Ann Coulter was Right!

Baptist Press - Jesus, yes; coercion, no - News with a Christian Perspective

A couple of weeks ago Ann Coulter came under fire for saying that she wished all Jews would become Christians. She became the target of charges of antisemitism because of these statements. I can understand why some Jews might feel that way. Their people have been persecuted throughout the centuries. Sadly much of that persecution came from so called Christians who either sought their conversion by force, or who blamed them for the crucifixion of Christ. To say that becoming Christian would be "perfecting" of the Jews could be taken as a rather insulting comment if you are Jewish. And then Ann has a history of intentionally offending those who disagree with her in the political arena. She seeks to be confrontational and controversial in order to sell her books. Apparently that works well because she is selling a lot of books!

However, I don't think she was seeking to offend on this point. Ann believes, as Jesus taught, that Jesus is the only way to salvation. Far from being antisemitic, it is very loving to want Jews, and anyone else who will, to come to faith in Jesus. May we as Christians never worship at the altar of the politically correct doctrine of all roads leading to to heaven. Jesus clearly taught that all roads do not lead to heaven. He said the way was narrow. He said there were few that were on the narrow road. Paul tells us that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. He didn't say the free gift of life was in Jesus Christ our Lord, or any other faith that we were really sincere about! What kind of God would our heavenly Father be if he sent his son to the cross to die for our sins when any other path would have done just fine?

What concerned me about the Ann Coulter "perfecting Jews" controversy was the response of many professing Christian journalists. When confronted by a fellow (Jewish) journalist about why he didn't grill Ann Coulter on this point, Bill O'Reilly simply stated that he doesn't discuss theology with non-theologians. The implication was to say that she just didn't know what she was talking about and he wanted to talk with her about politics instead. By implying that Ann didn't know what she was talking about, Bill endorsed the "one religion is as good as another" doctrine of the great Church of Tolerance.

As Americans we believe in religious liberty. Under the law all religions should be equal. That is, they should all enjoy the same protections. People of all faiths should be free to practice those faiths without governmental interference. No one should be able to coerce anyone else to "convert" to his or her faith. But there is a vast different in being equal under the law, and being equally true. It would be the height of antisemitism for any Christian to NOT want Jews to come to Jesus, whom we believe, and the New Testament teaches, is the Jewish Messiah. For a Christian not to wish others to come to Christ is to wish that they not receive salvation. The "all faiths are equal crowd" finds that statement offensive. But to abandon our belief that Jesus is the only way to salvation is to abandon our entire faith. That is the cornerstone of the Christian faith. Without it the whole building comes crumbling down. To attack a Christian for believing that only those who believe in Christ are going to heaven is the height of religious intolerance. To ask a Christian to believe anything else is to demand that they renounce their faith and deny Christ. But is seems that Christianity is the one faith that it is politically correct to attack in American Culture today.

Uncommon Respect

Matthew 5:33-48 Bible Study Notes for 10/28/2007

This Sunday's passage is easily broken down into three sections.

1. Verses 33-37 Oaths

2. Verses 38-42 Unlimited Service

3. Verses 43-48 Love for Enemies

This lesson continues the Sermon on the Mount, and it continues to illustrate what Jesus meant when he said that we would not enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes (teachers of the law) and Pharisees. In last week's lesson we see that the Pharisees thought it enough not to murder, commit adultery or divorce his wife without giving her a "certificate of divorce." Jesus said that it was not enough not to murder, we should not harbor anger against a brother. It was not enough not to commit adultery, we should not look lustfully upon others. It was not enough to grant a certificate of divorce, we are to honor our commitments to the Lord and our wives and stay in our marriage.

Those three points all came from the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:3-17). The next three illustrations move beyond the Ten Commandments to other areas of the law. What they do have in common is a tendency of the Pharisees to keep the letter of the law, and ignore the principle behind the law.

The first principle relates to honesty. The righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees said that if one swore by God that they were bound to keep their word, but allowed that other oaths might be broken if they were sworn on some lessor guarantor. In Jesus' time one might swear on Heaven, or on the earth, or on their own head or hair. In our day we might swear on a "stack of Bibles" or on "my mother's grave." Jesus instructed them not to swear at all, but to let their "yes" be "yes" and their "no" be "no."

Many modern groups cite this passage when they refuse to swear any kind of oath. Jesus didn't not intend that Christians could not be sworn in as jurors, or that a Christian elected to office could not take the oath of office. That is to take the principle and reduce it to a law. The whole point of this section of Jesus' sermon is to take what had been a law and help people to see the principle behind it! Jesus wasn't talking about not taking such legal or official oaths. Rather he was saying that we should be so honest that no one would feel any need to ask us to swear to the truth of our statements.

All three of these examples of "exceeding righteousness" share the characteristic of being contrary to human nature. It is sad but true that it is not human nature to tell the truth when it is not in one's best interest to do so. Our nature is to tell people whatever will put us in the best light. We have to be taught to be honest even when it means punishment, pain or loss may follow as a result. Furthermore it is human nature to break a commitment or a promise if it becomes inconvenient to follow through on it. The Scribes and Pharisees had written volumes on which oaths were binding and which, were not. They had allowed loopholes for some lessor oaths. Jesus condemned this practice. His principle does not prevent us from taking an oath, but it does require us to be just as honest even when no oath is involved.

