Passing the Baton

Monday, January 9, 2023

When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.  I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.  Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him.  Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.  And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully.  Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.  Ephesians 3:14-19

Paul is writing final letters to his dear friends.  His days as a prisoner were coming to an end, and it was not to be a parole; Paul was under a sentence of death.  One of the purposes of the letter was to absolve from any guilt this  group of believers in Ephesus whom he loved deeply, and doing so, to draw them more deeply into Christ’s love.  Paul’s singular charge from God was to spread the Gospel to the Gentiles.  He had developed a reptutation as a heretic among the Jews, a traitor for saying God’s love was for everyone.[1]  The Jewish leaders pulled every string they could to silence the apostle.

This letter was a last testament of his love for his Ephesian family.  And in this text Paul’s prayer for them is for spiritual insight, that God would reveal the scope of God’s love to them, developing in that body of believers the kind of fullness of the Christian life they would need to carry-on the work Paul had begun with them.  The apostle was passing the baton to the next generation!

Mentors do that.  There are many people who influence your life, folks who reveal important things.  But, truth be told, there are fewer mentors, people who go out of their way to befriend, teach, counsel, and inspire.  This is passing the Good News baton to the next generation. 

Being a mentor, a passer of the baton, means several things are in place: 

First, some valuable learning must have taken hold in your life, if you’re going to pass along truth.  If you don’t have a baton to pass on, your leg of the race is worthless.  And before you just give up because you judge your ministry…that’s not up to you…that’s God’s prerogative.   

Second, there must be a longing beyond your reach.  As effective a missionary as Paul was, his most lasting dynamic was his willingness to leave it all on the field for someone else to pick up.

Third, you must be willing to let go of the reins.  Let’s face it…nobody drives like anybody else.  If you won’t trust God to work in the life of someone who looks up to you as mentor, you didn’t have a ministry, you had an agenda.

Most of us will not have to face the executioner’s axe, like Paul did, to realize the time of passing the baton was at hand.  Letting go to trust God’s hand is the supreme act of faith. 

For You Today  

To move into being a mentor for the next generation takes some experience, much vision, and a heart that is willing to reach the finish line.  Let’s give Paul the last word on that today:

I focus on this one thing:  Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.  Philippians 3:13b-14

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Understanding the Danger of Peanut Butter  and  Measuring the Love of God

Images:  Title Wikimedia Commons - public domain   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

---

[1] See Galatians 3:28

Why Marriages Turn Into Wars

Monday, August 1, 2022

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord.  Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.  Colossians 3:18-19

As a precautionary measure, let me say up front:  this might get ugly.  Also allow me to mention that I’ve been in trouble before, because I wrote, preached, and counseled in favor of Biblical marriage.  That being said, let me introduce you to my dear friend, the Apostle Paul, also no stranger to being in trouble.  With one word Paul stirred two millennia of arguments over marriage; that word:  submit!

The problem is a matter of understanding the banquet table of perspective Paul spread out for those contemplating living together as God intended.  It is often said that you cannot build an entire theology of living on one passage of Scripture.  (It’s said mostly by preachers who want to survive being employed while telling the truth).  What that means is too many people assume the worst before they truly understand the perspective.  I say that to (at least) gain a hearing for these five minutes.  After that you can take me to the hangman if you’re so-inclined.

Paul’s troublesome word “submit” is abhorrent in today’s culture, especially in a time when equality police are everywhere.  The problem is many people don’t wait for the context, or perspective.  Submitting is not subservience, or admission of a woman being weaker than a man.  Rather, in context, and in light of all the other stuff Paul wrote about women and men, it is a matter of entrusting common sense to the woman.  It isn’t a lower respect for women’s ability, intellect, or place…it’s recognition that mutual respect must start somewhere.  Paul understands that men are less likely to begin there.  But if you’re having trouble wrapping your mind around anything Paul writes as being less than sexist, or antiquated gender-bashing, let his signature sentence to the Galatian believers roll around your perspective indicator for just a moment:

There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female[1].  For you are all one in Christ Jesus.  Galatians 3:28

So, why (begging the question of today’s topic) do many marriages turn into war?  The answer is both a male and female failure to live together fulfilling their role, rather than trying to protect their turf.  Imagine a man winning the affection of a woman.  Then, after successfully convincing her to marry him (making all his dreams come true), tries to live as independently as the bachelor…while still claiming his “status” as a husband.  Imagine the woman planning and pulling-off the elaborate dream wedding (putting every strain possible on the credit score).  She then starts working on arranging the rest of their lives according to what that romantic moment looked like when she was the center of attention under that veil.  This Mars vs. Venus approach is the perfect storm setting for winding-up in divorce court, where the only benefit is to the 401K of the lawyers.

