Let’s just start our study with this simple observation:  Naomi accepted her daughters-in-law the way every young woman wants to be accepted by her husband’s family. 
 
             And Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died; and she was left, and her two sons. And they took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth: and they dwelt there about ten years. Ruth 1:3-4.

              If any mother-in-law could have complained about a foreign daughter-in-law, one raised in an idolatrous culture, Naomi could have—and she had not one, but two of them.  Instead she seems to have accepted them with open arms and without judgment.  In fact she seems to have taught them.  How easy would that have been if they had sensed resentment and suspicion?  I am sure her sons taught their wives as well, but those girls stayed with Naomi even after the death of their husbands, even before she decided to go back to Israel, and then they both wanted to go with her, not just Ruth.  Here is a mother-in-law who knew how to cultivate a loving relationship with those of another culture, with the women who came into her boys’ lives and became more important to them than she was.  That is hard for a mother, but her example says it can be done and is important in establishing a lasting and loving relationship with a daughter-in-law.

              Mothers-in-law today have the same obligation.  If your daughter-in-law is a Christian, count your blessings.  That should take care of any reservations you may have about her.  Now treat that new daughter like an especially beloved sister in Christ.  You would be surprised how many times people forget to treat family that way—“that’s church stuff,” I’ve heard.  Yes, and you are a member of the Lord’s church even in your home.  Act like it.

              But if she isn’t a Christian, cultivate that relationship for the thing that matters most—her soul.  You owe her that.  Paul said that as a Christian he was a debtor to everyone else to tell them the good news (Rom 1:14).  So are you.  Be kind, be patient, do not give her any reason to look down on Christianity or the church if you ever hope to gain her soul. 

              No matter what her background, accept her whole-heartedly.  Trust me, she will always be able to tell if you do not like her, no matter how hard you try to hide it.  Do not talk about “my son.”  He is now her husband, a relationship that supersedes the parent-child relationship.  A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh, Gen 2:24.  That’s what God said about it. In your mind, their two names should always be attached. 

              If you want a continuing relationship with your son, then do not come between them in any way.  Do not allow him to disparage her to you, and certainly do not revel in it if he does!  Do not ever allow him to say to her in your presence, “That’s not how Mom does it.”  Do not expect him to visit without her.  Do not expect him to drop everything and leave her and his family for anything less than an emergency.  From now on it is not “him,” it is “them.”  They are “one flesh.”  If it is wrong for man to put it asunder, it’s wrong for a mother-in-law to amputate it.

              Welcome your new daughter into the family with open arms.  You are the one with the obligation here, not her.
 
And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, Will you go with this man? And she said, I will go…And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife…Genesis 24:58,67
 
Dene Ward

I do not appreciate mother-in-law jokes.  If you tell them and you have a mother-in-law, then you must realize that your mother is also a mother-in-law.  Are you talking about her too?
 
           As a mother-in-law myself, I try hard to be what I ought to be both for my son and his wife, who is now not just my daughter-in-law, but in my mind, my daughter, especially in the spirit.  I think I might be a bit more sensitive to this than most—you see, my mother-in-law did not like me.  Even after 39 years of trying, I never made the cut.

            To her credit, she was a fine Christian woman.  She stayed faithful to the Lord despite family opposition, her husband’s severe illnesses and injuries, financial woes, and worst of all, losing a child to cancer.  She converted her husband and raised both of her remaining children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  After all, I married one of them, and I know much of what she went through and exactly how she raised him. 

            She had many things going against her but managed to stay faithful, raise godly children, and never lose the joy of her relationship with her Lord.  To have done all that despite her many and severe trials makes our lack of a relationship more than forgivable.  I was certainly less than the least of all those things she did accomplish.

            But I do not want my daughter-in-law to miss out on what should be a wonderful relationship.  So I have decided to begin a new study—the ideal mother-in-law, which is what I want to be for Brooke.  That’s what we will be discussing together this week, Monday through Friday.

            It is not difficult to find mothers-in-law in the Bible.  The difficult thing is finding a detailed relationship between a mother- and daughter-in-law.  Isaac and Rebekah both were “grieved” by the first two women Esau married, but they were Canaanites, Hittites to be specific, Gen 26:34,35.  Although their complaints came before the actual marriage, Samson’s parents had the same problem with their future daughter-in-law, Judges 14:3—she was a Philistine. 

