Author: japfth

The Wad of Cash

/ japfth / 2 Comments

My favorite time of day is the 30-45 minutes before the sun rises and the first moments afterwards. Especially on clear mornings. That was the case again recently on a flight. I’d gone out to Texas and then Arkansas to minister to some fellow soldiers. On the flight back into Dallas, Texas we were still over Arkansas below. The sky was clear, the sun was emerging, and all seemed irenic. Though the flight was full, folks were getting along and mostly patient with one another. (If you fly often, you will discover such characteristics are not always prevalent.)

Anyway, we landed in Texas safely and I had about an hour before my connecting flight to Atlanta. I patronized a bagel shop for a bottle of water and a breakfast bagel, walked to my gate, and sought a chair to sit down in and eat while waiting for my flight. From the looks of it, this flight to Atlanta was going to be full, too. It is July, after all, and I suppose many folks are vacationing.

When I wathced the people, it was clear who’d been to the beaches or other sunny destinations. The girls and women had on their loose-fitting clothes and their skin was brown with summer. And the boys and men often wore t-shirts and shorts, often with a cap of some sort, with place names like Cancun, Miami, or Cabo Wabo embroidered thereupon.

My eyes perused the terminal for a seat, and I finally spotted two empty ones. I pulled off my backpack and put my backpack down in one seat and I sat in the one next to it. I unwrapped the foil and began to munch on the breakfast bagel and drink the bottle of water. As I finished the breakfast sandwich, I rose from my seat and walked over to the trash bin to discard the foil wrapper and put the now-empty water bottle in the recycle bin for plastics. But as I returned to my seat, something caught my eye. Sticking out from under my backpack was a wad of cash. I simply had not seen it when I took my pack off and placed it in the seat. When I spotted the wad of cash now, I picked it up and asked the people around me, “Excuse me, do you know who this belongs to?” but each person denied knowing who it belonged to.

I put the wad of cash back on the seat, but kept looking around the terminal. Surely, someone will come back looking for this, I thought. Plus, there are cameras everywhere in airports. Surely, it should be discoverable how someone dropped this, forgot it, or exactly what had happened.

But I kept looking around. As people came and went, several times I saw their eyes fall upon the wad of cash, but I just left it there, hoping the rightful owner would return.

Another 40 minutes passed, and still no one appeared for the wad of cash. Finally, the girl’s voice came on the intercom, announcing it was time for my group to board the flight to Atlanta. I picked up my backpack and slung it over my shoulders and boarded.

As I flew back, and the sun rose, I read my book. But my thoughts kept returning to that wad of cash. I wish I knew that righteousness would prevail, that the rightful owner returned, that the good would come out on top. But I just don’t know.

Tales from Travels: A Warrant for His Arrest

/ japfth / 2 Comments

Introduction: I had flown to Texas and then to Arkansas to minister to fellow soldiers. I was in my element–mobile, teaching military personnel, and teaching on topics near and dear to my heart: spiritual readiness and spiritual fitness. I was thrilled to come to see this set of guys again. It had been several months since I had been able to pour into them and to just be with them. They’re among my favorite soldiers–good ‘ole boys from Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma, mostly. Salt of the earth patriots. My kind of people.

A few hours later, the American flight landed in Dallas. I had an hour or so to kill until my next flight. I found an open chair and resumed the book I’d read on the flight. I only had a few pages left, and I finished the book.

I’d had to wake at 0130 back in Georgia in order to be at the Atlanta airport at 0330 for American’s first a.m. flight to Dallas. All had gone well so far, though. There was scant traffic at that hour, and I had no significant hassles to speak of, even at Atlanta’s airport.

Anyway, the flight had landed in Dallas, just as the sun was coming up. As far as you could see, it was flat and already hot, even at dawn. I’m not wired for July heat in Texas or much of July heat anywhere else, but that’s another story.

