CRN.Info and Analysis

May you all be blessed today and this weekend. My prayer is that you’re never lonely.

The one thing that really irks my noodle (my brain), more than any other thing, about blogging is the sanctimonious feel to it all. Particularly “Christian” blogs. The basic outline of a Christian blog goes a little something like this:

This is what I think
This is what God thinks
Not surprisingly God and I think alike.
Anyone who disagrees is obviously not like God.
Anyone who disagrees is obviously less like God than I am.
Discuss.

It’s rather, how should I say, pathetic. Now before anyone think I’m excluding myself from the fraternity of pious blather spewers let me say I am fully aware of my ability to believe I’m right on everything. For why would I pontificate on anything that I’m not convinced that I know completely? What’s even more comical is the feigned offense I take when others don’t see it my way. It’s comical because I really shouldn’t take myself so seriously. Even more comical is that I feel the need to feign offense at a comment, moniker, and IP address. Is it possible I’m OCD about ODM’s?

Don’t believe me? Check out some of the things I’ve written here. Or better yet check out your blog, or your favorite blog, or your Aunt Jenny’s blog. Sure; sometimes you may mask the outline with witty banter or obfuscate a point with some ten cent words but I assure you that somewhere on any Christian blog the outline will work.

Want to be risky or risque start posting about your penchant for certain sins. Or that one thought you had about that one woman. Or maybe how you really feel about Aunt Jenny. Nah…that would be too…non-christian. After all a blog has standards and etiquette. Well at least that’s what I tell myself. Maybe you’re more able than I am to cut to the quick or rather quick to cut.

Whatever your motivation to blog may I suggest to you (and myself) that Paul reminds us to not “…think more highly of ourselves than we ought”. But Paul must not realize how many blog hits I get a day. Or the emails supporting my “ministry”. Or that one time that one guy invited me to his internet radio talk show. At least that’s what I tell my friends when they ask about my incessant rambling about Emergent.

Well I gotta get going I’ve got a facebook convo with Doug, Tony, Mark S., Brian, Rob, Phyllis, Peter, Scot, and Mark D. they really need my advice on the next steps for world domination. What would they ever do without me? What would God do without me?

It is with mixed feelings that I read of Sunday’s shooting of George Tiller, one of three American doctors who perform late-term (post 21st week) abortions:

Dr. George Tiller, one of the nation’s few providers of late-term abortions despite decades of protests and attacks, was fatally shot Sunday in a church where he was serving as an usher.

[...]

The doctor’s death was the latest in a string of shootings and bombings over two decades directed against abortion clinics, doctors and staff.

Long a focus of national anti-abortion groups, including a summerlong protest in 1991, Tiller was shot in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church, Stolz said. Tiller’s attorney, Dan Monnat, said Tiller’s wife, Jeanne, was in the choir at the time.

The slaying of the 67-year-old doctor is “an unspeakable tragedy,” his widow, four children and 10 grandchildren said in a statement. “This is particularly heart-wrenching because George was shot down in his house of worship, a place of peace.”

To this point in time, most of the Christian response I’ve heard to this latest act of violence in the war over abortion has been condemning of the shooter - as it should be.   Al Mohler’s response was especially good:

But violence in the name of protesting abortion is immoral, unjustified, and horribly harmful to the pro-life cause.  Now, the premeditated murder of Dr. George Tiller in the foyer of his church is the headline scandal — not the abortions he performed and the cause he represented.

We have no right to take the law into our own hands in an act of criminal violence.  We are not given the right to take this power into our own hands, for God has granted this power to governing authorities.  The horror of abortion cannot be rightly confronted, much less corrected, by means of violence and acts outside the law and lawful means of remedy.  This is not merely a legal technicality — it is a vital test of the morality of the pro-life movement.

He has hit upon both of the key issues, as I see them, with this despicable act - 1) the issue of honoring authority - and putting our trust in God to provide justice; and 2) the issue of hypocrisy displayed by Christians who claim to be pro-life, but commit murder in the name of life.  The first is an issue of failure to love God - because we fail to trust Him and take action into our own hands.  The second is an issue of failure to love our neighbor.

(I have to say that, following the trend of quoting Steve Taylor, I’m reminded of his song “I Blew Up the Clinic Real Good“)

Some Christian commentators, Doug Phillips, are asking some interesting questions, but sometimes not going far enough in their responses - possibly failing at ‘loving your neighbor’:

I conclude with this thought: George Tiller is dead. For whom shall we mourn?

