Here in America and likely abroad you may have seen billboards or heard news that the world is ending May 21st. The scale of the advertising campaign proclaiming this event lends a little bit of credibility to it. A website erected for this event contains detailed arguments and expositions explaining how this man, Harold Camping, came to the date. Unfortunately Harold’s arguments have a very simple flaw that completely ruin this entire premise.

Some people, maybe you, consider the Bible to be a source of good advice. However, there are also plenty of examples of bad decision-making. For the class I teach we covered a few good examples and how we can learn from them.

In each of the cases below, the underlying premise is that God is the source of all wisdom and distancing ourselves from His council increases the chances of big mistakes. As a bonus, I’m including the notes from the follow-up class where we covered a few good examples to compliment the bad.

“Share What You Wear” is a program organized through my church that distributes countless thousands of clothing and basic houseware items *free* to needy people in Des Moines. Semi-trucks full of items are being unloaded at [Grace Church](http://www.gracehome.com) now and starting Thursday, scads of people, hundreds at least, maybe thousands (I have no clue how many) will come through the building and get good quality used clothes for themselves and their kids.

The details are:

Good clean clothing for the entire family! Men’s work clothes, boots, shoes, winter clothes, hats, gloves, ladies’ and children’s clothing, and more (all sizes). Plus bedding, blankets, baby items, toys, and other misc. household items.

**Shopping Hours**

Thursday and Friday, November 20th and 21st

* 8:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
* 12:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
* 4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

Saturday, November 22nd

* 8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

You can get to the church by taking bus route #7 Ft. Des Moines – Walker which stops right at the church’s parking lot entrance at [4200 E 25th Street Des Moines IA 50317](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=4200+E+25th+Street+Des+Moines+IA+50317&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=33.160552,60.732422&ie=UTF8&ll=41.639533,-93.569655&spn=0.007633,0.014827&t=h&z=16&g=4200+E+25th+Street+Des+Moines+IA+50317&layer=c&cbll=41.636778,-93.569467&panoid=qMhCAEn-j1x5lBBd6TtPvw). (It’s the big green-roofed church you see on i235 north of the Euclid exit – link above is a google map you can use to get directions)

Please pray that many needy people will be helped to get what they need (materially speaking), pray also that hoarders will be kept at bay (a perennial problem) and lastly pray that those who are [spiritually needy will also find what they're searching for](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%204:10-15;&version=51;).

If I spoke every language but did not love others, my words would be like noisy clanging. If I saw the future, memorized all of wikipedia and had an inner resolve strong enough to move mountains but did not love others my gains would be worthless. If I gave everything I had to the poor and even died for a good cause I might have something to boast about, but without love I would be nothing.

What is love? It is patient and kind, never bragging or jealous or rude. It never demands its own way nor keeps track of the times it has been let down. It does not enjoy getting away with what is wrong – it celebrates when justice prevails. Love never gives up, always has hope and can last through every circumstance.

Everything else known to mankind will become useless in time except love – it is precious forever. As an adult, we remember the actions of our youth and understand that we saw life as if we were looking through a foggy mirror. Right now our understanding of the universe is similarly incomplete, but when we achieve full understanding we’ll look back and be ashamed of how we’ve behaved.

Three things will last forever – faith, hope and love. The greatest of these is love.

_- a paraphrase of [1 Corinthians 13](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20cor%2013&version=51)_

My class last night seemed to enjoy an illustration I gave so I decided to share it here. The class is the first of 5 I will teach called “Getting a better spouse,” which is a poor name, but the goal is to make our families stronger by improving the husband and wife relationship. The common denominator of all the people in the class is that we all have kids and as any parent knows, sometimes life seems incredibly busy. Also at times it can feel like our kids are the center of our families and all life revolves around them.

As parents its critical to admit that one of our most important job is to raise our children properly (cf Proverbs 22:6, Deuteronomy 6:6-7). But that doesn’t mean the children become the center of the family. They need to learn that the world does not revolve around them. Therefore the class’s goal will hopefully help draw the mom and dad together. Doing this helps the whole family.

