Friends: So many people ask, “What is the meaning of Christmas?” The Apostle Paul was maybe the first to figure out, “What is the meaning of Christ?” See the column below. May the heart of Christmas continue always.  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #893

December 26, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

New Every Day

By Bob Walters

“He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant – not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” 2 Corinthians 3:6

Family scheduling has pushed our Christmas back a few days this year, but we’ll do the same old things in the same old way with a renewed spirit of surprise and love.

We’ll just do them this coming Saturday: Merry Christmas Day, plus five.

Funny how Christmas is largely the same every year yet new every year.  With minor adjustments I’ve put up the same basic outdoor Christmas display for 10 years.  Ditto wife Pam on the inside.  We will end 2023, stow the Christmas gear, go into the new year with hope and promise, and see what new mercies and surprises God has for us in 2024.  Some things get old; some never do. Jesus is like that for many of us.

I am currently about 300 pages into N.T. “Tom” Wright’s 2018 biography of the Apostle Paul.  And I guess you could say – thanks to Wright’s scriptural depth and Pauline expertise – I have a newfound appreciation for the “newness” of Christ. Among the earliest disciples and saints, Paul more than anyone truly “got” the fact that Jesus was something entirely new, yet, also, as old as the Garden and as eternal as God.

We celebrate Christmas as the arrival of God into humanity in the human form of Jesus, born in Bethlehem to the virgin Mary from the seed of the Holy Spirit into the tribe of Judah.  That was something really new.  So new, in fact, few – including Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the Wise Men, and later the prophet John the Baptist, all of whom had been informed by angels proclaiming Jesus as Son of God, the Messiah promised to the Jews, and the savior of the whole world – could disconnect Jesus’s newness from their errant assumptions the Law of Israel, i.e., the Old Covenant …

… And then accurately reconnect Jesus to what Hebrew prophets had been saying for hundreds of years. Jesus wasn’t here just to save the Jews; Jesus was here to save everybody.  In fact, the New Covenant in Jesus would restore all of creation to God’s original purpose: the expression of His love, and revelation of His glory.

What was new about Jesus, as Paul’s quoted scripture above reminds, is that for various reasons “the letter kills,” i.e., the Law brings death.  How? The Law points out Israel’s failures and invites unloving comparisons and competitions.  The Law was meant only for the Jews: to identify them as God’s chosen people.  But they were chosen to reveal God – the One, Almighty, Creator God – in a pagan world full of man-made idols and cultural gods.  Jesus embodied the whole new mission and gift: eternal life through restored relationship with God through faith in Jesus, brought by the Spirit.

See? “The Spirit gives life.” God was always good.  God was always the giver of life.  God was always love.  God was always the Creator.  Those realities are as old as humanity.  After the fall in the Garden, humanity stumbled around in sin for thousands of years until God initiated His eternal plan of salvation by introducing Christ.

That’s what Jesus was saying throughout the Gospels; that’s what Paul was first to truly identify and expound.  And it is our ministry today.  The world will be new again when Jesus returns.  But Christmas is when we know God came to gather us all back. 

It’s not just an old story; it is truth that remains new every day.  Merry Christmas.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) and wife Pam spent Christmas in northern Michigan.

 Friends, Our Christmas joy is because of a person, not a holiday.  See the column below.    Blessings and Merry Christmas!  Bob

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Spirituality Column #892

December 19, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The Lord is Near, Part 4

By Bob Walters

“The Lord is near to all who call on him; to all who call on him in truth.” – Psalms 145:18

My friend and mentor George Bebawi, the Coptic priest, Bible translator, patristics (early church history) expert, and retired divinity lecturer at Cambridge University, England, teasingly but truly let his disgust for modern Christmas be known.

“What is this Jingle Bells?” he’d intone in his raspy accent. George joked about once taking a pen knife and carving up a blow-up Santa Claus at a friend’s place of business in Carmel, Ind., where he retired. Similar stories were part of knowing George.

Christmas, George maintained, was the incarnation recorded in John 1:14, “and the Word became flesh.” Salvation came near in a living person, Jesus, not in a holiday.

In Jesus, God entered humanity, the eternal encountered present time, and the Spirit embedded in man as God’s image quickened and animated the sinful human heart with hope and faith.  Jesus the Lord was now near, and joyous, renewed, personal relationship with God Almighty became possible for fallen man. “Jesus not only taught the truth,” I heard a radio preacher say recently, “Jesus was the truth to be taught.”

Yes, the Lord is the Truth and Christmas tells us the truth: the Lord is near.

Jesus at Christmas is that thing that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, and fills one’s heart with peace and joy.  That is God tapping us on the shoulder, inviting us to knock on His door and invite Him into our lives. We think we are seeking Him; Christmas should tell us He is already here, seeking us.

The Baby Jesus, gifts, and the red-suited Santa Claus may be the leading symbols of Christmas, but it is the rescue mission of God – Jesus coming to invite sinners back into God’s Kingdom – that is the true meaning and the true gift of Christmas.  Jesus is Emanuel, God with us. I believe Santa understands that.

