WE WANT TO WORK ON SUNDAYS!

The server at the upscale restaurant on that Sunday afternoon had read about such an event, but had never experienced it himself. He'd had some glory days, days like the time he'd served Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, and gotten his picture taken with him at the table, but nothing like this had ever happened before: there it was, his tip, a $100 bill, just waiting for his trembling hand.

He reaches out, takes it, looks at it, and then realizes something's wrong, wrong big time. The bill feels funny and upon closer examination, it looks funny. He turns it over and sees that there's a hand written note on the back, but no engraving like real money, just a blank space with writing on it. The note says: "God says on the last day many people are going to be shocked to find out they are going to hell for not serving Jesus completely. Matt. 7:13 & 14, Matt. 7:21, I Peter 4:18, and Rev. 3:16."

The patron had left behind a fake tip and a "gospel" tract which contained no gospel ("good news") at all. But before we get to the tract, let's examine this method of "witnessing for Christ." No doubt the man who left the funny money departed congratulating himself for his holy boldness, but should he have been patting himself on the back for his stand for Christ?

TALKING BEHIND OUR BACKS

To get an insight into how servers feel about working on Sundays, listen to one of them who told me, "The church crowd ranks right up there with the foreign crowd in terms of undesirable groups to wait on.  . . . they're usually curt, impatient, and rude. They make servers even more 'atheist.'"

THE COLGATE SMILE

It's no picnic. Besides the abuse of the rude, female servers endure the flirtatious comments and braggadocio of local Lotharios and those away from home. Servers work long hours, are on their feet all the live-long work day, and while they do that, they suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous complaints about things beyond their control to correct or mollify. Some, of economic necessity, work double shifts, yet must do so with a smile and a congeniality worthy of a Miss America contestant or a model advertising Colgate.

And then this moronic customer leaves no gratuity and, to add insult to injury, a phony one. How in the world such a person thinks he's serving Christ is a mystery to me. What he's done is an insult.

The server told me, "I try to tell my co-workers, 'They're not all like that.'" Good for him! He tells me that he was raised in church and knows for sure that they're not all like that. He facetiously tells me that sometimes he'd like to ask the rude and demanding Sunday-church-going clientele, "What church did you just come from? I'm looking for a church family to join and if this is your attitude after the church service, I'll rule that one out of my search." But, he confides, "Paying my rent and health insurance are important."

LET'S GO TO THE TRACT

The tract doesn't come close to presenting the gospel. It doesn't define who Jesus is (He's the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity) nor does it inform the reader what Jesus did (He died for our sins and rose from the dead). Nor does the note tell him that forgiveness of sin and eternal life are free when the reader trusts Christ and Him alone, apart from works of any kind, works such as giving up sin, such as being baptized, such as doing good, and general works such as "serving Jesus."

We see on the note that the man has underlined "completely" for emphasis. He's added works to God's free offer of salvation and therefore, this is no gospel at all as Paul says in Galatians 1:6-9. In fact, the Bible says of that rude man who wrote the note, "Let him be accursed!" When you get right down to it, the note writer himself doesn't "serve Jesus completely." No one can or does. Serving Jesus, completely or incompletely is not a condition of salvation, that's an issue of after salvation, not a condition for it.

Forgiveness of sins and eternal life do not come via serving Jesus completely, they come by faith alone without works. (Ephesians 2:8-9)


THE CURT, THE RUDE, THE CHEAP, AND THE IMPATIENT


The curt, the rude, the cheap, and the impatient Sunday diners would better serve the cause of Christ by going home after church. Let them do their damage there to their own families and leave others alone. Instead of doing good to all people (Galatians 6:10) when they dine out, they eat as boorish beasts at a trough.

BEGGING

We who name the name of Christ should so comport ourselves with courtesy, patience, and generosity at various restaurants on the first day of the week that the waitstaff would unite in begging the manager, "Please, we want to work on Sundays!"

I'M AFRAID OF THE PRESIDENT

I'm afraid of the President of the United States. But wait. Hear me out, then you decide. I'm afraid of the President of the United States, and I'm in good company, in fact the best company imaginable.

Let's go back to the 1700's. America has won its war with Britain. The young upstart nation had rebelled against the most powerful king and empire in the world and turned the world upside down. (As a matter of fact, that's the song the British band played when its soldiers marched out to surrender to the Americans, "The World Turned Upside Down.")

