August 2021 - Dene's Blog

Identity Theft

8/17/2021 0 Comments

A look back at a difficult moment in my life, hoping this will help you in yours.

A few weeks ago, Satan finished what he started three years ago and stole my identity. I have packed up the last of my teaching supplies: sheet music, collections, method books, assignment notebooks, theory books, technique books, concerti, history notebooks, listening labs, computer disk theory games, stickers, rhythm instruments, home made music bingo games, magic slates with grand staffs permanently imprinted on them, even my old textbook How to Teach Piano Successfully. I have sent them on to a young piano teacher in Ohio, who is just starting out.

            I had a weepy moment or two. This part of my life—35 years worth plus all those years learning--is definitely over now. There is no going back; I simply cannot see the music any longer. But I am happy to know that these things will be put to good use—that other little children will learn with them, and that a young preaching couple will have a bit more coming in to help out with a skimpy income. But for a moment the large empty space under my piano made me feel invisible.
            I am no longer the piano and voice teacher in Union County.
            I no longer open my doors every afternoon to excited little faces, making sure that grubby little hands are washed before touching the keys, but still picking up every ailment my students brought my way, including parvo once, for goodness sake! It must have been all the hugs.
            I am no longer playing at weddings half a dozen times a year. I am no longer meeting with my fellow teachers once or twice a month, serving as association officer or chairman of this committee or that.
            I no longer take a dozen students to various competitions, crying with them for their losses and cheering for their wins. I no longer spend hours on themed spring programs, gathering up suitable music, matching it to each student’s personality, then working out the details, including skits and grand finales.
            I no longer present high school seniors in debut recitals with formals and tuxes, long-stemmed red roses, and a glittery reception afterward.
            Satan has stolen all of that from me with this disease.
            It could have been a real problem for me. I could have sunk into a depression difficult to come out of. Then I remembered my real identity.
            Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God; and we are, 1 John 3:1.
            Listen my beloved brethren did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him? James 2:4.
            But you are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, 1 Pet 2:9.
            He has granted unto us precious and exceeding great promises, that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, 2 Pet 1:4.
            The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him, Rom 8:16,17.

            I still have my identity, and so do you. It’s the one that counts, the one that Satan cannot steal, the one that will last forever.

Dene Ward

Why Should I Love My Brethren (Part 2 in the Series)

8/16/2021 0 Comments

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

I mean, let's face it, some of you aren't very lovable. I'm even less so. As we learned last time, the Bible defines love as action. Things we do for those we love, or things we refrain from. If I'm going to do all the work to love you, there had better be a good reason. Otherwise, I might sit this one out.
            So, why should I? Here's one reason: love is basic to Christianity. John 13:34-35 tells us that love of the brethren is a command from Christ. More than that, our love for each other is to be the identifier of His disciples. So, if Christ's followers are known by their love for each other, and I don't love my brethren, am I really a follower of Christ? Also, the Apostle John tells us that love for the brethren was one of the foundational commands of early Christianity. It was the "message heard from the beginning" (1 John 3:11) and "the commandment . . . heard from the beginning." (2 John 5-6) Paul tells us in Gal. 5:14 that love of the brethren has always been fundamental in being one of God's people. After all, the entire Law of Moses could be summed up by "love thy neighbor".

            A second reason to love your brothers is that you cannot have a relationship with God without loving them. After all, "He that loves not, knows not God". (1 John 4:8) And "if a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen." (1 John 4:20) The only way to have a successful relationship with God is to love your brethren. In fact, love of the brethren almost defines a relationship with God. "if we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us" (1 John 4:12)
            Then there is the fact that to walk with Christ is to love the brethren. "This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you. . . Ye are my friends, if ye do the things which I command you." (John 15:12,14) The command is to love, and to be His friends we must obey His command. In other words, you can't be a friend of Jesus' if you don't love the brethren. Also, the only way to know we are of the truth is to love one another (1 John 3:18-19).
            So, love of the brethren is basic to the very concept of Christianity, is necessary to having relationships with either the Father or the Son, and is the only true way to know if I am of the truth. There is one other reason to love my brethren: to be ready for the judgment.
1 Pet. 4:7-8 "But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore of sound mind, and be sober unto prayer: above all things being fervent in your love among yourselves"
The end of all things is at hand and to prepare for it, then Peter tells us that "above all things" we should love one another. The most important thing I can do to get ready for judgment is to love my brethren.   The MOST IMPORTANT thing I can do to get ready for judgment is to love my brethren.
            Ok, ok, maybe I'll try to love you unlovable rascals.
1 Pet. 1:22 " . . . love one another from the heart fervently"
Lucas Ward

August 13, 1865 Wash Your Hands!

