BIBLE PROJECT

If you haven't come across this already, here's an incredible resource you need to check out:

Bibleproject.com

Their mission is "to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus." There are links to podcasts and articles, but the most helpful resource is a growing series of animated videos.

These videos are typically 5 to 10 minutes long and tackle everything from book overviews to exploration of recurring themes and explanations of various biblical genres.

And they are all done with excellence.

They are almost as addictive as cat videos - but a much more valuable use of time.

Here's the link: bibleproject.com. You'll thank me later. 

LIKE OIL

I don't know a lot about cars, but I know this much:

Oil needs to permeate every nook of the engine. If the oil is low, the engine might keep functioning for a time, but the friction will generate a lot more heat. As that heat builds, the oil will burn up faster. Once the oil runs dry, the whole engine locks up, breaks down, and becomes useless. 

As I am reading through the Apostle Paul's letters to the various newborn churches, it is clear that Church life has been fraught with difficulty and conflict from the beginning. 

MAYBE there was a short honeymoon era just after the flames of Pentecost, but soon enough there was plenty of greed, false teaching, and quarreling to go around.

It seems to me that Paul had high standards for the Church, but that he was also a realist. He knew there would be weeds sown among the wheat, spiritual infants needing milk, and gullible people unable to discern heresy from sound doctrine. 

Maybe this is why he began most of his letters with some variation of "Grace to you!"

Grace is to the Church what oil is to an engine. 

SEASONS

The other day I wrote about the way some people look for answers to their problems in the pages of Scripture as if God's word was some ancient Magic 8 Ball. 

This is not to imply that God cannot give us personal direction from His word, just that it is not wise to go cherry picking passages on which to base our choices. 

In the mid-90s, I was a few years out of college and working in LeMars, Iowa as a youth pastor. I had been in town for three and a half years and the church was having financial difficulties. My job had been reduced to a half-time position. 

I had taken on some hours at the local high school, patrolling the parking lot before the first bell and after the last and monitoring the study hall for several periods in between. 

To this day it remains one of the worst jobs I ever held.

One snowy morning I was on parking lot duty with my walkie talkie, doing my best to discourage any teenage driving hijinks, when I looked down to see something so mundane that it caught my attention.

I was walking over my own tracks in the snow - from the looks of it, for about the fifth or sixth time. My current tracks were indistinguishable from my earlier ones. It struck me that I was walking in circles and getting nowhere in particular, both literally in the parking lot and figuratively in life and ministry. 

Just then I became conscious of the honking of geese overhead. When I looked up, there was a great column of geese in the sky, the overlapping V formations stretching from one horizon to the other. 

Thousands of birds were passing over me for the next ten minutes and then these words popped into my head:

"To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven." (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

And in that moment, I knew God was telling me that it was time to move on. 

I didn't know it at the time, but my next stop was going to be Asbury Theological Seminary, one of the best moves of my life. 

HOW TRUE IT IS

In Acts 10, when the Lord gets Peter's attention with the sheet full of animals in order to introduce him to the Gentile soldier, Cornelius, it rocks Peter's world. 

Upon actually meeting Cornelius face to face and knowing - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that this appointment came straight from God, Peter said out loud in amazement: "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right." (Acts 10:34-35)

As it is translated in the NIV, that phrase - "how true it is" - makes it sound as if Peter thinks Truth has degrees: "This is VERY true!" 

Of course, it is not Truth itself that has degrees - it is Peter's comprehension which expands.

In Greek, it is all one word: katalambanomai. "I now truly understand." The root has the connotation of seizing something firmly to possess it.

If you had asked Peter the day before, "Does God show favoritism? Or does He accept men from all over as long as they fear Him and do right?", he would have said, "Of course God doesn't show favoritism."

He "knew" that.

After meeting Cornelius, though, what was previously Peter's belief now becomes his conviction! 

In Christian experience, there is nothing more exciting or fulfilling.

KEEP READING

Somebody has said: "If you want to speak to God, pray. If you want God to speak to you, read your Bible."

I think the intention here is to read carefully and with comprehension and not just to read until you find a verse that "God laid on my heart to confirm that I am moving in the right direction". 

I'm sorry, but the Bible isn't some Magic 8-Ball. 

If this is how we treat the Bible, it is time to grow up. 

Keep reading. 

DRIVING THROUGH THE WOODS ON A SNOWY MORNING

Last Sunday morning I was driving through a several inches of new snow to reach a church about 30 minutes drive from our house. I was scheduled to preach there, but I had never even stepped foot inside the building before. 

