I did not watch any television to speak of for about twenty years.  A few football games here and there, and a couple of educational shows while the children were small meant that I knew more Sesame Street characters than characters on any of the popular series.   I suppose the last shows I remembered well before then were the original Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, and Hawaii Five-O.

            A few years ago I turned on some show—I don’t even remember what is was—and I nearly went crazy.  The scene shifted every thirty seconds.  You no longer had dialogue that built dramatic tension over a five minute time span.  Instead you had 15 seconds of verbal staccato followed by an explosion or a gunfight or a chase scene.  They tell me this is all because of the video game generation—people who cannot sit still longer than a minute at a time without some sort of excitement to keep the adrenaline pumping.  Maybe I am an old fogy, but it seems to me that instead of accommodating all of this, we should be teaching people how to overcome it. 

            The problem with short attention spans is that you do not listen long enough to get below the subject’s surface.  God spent 1500 years writing a book that you cannot read and understand in fifteen second bursts.  He has already accommodated us with an incredible sacrifice.  Seems to me we could learn to accommodate him and the way he communicates with us.

            Parents, have you even thought about helping your children develop a longer attention span and a desire for greater depth in their studies?  Instead of saying, “He just can’t sit still,” how about saying, “Sit still!”  Instead of saying, “I can’t get them to listen,” say, “Listen!  This is important!”  Or don’t we believe it is? 

            Yes, I know all about ADHD.  I have a son who has it.  The doctor said that the reason he was so well-behaved and did so well in school in spite of it was because he had a verbal, educated family that believed in loving discipline.  Was it easy? No, but no one ever said parenting was supposed to be.  It takes patience and diligence—a long parental attention span!

            It isn’t merely my idea of what does and does not constitute good behavior.  I worry about children who cannot sit still long enough to learn a Bible lesson and the accompanying applications to their lives; who cannot concentrate long enough to memorize a verse that might help them in a tempting moment; who actually think the world revolves around them and needs to run on their frenetic schedule with a lot of excitement or it isn’t worth their notice.  Keith has a lot of them sit across the desk from him in the prison—they usually have manacles on.

            How do you think Moses managed 40 days of taking dictation from God on Mt. Sinai?  How did Joshua abide the boredom of marching around Jericho everyday for six days, much less seven times on the seventh?  How could Paul have fasted and prayed for three days straight without needing to get up and run around for awhile?  How could those early churches sit and listen to an entire epistle being read to them at one sitting, and actually make heads or tails of it?  How in the world did Noah spend 120 years building a giant box no one had ever seen before and couldn’t imagine the need for?  Would any of this generation be able to?

            Prayer requires long quiet moments with God.  Meditation requires thoughtful time with the word of God.  Commitment requires a lifetime of doing what needs to be done even when it is tedious and you don’t want to do it.  Help your children learn those things.  Don’t give in to yet another method for Satan to steal them away from us.
 
So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law. Neh 8:2,3.                        
 
Dene Ward

I walked into the kitchen and stopped, looking around at the counters, the stove top, the sink, the pantry. 

              Keith came in behind me and asked, “What are you looking for?”

              “I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t remember,” and nothing lying around in plain view had jogged that memory, one that couldn’t have been over a minute old.  I have finally reached that stage when my memory is as fragile as my old lady bones.

              My short term memory, that is.  My memories of childhood, school, early marriage, and raising kids are firmly intact, and so are the memory verses I learned decades ago as a child.

              For a while there, memory verses seemed to be out of style.  I even heard a sister in Christ say their value was “overrated.”  She was even older than I.  I wonder how she feels now, especially during long nights when she can’t sleep, as happens so often to the elderly.

              Those memorized verses are invaluable to me.  They instantly spring to mind when I await another scary test result (“casting all your cares on him because he cares for you” 1 Pet 5:7); when the aches and pains of old age slow you down and you can no longer do what you have always done (“For this perishable body must put on the imperishable” 1 Cor 15:53); when friends and family pass on before you leaving a hole no one else can fill (“That you may not grieve as those who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep” 1 Thes 4:13,14); when you suddenly realize you’ve reached an age where anything could happen any time (“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord” Rev 14:13).

