Tag Archives: Paul

Who Gets the Praise this Year? November 25, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

The focus of the lectionary readings for this week didn’t seem to fit the Thanksgiving season very well as we think of it in the United States. We gear up for the big meal with family followed by the football game complete with all the Black Friday advertisements. Then the enormous Christmas season.

Commercialization has taken over what use to be a time of joy and merriment. Now we rush around trying to find the same marvelous gift that is a must-have for every child if a parent wants to be a model parent. Of course, the stores sold out of that must-have present six months ago, but that’s not the point. We have to get that perfect present to make Johnny happy. We rush around doing too much. Decorating too much. Expecting too much of our families when they come home. We expect Christmas to meet our perfect 1950’s Donna Reed Show expectations. Then we show our disappointment when they don’t.

When you stop to think about it, though. Christmas isn’t about all that stuff. In fact, Christmas isn’t even about Jesus’ birth. If that were all that happened, we wouldn’t be celebrating. We would recognize a nice man who did some good things, taught a little and died.

But something happened that blew the socks off the disciples and caused them to give their lives for this man. They understood him to be God incarnate. It wasn’t because of some magic tricks. There were plenty of sorcerers and magicians in their day that fooled the people with magic tricks.

They didn’t willingly give up their lives because Jesus had nice words to say. He didn’t. He proclaimed things that got all of them in trouble with the establishment, both religious and government. He said things like, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood.” That won’t win you any friends at the dinner table.

Those men and women followed Jesus because they believed he rose from the dead. Not just a ghost or a vision they thought they saw. They knew he rose bodily from the tomb. They talked to him. They ate with him. They touched his flesh. They couldn’t explain how he appeared behind locked doors, but it was Jesus, their leader, their Rabbi, their Messiah. The one just a few days earlier they had seen beaten to the point of death, forced to carry his cross to Golgotha, hung there to die, stabbed with a spear, laid in a tomb bloodied, beaten and bruised, dead. But now, alive.

So Paul could write to the congregation that met at Colossae and encourage them with these words.

“May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his [Jesus] glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

Where does this encouragement come from? The first Easter. The first resurrection. Jesus burst from the tomb, conquering death. He proved his ability to win over the grave and so his ability to forgive sin. He bought our redemption. The old sacrificial system disappeared with his perfect sacrifice. He paid for our sins, so we no longer need to wallow in guilt that comes from disobedience to the God who created us.

Paul goes on to say, ” He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

The resurrection empowered Jesus’ followers to do extraordinary things because they knew he was only the first of many to come. The promise of the New Covenant said those who believed in him would not die but have everlasting life. A resurrection day gives us assurance of a new life. Jesus rose, and all who believe will be raised with him. Courage comes from that belief.

What can you risk when you know you cannot die? What can you give up when you know life does not end here? What can you do for God when you know nothing can really harm you? With God on board, you truly are invincible.

Death in this life is a transition for those who believe in him. The criminal on the cross beside him found forgiveness and found himself in paradise. The resurrection is real. Thousands upon thousands gave their lives because they knew the truth of the resurrection.

So, what should Thanksgiving and Christmas and our holidays focus on each time we celebrate? Not gifts or food or trying to impress family and friends. But remember the fact of the resurrection. Remembering Jesus changed the world as the first to show the grave can not hold those who live in him. Remembering there is more to this world than what the world wants you to believe. Jesus told those who would listen, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

What did he mean? Open your eyes. Look around. See God in the world around you. Help others see God by loving them into his kingdom. John said, “God is love.” Jesus said, “They will know you are mine if you love each other.” He also said, “You cannot love God whom you cannot see if you cannot love your neighbor who you can see.”

Those are sobering thoughts as we already begin the bombardment by the politicians for next year’s election here in the United States. The other party is not the enemy. The other country is not the enemy. The other race is not the enemy. God made us all.

Jesus said, “Love your neighbor.”

What does that look like? 2000 years ago, a man with the Hebrew name Joshua, translated Jesus in Greek, was nailed to a rough wooden cross and lifted up to have it slammed into the ground. He hung there most of the day. At last, he said, “It is finished.” And he died, much faster than anyone expected. When he did, the veil separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple split in two. The earth shook. Darkness fell over the land for three hours, far too long for an eclipse. Love looks like a cross.

Remember that cross as you begin preparations for the holidays this year. Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, New Year, all the holidays that jam our calendars over the next few weeks are meaningless without Jesus. Let’s stop and give Him thanks for what he has done. He does deserve it, after all.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV): Scriptures taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan

Get to Work, November 18, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

In college, I worked for a moving company to make a few extra dollars in the summer. This particular company also stored tires for one of the tire companies in Nashville, and every few weeks, they were delivered to the warehouse in railroad boxcars. Because the task only happened occasionally, the company hired day laborers to help unload the cars rather than lose furniture moving business by using their permanent employees. Of course, someone had to oversee the operation, and I often became the stuckee as the sort of permanent employee, since I worked as often as I could, but not really permanent.

The boxcars would have about 500 tires each, and usually, we would unload two and sometimes three with each delivery. The mix of tires included car, truck, and tractor tires of all sizes weighing from tiny 10-pound boat trailer tires to giant 300-pound tires six feet tall. I don’t know if you’ve ever worked inside a railroad boxcar in the middle of summer, but imagine standing in an oven covered in rubber dust and someone gradually turning the temperature up while you worked. It reminded me of living in Hanzel and Gretel, living in the witch’s cottage. Good stuff was in the oven, but boy was it hot in there.

We would unload the first 75 or 80 tires laughing and joking. I’d get to know the day-laborers and learn a little about their families. But after a 150 or so, most quit talking. By the mid-morning break, I only heard grumbling and complaining about the work they agreed to do. In all the years I worked at that company unloading those boxcars with day-laborers, I only had one that didn’t disappear at lunch. Every other worker headed to the office at lunch to draw a half day’s wages with some excuse about needing to leave.

The rest of the day’s task of unloading the boxcars fell to me. The joy of all joys! Whenever I entertained any thought that college was hard, I remembered those boxcars and drove on. Even now, if I think something is hard, I remember those days and know there are tougher things out there, and I can make it through whatever I’m trying to do. That was brutal work.

Why do I bring up that story today? It has to do with the lectionary scripture from this week. Paul wrote in his second letter to the church in Thessalonica some words that strike a cord to a large section of society today. As we try to find early retirement, four-day workweeks, more pay for less work, we should listen to Paul. Here is what he says:

Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.

Am I saying we should have no leisure time? That’s not what I’m saying. We need leisure time, too. But we have become a society that seeks time, money, things, pleasures, everything for “me” without thought for anything or anyone else. We want pay without effort. We want reward with earning it. We expect things given to us without giving in return.

A 2017 Department of Labor study showed that US employees spend an average of eight hours a week checking personal email, social media, online shopping, or other non-productive time on the internet. That eight hours a week amounts to $15 billion of productivity a week stolen from their employees for which they are being paid to work.^[1] We can laugh it off and say, “They can afford it. I work hard enough for them. I bring in profits for them.”

