HAVE A COSMIC CHRISTMAS

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. (John 1:1-4 NIV)

Scientists face what Charles W. Petit calls a ‘fine-tuning' problem as they analyze the heavens. "The universe appears marvelously constructed to produce stars, planets, and life. Scientists have calculated that if the force binding atomic nuclei were just 0.5 percent different, the processes that forge atoms inside stars would have failed to produce either carbon or oxygen—key ingredients to life. If gravity were only slightly stronger or weaker, stars like our sun could not have formed. Yet physicists see no reason why the constants of nature are set just so. (Charles W. Petit, "The gods must be crazy," U.S. News & World Report (9-8-03)

Contemporary astronomer Allan Sandage, Edwin Hubble's successor at Mt. Wilson and Mt. Palomar observatories... told the New York Times, "I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God, to me, … is the explanation of the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing." On another occasion, Sandage said, "If God did not exist, science would have to invent Him to explain what it is discovering at its core." (Breakpoint with Chuck Colson, 7/14/2003)

The truth is that our ability to exist on this planet is due to the fact that the universe is balanced on a razor’s edge in order to facilitate life.

The earth-shaking thing that the apostle John tells us in the first few verses of his gospel is that the cosmos (ho kosmos in Greek, the orderly universe that we observe) was made through THE WORD (ho Logos in Greek, the organizing principle or force of life). In other words, Jesus Christ balances the universe in his hand.

John is clearly stating that the ‘Logos’ – the ultimate spiritual force behind the universe – is responsible for all that is visible. The mud you squish between your toes, the cold morning air rushing at you as you go out to crank the car, the water running through your hair as you shower all were made by Him. The fact that you and I exist in an incredibly complex yet orderly universe designed to sustain life is because this same Logos – who existed before the universe began – made it so.

The point is that the Logos created everything we can see and everything that we cannot see. He created it, he sustains it, he owns it, he rules it, nothing happens in it apart from his knowledge, and nothing can change in it apart from his permission.

And then he became material himself, a human being, an infant, totally dependent, completely identified with his creation, circling the star that he had balanced in space. That is what we call the incarnation. And that is cause for celebration.

So don’t just hand out gifts this Christmas. Go outside. Look up at the stars. Contemplate all that you see. And have a Cosmic Christmas.

BEWARE BLACK FRIDAY

“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” Jesus (Luke 12:15)

One of FCC’s regular attendees, who works in a well-known department store, mentioned something last Sunday that made me gasp. “I have to be at work at 2:00 AM next Friday morning.”

Then this morning, at the teen ministry I co-sponsor at the local middle school, one of the kids said, “I can’t believe it. My mom is waking me up at 1:00 AM Friday to go shopping!”

I confess that I am not a serious shopper. I know that it is sensible to try to save money by taking advantage of sales. But let’s be honest about this: Black Friday is a Greed Fest, a singularly American celebration of buying and selling that rivals any other holiday on the calendar. (Note: Holiday is a word derived from Holy Day – a special day for celebration of the deity). Our dedication to getting THE DEAL on the latest trendy toy or 4G gadget is so fanatical that we will stand in line in sub-freezing temperatures at two in the morning and then literally run over each other for the limited supply of DOOR BUSTING BARGAINS! (Lucky for you southerners this year, the temps will be mild).

Let’s not kid ourselves: this is worship. Worship includes sacrifice, adoration and celebration. Fanatical dedication to Black Friday shopping has all the ingredients. There is sacrifice: Can you remember the last time you got up at two in the morning to pray or give or serve or go to a worship service? There is adoration: “Wow! I’ve always wanted one of these!” And there is celebration: “Can you believe it? What a DEAL I got!” We don’t like to admit it but this kind of activity is what worship is made of. It is the great American sin that we never condemn. But the apostle Paul puts it right up there with the sins we do condemn.

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these…( Col 3:5-8 NIV)

One day in the department store is no different from any other. Shopping on Friday is not a sin. Looking for bargains is not transgression. And if you are going shopping on Friday I hope you find what you’re looking for. But beware the ethos of Black Friday – the culture that celebrates the abundance of possessions as life’s highest good. There is much, much MORE to life than finding Friday’s best bargains.

HERMAN, JOE AND THE REST OF US

Deut 19:15 One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. (NIV)

I’m a news junkie. I read two newspapers, two news magazines, and multiple news websites daily. So even though I would like to I can’t avoid seeing at least the headlines of some pretty scurrilous stuff. If it is shallow and salacious (read: Michael Jackson and Kim Kardashian) it gets skipped. But if it is serious it gets analyzed.

