Parts of Speaking Publishing

Yesterday's post was a long read; I'll get to the point here.  We discussed Matthew 6:1-4 in the Bible study I attend with my pastor and others. It was very meaningful for me, as always, and I trust it is for them.  “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven.   2  Therefore,   when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.   3  But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,   4  that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret   will Himself reward you   [ a ] openly. I use the NKJV, which has its good and not as good points; the word "openly" does not appear in the NU (Nestle-Aland) and M (Majority) ...

 I am experiencing Halloween through the lens of a grandma of a 22-month-old girl.  As a fearful child, I did not like scary stuff. If people in the '60s had put up the kind of "decorations" I see today, I would have been terrified and unable to walk the streets to school. On my street there is a twenty-foot skeleton of a human and a five-foot skeleton of a dog. I'm not sure which is worse. (I may be wrong on the heights, but they are huge.) This house also has two dressed skeletons waving at passers-by. Others have blow-up figures of cartoon characters and typical Halloween personages. In my son's neighborhood there are witches, ghosts, and a slightly demonic scarecrow.  Annie can't miss them when we take our walk, but I don't draw her attention to them. My son says she isn't scared by them; perhaps she has no context. She is more frightened by the fact that a tree landed on their house last week due to high winds and sent large limbs through the roof...

  I am teaching about Hezekiah and Josiah, two “good” kings of Judah (out of a slew of losers) who might be said to have incurred “revivals” in the 600s BC in the Southern Kingdom. I see these two regimes as times for the individual Jews to repent even though the prophesied end would come: destruction of their land and capital and temple; exile; and then return of a humbled people 70 or more years later. It is hard to imagine the history of the Bible without 586 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel, Cyrus, etc. The apostasy was simply too long-standing, too intense, too empty of real national repentance. The exile, in my opinion, made Judaism what it is today and led to the ministry of Jesus on earth. For example, the synagogue system happened because of it, and the Pharisees, Maccabees, second temple, and Rome. One episode in the life of Hezekiah, who is kind of a mixed bag of behaviors, led me to think deeply about my own Christian experience as an evangelical, former fundamental...

 We cannot study this lesson without the big picture. Just taking a few verses out of context will not honor the Lord or the Word. We can consider the last part of II Kings like a countdown to judgment. 722: The ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom (Samaria) were conquered and destroyed by the King of Assyria (Syria area today), Sargon II. He was soon replaced by Shalmenesser and then Senacherib. 716-687: The king of Judah, Ahaz, the southern kingdom that were the direct descendants of David and Solomon (line of Jesus Christ), died. He was an evil king. Hezekiah becomes king at age 25. Hezekiah is commended in II Kings 18:3 and following, although he was not flawless. He removed idolatrous practices, one of them being the worship of the bronze serpent from Moses’ time (Numbers 21). He tried to stop paying tribute to the king of Assyria, which almost caused a war, and he had to make extensive back payments by stripping gold and silver from parts of ...

 For the past two months, I have been meeting with our pastor and five other people on Wednesday evenings. We study and discuss the passage that the pastor will preach on that week. I am honored and humbled (is that possible at the same time) to be in the group and find it deeply meaningful. We have been studying Joseph's life (what a narrative!) and are now in the gospels, particularly Matthew and the Sermon on the Mount. Even more particularly, tonight we discuss Matthew 6:1-4.  I think Pastor wants to address giving, and he did give a forecast of that last week. He has not to my knowledge done so in a long time, if ever. We do not pass a plate any longer (post COVID but I also think before that dark time). He is not a pastor who wants to be known for talking money frequently.  But . . . giving is a spiritual practice. It's not just a matter of supporting one's congregation. There is plenty in the Bible about giving materially (financially) to the church one attends, to...

My trip to Turkey was eleven days of my life, and nine and a half of those actually in the country. This is a limited time to get a sense of what the country is like, but here are my thoughts, and my prayers. One is not very long in the country before you know you are in a Muslim country. It is not just that the country has a high Muslim population, which is between 98 and 99%. It is an officially Muslim country. The flag boldly says so. The presence of mosques and minarets every few blocks in the city and somewhat more spread out but prevalent in the villages says so. The loudspeakers with prayer calls already recorded loudly proclaiming in Arabic what everyone’s responsibility is says so. The way more than usual the number of women in head scarves to full burkas says so. We see that here in the U.S., but not as much. However, one sees far less of it than one might expect given the architecture and flag. On the other hand, the loudspeakers do not have the same effect on everyone....