I had left in time to participate in the 9:30 Sunday school class before service at 10:30.

At least I would have been on time if it weren't for the snow. A couple of cars in the ditches certified the reality of the slippery conditions. The country roads I was driving were barely traveled and it was hard to tell where the center line lay.

My hands clenched the steering wheel tightly and my shoulders grew tense. 

Soon it was evident that my slowed pace meant I wasn't going to make it to Sunday school on time. 

About halfway to the church, this thought raced through my mind: Are you sure it starts at 9:30? Maybe it was 9:00?

I continued on, my mind now as overstrung as my body.

All of a sudden, I came around a bend and saw to my left ... a beautiful little stream with ice-cold water splashing over the rocks, looking like a Christmas card with all the new snow displayed on and under the otherwise barren trees on either bank.

It was a real Robert Frost moment. 

It seemed to me that God was trying to remind me that the stresses of life - which I take to be reality - are only real inside my head. 

For those who have eyes to see, the true reality is all around us, layered deep in beauty and joy.

Anyway, I made it to church on time.

HOLDING IT TOGETHER

In the past couple of years have you noticed the rise in talk about "multiverses" and "parallel universes", both in science and in pop culture?

If you are wondering where this is coming from, it is the latest attempt by secular scientists to avoid any conclusions that might point toward an all-powerful God. 

Recently, science has catalogued over a hundred laws and properties at work in our universe, interacting with each other in complex ways, and they are all "fine-tuned for life". If any one of them was even a fraction of a degree different, life would be an impossibility.

For example, "If the rate of the universe's expansion had been smaller by one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed and could not form or sustain life." (J.P. Moreland in Scientism and Secularism, p.146)

The probability of this "fine-tuning" occurring across 100 factors by pure chance is so astonishingly small that those in the know are left scratching their heads.

Of course, Christian theology can easily account for this reality. After all, we have an all-knowing, all-powerful Creator God.

Colossians 1:15-17 describes the Son of this God in these terms:

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."

Isn't that a curious phrase coming from Paul 2,000 years ago: "In Him all things hold together"?

But secular scientists can't go there - so some have retreated to the “many worlds hypothesis” where an infinite number of universes exist, each with a different assortment of laws. We just happen to exist in the one where they all came into perfect balance!

To be clear, there is zero evidence for such a hypothesis since a parallel universe has never been discovered, much less explored.

Still, some people find it easier to swallow a multiverse than to contemplate an omnipotent Creator.

Go figure.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

It is unwise to put too much weight on a first impression. 

A couple we know met through the internet. Today, Paul and Jen have been happily married for years, but their relationship was almost uprooted before it could even sprout. 

The culprit was Paul's jump to a faulty conclusion at the end of their first date. 

They had had a pleasant meal together, but as they walked to the restaurant's parking lot, Jen asked Paul, "So ... what kind of car do you drive?"

This was a test. Jen had dated her share of shallow men who - given half a chance - could talk endlessly about their fancy vehicles. Now she considered car talk a deal breaker. Paul was checking all the right boxes so far, so she wanted to make sure he wasn't one of those guys. 

Paul, who drove an unimpressive, old beater of a car, concluded from Jen's question, "This is not the girl for me." He was afraid to even show her what he was driving.

He had heard Jen's words as something like "I am very superficial and materialistic, and I am looking for a boyfriend with a sports car. Have you got one?" 

An interpretation 180 degrees in the wrong direction.

It was only by God's grace that there was a second date. 

THE ALGORITHM PROPHESIED?

2 Timothy 4:3 -

"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." 

How about what their eyes want to see?

Did the Apostle Paul just predict the ability of the algorithm to commandeer cognitive bias?! 😏

LOVERS OF ...

 In the Apostle Paul's list of how too many people are in these last days (found in the opening verses of 2 Timothy 3), he acknowledges that humans by nature are lovers. 

But our love is often disordered.

Five times Paul uses a construction for men being "Lovers of" something. In Greek these new words are formed by using "phil" (love) as a prefix.

According to Paul, there are 3 things that misguided people end up loving that they shouldn't. People become:

• Lovers of themselves = philautoi
• Lovers of money = philargyroi
• Lovers of pleasure = philedonoi

And when these things take first place in the heart, it is impossible to simultaneously become what we should be:

• Lovers of the good = philagathoi
• Lovers of God = philotheoi

It is easy to judge another person as living a life caught up in misdirected love.  Now and then, though, it is good to pause and question the direction of our own loves. 

