Friends: When Christians partake of the communion bread and cup, what are we nourishing? Have a great week! Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #948

January 14, 2025

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Food for Thought

By Bob Walters

“Where else would we go?” Peter, to Jesus, John 6:68

John 6 is a busy chapter in the Bible, full of stories we know well. 

Jesus fed the 5,000 (John 6:1-13). then left, alone, for the mountains (v15). That night Jesus walked on the stormy water (v16) of the northern Sea of Galilee, out to the boat where his fearful and astounded disciples were saved from the weather, their fears, and as Jesus accused them, their lack of faith.

Jesus said to them, “It is I, do not fear” (John 6:20).

The next day many from the crowd of 5,000 went looking for Jesus. They caught up with Him near Capernaum on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee and asked when he had arrived. Jesus, ever alert to the self-indulging queries of humanity, provided a lesson rather than an answer: “You seek me not because of the miracle I performed, but because you ate and had your fill” (John 6:26). 

Jesus reproached them of following Him only for a free lunch – another feast of loaves and fishes – not because of their faith in Him. Faith is God’s coin of the realm.

Jesus goes on (John 6:27-59), telling them to seek bread that does not spoil, i.e. the bread of God – Him, Jesus – and that the work of God, their work, is “to believe in the one he has sent,” … meaning himself. Our “work” is to believe in Jesus.

Unlike the manna God sent to Moses and the Jews in the desert – bread that spoiled in a day – God sent Jesus to all mankind as the bread of eternal life that does not spoil. Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life.” Adding, “He who comes to me will never be hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35, 54)

Jesus declares that his flesh is everlasting life, and that the Spirit will live only in believers who eat His body and drink His blood, and then they will live forever.

Eat Jesus? Drink His blood?  It was a “hard teaching” (6:60) and many “disciples” left.  The Twelve however, stayed. Peter expressed their faith perfectly: “Where else would we go?”

As we encounter the bread and cup of Christ today, we can express our love for God and each other, and ask the same question as Peter: “Where else would we go?”

I believe the Spirit of God, of Jesus, lives in believers.  And that by following the last supper commands of Jesus – to remember Him when we eat the bread and drink the cup as an act of devotion and faith in Jesus – we are participating in the life of God, and feeding the Spirit of God and Christ who lives within us.

Unlike the physically filling feast of loaves and fishes, communion is a very small meal. But just as Jesus says that faith only the size of a tiny mustard seed can grow large, this small meal of wafer and cup nourishes our faith and blossoms into our magnificent and eternal life with God, through our salvation in Christ.

The bread and the cup of communion feed our faith as we share the love of the Spirit who lives in us, and of the believers around us.  Where else would we go?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) presented this as a communion meditation Sunday.

Friends: Folks look at the Holy Trinity as something that needs to be split and defined rather than understood as a relationship and holy mystery.  Let’s hold it together. Have a great week, and all the best for 2025. Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #947

January 7, 2025

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Splitting Image

By Bob Walters

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.” – Hebrews 1:3

Pam and I are fortunate to have several savvy, sincere, and biblically literate Christian friends and teachers across the various cohorts of the life we lead together.

Feel free to drop an “Amen” if you can say the same thing.

Our New Year’s Eve gathering with some of our so-inclined church pals last week was a party, not vespers, but as invariably happens – amid family updates and chatting about life in general – a faith and scriptural issue popped up that sparked a lively post-dinner doctrinal conversation among a few of us still sitting at the table.

A lady we have known for years who is active in Bible studies, women’s ministry, and local missions lamented how many Bible studiers she encounters who refuse the aspect of the Trinity that names Jesus as God. Yes, I know … basic stuff.  And any of us who have been around “newer” Christians are well-acquainted with the question.

