Flight Paths

Wrens are known for building nests in odd places and we have a couple who have proven the point.  They can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to building nests.  And fast?  In less than an hour they are ready to set up housekeeping.   Anything that is left open and alone for that amount of time is fair game.

            We’ve found nests in boxes of empty mason jars in the shed, and on the lawn mower seat under its protective tarp.  We’ve found them on the bristles of the push broom which hangs upside down near the ceiling of the carport.  We’ve found them in roof gutters, and draped plastic sheeting.  We’ve found them in flower pots, tomato vines, and empty buckets.

            We usually buy dog food in 50 lb bags at the feed store and keep it stored in a large plastic garbage can in the shed.  We carry Chloe’s daily allotment in an old three pound coffee can, which we then shove sideways on the handlebars of the old exercise bike until the next day’s feeding.  Last month we found a wren’s nest in that can, obviously built after Chloe had been fed the day before, hanging precariously, rocking in the breeze. 

            Immediately Keith duct-taped it more securely to the handlebars so it couldn’t be blown or jostled off, and found another old can to use for Chloe’s feed.  It has become something of a joke now—remember to put up the [whatever] before the wrens find it.

            This doesn’t happen just once a year.  The mother wren incubates the eggs for about 2 weeks and then both parents feed them until they can fly, about two weeks later.  Often, the last few days of feeding, the father takes over completely so the mother can start another nest.  In our climate, they often build a third nest after that one.  They are like little nest-building machines—wherever they can, whenever then can.

            Isn’t that the way we should be about the gospel?  Too many times we’re out there making judgments about where to sow the seed instead of strewing it about everywhere we can.  We decide who will and who won’t listen and worse, who we deem “worthy” to hear.

            That certainly isn’t what Jesus did.  He taught dishonest businessmen and immoral women.  He taught the upper class and the lowest of the low.  He taught the diseased and the disabled, as well as the hale and hearty blue collar workers.  He taught people who wanted to hear and people who just wanted to make trouble for him.  Shouldn’t we be following his example?

            Too many times we worry about the reception we will get.  When Jesus sent out the seventy, he didn’t say, “If you don’t think they’ll listen, then shake the dust off your feet and go elsewhere.”  What he said was, “If they don’t listen,” which means everyone had a chance to decline if that is what they chose to do.  We can’t seem to stand the possibility of rejection, not an auspicious trait for disciples of the one who was “despised and rejected of men.”

            We should be like wrens, speaking about our faith anywhere, even the most unlikely places, to anyone, even the most unlikely people.  Over and over and over, like we can’t help ourselves, like our lives depended upon it, because maybe they do.
 
Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.  Acts 20:26-27.
 
Dene Ward

One day recently, just to see what would happen, I googled one of my past devotionals, the one called “Chloe and the Green Beans.”  Now if I understand what the Google search engine does, it searches the internet to find places where all those words are used in more or less the same place.  Sort of like a Bible concordance lists all the passages that contain a certain word.  I was amused by what Google came up with.

            “But Chloe doesn’t like green beans…”

            “Chloe Green bought some beans.”

            “Joan Rivers spills the beans about celebrities including Tom Green and Chloe Kardashian.”

            “Chloe Intense—a new perfume with notes of rose, amber, pink pepper, and tonka beans”

            Finally on page 8, I found my devotional, “Chloe and the Green Beans.”

            I never dreamed that those words—“Chloe,” “green,” and “beans”-- had been put together in so many different ways. Some of those are from blogs, some articles, and some ads.  Do you think the “Chloe” in all those snippets referred to the same Chloe?  Of course not.  And then I thought, that is exactly how some people try to study the Bible—they google it, in method if nothing else.  They see a word in one passage and then simply look for it in another, assuming it means the same thing, regardless of the fact that different authors are writing about different topics to different audiences many, sometimes hundreds of years, apart.

            They see the words “the coming of the Lord” and “judgment” and decide that, even though one is in Isaiah and one is in Matthew and one is in Peter, they must all be talking about the same “coming of the Lord”—which they inevitably view as the final Day of Judgment.  They see similar language in the book of Revelation and decide the same thing, regardless of John saying, “These things must shortly come to pass.”

