For This Reason 18

It was June 1959. Nine seminary graduates including me are set for ordination. As young seminary graduates you think you finally made it. You get to wear the uniform, get the title and open your professional life. The day of ordination is something special. Seven years and there you are, you and your seminary roommate, full of readiness and excitement, heading into the Cathedral to be ordained with seven others. Quickly you head forward to sit in the front pew to…

One of the truly bipolar realities that test our faith is the uniqueness/conformity issue. It is the heart of the individual/group control problem. Each of us has a uniqueness which we have mentioned frequently before mainly to keep the subject in front of us. It is a uniqueness that separates us from every other person that has ever lived or will ever live. It makes an internal demand on us especially when we are in the midst of others. The pressure then is based on how we act when we know…

When I was in high school I had an interesting experience with my chemistry teacher. He was really a neat guy. He had a way of sensing where students were from a personality perspective. We had what were called Delaney Charts to keep attendance in class. They were little seat numbered cards teachers used to check students in and out and they fit into a little easily handled folder. I decided when it came to memorizing the symbols for the elements I’d copy that format and did. I brought it to…

There’s a woodpecker outside my window pecking away at a tree. I’m assuming he’s feeding on mites or whatever his instinct drive is. But in both the tree and the bird, there is more. We are in a surrounding forest. Impending rain clouds overhead will send nourishment for it all while the larger universe in its infinite minute detail works in concert with its seemingly endless space with planet upon planet and star upon star. There is a harmony that is not only obvious in its physical reality…

For This Reason 13

John 14:6 keeps popping into my head. It was like a fishing float bobbing up and down in my thought at 5am this morning. “I am the way, the truth and the life.” I know that verse. It’s one everyone knows and many have a special fondness for it. It’s one of those ‘me too’ verses that become part of your faith. I rest on it. But because it kept bobbing I thought the individual letters meant something so here’s what I came up with. Jesus is obviously identifying…

One of the many bipolar positions in the church is the evangelical/charismatic divide usually centering on the tongues issue. It’s much more subtle than the conservative/liberal chasm since its clear to most that the conservative is a long term absolutist about Scripture while the liberal is more attuned to letting the contemporary culture guide thought and action. And further the liberal tends to be more institutional relying on political pressure as a way to attain contemporary social…

I’m sure everyone growing up during childhood heard this from their parents about behavior, “Remember who you are and the family you come from.” I don’t know if that counsel was paramount in my mind when I was out with other kids. But it did sink in later especially when I visited the old country, Norway, the land of my forbears. I did come from a respected old country family with strong conservative social values. Ethnic values were not that dissimilar from other groups like Irish, Italian,…

When I was interviewing possible clergy assistants and the subject of pastoring came up, one of them told me a story about a woman in his last congregation. She sat up front almost directly beneath the pulpit. He had been preaching several Sundays and noticed she was visibly annoyed every service. What bothered her was that he had a cup of water that he drank from occasionally during his preaching. One Sunday as he lifted the cup to sip she darted out of the pew and angrily made for the…

John Stott hit upon a real bipolar disorder in denominational life, Scripture and Tradition. When an individual needs help in determining what spirituality is all about a Bible believer will send this person to the Scripture and walk alongside him as both seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance. But a denominational liberal or conservative will resort to the company line to keep this person in line. “Yes, we believe in Scripture but we have the best way to do it.’ In another one you may hear, “In…

Ephesians 3 has really had me doing some looking back and seeing the depth of the ‘Jew/Gentile’ conditioning and how the Lord Jesus made the two one in Himself so that we too could become one in Him. So please indulge my revisiting. I believe it can be beneficial as a kind of spiritual housecleaning in which we all can participate. Ephesians 3, in fact that entire epistle, is like finding yourself walking on a tightrope caught in the middle between two cliffs, structure and freedom, reason…

