Sunday,
10th of October 2004
evening |
Two-by-four Evangelism
Thinking about those times I've heard about firey street
evangelists telling everyone they're going to hell, Proverbs
17:9 popped into my head. "He who forgives an offense seeks
love, but he who repeats a matter alienates a friend." Here
forgives means covers or hides according to my
concordance. So essentially rather than always bringing something
up (nagging) there's a time to set it aside if you want a good
relationship with the person.
I find it interesting to think that there might be people out
there who, rather than taking time out to understand and know
someone well enough to present something in a way that doesn't
need to be repeated over and over, chose to pound people
with the same message irresponsibly. It's essentially nagging in
a different mode. You see something they are doing wrong, so you
tell them so, over and over. As a Christian who loves the
wisdom God has provided us through the Proverbs, I wonder what
people intend to gain by this? Say it once, and if they don't
understand it, then don't just repeat the same old thing,
something has to change, either their perception or the way you
present it. Otherwise it is nagging. And especially if they
aren't even our friends yet, if the Proverb says it alienates
a friend, how much more harm would it do to someone who doesn't
even necessarily know or like you?
Also, if we expect someone to come to Christ in love, do we
think that doing something we are told brings alienation and
separtion instead of love will accomplish that goal? Yet I see
people who think that if they say something enough eventually
it'll get through. And then they wonder why no one's listening
anymore, or they wrongly think only the message is affecting the
hearer, while it's also the way it's being presented.
Before I read this Proverb and understood it, I'd done something
similar. I used to bring up to my youngest brother problematic
characteristics in his life constantly so that he really hated
me. I seldomly talked about anything else, so his expectation
was negative and so was our relationship. When I moved away from
home I was inspired to write letters that avoided that sore spot,
and our relationship actually improved, and now I can talk to him
about harder things because he listens, whereas before he had
become quite closed.
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Wednesday,
22nd of September 2004
evening |
Seeking Those Physical Miracles
This past Sunday the scripture of John 6:24-35 was mentioned.
And I thought it appeared to be showing a particular dependency
on physical manifestations of miracles. From the New Jerusalem
Bible:
- When the people saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were
there, they got into those boats and crossed to Capernaum to
look for Jesus. When they found him on the other side, they
said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?"
- Jesus answered: In all truth I tell you, you are looking for
me not because you have seen the signs but because you had all
the bread you wanted to eat. Do not work for food that goes
bad, but work for food that endures for eternal life, which
the Son of man will give you, for on him the Father, God
himself, has set his seal.
- Then they said to him, "What must we do if we are to carry
out God's work?"
- Jesus gave them this answer, "This is carrying out God's
work: you must believe in the one he has sent."
- So they said, "What sign will you yourself do, the sight of
which will make us believe in you? What work will you do? Our
fathers ate manna in the desert; as scripture says: He gave
them bread from heaven to eat."
- Jesus answered them: In all truth I tell you, it was not
Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, it is my Father who
gives you the bread from heaven, the true bread; for the bread
of God is the bread which comes down from heaven and gives
life to the world.
- "Sir," they said, "give us that bread always."
- Jesus answered them: I am the bread of life. No one who comes
to me will ever hunger; no one who believes in me will ever
thirst.
This made me think about all of the things that people tend
to pray for from getting that high paying job to maintaing
life in this world. These people Jesus confronted were intent
on getting some more physical signs and miracles because
that's what they understood. Anything beyond this reality or
world would never do because that's not what they believed
would help them.
It seems so easy to cry out to God asking for food because
it is necessary to live, or healing from disease, or spared
death from nature or even man. But the truth is that all of
these are understandable within the realm of this world. None
so much as touches the eternal realm that God has revealed to
us. When our prayers focus on these items, it's almost as
though we are fixated on this temporal place and the concerns
of this world.
It seems better to focus each prayer on doing God's will here.
And this doesn't preclude the possibility of going hungry, being
sick for the rest of your life, or death. Whatever the condition
I'm in, I hope I can value what may not be immediately tangible
and obvious, because I know better through God's Word and
Spirit.
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Tuesday,
17th of September 2004
afternoon |
Forest Fires and Destruction
A thought just occured to me. Something far fetched, probably
the worst analogy, but so close to home I thought it may be
worth additional thought. Certainly understanding concepts
from different perspectives is extremely good and even if I
find something that doesn't work out in the end, I have gained
even that knowledge, which is more than I had before!
This past week I read an opinion that mentioned something
supported by Bush to allow loggers easier access into National
Forests and other protected wildernesses to help reduce the fire
hazard. And a big reason why we have these fire hazards is that a
big part of preserving forests used to be protecting it from fire.
Any little blaze was snuffed out ASAP. And this was considered as
the way to keep a forest healthy and preserved. But, all
our ignorance has led to lots of nice flameable and sick
forests.
So, the analogy I considered was a forest versus the church.