She noted, “They want to know, ‘If Jesus is God, where was God while Jesus was on the earth?’ What do you say?” I have a reputation in our Sunday school class of talking too much, so I took a shot at an answer because I can’t help it. To wit …

The Trinity as One – Father, Son, Spirit – is among my favorite teaching topics. The Trinity, of course, is a mystery of mathematics, physics, and personhood, how three beings can be one and one being can be three.  To me it is easily explained that if indeed “God is Love” (1 John 4:8), and if we can agree that “love” requires relationship, then it proceeds logically that God must be a relationship. Voila! God is one…and three.

And if indeed humans were and are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image’”) – for all the ways that notion can be considered – it further proceeds that we are created in that love of God’s relationship.

Why three?  This is what works for me. Three is the smallest number of a community (George Bebawi), God himself is a society (G.K. Chesterton), and we, even as fallen sinners, are restored to God’s divine community through our faith in Jesus and acceptance of His gift of salvation. But the math? Yes, 1+1+1=3. But 1x1x1=1. I am content to “multiply” my blessings and figure God “adds up” love however He likes.

To me the issue we were discussing at the table comes down to those who stubbornly demand human definitions of holy things that need to be known in faith.  It is, to me, reasonable to take God at His word.  We can ask of Him all the questions we can conjure, but everything about Jesus is designed to demand our faith, not proof.

I’m afraid the best evidence for Jesus and God’s laws, even beyond scripture, is written on our hearts, ala Hebrews 8:10, Romans 2:15, Psalms 40:8, 2 Corinthians 3:3. And I couldn’t help but think of George’s observation that Western Christianity tends to focus on “Father and Son,” often ignoring the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

We can’t argue faith and the Holy Spirit into anybody. One can witness and lead by example, but the Spirit does the heavy lifting of changing hearts and minds to accept God’s truth and the reality of an eternal realm humans are not yet equipped to fully understand. We glimpse eternity, in faith, all the time … yet it is still outside of time.

So, mysteries abound, but our faith must cohere into oneness with God, oneness with other believers, and not split the divine relationship in which we were created.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) enjoys the mysteries God presents. Praise Jesus.

Friends: There is an eternal benefit to breaking the Law by dying in Christ … now.   Publishing early this holiday weekend!  Blessings and much happiness in the New Year. – Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #946

December 31, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Breaking the Law

By Bob Walters

“The written law brings death, but the Spirit gives life.” Paul, 2 Corinthians 3:6

My favorite thing in Bible study is when a light switches on illuminating an entirely fresh dimension to a familiar passage or theme.

I experienced one of those Friday listening to Colin Smith (Link) on Moody Radio.

Smith was preaching from Romans 7:1-6, where Paul uses the illustration of marriage lasting until death, the way the Law has authority over us only as long as a person lives. “Do you not know … that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? … by law a married woman is bound to her husband … but if her husband dies, is released from the law of marriage.” (Romans 7:1-2)

Smith pointed out that Paul, here, is not talking about marriage, but about death and new life. And while the rest of the passage, through verse 6, is plain as day about “dying to the law through the body of Christ that you might belong to another” (v4), I had never considered my own “death” in baptism, in the Spirit of Christ, as a death that broke the Law and freed me from death. Hallelujah! That is the New Covenant in Christ.

This was a “Eureka!” moment for me, settling a common – and one of my earliest – questions about Jesus: “Why did He have to die?” Who hasn’t wondered why God didn’t just wave his hand and “solve” sin, sparing Jesus and mankind the pain of death?

Smith preached his message using the language of “nomos,” the Greek word for the body of law governing human behavior.  Nomos (Romans 7:2) can refer to human government, but usually refers to God’s written law, the law of Moses, etc., the laws that “bring death” (2 Corinthians 3:6). The authority of nomos lasts until we die … in Christ.

Jesus, in his perfect sacrifice and death, was freed from nomos and rose to new life. The Gospel, the heart of Christianity, is that when we are baptized into Christ, we first “die to sin” – i.e., break the Law/nomos – and then “all who believe” (John 3:16) are fully “alive in Christ.”  Jesus died not to “pay a price,” but to break our chains of death.

