Threshing Wheat in a Winepress

What a great Sunday it was among God's people! Cold temperatures outside, warm hearts inside. As always we went to first service, starting at 9:30 a.m. Last week the sanctuary was cold, due to a furnace going out. Today it was comfortable.

For worship choruses we sang songs that I knew. The worship leader didn't introduce a new song to us this week. So that was good. Pastor Mark then continued his sermon series, Imperfectly Perfect. This has focused on a number of people from the Old Testament, people who were imperfect in their character and circumstances, yet who God used in mighty ways. This week it was Gideon, one of the judges if Israel.

His story is told in Judges 6-8. His story is well known, yet I find it difficult to call to mind many of the details. He is best known for "putting out a fleece," asking God to reveal his will by the condition of the fleece as opposed to the ground it sat on all night. Some people feel that Gideon did wrong by doing this, since God had already revealed His will to Gideon. Regardless, many Christians "put out fleeces" to hope to better understand God's will.

But Gideon's story starts before that. In Judges chapter 6 the Midianites had control over Israel. They were warriors, and pretty much rampaged through Israel. The Jews were fairly scattered, with towns and farms in the hills, and some in the plains, all with no central government or organization. Midianites would raid anywhere in Israel and pretty much take whatever they want. The Israelites "prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves, and strongholds." Pastor Mark pointed out the significance of of the following statement from Judges 6:11

...Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites."

I had never thought of this before. You don't thresh wheat in a winepress; you thresh wheat on a threshing floor. I've seen one of those, in Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, where an 1837 New England community was recreated. The barn is built with doors on each end. When the wheat is brought in someone stands in the passageway in the barn, and tosses the wheat up, letting it hit the floor as it comes down. Then he picks it up with the pitchfork and does it again. As he picks it up and releases it, any breeze blowing through the two doors will cause the chaff to blow away and the wheat to fall back to the floor. To make this work, you need a floor in a place where wind is available.

In contrast, a winepress was low to the ground probably in a pit of some sort. Wind wasn't a factor in how grapes were turned to wine after harvest. So the Jews might hew one out of rock, down in a pit. This was a safe place for Gideon to thresh his wheat. If it wasn't the season for grapes, the Midianites wouldn't be looking there when they made their raids. While it would be a lot of work, threshing wheat without the wind to blow away the chaff. It could be done, it would be safe, and Gideon could remain hidden.

Mark said this had theological significance. Gideon was showing himself to be scared of the Midianites. He was also showing himself to have a small God. Rather than thresh out in the open, and trust God to keep him safe, he hid down in the winepress. Yet, this was the man that God called to be a judge of Israel and to lead them in battle against the enemy.

I have to confess at never having noticed this significance before. The idea that a winepress was down in a hollow while a threshing floor was up in the open went right over my head all the previous times I read this. It has me thinking, whether I have been guilty of threshing wheat in a winepress. I'm going to look through my current endeavors in life and evaluate all of them relative to this concept. Why hide your work in a winepress when God is able to help you be safe on the threshing floor, out in the open? Yes, I'll be going through my life and see what I should change.

An Interesting Scene in Exodus

What a great day at church today, worshiping and studying with God's people. It was my regular week to teach Life Group, and I did a lesson on prayer, one that I developed myself. I had planned to write this blog about that lesson. However, our pastor's sermon today was quite good, and I think I'll write about it instead.

His text was Exodus 33:1-11. This is a passage I've read before—many times, in fact. It's a passage that follows one of my favorites in scripture, the ending of Chapter 32, where Moses intercedes with God on behalf of the Israelites. It's an incredible story on prayer. But possibly I've skimmed over the beginning of Chapter 33 before, because as I listened to it being read today, it seemed fresh, new. God tells Moses to leave that place and go to the land God promised to the patriarchs. But, God says He won't go with them, because of how the Israelites are: stiff-necked and prone to disobedience.

Moses goes outside the camp to the Tent of Meeting, a tent he had set up where anyone could go and meet with God. Joshua, Moses' young assistant, was constantly at this tent. Moses goes there to plead with God to go with them, to not send them on without his presence.

Pastor Mark Snodgrass did a great job breaking down this scripture and using it to present some action items for us. He focused on the ornaments the people wore, ornaments that resembled those the Egyptians wore in idol worship. In verse 5 God tells them to take off their ornaments—the appearance of idol worship—and He would decide what to do with the people. The Israelites complied, Moses pleaded, and the God's presence would go with the Israelites.

I simple passage, but foundational for all that goes next. I don't know that I have any deep thoughts about it. I will be reading and meditating on it for the next couple of weeks.

Weekends Are For Rest?

That's what we're told, right? Weekends are for rest, and leisure. For the Christian (devout or cultural), Sunday is meant to be a day of rest. We sometimes substitute a day of leisure for a day of rest. Of course, a person who works all week with their mind might find the mind most rested by partaking in rigorous physical activity. A person who works all week at a physical job might need to rest their body and engage their mind during the weekend.

Well, how can I report on the stewardship of my weekend? I'm not sure it was all that restful. On Saturday I was up reasonably early. The first hour is somewhat of a blur. I went to The Dungeon, but don't remember accomplishing very much. After that it was a combination of clean-up in the house and stock trading work. It was a rainy day, and outside work was impossible. Lynda and I watched two stock trading webinars, one in the late morning and one in the late afternoon. This is part of our assignment on the new stock trading education program we are in. We had much more than that to do, but that was what we could accomplish. We also had to work on setting up an account with the brokerage arm of the educational service we're in. This took much longer than expected, but we got it done. However, something still seemed wrong, as we couldn't access the many features we were supposed to. Time required that we put this off. Plus, we figured it would mean a call to their tech service, which isn't open on the weekends.

Another major task was to clean the kitchen table. This becomes a dumping ground for all kinds of things: mail until it's gone through; mail we don't know what to do with; Lynda's mom's papers waiting to be filed; piles of receipts waiting to be filed; sometimes food items or dishes from a meal eaten there; and countless other things. I had said Friday that we really needed to clean that. So Saturday morning I decided I'd do my part. I went through all the mail, and was able to get rid of most of it. I went through Esther's papers and discarded or neatly piled those still needing attention. Lynda went through her stuff as well. I won't say it's perfect, but it is definitely much cleaner than it was. Less than an hour of additional work and we could use it for a family meal.

Next, since Lynda was planning to leave for Oklahoma City on Sunday (for a while it might have been Saturday, but lack of progress toward that goal made Sunday the day), preparations for that was part of our Saturday work. That, and other cleaning needed around the house.