That’s not the point. If we call ourselves Christian, I think it means we should work as if we work for Jesus. Would we steal time from him? I guess too many do today when we look at the number who come together to worship when we are admonished to worship together. Would we steal wages from him? I guess we would since we fail to “give to God what is God’s” as he directs.

The point is: we become so self-centered we forget it isn’t about us but God. We get the false idea that the things around us, the things found in our house or apartment belong to us. We think we own them. We really don’t.

First, if you pay a mortgage, you don’t own the property at all. The bank does. If you pay rent, the landlord owns the place in which you live. So, frankly, the vast majority of the people who hear these words do not own the home where you lay your head; someone else owns it. You just use it at their pleasure.

Yes, you have a piece of paper that gives you some legal rights, but how good is that piece of paper? It depends on how good the judicial system stands. I just read the history of the Mongols conquest of the Middle East in the Middle Ages. When they swept through a city, they killed every man, woman, and child in the city. It’s why Christianity disappeared in Asia Minor.

Remember all those missionary journeys Paul took, Antioch, Ephesus, Lystra, and all those other cities in Asia Minor? What happened to all those churches? Where did all those people go? The earliest leaders didn’t go to Rome; they went to the cities in Asia Minor. But then the Ghingus Kahn hordes came through.

How good were the contracts, treaties, legal papers established between the Christians, about 40 million in Asia Minor at the time, and the khans? Not worth much when a sword swept through your neck. The Christians lost everything, including their lives. The contracts they had with the communities they lived in didn’t mean much. Their property disappeared anyway. They died anyway.

Second, the old saying, “idle hands are the devil’s workshop” is more accurate than many give it credit. Work keeps the mind focused on things that add value to the community. Idleness provides the mind with the opportunity to wander into those areas Jesus warned about in his sermon on the mount, hatred, lust, envy, those base emotions that get us in so much trouble and lead us to actions that we almost always regret later.

Third, work brings fatigue at the end of the day, so we rest better. Rest is important. It’s when our body recovers and repairs itself. But when we do nothing, when we are idle most of the time, we become restless. Our mind wanders through the night, and it becomes difficult to sleep. When we use our bodies and minds in physical and mental labor throughout the day, we can rest better and so rejuvenate our bodies for the next day.

Can we overdo work and sleep? Yes. Anything and everything can be overdone, but I see fewer in our country overworked as we search for more and more leisure in our culture. Do I long for the old days of unloading boxcars of tires? No, I don’t think I could even physically do that today. But I do think we need to remember our work is unto the Lord and give a good days work for the pay we receive and never be one of those bending the statistics that take $15 billion of revenue from the pockets of our employers using our cellphones at work eight hours a week. It’s not the boss watching what we do; it’s God.

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV): Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan

^[1] Gregory Bresiger, “This is how much time employees spend slacking off, 2017, https://nypost.com/2017/07/29/this-is-how-much-time-employees-spend-slacking-off/ (accessed Nov 8, 20

Time to Teach, October 21, 20190

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

I learned early in my military career that one of my responsibilities was to train my replacement. Eventually, I would leave my position through transfer, promotion, or at some point, everyone departs the service. If I failed to train someone to take my place, the service would suffer, and soldiers would suffer. Not that I was indispensable or anyone else was, but we had a responsibility to make sure none of us were by ensuring we had someone ready in the wings to take our place.

Paul knew the importance of doing the same as he embarked on his missionary journeys. So he groomed Timothy and Titus to take his place in the early churches he formed in his mission work. He knew he would need a replacement at some point, and the way things had been going for him, that time would probably come sooner rather than later. He’d been shipwrecked, beaten, stoned, run out of town, and imprisoned. He knew his days were numbered. So, while in prison, Paul penned instructions to his two proteges.

My instructions to the officers that came behind me centered on how to treat soldiers, how to make decisions, how to carry out the tasks given by higher commands, how to determine priorities of work with limited resources. Some of the training I provided to those who would come after me in the service I hoped would save lives on future battlefields, and as I’ve heard from some of them and read accounts of current conflicts, I think some of those lessons paid off.

Most of the training I passed on didn’t make it into documents that I expect to survive for centuries, though. In fact, if they last another decade, I will be astonished. Those bits of knowledge will last a season and be gone. Some will trickle down another generation, maybe two, but then warfare will change, tactics and doctrine will evolve, and the lessons passed on thirty years ago will seem pretty meaningless to anyone who might care to hear about them in another generation.

But Paul’s words to Timothy are a completely different story. We read them, memorize them, absorb them into our being. We do so because we understand the depth and truth of his words. He writes these words to Timothy in the second letter addressed to him in the New Testament:

“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:14-17)(NIV)

We know from these few sentences, Timothy was a student of God’s Word. He learned from his mother, Lois. He studied from Paul. He poured through the scriptures personally to discover all he could about the God he served and loved. What we often forget as we read these words from Paul, is that the “scriptures able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” did not include any from our New Testament. That should cause us to give pause to any who might discount the Old Testament as unimportant to the Christian life or its statutes as ancient and no longer applicable to modern society.

What can scriptures do for us? Timothy knew, and Paul reminds him. They teach, rebuke, correct, and train in righteousness. And why are those attributes important to followers of Jesus? Because he gave us a mission. He told us to go and make disciples. Teaching them all the things others taught us in his name. How can followers of Jesus share knowledge if no one shared with them in the first place? It goes back to what I learned as a new Army officer. I need to start preparing my replacement. If I don’t, there may not be a replacement when one is required.

Have you thought about that in your Christian walk? What if you were the only link to carrying the message of Christ to the next generation? How well has your replacement learned to place his or her trust in God based on what you taught? Is the next generation of disciples ready to pass on what you know because you taught them well?

The next words from Paul often used to provide the charge to ministers really apply to all of us who follow Christ. Jesus didn’t differentiate between any of those gathered on the mountain when he gave the command to go and make disciples. He told all of them the same thing. What Paul told Timothy, reminds me of the importance of my role in sharing what I learned from others. Paul continues his letter with these words:

“In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:1-5)(NIV)

It tells me that whenever I have the opportunity, I must be prepared to correct, rebuke, encourage, teach with great patience and careful instruction. The time when people will not want to hear sound doctrine came a long time ago. They didn’t want to hear it from Timothy or Paul or even Jesus. With all we see around us, those statements could not be any more accurate today. People run to what they want to hear instead of the hard truth of God’s Word.

Ignoring the truth in his word does not fix our sin problem, though, any more than ignoring cancer will repair those runaway cells in our body. We must do something about the disease. When we find out about cancer, we go to the oncologist and seek a cure. When we find out about sin, if we are to find release and relief, we must go to God and seek a cure. Listen to Paul. Do the work God calls each of us to do in reproducing disciples through sharing what others entrusted to us. It’s how God’s kingdom grows. It’s plan A and surprisingly, he never developed plan B. It’s up to you and me to make it happen.