The allegations against Herman Cain are pretty serious stuff. Do we want a man like that, if he is like that, in the highest office in the land? And what about Penn State Coach Joe Paterno? Is he the icon of integrity that he has preached and promoted? Or is he a bum who sold out helpless kids in order to protect his football program?

Or is the truth about both men, both situations, something none of us really knows? I believe it is.

I had a taste, just a tiny taste once, of Washington Politics, and I saw the viciousness of those whose summum bonum is power. It would not surprise me to find that the charges against Cain are fabricated.

And I once had a good friend, a colleague in the church choir, who to my utter shock and surprise showed up on NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” clearly caught in the act of preying on teenage girls. I learned then the deceptive power of sexual predators. It would not surprise me to learn that Joe Pa was deeply deceived by his former apprentice.

That is why I wish, I wish very deeply, that the rest of us would take these kinds of situations – where careers, character, honor, and justice are concerned – as seriously as God takes them. Over and over again, the Spirit-inspired writers of scripture quote the command stated above: “Every matter must be established by two or three witnesses.” (Nu. 35:30; Dt. 17:6-7; Matt. 18:16; 1 Tim. 5:19). And that not in the media “mob”, which cares more about eyeball counts than impartiality, but in an orderly court of law. If we did that, if we took them as seriously as God takes them, we would grieve over the possibility that men could be guilty of such evil, we would pray more often to be delivered from it, and we would wait for truth to be established before we take up stones to throw.

DID DAVID AND JONATHON HAVE A HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONSHIP?

DID DAVID AND JONATHON HAVE A HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONSHIP?

By Dane Skelton

I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.

"How the mighty have fallen! The weapons of war have perished!" (2 Sam 1:26-27 NIV)

Some people in the homosexual community have found in this passage (and others in 1 Samuel, see below) support for their lifestyle: that David and Jonathon had a homosexual relationship. It says something about the desperate need for validation in “gay” society that it would go to such lengths as to ascribe homosexual behavior to two of the most revered characters in scripture.

But the people who take that position are doing something that is called isogesis: Reading into a passage of scripture something that comes from your culture or point of view. I suppose all of us are guilty of that from time to time. But isogesis is always wrong and usually destructive to sound doctrine and healthy living. What we want to do instead is known as exogesis: Reading out of scripture what is actually there. Accurate exogesis, and therefore interpretation, takes into account the historical and cultural setting of the people in the story as well as its original readership, the vocabulary and grammar in use at the time, as well as the type of literature and its context. The goal is to understand what the writer actually said, what it meant to the first readers, and how that meaning translates to our time.

Here then is a brief exposition of 2 Samuel 1:26 with the earlier passages taken into account.

Vocabulary and Grammar - 2 Samuel 1:26 “Your love for me was wonderful…” – The standard Old Testament verb for sexual activity is ya-da (Note: I cannot reproduce the proper Hebrew punctuation marks). It is never used to describe the relationship between Jonathon and David. However, the Hebrew noun for love (ahaba, derived from the verb ahab) used in this sentence (and in 1 Samuel 18:3) is used about 55 times in the OT with a variety of meanings. It can mean the sexual love between a husband and wife. But it can also mean the love between a father and a son (as with Abraham and Isaac Gen. 22:2); the loyal love of a servant for his master when the servant refuses his freedom (Ex. 21:5); the love between two friends as with David and Jonathon etc. Ahab is also used in Leviticus 19:18 when God commands: “…love thy neighbor as thyself.” Finally, Dr. Bill T. Arnold, director of Hebrew studies and professor of Old Testament and Semitic languages at Asbury Theological Seminary explains the word “has important political and diplomatic connotations. Since David and Jonathon’s relationship has already been marked as a covenant sealed by their love (same word), this part of the poem is referring to the depth of that relationship.

Context – “…more wonderful than that of women.” ? How could David say that and not be referring to sex? Context is king in interpretation. The most significant thing to recognize about the context of this statement is David’s relationship to Saul’s daughter Michal. Whoever killed the giant Goliath was promised the king’s daughter in marriage (1 Samuel 17:5). That was a huge deal in that culture. (Imagine being engaged to Bill Gate’s daughter and you will get the idea). It meant wealth, power and security as part of the king’s family. But that deal didn’t work out very well for David. David did marry Michal. But Saul then gave her to another man when he became jealous of David and drove him out. Jonathon, on the other hand, made a covenant with David that he never broke, even at the risk of alienating his father the king. Little wonder then that David would refer to this noble trait in his friend on hearing of his death. Jonathon’s love was more wonderful than Michal’s.

