I'm currently reading a book about the Taft presidency. In explaining why Teddy Roosevelt admired Taft and chose to support him as his successor, the author mentions often Taft's integrity. As you may know, Taft later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, which is what he has always wished to be. He was a man who loved law.
Roosevelt and others soon become disenchanted with Taft's integrity because it keeps him from playing the political games. I'm only on page 80 of a 306 page book, so maybe I'll have a clearer picture later of the author's opinion, but I found the following statements sad and astonishing.
It was clear the President would not compromise his private morals for the sake of his administration...Taft's stubborn integrity interfered with his duty as a democratic leader to save his administration and programs.
Stubborn integrity interferring with duty?
The author quotes Taft as saying: "Life is not worth living and office is not worth having if, for the purpose of acquiring the popular support, we have to either do a cruel injustice or acquiesce in it." But apparently this isn't an admirable thought because the author follows it with his statement about Taft's stubborn integrity.
Why can't a man have integrity and be a good President?
Proverbs 20: 7. The righteous man walks in his integrity; his children are blessed after him.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Educational TV?
My 3 year old is watching an animated show on PBS Kids. The librarian character just said this to the boy: "Would you like to take these ones home today?" These ones?
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Blessed are the meek
This is an excerpt of a post that Jack made at a discussion forum. The discussion involved Christians compromising in order to belong to a church. Does this compromise show humility or meekness? We think not.
Proverbs 20:11. Even a child is known by his deeds, by whether what he does is pure and right. _________________________________________________________________
...Indeed, true disciples love to be only God's children, and to behave as such. And they will not be dissuaded from doing so, no matter how many people find it uncomfortable. It's not about pride, it's about humility.
Someone I read years ago had a good comment on this question. In addressing the beatitude "blessed are the meek (PRAOTES)", he pointed out that PRAOTES signified the conditioning of someone who is thoroughly trained by his master---that he would obey faithfully in all circumstances. As I recall, he pointed out that it would not have been considered "meek" to fail to obey God in deference to the wishes of others, or to hesitate to obey because those around him were not also obeying.
My 3 year old James is very well behaved at home. He is well conditioned. But I have noticed that the bigger the crowd, the more difficult for him to maintain a sufficient focus on obeying his daddy. And so we work on that. When we're at big family gatherings or at the McDonald's Playland, it requires some extra coaching to keep him remembering that I'm still the center of his world, and that obedience to daddy is always a blessed and necessary thing. And the more of this training we do, the bigger crowd he can handle without casting off the reins. But no matter the circumstances, the moment he fails to listen and/or to obey, a crucial connection is broken and must be re-established as soon as possible.
As a result, he obeys his daddy even when the other kids are behaving poorly. And this is by no means "pride", but "humility" on his part. And it hurts his feelings to see other kids behaving poorly. He wants to help them do right. We asked him once how he could help other kids who were being bad and he said "next time I can bring a spatula and give him a spanking to help him be a good boy"! (This was not spoken in anger or vengeance, but in sincere belief that his own spankings have truly helped him to do what he wants to do---to be a good boy.)
If this is "pride", I wish everybody I knew were this prideful!
Proverbs 20:11. Even a child is known by his deeds, by whether what he does is pure and right. _________________________________________________________________
...Indeed, true disciples love to be only God's children, and to behave as such. And they will not be dissuaded from doing so, no matter how many people find it uncomfortable. It's not about pride, it's about humility.
Someone I read years ago had a good comment on this question. In addressing the beatitude "blessed are the meek (PRAOTES)", he pointed out that PRAOTES signified the conditioning of someone who is thoroughly trained by his master---that he would obey faithfully in all circumstances. As I recall, he pointed out that it would not have been considered "meek" to fail to obey God in deference to the wishes of others, or to hesitate to obey because those around him were not also obeying.
My 3 year old James is very well behaved at home. He is well conditioned. But I have noticed that the bigger the crowd, the more difficult for him to maintain a sufficient focus on obeying his daddy. And so we work on that. When we're at big family gatherings or at the McDonald's Playland, it requires some extra coaching to keep him remembering that I'm still the center of his world, and that obedience to daddy is always a blessed and necessary thing. And the more of this training we do, the bigger crowd he can handle without casting off the reins. But no matter the circumstances, the moment he fails to listen and/or to obey, a crucial connection is broken and must be re-established as soon as possible.
As a result, he obeys his daddy even when the other kids are behaving poorly. And this is by no means "pride", but "humility" on his part. And it hurts his feelings to see other kids behaving poorly. He wants to help them do right. We asked him once how he could help other kids who were being bad and he said "next time I can bring a spatula and give him a spanking to help him be a good boy"! (This was not spoken in anger or vengeance, but in sincere belief that his own spankings have truly helped him to do what he wants to do---to be a good boy.)
