bible study | dual personalities

We do not lose heart

by chuckofish

As previously noted, the summer has flown by and now it is almost September! Good grief, Charlie Brown!

My weekly Bible Study group has started up again. It is good to be back with these faithful ladies, although the prayer requests at the end of our meeting are a constant reminder of the dark world we live in full of sickness and depravity.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory…

(2 Corinthians 4:16-17)

We are reading Even Better Than Eden: Nine ways the Bible’s Story Changes Everything About Your Story by Nancy Guthrie, which takes us from Genesis through Revelation. It’s a departure from our usual format of reading one book of the Bible, but it should be interesting (and a lot of work!) I am also enrolled in Hillsdale College’s free online course, “The Genesis Story: Reading Biblical Narratives.” I am halfway through and so far I am enjoying being “back in the classroom.” There are even quizzes!

This is a good one from Carl Trueman about “the isolated wasteland of modern life” and the opportunities the church has.

And I liked this one from Tim Challies about growing old. “It is in old age that the fruit that began to grow in the younger days finally comes to its ripeness.”

So do not lose heart, keep up with your Bible study and let the breeze mess up your hair!

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January 12, 2023

This and that

by chuckofish

We have been enjoying the January Thaw here in flyover country. And I must say, it is nice not to have to bundle up every time the pup needs to walk around the yard looking for gross things to dig up and munch. (I hate to think what he has ingested, but I can’t be held responsible. He heeds not his Mamu’s sharp words.) This warm weather will, of course, not last. The daffodils and iris and lilies etc seem to think otherwise.

In other news, I put up this bird feeder which was a Christmas gift from a BFF…

I can’t wait to see which birds find it!

Last week I mentioned that someone had suggested I read the entire Shakespeare canon since I had completed reading the Bible. Since I own an (incomplete) set of Shakespeare that belonged to my grandmother, I may dive in. Mira, it seems, was given a new play for birthdays and Christmas when she was a teenager.

I mean, why the heck not? (But who was Aunt Fannie?)

I just found out that our Women’s Bible Study group will be studying the book of Daniel this spring and I am happy we will be back in the Old Testament. I am glad I spent so much time last year reading Leviticus–twice! Here’s a great explanation of why that is so. “Our own age of diversity echoes the fickle relativity of the ancient gods.”

However, just like ancient Israel, believers now don’t have to live at the mercy of the fickle gods. We have God’s Law and his gospel, wondrously clear and accessible. It proved to be a solid rock in the churning sea of ancient polytheism. It is just as stable of a rock in the contemporary sea of progressive culture and globalization.

And Tim Challies really nails delineating what he wants in a church here: “The cure that these church leaders propose is actually indistinguishable from the disease. The cure they propose for this illness is to administer more of the illness! They are treating cancer with cancer, infection with infection, radiation poisoning with even greater doses of radiation.” Amen, brother.

Raise your hand if you think Stetson Bennett IV , the Georgia QB, is awesome. Okay, I am a sucker for a good (Christian) sports story. “Bennett III was asked how his son was able to reach his ultimate goal of playing at Georgia. ‘Everyone that asks that question,’ he said. ‘I tell ’em two things: One, how good the Lord is. And two, just the fact that he never gave up. I’ve told him his entire life that he can do anything in the world that he wants to do, but he can’t just want it, you got to go to work. That’s what he did.’”

But, what ho, Two Gentlemen of Verona calls…”Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers…” Have a good day!

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November 18, 2021

“Wash your hands, ye sinners”*

by chuckofish

Today is the last day of my 12-week Bible Study of Leviticus. We’ll start up again in the new year–still with Leviticus. I must say I have a new respect for Leviticus and a new understanding of how all those dietary laws and burnt offering regulations point to the one true and only sacrifice/atonement offered by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It has really been fascinating. And I like my group of ladies. I have enjoyed doing something serious. I have enjoyed doing my homework. I am sure I am a better person for doing it, and, God knows, I need help with that. (Read Leviticus, chapter 19.)

ONE DAY I WAS having lunch with two Wheaton students who were talking about whatever they were talking about—the weather, the movies—when without warning one of them asked the other as naturally as he would have asked the time of day what God was doing in his life. If there is anything in this world I believe, it is that God is indeed doing all kinds of things in the lives of all of us including those who do not believe in God and would have nothing to do with him if they did, but in the part of the East where I live, if anybody were to ask a question like that, even among religious people, the sky would fall, the walls would cave in, the grass would wither. I think the very air would stop my mouth if I opened it to speak such words among just about any group of people I can think of in the East because their faith itself, if they happen to have any, is one of the secrets that they have kept so long that it might almost as well not exist. The result was that to find myself at Wheaton among people who, although they spoke about it in different words from mine and expressed it in their lives differently, not only believed in Christ and his Kingdom more or less as I did but were also not ashamed or embarrassed to say so was like finding something which, only when I tasted it, I realized I had been starving for years.
–Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

Have you noticed that the red kettles are out and the Salvation Army bell ringers with them? Every year, from November through Christmas Eve, bell ringers stand next to Salvation Army kettles around the world and encourage passers by to donate money for those in need. The donations are used throughout the year to extend a variety of assistance to members of the community. This holiday tradition began in 1891 when Salvation Army Captain Joseph McFee placed an empty crab pot outside a San Francisco ferry landing to collect money and provide a free Christmas dinner for the city’s destitute and poverty-stricken. Beside the pot he placed a sign that read, “Keep the Pot Boiling.” As the boats came in, people tossed a coin or two into the pot, and soon he had all the money needed to purchase the meal. The idea soon spread to other cities, and it continues today.

So don’t be annoyed, be glad that the Salvation Army is still out there doing good. Carry some dollar bills in your purse or pocket so you are ready with some cash–because who uses cash anymore? Be generous and get in the holiday swing.

Yesterday was World Preemie Day, so, of course, daughter #3 made the wee twins special shirts to wear. (Lottie’s pants were real special too.)