            Tamar was Judah’s daughter-in-law but that is a situation so complex as to be unusable in our discussion.  I can know that others surely had in-laws, but I do not know how they got along without making suppositions far beyond the realm of authenticity.

            No, the best example we can find is the usual one—Naomi and Ruth, and let’s not forget Orpah, who is often tarred with accusations she does not deserve.  So I plan to study those in depth this week to see how we can all improve our in-law relationships.  I hope you will make a point to join me.
           
…a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband. Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the LORD had visited his people and given them food. So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah, Ruth 1:1-7.                                                                                                   
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward

On my tenth birthday, my parents gave me The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales. I’ve always been a bookworm, you see. I can’t claim to have read every single tale in the book, but I did read a great deal. There is one that I vaguely recall, in which a king needed some great thing to be accomplished, the Roc’s Egg brought back to him or some such. He decreed that anyone who did this for him would be given his daughter’s hand in marriage. A peasant boy who had always dreamed of marrying the princess, undertook the quest. He braved mystic forests and foreboding mountains, fought ogres and elves, and returned, having been successful. He married the princess and became the hero of the kingdom.

Stories like this pervade most, if not all, cultures. Heracles went mad one night and killed his wife and children. Regaining his senses and overcome with grief, he undertook his famous 12 Labors to try to win redemption. Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table spent their lives looking for the Holy Grail. The Asian cultures also have their stories of quests and epic feats in the search of riches or immortality or redemption. Our culture is not without such stories: to save Middle Earth, Frodo goes on a long quest to return the One Ring to Mount Doom. Again and again, great treasures require monumental feats to acquire.

This teaches us good things. Get rich quick schemes rarely, if ever, work. If we want to accomplish something in this life, we have to put in the work, the effort, and the time to achieve it. However, this reinforced belief does leave us suspicious of any easy answer and that sometimes is a detriment.

The Bible contains a story about this. The first half of II Kings 5 will be our text. The first verse:

“Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the LORD had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.”

Who was Naaman? He was the general of the Syrian armies. He was very well thought of by the king. He was a “mighty man of valor”. This was an important man, a proud man, a celebrity and hero in his country. He was SOMEBODY. But he had leprosy. Leprosy in the ancient Middle East was probably not the flesh rotting disease known in Middle Ages Europe. It was a skin disease that made the skin white and scaly. Often, it caused odors. Basically, it made the sufferer look, and even smell, like a corpse. Under the Law of Moses, lepers were to be quarantined away from the general population, but even in countries that did not follow the Mosaic Law, lepers were generally shunned and became secluded. Naaman, a proud man in a public career, was looking at losing all he had because of this disease. Do you think he was desperate for a cure? I imagine that he had tried every potion offered by every quack in Syria. To no avail. Keep reading with me:

“Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, "Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy." So Naaman went in and told his lord, "Thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel." And the king of Syria said, "Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel." So he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing.” (vs 2-5)

Can you feel the desperation here? This small child, prattling on like small children do, mentions the prophet in Israel and his God-given abilities. Seizing on this last hope, Naaman goes to the king for permission to enter Israel and, receiving it, takes a huge gift with him to entice the prophet into helping him. The size of this gift is instructive. Ten talents of silver is 30,000 shekels of silver, which tells you nothing until I explain that the average ANNUAL salary of a laborer at that time was 10 shekels of silver. The silver alone that Naaman brought was the equivalent of 3,000 years pay for a common man! Or, another way to look at it, the silver would have weighed 750 lbs in modern measure, and the gold 150 lbs. I haven’t checked the spot price today, but one fairly recent book estimates the value at $750 million in modern buying power. Plus, ten really nice suits of clothes. How badly did Naaman want to be clean? Look at what he was willing to pay!