What Happened to the Storytellers? October 7, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

I’ve read a couple of books lately by John Walton that describes the thinking of the ancient people of Israel as the nation began. He also writes about what people of Jesus day might think when they heard scripture. It’s interesting reading as he describes what they would have known of the stories of the people around them.

We forget sometimes, they grew up in Egypt after Jacob took his family there to escape the famine in Canaan. They heard the Egyptian tales of the beginnings of mankind and their thoughts on who and why we worship the pantheon of gods they held sacred. We forget Egyptian idols and rituals surrounded the Israelites every day until Moses led them out of slavery and into the wilderness toward the promised land.

The Israelites probably didn’t tell many stories around the dinner table about Moses’ version of creation, the call of Abraham, or the rescue from famine for Jacob and his family. After 400 years, more than 10 generations since Joseph sat next to Pharaoh, I expect most of the Israelites never heard anything except the Egyptian version of ancient history.

Then Moses comes along and incites Pharoah to end the slavery and let the Israelites return to their homeland. I expect the elders tried to carry on some of the traditions Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob shared with their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But I suppose many more of those two or three million sojourners never heard of Jehovah and certainly didn’t worship him. More followed God’s command to observe the Passover out of fear than obedience. They watched all the other plagues happen just as Moses said they would and wanted no part of this one.

Maybe that’s a little too cynical, but I’m watching our country, and I don’t think I’m too far off the mark. Just about 400 years ago, a boatload of Pilgrim brought Christianity to form a tiny little settlement in this new nation. For a while, we became known as a Christian nation. Now, recent surveys of high school students show most don’t know the stories of the Bible. They’ve never heard of Cain and Abel, Daniel or Elisha, David and Goliath, unless as a motivation speech somewhere. They haven’t heard the miracle stories of the New Testament as Jesus turned water into wine, fed 5,000 men and their families, or raised Lazarus from the dead.

Why is that? Why do our children not know the stories from the Bible? I think there are two simple reasons.

First, we don’t read the Bible ourselves enough to know the stories. We would have a hard time telling the story of Jael and Sisera when Deborah served as the judge over Israel. We might not do well answering questions about who replaced Judas as the twelfth apostle and how he was chosen. We might be really confused as to which missionary trip Paul planted the church at Corinth.

Second, like the ancients and those who walked the earth around the first century, we are primarily aural learners. We don’t think we are because we spend so much time reading books or emails or websites to gather information. But think about it. When someone sings a song you’ve heard several times, and changes even one word or one or two notes in the melody, you recognize it immediately. But in a paragraph you just read, do you know when a word changes? Or can you even see that someone removed a sentence from a section or two? Most people can’t from written documents, but can easily from music.

That’s part of the reason so much of the ancient texts are poetry. Storytellers passed on the history, the commands, the songs, the stories from generation to generation orally. People couldn’t read and write, and those that could wouldn’t have access to books or materials to write them.

The point? In ancient times, parents, elders, storytellers told stories to their children to pass on the vital information within the tribe. When is the last time you share stories of Jesus or what he is doing in your life to your children or grandchildren? I’m pointing fingers at myself as I share this. I’m guilty also. We fail to use the gift of stories to spread what is most important to those who are dearest to us. Listen to what Paul wrote from prison to the one he groomed to take his place. This, from his second letter to Timothy:

For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him. Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.¹

Did you notice Paul’s letter refers to teaching Timothy heard from Paul. I can see the two of them talking as they shared meals, traveled down the road together, mended tents, Paul’s other trade. I think Paul shared with Timothy whenever he had the chance about what he believed, the stories told to him about Jesus, his personal experience on the road to Damascus. Timothy soaked up the lessons, and they weren’t written. That came later while Paul sat in prison.

We remember the stories in our lives, not the words on paper. Even the words on paper are remembered because we turn them into pictures in our heads. That’s how our brain works. So when we tell our kids stories about God’s work in the world, past and present, they stick. We just don’t do it enough.

So, how about it? Are you ready to make memories the way Jesus did, telling stories, sharing word pictures to be remembered forever? Are you ready to just talk to those you meet about the story of your life and what God has done for you? No one reads and remembers anymore if they ever did. Take a look at our world. If we remembered what we read, we wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes over and over. But we do. Partly because we don’t tell the stories that impact our sons and daughters, our friends and neighbors. We don’t let them see and hear the change God makes in our lives. We’ve lost the art of storytelling. Maybe it’s time to bring it back.

¹THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® NIV®
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society®
Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

All love or all wrath? June 17, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

The text from the common lectionary yesterday came from Romans 5. Paul wrote these words: Since we have been acquitted and made right through faith, we are able to experience true and lasting peace with God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Liberating King. Jesus leads us into a place of radical grace where we are able to celebrate the hope of experiencing God’s glory. And that’s not all. We also celebrate in seasons of suffering because we know that when we suffer we develop endurance, which shapes our characters. When our characters are refined, we learn what it means to hope and anticipate God’s goodness. And hope will never fail to satisfy our deepest need because the Holy Spirit that was given to us has flooded our hearts with God’s love.

We hear a lot about God’s love. Well, maybe in today’s culture we don’t hear as much as we used to, but when we hear people talk about God, we mostly hear about his love. That is as it should be because God is love. He showed us what love is all about when he became one of us and sacrificed himself for us that we might be freed from the guilt of our sin when we accept his sacrifice and declare him as who he is, Lord of lords, and King of kings. But sometimes in our culture, we swing too far in one direction or the other.

In the past, we went too far in the direction of God’s wrath. The revivals of the last century focused on the wrath of God and the judgment day that we all must face. Evangelists preached fire and brimstone from their pulpits and scared people out of hell and into heaven. God was to be feared above all things. In the last century, the world also faced tyrants that fought to enslave masses. Names like Hitler, Stalin, and Mousseline headlined the news through war that tore Europe apart and killed millions in its wake.

We have not had conflict on that scale since. We have not looked to the heavens and cried out to God about the global destruction we see at the hands of men since then. We went through some scary times with the cold war and nations poised with their weapons of mutual destruction aimed at each other, but the probability of human distinction has lessened through the last several decades. My children have never participated in a nuclear bomb drill or even seen a nuclear shelter. We no longer fear mass destruction like we did in the last century.

Maybe that is why we no longer think of the wrath of God. We stopped fearing the superpowers, so we stopped fearing God. We somehow started equating the two. It’s not a very smart way to look at the world or to look at God. There are still nuclear weapons in more countries than there were during the cold war. Then, neither of the superpowers would unleash the destruction because each knew it meant the end of both countries as we knew them. But now, lesser nations own the capability to destroy superpowers and can survive themselves because they do not rely on the same global economy or the same technologies so vulnerable to damage caused by those weapons. We used to talk about bombing nations into the stone age. We could not survive in the stone age any more. Many of our most dangerous adversaries could.

