I wrote yesterday that God is at work behind the scenes, and this is no more evident than at this time of year when we celebrate Advent: the coming of Jesus into the world. One of the recurring themes of scripture is that of war: war between the forces of evil and the forces of good. It’s been going on since Genesis 3.

I recently read a compelling historical novel, Once Night Falls, on the Italian resistance in northern Italy during World War 2. It’s the story of a few people, ordinary people, doing what they could against the Nazi occupation.

• An overweight priest acted as courier for a bishop who was also part of the resistance
• A middle-aged playboy with an American car also was a courier
• A woman hid her Jewish friend in her attic and later poisoned the German soldiers she was forced to cook for. She died with them.
• A young Italian man with one good arm, killed a German operative amidst other errands he was running for the resistance. He helped his Jewish fiancé out of the country into Switzerland, while he stayed behind to fight

God has set his resistance movement in motion, a movement that defeated Satan at the cross and will ultimately defeat all evil (read Revelation: God wins!). Along the way, he recruited people for this movement. Zechariah and Elizabeth to beget John the Baptist, Mary to bear the Christ child, Joseph to protect her, and on it goes.

Someone has written:

Jesus has come to undo the consequences of evil and to establish the kingdom of God.  I know that, even though Jesus is calling the whole world, he is beckoning me in a special way to respond to that call to work for the kingdom.

How will I respond?

And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1.38, ESV)

While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. (Matthew 4.18 – 20, ESV)

I’m starting to read Adventures of a Computational Explorer by Stephen Wolfram, architect of Mathematica, robust software for mathematicians. This sentence in the Preface caught my eye:

But what I’ve come to realize–particularly having embraced the computational paradigm–is that the same intellectual thought processes can be applied not just to what one thinks of as science, but to pretty much anything.

It reminded me of something Dr. Terry Perciante, a chaos theory expert at Wheaton College shared a number of years ago. Terry showed us this figure, which I found out later is known as the Sierpinski Triangle:

It’s an infinitely continuing figure in which every blue triangle of any size has a hole in its center. What is interesting about this is that the figure is not produced by carefully drawing all the little triangles. It is produced by a very simple random process. God is at work behind the scenes bringing order out of chaos. Terry says that God’s sovereignty is cast against a background of turbulence.

I thought of the early church, described succinctly as:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people…And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.(Acts 2.42, 46, 47, ESV)

God added to their number! God is building the church:

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2.19 – 22, NKJV)

And the church looks like He wants it to look! The Sierpinski Triangle is composed of thousands of randomly distributed points. We never know where the next point is going to go and which point will be “next” to it later on in the process.

My point (no pun intended!) is that the triangle is not produced by copying a particular structure but by setting in motion a process. Jesus chose 12, invested in them for a few years and left. The Apostle Paul did the same.

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.2, NIV)

And Paul reminded church leaders that their job is to do the same: equip the people to do the work:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4.11 – 13, NIV)

It’s my birthday today, born on Friday, December 13, 1946. It’s my 10th birthday (after 1946) to fall on a Friday. Every day/date combination comes around four times every 28 years.

It’s amazing to me that in a society as technologically advanced as ours that 13 is considered an “unlucky” number and Friday 13th is considered an unlucky day. In China, they are afraid of the number 4. We were on an elevator in a Hong Kong hotel that had 26 floors. Well, not really. The top floor was called 26, but there was no 4th floor, no 14th floor, no 24th floor, and, for the sake of the westerners, no 13th floor!

If you think about it, Jesus and the 12 constituted a group of 13! Here’s da Vinci’s famous painting: count ‘em! 

So have a good day! I intend to.

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118.24, ESV)

Glen Eyrie is the conference center of The Navigators, originally built by the founder of Colorado Springs, General William Palmer. The story of The Navigators’ making the original downpayment of $108,000 back in 1953 is an inspiration in itself. Since then the castle and grounds have blessed hundreds of thousands of people, providing a quiet sanctuary to hear the voice of God.

Recently, the local PBS station made a 26-minute video of the past and present of Glen Eyrie. Watch…and then visit us!

[Jesus] said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” (Mark 6.31, NIV)

He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul… (Psalm 23.2, 3, NKJV)

Sometimes we just need to have fun.

June still studies piano and is part of a performance group with her teacher’s other adult students. Once a year they invite their spouses and play Christmas duets. For a number of years, June and her duet partner, Lynn, have closed the program with Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride. This year, for the first time, one of the other student’s husband provided sound effects (except for the last whinny, which was performed by the other student herself). It’s worth a listen at only 3.5 minutes. (I apologize for cutting off the video before the applause and the bows!)

Praise him with the lyre and harp! (Psalm 150.3, ESV)

I’ve been puzzling over Galatians 5.16 – 18 since last June when the Spring Canyon speaker challenged us to memorize verses 16 – 24. I was rocking along with the Holy Spirit versus sinful nature contest just fine until verse 18 dropped the law of Moses into the mix. 

So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. (Galatians 5.16 – 18, NLT, verse 18 in bold.)