But… the husband/wife relationship is not the most important relationship in the family. The most important is the parent/God relationship. God invented the family and He knows how to make it work best. Not only that, but He knows our temperament, gifts and needs better than even we do ourselves. He also knows what’s coming down the road. When we draw close to God we benefit in too many ways to describe, but the most relevant to this topic is that it helps us as parents make wise decisions for our families. So here’s the illustration:

I have a two story house with a finished basement. If I’m on the top floor and my son is in the basement and I want to give him instructions, what do I do? Do I try and yell detailed instructions across the house? Picture it, “Son, I need you to make your bed and clean your room, also, take your dirty clothes to the laundry and brush your teeth.” The son can’t hear me well so he yells back, “What?” So you try again and he yells back, “What?” Wouldn’t it work much better if you just said, “Son, come closer, I need to tell you something.”

When we get too busy to spend time with God _daily_ we start to distance ourselves from Him. And admit it, its easy to go far longer than a couple days. If you’ve gone weeks or months without opening your bible or praying seriously it’s like you’re on different ends of the house. You have no clue what God’s trying to tell you, you need to get closer.

So the point of the class was to encourage people to work on the relationship with God. If you’ve gotten away from doing it you’re probably discouraged and if you’re a normal parent the thought of setting a substantial amount of time aside from your already hectic day sounds impossible. Therefore I taught the class my technique for getting back on track, “7 minutes with God.” I’ve found that finding half an hour is hard but I can find 7 minutes.

This topic warrants another blog post but in a nutshell it works like this, and its utterly simple – about two minutes goes to prayer, but not your normal prayer. Do nothing but praise God. You have no problem making time during the day for prayers like, “God help me with xxxxx!” so this prayer time is for remembering who God is and how great He is. “God, thank you for the rain, I can’t wait to see the flowers bloom and the green grass…” Then the remaining minutes go for a mini bible study.

If the need to lug a bible around will make it difficult for you to do your 7 minutes then you can print out a chapter of the bible from [www.biblegateway.com](http://www.biblegateway.com) and stash it in your pocket so that you have it. Note that five minutes of reading time is probably not enough to get through a whole chapter – don’t rush it, it’s ok if you just get a third of chapter in. As Henry Blackaby so rightly said, “God can speak to you on any page of this book.” And the goal of the 7 min is to encourage you to get closer to God, not speed through the pages. I’ve found that once I get back on track the thirst for the word grows and I’m better able to find time for more in-depth study.

I’d love to hear your comments.

Let’s see, God made the universe, the earth, the plants, animals, sun, moon… then he made a man, whom he assigned the task of naming the animals, then he made a woman and created the institution of marriage. All of this in six days. Then he invented the “day of rest.” What did God do on this day? He rested and blessed the seventh day, making it holy. Some years later, Moses had a conversation with God and He gave Moses 10 commandments to share with “the people.” One of these was specific instructions to do no work on the sabbath.

So, the sabbath is the last day of the week. Traditionally, this has been Saturday. However, few people in the Christian community observe the ordinances of this special day, and those that do tend to observe it on Sunday, the first day of the week. What is the story with this?

I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading and researching it. It seems that by the time of Jesus, the laws for observing the sabbath were quite strict, comprising 26 chapters and 150 pages of very detailed rules outlining exactly what can and can’t be done and what is and isn’t work.

What did Jesus have to say on the matter? Apparently there are things more important than the sabbath law. But his answer to the pharisees is difficult to understand on its own. Fortunately, God provided a clarification elsewhere in the scriptures. Romans 6 (esp 14, but don’t take that without 15ff) says we are free from the law. Titus 3:9 re-enforces this idea. Hebrews 4:1-13 tells us that there is a sabbath, but it is not on the seventh day of the week for Christians. We will get that day of rest, but not until after we die.

So what should we do to observe the sabbath now? What is the intent of God’s word, is it to force us into strict rule following? No, remember the most important commandment as expressed by Jesus: Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul and all of your strength, and likewise love your neighbor as your self. Also, remember the command taught throughout the old and new testaments to teach your children about God’s word. Spending time with friends and family and worshiping God in a Bible preaching church are all excellent applications of these commands.