I know, I know. “Pay the price” is the controlling lingua franca of modern Western, American, Reformed, and Dispensational Christology.  We can’t imagine a “free” gift devoid of guilt but full of truth and promise.  Culture says good requires a reward, bad requires condemnation, and everything has a price. I.e., Jesus had to pay to play. Oy.

Jesus brought a new game that relies on knowing Him in faith, not owing the economy of an impossible nomos. Jesus does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

We all know that the Law was not abolished; it says so in Matthew 5:17. That Jesus “fulfilled the law” doesn’t mean God was wrong. It means that man was wrong about thinking he had no way of living except for the Law/nomos. Then God sent Jesus.

The New Covenant in Jesus Christ is that His death doesn’t erase the Law; it frees believers from it. Are we “new creations in Christ”? Yes; we have His peace, truth, and are recommitted to and rejoined with the Father in eternal life.  The condemnation and purposeless guilt tangled in the web of unfulfillable demands of nomos are gone.

The lingering question of course is: What happens to nomos for those who die an unsaved, mortal death?  Are they freed from it? Or, eternally absent from God? Yikes.

As for me, I’m thankful Christ’s Spirit breaks the law of death and assures life.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) loves this annual time of renewal. Happy New Year.

Friends: Let’s build our faith this holiday season, and remember God’s great, constructive gift to us: Jesus Christ.  Merry Christmas! Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #945

December 24, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Eve of Construction

By Bob Walters

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Paul, in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4

“Our gospel” begins with the birth of Jesus, celebrated on Christmas Day. In a world previously doomed to destruction, Jesus came to construct a world where fear would be overcome by hope, and grace would tear down condemnation.

Counter to a 1960s political protest song that came to mind, Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction,” Christmas Eve is a time to know Christ came to build our future into an eternity with God.  Anticipating the arrival of Jesus is the Eve of Construction.

Humanity was a fearful mess when Jesus showed up with a message only a rare few were truly ready to hear. Yes, in His righteousness God had condemned mankind, but in His great faithfulness and eternal love sent the loving face of Jesus into the world and into humanity. Our destruction isn’t God’s greatest desire; He craves our salvation. Israel’s scriptural prophets predicted all this – a baby of a virgin birth, a life of humility, Jesus’s suffering, service, teaching, sacrifice, horrible death, and renewed life.

Yet the deliverance of the savior – the whole world’s savior – had fallen off the prophetic script of the nation of Israel.  Jewish leaders had remade “the Law” into an unrecognizable shadow of works shaded by their earthly pride, greed, and fears.

The salvation of the world will come through the nation of Israel? And the restoration of man’s image in relationship with God built on the shoulders of Jesus?

No, said Israel. It wanted a savior who would kill the Romans, subdue not only Israel’s enemies but all the earth, and put the Jewish leaders in ascendant leadership over all. By Christ’s power, all would bow to the Pharisees. That was never God’s plan.

The angel Gabriel told Mary and Joseph that her son’s seed was of the Holy Spirit. Angels told the shepherds to “fear not,” for “good tidings and great joy” were theirs in the birth of Christ the Lord, their Savior, in nearby Bethlehem.  The angels declared “peace on earth,” and the shepherds hurried to Jesus and “spread the word.”

Jesus, from a helpless human baby, grew up to declare, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.” He came for all mankind because of God’s love for the world. The Gospel was unveiled in that manger for all to see … if they could, if they would.

Jewish leaders refused the story, and saw Jesus as a threat, not a savior. They feared his ministry rather than embraced it.  They wanted destruction of Jesus’s message, which even still today is veiled “to those who are perishing” and the small “g” “god of this world.” That “god” would be Satan, who knows exactly Jesus’s mission and “keeps them [unbelievers] from seeing the glory of Christ.” Christmas is no time to hide.

Christmas is a time of unveiling: of opening presents, sharing hearts, and declaring faith. It is the construction of our heavenly destiny, not our earthly destruction.

The shepherds were told to “fear not” for the angels’ message was good news. We may fear physical pain, mental anguish, public humiliation, and death, but in Jesus, we no longer need to fear the loss of God. In faith, destruction is no longer on the menu.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) vividly remembers the protests and turmoil of the 1960s, but also remembers songs like “Snoopy’s Christmas” by the Royal Guardsmen.

