Spirituality Column #737

December 29, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Trust Me on This

By Bob Walters

“He who trusts in himself is a fool.” – Proverbs 28:26

“…the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.” – Romans 9:33 (footnote to Isaiah 8:14, 28:16)

Rarely does a sermon, Bible lesson, or a daily devotional not mention some iteration, backstory, or combination of the notion of trusting in Jesus completely while not trusting in ourselves at all.

This is pervasive, standard issue, Christian advice.  With Christ living in our own individual Christian hearts, we hope Jesus will help us to shine His light of love, caring, and compassion out into the external world.  I can’t help but notice, though, that His bright light also shines into all my own internal darkness. And further, that while His holy light shining into my soul illuminates my sin and error, it doesn’t automatically fix them.

I doubt I’m alone in that observation.

Non-believers in Christ, quasi-believers in Christ, errant believers in Christ, and atheists against any notion of God have the same problem but don’t realize it.  Our human default mode – also a sure sign of our fallenness – is that we are ordained to trust ourselves first: “I believe in me.” Then, once we are rich, smart, good looking, and healthy, we feel competent to demand of God why He allows adversity and injustice: “You, God, can fix everything.  That’s what the Bible says.  So … fix it.”

In my experience, the folks who least understand the Bible and Jesus are often the quickest to blame God for their troubles, trusting Him as nothing more than a temporal Mr. Fix-It.  This isn’t a case of a broken light switch; it is a case of blindness to God’s love, truth, goodness, and ultimate mission of Jesus Christ on earth: God’s glory.

Developing the faith to outsource trust onto something we know but can’t see is a sign of a mature Christian.  Thinking that the grasp and surety of my faith are a function of my ability to put my trust “in” myself and my intellect presents a contradiction of a fairly high and eternally damaging magnitude: We think we are the light.  No. 

Christians spend all this time talking about how much they trust Jesus as their savior, and spend almost as much time worrying about whether they are really saved.  I believe this is the manifestation of the tension we feel between the light of Christ shining outwardly vs. inwardly: of His true worthiness vs. our true unworthiness. 

It’s also a telling gauge of trust: What’s harder to trust than that Jesus would save even a sinner like me?  Being Jesus’s light out into the world while dealing with, addressing, and feeling the shame of what that light makes us see within ourselves seems, at the very least, a bit of a stretch.  Yet, it is the most profound dynamic of hope:

Peace, trust, and deep faith come upon us when we realize it’s all the same light.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures our fallenness is all the same; it’s just easier to judge the world’s than our own.  Good tip: read the surrounding context in the Bible verses listed up top.  “Fool” and “shame” describe permanent, not temporary afflictions.  May we endeavor to be neither in the New Year.

Spirituality Column #736

December 22, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Part 2: What’s Left Unsaid Is …

By Bob Walters

“The shepherds returned [to their flocks], glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.” – Luke 2:20

These gleeful shepherds who had just seen the baby Jesus would have been horrified shepherds if the popular Christmas birth-of-Jesus narrative were true.

Not horrified or fearful of the angel who spoke to them, nor of seeing, well, God in a feeding trough. No, if they knew Mary and Joseph had been refused hospitality and then left alone in a stable or cave to fend for themselves in childbirth? Impossible.  Even these poor shepherds would not have let that happen, or let them stay alone in a stable.

That would not have happened anywhere at that time in that culture: not in Bethlehem, not among the rich or the poor, and certainly not to a family of “the house and lineage of David” in “the town of David.” (Luke 2:4).  In that town Joseph, basically, was a royal and would have been welcomed into any home in Bethlehem.  Likely, he had a plan to stay with family or friends … the Bible doesn’t tell us if he did or didn’t.

Let’s take a brief, issue-by-issue look at the words of Luke 2 and the birth of Jesus through the lens of Middle Eastern cultural expert Ken Bailey’s book, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes.  Cultural context answers (and poses) many questions.

- The Trip (v4): “Nazareth up to Bethlehem…”  That’s a 91-mile trip south though farmland but “up” into the Judean hill country, not far from Hebron where pregnant Mary had traveled 90 miles to visit Elizabeth for three months, then returned home. (Luke 1:39, 56). I notice nowhere does the Bible say Joseph and Mary traveled to Bethlehem alone, so perhaps others from Nazareth went, too.  I’d have organized it for Mary to stay with Elizabeth and meet Joseph in Bethlehem 1. to hide her pregnancy from Nazareth and 2. to save Mary, basically, two 90-mile trips in late pregnancy.  Nobody asked me.

- Birth time? (v5): “While they were there the days were accomplished …” We mentioned this last week.  Very plainly, Jesus was not born the night they arrived.

- The “Inn” (v6): “no room for them in the inn…”  “Inn” here means an extra room in someone’s home (Greek word katalymati is a spare room, not a hotel), adjacent to or above a home’s main living area.  The “stable” would be a lower, open area on one end of the house where animals at night were kept inside for protection from thieves and the warmth for the family. A manger would have been in there; warm and well-attended. The home’s “spare room” evidently was already occupied.

- Manger (v7): – That’s an animal eating trough, either a stand or possibly a bowl dug into the floor of the main room adjacent to where the animals were kept at night.

- Birth attendants: As was custom nearly everywhere in the world, local women would have taken care of the pregnant Mary.  Men would have been cleared out of the main room of the house where the birth took place while various women attended to Mary and the newborn. Then, as was every baby of that time, Jesus would have been swaddled – v7 says “[by] Mary” and, in that circumstance, laid in the warm hay of the nearby manger because “there was no room in the inn [guest area]” of the house.

- Born at night? (v8): The Bible says the angel visited the shepherds at night, not that Jesus was born at night.  However, in v11, the angel says Jesus was “…born this day …” which could very well imply nighttime, since Jewish “days” started at sundown.

- The Shepherds 1 (v8-15): The lowliest of peasants, the shepherds were the first to be visited by the angel.  Note that it was not the Jewish leaders who were notified.

- The Shepherds 2: The shepherds (v9) were “terrified,” then the angel says “fear not.”  Why is that important? Because, as St. Jerome in the fourth century pointed out, when you are terrified you do not understand what somebody is trying to say to you.  The angel wanted the shepherds to calm down, listen to his message, and understand.  That “glory of the Lord” display (v9), I’m sure, would likely take anyone’s breath away.

- The Shepherds 3: They were first to learn, and it’s critically significant, that “a savior has been born unto you … he is Christ that Lord” (v11). “Unto you” is personal.

