Monday, October 27, 2008

Diary of an unborn child

A bit speculative but a reasonable point.....
October 5:        Today my life began.  My parents do not know it yet; I am as small as a seed of an apple, but it is I already.  And I am to be a girl.  I shall have blond hair and blue eyes.  Just about everything is settled though, even the fact that I shall love flowers.
October 10:      Some say that I am not a real person yet, that only my mother exists.  But I am a real person, just as a small crumb of bread is truly bread.  My mother is,  and I am.
October 2:      My mouth is just beginning to open now.  Just think, in a year or so I shall be laughing, and later talking.  I know what my first word will be:  MaMa.
October  25:     My heart began to beat today all by itself.  From now on it shall gently beat for the rest of my life without ever stopping to rest!  And after many years it will tire.  It will stop, and then I shall die.
November 2:    I am growing a bit every day.  My arms and legs are beginning to take shape.  But I have to wait a long time yet before those little legs will raise me to my mother's arms, before these little arms will be able to gather flowers and embrace my father.
November 12:  Tiny fingers are beginning to form on my hands.  Funny how small they are!   I'll be able to stroke my mother's hair with them.
November 20:   It wasn't until today that the doctor told Mom that I am living here under her heart.  Oh, how happy she must be!  Are you happy, Mom?
November 25:   My mom and dad are probably thinking about a name for me.  But they don't even know that I am a girl.  I want to be called Kathy.  I am getting so big already.
December 10:   My hair is growing.  It is smooth and bright and shiny.  I wonder what kind of hair Mom has.
December 13:   I am just about able to see.  It is dark around me.  When Mom brings me into the world it will be full of sunshine and flowers.  But what I want more than anything is to see my mom.  How do you look, Mom?
December 24:   I wonder if Mom hears the whispering of my heart?  Some children come into the world a little sick.  But my heart is strong and healthy.  It beats so evenly:  tup-tup, tup-tup.  You'll have a healthy little daughter, Mom!
December  28:   Today my mom killed me!
 
"If thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law"  James 2:11.
 
Via Church Bulletin, Jacksonville Church of Christ , Jacksonville, AL  36265


Regards,
John Jenkins
865-803-8179 cell
Gatlinburg, TN
Email: jrjenki@yahoo.com 

Fibonacci: It's as easy as 1,2,3.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Neale Pryor - Article in Man of God "Working with an Eldership

I noticed Neale Pryor does not have an email address so if you would not mind passing this note along to him. Thank you...
 
Neale Pryor:
 
Reference your chapter "Working with an Eldership" in Shawn Mathis' book Man of God.
 
First I will introduce myself. I am retired from The Mead Corporation, Dayton, OH and IBM, Atlanta, GA. My wife and I live in Gatlinburg, TN and we are members of the church with Great Smoky Mountains Church of Christ in Pigeon Forge, TN. 
 
In your article you address the preacher-elder relationship and quote Harold Taylor, "No one can defeat a church where the elders and the preacher stand together."  
 
Paul told the church in Ephesus evangelists were among those God placed in the "called out" to edify and to help the "called out" to mature. Today the preacher is hired likely because the elders do not want to preach to the saved and the preacher does not want to "go into all the world" even if that world is a just city or a suburb or a neighborhood. There are divine qualifications for elders and deacons but I am unaware of any for the preacher. How can the preacher possibly be on the same level as elders? I am not anti-preacher I  see the way we use preachers today as a non-biblical position and we can do whatever we like, similar to hiring an office manager or youth minister.
 
I respectfully but strongly reject Charles Hodge's analogy likening the relationship of preachers and elders and the three branches of the government of the United States. Within the past twelve months, a preacher from a congregation "stepped down" from being the pulpit preacher to being just one of the members. He said it was like a University President stepping down to be a member of the faculty. By that comparison we know those elders are a board of directors.
 
