'WITH ALL YOUR MIND..."

While not an advocate of the hop, skip and jump school of Bible study (God alone knows all the confused ideas having found their source in approaches of this nature), I yet recently found myself in the Old Testament prophecy of Obadiah as a result of something akin to such.

Memory soon led back to the 1950's (we shall henceforth seek to avoid further giving away our age. However...). It was a day in which considerable attention was being accorded claims that technology would soon provide us with not only earth orbiting satellites, but ultimately space stations, space travel and the like.

During this time we attended a service in which the featured speaker had the final word on such matters: Developments of this nature would never succeed; Scripture itself having so stated! At this point the prophet Obadiah was - in modern terms - accessed: "Though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD" (Obad. vs. 4). So much for Scripture taken out of context.

All of which brings us to a recent conversation with friends in which it was pointed out that all three of the Synoptic Gospels record Jesus' having added the exhortation to love the Lord with all one's mind to his quotation of Deuteronomy 6:5: "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might" (thus the New Testament renditions of Matt. 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27). Why the addition? It was somewhat facetiously suggested that the additional requisite of "loving the Lord with one's mind" was perhaps added in light of all the "dummies" within professing Christendom.

There is something of a point here, however. Both Jesus and the apostle Paul warn of an age concluding manifestation of deception so overpowering that, "were it possible" the "very elect would be misled" (Matt. 24:24). Nor was it happenstance that in writing the young pastor, Timothy, Paul not only stresses a coming time of overpowering apostasy, but need for sound teaching as means to countering its inroads.

Hence the mandated "aptness [ability and inclination] to teach" for anyone desiring the office of bishop (i.e., pastor; the term later coming to be used in terms of a "pastor of pastors," I Tim. 3:1-2; II Tim. 2:24). It is in the sense of local pastor, however, that the apostle here exhorts Pastor Timothy (see also I Tim. 4:11,13,16).

Paul again addresses the relationship of teaching to the pastoral office in his detailing of Christ's gifts to the Church: "He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers" (Eph. 4:11 - grammatical construction here combining the roles of pastor and teacher; thus the lack of "and some as" between the two. See any commentary.)

In light of days rapidly approaching, meaningful ministry will require more than mere pulpit "cheerleading" in the interests of inciting emotional response. As we once heard a pastor advise his congregation: "I am not a teacher; I am a preacher." One could only wonder as to the extent his congregation might have benefited from a rectifying of this shortfall.

Burl Ratzsch

SPITTING A MILE

The story went thusly: In planning their family's vacation, a couple decided that each family member would keep a daily diary. This, they reasoned, would prove beneficial in not only bringing the more immediate impressions attendant various sights and experiences into organized order but would provide resource for meaningful reflection in the future as well.

In viewing the Grand Canyon, the father was particularly awestruck. What a dramatic view of creation and reminder of its Creator! Noticing his son leaning somewhat precariously over the guardrail at a particular observation point, the father suspended his sightseeing long enough to admonish the boy as to the dangers of unsafe behavior. The remainder of the day was then spent taking advantage of the various opportunities for sightseeing, exploration, canyon rides, etc.

During the night the father was sufficiently overcome with curiosity regarding his son's impression of the impressive surroundings and events experienced thus far as to sneak a peek at the boy's diary. Obviously related to his having leaned over the guardrail, the day's sole entry read: "Today I spit over a mile!"

Are not we ourselves prone at times to focus on the inconsequential in place of the truly meaningful? To pursue interests more derivative the shallow and mundane than validly objective? To surrender life's higher sense of values to visions of the material? To miss the import of things eternal while engaged in quests of the temporal?

Jesus spoke of those "who seeing see not, and hearing hear not, neither do they understand" (Matt. 13:13; cf. Isa. 64:4; I Cor. 2:9). Of that wisdom to which the world remains blind, those led by God's Spirit are nonetheless granted insight and perception (I Cor. 2:10-14).

Thus Christ words to the Twelve: "How blessed are your eyes because you see; and blessed are your ears, because they hear" (Matt. 13:16).

Burl Ratzsch