Around 2:00 p.m. I made our weekly Wal-Mart grocery and prescription run. That took an hour, plus more including putting things away. That evening Lynda had a meal in mind to fix, different than the one I was planning on, but a good one. I helped her with it and we had a nice combo dish for the meal. Meanwhile I had to begin preparing to teach Life Group on Sunday. I had 40 pages (27 catch-up; 13 this week) to read in the book we're studying, and then a lesson to prepare from it. I read it, and found that this week's chapter fed into a lesson that took less time to prepare than average. That brought us through the evening, and off to bed.

Sunday was busy with prep for church and Life Group, church, teaching Life Group, and helping Lynda find things, pack, load, and get on the road. She did so at 2:45 p.m., at which time I went to The Dungeon. I first pulled up the brokerage account. They asked me to provide a little more information for my profile. Once I did that, and tried to access all those features, I was able to. One task down! I took an hour to learn their platform, and to customize it for comfort of the eyes and for some things our mentor wants us to have on it. Then it was time for stock chart study. I had about 100 charts to try to get through by 8:00 p.m. Monday evening. I worked diligently at it for a while, though being unfamiliar with this new system of evaluating stock charts, I reviewed them in both the new system and the one I've been using. A couple of hours and I had 33 charts reviewed, and my mind was mush. Clearly I wasn't going to finish that evening. Also, Sunday was my day to blog here, but I wasn't going to be able to do that either.

So I said the heck with it. I needed to take the rest of the evening off. Rather than pull out the good food from the night before, I ate junk and watched Sunday night football. Not content with just watching, I pulled out the Nook, and between plays I resumed my research into the letters of Thomas Carlyle, identifying on a list whether they have references to the compositions he was working on. I did that between plays, so obviously it wasn't done very efficiently. But I managed to get through a couple of dozen letters.

Then, at 10:30 p.m. or so Lynda called from OKC, wanting to discuss some things about this new trading program and what our mentor expects. We talked through that, though it required me to return to The Dungeon and pull up certain things. We spent half an hour or so on that, then it was back upstairs to see forecasts of the severe weather expected in the night, and off to bed.

To sum it up: My body doesn't feel properly rested due to lack of an exertion outlet due to the rain, and my mind doesn't feel properly rested due to few opportunities to disengage it over the weekend. However, I was refreshed by the excellent worship and study with God's people, and with the reading in our study book. Looking ahead, may next weekend provide proper rest and rejuvenation for body and mind, added to that for soul and spirit.

Jesus is Lord, Revisited

Our Life Group lessons continue in the series "Jesus Is Lord", from the pastor's sermon series and the book of that name by Dr. Frank Moore. This wasn't my week to teach, but my co-teacher was off picking up continuing educational units this weekend, so I taught.

I must confess, however, that I'm wondering if we'll run out of material before we run out of series, which is supposed to last another three or four weeks. I haven't read ahead in the book. This week we are to read chapters 5 and 6 and base the lesson on them next Sunday. This week I'm not going to wait until the last minute, and maybe I'll be able to put together a better lesson for next week, which will be my regular week to teach.

Today we looked at the New Testament word for lord, which is kyrios. In the Greek Old Testament, the words Yahweh and Adonai are both translated kyrios. In the New Testament, kyrios is used 717 times, the vast majority of them referring to God and Jesus. A few times they refer to the master of the slaves, or the master of the estate. A few other times they are clearly used as a term of respect, such as early mentions of them when Jesus was considered merely a respected rabbi, not the Son of God.

We took time to look at a few instances of when people made a sudden realization of who Jesus was, and how he was something/someone much more than met the eye:

• Nathaniel's statement that Jesus was the Son of God
• The people of Nain, when Jesus raised the widow's son out of his coffin
• Peter's confession of Jesus as Messiah, in Caesarea-Philippi.
• Mary's various statements or actions that showed her acceptance of Jesus' lordship

Okay, so we didn't have time to get to the last one. But the others we did. It was interesting that in only one of those examples did the word "Lord" appear, and it wasn't stated by the participants in the story, but by Luke as the narrator.

I don't have a lot more to say about this. I felt somewhat unprepared to teach, and I imagine my delivery reflected that. Hopefully next week will be better, especially if I don't get sick the Friday before teaching, and thus feel less than optimum during my main Saturday preparation time.

Jesus is Lord

Well, I'm a day late with this post. Had a good afternoon of writing on my current non-fiction work-in-progress yesterday, and didn't feel like stopping. Then, when I was done with that and still had some time left in The Dungeon, I decided to do some genealogy work rather than fulfill my blog obligations.

Yesterday our pastor started a new sermon series with Life Groups studying the same material. Titled "Jesus is Lord", this looks at exactly what that phrase means for Christians today. It was the earliest of the Christian creeds, as told in Romans 10:9:

That if you confess with your mouth "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

So as early as 20 years after Jesus died, this is what the church was saying. The study we're doing is based on a book with the title Jesus Is Lord, by Dr. Frank Moore. Lynda and I knew him in Kansas City close to 40 years ago, when we lived there and he attended seminary. We haven't seen him in all these years, so it was good to come across a book by him. It was also good to see him in he video that accompanied the study.

 I find that I've run out of time for writing this morning, in my pre-work, personal hour in my office. I'll have to continue and add to this. Or, maybe this post will have to suffice for this week, and I'll just add to it week by week. We'll see.

A Multi-Step Change

Last Sunday I wrote about the Life Group lesson I taught, and how an itinerant preacher, Apollos, was helped by laymen Aquila and Priscilla. In that post I mentioned that I was only writing about half of the lesson I taught, and that in a future post I'd write about the rest of the lesson. That future is here.

Paul mostly avoided the city of Ephesus in his second missionary journey. He stopped there, it being a major metropolis of the time, and a trans-shipment port. He left Aquila and Priscilla there, took a little time to go up to the synagogue and reason with the Jews, then continued on his way back to Antioch in Syria, from whence he had departed a few years before.

Later he set out again, on his third missionary journey. His overland route took him to Ephesus. This time the first place we see him go to isn't the synagogue, but rather the church. He comes upon a group of about twelve Christians, and learns that they haven't been told the full story about Jesus. In fact, they only know about the baptism of John the Baptist. They don't appear to have heard that people were baptized into Jesus' name (not John's name), and that there was a further baptism, that of the Holy Spirit, which was available to the believers.

