Friends: We always love talking about Jesus, but that doesn’t mean we can always be sheep. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #1037

September 29, 2026

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Gentleness, Respect, and Tenacity

By Bob Walters

“… Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” – 1 Peter 3:15

This is among my favorite Bible verses for a couple of reasons.

First, it is calming; I only have to explain why I, personally, have hope. I can do that all day long. I can always explain Jesus to my own satisfaction, but whether I can explain Him adequately to someone else is a more daunting challenge. We find Jesus in our own hearts; that is why we know Him as a personal Lord and Savior. He is everyone’s, as well as ours alone. That is why everyone’s testimony is unique.

I envy, in a good way, the natural evangelists; but my gifts lie elsewhere.      

Second, the verse instructs us not to be a jerk about Jesus; to have “gentleness and respect.” Jesus was kind, but also direct with the truth and creatively vivid with His illustrations (swallowing a camel, plank in the eye, brood of vipers etc.). People will argue about whether Jesus ever laughed (the Bible doesn’t tell us), but it takes an educated, period-specific, cultural sense of Jewish humor to cull the humorous bits from the Gospels. My erudite Bible mentor George Bebawi, who grew up Jewish (in Egypt of all places) before finding Christ in his late teens, thought Jesus was hilarious.

Anyway, we should fearlessly share about Jesus, live in confident hope, be kind to others, show our faith by virtue of a caring and intelligent demeanor, love – but do not bow to – our enemies, and pray mightily for guidance, discernment, and the right words.

Jesus knew how to temper his language. He spoke kindly to the lost, softly and confidently to the demons who knew who He was and feared Him, but was often harsh and condemning – and cunning – with the Pharisees who refused to recognize Him.

The Pharisees, you see, had inherited the “world,” i.e., status, wealth, power, pride, and jealousy of their position. They forgot there was a Messiah with whom they could inherit the Kingdom of God. They lost sight of the truth, and could not see Jesus.

And that’s today’s lesson for today’s Christians: let’s keep clear sight of Jesus.

Jesus was tenacious and wise. By his truth and authority, believers were drawn to Him then and are still drawn to Him today. Hebrew scripture, i.e., the Old Testament, was replete with prophesies of His coming, His person, His purpose, His providence, and His destiny. The Pharisees of His time were willfully blind to the scrolls, but John the Baptist, the Disciples, and many others saw the divine in Jesus’s person.

Today, we have the whole New Testament to explain prophecy to us and we wonder how anyone, ever, could be in the presence of Jesus, whatever he looked like, and not sense the glory of His person, relationship with God, and love for mankind.

But … folks make those errors all the time.  In our current age, in a rapidly deteriorating post-Christian American culture, our mission becomes not just personal reflection and prayer, but the tenacity of Jesus and of Jude 1:3-4, “to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. … [against] ungodly people who pervert the grace of our Lord.” How do we contend for the faith … our faith?

One way is simple: vote. Get to the polls this fall. Don’t lay back. Be tenacious against threats. In a nation slipping from its Christian underpinnings, whether by the ignorant secular culture or heretical progressive Christians – e.g., “Islam is just another religion,” “Jesus was non-binary”– sane Christian citizens must pick up the mantle of tenacity defending our nation from those who attack truth and seek to remove our freedom to worship.

The ungodly, freedom-squashing left will be at the polls. Will we?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) asserts the current American faith and political contest is not between Christianity and Islam; it is between a Constitutional Republic and Sharia Law.

Friends: Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father in eternal Heaven and occupies space in our hearts here below. When does He have time to love us? Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #1036

September 22, 2026

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Never a Time  

By Bob Walters

“And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” – Jesus praying for himself in the Priestly Prayer, John 17:5

“… before the world began.” For all the discussion in Sunday school and Bible study about “who” and “what” Jesus was, here we’re confronted with “when” Jesus was.

Christian orthodoxy – the basics of the faith, not the capital “O” Eastern church – tells us that Jesus was fully God and fully man. That’s a mystery I can’t define or explain, other than to say that the Almighty trinitarian God – Father, Son, and Spirit – reached down into history and in the person of Jesus, saved us from our sin.

Salvation means our curse and separation from God is resolved by the sacrificial work of Christ on the cross. From His seat in eternity, Christ entered humanity as Jesus of Nazareth, born of the virgin Mary and the seed of the Holy Spirit. Jesus lives, laughs, and suffers among humanity, is baptized, preaches God’s truth, rebukes Israel’s leadership, is crucified by the Romans, died, is buried, resurrected, and returned to his heavenly seat beside God. Then, the Spirit arrives to live in the hearts of the faithful. Our faith, trust, and love of Christ express our acceptance of eternity’s grace.