The second principle relates to selflessness. The natural tendency is to defend ourselves and to seek retribution for wrongs suffered. Jesus began by quoting Leviticus 24:20 (NIV), "fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured." Many commentators try to harmonize the Old Testament command for justice and Jesus plea for mercy by explaining that the Old Testament command was a limitation, that no more that could be done. My reading of Leviticus 24 does not seem to bear that out. Leviticus 24 is a clear call for justice in which the offending party suffers the exact injury he inflicted on someone else, up to and including death. It does not set this as a limit, but as an exact measure. So how can Jesus seemingly contradict this without "doing away with the law?" (Matthew 5:17)

I believe the answer lies in recognizing the difference in context, and Jesus overarching theme of superseding the the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees. First of all, the context of Leviticus 24 lays down a legal system by which a nation should function. If there were no laws with penalties for crimes, we would have anarchy in our society. In many places in scripture, even in the New Testament, the right of the government to punish people for crimes is acknowledged. Christians are called to submit themselves to governmental authorities because God has placed them in authority for this person.

The Scribes had taken what was meant as a legal code for a nation and applied it to a personal code for individual relationships. They used the legal code as a reason not to forgive others. They used it as an excuse to seek vengeance. We must realize that there is a huge difference between seeking justice and seeking revenge. While both may result in the same punishment being inflicted, one seeks to right a wrong, while the other seeks to satisfy a thirst for another's suffering born of hatred and a spirit of unforgiveness.

Again, Jesus meaning isn't to institute a new law that says we have to submit to beating, to thievery, to lawsuits, and to demands of others. Rather he seeks to teach the principle that we should be quick to forgive, generous even to the undeserving, and serving beyond that which is required. The point is that we are to live selfless lives and put others ahead of ourselves. Again, this is the opposite of what human nature leads us to do. We have to choose to pause before we respond to the wrongs inflicted by others, and then choose to return good for evil. That is what separates us from the "natural man."

The third principle relates to love. The Pharisees had once again dumbed down the teaching of the Old Testament. He said, "You have heard it said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'" They might have heard it said, but that's is because the Pharisees were not accurately quoting the Old Testament. It is true that Leviticus 19:18 instructed them to love their neighbors. As a matter of fact, Jesus quotes the same passage later, saying it is the second greatest commandment behind loving God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. But the Pharisees had perverted the teaching by adding, "and hate your enemies." As a matter of fact, if you go back and look at Leviticus 19:18, the verse begins by instructing the reader NOT to seek vengeance, but to love the neighbor. The implication is that you should not hate your enemy. The natural man would have considered someone on whom he had a desire to take vengeance an enemy, and the clear teaching of Leviticus was that he should be considered a neighbor and loved.

Anyone can love those who have not insulted or injured them. But we are most like God when we love those who hurt us and insult us. After all, it was while we were yet sinners that Christ died for us.

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Additional Resources

Extra! Sunday School Lesson Supplements for Students and Adults

Commentary from the Christian Index

The Heart of the Matter

Matthew 5:21-32 Bible Study Notes for 10/21/2007

Matthew 5:22 (New International Version) But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother[a]will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca, [b]' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell. Footnotes: Matthew 5:22 Some manuscripts brother without cause Matthew 5:22 An Aramaic term of contempt

Matthew 5:22 (King James Version) But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

The Commentary in the leader guide mentions that the words "without a cause" follow brother in many manuscripts. The Commentator goes on to say that they provide a good interpretation of Jesus meaning, since not all anger is sinful. While I have to agree that there are times when anger is justified, I disagree that adding "without cause" is a good interpretation of Jesus meaning. I don't think Jesus intended to weave a loop hole into his message here. Let me give you two reasons why I think that this is a bad interpretation.

All manuscripts are not created equally. When translators of the Bible seek to create an English translation from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, they have to decide which manuscripts they will translate from. There are thousands of manuscripts containing copies of the original Biblical writings. We do not have any originals, i.e., from the very pen of Moses, or Matthew, or Paul. It is probably good we don't because some would tend to worship the manuscript, the very paper and ink itself, and make an idol of it. So we have to translate from copies. To do that we have to ask ourselves which copies most nearly represent the original, since the copies have minor differences.

1. There are a lot of general rules that help scholars decide which copy of a manuscript is more trustworthy. One is the age of the manuscript. If they can determine how old a manuscript is, then those that are written earlier are assumed to have been through less generations of copying, and thus had less opportunity for changes to have occurred. Most early translations of the Bible are based on manuscripts that were produced several hundred years after the originals. They were the oldest manuscripts that were available at the time of these translations. However, in recent years archaeologists have discovered older manuscripts. The older manuscripts do not have the words, "without cause", and as a result, neither do the newer translations.
2. Two more rules in determining which manuscript to rely on when translating a passage are to choose the shorter passage and the more difficult passage. The reasoning here is that the scribes who made copies of the scriptures were meticulous not to leave anything out, but occasionally one might add "commentary" to help the reader understand. Likely a scribe who knew about the wrath of Jesus when he cleansed the temple might feel a need to harmonize this teaching on anger with Jesus later behavior. Therefore the scribe might add "without cause" to show what he believed Jesus meant. Unfortunately, he might also have added it to justify in his own mind the anger he had toward some person at the time he copied the manuscript.

Adding "without cause" makes the teaching meaningless. All of us feel we have a just reason to be angry, whether we do or not. If we didn't feel that way, we wouldn't be angry to start with. If we want to see this fleshed out in the life of Jesus, we have to look past the cleansing of the temple, to the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus. In all of these abuses he certainly had a right to be angry. They lied about him, they abused him, they insulted him, and they murdered him. Did he have cause to be angry? Certainly. Do we see him responding in anger? Absolutely not. We are told he was silent before his accusers. The words he utters on the cross are a combination of prayers and demonstrations of concern for others. He offered salvation to the penitent thief on the cross beside him, he instructed John and Mary to care for one another in his absence. He prayed for those who carried out his crucifixion, because they were unaware they were slaying the Son of God. He loved and prayed for his enemies, even at his worst moments in life.

