My friend Ray, disciple-maker and pastor-coach, and I were discussing a book he was reading in which the guy made two errors. He wrote a chapter insisting that “disciple” is a noun rather than a verb. My first reaction is so what? “Verbing weirds language,” as Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes said. But Ray found four passages of scripture in which “disciple” is used as a verb, not the least of which is Matthew 28.18 – 20.

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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.” (ESV)

Look it up: the “make” is not in the Greek. It’s the verb “disciple.” Go disciple all nations. How does a guy get to write a book with blatant falsehoods in it?

Then the guy went on to say, “We don’t make disciples, God does.” Really? That’s not what the Apostle Paul believed:

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. (1 Corinthians 3.5 – 9, ESV)

“We are God’s fellow workers.”

I don’t get the point of telling people that they have NO part. They’re already not doing anything, and you’ve just given them permission to continue!

We might as well say, “Piano teachers don’t make pianists.” It’s true. Pianists are made when students practice the skills necessary to build the muscle memory and other physiological things which happen via mysterious processes within the body. But they don’t know what to practice unless they have a TEACHER. So it’s all three: the teacher, the discipline of the student, and the processes within the body.

So we do what we can and must do and trust God to make something out of it.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15.10, ESV)

I’ll have more on our responsibility to choose wisely in a couple of days. Stay tuned.

I’m excited to have all three of my sons here today (and I just spent two weeks with my daughter). Life is good.

And Father’s Day fits right into our reading plan:

Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching. When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught me and said to me, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live. Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. (Proverbs 4.1 – 7, NKJV)

My own father passed over 40 years ago, and I am thankful that after a rough start, he met the Lord when I was only 3. He established my foundation in the Word. Thanks, Dad. And thank you, Father, for my dad.

No, today isn’t Pentecost Sunday, but last Sunday was! With all the travel, it slipped up on me, but it won’t hurt to publish something today!

First, I made it back in time to put on my red Pentecost shirt and do a prelude with my friend Mike Guyote, another retired Air Force officer, who is very good on the organ.

The observant among you will notice I have my sling off and I’m using my left hand – an improvement from when Mike and I practiced three weeks ago! Then it was “Two keyboards, three hands.” I still use the right hand to cross over and hit the lowest notes.

But back to Pentecost Sunday.

And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” (Acts 1.4, 5, ESV)

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2.1 – 4, ESV)

I love the ALL. “ALL together in one place…rested on EACH one of them…they were ALL filled with the Holy Spirit.” A similar event occurs a little while later:

And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. (Acts 4.31, ESV)

Again “ALL filled with the Holy Spirit.” The result was speaking the word with boldness…not necessarily in tongues! And this second one was not an attention step for unbelievers like the first one. It was just for them but resulted in their speaking the word with boldness and power.

And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. (Acts 4.33, ESV)

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15.13, ESV)

We’re starting into Proverbs, and I pointed out Wednesday that it’s all about living wisely.

The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel: To know wisdom and instruction, To perceive the words of understanding, To receive the instruction of wisdom… (Proverbs 1.1 – 3, NKJV)

But Proverbs 2 makes it clear that acquisition of wisdom is neither automatic nor easy:

My son, if you receive my words, And treasure my commands within you, So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding; Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will understand the fear of the LORD, And find the knowledge of God. (Proverbs 2.1 – 5, NKJV)

IF you…

• receive my words
• treasure my commands
• incline your ear to wisdom
• apply your heart to understanding
• cry out for discernment
• lift up your voice for understanding
• seek her as silver
• search for her as for hidden treasures

THEN you will understand the fear of the LORD…

Sounds like intentional effort to me. Compare Seth Godin’s counsel from yesterday: Lock up your candy. Make the good choice easy and the bad choice hard. Do the work.

The rewards are worth it.