If this is "pride", I wish everybody I knew were this prideful!
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Books we're reading
KAY
William Howard Taft - A Conservative's Conception of the Presidency
Wives and Daughters (Elizabeth Gaskell)
Sense and Sensibility (re-re-re-....reading)
Light from Heaven (Jan Karon)
The Story of Mankind (Hendrik van Loon)
JAMES
Another Celebrated Dancing Bear (read to him)
Stories in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (read by him)
currently on Lesson 38
The Book of Judges (currently reading about Gideon)
JACK
The Bible (recently concentrating on prophets OT and NT)
William Howard Taft - A Conservative's Conception of the Presidency
Wives and Daughters (Elizabeth Gaskell)
Sense and Sensibility (re-re-re-....reading)
Light from Heaven (Jan Karon)
The Story of Mankind (Hendrik van Loon)
JAMES
Another Celebrated Dancing Bear (read to him)
Stories in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (read by him)
currently on Lesson 38
The Book of Judges (currently reading about Gideon)
JACK
The Bible (recently concentrating on prophets OT and NT)
Monday, January 8, 2007
Knowing the rules
Yesterday I gave James (3 years old) Children's Motrin. He really likes medicine (it tastes way better than when we were kids!) and is always eager to know when he can take the next dose. I hadn't looked at the bottle to see how often he could take it. When he asked, I said, "I don't know the rules." He said, "Daddy knows the rules. God and Daddy knows the rules. And Moses too, because God gave him the rules."
Proverbs 7
1. My son, keep my words, and treasure my commands within you.
2. Keep my commands and live, and my law as the apple of your eye.
3. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.
4. Say to wisdom, "You are my sister,'' and call understanding your nearest kin,
Proverbs 7
1. My son, keep my words, and treasure my commands within you.
2. Keep my commands and live, and my law as the apple of your eye.
3. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.
4. Say to wisdom, "You are my sister,'' and call understanding your nearest kin,
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Starting Over --- again
Proverbs 2:1-5
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.
I am going to cut and paste a post my husband made this morning to a Bible discussion forum in which we have participated for quite a while. You may not know what in the world he is talking about, but I'm including it here because I felt when I read it that he expressed so well what we are feeling as we re-examine many of our life long beliefs. We feel excitement about discovering things that seemed hidden to us for so long. We feel shame and embarassment for not having seen these things long ago. We feel puzzlement. We feel afraid -- perhaps --- of what other believers will think of what we are beginning to believe. Again there is excitement about many things coming together that never made sense before because we were trying to fit them into the box of what we had always been taught and believed. I suppose you will find in later posts here more about the things that we are currently trying to understand and put together and determine to the best of our ability and with the help of God what is true. I just want to know what is true. Below you'll find Jack's post.
______________________________________________________________
I think that Jesus' ministry was very narrowly focused and extremely cogent. Yet the exact meaning or importance of many of his sayings is unclear to this generation because of our haste to rush past the "Old Testament" in order to read the "New Testament".
As a result, because we fail to perceive the eschatalogical fabric from which Jesus' ministry was sewn, we are left to glean from his words the morsels that we DO understand---or that we THINK we understand. And failing to see the fullest extent of their interrelation, we make the mistake of considering at least most of his words merely as a collection of good sayings--much as the Proverbs.
We think he was profound---even that he was TRYING to be profound. We think that he gave mysterious answers at times---askew from the questions which were put to him. We even think that he gloried so much in being misunderstood that he deliberately gave ethereal answers when he could have answered straight-forwardly.
But if we were keen on the Law and the Prophets, we'd know better. We'd recognize so many of his sayings that we'd come to see him as the utter and unmistakable fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.
He wore more than one hat, so to speak, and yet this generation is obsessed with the "Savior" hat and the "sacrificial Lamb" hat. And so these two aspects of his ministry are glorified to the exclusion of several equally-important facets of his work. We fail to see him as the quintessential Jewish prophet. We fail to see him as the mighty judge who would pour out his wrath on unrepentant Judea just 40 years after his ascencion. And we fail to understand his directives to the apostles in light of the needs of this very special 40-year period; we act as if they were apostles only for our generation, and as if everything they said was meant primarily for us. We mistake Jesus as having issued the New Covenant in his earthly sayings, though this task was assigned instead to his apostles for after his ascension. And this generation even sets the apostles against Jesus on account of the fact that they said some things he did not say, missing the fact that they were speaking his very words through inspiration---teachings that he had promised were yet to come.