But we don’t want to think about that. We want to assume everyone on the planet will love each other if we just understood each other. We believe (rather wrongly) that our enemies are just misunderstood and that if we just listened better and accommodated more, the world would be a safe place and we could all get along. It’s a nice, pleasant, fanciful thought. People have not gotten along since Cain killed his brother Abel. Every ancient text is filled with stories of violence, not love and understanding. Except one.

The Bible has its moments as God directs his people to take the promised land from the Canaanites and other tribes who inhabited the land. There are many stories in both the Old and New Testaments that could be rated PG or R because of the violence depicted in them. But the God of the Bible is still a God of love. His story from the beginning is one of reconciliation between himself and his disobedient creation. We are the ones who brought sin into the cosmos and disrupted the perfection he wanted for us.

From the moment of that first act of disobedience, God’s purpose shows through the action of the stories in his word, to redeem those who would trust him and follow his commands. He is indeed a God of love, but he also requires that we understand he is God and we are not. He is in charge, not us. He is the one to be worshipped. Not us or some false god we put in place of him, whether made of wood or stone or an intangible thing like a job or the electrons today indicative of the wealth we worship. God set out to help us live with each other and with him and his rules help us do that. Is he demanding? Yes. So were my parents. They made demands to keep me safe and teach me how to live well in society. God’s rules do the same.

God doesn’t give us rules to cause us to step our toes at a cliff and see how close we can get to the edge. He doesn’t give us fences he expects us to push our heads through to see what’s on the other side. Those rules and fences are for our protection. Our problem is that we forget that the edges of cliffs sometimes crumble and cause us to slip and fall. We can get stuck when we push our head through a fence. Our problem is we forget all the land inside the fence he freely gives us for our enjoyment. We forget the beautiful meadow well away from the cliff where we can enjoy life to its fullest without any fear.

Just like Adam and Eve, Satan tempts us with the rules. “It’s just a little thing. It won’t hurt you. No one will know.” And suddenly we find ourselves scrambling for our lives as we fall down the side of the cliff grasping for any handhold but finding none.

God is a god of love. He desires our good. He gives us parameters to work within so we can stay safe and secure within those parameters. But we do not listen to him. We think we know better than he does. Or we think because he is a God of love that he will just forget everything we’ve ever done, and no consequences will ever come for our behavior. How naïve can we be? Consequences are a natural part of this world. Or at least we expect them to be. If I walk out in the rain, I expect to get wet. If I go out in freezing temperatures without a coat, I expect to be cold. If I speed past a policeman on the highway, I expect to get a ticket.

Why should I not expect the same consequences if I disobey the commands the creator of all the universe puts in place? Can he set them aside? Yes. And he offers to set aside the punishment we deserve when we acknowledge him as Lord, believe he came in the form of man and died for our sins, confess our guilt to him and accept his sacrifice. And repent. Repent means more than saying I’m sorry. Too often we are sorry we got caught. Repent means to do an about face. Go the other way. Stop doing what you’ve been doing and do the opposite. If you haven’t followed Christ, start following him. If you haven’t trusted him, trust him. If you haven’t obeyed God, obey him. Repent.

God doesn’t have to display his wrath. He has already put the laws of cause and effect in place. There are consequences for our actions. The consequence of not believing in him for salvation is an eternity without him. Jesus describes it as a place of eternal fire where worms never get their fill and the fires are never quenched. Eternal suffering apart from God who so desperately wants his relationship with us restored. But he is a holy God. He has already done his part. But until we repent and accept his gift, the gift remains untouched, unopened, unused.

Take advantage of his love before you become a victim of his wrath. It only takes a little faith and you can know what Paul and so many others have come to know as he shared with the believers in Rome. You can be acquitted and made right through faith, able to experience true and lasting peace with God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Liberating King. Jesus leads us into a place of radical grace where we are able to celebrate the hope of experiencing God’s glory. No matter where you are, what you’ve done, he is ready. Are you?

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

It’s time to shake the chains, June 3, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

In yesterday’s lectionary we see a story that could have come from the headlines today. “Religious fanatics destroy livelihood of poor peasant girl: riot ensues!” Here’s how Luke tells the story to Theophalis in Acts 16 as translated in The Voice.

One day, as we were going to the place set aside for prayer, we encountered a slave girl. She made a lot of money for her owners as a fortune-teller, assisted by some sort of occult spirit. She began following us.

Slave Girl (shouting): These men are slaves like me, but slaves of the Most High God! They will proclaim to you the way of liberation!

The next day as we passed by, she did the same thing—and again on the following days. One day Paul was really annoyed, so he turned and spoke to the spirit that was enslaving her.

Paul: I order you in the name of Jesus, God’s Anointed: Come out of her!

It came right out. But when her owners realized she would be worthless now as a fortune-teller, they grabbed Paul and Silas, dragged them into the open market area, and presented them to the authorities.

Slave Owners: These men are troublemakers, disturbing the peace of our great city. They are from some Jewish sect, and they promote foreign customs that violate our Roman standards of conduct.

The crowd joined in with insults and insinuations, prompting the city officials to strip them naked in the public square so they could be beaten with rods. They were flogged mercilessly and then were thrown into a prison cell. The jailer was ordered to keep them under the strictest supervision. The jailer complied, first restraining them in ankle chains, then locking them in the most secure cell in the center of the jail.

Picture this: It’s midnight. In the darkness of their cell, Paul and Silas—after surviving the severe beating—aren’t moaning and groaning; they’re praying and singing hymns to God. The prisoners in adjoining cells are wide awake, listening to them pray and sing. Suddenly the ground begins to shake, and the prison foundations begin to crack. You can hear the sound of jangling chains and the squeak of cell doors opening. Every prisoner realizes that his chains have come unfastened. The jailer wakes up and runs into the jail. His heart sinks as he sees the doors have all swung open. He is sure hisprisoners have escaped, and he knows this will mean death for him, so he pulls out his sword to commit suicide. At that moment, Paul sees what is happening and shouts out at the top of his lungs,

Paul: Wait, man! Don’t harm yourself! We’re all here! None of us has escaped.

The jailer sends his assistants to get some torches and rushes into the cell of Paul and Silas. He falls on his knees before them, trembling. Then he brings them outside.

Jailer: Gentlemen, please tell me, what must I do to be liberated?

Paul and Silas: Just believe—believe in the ultimate King, Jesus, and not only will you be rescued, but your whole household will as well.

The jailer brings them to his home, and they have a long conversation with the man and his family. Paul and Silas explain the message of Jesus to them all. The man washes their wounds and feeds them, then they baptize the man and his family. The night ends with Paul and Silas in the jailer’s home, sharing a meal together, the whole family rejoicing that they have come to faith in God.

I’ve had a really hard time getting going with this passage today. It’s not that there isn’t a ton of material here. I’ve started and stopped midstream half a dozen times already. But nothing seems to fit. Maybe there’s too much here. Maybe I’m trying to make one sermon out of what should be several. It’s pretty easy to talk about the slave girl who was freed from her life as a fortuneteller.