Rearrange the thinking to a man and a woman who listen to Apostle Paul’s Godly advice.  The man, moving heaven and earth to love his wife (read that:  do that which will support her in being the strongest, most excellent woman possible).  That kind of man will trust, help, comfort, console when down, cheer when accomplishing…and you’ve got that picture.  And, for the submit issue?  There isn’t an issue when a woman’s got a man like that!

For You Today

Love begins not with a kiss, and the short-path to the bedroom, as seen on most of Hollywood’s theological porn.  Love begins when there is mutual submission to God’s ways.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts in the Rocky Road Devotions library. 

To dig deeper on today’s topic read:  The Strength of a Marriage  and  Two Rings

[1] Images:  Pixabay.com and Pixabay  and Pixabay  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

---

[1] Emphasis added

Silence in the Church

 

Monday, February 7, 2022

There were few people left in the villages of Israel—until Deborah arose as a mother for Israel.  Judges 5:7

Women should be silent during the church meetings.  It is not proper for them to speak.  They should be submissive, just as the law says.  If they have any questions, they should ask their husbands at home, for it is improper for women to speak in church meetings.  1 Corinthians 14:34-35

The differences between the Old and New Testament teachings set up apparent controversies.  One of these is about leadership, who should, and who shouldn’t.  Biblical examples of women in leadership abound in Scripture, yet Paul’s take seems to leave little “wiggle-room” in a stark prohibition of women even speaking to ask a question in church.  Why the gag order?  What’s up with this?

It's my personal belief that Paul was settling a local dispute in a young church that was trying to find its way, in the absence of the leader (Paul) who had set them on the pathway of following Christ.  In the middle of a human-rights disaster of the culturally male-dominated era, women of that day received almost no education.  Just as the local school board wouldn’t hire a five-year-old to teach high school, Paul was opting for an end to bedlam during worship in the Corinthian church.  I do not believe Paul was cementing-down a principle, that women cannot even speak, let-alone teach, or minister in church.  Yet, that is the thinking you’ll occasionally encounter as a backlash to female leadership. 

It has been my experience in serving local churches the past 40 years, that many more churches would have closed their doors without women who not only spoke, but taught and preached.  In Paul’s day, women were uneducated because men were shortsightedly keeping them ignorant.  It was commonly accepted that women were, by nature, unable to comprehend deeper-level thinking than the skills needed to handle menial or household tasks.  Leadership was for males only. 

Paul knew this was not right, and would eventually move towards correction.  Consider what he said to the Galatian believers:

There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female.  Galatians 3:28a

In other words, God sees every human being spiritually the same, and has gifted each of us as He sees fit.  We should measure people by the gifts and abilities God has given them, and how appropriately and grandly they use those to glorify God. 

For You Today

For those (males, particularly) who might long for a return to the days of keeping women under subjugation with corsets and cultural mandates to keep silent, and walk three paces behind their men out of respect, here is a newsflash: 

That gag-order has been lifted!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©    

Living in a Dumpster

[i]

Friday, July 15, 2016

There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female.  For you are all one in Christ Jesus.  Galatians 3:28^(NLT)

Separation, arguments, prejudice, unfairness; what a tangled existence we human beings create for each other.  When it comes to things that separate or divide people, the list is pretty long:

·       Race – that’s always a big one these days.

·       Lifestyle – there are messy people, clean people, fast and slow people; there are skinny people and generously piled “high and wide” people.

·       Language – Press one to continue in English

·       Region – I am one of the few “Yankee preachers” to ever have an ordination certificate signed by one Jefferson Davis!

·       Age – the young person complains the adults have it made, while the aged shake their heads in disdain over the way youth is wasted on the young.

·       Economics – the poor and rich seldom rub elbows.

·       Religion – Our creeds have created more different kinds of separation and distrust than 9/11.

·       Gender – there is a whole war going on to determine who has the power, or even if you will stay the gender you were born; whew!…tangled mess, indeed!