8/13/2021 0 Comments

Dr. Joseph Lister usually gets all the credit, or shares it a bit with Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Doctors should wash their hands before treating each patient, and their tools as well. But according to Steve Kellmeyer, a nationally known author and speaker, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss was actually the first physician to require hand washing before treating each patient in a maternity ward in Austria, putting an end to "childbed fever" in his ward. For all his work, his careful data keeping, and a mortality rate a mere fraction of others, he was roundly ridiculed. How could a speck of dirt under the nails or on the skin, or using the same tool on a live patient that was just used on a corpse during an autopsy cause death? It was all "Catholic superstition."
            Semmelweiss was professionally attacked, denied tenure at the university where he taught, and eventually suffered a mental breakdown from the stress, being placed in an insane asylum "where he was beaten until he died" at age 47 on August 13, 1865. His only crimes were he "believed in God and germs." (All quotes are from Kellmeyer in a comment on an article about Lister.)
            Not two years later, on March 16, 1867, Dr. Lister presented a paper titled "An Address on the Antiseptic System of Treatment in Surgery," and medicine was changed forever. Kellmeyer believes the only reason he was accepted and Semmelweiss was not is that Lister was not Catholic.
            If you know anything about Judaism, you know that hand washing was required of certain people at certain times, beginning in Exodus, shortly after the delivery of the Law on Mt. Sinai. The LORD said to Moses, “You shall also make a basin of bronze, with its stand of bronze, for washing. You shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it, with which Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet. When they go into the tent of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn a food offering to the LORD, they shall wash with water, so that they may not die. They shall wash their hands and their feet, so that they may not die. It shall be a statute forever to them, even to him and to his offspring throughout their generations (Exod 30:17-21).
            Hand washing is still practiced today by Orthodox Jews. Although hand washing is certainly a healthy custom, that is not what the law is about in Judaism. In fact, it is required that the hands be clean before they are washed and soap is not used in the ceremonial washing. It is about ritual, not hygiene, and is symbolic of washing away impurities from our lives. However, by the first century the ritual was just that—an empty practice that never reached the heart. Jesus scandalized the Pharisees when he refused to wash his hands before a meal and denounced them for missing the whole point of the ritual. While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you (Luke 11:37-41).
            As Christians we also have a washing ritual, and too many times we also miss the point. And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name (Acts 22:16). Too many sing "Just As I Am" and think that means they do not have to make a large and fundamental change in their lives by putting away impurity when they commit their lives to the Lord. Yes, Jesus will accept you as you are, but he expects you to change who you are. Go your way and sin no more (John 8:11). But some want to keep living as they have, enjoying the same lifestyles that smack far more of wallowing in the mud than washing away sins.    We must become "new creatures," living new lives with new motivations and new goals—living for Him and not for ourselves. When we confess Him, we deny ourselves. If that has not happened, we are just like those first century Pharisees whom Jesus so strongly denounced: "Hypocrites."
            Semmelweiss understood the value of literal washing and in a very real way, died for his belief. God expects us to die to sin, beginning with that first symbolic washing that for some of us occurred so very long ago. Was it only a symbol, or did it really mean something?

…Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, (Eph 5:25-26).

