Happy New Year!

December 31, 2005 by Leave a Comment
Psalm 1

How happy is the man who does not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path of sinners, or join a group of mockers! Instead, his delight is in the LORD’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night. He is like a tree planted beside streams of water that bears its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

The wicked are not like this; instead, they are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not survive the judgment, and sinners will not be in the community of the righteous.

For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to ruin. (HCSB)

Want to have a Happy New Year? Really? Well, the psalmist offers us the way.

To offer any commentary here seems to wrongly imply that the psalmist’s words are difficult to understand. However, I will suggest that by delighting and meditating in the LORD’s instruction we will find that the unhappy areas of our lives will be changed.

Beware, though, the necessary change may be a painful process of transformation. But be certain, true happiness will be the end result.

Filed Under: Holiness, Old Testament, Psalms

Got Milk?

December 29, 2005 by 1 Comment

The old adage, “there’s no need to cry over spilled milk,” is probably fairly accurate. However, my experience today, was begging me to cry over spilled milk.

This afternoon, as we were ending an eventful grocery shopping experience (we have a rowdy 2 year old) at the cashier, I noticed the line wasn’t moving: The cashier had for some unannounced reason wandered down to the customer service desk. Finally, she returned and as she was putting the finishing touches on the current customer’s transaction, the customer in front of me allowed a friend with a handful of groceries to cut in line from the opposite direction. Now that I replay that event in my mind, I realize they had conspired the whole thing while waiting for the wayward cashier to return.

In an effort to divert everyone’s attention from his obvious selfishness, as the cashier was waiting for the register to finish its tally of his goods, he turned away from her and started waxing eloquent about nothing with his accomplice, the guy in line ahead of me.

Almost immediately, the register indicated the amount due, which the cashier dutifully repeated in his direction. He wasn’t listening: By chatting up his accomplice, he was avoiding the white elephant in the line – his own presumptuous self-importance. The cashier waited. I waited. Mr. Rude ignored her and avoided making eye contact with me. He knew I was staring at him. She waited. He continued talking. She continued waiting. Eventually, enough was enough. Actually, enough was more than enough and I gently (really) asked if he wouldn’t mind paying, and then I offered a reminder that he had already cut in line. Realizing the charade had been unsuccessful, he said, “you’re right,” paid the cashier and disappeared.

Now that Mr. More-Important-Than-Everyone-Else had finally moved along, so should the line, I thought. And the line was starting to move forward until IT happened. From deep within the mountain of groceries that were resting on the conveyor belt came a trickle…of chocolate milk. A jug of milk had sprung a leak, apparently from being crushed under too much weight.

From the reaction of the cashier, an uninitiated person might have thought toxins were seeping out of Grocery Mountain and expected her to call the haz-mat team. She hopped up from her stool [1], covered the electronic eye that automatically advances the belt with her left hand and reached for her roll of toilet paper [2] with her right hand. All this was done in one motion with the grace of an Olympic gymnast. Nice performance, definitely deserving of high marks.

When the customer realized what was happening, he tried to help by removing any items that had been touched by the offending milk. “Stop! Stop!” she exclaimed, “You’re making it worse for me.” Clearly, she didn’t want the milk to flow further down the belt and into the motor, but she was more concerned that the milk NOT leave residue that might contaminate groceries belonging to future customers. So, she dutifully cleaned each item, making sure there was no milk left behind. One by one, she wiped them all.

In Israel, milk poses a different problem than say soft drinks or juices. Yes, soft drinks and juices will ruin an electric motor the same way chocolate milk will, but they don’t create kosher problems like milk can.

In Jewish dietary laws, it is forbidden to mix meat and milk products. This principle is loosely based on the biblical prohibition against “boiling a kid in its mother’s milk,” which is found 3 times in the Jewish Bible – commonly referred to as the Old Testament (Exodus 23:19, 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21). I say loosely, because the Bible clearly does not forbid mixing milk and meat. However, the rabbinical authorities have determined the safest course is to forbid all mixing of milk and meat. The result is a distinction between meat restaurants and dairy restaurants; meat dishes and utensils and dairy dishes and utensils in religious homes; and panic in the supermarket if milk spills.