            They also completely ignore to whom the words were originally written and what they meant in the context of the time and circumstances.  For example, when you said the phrase, “the promise” to a Jew, you would create a far different understanding than you would to a Gentile.  Jews who heard or read “the promise” would see it in their minds in all caps on a flashing neon sign.  They had been looking for “THE PROMISE” for thousands of years.  Remember that when you read passages like Acts 2:39, which was originally spoken to a Jewish audience.

            Things also become skewed when you forget that the Bible was not written in English.  Just because the same English word is used in two different places, does not mean it was the same Hebrew or Greek word.  Just as English has many words for “bread” that limit its meaning (biscuit, loaf, bagel, scone, muffin, etc), those people had different words for things that might have been translated into one English word.  Did you know that in the Bible there were several Hebrew or Greek words used for queen?  One meant “a daughter of royalty.”  Another meant “queen-mother.”  Still another simply meant “the king’s wife.”  A really strange one meant “the moon.”  Yet they are all translated “queen” in our language.  That one is not too important, but there are other words that make a much larger difference in your understanding of the scriptures, and that is why you must learn how to use a concordance, either on a computer program or a real book. 

            What started out as simple curiosity that afternoon at the computer reminded me of some important things about Bible study.  Be careful with the word of God.  It isn’t a comic book, so it takes some thought.  It isn’t a thriller, so you sometimes have to make yourself plow through it.  It isn’t a romance, so you may find things in it you didn’t really want to find, like the fact that you need to change your life.  In the end, though, it’s worth every minute of study you put into it.
 
But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God… For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Cor 4:2,5,6.
 
Dene Ward

Part 1 of this entry was posted yesterday.

II. Music History
 
          There is no doubt historically that the first century church used only vocal music.
 
         “All the music employed in their early services was vocal,” Frank Landon Humphreys, Evolution of Church Music.

          “[Early church music was] purely vocal,” Dr Frederic Louis Ritter, Director, School of Music, Vassar.

          “While pagan melodies were always sung to instrumental accompaniment, the church chant was exclusively vocal.  Clement says, ‘Only one instrument do we use, the word of peace…’ Chrysostom: ‘Our tongues are the strings of the lyre, with a different tone, indeed, but with a more accordant piety.’  Ambrose expresses his scorn for those who would play the lyre and psaltery instead of singing hymns and psalms…Augustine adjures believers not to turn their hearts to theatrical instruments.  The[se] religious guides of the early Christians felt that there would be an incongruity, and even profanity, in the use of…instrumental sound in their…spiritual worship…the pure vocal utterance was the more proper expression of their faith.”  Edward Dickinson, Professor of Music History, Conservatory of Music, Oberlin, Music in the History of the Western Church.

          “[There was a time] when organs were very seldom found outside the Church of England.  The Methodists and Baptists rarely had them, and by the Presbyterians they were strongly opposed…even in the Church of England itself, organs did not obtain admission without much controversy,” Johh Spencer Curwin, Royal Academy of Music.

          From A History of Western Music by Donald Jay Grout:  Early Christian music was monophonic, meaning it had no harmony or counterpoint—everyone sang the same tune.

          Judaism had a huge influence on the singing in the early church.  Psalms were sung almost exclusively in the beginning, in several different ways.  Sometimes they sang in alternation between a soloist and the congregation.  This was called RESPONSORIAL PSALMODY.  Sometimes two parts of verses or alternate verses were sung by two groups.  This was called ANTIIPHONAL PSALMODY.  At still other times a SOLOIST sang a certain passage using melodic formulas which could be altered to suit the cadence of the text.  Because he was doing it ad lib, it was simply impossible for anyone else to sing with him.

          Early hymns were probably sung to folk tunes the people knew, and were eventually put into a book.  The oldest piece of church music found was a hymn of praise.  We have only the last few lines and it was so mutilated it could not be completely reconstructed.  It was found in Oxyrhynchos, Egypt and dated from the end of the third century (200’s).  It is known as the Oxyrhynchos fragment. 