Closer than I Thought: When I took another flight to my final destination, I picked up my ride. My lodging was not ready yet, so I drove to a local bookstore to peruse the shelves. I found a book of Faulkner stories. I’ve read Faulkner for decades now, and respect him now as always. A giant of literature.

Anyway, I gripped the book of Faulkner stories in my right hand, retrieved my wallet with my left hand, and walked to the front counter to pay. A petite brunette with a ponytail and black Books-A-Million t-shirt rang me up.

“Could I interest you in a membership card?”

“No thanks.”

“How’s your day going so far?”

“Fine,” I said.

“Just relaxing, eh?”

I just smiled. I sometimes struggle to engage when the conversation is about drivel. Say something significant, or I’m likely to check out.

“Could I interest you in a gift card?” she continued.

“No thanks.” Honestly, I was starting to get annonyed. Just let me pay for the Faulkner book and be on my way, I thought.

“I had to park close to the store this morning,” she said.

“Sorry?”

She kept cutting her eyes to the left, signaling me somehow.

“My husband … he told me to park right in front of the store,” she said.

I was completely lost as to what she was driving at.

She whispered, “We found out. There’s a man with a warrant between us and the store next door. The cops are on their way. My husband told me to park close to the front of the store, so I did.”

“Oh,” is all I could think to say.

I looked down at the little black pad for me to pay. The total appeared; I tapped my debit card.

“Receipt?” she asked.

“No thanks.”

I walked out, the hot sun blaring down already, my Faulkner book in my right hand. I noticed a silver Nissan by the Books-A-Million, near the bookstore’s entrance. I assumed it belonged to the girl at the register. I sat in the car for a few moments. Waiting. For something. Cops to show? A criminal to become visible to me? I waited. Nothing. No cops that I saw. Perhaps they would come circumspectly, in unmarked clothes and plain clothes. I waited some more. Still nothing.

I sat in the driver’s seat, the A/C on blast.

Here I was, out here to teach fellow soldiers about spiritual readiness and spiritual fitness, and I’d just listened to a girl tell me that a criminal was steps away, a man with a warrant out for his arrest.

I got notice: my lodging was ready. I scanned the parking lot again. I think I was looking for a man to walk in the Books-A-Million, a shady-looking guy, perhaps, but no one entered the store since after I exited.

Reluctantly, I pulled out of the bookstore parking lot and onto the road that led to my lodging. But I am still wondering what happened/didn’t happen.

Discernment (yes, it’s biblical)

/ japfth / 2 Comments

Amuse-(vb.) “To divert the attention, beguile, delude,” from Old French amuser “fool, tease, hoax, entrap; make fun of,” literally “cause to muse” (as a distraction), from

Discern-(vb.) “To perceive or recognize the difference or distinction between (two or more things);” also “distinguish (an object) with the eyes, see distinctly, behold;” also “perceive rationally, understand;” late 14c., from Old French discerner (13c.) “distinguish (between), separate” (by sifting), and directly from Latin discernere “to separate, set apart, divide, distribute; distinguish, perceive.”

Introduction: When I was a college kid, there was a popular grunge band named Nirvana. I never cared anything for their music, but I do remember a lyric from one of their songs some of my peers played often: “Here we are now; entertain us. I feel stupid and contagious. Here we are, now; entertain us.” Well, there you have it.

Connections to Depth: Over the last many months in teaching through Matthew’s Gospel to the saints, again and again I discover that Scripture is replete with the command for Christians to be a people of discernment. We are commanded to be a people of wisdom and depth. We are not to be children in our thinking. Here’s how Paul penned it: “Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature” (1 Corinthians 14:20, ESV).

Samuel Johnson wrote that discernment is “the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit” (see Bowell’s Life of Johnson).

Remember when Paul wrote to the Christians at Philippi? Do you remember what he wrote? Here’s just a sample. Again, it’s about discernment:

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God (Philippians 1:9-11, ESV).

There’s a world of difference between amusement and discernment. The word amuse literally means “to not think.” A is the negative in Greek. And muse means “to think.”