That’s “who” Jesus was, and is. As to “what” Jesus was and is, meaning His essence in the Trinity of being “from God” or “of God” – topics deep in the theological fabric of Christian truth, opinions, and heresies for 2,000 years – I go with the eternal, uncreated reality of God as a society, community, and relationship of goodness and glory that allows John to say “God is love.” Humanity is an expression of that love, and Jesus the Messiah Christ is Who rescues and heals humanity. He is the Word of God.

What anchors my faith, recognizes this truth, and cements my trust is that the story of Jesus has been discussed, challenged, and protected constantly for 2,000 years.  The fact that smart people have disagreed – and still disagree – on various doctrinal points does not tell me that the story is wrong. That the core Christian beliefs of Jesus’s life, death, burial, and resurrection have endured tells me it is safe to weather any storm, or celebrate any joy, in the name of Jesus.  He is the real deal; done deal.

So, Who Christ is and What Christ does isn’t screaming for further definition in my faith life.  God’s love – for me and others proven through Christ – is truth enough. My love for God and others, thankfully, “covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

I’ll gladly take it.

But this idea of “When” Jesus was, is currently occupying space in my brain. I heard a phrase this past week, regarding the Trinity as existing “before eternity.”  “Before” puts eternity in time, and I’m pretty sure that is not how eternity works. There is no “before eternity” or “after eternity.” Eternity, like the Trinity, was/is just always there. Our human minds, living as we do within the rhythms of God’s Creation of time, space, and matter, measure everything. The definable and measurable world is where we live.

Eternity – and it’s the same with God’s love, the sacrifice of Jesus, the indwelling of the Spirit, the authority of the Bible, the fellowship of the faithful, and probably many other things I’m forgetting – cannot be measured.  These are qualitative realities, not quantitative observations. Jesus on earth somehow had a foot in both camps.

My question: Jesus is in eternal heaven, but He is also in my earthly heart. Does that mean that Christ is there? Or here? Or both? And “when” am I in all this?

Fear not. I realize there is never a time Jesus doesn’t love every one of us.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) cites C.S. Lewis: “The present is where eternity touches time.” – The Screwtape Letters

 

Friends: Jesus came not to win a war against the Romans, but to bring victory to humanity.  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #1035

September 15, 2026

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Peace with God

By Bob Walters

 “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him (Jesus), and through him to reconcile to himself (God) all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.” – Colossians 1:19-20

The Jews of the first century made a huge mistake in their expectation and understanding of how to deal with the prophesied Messiah of ancient scripture.

This is a commentary, not a criticism, because I doubt I would have expected or thought any different. The Romans kept the peace and enforced civic order – often harshly – but were not the Jews’ idea of salvation. The Romans were a burden, and pagan: idolators with false gods and earthly deities. Fear and violence were their justice.

What the Jews – what Israel – had going for them was a defined relationship, albeit shaky, with the One True God. God wasn’t shaky, but the Jews were. They had laws and traditions to outline their divine relationship, but their practice of worshipping God had become infested with self-imposed legalities that masked God and elevated the human leaders of Israel.  The Jews and the Romans focused on conflict, not peace.

Jesus, the promised Messiah, came, I believe, not so much as a rebuke to Israel – although He was definitely that – but as the fulfillment and deliverer of God’s intent for all mankind. How, where, or when better to do that than in the center of God’s Israel where the world’s most powerful empire held earthly dominion?

Jesus came to address both problems: 1. the Jews’ mistaken idea of the Messiah, and 2. the Romans’ mistaken idea of manmade authority.

The Jews’ mistake was praying for a Messiah whose mission was to kill the Romans and exalt Israel to political and religious dominance over all the earth.

Whether or not the Romans thought much about the world beyond the Mediterranean, or say, from the British Isles to the west and Persia/India to the east, isn’t often discussed. But Rome’s wide dominance allowed only for Caesar, not Jesus.

Jesus came not to kill the Romans or elevate Israel. Jesus came to make peace between God and humanity. Peace was the goal; that was the victory on offer.

