UNDENIABLE

How much time needs to elapse before you start to take someone's presence for granted?

Apparently three and a half months is enough to do it for me.

After graduating from Olivet in May, Hannah was around the house all summer.  

Then I spent 24 hours with her in Myrtle Beach, unloading the truck, setting up furniture, buying her some starter groceries, and it wasn't  nearly enough.

While we walked Ginger around her apartment complex this morning, I couldn't help but wonder if my future son-in-law could be behind one of the doors. And don't tell Hannah, but it also crossed my mind as I drove past a local school, that 20 years from now I could be inside for the graduation of a grandchild. 

But one step at a time. First things first: I am praying that she finds fulfillment in her work and deep friendships on the job (and elsewhere) and a vibrant church to get involved in.

She and I cried a little when she dropped me off at the Myrtle Beach airport. I am an expert at denial, but there comes a point when the reality of change is simply undeniable. The airport was that moment for me.

Still, I can't be sad. Hannah is heading on to better things.

We stopped by her future workplace briefly on the way to the airport and I forced her to get out of the car for a picture.

She starts her new position on September 9th. The best is yet to be!

FIRST GUEST

I'd love to tell you about all the sweating I did today as Hannah and I unloaded all her earthly possessions from the 15 foot U-Haul and lugged them up to her second floor apartment, but I am much too tired. And probably dehydrated. 

After moving everything, it was time to assemble or reassemble some things - her new couch, a new bed, and some other odds and ends. And at least this part was inside and air-conditioned.

Later we had a wonderful dinner at a top-notch sushi restaurant just around the corner from her new place. Living here, I imagine it's great to discover anything which is close enough to get to without having to fight beach traffic.

If I think of it in the morning, I will include some pictures with this post - but I am too wiped to do it right now.

But as I head to Hannah's new couch to crash for the night, I have the satisfaction of this bragging right: I am her first guest since she moved to Myrtle Beach.

BRAIN AND GOD

I don't have much to say tonight after driving a U-Haul truck several hundred miles and now anticipating less than a restful sleep at a cheap hotel in Columbia, South Carolina.

I only have two and a half hours to finish in the morning so I will be anxious to get moving in the morning.

I was re-listening to a long lecture by John Lennox on Abraham over the last few hours. (You can find the video on YouTube.) It's excellent. 

Lennox talks on Abraham for 2.5 hours and hits lots of mini-lessons along the way. 

About an hour in, he said something that I wanted to record here so that it has a better chance of sticking with me in the future:

Modern Christians tend to trust their brain and use God when we should be trusting God and using our brains.

True enough!

THERE SHE GOES AGAIN

Here comes reality.

Today I filled a U-Haul truck with all of Hannah's earthly belongings. Tomorrow I will drive it to Myrtle Beach.

But Hannah had to leave this evening. We found out recently that the managers of her new apartment are not the super accommodating types - no leases can be signed on Fridays! So now she has to be there no later than 5 pm tomorrow.

We thought the best thing would be for her to get a few hours under her belt this evening and finish the trip tomorrow. It's 11 hours of driving all together. 

So she took Ginger and left our house. This marks the first time in seven years that we haven't had more than one dog under foot. 

I didn't really say goodbye to her since I plan to catch up tomorrow evening or Friday morning with her furniture. Still, I've been low-key depressed all day. 

PRE-LAW

Because the modern American church is not well grounded in the Old Testament, it is easy to underestimate the importance of Abraham and his story. 

His name appears 233 times in the Old Testament and 72 times in the New.

All four Gospels contain the name of Abraham and in each, at least one of the mentions is from the mouth of Jesus Himself. Outside of the Gospels, Abraham is referenced in Acts, Romans, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Hebrews, James, and 1 Peter.

One of the Apostle Paul's big points about Abraham in the letter to the Romans is an obvious point that is crucial to keep in mind when looking back at Genesis 11 when Abraham first steps onto the world stage: 

He was called by God - and developed a friendship with God - centuries before God's Law was revealed. 

That's an important "detail" that many modern readers miss.

But if you don't see that, you're not really seeing Abraham.

MISSING THE 2ND MOST IMPORTANT DAY

"The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why." – NOT Mark Twain 

This is one of my favorite things that Mark Twain never said. 

(Nobody seems to know the originator, but it certainly was not Twain. It's first appearance in print was in 1970 with a simple "It has been said ..."!)

To me the quote encapsulates something that is sorely missing from our present culture - and something I believe people are beginning to wake up to: a sense of purpose.

To me, the purposelessness of the general population is evident in a pervasive low-key mental health crisis. It seems like many have discovered the emptiness of having material possessions - or they've lost hope of every getting them in abundance - and have turned to virtue signaling causes in an effort to find meaning.

I think our culture is growing ripe for a genuine and vibrant Christian faith which is concerned with the truly important aspects of human life.