          The emphasis of music in the early church was on ecstasy (Spirit-filled revelation) and individual liberty, 1 Cor 14:26.  It can be established absolutely that the early church sang without instrumental accompaniment.
A capella does not mean unaccompanied music.  A capella is Latin for “in the style of the church.”  Everyone simply understood that sacred music in the church was to be sung without accompaniment because it always had been.

          When instrumental music was first introduced in the Catholic Church, it was fought vehemently, and only fully accepted several hundred years later, around the 11th century.  Even in the nineteenth century, some conservative denominations avoided it, calling it “Romanist,” as in Roman Catholic.”

          The Greek Orthodox Church divided from the Roman Catholic Church in the 11th century.  (Today it consists of 13 branches, including the Russian Orthodox, Bulgarian Orthodox, Slavic Orthodox, etc.)  These native Greek speakers had two issues with the Romans, the use of the word baptizo and the word psallo.  They understood the original language and therefore rejected the introduction of sprinkling as baptism, and instrumental music in the singing of hymns.  They knew that the one word in the first century meant “immerse” and the other meant “sing” and nothing else.  To this day, the Orthodox church still sings a cappella.
         
 
A Personal Note
 
          Some of you might be surprised if I said, “Yes!  The early church had music.”  “They sang without music,” is a common error, and one of my pet peeves.  If you sing without music, you are a mighty poor singer!  Singing is music. 

          As someone who has been there, in college you study two types of music—instrumental or vocal.  Under the vocal division, you can sing with accompaniment or without—a capella.  So much for the piano being merely an incidental—it totally changes the type of music. 

          As a piano/vocal major, one of my music education professors reminded me not to be tempted to play the piano every time the children sang.  “They will never learn to carry a tune in a bucket,” she said, speaking of the crutch the piano would be to their ear development.  In fact, a capella choirs are considered the most elite because their singers must have a good ear to stay on pitch.  Any voice students I have had who were raised in the church singing a capella always had better aural capability than their friends in the denominations.  And I have always considered it a little presumptuous to think that a manmade instrument can improve on the one God made.
 
Dene Ward

The posts today and tomorrow will be a little different.  As a musician I am sometimes asked about our music practices in the church.  I hope these two posts will give you the information you need to answer similar questions.
 
 I.  Characteristics of Language
         
          The first thing we need to understand is that words in any language change over the years.  What may have one meaning now, meant something else entirely a couple hundred years ago.
          Take the word “silly.”  We know it means “absurd, foolish or stupid.”  Did you know that it originally meant “happy and blessed?”  How about “lewd?”  It now means “sexually unchaste;” originally it meant “a common person as opposed to clergy.”  “Idiot” now has the specific meaning of “someone whose mental age does not exceed three,” and a colloquial meaning of “a foolish or stupid person.”  Originally it meant “someone in private station as opposed to someone holding public office.”  So five hundred years ago, most of us could have been described as silly, lewd idiots and we would not have taken offense!
          Be careful of root words too.  Do you know what the root word for “nice” is?  The Latin nescius.  Nescius means “ignorant!”  Think about that the next time someone tells you how nice you look on Sunday morning.  None of these English words’ early definitions have much of anything to do with the way they are used nowadays, so when you look up the definition of a Greek or Hebrew word you must be careful to find the definition for the time period of the original writing.
          “In the age of Alexander the Great…the Greek language underwent [a huge] change…a literary prose language was formed which was founded on the Attic dialect, yet differed from it by adopting a common Greek element…admitting numerous provincialisms.  A popular spoken language arose in which the previously distinct dialects spoken by the various Greek tribes were blended, with a predominance of the Macedonic variety.”  Dr George Benedict Winer, Grammar of the Greek Testament.
          “The usage of the classic Greek authors varies so much according to the time, place, subject, etc.”  Alexander Buttman, Grammar of the New Testament Greek.
          “…Gradual changes in the vocabulary were going on steadily through the whole period which [led up to the first century].  That force of spoken language which is always weakening old words and bringing in new expressions to be toned down in their turn, was acting powerfully in Greek as it does now in English.”  James Moulton, An Introduction to the Study of New Testament Greek.
          “The historical investigation of the language of the New Testament…has shown [it] to be…a specimen of the colloquial form of late Greek, and of the popular colloquial language in particular.”  Dr Adolph Deissman, New Light on the New Testament.
          “By far the most important changes…are those which refer to new or modified meanings given to already existing and current Greek words, whether in the old Classic or in the new Postclassical Greek.  It is these changes which especially concern us in the study of the New Testament.” Charles Louis Loos, Professor Emeritus of Greek Language and Literature, Christian Quarterly Review.
          Accordingly, psallo went through the following changes in meanings as the years progressed:
 