I have long suggested the following:
  • Preachers will stop running the local congregation and being the main source for congregational news, and go off and preach the Gospel to those who are without hope. They can take some of the congregation with them to learn how;
  • Elders will pastor the individuals and do what they must be apt to do and that is to teach and guard;
  • Deacons, since they have similar qualifications as the Elders, will assist the Elders in all of their responsibilities under the direct guidance of said Elders;
  • The congregants (everyone, elder, deacon, preacher, evangelist, and maintenance workers) will take care of the physical property, budget, study, attend, follow the leadership and encourage each other to love and good works and do the work they have been encouraged to perform.
It seems to me the "Great Commission" was given to individuals and not to groups so each of have a role and the preacher does not have time to carryout his role and the role of elders.  
 
If I am mistaken in my thoughts I will appreciate your comments. I enjoyed your article as I did the book.
 
 
John Jenkins
425 Patterson Lane
Gatlinburg, TN 37738
 
Home: 865-430-4427
Mobile: 865-803-8179
 
 
 
 


Regards,
John Jenkins
865-803-8179 cell
Gatlinburg, TN
Email: jrjenki@yahoo.com 

Fibonacci: It's as easy as 1,2,3.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Save Us: The Prayer of the Disciples Matthew 8:25

You can be sailing along through life, making progress and enjoying the trip, when out of nowhere a storm arises. In seconds you are overwhelmed, Hugh waves pound and then launch you mercilessly into the air. Water pours relentlessly into your boat faster than you can bail it out. Howling winds whip you around and drive you far off course. You lose your bearings and your hope. The gaping jaws of doom start to shut around you.
No one is immune to the storms of life. Even if you are doing all the right things and headed in the right direction, storms will find you. The question is not if you will face them, but how you will respond.
Storms are inevitable. Sometimes following Jesus leads us into storms. Storms are tests of faith. Jesus goes with us through the storms. Jesus can handle the storms. We need to ask.
  • Matthew 7:7, 7:11,
  • John 14:14, 15:7, 15:16, 16:24,
  • James 1:5, 4:2.


When we discuss Pro-Life we must understand foe what life we are pro.

We hear a lot about cloning and stem cell research and how they require the destruction of embryos. Some folks are convinced that "life" begins at conception, which means at the embryo stage and that embryos are living human beings. They believe destroying embryos is destroying "life". These same people consider it permissible to freeze these human beings and put them into limbo while they decide if they will permit them to join the ranks of the "born". Kind of a God decision is it not? These same people believe that for embryos to be destroyed to provide raw materials for stem cell research is bad but that it is OK to freeze these same embryos even though there is a high probability some will be destroyed or is it be killed? Would they be willing to freeze the "born" members of their family with the possibility they would die from the experience?
When we talk about these subjects we must first define the type of life we are concerned for and for what reason.
One of the effects of religion is that it tends to divorce morality from the reality of human suffering. Religion allows Christians to imagine that our concerns are moral when they have nothing to do with suffering or its alleviation or when pressing these concerns inflicts unnecessary suffering on innocent human beings. This explains why we expend more "moral" energy opposing abortion than fighting genocide and why we are more concerned about human embryos than about the life saving promise of stem cell research and it explains why we preach against condom use while millions die from AIDS each year.
We direct our efforts to constrain the sexual behavior of consenting adults and to discourage our children from having premarital sex. Our efforts are almost never geared toward the relief of human suffering, which appears to rank low on our list of priorities.
Christians are not principally concerned about teen pregnancy and the spread of disease. That is we are not concerned with the suffering caused by sex; we are worried about sex.
We do little for life once it is born. Handicapped, abused, genocide, orphaned, children of incest or rape, are categories in which those who are Pro-Life show little interest. Our President is against stem cell research that offers to improve the lives of the citizens of the United States and of the world but he is willing to sacrifice the lives of our citizens for people who do like us and in reality hate us as their religion approves the killing of those whom they label as "unbelievers." We permit our government to sacrifice our fellow citizens on the altar of politics.
Various sexually transmitted diseases effect a large number of our citizens. One of which is HPV, which is believed to cause cervical cancer; the CDC estimates 5,000 women in the US of A and 200,000 women worldwide die each year. Tests show it appears to be safe and effective. Some Christian Conservatives in our government have resisted a vaccination program on the grounds that HPV is a valuable impediment to premarital sex. They want to preserve cervical cancer as an incentive toward abstinence, even if it means sacrificing the lives of thousands of women each year. I imagine some of those women are on the prayer list of some congregations, somewhere.
When we discuss Pro-Life we must understand foe what life we are pro.
We would be wise to be prepared to answer….