              All my life during times of temptation, suffering, and betrayal, but also joy, hope and thanksgiving, those passages memorized so long ago have kept me going.  They’ve helped me answer a skeptic, refute false teaching, encourage a suffering friend, and edify my sisters in Christ.  Those words etched on the hearts of your children are anything but overrated.  Fill them up now, and while you’re at it, fill yourself up before your memory, too, becomes as fragile as your bones.
 
“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, Deut 11:18-20
Dene Ward

I started teaching women’s classes far too long ago.  I was too young to have any idea either what I was doing or even what I was supposed to be doing.  But at the first place Keith preached—it was a part-time position under the oversight of elders—one of those elders asked me to teach the teenage girls.  I was only 20, but he said no one else would do it.  Then at the next congregation the ladies elected me the first night I attended the class that was already in existence.  Even though there were women forty years older than I, they thought that being “the preacher’s wife” made me automatically qualified.  I, who should have been sitting at the feet of older women, was frantically learning as I went.  I cringe sometimes wondering how many women I confused or misled with my inexperience and lack of wisdom.

              I hope I have improved.  I certainly have age and experience now, but the wisdom is an open question—always.  One thing about the age factor:  I have heard every excuse there is for not attending the women’s Bible study.  Are there truly valid reasons?  Yes, of course there are.  But there are far more of the other kind.  Let’s examine a few.

              “It’s so difficult to pay attention with the little ones in tow, and it’s so embarrassing when they cause distractions.”  Yes, it is difficult, but there is no need to be embarrassed.  Nearly thirty years ago when my current Tuesday morning class started up, we all had children still at home.  We made comments over the heads of playing toddlers and it was not uncommon that a few mothers would occasionally have to throw down their books and Bibles and run comfort a crying baby or settle a small-fry squabble.  We were all in the same boat and understood, but we never let our children be the excuse we gave the Lord for not finding time to get together and study.

              “But these lessons are so hard and take so long to do.”  I am afraid my lessons do tend to be this way.  But really now, what kind of hours would you expect to put in if you went back to school either to improve your job (vocation) or to get a promotion?  This is your spiritual education we’re talking about, and what you know will make a difference in how you conduct yourself in your spiritual vocation (Eph 4:1; 2 Pet 1:10) 

           A long time ago a brother went to the elders about one of Keith’s classes.  “It’s too deep,” he complained.  Those good shepherds were wise enough and strong enough to tell that brother what he needed to hear instead of what he wanted to hear.  “If I had been a Christian for forty years like you have,” they said, “I would be ashamed to say something in the Bible was too deep for me.”  Are you aware of Jesus’ statement when the apostles asked him why he spoke in parables, making it harder for people to understand?  Because the ones who care enough will work hard enough to understand it, he told them.  Do you care that much?

           I don’t make my lessons hard on purpose.  They seem difficult because the material is new to you.  I am trying to teach things you do not know, not rehash the things you do know.  That really would be superfluous and not worth a busy woman’s time.  Isn’t gaining a deeper knowledge and understanding of the Word of God worth rearranging your schedule, both in time to study and time to attend?  Can’t you give up something in order to study—like a TV show in the evenings?

           “Well they are so hard I don’t even know what to write down in the blanks.”  Ask anyone in the class how I run it.  Despite the reputation I must surely have for being a mean old lady who likes to mortify people, I never put anyone on the spot.  If you don’t know the answer, leave it blank.  But how will you ever find the answer if you don’t come and listen for it?  A good percentage of the class does exactly that, and one even laughs about how much erasing she has to do.  Now that’s a great attitude.  Can’t you follow her example?

           “My schedule is just so full.”  So is mine.  So is everyone’s.  The difference between those women and the ones who do not come (but could) is priorities.  They decided to make the time in their schedules for a Bible class.  They schedule things around it instead of the other way around.  They have trained their families to know, “Oh! It’s Tuesday,” or “the third Sunday,” and it really wasn’t that hard to do when they insisted on it.  And let’s just put this out there in black and white, plain and simple:  if you are too busy to study the Bible, you are too busy, and yes, maybe even sinfully busy if it causes you to neglect your Lord and His Word.

           “Once I get older and have less to do, then I will start attending ladies’ Bible class.”  Wait a minute!  Who are the older women told to teach?  Not the older ones who “have less to do” but the younger ones, that’s who!  The things we older teachers have to tell you will actually help you during your younger years.  If you listen and use these things, you might just avoid the problems that so many of your friends have.   What good will it do you when you finally come to class and all you have to offer are the things you have learned not to do from hard experience instead of wise teaching?  All my “old faithfuls” began young.  The vast majority have stayed with it—that’s why the class looks like a bunch of older women, not because they are the only ones who have time. 

