September 17-30

September 17


Power of Giving


“take a gift.”


Proverbs 18
16 A gift opens the way for the giver
and ushers him into the presence of the great.

We have seen this one before. Gifts work to open doors. It is an old method of visiting Ambassadors. It is a means of softening the edges and demonstrating and open and generous spirit.

When I was a high school senior I invited a very popular girl to go with me to a “sock hop.” The weekend of the prom my family had a visit from my uncle and aunt who were travelling north from Florida. In their car they had a trunkload of coconuts they had picked up on the beach and were distributing along the way. Of course, these coconuts were still encased in their natural husk but what did that matter. They were novelties to many of us. As I was leaving my house for the dance the family pressed me to take two of the coconuts for my date’s grandmother, the girl’s chief care-giver.

The dance was a semi-formal affair in socks and I was decked up in my new light grey sports jacket, new gabardine trousers, polished shoes and spiffy tie. When the grandmother opened the door to greet me there I stood, dressed to the hilt and holding a large coconut under each arm. The grandmother was gracious but I learned later that she was puzzled on how to get the fibrous hull off the coconuts. However, but it was a gift neither her nor the girl ever forgot and which, I might add, brought them and me the gift of laughter for many years. Where were you Normal Rockwell when I needed you?

The moral of this story is “take a gift.”[1] Take any gift, well, almost any. You never know how it will open doors until you try it. Make it nice, make it thoughtful, make it strange but make it memorable as a heartfelt gesture of appreciation.



September 18


Question


When you want to learn, ask.


Proverbs 18
17 The first to present his case seems right,
till another comes forward and questions him.


When I was in college I majored in Literature. Since I knew I would repeat all Bible studies in Seminary I thought literature would be a good preparation for unfolding texts. I was right. One of the things I like about good literature is that there are layers beneath the words on every page. So it is with every story. Stories are interpretations of how people see reality. Sometimes they see clearly, fairly and with keen understanding of how their stories came about. At other times people who tell stories are inventive or downright dishonest. In any case, no story need be taken at face value especially when they are advocating innocence or guilt. Questions need to be asked. When in doubt, ask. When you want to learn, ask. When you need to understand, ask. When you want to know someone better, ask. Don’t worry about making “ask” of yourself.



September 19


A Flip of the Coin


Flip a coin for fun but never in matters that count.


Proverbs 18
18 Casting the lot settles disputes
and keeps strong opponents apart.

Two “good ole boys” were hunting and had an argument on which direction they should walk to get to their truck. After all, it was important to really know. They were dragging a large carcass of a deer one of them had killed. Finally, after almost fighting with their fists they decided to settle the issue with the flip of a coin. It turned out to be heads which led them in the opposite direction of their truck. As they dragged the heavy carcass darkness suddenly came on and they kept bumping into trees and falling down as they tripped over logs and fallen debris. Suddenly they walked right over a cliff. As they were falling one of them shouted to his partner, “Do you think this is a shortcut to the truck?” It is amazing how a flip of the coin can forge partnerships.
What is the moral of this story? Flip a coin for fun but never in matters that count. Until we resolve matters of the heart we only delay our downfall by casting lots or by legal devices. What is unresolved in the heart will come back to bite you.



September 20


Necessary and Unsatisfying


The law settles nothing but regulates action by force and that is why Jesus addressed issues as issues that have to be resolved in the heart.


Proverbs 18
19 An offended brother is more unyielding than a fortified city,
and disputes are like the barred gates of a citadel.

Solomon was a judge. It is surprising how much revelation he got after observing what happens when people have to resort to the law. After all, the law is God’s school master. The law settles nothing but regulates action by force and that is why Jesus addressed issues as issues that have to be resolved in the heart.



September 21


Treasure Trove

One can uncover wonderful insights by just inquiring …



Proverbs 18
20 From the fruit of his mouth a man's stomach is filled;
with the harvest from his lips he is satisfied.

