Posts

Posted on

Destined for Excellence: A Meditation on 2 Peter 1

On June 27, 2015, Dylann Roof entered a Bible study at the historic Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC. He participated in the Bible study, even discussing his view of Scripture. As the participants closed in prayer, Dylann Roof took out a gun from his fanny pack and pointed it at 87 year old Susie Jackson. Her nephew, Tywanza Sanders, intervened and was shot first. By the time Roof finished, eight other people had died from multiple gunshot wounds at close range. It was evil, heartbreaking, and shocking.

What was more shocking was the response to Dylann Roof by some of the members of the AME Church. At the bond hearing, Roof had to face the families of the victims. As reported by USA Today:

First up was Nadine Collier, who lost her mother Ethel Lance.

“I forgive you … You took something really precious from me. I will never talk to her ever again, I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you and have mercy on your soul,” Collier says while fighting back tears.

Not all the family members could bring themselves to do that, which is completely understandable, but several did.

One who did was Chris Singleton, a minor league baseball player in the Chicago Cubs farm system. His mother was murdered in the Charleston Massacre. He was in the middle of playing a baseball game when he decided to show grace to Dylann Roof.

So far, Dylann Roof does not seem to have been moved by these demonstrations of grace and forgiveness. However, he is not the only one involved. This was a point brought out by Singleton:

“After seeing what happened and the reason why it happened, and after seeing how people could forgive, I truly hope that people will see that it wasn’t just us saying words,” Singleton says. “I know, for a fact, that it was something greater than us, using us to bring our city together.”

The demonstration of grace was a testimony of love to the whole city. It was an amazing act of love that contributed to building a loving community in a way that few other things could.

And here we have God’s plan for building a loving community. What He does is create specific excellent traits or virtues within His people that build the loving community. He transforms them into the type of people who build a loving community. Continue reading “Destined for Excellence: A Meditation on 2 Peter 1”

Posted on

How Risky Is It, Really?

Bears are much scarier than cars. You will pass hundreds of cars, if you drive through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. You may see a bear, but you very well may not. I could only find one instance of a bear killing a person in the GSMNP (on May 21, 2000). However, in 2019, Nine people were killed in car wrecks in the GSMNP.

Some things are scary that will not harm us. Some things will harm us that are not scary. Actual rather than perceived risks to life and health are what we should be most concerned about. So, how do we get past what is scary but what is not risky? How do we learn to take precautions when things are risky but not scary? In other words, how can we be sure that we are doing the right things to keep us safe and healthy? That’s what David Ropeik’s book, How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don’t Always Match the Facts is all about (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010).

What Ropeik does is try to help us see what makes things feel risky or scary to us. Then, he provides advice on how to get better at evaluating actual risk.

Ropeik suggests that there are eleven things that make people, situations, or things more scary.

  1. Trust. When trust is low, fear is higher. For example, if we don’t trust our government, what they tell us to do feels scarier, even if it is not. The converse is also true as well.
  2. Loss. This is complicated, but if the potential loss is great, then it feels scarier, even if it is not a great risk. Losing a house to a tornado feels scarier than having credit cards, even though the latter is more likely to bring you to financial ruin.
  3. Control. If we feel in control, we feel safe. Airplanes are much safer than automobiles. However, in an automobile, we feel more in control. Continue reading “How Risky Is It, Really?”
Posted on

Why Do We Believe in the Trinity?

Here’s a series of questions and answers on this topic that I wrote many years ago for my congregation. If you have questions about why Christians believe in the Trinity, the doctrine that there is one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, here is a brief explanation in a series of questions and answers.

1. What do we mean by God? God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. He made all things out of nothing by the word of His power. He preserves and governs all His creatures and all their actions.

2. What does the Bible reveal uniquely about who God is? It reveals that there are three persons in the one, infinite essence of God.

3. What do we mean by nature or essence? We mean what something is. For example, the essence or nature of a dog is that it is a dog, of a chair that it is a chair, of man that he is human.

4. What do we mean by person? Each nature has particular instances of its nature. For example, you are one instance of human nature, and I am another. However, by person we mean also that a particular individual of a nature is also intelligent and capable of personal interaction. Continue reading “Why Do We Believe in the Trinity?”

Posted on

In Isolation & Crisis, God Is at Work

[Listen to an audio version here].

When we are alone and isolated, it’s easy to miss the amazing things that God is doing. In the midst of crisis, it’s easy only to see the crisis and miss the things that God is doing under, with, and around it. The story of Elijah and Obadiah in 1 Kings 18 reminds us that in times of isolation and times of crisis, God is at work. Here is the story of 1 Kings 18 from the perspective of Elijah and then from the standpoint of Obadiah and back to Elijah again.

Elijah Returns

Elijah had been in relative isolation for a long time. Our text tells us it was three years. He had spent the first few months of the drought crisis in the total isolation of the Kerith Ravine and the next couple years in the foreign town of Zarephath cared for by a widow.

Finally, after three years, he returned to his homeland to speak to King Ahab. King Ahab and his wife Queen Jezebel had led the people of God to turn from the Lord to the false god Baal. But the Lord had not left His people. He confronted them and called them back to Himself by withholding rain. This was the crisis of a severe drought.

The devastation was real. As Elijah entered Israel, he would have seen the barren land from three years without rain. As he headed toward Samaria, he came across Obadiah, the palace administrator. And who better could he have met for his encouragement than Obadiah? Continue reading “In Isolation & Crisis, God Is at Work”

Posted on

The Challenge of Isolation & Insecurity

[Listen to an audio version here].

According to ancient records, King Ahab did a good job in building the Israelite economy. He also made strategic alliances, evidenced by his marriage to Jezebel, that brought security to Israel’s borders.

The problem with Ahab was that he did not serve the Lord. In fact, he was worse than the bad Israelite kings who came before him. The previous kings had worshiped the Lord, Jehovah, but in a wrong way, through a golden calf. Ahab worshiped the gods of the nations around them, Baal and Asherah, the fertility gods of the Canaanites.

Enter Elijah

God had promised that if His people turned away to other gods, He would call them back to Himself through judgments and through messengers or prophets. At this low point in the life of Israel, God called one of the greatest of those messengers into public service. His name was Elijah.

People looked back on Elijah with a veneration equal only to that given to Moses. They looked for another Elijah to come in their time of need. He was from the hill country on the east bank of the Jordan, a sort of highlander or mountain man. During his labors, God did amazing things. This is captured wonderfully in the song, “The Days of Elijah.”

In spite of these amazing things, the story of Elijah is remarkably human, just as Moses’ is. It conveys the fears, challenges, exhilaration, doubts, loneliness, and difficulties Elijah faced in doing such momentous work. In a time of crisis, Elijah’s ministry offers us many lessons for how God takes care of us in the ups and downs in life in general and the more wild swings of a time of great anxiety. Continue reading “The Challenge of Isolation & Insecurity”

Proudly powered by WordPress