First, we mourn for the many children he murdered whose names will never make headline news, but whose murder were painful, violent, and bloody at the hands of this man. Second, we mourn for the future children who may be killed as a result of the way the pro-abortion movement will capitalize on this unlawful killing. Third, we mourn for a nation that has broken covenant with God, and that is deserving of God’s just wrath for its complicity in child sacrifice.

Finally, our mourning must lead us to prayer for the Church. God forbid that the blood of the innocent would be on our hands. If we would humble ourselves before the Lord and simply refuse to tolerate abortion in our own ranks, who knows what great things might be lawfully done, with God’s blessing, to bring murderers like George Tiller to an appropriate and earthly justice?

Aside from the obvious issue of mixing of Christianity and nationalism, I have to ask “What about Tiller’s family?”  He left behind a wife, four children and ten grandchildren.  What about Tiller, himself?  Make no mistake, he was a despicable man.  He claimed to be Christian and an active member at a Lutheran church, and yet he killed 60,000+ children, oft-times baptizing their corpses before cremating them.  Even so, should we not pray that he received the grace none of us deserve, rather than pray that he receives justice?

The religious movement from which Jesus came, in the Galilee region of first-century Israel, had two main thrusts - Phariseeism and Zealotry - both with identical theology apart from a single key point - The Pharisees believed that God would bring about his kingdom through the obedience of His people, and not through violence, and the Zealots believed that they were called to bring about God’s kingdom as instruments of violence.  In this matter, it is clear that Jesus sided with the Pharisees - even as he condemned their hypocrisy in other matters.

As I search my own soul, I have to say in my heart of hearts I cannot say that I am sorry the Tiller is out of business.  His business was chaos, hypocrisy, death and destruction - as it is with each of us, even if on a smaller scale.  But I must wish - even if I must force myself to wish it - that it would have been God turning his heart, and not man doing it in the name of God.

The kingdom does not come about by our taking the role of God.  It comes about through our humble obedience to Him, and His action in His time.

This installment of the De-Sanitizing the Parables series will explore the Parable of the Soil found in Matthew 13. However, before I explore the parable itself, I’d like to give some background on the nature of the parables found in Scripture. To do this, we will listen to two different scholars who give us some crucial background on the nature and use of parables in the New Testament, and a pastor who will help us better understand Jesus’ use of them as story. As such, I have decided to break down my post into two parts. First, an introduction to the nature of parables and second and exploration of the parable of the soils.

Craig Keener has written several books but in this particular case I will depend upon his massive Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Keener notes a couple of important aspects of the parables in the New Testament. First, he writes: “Rabbis commonly taught in parables, sermon illustrations, to communicate their main point or points. This Palestinian Jewish teaching form appears in the New Testament only in the teaching of Jesus, and thus cannot be attributed to composition by the later church outside Jewish Palestine.” (81-82)

This speaks to the authenticity of parables and their direct link to the mouth of Jesus. Especially helpful here is the idea that these are not mere distortions of Jesus’ ‘true’ teachings by later preachers. As we will see too the parables are directly linked to the Old Testament prophets and are seen, to a large extent, as fulfillment of the prophets’ words. There are parables in the Old Testament as well. Nathan told David a parable when he confronted David (2 Samuel 12), for example, and Isaiah used a parable in Isaiah 5 to talk about God’s relationship to Israel.

Second, Keener notes the general character of the population of Jesus’ day, that is, his audience: “Most of the Roman Empire’s inhabitants were rural peasant farmers or herders. The literate elite often ignored this large population, but Jesus’ illustrations show that he ministered frequently among this class. Although Galilee was heavily populated with villages and boasted two major cities (Sepphoris and Tiberias), most of its inhabitants were rural, agrarian peasants.”

So you might say that, in a sense, we have to transport ourselves into their mode of thinking of the world; put ourselves in their shoes; listen to Jesus as if we were farmers, prodigal sons, poor widows, or terminated business managers. Jesus spoke to their point of view and used illustrations that they could understand and relate to and listen to in context. What would make better sense to farmers than an illustration from the farm or to a poor widow than the constant threat of losing a coin or to a shepherd losing a sheep? Jesus spoke to people in language they could understand. He didn’t, as some assume, speak down to them; he spoke in their language. If anything, Jesus, in using their words, their experiences, their context, elevated their words, experiences, and contexts.

