Author: japfth

Recommended Reading

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One of the books I have used this year in my undergraduate English classes is The Best Short Stories 2025: The O. Henry Prize Winners.

It’s a remarkable collection. It contains some masters of the short story form, like Dave Eggers and Clyde Edgerton, and some writers that are new, even to me, like Zak Salih.

It likewise addresses themes students and older adults can all identify with–spiritual homelessness, struggles to assimilate, and the longing to matter.

If you’re given to reading literature of substance, this is a solid volume of short stories. It showcases some contemporary talent out there in the world of writers and encourages me (and others, too, I hope) that good literature still matters and still continues to be written.

YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@jonpirtle2605

Writing ministry: http://www.jonpirtle.com

Church YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/@3cs-canton

“Sir, I’m Homeless…”

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Introduction: I was away from home as part of my military duties. It was very early on a Sunday morning. I am an early riser normally but this morning I was up especially early (sleeplessness is one of my battles; many military folks will understand). I waited until the breakfast places near my location opened up. I had a long day ahead and skipping breakfast would be unwise.

Finally the lights began to come on in the fast food joints in the area. My choices were limited but I chose a local Burger King to enter for a sausage biscuit and cup of coffee. I could see one of the girls inside unlock the door, so I exited my car and walked in the BK.

I ordered a sausage biscuit and cup of coffee. I waited. A man I’d noticed outside before I entered walked into BK. He was carrying a white plastic bag with one item inside.

“Excuse me, sir. I have something.”

He retrieved from the white plastic bag a box of golf balls. “Sir, I’m homeless. But could you use these?”

“I’m a full-time soldier,” I said. “Not much time for golf.”

“Well, how about a meal?” he asked.

All of the old conflicts came to my mind. Those golf balls are probably stolen. This guy could just be sorry–too lazy. He looks healthy, so why doesn’t he just get a job? On and on my thoughts ran.

But when he asked for food, the decision seemed to’ve been made inside me.

“Sure,” I said, “breakfast.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He walked up to the counter and ordered a #1 Breakfast Meal. I stepped up and paid.

“Thank you, sir,” he said. And he extended his hand to shake mine. “And thank you for serving our nation.”

People say that a lot and I do appreciate it, but it can come across as perfunctory, as just something people say when they don’t know what to say. But I received it as what he had to give–a polite remark and show of gratitude for his breakfast. His food appeared on a plastic brown tray by the cashier’s register.

We both ate our respective breakfasts and drank our coffee. I walked back out to my car and went to duty.

As I circled the parking lot to pull back onto the main highway, the man was sipping his coffee and picking at his biscuit, the white plastic bag of golf balls still at his side.

YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@jonpirtle2605

Writing ministry: http://www.jonpirtle.com

Church YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/@3cs-canton

Chaplain Daily Touchpoint #509

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BLUF: Build the Right Teams

Text: “Take away the dross from the silver,

    and the smith has material for a vessel;

 take away the wicked from the presence of the king,

    and his throne will be established in righteousness” (Pr 25:4-5, ESV).

Context, Context, Context:  The first verse in the passage here deals with who/what not to have on a quality team—namely, dross. Removing dross from silver entailed heating up the material in order to purify the desired end state, i.e., the precious metal. The second verse is less scientific in tone but teaches the same principle—namely, removing the wicked from the ruler. Why? In order to have a pure kingdom. Both verses teach the same wisdom.

Encouragement: For over 25 years now I have served in the military. I’ve been part of countless teams. Some were extraordinary and some had room for improvement. Some were cohesive and each man was teachable and also a teacher. Other teams were teams in name only, where trust was low and productivity atrophied. But the best teams had this one overarching quality: the leader was a man of quality character and competence, and he required the same traits from members of the team. When that chemistry is fostered, what results is a fighting force to be emulated.

YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@jonpirtle2605

Writing ministry: http://www.jonpirtle.com

Church YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/@3cs-canton

The Unforgotten

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Introduction: Ever battled the formidable feeling that God has forgotten you, that God is silent regarding the longings of your heart?

Illustration: There’s a passage in Luke 12 where Christ addresses this experience.

Text: “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Lk 12:4-7, ESV)

Teaching/encouragement: If we are honest, I think even Christians battle the sin of unbelief at times. What do I mean? Simply that, even though we profess accurate theology, we may not feel it at times. That’s one reason not to live by our feelings. It’s not about how we feel but about what is true.

The context of Luke 12 here is that Jesus was teaching the disciples about discernment, about the need to “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” Then he addresses the disciples as “friends” (v. 4). Why does he do that? Why that term of endearment? It was in order to show the disciples that the Christian’s obedience is to be unto the Lord. He is to fear the Lord and not fear man. Why? Because not one of them is forgotten by God. Believers are “of more value than many sparrows,” he says (v. 7).