TIME FOR THE QUILL

Now came the serious business of writing the Constitution and getting the states to approve it. As the document developed, there was one great fear among the delegates writing it--what to do with the office of the President, the Executive branch of the government? What will his powers be, what can he do and not do, constitutionally?

The delegates were reacting to the British monarchy and all monarchies throughout history--they emphatically did not want the President to be an American king. They knew that King George III had extensive power--the power to declare war, the power to declare peace. They also didn't want to grant the President legislative powers, the power to make laws. That would be too, too much.

LISTENING IN

if we'd been there to hear their deliberations, we would have heard Edmund Randolph put it bluntly: "The Executive Branch is the fetus of the monarchy." We would listen as James Iredell of North Carolina, said, "The President has not the power of declaring war by his own authority, nor that of raising fleets or armies."

When it came to giving the president the power of the veto, James Madison thought that the president should only veto legislation that was unconstitutional or use the veto to protect the Executive Branch from the Legislative Branch. His veto power shouldn't be used just because he didn't like a bill or because one group or another didn'P like it.

Those men are my bons amis. Our Founders were afraid of the office of the President. But let's listen to a man who rarely spoke at the Constitutional Convention: Benjamin Franklin. He only rose to speak on two occasions, and one of those two had to do with his fear of the presidency. He said, "The executive will always be increasing here, as elsewhere, till it ends in a monarchy."

Had Franklin read the Bible or history? Or both? They both say the same thing. In warning about a monarchy, Samuel the prophet cautioned Israel:

He said, “This will be the procedure of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and place them for himself in his chariots and among his horsemen and they will run before his chariots. 12 He will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and of fifties, and some to do his plowing and to reap his harvest and to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will also take your daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his servants. 15 He will take a tenth of your seed and of your vineyards and give to his officers and to his servants. 16 He will also take your male servants and your female servants and your best young men and your donkeys and use them for his work. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his servants." The venerable prophet is saying, "This is what rulers do. They take more and more power, more and more of your money, more and more of your children for themselves and their friends. Even the best of rulers will do that. (Think of David, the best king ever, who so abused the powers of the king, he took a woman and then he took her husband's life. After all, he was THE KING.) The presidency has more power today than our Founders ever imagined. From NBC News: "President Truman's decision in 1950 to order U.S. air and naval forces into Korea has been cited as a precedent for a president initiating overseas military action without first seeking Congressional authorization." "In fact, World War II was the last war the United States fought with a formal declaration of war. . . the Constitution is explicit in requiring a formal declaration by Congress, not the President." (George Friedman, "Geopolitical Weekly," March 2011). And that power is not shared with anyone. CASTRO'S CUBA We have no farther to look than 90 miles from Florida and Castro's Cuba. It wouldn't surprise you to learn that in the last four years, Castro's regime has arrested more than 10,000 Cubans for their opposition to his policies, most of those are newspaper editors and politically powerful people who have opposed what he's doing. When Cubans vote, he sends troops to polling places across the country and has allowed some to vote illegally. His regime has stuffed ballot boxes and forced any who dare oppose him to take a loyalty oath before voting. He's ordered his army to arrest and disarm Cuban citizens for suspected disloyal activities. If anyone dares to wear or display any logo which opposes his policies, he has them arrested and disarmed. Free speech? Ha! SURPRISE! SURPRISE! SURPRISE! As you read the above about Castro, you were probably thinking, "What else is new? That's old news, let's move on." But what you don't know is that I switched the name of the real perpetrator of the above illegal activities. Castro does do those things, but he's not the one I was talking about. I took out the real name and put Castro's in its place. The real name? President Abraham Lincoln during1861-1865. Dr. Brion McCalanahan wrties, "Our Founders would be aghast at such a President as Abraham Lincoln. "How could he do such a thing," you ask. The answer is, "He just did." Our Founders, would have been disgusted by such a President's abuse of power. The powers accruing to the office of the President have been steadily progressing over the years until we have what we have today. YOU'RE SAYING? Certainly, the Israel of Samuel isn't America and isn't the church, but human nature is the same everywhere you find it, in America or Israel, or the church, in any age you find it--leaders within them always craving power, more and more power. So much power has devolved on the American presidency that, no matter who's in office, my candidate or yours, he has too much of it, which makes him a person to be feared. As our Founder's knew, if a President can act contrary to one article of the Constitution, why can he not act against any other article? If he can create legislation by executive order, why can he not take away liberty, life, and property by executive order?  No matter who's in office, he has too much power and, because of his nature, will seek more.  Should you and I not fear such a person, no matter who he is? Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison did.