Santa’s Letter to Jesus

Speaking of Santa Claus, I have no idea who wrote the following, but it has been working its way around the Internet: “Santa’s Letter to Jesus.”  Take it to heart.

My dear precious Jesus, I did not mean to take your place,

I only bring toys and things and you bring love and grace.

People give me lists of wishes, and hope they come true;

But you hear prayers of the heart and promise your will to do.

Children try to be good and try not to cry when I am coming to town;

But you love them unconditionally and that love will abound.

I leave only a bag of toys and temporary joys for a season;

But you have a heart of love, full of purpose and reasons.

I have a lot of believers and what one might call fame,

But I never healed the blind or tried to help the lame.

I have rosy cheeks and a voice full of laughter,

But no nail-scarred hands or a promise of the hereafter.

You may find several of me in town or at a mall;

But there is only one omnipotent you, to answer a sinner’s call.

And so, my dear precious Jesus, I kneel here to pray;

To worship and adore you on this, your holy birthday.

Santa is only as real as we make him, but Jesus is the real deal of Christmas.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wishes all a Merry Christmas! Be near to Jesus.

Friends, Christmas has always been a big deal to me, even when I didn’t know Jesus was near. See the column below. Have a great week!  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #891

December 12, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The Lord is Near, Part 3

By Bob Walters

“The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” – Psalms 145:18

I’ve always been a big fan of Christmas, even when I didn’t know Jesus.

My parents made a big deal of it when I was a child, including Christmas Eve church. When living alone after college, I made a big deal of it, trimming a “real” tree in my small rental house. Upon marriage and parenthood, we made a big deal of it.  And now as a busy but empty-nester senior citizen, I put up more Christmas lights than ever.

“There’s a kind of hush, all over the world, tonight” was a pop-song lyric from the mid-1960s (by Herman’s Hermits) that had nothing to do with Christmas as a song but, now that I think about it, the words have everything to do with the truth of Christmas.

That “kind of hush” exactly describes Christmas Eves throughout my life. But I have to reflect back, in light of a new discovery at age 47, what that “hush” actually was and always had been: the true Lord and Savior Jesus Christ standing close to me, and the Holy Spirit saying, “Shhh … the baby is sleeping,” and “Jesus, the truth, is near.”

Christmas for me is not an exercise in precise definitions; truth is often that way.

I’m completely OK not knowing exactly when Jesus was born, and that the common nativity narratives, “no room in the inn,” etc., are generally misinterpreted.  Even biblical culture today has little appreciation of the tribe-of-David kinship and semitic hospitality of first-century Bethlehem. (See explanatory links at column’s end.)

An absence of facts does not necessarily mean an absence of truth. Secular philosophy rejects that notion, as it empirically rejects faith: only facts equal truth.  Nor does one’s refusal of faith or a misunderstanding of facts negate reality.

Reality, you see, equals truth, and vice versa; there is nothing more real than God. It is our understanding that needs work: not God’s messaging, and not God’s truth.

The secular, commercial, and winter festival trappings of this “most wonderful time of the year” (Andy Williams, 1963) bring near to us – unavoidably near to us – great opportunity for nearness to, and danger of distance from, the Lord who saves us.

The Lord is near when our minds and hearts welcome God Almighty into the human race He created for good. And when we embrace the loving, sacrificial, healing, and renewing arrival of His Son, that’s Christmas, that’s nearness to Jesus, that’s hope. 

Christmas at a distance from faith in Christ – as in, Happy Holidays/The Party – can be an unloving grind of obligation and a vacuously missed opportunity for divine, purpose-rich regeneration.  The true Kingdom remains distant if at Christmas the Bible is opaque and Jesus is unseen; gifts and worldly cheer are merely temporal comforts.

I believe it was Luther, or possibly Calvin, who put forth the notion of “prevenient grace.”  That’s when God, who is always looking for you, is also looking out for you before you come to faith in His Son Jesus.  The world’s hush and humanity’s wonder at Christmas is the grace of a God who is already near, inviting us to accept that grace.

I always felt a mysterious, loving hush and closeness at Christmas.  Little did I realize, until I was older, it was Jesus.

It was that kind of hush because the truth was that kind of close.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) offers some middle-eastern insight into Mary, Joseph, Jesus and that night in Bethlehem HERE column 736 and HERE column 372.

Friends, Generally speaking, the truth is better than a lie where relationships are concerned. Here is a story from my working past and some observations about Christmas.  See the column below. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #890

December 5, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The Lord is Near, Part 2

By Bob Walters

“The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” – Psalms 145:18

Some years ago, I was the public relations exec for an Indy Car auto racing team whose owner had called a secret meeting in Denver of the other 16 or so team owners.

This was the old CART series in the late 1980s (which then fielded most of the cars in the Indianapolis 500) and every team owner was there except for Roger Penske, who was in touch by phone.  I admit many details have faded away, but I was the only non-owner in the room and charged with keeping the minutes.  So, I was there.

