Life in our Life Group

Yesterday was a transition Sunday for sermon series and thus for Life Group curriculum. We finished a series last week with the Easter message. We start a new series next week titled, "Live like you were dying". I understand from the promotion video shown in church yesterday that's based on a song of the same title. I've never heard the song.

Yesterday was our annual Faith Promise "convention"—that is, our time to make pledges on faith for giving to world missions. I put convention in quotes because the way we do this has changed greatly over the years. It used to be we had Tuesday through Sunday services, with a banquet on Saturday. A missionary on deputation tour did the speaking, showing off artifacts and telling stories of work and successes on the mission field.

Over the years the time dedicated to the convention shrunk. We went to Wednesday through Sunday, then Friday through Sunday, then a Saturday night banquet and the two Sunday services, then just Sunday with the banquet after the morning service. Yesterday we truncated it further, having just the morning service and banquet. That's a mighty small convention.

So the Life Group curriculum was based on an article about the current status of world missions and how it has changed over the years, and how the United States is perhaps the largest country in the world that needs to be evangelized. It was my week to teach, and I must confess to not reading the entire article or the teaching notes on it. I spot-read both. Since we have Life Group after the first service, while the second service is going on, we have the advantage of having just heard the sermon. That is a great spurt to discussion, making the teacher's job easier. So I read enough to plan out a line of discussion, about all my Saturday brain allowed me to do.

The Life Group had other idea. Oh, we followed my lead as to the discussion, but upon the provocative idea that the USA needs more evangelism than most foreign countries, they picked up the ball and ran with it and I just listened. People who usually have little or nothing to say had a lot to say. Everyone in the class contributed. We discussed the USA, then our community, our church, and our Life Group. We brainstormed how to better work our congregation's local compassionate ministries into the church. We discussed directions for our Life Group, and how to better reach out to those in the church who have not yet connected to a group.

In the course of this, it became apparent that some people are struggling with various life issues. When our hour was up and most people headed to the banquet, five of us stayed behind to talk with a group member who was having a major struggle. We talked, prayed, encouraged, prayed some more, and made plans on how to help. We hope we did some good, though the struggle is deep, and may take much time to work out.

We got to the banquet late. Most of the food had been put away, along with the plates, silverware, and napkins. The dessert table was the typical end-of-dinner mess. But we found food to eat, and rejoiced that we had been involved in a God moment. May there be many more.

What do you want me to do for you?

Our life group lesson today was on Mark 10:46-52, the healing of Bartimaeus. We called him "Bart" in class. We continue our lessons based on the pastor's sermons each week. Since our class meets during the second service, and we've just heard the pastor preach, we have good discussions about it. As a teacher, I have to say this has made my teaching prep a little easier. We have a good group, and knowing they will take the subject and run with it in a wide-ranging discussion, I prepare less than I used to.

Back to Bart. He was on the Jerusalem side of Jericho, blind and begging. Since Passover was about seven days away, the foot traffic from Jericho to Jerusalem would be above normal, so Bart was on station, hoping to receive a little mercy from the pious pilgrims. I suspect the two or three weeks around Passover were to Bart as the Christmas season is to an American merchant: you have to do well then of your business won't survive.

On this particular day, Bart was at his station. He heard greater than usual noise. This wasn't just a pre-Passover travelling parting going by; this was a large crowd. A question to a passer-by gave Bart the answer he needed. It was Jesus of Nazareth, with the usual crowd that hung around him: the Twelve, other disciples, the curious, and some women from Galilee who looked after the needs of the rabbi and his immediate disciples. It might easily have been a hundred people.

Bart must have heard about Jesus. Either earlier that day, or more likely the day before, he had healed a blind man on the other side of Jericho [my interpretation of Luke]. Not too long before he had raised a man from the dead in Bethany, which wasn't all that far away. Bart may have been blind, but he wasn't dead and probably wasn't stupid. He had heard about this miracle-working teacher from up north, and knew what he could do.

So he shouted out into the crowd, which tried to stop him. But he shouted all the more. Somehow Jesus heard him above the noise, called for him, and when the blind man got there said to him, "What do you want me to do for you?" Now, maybe to us it was obvious what the man wanted. But he had been shouting, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." He might have been asking for money, or come to a realization that his soul was not right with God. For whatever reason, Jesus made him state what he wanted before performing the miracle for him.

In class we discussed how Jesus asks the same thing today. What do we want him to do for us? Are our prayers kind of general, or are they specific? Are we persistent in asking, as Bart was? Do we ask despite the ones around us who discourage us, either purposely or unknowingly, from asking? And are we ready to throw off that which slows us down, and run to where Jesus is?

Gleanings from John 14:15-21

This was my week to teach our adult Life Group (a.k.a. Sunday school). We were at week twelve in our fourteen week all-church/denomination-wide "Ashes to Fire" study, combining the Lent and Easter seasons and ending on Pentecost, June 12. Marion and I have been trading off. I teach the weeks he is on call for his veterinarian practice and he teaches the other.