Then you will understand righteousness and justice, Equity and every good path. (Proverbs 2.9, NKJV)

God’s wisdom will protect you from evil men…

Discretion will preserve you; Understanding will keep you, To deliver you from the way of evil, From the man who speaks perverse things, From those who leave the paths of uprightness To walk in the ways of darkness; Who rejoice in doing evil… (Proverbs 2.11 – 14, NKJV)

…and evil women:

To deliver you from the immoral woman, From the seductress who flatters with her words, Who forsakes the companion of her youth, And forgets the covenant of her God. For her house leads down to death, And her paths to the dead; None who go to her return, Nor do they regain the paths of life… (Proverbs 2.16 – 19, NKJV)

Enough said.

PS It’s Friday 13th. Hope you had a good day!

It’s been six years(!) since I wrote Make the Healthy Choice the Easy Choice, advice to my grandson from one of his college teachers. It’s worth the read.

Daily blogger Seth Godin echoes that message – reminders are good! – in Grab and Go, published June 10. He takes it one step farther: make the good choices easy and the bad choices hard. Here’s Seth’s blog in its entirety:

Every retailer knows that the items that sell the best are at eye level or at the cash register.

Some people are hungry, rushed, distracted and lazy. If you want to reach them (us), you need to make it convenient.

The lesson is simple: We can market to ourselves the same way others market to us.

Put the good habits in a place where they’re easy to find and engage with. And put the other stuff on a top shelf in the back of the room.

What would happen if you had your most noxious social media apps on a device you needed to go far out of your way to interact with?

It’s not as difficult as it sounds.

Lock up your candy. – Seth Godin, June 10, 2025

I need to work on this. My time with God journal and Bible are on my computer…as is everything else! All equally accessible. The system is not conducive for undistracted time with God. I’ll let you know how I solve this problem – I’m not there yet!

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life…Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil. (Proverbs 4.23, 25 – 27, ESV)

The reading plan has us moving into Proverbs, an immensely practical book, mainly on what wisdom might look like. The introduction is clear:

The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel: To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity; to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth— Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance, to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1.1 – 7, NKJV)

Wisdom…righteousness… Reminds one of:

And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. (1 Corinthians 1.30, NKJV)

Wisdom…

Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you. (Proverbs 1.20 – 23, NKJV)

It’s a choice, one that many in our country and “the west” seem to be going the wrong way on.

Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices. (Proverbs 1.24 – 31, NKJV)

Carl Trueman reports on a shocking stained glass window in the City Hall of Belfast Ireland. Read for yourself. “…they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices.” I don’t know what that looks like, but I don’t think it’s good.

Another proverb speaks to it:

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. (Proverbs 14.12, NKJV)

In the meantime, Proverbs 1 closes with:

…whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster. (Proverbs 1.33, NKJV)

Today, the reading plan called for Psalm 72, the last psalm in Book II. We start Proverbs tomorrow. There aren’t many of these: “A Psalm of Solomon.” The New King James Version I’m using gives it the title:

Glory and Universality of the Messiah’s Reign

But like a lot of the Old Testament, we really don’t know if it’s talking about Solomon’s present (past, now) reign or Jesus’ future reign. This part sounds like Solomon:

Give the king Your judgments, O God, And Your righteousness to the king’s Son…The kings of Tarshish and of the isles Will bring presents; The kings of Sheba and Seba Will offer gifts. (Psalm 72.1, 10, NKJV)

These verses sound more like Jesus:

Yes, all kings shall fall down before Him; All nations shall serve Him…His name shall endure forever; His name shall continue as long as the sun. And men shall be blessed in Him; All nations shall call Him blessed. Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, Who only does wondrous things! And blessed be His glorious name forever! And let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen. (Psalm 72.11, 17 – 19, NKJV)

Reminds one of Psalm 67, that we looked at recently.

But the real lesson is, What does good government look like? If we’re looking at the righteous rule of Jesus or looking for righteous rule now, what are we looking for?