Dene Ward

Refreshment

8/12/2021 0 Comments

We worked our boys hard when they were growing up, weeding and picking the garden in the heat of a Florida summer, standing in a hot kitchen working the assembly line of produce canning and freezing, mowing an acre’s worth of our five with a push mower—not a walk-behind, but a push mower—splitting and stacking wood for the wood stove, hauling brush, raking leaves, and dumping them for mulch. After hours of hard labor and buckets of sweat, nothing thrilled them more on a hot summer afternoon than a refreshing dip in a nearby spring.
            Springs, even in Florida, are cold. It is almost painful to step into one--they will literally take your breath away. I was one who gradually eased my way in to avoid the shock, but the boys wanted to “get it over with,” and usually jumped off the pier, the floating dock, or the rope swing, whatever that particular spring had as a point of entry, and if I was standing too close I “got it over with” too.
            One of their favorites was Ichetucknee, probably because that one took up a whole day as we rented tubes and floated down the river from the spring head, leaving the water three hours later when we reached the picnic pavilions. Even by that point in the float, the river was still close enough to the spring that we could chill a homegrown watermelon in its cool shallows while we ate tomato sandwiches and leftover fried chicken; and we never had to worry about snakes or alligators.
            We were always the only ones around clothed from our necks to our knees so we got a lot of strange looks. The clothes did not help a bit with the cold. They were for modesty only. Nothing about a freezing wet shirt sticking to your body will keep you warm, even in a patch of sunlight. Yet when I finally got wet enough that a mere splash did not make me squeal, the water was a refreshing respite from the sauna we call summer down here.
            Peter told the people of Jerusalem that if they repented they would receive “seasons of refreshing” in Acts 3:19. I am told that the word actually means “breathing,” as in catching one’s breath after hard labor or exercise. That indicates to me that God is not promising us a life of ease. Yes, we have blessings that others do not have, and that only those who are spiritually minded can even recognize and enjoy, but we will still experience heartache, persecution, illness, and other trials of life. We are expected to wear ourselves out with service to any in need, as long as there is life in us. God has no truck with laziness.
            But we have this promise—as surely as ice cold spring water lapping against an overheated body can refresh and renew, we will have refreshment from above that soothes our aches and heals our hurts, that rests our souls with the peace of fellowship with God, and that bestows grace on our tortured spirits. Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord; and that he may send the Christ who has been appointed for you, Jesus, Acts 3:19,20.

Dene Ward

A Thirty Second Devo

8/11/2021 0 Comments

"Your kingdom come." Christians ought not to utter this petition lightly or thoughtlessly. Throughout the centuries, followers of Jesus suffering savage persecution have prayed this prayer with meaning and fervor. But I suspect that our comfortable pews often mock our sincerity when we repeat this phrase today. We would have no objection to the Lord's return, we think, provided he holds off a bit and lets us finish a degree first, or lets us taste marriage, or gives us time to succeed in a business or profession, or grants the joy of seeing grandchildren. Do we really hunger for the kingdom to come in all its surpassing righteousness? Or would we rather waddle through a swamp of insincerity and unrighteousness?
The Sermon on the Mount, An Evangelical Exposition of Matthew 5-7, by D. A. Carson

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

8/10/2021 0 Comments

Sometime back a young lady came up to a friend of mine and said, “I want to be a sweet little old lady when I get older. How do I do that?”
            I can imagine myself asking the same question when I was young. I guess I thought there was a magic age, a time when suddenly I would understand everything and feel wise. It hasn’t happened yet, and youth left me a long time ago.
            My wise friend looked at this young woman and said, “The way to become a sweet little old lady is to be a sweet young lady.”
            She is so right. I can guarantee you that every grumpy old man you know was once a grumpy young one, and every bitter old lady you know was a bitter young one. You will not suddenly become wise just because you have aged, and you will not suddenly become good-natured either. It reminds me of something I heard on an audio book recently: there are no happy endings, only happy people.
            And isn’t that what we Christians are supposed to be, happy? Yet it seems I meet more and more unhappy Christians. Maybe we do not dwell enough on the hope we have—or maybe we simply don’t believe it. If I do believe in that hope, it will show in the things that do and do not upset me, in the things that do and do not discourage me. It will show in how I treat people, even those who are not kind or who actively mistreat me. It will show in the way I put others ahead of myself and my own desires, serving as well as I can in whatever situation I am in. Isn’t that what a sweet little old lady does, or a kind and pleasant old man? I have known many in my lifetime. Christians should always become sweet little old ladies and kind and pleasant old men because they believe that here and now is not the end of the matter. They understand that very soon they will see a happy beginning that never ends--and they believe it.
            If you want to be a sweet little old lady when you grow up, start working on it today, whatever your age, or you will never make it in time.

Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed, Prov 3:13-18.