If we believe that Jesus did not leave a loophole here, then how do we deal with the apparent anger of Jesus toward his accusers (Mark 3:5), or his anger in cleansing the temple. What about the command of Ephesians 4:26 that we should "be angry, and sin not"? First of all, I think we have to be careful of using the anger of Jesus as a justification for ourselves to be angry with others. Jesus is God in the flesh. Jesus anger was the wrath of a righteous God towards sin. It was righteous indignation. In our own lives we will find that the closer we come to God, the more offended we are by sin, the more angry we are at the oppression and injustice we see in the world. Jesus was not addressing being angry at sin, but being angry at a brother. While the term "brother" in the New Testament normally refers to a fellow believer, this was shared early in Jesus ministry, before there was a concept or question in people's minds about whether they "believed" Jesus was the Messiah. For most he was simply a rabbi teaching the true meaning of the scriptures. More likely "brother" here meant "fellow Israelite" or "fellow man". In a sense he was saying that your anger should not be directed at people, but at sin.

It is a fine line to separate how we feel about sin from how we feel about sinners. But it is exactly what God does and expects of us. His Word tells us the He is holy and righteous and hates sin. The same Word tells us that he loves sinners so much that he gave his only begotten son that they should not perish but have eternal life. Jesus condemned the legalism that said you can't heal a man because it would violate the sabbath. He condemned the profaning of God's temple by making it not only a marketplace, but a "den of thieves." But he loved the very people who committed these acts. He wept over Jerusalem, because he wanted the people he loved to be saved from the sin that he so hated. It is anger toward men that seeks to destroy life. But anger toward sin itself, while loving the sinner, seeks to save life, for the wages of sin is death.

To further illustrate, even though we see Jesus' wrath in cleansing the temple, we do not see him hunt down those who had been conducting business in the temple after they left. His focus was on eradicating the desecration from the temple, not seeking vengeance on those who had been selling there. Our focus should not be on seeking vengeance against those who have harmed us, but on protecting others from harm, and even on seeking reconciliation with those who have offended us.

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Additional Resources

Extra! Sunday School Lesson Supplements for Students and Adults

Heavy rain expected in Georgia

Heavy rain expected in Ga beginning tonight | ajc.com

According to this story, this is the least rain we've had through October 15 since 1954. If you take that alone you might think that we had a worse drought in 1954 than we're having now. I expect though, that when we consider how much the population of metro Atlanta has grown since 1954, that our current water consumption would far outweigh that of a 1954. When that is taken into consideration I think we could easily say that this is likely the worst drought in Georgia that any of us has seen in our lifetime. It was reported today that Lake Lanier, the source of most of the drinking water for metro Atlanta, has only about 81 days worth of water left.

As Christians we need to make praying for rain a very high priority in the days and weeks to come. Pray that we will get a lot of rain from these Thursday/Friday thunderstorms that are forecasted. Pray that the Lord will continue to send more rain our ways in the days to come. We also have a responsibility to lead the way in conserving water. Water conservation is not a lack of faith in God's provision, but is rather proper stewardship of what he has already provided. Jesus taught that he who is faithful with little is rewarded with much. I see no reason to believe that doesn't apply to our water also.

Let's pray like it all depends on God, and conserve like it all depends on us, because it does!

William Tell Overture for Moms

This is a funny video I found on YouTube. She goes really fast so you won't catch everything she says. That's OK. I've got the lyrics printed below the picture. You might want to listen twice, the first time watching the video, the second time scrolling down and following along with the printed lyrics. Have fun!

anitarenfroe.com




"The Mom" song, sung to the William Tell Overture, by Anita Renfroe.
What a mom says in 24 hours, condensed into 2 minutes and 55 seconds! Hilarious and talented!
Lyrics for "The Mom Song" is given below.

"The Mom Song"

Get up now
Get up now
Get up out of bed
Wash your face
Brush your teeth
Comb your sleepyhead
Here's your clothes and your shoes
Hear the words I said
Get up now! Get up and make your bed
Are you hot? Are you cold?
Are you wearing that?
Where's your books and your lunch and your homework at?
Grab your coat and gloves and your scarf and hat
Don't forget! You gotta feed the cat
Eat your breakfast, the experts tell us it's the most important meal of all
Take your vitamins so you will grow up one day to be big and tall
Please remember the orthodontist will be seeing you at 3 today
Don't forget your piano lesson is this afternoon so you must play
Don't shovel
Chew slowly
But hurry
The bus is here
Be careful
Come back here
Did you wash behind your ears?
Play outside, don't play rough, will you just play fair?
Be polite, make a friend, don't forget to share
Work it out, wait your turn, never take a dare
Get along! Don't make me come down there
Clean your room, fold your clothes, put your stuff away
Make your bed, do it now, do we have all day?
Were you born in a barn? Would you like some hay?
Can you even hear a word I say?
Answer the phone! Get off the phone!
Don't sit so close, turn it down, no texting at the table
No more computer time tonight!
Your iPod's my iPod if you don't listen up
Where are you going and with whom and what time do you think you're coming home?
Saying thank you, please, excuse me makes you welcome everywhere you roam
You'll appreciate my wisdom someday when you're older and you're grown
Can't wait till you have a couple little children of your own
You'll thank me for the counsel I gave you so willingly
But right now I thank you not to roll your eyes at me
Close your mouth when you chew, would appreciate
Take a bite maybe two of the stuff you hate
Use your fork, do not burp or I'll set you straight
Eat the food I put upon your plate
Get an A, get the door, don't get smart with me
Get a grip, get in here, I'll count to three
Get a job, get a life, get a PHD
Get a dose of,
"I don't care who started it!
You're grounded until you're 36"
Get your story straight and tell the truth for once, for heaven's sake
And if all your friends jumped off a cliff would you jump, too?
If I've said it once, I've said at least a thousand times before
That you're too old to act this way
It must be your father's DNA
Look at me when I am talking
Stand up straighter when you walk
A place for everything and everything must be in place
Stop crying or I'll give you something real to cry about
Oh!
Brush your teeth, wash your face, put your PJs on
Get in bed, get up here, say a prayer with mom
Don't forget, I love you
And tomorrow we will do this all again because a mom's work never ends
You don't need the reason why
Because, because, because, because
I said so, I said so, I said so, I said so
I'm the mom, the mom, the mom, the mom, the mom!!
Ta da!!!