After some confusion as to where to go, Naaman arrives at Elisha’s house in verse 9:

“So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha's house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean." But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, "Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?" So he turned and went away in a rage.” (vs 9-12)

Naaman, great man of Syria, mighty man of valor and general of the armies, comes to Elisha’s modest house and . . . Elisha doesn’t even bother to come out to see him. He sends a servant. That had to have punctured Naaman’s ego a bit and then the instructions given are just ridiculous. ‘If it was as easy as washing, don’t you think I’d have done that?!’ He had expected an impressive display, chanting and arm waving and hocus pocus. Instead he is told to wash in the Jordan. ‘Our Syrian rivers are better for washing than that muddy stream.’ He goes away angry precisely because the answer was too easy. If there is any doubt on that, read on:

“And his servants came near, and spoke unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid you do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? how much rather then, when he says to you, Wash, and be clean? Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.” (vs 13-14)

The servant points out that if a great feat had been prescribed, Naaman would have been all in for that. Remember what he was willing to pay; would there be anything he wouldn’t do? Imagine if Elisha had said ‘Bring me the heads of 100 lions’ or ‘Climb to the top of the tallest mountain’ and he’d be clean. You know that Naaman, mighty man of valor, would have been on his way with zest to complete such a quest. That wouldn’t have upset him at all. But washing was too easy. His servant finally convinced him that if he were willing to undertake the difficult thing, he ought to do the easy as well, and he washed and was cleaned.

Many people today make the same mistake Naaman almost did. We, too, have a problem. He had leprosy, we are disfigured by sin. Leprosy affects the body, sin rots the soul. If Naaman was willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars and go on exotic quests to be rid of leprosy, what should we be willing to do to be rid of sin? It can’t be something easy, right? That thought is why many modern denominations teach that forgiveness isn’t something that we can reach, but that it takes the direct working of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit must overcome you and lead you to forgiveness. How do we know that has happened? We begin babbling in “tongues” or fall into the aisles in religious fervor. Surely it takes big things like that to be rid of sin, right? Well, what does the Bible say?

Rom 10:9 “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Rom 10:14 “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?”

Combining these verses, we must hear the word taught, believe in our hearts that Jesus was raised from the dead, and be willing to confess Him as Lord. What’s interesting is that we have an example of people just like that in Acts 2. They had heard the Gospel preached by Peter, including that Jesus had been raised from the dead – vs 32 “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.” – and that He was Lord – vs. 36 “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” They believed, being pricked in the heart (vs 37) and asked Peter what they should do. His answer? “And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’”

Understanding all of this, then, means that we must hear the word preached and believe it. Believe in our hearts the gospel of the resurrection and be willing to confess Him as Lord. Then we repent of our sins and are baptized for the remission of those sins and we will be saved, have our sins removed, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. There is no mention of the Holy Spirit overwhelming us or of babbling in “tongues” or religious frenzies. It is much simpler than that. Too simple, in fact, for many people to believe in it. Like Naaman, they turn away.

But having achieved so great a salvation from so merciful and loving a God, how are we to worship Him? Surely so great a God demands extravagant, awe-inspiring worship. We need rock-and-roll bands combined with shouting, dancing, and rolling in the aisles, right? Or perhaps we need to build monumental temples to Him filled with statuary and decorated by beautiful artworks in which imposing priests in impressive robes conduct ancient rites in a dead language? Again, our great God deserves such impressive worship, right? Well, what does the Bible say?

Col. 3:16 We are to sing praises to Him and teaching to each other.
1 Tim. 4:13 We are to teach and preach God’s word.
Eph. 6:18, 1 Thess. 5:17 We are to pray.
1 Cor. 11:23-25, Acts 20:7, We are to partake in His supper on the first day of the week.
1 Cor. 16:1-2 On the first day of the week we are to take up a collection.

And that’s it. It is simple. Too simple for some to accept, but we don’t apologize for the simplicity of our worship to God because it is precisely what He asked us to do.

Paul warns us in 1 Cor. 1:21-23 that many will be turned away by the simplicity of the Gospel and the teaching of the New Testament. Like Naaman almost was, these will be turned off because it is just too easy. They can’t grasp that something so great can be achieved in such a simple manner. So they turn away.

Don’t be like them. For once, take the easy way out.