Not just whether an individual is bound for heaven or hell.

Instead of asking "If you died tonight are you certain you would go to heaven?", I would like to see gospel presentations begin with something along the lines of "Have you discovered your true purpose in life?"

SECOND BEST THING ABOUT READING

The greatest thing about reading is coming across an Ah-ha! moment. A single epiphany can prove to be well worth hours of otherwise unproductive reading. 

The second best thing about reading is comfort. You don't have to know someone personally to find reassurance in knowing another has been before where you are currently - and survived.

Reading about it might even make it less awkward. 

I found comfort of another type this evening in reading about lethologica - also known as the "tip of the tongue" phenomenon.

You've undoubtedly experienced it yourself - needing to halt a sentence because some particular word is refusing to drop from your brain to your mouth.

You know it's there in stock, but it seems to have been left on the wrong shelf. 

Sometimes you can think of the first letter. Or you have a vague idea of what it "sounds like". But nothing comes.

Some time later - whether it will be seconds or hours is unpredictable - the word is shaken loose and drops into consciousness, clear as day.

I suffer from lethologica more and more frequently. I have noticed this over the past year or so.

I'm only 56, but this growing frequency of misplacing words has fueled one of my greatest fears: Alzheimer's. 

Today, though, I came across this article online and my fears are suddenly allayed. 

Studies have shown there may be an alternate explanation for lethologica besides an age-degenerated brain. Perhaps "older adults may simply have more knowledge" - sometimes leading to greater wait times while more mental shelves are searched for that correct word!

Wow. In a few moments spent perusing a handful of paragraphs, my fears are alleviated while my ego is stroked!

Reading is the best. 

DIVINE COUNCIL

An understanding of biblical cosmology, popularized by Dr. Michael Heiser but not invented by him, commonly called the "Divine Council" view makes a lot of sense to me. Plus, it answers a lot of unspoken questions, especially with its connection to the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11.

In brief, Heiser makes the case that God shares His authority in the heavenly realm with other, created spiritual beings just as he intended to share His authority on earth with humans. 

And, just like humans, His spiritual creatures vary greatly in their trustworthiness and how they choose to exercise the authority God has put in their hands. 

This is complicated for both humans and spiritual beings by the fact that many of the spiritual beings seem jealous of humans and intent on destroying their relationship with God. 

Anyway, at least according to the picture painted in Psalm 82, God operates at times through a "council" made up of spiritual beings. And, according to Deuteronomy 32, one of the biggest assignments He ever gave to these spiritual creatures was to rule over the various nations after people groups were scattered with brand new language some time after the Flood. 

They were supposed to rule in His place with justice and fairness. But many succumbed to the temptation to be worshipped and to make a name for themselves.

All of this "behind the scenes" reality, if Heiser is correct, sure does make some sense of things I have often wondered about. For instance:

• The fact that Genesis 1-11 records no instances of "foreign gods" before Babel - and then they are everywhere! And those gods become a major stumbling stone to Israel.
• The way the Bible speaks of these foreign gods as real entities, not just figments of other nations' imagination.
• The proliferation of demons in the New Testament - which can be thought of as spiritual beings prodded into direct action by the arrival of God's only begotten Son. 
• Paul's talk of "principalities and powers" and spiritual warfare.
• Paul's description of how God "disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him" on the cross.
• Christ's own focus on the arrival of the Kingdom of God - where all nations were going to be gathered together again under the authority God was now giving His Son. 

And it gives some context to Jesus telling His first disciples that "all authority" had been given to Him after His resurrection - and sharing that authority with His followers!

THOUGHTS ON "ONCE SAVED, ALWAYS SAVED"

I like to listen to theological debates on YouTube. Most of the time the topics are various aspects of Calvinism - how sinful is humanity? do humans have free will? would God send a baby to hell?

The one topic I have absolutely no interest in is "once saved, always saved". 

For one thing, it doesn't take long to find strong proof texts on both sides of that debate. So if you're just looking at individual verses (ripped out of context), it is going to be tough to get any traction for your side in the debate.

But what really bothers me is the nature of the question itself - in that it springs from a strictly transactional conception of salvation.

If I do this or that thing correctly, then God will allow me into heaven. Maybe if I say the magic prayer? Or "confess with my lips"? But what exactly do I confess with my lips?

The trick, apparently, is knowing the correct way to do that thing that needs to be done. 

And a lot of people get very anxious because they think (most days) that they are probably doing it correctly, but in their darker moments they are afraid they are not. 

But faith, in the end, isn't about saying the magic words or verbally assenting to a handful of propositional truths.

Jesus is inviting you and me into a relationship with Him, and the Father, through the Holy Spirit. That's a completely different sort of arrangement.

So can you lose your salvation?