           Many of the ones we have lost have moved to other areas.  I regularly hear from them how much they miss a class where they actually learn something new.  “We don’t have deep classes like this,” a visitor to our class once told me.  But here it is free for the taking to anyone who cares enough—and so few do. 

           I know I am not some popular, funny, good-looking teacher.  I know my lessons stomp on toes because I make applications that are real to life instead of feel good fluff.  The truly good teachers I know do the same.  We want to help you.  We want to share with you what we have worked hard to obtain, what means the world to us and should mean the world to you. 

           We also want to find young women who can take our places someday.  You simply must start early if you ever hope to do that.  I was 21 when I began serious, deep Bible study, and there is still so much left for me to learn and to share.  You could carry it on if you prepare yourself, but I can only give it if you are there to take it.
 
Older women likewise…are to teach what is good and to train the young women…Titus 2:3,4
And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful [women] who will be able to teach others also. 2Tim 2:2
 
Dene Ward

I received my first pair of glasses when I was four, coke bottle lenses hanging over the glasses’ frames at least a half inch.  Needless to say, my vision was horrible.  I don’t remember the prescription then, but by adulthood my left eye wore a +15.50 and my right a +17.25.  The cornea specialist at Shands told me I had the worst vision of any sighted person he had ever treated except for a man in his late 80s who had finally reached +18.

            Those first glasses seemed like miracles to this child.  I remember people saying, “It’s a shame she has to wear those big, ugly things.”  Yes, they did make my eyes, which were actually too small, look huge and bulging behind those thick lenses, but all I cared about was the fact that I could see for the first time in my life.  I had, for instance, never seen bugs before.  My mother says I was particularly enthralled with ants, and she would often catch me leaning over gazing at them intently as they scurried about on the concrete or through the blades of grass, something else I had never seen but only felt with my hands.

            They were indeed miracles for me, but they did not fix everything.  I could only see what was right in front of me.  I had no peripheral vision and could not see what was under my feet.  I stumbled a lot.

            People who come to the Bible with preconceived notions do exactly the same thing.  If a particular doctrine has been drummed into one’s head, he will never see the truth of a scripture that refutes it.  His brain refuses to.  That’s why you become so frustrated with your friends when you show them something in black and white and they say, “I don’t see it that way.”  The truth is, they really don’t see it that way.  Their glasses are distorting some things and hiding others.

            But here is the scary thing:  if other people can be blinded by teachings they have heard all their lives, the same thing can happen to me, and it can happen to you.  Even good-hearted people who are trying to obey God and serve him in the smallest detail can miss the obvious.  Do you want some examples?

            Matthew 15:8,9 was not written about denominational theologians and their human creeds, the only way I ever heard this verse applied as a child.  It was written to people of God who tried to follow his law exactly but who had a habit of creating traditions they counted as even more important than the law of God, even to the point of refusing fellowship to those who broke those traditions.  It was written to us!

            Romans 6 was not written to prove either the necessity of baptism or the form it should take (immersion).  It was written to Christians who had already been baptized to tell them they should live like they had been baptized.  It was written to us!

            James 2 was not written to people who believe in salvation by faith only in the Protestant denominational sense.  It was written to Christians who believed that as long as they assembled, and never did the big bad sins (by their definition), they were just fine.  They didn’t really have to do good deeds, show mercy and kindness, or serve others.  It was written to us!

            1 Cor 14:15, Eph 5:19 and Col 3:16 were not written as proof texts for our a capella singing.  They were written to show us how to sing and why; to command us to sing, not simply mutter and certainly not to sit there close-mouthed.  Singing is not a matter of choice, folks, any more than taking the Lord’s Supper is.  That is what those verses teach, and they were written to us!

            I could go on and on.  We must be every bit as careful as our religious friends when we read the scriptures.  Some of the phrases we use are simply not there.  Some of the notions we have are simply not so.  We are just as blind as our friends, just as much victims of our own tunnel vision, if we accept the things we have always heard or been taught without checking them out with an open mind.  Worst of all, we often miss things that will make a huge difference in our service to God. 
 
Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me! Psalm 119:18,19.
 