We also fail to understand the fashion in which the transition in covenants was made. We like to think that the Old Covenant was shut down either at the cross or at Pentecost, but this is wrong. And we like to think that the New Covenant was fully established either at the cross or at Pentecost. But this is wrong, too.
Further, we fail to understand the spiritual significance of his return in 70AD. We miss what happened when "we will all be changed" "in the twinkling of an eye". We miss just what the world was like back then, and how it is now different in his "presence" (PAROUSIA). We miss that the "New Jerusalem" is the fulfillment of "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven", for we have come to view this clause of the Lord's Prayer as just another in a list of unrelated spiritual morsels. And the effect of this misunderstanding is to reduce that clause to a mere platitude that has no real place in our Christian experience. We view it as a nice idea---even as wishful thinking----but not as a prophecy of how things were to be---not as a mandatory way of life for the faithful.
Where last year I was frustrated at what information is missing in the text, this year I am frustrated at how much remedial work I have to do in order to understand the roots of the Messianic and Apostolic teachings in the Law and the Prophets. I still suspect that some of my ecclesiological questions will remain unanswered. But I expect to learn a great deal by gleaning these teachings in light of their roots in the Old Covenant. What I am finding so far is a body of teaching that is stunningly cogent and narrow and to the point. And I expect to find more and more of this.
Where the Jesus of this generation is vague and ethereal and mysterious---even obtuse---- I am finding him to be exceedingly relevant and specific. Even many of the parables are impressively specific as to their elements. That is, many of the parts of the story we thought were just made up for the sake of putting his teachings into parable form are actually correlated to the prophecies he is uttering.
But we have missed this because we have misunderstood Jesus' ministry as being primarily for us. Just as we have missed his second coming, and pretend that it is yet to come. And even when we begin to admit what happened in 70 AD, we try and try to view it as an ancillary event that pales in comparison to the "second coming" that is expected by this generation----as if all the hubbub in the gospels and epistles about him returning was skipping past this incidental visit in 70 and pointing instead to some future event thousands of years removed. We like to pretend that this is the case----that all the excitement for this indeterminate return was preached in that generation to people who would never see it. And we pretend that the apostles were wrong---even that the Lord himself was wrong. And so we stumble all over ourselves, denying that the Lord knew what he was doing, while still trying to consider him the worthy Lamb.
And never do we consider that if the Messiah were indeed expected with such great eagerness and fervor for a return thousands of years hence, that a short and incidental return in 70 would have generated immeasurable excitement amongst the believers. Instead, we do our best to discount the judgment of Israel as mostly irrelevant to us.
And this is because we do not understand the Law and the Prophets for lack of trying.
If the Jews were condemned for missing the first coming of Jesus, how great is the consequence of this generation having missed the second coming?
Certainly some consequences of this are seen in the very low character of "The Church" today---in its inattention and distraction, in its incorrigibly false teachings, in its dull ignorance, and in its braggart self-assurance. And in how this generation is not even looking to the text for answers, but rather, to "The Church". And it does not even WANT the answers in the text, for it is not interested in asking those questions.
If it was an abomination for the Roman general to enter the Holy of Holies and to remove the menorah, is it any less abominable that "The Church" has set up its own institutional throne just in front of the Throne of Christ, and has sat with its back to Him, holding court with the world as if it were his authorized lieutenant?
Jack
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.
I am going to cut and paste a post my husband made this morning to a Bible discussion forum in which we have participated for quite a while. You may not know what in the world he is talking about, but I'm including it here because I felt when I read it that he expressed so well what we are feeling as we re-examine many of our life long beliefs. We feel excitement about discovering things that seemed hidden to us for so long. We feel shame and embarassment for not having seen these things long ago. We feel puzzlement. We feel afraid -- perhaps --- of what other believers will think of what we are beginning to believe. Again there is excitement about many things coming together that never made sense before because we were trying to fit them into the box of what we had always been taught and believed. I suppose you will find in later posts here more about the things that we are currently trying to understand and put together and determine to the best of our ability and with the help of God what is true. I just want to know what is true. Below you'll find Jack's post.
______________________________________________________________
I think that Jesus' ministry was very narrowly focused and extremely cogent. Yet the exact meaning or importance of many of his sayings is unclear to this generation because of our haste to rush past the "Old Testament" in order to read the "New Testament".
As a result, because we fail to perceive the eschatalogical fabric from which Jesus' ministry was sewn, we are left to glean from his words the morsels that we DO understand---or that we THINK we understand. And failing to see the fullest extent of their interrelation, we make the mistake of considering at least most of his words merely as a collection of good sayings--much as the Proverbs.