Well, can a relationship fall apart even when one side is perfectly loving and forgiving? 

You betcha.

Ever met someone whose spouse - 25 years into the relationship - decides to cheat and then permanently chooses the fling over the loving spouse?

I have.

Does it happen often? 

Thankfully, no. 

WARNING LIGHT

I would never begrudge God His anger for one second. He is righteous and He is the Creator. 

But as for my own anger, I have come to the point where I find it utterly useless - except as a warning light on my own spiritual dashboard.

I have learned there's too much danger in getting angry. Even so-called "righteous anger".  

Andrew Klavan calls anger "the devil's cocaine". It's addictive and takes control over your mind and actions.

Yes, Paul writes, "Be angry and do not sin." But he goes on to say, "Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil."  (Ephesians 4:26-27)

Seems clear enough that anger is not sinful itself, but it's also clear that anger opens the door to sin and so it is something you want to dispose of quickly.

And while we should be quick to rid ourselves of anger, in his letter, James says we also should be "slow to anger" in the first place: 

19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.  (James 1:19-20)

Anger sure feels righteous, but that is a trap. 

So take a hypothetical like a person saying something racist in front of me. 

It would instantly catch my attention, I would recognize it as evil and ... honestly, I would pity the person in front of me.

God's anger is already set against that person. Why should I entertain my own? 

Would I say something? Probably. But it would be motivated by fear for the state of that person's soul. Not anger against him or what he said. 

Give it some thought: Have you ever spoken a word in anger or even in irritation (which is still anger, though milder) which had righteous results? An angry word that opened someone's eyes? That motivated them in a positive direction?

If so, I would love to hear the story - because it would be an unusual one.

Most of the time, any anger I might express to another human being is only going to produce one of two results:

Hurt feelings 

Or redoubled anger towards me.  

Not righteousness. Not in him and not in me. 

(P.S. Let's not forget that Jesus Himself was no fan of human anger:  "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire."  Matthew 5:22)

(P.P.S I recommend a fantastic little book by Brant Hansen called Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better.)

AI IMAGES RUIN EVERYTHING

This is why I hate AI images so much.

I see a screensaver show up on my computer screen like this ...

... and I don't know whether to be in awe of the beauty of God's creation or disgusted by a computer's manufactured patterning of pixels in imitation of God's creativity. 

Was this image the result of a lone photographer hiking up a hillside at the perfect time of day and stumbling across this scene with soul in rapture and grateful to have a camera to capture the moment? 

Or did someone type "lone tree on top of windswept hill under dramatic clouds" into the prompt box on their browser?

And in this way, AI images do violence to real photos.

But maybe something good will come from AI images. 

Maybe in the end AI will inspire me to track down and photograph my own moments of wonder and beauty, just so I have some images I know are genuine. 

CONTRARY OPINIONS 2

Yesterday I posted my agreement with the following Bertrand Russell quote:

"If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. If some one maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction."

In response, someone posted the following question:

"How does that fit with Mark 3:4-5? The Pharisees had no good reason to think as they did, but Jesus was angry at them because of their hardness of heart."

Here's Mark 3:1-6 -

1 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2 And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” 4 And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

This is interesting in so many ways.

First, the preceding story (the same Sabbath morning?) has the Pharisees complaining to Jesus about his disciples picking grain to eat. And Jesus calmly reminds them of what David's men did in Old Testament times and then says simply, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." 

Jesus doesn't get mad here. Bertrand Russell would approve.

But in Mark Chapter 3, the Pharisees never openly state their opinion that Jesus should not be healing on the Sabbath - although Jesus gives them the opportunity.

Instead, they are lurking about, hoping that Jesus would heal the man with the withered hand ... "so that they might accuse Him". 

It is the Pharisees who demonstrate the truth of what Russell claims: they are angry with Jesus - murderous, even - with no good reason.

On the other hand, when Jesus gets angry with the Pharisees, I doubt that it's specifically because they hold an opinion opposite His. Wouldn't His anger more likely stem from:

• Their sneakiness?
• Their spinelessness?
• The fact they are trying to "destroy" Him?
• Their hardness of heart?
• Their influence as religious experts among the people?
• Their role in teaching others?

Besides, Jesus is kind of a special case. His anger is always righteous. Our anger typically does more harm than good. 

So I still think Russell is right (to whatever extent generalizations can be considered to be "right") and my anger - when I feel it rise - can serve a good purpose if it causes me to pause and consider whether or not I have good reasons for believing what I believe. 

The Pharisees definitely should have paused. 

CONTRARY OPINIONS

I know very little of Bertrand Russell beyond his reputation as a great thinker and no friend of religion. 

But recently I came across a quote from Russell which struck me as not only insightful, but incredibly practical. 

"If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. If some one maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction."

Russell's truth ought to be broadcast from the rooftops throughout election season and beyond. 