Dene Ward
 

We planted our first garden 41 years ago.  Even though Keith had been brought up with gardens, we were both tyros, especially considering the climate we were in, different from either of our childhoods.  He set me up with all the equipment I would need, and most of which I still use all these years later, canners, mason jars, jar lifters, lids, rings, funnels, sieves, lime, vinegar, canning salt, and cookbooks, I had them all.

              One of the things I knew I wanted to make was a batch of dill pickles.  I love dill pickles.  I could eat a whole jar.  So I looked all over for recipes and found one that was fairly easy.  I did exactly as the recipe said and one afternoon in July lined my shelves with a dozen pints of dill pickles.  The recipe said to let them sit a few weeks, as I recall, so I did, and did not get around to trying them yet. 

              Finally we had company one evening and Keith grilled some hamburgers.  The perfect meal for my pickles, I thought, and proudly set them on the table.  I made a point to put the mason jar on the table so our guests would know they were homemade.  Too bad for me as it turned out.  Keith’s pal took one bite of pickle and tried very hard to keep his face from screwing up, not entirely succeeding.

              “Wow!” he finally choked out.  “These are DIIIIIIILLLLL pickles.”

              I took a bite myself and resolved to not only toss the recipe but every jar in the pantry.  The recipe had called for four tablespoons of dried dill seed per pint.  That’s one-fourth cup, people.  After all these years of experience, I would have looked at that recipe and immediately known something was off, but then I was a newbie and didn’t know any better.

              Ah, but we make the same sort of mistakes as Christians.  But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Heb 5:14.

              I learned from my mistake with the pickles and tried again, and again, and again, until I finally got it right.  But I would never have gotten it right without all that practice.  That’s what it takes with the Word.  No, it doesn’t take a college degree to understand the Bible and knowing exactly what to do to begin your relationship with Christ is pretty simple, but the Word of God is a profound book.  If all you do is read a chapter a day, you are missing 90% of its power.

              I have seen too many young people, especially those “raised in the church,” spout off simplistic definitions and explanations and think that’s all there is to it, completely missing the depths that can be plumbed with some diligent work.  I’ve seen too many older Christians who have relied on those same one-dimensional catch-phrases instead of growing to the height they should have after all those decades as a Christian that they are so proud of.  And I have seen too many old chestnuts that are patently wrong passed from generation to generation. 

              If reading Hebrews 7 doesn’t send you immediately back to Genesis 14 and Psalm 110, if seeing the word “promise” doesn’t make you instantly check for a reference to the Abrahamic promise, if reading the sermons in Acts doesn’t make you realize exactly how important it is to know the Old Testament, you have not been “exercising your senses” in the Word. 

           Please be careful of anything that sounds too pat, that makes arguments based on simplistic definitions or the spelling of English words (“Godliness is just a contraction of God-like-ness”).  Do not repeat anything you did not check out with careful study yourself.  And if you are still quite young, please check out your understanding with someone who is not only older, but well-versed in the scripture, and be willing to listen and really consider.  Do you know who I have the worst trouble with in my classes?  People who were “raised in the church.”  They are far less likely to even consider that they might be wrong about something and to change their minds than a brand new Christian, converted from the world with a boatload of misconceptions.

            You cannot know too much scripture.  It is impossible to be “over-educated” in the Word.  The more you know, the more motivation you will have to live up to your commitment to God, the better person you will be, and the fewer embarrassing mistakes you will make when you open your mouth. 
 
…put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Col 3:10
 
Dene Ward

The last in a continuing Monday morning series.  Please read it all in order before you make any judgments or even try to understand what is being said. 

              In order to make this a complete study, we have to look at a little history.  You will be surprised at what you learn, I promise.

              The Greek philosophers actually got a few things right about God, even while not really identifying Him as the one true God.  They taught that He is pure, one, immaterial (i.e., a Spirit), self-sufficient, imperturbable, and that He works merely by thought, among other things, but they did not truly understand God.  How could they without His Divine Revelation? 

              Xenophanes (d. 475 BC) broke away from the system of Greek gods.  “They are as wicked as men,” he said in explanation.  “God,” he noted, “is the greatest among the gods.”  Sounds a bit like Nebuchadnezzar’s understanding of God.

              Socrates (d. 399 BC) was forced to drink hemlock because he “did not accept the gods of the city.”  Plato (d. 348 BC) said, “God is the first cause…the prime mover.”  Aristotle (d. 322 BC) said that God is “the unmoved mover” who “knows all before it exists.”