Regards,
John Jenkins
865-803-8179 cell
Gatlinburg, TN
Email: jrjenki@yahoo.com

Fibonacci: It's as easy as 1,2,3.

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Thursday, October 9, 2008

To Live is Christ, To Die is Gain

"For to me, living is for Christ, and dying is even better.  Yet if I live, that means fruitful service for Christ.  I really don't know which is better.  I'm torn between two desires: Sometimes I want to live, and sometimes I long to go and be with Christ.  That would be far better for me, but it is better for you that I live." Philippians 1:21-24 NLT
 
To make the best use of our life, we must remember two truths:
 
1.      Compared with eternity, life is extremely brief.
 
2.      Earth is only a temporary residence. We will not be here long, so we should not become too attached.
 
We should ask God to help us see life on earth as He sees it. David prayed, "Lord, help me to realize how brief my time on earth will be. Help me to know that I am here for but a moment more."
 
In order to keep us from becoming too attached to earth, God allows us to feel a significant amount of discontent and dissatisfaction in life-longings that will never be fulfilled on this side of eternity. We're not completely happy here because we're not supposed to be! Earth is not our final home; we were created for something much better.
 
In God's eyes, the greatest heroes of faith are not those who achieve prosperity, success, and power in this life, but those who treat this life as a temporary assignment and serve faithfully, expecting their promised reward in eternity.
 
Your time on earth is not the complete story of your life. You must wait until heaven for the rest of the chapters. It takes faith to live on earth as a foreigner.
 
When life gets tough, when you're overwhelmed with doubt, or when you wonder if living for Christ is worth the effort, remember that you are not home yet. At death you won't leave home-you'll go home.
 

The Great Commission is the marching orders for every Christian. alum

 
Matthew 28:19-20 "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
 
Every congregation must plan ahead with faith and vision. Jesus has taught us the power of setting goals. I am still unable to understand the prejudice of people who do not set goals. Jesus, with a handful of men, not one of them with a college degree, set the greatest goal the world has ever known. He said, "I want you to go to all the world." … You cannot set a bigger goal than that.
 
There is no room for boredom. There is no room for stagnation. There is no room for deadness. Jesus gave us a goal that will always keep us reaching and growing and stretching until the Gospel is taken into all the world, every creature confesses the name of Jesus, ever knee bows, and every tongue confesses. The great tragedy of the local church is that sometimes we spend all of our time only keeping house, taking care of current business. But by the grace of God, we must plan ahead and vision.…
 
The truth of it is the church cannot coast. When a church lives in the past, instead of thanking God for the blessings today and planning ahead, it is an old dead church. There isn't any such thing as coasting in the work of the Lord.
 
The tragedy of coasting is that it is never up. It is always down. It is never for the better. It is always for the worse.
 
Coasting is always down hill. It takes no effort. It is a mockery. It promises such ease. Nobody gets upset coasting. We struggle uphill. We struggle swimming against the tide. But it is the only way to growth.

Strengthen My Hands

Nehemiah 6:1-9
 
    Now when Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built the wall and that there was no breach left in it ( although up to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates),[2] Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, "Come and let us meet together at Hakkephirim in the plain of Ono." But they intended to do me harm. [3] And I sent messengers to them, saying, "I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?" [4] And they sent to me four times in this way, and I answered them in the same manner.[5] In the same way Sanballat for the fifth time sent his servant to me with an open letter in his hand.[6] In it was written, "It is reported among the nations, and Geshem also says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebel; that is why you are building the wall. And according to these reports you wish to become their king. [7] And you have also set up prophets to proclaim concerning you in Jerusalem, 'There is a king in Judah.' And now the king will hear of these reports. So now come and let us take counsel together." [8] Then I sent to him, saying, "No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind." [9] For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking, "Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done." But now, O God, strengthen my hands.
 