After I finished high school I had to leave the urban jungle and the gurgling sounds of what to me was the death rattle of toxicity, ‘toxi-city.’ So I got a job in a resort bartending one shift, kitchen staffing on another and then working the beach and tennis courts. There was a group of West Virginia kids working the same place who invited me to go home with them at the end of one Summer which I did. I knew their ‘genu-wine’ accent was like one I recognized but it wasn’t ‘y’all’ it was…

Living near Greensboro, North Carolina during my pre-teen years was like living in a wonderfully free time of wonder and discovery. The woods, the red clay roads, the fields of tobacco and corn, the neighbors, our free roaming dogs, the pine scents drifting in the breeze, Model-A’s and rumble seats, tractors plowing and kerchief wiping farmers in blue ‘hover-alls’ waving as you passed, even measles and mumps could not deter you because you kind of knew you’d get better. There was only fun…

When I was about 10 or 11 I remember traveling with my dad and visiting a friend of his for dinner in Salisbury, NC. His friend was very proper and much to my dad’s embarrassment corrected me about some local dinner etiquette that was quite uncalled for I found out later. When you are in certain levels of class conscious people there are a number of unwritten rules that govern the group. You are just supposed to know what they are. This is true not only of small areas, social levels and…

In the 1940’s West Point had two phenomenal football players. One was a half back named Glenn Davis known as Mr.Outside and a fullback named Doc Blanchard known as Mr. Inside. Mr.Outside could elude and outrun tacklers when he ran around end. Mr.Inside simply bowled over tacklers as he ran through the middle of the line. Together they helped the Army team run up remarkable scores as they won game after game. Of course it takes eleven to play but that combination was what gave their team the…

For this Reason 3

Being a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven means we have been gifted with a different perspective, a Heaven view as opposed to a world view, a different context for the mind, for the heart and for the spirit. We have been given a picture of spiritual reality which is eternal. It may be just a glimpse but it is an eternal glimpse for an earthly purpose. We see things above the world and its temporary conclusions. We see things in ideas, spiritual concepts and absolutes…

For This Reason 2

The specifics mentioned in Chapter 3 have to do with the difference between God’s and man’s definition of humanity. If Jews and Gentiles can be brought together then it can happen with any group. Jesus is the final and complete definition of humanity. He has made the two, Gentile and Jew, one in Christ. The why is clear, spiritual definition. Humanity is spiritually defined. Humanity cannot define itself. It has no objectivity. It is Jesus coming from outside into…

As we get into chapter 3 of Ephesians it is important to take in the verses that precede it and the verses that carry on the themes of chapter 1. The key to that transition is “For this reason.” Here Paul is appealing specifically to the minds of the Gentiles in Ephesus. Who knows what social and political pressure was being levied against Christians. It seems that the Gentile believers may have been questioning the validity of Jewish heritage as important since it was that of an obscure…

In John 10 Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep (vs.7)…I am the gate, whoever enters through me will be saved (vs.9)…” “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep (vs.11)…I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me---just as the Father knows me and I know the Father---and I lay down my life for the sheep (vs.14-15).”

This is a fantastic passage. It reveals just how much Jesus has accomplished on our behalf by…

Two events this past week got me looking at Ephesians 2 in a slightly different light. One was a discussion in the Mountain Men’s group. The other was when a plumber’s assistant who came to fix a leak aimed to convert me to become a Jehovah’s Witness. Actually when joined both stood in contrast. One approached from the heart and the other from a heartless system. Both used Scripture but one was an interpersonally sensitive attempt by a group of men to share from the heart and the other was…

Faith is the stand we take in the Spirit. It is the spiritual fortitude to walk in the unseen dimension in every next moment. For us as believers in Jesus, to stand is to be filled with the Spirit (Eph.5:18), to live by the Spirit (Gal.5:16) and to keep in step with the Spirit (Gal.5:25). The secular ideas of standing are to remain motionless, do nothing, remain uncommitted, ready to compromise, ‘it’s none of my business,’ ‘let someone else do it,’ ‘I have too much to lose,’ ‘I’m afraid’ and…