Somebody – not me – had tipped off the media, evidently just that morning, that the meeting was happening.  By mid-afternoon a handful of nimble-footed motorsports newspaper and magazine writers had hustled to Denver and camped outside the hotel meeting room where the owners had gathered.  Secrets were famously not well kept among the owners, but one owner proposed the following for dealing with the writers:

“Have the PR guy (pointing at me) go out and lie to them.” He sounded serious.

“Go out and lie to them.” I had seen PR guys try that before; it was never pretty.

I bring this up – a story not about Christmas or Jesus or church, but I’ll get to that – because it speaks to the fallen, human default mechanism of being threatened and evincing a first, self-preservation instinct to lie. Even if it is a joke. Or not. Ha, ha, ha.

The art of public relations, and specifically media relations, is to present the best possible version of the truth, or to say nothing.  Some PR efforts are successful because they widely promote a message; others because they maintain silence. Except in life-or-death or wartime security accommodations, rule No. 1 is that it is a bad idea to loudly proclaim a false idea, especially when the truth will be known shortly.

Like, from a chatty motorsports team owner’s mouth.  Lies kill relationships.

Now let’s tie this idea about truth into Jesus, Christmas, humanity … and Peter.

Peter famously denied the truth of his relationship with Jesus in the high priest’s courtyard as Jesus was “tried” by the Sanhedrin (Matthew 26:69-75).  I don’t believe Peter ever lost faith in Jesus, but rather he, momentarily, lost his own personal sense of security knowing Jesus would be killed. In his fear-driven weakness, I give that one to Peter. Besides, it was not his time, and Peter’s witness of Christ later would be critical.

At Christmas, today, we observe and, in many cases, share and even live the secular nonsense of all the “Happy Holidays” blather that may errantly lead us – and importantly, others, especially non-believers – away from sincere relationship with Jesus.  Our own closeness to Christ isn’t in danger because somebody wishes us “Happy Holidays”; we should live that divine closeness 24-7-365 (ok, 366 next year).

Our challenge is to use this season to promote the best possible version of the truth about Jesus … to anyone we can.  Like Peter in the courtyard, we may be cowed by public opinion: either reluctant to speak up, or swept along in the happy tidal wave of folks who celebrate Christmas but reject a saving and obedient relationship with Jesus. 

Yet … there is that unmistakable Christmas magic and truth – that presence and sense of the eternal, the heart-tug of “something bigger than me out there” – permeating the season’s joys.  I felt it long before I believed in salvation, God’s love, repentance in Christ, or the Spirit’s abiding comfort. Jesus was always near, but I denied His truth.

May the Lord’s Christmas nearness speak the best possible truth into every soul.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows discernment matters: lying to protect another’s feelings can be merciful, or to respect another’s privacy, honorable.  Let wisdom reign.

Friends, The Christmas season is upon us, and Jesus is as near – or far away – as we want Him.  See the column below.  Also, the latest Finding Genius podcast where I’m a guest is available at this link: Analyzing The Origins Of Biblical Christian Ethics: Bob Walters. That, btw, is host Rich Jacobs' title, not mine! And it’s more interesting than it sounds.  Honest.  We recorded it 11-17-23. Blessings! Bob

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Spirituality Column #889

November 28, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The Lord is Near, Part 1

By Bob Walters

“The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” – Psalms 145:18

Christmas has a better public relations department than Easter because it is easier to ignore the truth at Christmas.  Easter is pretty serious; Christmas is fun.

At Easter, Pilate begged Jesus, “What is truth?”  in an impossible life-or-death trial. At Christmas, a baby in a manger is the king of heaven and earth, and anything is possible. So, if Jesus is closer when we have the truth, when is Jesus closest? 

When do we have the real truth?  Christmas? Easter? In church on Sundays?

This might be something to ponder as we wade into the cheerful and giving traditions of our modern, weeks long Christmas celebration.  Whether we approach Christmas in the secular spirit of the season or in the Holy Spirit of Almighty God, should we really worry about truth when everyone is having such a great time?

Despite gargantuan societal efforts to profane Christmas into a meaningless winter holiday while retaining all the faux joy and irreverent trappings of earthly appetites, Christmas hangs in there, and Jesus hangs in there with it.  The world wants the party without the precepts, the holiday without the holy, and the gifts without God.

We harken the lucre of St. Nick, and teach children the truth of a Christmas list.

We also remove Jesus from the school Christmas, er, “Holiday” pageant, sue the town council for that nativity scene on the square, and formulate Christmas, er, “Holiday” inclusivity with blow-up yard Santas, Snoopys, chimneys, and candy canes.

Let’s have fun, our culture insists, and not get into all that buzz-killing Jesus stuff.

But there are those of us who smile in rebellion while bidding strangers a sincere and loving “Merry Christmas.” We live life in the heartfelt, constant love of that swaddled baby in a manager who grew up to teach humanity who we all truly are, and how close He truly is … or at least, how close he can – and wants – to be to every human life.

Jesus loves each of us enough to give each of us a choice.  Just like John 3:16 says Jesus came to save all mankind, Jesus understands it is love in the human heart that will make the choice to follow truth.  Many people say, “I have my own truth, thank you,” and “Hey Jesus, you can’t prove you are the truth!” Never mind they cannot prove their own shallow worldly truth; never mind they refuse a restored relationship with God.