As a publication of a few years back was titled, Let My People Think. To that, all I can say is, yes and amen.

Kill the Prophets?

/ japfth / Leave a comment

Bottom line up front: Killing the Truth-teller

Context: 48 hours before the execution of the Christ. Antagonism towards God the Son incarnate had reached a fever pitch. Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees, and other religious hypocrites, especially, demonstrated a hatred of Jesus unparalleled in its fierceness except perhaps by Satan himself.

Question: Will we learn from Jesus’ rebuke? Below are Jesus’s words. Remember: This is just hours before He’ll be flogged, spat upon, stripped, mocked, and crucified publicly.

Text: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37, ESV)

Teaching: Did you catch the rebuke that Jesus pronounced? The center of religiosity, Jerusalem, with all of its robed religious leaders, with all of its learned lawyers, theologians, teachers of the Law, scribes, etc. this center of religiosity was known for what? Killing the prophets. Stoning the truth-tellers. For shutting up the truth in order to preserve its traditions that damned souls.

Takeaway: How do we respond when God graciously sends a truth-teller into our midst? Do we embrace him? Learn from him? Do we return to God? Do we demonstrate a spirit of humility? Do we train ourselves in the powers of discernment? Or do most folks do what Jerusalem did when Jesus rebuked those who should have seen the judgment they were invoking on themselves for their rejection of the ultimate truth-teller, the Lord Jesus? If you want to see where people stand theologically with God, look how they treat the truth-tellers.

Chaplain Daily Touchpoint #291: A Conversion Story

/ japfth / Leave a comment

Bottom line up front: A Conversion Story

Context: Just for the sake of candor, Ecclesiastes is probably my favorite book of Scripture. It is part of the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament, so that is appealing to me. And it’s highly literary; that also appeals to me. Plus, it is penned by one who lived life to the max, and eventually found out the hard way that wisdom is found not in indulgence but in God. That, too, appeals to me.

Solomon, for all his faults, was a man who laid it out bare. As I’m wont to say, he went from hero to zero (and back again) many times. But the context of the one verse I want to look at today concerns the conversion of R.C. Sproul, indubitably one of the 20th and 21st centuries’ greatest theological minds. R.C. said he was converted by God, and Ecclesiastes 11:3 was instrumental in that conversion.

Text: “If the clouds are full of fain, they empty themselves on the earth, and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie” (Eccl 11:3, ESV).

Takeaway: One might scoff and mutter, “Really? That verse? Are you kidding me?” But slow down and think. What’s the book of Ecclesiastes about? Vanity of foolish pursuits vs. fulfillment in God. Wisdom vs. folly. Under the sun vs. under the Son. And so when Sproul’s friend confronted Sproul with Ecclesiastes 11:3, God used the word picture in that verse to quicken Sproul’s soul. He (Sproul) saw that if he continued to live a life of self-indulgence, it was just so much vanity and futility. He would be like that tree that fell in the forest of the cosmos–utterly insignificant. But if he understood that he was not just a random collocation of atoms, if he understood that he was created in the image of the sovereign God, suddenly everything made sense. And Sproul was converted, and he became a massive influence on his and subsequent generations.

Here’s the way one writer describes this event: “A fellow student of R.C. Sproul read this verse to Sproul while the latter was a freshman in college in September 1957. Sproul was immediately convicted, seeing himself as a dead tree, fallen and rotting on the ground. After a few hours of wrestling in prayer, seeking the mercy of God, R.C. Sproul was converted. He later confessed that he is likely the only person in church history to have been converted by this verse.”

Let us not underestimate God.

Musings from Matthew

/ japfth / Leave a comment

Introduction: For many months now, I have been teaching through the Gospel of Matthew verse-by-verse. This coming Lord’s Day, we are in Matthew 22:23ff. This passage is where Sadducees and Pharisees continue to try to entrap and outmaneuver the Lord Jesus. Let that sink in. Outmaneuver God incarnate? Man’s hubris knows no limits.