Our Soldier in Uniform

Only ten more days until we get to see Jonathon again. We finally got a picture of him in uniform yesterday. I really liked the picture, and thought it made him look very grown up.

Terri thinks he looks tired in the picture, and it made her feel sad. I guess if he looks tired that makes her feel like he's not happy, or not well, or maybe just not getting enough sleep. I never really thought you were supposed to get enough sleep in Basic Training anyway.

We leave on Wednesday morning, October 24 to drive up to Missouri. We'll drive all day Wednesday and get a motel about 30 minutes from Fort Leonard Wood on Wednesday night. Thursday morning at 8:00 they have a family orientation/briefing, and we are supposed to get him around 11:00. He's asked us to take him to Cracker Barrel, and a bookstore, either Books-a-Million or Barnes and Noble.

He has to be back at his barracks at 8:00 that night. After graduation Friday morning we expect that he'll be shipped out immediately, but we're still praying that there might be some chance he could hang out with us for another day and fly out either Saturday night or Sunday morning. We'll have to leave early Sunday to make the drive back anyway.

While we're gone Parish Perry will be leading prayer meeting and Bible study on the 24^th. Milton Woods, Interim Associational Missionary for the South Metro Baptist Association, will lead the morning service on the 28^th. There will be no services on the evening of the 28^th due to it being a NASCAR race weekend.

NEW Church Website

I've been working on redesigning the church website, moving it to the same service that hosts my blog. There are several advantages to doing this.

1. Cost: We currently pay AT&T about $10 per month to host our website. While this isn't a great deal of money, we can have just as nice a site, maybe nicer (see #2) for free on blogger.com.
2. Design improvements: Our current site was created completely from scratch by me. I have NO experience doing this, and think I did pretty well, for an amateur. But the layouts on blogger.com have been designed by professionals, and look nicer and more professional than anything I could do on my own.
   
3. Continuity: By using the same layout and color scheme (provided by blogger.com) on the church website as I use on my blogs, there is continuity of appearance.
   
4. Cooperation/Participation: This is my favorite reason. Posting on a blog is sometimes called "pushbutton publishing" because it is so easy to do. If you can send an email you can post to a blog. That means if I want someone else to post something about a musical event coming up, a children's activity, or some other ministry event, I can either give them permission to do so, or just give them a special email address. They can send their email to that address and it would show up on our home page. This is important because I'd like to eventually give this job away. While I would continue to manage my own personal blog, I'd like to see God send us someone else who is willing to take over the rest of the church website. Doing that on blogger rather than "from scratch" makes it much easier for someone else to jump in.

I've already copied most of the content from the current site to the new site. The main thing I haven't done is move the church history. I haven't done this yet for two reasons. One, the history consists of several documents, and reproducing those and putting them on the new site will require a great deal more time than I've had to work on this so far. Most of what I've already done has been done late at night on my laptop while Terri and I watch TV together. Secondly, I'm not sure how much benefit we get from having the history on our website. Our history is precious to us, but I'm not sure it does much to offer a visitor to our site a reason to come here. I'd like to know your thoughts on that. Please comment below and let me know what you think.

When I get it completely finished, we'll assign our permanent address (fbclovejoy.org) instead of the temporary one. The temporary address is fbclovejoy.blogspot.com. Take a look and let me know what you think. You can post a comment here.

What a great day!

Sunday was full day, but I can't think of one I've enjoyed more. I got to sleep in a little since we didn't have Sunday School, and that was a treat in itself. I ran a little later than I intended to getting to the church, but it wasn't so much from sleeping late as from waiting for Terri's casseroles to come out of the oven. One of those, a potato casserole, was gone by the time we got to the table. I guess she'll have to make another just for us. It's good knowing someone enjoyed it though.

When I got to the church it was already a beehive of activity. The parking lot was about a quarter full, and BJ Marcum was running the hand cart shuttle back and forth from the kitchen to the parking lot, helping people get their food in. As I pushed passed BJ with a casserole in my hand, Peggy Wallace was busy adorning the serving tables with beautiful colorful tablecloths. After putting my casserole in the kitchen I headed off to the sanctuary to greet the Jordans, who had beaten me to church. They already had their equipment set up and were ready to go. The sanctuary was about one-third full at this time, with a steady stream of people pouring in. It was great to see our former pastor, Rev. and Mrs. James Brown sitting near the back on the right hand side.