And we ought to pause for self-examination whenever another's opinion - or behavior - spurs us toward anger rather than pity. 

STARTING OVER

Tomorrow I start a new part-time job as an adult English teacher to recent immigrants.

I'm a little nervous about the time commitment. (I will be in class twice a week, 3 hours at a time.)

But I am also getting a little excited about this opportunity and the chance to get to know these individuals.

Last week I shadowed a couple of different teachers so I could get an idea of how things run and the people I met were so sweet and earnest and grateful. 

Whatever else you might say about immigrants, their life in the U.S. is far from easy. It's tough navigating a foreign culture and its systems when you don't know the language. 

And for some, the move to the U.S. demanded large sacrifices.

I met a sweet Haitian woman from Port-au-Prince who is now living in Columbus and working hard to learn English. She was dignified and feminine and beautiful. 

I asked her what she was doing for work here and I was surprised to hear she is stocking shelves at Lowes. A very physically demanding job.  

When I asked her what she had been doing for work in Haiti before she left the country, she dropped her eyes and sadly uttered one word: Lawyer.

FIRSTS

It's a good exercise to look at the opening chapters of Genesis with fresh eyes, taking notes of the various "firsts" in human history and more specifically with human interaction with God as recorded there. 

Our theologies tend to put a huge emphasis on the first sin - Adam and Eve's disobedience in eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And certainly that was the beginning point of sin and death, but it is curious that the Bible itself does not revisit the scene of the crime outside of one reference in the Old Testament (in Job) and three in the New Testament.

It's possible other firsts are just as important or of even greater relative importance.

The first blessing by God is in 1:22 and is directed towards fish and birds! Human beings are second in line, in verse 1:28, followed closely by the Sabbath day in 2:3

The first talk of marriage is in 2:24 and the first birth takes place - outside the garden - in 4:1.

The first animal sacrifice to God is in 4:4.

The first mention of blood is Abel's and it cries out to God in 4:10.

The first city is built by Cain in 4:17.

The first mention of righteousness is in 6:9 and belongs to Noah.

The first covenant is with Noah and is mentioned in 6:18. 

The first use of the word clean is in 7:2 and applied to animals entering the ark.

The first mention of slavery is in 9:25 when Noah curses Canaan. 

All of these firsts should make the absence of one major theme of the Old Testament all that much more noticeable. But I had never noticed before that before the Tower of Babel incident there is zero talk of the worship of false gods. 

In the early chapters of Genesis, people either walked with God or they rebelled against God. You never see them chasing after some other sort of deity. 

Even after the nations are scattered with different languages, the false gods do not suddenly appear. 

This observation would fit with the interpretation of Deuteronomy 32 that has God disinheriting the nations and giving the lesser divine beings dominion over them. Apparently, over time, some of those being fell to the temptation of having human beings worship them and their power. 

NOTORIETY

As I've been preaching lately on the major stories and themes coming out of the early chapters of Genesis - the concepts which get universalized and carried throughout the rest of Scripture - I have arrived at Genesis 11 and the tower of Babel incident.

There's a lot going on here. My major challenge all along with this series is knowing how to narrow my focus.

First, there's the "Table of Nations" stuff in chapter 10 and - if I wanted to run down a rabbit hole - there's the passage in Deuteronomy 32:8-9 laying out the fascinating possibility that Yahweh disinherits the nations after Babel and hands them off to lesser spiritual beings, turning His focus to creating a new nation which will be His people.

Something I hadn't noticed before: The people are motivated to build the tower so as to "make a name for ourselves". This and the function of the tower itself - an attempt to connect with heaven in such a way as to bring God down to earth - moves God to action and He scrambles the languages.

I think there's a lot to chew on about the power of language and communication, but what struck me was the "making a name" part. They want to make a name for themselves specifically in hopes that will prevent them from being scattered - which would involve following God's will!  

But then in Chapter 12, God zeroes in on Abraham - who is descended from Noah's son, Shem, whose name means "name" - and promises Abraham to "bless him" and "to make his name great". God doesn't have an issue with somebody becoming well known - as long as He is in the driver's seat and the notoriety is for the right reason.

And God goes on to say WHY He plans to make Abraham's name great: "so that you will be a blessing"! (Genesis 12:2)

God plans to give notoriety to Abraham - greater notoriety than the builders of the tower could have dreamed of - but not for the sake of Abraham's ego, but rather to bless the world! 

A LARGER WORLD

Growing up in Haiti, our youngest, Sarah, had six classmates in school on average and three friends around home. And those two groups overlapped by two. 

There were some strong personalities in that little group. And a few odd behaviors.

Still, they generally got along. If they argued, matters were settled quickly and peace returned immediately. They studied together, crafted together, climbed trees together, and played in the mud together. 