Parables keep our feet grounded by requiring us to think outside of our comfort zones about God, kingdom, Son of Man, and our everydayness. Part of the problem with interpreting parables is discussed by our next scholar, Robert Farrar Capon. In his book The Parables of the Kingdom, Capon notes that people can easily and often misunderstand the parables by too quickly assuming that they already know what the parables mean:

“Most people, on reading the Gospels’ assertion that ‘Jesus spoke in parables,’ assume they know exactly what he meant. ‘Oh, yes,’ they say, ‘and a wonderful teaching device it was too. All those unforgettable stories we’re so fond of, like the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.’ Yet their enthusiasm is narrowly based. Jesus’ use of the parabolic method can hardly be limited to the mere handful of instances they remember as entertaining, agreeable, simple, and clear. Some of his parables are not stories; many are not agreeable; most are complex; and a good percentage of them produce more confusion than understanding.” (1)

This immediately puts the reader on the defensive: It is not likely we will understand the parables and we need to listen to them anew, listen to them afresh, and work our way through them again and again. After all, these stories were preserved for us, the Church. Yet, they were spoken to people who were not yet the church in any completely modern sense. Only too often do we allow what we ‘already know’ to get in the way of what is really there. We must admit that it is always difficult to avoid the biases that we carry to the text. Capon illustrates his point by directing our attention to the rejection of Jesus by his contemporaries:

“So too with Scripture. Often when people try to say what the Bible is about, they let their own mindset ride roughshod over what actually lies on the pages…Jesus, for example, was rejected by his contemporaries not because he claimed to be Messiah but because, in their view, he didn’t make a suitably messianic claim. ‘Too bad for God,’ they seemed to say. ‘He may want a dying Christ, but we happen to know that Christs don’t die.’” (4)

His warning, it seems to me, is not that we should be afraid of parables or interpreting them, but that we should be cautious and listen well. Peterson, whom I reference below, notes that “Inconspicuously, even surreptitiously, a parable involves the hearer…A parable is not ordinarily used to tell us something new but to get us to notice something that we have overlooked although it has been right there before us for years” (Tell It Slant, 19). It does us well to work our way through the parables often, and to be and become those whose eyes and ears are open to the Word of Christ. We need to continually visit them, read them, participate in their action. Capon goes on:

“It should be only after long study and repeated readings that I would dare to conclude what any particular passage meant, let alone what the entire thrust of his writing was. With such a wildly various collection, there would always be a temptation to let my own sense of what he was up to get in the way of what he himself really had in mind” (3).

Capon also draws our attention to the fact that the parables, if they are about God, happen to turn on their heads our popular conceptions of who God is and the way God does things:

“In the Bible, as a matter of fact, God does so many ungodly things—like not remembering our sins, erasing the quite correct handwriting against us, and becoming sin for us—that the only safe course is to come to Scripture with as few stipulations as possible. God used his own style manual, not ours, in the promulgation of his word. Openness, therefore, is the major requirement for approaching the Scriptures. And nowhere in the Bible is an un-made-up mind more called for than when reading the parables of Jesus.” (5)

Indeed. The parables turn our conceptions inside out and outside in as he further observes for us:

“For example, some of the parables are little more than one-liners, brief comparisons stating that the kingdom of God is like things no one ever dreamed of comparing it to: yeast, mustard see, buried treasure secured by craftiness, fabulous jewelry purchased by mortgaging everything…Once again, they set forth comparisons that tend to make mincemeat of people’s religious expectations. Bad people are rewarded (the Publican, the Prodigal, the Unjust Steward); good people are scolded (The Pharisee, the Elder Brother, the Diligent Workers); God’s response to prayer is likened to a man getting rid of a nuisance (the Friend at Midnight); and in general, everybody’s idea of who ought to be first or last is liberally doused with cold water (the Wedding Feast, the Great Judgment, Lazarus and Dives, the Narrow Door).” (10)

Finally, there is a pastor, Eugene Peterson whose book, Tell It Slant, is a masterpiece in Peterson’s ‘conversation in spiritual theology.’ In the book, he takes on a journey with Jesus through Samaritan country as he explores Luke 9:51-19:27 and the parables contained therein. I wish there were space and time enough to note more, but I’d like for the time being to pick up on just a particular aspect of Peterson’s work. He begins by reminding us of the rather mundane, earthy subject matter of the parables:

“The subject matter is usually without apparent religious significance. They are stories about farmers and judges and victims, about coins and sheep and prodigal sons, about wedding banquets, building barns and towers and going to war, a friend who wakes you in the middle of the night to ask for a loaf of bread, the courtesies of hospitality, crooks and beggars, fig trees and manure. The conversations that Jesus had as he walked on the Samaritan roads were with people who had a different idea of God than what Jesus was revealing, or maybe not much of an idea at all. This was either hostile or neutral country. Parables were Jesus’ primary language of choice to converse with these people, stories that didn’t use the name of God, stories that didn’t seem to be ‘religious’” (20-21).