 

Friends: Meeting my mom’s long-ago friend “Jeannie” brightened a bleak Christmas in 2002. Here’s the second part of the two-part story we began last week. Blessings! Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #944

December 17, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Christmas Present from the Past

By Bob Walters

“Shout for joy to the Lord … his faithfulness continues through all generations,” Psalms 100, Mary Jean Alig’s favorite psalm, read at her funeral by her daughter Ginny Cain.

The story began back in the 1940s, I think, when teenager Mary Jean Milner ventured from her family’s summer enclave in Harbor Springs, Michigan, 30 miles north to visit friends in Mackinaw City.

For geographical orientation, look at the back of your left hand – you’ll note it looks like the state of Michigan.  Detroit is down at the base of your thumb; Harbor Springs is at the top of your ring finger.  Mackinaw City is at the top tip in the middle. My parents are both buried there. And, by the way, the city is on the “mainland,” by the Mackinac Bridge, not on Mackinac Island, eight miles or so out into Lake Huron.

My dad’s family, the Walters, had lived or summered in Mackinaw since 1905. Mom’s family, the McKinney’s from Saginaw, Mich. (near the crux of your thumb and forefinger), built a Mackinaw summer home in the 1920s or 30s.  We never asked for specifics.  Dad grew up in Marion, Indiana, and due to a long list of family happenstance, went to Mackinaw City High School during World War II, class of 1945.

The Milners, Mary Jean’s family, were from Indianapolis where her dad, the Rev. Dr. Jean Milner, was senior pastor at Second Presbyterian Church from 1921-1960, first on 38^th Street at Meridian, then north to 7700 North Meridian where it is still located today.

In the 1920s, Indiana’s allergy season led Rev. Milner to find summer solace in Northern Michigan, where he built a log cabin west of Harbor Springs on Lake Michigan, and a shed on the shore that was his “writing room” where he would construct sermons and teaching plans for the coming year.

My wife Pam and I learned this while visiting Mary Jean and husband Dr. Vincent Alig in 2014, standing on the beachfront below their Harbor Springs home. Vince died the following summer in 2015; we kept in regular touch with Mary Jean until she passed last Friday, Dec. 6, at age 95.

Going back to last week’s column (#943 link) about meeting Vince and Mary Jean in 2002 at the Mustard Seed Bible study Christmas breakfast at Indy’s East 91^st Street Christian Church, that “random” meeting, I believed immediately, was no random thing.  The meeting was a God thing, as I and my family grappled with my mother’s severe health decline. Discovering that day that Mary Jean was “Jeannie” my parents, and especially my mom, had spoken of years before, built a welcome bridge to my mom’s youth.

Jeannie, who went to Tudor Hall, a high school in Indy, had a friend named Fred “Fritz” Leete at Indy’s Park School (now Park-Tudor School), whose family had a multi-home estate (“The Leete Fleet”) down Wawatam Beach from the McKinney place. Mom, dad, and Fritz were friends, and Jeannie stayed with Mom in Mackinaw. Vince, whose family, also from Indy, had a summer home on Walloon Lake (also tip of the ring finger) occasionally visited Mackinaw as well.  Everybody knew everybody along the beach

I learned a lot about my now bed-bound mom I had not known.  Mom, Jeannie said, was the “beach gang” leader-of-the-pack. Her family had a nice Chris-Craft motorboat and Mom led various forays over to Mackinac Island or bombing around the Straits. Jeannie told me she remembers Mom barefoot water skiing – I had no idea – and that Mom would brag about speeding back and forth to Saginaw in her dad’s car (Grandpa Doc was a Saginaw ophthalmologist). I remember a pair of wooden “Cypress Garden” water skis – from Florida – in our Mackinaw cottage garage, supposedly the first skis on the Straits.