          To pull out one’s hair
          To pull the string of a bow
          To twitch a carpenter’s line
          To play a musical instrument
          To sing (any type of song)
          To sing praises
 
Psalmos went through these changes:
 
          Music of a harp
          A song accompanied by a musical instrument
          A song, sacred or secular, accompanied or a capella
          A hymn of praise
 
          I found the following definitions for psallo and its derivative psalmos as they were used in the first century AD:
 
Robinson—in later usage, a song of praise to God.
Pickering—a psalm, an ode, a hymn
Groves—a psalm or hymn
Donnegan—by later writers, a hymn or ode
Parkhurst—to sing, to sing praises or songs to God
Dunbar—to sing, or celebrate with hymns
Greenfield—to sing, to sing in honor or praise of, to celebrate in song; a sacred song
Cantopolous—to sing or celebrate
Maltby—to praise
Hamilton—to sing; a song or hymn
Thayer—to sing; to celebrate the praises of God in song; a pious song
Sophocles (Greek playwright)—to chant or sing religious hymns
Green—in the New Testament to sing; in the New Testament, a sacred song
 
          By the first century it is obvious that the word psallo had left behind any meaning having to do with strings and simply meant “to sing.”  Psalmos had become far more specific than its origins and was used to refer only to sacred unaccompanied songs.

More on this subject tomorrow.

Dene Ward

On May 17, 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education that “the doctrine of separate but equal has no place in public education.”  Do you know who “Brown” was?  She was Linda Brown, a black third-grader who had to walk a mile to the all-black elementary school, right through a railroad switching yard, instead of a much shorter seven blocks to an all-white school where she was not allowed.

            Although that decision was a giant step in desegregating American schools, it did not change things immediately.  It was over 11 years later when I had my first black classmate, a seventh grader named Diana White.  She was well-spoken, well-dressed, friendly, smart, and pretty, and I liked her instantly.  At that point, nothing about the Supreme Court ruling had affected me personally at all.  I still walked across the street to school every morning.

            The next year we moved from that small town where grades seven through twelve were all housed in a small school labeled “high school” to the biggest city I had ever lived in, a melting pot of cultures and beliefs that made me feel like I had moved to another country altogether.  Schoolyard fights were common and the bathrooms billowed with cigarette and marijuana smoke. 

            I hated those first two years of what they called junior high, more than twice the number of students I had been with the year before in one-third the number of grades—8th and 9th.  I had discovered that the school year consisted of 120 days and that first year I kept a small notebook in my desk in which every afternoon I marked off a day, from day one to day 120, four vertical lines and a crossbar every week.

            That was also my first experience with busing, which was how that city handled the new laws, and it was not a kind experience.  Instead of riding safely with a parent to the school near my house, I was hauled off five miles in the opposite direction. 

            Most of the upholstery on that old bus was dried out and cracked from the Florida heat, some of the foam padding spilling out, or torn out by bored students, the walls and seatbacks scratched with rusting graffiti, the floors scuffed and covered with gum wads and other sticky things I really didn’t want to contemplate.  The windows stuck either up or down, depending upon who sat there last and how strong he was.  I suppose the engine was in reasonable shape.  It certainly spewed out enough fumes, which then wafted back around the bus and in through the windows.  But that acted as a sort of buffer for the odors of adolescent sweat and far too much Brut and Tabu.