- The Shepherds 4: Their sign (v12) that the shepherds would find their savior in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes, was also critical. Why?  Because this told the shepherds that the savior / Christ / Lord – anticipated by the whole Jewish nation – was humbly one of them. The fact they could go visit the Messiah in a common home in a common manger among common people would bring the shepherds great joy; it meant they were not separated from God by their lowly station in life.

- The Shepherds 5: That the shepherds visited Jesus and then (v17-18) “spread the word about Jesus’s birth, the angel’s visit to them, and all they had “heard and seen” is rich with meaning.  They had understood what the angel told them.  On the authority of that angel, the shepherds told “others” what Mary and Joseph likely would have been reluctant to tell them: that the baby Jesus was the Messiah.  It was only the shepherds who the Bible identifies as the initial spreaders of this news.  Even Mary “pondered [these things] in her heart” (v19).  And the fact that the shepherds had “others” to tell suggests strongly that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were not alone.

- The Shepherds 6: The shepherds returned to their flocks in the fields, “glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen” (v20). These shepherds had just been trusted with telling the truth of Jesus’s mission to fulfil God’s salvation of mankind, and whether they understood the full impact of that is hard to say.  But what we can say is that not only were they rejoicing to God; they were satisfied that the village had provided adequate and maybe even laudable care and hospitality amid this birth.  Culturally, that’s something the shepherds would have insisted on and understood,

What’s left for us to understand is to rejoice and praise God, too. What’s left unsaid is that we aren’t meant to be Jesus; we are meant to be shepherds

Say what you will, I’m pretty sure that is the true meaning of Christmas.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes a few other things: 1. Some Bibles say they went to Bethlehem to be taxed (KJV), for a census (NIV), or to be registered (ESV).  It’s all the same Greek root word “apographe.” 2. Jerusalem was also known as the City of David. 3. Nobody knows the exact date of Jesus’s birth; but everyone agrees it was not December 25, and not the year “0000.”  4. The Wise Men showed up months later (Matthew 2:1-12).  5. Everybody tries to explain the Star in terms of astronomy (like the Saturn-Jupiter confluence this week); maybe God just put it there … like the Bible says. 

Spirituality Column #735

December 15, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Part 1: What’s Left Unsaid Is …

By Bob Walters

“The shepherds returned [to their flocks], glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.” – Luke 2:20

I love the warm-fuzzies of the Christmas season, and especially the King James Bible’s beautiful story of the birth of Jesus in Luke 2.  Like the company of angels in Luke 2:14, we should all be “praising God in the highest” and praying for peace over all the earth.  The decorations, music, traditions, my own memories … I love it all.

I also get a real kick out of filling in all the blanks that exist within not just the Bible story of “Christmas” – a word which does not appear in the Bible – but also sorting through truth and legend of what happened in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.  God sent to us the most powerful message possible: He sent Himself.  And the message truly did reside in the medium – a humble, helpless baby whose love and obedience would change all humanity in grace and faith … forever. 

There are very few biblical specifics about the birth.  It gets half a verse in Matthew 2:1, and then half a chapter in Luke 2:4-20. Yet there is so much we think we know that isn’t so, because we don’t know that culture. We know it happened.  That’s it.

Around 200 A.D. an anonymous non-Palestinian wrote a story, in Greek, titled The Protevangelium of James about the birth of Jesus.  It is from that story, not the Bible, that we get most of what we think we know about the birth of Jesus in (or near) Bethlehem, and most of it is wrong. 

There’s the story about Mary going into labor on the journey, Joseph putting her in a cave, and Mary, a scared teenager, giving birth by herself.  That notion took hold in the traditions of the Eastern Church, and that is the story in the Protevangelim.

Or, Joseph and Mary make it to Bethlehem in the nick of time and because there was “no room in the inn” (Luke 2:7) – which when translated properly means “extra room,” not “hotel room” – Jesus was in a handy “barn.”  Um, they didn’t have “barns.”

We are also led to believe this was a hurried trip with little planning and no provisions for lodging, that Joseph and Mary showed up unannounced as strangers, and they were either purposely shunned or coldly left unattended by everyone in the town of Bethlehem as Mary went into labor upon (or shortly before) arrival.  No.

Let’s address just one very obvious biblical detail.  Luke 2:6 – again in the beautiful language of the King James, states – “And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she [Mary] should be delivered…”  Jesus was born days after they got to Bethlehem, not as an emergency delivery upon arrival. 

Next week we’ll look briefly at other specifics of Joseph, Mary, the trip, their accommodations, the “inn”, the shepherds, the angels, the animals, and the culture itself.  It’s been a couple of years since I’ve mentioned Kenneth Bailey’s wonderful book, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, which provides realistic cultural context to the Bible’s very brief announcement of this world-altering event.

The Bible is true and accurate, and often says more than we may realize.  Plus, what’s left unsaid is sometimes historically knowable and downright fascinating.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) and his wife Pam decorate extensively for Christmas.

Spirituality Column #734

December 8, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Keeping It Together

By Bob Walters

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts,” – Isaiah 55:9

This verse is as plain as anything in the Bible: God is not something we will completely understand because we are not built to.

That said, we can know Him through Jesus Christ and the illumination of the Holy Spirit.  It takes faith, obedience … and some knowledge certainly helps.  But folks work harder at Christianity than they really need to because they constantly try to split, divide, and specifically define things that – I’m pretty sure – God intended to be understood as “whole cloth,” not random remnants.  He’s the whole ball game; not innings or quarters.

In a religion of unity, Christianity is often a religion that divides.  For example …

God - The complete undivided God is the Father-Son-Spirit Trinity.  God exists as this all-in-all relationship of love. No need to pursue three goals.  God’s math doesn’t just add, it multiplies: 1 x 1 x 1 is still 1.  Pray to one, you’ve covered them all.

Love – C.S. Lewis famously wrote of the “Four Loves” – eros (passion), philia, (brotherhood), storge (parents for children), and agape (God’s love).  As humans we feel the need to decide which love is holy and which love is not.  I’m here to disagree.  In the New Testament’s great passages on love – 1 Corinthians 13, 1 John, and all four Gospels where we are to “love God and love others” – there is not a word about sex or appetites, just warnings about worldly pursuits.  God’s love is best understood as whole.  Humans see love in complex human terms; real love is the simple way God sees it.

Truth – Culture insists we split up truth into as many individual parts as possible.  Then Satan takes the toxic bits and infects all society with confusion and division.  “My truth” and “your truth” are sucker gambits.  “I am the way, and the truth and the life” says Jesus (John 14:6).  Get your facts straight, sure; but God’s truth is the only one.

