Thanks for Checking

It is a crazy week.  Blog posts will get back up and running next week.  I appreciate your checking in.

Say What?

I'm doing study in 1 John. As I was doing so I was reminded again of how important it is to try to get some sense of the background of what's happening in the community to whom the author is writing. In doing that study I came across this quote in the Word Biblical Commentary: "The writer of 1 John was thus addressing a community, made up of a number of house-churches in and around Ephesus (see on 2 and 3 John), which was split in three ways. It consisted of the following: (a) Johannine Christians who were committed to the apostolic gospel of Jesus as they had received it; (b) heretically inclined members from a Jewish background; (c) heterodox followers from a Hellenistic (and/or pagan) background. The problems relating to the two “heretical” groups, (b) and (c), were primarily theological and (by extension) ethical..."  (emphasis added).  It's this last part that drew my attention.  Our theology impacts our ethics.  It is, of course, a truth that rings throughout the Scriptures.  Paul's writings for instance typically start out with theology and that leads us into how we are to live.  But in our culture we seem to diss theology as basically unimportant, boring, or something for intellectuals (and therefore a bad thing), believing we can act in certain ways without the foundation of theology to hold up those ways.  

It's a good reminder that our theology or lack of it really does impact the way we do life.

Lose a wise friend, lose your mind

How do you go crazy?  There are more than a few ways, but one is to lose a wise friend who keeps your mind focused on what matters.  King Uzzaih in the book of Chronicles (his story is surprisingly short in the book of 2 Kings) has this stunningly great start to being king.  Building projects, battles won, all the things a king loves.  In in all he has a friend who keeps him from going crazy (you go crazy when you no longer  fear the LORD).  It says in 2 Chronicles 26. 5 He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God, and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper.  Being instructed means that Zechariah taught Uzziah how to be a discerning king, he didn't just have knowledge, he knew how to use the knowledge he had, he knew how to fear the LORD and so how to live a life of wisdom (i.e. how to live in God's good but fallen world).

Somewhere along the line, however, Zechariah disappears.  When he disappears, Uzziah heads down the path of crazy.  He tries to step in and take over the work of the priests.  It's a power move to grab on to all the branches of influence in Judah.   The ESV Study Bible helps us see the whole picture, " 2 Chron. 26:16–20 Unfaithful translates Hebrew ma‘al . It carries the sense of affronting God's holiness (as in a violated oath) failing to accord him his due in worship. Uzziah impugned God's holiness by trespassing on the temple, which was for the priests and Levites only, and by seeking to offer incense, a duty reserved for the priests alone."

So Uzziah goes crazy when he loses his friend/mentor.  It makes you wonder what crazy you can get in to when you lose a friend who keeps you in the fear of the LORD.   

That's just a bit of the thought that's flowing around in my mind as I get ready for this week's message in our series at EverGreen called "Crash".  You can read Uzziah's story here and also the New Testament passage that I think helps us to keep from this kind of crash.

The Pain of a City

Sometimes those of us who live on the west side of the state of Michigan complain about or demean the eastern side of the state--especially the city of Detroit.  Looking at recent stats from that city, however, causes one to be deeply saddened by what looks like an increasingly speedy death of our State's largest city unless a way of renewal is found.  

Here's some of the latest info:

"No major city in the US today looks more beleaguered than Detroit, where in October the average home price was $18,513 (yes, that's right) and some 45,000 properties were in some form of foreclosure.  The city's public schools, facing a $408 million budget deficit, were taken over by the State in December; dozens of schools have been closed since 2005 because of decline in enrollment.  Just 10 percent of Detroit's adult residents are college graduates, and in December the jobless rate was 21 percent. ...as its population dips further, the city's struggle to provide services and prevent blight across an ever-emptier landscape will only intensify."  From The Atlantic Monthly

For people (Christians, that is) who are called to seek the welfare of the city and to be agents of cultural renewal this looks like it could be one of the big projects in our State over the next 10 years.  What a challenge to seek to renew a city or as the word of the song we sang a couple of weeks ago at EverGreen put it, 

You're the God of this City
You're the King of these people
You're the Lord of this nation
You are

[Verse 2]
You're the Light in this darkness
You're the Hope to the hopeless
You're the Peace to the restless
You are

There is no one like our God
There is no one like our God

[Chorus]
For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City
Greater thing have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City

A New Star Wars

It is always amazing (and sometimes hopeful) to see how new technologies hold out hope for keeping soldiers safe.  P.W. Singer gives us insight into a world few of us enter.  The new world of robots on the battlefield.