Believers may feel forgotten at times. We all have days or seasons where we don’t necessarily feel the presence and power of God. (Again, beware of living by feelings.) But God is the same–yesterday, today, and forever. We are not forgotten. God sees where we are. He knows. He cares. And our duty is to trust him with everything–even and especially when we don’t feel the closeness for which we long.

YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@jonpirtle2605

Writing ministry: http://www.jonpirtle.com

Church YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/@3cs-canton

What’s Inside?

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This morning I was reading Luke 11 and focusing upon Jesus’ conversation with some Pharisees. Jesus was teaching about what’s “inside the cup,” that is, about our motives.

Here’s the passage:

While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you. (Lk 11:37-41, ESV)

This episode is so illustrative of Jesus’s way of getting to the heart of the matter. The Pharisee was “astonished” at Jesus. Why? It was because Jesus didn’t wash before eating. The Pharisee was concerned with the outward show of propriety and cleanness. But Jesus flipped the Pharisee’s script. How? By contrasting the Pharisee’s preening with external cleanness with the vastly more important issue of one’s internal state of rottenness vs. cleanness.

What’s more important, in other words, clean hands or a clean heart? The question answers itself.

Nothing’s changed, of course. We all know folks that are more concerned with looking the part than being the part. It’s the great theme of appearance vs. reality.

Jesus knows our hearts. God knows our motives. God sees not only what we do but why we do it. And that should drive us to keep short accounts with God.

YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@jonpirtle2605

Writing ministry: http://www.jonpirtle.com

Church YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/@3cs-canton

McCarthy Scholarship

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Over the last few days one of the volumes for which I am grateful is Walsh’s volume on Cormac McCarthy, In the Wake of the Sun: Navigating the Southern Works of Cormac McCarthy.

Shakespeare, Dickens, Dante, Hardy, Joyce, Faulkner, Hemingway, Dostoyevsky, O’Connor, and a few others, I read and reread consistently. And the same goes for McCarthy. And I rejoice to see the scholarship surrounding McCarthy continue to grow.

Recently, since the author’s death, scholars were allowed by the family to get into McCarthy’s library, catalogue it, and begin its placement (much of it, anyway) to the University of Tennessee, where McCarthy studied but left without his undergraduate degree (he was 9 hours short, and was bored). A genius like McCarthy is not cut out for the basics.

If you, too, love the Southern novels, The Orchard Keeper, Child of God, Outer Dark, Suttree, The Road, and the plays The Gardener’s Son, and The Stonemason, this book of scholarship is a gem.

McCarthy’s other works are of course alluded to but this work remains focused primarily on the works listed above.

Well done, Christopher Walsh, well done. Thanks for sharing your demonstrative appreciation for and scholarship of the growing recognition of the formidable writer, Cormac McCarthy.

YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@jonpirtle2605

Writing ministry: http://www.jonpirtle.com

Church YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/@3cs-canton

CDT #507: Spiritual Blindness

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Introduction: I was reading through the Gospel of Luke this morning and, again and again, I was struck by Jesus’ teaching about spiritual blindness. It refers to when, in spite of all the clear evidence, some people just refuse to see and hear the truth. To use a cliche, it’s the ostrich burying his head in the sand. It’s the blind leading the blind. The result should be obvious: both fall into the pit. In other words, both parties are damned.

That’s heavy, right? Yes, and it’s straight out of Scripture, straight out of the mouth and Jesus and his apostles. As one example from the apostle Paul, “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor 4:3-4, ESV).

Here’s another example from Jesus’ own lips: “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit” (Jn 15:13-14, ESV).

Here’s another example from Jesus’ own lips from Luke’s gospel: “You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” (Lk 12:56, ESV).

Here’s another example from Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians: “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart” (Eph 4:18, ESV).

Over and over again in Scripture we (forgive the pun) see the motif of spiritual blindness. It is rooted in willful recalcitrance, unteachability, and suppression of the truth in unrighteousness. In other words, it’s not a physical problem but a spiritual disease curable only by the gospel of God.

Encouragement: When my family and I lived in another region, I was pastoring a small congregation as a bi-vocational pastor, teacher, and military chaplain. I had a friend in the congregation with whom I shared a strong Christian brotherhood. He, too, had been trained at a fine seminary, and he was one of the few people with whom I could speak about things without dumbing them down. One day when we were discussing this theme, he said something to me I’ve never forgotten: “Jon, Don’t take it personally. Our job is to speak and live the truth. Just cast the seed. Only God can till people’s hearts.” That was one of the best pieces of biblical wisdom I’ve ever heard, and, in sum, that is what all of Scripture teaches–namely, that spiritual blindness can only be cured by the truth of the gospel, not by any deep desire we have to see the scales removed from people’s eyes.

YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@jonpirtle2605

Writing ministry: http://www.jonpirtle.com

Church YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/@3cs-canton