Dene Ward

Learning How to Help

8/9/2021 2 Comments

We kept our grandsons for five days this past spring while their parents participated in the rehearsal and subsequent recording of a choral ensemble. We had already been down for the Spring Piano Recital, but just couldn't stay the extra amount of time so their father suggested we take them home with us, and of course we were thrilled to do so.
            We have kept them several times before, including a two week stint when their parents went to Israel. Judah was only 5 and completely oblivious of anything except toys to play with and meals to eat. Being away from Mom and Dad that long didn't seem to bother him much, but it did Silas, who was 8 then, and perhaps finally old enough to think of the possibilities. On the fifth afternoon he was with us, his head got droopy and so did his smile. I thought I might have seen a tear brimming in one eye. So I sat him in my lap and hugged him and told him it was okay to cry and be sad that Mommy and Daddy were away so long. He did cry quietly then, just for a few minutes as I rocked him. Then I reminded him how much his grandfather and I loved him and that time would pass quickly and his parents would be back home. That seemed to take care of it. He was a happy child from then on. I took a video of him in the pool and he talked to them on the international phone line three or four times. They never knew he had had a problem.
            This last time Judah was 8, and Silas was 11. Must be something about the age of 8. Silas came to me the third morning and said, "Do you remember, Grandma, when Mom and Dad went to Israel and I got sad, how you talked to me and made me feel so much better? Well, I think I saw tears in Judah's eyes this morning. Do you think you could do that for him too?" Of course I could, and did, and Judah did fine after that, too.
            That sweet boy can teach us two things this morning. Have you ever heard those sermons about serving and wondered what you could do, about helping those who are having troubles and wish you knew how to help them? Have you ever heard others talk about the people who came to them during a bad time and helped get them through it and thought, "How did they even know about the problem?" Silas certainly figured it out.
            Here's the first thing—pay attention to those around you. Infants may be completely egocentric, with a perspective that is only about, "Me" and what happens to "Me." But mature people should have learned to notice others. You will never be able to help a soul if you don't notice they are having problems. That means look at people, closely. Silas was close enough to see tears. Listen to people. When someone's anger seems completely misplaced, it's probably masking a hurt. When someone is the opposite of their usual self, something is definitely wrong. But you will never be able to look closely, listen closely, or notice differences in people's behavior if you are always chattering, always laughing, always talking about yourself. It certainly isn't wrong to laugh and have a good time, but at some point, a mature person learns the value of silence and observation. If an 11 year old can be quiet and still long enough to figure these things out, so can we.
            So now that you have noticed something, if you don't think you can help, what do you do? Silas came to the one who had helped him. Sometimes the one who is upset is someone you do not feel close to—go to someone who is close to him and ask them to help. Sometimes it is a problem you have no experience with. Find someone who has that experience. Or if you are simply a beginner at all of this, find an older person with a reputation for wisdom. The one thing you must never do is leave that hurting person alone with their pain. If all you can do is give them a hug, do it. Sometimes that is all it takes.
            I am proud of my grandson for being the big brother he is. Oh, they have their fusses. But this time he noticed his little brother was having a problem and he did something about it. Surely we can do the same thing an eleven year old can. Pay attention and look for help. And, if you haven't done so, now is the time to start teaching your own children how to pay attention to others and try to help. I imagine Silas learned it from his parents' examples. Now it's your turn--make sure your children learn it from you.

Therefore lift up the drooping hands and strengthen the weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed (Heb 12:12-13).