            The first morning I stepped on that bus was like something out of a nightmare.  Even though the county had tacked up a list of rules for all to see, rules that included, “No more than two people per seat,” and, “No standing on the bus,” most of the seats were crammed with three people and the unlucky few who had no friends to save them a seat, stood in the middle.  (It was deemed better to break bus safety rules than to break the federal law that required the busing in the first place.)  I was near the end of the pickup route and I knew no one else on board, so I stood.

            What a ride that was.  I always carried several thick textbooks stacked on the slanted top of a loose-leaf notebook—no backpacks back then.  It was either hold onto the books or hold myself up as we swung around corners and bounced over railroad tracks.  Somehow I managed to grab the metal back of a seat with my right hand while using my left arm to hold my notebook and books tightly up against me so they wouldn’t slide into the floor on the nearly thirty minute ride across town, made so much longer by the frequent stops for railroad crossings and the multitude of traffic lights and school zones we passed through. 

            Before a week was out, though, I had made a friend, another quiet girl as much a fish out of water as I.  She got on the bus three stops before me, when there were still seats available, and she started saving one for me.  That one little thing made the days bearable—I had a place, I belonged.  It meant so much that on the mornings she was absent and I discovered it when I climbed aboard that reeking bus, I nearly cried.

            God understands our longing for a place.  He knows we want to belong, we want to matter to someone.  Into a world where the best you could hope for from capricious, petty, spiteful gods was to go unnoticed, the apostles came preaching about a God who actually cared.  Jesus came preaching about a God who knew you so intimately that he could number the hairs on your head, and who willingly provided you the necessities of life.  The disciples spread the word about a God who sacrificed himself to save, who helped bear burdens, and who offered rest and refreshing from a world sometimes too difficult to bear alone.

            God is saving you a seat on the bus.  Sometimes the bus hits a bump in the road, just as it did for Job.  Sometimes the driver takes a detour you never planned on, just as happened with Joseph.  Sometimes the route is long and the day hot and stifling as you sit among people who reek of the stench of this world, just as has happened to so many who have taken the ride before you.  But you are not alone.  The Lord got on that bus before you.  He will always be there saving you a seat, and after you count off that last day of “school,” he will give you a place where you can “belong” forever.
           
I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. Acts 26:18
 
Dene Ward

Peter still didn’t get it.

            "Lord, do you wash my feet?"

            Jesus answered him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand."

            Peter said to him, "You shall never wash my feet."

            Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me."

            Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" (John 13:6-9)

            Typical Peter, we always say, always overdoing it.  No, he didn’t overdo it.  He didn’t go far enough, in fact.  None of them did.  Not a one of them said, “No, Lord.  We ought to be washing YOUR feet.”           

            It wasn’t that difficult a concept.  Two women had already figured it out, one identified as “a sinful woman” in Luke 7, and then Mary, Lazarus’s sister, in John 12. 

            One of those apostles should have said, “Why didn’t we think of that?” but none of them did, not even the three from that inner circle.  If ever they failed to show their understanding of who Jesus really was, it was that night in the upper room.  In fact, instead of serving him as Mary did a few days earlier, they all, not just Judas, resented the fact that so much was spent on that very gesture (Matt 26:8).

            But just a few weeks later—“afterward,” as Jesus had said--they did get it.  All of them, even that apostle born out of season, figured out what service and humility meant.  For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake, 2 Cor 4:5.  Paul and all the others except John were ultimately martyred in their service to the Lord, along the way serving others at huge costs.  They washed their Lord’s feet, not with water, but with their own blood.

            Do we get it?  Do we understand humility, or is saving face more important?  Can we give it all up for Christ, or do our opinions and think-sos matter more than the body for which he died?  Can we subject ourselves, our preferences, our goods, even our lifestyles to others for their souls’ sakes, 1 Cor 9:20-22? 

            I once spoke about subjection at a women’s meeting.  As I was giving an illustration one of the women spoke out loud for all to hear, “That’s where I draw the line.”  No, we were not discussing Acts 5:29 where such a statement would have been appropriate.  We were just talking about sacrificing for others.  Yet she wasn’t even embarrassed to say such a thing.  She obviously didn’t get it.   If she had been next to Peter that horrible night, she would have been happy to sit back and let the Lord wait on her, as long as the water wasn’t too hot and the towel was nice and soft.