Thankfully … Christmas still puts it all out there; the PR, I mean: the Bible stories, the Gospel witness, miracles of love and healing relationships (see: Hallmark Channel), presents, churches in full bloom exhorting the holy truth (we hope) of a holy God, holy savior, and Holy Spirit seeking closeness with a population wholly incapable of saving itself yet striving to be a little nicer in the general but unnamed “spirit of the holiday.”

And which “spirit” is that?  Well, it is the Holy Spirit seeking the loving heart of each of us.  And the truth is, Jesus is always there, always near, always dismayed by humanity’s depravity, and always moved by sincere faith in Him as the Son of God, Son of Man, forgiver of sins, restorer of humanity, personal savior, and trusted friend.

The Lord is as near to each of us as we want, allow, or ask Him to be. A gracious Lord, Jesus doesn’t typically just “barge” in.  He gives us space, gives us choice, gives us time, allows our seeking elsewhere, and always welcomes us home.  And while Easter is the real lesson in salvation, Christmas indeed is the festival season of hope when it is most timely to invite a new, divine friend into our home, life, spirit, and trust.

That is the truth of Jesus, and the opportunity of Christmas.  Call out His name.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) spent years in public relations; more next week.

Friends, I am thankful for the broad light in Christ we know in scripture.  The disciples only had Jesus’s words, deeds, and promises, but it was obviously enough.  See the column below. Happy Thanksgiving!  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #888

November 21, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Lamp of Faith

By Bob Walters

“I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Jesus, John 16:33

These words are the last of Jesus’s teaching to the disciples before His arrest, crucifixion, death, and resurrection.  It is the end of Jesus’s dramatic speech (John 15-16) as He and the disciples depart the Last Supper, walking across dark Jerusalem headed for rest and “hiding” in Gethsemane.  In this final teaching Jesus said nothing about salvation, behavior, forgiveness, safety, punishment, God’s wrath, eternal life, or heaven’s rewards. Jesus spoke of the disciples knowing and loving Him, testifying to His identity and truth, and relying on and loving each other.  A rough road awaited.

In the disciples’ looming, frightening here and now and in the momentous, world-changing events of the hours to come, Jesus said they would have trouble, grief, be hated, be persecuted, turned out of the synagogue, and be heartbroken at His death and later His departure.  Jesus promised to send the “Holy Spirit” for comfort, teaching, and truth.  Jesus declared the condemnation of Satan and His own victory over the world, a “victory” no one would understand for decades to come.  Jesus reasserts that it is the disciples’ faith in and relationship with Him that will be their peace.

Jesus then prays aloud (John 17) for Himself, the disciples, and all who will follow in faith and humility.

“If this is a victory,” the disciples must have been thinking, “we’d sure hate to see a defeat.” They knew only faith, Jesus’s identity as the Son of God, and the ominous forbearing of a night of treachery, violence, injustice, denial, fear, and a day of death.

Most of official Israel – the Pharisees, Sadducees, Sanhedrin, rabbis, scribes, ministers, magistrates – rejected Jesus as the Messiah.  The One for whom they had prayed for a thousand years, now in their midst, was invisible and reviled in their wicked blindness.

Much of the world remains in the same spiritual blindness today, 2,000 years later.  Jesus came out of Israel for all the world’s salvation, but His victory over the world remains a matter of faith.  Assured, yes, but there remains daily witness to the “Lord of the World” – Satan – of injustice, violence, treachery … all the things that the disciples dealt with, understanding neither the impending darkness nor the eternal light.

If we can be thankful for one thing this Thanksgiving week, it is the abiding light of the Holy Spirit and the gift that we can in fact know Jesus, truth, and eternal life in relationship with God.  I believe this “heavenly realm” reveals itself even now, and I ask, Are we thankful enough to trust in awestruck wonder that we have a Bible that lifts the world’s veil and helps us see God’s indelible glory beyond? We should be very thankful.

I came to faith at an odd time, maybe. I was baptized 22 years ago this past week – Sunday, November 18, 2001 – but had first come to church and “got it” about 10 weeks prior to that, on September 2, 2001.  We all remember what happened the following week on September 11.  My church friend “El” asked recently “if 9/11 was a factor” in my early days of faith.  Great question but truth is, it was not.

What cemented my faith, late, at age 47, wasn’t a crisis, the world’s ugliness, my own fear, copious personal challenges at that time, or even a desire for forgiveness or heaven.  I had to know why I could pray thanks for the love of my children, the grace of our being, and the beauty of this world, and know a peace I could not describe.

Jesus’s love, not the world’s terrors, lit my lamp of faith. I am thankful it did.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) realizes no time is a bad time to come to faith.

Friends, What do you remember about your first Bible? Mine’s not pretty but it has a story to tell.  See the column below. Have a great week!  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #887

November 14, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Words of Truth

By Bob Walters

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” – 2 Timothy 3:16-17

My first Bible, in all its worn, paperback, black-duct-taped glory – like a retired warship at anchor – rests on my home office bookshelf.  It did its job well.