              Yet the God they described was abstract, impersonal, unreachable, perfect, and unmoved.  If He is perfect, they reasoned, why would He change anything, especially His mind?  If He is perfect and has arranged things perfectly, any change would be for the worse.

              The philosophical thinking of the time involved three things:
1.  Fate—you are assigned a life that cannot be changed, in theological words, predestination.  What happens happens because it has to happen.
2.  Immutability of God—the perfect doesn’t change.  God is perfect, therefore God does not change.
3.  Timelessness of God—if God has no beginning or end, He will know both the past and the future as well as the present.  When taken with number one, this means He has your life planned and you have no choices.

              Alexander’s [Greek] empire included most of the known world, so this philosophy spread.  Greeks prevailed until Rome took over.  Roman technology and military thinking prevailed, but they lost the culture wars—Greek culture prevailed there and so all these ideas spread.

              The Stoics, whom the apostle Paul dealt with in Athens, lived by the principle of Fate, and had great influence in society.  “You cannot change anything.  Just accept it and don’t let it disturb you.”

              First century Christians did not buy into this.  They believed that the choices you make can make a difference in your life and even in the world.  It was yet another way they stood out from their neighbors, at least until Augustine came along.

              Augustine was Bishop of Hippo, in North Africa.  Even though his mother was a Christian he was not at first. He was a philosopher who still believed in the Greek “package.”  He could not accept a changeable God.  He called the God of the Scriptures “absurd” and “offensive.”  But eventually he was converted—sort of.

              He followed Ambrose in “allegorical interpretation” of the Scriptures, which means you can make scripture mean anything, just call it an allegory.  He looked for ways to incorporate his old philosophies into the Biblical teaching.  He decided that Fate = God.  The problem was he became the dominant voice in the early Roman Catholic Church.

              This infection of Greek philosophy into New Testament theology continued unabated.  Thomas Aquinas, who was called “the Doctor of the Church” actually wrote commentaries on Aristotle.  Aristotle was taught in the early universities—where only priests and church dignitaries studied.  Eventually Luther and Calvin came out of those schools.  They called Fate by the Biblical word “predestination,” but they are not the same thing at all, as any thorough study will show.  Still, those beliefs permeated all theology for centuries.  You know all those “heretics” who were executed in the Middle Ages?  They were the ones who rebelled against this unscriptural view of God and how He works.

              Don’t think it doesn’t seep into our thinking.  “It just wasn’t meant to be,” we sometimes say when we are struggling with a tragedy of life.

              “I’m only human,” and, “Once saved, always saved,” all come from those old Greek philosophies, which in turn affected our theology. 

              I wish you all could have sat in the class I sat in last summer.  Since you did not, here is the bottom line:  Remember your stop sign.  Stop trying to explain the unexplainable.  Stop trying to bring God down to a human level.  Just accept what His revelation says about Him, without trying to undo it or make it match your preconceived notions.  That is the only reverent way to approach Him.
 
​Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. Ps 147:5
 
Dene Ward

You probably discovered last week how bad we are about trying to explain God.  Just think how many times we had to use that STOP sign.  And if you didn’t use it, shame on you.  The secret things belong unto the LORD our God... Deut 29:29

            The Godhead itself is an incomprehensible relationship.  As much as we try to liken it to other things, it is not.  It is unique and, in the scriptures, unexplained.  That alone makes it unexplainable.

            If we could truly understand God, then we wouldn’t worship Him.  By “explaining” Him, we bring Him down to our level, and our level certainly is not worth worshipping.  It is “reverence” masked by irreverence. 

            And we also have something not only unexplainable, but unthinkable:
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Phil 2:5-8   God became human.
           
Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; Heb 2:14  He partook of flesh and blood.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and was God…And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John 1:1, 14.  God became flesh.
           
For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Heb 4:15.  He was in all points tempted.

            For God to become human should not just be amazing, it should be a staggering thought.  If it has never taken your breath away and knocked you off your feet, figuratively anyway, you just don’t get it.  In spite of yourself, you have absorbed too much denominational theology.  You’ve spent too much time with Augustine of Hippo and his Reformation disciples.    And that’s where we will finish next week.
 