As I taught this last week, right on the heels of Aquila and Priscilla explaining all of this to Apollos—in Ephesus—it sounded comical to be reading it again in the same chapter of scripture. Some in the class snickered at it. I used this to say, "If Aquila and Priscilla were doing their job at spreading the gospel, and discipling new believers, how could the church possibly not understand this?" My thought was to be provocative. The way Aquila and Priscilla accompanied Paul to Ephesus, then remained there as he journeyed on, seemed to me to be an intent for them to be lay evangelists, and to plant the church in Ephesus. Maybe they were setting up tent-making franchises at the same time. But Paul seems to have put them in charge of spreading the gospel in Ephesus. They helped Apollos there. What went wrong with the rest of the church under their leadership?

The class was smart, however, and quickly said that the church at that time consisted of home churches, not a centrally organized body. This congregation of twelve men may not even have been touched by Aquila and Priscilla. They may have started from outreach by a congregation started by someone who were under Aquila's and Priscilla's teaching, and were thus three times removed from the lay evangelists. The full teaching hadn't reached them yet.

Fortunately, Paul arrived at the right time, when he could correct the not-quite-correct behavior and beliefs. Good news for these twelve men, for the church in Ephesus, and for us who now read the story.

We are through with this story. Today my co-teacher taught from Acts 26. Next week we start a new, all-church study, titled "Jesus is Lord", from a book by that name. I'm looking forward to it, and to having one more week off from teaching!

Not Changed Enough

Yesterday was my regular day for posting here. Given that I missed posting Thursday (being out of town and without a convenient computer), it was important that I post yesterday. I had the time. my only definite plan for other writing was to type a chapter, already written in manuscript, in Documenting America, Civil War Edition. I finished that before 3:00 p.m., giving me two to three hours of my normal Sunday time in The Dungeon to write and publish a post. Yet I didn't do so. Why?

Instead I decided to do more work on DA-CWE. I located source documents, copied them, and placed them in the book file. I made minor corrective edits on them, not the substantive, extracting edits I'll have to do. I discovered one document is not available on-line, so I'll have to type it. All of this is good work, work that needs to be done if I'm ever going to finish the book, but yesterday wasn't an essential day to do that, especially since I had an important blog post to write.

My problem wasn't knowing what to write. I'd considered writing a post about recent health issues, but rejected that for a post about our Life Group lesson yesterday. This was my week to teach. My co-teacher and I continue our summer ad hoc series on lived changed by the Resurrection. We have this week and next week left in that, then we move into a more structured curriculum, an all-church study. Last week Marion taught from Paul's time in Athens as described in Acts 17. The next chapter is about his time in Corinth. I decided to skip this and go instead to a series of events centering on Ephesus.

I titled the lesson "Changed by the Resurrection, but Not Changed Enough". I based this on things described in Acts chapters 18 and 19. To fully describe this would take much too long a post, so I'll just cover the first story, beginning with the back story.

Paul comes to Corinth, without Timothy and Silas, who he has sent back to check on the believers in Thessalonica (1 Thessalonians 3:1-2), and reasons with the Jews in the synagogue. He sought out Aquila, a Jew from Pontus who had just come from Rome. From Pontus to Rome to Corinth. This Jew gets around. Paul sought him and his wife Priscilla out because they were tentmakers, as Paul was. It appears Paul needed funds, and since he knew the tent-making trade, he went to a fellow Jewish tentmaker for work.

In the next scene in the lesson, after a year and a half in Corinth, Paul sails for home, taking Aquila and Priscilla with him. They stop at Ephesus, where Aquila and Priscilla stay while Paul sails on, after reasoning with the Jews in the synagogue and promising to come back. So now, for Aquila (and maybe Priscilla), it's Pontus to Rome to Corinth to Ephesus. Maybe he was setting up tent-making franchises among the Jews of the Diaspora! The most important part of the story, however, is how they are able to help Apollos. A second, precursor part of the story isn't even mentioned.

Apollos appears to have been an itinerant preacher, or maybe a supply pastor. He's a Jew from Alexandria, a learned man, trained in the Jewish scriptures, and an effective speaker. He's also a believer in Jesus Christ, and that's Who he preaches. But, he lacks something. He baptizes new converts into John's baptism, not Jesus' baptism or the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Aquila and Priscilla see this lack, reach out to him, and explain "the way of God more adequately" This turned Apollos' ministry around. Already educated, knowledgeable in Christian ways, now he has the full picture. He goes to Achaia (where Corinth is), armed with letters of recommendation to the old companions of Aquila and Priscilla. That's a great story, even if that's all there is to it.

But there's something Acts doesn't tell us. In Acts 18:2, Aquila is a Jew in Corinth from Pontus via Rome. Paul's coming to Corinth was the first Christian influence in Corinth, so far as we know. In that verse Aquila is not described as a Jewish believer, but simply as a Jew. It appears he is not a Christian, and may not even have heard the Christian message. At the end of Paul's eighteen month stay in Corinth, he is not explicitly described as a believer, but apparently he was, for he and his wife are able to explain Christianity more adequately to the preacher.

It's at this point that I wish we had a fuller story in the Bible, that being the conversion of Aquila and Priscilla. I can see Paul, at work in the tent-making shop. If he sang and prayed in the Philippian jail at midnight, while wounded and in chains, what might he do at work at his trade, while making money? Aquila and Priscilla must have heard plenty, and seen Paul's life. They must have been converted and discipled during this time. They thought they were hiring a worker. Instead they were opening the way for themselves to gain eternal life. I would love to have the story of their conversion.

So here, in this story, we hear of laymen helping a clergyman "up his game." All are working together for expanding the kingdom of God. I like that.

Stay tuned for the rest of this story, in a future post, not too far in the future.

So Many Choices for Writing Today

Yesterday, as I was going about yard work and dog-sitting and writing, I looked ahead to what I would write today, and kind of settled on a health issue rather than my normal Sunday Christianity post. I'm in the midst of a health experiment, having stopped my rheumatoid arthritis medicine, and am feeling ill effects from that.

But today at church was such a wonderful day, both in worship service and in Life Group, I should probably write about them. Our pastor preached from Luke 14, about the cost of being a Christian, comparing this to the normal mode of evangelism that stresses how salvation is free. It is free; but costs come afterwards. Good stuff.

Or, I should probably write about our Life Group. This was Marion's week to teach, and he did so from Acts 17, about the Apostle Paul's time in Athens. This got us into a number of good discussions, which ended up, somehow, on works of charity, and how best to accomplish them in a way that we knew would do some good. The Samaritan's Feet event from last Wednesday had much discussion. Paul's changing methods to fit the situation he found himself in also took our discussion time.

Then, I thought about saying a little about my writing. My other blog is about my writing life, but, in case I have readers here who don't read there, from time to time I say something about my writing here. If I wrote about that, I'd say my latest novel, Headshots, will be available for pre-order at Amazon in a couple of days, and available for purchase as an e-book in a week to ten days.