The scripture lesson was John 14:15-21

"If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

I told the class this was "dense scripture", by which I meant chock full of things to study. Jesus has just told the apostles He is leaving them (13:33, 14:7), they can't follow (13:33) but that they knew the way to the place He was going (14:4). He has told them to love each other (13:34-35) as a new command, and that this will be how people will know they are Jesus' disciples. He has told them he is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to the Father. Now he says:

• If you love me you will obey what I command
• He [Jesus] will ask the Father to send the Spirit
• The Spirit [Counselor, Advocate] will be with them forever
• The world cannot accept the Spirit
• The Spirit already lives with the apostles
• Jesus will come to them, in such a way that the world does not see
• They will live because Jesus lives
• "On that day" the apostles will come to a new realization
• Whoever obeys Jesus' commands loves Him
• That person will be loved by God and by Jesus and Jesus will reveal Himself to that person.

Wow—how packed can scripture be? Stuffed with meaning. I could have chose to take the lesson in any of several directions, but chose to study the Holy Spirit and His work. This is something most evangelical Christians study early in their walk and need to review from time to time, so this was, in my mind, somewhat of a refresher lesson. I tied it to John 14:26, 15:26, and 16:7-15. Class discussion went well. We kept on leaving the work of the Holy Spirit to try and grasp again the Trinity. All three Persons of the Godhead are present in these verses.

We came to see the meaning of Jesus' words in John 16:12—"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear." No kidding. We felt that we understood how the apostles felt. They were in the early stages of separation anxiety. We have the hindsight of 1,980 years (give or take a decade) of theological development, with witness and scholarship. That may or may not be a help to us.

I want to explore these words some more. They are familiar from years of reading the gospel of Jesus according to the apostle John, but I still have much more to digest from this. Children's pastor Jessica Springer, in her sermon on Sunday, took this same scripture in a very different direction. Using the idea behind the Klondike bar commercials, she asked "What would you do for Jesus?" An excellent sermon it was, showing how dense this scripture is.

A Full Week Ahead

Yesterday was restful, sort of. I began the day with lots of aches and pains, especially in my left arm, after the home improvement work of Wednesday through Saturday. Even the after-church walk down the trail to the Crystal Bridges Museum construction site overlook was restful. Ten minutes each way in 95 degree heat, but with clouds obscuring the sun.

So I face the new work week a bit tired, but not so much as late last week. My main engineering work this week will be two flood studies: Little Osage Creek in Centerton AR and Blossom Way Creek in Rogers AR. The Little Osage one is tweaking the computer model based on recent survey information and tweaking the mapping as a result, and getting it sent off again to FEMA. The Blossom Way one is more substantial. I finally have data on the previous study, and need to extend that floodplain into new areas upstream and merge new survey data with the existing. There is a major difference in the amount of flood water between my calculations and the previous study, and I have to work that out this week. Some training may also be on the docket this week.

For writing, I have an assignment for Buildipedia, deadline next Monday. I'd like to have it wrapped up and in the mail this week, though. It's on America's wastewater infrastructure, a subject I know fairly well but haven't looked at for a while. Still the research will be easy. I may also receive a contract this week for the series of articles they want me to write on construction contract administration. Those will be shorter (300-500 words), and should appear on the site during September, maybe four or five articles, though I proposed as many as seven.

I'd also like to get two articles written for Suite101.com: the next one in my series on technical analysis for stock trading, and one about the St. Jacob's Well site in southwestern Kansas. I'm ahead of the article quota required by my Suite contract, but these are two fairly easy articles. Might was well get them written and posted and give them a chance to be earning a little revenue.

I also have two more lessons to write in my adult Sunday school (a.k.a. Life Group) series Sacred Moments. I taught one on ordination yesterday, that seemed to be well received. The next one is on last rites/death, then one on foot washing and the series is over. I will need to write a sell sheet on this and perhaps market it as a potential publishable Bible study.

I don't anticipate that the week will give me time to work on my novel. I'm not sure about carving out time to go to writers guild meeting tomorrow night, though it's possible. If I complete the other items, that will be enough.

What One Thing is Strongest of All?

Today I started teaching a new study in our Life Group, a five week series titled "What One Thing is Strongest of All?" I haven't spoken about it before on this blog, mainly because I was involved in posting other things. This is a different study in that it comes from the Apocrypha, not from the Bible.

About a year ago (or maybe it was two) our pastor did a Wednesday night series on the canon of the Bible. During that he discussed the Apocrypha and explained how it is considered useful for instruction, not for doctrine. So I thought it would be good to do a lesson series on it.