Dene Ward

If I asked any one of you if Bible study was essential to a godly life, I would be surprised to hear anyone say no.  We all understand that God expects us to learn His Word.  We devote a lot of time, energy, and funds to our class systems to make sure our children are well-taught, even expecting the church to do our duty as parents, but that is another post for another day.  Still, we do understand that Bible study is essential.  We put “edification” in those ubiquitous “acts of worship” lists and if questioned about it will happily list Bible classes along with sermons as the means for that particular “act.”

            But is knowing God’s Word the purpose of Bible study?  I would hope we all know better than that.  There may well be theological knowledge we must all have to appreciate our salvation and keep our faith strong, but the practical purpose for Bible study is to learn how God wants us to live our lives. If your Bible study does not affect your life, why do you bother?

            So how are you doing in the practical application of your study?  Here is a test for you.  When you hear a sermon, does something about you change?  When you learn something in a Bible class, do you think about it and perhaps alter your schedule, toss a few things out of your wardrobe, raise your contribution, pray more often, or put a few TV shows on your family’s verboten list?  Do you forgive a wrong, pray for an enemy, or stand up for the truth in a room full of atheists?  Does what you learn affect you in any way at all?  And does it go past a onetime thing to a life-changing habit?

            All right, so maybe you have been a Christian for a few decades instead of just a few weeks, and you have already made many changes.  Good for you.  But do you think there is nothing you can make better, that you already have all your ducks in a row, perfectly aligned so they waddle in step and quack in unison?  I’m not there yet.  Surely even you can make a few adjustments, tweaking your life just a bit.

            Sometimes the changes you make can be a little more philosophical and effect the genuineness of worship.  I passed my Psalms lesson book on to a Bible class teacher in another church many miles from here.  He told me that it has made a definite difference in his prayer life—the Psalms may be poems set to music for both individual and group worship, but they are also prayers.  And, since he also leads singing, he told me it has changed how he does that as well.

            The class had just finished Psalm 89, a long psalm that praises God by discussing His attributes—love, faithfulness, righteousness, justice, power, holiness.  So the next Sunday he chose his songs according to that pattern, God’s attributes.  They sang “Wonderful Grace,” “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” “Holy, Holy, Holy,” and “Because He Loved Me So.”  He told the good people there what he was doing and why.  They paid more attention to the words they were singing and their song service was, in spite of singing “boring old songs” as some these days might call them, more moving and admonishing, and sung with much more “understanding” than usual.

            Just a little Bible study caused a whole church to worship more sincerely than they had in a long, long time.  What has your Bible study done for you lately?  It’s up to you how much you get out of it and what you do with what you learn.
 
​Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. ​Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. ​Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain! ​Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. ​Confirm to your servant your promise, that you may be feared. Ps 119:34-38
 
Dene Ward

Part 7 of a continuing Monday series.  If you have not been with us, you really need to backtrack and read the first 6.  Even if you have been, with a week off, it might help to reread at least the last couple.

            Remember those stop signs you made last week?  Run and get it before we start.  You are really going to need it this week.  And more than that you will need to be willing to examine what you truly believe and the words and phrases you commonly use. 

            First let me ask you this:  why do you pray?  Believe it or not, there is a theology out there that does not believe God will change His mind if you ask.  Now don’t be so quick to judge.  The word they use is “immutability,” which we often use ourselves, and which is NOT a Bible word. 

            First, let’s look at a few passages.  Will our prayers indeed influence God?

            In his discussion of the coming destruction of Jerusalem Jesus said, “Pray that your flight not be in winter or on a Sabbath,” Matt 24:20.

            He also says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! Matt 7:7-11.

            And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. Luke 18:1.

            Jesus seemed to believe our prayers would make a difference in God’s actions.  The word “immutability,” though, means “beyond the ability to change.”  Add that to the word “omniscience,” also a word not found in the Bible, which means “knowledge of everything past, present, and future, and therefore never surprised,” and you get a doctrine that says since God knows everything, then He knows the best course of action and the right thing to do and any change would mean He had made a mistake.  That is mainstream theology.

            STOP!  You are sitting there getting ready to say, “Yes, but---“  Don’t.  Just listen, and more important, read what God has to say about Himself.

            In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.’” Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, saying, “Now, O LORD, please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. And before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him: “Turn back, and say to Hezekiah the leader of my people, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD, and I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David's sake.” 2Kgs 20:1-6.

            And I[God] thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. Jer 3:7.

