Jonah

I am reading an old sermon about Jonah. This sermon gives me so many thoughts.

Jonah did not want the Assyrians in Nineveh to get saved. It is about a sort of salvation. God has judged them. Their repentance saves them.

A key phrasing. God has not enemies. He only wants to love, he rushes in the help anyone who shows any interest at all!

I think this is so key. Jonah knew that and he did not like it.

How willing are we to share the great secret of God's love? Do we want people to know and share what we know? Are we willing to take the trouble to share and then help people to grow in Christ? Or are we too busy meeting our own needs?

I think I fall short quite a bit. There may be types of people that I would hate to find the Good News of salvation. But I am not aware of it. My problem is I am selfish and like to entertain myself.

talking to Karen

Now that Karen is more than 2000 miles away it is easier for her to talk to us (me).

Last night she called during my class (twice) getting the ire of my professor up, I might add.

Anyway after class I called her back and we talked for over an hour. I finally had to call it off myself. I was a good talk. My cell has a limited number of minutes so she called me back on our land line. The land line is not as clear so somethings I did not hear too well.

But I heard about her garden and her plans for the basement. I heard about all their efforts to keep the varmints out, without killing them. Good luck.

Spring has not quite come to West Virginia, they just had a freeze the other day. She lives in the country with not much to do.

Oh yes we spoke of diet, losing weight, eating right. Some of what she said did not make sense to me. But she will learn. I hope and pray God will teach her.

Karen is still not a Christian. She is still not on fire for God. I know husband Mark's parents and we are still hopeful and praying for them.

Great weekend

Saturday at Alpha weekend was so great. I summarized last post.

Then Rice baseball won. I got to see the last two innings.

I got in a nice walk. Maybe an hour. Maybe three miles.

Sunday early church was great. Then on to Rice baseball where sadly they lost and therefore lost the series. It has been a long time since Rice has lost a conference series. The reconstructing is still going on. Michael Fuda got back and the pop in his bat was noticeable. The lineup has been severely lacking in long ball potential. There are new bats this year and you can tell the difference, surely.

Then I was just in time for Celebration rehearsal. We had two sub section leaders. One is from Rice and I will try to show up for he recital this Saturday.

The girls go on retreat this weekend. My schedule is filling us fast. In fact I am double booked.

Evening church was very good. The singing was inspiring.

Alpha Holy Spirit Weekend

We had a great HS weekend at Kegans today. Quite a few people received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. We heard some great testimonies.

Several people prayed in tongues for the first time. They just started praising God and it came for them. Hallelujah.

I had a tough time staying awake for the first six hours. Then when we stood up to pray for the men I was very awake and God did a good job of coming through in the form of the Holy Spirit, God the Holy Spirit. It was great.

I was not too restrictive on my food. But not awful. But I was stuffed for two hours. That did not help.

I got teased about the bright red Jamaica shirt that I wore. I was "om fire" from the beginning.

2 Kings 21 - Mostly Manasseh

I skipped Hezekiah. Not that I did not have anything to say. But I got busy.

Manasseh was twice cursed because he led the people astray into sinful abominations. It is repeated in great detail the horrors that he committed. This is done so that later enemies could not say, "God abandoned you." No the opposite, God was gracious to withhold his hand but eventually he did judge and punish them as they deserved.

When God punishes us it is for our own good. But it is also so that scoffers around us cannot say, "That guy professes to be a Christian yet look at how he lives? And God just lets him be."

God is patient but he is not mocked.

Paul states it so well in Romans 6:15. Shall grace be an excuse for us to sin? To do what we want? Shall we act selfishly and sinfully and then say, "God is loving. He will overlook it."? MAY IT NEVER BE! GOD FORBID!

God loves us. Let us love him back enough to strive to act well, lovingly. Love our fellow man. Well we see a friend in need, let us help him all we can. We do not know who is looking and taking their cues from our behavior.

Galatians 3 - Adding to the gospel

"Jesus is God's everything. Jesus plus anything else is heresy."

When we add anything to the gospel of grace we ruin it, adulterate it. It is not worthless yet but we have started down that path.

Paul is very serious here. He knows that they originally believed that Jesus saved them. They needed no more for salvation than belief. Now this does not mean that he did not insist that they strive to live righteous lives. But this did not mean more religious practices. Of any kind.