Lynda and I read 1st Esdras (called 3rd Esdras for those of you with Roman Catholic Bibles) together, and in the midst of it was a story about three Jewish bodyguards of King Darius of Media-Persia. The king held a great banquet, then afterwards had insomnia. His bodyguards spent the time with him and suggested a contest. Each of them would write what he thought was the strongest thing of all, seal it, and put it under the king's pillow. The next morning, when the king woke, he would take the three sealed suggestions, call some other Persian judges, and read the statements. Whichever statement was considered the wisest, the bodyguard who wrote it would receive all kinds of good stuff from the king.

The king must have agreed to this (the text doesn't say so) for they did just that. The three bodyguards made their three statements and slipped them under the pillow. Actually, one of them cheated and made two suggestions. Not stated in the text but implied, somehow this must have helped the king's insomnia.

This week, I gave the class some general information on the Apocrypha, then read the start of the contest. I then had each member write on a slip of paper what they would write if they were in the position of the Jewish bodyguards. What one thing is strongest of all? We had a variety of answers, both serious and humorous. I then had each of the two tables take time to list three answers to the question, then we discussed it.

It seemed everyone enjoyed it. We had three visitors in attendance, family of one of our regular couples. I'm not sure what they thought about it. And, I'm not sure how well this study will be received by all. Hopefully they will see it as a good break in the routine.

Good King, Bad King

Well, today I began teaching Good King, Bad King to our adult life group at church. I've written about this off and on. The lesson series will be about the kings of Judah and Israel, which were a series of good and bad kings. It seems that Israel had more bad then good, while Judah may have had about the same.

I began with King Asa, third king of Judah after the division. I've blogged about Asa before:

The first prophet speaks to him
Asa's first religious reforms
Asa and the high places of Judah
Asa responds to a threat from Israel
Another prophet confronts Asa
The Jerusalem Assembly: good or bad?

For life group I'm breaking this down into two lessons. The first covers Asa's early years, and focuses on the good he did. The second covers his later years, and focuses on the mistakes he made then.

The class went well, despite the fact that I left the handouts I had prepared on the kitchen table, including the creative non-fiction piece I was going to read to start the class. I relayed the creative non-fiction from memory as best I could. As expected, no one was able to guess which king it was about. During class, several people focused in on the Jerusalem assembly, and were troubled about it, specifically the part that anyone who did not take the oath to follow I AM wholeheartedly was to be killed. I wasn't going to bring that up this week, but rather next week, but it might be good to have it now. Next week it will be easier to show that assembly as possibly the turning point (for the worse) in Asa's life.

I'm ready for next week already. I think now I will go and write some on my harmony of the gospels, either finish up an unfinished appendix or possibly some passage notes. I'm not quite ready to jump back in with Suite 101 yet, due to the picture deal. Maybe in a couple of days.

4:20 PM, Friday Afternoon

This has been a full and busy day.

Work wise, I completed the base work on the Little Osage Creek Flood Study. That is, I:

- entered new rainfall data into the hydrology model for the 10-, 50-, 100-, and 500-year rainfall events, and re-ran the run-off calculations. Since I hadn't run the 500-year before, I had to make adjustments in the overflow structures of eleven detention ponds. By noon, I had a successful run-off model.
- entered the new run-off values into the hydraulics model and re-ran the flood calculations. This was successful at about 3:50 PM. That doesn't mean I'm quite done with this. I still need to run two phases of ditch improvements and one major future condition, but the hard work is done. Oh, and I still need to write the report, fill out the FEMA forms, and submit it. But with the work today, I consider the hard part done.

I also helped a man in the office with construction site problems.

Personal work wise, I:

- Proofread my article for Internet Genealogy; found a few changes to make; typed the changes; printed the article; proof-read it (in one uninterrupted sitting); found a few more changes to make; typed them; proof-read it and saw it was where I wanted it to be; and e-mailed it to the editor. The article still is not quite finished, because...
- I once again called the professor I wanted to interview for the article, and once again had to leave a message. I've found a work-around in case I can't get a hold of him.
- Mailed my mother-in-law's income taxes. "So late?" you ask. Yes. She doesn't owe anything, they don't owe her anything, she probably doesn't even need to file at her income level, so yes, quite late, but it's done for this year.
- Walked a mile on the noon hour.

I approach the end of a day of great accomplishment that made the whole week worthwhile, and somewhat made up for my inefficiencies of the last two weeks, and the two weeks before vacation. I have only 22 pages to go on my reading book, which I will finish tonight and write my review over the weekend. Next in the reading pile is Team Of Rivals, which I am looking forward to. I'm fairly close to finishing the edits on the John Cheney file that I've been plodding through a little each night for the last week and a half. I'll surely have them done by Sunday afternoon, after which I'll print and file it, file accumulated genealogy papers and clean up my mess in the Dungeon. Hopefully I'll put genealogy behind me for a while and figure out what to write next. Probably it will be one or two appendixes on the Harmony of the Gospels. Possibly it will be a chapter or two of In Front of 50000 Screaming People. I'll also consider working on queries for other articles, or fleshing out proposals for the Bible studies I've been working on recently.