I could also talk about the businessmen who were more interested in their money than in the freedom Paul and Silas gave to their slave girl. Their story within the story is where I got the headline to start this podcast. It seems that in our culture, we are much more interested in material things that we are spiritual things. So, we could build a sermon or two or three around these two men.

I thought about doing a podcast based on the unwarranted beating that Paul and Silas received for just being who they were — followers of God.

I thought about a podcast that focused on the joy that Christians can have even in the face of suffering. There Paul and Silas were in jail beaten, bruised, in shackles and chains, no light, no food. They had every reason to complain. But instead, Scripture tells us they sang and prayed and all the other prisoners listened and I expect many joined in. There’s a lot to be said about the joy we can have just because we have God’s spirit in us.

I thought about the jailer and how quick he was to think about suicide as a means have a escaping punishment for something he didn’t even do. It happens so often in our everyday lives. We face suffering because of things that are completely out of our control, and we sometimes make some crazy decisions instead of really examining the problem and potential solutions before we jump in with our rash actions and make a mess of things. A lot could be said about the jailer’s actions before Paul and Silas stopped him from carrying out his decision from which there was no return.

I thought about how Paul and Silas accepted the jailer into their brotherhood even after the beating they received. How many of us would gladly befriend those who imprisoned us or beat us or harmed us for no good reason. But that’s exactly what Paul and Silas did. In fact, it seems that the jailer’s family became the nucleus for another house church within the city. You never know what will happen when we let God take charge of things.

So you see, there’s so many things in these few verses that point to God’s goodness. There are so many spots as this drama unfolds where we see God’s handiwork. We see him reaching out through Paul and Silas because of their willingness to listen to his spirit and just do what they know they should with his prompting. Because of the commotion around them and the nudging of God’s spirit in them, they were able to free this slave from a horrible life. They were able to help a jailer and his entire household come to know God in new way. They were able to bring such joy and peace to a jail full of criminals that when all their chains were broken and all the cell doors shook off their hinges, no one wanted to leave. Rather, they all wanted to stay to listen to the singing, to be part of the pray meeting, because they knew they were in God’s presence.

Can we still see these kinds of things today? I don’t know. God hasn’t changed. The real question is, are we as committed as Paul and Silas? Do we believe the way they believed? Are we ready to give our all to do whatever God wants us to do as they were? Are we ready to be just an instrument with no recognition, no glory, no fame, nothing except an instrument in the hands of God.

When Christians begin to get rid of self and really believe in God the way Paul and Silas believed in God, when we begin to give ourselves completely to him, I think we will begin to see miraculous things happen all around us. They actually are there already if you have the eyes of faith to look up and see his hand at work. Just believe and let him do his work through you.

Would you like to be Saul? May 6, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

Last week we talked about Doubting Thomas. He wanted to see the scars in Jesus’ hands and feet before he would believe Jesus had risen from the tomb. This week we look at another of those New Testament figures that God needed to hit with a board across the head to make him believe. The man’s name is Saul, a staunch enemy of those who spread the story of Jesus’ resurrection and tried to disrupt the order of the synagogue and its teachings.

I expect most churches today would love to have Saul as one of their board members. He played by the rules. He lived up to the character people thought of when they thought of a religious person. He went to the synagogue regularly, not just on special holidays. He prayed often. He gave generously. He knew scripture. In fact, if history is correct, to be a student of Gamaliel, Saul would have recited whole books of the Old Testament just to be considered for his tutelage. Saul would have been a great churchman.

But Saul did not believe in the resurrection, and he was out to quell the rebellion in the Jewish community that did. He took with him a section of the Temple guard with papers from the chief priest and arrested as many of the members of this wayward sect as he could find. First in Jerusalem, then, when he started running short of prospective rebels there, he headed to Damascus where he heard one of the “Way’s” ringleaders had gone.

The troop moved fast and furious across the dusty hills toward the old Samaritan capital. Saul would root out this evil and kill it wherever it tried to hide. But something happened. Acts Chapter 9. Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

Saul, the fire-breathing, perfect church board member of today figure of a man found himself face down in the dirt, blind, listening to the voice of Jesus, the one these rebels followed. The one who rose from the dead. Here he was talking to Saul, telling him to stop. Telling him he had a job for him to do.

Ouch! Talk about sudden guilt. All these months, Saul had gone around arresting followers of Jesus. They had been locked away and many killed. Saul knew their fate, but didn’t care. He was doing the right thing… he thought. He was stopping this rebel outbreak before they could cause harm against the Jewish community. Rome was looking for reasons to destroy the Jews, he had to stop this group or at least lay blame at their feet for all the ills going on in Israel so his people could be saved from the wrath of Rome.

But then he met Jesus. “Get up, go to Damascus, you will be told what to do.”

I’m not sure Saul was used to being told what to do. I think he was pretty headstrong and was used to telling other people what to do, not the other way around. But not this time. For three days, Saul saw only the darkness of his blinded eyes behind the scales God put in place. For three days he was entombed in his thoughts because he could see nothing else. For three days he prayed for God to help him see and understand what happened and why.

Then Ananias comes into the room with a little fear edging into his voice. “Saul, Jesus, the one you have been persecuting told me to come and lay hands on you so you can gain your sight again.” If I were Ananias, I’d have been a little fearful. What if Saul just gets angry at being blind for three days? What if he decides he wants to take out his blindness on me when he can finally see again? What if he really isn’t so blind after all? What if the dream wasn’t so accurate and I’m walking into a trap? No doubt Ananias had a lot of “what if’s” in his head, but his faith overcame them all and he when to the right street and the right house and asked for Saul. Then laid his hands on him and told him what was about to happen.

Great story isn’t it? Sometimes I think I could have more faith if I had an experience like Saul on the road to Damascus. But then again, I’m not sure I would. Have you ever thought about what it would be like? I’m not sure I’d want to be there. The bright light that blinds you and not knowing if you’ll ever see again. The person whose followers you’ve been killing shows up with that kind of power and knocks you to the ground. The person you think you are controlling suddenly takes absolute control over your life and turns you into one of those poor beggars you pass on the street everyday, not able to do anything without someone’s help to lead you along by the hand.

Then, in Damascus you hear a knock at the door and recognize the name at the introduction. “I’m Ananias…” and you miss the next few words because his name is at the top of the list of those you’ve come to take back to Jerusalem. He’s here. You’re blind. He knows why you came to Damascus. You are completely at his mercy. Then he lays his hands on your eyes.

No, I don’t think I would like going through what Saul went through in coming face to face with Jesus. I’m not sure my heart would stand the strain. I’m not sure I could trust the people or the circumstances the way Saul did, even then. Maybe he didn’t have much choice. Or maybe he thought death at the hands of one of these rebels would be better than being blind. Or maybe he began to see just a glimmer of truth in what Jesus told him. Who else but God could do the things he just witnessed.