We think he was profound---even that he was TRYING to be profound. We think that he gave mysterious answers at times---askew from the questions which were put to him. We even think that he gloried so much in being misunderstood that he deliberately gave ethereal answers when he could have answered straight-forwardly.
But if we were keen on the Law and the Prophets, we'd know better. We'd recognize so many of his sayings that we'd come to see him as the utter and unmistakable fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.
He wore more than one hat, so to speak, and yet this generation is obsessed with the "Savior" hat and the "sacrificial Lamb" hat. And so these two aspects of his ministry are glorified to the exclusion of several equally-important facets of his work. We fail to see him as the quintessential Jewish prophet. We fail to see him as the mighty judge who would pour out his wrath on unrepentant Judea just 40 years after his ascencion. And we fail to understand his directives to the apostles in light of the needs of this very special 40-year period; we act as if they were apostles only for our generation, and as if everything they said was meant primarily for us. We mistake Jesus as having issued the New Covenant in his earthly sayings, though this task was assigned instead to his apostles for after his ascension. And this generation even sets the apostles against Jesus on account of the fact that they said some things he did not say, missing the fact that they were speaking his very words through inspiration---teachings that he had promised were yet to come.
We also fail to understand the fashion in which the transition in covenants was made. We like to think that the Old Covenant was shut down either at the cross or at Pentecost, but this is wrong. And we like to think that the New Covenant was fully established either at the cross or at Pentecost. But this is wrong, too.
Further, we fail to understand the spiritual significance of his return in 70AD. We miss what happened when "we will all be changed" "in the twinkling of an eye". We miss just what the world was like back then, and how it is now different in his "presence" (PAROUSIA). We miss that the "New Jerusalem" is the fulfillment of "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven", for we have come to view this clause of the Lord's Prayer as just another in a list of unrelated spiritual morsels. And the effect of this misunderstanding is to reduce that clause to a mere platitude that has no real place in our Christian experience. We view it as a nice idea---even as wishful thinking----but not as a prophecy of how things were to be---not as a mandatory way of life for the faithful.
Where last year I was frustrated at what information is missing in the text, this year I am frustrated at how much remedial work I have to do in order to understand the roots of the Messianic and Apostolic teachings in the Law and the Prophets. I still suspect that some of my ecclesiological questions will remain unanswered. But I expect to learn a great deal by gleaning these teachings in light of their roots in the Old Covenant. What I am finding so far is a body of teaching that is stunningly cogent and narrow and to the point. And I expect to find more and more of this.
Where the Jesus of this generation is vague and ethereal and mysterious---even obtuse---- I am finding him to be exceedingly relevant and specific. Even many of the parables are impressively specific as to their elements. That is, many of the parts of the story we thought were just made up for the sake of putting his teachings into parable form are actually correlated to the prophecies he is uttering.
But we have missed this because we have misunderstood Jesus' ministry as being primarily for us. Just as we have missed his second coming, and pretend that it is yet to come. And even when we begin to admit what happened in 70 AD, we try and try to view it as an ancillary event that pales in comparison to the "second coming" that is expected by this generation----as if all the hubbub in the gospels and epistles about him returning was skipping past this incidental visit in 70 and pointing instead to some future event thousands of years removed. We like to pretend that this is the case----that all the excitement for this indeterminate return was preached in that generation to people who would never see it. And we pretend that the apostles were wrong---even that the Lord himself was wrong. And so we stumble all over ourselves, denying that the Lord knew what he was doing, while still trying to consider him the worthy Lamb.
And never do we consider that if the Messiah were indeed expected with such great eagerness and fervor for a return thousands of years hence, that a short and incidental return in 70 would have generated immeasurable excitement amongst the believers. Instead, we do our best to discount the judgment of Israel as mostly irrelevant to us.
And this is because we do not understand the Law and the Prophets for lack of trying.
If the Jews were condemned for missing the first coming of Jesus, how great is the consequence of this generation having missed the second coming?
Certainly some consequences of this are seen in the very low character of "The Church" today---in its inattention and distraction, in its incorrigibly false teachings, in its dull ignorance, and in its braggart self-assurance. And in how this generation is not even looking to the text for answers, but rather, to "The Church". And it does not even WANT the answers in the text, for it is not interested in asking those questions.
If it was an abomination for the Roman general to enter the Holy of Holies and to remove the menorah, is it any less abominable that "The Church" has set up its own institutional throne just in front of the Throne of Christ, and has sat with its back to Him, holding court with the world as if it were his authorized lieutenant?
Jack
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