The most legendary “Jeannie” story was when the gang climbed one of the 100-foot steel fire towers dotted around heavily forested northern Michigan.  Jeannie got about half way up, just above the tree line, said “that’s enough,” and the guys in the group helped her back down. The towers were still there in the 1970s, 30 years ricketier, and I can vouch that climbing them was a scary if thrilling enterprise.

As Mom lay in an Alpena, Mich., nursing home in late 2002, her broken hip well-healing but cranial vascular leakage causing progressive dementia, Mom immediately smiled when I told her about meeting Mary Jean.  “Oh, that was Jeannie,” Mom said, with a smile that grew larger when I showed her the color photo Mary Jean gave me of the “Sag-a-Mac,” the 1940s McKinney Chris-Craft of Mom’s youth.

This was all such a Christmas blessing.  Mom would pass in March 2003, but my friendship with Vince and Mary Jean grew with visits and Bible studies together. She added a dimension to knowing my own mother I and my siblings had never known. She and Vince encouraged my weekly writings, and I’ll always remember this about Mary Jean: when she prayed, you knew Jesus was in the room. Well done.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) compliments Mary Jean’s wonderful family.  Here is her Obituary.

 

Friends: It was a tough Christmas season in 2002, but an angel named Mary Jean Alig rekindled past, joyful memories of my mother. This will be a two-parter. May your holidays be joyful!  Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #943

December 10, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Who Are You Guys?

By Bob Walters

Twenty-two Decembers ago, in 2002, my mother Ruth McKinney Walters was in a northern Michigan nursing home with a broken hip that healed and general vascular failure that didn’t.  She would pass away in March 2003.

My dad, John Walters, had died from post-surgical complications in September 1991, and both are buried in Mackinaw City, Michigan, where we have had family roots since the early 1900s.  Mom and Dad met in Mackinaw in the 1940s, and our family grew up vacationing there at our cottage on the Straits of Mackinac’s south shore. The cottage is long gone, but Mackinaw City remains a family cornerstone. We visit there yearly and it is an area that “speaks to me” as a beloved lifelong home.

Growing up I heard countless stories, especially on vacation at our cottage – the longtime McKinney summer vacation venue – about Mom’s and Dad’s friends and adventures in their teens and beyond at Mackinaw. They had a fully-functioning “beach gang” several of whom were around in the 1950s and 1960s with kids my age. Mom’s and Dad’s Mackinaw friends, stories, and adventures were legends of my upbringing.

Anyway, in October 2002 Mom had fallen at home and broken her hip.  She lived alone in Alpena in the house where, in 1980, she and Dad had moved from Kokomo, Indiana, where I grew up. Her injury was an awful ordeal; Mom was alone for two days until a waitress at the coffee shop she frequented daily came by to check on her. 

In the intervening months I was back and forth to Alpena often, but mom wasn’t getting better. My brother and sisters and I felt guilty we hadn’t been there, and Mom’s illness intensified my memories of all those old stories of the great times in Mackinaw.

That said … that same December of 2002 I was here in Indianapolis (we lived in Carmel) at a Thursday morning Christmas carry-in breakfast for the “Mustard Seed” Bible study I attended which was taught by beloved retired minister Russ Blowers. The class in those days met Thursday mornings at the Castleton MCL cafeteria, but the breakfast was at our East 91^st Street Christian Church less than a mile away.

Standing in the E91 Friendship Room breakfast line behind an “elderly” couple obviously of my parents’ vintage – roughly the same age I am now – we introduced ourselves.  They were Vincent and Mary Jean Alig.  I said my name was Bob Walters.

“Hmmm,” Mary Jean queried. “Are you related to …,” and I cut her off. “Naw …,” I said.  “I’m not related to anyone named Walters except my immediate family.  My dad was an only child and his dad was an only child and neither was from here.”

As if Jesus had sent a gracious angel, Mary Jean, who appeared to be about my mom’s age (mid-70s), said wistfully, looking at Vincent, “The only Walters we knew was several years ago; Johnny Walters in Mackinaw City, Michigan.”