LAST DAYS

This morning when I stretched out this list from 2 Timothy 3:1-5 of how people will be "in the last days", it made quite an impression on me. Take a look.

Paul warns Timothy: But mark this: 

There will be terrible times in the last days.

People will be:

• Lovers of themselves
• Lovers of money
• Boastful
• Proud
• Abusive 
• Disobedient to their parents
• Ungrateful
• Unholy
• Without love
• Unforgiving
• Slanderous
• Without self-control
• Brutal
• Not lovers of the good
• Treacherous
• Rash
• Conceited
• Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God
• Having a form of godliness - but denying its power.

Have nothing to do with them.

It is important to note that when Paul speaks of "the last days", he doesn't have in mind a handful of years or even decades immediately preceding the second coming of Christ. 

The fact that he is warning Timothy - 2,000 years ago - to have nothing to do with these sorts of people should disabuse us of that notion. 

From Paul's perspective, any of the years between Christ's ascension to heaven and his second coming qualify as "the last days". 

This is how some people are right now. We are living in the last days.

A PROFOUND MYSTERY

This week I got into a little YouTube comment debate with a hard-core fan of John MacArthur who didn't like my criticism of MacArthur's Calvinism. 

My original comment was an attempt to point out how Calvinists tend to redefine the word "sovereign":

"There have been numerous earthly kings who were "sovereign". This never meant that they determined every last thought, word, and action taking place in their kingdom."

My comment sat undisturbed for a month and a half until user "Og Make Fire! Fire Good!" came along to call me out on my wrong thinking:

Og responded: "Acts 2:23. [Jesus was "handed over to you (Jews) by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross."] God determined the sinful acts of those men. And He will also hold them accountable. We may not understand it, but those are the facts."

This is a layman's description of what Calvinists call "compatibilism".  In my mind, it is THE central problem in their system of thought: If God is determining everything that happens in His world, then He is by definition the first cause behind all actions, including all sins. 

Take for example a murderer's impulse to pull the trigger. Like everything else in the cosmos, this act was decreed by God before the foundation of the world.

After decreeing every movement and thought of the murderer throughout his life, including firing the gun, the Calvinist's God still holds the murderer responsible, unleashing His judgment and wrath upon him. 

Yet, somehow the hands of this deterministic God are clean. He is innocent and holy. 

The question is: How can those two things be compatible? 

Shouldn't it really be the opposite? Shouldn't the determining God be held to account for the murder and the man who wielded the weapon (at God's irresistible direction) be considered innocent?

This is a profound mystery! 

Now, when I say "This is a profound mystery", I am being sarcastic, but in fact the Calvinists say the same thing, only in dead seriousness: "It is a profound mystery how God is perfectly innocent and the man is guilty of vile sin."  

As Og says, "We may not understand it, but those are the facts."

Perhaps it will not surprise you to learn that over the course of our exchange, I could not convince Og that his "facts" were utterly illogical. 

After all, if John MacArthur said it, it must be true. 

CONVINCED

Today, a lifelong friend paid me a deposit to begin working with him on writing his book. 

For the past two years I have written a blog post a day - to convince myself I am a writer.

Somehow today's check was 100 times more convincing.

It's funny how that works. 

(Now all I have to do is write a book...) 

THE GOOD IS THERE

When we were first called to Haiti, we sacrificed many things. One of the first was our house. 

Two years before we even moved overseas, we moved out of our house in the hopes of paying down our debts before going to the mission field.

By fall of 2011, we were settled in with Melissa's mom and the house was empty. Some friends helped us get some fresh paint on the walls, and we advertised an Open House for a Sunday afternoon. 

On the big day we were excited. We were right in the center of God's will and he was going to work a financial miracle. We baked chocolate chip cookies to share with visitors and sat on the couch waiting for the doorbell to ring.  

We waited. 

And waited. 

From start to finish, not a single person walked through our door. 

We were devastated. And it made us question our calling. Where was God? Why didn't He sell our house for us?

We couldn't afford to lower the asking price without adding to our debt. 

So after a second failed Open House, we reluctantly replaced the "For Sale" sign with a "For Rent".

Honestly, being landlords was often a big, painful hassle. Especially once we were overseas! 

But ...