"When U.S. forces went into Iraq, the original invasion had no robotic systems on the ground. By the end of 2004, there were 150 robots on the ground in Iraq; a year later there were 2,400; by the end of 2008, there were about 12,000 robots of nearly two dozen varieties operating on the ground in Iraq. As one retired Army officer put it, the “Army of the Grand Robotic” is taking shape."

Singer in his article "Military Robots and the Laws of War" looks at both the robots and the moral repercussions of their presence on the battlefield.  Enjoy a good read.

A little valentines day

You can find out about valentines day and amaze your valentine....or just satisfy your curiosity.  

From the History Channel

in this episode of history of the holidays, learn the history of valentine's day. learn about st. valentine, cupid, and why the holiday is celebrated on february 14th. valentine's day brings in about 14 billion dollars annually.

More on Sex and Food

Mary Eberstadt in her article points out that while we've learned more about eating in a healthy way, we've also learned in the last few decades more about healthy sexual relationships. Sadly, knowledge does not always lead to action... Check out what she says:

...several decades of empirical research — which also did not exist before — have demonstrated that the sexual revolution, too, has had consequences, and that many of them have redounded to the detriment of a sexually liberationist ethic.

Married, monogamous people are more likely to be happy. They live longer. These effects are particularly evident for men. Divorced men in particular and conversely face health risks — including heightened drug use and alcoholism — that married men do not. Married men also work more and save more, and married households not surprisingly trump other households in income. Divorce, by contrast, is often a financial catastrophe for a family, particularly the women and children in it. So is illegitimacy typically a financial disaster.

By any number of measures, moreover, nontraditional sexual morality — and the fallout from it — is detrimental to the well-being of one specifically vulnerable subset: children. Children from broken homes are at risk for all kinds of behavioral, psychological, educational, and other problems that children from intact homes are not. Children from fatherless homes are far more likely to end up in prison than are those who grew up with both biological parents. Girls growing up without a biological father are far more likely to suffer physical or sexual abuse. Girls and boys, numerous sources also show, are adversely affected by family breakup into adulthood, and have higher risks than children from intact homes of repeating the pattern of breakup themselves.

This recital touches only the periphery of the empirical record now being assembled about the costs of laissez-faire sex to American society — a record made all the more interesting by the fact that it could not have been foreseen back when sexual liberationism seemed merely synonymous with the removal of some seemingly inexplicable old stigmas. Today, however, two generations of social science replete with studies, surveys, and regression analyses galore stand between the Moynihan Report and what we know now, and the overall weight of its findings is clear. The sexual revolution — meaning the widespread extension of sex outside of marriage and frequently outside commitment of any kind — has had negative effects on many people, chiefly the most vulnerable; and it has also had clear financial costs to society at large. And this is true not only in the obvious ways, like the spread of aids and other stds, but also in other ways affecting human well-being, beginning but not ending with those enumerated above.

The question raised by this record is not why some people changed their habits and ideas when faced with compelling new facts about food and quality of life. It is rather why more people have not done the same about sex.

Could it be?

In the book of 2 Chronicles we find that King Asa is all about building strong cities.  6 He built fortified cities in Judah, for the land had rest. He had no war in those years, for the Lord gave him peace. 7 And he said to Judah, “Let us build these cities and surround them with walls and towers, gates and bars. The land is still ours, because we have sought the Lord our God. We have sought him, and he has given us peace on every side.” So they built and prospered. 2 Chronicles 14 