Sometimes I felt a little guilty for putting my kids in a situation where they had so few friendships. 

Since our return to the U.S. I have felt much less guilt over our years in Haiti.

I doubt that Sarah has ever heard of G.K. Chesterton, but she experienced the truth of what he once wrote about living in small communities:

"The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. He knows much more of the fierce varieties and uncompromising divergences of men. The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us."

I remember what Sarah said to me through tears one night some time after we returned to the States. She and I had travelled to Mississippi to visit with one of her best friends from our family's days in Haiti. 

Sarah told me that night she didn't want to return to Columbus. She didn't want to go back to her American middle school. She missed her small friendship circle in Haiti.

"In Haiti, we had to get along. Even if you thought someone was weird, you still had to get along or you would be all alone. And over time you would come to appreciate them. My friends in Columbus are so cliquish and there's so much drama and gossip. I miss my old friends."

Since I started pastoring at Sardinia Baptist Church, I have known the reverse of what Sarah experienced. I went from a very large church to a small congregation.

All along it has struck me that small churches have some genuine advantages over the megachurches - and having our companions chosen for us is not the least among them. 

There is actually a larger world of faith in a smaller country church. 

LONG TABLES

Here’s an early church practice that needs to be brought back: frequent opportunities for the congregation to eat together.

This simple but intimate act could well be what our ailing culture is missing.

“We live in an era of burgeoning social isolation that harms the mental and spiritual wellbeing of individuals and undermines the harmonious functioning of institutions.”

So says author Antone Martinho-Truswell, who points to one solution that you’ll already find in many a church’s fellowship hall: The Long Table.

He says sharing a meal all together at a long table, rather than scattered across square or round ones restaurant-style, provides a sense of community too often missing from our present day lives.

And just to really drill down on interaction among people, Truswell recommends the “Club House Rule”:

“When you arrive at informal dinner, you have precisely no choice where or with whom you sit. Instead, you take your plate, head to the first of the long tables, and sit in the westmost open seat. Over the course of the service, the table fills up from west to east, and any gaps fill as previous diners finish and depart. No one sits at the second table unless the first is completely full. Finally, if you see anyone sitting alone at a different table, it is the responsibility of every member of the house to trot right over and sit opposite them with a beatific smile, and either eat there or drag them over to the communal table.”

How awesome would it be to institute the Club House Rule at every potluck dinner, youth group gathering, and fellowship hour!

(And can you imagine filling the Sunday morning pews in this way? Talk about a shake up!)

Read the whole article, “Take a Seat: The Long Table is an Antidote to Loneliness”, and you’ll find yourself yearning for an intimate meal with strangers.

Let's put our fellowship halls and their long tables to more frequent use!

 ****

Acts 2:46-47

"They were eating their meals together with joy and generous hearts, praising God continually, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord kept adding to their number daily those who were being saved.”

SABOTAGE

You would like to think educated people make educated choices. And that much more if we're talking about the educators themselves.

Here's something, though, that will shake your faith in our education system. (If you have any to begin with.) 

Check out the breakfast menu of our local school system, serving 11,000 students HERE. 

The menu at that link is specifically for the elementary where my wife teaches first grade. It's a school where tax payers are providing a free "breakfast" to all students. 

And what a breakfast! This morning, the kids had 6 mini powdered sugar donuts, a 4 oz. Juicy Juice, and a chocolate milk. 

After consuming those 64  grams of sugar, the kids are supposed to sit tight and focus on the day's lessons.

For reference, 25 grams of "added" sugar is the recommended limit for children over the course of the entire day. (For some reason, nutrition labels separate the naturally occurring sugars from all the extra sugar added to sweeten things further.)

This morning's 6 donuts alone had 24 grams of added sugar.

Other days, the kids might pick up a Pillsbury "Frudel" - described on the menu in these terms: "This breakfast favorite is available in apple or cherry. A healthy way to start your day and get your serving of fruit."

I guess "healthy" is a relative term. At least the Frudel has "only" 11 grams of sugar, with only 9 of them being "added" sugar. So a kid could eat 2 of them before he gets close to his sugar limit for the day. 

Some days the kids can get a classic PopTart, which the district recognizes as "A childhood favorite for any age! A breakfast treat that has stood the test of time." At 15 grams of sugar (14 of those being "added"), at least nobody is claiming a PopTart is anywhere near the neighborhood of "healthy". 

What are the students learning from these breakfast choices?

This menu amounts to nutritional sabotage of the children and educational sabotage of the teachers. 

ONLY INDIVIDUALS

I was reminded today that it's hard to guess where any particular individual is in his or her faith journey.

I had a long conversation with a sweet and personable woman today and she defies categorization.