The hostility of religious people who hated the Lord Jesus knew no limits either. This all precedes the “Seven Woes” Jesus pronounces in Matthew 24, a blistering divine rebuke of the Scribes and Pharisees. When I read these passages over and over, I shake my head at the image some professing Christians have of a Jesus who is meek and mild.

The historical record of the Christ is quite different. Jesus rebuked people to their faces by calling them snakes, vipers, whitewashed tombs, and hypocrites. He didn’t bow his head and say, “Let’s just pray about it.” He called out mendacity and false shepherds, and the lying world hated Him for it. But He was on the side of truth, because He was and is truth incarnate.

In Matthew 22:29 and following, Jesus told the Sadducees plainly, “you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” Then in Matthew 22:46, the Apostle reminds us, “And no one was able to answer him [Jesus] a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.”

The Biblical Account: In other words, when truth dominates, every mouth is stopped. Truth means light–and light exposes the darkness (John 1:5; 3:19-21; Romans 3:19; Ephesians 5:13).

  • “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5, ESV).
  • “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God” (John 3:19-21 ESV).
  • “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God” (Romans 3:19, ESV).
  • “But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible” (Ephesians 5:13, ESV).

Takeaways: It really comes down to something quite simple: Do we believe God? When I ruminate upon things, it is hard not to think that most people fear men rather than fearing God. And of course, God has spoken to this clearly: “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe” (Proverbs 29:25, ESV) and “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10, ESV).

Does anyone think that’s unclear? Should not believers love the light? Is that in fact not commanded by the Lord from Genesis to Revelation?

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5, ESV). Light and truth. They’re metaphors from the very beginning of redemptive history to its consummation. Light and truth.

As I finalize my notes for teaching Sunday, that’s my prayer for God’s people. May we be known for light and truth. Anything less than that comes from not from God but from a quite different source.

Chaplain Daily Touchpoint #290: Casting Bread Upon the Waters

/ japfth / Leave a comment

Introduction: In Ecclesiastes 11, two of my favorite pieces of profound wisdom are found: “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days,” (Eccl 11:1, ESV). The image is a picture of what it means to live by faith.

This world is full of traps, full of dishonesty, full of uncertainties from our limited perspective. Therefore, the Christian is commanded to look to his Commander, the Lord Jesus.

The Attestation of Scripture:

We are to labor, but to labor in faith (Col 3:23-24).

We are to plant seeds, but to do so in faith (Mt 13).

We are to go into all the world, heralding the truth (Mt 28:18-19), but do so in faith.

We are to recognize that Satan steals, kills, and destroys (Jn 10:10), yes, but we know Jesus, the Seed of the woman, has crushed the head of the serpent (Gen 3:15).

Ergo, we are to battle the forces of hell, but to do so in faith (Heb 11).

Takeaway: Let us be of good courage, gird up our loins, discharge our duties faithfully, bear true faith and allegiance, and cast our bread upon the waters–confident that God sees, God knows, and that God will act.

Chaplain Daily Touchpoint #289: Solomonic Wisdom

/ japfth / Leave a comment

Introduction: If you have been a committed reader for many years, you discover the books have accumulated, and you end up having to either downsize the library (heresy!) or build new bookshelves (yes!), or perhaps continue to give books away to those you hope will read them. I’ve done each of these things over the course of years, but there’s one book within the Book of books, of which I never tire: Ecclesiastes.

Why Ecclesiastes? Well, in just twelve chapters, I discover again and again a mysterious comfort when my soul is troubled. Today, for example, I was ruminating over the last words of Ecclesiastes 9. The issue addressed here is wisdom amidst an environment of folly.