 What is intriguing about this is that such building of cities was a way that success was measured in the Ancient Near East.  Mesopotamian annals and regnal-year titles regularly comment on the king’s building activities as evidence of his success.  The Chronicler uses what other nations consider as success to show the success of a king of Judah.  Why?  Would it not be better to speak of all his religious accomplishments, his care for the poor, his lack of building projects which would show he was not following the ways of the world?  Or could there be something else here that we might be missing?  Could it be that all those kings of Mesopotamia were actually doing a godly thing by their building?  Could it be that they had implanted in their hearts the cultural mandate and also planted in their hearts, however blurred, the work that God is heading for, "A New City".  I love the idea that Asa reflects success not first of all in terms of the surrounding culture, but in terms of God's grand vision of culture building and city building.  While other nations may look on and say, "The Chronicler caught our values", the reality is that the nations unwittingly have caught the values of God.  Caught them so much that we read in the book of Revelation, 24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, 25 and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. 26 They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations Revelation 22

Crash: The Boy King

Sunday morning we are moving on with our "Crash" series.  The message is entitled:  "Wrong Turn".  It's the story of the boy-king, Joash (he assumes the throne at age 8).  Joash begins his reign seemingly committed fully to God and his ways but after his mentor dies, he leaves behind those ways and breaks covenant with God and with those who had earlier rescued him.  

A few intriguing things from the text:

• In the entire story of the crowning of Joash his name is never used.  Instead the focus is on the High Priest Jehoiada.  This lack of naming the new king while highlighting Jehoiada shows the power, influence, and impact that this high priest had.
• Joash is in conflict with the priests and seems to be in some sort of power struggle with them.  This is especially seen in the conflict over the repair of the temple.
• While the priests seem to take Joash lightly (even after he's been reigning 23 years), the princes of Judah pay him homage.  It's possible that he abandons the ways of Jehoiada in order to wrest power from the priests.  To do so he has to find a priestly class he can control and no priests of Yahweh are going to fit that bill.

So here's how the story starts (you can read the rest of the story to get ready for Sunday morning here):

Athaliah Reigns in Judah
10 Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal family of the house of Judah. 11 But Jehoshabeath, [1] the daughter of the king, took Joash the son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the king's sons who were about to be put to death, and she put him and his nurse in a bedroom. Thus Jehoshabeath, the daughter of King Jehoram and wife of Jehoiada the priest, because she was a sister of Ahaziah, hid him [2] from Athaliah, so that she did not put him to death. 12 And he remained with them six years, hidden in the house of God, while Athaliah reigned over the land. 2 Chronicles 22

Is Food the New Sex?

An interesting piece by Mary Eberstadt

Here's a snippet,

The rise of a recognizably... morally universalizable code concerning food — beginning with the international vegetarian movement of the last century and proceeding with increasing moral fervor into our own times via macrobiotics, veganism/vegetarianism, and European codes of terroir — has paralleled exactly the waning of a universally accepted sexual code in the Western world during these same years.

Who can doubt that the two trends are related? Unable or unwilling (or both) to impose rules on sex at a time when it is easier to pursue it than ever before, yet equally unwilling to dispense altogether with a universal moral code that he would have bind society against the problems created by exactly that pursuit, modern man (and woman) has apparently performed his own act of transubstantiation. He has taken longstanding morality about sex, and substituted it onto food. The all-you-can-eat buffet is now stigmatized; the sexual smorgasbord is not.

Here's the link to "Is Food the New Sex"

On Any Given Sunday

A recent survey found that on any given Sunday in the Jenison, Hudsonville area 25,000 people attend worship while 34,000 stay home.  

The question which surrounds this truth is, "Who are the 34,000?"  Are they believers who just attend church a once or twice a month?  So it's a different 34,000 each week? Are there a large group of people who have quit church or don't believe?   If it is the first group, why don't they believe worshipping God weekly is important?  If it's the second group, what does the church need to do to get to know those who have quit church or don't believe?

Good News

“God hath yet ever had this island (Earth) under the special indulgent eye of his providence.” John Milton

Gladness and Hunger

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.  --Buechner

A little mistake

BERLIN (Reuters) - Workers at a steel plant near Berlin found 100,000 euros ($128,500) in a safe that a bank had sent to be scrapped -- but they did the decent thing and gave it back.

An employee at Germany's Postbank had failed to take out the cash before sending the safe to the scrapyard. Spokesman Ralf Palm blamed "the carelessness of an employee when a branch office moved in December."