• She has Jewish, Catholic, Baptist, and Mormon branches in her family tree. 
• She and her husband raised four kids and have never been members of a church. 
• Now, as a grandmother, she would like to find a church where the preaching is "passionate".
• She watches The Chosen and listens to the local Christian music station on her car radio.
• She always gives up something for Lent. 
• A few months ago she decided to download a prayer and Bible study app called Hallow. She spends about 30 minutes each morning listening to Scripture and Bible teaching. 
• And, finally, she would like to be baptized sometime soon because she "doesn't want to go to hell"!

What an unusual cluster of beliefs and practices...

When it comes to people and their religious beliefs, there ultimately are no categories. Only individuals. 

BONDAGE

Hebrews 2:14 Since the children have flesh and blood, [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Since I started as pastor at Sardinia Baptist, I have met a couple of older saints who passed into glory after patiently waiting years for that door to open. They welcomed death with open arms. 

The author of Hebrews writes that a boldness in the face of death is a part of what Christ has won for all those who put their faith in Him. 

And it makes sense that a hallmark of a genuine and mature faith in Christ would be the acceptance of death - and even a longing for its arrival.

Unfortunately, those who have reached this level of faith are few and far between, even within the church.

In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard says this life is one of the most common things that people take as a treasure in this world.

"For most people, perhaps, the thing they most treasure is staying alive on earth. As a result they live their entire lives in bondage to fear of physical death." (p. 210)

I don't want to be one of those people.

CLUES YOUR RELATIONSHIP IS LOPSIDED

When I was in my mid-twenties, I spent the summer working at a church camp in northern Iowa. 

With very little dating experience under my belt, when an attractive young lady named Melissa expressed an interest in me, I was more than eager to establish a relationship. 

(Spoiler alert – This was the first Melissa I ever dated and I only ever married the second one. So let’s call her redhead Melissa.) 

That summer, Redhead Melissa and I were not the first couple to form among the staff, nor the last. I was relieved not to be left sitting on the edge of the dating pool for once.

Early in June, we knew camp was going to be closed for a few extra days around the 4^th of July weekend and I asked redhead Melissa if she would like to travel with me to Indiana to meet my parents. I was perhaps taking things a little fast.

In the few weeks between me asking and the holiday weekend arriving, I had already decided there was no future to the relationship. In fact, she was driving me a little crazy. She couldn’t stop talking. If there was a lull in a conversation, she filled it – with something.  With anything. No matter how inane. 

Her go-to filler was this question: “What are you thinking about?”

I didn’t renege on my invitation to Indiana, but I should have. For both our sakes. It was an 11-hour drive. When she offered to drive for a few hours, I gladly allowed it so that I could close my eyes and pretend to be asleep.

At one point, on the drive back to Iowa, after a weekend which must have left my parents scratching their heads, I was behind the steering wheel and we hit one of those lulls in the conversation. Redhead Melissa asked, “What are you thinking about?” And I could honestly answer, “I was just sitting here wondering how long it was going to take before you asked me what I was thinking about.”

Unbelievably, later in the day, Redhead Melissa again asked, "What are you thinking about?"

This time I responded, "If I wanted you to know what I was thinking, I would have said it out loud."

The relationship didn’t last much longer after that.

SURELY

A week ago Melissa and I rode with my younger brother Russ and his wife Alecia 3 hours north to attend my aunt Ginny's funeral in Bremen, Indiana.

Ginny was married to my mom's brother, R.T., for 61 years. She was a quiet and kind woman of great accomplishment. 

Ginny was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few months ago. The same cancer that took my mom's life in 2019.

It struck me at the funeral that R.T. is now the age his father was when I was in college - and R.T. looks a lot like I remember Grandpa.

I told Melissa at the end of the day that if I could have a choice, I would check out like my grandfather did. He was fit and healthy until the end. I remember that when he turned 80, his big birthday gift was a rowing machine. 

A few years later, he went to bed one night and didn't rise in the morning.

It makes me think of the fantastic title of Dave Barry's exercise book parody from years ago: Stay Fit and Healthy Until You're Dead. 

That's one of my life goals now.

Now, I have exercised on a regular basis for years, but I was recently diagnosed with a torn meniscus, putting my running to an end. The knee problems, along with recent cancer diagnoses of people I love, remind me that, at the end of the day, I don't have an ounce of ultimate control over the state of my body.

Or how the end will come. 

Or when.

There's not much that is certain about the future. But at the funeral, Psalm 23 hit me deeper than ever before. Especially verse 6: 

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

So far, the first half of that verse has proven to be reliable. To the uttermost. 

Why wouldn't I trust the second half?

THEOLOGICAL RESEARCH

In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard calls prayer "the method of genuine theological research, the method of understanding what and who God is." (194)

I like that. It's a striking reframe on prayer.

And the learning about God and His ways strikes me as being an important facet of prayer.

But couldn't the same be said about meditating on Scripture? That it's theological research?

And even more so?