I have noted that many people who have very dull jobs and lonely jobs like paleontologists, archeologists, physicists, clerks and administrators when given a chance to speak can very entertaining and animated. They are a reminder that everyone appreciates the opportunity to speak. However, many silent people need to be enticed to speak out. There is an old saying, “still water runs deep.” One can uncover wonderful insights by just inquiring of such people. Furthermore, we can add dimension to such people who are merely waiting to share the wealth of insight they have gathered. Satisfy someone today. Set them free by asking questions designed to probe the wealth they have collected. Just remember what it meant to you to have someone show an interest in your particular field of interest.



September 22


Power of Speech

What we speak can cause untold misery or energize others to live with verve.

Proverbs 18
21 The tongue has the power of life and death,
and those who love it will eat its fruit.

What we speak can take us one of two ways. One way is constructive. It brings life and all that contributes to our well being and that of others. The other way is destructive. What we speak can cause untold misery or energize others to live with verve. What we say is what we get. That is the simple but powerful message of this Proverb. Each day our greatest challenge is to watch what we speak because that will result in how well our soul flourishes and our social relationships prosper.



September 23


A Good Wife
Good men will find good spouses

Proverbs 18
22 He who finds a wife finds what is good
and receives favor from the LORD.

I am presently enjoying a biography of John Adams. He is a much misunderstood man, was a true Christian with devout life practices: honest, wise .thoughtful, loyal, stalwart, diligent and sacrificing. He was not alone in these virtues which were shared by his faithful, intelligent and patriot Christian wife, Abigail. For years he was separated from his family while he gave attention to his civic calling to serve this nation. While he spent many years away from home his wife remained behind to keep up the family farm, raise the family and be an earnest friend and support to him.

Adams could not have been the man he was without Abigail and he said so. After being elected President he went to alone though he was separated from his family for many years as he carried out the duties of shaping the Republic, was first ambassador to France and England and later vice-president and President of our new Republic. Once, after being elected vice-president he wrote her with these words:

“I must go to you or you must come to me. I cannot live without you…I must entreat you to lose not a moment’s time in preparing to come on, that you may take off from me every care of life but that of my public duty, assist me with your councils, and console me with your conversations…The times are critical and dangerous, and I must have you here to assist me…I must repeat this with zeal and earnestness, I can do nothing without you.”[2]
It may well be said that this great man was only great because of his virtuous, intelligent and sacrificing wife. This is but an illustration. It cannot be underscored enough. Good men will find good spouses and “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.”


September 24


The “Poor” Get Rich


We are rich only when we are as rich with the riches of the king of all things.


Proverbs 18
23 A poor man pleads for mercy,
but a rich man answers harshly.

While this proverb is probably and observation it could just as well be applied to our spirituality. Those who are poor in spirit and realize it will plead for mercy. It is the arrogant, the self-sufficient, and the vainly secure who cast God’s words back into his face, who are likely to challenge his mercy or to mock his name. That is probably why Jesus sorrowed over the rich who had already received their reward. Their reward was what? It was the sum of what they spent their lives gaining.

Until we recognize our poverty in the presence of the King of heaven we are likely not to cry out for mercy. It is time to find the right measure. We are not rich when we are richer than someone else or in the things of this world. We are rich only when we are as rich with the riches of the king of all things. When we understand this we will then cry for mercy and find more riches than we can “ask or think.”



September 25


Pop Tart or Guard Pard


It is fairly easy to be popular. It is more to find a true friend.



Proverbs 18
24 A man of many companions may come to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

It is fairly easy to be popular. It is more difficult to find a true friend. To be popular smile a lot, joke a lot, do crazy things, flatter and give away a lot of free stuff. However, where do you find a true friend? You find them on the periphery of many social circles. They are the thoughtful, virtuous and kind ones. It is difficult to find them because in our pride we are tempted to walk right past them. Happy is the person who has a real friend. Happy is the person who recognizes that the pillars of a temple are more important and lasting than the idols within.

Proverbs 19
1 Better a poor man whose walk is blameless
than a fool whose lips are perverse.





September 26


A Tempered Nature


Too much emphasis on zeal is not good. Likewise, too much emphasis on reason leads to dry, lifeless faith.