Here’s the passage:

I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun, and it seemed great to me. There was a little city with few men in it, and a great king came against it and besieged it, building great siegeworks against it. But there was found in it a poor, wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that poor man. But I say that wisdom is better than might, though the poor man’s wisdom is despised and his words are not heard. The words of the wise heard in quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good (Eccl 9:13-18, ESV),

Admittedly there is a shade of resignation involved in the tone of the above passage. But the more I study this book, I think that’s central to a correct understanding of the book’s theme. Please don’t misunderstand. All the ‘vanity of vanities’ sections are to warn of the endless follies of secularism, hedonism, and idolatry. Those refrains are emphasized throughout the book, so that is central to a correct understanding of the book’s theme. By the way, Solomon states his theme overtly in the closing verses of the book: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Eccl 12:13-14, ESV).

What I am driving at here, however, is that Ecclesiastes reminds me that the spiritual battle is vastly too much for me. That is, the forces of good and evil are indeed cosmic in scale. That’s what Paul labored so much in Ephesians. In the words I quoted above from Ecclesiastes 9:13-18, I appreciate so much what the Scottish writer Robert Buchanan observed:

“War wounds, but wisdom heals. War and all its weapons belong to the bloody brood of him who was a murderer from the beginning; wisdom is the attribute and gift of him who came to bring peace on earth, good will to all, and glory to God in the highest.”

Takeaway: In other words, wisdom. That’s what Solomon, a man who went from hero to zero many times, teaches: wisdom. But the tinge of sadness, the limning resignation that surrounds Ecclesiastes like a border, remains. Wisdom entails a certain element of, as Vonnegut phrased it in one of his books, “and so it goes” concession. It’s a way of accepting that in this life, we must, if we are wise, accept our limitations. It is hubristic for us sinners to think we can make others wise; it’s hard enough to gain wisdom in our own lives. In sum, humility is called for. Even though wisdom is better than might, Solomon reminded us, the poor man’s wisdom is “despised and his words are not heard” (Eccl 9:16, ESV). Learning to live beautifully in a broken world marks a wise life.

Unto Your Reward: In Appreciation for John MacArthur

/ japfth / Leave a comment

Text: “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets” (Luke 6:22-23, ESV).

You’ll never know, J. Mac, what you meant to me. But then again, you might . . . now.

Welcome home, wonderful servant. You served so well and so long. Receive what was long ago prepared for you:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/195k8wCeFG/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Chaplain Daily Touchpoint #288: Before One Begins

/ japfth / Leave a comment

Introduction: I was with the saints from class recently, and one of them spoke up and called attention to something foundational about the teaching of the Lord Jesus. He, a saint in class, said, “He [Jesus] always went to motive, the motive of the people.”

Context: For over a year, I think, I have been teaching through the Gospel of Matthew. I read the Bible a couple of hours each day as normal regimen, but when I’m teaching through a particular book, I read, reread, and read again that particular book, especially, in addition to the daily regimen.

For many moons now, that book has been Matthew’s Gospel. And what the man from class was addressing was the increasing hostility that the Christ was experiencing at the hands of scoffing Pharisees, scribes, Sadducees, and others. They mocked; they tried to entrap and entangle Jesus, again and again, usually over some detail in Scripture. (Just let that sink in: you try to ‘entangle’ God the Son in theology? Um, okay; good luck with that.)

Text: Solomon wrote one of my favorite zingers in theology: “Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established” (Pr 16:3, ESV). Know what that entails? The motive of the Christian must first be Godly; the Lord blesses Godly motives by way of fruitful ministry/output.

The commitment by the believer must first be to the Lord. It’s why Bach signed his musical pieces the way he did; it’s why C.S. Lewis wrote the way he did after he was converted; it’s why Flannery O’Connor was unflinching in her literary genius and her short story and novelistic portrayals of evil and hypocrisy. They’d all first committed to the Lord their giftedness. It wasn’t about them; it was about the truth of God. They understood their identity as servants of God.

Encouragement: The Lord sees. Do we believe that? I do. And it terrifies me. Why? Because I blow it–so often. I let my sin nature get the better of me. It’s possible I’m not alone. What if we labored to commit our best efforts first unto the Lord and His truth? Why? Because truth is inseparable from God, because God is truth and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5, ESV).