I started to get a little nervous at about 10:15 when I didn't see Dr. Quick yet. I went outside and looked, and perspired a bit. Then I came back in and told someone I was nervous that he wasn't there yet. They pointed him out to me in the crowd. He had come in the front door while I was looking for him out the side door. When I finally got to greet him, it was a great reunion. As a former pastor of mine, I consider him not only a colleague, but a mentor and friend.

I can't say enough about the music. The congregational singing was good, Danny and the choir both did a wonderful job, and I could have listened to the Jordan's all day. They had so much energy in their music. I remember thinking as they sang, "Rock and Roll has nothing on good gospel music." The Jordan's truly rocked! There was one funny moment when David Jordan asked how many in the congregation could remember when they were saved. Nearly every hand went up. But Dr. Quick didn't raise his hand. He was writing on his bulletin, trying to remember as many names of our members from his childhood as possible. The lady sitting behind him tapped him on the shoulder and said, "You might want to raise your hand, if you plan to preach!"

He did raise his hand then, and boy did he ever preach! He brought a powerful message from Luke 4 about the rejection of Jesus by his hometown of Nazareth. He challenged us that every time we disobey him, every time we refuse to submit to his claims on our life, we are rejecting him too. He challenged those who had never received him to accept him. He challenged those who were Christians to quit playing church and get "plugged in." Although a few came to the altar to pray during the invitation, we didn't have any public decisions. However, I did have a young man tell me later in the day that he had prayed to receive Christ during the service. That alone made it a great day!

After the service we moved out to the end of our parking lot for our groundbreaking ceremony. Three of our charter members, Beulah Self, Jane Hicks, and Claudine Ballard helped us turn dirt with a shovel as we prayed over that ground and asked God's blessing on it, and provision for it. The ladies did such a good job that David West suggested we just let them go ahead and dig the footing!

We had such a great crowd, that there was a long line out the door of the fellowship hall to get to the serving tables. Terri and I brought up the rear of the line, but there was still an ample supply of great things to eat when we came through. Thanks to all who cooked, served, decorated and cleaned. Thanks to those who took the time to set up and break down tables. When we finally finished eating, cleaning and moving tables and chairs back where they needed to be, our day was only about half over. We still had much more planned for the day.

On the way home from the church, Jon called us from Basic Training. He usually calls the house on Sunday afternoon, and he had already called and we weren't home yet. He got to talk longer than usual this time. He said that he had a good week. At his request we had mailed him a Georgia road map. He said he unfolded the map and just stared at Hampton for several minutes. You think he might be a little homesick?

When we got off the phone with Jonathon, we changed into some more casual clothes and hopped right back in the car. We drove south two hours to my mother's home in Eastman. We picked her up and took her to the First Baptist Church of Eastman. After an inspiring evening worship service the church had a "peanut boil" fellowship. If you are reading this and aren't from the South, you may have never heard of boiled peanuts. They are very popular down here, and the fellowship was a lot of fun. I saw mostly people I didn't know, who had come to the church in the 25 years since I left there. But I saw quite a few familiar faces too. A pharmacist who had been willing to drive into town and let us get medicine for Catherine at midnight when she was a baby. Two girls I had gone to high school and marched in the band with for several years. A former prayer partner who just had his first child, in his forties!

Of course, of all the familiar faces, the best one was Mom's. We didn't get but a couple of hours with her. But two hours of "face time" beats a whole day of talking on the telephone. It was great to see her smile, to be able to give her a hug and a kiss. One man came by to greet us. When I told him how Mom had drug me there each week when I was a kid, he told me he had the same kind of "drug problem" when he was a kid too. That man just celebrated his ninth year as the youth minister there! Keep dragging those kids to church parents. Continual exposure to the Word does make an impact, even when they don't want to be there!

Well, it's almost midnight, and tomorrow is another full day. We'll be serving at the Calvary Refuge Center homeless shelter in Forest Park. Dinner starts at 7:00. I hope I see you there!

We got another letter from Jonathon today. He's very excited to be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but expects this last two weeks to be very intense, and has requested extra mail for some "emotional support."

Wednesday of next week is the seventh sixth anniversary of the death of Joe Peters. Please keep Joseph and Marie in your prayers during this time.

Thanks to Danny Bramlett, Jimmy Livingston, and BJ Marcum for remodeling our sound booth. It looks great, and there's room for two people to work back there. We have everything wired so that we can record the services. Please let us know if you'd be interested in that. We have all the equipment in for our video system, and we should have that in place very soon.

See you Sunday!

The Gospel in Secular Fiction

John Waters is an old college and seminary buddy of mine. He often writes reviews of books he's read on his blog. He just posted a review of three books including Bleachers by John Grisham. Since Grisham is one of my favorite authors, I sent him an email about a couple of other Grisham books I thought he might like. Although Grisham is a secular writer, he has a couple of books that could qualify as "Christian fiction." I thought I'd share that email here, in case any of you are looking for good reading material.

If you haven't already read Grisham, you've likely seen many movies adapted from his books, such as A Time to Kill, The Firm, The Pelican Brief, and The Client, just to name a few.

Here's my letter to John:

I don't know how much of Grisham you've read. I think I've read everything he's published. He has two books that could easily have been marketed as Christian fiction based on their content, but he couldn't afford the pay cut ;).

The Testament tells the story of a drug addict attorney coming out of rehab who is sent to the Amazon Jungle to find the illegitimate missionary daughter of a billionaire who has left her his fortune, much to the dismay of his greedy "legitimate" children. The clear presentation of the gospel from both the missionary and a local pastor to this attorney, and the "new creation" transformation he experiences are a powerful testimony.

