THE GREAT MOVIES OF 1939

They say 1939 was a great year for movies: Judy Garland in "The Wizard of Oz," Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in "Gone With the Wind," Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." 

"The Wizard of Oz" had an impact on people because it came out in during the miseries of the Great Depression" and people needed hope that there was something better "somewhere, over the rainbow." "Gone with the Wind" was a huge best-seller as a book, so it had a built-in audience before it was released for its debut in Atlanta. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"is about Jefferson Smith, a naive local hero who stands tall for what he believes to be right against the political bosses who got him into the office so he'd cooperate with their nefarious plans.

That's quite a line-up. I've seen "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and I've seen "The Wizard of Oz," in spite of the fact that there's a lot of singing in it, but I've never seen "Gone with the Wind." My family tried to educate me to its greatness, but I fell asleep somewhere during that long, long movie. 

But regardless of my Philistine ways about "Gone with the Wind," those were the big three movies of 1939, movies that are now considered classics.

But, how about another 1939 movie, Secret Service Of The Air, featuring Lt. “Brass” Bancroft — a pilot who gets recruited by the Secret Service to infiltrate and help bring down a ruthless gang of smugglers based just below the American border in Mexico? Ever hear of that film? They made four Brass Bancroft movies.

You never heard of Brass Bancroft? Me neither. Join the crowd. One critic wrote: "In all earnestness, none of these films about Brass Bancroft are what most people would refer to as 'good.' These were little more than wartime B movies when they were made."

Forgettable. Certainly not "Gone with the Wind." The Brass Bancroft movies were so bad that those who played in them said they were awful, just awful. Even the star said that the first Brass Bancroft movie was the worst film he ever made.

But there was this little boy, a kid named Jerry Parr, living in Miami, who made his father take him to see that first one. More than once. Jerry was ten years old at the time and he loved that movie. It captured his imagination so much, he vowed that, when he grew up, he would become a Secret Service agent.

But you know boys. Growing up, they want to be baseball players, cowboys, firemen, or policemen, but their immature, impossible hankerings go away as they mature and they settle for being plumbers, accountants, lawyers, and regular, boring 9-5 guys, not Secret Service agents.

But not Jerry Parr. Jerry fulfills his dream and becomes one of those few, super-select men, a Secret Service agent.

 Jerry Parr

Forty-two years later, on March 30, 1981, he's there when John Hinckley opens fire at President Ronald Reagan. It's the duty of Jerry Parr to guard the President of the United States, and, if necessary, to give his life for the Chief Executive.

Parr braves the bullets, grabs Reagan, and pushes him into the waiting car. It's Parr who sees the President coughing up blood. It's Parr who makes the split-second decision to head straight to the hospital, although he doesn't know just how bad it is--a bullet had sliced into Reagan's chest, causing massive internal bleeding.

It was Jerry Parr's lightning fast actions and decisions that saved the President's life that day, 42 years after seeing that movie. Brass Bancroft could not have done better.

Jerry Parr was there that day because his dad took him to a bad B movie way back in 1939. If his Dad lived to see that day, I'm sure he was mighty proud of his son. What father wouldn't be? I'm sure the President was proud of Jerry Parr that day. And the actor who played Brass Bancroft, Secret Service agent would have been proud of Jerry too.

And that actor was proud! You see, it was Reagan who, in 1939, was Brass Bancroft in that movie, the film he said was the worst he ever made. History makes some fascinating turns, doesn't it?

It reminds me of the story Peggy Walters told. Her neighbors, Tom and Nancy, called on her because their baby was on the way and they needed help fast. There was no time to get anywhere for the birth, so Peggy came as fast as she could. Peggy said that her friend Nancy was having a pretty had labor. "Harder than most, but not as hard as some," was the way she put it.

Looking back, after the birth, Peggy remembered that both parents were very proud when the boy was born, that the Tom was beaming, after he learned that Nancy was OK. Peggy said that Tom and Nancy had a name picked out, but Nancy suggested they change it right then and there. Earlier, they had wanted to name the baby "Tom," but that wasn't to be his name. They opted for another name, not "Tom," but "Abraham," and thus baby Abraham was born that Sunday to Tom and Nancy Lincoln.

There's an old story people tell, a fictional one, about that Sunday, February 12, 1809. At the end of the day two men, residents of Hodgenville, Kentucky, are talking about the day's events and one asks the other, "Any news today?" The other answers, "No, nothing much. Tom and Nancy Lincoln had a baby boy this morning, but that's about it."