Dene Ward

Jesus and the Speech Police

8/6/2021 1 Comments

I saw it on Facebook when I was quickly flipping through, and I immediately felt outraged. How dare someone use my husband's and my disabilities to chime in on the nonsense that our culture seems to have fallen into. What I saw was a list of things we shouldn't say any more. We should not say, "I was blind to…;" we should say, "I was unaware of that." We shouldn't say, "That was tone-deaf;" we should say, "That was inappropriate, or insulting." In the first place, whoever made up this list must have no idea what "tone-deaf" really means—someone who cannot hear the difference in musical tones. I never in my life heard it used any other way, and I am not exactly young. In the second, there is a real difference in someone who is simply unaware of a fact and someone who refuses to see it.
           And if you insist on the nearly useless phrases, "vision- or hearing-impaired," you have to be much more specific. Blind is usually 100% blind, unless it is qualified with a word like, "legally." Vision-impaired can be just about any percentage. So are you going to stop the person and ask before you label them or take a chance on getting the percentage completely wrong, which you probably will? My husband is deaf. But how deaf? "Profoundly deaf," which is 90%, but might as well be 100% because he can stand beneath a blaring commercial fire alarm and not hear it. "Hearing impaired" doesn't begin to explain all that. I am beginning to think that we disabled folks are a whole lot tougher than the able-bodied people out there who come up with these things.
            Jesus, in fact, would be castigated by these people. Look at John 9. John, the apostle who wrote this gospel, tells us the man in verse 1 was "blind." The apostles called him "blind" (verse 2). The Pharisees called him "blind" (verse 19). His own parents said he was "blind" (verse 20). The man himself said he had been "blind" (verse 20). And then, lo and behold, Jesus does the unthinkable and talks about being spiritually "blind" (verses 39.40). Didn’t he know that was offensive to the blind people out there?
            And this is not the only time he did things like this.
            This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand (Matt 13:13).
            Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? (Mark 8:18).
            He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them (John 12:40).
            And just as the above quote Jesus took from Isaiah, that prophet and others used the same type of language Jesus did.
            Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed (Isa 6:10).
            His watchmen are blind; they are all without knowledge; they are all silent dogs; they cannot bark, dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber (Isa 56:10).
            This was for the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed in the midst of her the blood of the righteous. They wandered, blind, through the streets; they were so defiled with blood that no one was able to touch their garments (Lam 4:13-14).
            I will bring distress on mankind, so that they shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the LORD; their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung (Zeph 1:17).
            Even Paul uses the same metaphor.
            And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that perish: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them (2Cor 4:3-4).
            I think that's enough to make my point. We are getting entirely too arrogant in our policing the speech of others when that same policing condemns the apostles, the prophets, and Jesus himself. No, if you want to show compassion on the disabled, please don't think words are either the problem or the cure. My little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue; but in deed and truth (1John 3:18). Show your compassion with deeds as well.
            In the past year my profoundly deaf husband, who must read lips, has been treated like a pariah. He has been shooed out of the Alachua County Library because he dared tell them he couldn't understand what they were saying with their masks on. A nurse in a doctor's office refused to either take down her mask or write down her instructions, and this right before a medical procedure when he needed to know what she was saying. Another nurse in another office spoke to him harshly when he told her he needed to read her lips, yet refused to allow me in to interpret for him. And all this in a decidedly left leaning county that claims to have far more compassion on the disabled than their political opposites.
            But for those of us who claim Jesus as our Lord, how can we love the disabled in deed rather than merely word? Stop making power point the be-all-and-end-all for hymns and class and sermon notes. How many times have I heard a teacher or preacher say, "I won't take the time to go over all these passages, but you can take them down and study them at home?" No, I can't. If they are important perhaps you could print out a copy for those of us who can't see the screen--large print, please.
               There may be some like me who can manage a hymnal with glasses or a magnifier if you will kindly have the books handy and please announce the name of the song rather than just starting to sing "because it's up on the screen." Those few seconds might mean someone can find the song and only miss part of a verse instead of half or more of the song trying to figure out the title and look it up.
              Please stop having prayers mumbled from the back pew. It isn't just the deaf who do better reading lips. And when you do stand in front of the mike, keep your head up and speak out even if it sounds "too loud" to you.
            I have asked for these kinds of things over and over and over, as politely as possible, and it seems to do little good. In fact, if you will excuse me, it falls on "deaf" ears—and no, my husband does not mind me putting it that way. We have actually had people refuse to do them, even after we explained.
            And stop the speech police. Lists like the one I mentioned at the beginning of this article offend me in at least two ways. First, they assume that I am such a weak, whiny wimp that I will be insulted by such petty things. I have been living with far worse my entire life, and I think I am strong enough to handle it. And second, they make other people uncomfortable even trying to talk to us as a couple. Believe me, I had far rather have someone actually pay attention to us and possibly say something a little insensitive, than have everyone too afraid to even try.
            Let's see if we can't love one another as the scriptures say rather than making problems where there aren't any.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1Cor 13:4-7).

Dene Ward

Now Where Did I Put That Hatchet?