Paul knew and loved the law, still. When he went to Jerusalem he was not opposed to following the old practices if it would help his fellow Jews to see that Jesus was the promised Messiah and all had gone as God had planned.

But for the Gentiles he wanted them to know that adding Jewish practices to their faith did not make them any more saved. He insisted they were free. Adding some comfortable rite started them down the heretical path of salvation by works.

Our debt to God is too great, death is too great, we cannot save ourselves by anything we do. We need a savior. I believe Jesus showed himself to be the Messiah. I believe that he is. His resurrection showed that God approved of Him. He defeated death and he gave us the gift of life.

Psalm 65 - Count Your Blessings

That is the what the psalmist is doing, counting his blessings. Some psalms recount God's mighty deeds of salvation, from Egypt, over the Red Sea, into the promised land.

In this psalm the author first thanks God for forgiveness after he acknowledges he has sinned. Then he thanks God for being chosen to be with God in his house. (Reminds me again of Ephesians 2:21 where God says the Gentiles too, all men, are now able to be a part of God's household because of Jesus' blood shed on the cross for us, only believe.)

The psalmist begins his psalm by saying, "There will be silence before thee." Silence and then praise. Silent speaks of peace. Silence speaks of completion. It is done. No more need be said or done. It is an absence of noise, of things that create chaos, confusion. God is the center of attention.

But then the psalmist counts his blessings. He sees God in nature, its beauty and its power. He sees God in the crops being watered and maturing. He sees God in the pastures where the animals raised for food and clothing are kept.

All the time he is picturing in his mind's eye their beauty and how they reflect God's beauty.

I count my blessings for family, for a man who came over last night just to hang with us. I do love seeing the city change. I got a great glimpse of the skyline yesterday, seen clearly because an old warehouse has been torn down and now the large area has become green with what some of looks like a lawn. It looks majestic, about as close as we get here in Houston to mountains.

Yesterday the weather was great. A lot of plants are sprouting new growth. A few have died from the freezes. We are finally pretty sure which are dead but I have not lost total hope yet. I still hope for the bougainvillea. The pecan tree has been pruned but it has not started putting out leaves yet. It is one of the last trees to break out of dormancy. The roses in our yard have been cut back and are beginning to rebound.

Count your blessings too.

2 Kings 17

In this chapter we get details of the northern kingdom's downfall and deportation. By now the northern kingdom is no longer called Israel but Samaria, after it's capital. Hoshea has become king. He is a vassal to the king of Assyria but he tries to trick him and get the king of Egypt to protect him. This is foolishness. The Egyptian king has no power to protect him. So the Assyrian king puts Samaria under siege for three years. There is a lot of horrible suffering as a result of that. Then Assyria takes Samaria and deports them. The region where they are resettled is described but it does not mean anything to me. He mentions the land of the Medes. From this time forward the northern ten tribes are lost, never to return to the promised land. Likely subsequent generations learn the language of the region they live in and they are assimilated.

I think it instructive that now God thinks it important to review all the evil and unfaithful things his people did, finally causing him to cut them off. God does not owe us an explanation and yet he felt it important to do so. Verses 7-17 summarize all the ways God's people had worshiped other gods and done what was evil. Verse 18 declares God's conclusion to cut them off. Only the tribe of Judah is left.

"It is impossible to worship God unless we worship only God." This seems the heart of the Old Testament teaching. I think Jesus agreed with this view. Yet we all fall short. God states along with this that Judah is not acting rightly either. But they are still left. Perhaps God thinks they will learn from the example of Samaria.

God repeats his judgment three times, verses 18, 20, and 23. I sense God mourned doing this. He did it regretfully. He was looking for any repentance on the part of his people. But they are permanently removed from the covenant of God. Now, by the blood of Jesus all men are given the opportunity to become part again of God's covenant. This is the new covenant brought about by the sacrifice that Jesus made for all of us.

I wonder, if only the tribe Judah is left how can Anna, the prophetess be described as of the tribe of Asher. And Saul (Paul) said he was the tribe of Benjamin. Is there something I am missing? I do not remember the other tribes coming back. The southern kingdom is exiled and then brought back 90 years later. Do some of the other tribes come back after the exile?