In The Last Juror his main character is a small town newspaper owner/editor who in the process of covering a murder trial, interviews one of the jurors who repeatedly and clearly shares the gospel with him and the readers.




On the other hand, The Brethren has a plot that made me feel like i needed to go shower and scrub myself with Ajax after I read it. It involved crooked imprisoned judges, baiting wealthy influential homosexuals with classified ads, and after obtaining explicit letters from these men, blackmailing them with the letters. The plot gets exciting when one of the victims turns out to be a "manchurian" type presidential candidate. Although it was a thrilling read, it left me feeling very dirty and I wondered how it could come from the same pen as the other two books.

If any of you have read other "secular" books that did a good job of sharing the gospel, I'd love to hear about it! Post a comment here.

Amazing Grace

Jesus said ask and you will receive. What we find out is that sometimes we ask and receive much more than we asked for. I asked for people to share their pictures of church events with me, and for someone to loan me a camera for our trip to Missouri for Jonathon's graduation. At the dinner for Breast Cancer Awareness last night, I had not one but two families present me with the gift of a camera. As a matter of fact, I was explaining how generous, and unnecessary this was to the first benefactor, when the second asked me to come to a corner of the room so he could share his gift. (Both cameras were given by married couples, my use of gender simply refers to the person I was talking to at the time.)

I can't explain how I felt! I felt loved, appreciated, a bit overwhelmed. And part of me felt guilty. Did people take my mention that we did not have a digital camera as a hint that I wanted someone to give us one? Did people think I was fishing for gifts? And then there was the problem of what to do with TWO cameras. I mean, each couple bought us a camera because they thought we didn't have one. It wouldn't be fair to accept two without telling the benefactors. I told the second couple, thank you, but someone else just gave us one. They told me, "That's ok, this one is new." Then I realized that they thought we had been loaned one. I said, "No, you don't understand, the first one was new too!" They kindly told us, "Well then you and Terri will both have one."

About this time the husband from the first couple walks up. He hands me the receipt for his camera, in case I have any problems. I say, "It's good that you gave me the receipt, because I may need to take one back, this other couple also gave us one." I was offering to take it back and give him his money back, or split the money between the two. But he gave me the exact same response as the first couple. He said that now Terri and I would both have one.

As the night wore on I began to enjoy my gift. I opened one of the cameras and tried to take a few pictures. I doubt any came out very well, with me not having had any time to really figure this new fangled digital photography thing out. But I enjoyed trying. As the night came to a close, Terri and I talked about how generous this was, that not one but two families would do this for us. But then I thought, that's just how God is. Paul said of God in Ephesians 3:20 that he"is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine." I would have thought it very generous if someone trusted us for a week with their camera. It was more than I could imagine that someone might give us one! And that two families would give us one? Well that's just immeasurably more than I could have imagined.

That makes me wonder how we might sell God short when we pray. I think we come to him in prayer like a kid with a Christmas list. We ask for a lot more than we expect to get, but we know if we ask for a lot, maybe we'll get a few good things. Shouldn't we turn this idea upside down? Let's come to God and only ask for what we really need. Let's spend the rest of our time just loving him, praising him, giving him the worship, the glory, and the honor due him. And we can expect that he will give more than we asked, more than we imagined, immeasurably more than we imagined. He's a God of grace, He always gives us so much more than we deserve.

By the way, we are most like him when we give. Last night, between the ticket sales, the donations from love offerings, and the sale of cakes (like I needed a cake), we collected over $1,000 for Breast Cancer Research. This showed me that the two families who were so generous to my family were not the exception, but examples of the norm at our church. God has blessed me to be in a church where people share what he has given them. He has blessed me to be in a church where people have enough faith in Him to give, because they know that He is going to take care of their needs. Thank you for being a blessing to me, to my family, to past present and future breast cancer patients and their families. I love being your pastor!

I need pictures!

One of these days Terri and I are going to come blasting into the 90s and buy ourselves a digital camera. But that day is not today. So I need your help.  First of all, if you take any pictures of the Breast Cancer Awareness Dinner, Pink Hat Sunday, or Any of the Homecoming/Groundbreaking activities, I sure would like it if you could share them with me. You can email me copies, burn me a disk, or send me a link if you post your pictures on the web.

Secondly, as most of you already know, Terri, Catherine and I will be going to Missouri later this month for Jonathon's graduation from Basic Combat Training. First, please pray that we will have our rental house leased before we have to leave. Second, if someone has a digital camera they would be willing to loan us for the trip, we'd be very grateful.

--
Mike Hardin

October 7, 2007 Bible Study Supplement

I've provided some extra exposition of the text below. For extra lesson plan ideas download Extra! Sunday School Lesson Supplements that use current events, not available when the curriculum was being written.

Introduction

This week's Lesson is from Matthew 5:1-12. This is the passage known as the beatitudes. I like the way Robert Schuller phrased it. He wrote a book on this passage called The Be Happy Attitudes. Another book on this passage that I enjoyed was The Applause of Heaven by Max Lucado. If you have a chance to pick up either to review before Sunday they might add a lot to your lesson.
A parallel passage is found in Luke 6:17-23. In this passage Jesus is said to be coming down from the mountain and teaching on a level spot, so it is sometimes called The Sermon on the Plain to distinguish it from The Sermon on the Mount in today's passage.