The potential problem of mixing meat and milk in this way was only theoretical since all the meats in the store are sealed in plastic. However, if some loose milk were to be carried into someone’s kosher kitchen and contact some meat, a theoretical problem would become a very real problem. This cashier was not taking any chances with theoretical or real problems. We would just have to wait for her to fix the situation; and wait we did.

Got milk? If so, don’t spill it.

[1] In Israel, grocery store cashiers sit while they work.
[2] For some reason, all store clerks in Israel use toilet paper to clean the counters and glass. Why they don’t use more sturdy paper towels is a mystery.

Filed Under: Judaica, Life in Israel

City of Faith

December 28, 2005 by 1 Comment

The idea for this offering is the result of an odd convergence of two things: PYROMANIAC’s (still unfinished) discussion of “Rubber Prophecies” and my own encounter with someone intimately involved with the recovery efforts surrounding Oral Roberts’ failed City of Faith.

In his discussion about the validity of the prophetic word in our day, PYROMANIAC (a.k.a. Phillip Johnson) illustrates his point by citing Mr. Roberts’ attempt to explain away the appearance that the City of Faith had been a terrible miscalculation of hubris or misguided charismania, which had been published in the December 1989 edition of Charisma Magazine [pg. 88]:

God said in my spirit, “I had you build the City of Faith large enough to capture the imagination of the entire world . . . . I did not want this revelation localized in Tulsa, however. . . . “

As clearly in my spirit as I’ve ever heard Him, the Lord gave me an impression. “You and your partners have merged prayer and medicine for the entire world, for the church world and for all generations,” He said. “It is done.”

I then asked [God], “Is that why after eight years you’re having us close the hospital and after 11 years the medical school?“

God said, “Yes, the mission has been accomplished in the same way that after the three years of public ministry My Son said on the cross, ‘Father, it is finished.'” [Emphasis added.]

Having grown up in Dallas with most of my family remaining in the greater Oklahoma City area, I am familiar with Oral Roberts and his City of Faith Medical Center. I, too, am familiar with its demise, but since I didn’t/don’t run in ORU circles, I was not aware of the disclaimer cited above.

Before, I had always thought the words of Jesus were at some level an indictment against Mr. Roberts’ efforts at building the City of Faith: “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish. (Luke 14:28-30 NIV)’”

The irony that Jesus specifically mentioned a tower was not lost on me, and my previous thoughts that Mr. Roberts had clearly been indicted by Jesus’ warning seemed to be confirmed in the summer of 2005.

Imagine my embarrassment to find out more of this story from an Orthodox Jewish man in Israel. While sitting around a softball field swapping stories about Oklahoma, my acquaintance told me of his “personal audience” with Mr. Roberts. He (my acquaintance) was one of the three major players in land acquisition and management in and around Tulsa during the days of Mr. Roberts’ financial crisis and Mr. Roberts wanted to give him, a Jew – one of God’s chosen people – the first shot at purchasing some of the student housing and various other properties of his financially sinking empire. It isn’t clear whether it was the “chosen people” thing, or that Roberts had been told that this guy would give him a better and fairer offer than the other two companies that was more compelling. Maybe it isn’t even important.

In any case, I got a blow-by-blow retelling of the ghost-town atmosphere and the sadness that hung in the air as the crane lifted and removed the giant praying hands. I was blushing as this Orthodox Jew told of his sadness at seeing this pitiful situation and of seeing “The Giant Oral Roberts” almost groveling before him to be bailed out.

My acquaintance said he left Mr. Roberts’ office with the intention of calculating a bid, but quickly realized that he couldn’t acquire any property from the City of Faith at any price. “Imagine the headlines,” he challenged. Then he laughed while seriously suggesting a possible newspaper headline: “Jew Takes Over City of Faith.” “No way, not at any price!!!”

I guess it’s okay to wipe the blush off my face, now that I know that the City of Faith wasn’t a miscalculated effort at self-promotion, or, perhaps more importantly, the result of false prophecy. Rather, the apparent failure of the City of Faith was comparable to Christ ending his public ministry on Calvary’s cross: Mission accomplished.

And I thought it was hubris to simply embark on the City of Faith project. That pales in comparison with suggesting that its apparently premature demise was similar to Christ’s apparently premature death. In the latter, it’s clear that His work was finished. In the case of the former, let’s just say…I don’t believe the explanation.