In the conclusion of the chapter we are told Assyria relocated other nation groups to the area vacated by the northern kingdom. Several groups are named. They brought their own gods. Yet they decided that they must also worship the local god. So the Assyrian king sends back a priest to live at Beth-el and tell them how. Beth-el means "house of God". Is there some irony here? The men of the northern kingdom had not worshiped rightly so how could they tell another group how to do it correctly?

But the writer of kings details all the other gods they also so worshiped. Worshiping the local deity "El" was just superstition. But this is at least one version of how the Samaritans got into the land. They were not Israelites yet they worshiped the Israelite God, after a fashion.

Verses 32 and 34 seem to say opposite things. Verse 32 says these new people fear the Lord. But they also worship other gods. Verse 34 says they do not fear the Lord. One version translates 32 as worships as in sacrifices. So perhaps what God saying is that they worship with their sacrifices but they do not do so with their hearts. They do not fear (respect) God because they also worship other gods.

Let us resolve to worship the only one God with all our heart and mind and soul. Lord help us to do that more and more. Amen

Mountaintop experiences

I am thinking about an old sermon about the transfiguration theophany, based on Luke 9:28-36

The reason Peter wanted to make shelters was because he wanted to stay there forever. Or at least he wanted to stay as long as he could. But he couldn't.

We too are like that. We have experiences in our lives that we do not want to ever end.

A lot of us remember our Redeemer Episcopal Church experience like that. We found God coming close to us and it was exciting and peaceful at the same time. We wanted it to never end.

It was also hard and there was sin. Julia Duin's book emphasizes that part. But like we talked about Jeroboam II a few days ago, God is often gracious despite our not walking correctly.

But after it is over, and it is over for most of us, we cannot recreate it. We must, if we are to do God's will, move on. Paul speaks of being called by his gracious choosing to do good works. We must be about doing that. That means looking forward to what we have a burden to do and not looking back at what came before.

We happened in the past shapes us and matures us and gives us faith. But it's over. The theophanies in our lives are to cherish but not to try to relive. If we continue with God there may be new theophanies, maybe not. But there will never be a theophany by trying to recreate the old.

Titus 1

I see three main ideas in this chapter, first is Paul's introduction. Paul always uses his introduction to send a message: We are a people of hope, hope for eternal life. God does not lie. He has promised us life before the beginning of time. Whatever our circumstances whether we are feeling pressured and unsure (like the people experiencing aftershocks in Japan right now) or whether we are feeling pretty secure with life we have this hope. God has promised us eternal life. As we get old and are going slower we have to remember this is only temporary. Most of us remember the confidence we had in our bodies when we were younger. We took it for granted. Now that it is going we (I certainly) have to remember that this will be over in time but we will still live with God in Jesus Christ. Our bodies will actually be better than the bodies of our youth. I don't think we can imagine that.

Then Paul gets into instructions to Titus. First he defines a very high qualification for elders in the church in Crete. This seems to be the qualities Paul looks for in an elder anywhere. I suspect that Titus may have had to compromise to actually find people who qualified. But this gives him some definite things to look for. I think so often the church looks for men who look good, carry themselves well, speak well, know how to make people feel important. While none of this in bad one must look at the fruit of their lives. Are they self controlled? Do their children believe? Are their wives happy and productive? In short behind closed doors at home are they living as they profess in public?

And as they act correctly they must believe correctly. With those two things in place they will have a consistent witness and be able to honestly teach and encourage others to do likewise.

Then Paul seems to go on a rant first about Jewish converts who try to lead people to follow old Jewish practices and then about Cretans in general.

Perhaps the application to all this is that if one is not acting righteously one cannot see clearly to teach correctly, righteously either. He summarizes by saying: "They claim that they know God but their actions deny it."

I pray that my actions not deny that I truly know God. Yes it is important that we live out our faith, act soberly, so that people will take seriously what we profess and perhaps come to know the saving faith of Jesus because of our witness.

In San Francisco

The travel was very smooth this morning. I know people were praying because of all the favor and because God gave me traveling friends all along the way. In contrast a poor man was having a serious problem with the hotel when I got there. I had my reservation. For some reason his reservation was not accepted. I do not understand how that could happen.

I got to my hotel by about 3 PM local time. I had plenty of time to get out and walk a little.

What can I say about this northern side of SF? It reminds me some of London. The buildings are old and the people are young. I am checking for restaurants and a lot of them have menus taped to their front windows. This is so helpful.

