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I had an employee tell me the other day… Dr. Perkins, I’ve worked for you 15 years and I’ve seen you laugh and I’ve seen you cry. I’ve seen you happy and I’ve seen you sad. I know what you think is funny and what you think is not funny. I’ve seen you angry. I know when you get mad at me you won’t stay mad. I can read your face and tell you what you are thinking.
I don’t know why she told me that but what I find funny is that I have attended church with folks for thirty or more years and whom I love dearly who don’t know those kinds of things about me. And to be fair… I don’t know those things about them either.
Whenever we have people into our home I tell Julie we need some kind of activity. I found out that if we’re just sitting around talking (and I am mainly listening) that I get a little bored and start yawning which is embarrassing for me.
Julie tells me that I feed on emotions… when we’re sitting around talking… I’m starving but when we have an activity and when people are laughing and joyful and embarrassed and sharing their life with me then I’m… not starving… I’m forming the rudiments of an attachment.
I’m really kind of a loner. After I’ve been in the clinic and am inundated with social interaction with clients I like to go out to our place in Paplote and just be by myself driving a tractor or working on fence and feel best when I come home exhausted.
However to be the kind of Christian I need to be I invite church people to come out and work with me to show them a life that perhaps they are not used to and somewhere along the way we become close friends (if they keep coming).
I had a young exhausted Christian man tell me one time… Mr. Perkins I hope one day I’m as in as good as shape as you are. Stay busy young man work is your friend... TV is your enemy.
I never planned on that employee knowing me that well but that’s what happens when you share your life with someone. If we’re ever going to be closer as Christians we’re going to have to figure out a way to do something together that is not associated *only* with the church building
Most people would say that I have above average Bible knowledge. As I look back through the years one of the reasons would be that for the last 30-40 years I have been continuously teaching. I taught an adult Bible class continuously for many years and then I decided that as an Elder I needed to develop a better relationship with the kids growing up in the congregation so I signed myself up to teach one quarter per year for the Middle School class and one quarter per year in the High School class.
Keep in mind… I know all the kids in the congregation and they are friendly with me on a superficial level as happens when you just interact superficially.
Since I have been teaching those classes the last 2-3 years I am much closer to them. I not only go over the Bible lesson with them but ask them questions about what’s going on in their lives and share what’s going on in mine. It’s been transformational for me and one of the best things I have done.
It has also been good for me to tap a member who needs to be more involved to be an assistant teacher. They get to know the kids better, they get to know me better and they have a more in depth exposure to the scriptures. They have a better connection with the congregation.
Most people who are unhappy with their church-life are their own worst enemies. Even Stevie Wonder can see that the tools are there for a rich church/spiritual life… you just need to expend the effort to reach and pick up one of those tools.
The first letter to the Corinthians begins with Paul calling out the Christians in Corinth for wrongly judging their teachers. Namely, they were elevating and glorifying certain teachers and in so doing were demeaning other teachers.
This false judging of teachers had in its roots the idea that some thought they were spiritually superior to others because of who had taught and baptized them.
In addition, some of them had falsely judged Paul to not be a real Apostle. After all Paul had not walked with Jesus during his ministry and he wasn’t there at Pentecost. Certain of the Jewish Christians were mad at him because he wouldn’t make the Greek Christians follow Jewish customs like… circumcision.
So it was easier to vilify Paul’s apostleship, his teachings and his… converts.
The Corinthian’s were so high and mighty in their ability to judge Paul and other teachers that they failed to judge much more weightier issues (the Elephant in the room) like the member in chapter 5 who was in an inappropriate and sinful sexual relationship with a relative.
Their inability to properly judge was also revealed in chapter 6 when they took their fellow soldiers in Christ to Roman polytheistic magistrates to settle their civil matters.
Certain of them were so arrogant in their self-defined spirituality and superiority that they didn’t mind making others feel inferior and worse failed to recognize or to lift their sin sickened brethren out of Satan’s soul sucking quick sand.
You can see how improper judgement can destroy a congregation and render it ineffective in declaring the wisdom of God.
The ones in a congregation who are really spiritually superior don’t even recognize that. They are too busy helping others to even think like that.
As far as judging goes… let’s start by taking a critical and hard look at ourselves first and see how that feels before we serve a portion of that to someone else.
I occasionally see women wearing “head coverings” in church assemblies. The authority for that is found in 1 Cor. 11:5, “every woman praying or prophesying with her head unveiled dishonors her head”. So… some women wear head coverings in the assemblies.
Let’s take a look at that. The activities being restricted are prayer and prophesy. This chapter in 1 Corinthians is surrounded with other chapters that are discussing “spiritual gifts”. Let me suggest that the prayer and prophesy being regulated here are prayer and prophesy that have been gifted to mankind... specifically women. And function to permit women to use their God given gifts and still show respect to her head (her husband, Jesus and God).
The gift of prophesy is a gift that is exercised in the assembly (1 Cor. 14). Women were given that gift. Phillip is cited as having four virgin daughters who had the gift of prophesy. How were they to exercise a God given gift in the assembly when it is “shameful for a woman to speak in the church" (1 Cor. 14:34-35)? ...By wearing a head covering.
Of course we don’t live in an age of miracles anymore and that regulation is no longer necessary. However, even so…I commend the women who wear head coverings for following their consciences.
There were two bodies of water that the Israelites passed through after they escaped from Egypt.
The first was the passage through the Red Sea. Of course it was a miraculous event… God parted the waters and the Israelites walked through on dry land headed for the Promised Land.
The second body of water was the Jordan River. After wandering around in the desert for 40 years God miraculously parted the waters of the Jordan River and they walked through on dry land into the Promised Land.
There’s another “water” that we have to pass through before we can reach our “Promised Land” and that is the water of Baptism. A miracle occurs when we pass through these waters… no the waters aren’t “parted” but what is “parted” is that we are parted or separated from our sin… Of course the miracle is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ which is mimicked in our own death (our old worldly nature), burial (in the waters of baptism) and resurrection (rising out of the water with a new life).
The Israelites were “baptized” in the waters of the Red Sea (1 Cor. 10:1-2) but that doesn’t mean they led perfect unblemished lives after that. No… in fact they failed Jehovah-God many times but God was always there waiting to forgive them and he’s waiting patiently to forgive us too.
If you haven’t accepted the “miracle” of Baptism… don’t waste anytime… do it right now. Try as best you can to never sin again but realize if you do God doesn’t give up on his people after all he didn’t give up on the Israelites who were the first ones to receive the Good News of Salvation through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