 Few outside the Lincoln family thought much about the event.

If Jerry Parr's dad was a lot like me, I think he forgot all about taking Jerry to see Brass Bancroft. One time when some of my children were asked what they remembered most about growing up and what I said or did with them, what they mentioned were things I didn't even remember doing, and when they refreshed my memory, I still didn't remember those things, but to them, they were important things from 20--30 years ago. Go figure.

 We never know what the results will be of the little, forgettable things we do, do we? In retrospect, what 1939 movie had the greatest impact? It wasn't "Gone with the Wind," "The Wizard of Oz," or "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." It was that forgotten little terrible B-movie--the Brass Bancroft movie, the film that inspired Jerry Parr to be there to save the life of the President of the United States who would later command, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," and that Berlin wall came down. The Soviet Union, what Reagan called, "The Evil Empire," crashed and burned, changing world history, both events coming after Parr's heroic saving of the President's life.

You may never see the results that your reading and explaining a story in the Bible will have on some six year old kid. You may never know what that child you tell about Christ will do for God. You may never know the results of your teaching that Sunday school class or taking your children to church or discussing some spiritual truth with them.

A Brass Bancroft movie changing the world? Who would have thought! Long live the memory of Jerry's dad!
__________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, and the author of Truthspeak. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is also available as an E-book on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing sue.bove@gmail.com and requesting, "The Hangar Bible Journal."

If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.

Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM. You'll be glad you did.

Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:

notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org

SHAME, SHAME ON THE YELLOW BIRDS

I'm an avid reader, so avid that wherever I go, I take a book, just in case I have some spare time. Reading for pleasure is a delight; reading because you have to is drudgery. Short and simple, I like to read.

But it was not always so. When I was in the first grade, reading was an exercise in humiliation for a group of us. Our teacher, Mrs. Berry, and our classmates knew us as "The Yellow Birds." Everyday, the teacher called the Yellow Birds to come and sit with her at the reading table and it was there that we read all about Dick and Jane and their dog Spot.

After we were through, the teacher called on the Red Birds to come to the table and they read too, only the Red Birds were better readers than we Yellow Birds. The Yellow Birds weren't as smart as the Red Birds.
After the Red Birds finished, then the premiere group, the Blue Birds, took wing and came to the table. The Yellow Birds were the low group on the totem pole. Everybody in the room could read "Dick and Jane" better than we.  Compared to the Blue Birds, we were dumb and dumber squared.

Somehow though, nothing short of a miracle occurred as the year progressed. For some reason, I began reading better, until one day, I became Mrs. Berry told me to move up to the Red Birds! That was a big day for me, so big, I still remember it. I was mighty proud because I didn't know that pride was a sin, and even if I had known, I'd still have been full of hubris and enjoyed it to the hilt.

I started to read with the Red Birds and more time went by. Then one day, Mrs. Berry promoted me to the Bluebirds, and at long last, I had arrived! Now, instead of being looked down upon, I could look down on everybody else! At age seven, the cup of my pride was running over and I enjoyed it. In that classroom, I, and only I, had moved from worst to first, and was now sitting proudly everyday with the Blue Birds, looking down from my lofty perch (pun intended) on the lowly Red and Yellow Birds from whence I'd come. I was Joseph whom God had delivered from the pit.

Hey, this was back in the days before anyone thought of "social promotion." This was back in the day when you didn't get a "participation trophy." If you didn't win, sorry, deal with it, no trophy for you. If Mrs. Berry moved you up, you had earned it. Neither she nor any other teacher gave a moment's thought that it might damage your psyche to be a "Yellow Bird," known by one and all as a dumb reader. If you want to move up, then start reading better or stay a Yellow Bird all your first grade life. Back then, Bluebirds had to earn their feathers.

I have no idea how it happened, but something must have clicked somewhere along the line that year. And since that time, reading has been important, as well as pleasurable to me. Mrs. Berry never knew how many books I'd read over the years and that I'd write three; she was just a good teacher doing a good job with the pitiful Yellow Bird minds fate had dealt her.

There are far, far too many people who are Yellow Birds when it comes to reading the Bible. Like the Yellow Birds, their reading skills are poor. Oh, they may be the cream of the crop, Harvard, Yale, or Texas Tech graduates, but their Bible reading skills are terrible.