In April of 2020 when we unexpectedly left Haiti under the cloud of Covid (and other misfortune!), we arrived in Indiana tired and discouraged, but we were ecstatic to move back into the same house God had "failed" to sell for us. There was so much comfort in being "home". 

Our last renter - who had been in the house for over five years - had moved out 4 days before our arrival because he had inherited a house of his own upon his father's passing!

"In all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose", indeed. 

It may take a while for us to recognize the good, but it's there.

GOD'S GOOD

When I read in Romans 8:28 that God "works in all things to the good of those who love Him and who have been called according to His purposes", I have to ask: do I believe it?

I am trying to. We've been hit with some genuine financial concerns at a time when much of my extra effort is going toward developing writing skills and studying to earn a doctorate. 

Both of these are investments in future opportunities but they don't pay the bills right now. 

But I have a deep, abiding sense that both of these efforts are part of God's purpose for me, so I do trust that God is at work for our good in the present struggle. 

The only question is how much suffering will it entail in the short run?

STOPPING THE SPREAD

The Apostle Paul had much to say about false teachers.

Mostly what he said was "Beware of them!"

To Timothy, who had the responsibility of overseeing a local church body, Paul said - more than once - "When you find a false teacher in your midst, shut him down quickly." 

Immediate correction was important because otherwise "their teaching will spread like gangrene." (2 Timothy 2:17a)

It's a graphic simile. Gangrene is an infection resulting in the rotting of the extremities. Fingers, toes, even an entire limb, once alive - now clinically dead. 

And not coming back. 

But still attached. And spreading. 

The only means of saving the life of the body as a whole is amputation of the infected area. 

As an example of gangrene, Paul cites "Hymenaeus and Philetus who have wandered from the truth." (2 Tim 2:17b) 

Their false teaching? "They say the resurrection has already taken place and they destroy the faith of some." (2 Tim 2:18)

Obviously, by "the resurrection", they were not talking about the resurrection of Christ - because that HAD already taken place. Paul would agree. So what exactly were these two teaching about the resurrection? 

If you do some research, you will find that none of the historians know for sure! All they have is conjecture. 

The vague "resurrection already took place" idea does not seem to fit exactly with Gnosticism or any of the other heresies which gained ground in the early years of the church.

And that left me thinking ... 

I guess Paul practiced what he preached. 

Apparently he nipped that particular gangrene in the bud and stopped the spread.

If only the other church leaders had been as scrupulous. 

ATTENDING

When I pulled into the church parking lot this morning, I had trouble finding an empty spot. I had to park way out in the far lot - and it was not because I was running late.

I don't remember the last time I couldn't find a spot in the first couple of rows next to the front doors.

And once inside, the sanctuary felt fuller too.

It got me wondering - does church attendance spike during January, like gym attendance does?

By some estimates gym crowds increase by 30 to 50% in January ... before returning to normal by mid-February.

People use the new year as a springboard to renew their dedication to fitness and exercise, but then find it hard to keep it going as time marches on.

I would not be surprised if something similar happens in churches. 

We know we SHOULD be working on our spirits, but it's hard to hold on to our motivation as days turn into weeks and weeks into months.  

REFLECT

Early in 2 Timothy, Paul gives his son in the faith 3 metaphors without explanation:

1. A soldier, not willing to entangle himself in civilian affairs, but wanting to please his commander.
2. An athlete who knows he cannot win without following the rules.
3. And a farmer who works hard and deserves the first share of the crops produced.

He leaves it to Timothy to figure out what he is saying to him: "Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all of this." (2 Tim. 2:7)

There is a way to read Scripture without reflecting - as nothing more than an item to be checked off our to-do list. It's an approach that empties an otherwise good habit of its potential power. (This is a major drawback for all the "Read through the Bible in a Year" programs.) 

If we want to hear from the Lord when we open our Bibles, we must allow time to reflect.

SYSTEMS

If you're a Christian, you have a life goal of being more like Christ, right? But ... Do you have a system in place to make it happen? As James Clear says: "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems."

It stands to reason, if you don't have a system in place to make something happen, you're not really serious about it.

Having a goal is not enough.

NOT A BOTTLE OF PORT

Living in a culture which obsesses over comfort and happiness, I don't know that we could ever be reminded of this enough:

C. S. Lewis once wrote, "I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity."

Paul said in 2 Timothy 1:11:

"And of this Gospel I was appointed

A Herald

An Apostle and

A Teacher.

And THAT is why I am suffering as I am."

The Lord does not promise a life of comfort for believers.