The Law – Paul was a Pharisee who Jesus told to spread the Truth to gentiles; Jesus never told Paul to teach the Law to gentiles.  Why?  Because the Old Testament Mosaic Law applied to the Jews. Jesus, not the Law, fulfilled Israel’s destiny of saving the entire world.  Christians cling to OT laws, I think, to have rules to follow. The Westminster Confession (England, 1647) famously split the Law into Moral, Judicial, and Ceremonial segments; but neither Jesus nor Paul preached that. Jesus’s “law” tells us to love God and love others, period.  We don’t need the old Law to love Jesus.

Forgiveness – It is OK for words to mean many different human things in many different contexts, but the forgiveness of Christ – our sins covered by the blood of Jesus restoring our divine relationship with the eternal God – is totally a God thing.  We cannot forgive another’s sins against God; but we are called to forgive worldly offenses against ourselves.  That’s not for the sake of the oppressor; it is to maintain our peace in Jesus.

Freedom – Jesus frees us from the Law because He completed God’s promise to Israel that they were the chosen nation God would use for the salvation of “the whole world.”  Israel didn’t realize this made them servants (like Jesus), not masters.  In the Bible “freedom” doesn’t mean freedom from responsibility; it means the freedom to have faith and to love God and others in obedience to Jesus’s command to do exactly that.

Division is the most confusing and destructive thing humanity faces, while the wholeness of God is meant to be the most comforting, creative, and coherent.

We may be flawed and fallen pieces, but God’s love, in Jesus, keeps us together.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) thinks puzzles with fewer pieces are easier to finish.

Spirituality Column #733

December 1, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Still Waiting

By Bob Walters

“Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.” – from the hymn.

It’s a wasted day when one learns nothing new, and Sunday I learned that the current Christian season of “Advent” wasn’t originally about Christmas.  Who knew?

I, for one, did not.  The church I attend, like most independent, Bible-based Christian churches, does not observe an “ecclesial” (church) or “liturgical” (doctrine) calendar as do the Catholics, Orthodox, and many mainline protestant churches.  Growing up in the protestant Episcopal church (which honestly is more Catholic than protestant but that’s a history lesson for another day), I knew that “Advent” led up to Christmas and “Lent” led up to Easter.  As a kid, Advent meant you were going to get presents; Lent meant you had to give something up.  I liked Advent better.

My current church considers Christmas, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, and of course Sundays to be special days. However, the New Testament says nothing about observing any festivals, feasts, or holy days; none – those are all church tradition.  By the book, i.e., the Bible, all that stuff is fulfilled in Jesus Christ who is with us all the time.

There is also nothing in the Bible about naming saints (it says all believers are saints) or even going to church on Sunday.  Gathering to celebrate the “Lord’s Day” commemorating Jesus’s Resurrection on the first day of the week was a custom among the earliest Christians. The rest are practices and traditions that grew over time.

Advent is one of those that began around 400 A.D.  In our church it is observed informally as a convenient way to package pre-Christmas events.  No harm done.  But just as people have a largely inaccurate perception of how Christmas has developed and been celebrated through the years (also a history lesson for another day) Advent – and I had to look it up – had nothing to do with Christmas until the Middle Ages.

Christmas celebrates the Godly truth and hope embodied – incarnated, actually – in Jesus’s birth.  Advent – from the Latin adventus, or “coming” – at first was a 40-day prep period for the “coming” of new Christians who would be baptized at the January 6 “Feast of the Epiphany,” which celebrates the Magi (Wise Men) visiting Jesus.  Around 600 A.D. Roman Christians tied Advent to Jesus – i.e., Emmanuel – “coming back” as promised to set all things right with the world (Revelation 21). 

“Advent,” now ending on Christmas Eve and covering the four Sundays prior to it, was mentioned at our church Sunday regarding upcoming charitable and service activities.  It was accurately described as a time of reflection on the past (Jesus’s birth), the present (loving our fellow man), and – new info to me – the future (Jesus’s return).

Upon hearing that, here’s where my mind went.  It took Moses two trips down the mountain with the tablets of the Ten Commandments – he dropped and broke the first set.  Israel waited centuries for the arrival of its Messiah Christ … and then killed Him.

Now, 2,000 years after Jesus went to the cross, covered our sins, initiated God’s Kingdom on earth, paved our way to Heaven, and in His resurrection established the new covenant of salvation by faith – did all that – humans still don’t have it right.

It’ll take Jesus one more trip and here we are, still waiting.  Come Lord … soon.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that the 12 Days of Christmas ("Christmastide" on the ecclesial calendar) are Dec. 25-Jan.6. 

 Spirituality Column #732

November 24, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Simple as That

By Bob Walters

“I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.” – John 17:4, Jesus praying to God shortly before the crucifixion.

My ears reflexively perk up when I hear someone say they are going to explain the meaning of life.  Most often, I also wind up shaking my head.

Such was the case recently when a radio talk show caller lavished praise on the host for fulfilling “the meaning of life,” which the caller assuredly defined as “having a positive effect on others.”  That’s certainly a wonderful compliment.  It’s also pretty good as a life’s goal for a person and a healthy encouragement for the larger community.

“Having a positive effect on others.” Simple.  Active.  Unselfish.  Not bad.

And woefully short of the runway.  If one is going to philosophically “land the plane” describing the “meaning of life,” all conversation will remain “up in the air” until it is incontrovertibly understood that God is in fact not only the destination airport but the plane, the air, the people, the beginning, the end, the altitude, the weather …

God is the whole ball game.  And this is where I wound up shaking my head.

The well-spoken, intelligent-sounding caller described himself as an executive who had lost his job in March soon after Covid gripped the country.  Since then he had begun his own podcast, and just wanted to tell the radio talk show host, who by the way was Rush Limbaugh, how he had been inspired by him and prayed for him (Rush has cancer).  The caller/podcaster also mentioned he had once “studied to be a priest.”

“Priest.”  We assume that means “Roman Catholic,” but it could mean Orthodox or Episcopal which also ordain “priests.” Anyway, he now spoke of philosophy, not God.

The reason I bring this up is because human philosophy will never bring us to the truth of the meaning of life.  The Greeks couldn’t do it.  The Enlightenment couldn’t do it.  And you’ll notice what’s missing from this fellow’s particular definition of “life’s meaning” is any mention of God, who actually is the truth of the meaning of life.  I found that oversight curious for someone who studied, I’m still assuming, for the Christian clergy.

Simple is good, though.  And helping others / being a positive influence on others is good, too.  That much is correct.  Jesus told us to love others; but He also told us to love God.  God told us to love God.  Those are central messages of the Bible.