Lucas Ward

“Buttons! Buttons! Read the buttons!” and so for the fortieth time that week I sit down with my two year old grandson Judah and read Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.  And every time we reach the page where Pete loses his last button but doesn’t let it get him down because “buttons come and buttons go,” and where Pete looks down at his buttonless shirt hanging open and the author asks, “what does he see?” Judah springs up, holds his little arms high over his head with a big grin on his face and says, “His bel-ly but-ton!” with exactly the same amount of glee and excitement as the first time he ever heard the book read.
 
             He loves that book and the other two Pete the Cat books he has, as well as the one called Click, Clack, Boo, plus the one based on Ezekiel 37 called Dem Bones.  That week we babysat we learned by the third day to be careful what we said or it would remind him of one of those books and he would toddle off to find it and ask for it to be read not once again, but three, four, five times again.

              Yet here we sit with a shelf full of Bibles, every version you can imagine, amplified and not, written in and bare, paragraphed and versed, and now even some in large print, and do we ever have the same amount of desire to read it as a two year old who can’t even read it to himself yet?  He knows those “Pete” books so well you can leave off a word and he will fill it in.  You can say the wrong word and he will shout, “No! No! It’s ______!”  You can mention one word completely out of context and he will immediately think of that book and go looking for it. 

              Yet we seem loathe to pick up what is supposed to be our spiritual food and drink, the lamp that lights our way in the dark, and the weapon to fight our spiritual battles.  We moan over daily reading programs, especially when we get to Leviticus or the genealogies.  We complain when the scripture reading at church is longer than 5 verses, especially if we are one of those congregations that, like the people in Nehemiah, stand at the reading of God’s Word.  We gripe when the Bible class teacher asks us to read more than one chapter before next week’s class.  What in the world is wrong with us?

              This little two-year-old puts us to shame.  Just from hearing it read, he can quote practically a whole book, several of them, in fact.  His whole face lights up when you read it to him yet again.  I have to admit, Keith and I would occasionally try to hide those books by the end of a day.  We may not do that with God’s Word, at least not literally, but leaving it to sit on the shelf and gather dust isn’t much different.
 
I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil. I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law. Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules. Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble, Psalms 119:162-165.
 
Dene Ward

Taking “in an unworthy manner” has nothing to do with how hard we think about Jesus on the cross for a few moments before and after we feast, and everything to do with how we live the week before and after.

Keith Ward

 For Christ our Passover has been sacrificed, let us keep the feast [week of unleavened bread that followed the Passover] …with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Cor 5:7-8).

Ordinarily I stay out of things like this, but maybe that isn’t as much about discretion as I would like to believe, so here are a few thoughts on the topic of the month.

              Since I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere else, let me start with this.  Jesus celebrated a national holiday that was not included in the Law.  The Feast of Dedication began between the testaments and there is no indication at all that God ordained it, yet the Lord attended the celebrations, John 10:22--what we call Hanukkah, ironically enough.  Clearly, celebrating a national holiday, even one with religious overtones such as our Thanksgiving, is not wrong.

              Already this past week I have been accused of being a part of a group that has a holier-than-thou attitude, and in some cases that person is right.  I fear we are too quick to jump on our friends and neighbors when the example in the New Testament is to use whatever opportunities we have to teach, not pontificate with our chests puffed out and thumbs stuck beneath our metaphorical suspenders. 

              When the apostles preached on Pentecost, they didn’t start out by telling those people they were celebrating a festival that was no longer valid.  There were far more important issues at hand, like salvation from sin.  The Holy Spirit had no qualms about using their [Providential] attendance at that event to inspire a sermon they all needed to hear, in many languages, no less.

              When Paul traveled around preaching, he went to the synagogues on the Sabbath.  Didn’t he know that the Sabbath was no longer in force?  What kind of example did he think he was setting?  He didn’t seem to worry about that.  He knew he would find some devout Jews there, so he went.

              When he preached in Athens, he used their idolatry to teach them about the true God.  He even accommodated their mistaken understanding by talking about the idol he had found “to the unknown god.”  Pagan idolatry often included sins like fornication, yet Paul used their incorrect beliefs, and even their own culture, to begin teaching them about salvation.  He didn’t jump on them with high-handed zeal about how ignorant and debauched they were.

              “But you are not an apostle,” I hear someone saying.  Seems like an odd line for people who use approved apostolic example to determine authority in all we do.