Too many choices; too little time.

Productive Days

I have one more post to make on King Asa. At least I think I do. Right now I can't find the notes on what the last post was to be about. But I need a break from that, so today I'll just make a general progress-of-life type post.

Late last week and the weekend were productive days, for writing and for other things. I worked hard on my Good King, Bad King study for our Life Group. Right now it's only two classes, on the life of King Asa, who is both the good and bad king. I'm going to teach it a couple of Sundays in May while we wait for our new quarterly study to arrive. This will be a good Bible study, and I plan someday to expand it into eight to ten lessons, maybe even more. However, the amount of research I did for this tells me this may have to wait until retirement.

Friday night Lynda got it in her head to try to find a couple of books we've never been able to find since we moved to Bella Vista from Bentonville in 2002. Our basement has lots of boxes, but very few we haven't gone through. Friday evening we went through those, didn't find the missing books, but found other things we had forgotten about. Some of it could easily be discarded, as it related to employment at places where we are not now employed. Other was simply mis-boxed, and could be easily taken to other, similar things. We found several boxes with not a whole lot in them. We consolidated some of this, the entire process concluding Saturday evening. The end result is our "stuff" stuffed in the basement is less than before, though we have much more similar work to do.

My genealogy work continues, and I'm trying to find a way to do a little bit at a time. Normally when I get the genealogy bug, it consumes me and I become a basket case. Not so at the moment. I am slowly going through the life of Peter Cheney, son of John Cheney of Newbury Massachusetts. He lived 1638-1696, and is Lynda's gr-gr-gr-gr-gr-gr-gr-grandfather. My document of events in his life is up to five pages (with source footnotes), and I feel good about it.

Writing wise, I have posted six times about the life of King Asa of Judah, and three times at The Senescent Man blog about the Baby Boomers, and why I call them the Candy Store Generation. I have one more post to make in that series. Also this weekend I completed a sonnet, one that has been buzzing around in my head for a couple of years, which finally gelled Friday night and was finished by Saturday afternoon. This morning I posted it for critique at Absolute Write.

Reading wise, I kept up with my Bible reading, and with pleasure reading in the two books of letters, one Tolkien's and one C.S. Lewis'. They are different style letters. The selected ones in the Tolkien book are mainly about his writing and publishing. The Lord of the Ring is heavily discussed. I'm at the point where he had just finished the book and is weighing two options for publishing. The CSL selected letters are on Christianity, letters to various Christian friends, or people considering Christianity. They are denser than Tolkien's, and I find I have to have absolute silence to read and comprehend them. Tolkien's I can read while the television is on.

The other big item is: I have my first freelancing writing assignment! Last Thursday I went to Barnes & Noble after work in search of a certain book I wanted to buy and give to someone. It was not available, though another, similar book was and I got that. Then I went to the magazine racks to look for a couple of mags to research and see if I can write articles for them. One of them, Internet Genealogy, I discovered at Borders in Overland Park last month. I read then it while drinking a large house blend, mainly for my love of the subject.

Then, last week it hit me that maybe I could write something for that mag. So I got a copy, read it in the coffee shop while drinking a large house blend, and took notes and began to think of what I could write about. The on-line database I've been using to research Peter Cheney is at a site that genealogical researchers might not expect, so that seemed a good place to start. Thursday night (actually Friday morning about 4 AM) I couldn't sleep. Got up at 5 AM and drafted a query letter to Internet Genealogy proposing that article. I sent it via e-mail on my noon hour on Friday, went for my noon walk, came back to my desk and had a reply from the editor: yes, write the article.

This will be for pay--not huge pay, but certainly enough to make the work worthwhile. This will be for platform building--not a great platform, but something to show editors and agents. This will be to demonstrate that my writing is good enough to be published. We'll see.

The Jerusalem Assembly: Good or Bad?

The Bible records two major military issues for King Asa: first the invasion of a combined Cushite and Libyan army from the south, and later a threat from the sister nation Israel from the north. The first one drove Asa to prayer, as he knew his forces were outnumbered and they had no hope for victory if God did not intervene. The second drove Asa to form an alliance with Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, in so doing plundering his own temple and personal treasury. In other words, he either bribed Ben-Hadad or hired him to provide mercenaries.

In each case a prophet came to Asa. The first was Azariah, who gave Asa a message of hope and encouragement. The second was Hanani, who chastised Asa, told him he had chosen poorly, and advised that as a result God's intentions had been thwarted. The second time Asa continued to behave badly, apparently to the end of his days. The first time, he instituted more religious reforms and called for an assembly of the nation in Jerusalem to renew their religious zeal.

The Jerusalem Assembly. Let's see what the scripture has to say about it.