I do not think I will try the Vietnamese restaurants. There are not many customers in them and the items do not entice me. There are plenty of Thai and Japanese and Indian restaurants, so far I have seen no Chinese restaurants. They must be all done at Fisherman's Wharf. I may get there tomorrow. It is not far.

I walked over to AT&T to check out how to get there.

April says I have to ride the trolley, "for her".

This area of San Francisco is pretty flat. I see some sloping roads on the edges. But my walk today was all on flat land.

Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14)

The seven verses dedicated to Jeroboam of Israel are interesting. Some of it seems contradictory. Jeroboam is said to do what is wrong in the eyes of God. Why? Because he expects the people to worship the Calves set up at Dan and Beersheba to keep people from having to cross the border and worship in the temple. These calves were supposed to represent the same God. But of course the ten commandments forbid the worship of any image, even one that is supposed to represent God. God is not like any image. He is spirit. No image can do him justice. It is misleading. God knew it would lead to bad things.

We know from archaeology that it lead to syncretic borrowing from surrounding cultures. For example at times God is seems to have a female consort. So making God into any image causes comparisons with the surrounding gods and can lead them into sin.

So Jeroboam is seen as doing what is wrong in God's eyes. But the rest of it shows many good things Jeroboam did and even concludes by saying God was in it, showing mercy to the land of Israel through Jeroboam.

Jeroboam repairs a wall, that I do not truly understand. Was it ever mentioned before? It is mentioned that Jonah son of Amittai spoke of this in prophesy. That is the same Jonah that a book is written about. Here he looks better than in that book.

we find that God still loves Israel despite their wrong headed worship. "The Lord has made no threat to blot out the name of Israel." He has punished them, allowed them to suffer. But that was to correct them, not to destroy them.

Jeroboam's acts are summarized in verse 28. He seems to have been very active and very successful. What does it mean that he recovered Damascus and Hammath? Many translations say that he recovered them for Judah. Some say he recovered them from Judah. Some find a middle ground construction.

But Jeroboam was blessed by God despite the first sentence in 24 that he did not give of the practices of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who first separated Israel from the combined kingdom under David and Solomon. There is much grace in that.

Emma - 2 Kings 14

Emma (1996) movie based on a novel by Jane Austen. I understand it now. When I was younger I definitely would not have understood the book or the movie. You may think I am exaggerating. Over the years I have learned more about relationships. When I was young I could barely put my right foot before my left. I knew it too, but that did not make it any better. Faking it only made it worse, but what choice did I have? Does someone teach how to understand relationships and how to relate to people? It seems one is condemned to learning by making mistakes.

I did seek God but not wholeheartedly. David Wilkerson speaks in his November 22 sermon letter of being handcuffed to Jesus. That could have helped me to not make so many mistakes. But that scares me. I want to be ready to do this but not wholeheartedly.

As I read through 2 Kings I get a sense that these kings had similar problems being clueless. Of course for them the situation was larger more complicated than my relational life. They usually did not seek God for help. They should have. We should too.

In 2 Kings 14 we read of king Amaziah of Judah, the southern kingdom. Amaziah was a "good" king. That probably means he kept the proper sacrifices and supported the temple. That is good because most of his subjects will follow his lead. But it is silent about relationship. But Amaziah let his success go to his head.

He took was to Edom and won. Then for some reason only known to him he challenged the king of Israel, the northern kingdom and was soundly defeated. Israel (Samaria), the Northern kingdom always had more land and more people. They consisted of ten tribes, Judah had only two tribes. So it was a bad mistake for Amaziah to think he could take on Israel. Israel was not seeking a fight.

As reprisal the king of Israel came to now defenseless Jerusalem and plundered the temple of its treasure. Israel stripped it of its gold and silver sacred vessels and all it's money. Israel was not looking for a fight but as they say, "if someone starts a fight with you, be sure it is you who finishes it."

Amaziah was not thinking clearly. He may have thought that since he was following God, God would go with him into battle and give him victory. But we are not told that he consulted God in any way. God wants us to ask, to pray, to seek his will.

2 Kings 12

I feel like I owe a post to whoever reads these. I think it is sad that I no longer greatly feel the need to do these. But the Bible is important, faith is important. Remembering is important to faith in God.

Chapter 12 has a lot to do with money. This chapter is an account of the rule of Jehoash of Judah. He becomes king at age seven. It is not stated directly but he must have relied on Jehoaida the high priest for assistance. Perhaps he acted as a regent until he came to be an adult.