Later this week I’ll be recording another “Finding Genius” (the title still cracks me up) podcast with its host and my newfound friend and conversational colleague, Rich Jacobs. Among the suggested discussion topics is “How to get started reading the Bible,” and the array of support and collateral materials that are available and helpful.

Whether we get to that topic or not, the question set me to thinking about my first foray into scripture 22 years ago, and the previously mentioned battered blue NIV (1984 edition) that was my constant companion for nearly four years. Here’s how I got started.

I had just begun attending church and “believing” in September 2001, yet thinking back, I wasn’t quite ready for a Bible.  Then in late October I began a four-week “Walking with Christ” Sunday night class for newbies taught by E91’s Senior Minister Dave Faust.  There were free Bibles on the study tables and I was encouraged to take one.  The assigned class homework was a workbook with scripture passages and questions, plus a weekly Bible book to read: Genesis, Isaiah, Matthew, and Revelation.

Between the class teaching, discussion, coaching, encouragement, and challenge, the Bible which I had never before been able to read with either interest or comprehension, came technicolor alive to me.  It was a Holy Spirit cavalcade.

Granted, I didn’t understand most of it, but I read it anyway.  Fascinated by text discoveries – simple stuff, like where the twelve tribes of Israel came from – there was much in those parts of the Bible that I related to other lifelong, secular reading (and I read a lot).  Now there was this additional life/divine/faith context that pulled me in.

But I also knew I wouldn’t get far reading alone.  So, so many questions … help!

On the final night of class – Decision: stand up, get baptized? – Dave announced he would be teaching E91’s weekly Wednesday evening “Through the Bible in a Year” study starting in January, going book by Bible book – Genesis to Revelation – through the course of the year. That gift of a weekly crutch is what convinced me to stand up.

A lot happened over the next year. Dave left E91 to be president of Cincinnati Christianity University.  I also became good friends with former E91 minister Russ Blowers, met my later Bible and theology mentor Dr. George Bebawi, and started attending E91’s Logos Sunday school class taught by Steve Hall.  I read through the Bible by autumn, cheating a bit in the repetitive parts of Deuteronomy and Chronicles. 

What I noticed early on was that God put a lot of smart believers in my life at roughly the same time the Bible – and the truth of Jesus Christ – came alive in me.

When Dave left E91 in June, Jeff Ballard took over the weekly Wednesday night classes.  A couple years later in another Wednesday class series, Jeff noticed my beat-up Bible, asked if he could borrow it, and showed it to the crowd saying, “This is what a Bible is supposed to look like.”  Amen to that.  The truth doesn’t have to be pretty.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) uses a leather-bound 1984 NIV he bought in 2005.

Friends,  One’s faith walk involves far more than meets the eye … at least, it should.  Have a great week!  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #886

November 7, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Unseen Beauty

By Bob Walters

“… we fix our eyes on not what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” – 2 Corinthians 4:18

Life in this earthly realm is soaked in measurements, comparisons, and definitions, i.e., the temporal, finite, and quantitative environment of the “seen.”

For many if not most folks, the “seen” suffices for the totality of all that exists.  This idea that an unseen divine realm – heaven, the Kingdom, whatever one may call it – is the actual home of unerring reality intrudes on “common sense” and threatens one’s comforting, if prideful, personal supremacy: “God can’t improve what I already have.”

That the eternal birthplace, generator, and residence of truth, beauty, purpose, and love is seen only with a believing heart and faithful discerning eye is too far outside the box of possibility.  “Prove it,” screams the world, “Your faith puts you in a box.”

“I am free,” boasts the non-believer, unaware that it is the measured, temporal, earth-only life he inhabits that is the confining box.  There is plenty of structure in the divine; not only more than meets the eye, but beauty the eye is unequipped to handle.

What kind of structure? “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor 1:18)

When you know, you know.  God, creating us in His own image, gave us a mind to think and create and love … and to seek Him and find Him by trusting His grace and living in His truth.  Most of that was muddled until the arrival and resurrection of Jesus Christ, proving the prophecy of an age when man would meet God, face to face.

The trouble humanity has these days is the self-inflicted culmination of several hundred years of philosophy separating man into pieces – his body, his will, his soul – that negates our willingness to accept the fullness of God’s grace.  We can see our “natural” state and for better or worse – or for death – we deny the unseen eternal quality of marrying our life to God’s through Jesus’s bride, the church. It’s very real.

I can see that divine life just fine, I think, as can many people I know. I can read the Bible, I know the love of Christian fellowship, I know the peace of Spiritual grace, and when I look around with my physical eyes, there is nothing I see that I think “just happened” without purpose or God’s will, and sadly, too often, by Satan’s evil design.

I once read a Bible commentary that made a compelling point that “eternity” is not a measure of anything, but that eternity is the quality of God’s life, not a quantity.  I liked that, and was all the definition I needed.  We can only glimpse God’s life on this side of reality in faith, and without faith, the message of the cross is foolish indeed.

“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Cor 4:4).