How so?

Because they're reading as if it's a Dick and Jane Rule Book on how to get to heaven. As they read the Bible, they read, "Don't do this," and "Do that," and they read it as if, by their not doing XYZ and by their doing ABC, they'll get to heaven. That's a Yellow Bird skill level.

The Yellow Birds just don't get it: heaven is a free gift (aren't all gifts free?). God is the great Giver: He gave His only Son so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
He gives forgiveness of sin and eternal life without cost to us when we trust Christ, the Son of God, who died for our sins and rose from the dead, having finished all that needed to be done to be able to save us without its costing us a thing.

Yellow Birds are constantly seeing but not seeing, hearing but not hearing, reading but not reading. For the Yellow Birds, "believe" is a hard word; "faith"is even more difficult, and "grace" is the hardest of them all.

They see those three words over and over again, yet they don't read that it is by believing (trusting) in Christ's finished work alone that God saves them from the guilt and penalty of their sin. Instead, when the Yellow Birds see "believes in" in John 3:16, they read "works for" instead. They read it as, "Whosover works for Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."

When the Bible-reading Yellow Birds gather around the table in Mrs. Berry's class and she asks one of them to read Romans 3:24, he reads, "Being justified through working for it;" he doesn't read what it's saying, "being justified as a gift." But that's a Yellow Bird for you.

She calls on another student to read Ephesians 2:8-9. He reads, "For by works are you saved through effort, and that is of yourself; it is the payment of God to you."

Mrs. Berry calls on the next Yellow Bird to read Romans 3:28, and he looks at the Book and reads, "For we maintain that a man is justified through works . . ." The Yellow Bird has missed it again!

There was one Yellow Bird that was the best of all the Yellow Birds, so Mrs. Berry asked him to read John 19:30, an easy sentence if ever there was one. The Yellow Bird looked at the verse and read, "He [Jesus] said, 'It is incomplete.'"

"This is pathetic," Mrs. Berry thought, "finished is a simple word, even a Yellow Bird should be able to see that the word isn't "incomplete," yet these Yellow Birds are missing it." 

Mrs. Berry is getting frustrated with the Yellow Birds, but she calls on another to read Romans 5:9, and the reader says, "Much more then, having now been justified by our works we shall be saved . . ."

Mrs. Berry has had enough! The Yellow Birds can't read the simplest statements in the Gospel of John and they can't read Romans either. These Yellow Birds are stupid. Illiterate.

"Shame, shame on the Yellow Birds," Mrs. Berry says, and rightfully so.

________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, and the author of Truthspeak. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is also available as an E-book on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing sue.bove@gmail.com and requesting, "The Hangar Bible Journal."

If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.

Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM. You'll be glad you did.

Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:

notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
 





 

WE'RE GOING TO TAKE THIS CITY FOR CHRIST!

Evangelistic campaigns often have lofty goals, such as the title for this article notes. 

The evangelist, the pastor, and the church or group of churches will conduct evangelistic endeavors as if they were engaging in battle. They map out the city by quadrants and delegate their troops to all the sections they've marked. They train their foot soldiers in the method they're going to use and this method is their ammunition which they'll fire at the unbeliever. Usually this method is a scripted approach which comes with "If-they-say-this-then-you say-this" list of things to memorize.

Every battle has an objective and for the evangelistic campaign, the pastor sums it up: "We're going to take this city for Christ." 

In order to seize the city, the troops must capture the mayor, the city council, other various officials, and the school board. (Good luck with that.)

After their rigorous training in the method of choice the troops move into the various quadrants that are their responsibility, many of them hoping against hope that no one answers the door when they knock. They're overwhelmed by the script and hope they don't get lost trying to remember the contents of pages 7-8, and they're so unnerved by the task and the fear of someone's arguing with them that their knees are knocking together. 

There are many problems with this scenario, but let's focus on one: the pastor has set both an impossible and unbiblical goal for them, a goal so far out of reach that he may as well have told them to go to the shores of the Pacific and throw a rock all the way to Hawaii. 

The Great Commission never tells us to take a city for Christ, nor offers the hope that we can. History shows us that Christ never took a city for Christ, in fact, He found opposition in His own home town to the extent that the citizens "were filled with rage and rose up and cast Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff" (Luke 4). Not exactly giving Him the key to the city.