AxmTYklsjo190QW

AxmTYklsjo190QW

THE LOW DOWN ON THE CHURCH FATHERS

If we were to decide what to believe by examining the traditions of the early church, what would we believe about whether Mary was a perpetual virgin? (By “the early church,” I’m referring to the church after the passing of the Apostles.)

Let’s go to the writings of the church father Tertullian of Carthage in North Africa (ca. 155-240 AD ca.). He denied that she was a perpetual virgin.

OK. Does Tertullian settle the matter for us? Not at all. The church father Jerome of Northern Italy (347-420 AD) argued that she was, and attempted to explain away the references to Jesus' "brothers and sisters" in Matthew 13:55-56 by changing the meaning of “brothers” and “sisters” to “cousins.”

The church father Epiphanius of Cyprus (310-403 AD) agreed with Jerome that Mary was a perpetual virgin and tried to explain away the "brothers and sisters" by saying that they were children of Joseph from a former marriage. In this, he too followed the practice that if Scripture doesn’t fit your theory, change the Scriptures.

So, if we want to establish doctrine-based tradition, which view of Mary do we accept? The church fathers give different views. Which one is correct if tradition is your guide? When we compile the writings of the church fathers, we see there is no internal consistency in what their quills produced.

When we let the Bible speak for itself, the obvious conclusion is that while Mary was a virgin until Christ's birth, she had other children later. The Koine Greek of the New Testament has words for "cousin" and "relative” and its authors used them. When referring to Jesus' "brothers and sisters," though, they used words with a primary meaning of those with a shared parentage.

FUN GUYS

There’s an old joke about a classics professor on his deathbed who said that he’d devoted his life to a study of the nominative case, but wished that he’d devoted more time to the genitive. Sounds like a real fun guy. There are those who devote their scholarly lives to studying the thousands of pages left behind by the church fathers. They too sound like fun guys to sit down have a Dr. Pepper with. It would be more fun to have a drink with an accountant.

WOLF AGAINST WOLF

Paul warned the elders of the Ephesian church about the coming of just such people as the church fathers arising within the church in Acts 20:29. He called them wolves. To paraphrase Julius Caesar, the wolves came, they saw, they influenced.

THE POINT, PLEASE

Before all this gets to be way over the top pedantic, let’s get to the point. The point is that the Scriptures are consistent, whereas the church fathers are inconsistent and don’t agree with one another. (This is one reason why their writings aren’t included in the canon.) I’ve chosen only one issue where those wolves disagreed among themselves; there are myriads of other examples, but again, we don’t want to become ostentatiously pansophic.

A FINER POINT

The Scriptures are consistent all over the place—from one author to another, from one book to another, most living at different times and places--a gentile and many Jews; fishermen, tax collectors, a doctor, a herdsman, a former member of the palace in Egypt, a fellow taken into slavery in Babylon. Yet, even in the “little bits” of the Bible, we still find a consistency we find nowhere else.

We go from the grand statement, “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness (Gen. 15:6) to a former Pharisee’s statement before a ruler, recounting the risen Christ’s words to him, “that they may received forgiveness of sins . . . those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.” (Acts 26:18) Then we go to a story Jesus told where He said that Satan snatches away the good news, “so that they will not believe and be saved.” Then we can listen to a fisherman tell us the same thing 99 more times when we read the Gospel of John where he says that faith alone saves. Internal consistency in the “little parts” of the Bible and the “big parts.”

A former member of a palace in Egypt wrote the first quote, a former Pharisee wrote the second, and doctor wrote the third, and the aforementioned fisherman consistently referred to faith alone for salvation all those times in his book. They all agree: faith alone saves. When we total up all the consistency factor regarding faith alone, the total number of verses reaches 200 in the New Testament alone.

Consistency, thy name is “Bible.”