            Consider this thought for a moment: what would I have done that night?  Would I have gone at least as far as Peter and the rest, and let the Lord wash my feet, learning the whole lesson eventually?  Or would I have already been there with my pan in hand, as those two other women had been, ready to wait on him and his disciples, anxious to show my devotion to my Lord and Master? 

            Now take it a step farther:  what am I willing to do today?  Am I willing to wash feet, not just with time, effort, and money, but with my own blood?  If we would draw a line anywhere, Satan will make sure we come face to face with that line sometime in our lives.
 
Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.  Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven--for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little." And he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." Luke 7:44-48.
 
Dene Ward
 

The garden is in full-production.  We purposefully planted over a dozen different kinds of seeds and that is the only reason those particular things are growing right now.  But not everything works that way.  We didn’t plant the grass or the dandelions or the oak trees.  We didn’t plant the dollar weed or the stinging nettles or the slash pines.  Yet somehow, whether the wind scattering puff balls or the squirrels burying pine nuts and acorns, or the coats of furry animals grabbing onto burrs and pods as sticky as Velcro and depositing them yards or even miles from the original plants, those seeds were sown.  Planting is not always on purpose.  Sometimes it’s accidental.

            God expects us to plant the seed of the Word, recycling what was put into us.  “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” Jesus said in Matt 28:20, followed immediately by, “teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you,” the first of which was to “Go make disciples.”  I am afraid we wait for personal evangelism systems to come our way before we even try; not realizing that we plant something every day, sometimes in spite of ourselves. 

            God has expected his people to teach the succeeding generations since the beginning.  Noah preached for 120 years while he built that ark, and achieved nothing, right?  No, he saved his family.  I have known preachers who were so busy preaching and holding personal Bible studies that they completely ignored the prospects in their own homes.  I have known Christians who expected the church to do their work for them, and then wondered what happened when their children fell away.  “Fathers raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Eph 6:4), not churches, not Bible class teachers, not even mothers—FATHERS.  That’s where the buck stops with God.

            Churches are taught to pass the gospel along. If we behave ourselves as we ought, even our mere existence “makes known the manifold wisdom of God” to the world (Eph 3:10).  The teaching is internal as well. The older women are to train the younger, and the older men the younger men (Titus 2:2-8).  Preachers are told to train others to preach (2 Tim 2:2).  God expects his people to be farmers, planting the seed year after year, on purpose.  Yet we plant accidentally too.

            You plant it in your children every time they see you make an important decision.  You plant it in them every time they see you study your Bible and pray.  You plant it in them with home Bible studies, with family prayers, and even with your comments as you live your life.  Do they see thanksgiving or griping?  Do they hear love and appreciation of other Christians or backbiting and gossip?

            You plant it in your friends and neighbors when they see you in the car every Sunday morning without fail.  You plant it in them when they see how you handle the trials of life, or even the small nuisances.  You plant it in them when you lend a hand, even unasked.  You plant it in them when you say good things about your church family.  You plant it in them when you invite them to a Bible study or a group service.  What kinds of things do you bother to invite your friends to except the things that matter most to you?  . 

            Even when we think we aren’t, we are always planting.  Even fallow fields do not stay empty.  Grass, weeds, and even volunteer vegetables spring up untended.  “Fallow” doesn’t mean bare, it means unused or idle.  A fallow heart simply doesn’t care what comes up.  Sowing the seed is a little bit like setting an example—you do it whether you intend to or not.  You are planting something with every word and action.  Make sure it’s the gospel.
 
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. Gal 6:7-9
 
Dene Ward

Gentlemen, step closer and I will give you the perfect gift for the mother of your children.  Whether you can give it is your problem, but at least ignorance won't be your excuse.