Then he [Asa] assembled all Judah and Benjamin and the people from Ephraim, Manasseh and Simeon who had settled among them, for large numbers had come over to him from Israel when they saw that the LORD his God was with him.
.....They assembled at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa's reign. At that time they sacrificed to the LORD seven hundred head of cattle and seven thousand sheep and goats from the plunder they had brought back. They entered into a covenant to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul. All who would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman. They took an oath to the LORD with loud acclamation, with shouting and with trumpets and horns. All Judah rejoiced about the oath because they had sworn it wholeheartedly. They sought God eagerly, and he was found by them. So the LORD gave them rest on every side. 2nd Chronicles 15:9-15

On the surface, this sounds pretty good. They sought God wholeheartedly; they found Him. They did this with oaths and with loud acclamations. Wait, this is what troubles me, both the oaths and loud acclamations, the trumpets and horns and shouting. The enthusiasm of the moment may have caused many to be carried away and do things and make oaths that were not wholehearted--that and the threat that if they didn't do so they would be put to death. What would you do if everyone was shouting and declaring oaths to God, with trumpets and horns blaring and saying anyone who didn't take the oath would be put to death?

I'm sure many were sincere, but just as many were either caught up in the moment or afraid not to make the oath.

Throughout the history of the church, the whole business of enthusiasm has waxed and waned, been in favor and out of favor. During Wesley's days it was generally frowned on. Get too enthusiastic and people wondered about you. During the 18th century revivals in America, it was embraced. Certainly some enthusiasm is good. I hope everyone who considers themselves a disciple of Jesus is enthusiastic about being so. But could a lot of enthusiasm cause one to lose his head, declare impossible oaths and promise things that cannot be delivered? I wonder.

The idea that anyone who did not follow I AM in the nation should be put to death is found in the Law of Moses. Today it seems harsh, little better than the jihads of radical Islam. If we dislike the Islamic practice of converting to Islam or be killed, how can we embrace the Israeli practice resulting from the Jerusalem assembly?

And what of its effects on Asa? It would appear he got carried away with his assembly. Everyone agreed with him, either wholeheartedly or not. When a king has no one to disagree with him, he will tend to get puffed up. Thus, twenty plus years later, when Hanani confronted his error, rather than humble himself, Asa threw the messenger in jail. This led to a downhill progression, where he oppressed his people and failed to seek I AM when he had a need.

Was the Jerusalem Assembly under Asa a good thing or a bad thing? All I know for sure is, before that assembly, Asa did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, and after that assembly he made bad choices and was chastised by God's prophet. The enthusiasm of the great assembly vs. the quiet affirmation of a person in a one-on-one conversation with God. I like the former, but I think I like the latter better.

Another Prophet Confronts Asa

As I said in yesterday's post, King Asa, when faced with war with Israel, sought an alliance with the ungodly Aram rather than muster his own army. The result was that Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, attacked Israel from the north and the Israeli king backed off from his border with Judah and turned 180 to fight the country he had had a peace treaty with. Asa then took the occasion to build up his own defenses: "[He] issued an order to all Judah--no one was exempt--and they carried away from Ramah the stones and timber Baasha had been using there. With them King Asa built up Geba in Benjamin, and also Mizpah." [1st Kings 15:22-24] Never mind that the Law of Moses allowed certain exemptions from service such as this. Asa said no one was exempt.

Then came Hanani the seer to see Asa. This is the second occasion recorded where a prophet came to give God's word to Asa. Azariah did so after the Cushite war, encouraging Asa. Might Hanani be about ready to do the same thing? Nay:

Because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand. Were not the Cushites and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the LORD, he delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war. 2nd Chronicles 16:7b-9

Wow! This prophet doesn't mince words. Asa's use of reversal of entangling alliances as a means to avoid war was a bad thing, not a good thing. That phrase "the king of Aram has escaped from your hand" is a curious addition. At the time when Israel threatened Judah, Judah was not at war with Aram. But Aram was aligned with Israel, and Israel was about, so it seemed, to war against Judah. Might this have dragged in Aram to assist their ally? If so, Judah would have found itself fighting both Israel and Aram.

But it seems that was God's plan. The prophet said Aram had escaped from Judah. God was probably intending to deliver Judah from those two nations, expecting that Asa would cry out to Him. Unfortunately, Asa did not cry out to the LORD his God. He proceeded with his own best judgment, which turned out not very good.

But a man can make a mistake and recover from it, right? Doesn't that happen again and again throughout the Bible. Yes, so let's see what Asa's response was.

Asa was angry with the seer because of this; he was so enraged that he put him in prison. At the same time Asa brutally oppressed some of the people.
........In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet. Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the LORD, but only from the physicians. 2nd Chronicles 16:10, 12

So it seems Asa did not repent. In fact he got worse. He imprisoned God's messenger to him, then seems to have gone off the deep end, brutally oppressing people, and forgetting that I AM could help him in his illness.

A sad, sad story. Even though Asa did great things, won great military victories, instituted great religious reforms, had great personal piety, and was honored by the people at his death, Asa's last days do not reflect what they could have and should have been.

What caused this? How does a man go from the pinnacle of success to the depths of bad behavior? I'm going to explore this in the next post.

The High Places in Judah

After conducting religious reforms as a young man, after he defeated the Cushites and Libyans with God's help, after the encouragement from Azariah the prophet, King Asa went back to his religious reforms. 2nd Chronicles has this to say about this second round of reforms.

When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Azariah...he took courage. He removed the detestable idols from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the towns he had captured in the hills of Ephraim. He repaired the altar of the LORD that was in front of the LORD's temple.
........King Asa also deposed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother, because she had made a repulsive Asherah pole. Asa cut the pole down, broke it up and burned it in the Kidron Valley. Although he did not remove the high places from Israel, Asa's heart was fully committed to the LORD all his life. He brought into the temple of God the silver and gold and the articles that he and his father had dedicated. 2nd Chronicles 15:8, 16-18

Well, quite a bit of reform. Initially, as described in yesterday's post, Asa had: expelled the male shrine prostitutes, got rid of the idols his fathers had made, removed the foreign altars, removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones, cut down the Asherah poles, commanded Judah to seek the LORD. Now he goes about doing even more--except, he does not remove the high places.

This business of the high places is, I believe, a key to understanding Israel at this point. 2 Chronicles 14:5 says Asa removed the high places. 1 Kings 15:14 and 2nd Chronicles 15:17 say he did not. A careful reading of the text leads me to conclude that these are describing two very different events. At first, as a young man and a new king, Asa removed the high places. However, while he was busy with administering a country, building fortified cities, raising and training and equipping an army, and fighting the Cushites and Libyans, the Jews must have rebuilt the high places. So Asa, having been encouraged by Azariah, begins a second round of reforms. Idols--gone. Altar--repaired. Silver and gold--to the temple. Grandmother Maacah--deposed because she is a bad influence. Her Asherah pole--cut down, broken up, and burned. The high places--oh, not again! I just removed them (was it really a decade or two ago?).

This time he did not remove the high places. Why? He did it once. Why not again? What's wrong with these Jews? They keep setting up alternate places of worship. Maybe they worship I AM there some of the time, but they also worship the other gods. I can't keep up with it; I can't keep removing them. And so Asa did not remove the high places this time around.

I don't really find fault with Asa for this. Maybe I should, but I don't. He should have removed them again, and again, and again, as many times at it took for Judah, Benjamin, and remnants of the other tribes to get the message. But he didn't. Perhaps he thought there was enough worship of I AM going on at those places that they did some good. I don't think he grew weary of well-doing. As I'll write about in another post, the assembly he held in Jerusalem showed the extent of his zeal.

The high places exist today, not in Israel, but in America--places where we worship amiss, where we fall short of what I AM wants of us. As this post at The Path of Truth so well explains, the high places do exist. We tear them down and rebuild them, perhaps growing weary in well-doing. We need to keep removing them.

More on Asa - His first religious reforms

Asa is much on my mind these days. I'm spending much more time on him than is justified by the length of the lesson series I'm going to teach, only two weeks. But I'm finding Asa to be a fascinating story. His time as good king-bad king are perfect for the lessons. And trying to find the reason why he went bad is a good thing. I had planned today to write about something I discovered in the letters of C.S. Lewis, but I shall hold off on that. All the time I've had to spend on taxes has made my mind unable to fully appreciate CSL.

Asa was a young man when he became king. The scripture doesn't tell us how young exactly. Some commentators say perhaps ten or eleven years old. After studying 1st King 15 and 2nd Chronicles 14-16, I think he more likely was 18 or 20. Rehoboam, Asa's grandfather, was 41 when he became king. The Bible does not tell us how old his son, Abijah, was when he became king, but it was 17 years later. Assuming the successors were the first sons, and assuming these men had their first children at a normal age, say between 20 and 25, the timeline works out like this, setting the year of Rehoboam's birth as year zero.

Birth.........................yr of coronation/
Year.....King.............age at coronation...yrs of reign...age at death

0..........Rehoboam............41/41..................17.................58
20........Abijah..................58/38...................3...................41
40........Asa.......................61/21..................41...................62

Edited on 16 April 2009: I found, in 2nd Chronicles 11:18-25 the story of Rehoboam's family. Abijah was the first son of his second wife, Maacah, daughter of Absalom. All together Rehoboam had eighteen wives and sixty concubines who bore him twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters. So this would tend to drive Asa's age down just a little. If Rehoboam waited a year or two before taking his second wife, this would put Asa's probable age at ascension at 16-18. Of course, Rehoboam, being crown prince at the time, may have taken wives in rapid succession, and Asa still could have been close to 20 when he became king.

All of this is only for the purpose of figuring out how old Asa was when he became king. Certainly, if Rehoboam and Abijah had their first children at an older age, Asa could have been as young as 10. I go for an older age for Asa because of what the Bible says about Abijah's family: "He married fourteen wives and had twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters." [2nd Chronicles 13:21] Clearly he began this polygamy quite a while before he became king. So Asa was a young man when he began his reign.