This mind God gave us … it isn’t just to learn obedience, but to learn to think freely and in truth.  It is how we find God, who by the way I am convinced is also always searching for us.  But while secular humanity is “all about thinking,” missing scripture means you are missing truth … and in the process, missing Jesus.  There is no way back.

The ancient Jews had it a little easier, with a well-defined Law just for them and God’s faithful promise to save all mankind through their chosen nation Israel.  A life of faith in Jesus is not so well defined, despite the clarity of scripture and the abundance of historical evidence of His life, death, and truth.  Modern man stumbles and complicates.

Life in Christ is a beautiful thing; but the brightness is in our hearts, not our eyes.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) prays Ephesians 1:18: “Open the eyes of my heart.”

Friends, I’m not thinking about Halloween, I’m thinking about intellectual life in Christ … and it is a real treat.  See the column below ...

And … Aiden Joseph Walters (7lbs 13oz, 20in) was born to younger son John and wife Jeni at 7:50 a.m., Monday, Oct. 30, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Their first. My brother is John’s Uncle Joe, and I see “A.J.” in that name. He is grandchild #3; #4 is on the way in February in Utah. Now … let me collect myself …  the column …  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #885

October 31, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Do You Mind?

By Bob Walters

“‘For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.” – Paul, 1 Corinthians 2:16 NIV

My longtime Christian mentor Dr. George Bebawi made a frequent point of the fruitlessness of arguing scripture with a non-Christian, non-believer, or “other” believer.

Whether with an atheist academic, an agnostic scold, or practitioner of a non-Bible faith, George noted the uncrossable gulf of scriptural obliviousness present in the non-Christian mind.  One has to believe scripture to truly understand it, and an intellect dismissive of God, Son, Spirit, and scripture is unlikely to be lured into faith by mere words that one’s “intellect” does not consider to be capital T Truth, i.e., God’s truth, objective truth, eternal truth.  Only the mind of Christ – the Spirit – fords that barrier.

That is why the way we live as Christians – our “life’s witness” – speaks louder to the outside world than our words.  Early Christians drew others to faith both with the first witness of Jesus Christ resurrected, but also and importantly, by the lives of the Christian believers who loved and took care of each other.  Prior to the arrival of scripture, sophisticated Christology, and church doctrines, it was fellowship and community – and the simple light of the Holy Spirit – that attracted and held first-century new believers in a faith heretofore unknown.

On an intellectual level, it is also why the apostle Paul, cited above, plainly says that prior to Jesus, no one knew the mind of God. This scripture passage, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, is subtitled “The Wisdom of God” and is worth reading for anyone thinking that catching converts is a matter of spouting scripture. That is for believers, and what a comfort!  But only the Spirit of God has the Wisdom of God, and Jesus is the one who sent us the Spirit of God. Many, then and now, want to instruct God; it is a fool’s errand.

Are we as smart as Jesus?  No, but that’s the secular world’s primary anxiety that we “think we’re so smart.”  What we are is faithful, and that’s why “we get it,” thusly:

“This is what we speak, not in words taught to us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:13-14). Then, in the Spirit, we either get it or we don’t.

It is the Holy Spirit’s job to light the lamp of spiritual knowledge in a person’s soul.  Until that happens, all we can reasonably do is live a consistent Christian life (harder than it sounds), abide by and testify to Christian truth, pray, and especially be a 24/7 witness to the Big Two: Love God and love others. Then do the hardest thing: trust God.

Maybe the great surprise to the outside world about entering into Christian faith is that Jesus is a thinker’s realm.  Paul talks about “wisdom of this age” (v6), i.e., Paul’s era, and is referring to the Greek philosophers, Roman justice, and the Hebrew religion.  Paul then cites God’s “secret wisdom … hidden for our glory before time began. (v7)

As the world scrambles for definitions and debates, the mind we have through God’s Spirit – the mind of Christ – unlocks God’s words and shines an otherwise unknown light onto the straight path toward and narrow gate into God’s kingdom.

Stay in that light, share scripture as the Spirit leads, and keep your mind sharp.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) reminds all: pick your battles carefully, and pray.

Friends ... News you can trust is infinitely more satisfying than news you can’t.  See the column below.  

First, a couple of love notes.  My younger son John and his wife Jeni in Fort Lauderdale are due to have their first child, a SON, Oct. 30 – next Monday.  Elder son Eric and wife Lindsey in Utah, also expecting but not until February, had the gender reveal party Sunday and it’s a GIRL to go with big brother Banner (4) and big sister Haven (2). My cup runneth over.

For you mathematicians, 884 weekly columns divided by 52 weeks a year makes this week’s column the completion of 17 consecutive years writing Common Christianity.  Shooting for 17 more!

Now, here’s the column.  God bless.

Bob

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Spirituality Column #884

October 21, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Info Central

By Bob Walters

“Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.” – Psalm 51:6, David’s beautiful lament to God after Nathan pointed out David’s sin

Why is it I can find the most disturbing parts of the Bible somehow calming, and almost any aspect of modern news media and commentary wrenchingly disturbing?

I’ve settled on this answer: it’s because I trust the Bible as God’s unwavering and righteous truth, and understand the media as merely man’s catalog of loaded opinions and politically-philosophically-socially “correct” – and so-often bogus – narratives.