Having such a wide range of topics to write on, and being unable to decide, I guess I won't write much more than what I already have. It's a good Sunday. I hope all my readers are well.

Getting in a Groove

Today I taught Life Group for the fifth straight week. I realize that, for those who teach an adult class every week, this would be situation normal. However, since our class is designed around me and my co-teacher teaching every-other week, this was a long stretch. Last night as I prepared, I found myself somewhat at a loss as to how to present the lesson, a lesson which I had to make up from scratch.

Following our "lives changed by the resurrection" theme, I went on to the next chapter of acts, Chapter 16. The life changed in this chapter was Lydia, the Greek woman from Thyatira who was in Philippi, dealing in purple cloth, and found by Paul at a Jewish place of prayer. She seems to have been easily convinced by his message. The second life changed was the Philippian jailer, who had a middle of the night conversion after a series of providential events.

As I was teaching, I felt that the lesson ran longer than it should, longer than I had prepared for. We ended a bit early, but we had also started early. While I enjoy teaching, I'll be glad for the break next week, even if it is just for one week.

One thing I didn't make as part of my lesson, which I thought of as I was at my computer on a Sunday afternoon, engaged in book writing, was that Paul seemed to be in a groove, even this early in his second missionary journey. He went to Philippi and, not finding a synagogue, as he would in other cities on that journey, he went to the place of prayer. He was already in his "by all means save some" mode. Lydia he led to Jesus by preaching, the jailer by singing with follow-up preaching. In between he healed the slave girl of the fortune-telling spirit that possessed her. His groove was that he was always at work for God, missing no opportunity to minister for Him.

I have not been in a groove lately. In fact, it's been just the opposite. I have been discombobulated from a schedule standpoint. Babysitting grandchildren for almost a week was good, but not good for establishing/maintaining a groove. My blog posts have been irregular. My writing has been according to the path of least resistance (i.e. whatever seemed at any given time to be the easiest to write). I've made excuses based on activities of others relative to what I need to do. I haven't done research into peripheral activities, such as learning G.I.M.P. or finding a new theme for my writing blog or researching a new computer and camera.

That's about to change. Trips and entertaining company are at an end, I believe. I'm about at a place where I can make good progress on all the things that I must do. This weekend I found a way to spend an odd moment to prepare for research into a future non-fiction book I plan to do. I made major progress on some much needed yard work, on paperwork, on housework. I'm caught up on budgeting, if not on filing. My attitude is good, my health is good, my weight loss is about to enter into another stage. I should soon be in a groove.

In fact, I think I'm already in the groove, based on measured progress this weekend. I need to accomplish another week of this type of progress, at which time I should be able to report back here: I am, indeed, in a groove.

Stay tuned.

The Layman Says "Send Me"

Isaiah said it, and we have it recorded in Chapter 6, verse 8 of the book that bears his name:

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And will go for us?"
And I said, "Here am I. Send !"

With that calling, Isaiah changed his life direction. Before that he had been a simple historian. In 2nd Chronicles we read "The other events of Uzziah's reign...are recorded by the prophet Isaiah  son of Amoz." We also read in that chapter about Uzziah's death, how after a long and successful reign he lost sight of the goal, sinned, and was afflicted with a skin disease that prevented him from ever entering again into the temple.

This appears to be on Isaiah's mind, as he marked his calling has having taken place "in the year that King Uzziah died." I suspect Uzziah's fate weighed heavy on Isaiah's mind. He wrote the history of it; he knew it well. We don't know for sure whether the call came before or after Uzziah's death, but clearly it was in close time proximity to it. It was important enough that that's what Isaiah remembered when he wrote about his call.

Today in our adult Life Group, instead of a typical lesson we listened to a sermon. Penny McCawlay, one of our members, is aiming to become a chaplain. Her educational program includes a class on preaching. That class required her to preach a sermon, video record it, and have the class complete evaluation forms. That took place today in Life Group.

Penny did a great job. She focused on the call of the layman, using examples from her own life: from work and church. She had a good mix of scripture, illustration, and commentary. Her preparation was clearly effective and her delivery was fine.

Well done, Penny. I hope you get a good grade.

Family Time

This has been a different holiday weekend, sort of. July 6 is the birthday of my mother-in-law, Esther Moler Cheney Barnes. So we are normally close to home on this weekend, spending time with her. It's no. 89 this year, so next year will be a big one.

This year our weekend included work. Friday Lynda and I worked in the yard. I'm still working on clearing away from the tree trimming, while Lynda is planting flowers and vegetables in pots. She has some nice flower arrangements, as well as two pepper and four tomato plans, all in pots. Next year, possibly, I'll have prepared some ground down in the back yard for a real garden, but this year it's just pots.

I drug a bunch of leafy branches far down into the woods. Cleared off the outer-most row of brush piles. then I hauled some from the upper part of the backyard to the street and loaded the pickup to take to the stump dump. I rested a while, then trimmed some of our front bushes, which were way overdue for trimming. They look good, though I only got about half of them trimmed. Next Saturday, perhaps, I'll get to the rest. Lynda also planted some hosta in the planter under the overhanging windows.

Saturday we did more of the same, though not as much and not as long. All in all, the front yard is looking good, and the backyard doesn't look quite so much like a disaster zone. Two more weekends of similar production, with a few hours of evening work, and the two yards will be in pretty good shape.

We also watched our neighbor's little dog this weekend, which has been enjoyable. He's easy to take care of. In fact, he seems to like being alone in the day time, so we just left him in his house most of the day and kept him here at night.

Lynda's two step sisters and their families came to town, one from Kansas City and one from OKC, for the birthday celebration. They all came over for supper last night. Ten of us gathered around our dining room table for taco salad and fruit salad for dessert. We had expected only eight, but two who weren't coming did. One family of four stayed with us last night. That gave me less time to prepare for Life Group lesson today, but that worked out okay, as we had to cut off the lesson a little early so we could head to the restaurant for the last part of the birthday celebration.

I'm full of Bob Evan's Sunshine Skillet breakfast. Would love to take a nap, but I know that as soon as I lay on the couch the to-do list will pop up in my mind and I'll be too restless to sleep. So, onward now to finish dropped plot lines in Headshots. Then maybe I'll take some time to format In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People for a paperback edition. Then, maybe, I'll work a little on my budgeting spreadsheet. Or maybe I'll leave that for tomorrow night.

So many things to do, most good choices. I guess I just like to keep busy.