ONE NIGHT STAND

Over the last few years my imagination has been seeking an analogy to explain the great irony of misplaced faith: that those who "believe" in Jesus so as to avoid hell end up remaining as lost as anyone and are perhaps even tougher for Jesus to reach than those who have never heard of Him.

The analogy that popped into my head this morning is perhaps a bit crude, but I think it's on target. You can be the judge:

The person who comes knocking on Jesus' door only to avoid hell is really only seeking to use Jesus as a means to a selfish end.

He is like the guy who approaches a beautiful girl for a date. She's receptive and excited. She sees so much potential.

Unfortunately for her, in reality, he is only interested in her body. 

He picks her up that night looking clean-shaven and respectable. He is all dressed up and takes her out to dinner. Even picks up the check. He makes small talk. 

She gets her hopes up. Maybe this is the beginning of a long term relationship. 

But at the end of the evening, he makes it clear what he's really after. 

She is insulted. She says, "I don't even know you," as she slams the door in his face.

He's left outside her place with no second chance.

The truly sad thing is this: not only did he not get what he came for, but he is left clueless about what he passed by in his selfishness.

She was the perfect woman and she was ready to give her love to him. He could have had a lifetime of love and passion and companionship, and he missed out because he had had his eyes set on too little. An anonymous one night stand. 

He ends up with nothing, but he could have had it all. 

90 MINUTES IN HEAVEN

A man at my church gave me a copy of a book to read. The author is Don Piper and the title is 90 Minutes in Heaven.

And yes, as you can tell from the title, it is one of those first hand accounts of experiencing death, getting a glimpse of the afterlife, and then returning to life.

I never know what to make of such stories. I tend to be guarded in believing anything out of the ordinary. 

I know some of these afterlife stories have proven to be outright lies, but this guy seems pretty sincere and he's been telling the same tale since 1989. Several eyewitnesses could testify to him being pronounced dead at the scene of a terrible car accident. 

The rational, Western, scientific side of my brain wants to say that if the man's telling the truth, what he's really describing are scenes his dying brain created from the trauma or false memories produced during his time on the operating table while doctors worked for hours to patch him up.

But what if he is describing a true out of body experience? What if his experience was exactly what he believes it was?

Most of the Christian books I have read in the last few years have been dense and academic. 90 Minutes in Heaven is not like those books. 

This book forces me to wrestle with a very revealing faith question: 

When it comes to the "afterlife" (which is really going to be true life at long last) - do I honestly believe it is going to live up to its biblical reputation? 

Do you and I believe it for ourselves? 

And do we believe it for those who are dear to us?

If we do ... how come so many of our prayers amount to begging God to delay the afterlife for ourselves and our loved ones?

TOLD YOU SO

When the appraiser came to look over our house two weeks ago - with Melissa and I desperately hoping for a greenlight on our refinance proposal - he reported back to the bank one thing that HAD to be corrected before he could give his blessing.

It concerned the water heater. It needed "a drain line on the overflow valve".

Melissa suggested I call my brother, owner of the family hardware store to see if it was something I could do myself.

A drain line - connecting what to which drain? 

A plumbing project worthy of holding up the bank proceedings? Do it myself?

I couldn't imagine. 

Besides, the top of the water heater looks to be held together by hard water deposits. Even if this necessary drain line turned out to be a problem most people could DIY, I pictured myself spending hours on the project, buying a whole bunch of tools, and ultimately wrecking the water heater itself.

So I didn't call my brother, I called a plumber.

Better to have a professional do the job right.

Right?

After canceling once last week, the plumber came this morning. He attached a brass fitting to the valve on the side of the tank and from it he dangled a couple of feet of blue plastic pipe, open-ended and pointing to floor. 

Like this:

Ten minutes later, he wrote the invoice and said, "I won't charge you for the parts, since it was such a simple thing."

Nice! Thank goodness, because I felt foolish.

Him: "... no parts - just the minimum visit fee and labor: $191.25."

Me: #@&%!!!

To her great credit, Melissa has - so far - resisted the urge to say "I told you so". 

BAPTIZER

I started as pastor of Sardinia Baptist Church about a year and a half ago. I am proud to call myself American Baptist. 

But it wasn't until today that I became a baptizer. 

This morning I had the privilege of baptizing a sweet father and his young son. It was the son who had made the first step a few weeks back - and I was thrilled to see dad join him in coming forward to seek baptism.

The joy I felt in being a part of this morning's sacrament caught me off guard. Nothing could have brought me down.

Long ago I had noticed in the Apostle Paul's writing a pronounced warmth he seemed to feel toward the individuals he had baptized as he went planting churches. After this morning, I can see that there is a certain connection which I feel toward Jason and Braden.

A responsibility too, I suppose. I truly want to see them grow in their faith.