High-alert discernment is wearying; truth waggling is insulting; the news is tiring.

I like to think it was not always that way … about the media, I mean.  I grew up in journalism.  My dad worked for the Associated Press in Detroit and then was a city editor for a newspaper in Michigan. I wrote sports for my local newspaper starting in my senior year in high school, earned a journalism degree in college, and spent roughly 12 years writing and editing daily sports news.  Dad always hoped I’d become a “real journalist” and cover the city hall and crime beats.  I was having fun in sports, thank you.

But in Dad’s era – the 50s and early 60s – journalism held fast to straight news and objectivity. Sure, different newspapers had different and well-known “slants,” but headlines provided information, not teases.  Truth was pursued; facts were honorable.

Stories were “inverted pyramids” of prioritized facts in descending order, the better to cut copy from the bottom when space ran tight.  The readers’ time was considered valuable: “tell ‘em what they need to know” … quickly.  The readers’ reasoning powers were trusted; specious and purpose-pitch insinuations were ridiculed.

Today in online “print” news with infinite space, we have click-bait heds and shaggy-dog ledes to draw us inward to intrusive advertising surrounding and embedded in imprecise paragraphs.  Broadcast news, commentary, and even “entertainment” largely toes an annoyingly Progressive “don’t think, just believe us” line of arrogance and deadly falsehoods.  Trust wanes.  Most media offer pot holes and land mines.

George Orwell … we never should have doubted you.  Prevarication reigns.

Conversely, much of my life – I am 69 years old – I did not know or trust God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, or the Bible. That has changed. Truth and righteousness reside with them, and I know searching the scriptural path will lead me to peace.  Reading the Old Testament, the first time through, for me, was devastatingly upsetting in some parts and overwhelmingly boring in others (all those “begats,” tribal lists, and laws). Yet, it is the story of God and the story of humanity: a catalog of what does not work for humans.   Jesus is the culmination of that story; faith in Him is true and the end will be glorious.

Jesus has been left behind in our large media picture, just like I left Him out of my life’s worldview and philosophy for many years.  Truth was elusive and hope was a situational and materialistic variable, not the spiritual surety Jesus has brought to me.

I sparingly, warily, look at a dozen or so news websites daily, receive the print editions of both the Wall Street Journal and the Epoch Times, and stopped watching TV news and commentary after the 2022 election. It has been the most satisfying and healthiest ceasefire since I quit smoking 30 years ago (January 1, 1994).

My ever-dwindling time now is focused on my trusted family, friends, colleagues, students, and a Lord I love and trust.  Peace in this life is indeed elusive, and I know exactly where to go for Good News, truthfully, anytime I need it.  Wisdom comes at last.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) can handle bad news but hates being lied to.

Suppose a living, holy Messiah came from God and nobody noticed.  Or few people noticed … or made up their own meaning.  It’s a 2,000-year-old quandary of Christianity.  See the column below. - Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #883

October 17, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Eyewitness Views

By Bob Walters

“Many will seek, but few will enter.” – Luke 13:24, Jesus speaking of God’s Kingdom

Podcaster friend Richard Jacobs, who is Jewish but nonetheless intensely curious about Christian beliefs, sent this question a couple weeks ago.  How would you answer it?

“If Jesus was crucified in 33 A.D., someone who was 15 years old at that time would've been cognizant of what was going on, and that person would've been born in 18 A.D. approx.  By 85 A.D. most, if not all, the direct eyewitnesses to Jesus were passed away. How do you think culture and humanity changed once the original first hand eyewitnesses passed away?

Well, what would you say?  Think about it for a few moments. 

I was a guest on Rich’s “Finding Genius” podcast in June (LINK) and after a brief “we must do it again” email exchange in early July, had not been back in touch.  I love these kinds of “what if” posers” but when the email arrived had time only to return this quick note:

“Great to hear from you Rich. Yes, too long! Can't respond in depth at the moment, but great question. The apostle John was just such a person: he witnessed the crucifixion, was younger than Jesus, and died approximately 100 A.D. Many heresies sprang up almost as soon as Jesus died; many persist today. Will be back in touch. Love this question.”

Slightly edited, here’s what I sent to Rich a few days later (before the Hamas attack):

“Hey Rich, getting back to this. First thing to consider, in my view, is how long after the Resurrection it took for anybody to actually understand what was going on: forgiveness. Many disciples, followers, and other people – according to the Bible – saw the resurrected Christ, but few if any figured out Jesus was the seal of their salvation, eyewitness or not.

“I mean, ‘Jesus back from the dead; neat trick,’ yet it was former Pharisee Paul, with a comprehensive command of Jewish scripture and called as an apostle a few years later, who put the tinsel on the tree and preached Christ the savior. John wrote his Gospel perhaps as late as 90 A.D.  It was still decades/centuries before a full ‘Christology’ was discerned. Eyewitnesses got the ball rolling, but Jesus’ truth had only begun to be grasped.