For all the ‘high’ talk we use in churches, talk about sanctification, redemption, propitiation and suchlike (all great and useful words!), talk that make us sound far more knowledgeable than we truly are, we stand in contrast with Jesus who didn’t. Jesus seems to have delighted in ‘low talk.’ This prompts Peterson to ask, “Why in the world is Jesus telling unpretentious stories about crooks and manure? Why isn’t he preaching the clear word of God, calling the Samaritans to repentance, offering them the gift of salvation in plain language?” (21) Peterson observes that Jesus’ choice of language is increasingly relaxed and conversational as he nears the day (he is speaking of the context of Luke 9:51-19:27). And Jesus doesn’t apologize for doing so.

Why? Well, Peterson believes that this keeps the conversation going by continually involving the listeners. As Jesus neared the crucifixion, knowing he would not see these Samaritan people again, his language became less direct. He told them stories they would remember, chew on, think about and be involved in forever. We are keen to remember a good story, to hear a good story, to tell a good story. Even now, the popular culture is fond of ‘Good Samaritans’ and ‘Prodigals.’ But church folk forget this simple aspect of life and in our attempts and efforts to be important, we fail to capitalize on such an idea. We forget how to be children. I remember when my eldest son, now nearly 16, was but a toddler. He could listen to the the same stories over and over and over; memorized them too. Why do we forget this as adults? This is what stories are for in the first place. Not merely to entertain even if they do entertain. We remember stories. I couldn’t tell you the financial reports of last month’s board meeting. I can tell you stories from every church I have ever had the pleasure or displeasure of knowing.

“It is common among many of us when we become more aware of what is involved in following Jesus and the urgencies that this involves, especially when we find ourselves in Samaritan territory, that we become more intense about our language. Because it is so much more clear and focused we use the language learned from sermons and teachings to tell others what is eternally important. But the very intensity of the language can very well reduce our attentiveness to the people whom we are speaking—he or she is no longer a person, but a cause. Impatient to get our message out, we depersonalize what we have to say into rote phrases or programmatic formula without regard to the person we are meeting. As the urgency to speak God’s word increases, listening relationships diminish. We end up with a bone pile of fleshless words—godtalk” (21).

So, why? I think this has something to do with keeping people involved in the conversation by requiring their participation. “A parable is not an explanation. A parable is not an illustration. We cannot look at a parable as a spectator and expect to get it. A parable does not make a thing easier; it makes it harder by requiring participation, by entering the story…” (59-60). Parables require effort. Parables require eyes of faith to see and ears of faith to hear. We have to listen and participate.

What I have laid out for you is three important aspects of the parables. First, Keener teaches that parable teaching is a common feature of teachers and rabbis of that day. This is not a later invention of the church. Second, as Capon noted, the parables turn our conceptions of God, Kingdom, Son of Man upside down and undo all our pretension. Third, as Peterson draws our attention to, parables keep us involved in the conversation by bringing us back to earth. “Why do you stand there staring at the sky?” the angel asked the disciples. Indeed, the answers are not found ‘out there’ or ‘up there.’ Jesus said, “Behold! Look around! You will see the Kingdom of God at work in places you never would have thought, under the spell of your own knowledge and wisdom, imaginable.”

Jesus told parables. He told stories that had meaning and connection to the everyday lives of the people who heard those stories. We do well, when we interpret the parables, to first listen to the parables. We do well to pay attention to the context of the parables. We do well to hear first the story of earth before we presume to know and attach meaning of heaven to the word of God. These are not earthly stories with heavenly meanings. They are carefully told earthy stories designed to capture our attention, involve us in a conversation with Jesus, and seek him and his kingdom first.

In part two of this post, I will explore the parable itself and de-sanitize it.

De-Sanitizing the Parables: The Good Catholic

This makes sense.

“And listen to the way he talks about us: ‘You shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life’ (Phil. 2:15-16). As Shawn Mullins sings, ‘we’re born to shimmer; we’re born to shine.’ You are supposed to shimmer. ‘Let your light shine before men’ (Matt. 5:16). All this groveling and self-deprecation done by Christians is often just shame masquerading as humility. Shame says, ‘I’m nothing to look at. I’m not capable of goodness.’ Humility says, ‘I bear a glory for sure, but it is a reflected glory. A grace given to me.’ Your story does not begin with sin. It begins with a glory bestowed upon you by God. It does not start in Genesis 3; it starts in Genesis 1. First things first, as they say.