In the “priestly prayer” of John 17, quoted above, notice that the work of Jesus’s life among humanity was to glorify God.  Before God, Jesus prayed this for himself just prior to his arrest, trial, passion on the cross, death, burial, and resurrection. His perfect purpose was to reveal God’s love to the fallen world in the form of hope for all humanity, our adoption into God’s Kingdom, and this demonstration of unprecedented and ultimate humility, obedience, and service to the Glory of God.  That is a life’s purpose.

In a three part series I wrote in August 2018 (search my blog here, on the right side, click on 2018, then click August, columns #'s 613, 614, 615), I went into some detail about how I think there is too much self-directed, information-demanding, and un-trusting “Me” in the “Meaning of Life,” i.e., “Explain this so I can believe.”

I think the better question is, “What is life’s purpose?”  That expresses, “I trust you, God.  What do you want me to do?  Show me how to love you and love others.” 

Jesus is our model, and the answer is simple: Life’s purpose is to Glorify God.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is thankful for the wonder of God’s simplicity.

 Spirituality Column #731

November 17, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Don’t Miss the Bus

By Bob Walters

True story.  In the cold, pre-dawn January school-bus-route darkness along an Indiana country road, there appeared in the bus’s headlights a two-year-old child in pajamas …

Walking alone.

The unlit, two-lane road had a row of houses along one side, a stretch of field on the other, and beyond the field was a park with the child’s destination: a playground.  As her parents slept, the early-rising child opened an exterior door left unlatched when her teen brother headed to high school that morning. She made it down the driveway, across the road, and almost into the snow-scattered field. In frozen, 15-degree weather.

The child’s white-ish PJs served as the saving, noticeable beacon for the driver who conceded it was a God-thing not only that she saw the shadowy and barely visible image of the child, and but for a few seconds’ timing, didn’t run over her in the road.

The bus, loaded with junior high students, came to an immediate stop. Two sisters who lived nearby had just boarded the bus but didn’t recognize the child. At the driver’s direction, and with the bus’s red lights and stop arms flashing, the sisters retrieved the child, wrapped her in their jackets, and brought her onto the warm bus.

After several bus-to-HQ-to-police radio calls, the police took the child and knocked on doors until they found the parents, still asleep and completely unaware.

I know Denise the bus driver, and I heard her radio calls aboard the bus I drove that morning. The next year, routing changed and I had those two compassionate, life-saving sisters on my bus.  Denise and those girls saved that child’s and family’s life.

This presents something of a parable or a metaphor for how limited our view often is regarding the overall work of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God.  And I don’t mean simply: “Look how Jesus saved that child!”  No, it’s bigger than that.

For the rest of that child’s life and those of his parents, the story of how many different ways the school bus saved her that morning will be an intimate piece of their shared family narrative.  They will thank God, the bus driver, those sisters, and all involved that the child didn’t freeze to death, wasn’t struck on the road, didn’t encounter the wild foxes that populate that area, and wasn’t befallen by any other calamity.

The story for the child will be: “I was saved by a school bus.”  The brother escaped a lifetime of crushing guilt.  None in the family will ever look at a school bus the same way again, nor likely give much thought to everything else the school bus does.  Saving that child was huge, but only an incidental part of the bus’s overall purpose.

In the same way, many, many Christians look at Jesus Christ and thank Him for saving “me” – my forgiveness and cleansing from sin, for heaven and eternal life – without deeply, reverently, and in awe realizing and thanking Him for the totality of what His life, death, resurrection, and obedience to His mission mean for the entire cosmos. 

Jesus initiated God’s Kingdom on earth.  He restored our created and intimate relationship with God. He gifted us with the Holy Spirit to be among us in knowledge, hope, comfort, faith, and courage.  He taught us how to live for God’s glory, and that our loving, good God is a servant to us as we are to be to others. He is truth and authority.

We kind of miss the bus if we think Jesus’s only job was securing our salvation.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), in retirement, has driven a school bus since 2012.

Spirituality Column #730

November 10, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

‘I Want To Know What It Means’

By Bob Walters

"I have had a dream that troubles me and I want to know what it means." King Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 2:3

"...there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries." Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 2:28

Anybody have anything troubling them these days that seems to elude prayerful peace and understanding?

I know … we are all trying – trying to pray our way to peace, to understanding, and to find a Christ-like and God-pleasing proper response and resolution to all that is happening around us.  And to keep the water as clear as possible, I am not going to be specific here about worldly, contemporary, and monumental issues that may very well change the landscape of our civic lives.

Anything I say can and will be held against me … by somebody.

That’s not out of fear, but purpose.  Political views tend to obscure Bible focus.

So, I’m curious if I’m the only one who seems to be on the inbound “Book of Daniel” hotline.  Daniel has been our sermon series at church the past few weeks.  Facebook seems lit up with Daniel posts relating to faith, leadership, and civic governance.  Random articles, Christian media references, private messages, and even a couple of texts have mentioned the Old Testament book.  My hunch is that it’s a God-wink, not just some cosmic push to teach me how to spell “Nebuchadnezzar” properly.

My mission at this moment is not to tell you about Daniel but to invite / urge you to go read about Daniel – in the Bible – and here’s why.  Spending some time in Daniel, especially chapters 2, 3, 6, and 7, may well serve to unlock your intellect to allow the Holy Spirit into your prayers, thoughts, and discernment in an especially relevant way.    

I am not a big believer that Old Testament prophecy has value beyond predicting the coming of Jesus, the fulfillment of Israel, the completion of God’s covenant, and the perfection of God’s promises.  I am, though, a stout devotee of and have no reservations about the infinite, eternal truth of the Old Testament as it pertains to the creativity and character of God, the glories and flaws (mainly flaws) of man, and Satan’s abiding threat.  I honestly don’t have any notion that it tells us who wins elections.

That said, I have a foot in each Babylonian camp regarding our U.S. presidential election.   Like Nebuchadnezzer, “I want to know what it means.” Like Daniel, I know “there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.”

So far my favorite Christian “take” was this Facebook post, “If you end up with a Nebuchadnezzer as president, be a Daniel.” That was Karley Campbell, who late last week composed a wistful homily on Daniel and his friends condemned to the fire:

“… Three times a day he knelt there in prayer, thanking and praising God,” she wrote. “Their leader didn’t follow God.  Their faith and the culture they were placed in collided [but] … They were steadfast, grounded.  They were strong and determined to follow the Lord obediently regardless of the outcome!”  It was a great post. Look for it.

Let Daniel’s faith stir thoughts and prayerful discernment for today.  I did. It tuned me to “the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:14), and that really helped.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) urges all to keep their swords of the spirit sharp.

Spirituality Column #729

November 3, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

About Those Two Thieves    

By Bob Walters

“Who ARE those guys?” – Dialogue spoken by both Butch Cassidy AND the Sundance Kid as the posse closed in on them in the 1969 movie of the same name.