 
Nehemiah did not ask God to wipe out his enemies, as we might have done. He did not ask God to give his daunting responsibility to someone else, which we almost surely would have. He did not even ask for the walls to be miraculously built by legions of angels overnight, which we may have at least tried. Instead, he prayed, "Strengthen my hands."
 
 
Sometimes God prefers to do the miracle in us or thorough us.
 
 
"Strengthen my hands." And God responded, as is revealed in the first five words of
 
 
Nehemiah 6:15
 
So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty-two days
No one would have believed it possible. Engineers are still marveling at the accomplishment. Mission Impossible became Mission Accomplished. Prayer guided, fueled, forced, and completed the impossible. Nehemiah refused to quit, and God did not fail to bless Nehemiah and the work. When God gave Nehemiah strength to complete the project, his enemies became so discouraged that they acknowledged that the rebuilding of the walls was the work of God!
 
Nehemiah 6:16
 
    And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. 
 
 

The Concept of Holiness Baffles Most Americans

The concept of holiness is woven throughout the Bible and is one of the foundational teachings of many Protestant churches. From Old Testament passages such as
 
Leviticus 19:2
 
    "Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. 
 
through the more than two-dozen times in the New Testament where God's people are described as holy, there is little doubt that holiness is a central tenet of the Christian faith. However, most adults remain confused, if not daunted, by the concept.
 
Holiness Is Possible
 
Overall, 73% of adults believe that it is possible for someone to become holy, regardless of their past. 50%, however, say that they know someone they consider to be holy and 21% consider themselves to be holy.
 
The adults most likely to say they know someone they consider to be holy are those who describe holiness primarily as possessing a positive attitude toward God and life. Adults who think of holiness as a spiritual condition are among the least likely to identify anyone they know as holy.
 
The Meaning of Holiness
 
When pressed to describe what it means to be holy, adults gave a wide range of answers. The most common reply was "I don't know," offered by one out of every five adults (21%). Other responses fell into categories such as "being Christ-like" (19%), making faith your top priority in life (18%), living a pure or sinless lifestyle (12%), and having a good attitude about people and life (10%). Other response categories included focusing completely on God (9%), being guided by the Holy Spirit (9%), being born again (8%), reflecting the character of God (7%), exhibiting a moral lifestyle (5%), and accepting and practicing biblical truth (5%). Once again, the responses of born again and non-born again adults were virtually identical.
 
Not Obsessed With Holiness
 
Holiness is a matter embraced by the Christian Church, but it is not one that many Americans adopt as a focal point of their faith development. This is partially because barely one-third of Americans (35%) contend that "God expects you to become holy." A larger share of the born again public believes God has called them to holiness (46%) but that portion remains a minority of the born again population.
 
The types of people most likely to say that God expects them to become holy are evangelicals, Revolutionaries, people with a biblical worldview, and ethnic born again adults. In each of these segments, a majority stated that they firmly believe God expects them to be holy. The survey results also indicated that young adults (39 or younger) are less likely than middle-aged and older adults to believe that God expects holiness of His people.
 
Reflections on Holiness
 
The new survey findings, when combined with existing knowledge about the state of faith in America, caused the survey's director, George Barna, to suggest that churches need to take this body of information seriously.
 
"Realize that the results portray a body of Christians who attend church and read the Bible, but do not understand the concept or significance of holiness, do not personally desire to be holy, and therefore do little, if anything to pursue it. However, the data identify a remnant that understands holiness, wants to live a holy life, and is engaged in its pursuit. The challenge to the nation's Christian ministries is to foster a genuine hunger for holiness among the masses who claim they love God but who are ignorant about biblical teachings regarding holiness."
 