              Your wife, the mother of your children, has a list inside her head that she has to remember every waking moment.  It contains the way you want your clothes laundered, or folded, or pressed, or starched, or not starched.  It is full of the things you will and won't eat, or have to have cooked a certain way or be served with certain other foods or at a certain time of the meal or you will refuse it.  That list contains the brand names you like best because you will toss anything else in the trash with disgust.  It lists all the things you want put in a certain place or left in a certain place, regardless how it makes her house look, not only to her but to a few judgmental others. It holds the things you happen to tell her you are nearly out of, even if she is up to her elbows in a messy chore and cannot possibly write it down that minute—and even if the shopping list is right in front of your clean hands with a pen next to it.  That memorized list hold the times you don't want to be bothered, the subjects you don't want to hear about, and the small chores you refuse to do because you don't like them.  I could probably keep going, but by now I imagine you get the point.

              So for her present this year do this one thing:  remember one thing she likes and the way she likes it, and do it.  Now I realize this will be a difficult task because you never pay attention to what she wants done a certain way or a brand or style or color she really likes (especially if you don't like it).  You tend to let those things go in one ear and out the other.  It will be difficult because she may have already given up on even mentioning things she really likes—why bother?  But you have two days to start listening and figure it out.  No fair taking her to a restaurant and saying, "Be sure to get something you really like but never get because I don't like it."  No.  The point is for you to do something that takes an effort.  The point is to listen and do for her just one time what she does for you 24/7.

              She remembers a big old list all the time, and do you know why?  Because she loves you, yes, but also because you are usually not very nice about it if she doesn't.  Can't you remember just one thing for her?  It just may start a whole new list for her, a list of presents she will never forget.
 
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, (Eph 5:28-29)
 
Dene Ward

The way we camp now is considerably different than the way we started.  The first year, when the boys were 3 and 5, we left on a 10 day trip with two suitcases, one tent, a camp stove, a propane lantern, and a couple of pots stuffed into our car trunk.  What we have now fills the back of a camper-topped pickup to the brim.  When Lucas went with us for the first time in nearly 20 years, he smirked and said, “You guys don’t rough it.  You camp in style.”

            Yes, we put a screen over the table now so we can eat without bugs, and even in the rain.  We have a larger tent, and pull an extension cord in through one of the zipped windows to plug into an electric blanket and stuff it inside the double sleeping bag.  Since we camp in the fall and winter that only makes good sense.  So does the queen-size eighteen inch high air mattress—getting up off the ground is not so easy any more.

            Keith designed and rigged up a PVC-pipe light pole from which we hang a couple of trouble lights, and we sit in our outdoor lounge chairs by the fire now, instead of always at the table.  We carry a couple of wooden tray tables to hold our coffee cups and the books we are reading.

            We have two stoves now instead of just one, but since they are only two burner stoves and you run out of room when breakfast includes pancakes and sausage on a two burner griddle and a stovetop coffeepot, that has become a necessity too.  I also found a folding rack that hooks to the side of the picnic table to hold things like paper towels, antibacterial wipes, dishwashing liquid, and salt and pepper so we have more room on the table itself.

            Yes, we camp “in style” now, but I would still never leave my modest home to do it all the time.  Eight to ten days a year is fun because it is different, but every day would be a pain in the neck, especially considering the relative luxury I am used to.

            I think we miss the first, and huge, sacrifice Abraham and Sarah made.  Our arrogance tells us they were primitive people anyway, so what was the big deal when God called them?  Here is the big deal:  God called them out of Ur, a thriving metropolis for its time.  One book I read said the city had its own educational system and some form of running water. 

            Abraham was a wealthy man.  He had an entourage of servants that included an army of 318 trained men (Gen 14:14).  Whenever he arrived at a new place with his thousands of flocks and herds and hundreds of servants, the kings wanted to meet him.  Undoubtedly, they were anxious to know why he was there, and not a little afraid of the possible reason.  Especially in a small city-state like Gerar, Abimelech had reason to worry—Abraham’s army might actually have been bigger than his!  Imagine the home they must have lived in, and the status that wealthy couple must have enjoyed before they left Ur.