Damascus Road

Today in Life Group we continued our study of how the Resurrection changes everything. We looked at Paul's life. Or, rather, we looked at his early life (what little we can learn of it in the Bible), and of how he was on his way to Damascus with the intent to round up and imprison any Christians there, when he had his conversion experience on the road close to the city.

Or was he converted? Did that happen on the road, or three days later in the tanner's house on Straight Street, when Ananias came, laid hands on him, prayed with him, and baptized him? Possibly it's not an important distinction, but I think it is, and I think it happened on the Damascus Road.

Why do I think that? When Paul (still known as Saul at that point) described what happened to him then, as recorded by Luke in Acts chapter 22, Paul first asks "Who are you, Lord?" The one in the vision he is seeing says he is Jesus, whom Saul is opposing. Saul then says, "Lord, what should I do?"

Now, it is the followers of Jesus that Paul is out to oppress. He has letters of authority from the high priest to do so, and to bring them back to Jerusalem. Why, if he hates what the followers of Jesus so much, would he say, "Lord [Jesus], what should I do?" We would rather expect him to lash out verbally at Jesus, telling him what he thinks of him. Instead, he seeks instructions from the very Man he is opposing. Is that not evidence of conversion?

What could have cause such a radical, instantaneous change in Paul's attitude? In other places Paul is described as leaving Jerusalem breathing murderous threats against Christians. Suddenly he's seeking instructions from the One they call their Lord. Why does Paul change so fast?

First off, we don't really know how fast it was. The light hit, the thunder sounded, the voice spoke, Paul spoke, and the voice spoke again. How long was it before Paul asked for instructions? Seconds? A few minutes? Possibly he had time to think. So perhaps it wasn't quite instantaneous. But it sure was fast.

Second, what exactly did Paul see? Did he see a vision, or did he see Jesus himself, not a vision of Jesus? In 1st Corinthians Paul says that Jesus appeared to Paul last of all, as to one unnaturally born. That says to me that this was no mere vision. It was Jesus, in the flesh, in the bright light directed at Paul in such a way that his traveling companions couldn't see Him, and couldn't hear his distinct words.

So Paul is confronted with the need to make a decision. Jesus was executed. Paul lived in Jerusalem, and was probably around when Jesus hung on the cross. His disciples had been claiming, probably for between two and four years, that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. As a Pharisee, Paul would have believed resurrection to be possible. But he would have rejected that Jesus had been resurrected. Otherwise he would have embraced the new teaching. But suddenly he is confronted with the resurrected Jesus. What does he quickly conclude? That Jesus is alive. Which means he was resurrected, because he obviously had been dead. And that if he is resurrected, he is One to be followed. The next logical step is for Paul to ask him "What should I do?" Do you ask that of someone you oppose? No, so Paul is converted, believes in the resurrected Christ, and is suddenly determined to follow Him.

It's as dramatic a conversion as we can imagine, an example for everyone about the power of the resurrection. No other religion has it.

Philip the Evangelist: God's Man in God's Time

I will be brief today. It has been a full day. First was putting the finishing touches on my lesson to teach to our Life Group, then getting ready for church, then church and Life Group, followed by an after-church Life Group pot luck dinner at the home of one of our couples. They are heading out on a two month trip, and wanted to host this for the class.

That put us at home around 3:30 p.m. I came straight to The Dungeon, and began working on a cover for my latest short story. Titled "Saturday Haircuts, Tuesday Funeral", it is the fourth in my series about Danny Tompkins, exploring the grief in a teenager's life at the loss of a parent. Since the covers for #1 and #2 were done my my son, on a certain theme, and since I continued that theme with the cover I did for #3, the theme was already set, and I had no problem with it. It took me a while to get all the elements in place, but once I did it came together nicely. I don't claim it to be all that artistic, but hopefully it does the job.

That's done, and I proofread and tweaked the story. Tomorrow I'll look at it once more, and either tomorrow night or Tuesday I'll publish it. On now to the next task.

About Life Group: It was my week to teach, the fourth of five weeks in our series on how the Resurrection changed everything. This week was about Philip. Not Philip the apostle, but the other Philip, the one called "Philip the Evangelist" in Acts 21:8. He was one of the seven chosen to improve the distribution of food to the Greek speaking widows in the Jerusalem church. Then he was among those who were scattered by the murderous threats of Saul. He came to Samaria and began an effective ministry of preaching, driving out demons, and healing. Even the town sorcerer was saved under his ministry. Then he went to the desert road by Gaza and helped an Ethiopian learn how to be saved, and baptized him.

We then lose sight of him, as the Acts narrative moves on to activities by Paul and Peter. Philip next appears in Acts 21:8, where he hosts Christian travelers in his home, and where we learn he has four unmarried daughters who prophesied. I interpret this to mean that after some fruitful years of ministry, we find that he was able to positively impact his family for Jesus.

I think that's a remarkable achievement. His ministry changed according to the need at the time. And through it he didn't lose his family. Well done, Philip. I wish I had done as well.

A Day Late - Studying Stephen

Yesterday was my scheduled day to make a blog post. As regular readers know, on Sunday on this blog I discuss something with a Christian theme, typically what we studied in our Life Group (a.k.a. adult Sunday School class) that morning. Thursday I discuss some other topic of interest to me. It might be something related to my writing, or to the news of the day, or even life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But yesterday I was busy with a number of things, and didn't get my post written and published.

The things I did were good things. After church we went to eat with my mother-in-law at her independent living dining facility. It was a great lunch, as always. When we got home after lunch I went for a 5K walk. On the hills around our house, pushing it fairly hard, I completed the course in 51:17, my best time of the year by far. When I got home I cooled down a little, then went to The Dungeon and typed a handful of edits on The Gutter Chronicles. Lynda and I had read this aloud on Saturday (she enjoyed it, even not being an engineer). As in every published books it had typos, and a couple of places where the text could have been clearer. We marked those places, and yesterday I typed the edits. This morning I updated the corrected version to CreateSpace. The corrected version will go live tomorrow. Tonight I'll finish correcting the Kindle version and re-publish it, and tomorrow, hopefully, the Smashwords edition.

Then I went to Wal-Mart to pick up a prescription and get a few groceries. Then it was home, watch some World Cup soccer, fix a salad for supper, read various things, read Sherlock Holmes aloud, watch a couple of stock trading videos. It was then 11:00 p.m. I took some time to check out some of the trading procedures mentioned in the videos, and it was time for bed.