And to cap the morning off perfectly - two more individuals came forward seeking baptism for themselves.

God is at work at Sardinia Baptist.

I pray I get a whole lot more experience in baptizing new brothers and sisters in the coming months and years!

PURSUE LOVE

In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard points out a crucial distinction which earnest believers need to be conscious of when reading Scripture. It's worth quoting him at length:

Love, Paul ... tells us, is patient, kind, free of jealousy and arrogance, is not rude or self-seeking, is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs, takes no joy in things that are wrong but instead in what is true. It always protects, always accepts, always hopes, and endures everything. And it never quits (1 Cor. 13:4-8). 

People usually read this, and are taught to read it, as telling them to be patient, kind, free of jealousy, and so on - just as they read Jesus' Discourse [the Sermon on the Mount] as telling them to not call others fools, not look on a woman to lust, not swear, to go the second mile, and so forth.

But Paul is plainly saying - look at his words - that it is love that does these things, not us, and that what we are to do is to "pursue love" (1 Cor. 14:1). 

Yes!

The Christian faith is not about praying for a "get-out-of-hell-free" card.

And it's not about cleaning up your act and flying straight. (And then judging others who aren't as righteous as you are.) 

It is supposed to be about transformation. 

BAPTISM AND NOAH'S FLOOD

I have given myself the daunting task of preaching from 1 Peter 3 this coming Sunday in preparation for two baptisms at the end of the service:

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Even without the weirdness of Jesus "proclaiming" something to "spirits in prison" (which has all the theologians positing different theories), there's a lot to unpack here.

Among the most controversial outside of the prison spirits is verse 21 saying, literally, "baptism ... now saves you". 

What does Peter mean? We obviously are not to take this at face value. (Although some believers have done so in the past.) The rite of baptism in itself has never saved a soul.

So then what?

The people of Noah's day had the same three problems that humanity has had since Adam and Eve:

1. The Sin Problem
2. The Death Problem
3. The Satan Problem

These are the same three that we all struggle with to this day.

The flood of Noah's day was God's response to a rapid multiplication of these problems. You had the rogue angels spreading harm among humans, the human tendency to judge good and evil for themselves, and the ruin of death that reigned outside the Garden. 

So God sped up the ruin which was already in progress even though it grieved Him. He unleashed the chaos that humanity chose over walking with Him. It was both judgment and mercy. A quick death rather than a lingering death. 

When Peter brings up the waters of baptism, he makes it clear that it isn't some bath to make you physically clean. 

No, in baptism you are plunged into the waters of chaos and death - with Christ - and emerge alive on the other side. With Christ. Death Problem solved.

Peter also describes baptism as "an appeal to God for a good conscience". This phrasing deserves some more chewing, but this is where I am so far: It seems to me that our "conscience" is that part of our spirit that (sometimes reluctantly) agrees with God on HIS definition of what is good and what is evil - instead of judging for ourselves. 

We might read "good conscience", then, a bit differently than the normal sense of "I've done nothing wrong". A GOOD conscience might just be one which is truly functioning in tune with God's will. 

The "appeal" that Peter equates with the core of baptism would then be an "earnest seeking after" a fully functional conscience. A genuine desire to do good. (Which the Holy Spirit will give the power to do.) 

Anyway, all of that is meant, I believe, as the answer to the Sin Problem. 

Notice that the Satan Problem is addressed at the end of verse 22 where "angels, authorities, and powers" are subjected to the authority of Christ - an authority He shares with His disciples.

All three problems are tackled and solved in Christ and that reality is reenacted in the rite of baptism. 

UGLY SIDE OF CHARITY

More than once, when my family and I lived in Haiti we witnessed the UGLY SIDE of charity: The well-intentioned generosity of individuals and ministries frequently fostered deep dependency and entitlement.

Mere handouts often brought as much harm as good.

(And sometimes more!)

In the 1990s, the World Bank conducted extensive interviews among the poor of 60 different nations, speaking to 60,000 individuals. The central question was straightforward: “What is poverty?”

While answers did include the lack of material things –food, shelter, medicine – the interviewers were caught off guard by what the respondents stressed most. They used words like “shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation, and voicelessness.” *

Too many traditional charitable organizations address needs of the human body and neglect the less obvious needs of the human spirit.

Consider how receiving a handout may temporarily relieve physical hunger while also exacerbating the individual’s sense of shame and powerlessness!

I am glad to be affiliated with Mission Resource because our approach stands apart from other “charities”. A timely loan to buy a sewing machine, fertilizer, or raw materials enables an individual to earn what it takes to provide for the body while empowering their spirit. The loan becomes an exit ticket from shame and hopelessness.

It’s an entirely different approach to combating poverty –and one that I can be fully on board with!

*Check out the book When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert for an eye-opening discussion of these things. This information is from pages 49 to 51.