Two thieves.

No, we’re not talking about any particular candidates on this election day nor, actually, about Butch and Sundance – two thieves of the American old west circa 1900.

We are talking about the two “thieves” crucified with Jesus.  Who were they?

Nobody knows, but I do have a theory.  And there is one thing about the two thieves that we do know: there is no agreement in the Gospels (Matthew 27:38 and Luke 19:39-44) or anywhere in the Bible for that matter, that they were “thieves.”

In the (old) King James Version, Matthew does call them “thieves,” but the New King James Version translates the Greek noun lestai, as do many other versions, as “robbers.”  My NIV and other versions say “rebels.”  The ESV says “robbers,” NASB says “rebels” and NASB1995 says “robbers.”  Chalk “thieves” up to Church tradition.

In Luke, the Greek adjective kakourgon (23:39) is translated as “malefactors” in the KJV but “criminals” in most others.  Funny how the whole world came to know these two guys as thieves, but they obviously were something far worse in the eyes of Rome.

One reason we know that is because Romans did not crucify thieves; they crucified insurrectionists and murderers – those rebels and revolutionaries who threatened or challenged the power of Rome.  They crucified people like Barabbas – pardoned by Pilate and replaced by Jesus – who was to be on the third cross that day.

My long time Bible mentor George Bebawi always counsels against putting too much stock in a single word in scripture, instead being careful to consider context, themes, metaphors, allegories, and the larger truth of Jesus’s mission – e.g., He was the son of God come to fulfill Israel, initiate God’s Kingdom on earth, prove the reality of a loving and glorious God, and to hasten the gift of the Holy Spirit onto mankind.

A helpful note in the “Expanded Bible,” which George affirmed (George is a multi-lingual Bible translator), is that “robber” was a Roman term that also meant rebels, revolutionaries, brigands, and insurrectionists, i.e., people who “robbed” Roman power.

Anyway, I was preparing notes last week for the Thursday morning Bible study I teach (“Words of Jesus,” we’re up to the Cross).  Look at the “crowd” that showed up at Pilate’s to shout for Barabbas’s release; evidently separate from the Jewish leaders clamoring for Jesus’s crucifixion.  Then at the cross, there is the “crowd” that wasn’t the Jewish leaders, nor were they the few Jesus followers – Mary, John, a couple others.  But I wondered why those “other” people were there.  Did they know the “two thieves”? 

Then notice the “good” thief’s words of rebuke to the “bad” thief, “We are punished justly,” (Luke 23:41), and I got to thinking.  It appears the Romans were prepared for three crucifixions that day.  So … perhaps the thieves – under “the same sentence” (23:40) with each other – were co-conspirators, “lieutenants” in rebellion with the person who actually was supposed to be on the third cross that day: Barabbas.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that the three crosses comprised an apt, divine metaphor for the world: God (sinless Jesus) and two sinners: one who believed and one who did not.  Funny, Adam got kicked out of paradise; next man in was a thief.

Spirituality Column #728

October 27, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Knowing What Isn’t So

By Bob Walters

“… you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.” – John 7:52, Pharisees rebuking Nicodemus for daring to remind them that their law applies to Jesus, too.

You have to be careful about what you say to whom these days.

Whether politics or pandemics, economics or environment, gender or justice, patriotism or wokeness, religion or the Supreme Court, which lives matter or which lives don’t, public discourse is an endless minefield of truth-or-dare when we open our mouth or hit “send” on a post.  Then as now, it was the same risky idea for Nicodemus.

Unwelcome opinions guarantee a dangerous swim in roiling, unknown waters.

If there is no other lesson from the Bible – although I assure you there are many – it is that as much as humanity has “progressed” in the past 2,000 years, mankind is still basically the same. Technology is amazing; man’s proclivity to deceive is mystifying.

Nicodemus … I just love Nicodemus.  I ache for Nicodemus.  I think he truly “got it” – after a time – that Jesus was exactly who He said He was, acted like He was, and represented what He was – the Son of God, the promised Messiah, the saving Christ.

Nicodemus sensed that perhaps the prevailing Pharisaic narrative on this “Galilean” speaking so much distasteful opinion just might have an “in” on divine truth.

Jesus indeed was the fulfillment of God’s prophetic promise to reign in the whole world, over all people, through the Jewish nation and out into all the earth.  Just like the Pharisees mistakenly thought the Messiah would be a conquering soldier to kill the Romans and make the Jews the world’s most power nation, today we think Jesus came to solve our problems, heal our ills, give us stuff, free-pass our sins, and save us into heaven because by golly, we are that important.  And we ARE that important.

But not like we think. Turns out, in capital-T Truth, God’s glory is that important.

It was to the curious, highly-educated, surprise visitor Nicodemus the Pharisee, in the deep of night, that Jesus privately said the words we now know as John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”  Nicodemus had ears but didn’t hear.

The Pharisees had their narrative on Jesus almost exactly backwards.  It was Jesus’s truth that would truly fulfill the Law and save all who believe.  But it was their own destructive Pharisaical narrative they obeyed.  They were in gravest error.

John 7:52 (top) offers a seemingly minor point about Galilee, but it’s an egregious error similar to the many public narrative lies we are fed today.  In the temple the Pharisees “knew” a narrative that wasn’t so: that Jesus came from Galilee.  In truth, as prophecy said and they should have known, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. 

It was truth they ignored; a detail left unchecked.  The pious Pharisees were so darkened by their self-serving narrative that they missed God’s true light of the world.

Jesus came to initiate God’s Kingdom on earth; to fulfil the God-promised, prophetic purpose to bring the Jewish nation and all humanity back into His glory by the work, obedience, and covering of their sin by Jesus. The Messiah God, it turns out, was a loving, humble, servant of others; not a strong-armed tyrant or marauding earthly king.

The lesson is that the truth may not come from where – or be what – we expect.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) encourages all to vote with discernment.  Amen.

 Spirituality Column #727

October 20, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Spirit with a Capital S

By Bob Walters

On a recent, breezy evening at an outdoor celebration, I met a devout man of another faith and engaged in a leisurely and thoroughly enjoyable conversation.

Without argument, suspicion, or disagreement, we discovered much about each other’s lives, families, professions, confessions, and priorities, and encouraged each other in our separate but sincere and life-defining faiths.  Laying aside – ignoring, really – any hint of doctrinal testing or competition for God’s larger favor, we spoke as men and brothers seeking only friendship while sharing mutual respect.  Truly a conversation to reflect on. 

How rare.  What a joy. 