              “I became all things to all men,” Paul says in one passage.  If my neighbor is talking about Jesus this time of year, I am not going to ignore him or tell him that Jesus was not born on December 25.  I am going to “become him” by telling him even more about a Savior who came to earth to save us all.  Do you think I would ever have a chance to do that if I approached it the other way? 

              I have known people who say we shouldn’t celebrate Christ’s birth at all.  Yet we celebrate that every time we read about Deity “emptying himself” and “being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:7); about the Word “becoming flesh and dwelling among us” (John 1:14); about the “body thou hast prepared for me” (Heb 10:5).  The sacrifice of our Lord did not begin on Calvary; it began when the Creator of the world (Col 1:16) became a human, when the Holy Spirit conceived him in the womb of a virgin in Nazareth. 

              If we should not celebrate his incarnation, whenever it was, we shouldn’t just avoid singing what the world calls Christmas carols, but should also avoid songs with lines like, “Why did my Savior come to earth?”  We sing several hundred of them.  You see, it isn’t that anyone really believes this.  It’s that they are inconsistent in their beliefs because they have not considered the full ramifications. 

              If I give my neighbor a gift of homemade cookies this week, I am not condoning paganism or worldliness; I am reaching out at a time when he might be more receptive.  And if he has given me a bag of grapefruit from his tree and I don’t reciprocate, he will not think I have scruples, he will just feel rebuffed and turn away from me. 

              We have a tendency to make specious arguments that won’t hold water under close observation.  We all need to be careful, especially when we are so certain, not that we are on God’s side, but that He is on ours.       

              For the next couple of weeks, we have an opportunity.  Seize it!
 
Who are you that judges the servant of another? to his own lord he stands or falls. Yea, he shall be made to stand; for the Lord has power to make him stand. One man esteems one day above another: another esteems every day [alike]. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind, Rom 14:4,5
 
Dene Ward

On December 9, 1973 Marshall Efron’s Illustrated Simplified Painless Sunday School began on CBS.  Seeing that little tidbit of information brought back words I hadn’t thought of in years.  “That’s just asking too much.”

             You’d think that I could remember who said that to us one evening while we sat studying the Bible in his home.  You’d think I could remember where he drew the line that kept him from serving the Lord.  It isn’t often you find someone that honest.  Most people offer excuses instead.  They understand that they are telling God they are not willing to sacrifice for him.  In fact, they will usually make a list of everything they have done before adding, “But that’s just asking too much.”  What they fail to see is that if they are willing to give it up, it isn’t a sacrifice.  The sacrifice comes when you don’t want to give it up; the sacrifice comes when it hurts. Serving God is not supposed to be “painless.” 

              Too many of us believe that just because we got up, dressed up, and drove to another location instead of sitting there watching some sort of “Painless Sunday School” on television that we are sacrificing for the Lord.  We will sit in the meetinghouse on Sunday morning.  We will even sit for the full two or three hours, whatever our group has chosen.  Just exactly what have we given up?  Sleep?  Another day of fishing?  A little more yard work?  Doesn’t sound like much of a sacrifice.

              Many will alter their lifestyles a bit.  What have they given up?  Hangovers?  Gambling debts?  STDs?  If you aren’t stupid, that’s another easy sacrifice to make.  It only becomes difficult when the dependency has developed.

              What we steadfastly refuse to give up is ourselves. 

              Can we admit wrong?  Can we yield to others?  Can we toe the line, even when the thing in question affects us individually?  It’s much easier for the non-music lover to give up instrumental music in the worship.  Trust me.  I know.  It’s much easier to abide by the Lord’s words concerning marriage when you have a solid relationship, and when your children have also chosen well.  It’s much easier to serve when you actually like the people you are serving.  Yet ease is the very thing that makes it not much of a sacrifice.  The true sacrifice comes when, instead of twisting scriptures to suit ourselves and frantically searching for loopholes, we do what hurts.

              The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise, Psalm 51:17.  Pain is what makes a sacrifice sincere.  Humble repentance that involves giving up selfish desires and yielding to others who do not deserve it are the most difficult sacrifices to give, and therefore, the ones that God wants most to see in us.  Until we manage that, anything else we do in service to God is a sham, no matter how beautifully we sing, how generously we donate, or how knowledgeably we teach.