Quite the opposite.

PREDESTINATION

Yesterday I wrote that Calvinists always seem to read any teaching in Scripture about God's "sovereignty" as "utter determinism". 

"Sovereignty", though, is not their only misunderstanding. I believe they also miss what Paul means by predestination.

Sometimes I hear Calvinists say, "You can't avoid talk of predestination - it's right there in the Bible."

And it is.

So it is very important to understand what Paul means when he speaks of it. 

It's a word Paul uses only 5 times.

In Romans 8:29 & 30

Ephesians 1:5 & 11

And 1 Corinthians 2:7

People get tripped up over their assumptions regarding "predestination", but if you look closely, Paul is simply saying that Jesus' life and death and resurrection - and the inclusion of the Gentiles in God's salvation plan - was always God's plan, even before the world was created. This is what was predestined. 

I believe that 1 Timothy 1:9b-10 is an example of Paul repeating this basic teaching - without using the term "predestination":

"This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."

God had a plan in place from the beginning. A very expensive plan. 

It was the work of Christ that was predetermined. Not who would go to heaven and who would perish. 

SOVEREIGNTY

I have often heard Calvinists say they have a high view of the sovereignty of God. 

Charles Spurgeon is often quoted: "I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes."

The minutest details of every single thing that was ever thought or said or done throughout the history of time has been - and always will be - just as God ordained it. 

To me, this is not a "high view" of sovereignty - it is a complete misunderstanding of what that word means.

Consider this: To say that a king is sovereign means that he is the final authority, that he makes the law, and that the kingdom runs according to his wishes. Because he is in charge, the king is free to step in at any moment to dictate anything that MUST happen. 

But it does NOT mean that the king is micro-managing every word, action and thought of every citizen in his realm. 

It has never meant that.  

GOD SPEAKS

Here's a cynical thought from renowned psychiatrist Thomas Szasz: 

“If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.” 

It's sad, really. What the world mocks as mental illness, we as Christians experience with submission and joy.

One truly distinctive aspect of Christianity as a religion is that we serve a God who reveals Himself - and His will - to us. 

If we make time and space to listen.

John 10:27 - 

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 

GOD'S HOUSEHOLD

In my daily private Bible study, I am finishing up my time in Paul's first letter to Timothy. 

My approach over this past year has been to move very slowly through a particular book of the Bible, writing out the text as I go, looking closely at how parts, words, and ideas fit together.

Also - and this is important - I look for practical applications ... how the teaching applies to my inner life, for ministry, or for the church as a whole. 

This takes several weeks, even for a short book. And when I hit the last verse, I devote my study over the next few days to reading through the book as a whole, start to finish, and taking notes on anything that strikes me now in overview.

What I noticed this morning is that Paul states his letter's purpose succinctly right in the center of the letter, at 3:14-15:

"I am writing you these instruction so that, if I am delayed [in coming to you], you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth."

This opened my eyes to the fact that, throughout this letter, Paul is not addressing the behavior of individual believers in isolation. It is all instruction to the church as a body. 

That can be an important thing to keep in mind when reading individual verses pulled from the letter. 

In fact, much of the letter applies primarily to the conduct of people who are in church leadership. 

It would be an excellent text for a church committee, a board of elders, or a gathering of pastors to study together in depth. 

LOOKING FORWARD

[Forgot to hit "Publish" on this last night while we were on the road back to Indiana.]

Even as I have been enjoying great fellowship and learning with my classmates and professors in my classes this week, one eye has been looking backward. 

I have been feeling a bit discouraged this week regarding my ability to raise sufficient funds to stay in ministry with Mission Resource. 

This morning I opened my Bible and read the first verse of 2nd Corinthians, chapter 4:

"Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart."

I LOVE being "in ministry". It is not a burden - it is evidence of God's mercy to me. 

And those words of encouragement were all I needed to snap out of my moment of self doubt and keep looking forward.

As I write, classes have ended and I am on the road back to Indiana.

Next week is a new week back at Mission Resource. I am looking forward to seeing what the Lord has in mind. 

HANDS OUT

Can I be honest with you about something?

(I don't know why I am asking you - seems like "being honest" is more up to me than you, right?) 

After 13 years or so of being a missionary, I continue to struggle with raising financial support.

When Melissa and I first felt God's call to Haiti and started to raise support, my Mom asked me pointedly, "So you're going to spend the rest of your life with your hand out?"

(She came around to where she fully supported our efforts in Haiti, but it took a few years!)