Nope. I’m glad I can learn from Saul. I’m glad he changed his name to Paul and wrote so many letters to the churches of the first century. I’m glad he gave all that advice to Timothy and Titus and the members of those congregations to which he wrote. I’m glad he wrote about his suffering, his hope, his joy, his peace. But I’m glad I didn’t fill his shoes as he walked those roads across the empire.

His experience, though, causes me to pause and ask a question each of us must answer for ourselves. I have not been blinded on the road to Damascus, but do I believe in the risen Jesus? Do I know in my heart that the resurrection happened, just has Paul and John and the other gospel writers describe? Do I know that Jesus is not just some prophet who did some really good things and told some really good stories, but he is, in fact, God incarnate. God who put on human flesh, live among us, died for my sins, and rose from that borrowed tomb to prove he is who he says he is. Do I believe it, or is it just a lot of words?

I can tell you there’s a shrinking percentage of us who believe the story is true today. More and more are convinced it is just a story. What you believe makes a difference in how you approach life, death, and eternity. Here’s the problem many face. If Jesus’ words are not true, it doesn’t matter. How you live, what you believe, it doesn’t make any difference in the end, if Jesus’ words and his life is just a fairy tale. But if what he says is true. If the story is real. If when he says he is the only means of salvation, then what you believe makes all the difference in how you live and die and face eternity.

So there’s the question. What do you believe about him? Is he just a man or not? Is he God or not? Did he sacrifice himself for your forgiveness or not? Does he demand believe in him for salvation or not? What you believe matters. It did to Saul and it does to you and me. So what is it, true or false?

What will our bodies be like? February 25, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

Paul had many people ask him about what heaven would be like since Jesus met him one day on the road to Damascus and he saw a glimpse of what will come. He saw the risen Lord and just a taste of what heaven might be like when time comes to an end. He learned from Jesus’ apostles that we would be changed when he came to take us home with him. So as is common with us, we wanted to know what we would be like. We live in these frail bodies and we suffer all kinds of things in this world. Will we still have the pain, the scars, the memories, and the nightmares that plague us here?

Paul had some interesting things to say to us on that account. We go back to Paul’s letter to the congregation in Corinth as he tries to help them understand just how confused and unknowing they really were. We ask the same question, though, don’t we? We want to know what the other side of life will look like. We want to know for sure if there really is a heaven and hell. We want to know what life will be like when we cross to the other side of eternity.

The people in Corinth were especially concerned because Jesus said he was coming back soon. It had been years since he left. Some of their congregation died. Jesus hadn’t come. The Romans made life difficult for the Christians. The Jewish leaders made life difficult for the Christians. The pagans who believed in a pantheon of gods made life difficult for Christians. The whole world made life difficult for Jesus’ followers just like he said they would. So what happened? Should they still wait? Was Jesus’ promise real? Was he really coming back? And if so, what would really happen to them?

Here are Paul’s words of encouragement to them.

35 Now I know what some of you are thinking: “Just how are the dead going to be raised? What kind of bodies will they have when they come back to life?” 36 Don’t be a fool! The seed you plant doesn’t produce life unless it dies. Right? 37 The seed doesn’t have the same look, the same body, if you will, of what it will have once it starts to grow. It starts out a single, naked seed—whether wheat or some other grain, it doesn’t matter— 38 and God gives to that seed a body just as He has desired. For each of the different kinds of seeds God prepares a unique body. 39 Or look at it this way: not all flesh is the same. Right? There is skin flesh on humans, furry flesh on animals, feathery flesh on birds, and scaly flesh on fish. 40 Likewise there are bodies made for the heavens and bodies made for the earth. The heavenly bodies have a different kind of glory or luminescence compared to bodies below. 41 Even among the heavenly bodies, there is a different level of brilliance: the sun shines differently than the moon, the moon differently than the stars, and the stars themselves differ in their brightness. …

50 Now listen to this: brothers and sisters, this present body is not able to inherit the kingdom of God any more than decay can inherit that which lasts forever. 51 Stay close because I am going to tell you a mystery—something you may have trouble understanding: we will not all fall asleep in death, but we will all be transformed. 52 It will all happen so fast, in a blink, a mere flutter of the eye. The last trumpet will call, and the dead will be raised from their graves with a body that does not, cannot decay. All of us will be changed! 53 We’ll step out of our mortal clothes and slide into immortal bodies, replacing everything that is subject to death with eternal life. 54 And, when we are all redressed with bodies that do not, cannot decay, when we put immortality over our mortal frames, then it will be as Scripture says:

Life everlasting has victoriously swallowed death.[j]

55 Hey, Death! What happened to your big win?

Hey, Death! What happened to your sting?

Have you ever thought about what that change might be like? Jesus talked about how a seed must die before a plant can grow from it. So picture, if you will, an acorn. We know oak trees come from acorn’s the seed that produces those magnificent trees. I’m sure you’ve seen a few of them. Hard shelled things about ¾ of an inch across. Although there are a variety of different nuts we eat, the acorn is one we don’t. If you examine that small receptacle of life, would you ever think a giant oak would grow from that little seed? A tree looks so different from the seed from which it sprouts. So does a corn stalk look different from a single kernel of corn. Or a watermelon seed different from a watermelon. Pick any seed and tell me if you could guess what its plant would look like when mature. I don’t believe you could.

Jesus and Paul tell us this flesh that houses our eternal spirit is just a seed. When it dies, a spiritual bodies emerges from it just as an oak emerges from an acorn. What will our spiritual bodies be like? I can’t tell you. Will we look the same? I don’t think we will. I think we will know each other as we are perfected by his resurrection power. I think we will understand perfectly. I think we will see God in his triune perfection. Paul says we will be changed in the blink of an eye. Paul doesn’t describe that change except that we will be clothed in a new, spiritual body. An immortal one. One that can never decay or die. We will have a body that will live through eternity without pain or sadness or deformity or anything but the perfection of the image of God he placed within each of us.

What will we look like? Will we really care? Does the acorn care what the tree looks like that comes from inside its tiny shell? Does the apple seed care how many apple live inside it? Does a wheat germ care how many grains of wheat will come from it when the farmer plants it in the ground? So why should we care what this new spiritual body will be? Suffice it to say our spiritual bodies will be exactly right because God will grow them. He planned this millenia ago. We can trust him to make the spiritual body that springs from the seed of our fleshly body exactly what he plans.

I cannot even imagine what it might be like. Just like I could never imagine what plant would come from a particular seed if you placed it in my hand. I think our spiritual bodies will be as different from our fleshly bodies as a plant is from the seed from which it comes. Does that bother you? It doesn’t bother me. It’s one of those things I figure God has taken care of and I don’t need to worry about it. I trust him to know what he’s doing. I can’t make an oak tree. All I can do is plant an acorn. I can’t create a field of wheat. All I can do is plant some seeds. I can’t create a spiritual body. All I can do is prepare my fleshly body for the next step. I can give myself to God. I can follow his commands to the best of my ability. I can ask forgiveness from him. Then I can let him do his work in me and when time ends, he can change me into something I never dreamed. He will give me a spiritual body something we cannot now imagine.