“And remember, the whole point going forward – ‘the New Covenant’ – was faith not proof.  Jesus had to die, come back, and then ‘go away’ to activate the faith dynamic. Despite all the instruction of Hebrew scripture, i.e., the Old Testament, almost nobody knew what Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection meant – for sure – so folks concocted stories.

“The church at Corinth Paul chided was an apostate mess.  The Gnostics and other heresies sprang up like daisies in various iterations saying Jesus had to be spirit or flesh but not both. The Jews were having none of it, over time doubling down with the Talmud and Mishnah re-explaining and re-emphasizing Jewish law still awaiting a Messiah (of David?) to adjudicate injustices against Israel. Today dispensationalists, end times prophesiers, and messianics are holding their breath – along with the rest of us – watching the war in Gaza. 

“The truth that Jesus was the fulfillment of Israel (Matthew 5:17) and is the only way, truth, and life of humanity’s eternal return to God's Kingdom (John 14:6) remains a point of contention for all outside Christian faith and even some in it. Jesus said ‘few would believe’ and like everything else, Jesus was right.  Most people on Earth, to this day, don't believe.  

“My thought is that this is as it was supposed to happen: faith, no faith, re-packaged expectations for a Messiah who will elevate the Jews over all, and secular nonsense of personal ‘truth’ untethered from a savior and Lord they cannot and or will not see.

“I think we're right where God figured we’d be: mostly fallen; and where Satan hoped we would be: largely confused. Our one opportunity to know God’s truth and salvation was right there on the cross. We either believe or we don't, and the secular circus continues.” 

Maybe we’ll have a chance to discuss it further on another of Richard’s podcasts.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) realizes he is one voice in a rather strong whirlwind.

 Friends, Remember that guy who “discovered America” in 1492? Yeah … don’t say his name.  And remember the Mayflower in 1620? Forget that, too. Let’s talk about 1619.  See the column below ...  Bob

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Spirituality Column #882

October 10, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Teacher as Student, Part 3

By Bob Walters

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil …” – Isaiah 5:20

Honestly, this column topic date wasn’t planned, it just fell this way.

Since mid-September I’ve wanted to write about two ship landings that happened in America in 1619.  That was a year before the ship Mayflower with its Pilgrims – who last week we learned were not Puritans and were not until many years later called “pilgrims” – arrived at Plymouth Rock, and 128 years after Columbus “discovered America.”

So today we will conclude a three-part series inspired by history lessons I’ve learned from teaching high school history at Mission Christian Academy, Fishers.  From World History, Part 1 (#880, HERE), we discussed the pharaohs in Egypt at the time of Moses.  Last week, Part 2 (#881, HERE) was about the “Separatists” who actually were on the Mayflower, not Puritans.  Now in Part 3, we’ll learn about a couple of English ships that landed in Virginia in 1619, one being the White Lion, carrying African slaves.

The irony of this particular column’s timing is that over the last several decades our nation has increasingly vilified – and now basically cancelled – the memory of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus who, under Spanish sponsorship, sailed across the Atlantic and into the Caribbean Sea in 1492.  In three trans-Atlantic trips Columbus never actually set foot on North American soil.  Yet, he is blamed for unleashing the “evils” of white European culture not just on the indigenous peoples of the western side of the Atlantic, but by extension, facilitating what followed, including slavery in America.

The irony? This column is dated Tuesday, but column distribution is Monday, Oct. 9, which this week happened to be C*l*m*u*s Day – whose name we dare not say – the now-verboten celebration of the “discovery of America.”  It is politically incorrect.

A fair study of Columbus’s 1492 Spanish ships and the English privateer (pirate) vessel White Lion 127 years later would reveal no connection between the two.  But since 2019, four years since the leftist New York Times Magazine with its silly-but-Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project undertook to rewrite American history, progressives are re-defining all European exploration and settlement of North America away from its intrinsic human greatness and applying it to destructive narrative and racial animus.

As for the White Lion, the English pirates had kidnapped the slaves from a Portuguese ship and then traded the Africans for ship’s provisions, i.e., food, at Point Comfort, now known as Fort Monroe near Hampton, Virginia. See a good history HERE.

Also in 1619, another ship – name unknown – arrived in Jamestown, “carrying 90 eligible women for purchase as wives for the cost of their passage, or 125 (155) pounds of tobacco (which served as currency at the time).” So says our U.S. History textbook. Story HERE.  One wonders why that, among feminists, hasn’t been a scandal as well. 

History tells us that while Spanish exploration here was more military and avaricious in nature, the English and others sought commerce, religious freedom, and fresh starts with families far from the monarchs and religious wars of Europe.

My thoughts on Columbus, slavery, and God are here, Sailing the Ocean Blue.  I’ve not read the 1619 Project, but here is a good explanatory piece by Jarrett Stepman in the Daily Signal: Historians Challenge New York Times' Dubious 1619 Project. I’d advise not wasting one’s time on the Times’ “1619” for the same reason I’d advise a friend not to patronize an obviously filthy restaurant; I’ve had a taste.  Yuk … nasty.

I am not blind to the faults of America but think it is dishonest to ignore its good.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) will return to a more theological theme next week.