“Certainly, you will admit that God is glorious. Is there anyone more kind? Is there anyone more creative? Is there anyone more valiant? Is there anyone more true? Is there anyone more daring? Is there anyone more beautiful? Is there anyone more wise? Is there anyone more generous? You are his offspring. His child. His reflection. His likeness. You bear his image. Do remember that though he made the heavens and the earth in all their glory, the desert and the open sea, the meadow and the Milk Way, and said, ‘It is good,’ it was only after he made you that he said, ‘It is very good’  (Gen. 1:31). Think of it: your original glory was greater than anything that’s ever taken you breath away.

“‘As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight’ (Ps. 16:3).

“God endowed you with a glory when he created you, a glory so deep and mythic that all creation pales in comparison.” (John Eldredge, Waking the Dead, 77-78; his emphasis.)

Be blessed today. Be glorious!

Driving to school yesterday, I heard a story on the news that sent my mind reeling.  Being that I am a little behind the times sometimes, you all may have heard about this book, but I believe it bears repeating.

Kevin Roose, author of The Unlikely Disciple:  A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University, posed as an evangelical at Liberty University for a semester as research for this book.  Karen Swallow Prior has written a good review of it at www.christianitytoday.com.  This is the final section:

Not surprisingly, Roose interprets much of the good he finds in his experience through the lens of pragmatism. He quotes William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience throughout the book as he tries to reconcile his increasing admiration for certain aspects of evangelicalism with his opposing political and social views. But even pragmatism can’t explain the most profound part of his experience.

I didn’t meet Roose until two years after his semester here, when he sat in my office for a friendly, hour-long chat on one of those “good days” of February in Lynchburg, just a few weeks before his book’s release. He still comes back to visit the friends he made here—and, on this trip, to talk about the book. Of all the unexpected events at Liberty, the one that most moves him, one included in the book but conveyed even more poignantly face-to-face, is the love his Liberty friends showed him when he finally revealed the truth about who he is and why he enrolled here. One of his roommates, he says, expressed their reaction best: “How could I not forgive you when I’ve been forgiven so much?” Roose shakes his head in disbelief, sitting in the chair next to mine. “I never expected the people here to apply the principles of their belief to their lives in such a real way.”

It is this sense of love, ultimately, that Roose can’t shake, even two years later. He found at Liberty a kind of community, he acknowledges, that has no parallel in the secular world. “I never thought,” Roose writes to the school in the book’s acknowledgements, “that the world’s largest evangelical university would feel like home … . But by experiencing your warmth, your vigorous generosity of spirit, and your deep complexity, I was ultimately convinced—not that you were right, necessarily, but that I was wrong.”

Roose’s life was changed for the better through his semester at Liberty. And hopefully, Liberty University will be changed for the better, too, through having seen itself through the eyes of a stranger—an angel of sorts, perhaps (as Roose intimates in the book’s epigraph), that we entertained unaware.

Yes, we watch our language around children, or we edit our actions if we are out with friends we know to be unbelievers.  But we never know who is watching.  And we never know when what we say or do will make an impact, good or bad, on the person standing nearest us.  Roose’s reaction to these students’ forgiveness and grace is the exact reason that Andy Stanley hit the nail on the head in a video I watched the other day.  He said, “Jesus did not dispense guilt.  He did not leverage guilt.  It is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance.”  (Romans 2:4)  One of the fruits of the spirit isn’t guilt.  Love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Not condemnation.  Not guilt.  Jesus, with the blood on his back and the scars on His body that made him unrecognizable, having nothing in His appearance that we would desire Him…yes, He alone has come in and cleaned out the closets of my heart.  I am skeleton-free, guilt-free, and righteous because of His sacrifice alone.  Andy Stanley says that it is the guilty people who deal in the currency of guilt.  Christ has freed me from guilt, therefore He has given me the freedom to deal in the currency of grace.  May we all be rich in the currency of grace to ALL people, at ALL times, for we never know who may be watching and listening…

Annie Dillard on the Journey

“I live in tranquility and trembling. Sometimes I dream. I am interested in Alice mainly when she eats the cooky that makes her smaller. I would pare myself or be pared that I too might pass through the merest crack, a gap I know is there in the sky. I am looking just now for the cooky. Sometimes I open, pried like a fruit. Or I am porous as old bone, or translucent, a tinted condensation of the air like a watercolor wash, and I gaze around me in bewilderment, fancying I cast no shadow. Sometimes I ride a bucking faith while one hand grips and the other flails the air, and like any daredevil I gouge with my heels for blood, for a wilder ride, for more.