Could, like what was believed best for the forest -- saving the
trees from fire which may evidentally consume and kill a few --,
some churches be protecting their congregations from challenges
which may hurt or sever a few from the congregation? So, the
congregation grows in number just like the forest's trees
continue to grow unabated and large, dense, and healthy
forests errupt. But what has happened in these forests spared by
fire? Disease and parasites have flourished, and lots of kindling
has fallen to the forest floors building up -- like unremoved
plaque -- ready to make any fire that would have previously hurt
only a few trees take out even those who would have been spared
in the past
As for disease, I've been to Lake Arrowhead in Southern
California and I'm always bothered by the bunches of dead trees
just sitting there in the ground. Great fuel fore fires! :) (I
forgot what exactly killed them, but I think I've heard it was a
bark beetle. Most living tissue of the tree is in the bark, so
this makes sense.) The disease/parasite that affects these dead
trees spreads to all the neighboring trees because the weak trees
harboring it are never cleaned out of the forest. Usually fire
would do this, but the inhabitance probably wouldn't feel
comfortable chancing a control burn, seeing as how many narrowly
escaped a natural fire last year fueled by kindling in the forest
and all these dead trees making it a deadly and uncontrollable
inferno.
Several years back I visited a park in the Sierra's in
California called Devils Postpile National Monument, and
there was a hike to the Rainbow Falls. That was a real
gruelling hike! I think it was 6 miles long, but it was awful,
no shade! What happened to the shade? Well, there were still
these nice charred sticks of what used to be pine trees all over
the place for the entire hike. They had, years earlier, had a
great fire there and given that it was going to be tough to battle
the question arose, "perhaps if we let it burn it will grow back
and be healthier," so they let it burn. I'm not suggesting it
won't grow back, although all I remember seeing were bushes among
the desolate landscape (and most of these seemed to congregate
around the river), but it'll probably take a long time for it to
be as it was before. Just like the problems inherent in
strip-logging, I'm sure that this ex-forest suffers the same
consequences. Little seedlings, without shade, just dry up in
the sun. At least if a few trees had survived to provide some
shade they wouldn't dry up quite as quickly. Oh well. It made
that hike painful. (But the waterfall was great!)
So, about a church congregation untested by fire. I've been to
churches where they are insistant on essentially preserving
people in their congregations who really need to feel some heat.
If this burns off their impurities, or perhaps instead consumes
them completely so that they leave the church, then I believe it
is for the best. In one church I visited, no one trusted one
another because there was a threat of lawsuit. And seeing the
lives of its congregants, I could see that there were people
there who remained impure and degraded the quality of the
congregation (dead/dying trees left standing in the forest).
And in some sense the fear caused by the lack of security,
unclean garbage left behind by aging and growth of each
individual (even healthy trees shed extra weight at times) was
kindling to allow fire to simply create a ball of flame making
perhaps any attempt at trying to make a control burn hazardous.
(I suppose that only leaves room for the meticulous and tedious
job of slowly cleaning the area... But that's a lot of work for
the relatively few people who may be willing to do it. And you'd
still have to haul out all the spiritually dead tree corpses that
were left standing in the forest, something which was obviously
unattractive to this church.)
To make matters worse, this lack of desire for church discipline
of members could also be seen in the forest analogy as a way to
spread disease between the different congregants. Because the
disease of false doctrine and worldliness was left unchallenged,
after causing some trees to succum, it could also infect neighboring
trees, threatening the entire forest! And all the dead congregants
left in the forest gives testament to its lack of health and really
makes it lose its beauty. (Sorry Lake Arrowhead!)
I just thought of this because I have so often heard the argument
that it's best not to challenge someone about something because
it may cause them to 'fall away' or 'leave the church'. Their
suggestion being that while the people are in the church, they
have a chance to be helped, but outside the church they may be
goners. Well, my thoughts being that perhaps leaving them in the
church, not dealing with the elements necessary to keep a church
uncluttered with people and situations that leave it vulnerable
to uncontrollable fire and disease, is not so good afterall. In
'preserving' a few, the entire church could be destroyed by
impending fire or disease. So, is our goal to fill our forests
with trees, or to fill our forests with healthy trees and
periodically burning away the old stuff that makes it more
difficult for the healthy trees to live healthfully?
Probably a bad analogy in some ways, but something curious to
think about. :) And all my friends in SoCal probably can understand
the fire part of it. And NorCal has had its share of fires as
well.
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Monday,
6th of September 2004
about noon |
It Just Doesn't Dovetail.
Awhile ago Luke 20:17-18 was brought up. Jesus said, "What then
is this that is written: 'The very stone
which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner'?
Every one who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; but
when it falls on any one it will crush him." And some were
wondering what verse 18 may be referring in regards to
falling on the stone or being crushed by the stone. I just
had a though that maybe if someone was building a structure
and they tried to put a piece in a place it just didn't fit,
it would topple over and break apart. On the otherhand, if
they tried to put their own structure where the cornerstone
was to be laid, it would be crushed.
In a sense then, people who try to build their own structure
in God's kingdom unaligned with God's will are destined to
fail. They will be destroyed because they aren't truely apart
of the structure they are trying to be apart of it in their
own way. People who try to build their own kingdom
will be ultimately displaced by God's kingdom, or crushed because
they are opposed to the laying of the corner stone. So, in a way
this can be seen as referring to nominal Christians who do not
truly follow God, they just 'act' like Christians, and to people
who seek to build their own power structures to take the place
of God's.
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