Historical & Cultural setting – The homosexual culture, and our culture generally, tends to sexualize every relationship. Thus when we read 2 Samuel 1:26 or 1 Samuel 20:41 (…then they kissed each other and wept together) we think it was the affection of lovers instead of friends, Eros love versus Philos. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kissing between male friends and relatives was and remains a normal mode of Middle Eastern expression. On the other hand homosexual acts were universally condemned in Jewish law and culture. The laziest reading of 1 & 2 Samuel clearly reveals a writer (or writers) determined to portray David as the greatest hero Israel ever saw after Moses. It is inconceivable and totally out of sync with his purposes to depict his hero in a homosexual relationship.

Perhaps the saddest thing about this is that the relationship between David and Jonathon displays the noblest ideas of friendship, loyalty, mutual protection, mentoring and brotherly love. When it (along with other scriptures on this topic) is misinterpreted, as it has been in the homosexual community, it supplies a rationale for the exploitation of the innocent: young men, looking for affirmation and friendship, find themselves seduced into a world they never sought and robbed of the reasoned, Biblical arguments they need to escape.

I pray that this article will become a useful tool for you and for them.

CLARITY

Have you ever said something to someone and, having listened to their response, realized that they didn’t grasp the tenth part of what you were saying? Or felt like they weren’t listening?

Perhaps this is only common to preachers. After all, preaching, as they say, “is just talking in someone else’s sleep.” But I have a feeling that you know what I’m talking about, that you’ve experienced communication frustration. Where does it come from? Why is communication, especially communication about spiritual things, so difficult? Well before you take a mega phone to the next person that doesn’t listen consider a few things.

A friend who is an engineer for a large utility company tells me that when he had to hire some new engineers he required applicants to hand write sample repair instructions to a mechanic. Something like two out of ten could do it with any competence. Our education system is not what it used to be. More and more people are graduating from high school and even from college without the ability to communicate.

We are also in a much denser communication environment than ever before. Television segements and commercials are shorter and faster, cell phone calls and text messages come at us fast and furious, ipods, emails, pop-ups, dual screens – all of these technologies force feed us with hundreds more messages than earlier generations had to process, causing us to erect thicker message filters than we did forty or fifty years ago. We humans can only absorb so much information at a time. As a result, attention spans have shrunk. We are also becoming more reliant on pictures and music and less on words. We are a nation of receivers tuned to the elemental frequencies of image and melody. Language is becoming harder to digest.

But there is a third reason that people often cannot hear what we’re trying to say, especially if our message concerns the kingdom of God. Spiritual forces are at work. Consider Jesus and Paul’s comments on the matter:

Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. (Jesus in Mark 4:15 NIV)

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 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. (Paul in 2 Cor 4:3-4 NIV)

The ability to communicate clearly and powerfully is a skill that can be learned. But in the end only God can penetrate the darkness, the spiritual veil that covers the heart of men and women. So no matter whom you’re talking to or when, before you begin to speak, pray for the Lord of light to open the eyes and ears of the soul in your listeners. He alone has the power to make his light “shine in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor. 4:6).

Dad Is a Powerful Word

Dad is a powerful word, because Fathers are molders of young lives.

I once asked a violent friend what he remembered about his father, who had died when my friend was only twelve. He said, “I remember a loud, angry spanking machine.”

In Ramsey Count, Minnesota, ninth and tenth graders were interviewed about their dads. They were asked this question: "What comes to mind when you think of the word 'dad'?" Answers came from both ends of the spectrum. One end of the spectrum said, "I think of the word jerk." Others thought of the words angry, mad, and absent.

On the other hand, some of the young people said, "I think of wholeness, kindness, security, safety." Dad is an immensely powerful word.

Isa 64:8 says: O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. (NIV).

Dad we are the potters in our children’s lives. So we need to be careful how we shape that clay. One of the ways to do that is to catch them doing something right.

Do you ever catch your teen doing something right? Or do you only call out the infractions?

One teen was always in trouble at school, so when his parents received one more call to come in and meet with his teacher and the principal, they knew what was coming. Or so they thought.

The teacher sat down with the boy's father and said, "Thanks for coming. I wanted you to hear what I have to say."

The father crossed his arms and waited, thinking, “What can I say this time?” The teacher proceeded to go down a list of ten things—ten positive affirmations of the junior high "troublemaker." When she finished, the father said, "What else? Let's hear the bad stuff."