In our Life Group yesterday my co-teacher continued in our series on This Changes Everything, how the lives of the disciples were changed by the resurrection. Yesterday we looked at Stephen, the first martyr. He was one of seven chosen to provide improved administration of the daily food distribution in response to the first crisis in the church. If you know the book of Acts you know the story. As the church grew, they did not have an organizational structure. They were involved in compassionate ministries, particularly distributing food to widows. The Aramaic speaking widows were being served just fine, but the Greek speaking widows weren't. In response to the complaint the apostles met and told the congregation to appoint people who could do this. Stephen was one of those chosen.

The story is familiar. The church continued to grow in response to this better run ministry. Stephen was particularly effective, not only in the compassionate ministry, but also as an advocate for the new Christian faith. The Jews didn't like that, and some members of a certain synagogue brought him up on charges before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling body. The charges were that he was trying to subvert the Jewish religion and change age-old practices. The Sanhedrin asked him to defend himself.

He did so, giving the Cliff Notes version of Jewish history, but then saying that the Jews were stiff-necked, and had killed God's chosen one, Jesus Christ. At this the council and the crowd, to use a modern term, went ape. They took Stephen out and stoned him to death. Standing by, approving and participating by guarding the clothing of those who cast the stones, was Saul. Through his murder, Stephen's conduct was exemplary: keeping his wits, displaying his faith, praying for his attackers.

Clearly, this kind of behavior would not happen for a dead savior. If Jesus had died, and not been resurrected, I don't believe we would see Stephen going to his grave because he supported that dead man. But, if Christ is risen, that changes everything. Then there is a power in all that their rabbi taught them and commanded them to do, to go into all the world and preach the gospel, making disciples of all nations.

What a change in Stephen. We can be pretty sure from acts that he was a disciple before Jesus' crucifixion. Most likely he was one of those in the upper room at Pentecost, even could have been one of those "behind locked doors" on resurrection day. Remember, the scripture says the "disciples" were there, not the "apostles." We can't be sure of that, but it seems probable to me.

So yes, I believe the resurrection changes everything. We see it in the life of Stephen, as we saw it in the lives of Thomas and Peter. I hope the world sees it in my life as well.

Boldness - Where does it come from?

Our Life Group lesson today was on Peter, and how he became bold after the resurrection. It was my turn to teach. We have no lesson material to go on, so I had to develop something on my own. Fortunately Peter is an easy person to study and build a lesson around.

I started by asking them to tell me the last view of Peter in the gospels. Someone said it was Peter's denial of Jesus. While that wasn't the last view of him, I was going to work back to that. The last view was in Galilee, after the fishing, where Jesus thrice asked him, "Peter, do you love me?" Each time Jesus asked it in a different way, softening the question, while Peter never did really rise to answer it in the right way. Then he deflected the question by asking questions about John, and what his end would be. It wasn't a flattering scene.

Before that, working backwards, we see Peter in the upper room, behind locked doors for fear of the Jews, when Jesus appeared to them. This was the second time, for a week before, on Resurrection day, they were in the same position, under the same fears, and Jesus appeared to them (with Thomas missing). During that time the apostles reported to the two who had seen Jesus in Emmaus that Jesus had appeared to Peter (though the gospels don't describe this encounter). Before that it was Peter rushing to the empty tomb on Mary's report, and of his going in. Before that it was Peter's denial of Christ on the prior Thursday night.

Of interest is a couple of places we don't see Peter, most notable of which is during the crucifixion and the death watch and after. We don't know for sure everyone who was there, but Peter's name isn't mentioned. Quite possibly he was off cowering somewhere, or thinking he had failed Jesus so badly that he didn't want to show his face around him. We presume he was present at the time when Jesus gave the Great Commission, and at the Ascension, though none of the apostles are mentioned by name.

Fast forward to after the Ascension. Peter is the one who stands up and says that Judas must be replaced. He had boldness for leadership among the 120 followers of Christ.

Skipping for a moment to Chapter 3, we see Peter and John going up to the temple to pray. They encounter the crippled man and heal him. Peter preaches a sermon to those who gather to see the healed man. So we see Peter with boldness to heal and to preach. Then, in Chapter 4, Peter and John are brought before the Sanhedrin and questioned. Peter preaches to them as when. Then, when this body of elders tells them to preach no more in Jesus' name, Peter and John make there famous statement: Whether it is right to obey God or man you be the judge, but we cannot help but obey God. We see, at that moment, that Peter had the boldness to take a stand.

Of course two things occur within these events that are key to understanding Peter's progression. We have this progression to consider:

• Peter denies Christ
• Jesus dies
• Jesus is resurrected
• Peter goes to the empty tomb but is somewhat confused
• Peter sees the risen Lord
• Peter is behind locked door for fear of the Jews when Jesus appears to them
• A week later Peter is again behind locked doors when Jesus appears to them
• Peter is fishing in Galilee when Jesus appears to them
• Peter is sort of reinstated by Jesus, though it's not a "ringing endorsement"
• Jesus ascends
• Peter takes leadership among the 120
• The great outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and Peter's effective sermon on that day
• The healing of the cripple in the temple
• The sermon in the temple
• Peter takes a stand against the Jewish rulers

The two items highlighted are key. After the resurrection and until Jesus ascended, it was somewhat business as usual. Jesus had died but was back. They would go back to following him around. He would be their itinerant rabbi and they would follow him. But suddenly Jesus is gone. The disciples will have to make their way on their own.

Then came the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. From that moment forward, Peter is a changed man. Yes, the resurrection changed him, but not as fully as was needed. Peter had received the Holy Spirit on the evening of resurrection day, when Jesus had breathed on the disciples and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." But somehow it wasn't full and complete. It took Pentecost for it to be so. He had boldness to lead, to heal, to preach, and to take a stand.

Today the physical presence of Jesus is not a factor. We know He's coming back, and live in expectation of that, but it's not something we put everything else aside to live for. The fullness of the Spirit is something else available to us, if only we ask. But do we ask? Do we fear that if we ask for this, our lives will be so changed that we fear what we would become?

It's something to think about.

Something New in Something Oft Read

Last week I thought I had the perfect solution for what we should study next in Life Group. Our pastor had just finished a sermon series on the resurrection, titled "This Changes Everything." He had us by a book of the same title, and gave us reading assignments to go along with the sermon series. I must confess that I didn't do the assignments. I suggested to the class that we go through this book as a series of Life Group lessons. They agreed it would be a good idea.

Then, sometime this week, I actually read the first five chapters of this 33 chapter book. They are short chapters and it's not a long book. To my horror I found that this isn't a book from which you can easily draw Life Group lessons. What to do? My co-teacher and I are out of ideas as to what to study next.