She meant well. Besides, the same sentiment was already haunting me.

And, to one extent or another, has haunted me ever since.

Asking other people for financial support goes against every fiber of my being as 

• An adult
• A man
• An American

In fact, the only level on which it doesn't bother me is as ... a Christian.

After all, we all pray for God's "will to be done on earth as it is in heaven". 

Do I believe that it is God's will that those who have wealth should be sharing with those in need?

Yes I do. That doesn't mean anyone has to give to my work with Mission Resource, but it does mean I don't need to be ashamed to ask.

FIGHT

Paul advises his young protégé, Timothy, "Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses." 

That's quite the phrase when you stop to think about it: the good fight of the faith.

This is not the Faith of "your best life now".

The Greek word for fight here is agona.

It's where we get our English word "agony".  

It puts me in mind of this quote from C.S. Lewis:

“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

EFFORT

A few years ago while ordering a meal at a fast food restaurant, an acquaintance asked me, "Why do you drink Diet Coke? You're not overweight."

The answer was simple: I am not overweight BECAUSE I watch what I eat and make sacrifices - like choosing the diet soda over one loaded with sugar. 

(These days I don't even drink the diet stuff. It can't be good for your body.)

We don't see other people's sacrifices or hard work, so we think their successes came easy. 

And so we have a tendency to assume that those who are thin have a naturally higher metabolism.

And those who ace tests are naturally smarter.

And those who play a guitar well are naturally gifted.

And those who make the team are naturally athletic. 

Do we really believe it?

Or is this just a convenient way to excuse our lack of effort towards our own goals?

CORNELIUS

In the book of Acts, chapter 10, we find a story encapsulating a key turning point in Peter’s understanding of the gospel. The central character is the Roman centurion, Cornelius. Although it is clear he is not a Jew, Cornelius seems to be a monotheist at least, and his actions are described in positive and God-honoring terms:

• ·         Doctor Luke informs us that Cornelius “and all his household were devout and God-fearing. He gave generously to the people and prayed to God regularly.” (v.2)

• ·         The angel God sent to him reports, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have ascended as a memorial offering before God.” (v.4)

• ·         His own servants describe Cornelius as “a righteous and God-fearing man with a good reputation among the whole Jewish nation.” (v.22)

His heart seems right, but it is clear his theological understanding is faulty at best. As Peter approaches his house, “Cornelius met [Peter] and fell at his feet to worship him”! (v.25)Peter’s first correction of Cornelius’ implicit theology is direct and firm: “Stand up … I am only a man myself.” (v.26)

Cornelius is quick to admit his need for more information – more truth – about the God he has been praying to. He tells Peter, “Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.” (v.33)

Peter himself learns something “new” about his God. He sums up the lesson he has learned by declaring, “I now truly understand that God does not show favoritism, but welcomes those from every nation who fear Him and do what is right.” (v.34-35)

Peter then launches into teaching about Jesus, grounding in history His life, death and resurrection, calling Cornelius and his household to faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. The Holy Spirit is poured out on all who hear the message and the new believers are baptized, presumably in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I am encouraged to consider this possibility: even an individual lacking in proper theology could be worshipping the true God. And that true God will reveal Himself to the one who "fears Him and does what is right". 

And when that happens, His Son will take center stage in that revelation, through the leading of the Holy Spirit.

HOLDING HANDS

It's January 1, 2023.

23 years ago today, I woke up believing I had finally met the girl I was meant to marry. 

Melissa was my blind date on the New Year's Eve when the world waited in dreadful anticipation for the impact of Y2K.

(Do you remember the fear and hysteria? Planes were - possibly - going to drop out of the sky at midnight due to computer malfunctions! It's a good reminder that "fake news" and media-generated anxiety are nothing new.)

The event that evening was a church gathering at a local athletic club. Melissa and I sat talking for several hours on a couch in a lounge area. 

We were still there when all the other church people gathered at midnight to pray. We circled up and linked hands with those standing next to us.

And that prayer gave me a perfect excuse to hold this beautiful girl's hand for the first time. 

JANUARY

January is named after the Roman god of doorways, Janus.

He represented new beginnings and was often pictured as having two faces - one looking backward, the other looking forward. 

As an optimist, for me January 1st is always a day filled with newness and promise. A day of looking forward.

It's good to catch your breath and get a fresh start now and then.  

I hope 2023 proves to be a great year for you and your loved ones.

Bring it on!