Will we all be the same? I don’t know. Will we be able to distinguish one person from another? I think so since Paul talks about bodies, plural. Will we remember anything of this body when we put on the next? I don’t know. Does it really matter? Will we care about this life after we move into the next? I’m not sure we will if we find ourselves in heaven with God. I think we will be so engaged in worship and the work he gives us to do in heaven (I really believe he has work for us to do there, also), we won’t think about or worry about what happened here. The only thing we will remember from this side of eternity is that sacrifice he made for us so we could be with him. Everything else from this side of life will just fade away.

The Corinthians wondered what was happening to these frail vessels that kept dying while they waited for Jesus’ return. Paul let them know Jesus was still coming. His delay didn’t mean he wasn’t coming back. It means God is gracious and wants us to share his story to influence as many as possible to come into his kingdom. His delay is because of his mercy and grace. He wants as many as possible to come to him. Paul also wanted them to know our frail, sickly bodies weren’t the things that would survive and follow us into heaven. These things that deteriorate and decay are just seeds and one day from this fleshy seed will sprout a spiritual body like nothing we can begin to imagine.

Do you ever wonder what will become of this lump of clay you reside it? Don’t worry about it. Just like with the acorn and the oak, you can’t begin to imagine the new you. Be ready and then be blown away by the magnificence of God’s creative act in you.

It’s not just a story, February 18, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

Paul gives us an interesting observation as he writes to the congregation in Corinth. Near the end of his letter, in what is now chapter 15, he tells us the importance of Jesus’ resurrection. Here are his words, inspired by God.

12 Now if we have told you about the Christ (how He has risen from the dead and appeared to us fully alive), then how can you stand there and say there is no such thing as resurrection from death? 13 Friends, if there is no resurrection of the dead, then even Christ hasn’t been raised; 14 if that is so, then all our preaching has been for nothing and your faith in the message is worthless. 15 And what’s worse, all of us who have been preaching the gospel are now guilty of misrepresenting God because we have been spreading the news that He raised Jesus from the dead (which must be a lie if what you are saying about the dead not being raised is the truth). 16 Please listen. If you say, “the dead are not raised,” then what you are telling me is that Jesus has not been raised. Friends, 17 if Jesus has not been raised from the dead, then your faith is worth less than yesterday’s garbage, you are all doomed in your sins, 18 and all the dearly departed who trusted in His liberation are left decaying in the ground. 19 If what we have hoped for in Christ doesn’t take us beyond this life, then we are world-class fools, deserving everyone’s pity.

20 But Jesus was raised from death’s slumber and is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep in death.

Sometimes it’s good for us to stop and remember the story. Sometimes we need to understand how important the truth of these words. Sometimes we need to stop in the business of our lives and think about what we believe and be ready to believe it regardless how foolish it may sound to an unbelieving world.

Without faith in what happened at a place called Golgotha, in that pivotal city of Jerusalem, and the then the events over the next several days, Christians certainly would be certifiably crazy. You probably know the story well. You probably heard it or versions of it most of your life. Whatever religion you might have been exposed to in your childhood, you probably at least heard rumors about this story of a man called Jesus.

A man whose followers proclaimed he was not just a religious person able to perform miracles, but a man they proclaimed he was the son of God. In fact, they went so far as to say he was God incarnate. God in the flesh. He preached and taught throughout the region for just over three years, radically altering what many believed about what God expected of us. He taught that God wanted a personal, intimate relationship with each of us. He would forgive anyone who believed he came to live with us in the person of this man Jesus. All who asked for forgiveness and followed him would find forgiveness.

The story says this man Jesus became an enemy of his own religious leaders and an enemy of the Roman state. The tried him in a kangaroo court and crucified him. Then the story becomes an impossible one without faith. This man, Jesus, whom the Romans executed on a cross, died there. Romans knew how to execute people. If they said he died, he died. In fact, if the biblical account if accurate, it’s a miracle Jesus even made it to the site of the crucifixion after the beatings and flogging he endured. But he did and he hung on the cross and he died.

From an unbeliever’s perspective, the fairy tale gets better. The dead guy lays in a tomb for three days in the heat of the middle eastern sun and then he appears alive to two women who come to finish the burial ritual they couldn’t finish the day he died because of the rapid approach of the sabbath. Then he appears to two men walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, unrecognized until he sits down to eat with them. Then he appears behind a locked door to ten of his disciples. A week later he appears to all eleven of his disciples, again, behind locked doors. For forty days after his resurrection, he appeared off and on to different people around the city until his ascension where nearly 500 of his followers saw him lift off the ground in a cloud.

Without faith in the truth of the story, wouldn’t that make a great fairy tale? Without the assurance of the truth because of God’s spirit prompting us and helping us realize how much he wants to have a relationship with him, doesn’t that sound like some far off fantasy? How could anyone believe such nonsense? Who would ever fall for such a fantastic story? What would make people die for such a ridiculous story?

That’s what the scoffers say. That’s how the unbelievers think. That’s the reaction you get from the average man on the street, today. But what about you? What evidence can you propose to get to the truth and know that the story is real? How do you know the Bible is true?

It is an interesting question and one that deserves some answers. C.S. Lewis is a famous Christian author who set out to prove the story was so much trash. What he discovered was the truth. The evidence that shouts at us to show us the Bible is true and what it says can be trusted and believed. He has a series of books whose titles begin “The Case for…” and give the evidence of the truth behind the Bible, the crucifixion, Easter, Christmas, and many other topics. He painstakingly researched each and discovered evidence you could take to court.

Just start with the canon itself. Many unbelievers touted scripture must be the fiction of some religious leaders, but look at how it has come into our hands. Just the quality of artifacts from antiquity bears witness to the Bible’s authenticity. Scholars talk about the Iliad and Odyssey as ancient with a dozen or so fragments of the text from the fifth and sixth centuries surviving. But with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other fragments, we have more than 5,000 fragments and whole letters dating from three and four hundred BCE. And all the copies are nearly identical. In fact, the differences are not in the text, but in the marginal notes.

The Bible is and has been the number one seller for so long that none of the publishers, sellers, and analysts list it among the books sold anymore. Not because it doesn’t sell, but because it sells so far above the number two selling book that the numbers of books sold make everything embarrassing by comparison. Millions of copies are distributed every year. The top selling books sometimes reach a million copies in a year. Not often, but sometimes in a year. The Bible? Millions, plural, year after year after year. And as of October 2017 the full Bible has been translated into 670 languages, the New Testament has been translated into 1,521 languages. No other book has ever achieved such a global outreach. Impossible, right? Not if the living God is behind it.

So that explains the written word just a little. It must be more than a fairy tale if it continues to circulate like that from the beginning of its writing. But how about those willing to give their lives for their belief? Today we see handfuls of terrorists blowing themselves up to attain their 72 virgins in heaven. Not sure that will happen for them, but that’s a different podcast. It’s interesting that the vast majority of those willing to do so are under the age of 25. I don’t want to be disparaging of young people, but the medical community tells us that our brain isn’t fully developed until about age 25. So quite frankly, I’m more than a little concerned about the training those young folks are getting. You never seem to see the imams or clerics or older wiser men strapping explosive to themselves.