Our chief point of agreement, exposed mid-conversation, was how faith means nothing if it doesn’t first inspire us to love, serve, and generally get along with and nurture our fellow human beings.  God is honored when our relationships reflect freedom, joy, and responsibility, not control, fear, and irresponsibility. 

Much of society seems to have lost especially that part about responsibility.  And a large swath of many different religions, sects, denominations, etc., have redefined freedom as “doing what I want” and “demanding what I get for free.”  This first priority of using and defending freedom to honor God is lost on a secular world of physical desires, human lusts, power plays, fear of death, and contrived spirituality (small “s”).

Freedom is an act of our own will, yes, but it is will freely bestowed by the true God.  We have to aspire to freedom: to seek it, discipline ourselves for it, and prioritize our desires to nurture, share, and respect freedom.  Passive human acceptance of the self-centered but self-defeating ill-behavior of others is not freedom; it is enablement, and never brings joy. 

Happiness and pleasure, maybe; or quite possibly misery and despair.  Not joy.

The default, natural posture of our fallen humanity is to be taken care of, as we are taken care of as young children.  The importance of parents – the moral guideline of raising children – is to instill the desire for freedom, to teach responsibility, to seek the creative and the kind.  It works well in America.  Throughout the Bible we learn, from God’s view, “what works best” for linking God’s true Spirit with man’s God-installed will.

And that is called “God’s love.”  God sent Jesus Christ to be sure we knew that. 

Faith is the trip-wire for understanding God’s intentions.  The purpose of God’s will that we learn in and through Jesus Christ is not only to find comfort and confidence in the truth and proven existence of God, but to dedicate our energies and purpose, with obedience and responsibility – and Spirit – to spending our freedom on God’s glory.

I hope I see my new friend again sometime.  Due to geography, jobs, and relational degrees of separation, our paths would not naturally cross.  And, it is unlikely our families would worship together, but that’s OK.  I deeply thank God for the lesson of how close we can be to, and to love, all God’s people; there is no one He didn’t create.

In this season of wide civic dissension, it was a joyful reminder of God’s grace.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is cheerier talking about Jesus than about politics.

Spirituality Column #726

October 13, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Sailing the Ocean Blue

By Bob Walters

In terms of the biggest of big, divine pictures – humanity’s relationship with God – I like to joke (and oversimplify) that the Bible’s Old Testament tells us the problem, and the New Testament tells us the fix.

Or: In the Old we see what doesn’t work; in the New we see what does work.

Let’s quickly define a couple of terms.  The “problem,” you likely guessed, is sin.  True, but “sin” isn’t isolated to our bad behaviors; sin defeats our ability to glorify God.  That’s the real problem.  So, the point is hardly just “my sin;” the point is that we’ve allowed Satan to interrupt the central purpose of created human life: to glorify God.

The “fix,” as you also likely figured out, is Jesus Christ.  For God’s Kingdom to be initiated on earth among the sinful generations, God – because of His foreknowledge and perfect righteousness – had to “fix” the “problem” of our sin.  Enter Jesus, who in His death defeated our “death” by covering our sins with His blood and that “worked” because Jesus is God.

Voila, or, voici le fixe! God’s righteousness rescues us from death and restores us lovingly to His Kingdom by covering our sins.  Jesus is Lord, we are loved, and God is glorified by our belief that Jesus is who He said He is, the Son of God.

Simple enough, right?  All is forgiven.  Really.  Done deal.  Pray continually.

Now, let’s look at one specific thing in the Old Testament that, while smaller than all humanity’s relationship with God, was a huge mistake the Jews made regarding their relationship with the One True God who chose them as His people.

God was Lord; He had bestowed on Israel judges, but the Jews wanted an earthly king.  Here the Creator of All Things chose them as His avenue to establishing His eternal kingdom on earth, and they said, “Great, but we want our own King.  Could we have one please?”  You can read all about it in the Bible’s 1^st and 2^nd Samuel.

What that showed was – and is – fallen humanity’s reluctance to accept God as “King.” So, we make our own kings and, through all human history, the “king” thing – whether Jewish, Christian, secular, pharaohs, or whatever – never really worked great as it related to human freedom.  Earthly kings tend to take control, not give freedom.

Jesus’s death “freed” us from our sins and, in that freedom within God’s kingdom and the shelter of Jesus identifiable through our faith in Christ, are unleashed our creativity, responsibility, aspirations, love, and imago dei (“image of God”) born in each human soul glorifying God.  We live this life, thanks to Jesus, equipped with the truth of the divine God, not an earthly king.  God’s glory is eternal and His alone.

Believe it or not, this all came to me as I was thinking about Columbus Day.  We have mostly lost the federal holiday (except closing the post office and banks) – and vilified Christopher Columbus – because of contemporary, politically correct, diversity and identity politics-generated earthly sensitivities about whether Europeans should have even settled America and Columbus’s later rumored dalliance in the slave trade.

In 1492 Columbus, an Italian Christian, “sailed the ocean blue” west across the Atlantic Ocean on a mission funded by Christians – King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain.  Their treasury had just become healthy after winning Spain’s war against the invading Moors (Muslims), and upon his second asking bestowed Columbus with funds to seek new trade routes to India and spread Christianity to whomever he encountered.

That was the horizon-chasing, seafaring Italian’s mission: discovery, trade, and – key point – to be a witness for Christianity to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).   

At that time and before, every continent and most cultures on earth held, traded, or sold human slaves in some fashion.  Earthly kings were fine with it.  Few if any had stepped up and forcefully said, “This is wrong.”  Not the famous kings, queens, great empires, military powers, and significantly – you never hear this – not the church.

Slavery as a practice continued throughout the first millennium and a half of the Christian era.  Neither Rome nor Constantinople ended it, and throughout the Bible there are many forms of slavery that were accepted as normal practice.  People commonly were cast or sold themselves into slavery to resolve debts or gain work. War prisoners often became slaves.  Even the Apostle Paul was a “slave of Christ.”  We find it impolite to say “slave,” but in Paul’s sense each of us is a slave to, or servant of, that which we most love and freely dedicate our lives; the purpose that brings joy and peace.

But there is a very, very, biblically wrong slavery, and that is the kind we’re talking about that happened in Africa with the trans-Atlantic (to the Americas) and trans-Saharan (to the middle east) trade.  One African tribe would capture another African tribe and sell them to foreign slave traders for profit.  That type of slavery, wherever it happens, deeply angers God and we see that in the Old Testament in Amos 1:6:

“I will not turn my back on my wrath, because [Gaza] took captive whole communities and sold them to Edom. I will send fire up the walls of Gaza that will consume her fortresses.”