Verses 1-2 (NIV)

Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, ²and he began to teach them saying:
In chapter four we are told that Jesus had already begun to preach repentance, and had started calling his disciples. The verses that follow are instructions that are meant for the disciples, but Jesus wanted the crowds to hear them too. So it should be in your Bible Study class. We want to teach a lesson that is relevant to the disciples (members). But we also want to be seeking to draw and reach a crowd (prospects). I hope every class is seeking not only to takes its members deeper, but is planning outreach opportunities to draw more people in.
We have several in our church who attend worship but don't attend Bible Study. Make a point to invite some of these not only to your class at 9:45 on Sunday morning, but to fellowship opportunities. Be like Jesus, have a ministry to the crowd.
The fact that he went up on a mountainside to teach may be an illusion to Moses, who received the law from God on the top of Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19:11-20). In the same way we see Jesus on the mountainside giving the people a word from the Lord. There are many mountains in this region west of the sea of Galilee, but tradition has it that the sermon was given at the Horns of Hittim. The scripture is full of great events happening on mountains. It was on Mt. Ararat that the ark rested (Genesis 8:4). It was on Mt Moriah that Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac (Genesis 22:2). It was on Mt. Horeb that Moses saw the burning bush, and hear therein the voice of God (Exodus 3:1). It was Mt. Hermon, or Tabor, that Christ was Transfigured and joined by Moses and Elijah, as witnessed by Peter, James, and John (Mark 9:2). And it was on Mt. Olivet that Jesus ascended from the earth to his Father in Heaven (Acts 1:12).

Sitting was the normal posture for a Rabbi. It would have been an indication to the crowd that he was getting ready to the teach. Thus once he was seated, his disciples came to him.

Verses 3-12

The rest of the passage contains a series of different people Jesus lists as "blessed." As I said earlier, "happy" might be just as good a translation. The strange thing about the passage is the circumstances that Jesus tells us result in blessedness. He list poverty, mourning, meekness, hunger, thirst, injury, purity, and persecution among those things that make one blessed. These are all the opposite of what people would normally associate with being blessed. Anyone who was experiencing any of these things might have wondered if he was cursed instead of blessed. Jesus does a couple of things by beginning his sermon with this odd teaching.

1. He grabs the attention of the disciples and the crowd. The people would have immediately wondered, how can people experiencing those circumstances be blessed? They would have been eager to hear more. This is a teaching technique we see Jesus use with Nicodemus in John chapter 3 when he tells him he must be born again. Nicodemus immediately asks, "How is that possible?" In the same way, when you are teaching your class, try to begin each lesson with an attention grabber. Both the printed curriculum and the Extra supplements have introductory material designed to catch your students' interest, but often you will think of something better on your own.

2. He demonstrates that God's ways are completely different than man's ways. Men look at life through the prism of what is present and temporary. God views life through the prism of what is to come and is eternal. Men don't consider themselves blessed in life's difficult circumstances because they focus on the present. God sees their present suffering, and plans to reward them accordingly, so they are in fact blessed in the midst of the suffering.

Verse 3 (NIV)

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

In Luke's account he only says "the poor." But Matthew tells us Jesus said "poor in spirit." Just as a poor person often may have to humble himself and ask for help with food, clothing, or shelter, a person who is "poor in spirit" realizes that they need help. This verse sets the tone for the way Jesus interacts with the religious elite and the moral outcasts throughout the gospels. To the religious leaders who considered themselves to be holy and righteous, he gave his most stern rebukes. To those who were outcasts because of their immorality, the prostitutes and tax collectors, he demonstrated the most compassion. These were the people who knew they were in need of grace and mercy. Jesus never excused nor encouraged immorality, but he makes it clear that those who are most aware of their need for grace are nearest the kingdom of heaven.

Verse 4 (NIV)

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Those who are poor in spirit will have hearts broken over their sin. We normally mourn when we lose a loved one. We mourn not so much for them, as after them. We know that they don't suffer any more. But we will miss them. The mourning that Jesus speaks of hear is a mourning that flows from a broken relationship with God. Just as we desire to be reunited with a loved one who has passed away, we also should desire to be reunited with God, from whom we are separated by our sin.

Verse 5 (NIV)

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Jesus here is quoting Psalm 37:11 from the Old Testament. The word for meek is derived from Hebrew words for suffering and oppression, and thus signifies the spirit and attitude born of those experiences. Moses is said to have been meek (Numbers 12:3), and the characteristic of meekness is even ascribed to God himself (2 Sam. 22:36). The word translated gentleness in 2 Sam. 22:36 is the same word translated meek in Numbers 12:3, referring to Moses. I like the way the NIV translates 2 Sam 22:36. It says "you stoop down to make me great." God certainly is not weak, but in His gentleness he can be meek. In all of his greatness, he stooped down, by taking on the form of man, and lifted us up. Easton's Bible Dictionary defines a meek person as one who has a calm temper of mind, who cannot be provoked. Meekness should not be confused with weakness. A meek person may have great physical strength, but that strength is controlled and harnessed.

Verse 6 (NIV)

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

It is hard for most of us to understand what Jesus meant here, for most of us are never really very hungry or thirsty. We live in a culture where obesity is epidemic because we all have more than we need to eat. And quenching our thirst is as easy as turning on the tap and finding cool clear water. Not so for those n Jesus audience. Food was a precious commodity. A laborer in Jesus day would consider himself blessed if he got to eat a piece of meat once a year. And even the grain had to be rationed so that it lasted until more could be bought. Only the very wealthy ever were fat in this time, and they were not likely in the crowd as Jesus' preached this sermon. Water also was hard to come by. Instead of turning on a tap, one had to go to a shared well and draw enough to take back home for the family. When you traveled you made sure to take water with you, for it might be a long time before you would find more. So when Jesus talked about those who hunger and thirst, he was not talking about the hunger we feel when it's almost lunch time, or when we haven't had our afternoon soda. He was talking about those whose bodies cry out for nourishment, and those for whom a drink of water may mean the difference between living and dying.