            Yet when God said go, Abraham and Sarah went.  They left a fine home in a then-modern city to wander in places they were only promised and often unwelcome.  I imagine they “camped in style” for the time, far better than the desert nomads because of their wealth, but it was still camping.  No more running water--even the kind they had back then--constantly subject to the weather, sand in your clothes and probably in your food if the wind blew wrong.  Can you imagine Bill and Melissa Gates leaving their various homes to live in an RV for the rest of their lives, much less a tent?  Do you think they would do it even if it were the best RV money could buy?  Even if they had a caravan of RVs behind them, holding their most important employees?  And especially if they had to do it in a foreign country less advanced than ours?

            I don’t see that happening.  Even with your less than Gates-esque dwelling, would you give up your own cozy bedroom, where you could walk a few steps to the bathroom in the middle of the night should you need it?  Where you could stay warm and dry regardless the weather?  Where you have places to store all your “stuff?”  Where you have a job and financial security, and a place in a community that accepts you?

            Abraham and Sarah had a long way to go in more ways than one when God called them.  Yet God saw in them a faith that would grow and a trust that would never give up.  He believed that with his tender cultivation, Abraham would become “the father of the faithful,” and Sarah the mother of all godly women and the “princess” through whom the King of kings would eventually be born.

            What do you think God sees in you?  Do you have that potential?  He thinks so or he never would have sent his Son to die for you.  Here is the test for today:  would he have even bothered to tell me to pick up and go, or am I too tied to this world and its luxuries?  He may never ask you to give it all up, but he must see in you a willingness to do so if the need arises. 

            If he does call and you go, God may allow you, like Abraham and Sarah, to camp in style, but it’s still camping.  He expects you to understand that the real home is ahead of you.
 
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:33
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

My last post emphasized the need to seek God “according to the ordinance” as David says in 1 Chron. 15. David’s failure to do so led God to make a breach against him and it cost Uzzah his life. Or in Christ’s words, “Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21). I essentially concluded with the statement that it doesn’t matter how sincere your heart is if you aren’t seeking God according to the ordinance. Without backing up from that at all, I do want to show the other side. If our hearts aren’t right, it doesn’t matter how carefully we follow the ordinances.

In Isaiah’s day, the people were careful to keep the daily sacrifices going and celebrated the new moons as Moses had taught them, but God was not happy with them. Isa. 1:11-14 “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. "When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.” What was the problem here? Notice that God doesn’t say they aren’t following His teachings closely enough, that isn’t the problem. So what is? He tells them in the next verse: “When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.” They were worshipping correctly, but they weren’t living as children of God. They showed up to worship on the Sabbath, but during the rest of the week their “hands are full of blood”. They were living sinful lives, and all the correct worship in the world wasn’t going to get them any closer to God. If they wanted a relationship with Him, He tells they that they will have to shape up. Isa 1:16-17 “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.”

Jesus dealt with the same issue with the Pharisees. Their strict observance of ordinance while hypocritically living lives of sin exasperated Him and He routinely tried to teach them better (or at least to warn others from following after them). Most well-known is His harangue against them in Matt. 23. A selection: vs 23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” They were so careful about every detail of the ordinances of the Law, yet they failed to follow the underlining principles of the Law. Justice, mercy and faithfulness are far more important than making sure they tithed the herb garden properly. Their hearts weren’t right, so their law-keeping was worthless.

Notice, though, that Jesus didn’t say they were wrong for tithing the mint, dill, and cumin. “These [justice and mercy and faithfulness] you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” Jesus says they should not have neglected proper tithing, just that it should have been done with a godly heart. And proper tithing did include the herb garden. Deuteronomy 14:22 says they should tithe all that came forth from the field. That would include herbs. They weren’t wrong about the ordinance, they were wrong about their hearts.

So, to last time’s
IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW SINCERE WE ARE IF WE AREN’T WORSHIPING ACCORDING TO THE ORDINANCE
we must add
IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW CAREFULLY WE FOLLOW THE ORDINANCES OF WORSHIP IF WE AREN’T SINCERE.

Micah 6:6-8 “With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

John 4:23 “. . . true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”
 
Lucas Ward