Pointing to data from several of his recent surveys on spiritual maturity in the U.S., Barna noted, "To initiate the education of people regarding holiness, we must arrest their attention and teach its importance. To align their hearts with the notion of being holy, we must move them away from a 'cheap grace' theology and replace people's self-absorption with focus on God and His ways. To help them pursue holiness, we must help them comprehend and accept biblical theology regarding God, Satan, the purposes of life on earth, the nature of spiritual transformation and maturity, and the necessity of bearing spiritual fruit."
 

Bible Reading in the Early Church

Many centuries have passed since the Gospel was first preached, and in times of oppression, persecution and spiritual darkness, when Bibles were scarce, some who could not read would listen carefully when the Scriptures were read and commit the precious words to memory. Learning by heart played a great part in the ancient world -- a fact which has to be remembered when we consider the educational work of the first Christian missionaries. Ordinary Christians carried a good deal in their minds...and there were some whose memories were prodigious. In the fourth century Eusebius met in Palestine a blind Egyptian, who had been exiled from his country, of whom he wrote, that "he possessed whole books of the Holy Scriptures, not on tables of stone, as the divine Apostle says, nor on skins of beasts or on papyrus, which moth and time can devour, but in his heart, so that, as from a rich literary treasure, he could, ever as he wished, repeat now passages from the Law and the Prophets, now from the historical books, now from the Gospels and the Apostolic Epistles."
--- Adolph Harnack
Bible Reading in the Early Church, 1912

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Worship


Worship

In the Bible public worship is found in four stages of development. The first is the somewhat primitive mode practiced until the building of the temple. During this time no sharp line was drawn between private and public worship. In the second stage, it became highly organize in the Temple ritual which indeed had its origin in the tabernacle setup in the wilderness. It was led by priests assisted by the Levites, and included a complex ritual and system of sacrifices. The third state was that of the synagogue, which began during the Exile. This greatly differed from worship in the Temple. Whereas the latter was centralized in Jerusalem, the former was found wherever there were Jews. In the synagogues, however, the emphasis was more upon instruction than upon worship, although the latter was not neglected. The fourth stage was that of the early Christian churches. Jewish Christians continued, as long as they were permitted, to worship in the Temple and in the synagogue, although for them the whole ceremonial and sacrificial system ended with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Public Christian worship developed along the lines of the synagogue. It appears that from the first, Christians met in homes for private brotherhood meetings, and the time was the Lord’s Day.

The Hedgehog Concept

In his essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” Isaiah Berlin divided the world into hedgehogs and foxes, based upon an ancient Greek parable: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”

The essence of a Hedgehog Concept is to attain piercing clarity about how to produce the best long-term results, and then exercising the relentless discipline to say “No thank you” to opportunities that fail the hedgehog test.

The Hedgehog Concept in Social Sectors

  • Passion: Understanding what your organization stands for (its core values) and why it exists (its mission or core purpose).
  • Best at: Understanding what your organization can uniquely contribute to the people it touches, better than any other organization on the planet.
  • Resource Engine: Understanding what best drives your resource engine, broken into three parts: time, money and brand. Time refers to how well you attract people to contribute their efforts. Money refers to sustained cash flow. Brand refers to our well you cultivate a deep well of emotional good will among supporters.

In 1995, officers of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) found an anonymous note posted on the bulletin board. “We’re not report takers,” the note proclaimed. “We’re the police.” The note testified to the psychological shift when then Police Commissioner William J Bratton inverted the focus from inputs to outputs.

Prior to Bratton, the NYPD assessed itself primarily on input variables such as arrests made, reports taken, cases closed, budgets met rather than on the output variable of reducing crime.

The difference between inputs and outputs is fundamental, yet frequently missed. The comparison of charities often includes ratings based in part on the percentage of budget spent on management, overhead and fundraising. It’s a well intentioned idea, but reflects profound confusion between inputs and outputs. What is the purpose of that charity? Think about it this way: If you rank collegiate athletic departments based on coaching salaries, you’d find that Stanford University has a higher coaching cost structure as a percentage of total expenses than some other Division I schools. Actually Stanford won the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletic Cup for best over all performance for 10 consecutive years, beating out all other major schools, while delivering athlete graduation rates above 80%. To rate Stanford low because it has a higher salary structure than some other schools would miss the main point that Stanford Athletics delivered exceptional performance, defined by the bottom-line outputs of athletic and academic achievement.