This hunger and thirst flows out of the realization of our spiritual poverty, and the deep mourning for a new relationship with God. It is a desire to once again be made worthy to come into his presence. It is the realization that just as food and water are necessary for physical life, so being rightly related to God is absolutely essential if we are to have any hope of spiritual life.

Verse 7 (NIV)

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Just as the first four of the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1-11) relate to our relationship to God, and then the last six relate to our relationships to one another (Ex 20:12-17), so it is with the beatitudes. Jesus moves his focus from blessings that flow out of our relationship to God to blessings that flow from how we relate to one another.
As each of the preceding beatitudes has flowed out of the one before it, so does this one. We cannot at the same time yearn for a right relationship with God, and yet refuse mercy to others. We give mercy to those who have wronged us, because we are grateful that God has been so merciful to us. We also come to realize that receiving mercy from God is contingent upon having a merciful spirit toward others. Many is the crowd might have thought mercy a sign of weakness. They worried they would be taken advantage of if they were merciful towards others. But whatever we might gain by refusing mercy to others pales in comparison to losing out on God's mercy towards us.

Verse 8 (NIV)

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Jesus constantly warns us against hypocrisy in his teachings. Having a pure heart is the opposite of hypocrisy. In the moral sense to be pure is to be clean. But it also has the sense of being unadulterated, uncontaminated. Grain that has not weeds or husk mixed in would be said to be pure. Iron that had the dross removed by fire would be pure. When Jesus said that we should have a pure heart he is saying we should not have hidden inside, motives and thoughts that are different than those we show on the outside. For the heart may be hidden to men, but God sees it. We may fool men with our outward appearances, but God sees our heart, and therefore we should seek to be as good on the inside as we are on the outside.
Jesus later warns that whatever is in the heart eventually proceeds from the mouth. That is, our words will eventually show people how we really feel anyway. So rather than trying to control the words, we need to focus on having a clean heart. Then whatever comes out of our mouths will be clean as well.

Verse 9 (NIV)

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

The heart of the gospel is reconciliation. God sent Jesus to pay for our sins in order that we might be reconciled to a right relationship with him. Even though it was man who had wronged God, God took the initiative is mending the relationship. This takes us back to that picture of God stooping down in order to make us great. Jesus clearly teaches that we are most like God when we are mending relationships. When he says that we are "sons of God" he doesn't mean that we become God's children by making peace, but that we are most like God when we make peace. When our children do something that remind us of ourselves, we might say, "He's his father's son." Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has just come out with an autobiography entitled My Grandfather's Son. By that phrase he means to show that who he is was molded and fashioned by his grandfather who raised him. So when Jesus says we will be called, "Sons of God," he means that people will see us as being godlike when we mend relationships between ourselves and others.

Verses 10-12(NIV)

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ¹¹ Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹²Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Anyone can do the right thing when the right thing and the popular thing are one and the same. But to do the right thing when it is unpopular can be very costly. This past Sunday I talked in my sermon about who Jesus is, and about being aware of false teaching about Jesus that are prevalent in our culture. I mentioned two cults by name, the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons. I have to admit that when church started, and I saw a man in the crowd whom I knew to be a Mormon, I considered skipping over that part of the sermon lest I offend him or his family, and I suffer some persecution as a result. But I felt convicted that the Lord knew he was coming to the church when I was preparing the sermon. I believed the Holy Spirit had guided me as I prepared, and he expected me to preach what he gave me.
My purpose was not to beat up on Mormons, or Jehovah's witnesses, or any other group,but to charge those who sit under my preaching to be certain they have a biblically accurate, deeply personal understanding of who Jesus is. But I knew that to move forward may mean I would suffer some fallout. All Christians have to face those tough decisions sometimes, when doing the right thing will result in persecution hardship. Jesus tells us in this passage that we should rejoice when that persecution comes, because God is going to reward our sacrifices with the riches of the kingdom.

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Additional Resources

IVP New Testament Commentary The Setting of Jesus Sermon (5:1-2) Kingdom Rewards for the Repentant (5:3-9) Encouragement for those Persecuted for the Gospel (5:10-12) Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary Christ Sermon on the Mount Who Are Blessed

Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament Matthew 5 Naves Topical Bible Wikipedia

Fifth Sunday Sing

I really enjoy having a night dedicated to just singing and praising God. Sunday night, September 30 was a fun night. We began with Dale Walden singing "Joy, Joy" and "This Little Light of Mine." Dale and his mother Nancy also sang the last song, the first and last verses of Jesus loves me. I even got in on the fun as my daughter Catherine and I sang "I'll Fly Away" together. I thought it went OK, but I think I heard someone say they wished I would fly away! Oh well.

I always enjoy getting to hear Danny Bramlett sing, and he and Kay did three beautiful songs together, though I'll confess I don't remember the names. None of us would have wanted to miss hearing the Patron and Matron of the Akin's serenade us. And special thanks to Ken for not only blessing us with a song, but leading our hymns and planning the whole night. Special Thanks to Deborah Beasley and Martha Stone for accompanying us on the piano and keyboard. I think sometimes we take those ladies for granted.


We heard from Jonathon Sunday afternoon. He actually called us from a bowling alley. They gave Jon and his unit a free day, and they were hosted by a local Baptist church who had taken them out bowling. They had plans to go back to the church for a home cooked meal afterward. We get to see him on October 25th, and we can hardly wait.