However, I think that saying that we (Christians) should do no work on Sunday (or Saturday) is a gross misapplication of scriptures. I would love to have your comments on the issue.

The answer is simple. Don’t start by preaching, don’t start with morality. Don’t start by trying to be angelic. Start by caring for others. Jesus said,

34 “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. 35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” John 13:34-35

So how do you “love each other?” Good question, but I think it’s being helpful, caring for others, being honest, being a hard worker. I think that you have to love people whom you disagree with and that even if you can’t accept a person’s actions or opinions, you can still be gentle and can still care for them. I could be wrong, but it certainly can’t hurt to try it.

Just found out about the pyGame Bible Dave. Fun, challenging and very creative. You’re a pilot whose plane has crashed in the jungle. Now, you have to search through mountains, jungles and caves looking for your precious cargo that got scattered – 200 bibles. Good luck!

Tonight I taught my small group class… this was part one of a two part lesson entitled, “Practical Tools for Sharing the Gospel.” Among the controversial parts were, “Memorizing Scripture” where I challenged anyone in the class to quote a chapter of scripture… (Becky quoted Psalm 23 flawlessly from memory, two others implied they could quote a chapter as well) What makes this controversial is few people like it when they’re told that they’re not doing something that they should be doing, and I wholeheartedly believe that scripture memorization is a commandment from God. The second controversial part was that I challenged the notion that “Asking Jesus into your heart” was scriptural (I don’t believe it is). I feel that the bible clearly states that a person needs to “believe (pisteuo)” in Jesus to be saved. (cf. Acts 16:30-31, John 3:16, John 3:36, John 5:24, John 11:25-26)

I continued the class by sharing a list of memory verses and the first two of five points that can be used to explain the gospel to an unbeliever. The five points have been adapted from the Evangelisim Explosion curriculum. My favorite part of the EE curric is that it explains things in a very precise order designed to answer common objections before they’re raised. It also offers some clear and easy to remember illustrations for explaining important biblical concepts. For example, the seriousness of sin is explained that if you sinned only three times per day, over the course of a lifetime that would be over 70,000 times. What would happen if you walked into a courtroom with 70,000 offenses? The judge would take it very seriously.”

The language of the Bible. Paul spoke Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. Possibly other languages too, but these three we can be certain of. When he traveled around on his missionary journeys, he invariably came to visit people who did not speak one of those three languages. In these cases, one of two things happened – either God enabled the people to understand him (aka speaking in tongues – and by the way, this is the true meaning of tongues, not spouting gibberish as you roll around on the floor) or He provided an interpreter.

Now, I’m going to make a point, so we’ll use the interpreter example. The goal of the interpreter is not to teach people a new language so that they can communicate with the intended speaker flawlessly. Instead, the interpreter takes the message of one person, and rephrases it into the language that is understood by the people who need to hear it.

Now, few people read the Bible in it’s original language; most people choose to read a translated version. This process involves scholars who are competent, or more likely, experts in both the original language and the language of the people they are translating it for.

I’ve not told you anything controversial or unexpected so far; this all should make perfect sense. What doesn’t make perfect sense to me is why some people insist that the original King James version of the Bible is superior to modern translations. The fact is, the English language has shifted since the 1600′s and many of the words used in that version are not understood by people today. Do you know the meaning of the words, “reprobate” and “concupiscence?” What is the difference between “thee” and “though?”

If a Bible translation is not understood by the people reading it, then it’s not a suitable translation.

Now, I will not say that the KJV is with out value. I like the fact that the KJV and NKJV both use a form of English that is both compact and rich with detail. For example, if you and the people you are communicating with know the meaning of the word “reprobate” then when you use it in a sentence you convey a detailed and concise meaning in only one word. I additionally like the fact that it’s 300 year head start on other translations yields a rich repository of study materials available to accompany it.

However, these benefits show that the KJV is suitable (however there are other suitable Bibles available as well) as a study aid for scholars, however is not well suited as the primary Bible in your typical English speaking household.

Just my $0.02 worth (although inflation has driven up to $0.055 recently).