Did Christ take Jerusalem, the capital city? No. In Jerusalem He heard the shouts of "Crucify Him! Crucify Him! We have no king but Caesar!

Did Paul win cities for Christ? No way. They stoned him in one town, ran him out of several, while the educated elites of Athens laughed at him. He sometimes shook the dust off his feet and left.

What did Paul say of his winning people to Christ? "I become all things to all men so that I might win some." He didn't set the unrealistic goal for himself of winning "all" and in no Scripture are we commanded to "take and hold a city for Christ." Paul never said, "I become all things to all men that I might win and control cities.

Yet, that's exactly what some are advocating. "Have you ever really considered taking your city and holding it for Jesus," a newsletter asks its readers. The church has no command to take and hold a city for Jesus, to rule over society, any society; we do have the command to give the gospel, to make disciples, but a command to take over cities? No. 

Those in the let's-take-our-city-for-Christ-movement see themselves as the "architects of cultural change," which is their term for their desire: to reshape the society. 

Back to Christ and Paul: did Christ change the culture of His home town of Nazareth? No. Did Christ change the culture of Jerusalem? No. Did Paul lead the charge up the Seven Hills of Rome and change the Roman Empire? No. Its leaders remained either corrupt and insane or both and its people imitated their leaders into the pit. 

Fallen man has within him an egocentric power lust and this is the case with those who would tell us to take and hold cities for Christ. Listen to the words of their power lust: "God's people doing the will of God will take dominion over the power of Satan, paralyze parliaments, change legislation, and run the devil off the face of the earth. God's people doing the will of God will bring about God's purposes and God's reign [on earth]."

Really? Where, exactly, do we see these things happening? There's no country which is becoming Christian and there's not a single city in the world where Christ rules. Corrupt parliaments are alive and kicking, not paralyzed; Satan is still alive and well on the planet earth, and there's no nation  baptizing any legislation into the Christian faith, so get let's get real.

We have such sin natures that even if it were possible for Christians to take and hold a city for Christ, that power would not only corrupt, but it would also corrupt absolutely. A dictatorship by any other name still smells the same. 

By taking and holding a city for Christ, would they require everyone to go to church? (Which church?) Would they require all Jewish people to be baptized or face execution? Would their social architecture require everyone memorize John 3:16? Ban alcohol, books? Would the they arrest and execute those practicing the occult? Would the they arrest and execute homosexuals, blasphemers, adulterers, and those who lie under oath? 

Don't laugh; some who want to take and hold your city for Christ are advocating such laws.

Don't laugh, history says that they would enact such laws. The governments of France forced conversions in 626 AD; Italy did the same in 661 AD, as did Spain in 616 AD, Rome, ditto.

In 1648, the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America instituted fines for anyone caught working on a Sunday. The authorities hauled some members of the congregation into court for the crime of sleeping in church. (The jails must have been full!)

In Colonial Virginia, Governor Thomas Dale forced everyone to attend church or face severe penalties. If you dared to disparage a minister, the fine was 500 pounds of tobacco and an apology. Hey, that law doesn't sound so bad. :)

In Colonial Virginia, a minister, by law, had preach Anglican doctrine or be punished. 

Massachusetts arrested, tried, and banished the expecting Anne Hutchinson for challenging its Calvinism. For her "crimes" against the state, they threw her out in the snow to leave on foot. 

Massachusetts sent Roger Williams into exile from Salem for "disseminating dangerous information" and saying that the Indians should be paid for the land taken from them, and that's how we have Rhode Island today.

We've all stood in our churches and sung a hymn which reflects this capture-your-city-idea. Listen to it:

We've a story to tell to the nations, 
 that shall turn their hearts to the right, 
 a story of truth and mercy, 
 a story of peace and light, 
 a story of peace and light. 

For the darkness shall turn to dawning, 
 and the dawning to noonday bright; 
 and Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth, 
 the kingdom of love and light. 

 We've a song to be sung to the nations, 
 that shall lift their hearts to the Lord, 
 a song that shall conquer evil 
 and shatter the spear and sword,
 and shatter the spear and sword. 
  
We've a Savior to show to the nations, 
 who the path of sorrow hath trod, 
 that all of the world's great peoples 
 might come to the truth of God, 
 might come to the truth of God. 

This hymn is blatant in its advocacy of postmillennialism. It's saying that the church will bring the kingdom of Christ to earth by its efforts. Taking and holding a city for Christ are part of those efforts.