I’ve been asking myself, how did the law get in there, and what does it have to do with anything? I think I’m beginning to see, and it has to do with what I wrote yesterday about “outside the wall” sins and “inside the wall” sins. Verse 18 may be echoing what Paul wrote to the Romans:

For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7.5, 6, ESV, emphasis mine)

Sinful passions aroused by the law: I’m beginning to understand that the law arouses sinful passions in two ways. First, there is the universal human tendency to do what we’re told not to do. “Do not throw rocks at this window!” “Where is a rock that I can throw!?” Paul speaks to this tendency in the last part of Romans 7.

But there is another way that law arouses sinful passions: I can be so rigidly passionate about the law that I am angry or hostile toward those who don’t keep it. Westboro “Baptist” Church is an extreme example. In other words, law brings out those “inside the wall sins” I wrote about yesterday. Saul’s zeal for the law led to his violence toward Christians. Religious leaders crucified Jesus.

So verse 18 may be saying, when you’re directed by the Spirit and not under obligation to the law of Moses (or any other law), you’re free to love and be kind to others even when you don’t like their behavior. 

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5.13, 14, NIV)

I was reading Galatians 5 recently and noticed again the two kinds of sins identified with “the sinful nature” in Galatians 5.19 – 21? 

When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. (NLT, emphases mine)

I’ve been around church people most of my life, and I can tell you we like to look askance at folks who practice the sins I’ve put in italics above: sexual immorality, lustful pleasures, drunkenness, and wild parties occur (hopefully) outside the church walls and are all on the naughty list! But have you ever been in a church meeting where people are arguing about some fine point of theology or practice or debating about the value of a particular church program or even service times? Hostility? Check. Quarreling? Check. Outbursts of anger? Check. Dissension and division? Check and check. 

Sins in bold are on the naughty list too, and they often occur inside the church walls. 

There are several ways to go off the rails. People given to the outside set of behaviors are ignoring or rebelling against God’s word. Church people given to the inside set are working too hard to enforce some perceived aspect of the law. Both are in error. 

The solution?

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! (Galatians 5.22, 23, NLT)

So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires.. [The “outside sins”] … You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander,… [The “inside sins”]…You have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us. Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony… (Colossians 3.5 – 14, NLT)

I’ve asked before with respect to race relations, what am I missing? Well, I found out. When the current issue of Clemson World arrived by email, the lead article’s teaser read:

English professor Rhondda Robinson Thomas has committed her professional research to the history of African Americans on Clemson’s campus, much of which has yet to be brought to light.

I thought, no problem! I remember vividly and with pride that Clemson’s president told us that we had the first black freshman in our class and “there will be no problems at Clemson University.” And there weren’t.

But Dr. Thomas’ research has nothing to do with such recent history (1964). She’s writing about six generations of black people at Clemson, beginning with the slaves on the Calhoun and Tillman plantations going back to at least 1831. I like that she seems to be doing her research and telling the stories without bitterness and that she is 12 years into what she thought was a 3-year contract. Dr. Thomas has not only earned tenure at Clemson University: she also has been named the Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature.

The article, The Power of Calling a Name, is compelling. It reminds us:

The history of Clemson University is inextricably tangled with the triumphs and transgressions of its founders. Thomas Green Clemson was a European-educated engineer who inherited the estate of his wife’s father. Calhoun himself was a prominent planter, a former vice president under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, and one of slavery’s most passionate proponents.

I heard nothing of this when I was a student. When I saw the Calhoun mansion, I probably thought, that’s a nice, big house. When Dr. Thomas saw it, she thought, “I cannot believe I am working on a plantation.”

The Bible contains history, and not all of it is pleasant. Everyone matters. People are flawed.

I like to end all blogs with applicable scripture, but I don’t know if these are appropriate or not. Thoughts?

[Jesus] is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2.2, NIV) (Jesus died for the sins of Calhoun and Thomas Clemson as well as for all the slaves they held.)

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. (Luke 1.68…74, 75, ESV) (Israel was an oppressed and enslaved people at the time of Jesus’ birth.)

Then Samson called to the LORD and said, “O Lord GOD, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes.” And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other. And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life. (Judges 16.28 – 30, ESV) (God uses flawed people.)

I’ve written before that I enjoy working the Friday meta crossword puzzle in the Wall Street Journal and that sometimes solutions come quicker than others. But what happens when they don’t come? This week’s has been particularly frustrating because I can see all the hidden words I’m supposed to see, but I can’t tease an answer out of them.

The problem then is that I devote too much time to it. As I write this Saturday morning, I’ve been messing with the puzzle since Thursday afternoon. Too much. And it interferes with other things I should be doing. So I’m taking another sabbatical from these things. I’ve done it before. I just don’t look at them for weeks or months. Sometimes moderation isn’t possible. I just have to quit.

For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. (Galatians 5.13, NLT)

You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything. (1 Corinthians 6.12, NLT)

Back in May 2017, June woke up in the middle of the night with what turned out to be a bowel obstruction. It was a long 10 days before it was completely diagnosed and resolved, and we’ve not had that happen since. Reading these verses in Psalm 116 reminded me:

The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!” (Psalm 116.3, 4, ESV)

The rest of the Psalm reminds us that every day is a gift from our gracious God:

For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living…What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord, I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people. (Psalm 116.8, 9, 12 – 14, ESV)