The scripture tells us something about Asa's reforms.

Asa did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, as his father David had done. He expelled the male shrine prostitutes from the land and got rid of all the idols his fathers had made. He even deposed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother, because she had made a repulsive Asherah pole. Asa cut the pole down and burned it in the Kidron valley. Although he did not remove the high places, Asa's heart was fully committed to the LORD all his life. He brought into the temple of the LORD the silver and gold and the articles that he and his father had dedicated. 1st Kings 15:11-15

That is a pretty good report about Asa's personal piety, and how that became part of his public policy. He followed two kings who were foolish, taking bad advice, and not having any particular religious convictions. Somehow Asa turned it around. The account in 2nd Chronicles has this a little different.

Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God. He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asharah poles. He commanded Judah to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, and to obey his laws and commands. He removed the high places and incense altars in every town in Judah and the kingdom was at peace under him. 2nd Chronicles 14:2-5

Although these two accounts differ concerning the high places, and whether Asa removed them or not (although 2nd Chronicles has more information about that later, and about Maacah), it is clear that Asa began well. How does a young man, with bad examples in his father and grandfather (and his great-grandfather Solomon, for that matter), with a grandmother or mother who builds an Asherah pole and worships that foreign god, turn his life around?

We are not told how, but I think it had to be some godly tutors. His father was busy with all those wives and with training to become king when Rehoboam died. That happened somewhat sooner than expected. Asa was likely in the care of his mother, and under the tutelage of someone appointed by Abijah. This unknown, unsung person seems to have done his job exceedingly well. Asa, 20 years old at the most, proves to have more wisdom and fortitude than his two immediate predecessors.

This leads me to think of the many unsung heroes in the Christian community, in the church down through the ages. We hear about a few of these, such as in the oft told story of the chain of conversions from Dwight L. Moody to Billy Graham. But most remain unsung.

Today, I sing their praises.

A Nugget in the Scriptures

My best laid plans to blog on the weekend went astray. I had two or three things I had in mind to write on, but busyness all day Saturday, followed by brain-deadness Saturday evening, and an Easter fairly full as well, caused me to not have the wherewith all to write.

I'm studying the life of King Asa of Judah in preparation to teach a two-week study on him in Life Group, possibly in mid-May. The study has been quite interesting, and I'm glad I'm doing it even if circumstances result that I don't teach the lessons. The title of the lessons will be "Good King, Bad King." And it will be about King Asa only, as he exhibited both traits at different times in his life.

Asa was the third king of Judah (after Israel divided into two kingdoms). He followed two kings who were not so good, his grandfather Rehoboam and his father Abijah (or Abijam), both of whom made major mistakes, politically and religiously. Asa came in and immediately began religious reforms. The accounts in 1 Kings 15 and 2nd Chronicles 14-16 differ a little, but both describe a king who was zealous to follow I AM.

Then Asa was faced with an invasion by the Cushites and Libyans. Possibly a million foot soldiers and a few hundred chariots marched against Judah. Asa was able to put an army of 580,000 men against them, but seems to have been hopelessly outnumbered. Asa did what he could in preparation, then turned to I AM in prayer. The result: the invaders were defeated in battle, and the Judeans gathered much plunder. Their southern border was secure for many years.

After this, the scripture tells us, "The Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded. He went out to meet Asa..." [2nd Chronicles 15:1-2a] So the king, triumphant in battle, having done everything right so far--or at least so far as we know, relying on God when he should, received a message from the prophet. And the heart of that message is this:

Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.... But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.

Good words for the triumphant king! How easy it would be for Asa, after the battle where his men performed heroically and brilliantly, to forget that it was I AM, in answer to Asa's prayer, who enabled those men to fight better than the enemy. It was not Asa's generalmanship that won the battle: it was the hand of I AM.

"Be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded." Good words for out times.

An Unexpected Guest

Wednesday night after church I stopped by Braum's to buy a half gallon of milk, then headed the truck toward Bella Vista, twelve miles distant. I was about two miles from the house when my cell phone rang--or vibrated, actually. I dug it out of my side pocket and answered without checking to see who it was, expecting it to be Lynda. I can't really see the display well enough when I'm driving to see the name or number.

It wasn't Lynda, it was an old friend, Richard. We met Richard and his family in church in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia in 1981 (yes, there are clandestine churches in the land of the house of Saud). He was in town, had just called the house, gotten my cell phone number from Lynda. I was to go to the McDonald's where he was waiting and guide him back to our house, where he would eat supper and spend the night. I had already passed that place, five or six miles back, but I did a U-turn and went and fetched him in.