One author writes, "I’ve come to believe it is wrong to sing lyrics that express theology with which you strongly disagree.  It seems dishonest–IF you think that singing a hymn or song is something serious and not frivolous."

Song writers pen hymns to teach doctrine; we should only sing songs that are true to the Word of God and not mindlessly warble anything with a catchy tune. We are thankful at the Hangar Bible Fellowship; our song leader evaluates every song we sing by the Bible. The hymn must pass the test or we don't sing it.

We do have a story to tell to the nations--Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for our sins, rose from the dead. The payment He made was a finished one, a perfect one, a complete one. There is no work we can add to it; it's finished. There is no sin to give up; it's finished. There is no promise to try to be better to be made; it's finished. It's on the basis of that complete and perfect work that God promises everlasting life to anyone who trusts Christ alone for it. 

But the idea that our telling that story will result in nations shattering their spears and swords and that by our telling the story nations will come to the truth of God and then Christ's great kingdom will come to earth isn't going to happen. 

Read this morning's newspaper, any newspaper, and you'll see one story after another that there is no "Christian nation" on the earth today as witness this recent headline from our own capital: "Teen thugs in D. C. Run Wild--Even While Wearing GPS Ankle Bracelets."

As the Bible says, "Evil men . . . will get worse and worse" as time goes on. Our task is that, by telling the story of Christ and Him crucified, we will win some, we will disciple some. 
_______________________________________________
Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, and the author of Truthspeak. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is also available on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing sue.bove@gmail.com and requesting "The Hangar Bible Journal."

If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.

Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:

notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
 

 

HERE COMES FLASHMAN!

In 1857, Thomas Hughes wrote Tom Brown's School Days, the chronicle of an English boys' boarding school. PBS made the book into a series for Masterpiece Theater and, it's such a powerful story that there are three movies based on the trials, tribulations, and torture of Tom Brown at the prestigious Rugby School.

The modern generation will be interested to know that Tom Brown's School Days had a direct influence on J. K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books. Her first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, has many direct parallels in structure and theme to Tom Brown's School Days.

At Rugby School, the boys learn to parse the verbs and decline the nouns of Latin and Greek under the stern eyes of rigorous teachers. They delve into history and mathematics; they play soccer on the pitch. Sounds like a good education, a pedagogical paradise. But into this Edenic education comes the serpent, a boy named Flashman who, in accord with the hoary tradition of the school, is a bully and eleven year old Tom Brown is his target. 

Flashman turns Tom Brown's school days into a hell on earth. Bullying back then in the English boarding schools was rife, notorious, and cruel. It didn't consist of memorizing and reciting facts that would make you a winner of any Trivial Pursuit Game on earth. The bullying at Rugby School left scars. 

Flashman forces Tom stand in front of and so close to a fire that his clothes smoulder and the heat burns young Tom who is expected, by the unwritten ancient code of the students, to take it in silence; not one of the authorities at Rugby School is to know. To snitch is to betray the code.

Thomas Hughes so finely etched the character of Flashman that his very name has become shorthand for "Bully," just as Harriett Beecher Stowe did with the cruel and greedy Simon Legree in Uncle Tom's Cabin whose name we use for an overbearing boss.

Bullying is a hot topic in our society because the Flashmans yet walk among us in our schools, ride on our school buses. The brutality of the hazing at the Rugby School lives on in fraternities, school clubs, school bands, and various student organizations both formally and informally.

And you know what? There are Christian Flashmans abroad in the land, those who want you to toe the mark on their legalism and their whims, and if you don't, those sweet saints will morph into Flashman and you will pay and pay until their bullying has done its cruel work, that is, until you submit.

The tactics of the Christian bully aren't those of Flashman, but by the time the church bully is through with you, he will have burned you. The Christian Flashman has many arrows in his (or her) quiver and once they find their mark, you'll find them to be the cruelest cut of all.

One of the especially pointed arrows is that of silence. Flashman will freeze you out of the inner circle. The Christian bully will converse with you, but his responses will be in monosyllables until you get the unspoken point, "I don't want to share my life with you, in fact, I don't even want to talk to you." He plans his silence and works the plan.