It was his week to teach, and he pulled together a lesson on Thomas, and how he needed physical proof of a risen Christ to believe in the resurrection. He did a good job. He and I spoke and agreed that we could do five lessons, the next ones to be on Peter, Philip, Stephen, and Paul, and how everything changed for them because of the resurrection.

As we were going through the lesson today, mainly from the gospel of John, chapter 20, something came to notice from this very familiar passage of scripture. On the evening of Resurrection Sunday, the disciples were together "with the doors locked for fear of the Jews." Jesus appeared, convinced them he wasn't a ghost but had a resurrected body (he did this by eating in front of them, as Luke tells us), breathed the Holy Spirit on them, and departed. Thomas was absent for some reason. Then we read that a week later they were together in the same circumstances, except Thomas was with them this time. Jesus once again appeared to them "though the doors were locked...."

Think of that. The whole idea of the book This Changes Everything is an oft repeated maxim that it is only because of the resurrection that we can have Christian boldness and live victorious lives while evangelizing the world. But, where was the boldness of the disciples? They had received the Holy Spirit, yet seven days later they are still behind locked doors, apparently still afraid of the Jews. Where's the boldness?

Now, we know that on the day of Pentecost Peter and the other disciples showed a lot of boldness. And shortly after that Peter and John were bold enough to defy the Sanhedrin and preach according to what they understood as God's calling. But it seems it wasn't a one-step process: Believe in the resurrection and sit back and watch the boldness pull you forward. No. There were several steps involved. Seeing Jesus; testing the physical evidence of His claims; receiving the Holy Spirit; seeing him again, perhaps several times over a forty day period; seeing him ascend to heaven, with the understanding that this is it, He's not coming back; and having the Holy Spirit come as a rushing, mighty wind. Boldness came through several steps, not a one-step process.

I need to ponder this, roll it around for a while, and perhaps pull some notes together, more extensive than just this blog post. I think this will be a fun endeavor.

Finishing Ephesians

I hate it when things break. On this coming Thursday I'll write a post about that. For now I'll just say that my desktop computer at home is in the shop, the laptop is shared between the wife and me, and neither it nor my Nook HD+ are suitable for large scale typing jobs. Hence, after having established a good rhythm in blog posts for a few weeks, last week I wasn't able to keep that up. Now it's Monday morning; I'm at work; and in my pre-work time trying to get my Sunday blog post written.

I was gone from our regular church for two Sundays: one to OKC for grandchildren birthday parties; and one on a road trip across country for a graduation. During that time the co-teacher of our Life Group completed teaching Ephesians. On Saturday he texted me, saying he'd finished it and asking if I was going to teach the next day (it was my week). I was planning on it, and I figured they'd finished Ephesians. So what to teach.

I had been thinking of two different lessons that could be drawn from the whole of Ephesians. One was analyzing Paul's teaching on prayer. The other was summarizing the commands we find in Ephesians. The latter seemed to me difficult to teach, and possibly too repetitive to what had been said in the classes the first time through. But the class on prayer seemed good to me. I had begun preparing it before the road trip, actually, so only had to review my notes.

The basis of this is that Paul teaches about prayer both by instruction and example in Ephesians. Here are the verses in Ephesians that deal with prayer.

• 1:3 Paul Praises God for the Ephesians. Praise is a form of prayer.
• 1:15-17 "I have not stopped giving that for you...."
• 1:18-19a "I keep asking" that God will enlighten the eyes of your heart
• 3:14-21 Paul's actual prayer for the Ephesians: a wonderful example
• 5:4 There should be thanksgiving rather than obscenity and foolish talk
• 5:19-20 "always giving thanks to God...for everything"
• 6:16 Take up the shield of faith. Any discussion of faith is (or can be) a discussion of prayer
• 6:18 Pray in the Spirit at all times. A good instruction for us
• 6:19-20 Pray for Paul, his boldness to spread the gospel
• 6:23-24 A doxology and blessing. Such things are prayers

Other verses wrap around these, and can be brought into a prayer discussion.

We had a lively discussion. That's the good think about this group, as far as a teacher's perspective goes. They are always ready to take part in almost any discussion. It makes the work of preparing for the class easier.

I'm going to miss Ephesians. Maybe I'll go through it again for my own purposes, and expand my notes a little. Who knows what I can make of them?

Ephesians 6:10-20 - Weapons of all Kinds for all Kinds of Use

As I stated in a previous post, Ephesians 6:10-20 is a much loved, much preached about Bible passage for Christians. The armor of God. The full armor of God. What Christians need to know to engage in spiritual warfare.

But as I think about it, what are these weapons for? The ones listed, coming from a 1st Century context are:

• belt of truth
• breastplate of righteousness
• feet fitted [i.e. with shoes] with readiness of the gospel
• shield of faith
• helmet of salvation
• sword of the Spirit
• pray on all occasions

Some might say the admonition to pray isn't tied to a weapon used in those days. Fine, I say, so it's not part of the metaphor, but it's clearly akin to the weapons and belongs in my list.

It occurs to me, and I've heard it used before, that of the weapons listed only the sword is an offensive weapon. Yes, it can be used defensively when one comes after you with intent to harm you, but it's more to inflict harm on someone else. The breastplate, adequate shoes, shield, and helmet are all things to protect you from harm trying to be inflicted by another. I suppose the belt has a defensive function as well, though I think of it more as a place for holding supplies and weapons. Prayer, clearly, is both an offensive and defensive weapon.

So why aren't any offensive weapons listed? Why not the spear, which can be used to harm someone fifty yards away? Why not the bow and arrow, which can be used either against a specific foe in sight and in aiming range or against an unseen foe just over the ridgeline? Why not the catapult? Or the battering ram? I suspect these were all part of the soldier's weaponry in the 1st Century. What kind of battle to the weapons listed prepare us for?

While the soldier fights along side other soldiers in a war, and has the aim of either conquering or defeating would-be conquerors, the Christian generally fights alone. Yes, we are involved in community, who help to boost morale, who feed us, and who sometimes fight alongside, but most battles will happen in solitary moments. And most of the time it will be us being attacked by the forces of evil. Hence, defensive weapons are featured.

But I'm not sure that all the warfare mentioned, or certainly all the warfare we are called on to undertake, is against demons and devils, nor is it all defensive. Are we not told to spread the gospel? To make converts? To teach "them to obey everything I have commanded you"? That has an offensive nature to it. But it's the sort of thing we want to do one on one, in a battle of words and love—a somewhat passive battle, if you will. I hope Christians never do it as the Moslems did, conquering and forcing people to convert to Islam, spreading their religion via the sword, not via love. I know some of that went on in the past, but surely we are way, way beyond that.