We had a great time visiting until midnight, when I had to turn in to be able to function the next day, and he had to do the same to be able to drive to Tulsa and Oklahoma City the next day. A brief time in the morning was all we had after that. He followed me to the place where Arkansas 279 meets Arkansas 72. I went left; he went west. I last saw him and his wife and son in 2003 at his son's wedding, before that in 2001 at our daughter's wedding, before that in the mid-90s when their older son died of leukemia. We talked about the need to get together more often and Richard asked, "How do we make that happen?"

I wish I knew. When we are in St. Louis (where he and his wife live), we are always on a forced drive, trying to make tracks to Chicago or parts east (as we will be late this month) or on the return trip and anxious to get home. We all have busy lives, and spend them with our closest family. Keeping in touch with friends from decades ago is tough enough, let alone getting together. Still, we can work on making it happen.

So I am a day behind in everything I hoped to do. Last night I finished my Federal income tax. Yeah! Subject, of course, to mathematical checking and a last review against the instruction book. I should have it copied and in the mail on Monday. My Arkansas taxes should go pretty quick. I might start working on them tonight and try to have them done Monday as well.

I completed reading the book I had committed to critiquing, and enjoyed that. I have put aside all the books I was surreptitiously reading that have never been added to my reading pile, and am concentrating on a Bible study. It looks as if our Life Group may have a two week gap between lesson series in May, so I'm trying to put together a two-week lesson on one of the kings of Judah. It's a fascinating study for me, whether I have to teach the lesson of not, as the accounts in 1st Kings and 2nd Chronicles differ both in time line and details, and I'm studying to reconcile them.

This weekend, hopefully, I will be back to a few writing activities. Actually, last night I read once more through "Mom's Letter" and did a few minor edits, and I finished my research into potential markets and made my decisions on where to send it. This weekend I intend to make the e-mail and snail mail submissions. Next week, who knows? Perhaps another angel will visit us, and my best laid plans will again go astray.

A New Equilibrium

This weekend was filled with chores and rest. Saturday morning I raked leaves, used the leaf blower on the rock yard and got all them out of there, on to a tarp and hauled off to the woods on adjacent, vacant lots (in hopes some of them won't blow back when the wind is right). This somewhat wiped me out, but I went to the eye doctor in the nearest Supercenter to have my right eye looked at. It became bloodshot earlier in the week, not hurting a bit, but giving everyone who had to look at it fits. Since this is the third time this year I had such an occurrence, Lynda thought I should go, and so went.

The doc said there was no injury and no apparent reason for the eye to go bloodshot, except possibly a blood disease. He said to bring it up with my primary care physician, then come back and see him for my regular eye exam, which is over-due. I'm scheduled to see my regular doctor next week.

While I was at Wal-Mart, I took a lawn mower tire in for repair. Sitting in the auto area waiting room, I had an allergic reaction to something: right eye watering; sneezing; right nostril draining freely. This really wiped me out. The rest of the day about all I could do was accompany my wife to town and shop and do a chore or two.

Sunday was a true day of rest. After church and life groups, I had a leisurely afternoon. I typed quite a few pages of my harmony of the gospels, napped, caught up on writing blogs, read in The Day Christ Died, planned four life group lessons in the Life On A Yo Yo series, and worked on my written review of my son-in-law's paper on Athanasius. All of this with minimal movement, and little exertion. The allergy reaction was pretty much gone by Monday morning.

Not one minute worrying about being published. Not one minute working on a query letter, proposal, poem, text for a book or article or newspaper column--none of these. And I didn't feel bad about it. In fact I felt good about what I managed to get done. I suppose the Yo Yo series could eventually become a small group study guide, so there's some writing work there, but very little.

Why don't I feel badly about this, about a whole weekend gone by with nothing done about my writing "career"? I'll have to wait and see what another week or two brings before I can answer that.

Thought--and Captured

I've only time and energy for a few words tonight. How nice it is, however, to have that energy at 9:17 PM in the evening.

Yesterday two thoughts crossed through my mind for Life Group studies, two lesson series I could develop and teach, maybe even write for publication. I won't say what they are, since much thinking and development are necessary before I can do anything with them. They may not even turn out to be anything good (although I think they are).

But I captured them. One was actually a day old when last night arrived. I wrote this on to a simple concept sheet. It would only be a three or four week series, quite fitting for what many life groups want to do. The other one came to me yesterday evening. I'm not quite sure what it was I was thinking of that spurred the idea, but it seemed a good one, and so I captured it; wrote a concept sheet on it, although I couldn't remember two things I needed to remember. Some research today and tonight in Wikipedia gave me the two missing links, plus a little more, and I have nine lessons in this series. This one would take some work, but if I can pull it together it may be one of the best things I could do.

Tonight also I worked some on lesson 3 in "Life on a Yo Yo: Peter's Development as an Apostle". This will probably be a fifteen lesson series, which I will likely teach after the first of the year. I don't know how much I will write in the way of student handouts of other materials, but I will pull some together.

Meanwhile, I've got to substitute for our main teacher this coming Sunday, so I'm off to study.