Separation…you stay over there, don’t get in my space!  Anger, contention, strife, games-playing, backbiting.  This is the stuff of which legalism is made.  This is what Jesus came to forgive…and what he expects us to forsake.

While the list of things that separate us is quite long, there is only a very short list of that which unites people.  There are two:  family and love.  That’s it…just family and love.  I tried to think of anything else that will truly unite people, and, other than accepting one another in this human family with love, there is nothing. 

In 2007 we added two rooms to our house so my Mom and Dad could live with us.  During the 8 month project there was an 8’x25’ dumpster next to the house full of scrap wood, shingles, discarded Pepsi bottles and sandwich wrappers. 

Other inhabitants included millions of fly larvae, mice and roaches, not to mention the odd family or two of black snakes.  (Don’t tell Elizabeth I said that!)

If I were to have asked Mom and Dad if they preferred to live in the new rooms or the dumpster, the only question would be if I have been drinking.  Nobody in his right mind lives in a dumpster if there’s a new house waiting. 

Yet, when it comes to living in faith, accepting others, we human beings would rather live in the “dumpster of separation” our prejudices and fears create, rather than the new rooms of joy Jesus is building for us.

For You Today

Paul calls to us to make a decision about the dumpster.  How do we live like Paul said – in Christ, with Christ living his life through our life?  It’s living together in love, in the faith family.  That’s what Jesus came to die for, that we might have a together life; we call it communion.  Sin separates us from God and each other.  Jesus came to break down the barriers that separate us, so that we can walk together. 

He came to tow away the dumpster of separation.  He’s building a new house full of love and family.  And there’s room for everybody!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today…have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

---

NOTES

[i] Title Image: Russell Brownworth

Inclusive

 ^[1]   

tuesday, June 2, 2015

There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28 ^(NLT)

Inclusivism is big these days – sorry is the lot of anyone who leaves anyone out! 

A pastor helped plan a lovely garden tea party for the ladies of the church, set up chairs on the church lawn.  Unfortunately he forgot to add the head of the ladies auxilliary to the list of invitations.  Late on the night before the event the pastor suddenly remembered and called her to apologize and beg her to come.  It’s too late for that Reverend, she snorted, I’ve already prayed for rain!

As a new pastor more than 30 years ago I struggled with announcements and recognitions in church worship services.  I once neglected recognizing the matriarch of our church on Mother’s Day; I’m not sure I was ever forgiven!

In the denomination to which I belong and serve, we go to great pains to use inclusive language, inclusive attitudes, and we succeed (or die trying) to be so inclusive and open minded that nobody gets offended.  We don’t always succeed! 

As inclusive as we claim to be, we promote, even pay-for segregation in the strangest places.  We call it “mission” when we pay a smaller group of ethnic or language Christians (Hispanic, Korean, Vietnamese, African-American) to worship in some place other than “ours”.  We buy them a building (or give them one of our castoff buildings from a failed anglo group), pay for a pastor and bid them much success….over there!

We United Methodists are poster children for the most segregated hour of the week – Sunday morning at 11am!

I know all the arguments about why we do such things; the birds of a feather flock together argument says that folk with the same language, customs or history would much rather be with their own.

Well, I’m here to ask the question today – which is stronger, the nationalistic pride of this country or that country, this language or that language, this skin color or that skin color….or is it the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us?  Are we not HIS own?

I get it that we have differences in ideaology or theology, but if we are United in our Methodism, why doesn’t it show in our willingness to be children of God under the same roof?

I think the fact remains that we are perhaps more willing to be separated, like the scattered language groups leaving the Tower of Babel, than we are willing to be drawn together by the Spirit under Christ.

Lord have mercy.

We already have cowboy churches, trucker churches, camper churches; I would not be surprised one day to see church plants in the future that are so inclusive they limit membership by special interest.  There will be the old people’s church (for Baby Boomers like me who are a formidable voting block), or churches that only accept retired tennis players, or the church for LGBT poodle owners.

When is all the nonsense going to stop?

If we are people within whom the Holy Spirit dwells, is that not enough to accept each other and be obedient to the call of Christ?

For You Today

When you encounter someone of different ethnicity, social status, economic means, skin color, or challenges galore, the choice is there to act strangely warmed by the presence of the Spirit bearing witness…or to just act strangely (for a Christian) and reject that person’s “otherness”.

Be inclusive – embrace the Spirit!

---

[1] Title image: By Prabhas Ranjan (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons