Old Testament Text Messages?

Cell phones are wonderful. I remember the early days when my father brought home this massive black leather bag that was called a "bag phone" and we were in awe. A few years later I was heading to college and got my very own cellular phone, a Motorola flip phone, and I was sure that I would be the coolest kid on campus because I wouldn't have to use the antiquated dorm phone. A few years later I got a phone that could take pictures, and that was the coolest thing I had ever seen. At that point I could take a grainy picture and save it on my phone. Fast forward to text messages. These things are wonderful. I can send my wife a quick note to say "I love you" and it saves me the $1.79 that Hallmark would have charged me for the same words. I can list out some grocery items and take a picture (they are much clearer now, that on the early phones) to double check with my wife that I got the right item. Cell phones are a wonderful invention...except when they make you look dumb. Specialty ringers are always fun, but when John Phillips Sousa, a cartoon character, or the theme song to Star Wars appears at full volume in the middle of a wedding, funeral, or church service, you are made to look like the fool. Even worse than specialty ringers, however, are the wrong destination text messages.

Let's say I decide to utilize my $1.79 Hallmark savings and send my wife a lovely little "I love you" message early in the afternoon when she least expects it. So, on my touchscreen phone I open a new text message, say 'I love you' and then head to my contacts list where I see...Josh, Joyce, Judy, Julie, Justin...I tap on 'Julie' and send my personal Hallmark-ish message. Expecting to receive a message back about how sweet I am, I see that I receive a text message from a very confused Justin. I am guilty of the wrong destination text message. I try to laugh my way out of it, but it makes me think just how many messages I have sent to the wrong person by not double-checking before I pressed 'send'.


I worked through 1 Samuel 11 this morning, and I noticed something interesting. This is the David and Bathsheba narrative, and throughout the chapter, David does a lot of sending and receiving text messages. Obviously not via text message on his cell phone, but verbally. He sends a servant to get information about Bathsheba (v.3); He sends messengers to go get Bathsheba (v. 4); He sends a message to Joab to send Uriah to David, and Joab sends Uriah to David (v.6); a message is sent to David to inform him of Uriah's death (v.22); David sends for Bathsheba to come and be his wife (v.27).

David did a lot of sending and receiving text messages to set this whole ordeal up, and at the end of chapter 11 we read that all of these text messages displeased the Lord. Chapter 12 shares one text message to David. And it's from God Himself through the prophet Nathan. God sent the message to His desired recipient, and the message was loud and clear. God never has to double check before he hits the 'send' button, because the message is tailored specifically for you.

Today, when you send a text message, or make a call press send, thank the Lord that He sends clear messages to the precise recipient He means to.

Ho-Hum...

The Eastern Shore is not my original stomping grounds. I was not born here, raised here, or educated here. As far as I am concerned, I am a toddler in the ways of the Eastern Shore, having been here for 5 years. There is much to learn about this area before one can become familiarized with it, for example "Getting up" with someone means contacting them. Where I am from, that means either increasing your elevation, or waking up at the same time as them! I never knew you could eat muskrat, or get bit by a tick at the drop of a hat, but I am learning!

Let me tell you where I am from. I come from a land of mountains and snow. The high school I attended sits at the base of a 4000' mountain range, known as the Green Mountains of Vermont. There are fields of crops as far as the eye can see, and more cows than people! We can tap a tree for sap that turns into maple syrup, or create the best ice cream money can buy (Ben & Jerry's, of course!). We can swim, skate, sail, or relax on the shores of Lake Champlain, or take an international trip to Canada, just a short distance away. Billboard are actually illegal because they would take away from the beauty of the state. This ethereal land, this incredible jewel of New England, is what I called home for 18 years.

For those 18 years, guess how much I cared about the natural beauty of Vermont? Not too much. Guess how much the mountains meant to me? Not too much. Guess how important is was that Canada was so close to me? Not much at all. Now that I am exactly 528 miles away from Vermont I miss all that.

Why am I waxing nostalgic on you this morning? Well, here's the point. Every day I would wake up, and see towering mountains all around, and smell the fresh air of living so far above sea level, and sometimes look out my window to see a moose, or a bobcat, or just a neighbor's black lab, and that was normal. Mundane. Run of the mill. Everyday life for me was living surrounded by beauty. That was my ho-hum life.

I fear that in a church setting we can drop into the ho-hum life very easily. The Sunday sermon that used to be as challenging to us as a hike up a 4600' mountain is reduced to just another part of the service. The worship that could be as incredible as a silent early morning ride on a glass smooth lake on a sailboat turns into a necessary evil before the sermon starts. The challenge for today is to prepare yourself early on in the week for Sunday morning. Let the excitement begin brewing for the possibilities to come. Could this Sunday be the day where the message motivates you to move to Africa as a missionary? Could this Sunday be the day where those words in a song you haven't really given thought to before strike you anew about Christ's sacrifice on the cross? Shake off the comfort of the church service you have been a part of your whole life, and approach it this Sunday like a first time visitor.  My guess is that you'll once again see that majestic mile-high mountain of a sermon, and experience the spray off the worship sailboat and be roused to authentic worship.

Who needs logic?

I love logic. Throughout my various educational experiences, my most enjoyable classes have had to do with logic. I hate math; however, when it came to doing proofs in geometry class, I awoke from my slumber to participate. In seminary I learned a method or process to logically understand the structure and context of a passage and include or exclude possible meanings of a portion of text. This, at least to me, is enjoyable. In discussions with my wife, or office debates, or kids in my Sunday School class that desire to play "stump the pastor", my default is logic. If you like to make a logical argument, I'm all ears.

Then, I look at the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament, and I put myself in a tough place. Jesus very rarely explained things logically, but, I am okay with that. When you are a member of the triune Godhead, you can have the freedom to make such decisions! I think though, it's the non-logic that makes me hit the brakes and go back to re-look and reexamine what it is that I just saw. The classic ones from Scripture are 'the last will be first, and the first, last' and 'Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.' There's some poor logic, but powerful teachings contained in these strange sayings.

This brings me to the Easter season and the illogical, profoundly brilliant phrase that was introduced to me recently that stopped me in my tracks and made me think. The phrase explains that Christ trampled death by death, and gave life to those in the grave. Logically, this makes little sense. Spiritually, this makes all the difference! As we come into the Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday celebration, throw logic out the window - a sinless God takes my sin upon Him and dies on my behalf so I can live? That's not logical! After three days in a tomb he raises Himself from the dead as He predicted? That's not logical!

Logical or not, I. Don't. Care. Put the logic aside and thank Him for his sacrifice. His profoundly brutal death led to a resurrection, and that resurrection is what makes all the difference. Enjoy Easter - not for the logical understanding you can gain, but for the eternal benefits of the death, burial, and resurrection!

Onomatopoeia? Huh?

Onomatopoeia? If you aren't a word nut, English teacher, Scrabble player, or crossword puzzle aficionado, you may not have ever heard or seen this word before. Onomatopoeia (on-uh-mat-uh-pee-uh) is a great word. It comes from the Greek words onoma, meaning name, and poieo, meaning I make. Basically, onomatopoeia is a word that makes the sound of it's name. Confused? This may clear it up. A bee says what? Buzz. Hold it out now...buzzzzzz. Doesn't that word kind of imitate the source of the sound that it suggests? Oink, meow, roar, tick-tock, are all examples of this. (On a side note, if you could see me testing all these onomatopoetic words as I write, you would be quite entertained). This is a concept that is not only in the English language, it is universal across the board. Even Scripture contains onomatopoeia, however you must look in the original languages to grasp it.

As I consider onomatopoeia, I think of words that sound like what they look like. At church, I see a lot of very nicely dressed people, and various dress code requirements throughout my educational history have forced me, and many other people, to look nice and dress nice, but the question for us today is, do I sound like I look? Am I an onomatopoetic Christian?

Anyone can dress up nicely for any occasion - a pig could wear a hat to church, but that's not who he is! The challenge for all of us is to become onomatopoetic Christians - not that we walk around perpetually saying, "zip, bang, pop, ribbit, woof, snap, and cuckoo" but that our actions match our speech. I could tell you that I am an excellent singer, but until I actually sang, there would be no validation of that. Today, let's validate our Christianity and live this day as an onomatopoetic Christian.

Church Skipper!