He will judge Your people with righteousness, And Your poor with justice. The mountains will bring peace to the people, And the little hills, by righteousness. He will bring justice to the poor of the people; He will save the children of the needy, And will break in pieces the oppressor…For He will deliver the needy when he cries, The poor also, and him who has no helper. He will spare the poor and needy, And will save the souls of the needy. He will redeem their life from oppression and violence… (Psalm 72.2 – 4, 12 – 14, NKJV)

Seems clear. A provocative Christianity Today piece, Who Are the “Court Evangelicals,” ends with this challenge:

While the court evangelicals enjoyed Easter dinner, worshiped in the White House, and expressed their grievances about anti-Christian bias, other evangelicals in the United States and around the world were saving lives with vaccines, defending Christians in Ukraine, finding solidarity with the suffering, and bringing attention to the globally displaced. – John Fea, June 4, 2025

What would Jesus do? He told us:

And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.” (See Isaiah 61.1, 2a)

Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4.17 – 21, NKJV)

PS In Daniel 4, Nebuchadnezzar’s account of his meltdown, what did Daniel advise Nebuchadnezzar to do?

Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you: break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed, that there may perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity. (Daniel 4.27, ESV, emphasis mine)

I realize in my two blogs on Grand Cayman (An Adventure and Hell: Not even a nice place to visit), I have not been entirely kind, especially about the heat. But it’s not Grand Cayman’s fault that I’m more acclimated to Colorado!

After two weeks on the island, our last night there, we finally got a glimpse at why people go there. Dinner at a nice restaurant on seven-mile beach, a lovely stretch of natural sand, not to be confused with the “iron beach” I had seen earlier.

Part of the “iron beach”…part of seven-mile beach. Big difference.

Friday night’s beach restaurant…

Other beach views, including with the granddaughters, Liana (left) and high school graduate Shirah (right):

So if you’re a beach person and don’t mind the heat, Grand Cayman is grand. I’m glad we went…glad to be back home. And I’m glad not all of us like the same places. A new friend on Grand Cayman told me, “I really like Colorado, but I don’t understand your weather…snow in June?”

If we all liked the same places, it might get awfully crowded!

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place… (Acts 17.26, ESV)

As this blog comes out, we are recovering from our two-week visit to Grand Cayman Island for our granddaughter’s graduation from high school. (Our daughter, Melody, and her husband, Cody, teach music in Cayman International School.) It’s a nice place if you’re into HOT, which we are not, now that we’ve been in Colorado since 1984 (minus five years back in Alabama).

Turns out that when I thought I must be on the outskirts of Hell, I was right. It’s not every day, when you finish breakfast with a pastor, he says to you, “Go to hell.” Well, to be fair, that’s not all of what he said. He was responding to my request from before breakfast. What he said was, “Let’s go to hell.”

Hell is a geologic formation less than a mile from our daughter’s house in West Bay. Kind of like Garden of the Gods near where I live, which got its name when an early visitor said, “It’s a garden fit for the gods!” This place got its name when British Commissioner Sir Allen Wolsey Cardinall said, “This must be what hell looks like.”

Indeed. It’s good to be home.

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. (Psalm 139.7, 8, NKJV)

Psalm 71 has good words for me at my age and with my shoulder challenge:

Do not cast me off in the time of old age;

Do not forsake me when my strength fails. (Psalm 71.9, NKJV)

O God, You have taught me from my youth;

And to this day I declare Your wondrous works.

Now also when I am old and grayheaded,

O God, do not forsake me,

Until I declare Your strength to this generation,

Your power to everyone who is to come. (Psalm 71.17, 18, NKJV)

As I say, a good word for us in old age, “Do not forsake me when my strength fails.” But the same day I read Psalm 71, I received an email from a friend who’s not yet 40:

I’m turning 40 in September…that’s a big ol’ round number and sliding very quickly into middle age. Last week I couldn’t do weighted squats at the gym because my bad knee was acting up. I was racing my son in the backyard this weekend and gave myself a charley horse because apparently I now need to stretch before sprinting around like a child. Back in March, I was skiing at Wolf Creek for the first time in a decade and became aware almost immediately that my legs at 39 are not my legs at 29. I, too, have been feeling like everything on me is falling apart these days.

God is our God for ALL ages! We start getting old sooner than we want. For example, it’s a rare professional athlete that goes deep into their 30s before realizing that the body just can’t do what it used to.

We all need Paul’s assurance:

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. (2 Corinthians 4.16, ESV)