OK, but collegiate sports programs and police departments have one giant advantage: you can measure win records and crime rates. But what if your outputs are inherently not measurable? The basic idea is the same: separate inputs from outputs and hold yourself accountable for progress in outputs, even if those outputs defy measurement.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

In Case We Forgot, Sin is Sin

The October 2008 edition of The Christian Chronicle has an article "Presidential race engages students."
 
The article reports that young evangelical Christians are less likely than their parents to vote based on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. An evangelical coordinator for Obama says the basket of moral issues that their generation is concerned about may be broader than their parents' or grandparents' generations. An evangelical coordinator for McCain does not challenge the perception that many younger voters are less passionate than their parents about overturning Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. Parents and church leaders have taken for granted that younger Christians would share their views and failed to educate them on issues such as abortion and "the homosexual agenda."
 
Considering all of the issues it amazes me that anyone would vote for or against a candidate based on the candidate's views on such limited topics as abortion or homosexual rights neither of which either candidate can control.
 
Roe v Wade isn't what allowed abortion; abortions were already being done in 1960s against the law. The courts conformed to the social and moral changes that were taking place in society. Law reflects the morality of the people; without morals there can be no law. It is up us as parents and citizens in the way we raise our children, how we interact and talk with our friends and the good example we give to bring about changes to our culture toward greater respect for life.
 
Christians lost the battle Gay Rights long ago due to their acceptance of adultery, fornication, co-habitation, and intolerance of birth-control measure. Heterosexual sins heterosexuals understand, tolerate, and as the church in Corinth are proud of our tolerance.
 
When Christians watch 'R' and 'X' movies they are endorsing the activities in the movie. If it is permissible for Christians to observe heterosexuals engaged in sexual activities of all types, real or simulated, why not let homosexuals enjoy the same privileges? Heterosexuals recognize Common Law marriages so why not homosexual commitments and the associated legal privileges?
 
In case we forgot, sin is sin.
 
 

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Soldiers at the Cross

Hi Rick,
 
Last night in your class I believe you asked how the soldiers could be no cruel etc.
 
Many years ago Adolph Eichmann, a Nazi soldier with great influence in what eventually was considered the Holocaust, was tracked down, kidnapped, taken to Israel, tried, convicted and executed. One of the witnesses, collapsed when Eichmann was brought into the court. Later the witness was asked what had caused him to collapse. He said through out the years he pictured Eichmann as a monster but when he saw him he realized Eichmann was not a monster but just a regular human being and that meant any of us could do what Eichmann had done. I believe that is correct.
 
We are the only country to use nuclear weapons. Add to that against civilians and additionally against women and children. We carpet bombed women and children in Germany. Unless you think of our pilots as monsters, normal men did those horrible acts and most probably did not miss much sleep. I believe some did but not many.
 
Negroes were considered less than human. I will leave the genocide of Native Americans to another day. A Native American, I believe of a Cheyenne tribe, in 1913 went to court and had himself declared a human being. Again, unless you think of our ancestors as monsters normal people did that.
 
Being a crossroads of major trade routes, Judea was important to Rome. Whoever ruled Judea had the primary responsibility of keeping everyone quiet i.e. no complaints to Rome
 
The commanders of the military had the primary responsibility of keeping Herod happy or at least quiet, again no complaints to Rome. To them Jesus was a Jew and not very important one, just a rabble rouser that could get everyone into trouble with Rome. That alone could be enough motivation to get down and dirty. While maybe not the best there were much worse assignments for the military. Jesus was also an example to the rest of the Jews to not push Herod or the military too far…
 
Sometime we can discuss how easy it would have been for Jesus to talk his way out of being executed and, knowing that, how he was very careful what he said and did. Then we would have all been up the creek with out the ole paddle.
 
 


Regards,
John Jenkins
865-803-8179 cell
Gatlinburg, TN
Email: jrjenki@yahoo.com 

Fibonacci: It's as easy as 1,2,3.