“There is not a guarantee in the world. Oh your needs are guaranteed, your needs are absolutely guaranteed by the most stringent of warranties, in the plainest, truest words: knock; seek; ask. But you must read the fine print. “Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” That’s the catch. If you can catch it will catch you up, aloft, up to any gap at all, and you’ll come back, for you will come back, transformed in a way that you may not have bargained for—dribbling and crazed. The waters of separation, however lightly sprinkled, leave indelible stains. Did you think, before you were caught, that you needed, say, life? Do you think you will keep your life, or anything else you love? But no. Your needs are all met. But not as the world giveth. You see the needs of your own spirit met whenever you have asked, and you have learned that the outrageous guarantee holds. You see the creatures die, and you know you will die. And one day it occurs to you that you must not need life. Obviously. And then you’re gone. You have finally understood that you’re dealing with a maniac.

“I think that the dying pray at the last is not ‘please,’ but ‘thank you,’ as a guest thanks his host at the door. Falling from airplanes the people are crying thank you, thank you, all down the air; and the cold carriages draw up for them on the rocks. Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. There is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see. And then you walk fearlessly, eating what you must, growing wherever you can, like the monk on the road who knows precisely how vulnerable he is, who takes no comfort among death-forgetting men, and who carries his vision of vastness and might around in his tunic like a live coal which neither burns nor warms him, but with which he will not part.” (Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 275)

Amen.

Somewhere in the internet world there is a post about Jude being an original ADM/EDM/ODM. My question is where are the names? Where is Jude’s name calling? In fact, look at verse 16 and tell me who that looks like today? Take a look at verse 8. Just look at the whole book and I would offer that the very people who use Jude as their proof text are guilty of what Jude is writing against. I find it interesting this supposed forerunner of the ADM’s never uses names. He tells them to be merciful. Truth is, by their standards, he seems rather wishy washy.

Seriously, go read the book here. Come back and tell me what you think.

One has to wonder if Chris Rosebrough is Slowly Becoming Catholic or joining the Evanjellyfish of the Apostate Nation with this piece that does  wonderful impersonation of a batter striking out. Calling on Irenaeus (who is called the first great Catholic theologian) Chris tries to make the case that sites like SOL and ??N are just part of a long history of discernment ministries. He compares ??N to Irenaeus. Now, I’ll let you do a little study and compare the two. Chris makes a nice funny where he says some may have accused Irenaeus of having a PDM (Parchment Discernment Ministry). The strikeout is impressive when you consider it is 881 words long. The last paragraph is a prayer and who can be against those, so I took those 80 words out, which if you divide the remaining 771 by three strikes (the number necessary for an out) you get 257 outs. That’s enough for one team to have played 9.5 games. Impressive.

Oh, here’s two little differences to begin with.

1. Irenaeus was actually considered a pastor (ordained and held in the highest regard) by the people above him and around him.

2. His church had more than 6 people in it. Size isn’t everything but come on, it needs to be considered at some point, doesn’t it?

Comparing what the first great Catholic Theologian wrote to the tabloid tripe that comes from the EDM’s is downright silly. Mr. Rosebrough fails to be honest enough to mention that many who criticize the wanna be teachers and true trouble makers willingly make a distinction between real discernment and self linking. He also fails to mention Frank Turk’s comment about the Bible calling for Biblical elders not EDM/ADM/ODM’s.

So in a clear umpire voice, I say, “You’re out!”

This morning I hosted our weekly Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting at the local Middle School. It was a great hour we spent together.

We talked, incidentally, about Luke 18:9-14:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The first thing we talked about was what a parable is. I explained to the kids, in really cool and neat Junior High language what a parable is. We then read verse 9 where we are told to whom and why Jesus told this parable. Read it again:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable.

I then asked the kids: So what is Jesus teaching us in this parable? One of the students, not missing a beat said: That Jesus doesn’t like tall people?

I just thought that, perhaps, with all the important things we discuss around here, you might appreciate some levity. The boy’s name is Thomas. He’s a catcher on my baseball team and has a cannon for an arm.

I encourage you to find ways to be involved with the youth of your community. They are blessed creatures who need to be loved by God’s people and encouraged in their daily walk.

Be blessed today in Christ.

jerry