In this warfare to spread the kingdom of God via love and words, untargeted offensive weapons have little purpose. I suppose a radio or television broadcast is an untargeted offensive weapon, but I think those do little good in this age. We fight a passive war. Not that we are to be passive, but we are not to wield weapons aggressively or indiscriminately. I'm already long with this post, so I'd better bring this to a close. Rethinking what are wars of the kingdom of God are, and how we are to use these weapons.

Ephesians 6:10-20 The Full Armor of God

Our Life Group study of Paul's epistle to the church in Ephesus is drawing to a close. This Sunday we dive into Ephesians 6:10-20. This is one of the most famous and best known passages of scripture: the armor of God. Often the subject of sermons and books, this is loved by all who study their Bible, especially those who dig in with it. I'm going to discuss this over a couple of Sundays.

Just reading this brings back memories. I remember a pastor telling us—not in a sermon—of how when he went to a certain church to interview and do a trial sermon, they had one of the laymen do a scripture reading first. This passage was the one he read. This layman's strong Texas accent sounded funny to the pastor candidate when the man read verse 16: "...with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one." Except, in that man's version, it was "the fiery darts of the wicked." The way he said "fiery darts" sounded so funny to this pastor candidate that he burst out laughing, figuring the man was reading it in a funny way for emphasis. He wasn't. That was his normal speech. However, all was forgiven, the pastor was called to that church (before ours) and had a fruitful ministry there.

Then, in the Bible I have at work, I have a couple of notes written in on this chapter. This Bible is a Thompson Chain Reference Bible, New International Version. We bought it in 1980, or at least Lynda did. I believe she got it as a present for me. When I left for Saudi Arabia in June 1981, this is the Bible I took with me. I don't remember if it was in my carry on luggage or checked bags. We were concerned, of course, that it would be confiscated in customs. It wasn't, however, and this was the Bible I used those years in Saudi. It was also the one I took to Kuwait and used there.

The notes are from the Kuwait year, simply the name "Tom Hamblin" followed by "helmet, breastplate, belt, feet, shield, sword, prayer" in a column. This brought back the memories of the exact sermon. It was a Friday, the Moslem weekend worship day. Tom was a guest speaker at the English Language Congregation of the National Evangelical Church of Kuwait. He was quite a character, but a great speaker, very animated but clear in his speech. And a very bold preacher. I remember that, in his week in Kuwait, he actually went out on street corners and stopped Kuwaitis one on one and witnessed to them. He would have been thrown in jail in Saudi Arabia, theoretically in Kuwait too, but since he was a short-term visitor there it was tolerated. Whatever good he did for the Kingdom will not be known this side of the great divide.

Concerning the armor of God, Hamblin stressed we should use the full armor, not pick and choose some part of it. He spent a lot of time on "the belt of truth buckled around your waist," expanding this into what he called "the citadel of the loins," i.e. sexual purity. You know, now that I think about this, I believe this wasn't on Friday. It was a Thursday morning (also a weekend day in Kuwait), and this was at a men's prayer breakfast and class. Tom was telling us how it's not enough to take up the sword of the spirit. The belt might actually include other protective parts such as an athlete would wear. He urged us to keep ourselves pure for our wives. It was an effective sermon.

Interesting how some things stick with you, way down deep in the memories, needing just a little reminder to come to the surface. I remember reading that Jim Elliot, one of the missionaries killed by the Auca Indians in Peru, refused to ever make a note in his Bible so that it would be fresh and new to him each time he read it, rather than reading it and dwelling on past readings made special by notes or underlining. I can see the logic in that. However, the recollection this note brought to me is priceless, and will give me things to think about for quite some time. Eventually, perhaps some other memories of that day and that sermon will come to mind, as well as of our Kuwait years. But for now, it's sufficient to think about the "citadel of the loins" as a valid presentation of one part of the armor of God.

Institutions, or Individuals?

I didn't have to teach Life Group today, but I did prepare, just in case my co-teacher was called away to help an animal. Even though he's not supposed to be on call this week, sometimes he still gets called out. So I prepared, then didn't have to teach.

The passage was Ephesians 6:5-9, the one about slaves and masters. It's a tough lesson because it causes us to have to answer the question: Did the New Testament condone or condemn slavery? What did Paul the Apostle say about it? What did Jesus say about it? Yes, we can take that passage and make it about employees and employers, and gain much insight from it. But the original readers, the church in Ephesus and whatever other churches it was circulated to, would have understood it in the context of the time. Something like 2/3 of the Roman Empire was slaves, owned by maybe 1/100th or at most 1/10th of the Empire. They were owned. They had meaningful work, true, including trades. But they did not have freedom to leave their job and go elsewhere.

Some have said slavery was a different animal in the 1st Century than it was in the 16th through 19th Centuries. That's correct, but only in the fact that race wasn't the basis for one's becoming a slave, and kidnapping or bribing a tribal leader wasn't the basis for acquiring slaves. How one became a slave was a complex situation, resulting from many things, none of them racial, none of them as a matter of a system of trade and procurement. Yet, slaves were bought and sold. Some were held to breed more slaves. Many or most were mistreated. Few were ever freed. If they became too sick to work they were kicked out of the house, not nursed back to working health.

If this is so, why didn't Jesus condemn it? Why didn't Paul? Paul says, "Slaves, obey your masters," and goes on to explain what this means. He tells masters to treat their slaves well, true, but never does he suggest they set them free.

In search of an explanation, I found guidance in John MacArthur's commentary on Ephesians. I'd love to develop his full argument, but afraid I'm almost out of time and words on a Lord's Day where I really haven't taken the time to rest as I should, so I'll give the short version. Perhaps, in a follow-up post down the road, I'll expand on it more. MacArthur's take is that the Bible isn't a textbook on how to structure social systems. It's a textbook on how to structure our relationship with God, and what this means to our relationship with mankind. He says the best social institution will be wrecked by sin, and the worst social institution will be improved by righteousness.

I find a lot of truth and wisdom in that. I'd love to take more time on it, and will someday. In fact, a book about it has been occupying space among my gray cells for some time. Perhaps that will someday find its way out. For now, however, it's just this post. As Christians we can change the world, but it won't happen because we jump up and down and insist the government end this program or start that one, or improve this social institution or scrap that one. It will happen one person at a time, until critical mass is reached and the institution is as it should be for the benefit of mankind.

Of course, that all depends on Christians following Christ—fully, wholeheartedly, unwaveringly, boldly, and lovingly. Since I don't see that happening, I'm not optimistic that the world will improve.