Proverbs 19
2 It is not good to have zeal without knowledge,
nor to be hasty and miss the way.

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem and the people shouted his praises the Pharisees said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” “I tell you,” he replied, ‘if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

I will confess that when I went to seminary I had some professors who were agnostics. They didn’t say so. I formed my perspective largely by what they did not say or the way they countered the doctrines of the faith. This is also not just my opinion. Years later, after I befriended one of my old teachers, he told me of several of my teachers who professed their agnosticism. After all, it was vogue to dissent in order to be a part of the counter culture in those days. Even though this was true, I managed to glean some good things from my seminary studies and compensate by leaning into the wisdom of my godly professors. I might even add that once in that place God spoke to me through a stone.

Each day as I was going to class I had to pass the library. Ensconced in that library is a cornerstone. (That stone is there to this day if someone hasn’t allowed the hedges to cover it.) On that that stone is a quote by John Wesley. It says, “Unite the two so long disjoined: knowledge and vital piety.”

Wesley realized that in his day that “knowledge” had superseded the passion of faith. It was his conviction, therefore, that people needed to recapture their passion for Christ. However, it is a fact, that all of us waver between the two extremes: reason and zeal. Too much emphasis on zeal is not good. Likewise, too much emphasis on reason leads to dry, lifeless faith. A friend of mine puts it this way:

“When you stress doctrine without the Spirit you dry up. When you stress passion without the Spirit you burn up. When you live your life in the Spirit you grow up. “

We may likewise recognize that “to be hasty” in our pursuit of faith we may “miss the way.” Too many believers are ready to believe the first convincing presentation made to them. Such people do not search the scriptures, nor do they trust their first responses. They want so much to be a part of Christian societies that they will plunge ahead without examining what they are taught. We need always to be like the Bereans who searched the scriptures to see if what Paul taught was true. The Holy Spirit knows your inclination. He is the patient and timely teacher. There is no golden ring we must hastily grab in order to be on the right course.

In short, be diligent to search out the truth and when you have it commit yourself to respond to it with “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control..” (Galatians 5: 22-26)

Acts 17:11 (New International Version)
11Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

Galatians 5
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.



September 27


Whose Fault?

When we can’t control things or they get messed up because of our stupidity we blame God.



Proverbs 19
3 A man's own folly ruins his life,
yet his heart rages against the LORD.

This is pretty clear. When we can’t control things or they get messed up because of our stupidity we blame God.

Have you ever noticed how much ridicule general society mocks Christians for believing God can intervene while at the same time calling nature’s cataclysms “an act of God?” “‘Nough said”, said the feller.



September 28


Proverbs 19
4 Wealth brings many friends,
but a poor man's friend deserts him.

Remembrance of the Prodigal

When the son had funds for lavish gifts and great parties he had friends. And so, he lived it up in the distant city but soon discovered he had exhausted his inheritance. Then his creditors came for him. His friends deserted him. He was in trouble. So, he hired himself to work for a pig farmer in the region.

He was not familiar with working conditions like this. In this place he slept near the pigs, fed the pigs, medicated the pigs, delivered their young and guarded the pigs from predators. After awhile he began to smell like the pigs. He longed to eat the husks of the pigs so he could have his stomach filled with food just once because his debts were great and no one was there to help.
For months the lad labored in this condition. He could not bear to go home. He could not bear thinking of the anger he would confront, the mockery he would endure or the rejection of his Father. After all, he had brought it upon himself. He had demanded that his father give him his inheritance. With tears in his eyes, his father had done so. Now the son had no recourse. He had no friends. He had no intact family ties. He had no one to blame but himself.

As the months passed the boy dreamed of home. He couldn’t help it. It was the only place he had ever known sanity and security. It was the only place where he had known love.
He remembered the clean sheets, the clear waters of the brook in which he bathed. He recalled how the breezes blew down the valley to drive the hot and humid air away as he lay in white linen gazing at the stars in summer from his Father’s roof. He remembered the last and first coos of the dove as he fell asleep and awakened to the rising sun.