But in Christian circles, we don’t see dozens of people strapping explosives to themselves. We see people spreading Jesus’ legacy of peace he left with us. As a result, Christians are hated. We are persecuted. In many areas of the world, we are executed for our faith. Over the last ten years, different organizations have determined that more than a million Christians lost their lives because of their faith. They refuse to renounce their faith. They refuse to let go of their belief in the one who forgives sin. The story for them is very real. They are willing to give their lives before they change their belief.

Why would that many people willingly give up their lives for something that wasn’t true? Why would so many people willingly follow a fairy tale? The answer is, they wouldn’t. No one would give up as much as Christians have if the story were not true. If it were just a story, the truth would have come out long ago and the martyrdom would have stopped. People would agree with the majority of the world and let the story go. No one would accept the sacrifices Christians accept if the story were not true.

But Paul was right. “… if there is no resurrection of the dead, then even Christ hasn’t been raised; 14 if that is so, then all our preaching has been for nothing and your faith in the message is worthless… But Jesus was raised from death’s slumber and is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep in death.” We can believe because the story is not just a story. Jesus, the son of God, lived, died, was buried, and rose again.

So what will you do today because the story is not just a story, it is the truth upon which we stand?

Who did God make you to be? January 21, 2019

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Today’s Podcast

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As you probably know if you’ve been following these last few weeks, I’ve been using the common lectionary for the focus of my podcasts. Today will be no different. The scripture in the lectionary that jumped out at me today comes from 1 Corinthians 12. I think it struck me because we so often want to be someone other than ourselves in our culture today.

Take a look at everything the world throws at us and see if you agree. Marketing implies that if you just buy this product or use this device you will look like the person in the commercial. If you own this contraption or consume that food, you will suddenly be rid of those unwanted pounds. But if we stop and think for just a few milliseconds, we know it’s not true. But we want so badly to be something we are not.

We want to be slimmer, taller, shorter, smarter, richer, wiser, faster, … In the next advertisement you hear, listen for those adjectives and see if you can relate to the visual and audible cues. “I want to be like that.” And the marketer assures you it can happen just by buying their product. Of course, in the tiny print, if you can read that fast and get close enough to read it in the first place, you find the disclosure statement.

“Results may vary and those depicted are may not be expected when used by the average consumer.” Did you catch that disclaimer? Does that mean when I get on that stair-stepper or mega-muscle rejuvenator that I won’t be all buff and beautiful after six weeks with just a ten minute workout every other day? Does that mean that if I take that little pill once a day that I can’t eat a dozen doughnuts for breakfast and still lose fifty pounds in two weeks? Does that mean that if I put that special cream on my head that I won’t have a gorgeous mane of curls in seven days instead of the bald spots I try to cover with my obvious combover?

We are obsessed with being someone we are not in our culture. That’s why advertisers are so successful here. A picture here, a few words there, and we extend our gullibility to the max and think the latest products will make us perfect. It won’t. Never has. Never will. Why? Read 1 Corinthians 12. God made all of us different. We all have unique characteristics, talents, skills. God gave us different abilities because he wants us to need each other. He wants us to be interdependent.

Notice I didn’t say God wants us to be independent. God didn’t create us to rely solely on our own efforts. He didn’t give any of us enough to exist as hermits. He wants us to live in community. He wants us to understand this amazing principle. We need each other. I think it’s why we see both a vertical and horizontal beam on the cross that depicts the means by which Jesus died. That wasn’t the only form the cross took in the days of Roman crucifixion. The execution style just meant that a victim’s arms were raised in such a way that the weight of his body eventually made it impossible for him to exhale. So the victim suffocated when his muscles finally gave out, his chest expand with air, and the carbon dioxide trapped in his lungs could not be released. It was like drowning in dry air.

So the Romans used crosses like we see depicted in all the paintings we see with a horizontal and vertical beam. They used some shaped like an X. They sometimes just pulled a victim’s bound arms straight up and tied to a tall branch to his toes barely touched the ground. All those means created the same effect. The victim couldn’t breathe after a few hours or days and they suffocated.

But we always see Jesus cross as a T. I think because our relationship to each other is just as important to God as our relationship to him. He wants us to live in community with each other and be interdependent. So he gives each of us different talents. I need someone else to fix my car, for instance. My wife forbids me to work on our cars because it always costs us a lot of money when I try to fix them. I always break more than I fix. I’ll admit it. I’m a horrible mechanic. So I don’t fix my cars.

But I’m pretty good at some other things. I’m able to see connections between different things that others can’t see. How they fit together to make processes more efficient or effective. I’m able to see through the fluff and unnecessary actions being done in a long series of steps and point those out as ways to get more done in less time. I don’t know why everyone can’t see those things. But my mechanic doesn’t know why I can’t change my oil without breaking my car. The answer is, God gave each of us different talents.

Paul expresses that well. He talks about it in terms of spiritual gifts, but the more I study God’s word and the expression of his love and grace to us, the more I see it isn’t just churchy kinds of things God has given us. I need someone to do certain things for me because I just can’t. Is that a gift from God when we can search out those people and have a meaningful relationship with each other? I think so. Doesn’t that make it a spiritual gift? Again, I think so.

The issue for me is not so much can a person preach or teach or provide hospitality or one of the other actions Paul mentions in his letters. The issue for me is determining what talents God has given you and how do you use those talents for him and for your neighbors? Remember, God wants us to be interdependent. He wants us to rely on each other. He never intended for us to be alone or to know how to do everything ourselves. He wants us sharing the things we do best with others so his grace can be seen and felt in the world.

God doesn’t want you to be someone else. He created you to be you. He created me to be me. I don’t think he would be real happy with the approach many of our advertisers take in trying to convince us to be someone we’re not. He wants us to take ownership of the talents and skills and gifts he has given each individual and use them together in community so his kingdom can grow.

It doesn’t take much to see how important those “unseemly” jobs can be. Ask New Yorkers when the garbage companies went on strike. I like to visit New York City, but one thing I don’t like about New York City is the smell about midnight. All those apartment dwellers have a tendency to put there trash out on the street the night before the trash truck comes. And between midnight and three or four o’clock in the morning, the city smells like rotting garbage. I can’t imagine what it was like when the trash trucks launched their strike.

God created us all. At creation, God looked at everything he made and said it was good. Nothing he made during those creation story events was identified as bad. He still creates and nothing he makes is bad. We corrupt and destroy and twist in our disobedience to God, but God makes all things good in his creative power. We too often try to be something he did not create us to be. We want to be something or someone else.

Maybe as we get through these first few weeks of this new year, we should just decide to be ourselves. How would the world be different if we all decided to just be who God made us to be? An interesting question, isn’t it? Go try it on for size.