We think of “victory” as implying, of necessity, a “loser.” Victory as reward, victory as vanquishing an enemy, victory as gaining power. Leafing through the New Testament, whether the Gospels or epistles of Paul, Peter, James, John et al, we don’t see military or political dominance as God’s goal or Jesus’s mission.

What we see in Christ is endurance, patience, obedience, faithfulness, righteousness, truth, and love. When we in this life encounter “trials of many kinds” (James 1:2-4), our victory and goal in overcoming those trials is peace in knowing Jesus is Lord, Jesus is our Savior, and Jesus is with us always (Matthew 28:20). God cares.

Where the Jews saw war and persecution and the Romans saw empire and order, Jesus came to save mankind from our true enemy, sin, which brings death. Salvation is forgiveness, grace, and love. Jesus’s blood brings peace, not war.

We may be in a war with Satan and his earthly and spiritual “princes and principalities” (Ephesians 6:12), but our victory, and Satan’s defeat, is peace with Christ.

It is that peace, and our trusting faith in Jesus, that invites us lovingly into the Kingdom that overcomes the world, restores fellowship with God, and brings eternal life.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) paraphrases: Make peace, not war. God loves you.

Friends: Humans can do something animals could never imagine doing ...

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Labels: humanity, G.K. Chesterton, nature, Orthodoxy, our dog Kramer, wild animals

Spirituality Column #1034

September 8, 2026

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Imagine That

By Bob Walters

“Man is the only truly wild animal.” – G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Our little dog Kramer – marking his 16^th birthday last week as a slightly pudgy, aging Bichon Friese that’s blind and deaf but otherwise healthy, hungry, continent, and in seemingly good spirits – has exhibited some surprising talents in his life.

Now a 20-pound white fluffball, we got him as a puppy from a very nice kennel – Tea Pups – in northern Indiana near Lake Wawasee. We had first pick in the litter, and he chose Pam and me as much as we chose him. He had a big head and was sitting on top of the other male pups. I picked him up and he licked my face, then went for Pam’s.

The previous 15 years Pam had a Bichon named Kramer, who died in the spring of 2010. In November that year, figuring she’d never reset her brain for a Bichon with a different name, we dubbed our new 10-week-old puppy, “Kramer Too Walters.”

He has been a great dog.  If he wandered, he found his way home. Like most dogs he barks when it is meal time and stands by the door when it is time to go out. He has never shown fear of fireworks or thunder. He loved splashing in the lake up north and riding around town with his head out the window … on days that are now past.

As a young dog Kramer developed a uniquely creative trick and we could never understand how he came up with it. We were living in an apartment with a carport requiring a walk across the complex’s main drive. Kramer just naturally “heeled” – we don’t know why – so we typically didn’t leash him at home. Then one day as we all exited the car headed toward our apartment, Kramer sat down by the rear bumper.

We didn’t notice his absence until we traversed the dozen or so paces to the main drive. When we checked to make sure he was with us and safe, we looked back and saw him sitting – his head slightly cocked forward, intently peering at us – waiting.

Waiting for what? Waiting for one of us to signal, “Come!” From then on, he’d wait by the car until we checked traffic and signaled, then come tearing across the drive to our door like it was a game. He had trained us. How? We’ll never know. Smart dog.

But was he creative?  I think most likely not. Animals recognize patterns and places, sense danger, are drawn to those they “trust,” seek food and shelter, and somewhere in that equation Kramer mimicked what to us looked like intelligence.

But to Chesterton’s point that man is the only “truly wild animal,” what Kramer can’t do, and no animal can do, is to go against its nature. They can be trained to mimic intelligence or observed behaviors, but their natures are set by creation, i.e., by God.

That is where, Chesterton observes, man is wildly different. Created in the image of God, man can do creative, intellectual, philosophical, and charitable – or horrible – things. That is the spark of freedom and creativity God placed in no other animal.

Survival instincts? All living things have those. Man is the only creature that can disrupt his own survival instincts. We have an imagination, gifted by God, to do good or evil. You can’t blame an alligator that eats, say, Kramer, and call it evil. It’s an alligator obeying its natural, uh, nature. It is instinct: not creativity, not hostility, not morality.

I heard someone say last week that man (i.e. humans) cannot create anything because God is the creator of everything. I get the sentiment, but not the practical reality.  I’m on the side that understands why smart dolphins don’t build hospitals, and why God-given human talents and aspirations can imagine, and do, great things or terrible things.

Of course humans can create – or destroy – at will. And I notice, so can God.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes man’s first job was to create names for animals (Genesis 2:19).