Before Columbus’s memory fully goes over infamy’s horizon, let’s look at what happened scarcely 200 years after his first journey in the wild and wide-open land that was called the New World.  The earthly kings were an ocean away, and the ensuing settlers brought with them the hope of religious and specifically Christian freedom.

How was slavery “abolished”?  It is astounding what God can use and what He can do when earthly kings get out of the way and people with faith in Jesus Christ work in faith to recognize God’s will and nurture God’s kingdom. Even if it takes a while.

The first salvo came from the early American Quakers who penned “The 1688 Germantown Petition against Slavery.”  There were no monarchs in America, and over the next 100 years the lifeforce of human equality and the Holy Spirit began to take hold here in revival and awakenings.  The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution came into being.  Monarchial England soon bought into abolition thanks to William Wilberforce.  In another 100 years, a civil war in America had been fought and won.  While many problems were not solved, the righteousness of God and the faith of free Christians fueled the abolition of slavery.  Reviled Columbus had opened the door.

All of this Christian work and fruit, crazily, happened even as the ascendant and then dominant Western philosophy was the Enlightenment’s quasi-Christian, secular humanist agnosticism.  Go figure.  Today I lament the apathy and ill-intent of education that has led culture-wide to disappearing general knowledge of and dying appreciation for both U.S. history and Christianity.  It is a fascinating, enriching legacy we are losing.

Columbus wasn’t perfect but I am deeply thankful for the broken road that led to the American opportunities and freedom we enjoy.  Even as a citizen of heaven, I pray for our earthly nation to revere its foundation a lot more and shun Jesus a lot less. 

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that earthly kings are never the answer because their human fallenness is always a problem.  The fix, always, is Jesus.

Spirituality Column #725

October 6, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Pray Some More

By Bob Walters

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” – Romans 15:13

NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt wasn’t quite the same guy away from the race track that his competition persona – “The Intimidator” – suggests.

I didn’t know him well, but, having worked in and around NASCAR (as a sportswriter and then public relations rep) back in the 1980s and 1990s, I knew Dale well enough to like him.  As long as he wasn’t in or near his race car, Dale, in my experience, was funny, charming, polite, considerate with a good dose of mischievousness, and sedately wise in a special, good ol’ southern boy kind of way.

I bring this up because though seven-time champion Dale always seemed to be in trouble with other competitors or NASCAR officials for his daring and aggressive – many would say thrilling – driving, he knew when to stop worrying about a problem when the past was past.  “I want to move on,” I heard him say in an interview one time, grinning, “but people will say, ‘No, let’s go back and worry about this some more.’”

I bring this up in a column about Christian life and faith because right now, today, the world presents all of us with a circuit-breaking overload of issues, dangers, politics, and woes.  We are enduring national storms that shake foundations set in sand and rattle even the ones set in rock.  We are constantly, personally reminded of and coached to dwell in the morass of culture, media, academia, and politics that refuses to look forward in faith-driven hope.  It instead grips tightly to political outrage, demeaning identities, perceived injustices, jealousies, grudges, and human slights of every kind.

Harbored rancor creates a cesspool I do not want to visit, inhabit, nurture, or inflict on anyone else.  Whether reaching back two days, two decades, or 200 years, today’s dominant forces of secular information distribution are tuned to fear and control, not solutions and freedoms.  That shifting sand of constant wrong-footedness-by-design and relational turmoil is Satan’s quicksand and freedom’s demise.  Problems abound.

“Let’s worry about this some more.”  How about if we examine a better way?

The better way is God’s hope, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the witness of Jesus Christ.  What did Jesus witness to?  The truth, love, and permanence of God.  What can we do with that in our lives?  Live in joy and peace.  How do we do that? 

There was a great example of it in Washington D.C. last weekend: Prayer.

It was right there at national ground zero, amid the perpetual daily upheavals, fears, and insecurities of public problems, prevarications, and riots.  It was amid disturbing, changing-every-day discussions of political and cultural turmoil.  As a nation suddenly perched on a sandbar of ill-intentions, mistrust, and contention flailing against temporal despair of its own making, there appeared the picture of the rock-solid big fix.

Fifty-thousand faithful, peaceful, sincere Kingdom warriors marched with love and without hate in Christian prayer for things they know to be true.  Prayer in Jesus’s name has the mysterious strength of both unending permanence and constant renewal.  Prayer for our nation and our leaders is our first privilege and duty, not our last hope and desperation.  Joy and peace, belief and power … all attach real hope to prayer.  

Those folks were tapping not only into two thousand years of Christian faith but the stable whole and truth of the eternal trinity and tactile here-and-now of God’s glory.

Don’t be intimidated by earthly problems.  Pray some more; and worry less.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wept when Earnhardt died at Daytona in 2001.

Spirituality Column #724

September 29, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Everyone Who Believes, Part 4

By Bob Walters

“I am obligated both to the Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and foolish.  That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.  I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes …” – Paul, Romans 1:14-16

We’ll go long and finish this series today by discussing why everyone who believes should neither be ashamed of nor embarrassed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Quick recap – I don’t think shame of our personal past is productive for the mindset of anyone with hope in their future thanks to belief in Jesus.  Focus forward. However – “not being ashamed” – i.e., being courageous and open about our faith – is critical not only for our witness to others but also our joy in loving and knowing God.

Shame is one of the words you have to be careful how you use.

And no, I’m not embarrassed if people think I’m a little (or a lot) weird for viewing Christian faith as the ultimate, bedrock, settled science and philosophical true north.  Yes, I actually believe that stuff about Jesus and the resurrection.  You want to know why?  Not so much because of forgiveness, salvation, heaven, eternity – all nice features with many aspects beyond my earthly comprehension – but because in Jesus I perceive and attach to the enormity of all God is and does, and I can use it right now.

Here’s a list of daily, always-there things that give me confidence in Jesus Christ.

Truth – Jesus says “I am the way and the truth and the life,” but anyone could write those words, and there is no shortage today in the broken marketplace of ideas of narratives that claim secular, temporal, convenient truths with no eternal merit.  The witness of Jesus’s death and resurrection is this: objective truth exists in the person of God.  Christians, in this life, can depend on the existence of a permanent, eternal truth.

Reality – With bedrock truth comes bedrock reality.  We confuse ourselves with the philosophy and science of what we can see and not see, what we can explain and not explain, and reduce “spirit” to spooky myth.  It is with and through the Holy Spirit – sent by Jesus – that we see the deepest, clearest reality God permits.  It’s not ghosts.

Purpose – Jesus shows us, by His example, our ultimate human purpose in this life: to glorify God.  That’s it.  Anyone can do it, but only through the sin-covering and righteousness of Christ.  A Christian wakes up every day understanding that by their belief, God is glorified.  In our actions resides not salvation, but the joy of that purpose.