8/5/2021 0 Comments

If there is one thing I have never understood about grudge-holders, it is how they can think they have a monopoly on being hurt or injured. These are the folks that, though they profess forgiveness, and years later are acting kindly toward their victims—at least in public--can at a moment’s notice give a laundry list of every bad deed that person has done to them. And they will, any time you want to hear it. In fact, they will happily do so before you even ask.
         But somehow they think they are perfect. They have never done anything hurtful to anyone, and would be horrified if you started making your own laundry list against them! They must think that, or surely they would be more merciful, wouldn’t they?
            You see, grudge-holding is the worst kind of self-centeredness. It says, “My hurts count more than yours.” It infers, “I have never done anything as bad as this to you.” And then it rationalizes, “What you did to me is so bad, it does not have to be forgiven.”
            If you said that to a grudge-holder, he would be horrified, especially if he claimed to be a Christian. Unfortunately, that is another aspect of this sin—it keeps you from seeing yourself as you really are. We become so blinded by our “injured innocence” that we cannot see the truth--no one is innocent; we all mess up once in awhile. It is bad when this sort of selfishness causes animosity between neighbors, sad when it causes rifts in families, and tragic when it causes a lack of unity in the family of God.
            Jesus said I cannot be forgiven if I don’t forgive. Forgiveness means I don’t spread it around, I don’t let fester in my mind, I don’t bring it up again at any opportunity, ever. Forgiveness means I understand that I have done my fair share of hurts to others, whether intentional or not, and since I hope they will not hold them against me, I certainly won’t hold things against them. That is exactly what Peter meant when he said, Love covers a multitude of sins, 1 Peter 4:8. I think Peter uses that word “sin” in an ironic way. We cannot cover real sins against God, and are not supposed to, but in our self-centeredness, we place what amounts to minimal slights in the same category as real sin. And Peter also makes it plain that no matter what I say about the matter, if I do not forgive and I show that lack of mercy by my constant grudge-holding, I do not love.
Forgiveness means having enough humility to recognize that no one has done to me anything remotely similar to what I have done to the Lord. Holding grudges means the opposite—I have made my feelings just as important as Christ’s, therefore I am just as important as He is—just as important as God.
            Didn’t they used to stone people for that?

(The money figures in the following passage come from Lenski’s commentary on Matthew. Any math errors are mine.)
Therefore is the kingdom of heaven like a certain king who made a reckoning of his servants…One was brought to him that owed him [about 60,000,000 days’ pay]....The servant therefore fell down and said, Lord have patience with me and I will pay all. And the lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him and forgave him the debt. But the servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him [about 100 days’ pay]...and said, Pay what you owe…Then the Lord called unto him and said, You wicked servant, I forgave you all your debt…Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And the lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors…So shall also my heavenly Father do unto you if you forgive not your brother from the heart. Matt 18:21-35

Dene Ward

Respect

8/4/2021 0 Comments

And he went up from thence unto Beth-el; and as he was going up by the way, there came forth young lads out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead. And he looked behind him and saw them, and cursed them in the name of Jehovah. And there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tore forty and two lads of them, 2Kgs 2:23-24.
            My grandsons learned this little story when they were playing the Prophets game I had made. At first, they thought it was funny, probably because they were not thinking of Elisha but their dear old Granddad, who is bald, on top anyway. I really did not want them to get the picture of Elisha as a grouchy old man who just became angry when he was ridiculed. That's what I thought for years. But it goes much deeper than that.
            In the first place, God has always commanded His people to respect their elderly. You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the LORD (Lev 19:32). Elihu, as one of Job's so-called friends, may have been wrong about a lot, but his attitude toward his elders was commendable. And Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered and said: “I am young in years, and you are aged; therefore I was timid and afraid to declare my opinion to you" (Job 32:6). We do want our young people to feel free to talk to us and ask questions, but too many come, if they do at all, as know-it-alls who can't be told anything; they must always learn things the hard way.
            Second, while God tells us to beware of false teachers and to "Prove the spirits whether they be from God," (1 John 4:1), he still expected his faithful prophets and preachers to be treated well by the people they taught. What did Jesus say to the Pharisees? Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation (Matt 23:31-36). I have seen preachers treated like garbage, to put it mildly. We may no longer crucify them literally, but some have been crucified with words and stoned with false accusations, then tossed out like rubbish along with their families, leaving them wondering where their next home or even meal will come from.
            That's the lesson those 42 young men learned that day. You respect the elderly and you respect the men of God who dedicate their lives to trying to help people exactly like them. Knowing the wicked king they had in that day, God's law was not being taught as it should have been. Are we teaching our youth these lessons? Or is our example completely undoing what they hear?
            What would happen to the high school class at your congregation if two she-bears showed up one Sunday morning?

Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed (Rom 13:7).

Dene Ward