Playing Heaven

Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Revelation 19:9

Deep in every soul is an instinctive yearning to be in a world we don’t yet inhabit. The yearning for this world is so inescapable and so powerful that, from time to time, we can’t help but pretend that we do live in it.

Puppies appear to lead a pretty happy, fun life, so it’s not surprising little kids like to enter the puppy world, bouncing around the house on all fours, barking, panting, clawing their way up your legs, or, if you’re caught unprepared, clawing your pants down. In any case, these precious little ones look up at you in their best puppy face and eagerly, shamelessly, joyously beg for attention. Kids play house, they play castles, princesses, and Robin Hood, they create and inhabit imaginary worlds built from Legos or maybe some sticks, scrap lumber, and crooked, rusty nails.

Rights ’n Stuff

I have received several kindly criticisms of my previous article, good and responsible criticisms deserving a good and responsible response. I’m thankful for the pushback. Dangling a sword in the still waters of a quiet lagoon will never make it sharp, you gotta heat the thing up and give it a good smiting with a hammer. A good friend wounds, but faithfully. So yay for getting a loving thump and a friendly wound.

Long-term Neighbor Loving

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:28-31, ESV

Whenever a biblical phrase goes viral across the Christian landscape, I get a little suspicious. And when that phrase is employed in a moment of confusion to help Christians reach the exact same conclusion as those who hate Christ, I add some natural crotchetiness and unnatural cantankerosity to my suspicion and this, quite naturally makes me a very pleasant person.

Witness Protection

note: At Eric’s request I’m experimenting with making an audio recording of some of these articles. So if you want to listen to me read it (and I don’t know why you would), you can do so below.

Witness Protection

I’ve been somewhat bothered by a phrase I’ve heard repeatedly as churches wrestle their way through the Covid era, so I thought I’d try to process it out loud. Here’s the offending line: Protect our witness.

The idea is something like this: Stuff Christians do, like gathering together in large groups, sitting in close proximity for an hour, singing so heartily spit flies at least twice the magical six feet, sharing meals, engaging in holy kissin’, and all with unveiled face before God and each other is dangerous, reckless, and destructive. It’s spreading disease, sorrow, and death. And who likes death-spreaders? Not I.

Don’t Make Me Cry

You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your book?
Psalm 56:8

After my wife Michele discovered a small, simple upright piano free on Facebook Marketplace we found ourselves meeting a delightful lady in a delightful old farmhouse outside Elk River. Michele sat down to the piano that, for this lady, held many memories of her children learning and making music. Michele, as only she can, began to play Somewhere Over the Rainbow, the lady’s eyes filled with tears and she said, “It’s just so beautiful it makes me cry!”

Crying is an odd phenomenon, if you think about it. Michele played a series of notes on a mechanical contraption, they struck this lady’s eardrums, and as they did, her tear ducts produced so much extra fluid it ran down her cheeks. Somehow it’s less romantic put that way. 

What We Have Here Is A Failure to Mistrust

by Pastor John Lawrey

where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom 5:20b-21

If you are following along at home, you might be wondering “Dude, where’s my country?” I won’t recite the tedious list of wrongs done in the name of coronavirus, but one stands out head and shoulders above the rest: closed and restricted churches. The salt in the wound is that blue state governors have restricted churches at the same time they have provided unfettered access to abortion, marijuana, alcohol, and the somewhat misnamed “peaceful protest.”

Something ought to be said about the blatant inconsistencies, hypocrisy, and double standards, not to mention a two-tiered justice system, but this article is about something much bigger: Will we even have a civilization at the end of this, and if so, what kind? 

On Authority & Boundaries

“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.”

Jesus

I want to noodle over with you the notion of authority, the right to impose one’s will on something or someone else, which also comes with the right to inflict pain upon the non-compliant. Jesus claims all authority in heaven and on earth, which means he has the right to impose his will on anyone or anything. He will reward those who comply and punish those who don’t.

Holy Kissin’

Greet one another with a holy kiss.
Romans 16:16

When I got in the truck to head to the church this morning (which Violet refers to as “Bob’s house”), I left with the kind of smile on my face that can only come from being kissed goodbye by a loving, lovely wife and an adoring, adorable two-year-old daughter. On my way, half-listening to John MacArthur’s excellent sermon from this past Sunday again, half musing on church life in the era of Covid, and half wondering why I enjoyed those kisses so much, my mind began to dwell on the Apostle’s oft-repeated exhortation to “Greet one another with a holy kiss.”

Essential, pt. Deux

When I get to heaven, I plan to make two requests: First, and for obvious reasons, I will file for an exception to the no-marriage policy for Michele and me. Second, Vasiliy, “my Russian friend,” and I desire to be next-door neighbors for all eternity.

I hope to bring Vasiliy to Lewis Lake soon and ask him to recount how, in his younger years back in the Soviet Union, he used to wake up in the middle of the night (a different night each week), make his way down dark streets and alleys for a mile or so, careful to not rouse the dog stationed outside every house, sneak into a dimly lit, tightly shuttered home where he’d find a small group of Christians slowly assembling. To minimize suspicions they spaced out arrivals and departures, since being found out by the KGB could mean years in a Soviet prison, and believe me, that was no picnic. Finally assembled, a few songs were quietly whispered, prayers would be offered, someone would read the Bible, someone share a few words, then he’d slip silently back home, crawling into bed around 4AM, only to get back up at five to begin a grueling day of labor under the cruel, corrupt communist regime.