"That's all I wanted to say," she said.

That night when the father got home, he told his son what he had heard. And not surprisingly, almost overnight, the troublemaker's attitude and behavior changed dramatically. All because a teacher looked past the negatives.^[1]

Colossians 3:21 says “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; that they may not lose heart.” Sometimes that means, catch them doing something right.

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[1] Citation: Bonne Steffen, editor of Christian Reader; true story from a Florida Christian school; source: Peter Lord, former pastor of Park Avenue Baptist Church, Titusville, Florida

A Pilot Paul from Papua story

How ironic that the day after I posted an article on a man with fifty mishap-free years as a professional pilot my equally professional pilot friend Paul Westlund, who had over 11,000 hours of experience flying in the most difficult aviation environment in the world, would lose his life along with his two passengers in a crash in the mountains of Papua, Indonesia. He was on what amounted to a “milk run.” A full investigation into the cause is underway.

Paul was laid to rest yesterday and all of Papua mourned. He was beloved by the people he served. He and I were nearing completion of a book on his adventures as a mission aviator. In honor of my friend I post here today one of his first stories. Please take the time to read it and contemplate the life of this great servant of God. DTS.

LOSING MY PROFESSIONAL PILOT FACE
By Paul Westlund, with Dane Skelton
Papua, Indonesia. Spring 1987

The apostle Paul once wrote to his protégé Timothy, “Keep your head in all situations…” That is good advice for anyone but especially for bush pilots. Our “situations” often run from the super serious to super comical in a single day, as my first flight with a translator revealed.

The path from student pilot to mission aviator is a long and difficult one. Mine had taken ten years of hard work from the first flights with Moody Aviation School all the way through eighteen hundred hours of flying experience to the Airline Transport Pilot rating.

All of that work, all of that training and expense and struggle to make it out to the field was, and still is to me, due to the importance of Bible Translation. When animistic people enslaved by fears of the spirit world are finally able to read and understand the message of Jesus in their own language it gives them hope beyond their wildest dreams.

So the main thing is to make sure that translator can get there in one piece. If something bad happens to a translator all of the work on a new translation can be lost. I had worked hard to be the best pilot that I could be so that would never happen. Now I was taking my first translator to his assignment in the field and I was so happy I was almost giddy.

The beauty of the blue morning sky, the deep emerald forests, the silvery rivers and majestic Papuan mountains outside my window were overwhelming. I thought: I get paid to do this? I kept looking away from the translator so he wouldn’t see the silly grin that my professional pilot face couldn’t mask.

But soon I saw something that rapidly wiped the grin from my face. We were over the village, making a high altitude pass to inspect the airfield. There was a wadded up white and green blur just off one side of the runway. What’s that? I thought. I turned and made another pass. O Lord! That’s an airplane! That’s what’s left of one of those aircraft called an Islander. That sobered me up quick. This is serious business. Bad things can happen out here kid. You better get your game on. You better be paying attention. I focused in hard on the task at hand, to get the airplane on the ground and parked as best and professionally as I possibly could.

And then, I stepped out of the airplane, and lost my professional pilot face for the second time that day. I had never been in a Papuan mountain village before. It was National Geographic in living color right in front of me! The men were wearing their only clothing, tall, thin, conical shaped gourds fitted over their genitals, tied just below the waste and pointing straight up. And the women were in grass skirts. Only they weren’t skirts, more like flat, dried, twelve inch blades of grass stacked atop one another and folded in half and tied over a string that circled the waist. And that was it. Nothing else.

It was more than this modest mid-western preacher’s boy could take! I joke with my friends that where I come from we take showers in our clothes! I could feel my face going full red. I turned around and stuck my head in the cockpit and studied my map. I wrote in my log book. I inspected the airplane! Anything I could do to keep my eyes off of the people. I couldn’t eat the rest of the day. I was just toast! This is a whole nother world, I thought. Have I landed on Mars or something? It took a long time for me to regain my composure.

The Papuan people are like anybody else on the planet. When they see an improvement on life they want it. Today, with better transportation and the availability of baled used clothing for pennies on the pound more Papuan people groups are wearing clothes. They really like wearing them because the mountains get cold. But they weren’t wearing them on that day and I was embarrassed.

Now, after twenty-five years on the field, the Papuan people are very dear to me. I no longer notice what they are wearing but what is in their hearts. And I keep my professional pilot face in place…most of the time.