              When Jeroboam became king of the northern 10 tribes of Israel, in spite of God’s promise to him of a lasting dynasty if he only obeyed, he looked at those fickle people and said, “I know exactly how to keep them here.”  He made it easy to serve God.

              And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now will the kingdom return to the house of David: if this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of Jehovah at Jerusalem, then will the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me, and return to Rehoboam king of Judah. Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt. 1 Kings 12:26-28.

              “It’s asking too much,” he told them.  “Let me make it easy for you.”  And just like that, the people in the north left the God who had delivered them from slavery, defeated their enemies, and provided all their needs. 

              What is it that Jeroboam would offer you?

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ, Philippians 3:7-8.
 
Dene Ward

I suppose a younger generation doesn't understand this yet, but every year the Grinches and the Whos are out to get each other.  It is nothing new.  They have been at this since before we even had those titles to put to them.  Dr. Seuss did not invent this squabble.  Now that we have social media it seems to have reached a new high—those two camps go on at each other like it's something that really matters, like it's a matter of life and death, heaven and hell, Truth and false doctrine.  I just sit back and shake my head.

              First, because each group thinks they know exactly why the other group feels the way they do.

              "She is silly and immature to get so excited about something like a strand of colored lights."

              "He has a hateful heart because he doesn't get any joy from a holiday that prizes family time."

              Both of them have made unfair judgments.

              I live with a Grinch.  He isn't hateful.  He actually enjoys the day, especially when our children were young and now when our grandchildren can be with us.  His "Grinch-ness" comes from the commercialization of the season.  To him it's about retail trying to spread the time out longer and longer--yes, even into September—so they can make more money.  I can see that, and having done a little sales in my years, I know he is probably right.  Recognizing that issue and disliking it does not make him the Devil Incarnate.

              As for the Whos, if they have happy memories of childhood and want to recreate those memories for their children and grandchildren, or even recreate it for themselves every year, I am happy they were so blessed.  That does not make them silly or immature.

              And so, as with every other disagreement, the issue is about each side making sweeping judgments and generalizations they should not make.  You don't make assumptions about motives, for one thing, and you don't stoop to name calling for another.

              Yes, even the pro-holiday crowd (the ones who say it is all about joy) is guilty of those things.  They are the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.  Maybe they have lived a sheltered life.  Maybe they are just so self-oriented they cannot imagine a reason to think differently than they do.  But the truth of the matter is that some people do not like the holidays because they once endured a tragedy during that season and the anniversary is too hard to bear.  Some people have not had the blessing of a close and loving family, or they have no family left, and so all these commercials showing happy families together just rub their noses in their own loss and loneliness.  There is a reason that suicides are common in December.  You would think that a group like the Whos, who consider themselves "the good guys," would empathize instead of criticize by calling the other group a bunch of meanies, or, as we are putting it here, Grinches, or some other epithet.  See what I mean about pots and kettles?

              I am, alas, not surprised to find such a rift even among Christians.  If we don't have a doctrine to argue about, or politics to take each other to task over, we will find something—even a civil holiday supposedly about joy and peace.  It's time to stop judging each other, as Paul told the Romans about something far more important.  Do your thing quietly and let the other guy alone.  God loves you both—whether you like it or not.
 
Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.  One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.  The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.  For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself  For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. Rom 14:4-8
 
Dene Ward

We have put up several new feeders and the bird population has exploded.  We see more new kinds and more of them than ever before.  We have also seen a few new bird antics as well.

              Yesterday we looked out in time to see two doves running around the pole one of the feeders hangs from.  While cardinals and titmice usually fly the four feet up from the ground to the feeders, the doves are content to peck off the ground what falls, and a great deal does.  Pick up the binoculars and watch the seeds fly every time one of the birds “on high” pecks at it.  Meanwhile, down below, the doves revel in the raining plenty.

              Except those two.  For several minutes they chased one another around and around and around that pole, the one trying to shoo the other away from the free meal.  Occasionally the one in front got far enough ahead to stop and peck a seed, but the one behind, running literally ankle deep in food, never got a bite.

