on them.

Words are always on our tongues to say, hurtful and helpful.  Enough of them can cause a shooting war; it’s happened before.  But enough of the right words can restore peace.

People are walking toward you every day; whether on the street or in your home or even in your head.  What words do you have for them?

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Bible Challenge 41: Messiah – The Lamb of God

It’s been a roller-coaster week.  After whining and complaining about his triumphant entry into the city, Jesus’ enemies have been trying to catch him in a verbal stumble, but he’s always a step ahead of them. They are almost in despair until an opportunity opens: unbeknownst to them, a greater enemy has entered on the scene, and the supposed Messiah now has a new struggle to face.  The greatest one of his life.

To find out who it was, and to download the free .pdf, with scripture passages, discussion/though questions, and family-centered activities click below:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 41: Messiah – The Lamb of God

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 40: Messiah – The Last Days

Next: Week 42: The Church – He’s Alive!

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The Verbiness of God

Look at the verbs, Bible teachers say: see what God does and has done.  The first seven verses of Romans are loaded with verbiness.  When he is not the subject doing the action, he is the force acting upon the subject.  God is not only a verb, of course–he not only acts, but he is (which makes him more of a sentence).  But his continual, effective, neverending doing should prompt us to cease our own continual (less effective) doing once in a while to reflect on what’s going on around us and in us.

  • He calls (Romans 1:1, 6, 7).  If you ever heard him, if the stream-of-consciousness in your head has ever been altered by what you hear, either of or from him, he’s calling you.  You personally, with your own hangups and complications.  You heard him, not in some abstract or intellectual framework, but because he was calling you to belong to Christ.  To be a saint, meaning
  • He sets apart (vs. 1).  Paul applies the verb to himself, but to be a saint is to be set apart.  If you are in Christ, this means you!  Outwardly there may be nothing special about you.  Inwardly, you may have failed at all the goals you set for yourself.  But his aim for you still stands: whether you feel it or not, you are a saint.  You exist a little above the commonplace.  You may feel invisible, but to him you’re walking around in a beam of light.
  • He promises (vs. 2).  And a promise from him is as good as done.
  • He descends (“was descended,” vs. 2).  In those numbing genealogies in Genesis and I Chronicles he was descending, laying out the bloodlines that he would follow until he came to rest in a Galilean girl.  Until then, descending in smoke and fire, in word and command, in judgment and mercy.  Since then, descending in the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit.  Always descending, because that’s the only way to reach us.
  • He declares (vs. 4).  “These things were not done in a corner,” Paul reminded King Agrippa.  Nor are they the property of the enlightened.  The declaration is for everyone who hears it: Jesus is Lord, the way to God, the means of forgiveness.
  • He gives (vs. 5).  An implied verb, because Paul and his fellow apostles received the grace and the office to preach.  As all preachers do.  As all witnesses do.  As all of us do.
  • He brings about faith and obedience (vs. 5).  Look around you.  How many people on the street, in their cars, in the grocery store–how many do you suppose have faith in God?  Not an airy belief but a conviction that guides their decisions and choices?  How many of them would believe you, if you shared your faith with them, simply on the basis of your testimony?  None of them.  Faith happens when he brings it about, and obedience is the proof.
  • He loves (vs. 7).  Not a fond inclination or a benevolent state of mind, but a searching, busy, can’t-leave-well-enough-alone love that will not let us go.  His love wants better for us than we want for ourselves and will go–literally–to the ends of the earth to secure it.  I like the Paul puts “love” last, after all those other active verbs.  This love has muscle, backed up by everything that went before.  What more proof do we need?