He thought of the tables in his Fathers house: heaped with delicacies, groaning under roasted legs of lamb, huge slabs of veal, great trays of fish and fresh produce. He dreamed of how the greens and grapes, figs and dates, nuts and pomegranates, onions and olives, garlics and luscious herbs, greens and that were piled so high that they sloped and often fell from the table making great thumps as servants rushed to gather them up. This is the way he remembered it. At least, that is the way he dreamed of home. And, although he knew in all sincerity that he was compounding the memory of 10 feasts into one he wanted to remember it this way and he knew his dreams reflected the life of his Father’s house.

After many months of such dreaming the boy decided to attempt to return home. He imagined that when he appeared at the door of his home the servants would turn him away, or that the Father would come out with cane in hand to drive him from the place or that they would all pretend they did not know him. He imagined all of this and more. But he set out on his journey anyway. He would throw himself on their mercy, he concluded. He remembered how his Father’s servants lived as partakers of the gleanings of luxury and was better than he. So he determined to humble himself this time. He would confess his sin and beg to be taken back into the household as a hired hand. And so, he stumbled down the road kicking up little clouds of dust as he dragged his feet ever so slightly.

As the boy grew near his home he rehearsed a little speech. He would confess his sin against his father and his home. He would beg to be taken back as a servant and he would do the most menial work, he thought, just to live in the shadow of such order, such cleanliness, and such security. However, his musings were interrupted because there was a commotion in the yard of his father’s house. People were milling about. Then someone was running toward him, no there were more strung out in a long line like ants heading fallen morsel.



September 29


Proverbs 19
5 A false witness will not go unpunished,
and he who pours out lies will not go free.

In 1544 the Greek professor and preacher George Wishart was part of the Protestant movement in Scotland. When he first arrived in Scotland from studies abroad he dared to challenge the corruption in the Roman church and royalty of his day. Like many he became a marked man and in due time, after avoiding several assignation attempts, was taken to prison. He was betrayed by his former protector, an earl, and was delivered by him into the hands of the Cardinal David Beaton. In the course of Wishart’s “trial” it was decided he should die for heresy. Thus Wishart, the mentor of John Knox, became one of many Protestant martyrs of that time.

As Wishart died at the stake he looked at the balcony to the cardinals and princes who were watching. His words rose on the columns of smoke that swirled about his body:
This flame hath scorched my body, ye hat it not daunted my spirit. But he who from yonder high place beholdest us with such pride, shall, within a few days, lie in the same as ignominiously as now he is seen proudly to rest himself. ”[3]

Within in a few days the Cardinal had been murdered and his body was displayed to an angry township. The prophecy or the words of Wishart came to pass. Therefore, was he speaking out of inspiration? More than likely there was a bit of inspiration here. The inspiration was related to the “few days” before judgment came on the evil perpetrators of death. However, Wishart also believed the scriptures and trusted them and their promises for the resolution of divine justice in a time of horror and on the people of unspeakable evil. Wishart understood that the scriptures speak of a judgment that is higher than that of human courts.

This is what one author says of Cardinal Beaton:

“The wickedness of the particular cardinal was notorious. He was not simple corrupt, but bloodthirsty as well. To take just one example of his character, once while traveling, he instigated the governor to hang four honest men for eating a goose on Friday. He even had a young woman drowned, because she refused to pray to “our Lady” during the birth of her child.”[4]

False witness by evil men will not go unpunished. It is as much a fact as gravity is an effect which exacts its toll on a falling object.


[1] A friend of mine and associate pastor of my former church school used to carry “tic-tacs” to hand out to people. It opened doors for him even among children and even those senior adults he visited in the hospital.
[2] McCullough, David,. John Adams, Touchstone Rockefeller Center, New York, NY 10030, 2001, p. 479.
[3] Thomas McCrie, The Story of the Scottish Church (1874; reprint, Glasgow: Free Presbyterian Publications, 1988), 20-1.
[4] Wilson, Douglas, For Kirk and Covenant, The Stalwart Courage of John Knox(Highland Books, Cumberland House, Nashville, TN,2000, 24.