              Kind of reminds me of a few Bible classes I have sat in.  Two men wrapped up in their own opinions, chase one another around in circles with their “logic,” and neither one of them get any of the spiritual nourishment being offered that morning.  Or one man desperately tries to have his meal while another of differing opinion cannot allow it and pursues him with “arguments about words.”  In fact, if the man isn’t careful, he will usually be cornered right after class as the chase continues.  Like those two birds I watched that day, neither one is fed, despite the banquet laid right in front of them.

              Paul calls that sort of behavior “carnal” and immature, 1 Cor 3:1-3.  He equates it with orgies and drunkenness, Rom 13:13.  James puts it on a par with “every vile practice,” 3:16.  All of them link quarreling with things like jealousy, envy, hostility, and selfishness.  James even adds murder and adultery to the mix, 4:1-4.  It is one thing to have a spirited discussion of the Scriptures.  It is another entirely to refuse to consider new ideas, clinging to beliefs out of pride or dismissing a point simply because of who presented it, all cloaked in concern for words and their correct meanings while patently ignoring basic spiritual concepts like Divine authority and holiness. 

              Our spiritual meals are presented to help us glorify God, not to exalt ourselves over others.  They are food for the soul, not ammunition for the spiteful.   They are nourishment for the kind, not fodder for the vindictive.  If all we can do is chase one another in circles with the Word of God, we don’t deserve to hold those sacred writings in our hands.

              I laughed at those two stupid doves under my feeder.  Then I just shook my head and sighed.  I have seen too many Christians just like them.
 
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, Galatians 5:14-16.
 
Dene Ward

Chloe doesn’t have much of a sense of smell thanks to her doggie allergies, which alternately cause congestion or a runny nose.  We can throw her a treat and then sit for several minutes unbothered while she searches for it in the grass.  But her sense of hearing must be amazing.

              She can distinguish our car engine all the way from the highway, almost a half mile.  I’ve seen her sit there and watch for Keith for several minutes before he even gets to the gate, before the dogs along the lane begin to bark at his passing because she hears “him” coming.

              And she can hear moles digging underground.  We will be walking along outside when suddenly she stands at point, looking at the grass just ahead of her, then pounces and begins digging, her snout in nearly to her eyeballs as she digs and sniffs (bless her heart, she tries) and searches.  Many times she has brought out the mole and disposed of it.  This year we have had plenty for her to work on.

              Moles are small mammals, insectivores, adapted to a subterranean lifestyle.  They have tiny or invisible eyes and ears.  They have developed the ability to survive in a low oxygen environment by reusing oxygen inhaled aboveground.  That also means they can tolerate the higher levels of carbon dioxide that would poison most mammals.  They avoid each other except in breeding season and fight whenever they do meet.  I couldn’t even find a word for a group of moles.  They aren’t herds or swarms or gaggles or flocks.  Maybe that’s because the word is unnecessary since they never get together.

              Think about all that.  Does it sound familiar?

              Do you know any people with small eyes and ears, many of whom are blind?

               Why do you not understand my speech? [Even] because you cannot hear my word, John 8:43.

              In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Cor 4:4.

              Do you know a group who reuses old oxygen, failing to bring in any new work to revitalize its heart, poisoning itself in the process?

              Thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down, Mark 7:13.

              Do you know a group that avoids each other except in season (Sundays) and then fights when they do meet?

              Whence [come] wars and whence [come] fightings among you? [come they] not hence, [even] of your pleasures that war in your members? James 4:1.

              But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another, Gal 5:15.

              If all that sounds like a group you know, even if they call themselves the body of Christ, they are only pretenders.  That is not what he gave his life for.

              I am certain you could come up with other comparisons yourself.  But don’t waste your time on that or you are in danger of becoming one of those moles yourself, festering underground in your own poison.  Just do what you can by being what you ought to be.  Moles are ugly, in more ways than one.  It shouldn’t take much motivation to try not to become one.
 
"There are those who rebel against the light, who are not acquainted with its ways, and do not stay in its paths. The murderer rises before it is light, that he may kill the poor and needy, and in the night he is like a thief. The eye of the adulterer also waits for the twilight, saying, 'No eye will see me'; and he veils his face. In the dark they dig through houses; by day they shut themselves up; they do not know the light. Job 24:13-16.
 
Dene Ward