Jehoash asks that money given to the Temple be used to made badly needed repairs. Yet it seems nothing is done for many years. Then one day Jehoash notices that the work has not been done. Perhaps he first commanded when he was a boy and no one took him seriously. But it seems no one took him seriously as a man either until he gave specific instructions that the money not be given to the priests but directly to the artisans capable of doing the work needed. Sounds like corruption in government, which may be why the temple got into disrepair in the first place.

There are more details given about the temple, money and Jehoash. Somehow this must have been a serious bone of contention during his time.

Then at the end of the chapter temple money is used for a different thing. Hazael of Aram has captured some surrounding cities and now he threatens Jerusalem. To keep the peace Jehoash takes money and valuable things from the temple and gives them to Hazael and he goes away. So Jehoash uses money devoted to God to pay a bribe.

Was this a good use of money, to keep the peace? The king has probably been a man of peace. Or was he just a wimpy man unwilling to risk his life for his country? By doing this he undoubtedly kept many others from being killed in battle. But often such actions are considered cowardly. Perhaps they are. He never seems to have consulted God to see what God advised him to do. We are never told he did. It seems he used his own judgment. For a servant of God this is not always a good idea.

We are told at the beginning of the chapter that Jehoash followed God as long as Jehoiada was his advisor. We can imagine that eventually Jehoiada died. Then what? Jehoash, perhaps due the loneliness at the top, never found a replacement adviser. Jehoiada was probably a father figure. Perhaps Jehoiada himself was a man of expediency and compromise. But he may not have been around at the last to give the king mature advise.

We are not told why but Joash is assassinated after 40 years of rule. Then without comment we are told his son replaces him as king. Did his assassins get away scot free? We are not told of that either. Very curious.

Perhaps giving the money away and capitulating to their enemy like that caused him to lose support. The temple priests were probably very angry for what he did. It likely cost them wealth and prestige. The military leaders too likely lost all respect for him. People rarely appreciate the peacemaker. And without support from God's approval he had no defense for his actions.

The Inspector Calls at AD Players

AD Players is doing An Inspector Calls for about a month at the West Alabama theater.

You guys ought to go. This is a fun play with a pretty good moral base.

I was written by J. B. Priestly in 1945 and set in 1912 north England.

Priestley was a novelist and popular radio commentator as well as a playwright.

An English drawing room drama with a twist.

College Baseball Match 4 - 6

This is college baseball nirvana weekend in Houston.

Six great teams here at Minute Maid starting at 12 noon Friday and Saturday. Three games each day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Rice gets the plum slot each day since Texas is not here this year. But the Aggies are.

Kentucky
Utah
Baylor
Texas A & M
Houston
Rice

Running before the rodeo parade

Computer died, that's my excuse. This new one is still not up to speed.

There were five of us in the Rodeo Run past Saturday. How cool. DIL Fanny and I did the 10k. Son Kevin and daughters April and Deborah did 5k.

Yes Deborah was here from CA to be at the reunion surrounding the closing of the old Redeemer church building. That's another story. Maybe I'll cover that in another blog.

We preceded the rodeo parade. I did it last year. Did i know that last year? I can be truly out of it.

Anyway I wanted to do a 16 min/mile pace and did manage that. I noticed that I was second to last in my age group. But there were quite a few younger than me behind me when I finished. of course most everyone was well ahead of me.

Fanny finished in 11 min/mi.

Kevin did the 5k in something like 10.5 min/mi. April and Deborah did 13 min/mi 5k. That is walking for a young person, mostly.

Of course I mostly walked too and when I jogged it was pretty slowly.

I see from looking at past results that I have done closer to 15 min/mi several times. Even recently.

So next time I need to not let myself off the hook so easily.

I planned my parking very well. If I was by myself I would likely walk up and back, but I had the daughters. They did not like this idea. So i parked on the east side of I-59, on Bastrop. This made the walk to the starting line over a mile, across downtown. But the finish line was close by, actually on Bastrop maybe 8 blocks away.

So I planned it perfectly. The walk up gave us a light warm-up and the walk back was short because we would be tired.

Actually I do not think anyone was particularly tired at least in my group. We did not push any limits or get much out of breath.

But it was great fun and good exercise. I think I will do it again next year.