There are other flinty weapons in Flashman's quiver. Flashman loves emotional blackmail. To get you and others to bow before his desires, the bully will storm out of meetings, just so you'll know that he or she has been offended, and he wants you to know, "Offending me is not a good thing." This is a clever ploy by which the bully knows he can have his way with you if he storms out of a meeting with flags flying and drums beating. Next time you'll be careful not to offend him at the church business meeting, You'll come around; you'll vote his way. Egg shells now litter the aisles of the sanctuary.

Emotional blackmail also includes the tantrum: don't you dare upset the bully, lest he explode and his anger, like lava, pour all over you and others at the meeting. To get his way, the church bully will always hold a potential explosion over the collective heads of the assembled. She learned the tactic long ago; that's how she's gotten her way in her office, in her family, and so, why not bring the threat to the church business meetings? It's worked everywhere else, why won't in work in the sanctuary?  It won't be long before you and the others will learn your lesson and let her have her way lest her fury, lie a woman scorned, erupt.

Flashman's quiver is never empty. There are other arrows at his disposal to get you to say, "How high," to his, "Jump!" The bully will stoop to secret meetings held for the purpose of dealing with you and when word gets back to you that others have been in conclave, you can easily be intimidated. Mission accomplished. The secret meeting may masquerade as a prayer meeting or a Bible study to give it a spiritual hue.

A favorite arrow is that of the innuendo: "I heard that (insert your name here) wrote a bad check in 1987," the bully says to others. Flashman is clever; when the claim is shown to be false, he can say, "All I said was that I heard he wrote a bad check;  I didn't say he did." But his hope is that the innuendo will snowball into an irretrievable rumor that takes a life of its own.

Then there's the quilt trip. The bully suggests to the conscientious victim that he or she does not care enough, is too selfish, or has it too easy. This usually results in the victim's feeling bad, keeping him in a self-doubting, anxious, and submissive position. Many a pastor has a Ph. D. in guilt-tripping.

The arrows of the bully multiply: he uses sarcasm and put-downs to increase fear and self-doubt in the victim. He makes you feel unworthy. A fierce look or glance, an unpleasant tone of voice can do the job. Bullies can make you feel ashamed for even daring to challenge them. 

There's a soft arrow in the quiver of the manipulative bully: The Arrow of Tears. If all else fails, the bully tears up so as to get her way. (This is arrow of choice among female bullies.) Many have noted this manipulative strategy. "When a woman weeps, she is setting traps with her tears," so said Dionysius Cato way back in the 4th century AD. And the fictional character, Sam Slick notes: "Every woman is wrong until she cries, and then she is right - instantly." Mothers are adept at this form of manipulation and only compound the problem when they bring their tears to church to get a meeting to go their way.
 
What are we to do about the Flashmans, Christian or otherwise? Ah, Proverbs to the rescue! A first principle is Proverbs 20:22 and Proverbs 19:11--don't retaliate in kind (let God handle the bully) and don't get angry. (The bully isn't worth it.)

But is that all Proverbs says? Those are good principles, but are there more?

I'm glad you asked; the good news is, "Yes," and this is where we see the strong bones of  Proverbs underneath its holy cover.

Are you supposed to become a Pollyanna doormat for the muddy feet of the Christian bullies of this world? Is our method to follow the lyrics to the song, "Open Up Your Heart?"

"Mommy told me something a little kid should know.
It's all about the devil and I've learned to hate him so.
She said he causes trouble when you let him in the room.
He will never ever leave you if your heart is filled with gloom.

"So let the sun shine in, face it with a grin.
Smilers never lose and frowners never win.
So let the sun shine in, face it with a grin
Open up your heart and let the sun shine in."

Are we to "Let the sun shine in, face the bully with a grin and take repeated slaps to the face?" Not according to the Bible.

There's danger in the bully: "Let a man meet a bear robbed of her cubs rather than a fool in his folly" (Proverbs 17:12). You're in danger when you put yourself close to the bully. So . . .

"Do not associate with a man given to anger, or go with a hot-tempered man"  (Proverbs 22:24). And . . .
Proverbs 20:3: "Keeping away from strife is an honor for a man, but any fool will quarrel." 

So, here it is, the end of the matter, presented in living color by Solomon himself: Do not repay bullying for bullying; be kind to the bully, but don't be stupid enough to continually put yourself in the same position to be mistreated by the fool. Remove yourself from the church and the bullies who are hurting you and are cruel to you.
 __________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, and the author of Truthspeak. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is also available on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing sue.bove@gmail.com and requesting "The Hangar Bible Journal."

If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.

Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:

notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org