I'm guilty of skipping church, but it's a valid excuse, unlike so many of the excuses I hear regularly! I was not attending yesterday because I was holding my hours old newborn son. Even now, I sit in room 4136 while my wife and youngest son sleep and I make my blog contribution.

As I ponder the last few hours, I had an interesting scriptural epiphany: this is so simple and profound that this may insult your intelligence, but I'm gonna share it and hope for the best.

Peter speaks of newborn babies desiring the sincere milk of the word, and that is the place I find myself back at with baby Griffin. He's a milk only kid at this point. Alex, at a three year old enjoys milk, but with real food. The reason he is okay with milk is because we had to teach him to like it. This is what Griffin needs to learn! He doesn't automatically like it because he's a baby, he has to learn that this is something that he needs. Throw in the spiritual aspect - those new Christians don't automatically just love the Bible because that's what they are supposed to do, they need to be taught! Bring back the great commission with it's emphasis on teaching, and you have got a convincing argument!

Thanks to my 23 hour old son for teaching me this spiritual lesson! He may have a future in ministry! Or he could write my sermons for me...

Box Brain.

The blind man pulled into the driveway, walked up to the house, knocked on the door, and a woman answered the door. He gave her a box, said goodbye, walked back to his car, and drove away. What was in the box?

Imagine beginning a semester in a graduate level class with this being one of the first exercises presented to you. This sounds more like a game one would play at recess than something that would be shared with a bunch of intelligent 20-30 year olds in a seminary setting, but this was day one for me in one of my favorite classes. What was in the box? Blinds. There you have it. This is called a lateral thinking exercise, or in layman terms, thinking outside the box.

I love outside the box thinking. I humbly pride myself in the understanding that I have taken up permanent residence outside the proverbial box. Perhaps it is due to my age? Perhaps it is a personality thing? Perhaps it has to do with me being left handed and thrive on creativity? Whatever it is, I am a fan of creativity and "wow, we never did that before" kind of reactions. As an outreach pastor, I get to exercise creativity in outreach events, and every so often I find something that makes me jealous that I didn't come up with, and it stirs me to find that next great idea.

I believe that change must be congruent with the past, but mere replication will inevitably lead to decline and stagnation. It is up to us free-thinkers, as I like to refer to myself, to brainstorm and use our resources to come charging into the room with new ideas for everything. This includes outreach, as well as a myriad of other avenues.

I often that a horrible punishment for me would be for someone to steal my creativity and lock me in the box, and turn me into a Box Brain. Would that be a punishment for everyone? Probably not, but for me it certainly would be. So a challenge for today is to find something you can be creative with and go for it. Try that scary new recipe, or make up an improv bedtime story for your children. Start small and see if you don't like it!

Set your mind to creativity, and go through the Scripture and check out God's creativity in just His communication with us! Talking donkeys? Burning bushes? Jonah swallowed by a Whale? Miracles? Pentecost? God uses creativity to grab attention and make sure the message is not missed - be creative in your invitations to church, be creative in your daily devotions, and most importantly, be creative in your approach to the Gospel.

Surprise!

It seems like just a week ago I was all depressed because the Missions Conference was over. No more field updates for another year, no more personal interaction with missionaries for another year, and no more international flair to our auditorium decor. But, alas, God had one more missionary in store for us! Bruce and Natalie Tuttle (missionaries in Ukraine) were traveling back to PA from Virginia, and were able to share with us their ministry, and their ministry in surrounding areas. It was such a treat!

Our church family has been praying for pastor "River" who has faced much persecution in an Islamic country. This missionary shares the gospel under such extreme conditions that his family and co-laborers in the ministry live under the understanding that it is not if they go to jail for preaching the gospel, but when they are going to be jailed, and how much persecution they will be facing. These are men dedicated to the gospel in a level that we can't comprehend. What a challenge to me as a church leader to share what I've got in this community!

So, I pass that challenge to you - when your conversation turns to spiritual things, and you begin to feel uneasy, and your armpits and palms get all sweaty, and your throat gets dry (maybe it's just me?), start off with a story that goes something like this:

"We just had an update in our church of a man overseas who has been jailed, persecuted, threatened and arrested for what I'm about to tell you. Can you handle it?"

This will gather interest in the gospel like a snowball rolling down a snowy hill. Let's use every tool we can to expand the kingdom today!