Inspiration – God is infinitely creative and gives inspiration to His Creation freely.  I sit here and write, inspired by His Spirit.  Lots and lots of creative stuff happens everywhere with everybody – with credit often usurped by humans thinking they must be quite something to do this or that.  Satan wants us to deny God’s creativity and take credit ourselves.  Jesus is the creative force of God (“authority over all things”).  Use it, be inspired, have a little humility. God’s depth and breadth are magnificent to behold.

Relationship – God Himself is a loving, mysterious relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit: not three Gods, but one caring, interconnected love.  The Trinity defies scientific explanation but is the model for every great relationship we as humans – God’s “very good” Creation – can form.  Self-sacrifice, non-jealousy, putting others first, obedience, and awareness of the needs of others are typical of great marriage, family, and civic relationships that make this life so rich when we are able to form them.  Satan hates that because his aim is to break our God-glorifying relationship with Jesus. With faith in Jesus, we find the strange and ethereal joy of knowing relationship with God.

Peace – Yes, I’ve noticed the world is not perfect, people aren’t perfect, and I am not perfect.  Does any of that upset me?  Yes.  And I’m not sure which I hate worse – the fallen world or my personal fallenness that on occasion hinders the full-tilt joy of my relationship with Jesus.  But I have learned to always, always, endeavor to direct my angst and fears upon the presence of Jesus.  “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  Peace is always possible when I’m thinking about Jesus.

Power – There is power in the name of Jesus, really.  Try it sometime.  Mean it.

Freedom – Have you noticed that there can be no true freedom without love?  My love wants you to be free, God’s love wants us to be free, Jesus’s sacrifice “sets us free,” and divine love is the ultimate arbiter of freedom because it defines and requires care for God, care for God’s Creation, and care for each other.  We raise our children for a season with the intent to set them free, filled with love, hope, and – I hope – faith.  We have to work together – you and me, both of us, all of us, all sides – in order to have that freedom-buoyed-by-love in this life.  Satan works harder against nothing else.

Authority – Who’s in charge around here, anyway?  False gods and fearful self-centeredness create no shortage of weak “authority” in our daily lives.  As do truth and reality, God’s authority resides in Jesus.  That is so helpful.  Trust yourself?  Sure … as long as your trust is first centered in abiding faith in Jesus.  Trust Him.  You’ll be fine.

Identity – “Who am I?”  Philosophers great and dim have been wrestling with that one for all of humanity.  “I” want to have an identity.  In Jesus, we have one, and importantly it is an identity that glorifies God.  I’m less worried about my identity in the world’s view because my view focuses – with occasional bumps – on God’s Kingdom.

Suffering – I’m not happy about suffering but its virtue is its opportunity to expose not just the world’s fallenness but the saving grace of Jesus Christ.  People are broken; Christianity and other religions are mocked and attacked.  Wars, disease, treachery abound on all sides.  I see them and it makes me ask: How can I glorify God even in this cesspool?  It is helpful to know suffering is something Jesus understands.

Thankfulness – Even if you’re not sure who to thank, thankfulness is the front door of joy.  Before God, it just might be the front door to His Kingdom.  Learn to thank Jesus and to look for an opportunity to glorify God in all situations.  Let God shine into the world through you in your strength, courage, grace, generosity, responsibility, obedience, trustworthiness … and love.  Be obligated, eager, and not ashamed.

Everyone else who believes – and surprisingly, many who don’t – will notice.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes: Jesus exists in the here and now; be sure to take advantage of Him – you get joy, God gets glory, and Satan gets a headache. Christianity is so much bigger than forgiveness of sin; we should play the big game.

Spirituality Column #723

September 22, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Everyone Who Believes, Part 3

“I am obligated both to the Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and foolish.  That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.  I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes …” – Paul, Romans 1:14-16

The Apostle Paul here declares that he was obligated, eager, and not ashamed of the Gospel; he would bravely tell anyone, anywhere the truth of Christ Jesus. 

Even Caesar in Rome, the temple mob in Jerusalem, or heretics in Corinth.

Often, I wish I had Paul’s chutzpah.  In Athens at the Areopagus (Acts 17:16-34), Paul was shrewd and convincing telling of “the unknown God” who was greater than all others.  His message – perhaps his fullest and most dramatic speech in the Bible – was effective and showed that Paul could fit Christ’s truth to any audience.  Quite a talent.

Most Christians – “everyone who believes” – “get” that, and we try.  We know we are joyously tasked to share the Good Word with all, but probably fall somewhere short of Paul’s resolve.  We generally love to tell others about our faith and are joyous when our witness bears fruit (i.e., folks listen and believe), but we hate rejection and know we are not Paul.  Yet in all personal seriousness, over these past couple of decades encompassing my own Christian journey, I never recall being ashamed or hiding from openly declaring my faith, “Yes, I am a Christian.  Yes, I believe in Jesus.”  Easy as that.

And from theological, doctrinal, mission, testimony, and action standpoints, “everyone who believes,” in my observation, tends to gather on the same general page: not ashamed. We may wonder what to do with Jesus, but we know we found Him.

(Folks ask, “How do I know I am a Christian?”  A good indication is if you publicly, sincerely, and without hesitation profess it without being ashamed.  Even if you can’t tell others, be sure to talk it over with God.  Jesus and the Holy Spirit already understand.)

This whole line of “shame” reflection started a few weeks back when my long-time, Christian-raised but largely unchurched buddy Bo – a great guy – asked, innocently enough, if I was ever “embarrassed” about being a Christian.

I had thought about shame, courage, and perseverance, but not “embarrassed.” 

Surprised, I reflexively but kindly said, “No,” adding, approximately, that “Christian” expresses deeply and truly who I am so it would never occur to me to be “embarrassed” by it, at least not in the worldly, outside-the-flock way Bo meant it.  But I could also see his point; we Christians often do look a little weird to those standing around the corral and not quite understanding what the herd on the inside is all about.

From my own experience, I will say that being among the herd is a great comfort and multiplies my personal strength and faith knowing I’m around other believers. That chases the weirdness and “embarrassment” away, but it’s not something I could have ever seen from outside the fence.  Weirdness is replaced by joy; that’s the inside job.

We’ll wrap this series up next week with a half-dozen or so features of Christian faith that say nothing, really, of salvation, sin, forgiveness, or eternity, but features that dramatically enrich the lives we live now; lives that were created in love to glorify God.

Needless to say, I’m not the least bit embarrassed to share them with you.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) was drawn to Christians, not repulsed by them.