It makes me nervous when men say, “God [privately] told me….”

“So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” (2 Peter 1:19-21 NASB)

Filed Under: 2 Peter, Oral Roberts, Prophecy

Screwtape Letters Part 2

December 27, 2005 by Leave a Comment

Chapter two opens with Uncle Screwtape expressing his great displeasure that Wormwood’s “patient” has become a Christian. In an effort to recover, if possible, Screwtape offers his understudy some hopeful advice toward his future work against his “patient”:

“All the habits of the patient, both mental and bodily, are still in our favor.”

Interestingly, Screwtape’s advice to Wormwood should serve as a warning also to Christians to be aware that being spiritually born again, doesn’t necessarily eradicate the flesh’s sinful desires. Our flesh remains unredeemed!

The New Testament is clear that a process of maturing spiritually is necessary for believers and the process involves both our bodies and minds. Below are some Bible verses that have been helpful to me in this regard. (All references are NASB.)

I Corinthian 10:13
No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

I John 1:8-9
If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

I Corinthians 9:24-27
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

Galatians 5:16-17
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.

II Corinthians 10:3-6
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete.

II Corinthians 12:7-10
Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

Philippians 4:6-9
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Romans 12:1-2
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Colossians 3:1-17
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him— a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all. So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

I Timothy 4:6-9
In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following. But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance.

Filed Under: Bookshelf, C S Lewis

Everybody Makes Mistakes

December 26, 2005 by 1 Comment

I think it goes without saying that there are none among us who never make mistakes. For some, maybe most, it is hard to admit to making a mistake, but an absence of admission doesn’t change the fact: We all make mistakes.

Clearly, not all mistakes are of equal significance, or lead to the same consequence. Some mistakes are funny. Some are serious. Some would be funny, except for the serious nature of their consequences.

I read a lot of electronic communications (email, web sites and message boards), which means I see a lot of mistakes. I’m not talking about opinions I disagree with, or even factual mistakes. I’m referring to common spelling and word use mistakes.

While these mistakes are not limited to an electronic medium, they do seem more prominent there. I think the nature of the Internet lends itself to these kinds of common mistakes for two reasons: First, the speed at which the Internet functions seems to demand that writers operate likewise. The simple fact that an email can almost instantly reach me from halfway around the globe pushes me to respond as quickly as possible, sometimes too quickly to notice common spelling or word choice mistakes.

The second Internet influence on writers is the perception that the Information Super Highway is an informal convergence of humanity: Anyone can travel there – no license required. Although there are legal ramifications inherent in email, I think people typically view it as an unofficial and casual means of communication similar to neighbors standing in the backyard visiting over the fence as they water the plants. In conversation, you can’t generally distinguish between “their” and “there,” so no one is checking. Perhaps it isn’t so important anyway: If it appeared in an email message, few people couldn’t mentally correct “Joe and Susan were the last ones their because they had to check there luggage before going to the gate.” Rarely is there any significant confusion, but word choice can’t always be handled in a haphazard manner.

Recently I was checking out a website that described itself as an effort to service a particular subculture of the Christian community and I noticed an apparent word choice mistake that falls into the “funny if it wasn’t so serious” category.

On the FAQ (frequently asked questions) page an enquirer wanted to know how he/she could become a part of the subculture that is serviced by this particular website. The answer wasn’t bad until the apparent mistake in word choice:

The REAL question that should be asked is how do I become a Christian? Becoming a Christian is a step of faith…a step in surrendering to the Lord Jesus & excepting Him as the Lord of all…. (emphasis added).

As written, this statement means “leaving out” or “not including Him [Jesus] as the Lord of all.” In other words, it means exactly the opposite of what is apparently intended, rejecting instead of receiving. “Surrender to the Lord Jesus, but reject Him as Lord of all” doesn’t make sense to me.

I sent the web master a note pointing out the apparent mistake and the difference in meanings, but haven’t heard back and the wording hasn’t been changed yet. So, I can only hope this was an editorial mistake in choosing “excepting,” when the writer really meant “accepting.”

If you have something important to write, give it the effort that it deserves, which includes proofreading.

Filed Under: Social Commentary
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