Stunned … and I mean, truly stunned … I said, “Who are you guys? My dad was John Walters in Mackinaw City, Michigan.” Many years ago.

Turns out, she was Mary Jean Milner, aka, “Jeannie,” whom I’d heard my folks talk about as one of their summertime Mackinaw friends, and also the daughter of long time Indy Second Presbyterian Church minister, Dr. Jean Milner. More next week.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) became fast friends with the Aligs and learned much about his mom’s younger days from Mary Jean, 95, who died Friday, Dec. 6, in Carmel. Her funeral is 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 12, at Legacy Bible Church, Fishers, IN.

 

Friends: 'Talk about Good News … well, here’s some. Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Labels: 2 Timothy 3:16, Bible sales, Circana BookScan Jeffrey Trachtenberg, Pew Research, Wall Street Journal

Spirituality Column #942

December 3, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Booming Bible Sales   

By Bob Walters

“All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” – 2 Timothy 3:16

Speaking of profitable, here is an unexpected headline – and maybe a Christmas gift idea – from the Wall Street Journal this past weekend:

“Sales of Bibles are Booming, Fueled by First-Time Buyers and New Versions.”

For all the non-God cultural lunacy of the past decade or so, not to mention the seemingly monthly negative church polls – thank you, Pew Research – about dwindling attendance, the “Nones,” and diminishing faith of the general population, there is a solid, American uptick in publishing and sales of Christian scripture. I think that is fabulous.

The article by New York City-based WSJ reporter Jeffrey Trachtenberg, whose specialized beat is the print media industry – i.e. books and magazines – displays this sub-head: “Publishers attribute a 22 percent jump in Bible sales this year to rising anxiety, a search for hope, or highly focused marketing and designs.”

Trachtenberg cites a Circana BookScan statistic, showing the 22 percent Bible market gain.  By comparison, total U.S. print book sales were up less than 1 percent in that period. Here is a link to the article: Sales of Bibles Are Booming - WSJ.

In case you can’t get through the Journal’s subscription paywall, let me share some of the story’s quotes and findings, and a few of my own opinions.

For an explanation of the rise in sales, Trachtenberg quotes Jeff Crosby, president of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, “People are experiencing anxiety themselves, or they’re worried for their children and grandchildren.  It’s related to artificial intelligence, election cycles, and all of that feeds a desire for assurance that we’re going to be OK.” Bible sales can signal aggregate hope, too, not only despair.

“Faith & Life” Christian bookstore owner Bethany Martin in Newton, Kan., is quoted that she is selling lots of Bibles to first-time Bible buyers. “They’re looking for hope in the world the way it is, and the Bible is what they’re reaching for.” The store’s website offers more than 270 Bibles, he reports, noting a veritable explosion in color options and custom versions “intended specifically for men and teens and early readers” along with study Bibles and women’s versions. And, “There is a goatskin version priced at $832.50.”  All well and good, but we know the Bible’s value is its truth, not its price.

Without doing a deep-dive into Trachtenberg’s faith life, what I can discern about his reporting is that he is a serious, veteran journalist reporting the facts without editorializing.  He neither trashes nor promotes faith along the way; he writes it straight. 

And that’s fine; it is a rare and laudable, and classical, journalism characteristic.

Without bias or comment, Trachtenberg reports that President-elect Donald Trump, back in March, “endorsed the ‘God Bless the USA Bible,’ which sells online for $59.99 and isn’t included in Circana BookScan figures. Oklahoma’s education department recently purchased more than 500 of those Bibles for local schools, the Tulsa World (newspaper) reported, referencing copies of purchase orders.” No snark.

Trachtenberg cites recent Pew Research data revealing “28 percent of adults in the U.S. consider themselves ‘religiously unaffiliated.’ Yet Bible sales were 9.7 million in 2019, rose to 14.2 million in 2023, and were 13.7 million the first 10 months this year.”

I often say God doesn’t need polls, but strong Bible sales are surely Good News.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) gives the news a “Wow!” With surprise, and hope.