            “‘I [God] said, How I would set you among my sons, and give you a pleasant land, a heritage most beautiful of all nations. And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me. ​Surely, as a treacherous wife leaves her husband, so have you been treacherous to me, O house of Israel, declares the LORD.’” Jer 3:19-20/

            And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. Jer 7:31.

          And have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind-- Jer 19:5.

          They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin. Jer 32:35.

          STOP!  You’re about to do it again, I know you are.  You are trying to explain away the plain statements of God about Himself.  What you are doing is trying to make an incomprehensible Being comprehensible to a human mind and that is the ultimate irreverence.  Guess what?  We are not finished yet.  This one will knock your socks off:

          He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” Gen 22:12.

          STOP!  Someone out there is thinking, “Are you trying to say…” I (and the teacher I sat under last summer) are not saying anything.  God is.  Do not tell God what He means to be saying and then call it respect.

          There are many, many times in the Bible that God says, “If.”  This one may be the most famous:

          Then the word of the LORD came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. Jer 18:5-10.

          Here is the conclusion of all this; God always bases His action on men’s behavior.  And that means not everything is set in stone.  Even God says so.  When you try to push these un-Biblical words on people and define them so strictly, then you wind up with doctrines never taught in the Bible.  And when you do, you wind up with things that are totally inexplicable, like the following passage.

          David knew that Saul was plotting harm against him. And he said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring the ephod here.” Then David said, “O LORD, the God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah, to destroy the city on my account. Will the men of Keilah surrender me into his hand? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O LORD, the God of Israel, please tell your servant.” And the LORD said, “He will come down.” Then David said, “Will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul?” And the LORD said, “They will surrender you.” Then David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah, and they went wherever they could go. When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he gave up the expedition. 1Sam 23:9-13.

          Oops!  God said something was going to happen and it didn’t.  Why?  Because men’s behavior changed what happened.  When we force things on our understanding of God, we always get into trouble.  Better to let God tell us how He acts and thinks, and keep from putting both our feet into our mouths hip-deep. 

          Keep your stop sign handy.  There is more to come.
 
Dene Ward

I finally did it a year or so ago:  I went to amazon and began a wish list.  There isn’t much on it because I have very few wishes—at least ones that a human can do anything about.  And for most of our married life we have lived so closely that wishes for earthly things just made me discontent and unhappy so I avoided making them.  But every time I ordered something we needed from amazon, there was that wish list icon in the top corner, so I gave in and made one.  I had to browse to come up with more than 2 things to put on it. I haven’t touched it since—and neither has anyone else

            Lately, we have had so many church potlucks that I have been thinking about going to that wish list and ordering one of the things on it myself—one of the top-rated insulated casserole carriers.  I have needed it at least three times in just the past two months!

            I hear that some people have spiritual wish lists too.  Usually I find out when they come up to me and say, “I wish I had as much Bible knowledge as you do.”

            Let me set the record straight first.  I don’t have a passel of Bible knowledge in my hip pocket.  I have to look things up just like you do.  And, the knowledge I do have is courtesy of a husband whose knowledge is nearly encyclopedic and whose willingness to help is overflowing.  He is, in fact, the one who taught me how to study, so you could say that he is responsible for all of my so-called knowledge, both the answers he has given me and the things I have learned on my own.

            But about that knowledge you wish you had—why don’t you just do what I did and fulfill your own wish?  No one can do it for you anyway.  All it takes is time.  By that I mean hours at a time over a succession of years.  Do you really think I learned what I know in 2 weeks?  I have been working on this so long I have even had to unlearn a few things, because that’s the next step—growing in your knowledge as you hone your understanding of what you have learned.  It isn’t just a list of facts; it’s a compilation of concepts that weaves itself into a complex tapestry, and the more you learn the more clearly you will comprehend it.

            Don’t talk to me about “not having enough time.”  Nearly every one of us has changed our schedules to add something that was important to us.  You added children to your life.  That really changed your schedule.  You went back to school.  You started exercising.  You took on a new job.  When it mattered to you, you found the time.        
  
            I have learned this about wish lists—don’t put anything on them that you really need.  You may never get it when you are depending upon someone else.  Instead, buy yourself the present. 

            Buy this one—knowledge--with the same time and energy you spend on things that are not nearly as important. 
 
​Buy truth, and do not sell it; buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding. Prov 23:23
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…Hos 4:6.
 
Dene Ward